Red White and Black and Blue

Chapter Twenty-six

A mutual friend gave me the name of a lean and hungry able reporter at the Times Union. It wasn't time for any of that yet, but I knew it had to be soon. I was running out of ears, cars, etc.

I spent the afternoon checking back with people. Janie Insinger and Virgil Jackman were both in good shape, and the McCloskey campaign had pulled back their security for the time being. Neither objected to this; Insinger said Anthony had been doing a running mocking commentary on her relationship with Kevin, and she was "like, getting sick and tired of both of them."

Dunphy gave me the information on who my new paymaster would be: something called the Fund for Restoring Ethics in Journalism.

I said, "Is that a joke?"

He laughed. "Of course it is."

I made a number of calls in which I impersonated a Louderbush staffer-in for a dime, in for a dollar-and tried to find out if the assemblyman had intervened on behalf of other young male job seekers. "Hello, yes, I'm just following up on Assemblyman Kenyon Louderbush's endorsement of a faculty position applicant at your institution some years ago. The assemblyman wishes to know if everything worked out to the college's satisfaction… The applicants name? I don't seem to have it here. Oh it was, uh…" I couldn't say it was that handsome young fellow with the cracked ribs, so nobody had a clue as to what I was talking about.

Then Giannopolous called. "I got hold of something you wanted. Louderbush's cell phone contacts over the past two weeks."

"Excellent."

"Most are just numbers, but some are voice mails. I've got it on a disk. Can somebody drop it off somewhere?"

I packed up my laptop, my weapon and my personal gear and drove out to Colonie, where I took a room at a Comfort Inn. Bud's cousin Ephram, who was even smaller and weirder looking than Bud, arrived ten minutes later with an envelope, the second of the day for me to open.

Some of the numbers Louderbush called or had been called from had names attached to them, and some didn't. The only name I recognized was Deidre. I figured I'd contact Bud and ask him to obtain a list of Louderbush's office staff so that I could probably eliminate them as persons of interest.

But that wasn't going to be necessary. I listened to a number of innocuous voice mail messages-meet for lunch, campaign meeting at four, don't forget Heather's birthday before I landed on this one.

A male voice choked out, between sobs, "I didn't mean it, I didn't mean it, I didn't mean it! I have to see you, I have to see you, I have to see you!"

The name of the caller was Trey, and I noted his number.

Louderbush had returned Trey's call on the same day, but there was no recording of what was said. The date of the call was June 19, the night Louderbush arranged to meet me at the Motel 6 but never showed.

I called Bud back, and within an hour I had Trey Bigelow's address in New Baltimore, fifteen miles down the Hudson from Albany.

I didn't know what Louderbush's car looked like, so I had no way of knowing if the twenty-year-old Ford Fiesta parked in the driveway of the house was his. It seemed unlikely that he would be visiting his boyfriend at five forty on a Tuesday afternoon. He was probably at the Capitol in Albany attending to important legislative business, like not passing the budget.

The house, on a side street uphill from the river, was a single-story 1920s stucco cottage that was not in the best of repair. An old trellis was leaning off the right wall, and nothing was growing up it. Any flowering bushes that had once graced the area around the cavelike front porch hydrangea? forsythia? — had long since been cut back to the roots.

I pulled in behind the Ford and noted the Louderbush bumper sticker on the rear.

Bigelow didn't answer the door right away. But he finally opened it using the one arm he had that wasn't in a sling.

I said, "I don't know you at all, but whoever you are, you deserve better than Kenyon Louderbush."

He started to close the door, but I got a foot and a shoulder between the door and the jamb. "Either you talk to me or you talk to somebody who's going to be a lot less sympathetic and understanding than I am."

"Well, fuck, I can see I certainly deserve better than you."

Indicating the sling, I said, "Is this what you really want?"

I pushed my way on into the foyer and shut the door behind me.

He said, "Who are you, anyway? Are you, like, from the SPCA?" I could smell the beer on his breath.

"You know," I said, "this time it's your arm. The next time it could be your neck."

"He already did that. Collarbone anyways."

He was tall and gawky, with a beaky nose, a nice set of cheekbones and huge green eyes. His big head of flaxen hair needed tending to, and his jeans and tank top were stained with what could have been Chef Boyardee or could have been blood. The living room, through an archway to the left, was a mess-beer cans, supermarket tabloids, an empty pizza box and the TV was tuned to Judge Judy.

