Page 113

“That’s neither a no or anything else, if we’re still on the record,” DelRaye said.

“I could, I suppose, call you an ‘unnamed senior police Officer involved in the investigation,’ “ Mickey offered.

“I wouldn’t want you quoting me as saying Nelson was a faggot,” DelRaye said. “Because I didn’t say that.”

“Jesus Christ, was he?”

“If we’re still on the record, no comment,” DelRaye said. “We’re still on the record?”

“Yeah. Sorry,” Mickey O’Hara said, and then went for the jugular. “If I asked you, on the record, but as an ‘unnamed senior police officer involved in the investigation’ if you are looking for a Negro homosexual for questioning in the Nelson murder investigation, what would you say?”

“You’re not going to use my name?”

“Scout’s honor.”

“Then I would say ‘that’s true.’ “

“And if I asked you how come you can’t find him, what would you say?”

“There are a number of suspects, and we believe that the name we have, Pierre St. Maury—”

“Who’s he?”

“He’s the one we want to question most. He lived with Nelson. We don’t think that’s his real name.”

“Colored guy?”

“Big black guy. That description fits a lot of people in Philadelphia. It fits a lot of people who call themselves ‘gay.’ But we’ll get him.”

“But he’s not the only one you’re looking for?”

“There are others who meet the same description. The rent-a-cops on Stockton Place told us that Nelson had a lot of large black men friends.”

“And you think one of them did it?”

“When people like that do each other in, they usually do it with a vengeance,” DelRaye said.

“The way Nelson was done in, you mean?”

DelRaye did not reply. He suspected that he had gone too far.

“Mickey,” he said, “I’m getting a little uncomfortable with this. Let’s get off it, huh?”

“Sure,” Mickey O’Hara said. “I got to get out of here anyway.”

****

Ten minutes later, Mickey O’Hara walked back into the city room, walked with elaborate erectness to his desk, where he sat down at his computer terminal, belched, and pushed the COMPOSE button.

SLUG: Fairy Axman?

By Michael J. O'Hara

According to a senior police officer involved in the investigation of the brutal murder of Jerome Nelson, a “large black male,” in his twenties, going by the name of Pierre St.Maury, and who reportedly shared the luxurious apartment at 6 Stockton Place, is being sought for questioning.

The police official, who spoke with this reporter only on condition of anonymity, said that it was believed the name Pierre St.Maury was assumed, and suggested this was common practice among what he described as Philadelphia's “large 'gay' black community.”

Mickey stopped typing, found a cigarette and lit it, and then read what he had written.