On the Other Hand, Death

4

Tomorrow you die! was what the voice on the phone had said in a harsh whisper. Dot wasn't certain whether it had been a man or a woman speaking.

I summoned McWhirter and Greco, who had just finished up the paint-over job.

"I'm calling the police again," McWhirter said, livid, and grabbed up the phone.

I said, "Good idea."

Dot sat down and shakily drank from her can of beer. While McWhirter explained to the police desk officer how he was an unwitting agent of heterosexist oppression, I asked Dot about the other families who lived on Moon Road, the ones on Crane Trefusis's list of suspects.

"I do feel sorry for them," she said, trying hard to smile and focus on something other than her fear. "We don't see much of one another, of course, but both the Deems and Wilsons seem like awfully nice people-or at least Kay Wilson does-and I do wish there was some way for them to get their money without my having to sell out to those thieves from Millpond."

She sipped at the beer, glanced once at the phone, which suddenly had become a menacing object for her, then made herself go on.

"Kay Wilson used to come up and draw water from our spring and we'd chat, but she hasn't been by since last month, when I told her we definitely weren't going to sell. And Joey Deem doesn't come by to mow the lawn anymore. It's upsetting. And I feel terribly guilty sometimes, but… really. This is my home. I suppose I could pick up and start over. But after thirty-eight years in one place… well, it's hard to tell where this house ends and I begin. It would be like cutting off an arm and a leg.

"And Edith! Oh, my. She's been with me since her Bert died in sixty-eight, and what a trial it would be for her to pull up stakes. A trial for both of us. I'd probably try to drag her off to Laguna Beach or P-town, or some other reservation for old dykes, and, oh, Lord, she'd just be fit to be tied! In case you didn't notice," she added with a little laugh, "Edith's a conservative and I'm a liberal."

I said, "I caught that."

"Well, let me tell you, young man. When I came out in seventy-nine, Edith nearly had a fit. I marched in the gay-pride parade in New York that year-that's where I met Fenton and Peter and Edith almost drove the both of us right into the booby hatch with her fussing and carrying on. Finally she did ride along with me on the bus down to the city. But then, wouldn't you know, when the parade started up Fifth Avenue, Edith just stomped over and walked up the sidewalk alongside the parade! Her legs were better then, but she still had a devil of a time keeping up.

Mad as a wet hen she was, fretting the whole time that one of the girls in our bridge club might see me on TV.

"Not that it would have mattered to me. In fact, later that summer was when I finally came out with the girls. Now there's a story I'll tell you someday, and you won't know whether to laugh or cry. There were eight of us in the bridge club back then, and now we're just five. That's a good number for poker"-she laughed-"but not worth a tinker's damn for bridge."

"It sounds pretty awkward."

"I guess that's one reason I'd like to hang on to this old house. It's like a true friend that doesn't judge us."

"You'll keep it. You'll get through this."

"Will we?" Her brown eyes were dull with exhaustion and defeat. "Sometimes I'm not so sure.

After a while you just begin to run out of steam." She heaved a deep sigh and began to fan her face with the Burpee catalog. "Well, Don, I guess there's no shortage of steam today, is there?"

I agreed that there was not. McWhirter came back from the phone, announced that he had dealt persuasively with the Albany Police Department, and said he was going to paint the rest of the barn while he awaited their arrival and their apologies for being tardy.

I said, "I'll look forward to that too."

Greco followed McWhirter outside, and I asked Dot for quick sketches of her neighbors on Moon Road, which she provided. One of them, Bill Wilson, who at the height of an argument over the Millpond situation had called Dot "a stubborn old bag" and kicked the fender of her Fiesta, sounded like a man especially worth getting to know. Though I planned on calling on all the rest of them too.

Dot adamantly refused my suggestion that she and Edith spend the next few days in a motel.

Who would water the peonies? Nor would she consent to phoning any of her or Edith's children or grandchildren, all of them spread about the Sunbelt, where she and Edith visited each February. Dot said her friend Lew Morton was coming over to spend the evening, and Peter Greco had promised to return to the house by midnight with or without McWhirter, who had set a goal of recruiting at least a hundred gay national strikers that night as he moved through the Central Avenue bars and discos. The man was from Mars, but I figured Albany could stand it for a day or two. In its history as a state capital, the town had seen stranger sights.

