Текст книги "Death Trick "

Автор книги: Richard Stevenson

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They both must have been around sixteen when they'd gone in, under the age of consent. "Did your parents have you committed, too?" I asked. "For reasons of 'poor social adjustment?"

She said, "Yes. On account of our homosexuality. Our 'sickness.'"

I'd heard stories like Chris's and Billy's and had read of such atrocities in the gay literature. Before Stonewall it was not all that uncommon and is still today not entirely unheard of. But I'd never known anyone it had happened to, and it amazed me that two people could come through it with their minds as cleansed of rage as Chris Porterfield's and Billy Blount's apparently were. If 'they were. I had yet to meet either Billy or Chris face to face.

I said, "What was the name of the place? I'd like to find out if it's still operating with the same medieval outlook."

I could have asked her directly what I had in mind, but I might have lost her—and driven her and Billy from the city where I now suspected they were hiding.

She said, "Sewickley Oaks. In New Baltimore. I doubt that it's changed."

"How long were you there?" I asked.

"Long enough," she said. "More than a year."

"Were you and Billy released at the same time?"

She hesitated, "Oh—yes. We were."

That was it. I had it. I'd find them.

"Look," she said, "I really can't talk to you anymore. I hope I've helped you somewhat, and Billy and I do want the murderer to be found. I know, it's horrible that someone like that is still there in Albany loose somewhere. It's just that– Billy understands so little of what happened. Even now he's quite confused about it. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

I said, "Yes and no. It'd still be better if I could sit down with Billy. For an hour, that's all."

"I—I'm sorry, Mr. Strachey. Good luck to you. I mean that. Maybe I'll see you in Albany."

"You realize the Albany police will be looking for you when you come back. You'll meet Sergeant Bowman, a man with his quirks of manner and viewpoint. You won't like him."

"I realize that."

"What will you tell him?"

"I'll lie. I've learned how to do that. Good-bye, Mr. Strachey."

She hung up.

Timmy had been up on one elbow listening to my end of the conversation. He said, "So?"

I slumped into the easy chair near the daybed where Timmy lay and recounted what Chris Porterfield had told me. Then I told him what I thought I'd learned.

"So, maybe you know now where Blount and Porterfield are," he said. "But not who the killer is. Get moving, Strachey."

I said, "I'll take what I can get when I can get it. Like Blanche said, 'Tomorrow is another day.'"

"Scarlett said that. Blanche said—something else."

"'Here's looking at you, kid'?"

"Close enough. I'm tired. I'm going to sleep."

"I'll join you."

11

In the morning i went to the Albany public library and dug out the Times Unions for the late fall of 1970, a little over a year after Billy Blount and Chris Porterfield would have been committed to Sewickley Oaks. What I was looking for, or thought I was looking for, was not in the index, and I had to slide the microfilm around for thirty or forty issues until I found the short article in the Tuesday, November 24, edition.

ALBANY DUO ESCAPES MENTAL FACILITY

New Baltimore—Two teenage inmates at Sewickley Oaks, an exclusive private mental institution on Ridge Road, escaped from the medium-security section of the establishment late Sunday night. William Blount, 18, and Christine Porterfield, 18, whose families live in Albany, fled a residential building through a heating tunnel and are believed to have been driven away by unknown persons who apparently aided the two in other aspects of the escape.

According to the local police, a chain securing a door to the tunnel had been cut through from the tunnel side. Officials say the escape appeared to have been carefully planned and executed.

Blount and Porterfield were discovered missing Monday morning when they failed to show up for breakfast, and a search was undertaken. Later, an area resident told police he had been driving on Ridge Road just past midnight Sunday and saw five young people emerge from nearby woods and enter an older model Plymouth station wagon. Two of the five were bearded and "looked like hippies," the witness said.

Dr. Nelson Thurston, Sewickley Oaks administrator, described the escapees as "mentally troubled" but not dangerous.

State police are assisting in the search for the two.

