Текст книги "On the Other Hand, Death"

Автор книги: Richard Stevenson

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"'Like.' Right."

I turned onto Colvin, south into the Pine Hills section of the city. I said, "Now who's not trusting whom?"

He threw his head around, sulked, threw his head around some more. Then he looked over at me in utter amazement. "But . . . McWhirter must have known!"

"Ah-ha."

"Presumably McWhirter is familiar with his lover's finger."

"A safe assumption."

"But then– Why did he lie? Dot told me McWhirter identified the finger as Greco's."

"Beats me. Before the day is over I'll ask him."

We swung left onto Lincoln.

"And you didn't say anything because . . . ?"

"I figured the news should be broken to the authorities by the loved one. The fact that it wasn't seemed to me a piece of information almost as fascinating as the fact of the finger itself. I think I know why McWhirter didn't speak up. But I'm not sure."

"I'm surprised Bowman didn't doubt his word. Press him on it. Maybe take him downtown for a lineup. 'Mr. McWhirter, is any of these eight fingers that of the man with whom you participate in an un-Godly relationship?'"

"Bowman will rely on the lab people," I said. "And they'll most likely come up with nothing, because I doubt that Greco has ever been fingerprinted. He hasn't been in the armed forces, and he's probably never been arrested. Even in demonstrations that turn messy Greco's not the type cops go after. Anyway, until I've discussed the matter with McWhirter, let's keep mum about it. If Ned knew, he might draw some hasty erroneous conclusions. To the effect, for instance, that this is some kind of scam McWhirter's cooked up."

"Or some hasty correct ones."

"There's that possibility. But I think it's something else."

"What?"

"Let me run it by McWhirter first. It's just a guess. It has to do with McWhirter's frequently justifiable glum outlook on the world."

Timmy sat sweating energetically and drumming his fingers on the dashboard as I turned onto Buchanan. "But if it wasn't Greco's finger," he said after a time, "then whose finger was it?"

"Good question."

Lyle Barner's living room, on the second floor of an old soot brown frame house, was full of dark oversized "Mediterranean-style" furniture with a plastic finish. Ischia via Dow Chemical. The gleaming leviathan of a bar was from the same discount house the couch and chairs had come from, as was the console TV set with an Atari hookup, around which the other furniture had been arranged. A carpet of dust covered everything except the center section of the couch and the midsection of the coffee table in front of it where Barner propped his legs. The only reading matter was the Times Union TV section. The room contained no decorative objects, artwork, or photographs. It was the room of a man with no past he wanted to remember and no future he could bring himself to believe in.

Ignoring Timmy, whom I'd just introduced, Lyle said, "You want a beer? Christ, I hate this fucking weather."

"Thanks, but we'd be blotto after half a can. We haven't slept."

"Uh-huh. Well, I'll have one."

Lyle Barner was a squat, well-muscled man with an incipient beer paunch and a lot of straw-colored hair on his shoulders. Both the mouth and eyes of his nicely arranged big-featured face slanted down at the corners with a kind of ferociously controlled tension, as if he were frozen in a pose for a Mathew Brady daguerreotype. Barner's curly hair was lush and full except for a half-dollar-sized bald spot on top, which I had once had the opportunity to observe for several minutes. He was clad, as he lumbered into the kitchen and then back to us again, in black nylon bikini briefs.

I was seated with Timmy on the couch. Dropping into an easy chair and slinging one leg over the armrest, Lyle looked over at me—only me—and said, "Been a while since I've seen you in the flesh, Strachey. Glad to see you're sexy as ever."

"What did you find out?" I said.

He swigged from the beer can. "You know, Strachey, I haven't had a whole lot of sleep either. Except I was out protecting the public last night. What were you doing? Out partying as usual, it looks like."

