Now Barner looked thoughtful, and said, 'Are you still with that Irish kid?'
Timmy would love this. 'Timothy Callahan, yes. But if that's who you're thinking of, he was an adult sixteen years ago, and he's even more of one now.'
'I figured it would last.'
'We've had our ups and downs. But we're in it for the long haul. Our differences drive us both nuts sometimes, but we complete each other in an interestingly asymmetrical way. Plus, we still get each other's pulses racing somewhat more often than you might think. It's definitely a marriage made in purgatory, as all the best ones are. Somebody once accused us of being the Ozzie and Harriet of gay Albany, and Timmy took it as a compliment.'
Barner seemed to mull this over; then he said, 'I'd like you to meet Dave.'
'I'd like to. Is he a detective too?'
'Patrolman.'
'I see. How old?'
'Twenty-six. He's mature.'
'And has mature tastes, which is even better.'
'He's a hunk, Strachey.'
'That's no handicap either.'
'In some ways I wish I could be more like him. But I can't.'
'Does he expect you to become more like him?'
Barner thought this over. 'He'd definitely prefer it,' he said after a moment. 'But he knows I'm set in my ways. He knows it, but he doesn't accept it. That's the problem, if you see what I mean. I don't know how long he's gonna stick around.'
'It's as tricky as anything,' I said. 'A couple can be out, or a couple can be in. But when one person's in and the other person's out, the picture can get a little too abstract-expressionistic for most people to handle. I hope you can figure out a way to make it work, if you both want to.'
'It might. Dave likes me. He thinks I'm a good cop, and smart-and hot.'
'That was my impression.'
Barner said, 'The thing that gets to me is, he sees other guys sometimes.'
'Oh. And you don't?'
'Nah.'
'That is definitely another complication.' 'Yeah.' 'Hmm.'
'We spend most of our time together when we're off duty. So these other guys mostly they're not an issue.'
'What do you like to do together, you and Dave? I mean generally speaking.'
'Watch Yankee games, have a beer, go out for a nice meal, get it on. You know.'
I said, 'I take it you're not out with anybody except your close friends?'
'Correct.'
'And not these bozos here at the radio station? I shouldn't address you as
'Detective Mary Mary Quite Contrary' in the presence of the J-Bird?'
'Jesus!'
'How did you end up detective in charge of the FFF case? Luck of the draw?'
Barner allowed himself a sly little grin. 'I requested it. I remembered the Blount case in seventy-nine, and that you had FFF connections. I thought I might be able to bring you into it.'
'And here I am, although not for long, I think. The J-Bird and his gang of boneheads are not people I want to work for. If this were North Korea and my family were starving, I'd have to think it over. Thankfully, that's not the case. Sorry to crap out on you, but I think I'm about to head back north.'
Barner looked puzzled. 'You don't want to take money from these people? You think these people's money is dirtier than anybody else's? You're pretty fucking idealistic for somebody your age, Strachey. You need to get out in the big bad world more often.
You must have been stuck up in Albany a little too long.'
'Lyle, it's not my ideals I'm afraid of losing, it's my breakfast. And my temper.'
'Uh-huh.'
'It's been awhile since I've had to restrain myself from decking a client.'
Barner laughed. 'Jesus, Strachey, I know caterers who put up with more obnoxious clients than Plankton and Jerry Jeris. Why don't you hang in for a few days anyway?
Take the J-Bird's money, and find out what you can about the old FFF. It'll be interesting, and it'll make my life easier. Do it as a favor to me. I don't want to come right out and say that you owe me one. But if you keep this up, I might have to.' He looked at me and waited.
I felt my pleasant postlunch train ride back to Albany begin to slip away. Barner had once saved my neck, if not my ear, in a case involving the two elderly lesbians who were now Timmy's and my neighbors on Crow Street. A developer trying to drive them out of their semirural home near Albany had set in motion a plot that led to a violent confrontation with two murderous goons and a vicious dog, and it was Barner who had arrived on the scene accompanied by Timmy with milliseconds to spare.
Was I indebted to Barner? There were those who would say so, yes.
I said, 'Lyle, I really don't know how helpful I can be. It's hard to imagine that these neo-FFFers have any connection with the old FFF. The bunch that operated back in the sixties and seventies were ideological, but they were also hardheaded realists with attainable goals. Mostly rescuing the wrongly imprisoned from private mental institutions. This new gang is flaky as hell. Using intimidation to rid the airwaves of homophobia? It's a sweet impulse, but apparently these people are not familiar with the statutes on assault, or on extortion-or with the United States Constitution. Or with the realities of the American marketplace, either.'
'They appear to be different people, that's true,' Barner said. 'But it can't be coincidence that they're calling themselves the Forces of Free Faggotry.'
'They could have read about the old FFF. It's written about in some of the histories of the movement. Have you tried tracking down any of the old FFFers on your own? All you have to do is go into a bookstore or public library, find a good history of the modern gay movement, check the index for the FFF, get some names of people, and then locate them through your usual Orwellian technological means.'
Barner's face tightened. 'Yeah, I could have done that,' he said. 'I could even have figured out on my own that I could have done that. But I didn't do that.'
'I see.'
'Why didn't I do it that way? Why have I used the more roundabout method of bringing you into the case to track down the FFF?'
'Right. Why?'
'Because,' Barner said, 'I thought it would be nice to reconnect with you. That's one reason.'
'Uh-huh.'
'The other reason is,' Barner said, his color rising again, 'I don't go into gay bookstores. I don't go anywhere near the gay section in Barnes and Noble. I don't go anywhere near the gay sections in libraries. Get the picture?'
'Lyle, this is worse than I thought.'
'I'm fucked up. I know.'
'Are you out with Dave? Have you confessed to your boyfriend that you're a homosexual?'
Barner laughed ruefully. 'Anyway, he can tell.'
'Why didn't you ask Dave to help you find a book with the FFF in it? He sounds like the kind of man who might stride into a bookshop and brazenly make a purchase. Pat Buchanan's worst nightmare for America come true.'
'I could have asked Dave for help,' Barner said. 'But to tell you the truth, I just didn't feel like getting something started.'
'Right. So you arranged for me to drag my ass a hundred and fifty miles down the Hudson Valley, at the J-Bird's expense, just because you preferred not to have an argument with your boyfriend?'
'No, it's not just that.'
'What else is it?'
