Death trick

11

In the morning I went to the Albany public library and dug out the Times Unions for the late fall of 1970, a little over a year after Billy Blount and Chris Porterfield would have been committed to Sewickley Oaks. What I was looking for, or thought I was looking for, was not in the index, and I had to slide the microfilm around for thirty or forty issues until I found the short article in the Tuesday, November 24, edition.

ALBANY DUO ESCAPES MENTAL FACILITY

New Baltimore-Two teenage inmates at Sewickley Oaks, an exclusive private mental institution on Ridge Road, escaped from the medium-security section of the establishment late Sunday night. William Blount, 18, and Christine Porterfield, 18, whose families live in Albany, fled a residential building through a heating tunnel and are believed to have been driven away by unknown persons who apparently aided the two in other aspects of the escape.

According to the local police, a chain securing a door to the tunnel had been cut through from the tunnel side. Officials say the escape appeared to have been carefully planned and executed.

Blount and Porterfield were discovered missing Monday morning when they failed to show up for breakfast, and a search was undertaken. Later, an area resident told police he had been driving on Ridge Road just past midnight Sunday and saw five young people emerge from nearby woods and enter an older model Plymouth station wagon. Two of the five were bearded and "looked like hippies," the witness said.

Dr. Nelson Thurston, Sewickley Oaks administrator, described the escapees as "mentally troubled" but not dangerous.

State police are assisting in the search for the two.

I made notes on the article, then drove over to Billy Blount's apartment building on Madison. I wanted to check something I should have checked before. I waited around on the front stoop until the sidewalk was clear, then felt my way through the lock. I still had my lobster pick in hand when I arrived at the door to Blount's third-floor apartment, but I didn't need it. The door had been jimmied open, crudely, messily, as if with a crowbar.

I stepped inside and listened. There was no sound except that of the traffic down on Madison. I checked the rooms and found them as I'd left them on Friday.

I knelt by the low bookshelves and pulled out the hardback copy of Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth. Inside the front cover was a hand-written inscription: "Billy-This will explain some things-From your friend, Kurt Zinsser-December 15, 1970." I copied the words onto my pad.

Back in Blount's bedroom, I sat on the edge of his mattress and tried the phone. It was still connected and probably had another week or two before New York Telephone would be galvanized into frenzied plug-pulling by the unpaid bill. I dialed the Albany Police Department, and while I waited to be put through to Sergeant Bowman, I noticed it: Billy Blount's phone book was not where I had found it on Friday, and left it, beside the telephone.

"Bowman!" He made his own name sound like an accusation.

"Don Strachey. I want to report a breaking-and-entering."

"You'd better watch your step with me, Strachey! I warned you once and I'm warning you again.

Now, what do you want?"

"Billy Blount's apartment has been broken into. With a wrecking ball, I think. His phone book with his friends' numbers written on it is missing. I'm there now."

"You think I'm a goddamned idiot. You're covering for yourself. You did it. You're lying."

"Wrong. I'm tidier than this. I'm a bachelor, remember? Obsessively neat." I wished Timmy were there to hoot with merriment over that one. "This is definitely the work of a sloppy amateur, except all he walked off with was Blount's phone book. I think that's interesting, don't you?"

"Yes. I do."

"And puzzling."

"That, too."

"I thought you'd want to know, and to check it out around here. See how helpful I'm being?

Before this is over, Ned, I'm going to earn your respect and devotion." He made a strangling sound. "Anyway, what's happening down there on your end of things?"

"Listen, Strachey, I wanted to talk to you about that- about "my end of things.'" The sarcasm was like gelignite. "This Al Douglas you sent me chasing after-Bowsie. None of the Greyhound perverts ever heard of the guy."

"Did I say Greyhound? I meant Trailways. It's the Trail-ways station where Al hangs out. Jesus, I'm sorry. Really."

A silence. "Strachey-are you jerking me around? You oughtn't to do that. You want names of people who've tried, I'll provide references. They'll tell you. Don't do it. Tell me you're not fucking me up the ass." He made a gagging sound and muttered something else.

"Consider yourself told," I said. "With you, Ned, I'm straight." My palms were sweating. I held out my free hand to see how steady it was. Not too. I said, "What'd you get from the airlines at La Guardia? Anything?"

"Nah. Blount either used a phony name or didn't fly out of there at all. I hope, for your sake, Strachey, it was the first. You're on trial in this town, you know."

Maybe he just talked like a South End Torquemada and when push came to shove, he'd reveal a heart and mind worthy of Learned Hand. But I supposed he wouldn't. I said, "I'll be in touch, Sergeant. Have a nice day." I hung up.

I searched the apartment to make the sure the phone book hadn't simply been moved to another spot. It hadn't. It was gone.

Back at the phone, I made a credit-card call to California. It was just eight-thirty Pacific Time, so I tried the home number of the party I wanted. I'd known Harvey Geddes since army-intelligence days, and we'd stayed in touch through his coming out and into his years as a fund-raiser and organizer at the Los Angeles Gay Community Services Center in West Hollywood.

"Hello?"

"Harvey-Don Strachey."

"Don, what a surprise! I was just leaving for the center. This is great! Are you in LA?"

"I wouldn't mind if I were. I'm in Albany up to my brain pan in a murder case."

"Too bad. I'd love to see you. Who's your client?"

