"Call him from my apartment," she said. "What we're going to do is go there, whereupon I will pick up my car and go to work. You will go to my apartment."

"Is that what I will do?" he asked, smiling.

"Uh-huh," she said. "Where you will do the dishes, and dust, and then make yourself pretty for me when I come home tired from work."

"If you're going to be tired, you can do your own dishes."

"I won't be that tired, Peter, if that's what you're thinking, and I'm sure you are."

"I don't mind waiting around the studio for you," he said.

"But I do. I saw you looking at Sharon's b.o.o.bs. And, although I know I shouldn't tell you this, I saw the way she was looking at you."

"That sounds jealous, I hope."

"Let's go, Peter," she said, and walked to the door.

Mickey O'Hara sat at the bar in the Holiday Inn at Fourth and Arch streets, sipping on his third John Jamison's.

It had happened to him often enough for him to recognize what was happening. He was doing something a reporter should not do any more than a doctor or a lawyer, letting the troubles of people he was dealing with professionally get to him personally. And it had happened to him often enough for him to know that he was dealing with it in exactly the worst possible way, with a double John Jamison's straight up and a beer on the side.

He had started out feeling sorry for the young undercover Narcotics cop, Charley McFadden. The McFadden kid had gone out to play the Lone Ranger, even to the faithful brown companion Hay-zus whateverthef.u.c.k his name was, at his side. He was going to bring the bad man to justice. Then he would kiss his horse and ride off into the sunset.

But it hadn't happened that way. He had not been able to get the bad man to repent and come quietly by shooting a pistol out of his hand with a silver bullet.

The bad man had first been fried and then chopped into pieces, and at that point he had stopped being a bad man and become another guy from Philadelphia, one of the kids down the block, another Charley McFadden. Gerald Vincent Gallagher had died with his eyes open, and when his head had finished rolling around between the tracks it had come to rest against a tie, looking upward. When Charley McFadden looked down at the tracks, Gerald Vincent Gallagher had looked right back at him.

There hadn't been much blood. The stainless steel wheels of subway cars get so hot that as they roll over throats and limbs, severing them neatly, they also cauterize them. What Charley McFadden saw was Gerald Vincent Gallagher's head, and parts of his arms and legs and his torso, as if they were parts of some enormous plastic doll somebody had pulled apart and then had thrown down between the tracks.

And then as Charley McFadden was shamed before G.o.d, his parish priests, and all the good priests at Bishop Newman High School, and his mother, of course, for violating the "thou shalt not kill" commandment, the cavalry came riding up, late as usual, and he was shamed before them.

Big strong tough 225-pound plainclothes Narc tossing his cookies like a f.u.c.king fourteen-year-old because he did what all the other cops would have loved to do, fry the f.u.c.king cop killer, and saving the city the expense of a trial in the process.

By the time he ordered his third double John Jamison's with a beer on the side, Mickey O'Hara had begun to consider the tragedy of the life of Gerald Vincent Gallagher, deceased. How did a nice Irish Catholic boy wind up a junkie, on the run after a bungled stickup? What about his poor, heartbroken, good, ma.s.s-every-morning mother? What had she done to deserve, or produce, a miserable s.h.i.t like Gerald Vincent Gallagher?

Mickey O'Hara was deep in his fourth double John Jamison's with a beer on the side and even deeper into a philosophical exploration of the injustice of life and man's inhumanity to man when he sensed someone slipping onto the stool beside him at the bar, and turned to look, and found himself faced with Lieutenant Edward M. DelRaye of the Homicide Division of the Philadelphia Police Department.

"Well, as I live and breathe," Lieutenant DelRaye said, "if it isn't Mrs. O'Hara's little boy Mickey."

"h.e.l.lo, DelRaye," Mickey said.

Lieutenant DelRaye was not one of Mickey O'Hara's favorite police officers.

"Give my friend another of what he's having," DelRaye said to the bartender.

Mickey O'Hara had his first unkind thought: I could be the last of the big spenders myself, if I put the drinks I bought people on a tab I had no intention of paying.

"And what have you been up to, dressed to kill as you are?" Mickey asked.

"I was to the wake," DelRaye said. "I'm surprised you're not there."

"I paid my respects," Mickey said. "I liked Dutch."

"You heard we got the t.u.r.d who got away from the diner?"

Mickey O'Hara nodded. And had his second unkind thought: We? We got the t.u.r.d? In a pig's a.s.s, we did. A nice lad named Charley McFadden got him, and is sick about getting him, and you didn't have a f.u.c.king thing to do with it, Ed DelRaye. Not that it's out of character for you to take credit for something the boys on the street did.

"So I heard," Mickey replied. "You were in on that, were you?"

"I made my little contribution," DelRaye said.

"Is that so?"

"A plainclothesman from Narcotics actually ran him down; I'm trying to think of his name-"

"How are you doing with the Nelson murder?" Mickey O'Hara asked, as his John Jamison's with beer on the side was delivered.

