Angelo pulled Loggins against his chest, looked at me, and said, 'Fuck this shit!'
I waited until Loggins had recovered and gulped down some of the creme soda Angelo shoved at him. I said, 'Just one last thing. What about Steve's family? Was he in touch with them?'
'No-' He snuffled. 'They were on the outs.' Angelo pulled a Valle's Steak House napkin from his back pocket, and Loggins blew his nose in it. 'Steven's folks live over in some hick place in Rensselaer. Last Christmas Steven told his sister he was gay, and she told his mom, and his mom asked him if it was true, and Steven said yes, and you know what Steven's mom said? She started screaming and she says, 'Oh, please, Steven, please don't have an operation! Please don't have an operation!' And then his dad came home and threw him out. He had to thumb back to Albany, and it took him three rides to get back here. He never did figure out what his mom meant by don't get an operation. Sex change, I guess. Who the fuck knows.'
Angelo said, 'He shouldna told his sister. Bitch! Never tell a woman nothin'!'
'Oh, Angelo, you're such a sexist asshole! Quit being such a fucking pig, would you pu-leez!'
'Daaaaa!'
At one I put four Price Chopper frozen waffles in Timmy's toaster oven. He handed me his old Boy Scout hatchet and said he'd pass. I said, 'Fuck this shit,' and ate an apple. Timmy said he'd do dinner at seven and had to spend the afternoon at the laundromat.
I drove over to Morton. Summer was back, and the air was hazy and sweet. High mackerel clouds swam across the sky over the South Mall, recently renamed the Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza in memory of the man who had caused the great granite bureaucratic space station on the Hudson to happen. Back at the apartment the heat, inexplicably, was on. Hurlbut must have forgotten his golf bag and come back. I opened all the windows.
I checked my service-no calls-then dialed the number for Chris. There was no answer. Frank didn't answer either, but I reached Billy Blount's other friend, Huey, and told him I was looking for Billy. He said he doubted he could help but that I could drop by around three. His voice sounded familiar.
I did sit-ups and push-ups, jogged around Lincoln Park for half an hour, then showered, put on jeans and a sweat shirt, and drove back up Delaware. Huey lived on Orange Street, between Central and Clinton, in one of Albany's two mainly black neighborhoods. As I climbed the front-porch stairs of the small frame house with its three or four tiny apartments, I knew I'd been there before.
'I thought I rec-a-nized that sexy voice,' he said. 'How you been, baby?' A smile spread across his shiny dark face, and his eyes were bright with sly pleasure. He had on a vermilion tank top and cutoff shorts and was barefooted. He'd told me during the night I'd spent with him a year or so back that his tight, neat, muscular body was 'the finest in Albany.' He'd said it with delighted satisfaction and no trace of embarrassment, and for all I knew, which was a good bit, he might have been right.
In Huey's living room I sat on the old, worn, boxy couch with little strands of silver running through the black upholstery. I said, 'Your voice sounded familiar, too, except I could have sworn the voice belonged to a guy I once knew named Philip Green.'
He threw his head back and laughed. 'Did I call myself that? Yea-hhh, well. You know how it is, baby.'
I knew. 'I'd hoped I'd run into you again,' I said loudly.
He turned down the volume on Disco 101-M's 'Pop Music' was on-and sat on the chair that matched the couch. He smoothed out a fresh white bandage that was wrapped around his exceedingly well developed upper arm and said, 'That would have been sweet. We sure had a real good time, as I remember, Ronald.'
'Donald.'
Laughing, he leaned over and squeezed my ankle. 'Can I get chu somethin' to drink? A Coke or a glass of wine or somethin'- Dahn-ald?'
'You can. A Coke.'
He went into the kitchenette. There was no evidence that anyone other than Huey was staying in the apartment. I could see into the small, windowless bedroom. The bed was made. The clothes piled atop the old dresser beside it looked like garments Huey could get away with wearing, but not Billy Blount.
