“That was a close call,” Blackie said, tucking his gun in his belt and scowling at me. “Are you okay? You aren’t hurt, are you?”

“No, I’m okay,” I said, even though I wasn’t. My nerves were jangling, my teeth were rattling, and my knees were shaking out of control. In the interest of appearing cool, however, I chose to withhold that information. “Thanks for saving my life,” I said instead.

“Glad to be of service,” he replied, still scowling but extending his hand for a shake. “I’m Detective John Dash. NYPD. You may have seen me around. I’ve been following you for the past four days.”

“Yes, I believe I did catch a glimpse of you here and there.”

His frown deepened. “Guess I got a little careless.”

“I thought you were the killer,” I confessed, “looking for a good opportunity to kill me.”

“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I was just doing my job.”

“Speaking of jobs,” I said, “what happened to your busboy position at Stewart’s Cafeteria? Did you quit or get fired?”

He smiled. (At least I think that little upward twitch of his lips was a smile.) “I was on assignment at Stewart’s,” he explained, “working undercover. I was put there to spy on the Village homos-find out everything I could about the chicken run.”

Ugh. I wished I hadn’t asked.

“But after you got involved in the Gordon murder,” he went on, “they took me off busboy duty and sent me to spy on you.”

“Why? Did they actually think

I was the killer?”

“Can’t answer that,” he said, scraping his fingers through his wavy hair and giving me a tired look. “And I’m supposed to be asking the questions here, not you. So, whaddaya say you quit grilling me and start telling me what went on here today? Keep it short and sweet. Detective Flannagan will get all the details later.”

I gave him a quick rundown of the afternoon’s events, then led him into the bedroom where Gray’s shirt and boots were scattered on the floor. Blackie-oops, I mean Detective Dash-picked up the boots, wrapped them up in the shirt, and then gave them to one of the other cops to bag. “Okay, that’s it,” he said, taking the gun out of his belt and sticking it into the slim holster hidden under the leg of his long black pants. “Let’s round up the horses and head for the stable.”

THERE WERE TWO SQUAD CARS PARKED at the curb. Binky was ushered outside and deposited in one of them, accompanied by the three officers who had attended to him inside. Sullen, silent, and still in handcuffs, he sat with his shoulders hunched and his head hanging low until the car pulled out and sped away, disappearing in the shadows beneath the doomed elevated train track.

Barnabas Kapinsky had taken his final bow. There were no bravos; no standing ovation.

After an argument between Abby and Blackie about Fabrizio’s bicycle (she wanted to ride it back to the Village, he wanted her to ride in the car and come back for the bike later), Abby and I were chauffeured to the Sixth Precinct station, with Fabrizio’s Schwinn Jaguar Deluxe strapped to the trunk of the car. It was a fast trip and a quiet one. Even Abby didn’t feel much like talking.

Once we were taken upstairs to Homicide, however, and seated in the hard wooden chairs across the desk from Flannagan, we both had plenty to say.

“I

told you Willy Sinclair wasn’t the murderer,” I said to Flannagan the second Blackie finished briefing him on the afternoon’s events. I lit up an L &M and spewed the smoke out in an extra loud whoosh. “If you had listened to me, you could have saved us all a lot of trouble.”

“Yeah!” Abby said. “A

whole lot of trouble. We nearly had our throats slashed, you know!”

Flannagan glared at us and let out a gruff

harrumph. “You can’t blame that on me. If you had kept your snotty little noses out of the case to begin with, none of this ever would have happened.”

“Right!” I cried. “And instead of having the

real murderer in police custody, you’d have poor Willy behind bars-set to go on trial and maybe even receive the death sentence-for a murder he didn’t commit!” (I don’t often break society’s strict gender rules and speak so boldly to men in authority-no matter how stupid they happen to be. But in this case, I simply couldn’t help myself. I was mad.)

Flannagan’s boyish, clean-shaven face turned an unusual shade of purple. “How dare you speak to me that way!” he spluttered, banging his fist down on top of the desk. “I’m the homicide detective in charge of this case, and you’re just a two-bit pencil-pusher for a smutty crime magazine! You think you know everything about the way I’ve handled this investigation, and you don’t have a clue.”

“Oh, really?” I said, with a sniff. “Then perhaps you’d better

tell me how you’ve handled it, Detective. A two-bit crime reporter can’t afford to be clueless.” (Okay, maybe my tone was a tad sarcastic, but not totally. I swear! I was truly curious to hear what Flannagan would have to say for himself-and I wanted to collect all the dirty details for my smutty story.)

But I was losing him and Abby knew it. “Oh, yes, Detective Flannagan, please tell!” she warbled, batting her lashes like crazy, striving to soothe his disgruntled male ego with an ooze of feminine charm.

It worked. Flannagan’s face turned from purple to pink. He smirked, loosened his tie, leaned way back in his chair and put his feet up on his desk, filthy shoe soles facing me. “In the first place, Mrs. Turner,” he said, “I never even came close to arresting Willard Sinclair for the murder. We didn’t have enough proof for that. A matching blood type is strong, persuasive evidence, but it isn’t conclusive. So, however low your opinion of the NYPD may be, your precious faggot friend wasn’t in danger of going to prison or receiving an unjust death penalty. That’s not the way we do things around here.”

“Oh, no? Then why were you constantly harassing and abusing Willy-calling him a queer and a pervert and a psychopath, and insisting that he was the one who killed Gray? Is that just the way you get your kicks?” I took one last drag on my cigarette and angrily crushed it in the ashtray.

Flannagan jerked himself up straight and put his feet back on the floor. “You have no right to question my methods, Mrs. Turner,” he said, speaking through clenched teeth. “And you’re wishing on a goddamn star if you think I’m going to explain my investigative procedures to you.”

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. “But will you at least tell me why you put Black-I mean, Detective Dash on my tail?” I went on. “Did you really believe that

I was the murderer? I know that the person who discovers the body often turns out to be the killer, but how could you possibly think-”

“I didn’t!” Flannagan interrupted, unaware that the hasty placement of his words made his response very funny (to me, at any rate). “I never for one moment thought you were the killer,” he grumbled. “I had you followed for different reasons entirely.”

“Oh?” I said, curiosity mounting. “And what would those reasons be?”

In spite of his vow not to explain himself, he did.

“I had a hunch you were going to snoop around on your own,” he began, obviously eager to reveal and extol his own skills of detection. “I had heard about the other murder cases you meddled in and wrote articles about, and I figured you would try to do the same stupid thing in this case-especially since you and your friend discovered the body.

“So I decided to have you followed,” he continued. “I called in Johnny Dash and told him to stick to you like gum, for two simple reasons-one, to see if you might turn up any good clues or actually track down the killer-and two, to protect you if you did. And considering the fact that Dash saved the lives of you and your friend today, I’d say my decision was a damn good one.”