Beauty Queen

read about the candlelight march in the Times, as he sat at the breakfast table with Jeannie.
    He should have been in Washington, carrying a candle. But even MCC attendance in New York was out for now— as long as that blonde girl cop who knew him as William Laird was hanging around the MCC.
    Of course, Bill didn't comment to Jeannie about the march. And she didn't comment on it to him because she wasn't reading the papers. She was busy telephoning to the state speaker of the house, trying to line up his support in the gubernatorial race.
    Yesterday Bill had presented Jeannie with her share of his New York Telephone Co. bill for that month. It came to $638.59. Jeannie had been quite miffed that he expected her to pay it.
    Later that morning, Jeannie sat with Gertrude in her office, briefing herself on the news, and read in the papers about the candlelight march in Washington.
    She stared, amazed, at the photographs—the river of lights flowing up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
    "If I was in the District of Columbia," she said, "they wouldn't even have gotten a permit to do that."
    Gertrude was looking over her shoulder. "Lincoln must be turning over in his grave."
    Jeannie was reading the article in the Times.
    "Gay Christians," she said. "Humph. The very idea is preposterous. Christians are supposed to love. Homosexuals don't love anything. They hate. They hate the opposite sex. They hate their parents. They hate their society and their country. They hate God. And of course they hate anybody who tries to keep them from doing the filthy things they do. Like me, for instance."
    A couple of days after the Washington march, Armando called Mary Ellen at home in the afternoon.
    Mary Ellen had gotten up about an hour before. It was hard to get used to not having a job that you loved. She was standing restlessly in the kitchen in a T-shirt and shorts pouring herself a cup of coffee when the phone rang. Liv wasn't home from work yet.
    "Are you alone?" Armando asked.
    "Yeah. Why?"
    "I want to talk to you about something," said Armando. "Just wanted to make sure you were alone. I'll be right up."
    In five minutes, the buzzer rang, and she pressed the button to open the door downstairs. She heard him coming heavily up the five flights of stairs. He was carrying a small sack of groceries.
    Something in his manner made Mary Ellen pay close attention.
    "What's up, Armando?" she asked. "Let's go up on the roof."
    "No," he said. "Somebody might see us."
    So they sat at the kitchen table, and Armando slowly unpacked the groceries, laying them ceremoniously on the table. A quart of milk, a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, a half-pound of sweet butter . . . and a gun.
    A Beretta automatic complete with a silencer, and a clip with eight rounds of ammo in it.
    Without a word he laid the gun on the table between them.
    Mary Ellen stared at it, feeling her hackles bristle.
    Armando looked her in the eye.
    "A lotta people," he said, "would like to see this Colter lady get hers. If somebody doesn't stop her, she's going to take away all the ground we've gained, right? She's going to hurt a lot of people, right?"
    Mary Ellen was looking at the gun, mesmerized.
    "But most of all, you and me, right? Because of Danny. Me because of you-know-why, and you because you're a cop, and I know how cops feel when other cops get killed. And don't tell me I haven't read your mind."
    Mary Ellen actually couldn't meet his eyes. She got up and went to the window and stared out blankly, at the sooty old brick wall of the next building just four feet away. A little shadow flashed on the wall as a pigeon flew over the roofs.
    Armando went on: "I took the liberty of getting the gun. I won't tell you how. Suffice it to say that I know bartenders who work in the Mafia gay bars. From there it's no problem to get a piece, because even in the Mob we have got brothers and sisters, right? And they have got their own reasons to not like Jeannie Colter, because she cuts in on their own action, right?"
    Mary Ellen turned around and leaned against the window, looking at the gun.
    Her bare feet, the little kitchen where she and Liv had made a year of breakfasts, the still-unmade velour bed in the bedroom, Liv's antique cat figurines on the bookcase in the living room, Kikan and the new kitten, Sam, dozing on the sofa—all shone in a strange new light, a cool steely light that seemed to be reflected from the Beretta on the table.
    She tried to make a joke of