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."
"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."
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.
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
Red White and Black and Blue by Richard Stevenson 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."
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 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."