Red White and Black and Blue

Chapter Twenty-two

I jogged the loop around Washington Park four times and was back home by seven thirty. Cool weather had set in along with a low cloud ceiling that felt more like a disappointing version of April. I showered as soon as Timmy was out of the bathroom, then read the Times online with my coffee and English muffin. He went out the door to walk to work, saying as he went, "As they say in Thailand, good luck to you, good luck to you, good luck to you."

I went over my notes until eight thirty when two Clean-Tech operatives, Rod and Eugene, arrived on schedule. The cool weather worked to their advantage as they wired me up.

I had on khakis and a sports jacket over a nicely styled T-shirt of the type Anderson Cooper might wear to a famine. A minimally bulky device the size of an mp3 player fit in my breast pocket. Its microphone was a ballpoint pen in the same pocket. Plan B was a second ballpoint pen I would hold or place on a table with my notebook; it broadcast sound to a receiver in a nearby room at the hotel where another Clean-Tech op would be listening and recording.

At nine thirty I ambled outside and over to Washington Avenue and on down past the Capitol and Albany City Hall.

The unseasonable chill only served to make me feel more alert. It took me back to high school football and the thrill in the air before a big game.

I reached the Crowne Plaza just before ten, on time, and rode an elevator to the twelfth floor. It occurred to me that Louderbush would have his own techies on hand to strip search me and remove the breast pocket device and maybe even the innocuous-looking ballpoint pen transmitter. But when he opened the door to the suite and he and his wife were apparently the only people present, I wondered why he was acting so confident.

"I'm Don Strachey."

"Kenyon Louderbush. This is my wife Deidre."

"Hello," she said, barely audible.

He was tense enough, but she was clenched all over and looked as if it was all she could do to contain her rage. He was tall and broad, an aging but still formidable right tackle.

He had a big jaw and big hands and wore gentlemanly specs, his only visible concession to the passage of time. She was good-sized, too, stocky as opposed to stout, also a onetime athlete maybe. She had a round pretty face with a minimum of makeup and some big but not comically big hair tinted auburn and recently styled. Both of the Louderbushes wore the kinds of conservatively presentable outfits you'd expect a state assemblyman and his spouse to turn up in at a Rotary Club dinner back in his district. One of my thoughts was, am I underdressed for this occasion?

We arrayed ourselves around a coffee table where the hotel had thought to provide some fresh gladiola that were tall enough to obstruct Mrs. Louderbush's view of me. Without a word, she got up and transferred the vase to an out of the way end table. There were nuts and wrapped hard candies too, but nobody reached for any. There weren't of course any ashtrays.

"This is going to be painful for all of us," Louderbush said,

"so let's get it over with."

Painful for all of us? "Sure," I said.

"I called you, Mr. Strachey, because I've had reports coming in that you are on my case for some immoral things I did many years ago."

"Five years ago is not many years ago," I corrected him.

"No, not to you it isn't. But to me five years ago is another lifetime."

"Well, you did what you did. Repeatedly over a number of years apparently."

"I can't deny that. I'm not here to deny anything. I'm here to…try to get you to understand what some of the consequences will be if you and Shy McCloskey make my sins of the past a campaign issue."

"Consequences for whom?"

"I'll get to that. Primarily for my family." Mrs. Louderbush tightened up even more and was glaring up a storm. She had set down a shoulder bag that was even bigger than mine both rested on the end table separated by the gladiola-and I hoped she didn't also have a weapon in hers.

"Deidre and I have three teenage children," Louderbush went on. "This is an extremely vulnerable age. Teenagers are so sensitive, so easily hurt and confused. They need their parents. They need to be able to look up to their parents."

"No, I'd hate to see any young people get hurt. I mean, any more than have been injured already."

Mrs. Louderbush looked at her husband and started to say something, but he shook his head. "You're going to be merciless with me," he said, "and I understand why. Believe me, I do. I've been in counseling since Greg Stiver's death, and I can tell you that nobody is as angry at me as I am at myself."

"Good."

"I don't think I need to relate to you the whole dreary story of my upbringing and my life with my violent father and my being raped by my uncle Alan when I was twelve and all the rest of an incredibly sordid tale. But my young life made me a psychological cripple of the worst kind, the kind of man who preys on younger men who have been made vulnerable by family traumas of their own. I can't justify anything I have done. I can only explain. And I can say over and over and over again that I am so, so, so sorry for all the pain I inflicted, and I can honestly declare that I am beyond all of that horror. And, yes. It was Greg Stiver's death that forced me to confront my demons and my anger-management problems and to seek help and to promise myself and my wife that I would never enter into one of these sick relationships ever again. I also quit drinking, which had been a factor in my behavior."

Mrs. Louderbush said levelly, "It's true. It's all over."

"You knew about it?"

"Of course not!"

"No, no," Louderbush said. "I was a sneak. I was a liar and a sneak."

Now she was nodding angrily.

