midnight.
It was another good crowd. A sign by the door said five percent of the take that night was being donated to the Albany-Schenectady-Troy Gay Alliance, and a good number of the local gay pols and organizers were on hand, self-consciously clutching their draughts and trying to blend in with the looser, more blase types who were always readier to roll with whatever life shoved at them.
When we went in, Bonnie Pointer's 'Heaven Must Have Sent You' was on, and whenever she growled 'Sex- x-xyyy,' the younger, less inhibited dancers yelped and shouted. I wondered what Norman Podhoretz would have made of it.
Truckman himself was at the door, tipsy and unkempt in green work pants and an old gray sweat shirt. He pulled me aside and asked me if I'd found Blount. I said not yet, that it might take awhile.
'Well, you keep at it,' Truckman said, looking grim and nervous, 'because the goddamn cops aren't going to do a thing.'
'You mean because the victim was gay?'
'You've been around, Don. You know.'
'Times have changed a little-'
'What?' He leaned closer in order to hear. The DJ segued from Bonnie Pointer into Nightlife Unlimited's 'Disco Choo-choo.'
'I said times are changing- partly because of guys like you, Mike. And anyway, as far as anyone knows, this is the first gay murder in Albany. Its novelty must have piqued a certain amount of curiosity among our jaded constabulary.'
'Have you been in touch with the cops?' He leaned even closer to hear my answer to this, and I could smell the bourbon on his breath.
'Monday-I'll be seeing Sergeant Bowman on Monday. Do you know him? He's the one in charge.'
'No.' He shook his head. 'Not that one.'
'The thing is,' I said, 'even when I find Blount-I'm not so sure he's the one who did it.'
Timmy came from the bar, handed me a draught, and stood listening.
Truckman glared at me, swayed boozily, and said, 'Oh, he did it, the little asshole! And you just better catch up with the little sonovabitch before he does it again. The cops aren't gonna do it.
You can't trust the fucking cops.'
I nodded. 'Yeah. I suppose you're right.'
Truckman looked at me a moment longer. Behind the cold gray of his eyes there was anger, and hurt and, I thought, a kind of pleading. Then, abruptly, he turned and went back to the door to resume his lookout for minors, riffraff, and straight couples from Delmar in search of wickedness.
We started for the dance floor.
Timmy said, 'I think you're right. Mike knows more about this than he's telling.'
'He acts that way. Though guilty appearances are often deceiving. I do know he's been less than forthcoming on the subject of his relationship with Steve Kleckner.'
'Should I say it?'
'Yes.'
'I hate to.'
'Say it.'
'Where was Mike that night?'
'Here.'
'Till when?'
'Four, at least.'
'And what time did the-thing happen?'
The killing. It was a killing. It happened around five-thirty.'
'You could look into that.'
'I could.'
We passed some people we knew from the Gay Alliance and stopped to talk-shout. Taka Boom's 'Night Dancin'' came on. The guys from the alliance told us some friends of theirs had arrived at Trucky's from the Rat's Nest and reported that it had just been raided again by the Bergenfield police. This time it was violations of the building code. Jim Nordstrum, the owner, had lost his temper and started screaming about the US Constitution. It hadn't helped. They'd gotten him for disturbing the peace. The alliance was considering joining Nordstrum in a court case-though with a certain reluctance owing to the bad press the alliance would get by affiliating itself with an establishment of the Rat's Nest's rather too special ambiance.
Timmy, a sometime Catholic who was pretty consistently repelled by the darker side of gay life
— just being homosexual was decadent enough for his Irish sensibilities-nevertheless volunteered to help set up a legal defense fund if the alliance chose to go ahead. The pols said the organization was divided over the matter but would decide soon. Timmy said he'd stay in touch.
We made it back to the dance floor and danced for eight or ten songs, then decided to break after Michael Jackson's 'Don't Stop Till You Get Enough.' For the moment we'd had enough.
Back at the bar I said, 'When I was twenty-five, one of the things I wanted most in life was to go to bed with Paul McCartney, who was around twenty-one. Now I'm forty, and one of the things I want most in life is to go to bed with Michael Jackson, who's around twenty-one. What does this mean?'
Timmy said, 'There won't always be youth, but there will always be youths.'
We drank our beer. The DJ was playing Peter Brown's 'Crank It Up.'
'Hi there, big guy, you come here often?' A deep voice from behind me. Apprehensive, I turned.
Phil Jerrold was laughing silently. Mark Deslonde was with him.
'Thanks,' Deslonde said, doing his smile-and-tilted-head thing. 'He was where you said he'd be last night.'
I said, 'Donald Strachey-Private Investigations-Discreet Introductions.'
'Actually, we'd met,' Phil said, smiling a little goofily.
Timmy said, 'Maybe you'll run into each other again sometime. And each of you certainly hopes so.'
They both grinned, Phil with his squint, Deslonde with his whiskers and angles. Timmy was right; they were looking very couple-y.
Timmy, in the two-and-a-half years I'd known him, had threatened at least once a month to compose a song that started: 'I fell in love-in Washington Park/With a man who'd remarked on the weather,' but he'd never gotten around to finishing it. I knew the moment was once again upon us.
Timmy said, 'I'm going to write a song someday that starts…'
I sang along, and Phil, who'd heard it too, joined in.
'The trouble is,' Timmy said then, 'nothing apt rhymes with weather.'
Phil said, 'Feather.'
I suggested, 'Tether.'
Deslonde said, 'How about 'sweatshirt?'
We looked at him. We all laughed together, except for Deslonde, who looked embarrassed and said, 'I majored in business.'
Later, as we were about to leave, Deslonde asked me whether I'd made any progress in locating Billy Blount. Phil and Timmy went back to the dance floor for one last spasm, and Deslonde and I stepped out into the cool quiet under Trucky's portico.
I said, 'No, but I've got a couple of ideas. Do you know about a woman in Billy's life? Someone he might be fairly close to?'
'He never mentioned any,' Deslonde said. 'If there is one, it'd probably be platonic. Billy told me he knew he was gay when he was sixteen, and that he's never had any sexual interest in women at all. He said a shrink his parents once sent him to kept talking about his 'confused sexual identity,' but Billy said it was the shrink who was confused, that the guy couldn't understand plain English.'
'Our mental-health establishment at work,' I said. 'Mob rule under the guise of science.'
'I went to a sane one once. He was okay. Pretty cool, in fact, and smart. Where did you hear about the woman?' 'From Huey what's-his-name. He's seen them together.' 'What about Frank Zimka? Did he know