'Too bad this ain't a social visit, Donald.' He handed me a Coke in a Holiday Inn glass. 'Even if you are a cop.' He sat down and looked at me.
I said, 'I'm a private detective,' and showed him my license.
'No shit.' He examined the card carefully. 'How you become one of these dudes? Take a test?'
He handed it back.
'You have to have three years' experience as a police, army, or agency investigator, pass an exam, and hock the family jewels to get licensed and bonded.'
'Must be in-ter-estin'. You been a cop?' His smile was strained.
'Army intelligence.'
'Ooooo, a spy! That sexy.'
'That was a while ago. Now I'm on my own and I'm looking for Billy Blount.'
'Yeah. You said.' He lit a Marlboro. 'How come you lookin' round my place, Donald? I don't truck wit no desss-per-ah-does.'
'Your name was written on Billy's phone book.'
'Yeah. Sergeant Bowman come around, too. Asshole come out here a hell of a lot quicker than the cops who come last night. Took them suckers half an hour to show up after I called, and meanwhile I'm bleedin' like a stuck pig. Some sumbitch busted in here to rip me off, and when I caught him, he cut me. See that?' He raised the bandaged arm. 'Eight stitches! Guess I was lucky, though. Coulda been ninety-two. This is what you call your high- crime neighborhood, Donald.'
'It was a burglar who cut you?'
'Yeah, I know about the routine. First the dude calls to see if I'm home. This one called twice last night. I answer the phone and there's no one sayin' anything and he hangs up. Checkin' to see if I'm home, which I am, with a friend I run into earlier over at the Terminal. Then around two in the mornin' my friend leaves and I guess this dude's watchin' the house, see, and thinks it's me goin' out, and he comes in that winda there. I was just goin' to sleep and I hear this fucker and I get up and I'm gonna jam his nose right up into his brain, see-I do martial arts, right? — except the guy's got a knife and he cuts me and it's so dark he's back out the winda-head first, I think
— before I can kick his balls up his ass. There'd a been lights on, they'd of carried that dude outa here on a stretcher. Anyways, I think he ain't comin' back. Not if he don't want his neck busted off.'
'Did you get any kind of look at him?'
'Too dark. Average-size guy, and I'm pretty sure white with light hair. But I doubt I'd rec-a-nize him on the street. Guess I better get the lock fixed on that winda. Been meanin' to for six months.'
'Yeah, you should. Look, I might be way off base, but-how do you know this was a burglar?'
A bewildered look. 'I don't get chu, Donald.'
'Well-it's like this. You know that Steve Kleckner was stabbed in his apartment in the middle of the night just a week ago. The people who know him don't think Billy Blount committed the murder, and it's possible-do you see what I'm saying?'
He blinked, and I could see the icy tremor run through him. He said, 'Nah. Nah, no way. That bad stuff go on all the time around here, Donald. Shee-it. Nah. I don't believe it was the freak who done that murder. This was just some shit-ass dude after my stereo. I didn't even know that Kleckner boy. Had nothin' to do wif his friends or anything.'
'But you know Billy Blount. The, uh, intruder-he didn't look like Billy, did he?'
He gave me a cold, hard look and said, 'No. Billy I'd know. I know Billy.'
'Sure. You would. And you're right; there's probably no connection. But you'll get that lock fixed, right?'
'Sure, Donald. If it'll put your mind at ease.' He grinned. 'Wouldn't want chu to worry about ol'
Huey unless you was gonna be here to worry 'bout me in person and we could cheer us bofe up.
Ain't that right, baby?'
'Just get the lock fixed,' I said, ambivalence swelling like a doughy lump in my lower abdomen.
'Knowing that you're safe will cheer me up enough for now.'
He chuckled.
I said, 'Fill me in on Sergeant Bowman's visit. What did you tell him?'
His eyes narrowed, and I could see the perspiration forming on his forehead. 'I told him, 'Yassuh, no suh,
