"Yeah, we roomed together for two years," Loggins said, his girlish voice cracking like an adolescent's. "Until I met Angelo, and then Steve moved down to Hudson Avenue. Jesus, if I hadn't met Angelo, maybe Steven would still be here in this place—alive!" His little eyes bugged out.

Angelo said, "Fuck that shit!"

"Angelo, I wasn't accusing you, for chrissakes, now come off it!"

"Daaaaa!"

I said, "Tell me about Steve."

"Oh, he was such a nice boy, rea-l-l-ly nice. Very into music and all. Music was his way of life—like Patti LaBelle, ya know? I just can't believe it that Steven is—that he doesn't even exist anymore. Last week he was here, and this week he's just—gone. I never knew anybody who died before. Except my stepfather, and he was such an asshole." Angelo looked away in disgust.

"Were you and Steve good friends?"

"Oh, yeah, Steven and I were very tight. I mean, we lived together and went out and all. Till I met this ol' grump here. Mister stay-at-home. But Steven and I still kept in touch, gabbed on the phone and all. Steven usually called on Monday and we'd yackety-yack about the weekend. He'd tell me all the dirt that went on and all, who's doing who. God, I can't believe he's never going to call again, I just can't believe it. Gives me the creeps. Iggghhh!" He shivered.

"Who were Steve's other friends?"

"Oh, the jocks, I guess. He hung around mostly with the jocks. Steven was very into music, ya know?"

"I know. What about Billy Blount? Do you have any reason to believe he and Steve had known each other before the night Steve died?"

Loggins looked away. "No. Steven always told me about all his hot tricks. No. He would of said." He glared back at me as if

I were somehow responsible for what had happened to his friend. "Ya know, I don't even know who this Blount asshole is!"

"Right. I've yet to meet Blount myself. What about Steve's love life? Did he ever have a lover?"

Loggins screwed up his face. "Sa-a-yyy—can I ask you something personal?"

"Sure."

"Are you gay?"

Angelo watched me, ready to pounce if I didn't come up with the right answer. Except I wasn't sure what the right answer was. I said, "I wouldn't have been run out of Blooms-bury Square,"

Angelo's lips moved as he repeated this to himself.

Loggins tittered and said, "Well, personally I've never been to San Francisco, but I get your message."

I said, "Who were the men in Steve Kleckner's life that he talked about?"

"How much time have you got, about a day?" He tittered again. "No, I'm just kidding. Really. Steven played around some, like we all do—I mean used to do." He squeezed Angelo's thigh; Angelo smirked lewdly. "Steven never got into anything heavy, though. Not like Angelo and I. He went mostly for one-nighters, ya know? No hassles and all. Except that gets so-o-o tired after a while, right, Angie?" Angelo belched theatrically. Loggins said, "Do you have a lover, Donald?"

"Yes, I do. His name is Timmy."

"Well, I hope he's like Angelo."

"Thank you. What about Mike Truckman? I heard he and Steve were involved at one time."

"Yeah, Steven and Mike were getting it on for a while, right after Steven started working out there. But that was ages ago. Two years ago, it must have been. It didn't work out. Mike was too old for Steven. I kept telling him that. Steven liked to have a good time, dance and go out and all, but Mike's idea of partying was to sit home and get sloshed and then grope around and fall asleep. The pits, Steven said. And Mike was so-o-o jealous. Steven couldn't even look cross-eyed at another guy without Mike having a conniption fit. Steve broke it off finally,

but they stayed tight, even what with Mike boozing it up more and more and starting to fool around with whores. Really sleazy lays, Steven said they were. Even still, Steven really loved Mike, I think. But more like a father. He looked up to him and all. Used to, anyway."

"Used to?"

"Yeah. It was sad. Something bad happened. A bummer."

"What was it?"

"I don't know. Steven wouldn't tell me. Just that it was something incredibly tacky that Mike did. About three weeks ago. It really got Steven down, whatever it was."

"Steve didn't say anything about what it was? Nothing at all?"

"Steven said he'd tell me about it sometime, and I know he would've, but—but—oh, God!—poor Steven!" It had caught up with him. He shuddered once, lowered his head, and began to tremble.

Angelo pulled Loggins against his chest, looked at me, and said, "Fuck this shit!"

I waited until Loggins had recovered and gulped down some of the creme soda Angelo shoved at him. I said, "Just one last thing. What about Steve's family? Was he in touch with them?"

"No—" He snuffled. "They were on the outs." Angelo pulled a Valle's Steak House napkin from his back pocket, and Loggins blew his nose in it. "Steven's folks live over in some hick place in Rensselaer. Last Christmas Steven told his sister he was gay, and she told his mom, and his mom asked him if it was true, and Steven said yes, and you know what Steven's mom said? She started screaming and she says, 'Oh, please, Steven, please don't have an operation! Please don't have an operation!' And then his dad came home and threw him out. He had to thumb back to Albany, and it took him three rides to get back here. He never did figure out what his mom meant by don't get an operation. Sex change, I guess. Who the fuck knows."

Angelo said, "He shouldna told his sister. Bitch! Never tell a woman nothin'!"

"Oh, Angelo, you're such a sexist asshole! Quit being such a fucking pig, would you pu-leez!" "Daaaaa!"

At one I put four Price Chopper frozen waffles in Timmy's toaster oven. He handed me his old Boy Scout hatchet and said he'd pass. I said, "Fuck this shit," and ate an apple. Timmy said he'd do dinner at seven and had to spend the afternoon at the laundromat.

I drove over to Morton. Summer was back, and the air was hazy and sweet. High mackerel clouds swam across the sky over the South Mall, recently renamed the Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza in memory of the man who had caused the great granite bureaucratic space station on the Hudson to happen. Back at the apartment the heat, inexplicably, was on. Hurlbut must have forgotten his golf bag and come back. I opened all the windows.

I checked my service—no calls—then dialed the number for Chris. There was no answer. Frank didn't answer either, but I reached Billy Blount's other friend, Huey, and told him I was looking for Billy. He said he doubted he could help but that I could drop by around three. His voice sounded familiar.

I did sit-ups and push-ups, jogged around Lincoln Park for half an hour, then showered, put on jeans and a sweat shirt, and drove back up Delaware. Huey lived on Orange Street, between Central and Clinton, in one of Albany's two mainly black neighborhoods. As I climbed the front-porch stairs of the small frame house with its three or four tiny apartments, I knew I'd been there before.

"I thought I rec-a-nized that sexy voice," he said. "How you been, baby?" A smile spread across his shiny dark face, and his eyes were bright with sly pleasure. He had on a vermilion tank top and cutoff shorts and was barefooted. He'd told me during the night I'd spent with him a year or so back that his tight, neat, muscular body was "the finest in Albany." He'd said it with delighted satisfaction and no trace of embarrassment, and for all I knew, which was a good bit, he might have been right.