Beauty Queen

anonymous, but most of them were signed.
    On the sidewalk outside her campaign headquarters, members of the National Gay Activist Alliance were picketing. They carried signs like OFF OUR BACK, JEANNIE. There were rumors that a march was being planned, which would parade thousands of homosexuals past her Park Avenue office so she could see how many there were.
    On the more serious level, she was surprised at the number of city and state political figures who were sympathetic to the homosexuals. They contacted her by phone and letter to let her know they thought her actions were deplorable. A couple of them had the audacity to remind her that she owed them political favors.
    Most upsetting of all were the threats. A few times, Gertrude Utley picked up the phone and found an anonymous caller telling her that if Jeannie Colter didn't shut up, her office would be bombed, or something might happen to her children, or the like. Gertrude was fairly hardened to kook calls, but there was something about these calls that shook her.
    Jeannie notified the Police Department about these threats, and the office was put under close watch. Early one morning, the police arrested a young homosexual with a spray can who had just written JEANNIE THE SCREAMING BEAUTY QUEEN across the office windows. One of the staff got some stain remover and hastily removed the graffito.
    Even the New York Times seemed to take their side and came out with a cautiously worded editorial that maybe it was time for the city, and the country, to face up to the civil-rights question here. Jeannie contacted the Times and told them she thought that was deplorable.
    In the first week after her Y.W.C.A. speech, she found herself the target of what she regarded as more vicious abuse than in all the years of her political career rolled together.
    On another front, her campaign for governor went ahead.
    The result of John Rice's first poll was very encouraging. It showed Jeannie with a 20 percent popularity margin over Milt Kossin, the most likely Democrat to run, and a 10 percent margin over the Republican incumbent, Governor Grant Clark.
    The first direct mailing went out. Part of it went to 10,000 well-to-dos on her list, with a letter calculated to tickle their egos, appealing for $100 each for the campaign fund. The rest of the names were hundreds of people of more modest means, who were appealed to as the salt of the earth, and who hopefully would give what they could. Her goal was to raise a million dollars, and the money was already rolling in.
    Tom Winkler was planning for her to stump the state, speaking in every major city, speaking on every local radio and TV station they could cover, speaking to women's clubs and firemen and American Legionnaires and church groups and farmers' co-ops, and everything and anything they could line up in New York City. Go to the grass roots. Get the people to feel that you're their next-door neighbor. Get the people to feel that they'll have one of their own in the State House in Albany, for once.
    "You ought to quit wearing such good clothes," said Winkler. "Put all that Bergdorf-Goodman stuff in the closet for a while, if you'll pardon the expression, and go buy a few things at Korvette's. You want to look like the nice lady down the block who drives her own children to school."
    "You're right," said Jeannie, and she obeyed him.
    Last but not least, Winkler persuaded her to finish up her book, and give it a catchy political title. So she spent an hour a day polishing it and dividing it into chapters. A contract to publish it in paperback was signed, and the book would be out as soon as possible.
    Danny and Armando were sitting in a quiet corner of the Spike Bar, talking. They kept their voices low, so that Lenny wouldn't hear.
    "There's definitely going to be trouble in this town if the bill gets voted down," said Armando.
    "You mean a riot?" asked Danny.
    "I mean a riot," said Armando, "that might make Watts look like a nice quiet bridge game."
    It was noon, the bar was empty, and Danny was still off duty. Armando didn't go to work till later in the day.
    "How do you know?" Danny asked.
    "I know," said Armando. "The gay activist hotheads are planning a big demonstration on the day of the vote, if the bill is defeated. And a lot of nonpolitical people are going to get sucked into it, and things are going to get out of hand. The anger in town is incredible. I can feel it rolling across the bar at me, every night."
    Danny