As I bumped back up Moon Road, I passed an unmarked blue Dodge with a familiar face at the wheel heading toward Dot's. Detective Lieutenant Ned Bowman was busy avoiding potholes, but he glanced my way as he careened past. He must have recognized me, as his eyebrows did the little dip-glide-swoop dance of horror my presence always triggered, and which over the years I'd come to look forward to in a small way.

I pulled up in front of the Deem house. The old Fury was still in the driveway, and now a cream-colored Toyota sedan was parked beside it, fresh heat undulating off its muffler. Above the house, the sun was a great white blot against the western sky. I checked my watch. It was just six-ten.

"Good evening. I'm Donald Strachey and I'm working for Millpond Plaza Associates. Are you Mrs. Deem?"

"Oh. Yes, I'm Sandra Deem. You're from Millpond? Oh, gee. Why don't you come in, Mr.

Strachey? Jerry's in the shower but he'll be out in a minute." Her voice was muted, insubstantial, as if it came from a high place where the air was too thin.

"Thank you. It's hot out here."

"Oh, isn't it awful? Gosh, nobody called us from Millpond today. Is there anything new? We haven't heard from Mr. Trefusis at all for a couple weeks."

As I stepped into the living room, Mrs. Deem looked tentatively hopeful. She was thirty-sevenish, with pale skin, a plain round freckled face, and black rings of sweat around dull hazel eyes. She wore tan bermuda shorts, a sleeveless white cotton blouse, and rubber thongs on small feet. She smelled heavily of Ban.

I said, "As a matter of fact, there have been some developments. But none that will be helpful for you and your husband, I'm afraid. A problem's come up. Somebody is harassing and threatening Mrs. Fisher and Mrs. Stout."

Her eyes narrowed and she thought this over. She brushed her hand across her own cheek the way Peter Greco had touched mine earlier. "Why don't you sit down, Mr. Strachey," she said after a moment, and directed me to a long high-backed couch covered with pictures of "colonial" scenes. A picture of a blond haloed Jesus hung above it.

"What is this person actually doing to harass Mrs. Fisher?" she said. "Whoever's doing it. Gosh, that's an awful thing."

I stepped over the blocks and dolls and stuffed animals on the gold-colored shag rug and seated myself behind a coffee table. "Nasty slogans were painted on the carriage house last night. A letter and a phone call came today threatening death if Dot and Edith didn't leave. You're right.

It's upsetting for both of them."

A toddler toddled into the room from the kitchen. "Hi-ee," she said, checking me out with big inquisitive blue eyes.

"Hi," I said. "What's your name?"

Mrs. Deem breathed, "Heather, you go out and play now. We'll have supper in a couple minutes.

Go on."

"By-eee." Heather spun around several times, pretending to be dizzy, then went out and played.

"That must be real scary," Mrs. Deem said, and perched on the edge of an easy chair that matched the early American couch. "Gosh, I just don't approve of that at all. Scaring a couple of old people like that." She was speaking to me but she also seemed distracted by a thought, as if she might have knowledge of the subject she wished she didn't have, or an opinion on it that was forming itself in a troubling way.

"No one knows, of course, whether the threats are serious," I said. "But that's part of the problem in a thing like this. The not knowing. I've been hired by Millpond to track down whoever's responsible."

"Oh, I see." She looked even more worried. Then she remembered something and stood up.

"Why don't you come out to the kitchen, Mr. Strachey, if that's okay? Do you mind? I'm getting supper and we can talk in the kitchen. Jerry will be out any minute. I want him to hear about this too."

I followed her and took a seat by the Formica table. A little color Sony was on the counter. Dick Block and the anchor news team were chattily rattling off brief accounts of the day's convenience-store holdups and double suicides.