I said, "What do you think the judge would have to say about the way Louderbush beats you?"

He said, "She'd throw his ass in jail," and then he began to tear up. "Hey, look, I have to get ready for work. I don't know who you are, but I can't talk to you. I gotta pull my shit together, man."

"Where do you work?"

"Price Chopper. Checkout."

"You're miserable. You're a mess. Don't you want out of this?"

"Yes. No. Yes and no. I mean, yes. Yes, I think I do. I've had e-fucking-nuff."

"It's not as if you're dependent on him."

"No, not financially. Though he helps me out. Beer money."

I pushed a pizza box aside and sat on the couch. Judge Judy was giving a tongue lashing to a black woman with impressive decolletage and a hairdo that looked like a small Las Vegas casino.

"What do you get out of it?"

"Unconditional love." He looked at me with the big eyes and more tears ran down his cheeks.

"What am I not understanding here? The conditions seem to be, he gets to seriously hurt you."

He perched on the edge of a folding metal chair. "It's usually not serious. This thing"-the arm-"is unusual. I don't think he meant to break it."

"What did you tell the hospital?"

"That I fell off a ladder."

"Do you have health insurance?"

"No, I'm not full-time. But Kenyon takes care of it. He has state insurance, and he gave me some fake card that says I'm one of his kids. He says I can say I'm adopted."

"How old are you, Trey?"

"Nineteen."

"Where did you meet Kenyon?"

"Online. Silver Daddies. He looked so butch and so sexy and so dangerous. That appealed to me. I'd been in this type of relationship before, but never with a dude who was so rough and important."

"And you really want to keep this up? It's only a matter of time before you suffer brain damage or something else that can't be fixed. Do you want to end up in a wheelchair at your age?"

"Maybe. I know I have low self-esteem. Maybe that's the only thing I'm good for. Being treated like shit."

"Have you ever tried to get out of the relationship?"

"A couple times. But it's just pretend. It's just so Kenyon can come down and get really liquored up and beat the crap out of me. He scares me though. One time I really meant it.

He broke my fucking nose and it hurt like all get-out, and I told him that was it. I was serious this time, and he knew it.

He went bananas. He was drunk as shit, and he started yelling about how if I tried to leave him he would kill me. He said he did it before-shoved some kid off a roof. Some SUNY student. I believed him too. He was so wild that night and crazy drunk."

"Did he mention the SUNY student's name?"

"I think it was one he mentioned before. Greg somebody.

Kenyon had gotten this kid a job somewhere-Price Chopper maybe-and then the kid changed his mind about getting pounded by Kenyon all the time. He had some friends who talked him out of it. And when he told Kenyon he was breaking it off, Kenyon chased him up on a roof somewhere and pushed him off and killed him. He said every time I think about locking my door when he wants to come down here and 225

Red White and Black and Blue by Richard Stevenson get a little and then kick the crap out of me, I should remember what happened to this other poor kid."

"So you think it's true?"

"Sure. Kenyon's a celebrity. They can get away with shit like that."

"What if somebody offered to protect you from Kenyon?

Get you into some kind of program?"

"Like Judge Judy?"

"I don't know about that."

"What about The Price is Right?"

"No, I meant some kind of program to help you deal with your need to get beaten up by your boyfriends."

"Like shrinks?"

"Sure, some kind of counseling. Have you ever been in a relationship with a man that was just pleasant and fun and nonviolent? Like friendship except with sex, too?"

"Yeah, in high school. With Jason Phipps. But my dad caught us one time and beat the holy bejesus out of me."

"I'm sure I can get you into something. And if you have no health insurance, I know some people who will help out on that end."

"So, what are you? Are you with the government? I'm not under arrest, am I?"

"No, I'm not connected with the government. I'm private."

"What happened to your ear?"

"Somebody hit me. But I was an unwilling victim. If I run into the guy again-and I hope to-I'll try to put him behind bars."

"In jail."

"You bet."

"So, let me get this straight. You're not one of Kenyon's other boyfriends?"

"No. There are others?"

"Two, I think. But I only know the name of one, Scott Hemmerer. I met him at a bar on Central Avenue one time.

He had a big shiner, and I'd had a few, and I asked him if Kenyon Louderbush had socked him, and he just about fell off his chair."

"Do you know how I can get in touch with Scott? I'd like to talk to him."

"Yeah, he works at Dunkin' Donuts on Lark. But he's not there now."

"How do you know that?"

"I heard he was in the hospital."