“CAN YOU GET AIDS FROM KISSING?”

“Can you get AIDS from mosquitoes?”

“I had sex with a Navajo Indian, he never heard of AIDS and he wouldn’t use a condom, what are my chances?”

“I’m in a mental institution. They locked me up on account of they think I have AIDS. Can you get me out?”

“What does heterosexual mean?”

The calls buzzed from the headset into my ear, my phone light flashing the instant I hung up. I could feel the fear, the craziness, out there. I looked at my watch. Just three o’clock. I’d been here since one, my Saturday afternoon stint on the AIDS Hotline. Another two hours to go. I’d volunteered for once-a-week duty almost a year ago, inspired by the example of Shirley Scott, one of our graduates, and a soprano who didn’t concentrate solely on her career. She’d brought me here to the Hotline offices in a decrepit office building near Union Square, sweet-talked me into a weekend of training. Now I was an expert, more or less.

I looked around the operators’ area. Shirley was punching up her terminal, locating a test site for a caller. I could hear her rich, beautifully modulated voice advise that there was no public health facility for free HIV testing in Dothan, Alabama.

I hadn’t been listening to my own call. “No sir,” I said at last, “finger-fucking a prostitute won’t infect you, even if you have a hang nail.”

“No ma’am, Laconia, Arkansas is not a high-risk area.”

“No, Ginny, I can’t write your school assignment for you, why don’t you ask your librarian to help?”

“Well, Senator Helms is wrong about swimming pools.”

I punched my deactivator code and removed my headset. Time for a cup of coffee. We were allowed a fifteen minute break midway through our four hours. I touched Shirley’s shoulder on the way out, pointing to the volunteer lounge. Her slim brown hand closed over mine but she shook her head. I wondered what her interlocutors would say if they were told Operator 238 was singing four Susannas, three Rosinas and one Zerbinetta at the Met this season, two of them to be broadcast.

There was nobody in the lounge and I poured myself some of the dark, bitter fluid dripped by Mr. Coffee. Then I checked the cooler. Some cheese-and-cracker packets and two cups of ancient yogurt.

It had been almost a week since my discharge from St. Vincent’s, since Miles’s murder, since David’s first interrogations by the police. I had found him an attorney, who had sat in on the questioning, but the police had made no allegations, no threats. David admitted he had been on the premises the night of the murder. Yes, those were his fingerprints on the Callas tape which had been inserted in the cassette player, because he had brought it as a gift and wanted to play it for Miles. Yes, he and Miles had been good friends for almost ten years. He had left the premises about eleven p.m., when Miles was very much alive. His first knowledge of the crime had been when Miles’s neighbor called him at noon the next day. There had been nothing odd or suspicious in Miles’s behavior that night. He had just returned from a trip to Greece and appeared to be in good spirits.

David had told me all this at dinner several nights after the murder. “They wanted to know the exact nature of my relationship to Miles,” he told me at one point, “and I got sore. I said, ‘If you want to know if I went to bed with him, that’s none of your fucking business.”’

He also said the police had asked for confirmation, an eye witness to prove that he had actually left at eleven, when Miles was still alive. “But how?” he asked me. “I took a cab home. I didn’t see anyone I knew. Why would I, at that hour?”

I had tried to offer reassurances. “They’re just trying to intimidate you. You had absolutely no motive for killing Miles. Just the opposite, in fact – one of his oldest friends. They’re just fishing. You’ve probably heard the last of them.”

“I hope so,” he groused. He hadn’t been able to practice since Miles’s death – something had changed between him and his music. When he said this he had the slightly panicked look I had seen on other musicians’ faces when they learned they had nodes on their vocal cords or rheumatoid arthritis in their fingers. “I think I’m going to have to cancel the Canada tour,” he added. “I mean, if I can’t practice, I can’t go.”

I advised patience, no irrevocable cancellations. Something might break in the case very soon.

“The reason I don’t feel like practicing isn’t because the police are asking me questions, Bruce. It’s because Miles was hacked into little pieces. How can you make beautiful sounds in a world like that? It becomes … well, totally irrelevant. Arabesques on somebody’s grave. I mean, what’s the point?”

I didn’t argue. David would have to come to terms with violent death in his own way, in his own time. I suspected that music would be the catalyst for that process, but there was no use arguing the point now.

