Текст книги " Red White and Black and Blue "

Автор книги: Richard Stevenson

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Chapter Twenty

The flight to Burlington took over four hours in our tricycle with a surfboard across it, and my breakfast cinnamon bun was restless in the bumpy air. I asked Walt to wait at the airport; I had tracked Randy Spong down at home with a cell number Bud Giannopolous had come up with, and Spong had agreed to see me if I promised to leave his apartment by four forty-five. I had told him I was investigating the circumstances surrounding Greg Stiver's suicide, including Kenyon Louderbush's possible involvement. This honesty seemed like the approach that would work best with him, and also I wasn't sure I could come up with any more appalling bald-faced lies that day—though in a pinch, for a higher cause, I of course could have.

Spong lived not far from the UVM campus in an apartment on the second floor of the carriage house behind a pretty old Victorian mansion that seemed to have gone either gay or Mexican: a yellow exterior with lavender trim. Either way, it was a beauty.

I climbed the outside wooden steps to the apartment, and I saw right away why Spong wanted me out of there by a quarter to five. The elfin young man was bruised and swollen, and five o'clock was probably when his abusive boyfriend came home from work. Spong was stringily muscular, but all his strength was in his arms. His eyes showed no durability at all. He was barefoot in shorts and a T-shirt that said I HEART

TRANSYLVANIA. He had an angular face with a Roman nose 173

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and big brown eyes that would have been sexy if they hadn't been black and blue.

I said, "Thanks for talking to me about Greg. It looks as if you and he had something in common."

"You mean we were both economists?"

"Not just that."

He smiled weakly. "You're so perceptive."

He shoved some books and papers aside on the couch and sat down, and I sat in one of the old easy chairs in the room, though not the one that directly faced the TV set, which gave off a distinct aura of territoriality. The bookshelves on one wall were stuffed to overflowing, and the art posters on the walls were Franz Kline, Escher, and Lucy and Charlie and the football.

I said, "But you're not going to end up like Greg, I hope."

He shrugged. "Not really. If I really hated my life as much as you must think I do, I wouldn't end it. I would change it.

And eventually I think I will. Just not yet."

"So you get some kind of satisfaction out of being abused by your boyfriend?"

"I wouldn't use the word satisfaction. It's more complicated than that. And I like complicated emotions. But, no, I'm not completely detached from reality. I know this is basically unhealthy. For me and for Serge."

"Serge. What is he, some kind of Russian bear? You could really get hurt, you know."

Another little smile. "Serge isn't Russian. He's Swiss. He's older than I am, and he's not much bigger than I am. I could 174

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strangle him if I needed to. But strangling Serge is not what I need. What I need is what you see."

"How do you explain it at work? The bruising and so on."

"I don't. People can think what they want to think. I'm very good in the classroom, so my position is secure.

Occasionally a well-meaning colleague tiptoes up to the elephant in the room and asks me if they can help or if they can direct me to someone. I just say no thank you."

"I take it that in your personal history this all goes way back."

"Of course."

"You don't want to be free of that?"

"No, not yet."

I checked my watch. We had another hour.

I said, "Suppose Serge came back while I was here? How would he react?"

"Well, we're not going to test that supposition. But it wouldn't be pretty."

"Is he jealous?"

"You could put it that way. The other person in any of those situations is safe, however. You wouldn't have to be carrying a revolver in that bag you brought in in order to protect yourself. I would be the one who bore the brunt after you left."

"And that's what you want."

"I do need to take a day off sometimes. I've learned how to pace myself and stay out of the ERs. We don't want that."

"Did Kenyon Louderbush beat you?"

"Of course."

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"He was your abusive lover?"

"For a year. Then Greg came along."

"So Louderbush trolled for boyfriends in SUNY econ classes? That's where you met him?"

"Kenyon never came to class, no. He was never that subtle. He cruised the men's room in the Performing Arts Center every week or so. I suppose that's where he met Greg, too."

"Did you resent Greg's replacing you in Louderbush's...is affections the word I want?"

"For a while. But it was time for me to move on anyway.

And I knew Greg and wished him well."

"Were you in Albany when Greg died?"

"No, I'd moved up here in January. I heard about it from friends. I cried. Which I don't do very often. I learned a long time ago how not to."

"Some people who knew Greg think Louderbush somehow drove him to suicide."

A little sigh. "It doesn't work that way. Greg was a grown-up."

