REDUX, by Ruth Devero
Part 2 of 4


    *Yes, you really can pick 'em, Fraser*.  The breeze
frisking down Ontario wasn't livelier than his heart as he
stood motionless outside the Consulate, observing Americans
enjoying a Revolution-granted Monday off work.  Yes, he could
pick them.  A teenaged friend, in a sexual experiment that
hadn't really satisfied.  Victoria--  He took a deep breath. 
Victoria Metcalfe, in a heart-spinning affair disastrous from
the beginning.  He took a deeper breath.

     But, then Ray Vecchio.  Eccentric, tender, jittery,
crude, occasionally dishonest, more usually cranky, defensive,
mistrustful, and dependable as breath.  Also beautiful in
sleep, mouth slack, face relaxed and flushed.  Quite literally
tasty.

     And loving.  The sweet gesture of a rose left on Fraser's
desk while he had been out on an errand.  And--  Without
actually moving, Fraser tried to ease the muscle he'd strained
yesterday in their erotic free-for-all.  Yes, loving.

     That had been a surprise at first:  the urge to show Ray
just what might really lurk deep inside Fraser.  Actually, the
NEED to show it also had been a surprise.  Hadn't Ray seen
Fraser at his worst often enough?  Didn't he yet understand
Fraser's quest to adhere to the virtues of integrity, of
responsibility, of selflessness?  Did Fraser have to think of
himself first ALL the time?  Did every emotion HAVE to be
expressed?  Hinting that Fraser was--unnatural--  It was
frustrating.

     Honestly:  why did people seem so nervous when he tried
to follow the sturdy old values?  Integrity seemed to startle
them; honesty made them suspicious; responsibility--well,
responsiblity seemed to make people angry.  And selflessness. 
Fraser sighed.  Fail to act on your own wants first, and
people said you had a martyr complex.  Sort through your
emotions before reacting, and people labelled you "repressed." 
Put the needs of others ahead of your own, and people called
it "masochism."  Sometimes Fraser felt as if he were
surrounded by selfish children, greedily grabbing all they
could and ignoring those who got trampled in the melee.  Why
hadn't Ray yet realized that Fraser couldn't just turn his
back on those who had fallen?

     And, really, one didn't need to follow EVERY emotion. 
Intoxicating as Ray's emotional volatility was, there were
times when it could be dangerous:  witness that headlong rush
into Frank Zuko's house, to save the woman Ray loved, which
had ended instead in causing her death.  And sometimes it
seemed to affect his police work--to tempt him to cut corners. 
He'd been lucky when he'd urged that female suspect he was
infatuated with to run--lucky that she'd turned out to be
Special Agent Suzanne Chapin, with Alcohol, Tobacco, and
Firearms, and perhaps equally infatuated with him, since she'd
been unwilling to report him.

     And some emotions were--well, one could acknowledge them,
but acting on them could be hurtful.  Rage, for example. 
Fraser had learned early that rage was useless unless
channeled through justice.  And lust--well, lust channeled
through love was--  He felt a glow of warmth build inside him. 
Lust channeled through love was pretty damn wonderful.

     Letting himself go as he'd done the night before. 
Inspired only by the urge to show Ray of what Fraser might be
capable.  He'd thought long and hard about it before taking
action.  Handcuffs, of course--traditional.  Gag, so Ray's
protests--  Fraser stopped the thought.  No, face it, Fraser: 
so Ray's protests would go unheeded, because unheard.

     Fraser blinked.  Well, he would have stopped whatever he
was doing if Ray was really uncomfortable.  Wouldn't he? 
Fraser tried to imagine the scene without the warmth of Ray's
growing arousal, with Ray's terror and pain evident.  Yes,
Fraser would.  Though--truthfully--after a certain point, no. 
He wouldn't.  The warmth inside him dissipated.  Yes, there
WAS a point after which lust would rule him, after which the
drive to plunder that slim body would make him deaf to all
protests, blind to all evidence of terror.  He shuddered.

     "Smile!" the tourist taking his picture called out with
a laugh.  Yes--Fraser hadn't heard THAT joke more than fifteen
times a day.

     But--  But the horrific HADN'T happened.  Ray had visibly
tried to relax, to trust, even after Fraser had blindfolded
him.  And the tenderness that had flooded through Fraser at
that sight dispelled the chill Fraser felt now.  As it had
inspired him last night.

     The nibbling; the biting.  Actually hitting Ray had never
been an option:  the bruised child that Ray had been was too
fresh a memory.  And hitting a handcuffed, gagged, blindfolded
person was just--revolting.

     But nipping and--well, threatening harder bites--  Fraser
had been astonished.  He had--he had ENJOYED it, enjoyed
taking the roughness further and further--  And enjoyed Ray's
reaction.  All apprehension that those protests of love Friday
night would be revoked once Ray actually experienced Fraser's
unfettered lovemaking vanished in the heat of Ray's arousal. 
Of Ray's tension melting into a trust that ignited an inferno
of tenderness and passion that still warmed Fraser.

     Ray trusted him.  And would continue to trust him.  And
Ray loved him.  And would continue to love him.

     And in that simple fact lay the key to depths of passion
Fraser couldn't wait to explore.

                            . . .

     Exploring wasn't a lot of fun, judging by old Christopher
Columbus' frown in the picture taped to the window of Mr.
Pignotti's jewelry store.  In fact, it must make you paranoid,
judging by the untrusting look in old Chris's eyes.

     Ray grinned at him.  Poor Columbus:  he'd obviously never
had a Mountie explore new worlds of wilder impulses on his
very receptive body.  Ray flexed a shoulder that still felt
a bit crampy, pleasantly aware of little tingles from the
nibble-marks on the inside of his thighs, of a pleasant
sensitivity around his nipples.  Memory of teeth on his lower
lip, on his cock--DAMN, that had been good last night.  New
World--New World Order--new worlds of cooperation between
North American nations--  Oh, quit it, Vecchio--everything
isn't a double-entendre.  Quit it; you're getting dopey.

     Neighborhood Columbus Day parade blaring a block away. 
He walked to the front door and pulled out his key.  Suddenly,
anxiety sliced through him like a cold knife.  Probably Ma was
at the parade, applauding the Sons of Italy float, warming
herself in the reflected glow of Columbus' fame.  If she
wasn't--

     He put the key in the lock before he could work out the
rest of that thought.

     House silent.  Different.  Stuff had been moved around--
just the usual, little stuff being moved in daily use, but
that he hadn't been here to see it being moved emphasized that
he hadn't been here for a while.  Well, he was here now.

     Feeling like a thief, Ray went to his bedroom.  Tidy: 
even mad, Ma wouldn't neglect a part of her house.  He moved
quickly, emptying drawers into Fraser's duffel bag, getting
the condoms out of the nightstand, taking his extra bullets
and his gun-cleaning kit.  At least he'd locked the drawer
before he'd left.  MAYBE Ma wouldn't have opened it, but he
didn't want to think about how those condoms would have gone
over with her.

     Downstairs, he searched through the dining room for his
mail.  There--on the buffet, a stack of stuff addressed to
him.  He picked it up.  Bill on top:  he may not be living
here, but Ma still seemed to expect him to pay bills. 
Typical.

     Ray paused in the doorway, looking around the foyer as
if for the last time.  Sick feeling, a guy shut out of his own
house, not sure he'd ever speak again to his own family.  For
a minute he thought about getting old without ever having had
another kind word from his mother--

     *Oh, Vecchio*.  He snorted, closed the door, and locked it.

     Caught in the expected jam of traffic near Ontario, Ray
glanced idly through the stack of mail.  Christmas catalogs
already--maybe Fraser would like that shirt.  Matched his
eyes.  Credit card bill--wow.  And something official from the
bank--

     Ray frowned at the bank statement.  Actually, Ma took
care of the household account, though it was in Ray's name. 
He'd have to go back and leave it for her; Frannie probably
had accidentally sorted it into his pile.  Some awful-looking
statement--

     Honking behind him didn't really register.  That
statement--what were all those big cash deposits?  Not from
him; couldn't be from Frannie--she never had that much money
to put into the account.  Tony?  Could his unemployable
brother-in-law have gotten a job and not told anybody?  Job
that paid in cash--

     "All RIGHT!  All RIGHT!"  Ray tossed down the statement
and stomped the gas pedal.

     Oh, good, there was Fraser.  Suddenly whole new worlds
opened up in Ray's imagination.  New World Order, indeed.

     Old World Order visited him the next day at the office. 
Aless Willson, still looking like the bride of Dracula, with
another member of Dracula's harem who didn't look more than
fourteen.

     "Hi!" she said.  "I'm Rache."  Cracking her gum and
looking him over in the stomach-turning way of the over-
experienced child.  Or the wannabe-over-experienced.

     "Yeah, Aless."

     "She wanted to tell you about some--stuff."

     So Aless proceeded to tell him about some petty stuff: 
some smash-and-grab, a little light pickpocketing, jewelry
snatched off the necks of tourists--autumn in Chicago. 
Talking through Rache--first time that happened.  And
reaching:  Ray didn't usually get this kind of stuff.

     Rache was--a pain.  Messed up the rapport he and Aless
had, knocked stuff over on his desk:  his little statue of
Lady Liberty went clanking to the floor, and she tried to be
flirty when she put it back.

     He was glad when they left.

     Ray looked at his notes, snorted in disgust.  Nothing. 
Absolutely nothing.  He picked up the bank robbery folder and
flipped through it.  The usual:  strip mall--bank vault ripped
into via the back wall, which was just the usual brick and
plaster.  Ray snorted.  Typical:  the walls in those strip
malls weren't bank-vault solid, but bankers still seemed to
think they were.  Robbers just ripped right through them. 
Happened all the time; case reported this morning--broken into
over the long weekend.  Huey and Dewey would never crack it;
thieves probably had done it Sunday and were long gone.

     This one was a charmer.  Got clean away with $2500.  No
prints; no witnesses.  Ray sighed.  No fair.  Case like this
would stay unsolved forever.  He got up and shrugged on his
jacket.  Make an effort, though; earn his pay.  Make the
citizens of Chicago feel safer.  Not that they'd be any safer
after he finished talking to the bank manager this afternoon.

     They weren't any safer the next morning, after talking
the case over with Fraser had failed to jump-start any ideas. 
And they weren't safer later on in the day, after Ray finished
canvassing the neighborhood around the mall.  How people
couldn't have heard somebody crashing into the wall of a
building, Ray couldn't imagine, but it happened:  he
remembered a case where nobody had heard a guy back a truck
through the wall of a dry-cleaners, though some people noticed
when he strapped the dry-cleaners' safe to a dolly and towed
it away; and even then most of the witnesses claimed they
thought it belonged to him.

