The paper has, over the years, been somewhat critical of the city’s rank and file. “That’s right,” I said. The cop said nothing else and waited for me to continue. I told him how I’d joined Lawrence the last few nights on a stakeout in front of a men’s store on Garvin, and when he hadn’t shown up—

“Wait a minute,” the cop said. This habit of his, of interrupting me all the time, was getting annoying very quickly, but I didn’t see that there’d be much to gain by complaining about it. “Garvin? That’s where that store was hit, within the last hour or so?”

“Yeah. I called that one in to 911, too.”

His eyes got even narrower. “Any crime scenes you haven’t been to tonight?”

They brought Lawrence out of the room on a stretcher, his face under one of those respirator masks, his eyes closed, blood everywhere. He didn’t look anything like the tough, cool, unflappable guy I’d been hanging out with the last few days. They maneuvered him through the door and angled him delicately down the stairs.

“Which hospital?” I called out to them.

“Mercy General,” one of the paramedics grunted as he took the high end of Lawrence’s stretcher down the stairs.

“I don’t know who I should be calling,” I told the cop. “I don’t know about any of his family. All I know is, he’s got a boyfriend … I’m trying to think.”

“He’s gay?”

“Yeah.”

“And you?”

“What about me?”

“You gay?”

“I don’t know, are you?”

“Hey, listen, if you want to be a smartass, I got all night for this, pal.”

“I just don’t know what that has to do with anything. Lawrence is a friend, someone I’m doing a story on. But there’s someone who should know, I think his name is Kent, runs a restaurant in the east end.”

“We can worry about that in a minute. Tell me how you got in here.”

He had several more questions, all of which I answered as honestly as possible. He slipped away a moment to talk to the other officer, who was standing outside the door to the bedroom. These guys were too low on the totem pole to start doing any real investigating. They’d be holding the fort until the crime scene guys and the detectives, the types they built glitzy TV shows around, showed up.

I wandered into the kitchen, glanced at the picture of Lawrence and the man I had assumed earlier was Kent. Then I remembered the name of the restaurant. Blaine’s.

I grabbed a phone book tucked up against the wall under the cabinets and opened it to the B’s. I ran my finger down the listings, found the one for the restaurant, and dialed it on my phone. Someone picked up on the second ring.