Timmy looked up from his Cream of Wheat and mouthed, "Rutka?" I nodded. He looked down again.

"No, it's fair," Rutka said. "Until this heterosexist society knows that we are everywhere, that a high percentage of the most popular and respected people from every area of American life are gay, gay people who are ordinary can never begin to be accepted and feel safe. It's the moral responsibility of every gay man and woman to act as a role model and to…"

He gave me his stump speech. I listened and watched Timmy trying to read my reaction across the cereal. I consumed most of three eggs, up, and an English muffin while Rutka orated.

When he wound down, I said, "I'm pretty much with you on the social analysis but not on the tactics. Doing unto ourselves as others would do unto us can't be the answer. Anyway, whether I agree with you or not is academic. The shooting is a police matter and you should give them a chance and see what they come up with. Maybe they'll surprise you."

"Are you tied up with anything else?"

"As a matter of cold, hard fact, at the moment I am at liberty. But that's beside the point. Also, I do this for a living. I cost money."

"Not always. I've heard about that. But that doesn't matter. I can pay you. I have income from the hardware store. Dad left the business to me and Ann. She runs it and draws a salary, but we split the profits. I have a decent income. What do you charge?"

Timmy was seated behind a container of the clotted sweet tea he had become addicted to in his Peace Corps days in India back at the end of the Pat Boone era, and as he sipped the roily substance, he watched me with growing apprehension.

I said, "I wear red suspenders, drive a week-old BMW, and charge ten thousand dollars a day." Timmy gave a little nod of approval.

Rutka said, "Seriously."

"Seriously, my pants are held up by a disintegrating belt I picked up at an after-Christmas sale at Penney's in 1974, I drive an old Mitsubishi with rust spots on the doors, and my rate is two hundred dollars a day plus expenses."

"That's reasonable. I'd like to hire you."

"To do what?"

"To find out who shot me and have him arrested."

"I'm telling you, John, that's the Handbag Police Department's job. That's how they'll see it and they'll be right. Police departments solve crimes."

"They can't do it."

"You don't know that," I said. "You insist on fairness but you're not being fair."

"I've never insisted on fairness. If you believe that, you don't understand me at all. It's too late for fairness. I want change. I want people to confront their own bigotry, and I want this society to confront its own ignorance and stupidity, and I want bigotry and stupidity to wither under the harsh glare of the sunlight of truth."

"Oh, well. I stand corrected."

A silence, then a long sigh. "Look, Strachey, just put yourself in my place, will you do that? Think how you'd feel and how you'd react if somebody shot a gun at you. Have you ever been shot? I'll bet you have."

"No, just at. They missed."

"But still, you know. You were very frightened."

"Yes."

"And you wanted the person who did it caught and locked up immediately."

"I sure did."

"Then you can begin to understand what I'm going through. How would you feel if your life depended on the level of competence at the Handbag Police Department?"

He had me there. "I guess I'd feel the way you do. Endangered."

"Whatever you think of me, should I be shot and killed?"

"I'm one of those who don't think so, no."

"And what about those who do think so? Can the Handbag Police Department protect me from them?"

"Maybe." When I said "maybe," Timmy's look of apprehension deepened.

"When it's your life, the only one you'll ever have, 'maybe' isn't good enough. Am I right about this?"

"Sure." I looked away from Timmy, out the kitchen window at the box of pink petunias Timmy's Aunt Moira had hauled up from Poughkeepsie on the front seat of her Dodge. The thunderstorm the night before had bent them low, but in the morning sunshine they were starting to perk up nicely. With my well-practiced peripheral vision I could make out Timmy's mouth hanging open lightly. If I'd put a square of glass in front of it, I'd have gotten a little moisture.

"Don't you sometimes do security work?" Rutka said. "Protect people and property for a fee?"

I said I'd done it from time to time.

"Well, how about protecting me? The fact is-" There was a tremulous pause. "The fact of the matter is, Strachey, I'm scared to death. I really am. This time I really put my foot in it. I went after somebody who must be totally wacko. Whoever it is wants me dead and there isn't a fucking thing I can do about it. I'm vulnerable and I don't know what to do. For God's sake, can't you help me just because I'm fucking scared and I want help? I'll pay you, for God's sake, but I really need help."

He waited. "I could talk to you," I finally said to the petunias.

"Will you?"

"It would be a security thing."

"That's what I mean."

"Did you ask the police for protection?"

A half-laugh, half-sob. "They're going to drive by the house once an hour. A fucking lot of good that will do as soon as the killer sees them leave for the next fifty-nine minutes. Or if I leave the house to go anywhere."

"This is true. You're not as well protected as you might be."

"Bub Bailey said they were short-staffed, it being August and vacation time for some of the officers."

"I couldn't stay with you twenty-four hours a day," I said. "If you wanted bodyguards I'd have to hire them and that could become expensive. Is that what you think you want?"

"I'll have to think about that."

"But I could spend some time with you, become a known presence that would have the effect of unbalancing somebody trying to get at you. And I could advise you on precautions to take."

"That could help a lot. And while you were around, I could fill you in on the people who would be the most likely to try to get at me. And naturally you could go through my research material and maybe come up with some leads on your own-stuff you could pass on to the cops without them having to go directly into the material, which I am not about to let the government see."

I said, "Oh, your files, right." I looked Timmy directly in the eye and tried not to blink.

"You might spot something I missed myself," Rutka said. "I've got tons of notes and letters and memos. Sometimes I can't even read the handwriting. Mine or somebody else's."

"I could sift through it. It couldn't hurt. And if I ended up assisting the police in their inquiries in a small way, maybe they would appreciate it, if I was tactful."

"I can't tell you how relieved I am," Rutka said. "You might think I'm dogmatic and overly aggressive, but I'm human too and you recognize that. Whatever some people think I have coming, I don't deserve to be shot dead."

"No."

"Can you come out here this morning and we'll talk? I'm supposed to stay off this foot."

We set a time and he gave me the address.

As I hung up, Timmy set down his mug. "Why are you doing this?"

"Several reasons. Two, anyway. Three."