"But pretty unhappy, according to two neighbors of his. He was more ambivalent about the abusive relationship he was in than you are about yours."

"You think I'm not ambivalent?"

"I was getting the impression you find it fulfilling."

"Yes and no. That's called ambivalence, I believe."

"Okay."

"Anyway, Greg was not the type to commit suicide."

"There's a type?"

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"I mean only that he had quite a muscular ego. He believed in his ideas and he believed in himself. The need to be abused was an important part of Greg's makeup—I assume it had to do with his home life growing up, though I really know nothing about that—but being kicked and hit was not central to his spiritual existence. There was plenty else about him that was sturdy in a conventional way. I really thought he would go on to be successful as a conservative writer and teacher—probably show up on Fox and maybe write speeches for people like Kenyon. That he would just throw all that away seemed so out of character. Greg was somebody who saw a future with him in it. But, as I say, I wasn't all that close to Greg, so maybe there were other demons I never knew about."

"What do you think of Louderbush's candidacy for governor?"

"I wish him Godspeed. Maybe he'll win and break the Senate Democratic leadership's nose. They've had it coming for years."

"I'm working for the Shy McCloskey campaign. We want to expose Louderbush as a closeted gay man who beats up his gay lovers and isn't fit to hold public office."

An eyebrow went up, though only just perceptibly. "I thought that might be what you were up to."

"Would you be willing to sign a statement describing your relationship with Louderbush, including the abuse?"

"Of course not."

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"You don't see this history of his as a character flaw so serious that it precludes his being in charge of, say, state mental health programs?"

"What do you think a Governor Louderbush would do?

Subsidize gay guys beating up their boyfriends? I wouldn't worry about that. Kenyon is a libertarian. He thinks government should mind its own business. And maybe you should, too."

"Did Louderbush have other gay lovers he abused besides you and Greg?"

"I believe so. He referred to someone occasionally out in his district. Some hot number he liked to get drunk and pound on. I'm sure there had been others. But even if I knew who these men were, I wouldn't provide you with their names. That would be presumptuous on my part."

I went round and round with Spong for another fifteen minutes—we both kept a close eye on our watches—but I finally had to accept the near certainty that he would be no help at all in exposing Louderbush. He had some highly theoretical idea in his head as to what it would be like to live normally, but it was so far outside his experience that he simply had no objection to anybody else's making intimate human connections primarily through violence.

At a quarter to five, I said, "You're looking apprehensive. I guess I had better get going."

"Thank you, yes. My pulse rate is up. I can actually feel my heart pounding in my chest. In a way, I wish you'd stick around. This is getting exciting. The dread is palpable."

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There was no point to my telling him there were programs and yada yada. He knew all that. I thanked him and wished him well.

As I pulled out of the driveway in my rental car, an old Chevy Caprice drove by me, and in the mirror I saw it park in the spot I had just vacated in front of the carriage house. I kept on going.

* * * *

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Chapter Twenty-one

Dunphy said, "Shy wants to meet you before you see Louderbush tomorrow. Can you work it out? I know this is last minute."

I'd just gotten into my car after the flight back from Burlington and had phoned Timmy and told him I was on my way home. It was just after eight, and I was looking forward to going out for a beer and a plate of something zesty.

"Yeah, sure. You mean now?"

"Have you eaten? There's a private dining room at Da Vinci."

"Give me twenty minutes."

"Make it fifteen."

I got Timmy back and told him that instead of joining him for dinner I'd be dining with the man who might be the next governor of New York, depending on how my meeting with Kenyon Louderbush went the next morning.

Timmy said, "You're a god. But be careful of your ear."

"It's good I have a spare."

"I doubt McCloskey will do much more than bend it. He's famous for that."

"Your boss has dealt with him. Any advice on how to approach McCloskey?"

"He's a fairly honest guy, and more or less straightforward.

He's been known to put up with some dubious types on his staff, and I think he's not above Do what you have to and don't tell me about it kinds of operations. But nothing really 180

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outside the normal murky parameters of American political functioning. Also, he's a good liberal overall and a nice guy.

Just be up front with him, and you two will hit it off."

"But aren't I one of those dubious types? Should I tell him stories about how I go about my business? Will he be charmed, or will he get up and run out of the room?"

"I wouldn't necessarily go into specifics."

"In the last couple of days I've impersonated a memorial scholarship organizer, a federal agent and a producer for BBC

America. I shouldn't regale him? Old Irish pols love a good story."