Sandra Deem dumped half a bottle of something Kelly green over a bowl of chopped-up iceberg lettuce and said, "Do you think somebody around here is doing these things to Mrs. Fisher? Is that why you're here? I mean, why are you asking us about it?"

"We have to assume that's a possibility, Mrs. Deem. The three parties with something to gain by Mrs. Fisher's being scared off are your family, the Wilsons, and of course Millpond, my employer. So I have to ask you if there's anyone in your household-or maybe some sympathetic friend of yours or your husband's-who you think might be mad enough to break the law in this way."

Her face tightened, and she stood there blinking at me with the half-empty bottle of green glop poised above the salad bowl. "No," she said after a moment. "No, I really don't think so. Not something as mean as that. No, I can't think of anybody who would do such an un-Christian thing." Her voice gained an approximation of fervor as she spoke, but there was apprehension in 19 her eyes.

The man who padded barefoot into the kitchen, looking startled when he saw me there, was around my age, forty-three, paunchy in a fresh white Fruit of the Loom T-shirt and pale green slacks, and smelling of chemical substances meant to be cosmetic. He had thinning sandy hair, alert wide eyes the color of his pants, and the expression on his pleasant boyish face was one of mild perplexity.

"Hi, I'm Don Strachey from Millpond Plaza Associates," I said, getting up, and sounding to myself like a character on Dynasty.

"Glad to meet you. I'm Jerry Deem."

We shook hands. His eyes never left mine. He was looking for something in them, but I didn't know what. What the hell I was doing at his kitchen table, I guessed.

"I'm sorry to bother you at this time of day, but I'd like to talk with you for a few minutes about some trouble that's come up over at Dot Fisher's place."

"Oh?" He looked puzzled but not overly concerned. "Well, why don't we go out and sit on the-"

"Shhh, listen!" Mrs. Deem interrupted. "It's on the news. Oh, gosh."

We all looked at the little Sony, and Deem turned up the sound.

First we saw the graffiti on the carriage house while Dick Block's voice intoned something about

"the latest alleged incident of harassment to the gay community." The "gay community," we soon saw, was Dot, seated on the stone terrace behind her house. She was being questioned by a young woman wearing the obligatory TV newswoman's scarf around her neck, even in the heat, like a drag queen trying to cover up his Adam's apple.

"And what were your thoughts," the reporter was saying grimly, "when you came out this morning and saw the words painted on your pretty barn, Mrs. Fisher?"

"Well," Dot replied, a little uncertainly, "my thoughts were… what I guess you would call… unhappy."

The reporter paused, squinting uncomprehendingly, as if Dot had just recited in Urdu. She said,

"Unhappy?"

"Yes," Dot said. "Unhappy. Wouldn't you be?"

The newswoman, her mascara looking dangerously moist, was growing fidgety. She said, "You must have been… upset."

Dot nodded. "Yes. I was. Though these things don't bowl you over the way they once did. I've seen a good bit of nastiness on the way to where I am now. And you learn to take a lot of it. Though only up to a point," she added emphatically.

Instead of asking about the point at which Dot was not going to lie down and take "it" anymore, the reporter continued to probe into Dot's "feelings." Dot was unaccustomed, however, to the requirements of video journalism and refused to tremble or burst into tears or turn herself into a rising fireball. Finally, the woman asked Dot who she thought might be responsible for the threats, to which Dot replied, "I'd rather not say. I'll discuss that with the police. If they ever get out here."

Throughout all this, Sandra Deem stood with her arms folded and saying from time to time, "Oh, gosh! That's awful, just awful." Jerry Deem stared at the set transfixed, not speaking or moving at all.

McWhirter appeared next. He discoursed briefly-the report must have been heavily edited-on the deficiencies of the "hopelessly homophobic" Albany Police Department, and then launched into a pitch for next June's national coming-out day and the gay national strike. He mentioned the meeting at the center that night and the bar tour that would follow. The report closed with a shot 20 of McWhirter and Greco watering Dot's peonies-Edith was nowhere to be seen-and then a pan to the side of the carriage house while the reporter's voice said that the Albany police had told Channel 12 they planned a thorough investigation of the incident. The Millpond situation was noted briefly, and Crane Trefusis was quoted as being "sickened" by the incident.

