“I already told you. Kirkland Larker. He said that you were a good detective and that you were colored and could maybe get a handle on this Alonzo.”

“But I don’t know any Kirkland.”

“He knows about you.”

“How do you know him?” I asked, looking for a reason, any reason—one way or another.

“There’s a bar on Western called Little Anzio. It’s not official or anything but mostly only veterans go there.”

“Never been inside but I know the place. This Kirkland hangs out there?”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s where I met him.”

“You don’t even look old enough to get into a bar.”

“I’m twenty-three.”

“How many tours of duty?”

“Three.”

“What kinda missions?”

“The last two were seek and destroy.” As he spoke of war he seemed to get more certain.

“And you met this Kirkland at Little Anzio?”

“He bought me a drink one day. We started talkin’.”

“When was this?”

“Maybe four months ago. Something like that.”

“And you told him about Alonzo and the white girl just a few days ago?”

“Yeah.”

“And that’s the first time he mentioned me.”

“Yeah. I said that I got in a fight with a . . . a black man over a white girl. I said I was knocked out and wanted somebody to find out if she was okay. He made a call and then gave me your name.”

He was going to say, I got in a fight with a nigger. I was sure of that.

I stared and he fidgeted a bit.

“Nothing good can come from me finding this Alonzo—dead or alive,” I said. “Do you want to end up in prison because you lost a few nights’ sleep?”

Craig moved in his chair. It was what can only be described as an undulation; as if there was a creature that had been sleeping inside him suddenly came awake.

“So will you call my mother?”

“No.”

The shock that registered on his face almost made me laugh. He was like an eight-year-old after baring his soul. There was no way in his imagination that I could turn him down.

“If we talk at all I need to meet her face-to-face,” I said. “Can’t trust some voice over the telephone line talkin’ about murder.”

“Oh, okay,” he said. “Sure. That’d be fine. You want me to write down the address? I’ll call her and tell her you’re coming.”

I thought, maybe he should also tell her that I was a fool. Maybe that too.

I took a sheet of paper and a yellow number two pencil from Tinsford’s top drawer. Doing this, I realized he would know that I used his office as well as drank his whiskey. I hoped he wouldn’t mind.