He glanced briefly, dismissively, at Timmy, as if to say, Where'd you pick this up? I'd had some half-formed

cockeyed idea that it might be helpful for Lyle Barner to observe two healthy, relaxed gay men more or less at peace with themselves and each other, secure in their loving relationship and in the knowledge that its evident riches were a goal nearly all gay men could aspire to and achieve. But I was beginning to suspect I'd picked the wrong day for an object lesson of this particular sort, or the wrong couple to employ in it.

Timmy said sourly, "It's hot in here. I think I'll wait in the car. A pleasure meeting you, Lyle." He shot me a look.

Lyle nodded once and continued to watch me carefully while Timmy got up and walked out the door. We listened to his footfall on the staircase. The downstairs door slammed.

"Hey, that one's real cute," Lyle said. "But, tell me, Don. What would your lover think?"

"Your bitterness is unattractive, Lyle. You should work to get rid of it. You might become an attractive man."

He winced and looked away.

I said, "Are you going to help me out or not? A life may depend on it. What did you find out?"

He sat staring at the wall for a long moment, the emotion building in him. Then, still not looking at me, he said, "I'm bitter because . . . because nobody will love me." His face contorted and he shut his eyes. He said, "I want somebody to love me." He fought to regain control, then sat not moving, hardly breathing, his muscular left leg spasming crazily.

"Right now, you're not lovable, Lyle. Self-pity is off-putting. Nobody loves a whiner for long."

His voice breaking, he said, "You loved me once."

An old story. I knew it. I said, "We sucked each other's cocks. That's just friendliness. I don't sneer at it,

far from it, but most of the time I'd rank it only a notch or two above helping a stranger change a tire. Well, maybe six or eight notches. And yes, I know, it's a whole lot more fun. Plus, you don't have to wash your hands with Fels-Naphtha afterwards. Though, of course, after changing a tire you don't have to brush your teeth. On the one hand this, on the other hand that."

He wasn't about to be humored. He said, "It's as close to love as I've ever come."

"But not as close as you'll ever get."

He snorted.

"You've got to get out of Albany, Lyle. You'll never do it here. Go . . . west, maybe. In San Francisco they're recruiting gay cops. Go there. You've got a good record. Go to some half-civilized place and quit hating yourself and taking it out on other people. Find out how fine a man you can be, and go be that person for a while. You'll like it. Other people will like it."

"I can't," he said, shaking his head miserably. "I've never been anywhere. I can't."

"I know someone in San Francisco who'll help you. I'll call him."

"No, don't. I'll never do it."

"Of course, it'd be hard. But you owe it to yourself. And to Clyde Boo, from Yank-your-Tank, Arkansas, or whoever, who's out there waiting for you. You'll find that life with Clyde won't be easy either. But it'll be a hell of a lot easier than this."

He stared at the empty wall.

"In the meantime," I said, "you've got to help me out."

He looked over at me now, his eyes wet. "Will you come and lay down with me first?"

"Well, gee, Lyle . . . gee. Actually, I think Miss Manners would advise against it. I mean, with my lover waiting down in the car and all. I think you have a good bit to learn about timing—about the social graces. I'm pretty sure we'd both feel very, very bad afterwards. Also, these days I'm a bit overextended in that department."

He looked sullenly at his commodious lap for a long moment—it hadn't escaped my notice either—and then back at me. He shrugged, smiled weakly. "Can't blame a guy for trying," he said. "Can you?"

I didn't know about Lyle. Whether he would make it or not. If he did, poor Clyde.

I said, "No, I know what you mean. Acting bashful gets you nowhere. It's just that your sense of occasion is a little off. But it'll improve with experience, I'm fairly certain. Now then. You were going to answer a couple of questions for me, right?"

"Oh. Yeah. Sure. If that's the way you want it." He fetched himself another beer.

Before I left Lyle's apartment, I phoned my friend Vinnie, who confirmed what he'd told me earlier and added additional details. It squared exactly with what Lyle had found out.

Timmy had the car seat tilted all the way back and was snoring lightly.

"Wake up. Lyle was helpful. We've got a lot to do and little time to do it in."

"Huh?"

