“Well, I’m glad you think it’s so funny,” I said, stomping one stiletto-heeled shoe on the floor, then starting to pace again. It was either that or start crying another river.

“I’m sorry, Paige,” Dan said between spasms, “but if you knew what I was really feeling while I was-as you so eloquently put it-‘wrapped up in the arms and lips’ of that so-called ‘beautiful redhead,’ then you’d be laughing, too.”

I didn’t say a word. If Dan thought I was going to humiliate myself by asking him to explain his stupid feelings, then he had another think coming!

After what seemed like an hour but was probably no more than four seconds, Dan’s laughter subsided. He sat up straight, rubbed his face in his hands, and then gave me a dead serious look. “I was disgusted by that woman,” he declared. “She’s coarse, vulgar, demanding, ostentatious… When she was kissing me, the rancid smell and taste of whiskey was so strong I felt sick to my stomach. I went straight into the men’s room afterward and rinsed my face and mouth with cold water.”

My eyes were downcast, but my heart was soaring. He was telling the truth! I could hear it in his voice. “If she disgusted you so darn much,” I said, “why did you ask her out in the first place?”

“I didn’t,” he said. “I just met her at Sardi’s to ask her a few questions about Gray Gordon.”

“What?!” I yelped. The man was full of surprises. And I was panting for more. “How was she connected to Gray?” I begged. “How did you find out about her? Why didn’t

I know about her? Did you consider her a suspect? What’s her name?” (I’m so cool sometimes, it kills me.)

“Her name is Loretta Cuppano,” he said, “but everybody calls her Cupcake.”

Oh!

“And, no, she wasn’t a suspect,” he went on. “I just wanted to talk to her about Gray, see what I could learn about his personal life. According to Rhonda Blake, Loretta and Gray had a brief fling a couple of years ago, when they were both students at the Actors Studio, so I figured she could tell me whether or not he was a homosexual. Confirmed, or otherwise.”

“And did she?”

“She said Gray went both ways, but preferred men to women. That’s why she broke up with him. She wanted a leading, not supporting, role.”

“I take it she’s an actress.”

“And how!” he said. “She’s so showy and pretentious she couldn’t possibly be anything else. She’s appearing in

The Pajama Game now.”

That figures, I sneered to myself.

“So that’s why you met her so late at Sardi’s,” I said, thinking aloud. “You went there after the show.”

“Right.”

“Did you know that I was there?”

“Not until later.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me

why I was there?”

“Don’t have to. I already know.”

“What else do you know?”

“Plenty.”

“Do you know that I love you, too?”

“Yep.”

“Smarty-pants.”

Dan smiled, stood up, and walked over to where I was standing. “Are we okay now, Paige?” he said, putting his hands on my shoulders and piercing me to the core with his hot black gaze. “Our truce is signed? The cease-fire is in effect?”

“That’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” I vowed.

Then Dan took me in his arms and we sealed our agreement with a long, slow, soul-scorching kiss (openmouthed, in case you’re wondering). My knees were weak as water but my heart was going strong, leaping in unbounded delight that Dan and I had finally turned to the same page.

Epilogue

I NEVER FILED CHARGES AGAINST AUNT Doobie-I mean Christopher Dubin. I knew if I did, the secret of his homosexuality might come out, and I had no desire to expose him to the social persecution-or criminal prosecution-that could result from that sort of disclosure. Yes, he had assaulted me and knocked me out-but I hadn’t really been hurt all that much. No concussion; no hematoma. And, anyway, it wasn’t as if Dubin had

wanted to hurt me. He had just been trying to keep me from finding out his real name. He had been desperate to protect himself and his family from hatred and oppression. Where’s the crime in that?

Willy wanted me to keep his real name a secret, too. Although he isn’t totally closeted like Dubin-Willy’s distinctive clothes and flamboyantly girlish ways have made him a gay icon in and around the Village-he still lives in fear that he’ll lose his elderly parents’ love, his extended family’s respect, and his managerial job at Brentano’s bookstore if the truth about his sexuality comes out. So, when I wrote the story about Gray’s murder for

Daring Detective, I gave Willy a phony name. And then, when I started writing this masterpiece-i. e., the dime-store paperback novel you’re reading right now-I gave him another one. (Two aliases are better than one, I always say.)

In my story for Daring Detective I avoided the gay issue altogether. After all, it had nothing whatsoever to do with the murder. And I knew all too well what Brandon Pomeroy would do with the information if he got hold of it. He would turn it into the sex scandal of the century. He would plaster the cover of the magazine with lurid headlines like GAY LOVERBOY ACTOR SLASHED TO DEATH IN JEALOUS RAGE!, or QUEER BROADWAY STAR KILLED IN BLOODBATH OF SICK DESIRES!

And the sensational, misleading headlines would just multiply from there. All the newspapers and other crime magazines would pick up the story and run with it (I hated to think how Confidential would handle the subject!), and poor Gray Gordon would be remembered as a deranged and depraved pansy pervert instead of a nice, talented young man who’d had a brilliant acting career ahead of him.

And I couldn’t, in good conscience, allow that to happen. (Sometimes you have to withhold the truth in order to preserve it.) So I wrote the story straight-never using the words gay or homosexual, and using pseudonyms for the people whose lives would be harmed if another reporter ever learned about the sexual inclinations of Gray Gordon and company. And by omitting all homosexual references, I was able to focus all my nouns and adjectives on the true villain of the story-the envious, greedy, vain, brutal, heterosexual murderer, Barnabas (a.k.a. Binky) Kapinsky. He was, after all, the one who deserved the bad publicity.

Pomeroy still doesn’t know that I soft-pedaled the story. He was so happy to get my exclusive inside scoop for Daring Detective that he never pressed me for a sex angle-which was highly unusual since he always demands that every story have a sex angle, whether it’s a real one or not. I was surprised by Pomeroy’s immediate, no-questions-asked acceptance of my manuscript, until I heard through the grapevine that DD’s owner, wealthy publishing baron Oliver Rice Harrington (Pomeroy’s second cousin and benefactor), had ordered him to publish more exclusive, first-person stories in Daring Detective -or else. Which was the only reason Pomeroy gave me the assignment in the first place, of course. (I should have known it wasn’t his own idea.)

I’ll be getting a lot more assignments from now on, though, since the issue that featured my Gray Gordon story on the cover was a total sellout. (It seems the next best thing to a sex murder is a show business murder.) Pomeroy’s even been giving me more clip stories to write now that my byline has gained some weight. (I write under the abbreviated name of P. Turner, you should know. If I put my full name on my work, I’d be laughed right out of the business.)

Needless to say, Mike and Mario aren’t too happy about my new (i.e., higher) status on the staff. Knowing they no longer have the power to get me fired, and finding it harder and harder to make me the brunt of all their stupid jokes, they’ve been moping around the office like punished children-kids who’ve been barred from the playground and denied all access to ice cream. It’s a welcome change for Lenny and me, and-as you might expect-we’ve been enjoying their petulant frustration to the hilt.