I made notes on the article, then drove over to Billy Blount's apartment building on Madison. I wanted to check

something I should have checked before. I waited around on the front stoop until the sidewalk was clear, then felt my way through the lock. I still had my lobster pick in hand when I arrived at the door to Blount's third-floor apartment, but I didn't need it. The door had been jimmied open, crudely, messily, as if with a crowbar.

I stepped inside and listened. There was no sound except that of the traffic down on Madison. I checked the rooms and found them as I'd left them on Friday.

I knelt by the low bookshelves and pulled out the hardback copy of Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth. Inside the front cover was a hand-written inscription: "Billy—This will explain some things—From your friend, Kurt Zinsser—December 15, 1970." I copied the words onto my pad.

Back in Blount's bedroom, I sat on the edge of his mattress and tried the phone. It was still connected and probably had another week or two before New York Telephone would be galvanized into frenzied plug-pulling by the unpaid bill. I dialed the Albany Police Department, and while I waited to be put through to Sergeant Bowman, I noticed it: Billy Blount's phone book was not where I had found it on Friday, and left it, beside the telephone.

"Bowman!" He made his own name sound like an accusation.

"Don Strachey. I want to report a breaking-and-entering."

"You'd better watch your step with me, Strachey! I warned you once and I'm warning you again. Now, what do you want?"

"Billy Blount's apartment has been broken into. With a wrecking ball, I think. His phone book with his friends' numbers written on it is missing. I'm there now."

"You think I'm a goddamned idiot. You're covering for yourself. You did it. You're lying."

"Wrong. I'm tidier than this. I'm a bachelor, remember? Obsessively neat." I wished Timmy were there to hoot with merriment over that one. "This is definitely the work of a sloppy amateur, except all he walked off with was Blount's phone book. I think that's interesting, don't you?"

"Yes. I do."

"And puzzling."

"That, too."

"I thought you'd want to know, and to check it out around here. See how helpful I'm being? Before this is over, Ned, I'm going to earn your respect and devotion." He made a strangling sound. "Anyway, what's happening down there on your end of things?"

"Listen, Strachey, I wanted to talk to you about that– about "my end of things.'" The sarcasm was like gelignite. "This Al Douglas you sent me chasing after—Bowsie. None of the Greyhound perverts ever heard of the guy."

"Did I say Greyhound? I meant Trailways. It's the Trail-ways station where Al hangs out. Jesus, I'm sorry. Really."

A silence. "Strachey—are you jerking me around? You oughtn't to do that. You want names of people who've tried, I'll provide references. They'll tell you. Don't do it. Tell me you're not fucking me up the ass." He made a gagging sound and muttered something else.

"Consider yourself told," I said. "With you, Ned, I'm straight." My palms were sweating. I held out my free hand to see how steady it was. Not too. I said, "What'd you get from the airlines at La Guardia? Anything?"

"Nah. Blount either used a phony name or didn't fly out of there at all. I hope, for your sake, Strachey, it was the first. You're on trial in this town, you know."

Maybe he just talked like a South End Torquemada and when push came to shove, he'd reveal a heart and mind worthy of Learned Hand. But I supposed he wouldn't. I said, "I'll be in touch, Sergeant. Have a nice day." I hung up.

I searched the apartment to make the sure the phone book hadn't simply been moved to another spot. It hadn't. It was gone.

Back at the phone, I made a credit-card call to California. It was just eight-thirty Pacific Time, so I tried the home number of the party I wanted. I'd known Harvey Geddes since army-intelligence days, and we'd stayed in touch through his coming out and into his years as a fund-raiser and organizer at the Los Angeles Gay Community Services Center in West Hollywood.

"Hello?"

"Harvey—Don Strachey."

"Don, what a surprise! I was just leaving for the center. This is great! Are you in LA?"

"I wouldn't mind if I were. I'm in Albany up to my brain pan in a murder case."

"Too bad. I'd love to see you. Who's your client?"

