Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York

by Elon Green

“He would always say nice things about people. Coming from Europe, where all you do is criticize others—he was the exact opposite.”

The children, not aware of the bigger picture, were disproportionately critical of their mother.

In practice, however, the staunch liberal Democrat was attracted to a lot of Republicans he “absolutely despised.”

Indeed, the terminal and the ten blocks to the north was known as the Minnesota Strip, a dark reference to Midwestern girls who, failing to make it on Broadway, hooked along Eighth Avenue.

“Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists,”

William, a bearded librarian from Orange County, New York, caught the task force’s attention after his name was found on a letter a few feet away from the hot dog vendor’s trash barrel. He was elusive, which made investigators suspicious. “A squirrelly character,” remembered one investigator. It took weeks to locate William and rule him out.