Killers at large.(on the right)

NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 19

Tony Venenum (we'll call him), 26, reasons that he has always taken risks in life. He was raised by a single parent and made his way in a neighborhood where toughness was a requirement for survival. He discovered, in his teens, that he had solace in male companionship, and before he was 20, had been seduced, and had lived then with Guido, an older man. Both had jobs in establishments that required conformist behavior, but then Guido took sick and the diagnosis was AIDS. The retrovirus inhibitor kept him alive and active, but after two years the poison prevailed, leaving Tony both bereft and desperate for relief, which he found in crystal meth. This cheered him greatly but also increased his craving for sex, which he engaged in diligently. But then early in June he recognized symptoms like those that had gradually disabled Guido. He didn't consult a doctor--he had no trouble in getting access to the inhibitor drug, and the crystal meth, for a sometime street kid, was easy to find. So were more partners, to whom he didn't confide his illness. So that when the public health official came by and told him he wanted information, and if necessary could get a warrant, Tony decided fatalistically to cooperate.

The health office wanted the names and addresses of everyone Tony had had sex with, a question that made Tony laugh through his hoarse coughing. How could he possibly reconstruct such a list? A few guys, sure, but all of them? The New York Times reports, in two stories on the new and virulent strain of AIDS, that those who seek to do something to arrest the virus are driven to "more aggressive" measures than in the past. Charles Kaiser, the historian ...