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worried you might be, then?” Machen asked, seeming to be honestly interested, and Garton flushed a deep ugly red.
    During this exchange, Hagarty was trying with increasing desperation to pull Adrian Mellon away from the scene. Now, at last, Mellon was going.
    â€œTa-ta, love!” Adrian called cheekily over his shoulder.
    â€œShut up, candy-ass,” Machen said. “Get out of here.”
    Garton made a lunge at Mellon, and Machen grabbed him.
    â€œI can run you in, my friend,” Machen said, “and the way you’re acting, it might not be such a bad idea.”
    â€œNext time I see you I’m gonna hurt you!” Garton bellowed after the departing pair, and heads turned to stare at him. “And if you’re wearing that hat, I’m gonna kill you! This town don’t need no faggots like you!”
    Without turning, Mellon waggled the fingers of his left hand—the nails were painted cerise—and put an extra little wiggle in his walk. Garton lunged again.
    â€œOne more word or one more move and in you go,” Machen said mildly. “Trust me, my boy, for I mean exactly what I say.”
    â€œCome on, Webby,” Chris Unwin said uneasily. “Mellow out.”
    â€œYou like guys like that?” Webby asked Machen, ignoring Chris and Steve completely. “Huh?”
    â€œAbout the bum-punchers I’m neutral,” Machen said. “What I’m really in favor of is peace and quiet, and you are upsetting what I like, pizza face. Now do you want to go a round with me or what?”
    â€œCome on, Webby,” Steve Dubay said quietly. “Let’s go get some hot dogs.”
    Webby went, straightening his shirt with exaggerated moves and brushing the hair out of his eyes. Machen, who also gave a statement on the morning following Adrian Mellon’s death, said: The last thing I heard him say as him and his buddies walked off was, “Next time I see him he’s going to be in serious hurt.”
6
    â€œPlease, I got to talk to my mother,” Steve Dubay said for the third time. “I’ve got to get her to mellow out my stepfather, or there is going to be one hell of a punching-match when I get home.”
    â€œIn a little while,” Officer Charles Avarino told him. Both Avarino and his partner, Barney Morrison, knew that Steve Dubay would not be going home tonight and maybe not for many nights to come. The boy did not seem to realize just how heavy this particular bust was, and Avarino would not be surprised when he learned, later on, that Dubay had left school at age sixteen. At that time he had still been in Water Street Junior High. His IQ was 68, according to the Wechsler he had taken during one of his three trips through the seventh grade.
    â€œTell us what happened when you saw Mellon coming out of the Falcon,” Morrison invited.
    â€œNo, man, I better not.”
    â€œWell, why not?” Avarino asked.
    â€œI already talked too much, maybe.”
    â€œYou came in to talk,” Avarino said. “Isn’t that right?”
    â€œWell . . . yeah . . . but . . .”
    â€œListen,” Morrison said warmly, sitting down next to Dubay and shooting him a cigarette. “You think me and Chick here like fags?”
    â€œI don’t know—”
    â€œDo we look like we like fags?”
    â€œNo, but . . .”
    â€œWe’re your friends, Steve-o,” Morrison said solemnly. “And believe me, you and Chris and Webby need all the friends you can get just about now. Because tomorrow every bleeding heart in this town is going to be screaming for you guys’s blood.”
    Steve Dubay looked dimly alarmed. Avarino, who could almost read this hairbag’s pussy little mind, suspected he was thinking about his stepfather again. And although Avarino had no liking for Derry’s small gay community—like every other cop on the force, he would enjoy