RANSVESTIA

Eddie flushed, recognizing adjectives that he had used. "I tried to write as accurately as I could," he said defensively.

"Oh, I have no doubt, Mr. McIntyre," said the editor, "that you wrote the truth as you saw it. Mr. Ward and I find your perception of female impersonation quite unusual, particularly for this newspaper."

Oh God, I'm going to be fired, thought Eddie, but they want to humiliate me first.

Roscoe Ward's coughing had eased. "Hey, boy," his voice was even more leathery, "look over here." Eddie turned to look at the old, redfaced man in front of the brown-panelled wall. "You are aware of the project that I have in hand at the moment."

Eddie nodded silently. "There is a possibility," Merrick's voice was bland, "just a slim one, in my opinion, that you may, under certain circumstances, be able to work with Mr. Ward on another of his ex- poses."

Openmouthed, Eddie looked at the man against the wall. He was coughing again and was obviously a sick man. But what a chance! To work with the best of all the Tribune's great reporters. Eddie's heart leapt wildly exultation and expectation This was what he had become a reporter for! What could the expose be?

Between coughs, Ward had taken up the speaking. "I've spent my life exposing the corruption of this city," he gasped. "I've spent the last year the current set of articles, exposing how young girls are snored into the web of prostitution, how they are degraded, and how they come to serve the interests of the Mob. But that's yesterday's news. Finished now." His coughing was so cute that Eddie's exhiliration was quite subdued. It didn't look to him that Roscoe Ward would ever finish another assignment. "Girls aren't the only people exploited by this new mob in town, Ward went on. "Do you know how many suicides there have been in this city in the last two years? Over 250!" His hoarse voice had fue in it. "And do you know why? 'Course you don't but I'll tell you Blackmail has become a way of life for many people in this city. He had to stop and sip at iced water that a worried Merrick had risen and gotten for him.

"All the so-called 'degenerates' of this city," he rasped on deter- minedly, "have become subject to blackmail queens, transvestites,