Beauty Queen

mind wasn't drunk, however, and told him that these thoughts were fantasies. He had always sent part of his check to his parents, who still lived on 257th Avenue in Howard Beach. His mother had already phoned to ask why his last couple of checks hadn't come, and he had to break down and tell her the truth. She had begged him to come home, and look for a job out in Queens, but he had said no, that he had a line on a couple of jobs in Manhattan. His mother had been crushed. She said his father had always been so proud of his career on the force, after the grief he gave them when he was such a punk in school.
    He walked with long strides, feeling the storm at his back, sniffling the air.
    Suddenly he was aware that he was being followed.
    He whirled to face them in the shadow of a darkened warehouse and some dusty closed-up shop windows. If this had been TV, he could have disposed of them with a couple of karate chops and kicks. But it was real life, and there were five of them, with lengths of weighted pipe and chains. He didn't have his off-duty gun anymore. All he had was a bunch of keys and four Wild Turkeys.
    His cap fell off as he punched one, then another. He tried desperately to grab one of the pipes, so he could defend himself. The last thing he heard was one of them panting, "Motherfuckin' queer," before a weighted lead pipe crunched down on his skull.
    They kicked him and stomped him for several minutes. Then they left a scribbled note lying on his chest, and walked hurriedly away.
    Just down the street, a car's headlights glared into life, and the engine started. The five men all got in, and the car drove quickly away.
    Danny lay crumpled and twisted against the sooty foundation of the warehouse, right by the dusty corrugated truck doors. The cap lay upside down on the sidewalk about six feet from him.
    The storm squall came slowly across the river, peppering the broad reach of water with heavenly buckshot. It slowly blotted out the Palisades, so that the lights of the faraway apartment towers along them glowed fuzzily in the dark, as if out of focus. The raindrops spattered on his bloody hair. As the sidewalk wetted, thin wavering threads of dark red began to spread away from his head.
    A couple of days later, Mary Ellen got a phone call from Armando, just before she was leaving for work. "Have you heard from Danny?" he asked. "Or seen him?"
    "No," she said. "Why?"
    "Oh, I don't know . . . it's funny, but he's been out jobhunting every day, and usually we get together afterward, like at my place if I'm off, or he drops by my bar. And if he can't come, like if he's sick or something, he always calls. But yesterday and today, he didn't show, and he didn't call. And he's not home."
    "I can't help you," said Mary Ellen. "I haven't heard a thing."
    She was just getting ready to walk out the door when the phone rang again.
    Armando's voice had the sound of an animal's death rattle in it.
    "Mary Ellen, it's right in the newspaper," he said. "It's right there in the Daily News, in black and white."
    Mary Ellen felt her heart give a deathly rush in her chest. Even before he said the words, she knew what they would be.
    Armando's voice was breaking.
    "Apparently he went to the Spike after he left my place. I was asleep when he left. According to Lenny—the cops were down there interviewing guys, right?—Danny had several drinks, then left. They jumped him just around the comer, and they beat him to death . . ."
    Stunned, Mary Ellen stopped at a newsstand and bought a copy of the News. Her fears were confirmed. In death, Danny's cover was blown in rather spectacular fashion, right on the front page.
    EX-COP SLAIN NEAR GAY BAR The story inside read:
    Late last night, a laid-off police officer, Danny Blackburn, was found beaten to death just around the corner from the Steel Spike, a well-known downtown gay bar. Two weeks ago, Blackburn had been laid off, along with 499 other officers.
    The body was discovered by a passing motorist, who called the police. The 24-year-old Blackburn was pronounced DOA at a city hospital. The identification was made from the dead officer's wallet.
    Lenny Marks, a bartender at the Steel Spike, told police that Blackburn had been there earlier in the evening and that he was a regular visitor. A black leather cap, of a type often worn by the regular clientele of these bars, was found near the body.
    Also found with the body was a note scribbled by the unknown assailants. The note read, "One