"Isn't that awful, Jerry?" Sandra Deem said, watching her husband. "Who would do a thing like that to a couple of old ladies? Even with their lifestyle?"

Deem was still gazing fixedly at the TV set, which was now singing a song about how "If it's not your mother, it must be Howard Johnson's."

"I was hoping," I said, "that one of you here, Mr. Deem, might have some idea of who's been harassing Mrs. Fisher. Later today she and Mrs. Stout also received a letter and then a phone call threatening them with death if they didn't get out of the neighborhood. It's all turning into a fairly serious and frightening business for them."

Deem slowly raised his head and peered at me again. "Oh, no," he said when my words had registered. He shook his head. "No, I really can't imagine who around here would behave in such an un-Christian way. Do you suspect us? Is that why you're here?" He suddenly looked hurt, incredulous.

"I don't suspect anybody," I said. "It seemed like a logical idea, though, to talk to the people with something to gain from Mrs. Fisher's selling out. Of course, you're one of them. Are there other members of your household besides the three of you? Dot Fisher mentioned you had a son."

"You're really looking in the wrong place," Deem said, shaking his head, seeming more relaxed now, and faintly amused at the thought. "Heck, it's true we've been pretty disappointed with Mrs.

Fisher for making things a little bit tough for us. It's not that we really need the money, actually. I mean, we're above water. I'm a provider. It's just that selling to Millpond would be a real opportunity for us. Know what I mean? To get ahead. But this stuff on the news-wow! No, Sandra and I just weren't brought up that way."

Mrs. Deem was back at the stove now, dropping pink franks into a pot of boiling water. She giggled nervously and said, "Like Jerry says, we could use the money. Right, Jer? Steak would be nice for a change. Or even hamburger," she added, and giggled again.

I took it this was all for her husband's benefit, but he let it go by.

I said, "What sort of work do you do, Mr. Deem?"

"I'm an accountant," he said, watching me carefully again.

"Where?"

"Where do I work?"

"Yes. Where are you an accountant?"

"Murchison Building Supply. In Colonie. I just got home from the office a little bit ago."

We were still standing in the dining alcove. No one had invited me to sit down again since Deem had entered the room. The boiling hot dogs smelled like boiling hot dogs but they reminded me that I was hungry.

The screen door banged open and Heather reappeared. "Hi-ee."

"Hi, honey," Sandra Deem said. "Getting hungry?"

"Yep. We're having hog-ogs for supper," she said to me proudly. Then, to her father: "Where's Joey?"

Deem didn't answer for a second or two. Then he said, "At work. Joey's at work, sweetheart.

He'll be home later."

"Joey's your son?" I said.

"Yes. That's right. Joey's working over at the Freezer Fresh for the summer. He turned sixteen in 21

June and just got his driver's license, and Joey's saving up for a new transmission for that eyesore out in the yard. Teenagers. Boy, what a handful they are."

I nodded knowingly. Raising adolescents was a topic of which I knew nothing, though a brief affair I'd once had with an eighteen-year-old suggested to me that "handful" was hardly the word for it.

Sandra Deem was grim-faced again as she set the table without looking at any of us. We were all pirouetting awkwardly as Mrs. Deem reached around us trying to get the plates and utensils into place.

Deem said, "Well, gee. I'm sorry we couldn't help you out, Mr. Strachey. It's our suppertime now, but if we think of anybody who might be mixed up in this thing down at Mrs. Fisher's we'll be sure to let you know."

"I'd appreciate it," I said and handed him my card. "Just give me a call."

"Will do. And you have Mr. Trefusis give us a call. I mean, if Mrs. Fisher changes her mind. I mean-with all this trouble she's having-maybe it would make sense for her to make the move.

You know, cut her losses while she can. I guess she's kind of stubborn though, isn't she?"

"What she is is gutsy," I said, and automatically looked over my shoulder for Edith.

