Beauty Queen

two of them had been trying to come up with information on some truck hijackings. It had been a discouraging day, they had come up with nothing, and Danny wanted to report to his chief and take a shower and go off duty and have a drink.
    As Danny walked by the radio, he heard the deep thrilling female voice. "... They are everywhere. They are legion ..
    He stopped, and Martin walked on.
    "Who's they?" said Danny.
    "Fags," said PO Benny. "It's Jeannie Colter. She's back in action, and she's going after the fags."
    "No kidding," said Danny, trying to look totally unconcerned. At moments like this, one's training and discipline, especially in UC work, came in very handy. He was sure that his face did not betray anything but cynical amusement.
    "That dingdong broad went after the prosties," he said, "and they're still in business."
    Trying to look weary and unconcerned, he went slouching on, heading for the chief's office. Behind him, he heard Forbes say to Mullan, "Well, we're gonna be a little more busy after this. Lotsa action around the faggot bars. Pansies getting beat up. Maybe close a few bars down. Fun, huh?"
    Downtown, on South Street, Bill Laird had made the excuse to the contractor that he had a luncheon engagement. He headed out to the street where his car was parked.
    He sat slumped in the car and snapped on the radio just in time for the twelve o'clock WNBC news. Just as he'd expected, the station aired a few sentences of her speech.
    Jeannie's powerful voice filled the car, that voice that could fill an auditorium like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. "I urge you to speak out against this despicable bill . .
    Bill snapped off the radio, started the engine, and drove aimlessly on down South Street, under the Brooklyn Bridge. Finally he pulled over and parked by the water, near the Seaport Museum. He stood watching the gulls glide over the oily East River and the white steamy smoke rise from the stacks of the Con Ed power plant on the opposite shore. He felt sick to his stomach.
    "And I paid for that speech," he thought.
    He wanted to call Marion, but he didn't dare. Marion would give him no sympathy.
    So he wandered aimlessly onto the museum dock, hardly noticing when the girl in the ticket booth said, "Hello, Mr. Laird." He actually bought an admission ticket to board the Peking and climbed slowly up the gangplank of the great silent square-rigger.
    Beneath his feet, the huge steel hull seemed to echo like a cavern. The empty masts and spars towered over his head, never again to feel the good lashing wet of a North Atlantic storm. He walked slowly aft, hands dug into his pockets, and leaned on the starboard rail near the stem. He looked out at the wide blue reaches of the harbor, at the far-off hazy towers of the Verrazano Bridge, at the Narrows leading out to sea. He had a lump in his throat. It was surprising that a few tears did not roll down his cheeks—tears as salty as that sea of freedom he would never reach.
    If anyone was watching him, they would imagine that he was standing there thinking of another Save-Old-New-York project.
    Mary Ellen did not hear about the Colter speech until she came home from grocery shopping.
    When Mary Ellen reached the apartment, shortly after seven, Liv was in the kitchen making one of her exotic and nameless Swedish-American-hybrid casseroles, and she said over her shoulder, "There is this lady on the television making bad speeches about gay people. I saw it on the six o'clock news."
    Mary Ellen made a slight face. She went into the tiny kitchen, put the sacks on the table, hugged Liv from behind, and reached around her with one hand to filch a tidbit from the casserole.
    "Is her name Jeannie Colter, by any chance?" she asked.
    "Yes, that is the name," said Liv, grinning, making like she was going to spear Mary Ellen's hand with her cooking fork.
    "Jewel told me Colter was going to do that," said Mary Ellen.
    Liv turned around in her arms and aimed the cooking fork at Mary Ellen's chest. "Ah," she said, "so you have seen Jewel." She was still grinning but Mary Ellen was not so sure she was still amused.
    "Look," she said, "Jewel is an old friend, nothing between us, a sister officer. I've told you that a million times. I had a cup of coffee with her at Murphy's the other day, and she told me all the gossip from City Hall."
    Liv was still smiling but now more softly. She played the cooking fork gently, teasingly, over Mary Ellen's throat.
    "Jewel is lovely," she said.