Scam

all.”
    “Exactly.”
    “What?”
    “No facts at all. Obviously this guy hasn’t told you everything.” Alice tasted the sauce, nodded her approval, switched off the burner. “Which lets you off the hook. You interview the bartender, report back to your client, and you’re done.”
    Somehow that didn’t seem like a solution. “Then what?” I said.
    Alice smiled. Shrugged.
    “That’s up to him.”

4.
    T HE BARTENDER SEEMED YOUNG. Of course, everyone I meet these days does. I’m sure to him I seemed old.
    He had brown hair, cut short on the top and long in the back, and a scrawny moustache. He twitched his nose, cocked his head at me and said, “You a cop?”
    Damn.
    In a project in Harlem I’m often taken for a cop because otherwise why would I be there? But in an East Side singles bar? Sure, I’d just come off work, so I was sporting a suit and tie. But why did that say cop rather than ad executive?
    Obviously, it was my manner. Which was a bit of a kick in the head. I’d just been contemplating ordering a Diet Coke and wondering how much it would set me back and whether I could charge it to Cranston Pritchert on the grounds I had to order it to maintain my cover, and now I find my cover’s blown before I even begin.
    I shook my head, flopped open my ID. “No,” I said, “I’m private. I got no beef with you. But I could use a little help.”
    The guy was even younger than I thought, because he grinned. “You’re a private detective?”
    “That’s right.”
    “You after someone’s wife?”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Getting evidence for a divorce?”
    “No, no. Nothing like that.”
    “What, then?”
    “I’m looking for someone.”
    “Who?”
    “This last Thursday night. There’s a guy in here after work.”
    “There’s lots of guys in here after work.”
    “Yeah, well this one had to duck to get in the door.”
    “Oh?”
    “Guy looks like he could play guard for the Knicks if he was black and put on weight.”
    “Oh, him.”
    “You know who I mean?”
    “Hard to miss, isn’t he?”
    “I would imagine. You happen to see him Thursday night?”
    “Yeah. He was in here.”
    “You know his name?”
    “No, I don’t. And that’s how they like it.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “You know the song from the TV show, Sometimes you gotta go where everybody knows your name? That’s bullshit. A bar like this, you wanna go where nobody knows your name. Now, they all know my name. Sandy. Hey, Sandy, get me a beer. But their name?” He shrugged. “I don’t ask.”
    “But he was a regular?”
    “Fairly. He popped in every now and then.”
    “This Thursday night—you see him talking to anyone in particular?”
    “Sure. The girl.”
    “What girl?”
    “Excuse me.”
    It was midafternoon and the bar was nearly empty, but the two business types that were there had just signaled for another round. Sandy moved down the bar to pick up the two empty glasses, then grabbed a cocktail shaker and started mixing another drink.
    “What girl?” I persisted.
    Sandy leaned in so the businessmen couldn’t hear. “Girl with the boobs,” he said.
    “Could you be more explicit?”
    “I could, but that says it all. Girl had big breasts, and wanted you to know it. Wearing a tank top two sizes too small. Eye-popping, she was.”
    “And he was interested?”
    “Oh, yeah. Hitting it off just fine, they were.”
    “You hear any of the conversation?”
    “Not so’s you’d notice.”
    “Would you tell me if you did?”
    “Sure. Why not?”
    “You didn’t hear anything?”
    “Nothing worth mentioning. I filled their drinks a couple of times. Seems to me they were talking the usual bullshit. City’s going to pot, economy’s going to hell.” He poured the contents of the shaker into the martini glass. “Hell of a pickup line.”
    “What were they drinking?”
    “Them? He’s drinking scotch and soda. She’s drinking daiquiris.”
    “Was that usual?”
    “For him, yeah. Her, I wouldn’t know.”
    Sandy opened a beer, set it and the martini in front of the two businessmen, and extracted a bill from the pile on the bar. It appeared to be a ten. I was glad I hadn’t ordered that Diet Coke.
    “You’d never seen the girl before?” I said when he came back.
    “First time.”
    “You happen to see them leave?”
    “No, I didn’t. You gotta understand. Right now, no one’s here. But five o’clock, this place will be packed. Be hardly room to move.”
    “Uh-huh,” I