"Are you going to talk to the Wilsons?" Mrs. Deem asked as her husband led me to the front door. "Maybe it's nervy of me to put my two cents in, but… well, to tell you the truth, I wouldn't put anything past them."

"Oh, yeah," Deem said, liking the sound of that. "Yeah, check out the Wilsons. Gosh, they're about as trashy a family as you'll ever run across. It's hard to tell what kind of funny business they might pull. Don't mention we said it, but that's a good idea Sandy had there. You check out the Wilsons."

"I plan to stop by there now."

"Swell idea. Well, nice meeting you. Sorry we couldn't help out."

"Thanks anyway. See you again."

"Oh. Yeah. Well, that would be nice."

"Bye," Sandra Deem called from the kitchen.

"By-eee," another voice added.

In the car, I got out my notebook and wrote: "1. Joey Deem."

I guessed her age to be between twenty-five and seventy. Phosphorescent blond wig, the last beehive north of Little Rock, and beneath the mountain of shimmering hair, active black eyes in a wide mottled face that still held suggestions of the youthful pretty face under the mask that age had grown there. She was grandly voluptuous in a white halter above the waist, a vast lumpy pudding below. Her tight powder blue shorts had worked up into her crotch, and as I approached the porch, where she occupied a sagging plastic chaise, she laid her National Enquirer demurely across her lap.

"If you're lookin' for Bill," she said, giving me a what-the-hell's-this-one-want look, "he's down to the plant. Won't be back till later."

"I'm Don Strachey from Millpond Plaza Associates," I said. "Are you Mrs. Wilson?"

She perked up at the sound of Millpond and set her can of Pabst on the concrete floor as her eyes widened. "Yeah, I'm Kay Wilson. You work for Crane Trefusis?"

"Right now I do, yes."

She struggled upright with one hand, adjusted her wig with the other, and, offering a toothy grin, motioned for me to sit in the lawn chair next to her. Her opinion of me had risen.

"Now, that Crane, he's quite a guy, ain't he? Quite… a… guy. Bill and I had Crane over for a 22 drink on the Fourth of July, he tell you that, Bob? Crane's wife was feeling poorly and couldn't make it, but Crane, he came. Sat right where you're sitting. Drank Chivas Regal with a chunk of lemon. Say now, what's your pleasure, Bob?"

"It's Don. Don Strachey. A cold beer would be great."

"Hot enough for ya?" she said, winking, and commanding her inertia-prone lower body to raise her more willing upper body off the chaise, like an elephant trainer urging the mammoth beneath her into motion. She stepped carefully across the gap between the new porch and the old house and returned a moment later with two more Pabsts.

"Did you happen to see the TV news this evening, Mrs. Wilson?" I said.

"Nah, I just got home a bit ago. You got the big check with you?" she asked, watching me expectantly and raising her beer can, poised for a toast. "You bring ol' Kay that big, beautiful hunert 'n' eighty grand from Crane?"

"No such luck," I said.

She shrugged and drank anyway. "I didn't s'pose you would. Crane said when the big day came he'd bring it out himself. Hell with it anyway. We ain't gonna get it."

"You seem resigned, Mrs. Wilson."

"Kay. Crane calls me Kay. Yeah, I know we're screwed. Hell with it anyway. Old Dot Fisher, she's not gonna give in. She's one tough old cookie, Dot is."

"She says you used to visit her sometimes."

"Yeah, I know Dot. We got no water pressure here sometimes, so I go down and draw from Dot's spring. She's real nice. I always liked talking to her. I damn near shit a brick-pardon my French, Bob-when I saw on the TV last year Dot was one of those women goes for her own. She never laid a hand on me, I'll say that much for her. Knew she hadn't better try, I s'pose, with Bill around. I ain't been down to her place for a time. Bill's mad at her, so why start trouble when you got enough already." She gulped from the Pabst can and fanned her face with the Enquirer.

"I guess," I said, "you don't know about what's been going on at Dot's place in the past twenty-four hours." I explained about the graffiti and the threats. She listened with big eyes and an open mouth.

