“ ’Bout time the old bitch brought in someone like you, sugar. Sight for sore eyes. Sight for sore eyes, that’s for damned sure.”

He rubbed up against me as I passed him. I lost my footing and kicked him on the side of his exposed leg to steady myself. I felt his malevolent gaze on the back of my neck all the way downstairs. A better detective would have taken the opportunity to ask him about Mitch Kruger.

Mrs. Polter didn’t say anything when I thanked her for letting me look around, but when I was halfway down the stairs she yelled, “Remember: that room’s only paid through Sunday night. After that the old guy better come and collect his stuff.”

I stopped and pondered. Mr. Contreras would not want his old pal back on the living room couch. And come to think of it, neither did I. I stomped back up the stairs and gave her fifty dollars. They disappeared behind the safety pin at her bosom, but she didn’t say anything. Now I had ten left from Mr. Contreras’s advance to get me through the bars of the South Side.

At the bottom of the stairs I stopped the ringleader of the cycling trio. “I’m looking for an old guy who walked out of here Monday afternoon. White man. Lots of gray hair, which he didn’t comb, big stomach, probably had on suspenders and an old pair of work pants. You remember which way he went?”

“He some kind of friend of yours, miss?”

“He—uh, he’s my uncle.” I didn’t think this group would respond well to a detective.

“How much is it worth to you to find him?”

I made a face. “Not a whole lot. Maybe ten.”

“Here he comes right now!” One of the other youths jumped his bicycle up and down the curb in his excitement. “Right behind you, miss!”

Holding tight to my purse I turned my head. The kid was right. An oldish white man with thick gray hair and a paunch was stumbling up the street toward us. In fact, there was another coming out of Tessie’s Tavern just across the way. There were probably a thousand men just like Mitch wandering around the two-mile strip between Ashland and Western. My shoulders sagged at the prospect. I turned to cross the street.

“Hey, miss, what about our money?” The trio suddenly surrounded me with their bikes.

“Well, that wasn’t my uncle. But he looks the same, so I suppose that’s worth five bucks.”

I dug in my handbag and pulled out a five without taking out my billfold. I shouldn’t copy Mrs. Polter’s suspiciousness, but they had me surrounded.

“You said ten,” the ringleader said accusingly.

“Take it or leave it.” I stared at him coldly, my arms akimbo.