"It wasn't the illicit relationships that Deidre found out about. I have to say I covered my tracks too well to get 192

Red White and Black and Blue by Richard Stevenson caught at any of that. No, it was the therapy twice a week in Rochester. I was so faithful about my appointments that I began making up stories about my unexplained absences from my district office and from home. After a while, Deidre confronted me. What she thought was, I was having an affair."

"With a woman," she said coldly. "I'm a nurse, and you wouldn't think I'd be quite so naive."

"When did you find out about your husband's physically abusive relationships with young men?" I asked her. I wanted to make certain we were all talking about the same thing here.

"In January. The first thing I did was tell Kenyon I still loved him and I was not going to break up our family. The second thing I did was go out and get an HIV test.

Fortunately, it was negative."

"This past January? Wasn't that when you announced you were running for governor, Assemblyman?"

"That was something of a coincidence and something of a not-exactly-a-coincidence. In any case, I planned on informing Deidre of my problematical past. I chose to tell her because she deserved to know-and just in case during the gubernatorial campaign certain types turned up."

"Gotcha. Certain types like me."

"Exactly."

"And by then you must have had your Serbians standing by to deal with any such crude interference with your plans, no?"

"Serbians?"

"I call them that. The goons that you-or more likely low-lifes on your staff-employed to try to intimidate me. My health insurance covers my damaged ear. Otherwise I'd send your campaign the hospital bill."

He stiffened. "That's ridiculous."

Mrs. Louderbush looked even madder.

"Mr. Louderbush, if you don't know this, you should. Since I've been investigating your ugly past, I've been beaten and my car has been vandalized. My movements have been monitored as if I was a sex offender wearing an ankle bracelet. Which strikes me as hugely ironic, now that I think about it."

Louderbush winced. "No. None of that is any responsibility of mine. Not this time. I'm sure in your line of work you've made one hell of a lot of enemies. Maybe you should go over your professional digging-up-dirt-on-people files to see who else doesn't like you and what you're doing. As for me and any Serbians, so-called, I'm not that ruthless and I'm not that well-organized."

"You have a history of both."

"Can you show me any evidence you have connecting me to any such BS? I have a lot to atone for, but having my political opponents' henchmen attacked is not one of them.

You're just way off the mark on this one, my friend."

I knew it was possible he really had been told nothing of the ugly stuff being done on his behalf. Rogue staffers could be behind it, or even fringe Tea Partiers who wanted Louderbush elected and were operating independently. But with his record as an accomplished liar, it was impossible to 194

Red White and Black and Blue by Richard Stevenson know which. I was certain, though, that whoever had been all over me for days and was determined to scare me off had been operating at a level of sophistication beyond the normal means of Second Amendment loonies and anti-tax hysterics in Minute Man costumes.

I said, "Whatever you know or don't know about the way I've been roughed up, Mr. Louderbush, the basic facts here are indisputable. You did a lot of bad stuff that's cruel and illegal and disgusting, and if the electorate found out about it, they would say no to your candidacy. Some would congratulate you on getting a grip and halting your destructive practices, and they would wish you well in your future private life. But most would not want to take a chance on you as governor. I know I don't. What you did to Greg Stiver is unforgiveable. If the voters knew about it, most of them would not forgive you either."

Louderbush reddened and slumped in his chair. "I was trying to help him," he said.

Mrs. Louderbush looked away.

"What do you mean, help him?"

"I was there."

"Where?"

"It was an accident."

"Greg's fall from the roof at SUNY?"

"I had tried to end the relationship. I was so guilt-ridden. I helped Greg find a teaching job near Kurtzburg-he hadn't had any luck on his own-and then I was overcome with…guilt. It was so close to home, and to my family, who mean everything to me."

"Were you overcome with guilt, or were you overcome with fear that you'd get caught?"

"All right, yes, both."

Mrs. Louderbush looked as if she wanted to get down on her hands and knees and crawl out of the room, but she sat there three feet from her husband, her angry gaze fixed on the gladiola.

"What happened?" I said.

"I called Greg and told him I needed to talk to him. He was at the SUNY library, and he agreed to meet me in an empty econ classroom on the eighth floor of Livingston Quad Four."

"Okay."

"We met, and we talked, and he was very, very angry with me. He said I was teasing him, setting him up a few miles from where I lived and then refusing to continue the relationship. He said I was torturing him."

"Funny choice of words."

Louderbush bristled. "Do you want to hear the truth or not?"

"Go ahead."

"Greg began to cry. I couldn't console him. I tried to hold him, but he shoved me away and grabbed his backpack and ran out of the room. I followed him, and when the elevator didn't arrive immediately, he ran into a stairwell. I think he heard voices down below, so instead of running down the stairs, he ran up. I followed him and suddenly we were somehow on the roof. He walked around and around weeping, and just to get him down off there I said I would reconsider ending the relationship. I admit I didn't mean it, but Greg was 196

Red White and Black and Blue by Richard Stevenson just so desperate and out of control. We were near the edge of the roof. There was no railing of any kind. And when I moved toward Greg to lead him by the hand away from the edge, he dropped his backpack and was turning toward me when he lost his balance somehow-he was sobbing and completely dazed and distraught-and he fell backward over the edge. Suddenly he just wasn't there anymore."