"No. And whatever you do, don't say anything about Bud Giannopolous. Senator McCloskey mustn't know about him, and for that matter neither should Tom Dunphy. I'm certainly sorry I know more than I should about this criminal. I'm probably borderline culpable."

"I'm making a note." I thought, but didn't add, What I am dealing with here is a mild paranoiac educated by Jesuits.

Da Vinci was a relic of Old Albany, a downtown red sauce joint with frayed white linen and potted ferns where pols and judges once rubbed elbows with gangsters. The thugs had long since been replaced with the paid representatives of business and professional organizations who brandished not gats but checkbooks. A doddering maitre d' led me past the scattering of occupied tables and through a doorway in the rear of the restaurant. Then he went out again, shutting the door behind him.

"Don Strachey, I've heard so much about you! We meet at last. What a pleasure."

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Dunphy added, "Senator McCloskey has met private investigators before. But none, he was just telling me, with such a colorful history as yours, Don."

"Snoops all tend to be corporate types now," McCloskey said. "Not the racy independent operators that make up such an irresistible slice of bygone Americana."

"I'm pleased to meet you, Senator. I'm one anachronistic PI who's at your service."

McCloskey had risen as I entered the room and shook my hand. It may have been the ten millionth hand he had shaken, but his grip was confident and lingering. He was a good six-three with a comfortable paunch, a big mobile face and a stubble of late-day beard. He hadn't removed his jacket or loosened his necktie, and he projected both dignity and an easy camaraderie.

"You know, I've met Barney Frank," McCloskey said. "A bit cranky—doesn't suffer fools—but brilliant, brilliant. We've come a long way in this country since Walter Jenkins was forced to slink out of the LBJ White House for being gay. Not that Kenyon Louderbush isn't a very different sort of animal from people like you and the congressman from the Gay Peoples Republic of Massachusetts. But we'll get to that. What are you drinking, Don?"

We settled in, and Dunphy and McCloskey exchanged some gossip about their gubernatorial campaign as well as the two others. A waiter materialized with antipasti and soon was back with a Sam Adams for me and refills for McCloskey's and Dunphy's bourbons. McCloskey ordered a Caesar salad and a bowl of minestrone. Dunphy and I both put in for the 182

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linguini with clam sauce and the hemisphere of iceberg lettuce with blue cheese dressing.

"Normally," McCloskey said after the salads arrived and the door to our small room had been closed again, "anything as momentous as urging a political opponent to withdraw from a race would not be carried out by hired help such as yourself, Don. Matters this weighty—and this delicate—would be handled by senior staff or, failing that, if it came to it, via selected leaks to the Times and the Post."

"Or," Dunphy said, "via an anonymous bundle of photographic horrors somebody receives in the mail. Don't forget that time-honored variety of political malpractice."

McCloskey chuckled. "It's been known to happen. But this business with Kenyon," he went on, "is a whole 'nuther matter. It calls not just for the right balance of toughness and discretion. It requires a nuanced understanding of the special circumstances we're dealing with—the gay thing as well as the pathology. You're up to this, Don? Tom promises me you are."

"I'm not a psychologist, but I'm not sure that's necessary.

I get the basics, and anyway what's called for here is mainly a healthy sense of outrage along with a working bullshit detector."

"Tom tells me Kenyon contacted you, and he thinks he can convince you that this whole investigation of ours is a load of crap."

"He did, and he does."

"How can he be so naive? You're convinced it's not crap, I take it."

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"Oh, yes. I believe it. I'm still in the process of locating witnesses who are actually willing to testify to Louderbush's exploitive abusive practices. But as for myself, I'm more than convinced."

"What have you gotten in writing or on tape?"

"Nothing actually in affidavit form so far. One witness, a young man in Vermont who was also abused by Louderbush, won't help out; he's too much of a psychological mess himself. A young woman who Greg Stiver confided in works for a company where controversy is verboten, so she's reluctant to go public with what she knows. But a former boyfriend of the woman friend, Virgil Jackman, will testify.

He's solid and he's credible."

"Tom tells me Jackman is the son of a former IUE shop steward?"

"He is."

"Okay. What else have we got?"

"Lots of circumstantial evidence. The police report on the Stiver suicide was doctored, apparently to delete references to inquiries by Louderbush's office. Unfortunately, the susceptible cop in charge is no longer with us."

"Retired to Sarasota?"

"Dead."

"Oh boy."