The parents of the accused. Except I doubt he did it. He's skipped, and I've got to locate him and find out what he knows. That's why I'm calling."

"Is he gay?"

"He is."

"Do you think he's out here?"

"Somewhere out that way, yes. Harv, do you remember the FFF?"

"Sure. Forces of Free Faggotry. They were active eight or ten years ago. They predated us at the center by a year or so, I think. They were even pre-Stonewall when they got started. They've been defunct for several years, though. They were considered too radical even for the hell-raisers who got this place going-Kight and Kilhefner and that bunch."

"Yeah, that's what I remember reading about them. They worked underground, right? Went around snatching gays out of mental hospitals they'd been forced into and then hiding them out.

They worked on contract, as I recall, with friends of the people who were locked up."

"You got it," Geddes said. "That was the FFF. J. Edgar Hoover had them on a list of thirty-three degenerate organizations that he carried in his wallet."

"I don't know yet who would have arranged it, but I'm pretty sure the FFF performed its service for my clients' son once, in the late fall of seventy. A lesbian friend of his was brought out, too."

"Yeah," he said, "it would have been around that time. That sounds right. Maybe the parents made the contract. Your clients."

"Hardly. They're the ones who put him in. For 'problems of social adjustment.'"

"One of those."

"One of those."

"The hospital probably used electroshock therapy," Geddes said. "Blast the demons out. It used to happen a lot. It still does. More than you'd think."

"You really think they'd have done that? To a couple of kids?"

"I'd say so. Check with the guy when you find him. I'd put money on it."

"Harv, does the name Kurt Zinsser ring a bell with you?"

"He was one of them," Geddes said, "an FFF founder. The group split up, I heard, in seventy-five or — six when a couple of them got busted up in Oregon, and then there were the usual hassles over theology and tactics. Some of them are still out here in Santa Monica and Venice. Zinsser, the last I knew, was back in his hometown, Denver."

Of course-Mountain Time, not far from Cheyenne. I said, "Can you get me an address and phone number?"

"I'll try."

"Call me."

"Will do. Hey, Don, how's it going for you back there? Are you ready to make the move yet? You know, we've got men out here, too."

"Oh-I don't know, Harv. It's my masochistic streak."

"You into that? Well, if that's your bag, Don, who am I? Anyway, we've got that, too."

"No, I meant staying in Albany. No, that's wrong, too. I like it here. Albany's not exactly London or Vancouver, but I like my friends here. And a lover-I have a lover. I didn't tell you that?"

"The last time we talked you'd just gotten your divorce from Bambi."

"Brigit."

"Right. That was-?"

"Three years ago."

"God, was it really? We grow old, we grow old, we shall wear our Levis rolled. I hit the big four-oh this year, Don. They're moving us right along, aren't they?"

"Yeah, me too, Harv. I'm forty now. Last night I found the first gray hair in my mustache."

Pluck it out?"

"Nah, I would have felt ridiculous. Hey, listen, give me a call on Zinsser, will you? I've gotta get moving."

"It was great talking to you, Don. Glad to hear about the man in your life. Peace to you both. I'll be in touch on Zinsser. Give me a day or so."

"I'll appreciate it."

"Glad to do it. See you, brother."

"Right, Harv."

I made another credit-card call, to New Baltimore, fifteen miles down the Hudson from Albany.

"Good morning, Sewickley Oaks."

"The administrator's office, please."

"One moment."

Click-click.

"Dr. Thurston's office."

"Yes, this is Attorney Tarbell, and I'm calling for Stuart Blount. Mr. Blount wishes to know whether Dr. Thurston is fully prepared for the admission of Mr. Blount's son, William particularly in regard to strengthened security. Mr. Blount is especially anxious that there be no unfortunate recurrence of the nineteen-seventy situation. And Judge Feeney, of course, shares that view."

"Well, I-Dr. Thurston has stepped out, but as far as I know, he's done everything he and Mr.

Blount and the judge talked about last week. The judge was quite insistent regarding the maximum-security aspect, and Dr. Thurston, I know, has been making arrangements. Has young William been located?"

"Not just yet. But he will be soon, hopefully."

"Should I have Dr. Thurston call you?"

"Thank you, no. Mr. Blount will be in touch. In a week or so, I should think."

"All right, then. Thank you for calling, Mr. Tarbell."

"Thank you for answering when I did. Have a nice day."

"Thank you. Good-bye."

"Bye now."

I hung up and said it out loud: Asshole Blounts! Hardy Monkman had once lectured me against the pejorative use of the word "asshole." It was counterrevolutionary; it mimicked homophobes. But, as I'd tried to explain to Hardy, there were assholes and there were assholes.

The Blounts were assholes.

I phoned Stuart Blount's office and told his secretary I'd need another two thousand dollars within forty-eight hours. She put me on hold, then came back and said she would mail the check to my office that afternoon. I said, "Have a nice day."

I drove over to my apartment and retrieved the Blounts' letter to their son from the jacket of "I'm Here Again." I wanted to rip it open, but I didn't. I carefully steamed the flap loose, then unfolded the typed note. It said:

Dear Billy:

You must come and talk with your mother and me. We can help you, plus we have good news for you. We know where Eddie is, and perhaps we can arrange to put you two in touch.

Your father, (Signed) Stuart Blount

Eddie again. The guy whose lookalike had once gone into the Music Barn and sent Billy Blount into a tailspin. Who the hell was this Eddie?