Red White and Black and Blue

Chapter Six

My head hurt. The doctors said I wasn't concussed-no unsteadiness, no disorientation, nothing untoward on the MRI-but every beat of my heart was like a sledgehammer against my cranium.

"Now I know what a circus tent stake feels like when those apelike guys take turns pounding it into the ground," I told Timmy.

"Funny, I think of tent stakes as insensate. But maybe it's because they don't have mouths that we never hear their pitiful cries."

"When was my last Tylenol?"

"Six thirty. You'd better wait another little while. I guess a beer wouldn't help at this point. Or a medicinal bit of weed."

"Nah."

I was in bed at our house on Crow Street. When I'd gotten home just after five, Timmy had warmed up some tam yam gai he'd picked up at the Thai place on Lark Street and I sat at the kitchen table and ate it. Such an improvement over the hospital boiled-chicken-in-mucus. I went up to lie down then and make some calls on my cell, but at first the throbbing was just too disconcerting. Looking at TV was out of the question-MSNBC is not the answer to a headache-so I tried some Art Tatum. That was too busy for the state of my tender brain, and Timmy put on a Bach partita, but that was even busier.

I tried silence for a while, thinking I might drift off to sleep, but then I kept wondering who it was who had set me up, and my mind was so busy chewing over that question that soon I was wide awake.

While Timmy filled in the answers to the Times crossword puzzle with a military-pace hut-two-three-four, I made myself place two calls and each time concentrate hard on what I was saying and what was being said to me.

"You're at home, Janie?"

"Yeah, I just got in."

"All's well?"

"Oh, yeah, I'm like scared shitless. But other than that."

"You're being looked after, Tom Dunphy said."

"Some guy Anthony. He's actually kind of cute."

"So you know what happened after I left you yesterday.

You must have just pulled out of the Outback. I was in the parking lot on the phone."

"I know. That is so creepy."

"I'm trying to figure out how these guys knew I was meeting with you. Did you happen to mention our four o'clock appointment to anybody yesterday?"

A silence. "I'm trying to think."

"Take your time."

After a moment she said, "Just Kev. Kev called during my break-he knows I have twelve minutes rest period from two-fifteen to two-twenty-seven-and I told him I was gonna see you at Outback and talk to you about you-know-what. But Kev wouldn't mention any of that to anybody. He respects my privacy, and he knows how I am."

"Kev is your boyfriend?"

"Yeah, Kevin LeBow. He's an installer at Verizon."

"And he supports your decision to expose Kenyon Louderbush?"

"Oh sure. Kev hates crap like that as much as I do, and also his union can't stand Louderbush."

"And there's nobody else you might have mentioned our meeting to ahead of time? What about your supervisor?"

"Oh God, no. Alma would put a letter in my file. She'd friggin' call Arkansas."

"If you were meeting with a private investigator?"

"Walmart is suspicious. But I think, like, what they don't know won't hurt them."

I thought, Kev LeBow. Could he have been recruited by the Louderbush people to ingratiate himself with Insinger and seduce her and report back on her contacts with the McCloskey campaign and its agents? Not likely. They'd been a pair for quite a while. Was I just practicing due diligence, or was I becoming as paranoid as Insinger's employer?

I told Insinger I thought she should do whatever Anthony the security guy suggested, and to be watchful otherwise, and that I'd be in touch.

I got Virgil Jackman on his cell at Jock World. He said he couldn't talk but that he had an eleven-minute break coming up and he'd call me back in ten minutes.

Timmy said, "What's a five-letter word meaning ancient stringed instrument? First letter R, third letter B?"

"Robot?"

"Come on."

"Rhubarb."

"The second letter might be E."

"Rebar."

"Not exactly a musical instrument."

"It could be. Percussion."

"Keep trying."

"I'm doing my best."

"I hope not."

Soon, Jackman called back. I asked him first how things were going with the security Tom Dunphy was providing.

"I don't really need it, but this guy Damien is okay to hang with. He follows me around in this Hummer he has. He's even bigger than I am. I'm glad he's on our side."

