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with a computer company to have benefits and we eked out enough to cover an individual policy for me. But that company went underwater—literally, of course, so Andy lost his job and the insurance. He does okay for work freelance, but that doesn’t have benefits.
    “You know how the mail is, even now. My renewal notice came back when everything was delayed weeks and weeks, and we had to go Uptown to the post office to get it. I’d gotten nothing from two trips, so didn’t get back, and when I finally did there was a big stack of mail for me to go through and I didn’t want to go through it, so left it sitting for another week…”
    “They didn’t give you any leeway for being in New Orleans?”
    “Maybe if I’d written enough letters and begged hard enough. But at that time Andy wasn’t making much, I wasn’t making much, and it felt like something we could hold off for a little while until things got better.”
    “It’s been two years, haven’t things got better?” I wanted to tell him, You can’t live so close to the edge because I can’t bear to see you fall.
    He ate another rib before replying. “I reapplied a couple of months ago and they turned me down.”
    “Why?”
    “They didn’t really say, basically being a gay man in New Orleans. They probably assume that if I’m not HIV infected, I soon will be.”
    “Oh, Torbin, honey, I’m sorry.”
    “Yeah, me, too. So I applied for a big-boy job.”
    “Doing what?” Torbin had previously survived by being the best drag queen on the block and always being in demand for shows.
    “That place on Frenchmen Street, an office of NO/AIDS? They need someone who knows the gay community to do outreach and testing.”
    “But you don’t know anything about public health.” I put half my burger on his place and grabbed a couple of ribs.
    “But I do know the gay community and I’m used to working odd hours and I know just about everything there is to know about sex. Well, gay sex. Don’t ask me how to do it during her period.”
    “Dildos, no. Tampons, sí .”
    “Please, I don’t need that image while eating barbeque sauce.”
    I grabbed another rib to save him from menstrual barbeque sauce. “I’ll leave you the rest of the onion rings.”
    I let him have the rest of the mac and cheese as well. I even treated him. A trip to the ER doesn’t come cheap. He didn’t argue, which told me he was worried. I rarely ever saw my buoyant cousin show strain.
    We’re getting older , I thought as I waved him away after he dropped me back at my office. We were both beyond forty—that seemed so impossibly old back when we were in our twenties and all the years stretched before us—the gray in our hair no longer an anomaly. It was sobering to think of Torbin in a regular job—well, as regular as handing out condoms in a bar could be.
    I had insurance, but I paid a high—and increasingly higher—price for it. While I occasionally hire people to help out, especially when I’m doing surveillance, I’m essentially a solo operation. I do what most solo practitioners do, join professional associations and use their buying power to get group rates. It wasn’t something I thought about much, other than every year to pay my dues, pay for the insurance, liability, health, shove the policy in a file, and hope that I never needed to use it. So far I’ve been pretty lucky. And my luck has been helped enormously by having a live-in doctor in the house. Being able to whine, “Honey, I think I’m getting a cold,” and get actual doctor advice instead of tea and sympathy, has saved me from the usual run-of-the-mill medical visits.
    I can still make it up three flights of stairs, I thought, as I climbed them, not too out of breath. Just one gasp and I was good to go. Okay, two.
    I opened my door to the ringing of the phone. It was a little unnerving, as if someone was aware of me walking in the door.
    “Knight Detective Agency,” I answered, reminding myself I’d