     Ray did what he could, wrote up his report, and mentally
filed it under "Unsolved."  He looked at his watch.  Half an
hour until he could go pick up Fraser at work--

     When the phone rang, he jumped.  "Vecchio."

     The gum-snapping told him who it was even before she
spoke.  "Hey!  It's Rache!"

     Lovely.  "Yeah, Rache."

     "Aless wants to talk to you."  Giggle.

     "So tell her to come on by."

     "Naw--she wants to talk to you HERE."  Really long
giggle.

     Ray sighed.  Damn, he hated going to a meet a perp had
set up:  too easy to walk into a trap.  But Aless was usually
a good informant.  "Where and when?"

     "701 Stratmore.  Ten o'clock."

     Aw, geez--one of those late-night meets.  Well, it was
Aless, and for Aless, he'd--  "Tell her she better be on time."

     Giggle.  "Oh, we will be."  Giggle, and *click!*

     Stratmore.  Cross street with Octavia--and 701 wasn't far
from Ma's house.  He blinked.  Since when had he started
thinking about his house as Ma's house?  *Get a grip, Vecchio;
since when have you not?*

     "VEC-chio!"

     "Yes, sir!"

     Welsh was standing in the door of his office, with a
piece of paper in his hand.

     "Beat cop just caught a homicide over on West Racine--" 
Ray's heart stopped, then started again when he saw the
address:  1316, nowhere near Fraser's place at 221.  "--
Homicide can't get there right away; they need somebody to
start working the scene."

     So he didn't have half an hour until he could pick up
Fraser; he had more like three or four.  On his way out, he
called the Canadian Consulate and left a message.

                            . . .

     The message still bothered Fraser--or, more precisely,
the fact that it had been placed on top of the rose on his
desk still bothered Fraser.  He had been out of his office for
only fifteen minutes, and both the rose and the message had
been delivered in the interim.  If Ray had left the rose, then
why had he called in the message?  And if Ray hadn't left the
rose, then who had?

     Stirring the omelet he was making for himself, Fraser
laughed.  Really.  Everything wasn't a puzzle to be solved;
everything wasn't a mystery.  Quit it, Fraser.

     Actually, he didn't want to be suspicious of the rose. 
It was still such a joyous surprise to have them appear on his
desk, day after day.  Romantic.  It reminded him of last
spring, when he and Ray were starting to express their love-
-or at least Fraser was.  Bringing Ray a rose from the
Consulate every day, because Ray had casually asked for a
long-stemmed Canadian rose--Fraser chuckled, and Diefenbaker
paused in crunching his dog food.

     "Roses," Fraser said to him.  The wolf seemed
uninterested.

     Fraser sat in the quiet apartment and tried to eat his
omelet.  But his mind kept straying to roses and romance and
Ray, and the omelet seemed tasteless by comparison.  *Really,
Fraser--you're getting giddy*.

     It was nice here, alone with Diefenbaker, waiting for
Ray.  Peaceful:  sometimes, now that Ray lived here, the
apartment seemed overfull.  Fraser felt a twinge of shame at
the thought, but Ray did tend to fill whatever room he was in,
with his energy and his twitchiness and--well, with his
occasional griping.  Ray straddling a chair, complaining about
Detective Dewey and Detective Huey--why did he find their
names so funny?  Ray jerking open dresser drawers, keeping up
a running monologue about where his favorite socks must be. 
Ray sprawled on the bed, reading the Sunday Tribune, which
seemed to have been designed to cover every centimeter of an
apartment with little effort on the part of the reader.  *Stop
it, Fraser*.  He turned his attention back to his cooling
omelet.

     It was good to have Ray here to be irritated by.  His
sweet warmth in bed; his humorous comments to Diefenbaker; the
pleasure of taking care of the man Fraser loved, of knowing
he was safe--it was VERY good.  And--really--Ray no longer
seemed to find the place as spartan as he had.  Or, at least
he had stopped commenting on it.

     Fraser liked his apartment.  He knew that others felt
different about the lack of luxuries, about the unmatched
furniture, some of which was a bit worn from earlier owners. 
But the apartment was simply shelter:  Fraser's real life was
lived outside, among the people of Chicago, or in his mind,
among the images and information gleaned from thousands of
experiences and books.  The apartment was simply where he ate
and slept and--he grinned--well, where he made love to Ray. 
Perhaps his real life WAS being lived in the apartment. 
Still:  a man with few possessions could focus more easily on
the people who came into his life.  A man with few luxuries
didn't need locks to protect him from the world and all it had
to offer.

     Eat his tepid omelet.  After supper, he would clean the
apartment.  He would not walk Diefenbaker past the crime scene
Ray was working, though they could both use the exercise.  He
would tidy, and he would dust, and he would do laundry.

     Fraser's eyes surveyed the apartment, noting what had to
be done.  He really should shake the thick rug on Ray's side
of the bed--

     Fraser smiled.  Ray had a side of the bed.  Ray had a
side of the bed, and Ray had a section in the closet, and Ray
had drawers in the dresser, and Ray brought Fraser roses-- 
*Oh, stop it, Fraser*.  He focused on his cold omelet.

     Finish supper.  Wash the dishes.  Tidy the apartment. 
Perhaps stop somewhere on the way back from the laundromat and
buy some roses.  And a newspaper, for Ray to read and scatter
through their uncluttered home.

                            . . .

     Uncluttered.  Weird, how it reminded Ray of Fraser's
place--the way it didn't have a lot of stuff in it, either. 
Unmade bed; table with a computer on it; chair pulled up to
the table; bookcase overflowing with books and boxes of those
computer disks; table in the kitchen, with another chair;
chest of drawers--and that was it.

     Oh, and a body.  Sprawled on the floor near the bed, in
that sickeningly limp way that emphasized that there was no
personality there any more; it was just empty.  Surprised look
on his face, like death hadn't been like he'd thought it would
be.

     Ray looked at the ID.  Jeremy Seggebruch, age 23.  Damn
young to be catching a .38 in the heart, but there was no such
thing as too young any more:  babies got shot when gang
members made the neighborhood a freefire zone; second-graders
were killed when drive-by shooters missed their target. 
Nobody in America was too young, or too old, or too anything
to miss out on a violent death.

     He wandered through the apartment while the couple of
technicians Welsh dug up did their thing.  Try to get a feel
for the place, before Homicide came and took over--in case
Homicide never had time to come and take over.

     The feel that he was getting was temporariness:  the kid
had just gotten here and wasn't planning to stay long.  So no
need to get more than a couple bowls or plates, a handful of
silverware, a couple of pans.  Looking at Fraser's apartment,
Ray had often thought that a man who was planning on leaving
soon didn't need that much stuff, so he'd be ready any time
Canada decided to forgive him and bring him home--

     *Oh, knock it off, Vecchio!  You got enough here to get
anxious about, without bringing your personal life into it*. 
Fraser wasn't leaving any time soon; the powers that be
wouldn't be forgiving him any time soon; and, besides, even
if they did he'd never leave without--

     *FLASH!*  Ray jumped.  Hartzboren, photographing the
computer setup.  Ray blinked.  Just look around, try to figure
out why the computer was on and the monitor was on, but it
wasn't showing those little pictures on the screen you always
got.  Quit thinking about the Mountie and think about your job.

     He thought about his job for the next three hours,
overseeing the fingerprinting and photographing and searching
of the crime scene.  It was exhausting work, but, damn, he
couldn't go home yet:  he had to meet Aless.

     On the way to Stratmore he drove by 2926 North Octavia. 
Lights on, cars outside--looked normal.  Trash out:  good. 
Something in him seemed--well, kind of disappointed that his
family was carrying on so well without him.  Didn't need him--

     He stomped the gas pedal in disgust at himself.

     Area around Stratmore was pretty crowded for ten o'clock;
he was hard put to find a parking place.  It wasn't long
before he found out why:  the Sons of Italy were moving their
Columbus Day parade floats to the dump.  He grinned at the
shadowy saints and crepe-paper Columbuses being eased slowly
down the deserted street.

     701 was a pizza place.  No Aless inside--damn.  He stood
around outside, wondering if she was going to stand him up,
wondering if this was a setup, wondering how long he should
wait.  Maybe he should get some pizza:  he'd had just a donut
and a cup of coffee for supper.  Drop in and get a couple
slices.

     "Hey, man."  The young man was swaying, exuding the
unmistakable stench of unwashed junkie.  Oh, damn.  "Hey, man,
you got change for a twenty?"

     Where the hell had he gotten a twenty?  Damn, Ray was too
tired to pursue it.  Just get rid of him.

     "Sure."  Ray took two tens out of his wallet and
exchanged them for the twenty, which he squinted at critically
under the streetlight before stowing it.

     The junkie turned away and then turned back; and Ray's
heart started beating faster.  *Okay, kid, let's see your
stuff*--

     "Hey, you got anything smaller?"

     His stuff wasn't all that good:  Ray could tell that the
kid wasn't holding out two tens; he was holding a ten folded
in half to LOOK like two tens.  The kid would get his twenty
back, start to hand over what looked like two tens, suddenly
remember that what he REALLY needed was change for a ten, and
add the other ten to the first, counting on the mark being so
busy looking for change for a ten-dollar bill that he didn't
notice he'd gotten back only his original twenty dollars. 
With his original twenty and change for a ten, the kid would
go away with ten more dollars than he'd started with.

     "Yeah, kid," Ray said, too tired to pursue it.  He pulled
out his badge and flipped the cover open.  "Oops--wrong
wallet."

     The kid was off in an instant, dodging flatbeds hauling
the parade floats.  Ray watched him and laughed.  Fraser would
love this story.  He turned to go into the pizza shop--

     A tinkle of breaking glass; and the sound of the alarm
seemed to split the night.  Ray whirled.

     Down the block:  jewelry store.  "POLICE!  HALT!"  He ran
toward the shadowy figure fleeing down the dark street.  Or
maybe it was two figures.  No, one.  No street lights working-
-typical.

     The figure didn't halt; he hadn't expected it to.  He
fumbled for his gun.  Oh, please don't have a gun; oh, DAMN,
don't have a gun.  "POLICE!  HOLD IT!"

     The figure ducked into an alley.  Behind him, Ray could
hear the lovely sound of police sirens screeching, patrol cars
trying to get down Stratmore.  Help was on the way.

     Ray galloped to the mouth of the alley, stopped and
listened.  Silence.  Damn--silence except for that flatbed
truck on Stratmore.  He strained to hear over the motor. 
Gone?  Or waiting to shoot him?

     He took a quick look.  The alley was too dark to see
anything--  He looked again.  Somebody moving--

     A muffled explosion made him jump--an explosion that
seemed to go on and on and--

     Ray caught his breath.  Movie theater:  cheap joint that
backed onto the alley.  Still showing "Independence Day". 
Martians blowing up the White House...