The parents of the accused. Except I doubt he did it. He's skipped, and I've got to locate him and find out what he knows. That's why I'm calling."

"Is he gay?"

"He is."

"Do you think he's out here?"

"Somewhere out that way, yes. Harv, do you remember the FFF?"

"Sure. Forces of Free Faggotry. They were active eight or ten years ago. They predated us at the center by a year or so, I think. They were even pre-Stonewall when they got started. They've been defunct for several years, though. They were considered too radical even for the hell-raisers who got this place going—Kight and Kilhefner and that bunch."

"Yeah, that's what I remember reading about them. They worked underground, right? Went around snatching gays out of mental hospitals they'd been forced into and then hiding them out. They worked on contract, as I recall, with friends of the people who were locked up."

"You got it," Geddes said. "That was the FFF. J. Edgar Hoover had them on a list of thirty-three degenerate organizations that he carried in his wallet."

"I don't know yet who would have arranged it, but I'm pretty sure the FFF performed its service for my clients' son once, in the late fall of seventy. A lesbian friend of his was brought out, too."

"Yeah," he said, "it would have been around that time. That sounds right. Maybe the parents made the contract. Your clients."

"Hardly. They're the ones who put him in. For 'problems of social adjustment.'"

"One of those."

"One of those."

"The hospital probably used electroshock therapy," Geddes said. "Blast the demons out. It used to happen a lot. It still does. More than you'd think."

"You really think they'd have done that? To a couple of kids?"

"I'd say so. Check with the guy when you find him. I'd put money on it."

"Harv, does the name Kurt Zinsser ring a bell with you?"

"He was one of them," Geddes said, "an FFF founder. The group split up, I heard, in seventy-five or -six when a couple of them got busted up in Oregon, and then there were the usual hassles over theology and tactics. Some of them are still out here in Santa Monica and Venice. Zinsser, the last I knew, was back in his hometown, Denver."

Of course—Mountain Time, not far from Cheyenne. I said, "Can you get me an address and phone number?"

"I'll try."

"Call me."

"Will do. Hey, Don, how's it going for you back there? Are you ready to make the move yet? You know, we've got men out here, too."

"Oh—I don't know, Harv. It's my masochistic streak."

"You into that? Well, if that's your bag, Don, who am I? Anyway, we've got that, too."

"No, I meant staying in Albany. No, that's wrong, too. I like it here. Albany's not exactly London or Vancouver, but I like my friends here. And a lover—I have a lover. I didn't tell you that?"

"The last time we talked you'd just gotten your divorce from Bambi."

"Brigit."

"Right. That was—?"

"Three years ago."

"God, was it really? We grow old, we grow old, we shall wear our Levis rolled. I hit the big four-oh this year, Don. They're moving us right along, aren't they?"

"Yeah, me too, Harv. I'm forty now. Last night I found the first gray hair in my mustache."

Pluck it out?"

"Nah, I would have felt ridiculous. Hey, listen, give me a call on Zinsser, will you? I've gotta get moving."

"It was great talking to you, Don. Glad to hear about the man in your life. Peace to you both. I'll be in touch on Zinsser. Give me a day or so."

"I'll appreciate it."

"Glad to do it. See you, brother."

"Right, Harv."

I made another credit-card call, to New Baltimore, fifteen miles down the Hudson from Albany.

"Good morning, Sewickley Oaks."

"The administrator's office, please."

"One moment."

Click-click.

"Dr. Thurston's office."

"Yes, this is Attorney Tarbell, and I'm calling for Stuart Blount. Mr. Blount wishes to know whether Dr. Thurston is fully prepared for the admission of Mr. Blount's son, William– particularly in regard to strengthened security. Mr. Blount is especially anxious that there be no unfortunate recurrence of the nineteen-seventy situation. And Judge Feeney, of course, shares that view."

