The Chelsea Girl Murders by Sparkle Hayter Page A

ex-lover’s mail to NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love Association? Granted, that was years ago, but you get my point. She was a vindictive woman, and not in a fun way.
    What sick-humored twist of fate had brought me here, right next door to Maggie Mason? But of course, there was a logical explanation. Tamayo had found this place at the Chelsea Hotel through a friend of Mike’s, though she’d declined to name that friend, who had to be Maggie Mason.
    Maybe she did have an alibi in the Gerald Woznik death, but even if she did, she was someone to avoid, clearly. While Maggie was distracted on the phone, I went back inside.
    The maid was still scrubbing. Watching her scrub a dead man’s bloodstains wasn’t very appealing either, so I went out to get newspapers and check out the neighborhood. Just in case my mug and my name were in the morning papers, I put on sunglasses and a scarf so I wouldn’t be recognized. Funny, when I was a young reporter I couldn’t wait to become famous. But unfortunately, most of the recognition I got as a reporter had come mainly because of homicide, and fame brought unwanted attention for a while from a fervent coterie of hard-core masochists, all of whom had since moved on to worship more powerful women. In fact, some of my masochistic former fans were more famous than me now. Remember a story a year or so ago about a man arrested in England for stalking Margaret Thatcher? He had her face tattooed over his heart. He was my fan for a while, though I never inspired him to a tattoo. And that guy who pulled out his toenails and sent them to the perky blond cohost of a popular entertainment TV show? That guy is Elroy Vern, who stalked and kidnapped me several years ago, begging me to beat him. He’s in a maximum-security psychiatric hospital now for murder and attempted murder; his correspondence is being more closely monitored.
    Down at the front desk, the dark-haired, well-tailored tourist lady I’d seen before was asking questions while another of her flock stood nearby. There were still cops about and I saw one of the detectives from the night before coming out of the office of the manager, Stanley Bard.
    â€œThere could be a murderer running around this place,” the tourist lady said, alarmed.
    â€œMadam, we’ll do our utmost to ensure your security,” said the desk clerk. “These things happen everywhere, but they rarely happen here.”
    The woman turned in a huff, pushing past me. Her friend followed. “A man shot in our hotel, the horrible insane man outside the convention center, and those frightening teenagers fighting in Times Square last night? I don’t know if I can make it through a week of this,” she said. “On the news this morning, they said there was a slasher on the subway, on the E train, the same subway we took two days ago.”
    I thought, How easy it is to tune into the things that confirm our prejudices, and tune out those things that challenge them. New York City was safer than most big cities these days. The odds of being killed by a stranger were way down; the odds of being killed by someone who was supposed to love you, however, were way up. Statistically, she was more likely to be harmed by the women she was keeping company with than by a subway slasher or a homicidal maniac.
    The city was cleaner than it used to be too, but this woman, who no doubt came from a gentle, sweet-smelling place where people only die from natural causes and gun-cleaning accidents, saw just the slashers and the murderers, the lack of small amenities. I felt bad for her, that she’d seen the dead guy on the floor. Probably, she’d never seen a murder victim before, and it can be quite a shock the first time, even if you’ve seen it a thousand times on TV shows or on the news. I felt bad in a more general way too, that she wasn’t enjoying New York, a city I came to as a tourist and fell deeply in love