     But there had been movement.  He took a deep breath,
raised the gun, and aimed into the alley.  "POLICE!  DON'T
MOVE!"

     For a second nothing happened.

     Then, a flash--*small caliber single shot about three
feet up aim a little to the right so you maybe hit him in the
shoulder*--and he did what he'd been trained to do:  he
returned fire as he dodged back.

     Soft thump; then silence.

     Police sirens closer now, but he couldn't wait for them;
he needed to know what had happened; he needed to know if he'd
hit the guy.

     Ray aimed into the alley again.  "Police!  Drop your
weapon!"

     Nothing moved, but there was a dark shape on the ground.

     He started one of those long walks, carefully placing
each foot, hugging the side of the alley so he maybe didn't
make so distinct a target.  Two steps in, he wished he hadn't
started, but by then he didn't want to back out.  The alley
echoed with booms again:  Martians nuking Los Angeles.  Had
they nuked Los Angeles after Washington, or was it the other
way around?  Was that shape moving?  Did he see a gun?

     Lights now:  police car screeching up to park across the
alley.  In the wash of red and blue flashing lights, the still
figure seemed to be twitching.  Something dark was spreading
from it, something that gleamed in the flashing lights--

     Ray backed away, holding his shield so the officers could
see it, keeping his eyes on the perp.

     The clatter of cop shoes on pavement was music.  Two
cops--but he could hear more on the way.

     "Vecchio.  Twenty-seventh," he said.  "I was on the
scene.  Smashed window.  One perp; had a gun; I think he's
down.  One of you call it in; I need somebody to go around to
the other end of the alley--close it off."

     They did what he told them without question:  good cops. 
One stayed at his end while the other screeched off in the
car.

     "Let me borrow your flashlight," Ray said.

     He trained it on the perp, who still wasn't moving.  He
was lying face down on the ground; Ray could see his hands,
which were limp, like empty gloves.  What Ray couldn't see was
the gun.  He kept his eyes on the hands as he walked toward
the figure, gun still drawn.  The Martians were nuking Moscow
or whatever.

     Rustle farther down the alley; and suddenly Ray was
sighting down the barrel of his gun at a wino stumbling toward
him, looking over his shoulder and saying, "Hey!  Hey!" in a
tone like the wino had been personally insulted.  Ray
consciously relaxed his trigger finger.  Damn.  Just a wino,
Vecchio; just a wino seeing Martians of his own.

     He knelt near the body.  Still no gun.  DAMN, there was
a lot of blood.  Faint pulse, getting fainter, fainter-- 
While he had his hand there, he felt the heartbeat stop.  Oh,
damn.

     Ray holstered his weapon and turned the perp over on his
back.  Sheez, a bullet made a big hole coming out.  Blood
everywhere--  He started CPR, even though he knew it wouldn't
be much use; do what he could.  Young guy.  Damn--Ray felt
wrist-deep in blood.  BIG hole.  Big hole for the--

     He started to get the sick feeling just as a couple more
cop cars and some paramedics screeched up and took over.  Big
hole for the front, for the side that should have been toward
Ray if the perp was firing at him.  Law of bullets hitting the
human body usually was:  little hole going in; big hole going
out.  Big hole in the front meant--

     Oh, god.  He crouched on the other side of the alley,
trying to keep his bloody hands away from his clothes,
watching the paramedics do their thing, half-hearing the wino
protesting indignantly that some people were just trying to
get some SLEEP, just trying to SLEEP around here.  Oh, god,
big hole in the front meant little hole in the back.  In the
back.  Ray had shot him in the back.

     And there was just so much wrong with that scenario that
Ray didn't even want to think about it.

                            . . .

     *Think, Fraser*.  Think of some reason, some angle, some
explanation for why a perpetrator firing at an officer would
have his back to the target.  Turning to run in the split
second before Ray fired?  He'd seen Ray in action; no one
could turn that far that quickly.  Think, Fraser.

     It was difficult.  Ray, pale and shaky in the
interrogation room, looking ghastly under the lights, telling
his story for the fifth time.  Blood on his cuffs, from
performing CPR on the shot man.  Ray looked exhausted.  And
Fraser could tell that he had begun to retreat inside himself,
to erect those protective barriers of wariness and jokes.

     *Think, Fraser*.  But, watching Ray through the two-way
mirror, Fraser only wanted to gather him into his arms, to
assure him that he would be safe.

     "And you never got a good look at him," said one of the
Internal Affairs officers--Sullivan.

     "No."

     "You just shot."

     That sparked anger.  "He shot first!  I saw a flash; I
aimed; I fired.  He shot first!  I told you that!"

     "You've told us a lot of things," the other IA officer-
-Bailey--said.  "You've told us about a smashed jewelry window
from which nothing is missing.  You've told us about a meeting
allegedly set up by an informant who never showed up.  You've
told us about a shot from a gun which--well, Detective
Vecchio, it seems to have vanished.  Along with the bullet it
allegedly fired.  You've told us a lot of things, Detective
Vecchio."

     "I think he did it!"  There was a triumphant note in that
normally calm voice.

     Fraser glanced at the figure at his side.  His dead
father, for reasons known only to him, had chosen to appear
in his cold-weather parka.

     "Ray doesn't deny shooting the man, Dad.  However, it was
in self defense."

     "I think he did it.  I think he just shot him for no
reason.  He's an American.  They don't need any reason; they
just shoot each other."

     Fraser stifled a sigh.  Had the man been this irritating
in life, or did death simply bring out the worst in people?

     The silence in the interrogation room lengthened.  Fraser
watched Ray's hands ball into fists.  *Just sit still, Ray*,
he thought.  He looked at Leftenant Welsh, calmly observing
both the questioners and the questioned from a corner behind
Ray.

     "You know, Son, I've never approved of this--this
relationship you have with that police officer."

     "Oh, you've made that abundantly clear, Dad."  Abundantly.

     Ray sat for a moment, staring at the IA men.  *Hold on,
Ray*, Fraser thought.  *Just take a deep breath and*--

     "I got the call about four-thirty.  Rache, a friend of
Alessandra Willson.  Said Aless wanted to meet with me and
give me some information--"  The words were delivered in a
monotone.

     "Son, you do know this relationship could have a
devastating effect on your career."

     *Oh, why talk about this now?*  Fraser looked at his
father.  "Any more devastating than--"

     "Oh, THAT.  That'll blow over; if there's anything I've
learned in fifty-some years, it's that eventually people will
forget anything.  Except--except something like the
relationship you have with that Yank."

     "Ray."

     "What?"

     "His name is Ray."

     "Is he worth all this?"  Fraser's father indicated the
station house, the city.  "Is he worth staying here, in this--"
His father struggled for words, found none.  "Is he worth
jeopardizing your career?"

     "Yes, Dad."  Ray was worth the stresses of staying in
Chicago; he made staying in Chicago bearable.  Ray was worth
what was left of Fraser's career, though Fraser had to admit
there wasn't much career left to jeopardize.

     "I just don't want you to wake up one day and wish you'd
done things differently, Son."

     "I won't, Dad."

     "Well, Detective Vecchio," said Sullivan, "at least
you're consistent."

     "It's the truth!"

     "Gentlemen, I don't think we're going to get any further
tonight," Leftenant Welsh said.  "We're all exhausted; in the
morning we'll have more information to go on.  Meanwhile,
Detective Vecchio has given up his weapon for testing and will
be assigned to desk duties."

     Fraser could breathe again.  Take Ray home, hear his
story again, comfort him, do what he could.

     "Detective Vecchio, if there's anything else you'd like
to tell us, we'd be glad to hear it in the morning," said
Bailey.

     Ray was silent while they left.

     "Detective, go home and get some sleep," said Leftenant
Welsh.

     "Yes, sir."

     "You haven't seen your grandmother, have you?" asked
Fraser's father.

     "No."

     "Strange."  He glanced around the dark room.  "I could
swear I feel her--stalking me."

     "Hey, Fraze," Ray said when he saw Fraser.  "You heard
everything?"

     "Yes, Ray.  Would you give me a lift home?"

     Ray looked wryly at him for a minute.  "Sure."

     The silence in the Buick on the way home wasn't a
comfortable one.  Even Diefenbaker seemed to notice it,
nuzzling Ray as he pulled the automobile up to the curb.

     "Quit kissin' me, Dief," Ray said, absently ruffling the
wolf's fur.

     Home, where Ray was safe.  Diefenbaker whuffed in
surprise at some unexpected scent or sound, then trotted
through the entire apartment, ruff stiff.

     "We got mice, Fraser?" Ray said.

     "Not to my knowledge.  Wolves are--ah--surprisingly good
mousers."  Get the bloodstained jacket and shirt off Ray,
examine his hands closely, front and back.  Of course it
hadn't occured to Ray to think that the shot man may have had
a blood disease, before he'd administered cardio-pulmonary
resuscitation--

     "I'm okay, Fraser."

     "Of course, Ray."

     "I didn't really get all that much blood on me."

     "Of course not, Ray."  Those hands could use another
scrubbing, though.

     Fraser got out a warm shirt for Ray to wear after he'd
scrubbed himself.  Now, get some food into him.

     "He shot at me, Fraser.  He shot right at me.  I saw the
flash."  Ray was sitting at the table, staring at the red
roses Fraser had bought.  "He had a gun, and he shot it at me. 
He had to have a gun:  I saw a gun, Fraser, I really saw a gun."

     Fraser froze in the act of scrambling three eggs.  *I saw
a gun*--  Victoria Metcalfe, reaching for Fraser--and Ray had
seen a gun in her hand, where there wasn't one, and had shot
another man in the back--  *You're being melodramatic, Fraser;
why think of that now?  Just listen to Ray*.

     "I saw the flash, and I aimed at it.  Well, just a little
to the right, because I wanted to hit him in the shoulder. 
I really just wanted to wing him if I could, because I didn't
want to kill him; I just wanted to stop him."  Ray looked up
as Fraser brought over the plate of scrambled eggs.  His hazel
eyes looked huge in his pale face.  "How could I have shot him
if I didn't have the flash to aim at?"

     "That's an excellent question, Ray."  Fraser sat to watch
Ray eat.

     "Yeah--well, think it'll occur to those bozos in IA? 
Think they'll think of it?  That alley was DARK, Fraser: 
DARK.  Think it'll occur to them I had to have something to
aim at?"

     "Of course it will, Ray."

     "No, it won't.  They'll just--they just don't get it,
what it's like out there in real life.  They just--"  He bent
his head to shovel scrambled eggs into his mouth.

     *Think, Fraser*.

     Diefenbaker nosed his way into the dining area.

     "Hey, Dief, get the mouse yet?" Ray asked, but the wolf
was too busy to listen.

