Red White and Black and Blue - Stevenson Richard - Страница 36

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"None taken."

"What's the story with Kenyon's missus, Tom? Do we know anything about her?"

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"She's a nurse. Stays out in Kurtzburg. That's about it.

They have kids."

"Sure they do. Don, have you checked Kenyon's children for broken bones?"

"No. I don't think it usually works that way with Louderbush's type. It's one thing or another. With him, it's grown-up young men, and sex is part of it. Anyway, a nurse wouldn't put up with that."

"You're probably right."

"The wife, I think, will be there for moral support for Louderbush and to exact sympathy from us."

"Yeah, well, don't extend any on my behalf."

"Okay."

"I certainly wish you well in your endeavors tomorrow. I know you understand that the future well-being of the state of New York may well hinge on your giving Kenyon the shove into oblivion he so richly deserves. And, as a practical matter for yourself, if you succeed here you'll have the world at your feet, I promise you. The world may never know exactly why you are so highly regarded by the governor of New York and in the corridors of power throughout the Empire State. Our fervent hope, of course, is that Kenyon will plead a prior engagement and politely withdraw from the race and none of this nauseating garbage will ever see the light of day."

"That's my hope, too, Senator."

Dunphy said, "I think we've got the guy by the short hairs.

Today's Monday. If Kenyon is still in the race Wednesday, I'll be surprised."

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"Unless, of course," McCloskey said, "he denies everything and tells Don here that his evidence is laughably thin and we can all go to hell. Is that a possibility? Could it be we're moving too soon on this?"

Twenty-four hours later, I repeated to Timmy McCloskey's description of how everything might go wrong, and I told him,

"If only what happened at the meeting with Louderbush had been that simple."

* * * *

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188

Red White and Black and Blue

by Richard Stevenson

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 189

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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.

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"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 191

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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."

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