days in India back at the end of the Pat Boone era, and as he sipped the roily substance, he watched me with growing apprehension.
I said, 'I wear red suspenders, drive a week-old BMW, and charge ten thousand dollars a day.' Timmy gave a little nod of approval.
Rutka said, 'Seriously.'
'Seriously, my pants are held up by a disintegrating belt I picked up at an after-Christmas sale at Penney's in 1974, I drive an old Mitsubishi with rust spots on the doors, and my rate is two hundred dollars a day plus expenses.'
'That's reasonable. I'd like to hire you.'
'To do what?'
'To find out who shot me and have him arrested.'
'I'm telling you, John, that's the Handbag Police Department's job. That's how they'll see it and they'll be right. Police departments solve crimes.'
'They can't do it.'
'You don't know that,' I said. 'You insist on fairness but you're not being fair.'
'I've never insisted on fairness. If you believe that, you don't understand me at all. It's too late for fairness. I want change. I want people to confront their own bigotry, and I want this society to confront its own ignorance and stupidity, and I want bigotry and stupidity to wither under the harsh glare of the sunlight of truth.'
'Oh, well. I stand corrected.'
A silence, then a long sigh. 'Look, Strachey, just put yourself in my place, will you do that? Think how you'd feel and how you'd react if somebody shot a gun at you. Have you ever been shot? I'll bet you have.'
'No, just at. They missed.'
'But still, you know. You were very frightened.'
'Yes.'
'And you wanted the person who did it caught and locked up immediately.'
'I sure did.'
'Then you can begin to understand what I'm going through. How would you feel if your life depended on the level of competence at the Handbag Police Department?'
He had me there. 'I guess I'd feel the way you do. Endangered.'
'Whatever you think of me, should I be shot and killed?'
'I'm one of those who don't think so, no.'
'And what about those who do think so? Can the Handbag Police Department protect me from them?'
'Maybe.' When I said 'maybe,' Timmy's look of apprehension deepened.
'When it's your life, the only one you'll ever have, 'maybe' isn't good enough. Am I right about this?'
'Sure.' I looked away from Timmy, out the kitchen window at the box of pink petunias Timmy's Aunt Moira had hauled up from Poughkeepsie on the front seat of her Dodge. The thunderstorm the night before had bent them low, but in the morning sunshine they were starting to perk up nicely. With my well-practiced peripheral vision I could make out Timmy's mouth hanging open lightly. If I'd put a square of glass in front of it, I'd have gotten a little moisture.
'Don't you sometimes do security work?' Rutka said. 'Protect people and property for a fee?'
I said I'd done it from time to time.
'Well, how about protecting me? The fact is-' There was a tremulous pause. 'The fact of the matter is, Strachey, I'm scared to death. I really am. This time I really put my foot in it. I went after somebody who must be totally wacko. Whoever it is wants me dead and there isn't a fucking thing I can do about it. I'm vulnerable and I don't know what to do. For God's sake, can't you help me just because I'm fucking scared and I want help? I'll pay you, for God's sake, but I really need help.'
He waited. 'I could talk to you,' I finally said to the petunias.
'Will you?'
'It would be a security thing.'
'That's what I mean.'
'Did you ask the police for protection?'
A half-laugh, half-sob. 'They're going to drive by the house once an hour. A fucking lot of good that will do as soon as the killer sees them leave for the next fifty-nine minutes. Or if I leave the house to go anywhere.'
'This is true. You're not as well protected as you might be.'
'Bub Bailey said they were short-staffed, it being August and vacation time for some of the officers.'
'I couldn't stay with you twenty-four hours a day,' I said. 'If you wanted bodyguards I'd have to hire them and that could become expensive. Is that what you think you want?'
'I'll have to think about that.'
'But I could spend some time with you, become a known presence that would have the effect of unbalancing somebody trying to get at you. And I could advise you on precautions to take.'
'That could help a lot. And while you were around, I could fill you in on the people who would be the most likely to try to get at me. And naturally you could go through my research material and maybe come up with some leads on your own-stuff you could pass on to the cops without them having to go directly into the material, which I am not about to let the government see.'
I said, 'Oh, your files, right.' I looked Timmy directly in the eye and tried not to blink.
'You might spot something I missed myself,' Rutka said. 'I've got tons of notes and letters and memos. Sometimes I can't even read the handwriting. Mine or somebody else's.'
'I could sift through it. It couldn't hurt. And if I ended up assisting the police in their inquiries in a small way, maybe they would appreciate it, if I was tactful.'
'I can't tell you how relieved I am,' Rutka said. 'You might think I'm dogmatic and overly aggressive, but I'm human too and you recognize that. Whatever some people think I have coming, I don't deserve to be shot dead.'
'No.'
'Can you come out here this morning and we'll talk? I'm supposed to stay off this foot.'
We set a time and he gave me the address.
As I hung up, Timmy set down his mug. 'Why are you doing this?'
'Several reasons. Two, anyway. Three.'
'This guy has done things that turned your stomach.'
'He's also done things I approved of. Bruno Slinger, for one, had it coming.' This was the state senatorial aide who had lobbied vigorously, and successfully, to have a hate-crimes bill killed. I said, 'Having that low slug sauteed was a public service worthy of a Nobel Prize.'
'The Nobel Prize in outing?'
'Biophysics, then.'
'Except the stunt backfired, because Slinger is a man comfortable with the big lie. He just denied it and said the fags were trying to smear him. What good did any of it do?'
'It did some good,' I said. 'People believed it. They don't take Slinger as seriously anymore. His effectiveness could be cut down. People snicker at him behind his back.'
'Indeed they do,' Timmy said, looking both smug and disgusted, one of his more practiced expressions. 'But they don't laugh at him because he's a liar and hypocrite and probably borderline psychotic. They do it because he's gay. He's another wretched homo. See, that's my point: When Rutka outs the monsters, people start talking about monstrous homosexuals. When he outs nice guys who are just well-known, then people talk about gay people as pathetic victims. Either way distorts the truth and hurts the cause. Rutka is unfair and he's wrong and he's dangerous.'
I said, 'I know. I mean, I agree with you up to a point.'
'Which point?'
'Irrationality has its uses. Irrational people have theirs. They draw attention to a problem that's pretty much ignored otherwise, and then the more rational people on the same side of the issue move to the forefront and get taken seriously and the problem starts to get solved.' Then I added, all too superfluously, 'Sometimes you have to crack a few eggs to make an omelette.'