     Ray finished the eggs.  Fraser slid the mug of hot tea
forward.

     "Do I hafta?" said Ray.

     Fraser let his gaze answer for him, and Ray sighed
noisily and picked up the mug.  Fraser didn't blame him:  the
tea wasn't much to his taste, either.  But it was a special,
soothing blend that calmed shattered nerves; Eric had sent it
after his sojourn in nerve-jangling Chicago.

     "Where's the gun, Fraser?  What happened to the gun? 
There was a gun, Fraser.  Where is it?"

     Get him to bed.  "We'll find it," said Fraser.

     "It hasta be somewhere," Ray was still murmuring as they
lay in bed.  The back of his neck was hard as rock under
Fraser's massaging fingers.

     "Shhh!  We'll find it.  We'll find the truth."

     "I know.  You always find out everything.  You won't let
me down."

     Silence for a moment.

     "This feels good."

     "Shh!  Relax."

     Ray's arms tightened around Fraser.  "I'm glad you're
here, Fraser.  I'm glad it's you."

     Something inside Fraser was glowing like the sun through
a fog.  He put his mouth close to Ray's ear and whispered, "So
am I, Ray."

     His only answer was quiet breathing.

                            . . .

     *Breathe, Vecchio.  Just--just breathe, Vecchio*.  It was
a bad sign that he had to keep reminding himself to do that,
but it was starting to get to him--all those questions and all
those suspicious looks.  Being on desk wasn't helping, though
it was better than being on suspension.  How had Welsh kept
him off suspension?  At least this way Ray could catch up on
his paperwork.  By the time this was over, he'd be the most
caught-up cop in the precinct.

     Willson.  Brendan Willson--that was the guy he'd shot. 
Brendan Willson, age 32, small-time gun dealer, small-time
thief, small-time a lot of things.  Like his cousin,
Alessandra, who'd never showed for the meeting.  *Geez, Aless,
did you set me up?*  Which didn't really make sense, since
after all Ray wasn't dead; Brendan was, because Ray had killed
him.  Would Aless set up her own cousin?  Something about that
didn't click with Ray, but in that case it meant she'd set up
Ray instead, which didn't really make sense, since Ray wasn't
dead--

     IA kept popping up, always with real cheery news:  no
powder burns on Willson's hands; no gun in the alley; no shell
casing; and where did Detective Vecchio think that spent
bullet from Willson's gun was?  Detective Vecchio couldn't
imagine, which wasn't the right answer because it wasn't a
riddle because IA couldn't find a spent bullet anywhere. 
Anywhere at all, Detective Vecchio; wasn't that strange?

     Thank god the attorney from the Police Protective League
stepped in then, because some stuff wanted to come out of
Detective Vecchio's mouth that wouldn't have helped him a bit
with IA.

     It was weird in the squad room, how many people kept
coming by to shoot the breeze.  Cops gathering around their
own, protecting their own.  Made him feel good.  Of course,
some were avoiding him, keeping away from the taint of a
maybe-bad cop.  Weird to see who was who.  Dewey was a shoot-
the-breezer, though that breeze had a way of getting real
chilly real fast; Laruski, who usually said hello every
morning, was an avoider.  Daniella Brown brought him a couple
donuts.

     Even Frannie showed up, supposedly to get the story
straight from the source, because Ma had found out something
happened when IA had tried to get him at the house that
morning, since that was still the home address the precinct
had on him--  Ray hustled her out of the squad room and out
someplace privater for coffee.

     "What did she tell them?" he asked.

     "YOU know Ma when she gets her back up:  CLAMS talk more
than she does.  She didn't tell them anything."

     He grinned.  Ma, mad at Ray but still protecting him--or
protecting her family from public disgrace.  Either way, it
helped.

     "How is she?"

     "She's in her pissed-off-at-the-world stage."

     Ray grunted.  That could last an hour or that could last
a decade.  He was betting on the latter.

     "Though now she's mostly pissed off at me," Frannie went
on.  "'Cause now I know about you and Fraser, and she can't
martyr herself by keeping it from everybody."

     Ray snorted a laugh.  Vintage Ma!  "So, how you getting
along?" he asked.  "You got enough money?"

     "Oh, yeah," she said.  "You know, you don't have to keep
leaving us money like that."

     "Like what?"

     "You know--you don't have to leave money in the mail
slot.  We're fine."

     *Money in the*--  "What money in the mail slot?"

     Frannie blinked at him.  "The money.  The money you left
in the envelope."

     "I didn't--Frannie, I got a key.  If I was gonna leave
money, I sure wouldn't have to put it through the mail--"

     The thought seemed to strike them both at the same
moment:  "Fraser."

     Ray felt a warm glow inside him.  That big lug.  He
grinned.  He'd have to say "thank you" to Fraser in an extra-
nice way.

     "Hey, Frannie--Tony get a job?" he asked as she was
getting ready to leave.

     Her mouth dropped open.  "TONY?"  Her tone answered him.

     Hmm.  Those cash deposits nagged at him.  Check into it--
Not that he had time that day.  He filed it away for later.

     Right now, he had enough to do, just going through all
they'd pulled from Jeremy Seggebruch's apartment.  It turned
out that the reason the computer wasn't working right was
because somebody had reformatted it and wiped out all the
stuff that was on the hard drive.  Ergo, what was on the hard
drive must have been important to somebody--important enough,
maybe, to get Seggebruch killed.  And maybe Seggebruch had
copied it onto a disk somewhere in all those boxes of--

     "You gotta be kidding me," Elaine Besbriss said when she
heard what Ray had in mind.  "There's gotta be a million disks
in there."

     "Not quite."

     So, really, it wasn't all that bad being kept to his desk
right now, since probably he would've been just sitting here
anyway with Elaine, looking at file after file on disk after
disk.  Really.  It wasn't all that bad.

     As long as he kept himself from thinking about IA and
what they were probably cooking up to go after him with right
that very minute.

                            . . .

     The minute Fraser took the forms into Inspector
Thatcher's office to be signed, he knew he should have sent
Turnbull instead.  Something about the way her face changed
when she caught sight of him:  shifted from distance to cool
wariness mixed with anticipation.  *The look*, he thought
uncomfortably, *of a woman still--interested*.

     He had tried to make his retreat from their deepening
relationship as gently as possible, but to his panic she had--
well, she hadn't retreated to quite the same extent.  At
first she had pursued, evidently puzzled when he persisted in
politely misunderstanding her actions; then she'd become--
well, petulant was perhaps too strong, but it was accurate. 
Now she took refuge behind the armor of her title, sometimes
emerging for some quick sniping; she often seemed angry.

     Fraser felt vaguely guilty now as he looked down at the
part in her dark hair while she signed the forms.  He was
happy, and he felt she was not; and he couldn't explain it to
her.  She was beautiful and intelligent--and Canadian--but he
was no longer hers; and he couldn't explain it to her.  She
deserved better.

     He presented a polite blankness to her polite smile as
she handed back the forms and carefully didn't notice her
appreciative glance at him.  It was a relief to be out of her
office.

     Their courtship had been pleasant, once it had been
tacitly acknowledged; but there'd always been something there
that had made him uncomfortable, that had kept him distant
from her.  She'd kept dodging behind her position as his
superior, fending him off with protocol, shutting him out in
painful ways.  Now he had Ray; and he couldn't explain it to
her.  Frankly, it was a relief to have Ray, whose love was
less complicated.  Thatcher had always seemed, like Churchill's
Russia, a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

     Fraser's heart sank when he saw who was waiting outside
his own office.  Constable Renfield Turnbull, a riddle tangled
up in itself and probably tripping over its own bootlaces. 
And the riddle was this:  however had he become a member of
the RCMP?  Whoever had thought it prudent to actually give him
a firearm?  How was it Turnbull hadn't yet accidentally shot
himself?

     Oh, there was that expression again:  the one that made
him look so much like a puzzled Labrador retriever puppy that
Fraser wanted to give him a dog biscuit--

     "Yes, Constable."

     "Are you--are you IN, Constable Fraser?"

     Fraser took a deep breath.  "Yes, Constable."

     "So, you're actually IN for someone who wants to talk to
you."

     "Yes, Constable."

     "Because I thought that if you were to say that you were
OUT, I could explain that to your visitor."

     "But, I would have to be--HERE in order to say that I
wasn't.  And, since I AM, well, then..."

     "Ah.  Understood."  Turnbull turned, started out of the
suite of offices, and turned again.  "Shall I--ah--shall I
show up the visitor in question?"

     *Count to ten*.  "Yes, please, Constable.  By all means."

     And so Francesca Vecchio was shown into his office by
Turnbull, who seemed in danger of falling onto his face
because he was--well, walking sideways, facing her, eyes
riveted to her face.  She in turn seemed equally--riveted.

     "--And, so, Constable, how does Mrs. Turnbull get your
uniform to look so--pressed?"  Francesca smiled at her
companion, looking through eyelashes so long Fraser suspected
they were hers only because she'd purchased them.  *Oh, that
was such a transparent line*--

     "Oh, my mother doesn't--"

     Fraser's heart sank as Francesca smiled and became even
more demure than before.  *Oh, Turnbull*.  Oh, dear.

     "Francesca!"  Fraser's greeting was perhaps a bit
effusive.

     "Oh, hi, Benny."  Francesca put her hand on Turnbull's
arm, gave him a melting smile.  "I want to thank you so much,
Constable."

     "Oh!--er--you're welcome, Miss Vecchio."

     "Francesca."

     "Miss Francesca.  I'm sorry; American names are so--"

     "No, it's Francesca Vecchio.  MISS Francesca Vecchio. 
But YOU can call me Francesca--Constable..."

     "Turnbull.  Constable Turnbull."

     Pause, while the smile froze on Francesca's face.

     "Ah--you may go, Constable," Fraser said.

     Turnbull nodded and walked backward out of the office,
managing not to dodge the wall on his way to the stairs and
then managing not to--  Fraser winced at the thud.

     "I'm fine!  Just fine!"  Turnbull sounded breathless.

     Oh, dear.

     "I just wanted to--"  Francesca leaned through the office
door, listening hard for a minute.  Fraser leaned with her. 
There was a satisfactory thumping of two very large RCMP-issue
boots on their way safely down the stairs, and Francesca
visibly relaxed.

     "Is he GOING with anybody?" she asked, settling in the
chair Fraser offered her.

     "Turnbull?"

     "Yeah.  Is he GOING with anybody?  What IS his first
name?"

     "Er--Renfield."

     "Excuse me?"

     "It's--it's Renfield."

     "RENfield?"  She sat back and seemed to be savoring the
word.  "Renfield.  Renfield Turnbull."  She smiled.  "Benton;
Renfield--don't Canadians give their children first-name kinds
of first names?"

     "Ah--"

     "Renfield.  I like it!"

