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die.”
    â€œThere hasn’t been a reported case of rabies bite in the city for over thirty years.”
    â€œMaybe this is the one. Or the man and his dog were from out of town and only visiting here for the day.”
    â€œThere weren’t a hundred reported cases in the entire country last year and most of those attacking rabid animals weren’t dogs.”
    â€œWhat would you do?” I asked him.
    â€œI’d take the injections,” Mina said.
    â€œI wouldn’t,” he said. “Though in the end that comes down to a personal and not a professional decision, so I know how tough it must be for both of you.”
    â€œI’ll make up my mind in two days.” I got Milos’s phone number and said to the Finnish woman “Tell him I’ll call in two days to report if the dog’s been found. If it hasn’t, say he’ll then have to speak to his own people and make up his own mind on whether he wants to go through with the virus shots.”
    Mina, Milos and I went to a coffee shop nearby. I told Mina I’d like to take her out for dinner one night this week and she said “I don’t think it’d be too good an idea as I’m sort of seeing someone now.”
    â€œBut we’ve had too inauspicious and eventful and coincidental a beginning not to see what develops next.”
    â€œI wouldn’t go that far. But I don’t suppose a single dinner with you can matter that much and we can also learn how we all made out with our bites.” She gave me her phone number. The three of us shook hands and took separate buses home.
    I called the police station the next day and the man at the desk said the first address Jersey gave was fake and they’re now trying to run him down at either his own apartment or where he said his friend lives.
    â€œThis is a real emergency,” I said. “As even the injection treatments for rabies can sometimes be fatal, so this other man and I want to avoid them at all costs.”
    I called the station the next day and the policeman said “All three addresses were fake and we don’t know what else to do for you now.”
    â€œI know where Jersey and his type hang out.”
    â€œYou one of them?”
    â€œNo, I just live in the neighborhood and walk around a lot. And I see that on the island across from Loews 83rd is where a lot of the transvestites like to hang out these days, though every other month or so they switch to another island a block or two north or south.”
    â€œIf you see him let us know,” and he gave me a special number to call.
    I went to the island on Broadway. One of the transvestites of two days ago was sitting alone on a bench.
    â€œExcuse me,” I said, “but do you know where I can find your friend Jersey?”
    â€œI’ve no friend Jersey. She a friend of yours?”
    â€œJersey’s dog bit me the other day and I’m trying to find it to see if it has rabies.”
    â€œOh sure, now I remember. Bad scene. Too many police.”
    â€œCan you tell me where Jersey is?”
    â€œShe and her dog are dead.”
    â€œNo, really.”
    â€œNo, really, dead. Hit by a car.”
    â€œBoth killed by the same car? Around here?”
    â€œShe didn’t die, just her dog. Ballpark, she called him. The dog. Jersey went to California. Picked up on this very comer here by some new queer who stops his car and says ‘I love you, darling, what’s your name?’ And they made it—just like that.”
    â€œI could still find out if the dog had rabies if you knew when and where the accident took place and what they might have done with the dog’s body.”
    â€œHer dog didn’t die either. He ran away. Ballpark. Jersey let her go when she got in that rich queer’s car. ‘Freedom,’ she says to Ballpark, ‘that’s your new name,’ and Ballpark runs off.”
    â€œIs that the truth now?