"It's good," I said, "that these guys went after me and not you and Janie. It means that their employer has some sense.

Going after you two could generate serious backlash if you went public right away and linked Louderbush to the attacks.

But by beating on me they send the message to the McCloskey campaign that they are prepared to play rough and McCloskey should have second thoughts about pursuing any exposure of Louderbush's vile behavior. Anyway, Tom Dunphy is prepared to press on, if you are. So am I."

"Sure. I'm scared, I have to admit. But I'm not gonna take any shit from somebody who did what Louderbush did to Greg. What about Janie? Is she cool?"

"It's a little bit murky as to her usefulness as a witness.

But she's accepted security from the campaign, and she's still talking to us. One thing I'm doing is trying to find other people who might have witnessed the abuse or who at least 60

Red White and Black and Blue by Richard Stevenson had some direct knowledge of it. People Stiver confided in and who maybe saw the shiner and the split lip and the other physical damage from the beatings. There has to be somebody who knows something, even if not as much as you and Janie do."

"I got the idea," Jackman said, "that maybe Greg dropped some of his friends after he got involved with Louderbush. He was embarrassed or whatever. I know he dropped out of the gay Republicans and that other organization-upholding the Constitution and so forth. He told Janie and I he had to finish his thesis, and he didn't have time for all those people, but I'll bet it was that he didn't want anybody asking a lot of questions about his messed up appearance. I mean, how many times can you tell people you slipped in the shower or you were in a car wreck? Especially when your car wasn't banged up or anything."

"The story about his suicide in the Times Union said he had friends who were concerned about his being despondent. Who do you think the paper might have been referring to?"

"A reporter called Janie and I after she talked to Mrs.

Pensivy. So I guess maybe that means us?"

"What about Greg's parents and his brother and sister in Schenectady? Might he have confided in any of them?"

"He mentioned his sister, Jennifer, sometimes. She might've known something. But his mom and dad he had nothing to do with. His dad was a violent jerk and his mom was no help. I don't know about Greg's brother, Hugh. I think he moved out at some point and was no longer part of the family equation."

I made a note to track down Stiver's sister. As well as his thesis advisor.

I told Jackman that I was puzzled as to how anybody knew I was meeting him and Insinger on Wolf Road Tuesday afternoon. I asked him if he had mentioned to anyone that we planned on meeting.

"Not that I can think of," he said. "In fact, no. I was so busy at work…oh fuck! Shit! My break is over. I'm two minutes late. Shit. Gotta run, dude!"

He hung up.

I said to Timmy, "I still don't know how the Serbians knew they could find me in the Outback parking lot. Nobody involved recalls telling anybody I'd be there."

"The two Serbians and one Roma."

"Right."

"You never saw the driver of the Navigator?"

"No, just the three who jumped me."

"And you tend to believe Insinger and Jackman?"

"I tend to, yeah."

"And you trust Tom Dunphy?"

"Sure. Why not?"

"He's well thought of. Of course, the line of work he's in…well."

"You would know."

"You bet."

"No, it's not Dunphy or Jackman or Insinger who set me up, I don't think. There's something I'm missing here."

Timmy said, "Rebec."

"What?"

"The ancient stringed instrument is a rebec."

"Never heard of it."

"Now you have."

"I would think rebec meant to bec again."

He ignored this and moved on. I could see that he had about three quarters of the puzzle filled in, all of it in ink.

I said, "Would you hand me the phone book, please?"

I looked up Stiver listings in Schenectady and found two: Anson on Ridgemont Drive and J Stiver on Pond Street. J for Jennifer?

I dialed the J number.

"Yes, hello?" Female, firm, clear.

"Is this Jennifer Stiver?"

The expected pause. Was I a telemarketer? "Yes, I'm Jenny. And you?"

"I'm Donald Strachey, a private investigator, and I'm calling about a matter concerning your late brother Greg. I understand from friends of Greg's that you and Greg were close."

I made out what sounded like a muttered oh shit before the line went dead.