The church basement smelled of candle wax and floor polish. Ed had been to enough church basements in his life to recognize the particular combination—the waxy residue of religious ceremony layered over the sharp tang of disinfectant that was applied too sparingly to do any real good. This one was in the Castro district, or what would be called the Castro district in a few years, though in 1949 it was simply a neighborhood where men who loved men lived and gathered and tried not to be seen. The...