"Well, I—Dr. Thurston has stepped out, but as far as I know, he's done everything he and Mr. Blount and the judge talked about last week. The judge was quite insistent regarding the maximum-security aspect, and Dr. Thurston, I know, has been making arrangements. Has young William been located?"

"Not just yet. But he will be soon, hopefully."

"Should I have Dr. Thurston call you?"

"Thank you, no. Mr. Blount will be in touch. In a week or so, I should think."

"All right, then. Thank you for calling, Mr. Tarbell."

"Thank you for answering when I did. Have a nice day."

"Thank you. Good-bye."

"Bye now."

I hung up and said it out loud: Asshole Blounts! Hardy Monkman had once lectured me against the pejorative use of the word "asshole." It was counterrevolutionary; it mimicked

homophobes. But, as I'd tried to explain to Hardy, there were assholes and there were assholes. The Blounts were assholes.

I phoned Stuart Blount's office and told his secretary I'd need another two thousand dollars within forty-eight hours. She put me on hold, then came back and said she would mail the check to my office that afternoon. I said, "Have a nice day."

I drove over to my apartment and retrieved the Blounts' letter to their son from the jacket of "I'm Here Again." I wanted to rip it open, but I didn't. I carefully steamed the flap loose, then unfolded the typed note. It said:

Dear Billy:

You must come and talk with your mother and me. We can help you, plus we have good news for you. We know where Eddie is, and perhaps we can arrange to put you two in touch.

Your father, (Signed) Stuart Blount

Eddie again. The guy whose lookalike had once gone into the Music Barn and sent Billy Blount into a tailspin. Who the hell was this Eddie?

12

I DROVE OUT WESTERN. DlSCO 101 WAS PLAYING THE VILLAGE

People's "Sleazy." I switched over to WGY and wound down with some Tommy Dorsey—way down, too far. Public radio had on a Villa-Lobos guitar piece, and I stayed with it on the drive out to Trucky's.

Truckman put out a light buffet every day from twelve to two—for $1.95 you could fill up on water-soaked starches and poisoned cold cuts. It was popular and drew a mainly straight crowd from SUNY and from the State Office Campus.

I ate macaroni salad and salami with yellow mustard on a

day-old bun. I looked for Mike Truckman but didn't see him around. The dance floor was roped off and the juke box was playing something of the Bee Gees'. I went back to the disc jockey's booth and saw a DJ I'd met a few times at parties. He was inside, sorting through records and listening to something on his headset. I opened the door and went in.

Niles Jameson was a small, skinny black man with a full Afro and a big nimbus of black fuzz all around his placid, delicate face. He wore black pants and a black T-shirt and looked like a dark balloon on a dark string. He glanced my way as I came in and shoved the headset off one ear as he went on examining a stack of new records.

"Hi. I forget your name." He had a big, resonant voice, like a radio DJ's.

"Don Strachey. We've met at Orrin Bell's. I was there the night the guy from Tulsa went through Orrin's waterbed with his spurs."

He looked at me and smiled. "Niagara Falls."

"The people downstairs thought so."

"Wet."

He flipped a record off the turntable and, using the palms of his hands like fingers, popped it into its jacket. "You're the detective, right? Superfly."

"Something like that." I looked at the records he was going through. "What's new that's good?"

"The Pablo Cruise is nice. And an Isley Brothers that's gonna knock your socks off." He put another record on and moved his body to the sound in his ear.

I always felt like Barbara Walters in these situations. I said, "Is disco going to last?"

He said, "Is dancing?" He was young. But I nodded knowingly.

I said, "Have you taken Steve Kleckner's place?"

"Some nights," he said. "I free-lance."

"Where abouts?"

"Parties, college dances, a straight club in Watervliet. Whoever'll hire me."

"You knew Kleckner, didn't you?"

He changed records. "Yeah. I knew Steve. He set me up

with Truckman. The DJs all help each other out, mostly. There's a couple of turkeys, but not too many. Steve was a good man. I liked Steve."