     "Is that why you--"

     Francesca suddenly seemed to hear him.  "Oh!" she said. 
"No!  No--I--I came to find how--how Ray's doing."  She seemed
uncomfortable.

     Fraser found himself blushing and wished he could stop: 
the reason the Vecchio family didn't already know how Ray was
doing was--well, was HIM.

     "Er--ah--as well as can be expected.  The police
department is, of course, very concerned about the incident."

     "You're investigating, right?"

     "Well--"  Well, he and Ray had visited the site last
night, after work, where Ray had walked him through the events
of the shooting, but Fraser wouldn't call what he was doing
INVESTIGATING, exactly.

     "Because if you aren't--well--well, things just seem to
go better when you do, if you know what I mean."

     That was very flattering.  "Well--ah--"

     "Because, I mean, I know Ray would feel better, and I
know _I_ would feel better.  And I'm pretty sure Ma would feel
better, even though she'd never say so."

     "Well, I can't participate in any OFFICIAL--"

     "After all, Fraser, you owe it to him.  He's your--" 
Under her makeup, her face was reddening in a very attractive
way.  She was almost whispering.  "Well, if you really--LOVE
him--you--well, I think you'd kind of want to--well, help."

     The warmth had returned to his cheeks; he felt as
breathless as she looked.  "I--you're right, Francesca.  I do. 
Actually, I had planned to--  I'll--I'll do what I can."

     "Good!"  She visibly relaxed and smiled at him.  "Good! 
Oh, I feel better.  I feel a lot better now."

     When Francesca rose to her feet, Fraser also felt a lot
better:  loving Ray was wonderful; DISCUSSING loving Ray with
Ray's sister was--nightmarish.

     Fraser escorted her to the stairs.  "Did you say Renfield
isn't GOING with anybody?" she murmured.

     That Turnbull charged up the stairs at that very moment
was a blessing; Fraser handed Francesca over to him with
relief.

     "Oh!" Francesca said to Fraser, as she and Turnbull
started down.  "You don't have to keep leaving money at the
house; we're doing just fine.  Is Renfield really your first
name?"  She fluttered her eyelashes at her escort.  "I like
it!  Do people call you 'Renny' for short?"

     Fraser fled before he had to hear the answer.  Not until
he was back in his office did it register what she had said
first.  What money?  Fraser hadn't left any money.

                            . . .

     Money.  It was all coming down to money.  Money in
Willson's wallet--a LOT of money--and all from the robbery
Huey and Dewey were working, the strip mall job over the
Columbus Day weekend.

     And also one of those ATM receipts for a cash deposit--$500.

     Into a real familiar account.

     The Vecchio family account.

     Ray tried not to look as sick as he felt as he stared at
the receipt in its evidence bag.  Those cash deposits--

     "Is there something you'd like to tell us, Detective
Vecchio?" Sullivan asked.

     Ray's head was shaking "no" even before his brain kicked
in.  No.  Nothing that would help him.

     "May I see that?"  The attorney from the Police
Protective League picked up the receipt.  "Has this been
fingerprinted?"

     "Ah--"  Sullivan and Bailey looked nonplussed.

     "Gentlemen, ANYONE can pick up a receipt off the ground. 
And this one--"  The attorney studied it, then shook his head
in disgust.  "This is one of those receipts with the PIN
number information printed right on it.  Mr. Willson may have
found it and kept it, intending to use the information to
steal from the account later.  After all, he allegedly DID rob
banks."

     "Kind of coincidental that he happened upon a receipt for
an account belonging to the man who later shot him," said
Bailey.

     "Coincidence is just that, gentlemen:  coincidence.  It's
not proof."

     *Yeah, but it soon would be*, Ray thought as he walked
back to his desk.  Welsh was getting that "turn-in-your-badge"
look.  Ray's gun was still confiscated.  By rights, Ray should
have been suspended; he had Welsh to thank that he wasn't. 
But, damn, his life was starting to go right down the tubes.

     "Welsh wants to see you," Elaine said.

     Ray frowned.  Usually Welsh just bellowed.  Oh, god, was
this it?

     It wasn't.  For in Welsh's office was a familiar brown
uniform encasing a very familiar figure--

     "Vecchio," said Welsh.  "Our cousins to the north have
become interested in our Internal Affairs procedures and have
requested that we--accomodate an observer.  Do you have any
objections?"

     "NO, sir!  No objections, sir."  Could Welsh hear the
glad hammering of his heart?

     "Well, then, Constable Fraser, observe away."

     "Thank you, Leftenant."

     "Yeah, thanks, Lieutenant!"  Ah, god, things were looking up.

     "They got an ATM receipt that ties me in with Willson,"
Ray said when he and Fraser got to his desk.  "Cash deposit
to the household account."

     "Is it one of your transactions?"

     "No.  And it's not the only big cash desposit there's
been.  Ma takes care of the account; I haven't been seeing the
bank statements."

     "Well, we need to look at them."

     "We can get the records.  There's more:  Willson had a
lot of cash on him from a bank robbery Huey and Dewey caught
this week."

     "So the implication is that Mr. Willson was involved in
the robbery and may have deposited cash from that crime into
your household account, which would implicate you in the
robbery.  Did they find an automatic teller machine card?"

     "No.  Which means either A:  he picked up the receipt off
the ground after some lunkhead in my family made a deposit and
threw it away, which seems unlikely given that in my family
we're happier withdrawing than we are depositing; or, B:  he
was using a phony card and somebody else has it."

     "We need to see the videotape of that particular
transaction."

     "I'm betting IA has it."

     "Hmm."

     "And I'll bet they'll want to keep it to themselves."

     "MmHMM."

     Pause.

     "So, what do you think?"

     "I'm--thinking, Ray."

     Ray watched him think.  It was a process worth watching. 
"So, they've got a receipt from my account and no shell casing
and no gun and no spent bullet and no Aless to back up why I
was really there.  And what do we have?"

     "Well, Ray, we have your reputation as a fine police
officer."

     Ray blinked at him.  "So, they've got a receipt from my
account and no shell casing and no gun and no spent bullet and
no Aless to back up why I was really there.  And we have..."

     "We have our wits, Ray."

     Ray blinked.  "So, they've got a receipt from my account
and no shell casing and no gun and no spent bullet and no
Aless to back up why I was really there.  And we--"

     "And we have the truth, Ray:  that you acted in self-
defense.  We have the truth:  that you had no part in that
robbery.  Ray, we have the truth on our side."

     *And the truth*, Ray thought, *shall get you life*.  But,
looking in Fraser's clear, honest eyes, he didn't have the
heart to say it.

     But he kept thinking it the rest of that day, while he
and Fraser searched the alley where he'd shot Willson,
searched the street just at the alley's mouth, searched across
the street from the alley's mouth.  In the movie theater Ray
could hear Martians nuking the world again, and he wished his
own problems were as easy to solve as those people's.

     Up and down Stratmore; and then up and down the alley,
retracing Willson's steps, retracing Ray's steps.  As usual,
Ray felt like a nitwit tagging along behind Fraser, who was
memorizing everything on the sidewalk and going "Hmm" and
"Mmm" and "Mmhmmm" and sometimes picking something up and
examining it.  Did Fraser know how irritating that was?  Did
he care?

     Up and down the alley, Fraser duck-walking through most
of it, picking up garbage and doing his "Hmmm"ing.  So help
him, if Fraser tasted any damn thing, Ray wasn't kissing him
on the mouth for a week.

     "Someone's been bedding down here," said Fraser.

     "There was a wino.  Guy by the name of Weird Waldo."  Ray
didn't want to go where this was taking them:  if even the
other winos called him "Weird", Waldo would be no prize as a
witness.

     "Someone's been running through here."

     Oh, for--  "Fraser, it's an ALLEY."

     "Yes, Ray.  But most people using an alley walk down the
center; our runner went along the side, disarranging the
discarded papers and bottles.  You can see from the pattern
of fading on this hamburger wrapper--stop that, Diefenbaker!--
that it hasn't been lying long in this position."  Oh, Ray
could?  He'd take Fraser's word for it.  "And our runner got
dirty:  you can see here where grime has been rubbed off the
wall.  The trail appears to end--here."  He patted a firedoor
and jumped at the rumble as about a million Martians blew up.

     "Theater," said Ray.  "Somebody leaving the theater in
a hurry."

     "Well, actually, someone leaving the theater would walk
down the center of the alley."

     "Drunk.  Stoned.  Confused.  Agoraphobic.  Hugging the
wall because he really likes walls."

     Fraser just looked at him.

     A whole afternoon like this, with Ray trailing along
while the Mountie found interesting gum wrappers and
intriguing pizza boxes, and lectured on the personality of
whomever had chewed on one of those little fancy toothpicks. 
Here was the Mountie in all his glory.  It was something to
see all Fraser had being used to champion Ray.

     And awful damn sexy.

     After supper they went back to the station and got a
printout of Aless's known aliases and addresses.  It was quite
a list.  And they searched the computer for Rache; as Ray had
suspected, she didn't show up anywhere.  But Brendan Willson
did:  petty stuff, nothing to do with banks.

     "Hmmm," Fraser said.

     "What?" Ray asked.

     "Oh, nothing.  HMMM."

     "What?  What?"

     "Well--it's just that there's a--well, a gap in his
record in Illinois.  A recent one.  As if he'd been--"

     "Incarcerated?"

     "No, out of town."

     Hmmm.

     At the back of his mind, some voice was telling him that
there was something he should be wondering about that
programmer murder, but he really couldn't think what it was;
and he really didn't have time for it right now.  Think about
his own problems.  He shoved it away.

     The thought returned as he and Fraser went to bed; but
Frasr's mouth looked especially tempting, and Ray really
wanted to show him how glad he was that Fraser was helping him
clear himself.  So they necked a little, discussion of the
case gradually becoming that silly love talk that always made
Ray feel so good.

     When Fraser fell asleep, the thought returned, full
force, and Ray resigned himself to at least an hour of
reviewing the details in his head.  Gunshot wound to the
heart; wiped computer; no fingerprints; no gun; no shell
casing--no, that was the Willson case.  Well, both cases.  Ray
closed his eyes, stiffened every muscle in his body, and then
relaxed them, hoping to relax himself.

     Even so, he couldn't seem to get to sleep.  Fraser's even
breathing beside him just emphasized that Ray was awake,
watching the details of both cases tumble through his mind,
jumbling together.  Every one of Ray's muscles seemed to have
something to do that didn't involve relaxing.

     The crash in the street that jerked Fraser awake made Ray
feel like he was jumping out of his skin.  He scrambled out
of bed.

     He'd gotten into the habit of just going to bed naked,
since he usually ended up that way sometime during the night. 
Didn't have to worry about the cold:  the bed was so narrow,
Fraser was always right there to warm himself against.