“Ay bendito, what’s this about you being in the hospital?”

I was yanked out of my reverie by Reginaldo, one of the staff supervisors. He pulled me off the saggy couch and gave me a monumental abrazo. Reginaldo was tall, bespectacled, overweight. His family had moved from Ponce to New York when he was four. He’d grown up in the barrio.

“Yeah, Reginaldo, last week. Just for a bronchoscopy.”

He wanted to know everything. I told him about my slight case of pneumocystis – a walking case – and how the Septra was working. I still suffered from fatigue but I had developed a new talent – I could cat-nap anywhere.

“Okay, who’s your doctor?” When I told him he replied, “Zinsser is good, but if you ever need a second opinion I want you to see Barbara Holthaus. She’s a wonder woman, she’ll keep you alive forever.”

He wrote down a name and address. Typical, I thought, the most useful help possible.

“We’re having operator appreciation night at the Pasha next week, did you get your invitation? Are you coming?”

Reginaldo continued with the menu of delights we could expect at the disco – drinks, buffet, dancing, all free. “I want you to bring someone hunky who’ll go home with you afterward for safe sex.”

“Who’re you bringing?”

He shook his head. “It’s my vacation. I’ll be in Puerto Rico. I want to see my cousin Lito. He’s doing a one-man show at the Tapio. He writes his own monologues, like Jacopo Morales.”

“How do you get to be a famous actor in Puerto Rico?”

“The newspapers, pupi. El Vocero. Nuevo Día. El Reportero. And there’s television, also, The Star. That,” he concluded, “prints reviews in English for the ignorant ones.”

I grinned. I knew The Star. When I visited Miles in Puerto Rico I read it every morning. “I even met the drama critic for The Star,” I said. “At a party. I forget his name.”

“Sonny Barowski.”

“That’s it.”

“He lives on Calle Cristo, right by the Capilla. The most beautiful apartment in Old San Juan.” Reginaldo kissed his fingertips. “Lito took me there once. You can see the harbor. Catano. Isla Grande. La Fortaleza. Everything.”

My mind started whirling. “Would your cousin – what’s his name, Lito?”

“Miguel Luces Echeverria.” The melodious syllables echoed around the room. “Lito is short for Miguelito.”

“Do you think he’d pass a message to Sonny Barowski?”

“Is it important?”

The party at Miles’s apartment took shape in my mind. I had been introduced to Barowski, a man around sixty with a fierce, defeated look and a pronounced limp. I had recognized a familiar type – the Caribbean castaway. Too many wives, too much booze, too many disappointments. But he was a good critic, steeped in the Spanish and English classics. He had told me, in a drunken confidence that evening, that Miles had done him a great favor once. “Yes, it’s important. Tell him his friend Miles Halloran was murdered.”

“Who?”

I spelled it out, gave a few details. I also scribbled my phone number for him to pass on to Barowksi.

“Ay bendito,” he said when I finished, “if it isn’t AIDS, it’s murder.”

“Have you ever thought of moving back to PR, Reginaldo?”

He shook his head. “There is where I live. This is where we struggle.” He smiled. “Besides, I got a rent-stabilized apartment on Perry Street.”

I thought briefly of Socrates. He had been offered the chance to escape Athens and the death sentence but had refused. He would stay with his city to the bitter end.

Reginaldo looked at me. “I won’t be at the Pasha, so I’m giving the operators some appreciation right now. He gave me a second hug, more powerful than the first.

For some reason, I didn’t feel sleepy any more. Reginaldo had refreshed me. Besides, my break was over. It was time to go back to America’s nightmares.

It was my luck to get Sandra, our resident kook, on the first call after my break. She recognized my voice right away. “Is that you, one-oh-four, where you been?”

I let Sandra go on about her mother, the men who took advantage of her, her desire to meet me in person. It was strictly against orders to let a crank caller take up phone time, but my mind was elsewhere. I shook my head, Sandra’s words tickling my ear like demented gnats. “I bet we could have some fun, why won’t you come and visit me? Why won’t you tell me your name?”

It was clear why Sandra found men so predatory – she was determined to be a victim.

“I have to sign off, Sandra, lotta calls waiting.”