I took the first right and headed south toward Western. "Lyle says he can find no evidence of any of the night squad guys—detectives or patrolmen—off on any private hoots last night. It's not out of the question that a day man might have been in uniform after dark for his own reasons, but Lyle put me in touch with someone I'd heard about a few hours earlier who looks like an even better bet. Lyle knows an ex-cop—a former night squad bozo

who'd still have his old uniform and might have it in him to misrepresent himself. The man is known to lift a glass from time to time and prefers to do it in 'classy' surroundings. Lyle has set up a meeting in a suitably stimulating environment. And also—now get this—the guy now does private so-called security work. Guess who his current employer is?"

Timmy squinted and rubbed his eyes. He looked at his watch. "Who?" he said.

"Crane Trefusis."

"Jesus it's—it's almost five-thirty. You were in there for nearly two hours."

"Right. We've got just over nine hours left. While you're checking out Wilson, I'll see Trefusis—I've got to cash these checks—but first I'm meeting—"

"You knew him, didn't you?" he said, wide awake now. "I mean, really knew him. Lyle was one of them, wasn't he?"

"What? One of the famous 'Twelve Since June'?"

Twelve. What number had I told him?

He started to vibrate uncontrollably, as if his suspension system was about to go. Then suddenly he snapped, "Let me out!"

"What?"

"I said let me out of this fucking car! Stop this car and let me out. Now!"

"Look, Timmy, you're tired, exhausted—"

He opened the car door as I swung left onto Western, and if he hadn't been belted in he'd have hurtled onto the pavement.

I pulled to the curb. He unclicked the belt and was out of the car in a split second. "But, Timmy—"

I watched him stomp down the street for thirty yards. He halted, hesitated. He turned and stomped back.

He leaned down to the open window. His red, white,

and blue eyes fixed on me through two ugly little slits. He hissed, "I'll check on Wilson. I said I would do that. I'll phone you at Mrs. Fisher's with what I find out. Then I'm going to sleep. Then I'm getting up at two-thirty in the morning and I'm—going out. I don't want to be with you. I want to be with somebody else. Anybody else. You make me sick. Literally sick."

He leaned down, stuck two fingers deep into his throat, and vomited copiously into the gutter.

Love is.

"Look," I said, "it's twelve or fifteen blocks to the apartment. We should talk. Get back in and I'll ..."

He had wiped his mouth on a snow white lovingly ironed and folded handkerchief, which he had carefully removed from his back pocket with two fingers, and now he reached in and dropped the foul thing onto the seat beside me. Additional words evidently seeming to him redundant, he turned and staggered off down the avenue.

I slowly followed him for two blocks while the fuming traffic behind me honked and swerved around me.

Then, figuring first things first—Peter Greco's life now, more complicated matters later—I speeded up and took the first left toward Washington Avenue. As I passed Timmy, I watched him out of the corner of my eye watching me out of the corner of his eye. The inside of my car stank.

13 The bar at the new downtown Albany

Hilton was a million-dollar flying fortress of mirrors, Swedish ivy, chrome, rosewood, spider plants, bamboo, rubber trees, cut glass, and ferns, as if Hugh Carey's jet had crashed in the jungle.

Dale Overdorf was away on his second trip to the men's room, and I signaled the barman. "Another Coors for the gentleman and a double iced coffee for me."

I checked my watch. Seven-twelve. Overdorf hadn't shown up until after six, and in an hour I'd bought him six homophobic bottles of beer and found out next to nothing. During Overdorfs first men's room break I'd phoned Dot's house and learned that there had been no further contact with the kidnappers—and no message from Timmy. Bowman told me a tap and trace had been put on Dot's phone by the authorities, and if I stayed on the line another ninety seconds he could tell me where I was calling from. I said I was at the Hilton bar.

"You people taking that place over too?"

"Yep. The Fort Orange Club is next. The name'll be changed to Orangie's Pub."

Click.

Overdorf, bulllike and sweating, his gold chains ting-a-linging, wobbled back toward me. Negotiating the stairs up from the lobby, he seemed to be attempting to impersonate a third-rate comedian imitating a drunk.

