TRANSVESTIA

The two women exchanged a quick look. There was a short pause. "Yes," the younger woman spoke stiffly. "Danny Mezlivsky, as far as I know, was her, ah, his real name." She looked Hamilton squarely in

the eye.

Hamilton nodded. "I've many questions for you, Mrs. Lucas, and I'll probably want some kind of statement from you downtown. But, for the moment, can you gell me where your husband is?"

For the first time, Mrs. Lucas looked surprised. She looked quick- ly at the other woman, who shook her head. A small grin played about her lips. "Yes, Sergeant,” she looked at him mockingly, "I can tell you where my husband is."

“Where?" he said testily.

"Well." she said, as the other woman anxiously shifted from one foot to the other, scraping one nylon clad leg ainst the other, "there are only the three of us here. Sergeant. You, me and my husband."

Mike Ellis cursed under his breath at the general eccentricity that Sergeant Bud Hamilton displayed as a partner. Having begun a task that he could get his teeth into at last, he was peremptorily summoned to join his sidekick at an Eastgate address without a word of what was going on and without any enquiry into the results of Ellis' own digging.

The address that Hamilton had given him was an older, grimy tenement house. The older detective was standing on the well worn steps at the front of the building as Ellis arrived. With a jerk of his head. Hamilton was off up the stairs leaving the young detective to trail after him. At a dark landing on the second floor, Hamilton stopped and waited for Ellis to join him. Ellis could hardly breathe with the stale odor of cabbage hanging in the air, stifling him and yet recalling boyhood scenes he had long thought put to rest. Hamilton rang the bell under the card with the pencilled in name, "Mezlivsky."

The door opened a fraction. “What do you want?" the voice was that of an old. tired woman.

"Mrs. Mezlivsky." Hamilton was trying what Ellis thought of as his "swarmy" approach. "May we have a few minutes of your time?"