"I'll have to call someone in New York. You might have to go down and pick it up."

"I can't."

"Why?"

"Rhoda would be suspicious. When I got back, she'd never leave Stu out of her sight."

"I'm kind of tied up around here. And Timmy-he'll have to be told, but he won't want to be involved. He'll accept it, but he won't be able to bring himself to participate. I can get it Fed-Exed up, I guess."

"When can you get it?"

"I'll call New York tonight and let you know tomorrow."

"Don't put it off, okay?"

"I won't."

He squeezed my hand and went back into the room.

When Timmy came back, he said, "Don't tell me. I do understand, but don't tell me."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, and we left it at that. end user

Where's the file?" Slinger said, gaping at my empty-handedness. "You didn't bring it with you?"

" It'?"

"You said you had the file Rutka kept on me. Do you mean to say you didn't bring it?"

I was seated on a settee across from Slinger in the living room of his Chestnut Street townhouse with the air conditioner on high and a gas fire blazing symmetrically in the fireplace. The portrait hanging above the mantel was of the Republican leader of the state senate, and on a sideboard there were signed photos in silver frames of, among others, Roy Cohn, Barbara Walters, and Adnan Khashoggi.

Slinger leaned toward me, looking edgy and vaguely predatory, and it was hard to resist the urge to back away. He was a big man and it was plain that under his dressing gown he had the massive chest and shoulders of someone who worked out an hour or two a day. He had a granite face with angry gray eyes, and wore a pompadoured hairpiece worthy of a CNN anchor.

Slinger suddenly pulled something from the pocket of his gown and flipped it onto the mahogany coffee table between us.

"What have we here, Bruno?"

"Count it."

"That won't be necessary."

"It's five thousand dollars. Take it. I'll trust you to walk home and bring back the file."

"The file is staying where it is, but that's beside the point."

He looked at me and made no move to take back the wad of cash wrapped with a rubber band. "I suppose you want me to suck your dick," he said. "Is that what this is all about? You want me to come over there and get down on my knees and suck your cock and lick your balls."

"Why did you work so hard to kill the hate-crimes bill?" I said.

He fell back now and snorted once. "I don't believe this. You call me up and threaten me with Rutka's goddamn files and then when I try to play your game the way you want it played, you back off. What's with you anyway, Strachey? What do you want?"

I said, "It's true, I did introduce the subject of the files in hopes of getting your cooperation, Bruno. But I don't want your money, and God knows I don't want you slobbering on any part of me. I just want you to answer two questions and then we can talk about the files. The first question is-I repeat-why did you work so hard to kill the hate-crimes bill?"

He shifted his gown and crossed his legs huffily. "It's a waste of time."

"The bill?"

"People who beat up queers are people who are going to beat up queers. They don't give a good goddamn what the law says."

"Convict a few of them and put their pictures on the front of the Post being led off in chains," I said, "and word will get around. Some of them who'd otherwise do it will think twice.

It'd make a difference, just like the federal civil-rights laws helped end lynching in the South."

"Honey, you live in a dream world," he said, sniffing. "Anyway, if a couple of stupid queens go swishing around down by the docks at three in the morning, maybe they're asking for trouble."

"What if they're swishing around at Seventh and Bleecker at eleven-thirty? Or Third and St. Mark's Place at ten to ten? Are you suggesting that there should be times and places when queer-bashing is restricted and times and places when it's not? How about alternate-side-of-the-street queer-bashing, and violators will have their bricks and lead pipes towed away? You're a dealmaker, Bruno. How's that for a compromise?"

He sighed deeply. "You know goddamn well why I worked against the legislation, Strachey. The man I work for hates fags. The senator believes homosexuality is an abomination and homosexuals are abominable and they deserve whatever they get."

"Whatever'they'get?"

"All right. We."

"Do you share the senator's views, Bruno?"

He reddened and for a long moment said nothing. Then: "I do what everybody does who can get away with it. I get on top and I stay there through any means at my disposal. If you're not doing that, my self-righteous friend, it is because you are weak."

I thought, Oh, hell, he's one of those. Arguing with one was like climbing a greased pole, except less intellectually rewarding.

I said, "Does the senator actually believe that you're not gay, that Rutka's column was a smear campaign by the Democratic minority in the senate?"

He chuckled. "Yes."

"Well, if you don't answer my next question, Bruno, I'm going to march into the senator's office the first time you're not there to guard the door, and I'm going to dump John Rutka's entire dossier on you onto the senator's desk-notes, memos, diaries, audiotapes, videotapes-a veritable Library of Congress of your sexual misadventuring. A lurid mixed-media cavalcade featuring Bruno Slinger and a variety of chaps in their birthday suits, wienies agog. What would you think of that?"

"I would consider it the act of a desperate scumbag. Are you saying there are actual tapes? I find that hard to believe."

"Remember Kevin?" I made this up.

"Oh, God."

"You didn't know you were being taped?" I made this up too. There were no audio or videotapes of anyone in any of Rutka's files.

"I can't remember who would have- Oh, God."

I said, "Tell me who you were with last night."

"That's the other question?"

"That's it. Answer it and then we can talk about the disposition of your file."

He looked more confident now. "The Handbag police chief came into my office today-just walked right in unannounced. If he had stayed a second longer, I would have had to ask the Capitol Police to remove him. The man apparently suspects me of John Rutka's murder. Can you imagine?"

"Of course I can imagine. Practically everybody who knows you can. When Rutka outed you in Cityscape, you told people you were going to rip his balls off. You probably wouldn't even think of it as murder, just real-politik. That's what people think. Did you do it?"

Without batting an eyelash, Slinger said, "John Rutka deserved what he got. He was a danger to society who deserved to be removed from it one way or another. I laughed when I heard he was dead. I was dee-lighted. But of course I had nothing to do with it. I'm not stupid. Too many people would want to pin it on me and I'm far too intelligent to make myself vulnerable by actually committing the noble but unfortunately unlawful deed. No, I did not kill John Rutka, and I can prove it."

"How? What's your alibi for last night?" "I spent the evening with two of Albany's most distinguished citizens. Both of them will vouch for my presence at a small get-together in Colonie from approximately seven P.M. until just before midnight."