In an attempt to integrate his divided selves, and partly at my urging, Barner had headed for San Francisco in the mid-eighties; it was easier out there for cops to be unclos-eted.

But instead I'd heard he'd married a divorcee with six kids. That hadn't worked either, I was not bowled over to learn later. And the rumor I'd picked up in the mid-nineties, that Barner was back east with the NYPD, was now confirmed.

I said, "I thought once you'd cut the cord with Mother Albany and discovered the moist charms of life in the Bay area, I'd never see you again. Or that if I did, you'd have flowers in your hair."

"I had to come back east because my ma's not well,"

Barner said simply.

"Sorry to hear it. Your mother's here in the city?"

"No, Albany."

"But no back-to-your-roots for you?" "It wouldn't work."

"I guess not. Albany city government is no longer stuck in the nineteen-thirties. It hasn't been since the eighties. But the Neanderthals have managed to retain the law-enforcement and criminal-justice portfolios. I can't see an out gay cop fitting in comfortably. Although I'd love to see some ballsy young gay guy break the mold."

Barner said coldly, "That's right, Strachey. You'd like to see somebody else stand up and take a pounding. But you never stood up yourself, did you?" "Become a cop, you mean?" "It's a hell of a lot harder than what you do, and it's more important."

"When it's done right, which it rarely is, that's true. But I don't fit into institutions very well, as is documented in the archives of the Pentagon."

"Then maybe you should keep your fucking mouth shut about cops being out."

I said, "I take it you're not."

He shook his head.

"And it's gnawing at you?"

"No, you're gnawing at me, that's all."

"Lyle, I haven't knowingly been within a couple of thousand miles of you for over fifteen years, for chrissakes." Deja vu was setting in. This sounded like a repeat of half the conversations I'd ever had with Barner.

"That's right, Strachey. You haven't spoken to me for sixteen years. And as soon as you do, you start right in again."

"Are you in a relationship?" I asked.

He hesitated. "Yes. Kind of one."

"A cop?"

"Yeah."

"Ah-ha."

"He's out."

"Oh-ho."

Barner's look softened, and he said, "I'm totally wacko nuts about Dave, and I'm afraid I'm going to lose him. He's in the Gay Officers Action League. He wants me out too, so we can do that political stuff together. But he's treated like crap by three-quarters of the officers in the precinct, and he can hardly do his job. I love my job, I'm good at it, and I don't want to get up every day and have to wade through that shit while I'm just trying to go out and be an effective police officer."

I said, "Dave is a hero. The only people marching in gay-pride parades who get as many cheers from the crowd as P-FLAG does are the out gay cops."

Barner flushed and looked at me hard. "There are other ways of being a hero. Some people might say trying your damnedest twelve hours a day to protect the public from the half a million or so sociopaths and violent nutcases loose on the streets of this city-and instead of being thanked for it getting called racists and out-of-control assholes-is being a hero too. That's how I'm a hero, when I feel like one, and a hell of a lot of other good cops are heroes like that too. So you tell me, Strachey.

What's wrong with that kind of being a hero?"

This was an argument that I knew tripped off the tongues of racist, corrupt and sadistically depraved cops as casually as it did among cops for whom it was essentially true. I was reasonably certain that Barner was one of the latter, and I said, "I respect you and what you do, Lyle. I remember what a fine cop you were in Albany-you bailed my ass out with that maniac who chewed my ear off in the Millpond case and I'll bet you're an even better cop now. I wasn't putting you down. I was only suggesting that you've got a real prize of a boyfriend."

Now Barner looked thoughtful, and said, "Are you still with that Irish kid?"

Timmy would love this. "Timothy Callahan, yes. But if that's who you're thinking of, he was an adult sixteen years ago, and he's even more of one now."

"I figured it would last."

"We've had our ups and downs. But we're in it for the long haul. Our differences drive us both nuts sometimes, but we complete each other in an interestingly asymmetrical way. Plus, we still get each other's pulses racing somewhat more often than you might think. It's definitely a marriage made in purgatory, as all the best ones are. Somebody once accused us of being the Ozzie and Harriet of gay Albany, and Timmy took it as a compliment."

Barner seemed to mull this over; then he said, "I'd like you to meet Dave."

"I'd like to. Is he a detective too?"

"Patrolman."

"I see. How old?"

"Twenty-six. He's mature."

"And has mature tastes, which is even better."

"He's a hunk, Strachey."

"That's no handicap either."

"In some ways I wish I could be more like him. But I can't."

"Does he expect you to become more like him?"

Barner thought this over. "He'd definitely prefer it," he said after a moment. "But he knows I'm set in my ways. He knows it, but he doesn't accept it. That's the problem, if you see what I mean. I don't know how long he's gonna stick around."

"It's as tricky as anything," I said. "A couple can be out, or a couple can be in. But when one person's in and the other person's out, the picture can get a little too abstract-expressionistic for most people to handle. I hope you can figure out a way to make it work, if you both want to."

"It might. Dave likes me. He thinks I'm a good cop, and smart-and hot."

"That was my impression."

Barner said, "The thing that gets to me is, he sees other guys sometimes."

"Oh. And you don't?"

"Nah."

"That is definitely another complication." "Yeah." "Hmm."

"We spend most of our time together when we're off duty. So these other guys mostly they're not an issue."

"What do you like to do together, you and Dave? I mean generally speaking."

"Watch Yankee games, have a beer, go out for a nice meal, get it on. You know."

I said, "I take it you're not out with anybody except your close friends?"

"Correct."

"And not these bozos here at the radio station? I shouldn't address you as

'Detective Mary Mary Quite Contrary' in the presence of the J-Bird?"

"Jesus!"

"How did you end up detective in charge of the FFF case? Luck of the draw?"

Barner allowed himself a sly little grin. "I requested it. I remembered the Blount case in seventy-nine, and that you had FFF connections. I thought I might be able to bring you into it."

"And here I am, although not for long, I think. The J-Bird and his gang of boneheads are not people I want to work for. If this were North Korea and my family were starving, I'd have to think it over. Thankfully, that's not the case. Sorry to crap out on you, but I think I'm about to head back north."

Barner looked puzzled. "You don't want to take money from these people? You think these people's money is dirtier than anybody else's? You're pretty fucking idealistic for somebody your age, Strachey. You need to get out in the big bad world more often.