"Sh-sure is hot in here. Goddamn, it's hot."

The temperature inside the Hilton had been set at a defiant 35 degrees.

"You were telling me, Dale, about the way Millpond security operates. The 'special projects' stuff. 'Outreach.'"

He slid onto his stool and partook of the pale liquid. "Who'd you say you worked for, Life-raft—or whatever your goddamn name is?"

"Lovecraft. H. P. Lovecraft professionally, but you can just call me Archie. I run Cover-U.S. Security Systems, Ink, in Elmira. Remember?"

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, Lyle said you were goddamn private. Like me now."

"Right."

"Uh-huh. So, how you like Albany, Archie? Some

dead town, huh? Not much action here. You want action, you gotta go over to goddamn Troy. That's where all the action is. Troy."

"I didn't know that."

"Oh, yeah. Action's in Troy."

"Just like Elmira. You want action, you gotta go over to Corning."

"Yeah. Know what yer sayin'."

"Same everywhere. You want action, gotta go someplace else."

"Dead town. Goddamn dead town."

I slapped a five on the bar. "Another Coors for the gentleman s'il vous plait."

The barkeep gave me a look but produced the bottle. I told him to keep the change.

"You were telling me, Dale, about the kind of stuff you do in shopping mall security, which I've never handled but I might want to get into out my way. Shoplifters, dope peddlers in the bathrooms, all that. You said there was some special stuff that comes up once in a while. Kind of rough, you said. You mean like holdups, or hostage situations, or what?"

"Heh-heh."

"I mean, I'm just trying to find out what I can look forward to. What are the dangers, the risks?"

He leaned close. "Lemme tell you, Life-raft. Just lemme goddamn tell you. It gets heavy sometimes. Heavy, heavy stuff. Crane Trefusis is a real hard-ass son of a bitch. I'm telling you, you do not wanna fuck with ol' Crane."

"Sounds like the kind of guy I wouldn't mind working for. Doesn't take any shit."

"Ho-ho. Take shit? Take shit? Ehn-ehn." He made his blurry eyes get big and ran a large finger across his throat.

"Jeez, Dale, what kind of shit would anybody try to

pull on a guy like that? People'd have to be nuts."

"You'd be surprised. Lotta dumb-ass people in this world. You'd be surprised."

"You ever take anybody out for Crane?"

He glanced around the bar, then leaned toward me again. He said beerily, "No. But I busted a guy's collarbone once."

"No shit. Recently?"

" 'Bout a year ago. Goddamn asshole was tryin' to hold Millpond up for a quarter of a million for a zoning approval out around Syracuse. Crane has me play a tape of a certain conversation for this shit-ass. I give him five grand, and then I knock him around a little to remind him he isn't dealing with goddamn Fanny Farmer. He got the point. Oh, he got the point."

"I guess a class outfit has to do business that way sometimes if it's going to stay on top. Stay in the big time."

"You better believe it. Competition'll eat ya alive. Gotta goddamn push."

Overdorf made a pushing motion with his thighlike forearm. The bartender glanced our way, but I shook my head.

"Any action like that lately, Dale? I hear Trefusis is getting a lot of grief from some old broad in west Albany who's holding up his new project. Some crazy old lez."

"Nah. The word is Crane's handling that one himself. The only rough stuff I've had lately was back in June when Crane had me do a favor for one of the Millpond owners, a building supply guy who found out some goddamn smartass who worked for him had his hand in the till. I persuaded the gentleman to start making rinston-too-shun. Reston-too-shun."

"Why didn't they just bring in the cops?"

"Dipped if I know. Doing the guy a favor, I s'pose. I

was nice about it though. But not too nice. Just nice enough. When I was done, it didn't show. Much. 'Nother collarbone job. Hey—hey, Life-raft, what time you got?"

"Ten to eight."

"Yeah. Early. Too soon to head over to goddamn Troy. Albany's a . . . dead town."