     When the noise started in the street, Ray grabbed an old
t-shirt and pulled it on before going to the window to check
things out.  The shirt had shrunk some in the wash--shortened--
and he tugged irritatedly at it as he went to the window,
trying to tug it down to cover his ass.

     Usual dark night on Fraser's street:  Riv gleaming under
the street light, cars passing, pool hall lit up, Jesse and
Jerome napping on the bus bench.  Whatever the noise was, it
had stopped; whoever had made it, they were gone.

     Fraser had sat up in bed when Ray got up; now Ray turned
just in time to see Fraser start, and jerk his eyes up to
Ray's face.  The sky-blue eyes were wide with determined
innocence.

     What the--  Ray looked at him a minute, looked down, saw
nothing.  Fraser had been looking right about--  "Are you
checking out my ass?" Ray asked him.

     Fraser turned a shade of red just this side of apoplexy. 
"Er--" he said.  His eyes strayed away from Ray, darted to the
hem of Ray's t-shirt, then slid resolutely up to Ray's face. 
"Er--ah--that--the hem of that--shirt doesn't--"  He cleared
his throat, flicked a glance down again; his hands folded
themselves to cover his lap.  "Actually--"  His eyes followed
Ray, who was coming around to his own side of the bed. 
"Actually, Ray, that--that shirt, coming down just halfway
over--um--it rather accentuates--  It calls attention to what
I think of as one of your--your incredibly attractive
features."  His expression was a mixture of embarrassment and
lust.

     Ray tried not to laugh as he stretched out on his side
on the bed.  As erotic sleepwear went, a ratty old t-shirt
that left half his ass bare really shouldn't rate; but, boy,
he could almost hear Fraser's heart racing, and heat was just
rolling off him.  Ray tried to tug the shirt down over his
ass; felt his breath catch when he saw Fraser's gaze follow
his hands.  There was a volcano of heat in that gaze.

     He tugged languidly at the shirt, watching Fraser. 
Fraser was sitting really still, just looking, his gaze like
a physical caress.  When Ray gave up tugging and drifted his
fingers over what the shirt didn't cover, Fraser's gasp seemed
to suck all the air from the room.  Ah, gee--ah, holy gee-- 
Maybe it would make him feel better.

     Ray reached--

     Not too many minutes later the t-shirt was gone--landed
on the other side of the room someplace--and Ray was on his
other side, tight in the curve of Fraser's body.  Fraser's
cock filling him, thrusting, thrusting; teeth lightly gripping
the back of Ray's neck, holding him in place; one iron-hard
arm around Ray's waist, keeping him close; the other broad,
warm hand expertly pumping Ray's cock--oh, this definitely
made him feel better.  His mouth was babbling "oh" and "yes"
and "Benny"; his hands were knotted in the sheet, gripping it
tight, tighter--

     OH, this felt good.  Benny's hips and hand pumping faster
now; Benny letting go of his neck to gasp, "RAY RAY RAY RAY--"
in time with his ever-faster thrusts, with that hoarseness
in his voice that meant he was really starting to lose it--
DAMN, it was good.

     It felt so good, that when all the pleasure in his body
surged into his cock for a mind-blanking release, Ray stuffed
the sheet into his mouth, so he wouldn't wake half the neighborhood.

     He still felt good the next morning when he woke tangled
up with Fraser and the sheet; felt even better when he kissed
the sleepy Mountie wide awake; felt positively great as he
left with Fraser for breakfast and a day of cracking the case.

     Good thing he felt so good.  Halfway down the stairs he
and Fraser met two little black kids playing.

     "Good morning, Adam!" Fraser said.  "Good morning,
Talisha!"

     "Hey, kids!" said Ray.

     "Hi."  Adam was kind of shy.

     But not Talisha.  She looked straight at Ray as he passed
her, and then said in a voice they could have heard in
Indiana, "Is that your real nose?"

     Yep--good thing he felt so great, because otherwise that
kind of remark would make a guy rethink the innocence of
childhood.

                            . . .

      Ray's innocence was the starting point.  Ray had fired
in self defense, returning fire; Fraser took a sudden deep
breath, consciously erasing the memory of Ray firing at a
nonexistant gun, hitting--

     Ray had fired in self defense, aiming at the flash.  This
meant that there should have been gunpowder residue on Brendan
Willson's hands.  But, while a trace metal test had
established that Willson had held at least one gun in the
twenty-four hours before his death, a chemical test had
revealed no powder residue.  And holding a gun was not the
same as firing it, especially as the victim was an illegal
arms dealer whose hotel room contained a Glock 17
semiautomatic pistol, a Ruger P94, two Colt .380s, and an
Heckler & Koch 9mm USP semiautomatic--or, Ray had quipped, the
armaments of the average American tourist.

     Ray had fired in self defense.  This meant that there
should have been a spent shell.  But there was none, on the
ground, in the corners of the alley, or in the garbage bin
near where the body had fallen.  Even Diefenbaker's keen nose
had failed to find anything more interesting than a bag of
stale doughnuts.

     Ray had fired in self defense.  This meant that there
should have been a bullet from Brendan Willson's gun.  But
there was none, not buried in a wall, nor in a building across
the street, nor in the street itself.  Nor, presumably, in any
automobiles parked there that night; Fraser made a mental note
to return to the neighborhood at night, to see what vehicles
were likely to be there.

     "So we got bupkis," Ray said after several hours of searching.

     "Not quite."

     They knew that there had been half a dozen cash deposits
to the Vecchio household account over the last two months, at
uneven intervals, totalling about $4000.  Fraser's heart smote
him at the shock on Ray's face when he saw the printout of the
bank record.

     They knew that Brendan Willson had indeed broken the
jewelry store window--or at least been nearby when it was
broken--from the glass residue on his clothes; though why was
a puzzle:

     "What the hell was he going for, is my question," Ray
said.

     For, the shop owner, a genial little man who seemed to
specialize in dusty mother's rings and used-looking watches,
explained that he removed most of the merchandise from the
tiny show window every night, as a precaution against just
such an event.  And the mesh on the metal curtain he drew over
the window would have been far too small for Willson to reach
through.

     They knew that someone had called the 27th Precinct from
the pay telephone on the corner, which was suggestive; though
the accumulation of fingerprints on the telephone would have
told them nothing.

     "Besides," Ray said, "we know who called; we've just got
no proof of why she did it.  Or where she is."

     Where either of them were, more precisely:  Rache, last
name unknown, whose sketch was identified by the pizzeria
owner who didn't know her name but thought she was too young
to dress that way, and by a convenience store clerk who didn't
know her last name but thought he'd like to date her; and
Alessandra Willson, small-time fence, who was not at any of
the fifteen addresses the Department had for her, under any
of her nine known aliases.

     Now Fraser's mind flipped through the unexplored
possibilities for an accurate address:  voter registration,
register of deeds, the electric company, collection
agencies....  Perhaps she had a library card.  How many
branches were there in the metropolitan system?

     "She was setting me up."  Ray's voice was flat.

     "Ray, you don't know that.  You've said yourself that she
seems to like you--"

     "She set me up, Fraser."

     "Ray, was it her voice on the telephone?"

     "I've never heard her voice, Fraser."

     "But you said it was Rache who called."

     "Yeah, but--"  Ray stared through the Buick's windshield
at the gathering dusk.  "Did you ever think you'd get a case
you couldn't crack?"

     "I've had several cases I couldn't solve.  This is not
one of them."

     "It feels like--it feels like one of those dogfood bags
where if you could just get hold of the right part of the
string, it would unravel and the bag would open; but you just
can't seem to get it.  We just can't seem to get it, Fraser."

     "We will, Ray."

     Hidden in the dusk, on the quiet street, Fraser leaned
over and kissed Ray lightly on the cheek.  Ray's smile
brightened his hazel eyes.  "You getting mushy on me, Fraser?"

     "I'm just trying to remind you."

     "Oh, you reminded me last night.  You reminded me real
GOOD last night."

     Fraser felt his cheeks grow warm.  The memory of Ray
leaning out the window, the curve of his bare buttocks
highlighted by the hem of--

     Ray's light kiss was a sweet warmth.  "It's Saturday
night," he said.  "Date night in Chicago.  We should have a
date, Fraser.  How about I take you out for Chinese, maybe a
movie after?  After that, who knows?  Maybe if I'm real nice
to you I'll get lucky."

     Fraser chuckled.  "Maybe we'll both get lucky."

                            . . .

     *Get there.  Get there.  Get there and*--  Dark night and
the alley was dark and if Ray could only get there quick
enough he could get the guy before he shot and then there
wouldn't be any flash to aim at and--

     *Get there.  Get there*.  But his feet weren't moving
right; they didn't seem to want to get more than an inch off
the ground, no matter how he strained his legs and when he got
there the alley was dark and then he saw the flash and fired-
-

     And it was Ma there, crumpled in the alley--

     Ray jerked awake, bathed in sweat.  Dream.  It was just
a dream, one of those nightmares the psychiatrists would
really love--

     Arms slid around him; he was gathered to a hard chest
where a strong heart beat and a voice rumbled, "It was just
a nightmare.  It's over now."

     "I killed Ma."

     The heartbeat sped up, evened out.  "It was only a
nightmare, Ray."

     "It was her in the alley.  I killed her."

     Warm lips caressed his ear.  "Shhh.  It was only a
nightmare."

     Yeah, it was only a nightmare.  But, oh god, what a
beaut.  Still, better than that one with all the snow where
he couldn't find Fraser.

     He held Fraser tight.  "You think dreams are trying to
tell us something?"

     "Sometimes.  Sometimes they're telling us what we already
know and refuse to recognize."

     "I shot her, Fraser."

     "Symbolic, Ray.  You're tense about what's happening to
you, and you're tense about--about your relationship with your
family.  Your mind just put the two together."

     "Yeah."  But he could still see Ma lying in the alley,
still see the flash.

     Ray pulled away and sat up.  The shooting, the dream--
all of it was just spinning in his head, all mixed up
together.  Suddenly he was both exhausted and wide awake; and
he knew he'd never get back to sleep.

     "You know, Ray--"  Fraser was watching him.  "--I'd like
to take a look at that alley in the dark.  I'd like to know
just what it must have looked like that night."

     Ray kissed him before they got out of bed and kissed him
again as they got dressed.  Trust the Mountie to know Ray
needed to do something, to take some action to keep from going
nuts.  Canadians--you could always count on them.

     So they stood in the alley at 4 a.m., looking at the
garbage bin and the no street lights and the garbage.  No
Weird Waldo, either.

     "So he was standing about--HERE," Fraser said, moving to
the dark patch on the pavement.  It was brown in the light of
Fraser's flashlight; Ray was glad when Fraser turned it off. 
"And you were..."