"Now that stinks!" she said when I'd finished. "That just makes me want to puke. Now who on God's green earth would want to go ahead and pull a stunt like that?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out. I'm a private investigator. "

"A cop?" She looked startled. "You said you worked for Crane."

"I do. I'm a private detective on assignment for… Crane. He asked me, as a matter of fact, to drop by here, Kay, and convey his warmest personal regards to both you and Mr. Wilson. And to ask you and your husband if you had any idea who might be harassing Dot and Mrs. Stout. Crane is disgusted by what happened, and he wants to put a stop to it." I nearly added, "He's paying me ten," but didn't.

"That Crane, he's quite a guy," she said, nodding and wistfully remembering. "Tell him we'll have him over again real soon, soon as ol' Kay gets herself organized. I'm on the two-shift at Annie Lee till Labor Day and when I get home I'm just too pooped to pop. But after Labor Day I can draw unemployment again, and then I'm gonna just lay back and take it easy for a time shoot, I've earned it-and then Bill and I'll start having people in again."

"I'll pass the word. I take it, Kay, there's no one you know who might be mad enough at Dot Fisher to threaten her in any way to try to force her our of the neighborhood. Or is there?"

"Oh, boy," she said, making a face. "Oh, boy. Oh, boy." She nodded at her beer as she considered the possibilities. "Well," she said with a snort, "there's Wilson. Or he was mad, anyways. A month ago Bill was so P.O.'ed with Dot Fisher I was afraid he was gonna march right down there and just slug her one. A couple of times, as a matter of fact, he'd had a few drinks and was really gonna go down there and do it. Just pop her one, show her who's boss. He'd've done it too-used to try the rough stuff on me thirty years ago until my brother Moose hadda set Wilson straight one night. Hasn't laid a finger on me since then, and knows he hadn't better try.

"Anyways, Wilson says he's gonna go down there and pop Dot, he says. Well, I just put a stop to that right then and there. I said, Bill, I'll call the cops on you, you dumb son of a bitch. And I meant it! Even if she deserved it, Dot's an old lady and it wouldn't've been right. Anyways, Bill got over it after a while-finally got it through his thick skull that the old lez wasn't gonna give in, and he just said the hell with it.

"Coulda used the dough, though. I mean, could we ever! But then Bill went off on some other tangent of his a week or so back. Some hotshot idea of his that's gonna make us rich, so he says.

So then he forgot all about Dot and Millpond. Bob, I wish I had a nickel for every time Bill Wilson was gonna make me a rich woman."

"Where does Bill work?" I asked. "What does he do?"

"Presently," she said, popping the tab on the second Pabst she'd brought out, "Bill is employed at the Drexon plant. He's a forklift operator. Bill's the restless type, though, so who knows where he'll be next week. Wilson wants so awful much to get ahead. He asked Crane if Millpond had anything, and Crane said he'd keep an eye open for the right spot for Bill. Crane didn't mention anything about that to you, did he?"

"I'm sorry. He didn't."

She laughed, but not with amusement. "Sure. Well… Bill means well. He's got all that Wilson energy. If he could just learn to apply himself…" She looked away wistfully, then back at me.

"Know what I mean, Bob?"

I nodded knowingly. She watched me, then grunted, knowing I knew that we both knew that Bill Wilson was not, at his age-mid-fifties, I now guessed his wife to be-going to get into the habit of "applying himself." Though I did wonder what Wilson had applied himself to lately that might make the Wilsons rich. And if Crane Trefusis had, in fact, found a "spot" for him that he hadn't mentioned to Kay.

I said, "Were you at home last night, Kay?"

"Sure. Why do you ask that?"

"I thought you or your husband might have heard some unusual traffic after midnight sometime.

I don't suppose you get a lot of cars going back and forth on Moon Road. Was Bill here too?"

She cocked a moist yellow drawing of an eyebrow. "Course, Bill was here. Nah, we didn't hear nothin'. Hey-where'd you think Bill was? He's my husband, iznee? Think he was out foolin' around with some woman who's younger and better-lookin'?"

"I thought maybe he'd worked late."