"You over there last night, Dale? Over to Troy for the action? Or were you stuck on a goddamn job last night?"

"Yeah, I was over. Not much action though. This one chick—I was in Bill Kerwin's place about twelve o'clock– and this one chick, built like Polly Parton, this one chick comes over and says, 'Hey—hey, you wanna bite a real cute chick's neck?' And I says, 'Yeah, sure, and that's not all.' And she says, 'Okay, here,' and she hands me this goddamn chicken neck. Shit. Fuck. Real cute. She was cute, all right. But she wasn't so goddamn cute afterwards. Uhn-uhn."

"This was just last night? Jeez, I was all alone in my room watching the Carson show, having no fun at all."

"Yeah, but tonight I'll score. I mean, goddamn Troy on a Saturday night? You better believe it, Life-raft. You can't find some action in Troy on Saturday night, you may's well go back to Cobleskill. That's where I grew up, out in Cobleskill. Now, there is a goddamn dead town. Hey, you wanna tag along over to Troy? I don't make promises, but– Hey, I'll bet you're a real cocksman, huh? Look like the type. Real pussy chaser. Get it comin' and goin'."

"H-yeah. Gotta admit it. Comin' and goin'. But I'll pass on tonight, Dale. I've made other arrangements."

"That so? Don't leave nothin' to goddamn chance, huh? Well, drop one for me, pal. Case there's no action in Troy."

"No action in Troy? Dale, I find that hard to believe."

"Nyaah. These towns around here are all the same.

Dead! Goddamn dead towns. They all suck."

"Even Schenectady?"

"Especially Schenectady."

"Guess I'm lucky I'm heading back to Elmira tomorrow. "

"Someday I'm just gonna pick up and go where the action is. Get the goddamn fuck out of these . . . dead towns."

"Where would you go, Dale?"

"Rochester. You want action, you gotta go to Rochester. Listen, Life-raft, lemme tell you about goddamn Rochester. ..."

I crossed State Street and loped down the hill toward Green. It was just past eight o'clock and the temperature sign on the bank at State and Pearl read 87 degrees. The high-intensity arc lamps clicked on in the blackening dusk. In the orange glare the street looked like the portals of hell, though less populated even on a Saturday night. Dale Overdorf had been a washout, I figured, but I kept thinking there was something I'd missed or hadn't picked up on. I went back over the conversation in my mind. When Overdorf had gone into his "cocksman" characterization I'd thought about dropping the good news on him, but concluded I might need to come back to him, and so failed to contribute to his worldly education. But there was something else. I didn't yet know what.

The captain at La Briquet led me past the sweat-drenched pols, lobbyists, and high-tech entrepreneurs waiting for a table. We crossed the main dining room to an alcove in the back. One table was occupied by a bishop and two lesser spiritual operatives celebrating a secular ritual involving a Lafite-Rothschild '76 and a coq au vin. At a second rear table were three men in blue-black suits,

horned-rimmed glasses, and five o'clock shadows. They were listening thoughtfully to a slim black-eyed woman with a briefcase on her lap who spoke at the speed of light: "You know goddamn well the senator is not going to go along with this shit, so why waste our time with a couple of raggedy-ass proposals our people have looked at ten times already, and want to puke every time we . . ." The juke box was playing Telemann.

The banquette in the rear alcove was occupied by Crane Trefusis and Marlene Compton, the blonde who sat outside his office. She was holding an unlighted cigarette, and the captain, deftly producing a silver lighter as a magician might from his sleeve, held out a small blue flame, which Marlene utilized with the bored indifference of a woman not unaccustomed to having small blue flames produced for her benefit.

I thought, Trefusis is going to suggest to Marlene that she go powder her nose. Trefusis said, "Marlene, why don't you go powder your nose?" She went. I flopped the bread bag full of checks onto the linen tablecloth alongside a slim vase containing a single yellow rose.

"Seventy-two," I said. "Local banks."

