“I was thinking that if I wanted to give you the two twenties in my pocket, would it be bad manners just to put them in your hand?”

“There’s these little red envelopes at this end of the bar,” she instructed, gesturing at the wall behind me. “Put whatever tip you want in one, write my name on it, and drop it in the slot on the other side.”

“That doesn’t seem like a reliable system.”

“Only Rudy has the key to the box, and he empties it every night.”

“Okay,” I conceded. Then I gestured to Cunningham that I wanted my check.

“You want to go look at the parking lot?” Montana offered.

“Say what?”

“Forty dollars won’t get you to the top floor. But it’s nice out back. They got padded benches in the recesses along the wall.”

It proves how engaging Montana was that I was surprised at her suggestion. She saw what I was thinking and took it as a compliment.

“No, no, baby,” I said. “You already gave me all I need.”

She pouted prettily. “Everything?” she said.

At that moment Cunningham put down a half tumbler with my paper bill stuffed inside. I picked out the check.

“Is it because I’m white?” she asked, just fishing.

“Certainly not.”

“You don’t think I’m pretty?”

“Come on now, girl, when was the last time you looked in the glass?”

“Then what?” She was going to ride that horse into the ground.

I counted out the outrageous cost of drinks and sighed.

“I’m a detective.”

“A cop?” She pulled her head back an inch or so, a tiger cub reacting to a king cobra’s threat.

“Private. I got a client who wants to talk to a man named Alonzo. Maybe it’s your talent scout, maybe not.”

“A black private eye?”

“One day they’ll have black astronauts too.”

Montana smiled for me again.

“I’ll be right up there with you, my brother,” she said and then moved close as if to kiss.

The fact that our lips didn’t touch was more powerful than if they had.

She walked off into the growing crowd and I took in a lungful of air.

I talked to seven other Eye employees. Five of them knew of the black talent scout named Alonzo. None of them remembered straight hair.

After a couple of hours talking I pressed through the jazz and bodies toward a corner table where Mouse had been sitting most of the time. His company was two older guys who looked like they’d been drained of everything vital, including their souls. One of the mummies wore a blue suit, the other gray.

When I approached the table, two young men with faces that somehow resembled scars stood to block my passage.

“Hey, Kikkino,” Mouse said. “Tell your boys not to get their breaths on my friend.”