“Why won’t you talk to me?” Her voice rose to a whine.

“I’m sorry, that’s all for today.”

A gentle click and I was free. I waited a moment then punched the access button. This female caller, who said she was a grandmother, wanted to know about anal sex. Twenty years ago you couldn’t mention the subject in polite society.

Rubber up, America!

 

§  §  §

 

On Monday morning at 11 o’clock, a busy hour, Erica came into my office.

She closed the door behind her. “Bruce, there are two detectives here.” She coughed – her usual sign of tension. “They asked if you could spare a few minutes.”

Erica’s face, usually so composed, was alive with curiosity. “It’s about Miles Halloran,” I said, “you remember him. He used to come to our evening recitals.” She didn’t. “He was murdered exactly a week ago.” I didn’t mention David’s connection. “Ask them to come in.”

They exuded size. Maybe it was their manner or the bulges under their jacket or their generally unapologetic air. They showed me ID, then shook hands.

Lieutenant Kerrison, Lieutenant Meyer, both from Homicide, 20th Precinct.

Kerrison seemed to be in charge.

“Dr. Pittman, we understand that you were a close friend of Mr. Halloran.” I nodded and he went on. “If you don’t mind, sir, we’d like to ask a few questions.”

I sat back. “I’ll be glad to help.”

They asked first how we met. Meyer took out a flip-top notebook and balanced it on his knee. I told them I had met Miles on the beach in Puerto Rico on my first visit there about fifteen years ago. We had struck up a conversation. One thing had led to another, and he had invited us to his apartment for drinks.

“Us?” asked Meyer, writing.

“I was vacationing with a friend.”

He nodded and wrote that down.

“Mr. Halloran traveled a lot, judging from his passport. Was there any particular reason for that?”

I told him that Miles was restless, a writer, always looking for new backgrounds.

“What kind of books did Mr. Halloran write?”

That was easy. I described his flair for gothic plots.

“He make enough from these books to keep an apartment in New York and Puerto Rico both?”

“I’m not really sure. He used to complain about money but not in recent years. Maybe he inherited something. He came from a well-to-do family in England.”

“Was Mr. Halloran a user of illegal substances?”

“Definitely not. He was very fussy about his health.”

“Was Mr. Halloran in the habit of bringing strangers home late at night?”

That was easy too. Miles rarely took chances, not with bar acquaintances, with hustler services or street types.

“One last question, sir. Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to kill him?”

I shook my head. “Miles had dozens of friends. He was charming and popular. I can’t imagine anyone who would do this.”

The notebook was closed. They stood up. Kerrison, the taller of the two, had a few freckles spattered on his face. He had probably been covered with them as a child. I had a sudden glimpse of his history – a school called Holy Name, nights at Fordham or Seton Hall where he played basketball and hockey, a big wedding, and a wife who worried about his safety. His father might have traveled the same route before him …

“I understand you’ve seen my friend David Donnenfeld,” I said as they were getting ready to leave.

Kerrison turned.

“I just wanted to say there’s no way David could be linked to this. He and Miles were close friends. Had been for years. In fact, Miles was sort of his patron. He paid his tuition at this school for the first few years.”

Something crossed Kerrison’s face and I realized I had said too much. Had I actually provided a new connection? I stammered something about too much crime, too many psychopaths on the streets. They thanked me and departed, first asking me to get in touch if I heard anything new.

I sat at my desk for a long time, trying to control myself. At last Erica tiptoed in and I gave her some details of the situation. Watching her reaction, her obvious fascination with the crime, it occurred to me that Miles’s murder, except for those who knew him, now belonged to every tabloid reader, to every TV addict. The loss of a life was more than offset by the gain in sensation. Even Erica, who was 35 years old and sensible in every way, had been swept away by the lurid possibilities. Suddenly I recalled something Miles had said that last afternoon in the hospital. The American public demands murders; they’re proof that life in this country is a blood sport.

His words had made no impression on me at the time. I had been as desensitized as everyone else.

And then Erica reminded me that the Longacre Quartet, our newest project, was upstairs waiting for me to sit in on their rehearsal. They were working on the last Beethoven quartet, God help us. I made my way upstairs, hoping against hope I’d be able to concentrate on the music.