Trefusis stuffed the bag into a side pocket and from his breast pocket retrieved a fat brown envelope.

"Seventy-two, U.S. currency."

"Where'd you get it?" I said.

"Hard work."

I folded the envelope in half and jammed it into the back pocket of my khakis. It bulged.

I said, "Did Dale Overdorf kidnap Peter Greco?"

He didn't blink. "Not that I know of."

"I didn't think so."

"Overdorf is never sober after five p.m. Friday. He'd be incapable of it on a weekend. That would be his alibi, Strachey, and a damned good one in court. Where did you get Dale's name, if I may ask?"

"It came up."

"Dale is quite reliable during the week. He runs errands for our security chief, fills in, handles special assignments."

"Uh-huh."

"For a man with your reputation, Strachey, I'm amazed you would even consider such a possibility. Even though I know you'd love to discover that Millpond is involved in this idiotic kidnapping in some way. Or even the vandalism."

"You're right, I waste a lot of time. But occasionally it pays off. And it's always instructive. In a general sort of way."

"Yes. You must know a great deal about the manner in which life in our time and place is lived."

"I do."

"Perhaps you'll write a book someday: Memoirs of a– Gay Gumshoe. Are people in your profession still called gumshoes?"

"That went out with Sam Spade. Anyway, most of us don't get gum stuck on our shoes while we're pounding the streets. I'm sure I won't. In here."

"Then perhaps you're spending your time in the wrong types of environment in your search for criminals these days, Strachey. As I look around this room, I see none."

"I count six or eight, but never mind. Is the reward money all set?"

"It is on deposit with my personal attorney, Milton Hahn. A public announcement will be made when you and the police have authorized me to proceed with it. I spoke with the chief after you phoned me today, and he concurs that this is the proper approach."

"Glad to hear it. The chief and I have never agreed on much."

"He alluded to that."

"Here comes your food," I said. "And your receptionist. She seems quite . . . receptionable."

"You notice such things? You're even more versatile than I've been told, Strachey."

"It's an old habit I picked up in the seventh grade. But it never amounted to much."

"You boys through with your man talk?" Marlene said. "God, I could eat a horse."

The waiter, standing by a serving trolley and causing flames to break out all over a chunk of dead animal, winced.

"See ya in church, Crane," I said.

He laughed.

Heft.

I turned the corner from Green and headed back up State. I picked up a Coke, a burger, and three large fries at McDonald's and walked back to my car in a lot on South Pearl. I ate and drank and went over the whole thing in my mind. My eyes ached. I wanted to close them, but I didn't. I knew I'd missed something already, and I couldn't risk missing anything more.

I stuffed the bag of McDonald's debris under the car seat and drove back toward Central through the reeking heat. I wished I'd paid the extra eight hundred three years earlier and gotten a car with air conditioning, and the hell with Jimmy Carter, wherever he was. Though Timmy, of course—Timmy the eco-freak-with-a-vengeance—would have disapproved.

Timmy. That bastard. Timmy.

14

• I tracked down Mel Glempt at his

apartment on Ontario Street. He repeated to me what he had told me on the phone earlier in the day, that he had been leaving the Green Room just before midnight and saw a tall man in a policeman's uniform mug and deftly blindfold a smallish fellow, and then quickly shove him into the back seat of a large dark-colored car, which immediately sped away heading west. Glempt said that in the dimly lit parking lot he had not gotten a look at the cop's face, nor at the person in the driver's seat. Glempt came up with no additional details. He said he had told his story to two police detectives who had come by, and that they had been "polite."

On out Central, I pulled into Freezer Fresh and asked a pale, long-haired kid with bad skin if Joey Deem was on that night. The kid blinked, took a step sideways, and said, "I'm him."

"You kidnap anybody?"

This time he stepped back and looked at me as if I were batty. "What?"

"I didn't think so. But let's try another one. Did you paint rude slogans on Dot Fisher's barn?"

He took another step back and banged into the nozzle of the chocolate glop machine. His eyes darted about to see who might be overhearing our exchange. A line was forming behind me. The kid's mouth opened in an attempt to form words.

