Beauty Queen

working-class Catholics. Danny was their only son, so . .
    Marion pushed his plate away.
    "Those fries are pretty greasy," he said.
    "The papers said that his lover and some friends at the MCC are trying to claim the body," Bill said. "So one way or another, I guess he'll get buried in some kind of style."
    "How does Jeannie feel about all this? I mean, whoever did it, did it for her, right?"
    Bill shrugged. Those fries were pretty greasy. They were sitting there in his stomach, feeling whole and unchewed, like a log jam.
    "Well, she's not exactly jumping for joy. But she does feel that he asked for it, of course. Her attitude is, if he hadn't gone to that bar, if he hadn't been living in filthy sin, it wouldn't have happened, right? And she sympathizes with the parents totally."
    They had paid and walked out of the place, and back to the garage.
    Suddenly Marion had said, "I'm sorry to be talking like such a prig. I've been very hard on you the past couple of weeks. Alter all, I'm not marching up Fifth Avenue with a banner saying 'gay is good' either."
    A flicker of joy had lit Bill's mind briefly.
    But now, while Bill sat on the tires, Marion went back to work on the car. He worked with the absorption of the professional who knew what a car would do at 164 miles an hour. A half hour passed, and Marion didn't say more than a few words to him.
    The fact was, their relationship seemed to be in an unprecedented crisis. Here they were, planning the living space within that handsome brick-and-stone shell down on South Street, and meanwhile they were hardly getting along. Quarrels they had had, but always they made up quickly. Was it possible to lose your lover in your sixties, after years of happiness together? After all, these days, straight people in their sixties broke up and got divorced.
    Bill tried to imagine living alone in the house on Catherine Slip.
    "Well," he said to Marion, "this doesn't seem to be the time and the place for visiting."
    Marion, who had been working with head thrown back, arms stretched up toward the under parts of the car, drew his arm down and looked at him with the veiled look he always used in public.
    "I'm glad you came," he said.
    But he seemed to say it with almost an air of formality.
    "I guess I'll head back downtown," Bill said. "I'll call you later."
    "Please do," said Marion.
    "How about dinner?" Bill was almost afraid to ask, as if it was a first date.
    "It depends," said Marion, "on how late I am here. I've got to do a few other things."
    "Well, I'll call you, and we'll play it by ear," said Bill.
    And then he was out on the street, away from the roar of gunned engines and the clang of tools on the concrete floor. He walked back to his own car, numbed by a dread so great that it was hardly a feeling—rather an overwhelming fact that was collapsing over him, like one of those "white seas" that sometimes overwhelm a ship in the lonely quarters of the seas.
    Mary Ellen waited for the police to contact her. She knew that they would talk to her. If they were going through the barest motions of solving Danny's murder, they had to talk to her, as part of their canvassing. After all, she had been Danny's partner.
    If they hadn't known she was a lesbian before, they might find out now.
    Of course, she and Danny had always been careful. They had never visited gay places together. After their first meeting at the MCC, they had never gone to the gay church together. But still... she waited now to see if their routine investigating would turn up her true sexual identity.
    To her surprise, it was not some detective who came to see her. It was Captain Bader himself. He showed up at Ouika's Restaurant late one night, about an hour before closing time. He was dressed in plain clothes. He sat down at a table alone in a corner. The dark circles under his eyes were still there.
    Her stomach clenching with nervousness, Mary Ellen went to wait on him.
    "Could I talk to you when you get through with work?" he asked. "Just a few routine questions about Danny, if you don't mind."
    He had a drink while he waited.
    When the restaurant was closing, he and Mary Ellen sat quietly in the comer. The cook sent out a couple of dinners from the kitchen. Bader looked suspiciously at the soybean croquettes and the strange salads, but manfully tried them.
    "I'm ashamed," said Bader, "that my people didn't give you more aid and comfort when Danny was killed."
    Mary Ellen shrugged sadly, and could not eat.
    "I did