"But there's evidence at SUNY that Louderbush was making odd inquiries about the death. What was his interest?

A former Louderbush staffer says the assemblyman was a quote-unquote mentor to Stiver. But Louderbush's snooping seemed to go beyond mere sadness and loss. He seemed 184

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intent on finding out if his name came up in any context and if there was any doubt about the verdict of suicide."

"Jesus. Is it possible Louderbush actually pushed Stiver off the roof at SUNY? That this was a homicide?"

"Why do you ask?"

"That would be a good deal tidier than what you've told me so far. Make great headlines in the Post and the Daily News."

"Well, it's not out of the question. One witness thinks she saw two people on the roof of the building before Stiver fell."

"One witness thinks... Not much there, I guess. But what about this violence against yourself, Don? Your head injury there. Tom says you're convinced that Kenyon is responsible, although I take it that so far you have no direct evidence of that. Jesus, I knew they played hardball in Kurtzburg, but this would be way out of bounds."

"Tom may also have mentioned that for the first several days of my investigation I was under close surveillance, possibly electronic, by unknown persons. I could barely scratch my ass without somebody noting the gesture for posterity. Also, some real or fake Capitol cop preceded me asking pointed questions out in Hall Creek, where Louderbush had gotten Stiver a job at the community college."

McCloskey screwed up his face. "Peculiar. Very peculiar. It sounds downright sinister. Though if Kenyon is behind any of that type of thing, I'd be surprised. His organizational skills have always been limited."

"Be assured, Senator, that I'll be bringing all this up tomorrow when I meet with Louderbush. I'll be gauging his reactions, and more importantly I'll be wearing a wire."

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McCloskey all but fell off his chair. He raised both hands as if to ward off any more flying information. "Oh, no. I don't need to know that."

Dunphy said, "For chrissakes, Don, we'll work out the details of your meeting on our own. Shy just needs framework."

"It sounds," McCloskey said, "as if Kenyon is going to throw himself at our feet and beg for mercy and forgiveness.

I'd almost like to be present, but my stomach isn't as strong as it once was. He's bringing his wife along?"

"That's what he told me. She's involved, he says."

"I'm sure she is. Tom, if you were going to discuss your most sordid affairs with a private investigator, would you bring Doreen along?"

"Oh sure."

"Joyce would rather stay home, would be my guess. But this is the age of the political wife who can't tell the difference between loyalty and masochism. You saw Silda Spitzer standing there next to her no-goodnik hubby taking it on the kisser in front of Gabe Pressman and the rest of the known media world. And what's-his-name from Jersey, the guv with the Israeli butt boy boyfriend. Hava Nagila! The man's poor wife stood there next to him grinning like she was at their little girl's ballet debut, and her husband is telling the cameras he prefers sucking dick to eating pussy. No offense intended, Don."

"None taken."

"What's the story with Kenyon's missus, Tom? Do we know anything about her?"

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"She's a nurse. Stays out in Kurtzburg. That's about it.

They have kids."

"Sure they do. Don, have you checked Kenyon's children for broken bones?"

"No. I don't think it usually works that way with Louderbush's type. It's one thing or another. With him, it's grown-up young men, and sex is part of it. Anyway, a nurse wouldn't put up with that."

"You're probably right."

"The wife, I think, will be there for moral support for Louderbush and to exact sympathy from us."

"Yeah, well, don't extend any on my behalf."

"Okay."

"I certainly wish you well in your endeavors tomorrow. I know you understand that the future well-being of the state of New York may well hinge on your giving Kenyon the shove into oblivion he so richly deserves. And, as a practical matter for yourself, if you succeed here you'll have the world at your feet, I promise you. The world may never know exactly why you are so highly regarded by the governor of New York and in the corridors of power throughout the Empire State. Our fervent hope, of course, is that Kenyon will plead a prior engagement and politely withdraw from the race and none of this nauseating garbage will ever see the light of day."

"That's my hope, too, Senator."

Dunphy said, "I think we've got the guy by the short hairs.

Today's Monday. If Kenyon is still in the race Wednesday, I'll be surprised."

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"Unless, of course," McCloskey said, "he denies everything and tells Don here that his evidence is laughably thin and we can all go to hell. Is that a possibility? Could it be we're moving too soon on this?"

Twenty-four hours later, I repeated to Timmy McCloskey's description of how everything might go wrong, and I told him,

"If only what happened at the meeting with Louderbush had been that simple."

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