RANSVESTIA

gays, lesbians, kinks — call 'em what you like. Anyone with any bent of any kind, no matter how harmless it might be to himself or to the community, is being hounded into suicide or ruin through exposure." He slowed for a moment, panting. His dark eyes, however, glowed with an inner fanaticism. "But who can crack the conspiracy of silence that surrounds anything like this? Even the victims won't talk for fear of reprisal. We have to expose this corruption and rid it from the city." He slumped back, exhausted, into his chair

"For such an exposure," Merick took up the narrative, "we need someone on the inside, to supply authoritative material, both to us and, possibly, to a public inquiry later. And that," Merrick glanced at the article on his desk, "is where you come in, Mr. McIntyre."

Eddie followed his eyes. He frowned, feeling bewildered. They wanted him as an inside man for what?

"To put it bluntly," Roscoe Ward's face might have been granite, "how'd you like to be a female impersonator?"

Eddie's eyes flared open. He sat back abruptly. He felt numb. His earlier excitement had evaporated into a strange fear. "I-I er ..." He swallowed. He surely must have misheard.

"You see, Mr. McIntyre," Merrick's voice was persuasive. "I'm sorry, I should call you Eddie. The problem, Eddie, has been that we have not been able to find any young man to whom we could address such a question. We needed someone who is not one of the unreliable, exotic kinds of persons mentioned by Ross, but, who possesses some training as an interviewer or reporter This person also has to have an open mind, but not one likely to be jeopardized by exposure, to the subject of female impersonation."

"It's the only area we could slip someone in without them having to debase themselves too much," Roscoe was able to talk again. "We considered using a real girl, but she'd not likely get past first base. Any kind of queen, of course, we couldn't be sure of to give us correct facts, and might compromise us, instead. Well," he looked upward at Merrick, "that's our pitch. You'll be paid as a member of my staff, of course, and you'll stay with us when this is all over, as an investigative reporter That's a promise."

"You'll need time to think it over," Merrick eyed the young man closely. "You've a girl friend?"