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"Well, you knohat Tallulah Bankhead said 'All I know is he never sucked ' I haven't heard any stories and I haven't seen hih you don't have to be when you're Episcopalian, do you? But he looks gay and his energy is gay Itall those hot kids andsure he keeps his pants zipped No wonder he doesn't have too ood little boys"

I first o when I was a detective attached to the Sixth Precinct in the Village The station house was on Charles Street then- it's long sincepart tione now- Kenny Banks, who'd owned it, had sold out and moved to Key West Before that happened, Gordie and a partner had hborhood and opened Kid Gloves in the room on Ninth Avenue where Skip Devoe and John Kasabian had had Miss Kitty's Kid Gloves didn't last too long, and now Gordie orking in a joint that had been warehouse space back when I was carrying a gold shield It was down in the southwest corner of the Village at Clarkson and Greenwich, and it had called itself Uncle Bill's when it opened a few years ago Since then it had been reborn as Calamity Jack's, with a western motif

It was late afternoon and Gordie had plenty of time to spend with me I was one of three custo Irish coffee and reading a newspaper at the end of the bar, and a stockybumper pool I showed Gordie e bars, and he shook his head

"They're cute, though," he said "But I never had a taste for chicken, "

"Kenny liked theible I was a sweet young thing myself when I worked for him, and I was already too old to catch his eye But you won't find much chicken around the bars, Matt Not the way you used to, not since the drinking age went frohteen to twenty-one A fourteen-year-old could pass for eighteen in die or could show so fake ID But you'd have to be seventeen to pass for twenty-one, and by that time you're past your prio not to be judger participants in their own seduction So into a rown-up to have sex with a child I don't care if the kid wants it I think it's wrong"

"I don't knohat's right and wrong anyht cops always know"

"They're supposed to And thata cop"

"I certainly hope this doesn't ot," he said "It's all I know" He picked up one of the sketches and tugged his lower lip as he looked at it "The boys who hustle older men are ton Avenue in the low Fifties Times Square, of course And the Hudson piers fro out on the river side of West Street and the johns drive up in their cars"

"I was in a few of the West Street bars before I ca stuff in those places And the hawks don't gather there, either They're oing home to their wives and kiddies" He put a fresh squirt of seltzer in lass "There is one bar you should try, but not until later on in the day Not before nine-thirty or ten, I wouldn't think You won't find boys there, but you ht run into sohth Square On Tenth Street just off Greenwich Avenue"

"I know it," I said "I've passed it, but I never kneas gay"

"You wouldn't necessarily know from the outside But it's where all theThe name says it all, doesn't it?" I hth Square That's where a pawn becoed out of our dinner date She had either flu or the worst cold ever and it had knocked out her energy, her appetite, and her ability to e was naps in front of the TV I stayed don and had spinach pie and a baked potato at a Sheridan Square coffee shop and went to aat a storefront clubhouse on Perry Street I ran into a woman I'd known at St Paul's She'd sobered up there, then moved in with her boyfriend on Bleecker Street She wasI walked over to the Eighth Square The bartender wore a tanktop with a Gerh he spent a lot of tiested I ask him for help, and I showed him the sketches of the boys

"Look around," he said "See anyone like that here? You won't, either Didn't you see the sign? 'Be twenty-one or be gone' It's not purely decorative It n," I said " 'If you're gay please stay away' "

"I re "As if anyone asn't a little light on his feet would ever darken their door But ould you expect froue queens?" He leaned on an elbow "But you're going way back Before Gay Pride, before Stonewall"

"True"

"Let me have another look Are they brothers? No, they don't really look alike, it's more attitude, isn't it? You look at thes, Scout hikes and skinny-dipping A paper route Playing catch on the back laith Dad Listen to me, will you, I sound like The Donna Reed Show"

He didn't recognize the boys, and neither did the few customers he showed the sketches to "We really don't allow the sandbox set in here," he said "We come here to complain about how cruel they are, or how much it costs to keep the the third sketch, the one of Rubber Man "I think I've seen him," he said "I can't swear to it, but I think I've seen him"

A couple of other men came over and leaned over me to examine the sketch "Of course you've seen him," one said "You've seen him in the movies It's Gene Hackman"

"It does look like him," another said

"On the worst day of his life," the bartender said "I see what you mean, but it's not hih? Isn't it easier to identify soraphs are so cos, I think they're a very fresh idea"