"You wouldn't believe how many n.i.g.g.e.r f.a.ggots there are in Philly," DelRaye said.

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"Off the record, Mickey?" DelRaye asked.

"No," Mickey said. "Let's keep this on the record, Ed. Or change the subject."

"I think we better change the subject, then," DelRaye said. He raised his gla.s.s. "Mud in your eye."

"I'm working on that story, is what it is," Mickey said. "And if we go off the record, and you tell me something, and then I find it out on my own and use it, then you would be p.i.s.sed, and I wouldn't blame you. You understand?"

"Sure, I understand perfectly. I was just trying to be helpful."

"I know that, and I appreciate it," Mickey said. "And I know what kind of pressure there must be on you to come up with something, his father being who he is and all."

"You better believe it," DelRaye said.

"What can you tell me about Nelson and the TV lady?" Mickey asked. "On the record, Ed."

"Well, she came home from work, half in the bag, and walked in and found him," DelRaye said.

"She was his girl friend?"

DelRaye snorted derisively.

"I take it that's a no?"

"That's neither a no or anything else, if we're still on the record," DelRaye said.

"I could, I suppose, call you an 'unnamed senior police Officer involved in the investigation,' " Mickey offered.

"I wouldn't want you quoting me as saying Nelson was a f.a.ggot," DelRaye said. "Because I didn't say that."

"Jesus Christ, was he?"

"If we're still on the record, no comment," DelRaye said. "We're still on the record?"

"Yeah. Sorry," Mickey O'Hara said, and then went for the jugular. "If I asked you, on the record, but as an 'unnamed senior police officer involved in the investigation' if you are looking for a Negro h.o.m.os.e.xual for questioning in the Nelson murder investigation, what would you say?"

"You're not going to use my name?"

"Scout's honor."

"Then I would say 'that's true.' "

"And if I asked you how come you can't find him, what would you say?"

"There are a number of suspects, and we believe that the name we have, Pierre St. Maury-"

"Who's he?"

"He's the one we want to question most. He lived with Nelson. We don't think that's his real name."

"Colored guy?"

"Big black guy. That description fits a lot of people in Philadelphia. It fits a lot of people who call themselves 'gay.' But we'll get him."

"But he's not the only one you're looking for?"

"There are others who meet the same description. The rent-a-cops on Stockton Place told us that Nelson had a lot of large black men friends."

"And you think one of them did it?"

"When people like that do each other in, they usually do it with a vengeance," DelRaye said.

"The way Nelson was done in, you mean?"

DelRaye did not reply. He suspected that he had gone too far.

"Mickey," he said, "I'm getting a little uncomfortable with this. Let's get off it, huh?"

"Sure," Mickey O'Hara said. "I got to get out of here anyway.''

Ten minutes later, Mickey O'Hara walked back into the city room, walked with elaborate erectness to his desk, where he sat down at his computer terminal, belched, and pushed the COMPOSE b.u.t.ton.

SLUG: Fairy Axman?

By Michael J. O'Hara According to a senior police officer involved in the investigation of the brutal murder of Jerome Nelson, a "large black male," in his twenties, going by the name of Pierre St.Maury, and who reportedly shared the luxurious apartment at 6 Stockton Place, is being sought for questioning.

The police official, who spoke with this reporter only on condition of anonymity, said that it was believed the name Pierre St.Maury was a.s.sumed, and suggested this was common practice among what he described as Philadelphia's "large 'gay' black community."

Mickey stopped typing, found a cigarette and lit it, and then read what he had written.

Then he typed, "Do you have the b.a.l.l.s to run this, or am I wasting my time?"

Then he moved the cursor to the top of the story and entered FLASH FLASH. This would cause a red light to blink on the city editor's monitor, informing him there was a story, either from the wire services, or from a reporter in the newsroom, that he considered important enough to demand the city editor's immediate attention. Then he pushed the SEND key.

Less than a minute later, the city editor crossed the city room to Mickey's desk.

"Jesus, Mickey," he said.

"Yes, or no?"

"I don't suppose you want to tell me who the cop who gave you this is?"

"I always protect my sources," Mickey said, and burped.

"It's for real?"

"The gentleman in question is a horse's a.s.s, but he knows what he's talking about."

"The cops will know who talked to you," the city editor said.

"That thought had run through my mind," Mickey O'Hara said.

"You're going to put his a.s.s in a crack," the city editor said.

"I have the strength of ten because in my heart, I'm pure," Mickey O'Hara said. "I made it perfectly clear that we were on the record."

"It will be tough on Mr. Nelson," the city editor said.

"Would we give a s.h.i.t if he didn't own the Ledger?" Mickey countered.

The city editor exhaled audibly.

"This'll give you two by-lines on the front page," he said.

"Modesty is not my strong suit," Mickey said. "Yes, or no?"

"Go ahead, O'Hara," the city editor said.

FIFTEEN.