"I heard he was depressed about something the couple of weeks before he was killed. Do you have any idea why that might have been?"

He flipped the record on the turntable over with his palms and set the needle back on it. "Nope. I don't."

"I don't think Billy Blount killed him," I said. I'm trying to find out who did. Steve was popular, I know. But it looks as if somebody didn't like him. Who didn't?"

He pushed the headset down around his neck and looked at me now. "I know the Blount dude's friends all think he's innocent," Jameson said. "And maybe that's so. But if Blount didn't do it, I can't help you out, brother. I wish I could. People liked Steve, and we all miss the hell out of him. I mean, yeah, Steve was a little bit loose and sometimes he probably went home with people he shouldn't have. And shit, maybe he ran into somebody once, some crazy fuck who wasn't playing with a full deck, somebody who couldn't stand anybody gay being as cool and together as Steve was—I've met that type—or maybe somebody who didn't dig the records he played, or didn't like the way he kissed. Shit, I've met a few weird people. They're around. But not that weird." He gazed down at the spinning turntable and shook his head in disgust.

Through the big window overlooking the empty dance floor, I saw Mike Truckman come in a side door and head up towards the bar.

I said to Jameson, "Were you here the night it happened?"

"I was over doing a party in Schenectady." He pulled the headset over one ear again and moved the turntable arm to the second cut of the record that was on. "I heard the next night when I came in. From the cleaning lady. She was having the jimjam fits. Carried on like the crazy bitch she is."

"You mean Harold?"

He nodded. "You know Harold?"

"I've seen her—him—her around."

"A trip, isn't she?"

Harold was the sometime drag queen who cleaned up after

closing each night at Trucky's. She had the look of a forties movie queen and the meanest, foulest mouth in Albany County. Her shrill anger, as she pointed out to anyone who would listen, resulted from the twist of fate that had made her a cleaning lady instead of a star. She claimed that if she had been born in 1926 instead of 1956, her life would have been very different. And it might have been. With peace of mind, or enough Valium in her, Harold could have been some other studio's answer to Rita Hayworth, or at least Virginia Mayo.

Jameson said, "I'd seen Harold freak out before, but nothing like that day. I mean, it really got to her. Fact, she said she'd seen it coming. She knew something bad was coming down with Steve. She started screaming and throwing things around, and finally Mike had to hustle her out of here. Mike was sauced up even more than usual, and we were all down, and Harold was just making it worse."

"Mike has a bad drinking problem, doesn't he?"

"Yeah, especially since summer it's gotten worse. It's a shame. Mike's a good man. Floyd the doorman is pretty much running the place now."

"Does Mike have blackouts? When he can't remember where he's been and what he's done?"

"Could be. I wouldn't know about that."

"What's Harold the cleaning lady's last name?"

"Snyder."

"Where does she live?"

"Pine Hill somewhere. Floyd's not here, but Mike could tell you, if you catch him sober. You gonna visit Harold?" He raised his eyebrows and grinned.

"I think so," I said.

"You watch out now. That bitch is man-crazy. Came in here one night after closing and wanted to do me on that stool over there."

"I'll be careful," I said. "Well chat through her keyhole."

"Yeah, well, don't get too close or she'll do you right through the keyhole." He started to change the record, then looked back at me. "No offense."

I said, "I'm reasonably secure."

"I'll bet you are."

Games. I liked them once in a while, though not so much just after lunch.

I left Jameson and went looking for Mike Truckman. I found him in his office going through invoices and looking as if the papers in front of him were atrocity reports from Amnesty International. Alongside the papers were a glass and bottle.

"Don, hey Don, nice to see you. How you making out with the Blount kid? Have a drink."

I slid up onto the Molson's crates. "I've got some ideas," I said. "Another week or so and I think I'll have him back here."

"Oh, yeah? Where's he at?"

"West of Utica."

"Syracuse?"

"Farther. Meanwhile I still don't think Blount did it. I'm working on who did. Any more ideas since I saw you last?"