I thought, He's seen Vertigo. Does an old nun appear behind him at this point and make the sign of the cross?

"Mixed with my horror," Louderbush went on, "was my fear that someone might have seen Greg and me on the roof and would think that we were fighting and that I had pushed him to his death."

"Mm."

"I couldn't see anyone who might have observed us, so I took the elevator down and left the building and headed toward my car as fast as I could without being conspicuous."

"Did it occur to you that Greg might be alive and he would need help?"

"After a fall from that height? That would have been impossible."

"Maybe."

"I knew it would look like suicide-why else would he have gone up to the roof? — and I drove to Greg's apartment to fake a suicide note. I had a letter he had once written to me at a time when he had decided to end the relationship. He had written in big letters at the end of the note I hurt too much. I had the letter with me-I wanted to show it to Greg and remind him that the relationship was as painful and difficult 197

Red White and Black and Blue by Richard Stevenson and unrealistic for him as it was for me-and I ripped off that line and left it on Greg's desk. His friends found it there, and even the police were convinced that Greg's death was a suicide."

"Yes, they were. And your office snooped around SUNY and the Albany cops trying to find out if anybody had any suspicions regarding the verdict."

"You know that already."

"I do."

"And were there suspicions?"

"Some. But an Albany cop who didn't want any political high mucky-mucks involved in something dubious or messy saw to it that the case was closed and the suicide verdict certified."

"I was incredibly lucky."

"You bet you were."

"I drove back to my office. I mean I assume I drove there.

I actually have no memory of it. I went into my office and cleared my schedule, and I sent my staff home. And then I got down on my knees and I prayed to God for forgiveness."

Here we go. "And were you forgiven?"

"That's a question I won't have an answer to until the day I meet my maker. But I went into therapy the next week, and now I have the kind of understanding of myself that makes it possible for me to control my impulses. And they are under control, as Deidre can attest to."

"How would she know?"

"I can read my husband," Mrs. Louderbush said. "I've lived with the man for twenty-six years."

"You didn't read him very successfully before last January."

"That's not true, not that it's any of your bleeping business. I sensed something was gnawing at him. I just assumed it had to do with his troubled childhood. Kenyon had always been moody because of that. If you'd ever met his father, you'd understand."

"And now he's a man at peace with himself?"

"More or less, yes, he is. Not of course taking into account the stress of the gubernatorial campaign and from having to put up with people of your ilk."

"Who's your therapist in Rochester?" I asked Louderbush.

"You know I can't tell you that. Or if I did tell you, my doctor would certainly not respond to any inquiries you might make."

"He or she might talk to me if I have some kind of waiver from you."

An incredulous shake of the head. "Forget it."

What was Louderbush doing? Was he being utterly honest and sincere, telling some reasonable facsimile of the truth even? And did he believe deep in his heart that I-and the McCloskey campaign-should accept his melodramatic tale on its face, and with a mixture of compassion for him and his family, as well as a belief in Christian redemption, simply drop the whole matter of questioning his fitness for office? Or was he, as I suspected, a pathological liar who had made up most or even all of the version of events he had just laid out for me so cogently, so tidily-too tidily, I was inclined to think.

I said, "Look, Mr. Louderbush, even if the McCloskey campaign agreed to overlook your past depredations, 199

Red White and Black and Blue by Richard Stevenson somebody else is bound to come along and get wind of this reeking stuff. I mean, I know about Greg Stiver and about Randy Spong, but how many other of these relationships were there?"

"A few."

"A few. Well, it looks to me as if you might be facing broken-nosed-college-boy eruptions throughout the general election campaign and, if you managed to beat Merle Ostwind and were somehow elected, well into a governorship you'd then be forced to resign from."

"No," he said firmly. "No one I was involved with would ever turn on me that way. They all respected me-even adored me."

His wife was looking a little queasy now, but she kept her mouth clamped shut. I thought of Frogman Ying, but I supposed Louderbush was referring to his resplendent conservative ideology and principles.

"You underestimate confidential anecdotal slippage. I first learned about you from two friends of Greg Stiver who he confided in."

Louderbush glanced at his wife and then looked at me evenly. "If any stories did begin to surface, it would help if the McCloskey campaign announced to the press that they had taken a close look at these ugly rumors, and Shy McCloskey has concluded that they are vicious slurs that have no basis in fact."

"I'm not following you. How could we possibly say that?"

He looked at his wife again, and this time she reached over and picked up her handbag. She reached into it. Was she going to bring out a pistol? No. It was a fat envelope.