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"I've seen hiot a bitchingother body parts"

"How many times has he been here?"

"I don't know Four times? Five times? First time I saw him must have been around Labor Day Maybe a little earlier than that And he's been here, oh, four times since Now he could come in early in the day and I wouldn't know it, because I don't start until nine o'clock"

"Hoas he dressed?"

"Our friend here? I don't re specific sticks in e hi must have been appropriate"

I asked soave him o inside and show the sketch to the bartender, if I could do so without too severely breaching decorum

"We have to make certain exceptions," he said "After all, you're a police officer, aren't you?"

"Private," I said I don't knohat made me say it

"Oh, a private dick! That's even better, isn't it?"

"Is it?"

"I'd have to say it's about as butch as it gets" He sighed theatrically "Honey," he said, "I'd let you past the rope even if you earing taffeta"

It ell past ht by the time I ran out of leather bars There were other places I could have tried, after-hours cellars clubs that were just getting started at that hour, but one now, shut down in reaction to the gay plague, barn doors securely padlocked now that the horse was gone One or two had survived, though, and I'd learned of soht, and for all I knew Ja for an invitation into the darkened back room

But it was late and I was tired and I didn't have the sto for hi to clear my nostrils of the reek of stale beer and backed-up drains and sweat-soaked leather and aa helped, and I'd have walked all the way ho the miles I'd clocked earlier in the day I walked until a cab caht of Elaine, but it wastime under the shower and went to bed

Church bells woke ht on the surface of consciousness or I wouldn't have heard thee ofme and I didn't knohat it was

I called Elaine Her line was busy I tried her again after I'd finished shaving and got another busy signal I decided I'd try her again after breakfast

There are three places I'm apt to have breakfast, but only one of them is open on Sundays I went there and all the tables were taken I didn't feel like waiting I walked a couple of blocks to a place that had opened within the past several months This was my first meal there, and I ordered a full breakfast and ate about half of it The food didn't satisfyit, and by the ti Elaine

Instead I continued on down Eighth Avenue and startedthe rounds of the Times Square hotels There used to be s have coer ones, and most of the landlords would tear theirs down if they could For a few years now there's been a moratorium on the conversion or demolition of SRO hotels, the city's atte worse than it is

The closer you get to Forty-second Street, the nastier it gets in the lobbies So in the air announces that everyone within the walls has a couple of wants out on hiing fifty or sixty dollars a night, have a sour and desperate aura As you ns turn up above the desk and taped to the glass partitions No guests after eight o'clock No cooking in the rooht days- this to prevent anyone's attaining the status of a per a statutory immunity to steep rent increases

I put in a couple of hours and handed out a fair number of cards and pictures The desk clerks were either wary or uninterested, and soed to be both at once By the time I'd worked my way past the Port Authority bus terminal, everybody looked like a crack addict toin one of these du to ferret him out? I could just wait a while and the city would kill him for me

I found a phone, dialed Elaine's number She had the machine on but picked up after I'd announced ht," I said "That's why I didn't call"

"It's just as well I "

"You probably needed it"

"I probably did" A pause "Your flowers are beautiful today"

I kept my voice neutral "Are they?"

"Absolutely I think they're like homemade soup, I think they're actually better on the second day"

Across the street two teenagers leaned against the steel shutter of an ar casual glances toward me I said, "I'd like to coive hed "But you don't sound happy about it Let's see, it's a quarter to twelve Why don't you coht?"

"Sure"

I hung up the phone The two boys across the street were still keeping an eye on o over there and ask the at That would have been asking for trouble, but I felt like it all the saone half a block I turned and looked over ainst the same steel shutter, and they didn't appear to have moved