He stuck his lips out and slowly shook his head. The puffed flesh around his eyes was the color of dirty snow, and his hair stuck out in yellow-white clumps. One hand lay on his telephone, as if he might need to grasp it for leverage or support. The telephone gave half a ring before the hand snatched it up.

"Trucky's—Well, hello, a friend of yours is here right this minute!" He looked at me and mouthed Timmy's name. "Sure thing, Tim, I'll tell him-mm-hmmm-mm-hmmm–Right– Oh, yes—Swell—Oh sure, oh sure, as always—A hundred. No, two hundred. Who do I make it out to?—Sure thing, Tim, I'll send the check along with Don here—Right—Okay, kid, see ya, then."

He hung up. "Your pal Timothy says to tell you he'll be at the alliance meeting tonight. They're setting up a legal-defense fund for the people arrested at the Rat's Nest. Nordstrum is handling his own suit, but the alliance is going to help the customers who were busted—for 'buggery' or whatever the fuck it was. Here—." He scrawled out a check. "Things are tight right now, but not so tight I can't help fight a fucking-over like this one. As always." He raised a glass and saluted.

I folded the check and put it in my wallet. "Did Timmy mention whether the other bar owners are helping out?"

"He didn't say. He probably called me first so he could let those other tight-asses know I gave. For what that'll be worth.

You and I know, Don, don't we? They're only out for themselves. Even the gay bastards—especially the gay owners. They're so goddamn chintzy they won't part with a nickel unless they can figure a way to get a dime back on it. I don't know whether they see the movement as competition or what. But they're killing themselves. It'll all come back on them."

"I doubt that," I said. "Eighty percent of the homosexuals in this country would patronize Anita Bryant's place if she had a hot dance floor and sold drinks two-for-one on Friday night. Ten years ago ninety percent would have, but there's still enough indifference around to feed any amount of greed. It's changing a little, but we're still a minority. Face it, Mike."

He nodded. "I have. I know. Do I know."

"You're a rare one, though, Mike, and there are people who appreciate it. You'd better know that, too. You're a—a credit to your sexual orientation."

He tried to laugh, but it wasn't in him. I felt for him and didn't want to bring up what I knew I had to. I said, "Mike– this is hard, but—I'm sort of going through a process of elimination. I'm hard-headed and thorough, you must have heard that, and I've got a thing about making lists and crossing things off. Or, to put it in the more positive light that's appropriate in your case, I'm trying to establish alibis for the night of the murder for all the people Steve Kleckner knew best. I know you and Steve had an affair once and that you were—well, sort of jealous of Steve's other men." He froze. I said, "For the sake of my obsessive neatness, then, just tell me where you went that night after you left here at four."

He stared at me through his alcoholic haze, stricken, and for an instant I thought he was going to cry. My inclination was to keep rambling on in the same convoluted vein, but I knew it would only come out worse. Not that it mattered. His hurt altered into anger, and he said—croaked the words out, "I wouldn't have believed it! After everything I've done—"

That irritated me. "Mike," I said, "that's beside the point– in a thing like this. Just rattle it off and that'll be the end of it. Really—"

"Fuck you, Strachey!"

"Look, Mike, you know I'm discreet to the point of—"

"I said fuck you, Strachey!"

"Mike, if you were with someone underaged, or whatever the hell it might have been—"

He looked at me with ferocious scorn and—I was sure of it—with fear.

"Okay," I said. "It's okay, Mike. Look—we'll talk again. After you've given some thought to what I'm trying to do. One request, though. I want to talk to Harold the cleaning lady. Could you give me her address?"

He didn't move. "You've hurt me deeply, Don. Please leave." Tears ran down his cheeks.

"Yeah. Okay." I stood up. "One last thing, Mike. Do you know anyone who owns a late-model gold-colored Olds Toronado?"

I watched his expression, but it didn't change. He just sat there, the tears rolling down his face and dripping onto his invoices.

