This was murky. " 'Criminal record' is putting it strongly," I said. "The trespassing charges were probably ACT-UP zaps demonstrations against institutions that some people think hurt and kill people with their policies on AIDS and figurative and literal gay-bashing. I haven't done it myself-I don't want to lose my license-but I greatly admire a lot of what they do. As for the drug charge, I'd want to know more about that. It's out of character-he's an M amp;M addict-and there might be an explanation. You said you had your reasons for laying all this out for me. Let's get to the point. What are you after from me?"

"I want to convince you," he said, "that John Rutka and Edward Sandifer are going to end up in jail if they stay in the Albany area, and I want you to talk them into leaving."

"Oh."

"John apparently trusts you. He doesn't trust me- thinks I'm one of the old farts who hates gays. That's not true. My education and training have taught me to be broad-minded, whatever my upbringing. But John would never listen to me, anyway. He's the family rebel and I'm too much like family. So I want to convince you that John should go out to San Francisco or someplace like that where his type of gays are more welcome and can feel at home. Just pack up and go. Now."

"He'd never do it."

"You can convince him. It's for his own good."

"Chief, I have no idea why John Rutka stayed on in Handbag after his parents died, but he's here and he thinks of it as home, and it's his right to stay here, that's for sure."

"Yes, it is. And it is not only my right but my obligation to prosecute him for any crimes he's committed-provided he's here in Handbag for the prosecution to take place. If he's gone from Handbag for good, I can probably get away with letting a few things slide by. But if he stays, I'll have to charge him, and I'd hate to, really. A lot of people who knew Charlie and Doris Rutka would hate to see it too, including my wife, who was Doris's best friend. See my problem? I don't want to prosecute John, but I will if he stays in Handbag. I'll expose the scam he's working-the arson squad's report will come to me for disposition-and I'll see that he's punished for it. I'll have no choice. Now do you see the situation we've got to deal with here?"

He gazed at me placidly.

I said, "Yes, I think I see what the situation is we've got to deal with. But I don't think John and Eddie are going to see it the same way."

"I'm going to leave that up to you," he said, and picked up his folders. end user

I drove back into Albany, took a ten-minute cold shower, and phoned Rutka.

"I've been threatened again," he said before I could get a word in. " 'This time you're going to burn,' was what the guy said. I didn't recognize the voice, but the asshole scared the shit out of me. Whether it was somebody capable of actually hurting me or not, I don't know, but the voice was full of hatred and I don't want to take any chances. What kind of protection did you get Bailey to agree on?"

The throbbing in the back of my skull that Rutka induced much of the time started up. I said, "That was all the caller said, "This time you're going to burn?"

"He said it twice, the same thing."

"To you or to Eddie?"

"To me. I answered the phone. Eddie has the gun and he's watching out the back door and I'm watching out the front. The arson investigators were here, but then they left and we were here alone. We explained to the investigators about Grey Koontz, how that's who Mrs. Renfrew must have seen, and they said they'd check it out. They were businesslike enough. Not exactly friendly, but what can you expect? And then about ten minutes ago this call came in. So am I about to get some protection, or not?"

"I had a long talk with Bub Bailey," I said. "He says he has your best interests at heart, and I think he means it."

A pause. "What is that supposed to mean?"

I recited the whole story: Bailey's evidence eliminating Sandifer's alibi for the time of the firebomb attack, on top of Mrs.

Renfrew's placing Sandifer in the neighborhood; Bailey's litany of Rutka's crimes and misdemeanors in New York, as well as his long history of lying; Bailey's offer of a deal-get out of town and don't come back, so that Bailey won't have to prosecute the son of an old friend, as well as the son's boyfriend. I left out the part where Bailey suggested San Francisco as a city where Rutka and Sandifer might feel more at home; mentioning it would only set Rutka off on a tirade whose object was beside the point.

Rutka, of course, came up with his own semi-irrelevancy. After I finished, there was a long silence. Then he said, "Do you have any idea why I took the hypodermic and the drugs from the hospital? Do you?"

"No. Okay, tell me."

"And do you know what the drug was?"

"No. And I don't feel like guessing."

"It was morphine," he said. "Morphine for a man in horrible pain whose body was half gone and who for twenty-four hours a day for a solid week had been begging to die. Do you have any idea? Have you ever been around such horror?"

"Yes, I have."

"Then you must understand. It's not that I shouldn't have taken the drug-nobody will ever convince me of that. It's just that I shouldn't have gotten caught."

"Okay."

"Or I should have gotten the stuff on the underground market. That's a lot easier now than it was then, but it was possible and I should have done it that way. But I did what I knew how to do at the time, and I paid for it with my job and with my New York State R.N.'s license."

"I'm sorry."

"It's a fucking crime the way people with AIDS have to suffer because of a profit-driven and corrupt homophobic health-care establishment in this country. That's a crime, not what I did." He went on with a speech to which I half listened and half thought about Aunt Moira's petunias out the window and the dull, sunny lives they lived.

When Rutka was through, I said, "Look, none of that makes up for the fact that Chief Bailey apparently has the goods on Eddie.

Eddie has no alibi for the hour he was away from Kopy-King, and Mrs. Renfrew saw him in the yard. Bailey thinks you two planned the fire and, to tell you the truth, the evidence he's got makes a certain impression on me."

A long, tremulous sigh. "First of all," he said, "has anyone asked Eddie where he was at the time of the fire? Under our system of government-unless it was changed over the weekend and I didn't hear about it- under our constitutional system, a man has a right to examine the evidence against him. He has a right to face his accuser. And he is, of course, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. So naturally I am a little fucking bit disturbed that the Chief of Police of Handbag is going around making accusations of criminal misconduct behind a citizen's back! It's fucking unconstitutional, is what it is!"

I found a bottle of aspirin atop the refrigerator, held the phone between my chin and shoulder, and managed to pop the little bottle's lid. "So what would Eddie say if he was asked to account for his whereabouts at the time of the fire? Can you put him on the line?" I filled a glass of water and gulped down the two aspirin.

"Oh, I can see now exactly what is going on here. Bailey told you this bullshit and now it sounds as if you agree with him and you're going to join him in his campaign to blame the victim."