"How about the threatening phone calls and the 'you-will-die' letter? Those yours too?"

"I don't know what you mean," he blurted, his mind trying to get a message through to his lower body to settle down, quit spasming.

"You want a new transmission for the T-bird in your front yard. It'll take you two years of busting your ass at this place to save enough money to pay for one. Your dad told you he'd buy you one if Dot Fisher sold out to Millpond and he could sell his property too. Mrs. Fisher was uncooperative and you decided to urge her in your unmannerly way to cooperate. Have I got it right?"

Deem stood there white-faced and bug-eyed, dumb with fright. A round-headed man with beads of sweat on his brow hove into view. "What's the problem?"

"This kid says you don't have any guanabana," I said. "What kind of ice cream stand you running here, mister, you can't offer a customer who's sweaty and pooped an icy, refreshing nice big scoop of guanabana-flavored non-dairy food product?"

"What? What kind?"

"It's okay, Jose. No sweat, Chet. Albany isn't Merida or San Juan, even though it sure as hell feels like it tonight. I know when I'm diddled, so forget the guanabana. You got any Bingo-bango-bongo-I'm-so-happy-in-the-Congo ice?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"Zat so? Well, it's not as if I'm being thrown out of the Savoy Grill, I suppose."

The queue behind me three-stepped neatly to the side as I turned and made my way back to the car.

"Say-hey, Crane! You owe me ten for locating the graffiti artist."

But now what?

Both Deem cars were gone, so I parked up the road and walked back to their house in the semi-darkness. I didn't find what I wanted in the garbage cans, so I grabbed a tire iron and pried open the trunk of the T-bird. There was the red spray paint. This was circumstantial, but Joey Deem seemed so shaky that he'd tell all once Ned Bowman dropped by, said boo, and asked for a sample of the kid's handwriting. Lacking a satchel of foam pellets, I tossed the can in the back of my car.

The tension at Dot Fisher's place had dissipated into a prickly listlessness. Bowman's unmarked car sat in the driveway by the barn, where the fresh white paint glistened stickily in the wet heat. The red graffiti still showed through; another coat of white was going to be needed. A young sergeant in a sweatshirt and baseball cap sat in the passenger seat listening to the staticky jabbering of the police radio, to which he occasionally jabbered back. Above the house, stars were popping out across a blackening sky.

Dot was at the sink furiously scouring a pot as I went inside. Bowman gave me thumbs up.

I said, "What's that for?"

"We're set," he said, and winked.

Dot suggested I help myself to the mint tea, which I did.

"Where's McWhirter?"

"Asleep. Assaulting a police officer can wear you out."

"Maybe I'll do the same. Sleep, I mean. First things first."

He sniffed, tried to look surly.

I said, "Your people visited Mel Glempt. I saw him too. He struck me as a reliable witness."

"So I'm told. Except the man he saw was no police officer. I've looked into that. We're exploring other possibilities."

"Uh-huh. Maybe it was a bus driver. Has Timmy called?"

"Timmy?"

"Timothy J. Callahan. My great and good friend."

"No. You think I'm running a dating service around here, Strachey? Doing social work among the perverts?"

"I just asked if he'd phoned, Ned. Anyway, I'd never accuse the Albany Police Department of social work. Or even, in a good many cases, police work."

"Yeah, well, if you and all your fruitcake pals would

Dot slammed down her pot and wheeled toward Bowman. "Officer Bowman," she said, looking gaunt, overheated, deeply exasperated. "Officer Bowman, please. I realize you are helping us, and I do appreciate your being here and doing everything you can for us and for poor Peter. But, really! I must ask you not to make anti-homosexual remarks in my home. You have a right to your opinions. But sometimes you really can be such an extremely rude man!"

Bowman apparently had not in recent years been called "rude" by a grandmother scouring a pot. He stood there for a moment looking uncharacteristically helpless, his mouth frozen in a little O.