I asked him if he'd been with Frank Zimka that night. He flinched when I said the name, but still he didn't move.

I said, "Okay, friend," and left him.

I got Harold the cleaning lady's address from one of the bartenders and drove back down Western into town. I kept the radio off, and I wanted a cigarette.

13

I STOPPED FOR GAS AND REACHED HAROLD SNYDER FROM A PAY

phone. I explained who I was and what I wanted, and he said, "Fuck off, dear," and hung up.

I drove over to his place on South Lake Avenue. I went in a side entrance of the old frame house and knocked on the second-floor door that had Snyder's name painted on it with what looked like shiny red nail polish.

The door opened and a movie star stood there in a filmy negligee and boxer shorts.

I said, "I'm Donald Strachey. I'm persistent."

"Did I tell you to fuck off, or did I tell you to fuck off? Hey?"

She stamped her foot and made an indignant flouncy movement with her shoulders and hips. I'd always found effeminate men unappealing, but once when I'd made a crack to Brigit about "that faggy guy over there," she'd replied, "Faggy is as faggy does." Which missed the point by a mile but still left an impression on me. I tried to become more tolerant.

"If you're interested in having Steve Kleckner's killer caught," I said, "you'll want to talk to me. And what happened to Steve could happen to someone else if the killer isn't found. Another gorgeous man lowered forever into the cold, cold ground. Help me make that not happen."

She looked interestedly at my face for a moment, and then at my crotch, and then at my face again. "What are you, anyway, doll-face? You're mu-u-uch too cute to be an Albany cop, but you did say you were a detective. You said that on the phone. Explain yourself, luv."

"I'm a private detective." I showed her the card. I half-closed one eye like Bogey and said out of the side of my mouth, "I work alone, sweet-haht."

She gave me what I took to be a Lauren Bacall look. "Well, you do look a little like Robert Mitchum. You should have mentioned that when you called, hon, it might have made a difference. Even if you didn't, it might not be too late for us." She gave me a sultry look with no apparent humorous intent, though it still appeared to have been learned from Carol Burnett.

I said, "You got a cold beer? It's warming up again."

"H-well! I just don't know if I should have a man in my apartment who's drinking. Who knows what might happen?"

"I wasn't going to drink it, I just wanted to hold it in my left armpit. I'm naturally hot-blooded."

I thought: "A smile played about her sensuous slash of mouth." A smile played about her sensuous slash of mouth. She said, "Do-o-o come in."

I went in and she shut the door. I sat on the divan across

from a plaster model of an Academy Award Oscar painted gold. She brought an open bottle of Valu Pack beer from the kitchen and seated herself beside me.

I said, "I hear you cared a lot about Steve Kleckner." I took a swig of beer.

She reached over and felt my cock through my khakis. The damn fool thing stiffened.

She said, "I could go for you, Donald."

I said, "The day after Steve was killed, you told people out at Trucky's you'd known something bad was going to happen to him. How did you know that?"

"Let's not talk about that," she said, and her mouth went wetly over my ear.

"No, let's. It's, uh—important."

She continued to massage me, and I found myself shifting so she could get a better grip on it. A spot appeared on my damn cream-colored pants. I said, "Do you know–anyone who—who owns an—an Olds—"

"Oooo, Donnie—it's like a Molson's bottle!"

"Look, Harold—"

"Sondra."

"—Sondra. Look—I have an appointment in half an hour. If we could just talk, now, then maybe another time—"

"Gaw-w-w-d, you're fantastic! I've seen you around, Donnie, at Trucky's and here and there, but I never dreamed you'd go for a woman like me. I figured you were like all the other pansies in this candy-ass town—that you liked men, and you were just another faggot. There are so many of them these days. It can get so very lonely for a woman like me. With so few real men around." She was working at my belt buckle.

"Look," I lied, "I really do have an appointment at three." Our hands fought over the belt buckle. "What about—tonight? Are you busy tonight?"