"I'll bet you did, ha-ha." She gave me a significant look. "The fact is, Bob," she said in a confidential tone, "my husband don't play around no more. And neither do I. At least… not a whole lot." She eyed me ap-praisingly, the pink tip of her tongue protruding from between lightly clamped teeth. Her leg shifted, and the National Enquirer slid to the floor. She said, "Every wunst in a while, Bob, I do meet a man who finds me quite sexy for an older woman. Somethin' like that Joan Collins on Dynasty. And if that man is someone I myself consider to be attractive.

.. we-l-l-l-l…"

I said, "I'm gay."

"Huh?"

"I'm a homophile."

"What kinda file?

"I go for men. Like Dot Fisher goes for women. I'm a homosexual. 'Gay,' we call it. Even if The New York Times won't. Kay, I'm a fruit."

After a confused couple of seconds, it hit her, and she threw her head back and whooped with laughter. "Oh, shoot, ha! ha! Oh, that's a good one kid, ha! ha! Oh, fer- that's the first time any man ever dropped that one on me!"

She laughed and coughed uproariously for a good minute, then gradually settled down and gave me a sweet, understanding look.

"You don't have to say a thing like that about yourself, Bob. Truly. Shoot, I know I'm not as attractive as I used to be." She tried to smile again.

"None of us is," I said, knowing that some people did age beautifully-Timmy would, I could tell already-and that others, like Kay Wilson, peaked in physical allure at the age of thirty, or twenty, or fourteen.

We spent a not entirely relaxed couple of minutes exchanging cliches on aging, and then I took out from my wallet a photo of Timmy and me, arms entwined, at the 1978 gay-pride parade in New York City. She studied it with lips pursed and kept looking up at me to see if I was really the man in the picture. Finally, satisfied that I was, she relaxed suddenly, grinned, and said, "Ho-boy. You're somethin', Bob. Hyo-boy. Wait'll the girls out at the home hear about this one."

Kay brought us both some potato chips, and then I asked her if she had other family members or friends who might be mad enough at Dot Fisher to harass or threaten her Kay used the opportunity to describe her six grown children, none of whom seemed to be likely suspects.

Two of the Wilson offspring were in Southern California, two lived in Queens, one was a career Army man in Germany, and the youngest, Crystal-Marie, was in a downstate mental hospital.

None had visited Albany recently. As for friends, yes, all of them were sympathetic and put out, Kay said, but she could think of none who'd shown any sign of providing the Wilsons with an un-requested assist in ridding the neighborhood of Dot and Edith.

I thanked her and said I'd return the next day to speak with her husband.

"Sure thing, Bob. Just give us a call first and make sure we're on the premises and ain't stepped out. And you tell Mrs. Fisher I'm real sorry to hear about her trouble. Maybe I'll just traipse down there tomorrow and stick my nose in. And you be sure to say hi to Crane for me, you hear? That Crane, he's quite a guy, quite a guy. And you know, Bob, you're quite a guy, too. Lordy."

I had a quick triple burger at Wendy's. While I ate, I thought a lot about two people: Joey Deem and Bill Wilson.

I headed back down Central through the fuming Friday evening traffic, pulled into Freezer Fresh, and ordered a chocolate cone with sprinkles.

"Joey Deem here tonight? I'd like to talk to him for just a minute."

"Joey? No, he called in sick," I was told by a young black man in a Freezer Fresh paper hat.

"He won't be in at all tonight then?"

"Not if he's sick," the kid said blandly, dipping my cone in a bowl of multicolored specks of dubious digestibility. "Health department wouldn't like it."

From a pay phone I called Dot's place to find out if Lew Morton had arrived. He had, Dot said, 25 as well as a patrolman whom Ned Bowman had left at the house to look after things until Peter Greco got back at midnight. There had been no further threatening letters or phone calls.

I drove on into the city, the sun melting into a gaseous black blanket spread across the sky behind me. As I drove, I thought maybe this whole business was going to be a lot simpler than I had feared it would be. Or maybe, since Crane Trefusis had a hand in it, it wouldn't. On the one hand this, on the other hand that.