     "Over here."  Ray moved into position.

     "I can just see you outlined against that light-colored
building across the street.  Was that street light across the
way out that night?"

     "Yeah.  But there were some cars on the road then, some
trucks.  Willson mighta seen me outlined against them."

     "Can you see me?"

     "Just barely."  Like that night.  Just like that night.

     Fraser flickered the flashlight.  "There.  That's the
flash of his gun.  Could you--"

     "Do that again."  Something was wrong.

     The light flickered.

     "No, lower."  Yes, definitely wrong.

     Fraser turned on the light.  "Now?"

     "No.  Lower.  And farther left."

     "Now?"

     "No, left!  Left!"

     "Oh, YOUR left!"

     "Yeah!  Left!"  Still wrong.  "Lower."

     "Ray--"

     "Yeah, right there."

     "Ray, are you sure this is the correct angle?"

     "Yeah.  Right there.  The flash was just right there."

     "Ray, aim your gun."

     Aim his--  "I don't have a gun, Fraser!"

     Fraser's hand came into the light and became a gun, like
the little kids made with their forefinger when they pretended
to shoot.  "Aim your gun."

     So, feeling silly, Ray clasped his hands and extended his
forefingers in the two-handed stance he usually used.  He
sighted down the fingers.

     "Look at your hands," said Fraser.

     About as high as his adam's apple; usual.  "So?"

     "So, look at MY hand."

     He looked at the hand that was holding the light.  Just
out from Fraser's right side.  About three feet up from the
ground.

     "You're standing in the dark, aiming at a man in the
dark.  Is this the angle you would use to try to shoot him?"

     No.  No, it wasn't.  Light began to dawn in Ray's soul. 
He felt like he was getting a real chestful of air for the
first time in a long time.

     Willson hadn't shot at him at all.  It'd been somebody
else.  There'd been somebody else in that alley, shooting, and
Willson had got in the way.

                            . . .

     "Somebody else.  Somebody else who took the gun and the
shell casing.  Oh, god, Fraser, I shot the wrong guy.  But
there was somebody else in that alley.  I DID see two people
running away from that jewelry store.  I thought I saw two,
but it didn't make sense, so I decided it was one."

     "You WERE set up."

     "Yeah, but--but they missed.  And then Willson caught my
bullet.  Oh, Fraser."

     "Willson lured you there.  He knew you were coming, and
he broke the glass and then ran to get you to that alley." 
But--

     "Aless set me up."

     "We don't know that."

     "She's his cousin.  She set me up."

     Something was still wrong.  Fraser pushed away his plate. 
The diner was quiet this early in the morning--good for thinking.

     "Ray, you're setting someone up to be shot.  You break
the glass and then run and then duck into the alley.  Now, you
know there's an assassin in that alley who's going to shoot
a man who's not only carrying a gun, but who knows how to use
it.  Do you stand in FRONT of the assassin, in the man's line
of fire, or do you duck behind the steel trash bin in that
alley?"

     "Fraser, are you saying Willson was standing in FRONT of
the shooter?"

     "It's the only logical scenario.  The assassin was on his
knees, aiming at you; you'd have noticed if someone in front
of Willson was trying to get away.  You'd have at least heard
it.  And, besides--"  Fraser took a deep breath.  This was a
painful part of the explanation.  "--Willson was shot in the
BACK, as he was turning--"

     Ray caught what he was saying.  "Turning to look back at
somebody."

     "Someone doing something unexpected, or else he wouldn't
have turned to see what was going on."

     "Somebody shooting at the cop who'd been chasing him. 
Kneeling beside the bin, shooting at the cop."

     "Who shot back and hit Brendan Willson."

     "Because the cop aimed right of the flash--the cop's right."

     "Just as the assassin knew he would."

     Ray's face was relaxing for the first time since the
shooting.  "So they weren't setting up just the cop."

     Fraser felt his own brow unfurrow.  "They were also
setting up Brendan Willson."

     "Which is a very interesting theory," Leftenant Welsh
told them the next morning.  "But, gentlemen, IA requires more
than just interesting theories.  IA likes shell casings,
carefully left where they were ejected.  They like spent
bullets, from which they can measure trajectories.  What they
do not like is theories based solely on the shooter's memory
of the events.  And what they ESPECIALLY do not like,
Detective Vecchio--"  His voice was growing harder.  "--is
police detectives who investigate their own shootings.  I have
worked diligently to keep you from being suspended.  I would
hate to have to ask for your shield, but I will do it if
necessary.  Is that clear?"

     "I'm dead, Fraser."  Ray sat dejectedly at his desk,
deforming a paperclip.

     "Not yet, Ray."

     "No, Fraser, it's just a matter of time."

     "Well, Ray, the Inuit have a--"

     Ray pointed the paperclip at him.  "Fraser, if you give
me some Inuit saying about how it ain't over 'till the fat
walrus sings, I swear I'm--"

     The pile of paper that dropped on the desk between them
was a welcome distraction.  "Printout on Seggebruch," said
Elaine.  "And--"  She glanced at Leftenant Welsh's office and
lowered her voice.  "--what you asked for," she said to
Fraser, handing him a folder.

     "Thank you kindly, Elaine," he said.

     Ray's eyes were wide.  "What you--"

     "Federal records.  On--ah--"  By telling Ray, would
Fraser be violating the leftenant's unspoken command?

     "On Willson."

     "Ah--that would be correct."

     "Let me see."

     Fraser shook his head firmly.

     "Fraser, let me see!"

     "Ray, that would be violating the leftenant's order."

     "Fraser, it's me.  It's my life we're talking about here."

     "Ray--"

     "Is a Canadian actually supposed to have an American's
personal FBI file?"

     Now, that would come under the--  No, it would be covered
by Section IX, paragraph 16 of the--  Except at the district
level, when it would be--  But not in Kansas.

     "Fine!" said Ray.  "Keep it to yourself!  I got a
printout of my own to look at."

     Ah.  Good.  Fraser hastily skimmed the information. 
Brendan Willson, age 32, was either one of the worst or one
of the unluckiest criminals Fraser had ever seen.  Focus: 
that was what Mr. Willson had lacked.  Trafficking in stolen
goods, smash and grab, grand theft auto (twice), trafficking
in illegal arms, driving under the influence of alcohol,
breaking and entering, assault, violating parole--the man was
a walking model of recidivism.

     "HMMM," said Ray.

     Fraser looked at him expectantly.  Ray glanced at him
pointedly, then turned the page and looked back down at his
printout.  Ah--so they were going to play THAT game.  Well,
Fraser wasn't really interested, anyway.

     Brendan Willson's Social Security Number began with the
numbers 361.  Fraser closed his eyes and called up a mental
picture of the chart he had studied...  Issued in Illinois. 
Characteristically, he was not on file with the American
Internal Revenue Service.  Add tax fraud to his crimes.

     "MmHMM," said Ray.

     Fraser did not take the bait.  He ran his eye down
Willson's arrest records.  The crimes had taken place in a
variety of states:  Illinois, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas-- 
He looked at the dates of those crimes, searching for
something more recent than three months ago, when Willson had
been bailed out on a burglary charge in Texas and dropped out
of sight--

     "Oh, my god."  Ray's voice wasn't teasing this time.

     Fraser looked up, but Ray was staring, puzzled, into
space.

     "I didn't think of that," he murmured.

     "Of what?"

     "Of--  This guy--this Seggebruch--he was arrested for
faking ATM cards.  I didn't even think about who could fake
an ATM card.  He could have; probably a bunch of computer
geeks could.  You think that's how somebody deposited all that
money to my account?  Fake ATM card made by some computer geek?"

     "Where's Mr. Seggebruch from?"

     Ray flipped through the file.  "Texas.  Austin."

     A cold knife seemed to pierce Fraser's vitals.  "Mr.
Willson is also from Texas.  University of Texas.  In Austin."

     "It's a big city.  You think they knew each other?"

     "The coincidence seems--suggestive."  *I figured I'd go
to Dallas, or maybe Austin--someplace warm*, she had said, her
lovely face glowing.  *Get a fresh start*.  He shut down the
memory.

     "Probably just that, though:  coincidence.  Like I said,
big city.  And these two don't strike me as the type that
would--  Oh, god, I'm dead."

     Fraser turned to see State's Attorney Louise St. Laurent
marching into Leftenant Welsh's office, casting a cool glance
at Ray.  Sullivan was with her.

     "Oh, god, this is it, Fraser.  They're gonna ask for my
badge.  Ah, geez, Fraser, I'm dead."

                            . . .

     He was dead.  It was just going to happen a day later
than Ray had thought.  He had known yesterday when he'd seen
Louise going into Welsh's office, but today's session with IA
just confirmed it.  Dead and about to lose his shield.  So
dead he couldn't really feel anything as he watched the
videotape IA played.

     There was Brendan Willson, a little fuzzy in the
uncertain focus of the ATM camera, doing at little banking at
the machine at 20th and West Octavia at 9:02 P.M. on October
15--the exact place and time and date on the receipt they'd
found in his wallet.  Brendan Willson, making a little deposit
into the Vecchio account.

     And more.  Shot of Brendan Willson doing a little banking
at 4:15 P.M. on October 4, at a machine across from the
station house.  And Willson using a machine on September 25. 
And September 18.  And August 29.  And--

     Ray closed his eyes.  Brendan Willson making cash
deposits into the Vecchio account.  In a weird way, Ray felt--
violated.  That was his family's money, and a slimeball had
had access to it.  Stupid to feel that way, but--

     "Now, there's something very interesting in the timing
here, Detective," said Bailey.  He slid a piece of paper
across the table to Ray.  "If you look right--HERE, I think
you'll notice something very--interesting."

     It was a list of the dates of deposit; and it was a list
of the dates of--  Ray looked closer and felt his heart stop. 
It was a list of the dates he'd brought Alessandra Willson in
on a charge or for questioning or because she'd promised him
some information.

     And for the last two months there'd been a deposit just
after every visit.

     "I'm not sure what you're getting at," he said.

     "Did Mr. Willson do all your banking?" Louise asked.

     "I didn't even KNOW Willson before the sixteenth."

     "But you do know--Alessandra."  She dropped a mug shot
on the table:  Aless in her cheerleader-hooker outfit.

     "Yes.  She's an informant."

     "Only an informant, Detective?"

     "And a pickpocket and a fence."

     "But nothing else."  Sullivan, looking bored.

     "No."

     "Did you know she was Willson's cousin?" Bailey asked.

     "I didn't know Brendan Willson.  I didn't trace her
family tree."

     "Why did Mr. Willson deposit so much money into your
account?"

     "I don't know."

     "How did he get your automatic teller machine card?"

     "He didn't have my card.  He must of had a fake."

     "Why didn't you report this activity to the bank?" 
Sullivan.

     "I didn't know about it."

     "Didn't know about deposits to your own account."

     "My mother takes care of that account."

     "But your name is on it."

     "I'm head of the house."

     "But your mother takes care of the account."

     "We're Italian."

     Sullivan, Bailey, and Louise St. Laurent just stared at
him; Guerra, his attorney, quirked his mouth in a smile.

     "Why would Mr. Willson make these deposits into your
account?" asked Louise.

     And it just kept going around and around like that, over
and over, until they ended by asking for his shield; and the
whole time Ray was asking these same questions in his own mind
and getting no answers.

     He never seemed to have answers for IA--at least, not the
kind that was any help.  Not this time, not the last time,
when they were asking about Victoria Metcalfe setting up the
Mountie so he had no choice but to go with her.  Money.  It
always seemed to come down to money and to disgrace and to
somebody betraying somebody else by setting them up; and Ray
never seemed to have the answers that would make everything
all right.

     He still had no answers the next day, after an evening
spent looking for Aless and Rache, and a night spent listening
to Fraser not sleeping either.  No answers during a day of
puttering around the apartment and walking through half of
Chicago with Dief, who had opted to stay with Ray instead of
going to the station house with Fraser:  "He's protecting you,
Ray," Fraser had said that morning; "He knows I'm having pizza
for lunch," said Ray.  And no answers from going around to
Aless's addresses again even though he wasn't supposed to.

     Ray stopped for coffee and donuts at a little place on
Racine:  bad coffee and good donuts, though he ended up giving
them to Dief.  The coffee was just something hot to drink
while he thought.

     Somebody hated him, but not enough to kill him.  Or maybe
too much to kill him:  the kind of cold hate that wanted him
alive to suffer.  What would happen to Ray if he wasn't
cleared?  A lot.  He'd lose his job.  And he'd be tried for
murder, at the very least.  Probably tack on some connection
with Willson--bribery or something.  Disgrace; and prison. 
Prison, knowing he hadn't done anything, knowing he'd been set
up.  Away from his family, away from Fraser--

     Oh, god, who hated him that much?  Well, a lot of people. 
But who hated him this much and would come up with something
this complicated?  Who hated him who even COULD come up with
something this complicated?  Only one person he could think
of.

     "If you hurt him, I'll kill you"--just tossed off to let
her know he didn't really trust her.  And that look she'd
given him:  fire and hate.  Now, SHE could come up with
something like this.

     Victoria Metcalfe.  Fraser's long-lost love, the girl
he'd had to arrest.  Intense days in a snowstorm that had
seared Fraser's soul for life; and then he'd taken her in like
a good little Mountie and tried to live with the choice he'd
made to follow duty instead of his heart.  When she'd come to
Chicago:  Romeo and Juliet.  Days of bliss, during which
Fraser had gotten so swept up he'd completely forgotten Ray. 
Ray tried not to think about how much that had hurt, that
Fraser had forgotten the special guys' night Ray had
planned....

     Days of bliss, during which Victoria had gotten her hook
well into Fraser and set in motion his eventual fall.  Then
murder and betrayal and Fraser being arrested; and IA grilling
Ray as Fraser's possible accomplice; and Fraser dancing to
Victoria's tune, obeying her in a gut-churning effort to prove
he wouldn't betray her again and to keep Ray out of jail.  And
then the sickening scene at Union Station, where Fraser's plan
to catch her changed in a horrifying instant to Fraser letting
her go and even trying to go with her even though it meant Ray
would lose the house he'd put up as bail, to Fraser running
after the train and into the path of Ray's bullet.

     Not for the first time, Ray felt the agony of that
horrible two weeks wash through him.  What kind of love would
make a man who worshipped honor betray his friend?  What kind
of passion would make a man so devoted to duty let a murderer
go free?  WAS it love?  Did Fraser still feel that way about
her?  Would he do the same kind of thing for Ray?

     *Stop it, Vecchio.  It isn't her*.  Victoria was far, far
away, since she knew what was good for her.  Besides, Fraser
was over her; he had Ray now.  The Victoria part of his life
was over.  No, she was far, far away, and she wouldn't be
stupid enough to come back to Chicago.  No, it was somebody
else.

     He bought Dief another donut and took them both home.

     Just about when Fraser was due home, Ray's little flip-
phone rang.  He made the mistake of answering it.  "Vecchio."

     The words coming from the other end were sharp as knives. 
"Ma?" said Ray.

     The voice didn't acknowledge that he'd said anything; it
just went on with what it had to say, laying his heart open
and flaying his soul.

     "Ma, I--"

     The voice didn't listen; it hissed a final sentence in
Italian, and the line went dead.

     "Ray?"  It was Fraser.

     Ray swallowed bile and closed the phone before tossing
it onto the table.  "Ma," he said.  "I've just tripled the
disgrace to my family--as if that was possible.  IA searched
the house.  She's been disgraced in front of the neighbors by
her filthy, homosexual son who's living like an animal with
another guy and murdering people on the side.  I'm
paraphrasing."

     "Ray--"

     "And now he's involved his innocent family.  His
innocent, church-going, heterosexual family--"

     "RAY."

     He was done, anyway.  "IA came in, searched the house,
took that cash you left--"

     "Ray, I didn't leave any money."

     "SURE you did!  Last week.  That money you put through
the mail slot."

     "Ray, I didn't--leave--any money."

     Ray stared at him for a minute.  Oh, god.  "Oh, god,
somebody--like those deposits.  Cash.  Like those deposits. 
You think Willson..."

     "I don't know what to think."

     "But it's like those deposits IA thinks Willson made for
me.  They think I--"

     Fraser was holding him now, wrapping Ray in warmth. 
"Ray, it doesn't do to get excited.  There's a perfectly
logical explanation for all this, and we'll find it."

     "Yeah.  The logical explanation is that I'm being set
up."

     "Yes, and we'll find the perpetrator.  Meanwhile, we have
to keep our wits about us."

     Funny, but that calmed him.  Something about Fraser
coming right out and saying there was a set up made it easier
to bear.  Or maybe the feeling of those strong arms around
him.  Fraser would fix things; Fraser always fixed things.

     Fraser was quiet at supper, but then Ray didn't feel much
like talking, either.  When his little flip-phone rang again,
his heart hammered, though he wasn't sure whether it was with
hope or with fear.

     It was Welsh.  He didn't sound happy.

     "IA wants to talk to me," Ray told Fraser after Welsh had
hung up.  "Tomorrow.  IA wants to talk to me tomorrow."  Oh,
god, don't let this be it--  He thrust the thought away.

     Fraser was clearing the table.  "Perhaps there's been a
break in the case."

     "Maybe I'm what's supposed to break."

     "In that case, they wouldn't wait until tomorrow; they
would ask to see you now."

     Oh, god, let that be right.

     "Can you come with me tomorrow?"

     "Of course, Ray!  The only reason I went to the Consulate
this afternoon is that there's so much to do with the
reception for the Mexican Ambassador on the thirty-first,
especially with the Musical Ride coming through--"

     "I can't believe they're coming back for more after what
happened last time.  Are Canadians natural gluttons for
punishment, or something?"

     "Now, Ray, I can't imagine the Musical Ride would become
involved in a nuclear incident twice in the same decade.  Of
course, there were those incidents involving grenades in 1907
and in 1909, but that was just freak timing--"

     Twit the Mountie.  Spend a cosy evening with him walking
around the slum spots of Chicago, looking at addresses Rache's
school records had turned up.  To bed early.

     They just sat quietly in bed for a little while, not
really ready for sleep, but getting there.  Willson,
shootings, money:  everything was whirling around in Ray's
head, getting all mixed up in there.  Somebody hated him
enough to be doing all this.  It all was coming down to money
and betrayal and unending hate--

     "I'm being set up, Fraser."

     "I know."

     "Doing a damn good job of it, too."

     "Yes."

     Okay, now for it.  He drew breath.  "Remind you of
anybody you know?"

     Fraser was still for a minute; then his head jerked
around so he was looking at Ray.  "It's not--"  He didn't
finish, just looked at Ray with wide eyes that were already
starting to seem distant:  that walled-in look Fraser had had
when he and Ray had first met.  Fraser in pain, retreating
into himself.  That distant look sliced into Ray like a razor-
edged knife.

     "It couldn't be," Fraser said.

     "Her M.O.," Ray said.

     "It--she wouldn't--how would she--"

     "She's done it before."

     "Where would she get the money?"

     "There's more than one bank to rob."

     "No."  Fraser's voice was firm.  "Perhaps Frank Zuko--"

     "Maybe.  But Zuko likes pain and blood and real fast
endings.  This is way too subtle for him."

     "You have--"  Fraser's voice was rough.  "You have--
other--enemies."

     Ray filled his lungs, emptied them.  "Yeah, you're
right," he said.  "Probably somebody I don't even remember. 
Lot of perps with a lot of time to plan out something like
this."

     But something was in the room with them now, chilling the
air.  Something or--someone.  When they smooched and slid down
under the blanket, Fraser didn't curl around him like usual;
Ray didn't snuggle up to him.  Instead, they lay side by side,
like two guys who only kind of liked each other, until they
fell asleep.

     Next morning, they woke wrapped around each other as
usual.  And they kissed, as usual.

     But, getting dressed, Fraser seemed nervy; he didn't seem
to want to get too far from Ray, dressing right beside him,
tugging Ray's jacket straight, brushing off lint Ray couldn't
see, fussing over dust on Ray's shoes--like Ray was going to
disappear if Fraser wasn't careful.

     Or like Fraser was protecting him.

     Ray's heart felt soft as applesauce.  He took Fraser's
face in his hands, smiled into his eyes, and leaned in to give
Fraser a good, solid DAMN-I-love-you! kiss that seemed to last
about three weeks.

     Fraser's arms were stone walls protecting him.  Eyes
closed, Ray wrapped his arms around Fraser and rested his head
on wool to breathe in the leather and wool and warm-skin
fragrance of the Mountie.  Every Mountie muscle seemed tense. 
Fraser held him tight, tighter--

     "It's gonna be okay, Fraser," Ray murmured.

     "I know."  The words came too quick.

     "Really okay."

     "Of course, Ray."  But Fraser's fingers seemed to clutch
him.

     And when they broke from the embrace to go have
breakfast, Fraser's face was soft with something that looked
a little like fear.  Ray watched him take a deep breath and
slip on his upright-Mountie expression before they went
through the door; but his eyes were apprehensive.

     And it occured to Ray to wonder if Fraser was being
protective of Ray--or of himself, clutching for support in the
face of what he was afraid he might do if Victoria Metcalfe
came back for another try.

     He wondered it all the way down to the car and halfway
to the diner.

                            . . .

Part 2 of 4