'The assemblyman won't be dictated to by anybody. He's his own man. He's going to do what's right. He's not interested in Obama-hating and all that craziness-birthers and deathers and that crap. He simply wants to support and enable the capitalists that built this magnificent country and to let them work their magic the way they once did.'
'Like in 1890? Before child-labor laws and food safety and minimum wage and any clean air or water laws at all?'
He smiled. 'I'd go back even further than that. 1870?'
'Why stop there? Why not 1840 or 1850, when the US was a virtual paradise?'
'Except for slavery and the cultural genocide of the Native Americans, sure, why not? Hey, you know what? I thought of somebody you should talk to about the scholarship fund.
Randy Spong was a SUNY student who did his master's thesis on the Missouri Compromise and other ways the South fought politically to retain slavery. I remember him because he was 164
Red White and Black and Blue by Richard Stevenson in the Federalist Society for a while, and he came into the office once with the assemblyman. Randy was a year or so ahead of Greg, but I'm guessing they knew each other. As I recall, Randy was a rugby player, too.'
'Any idea where Randy is now?'
'I think he's teaching at UVM. He was a couple of years ago, I know.'
'The University of Vermont?'
'In Burlington.'
'I'll try to track him down.'
'I'm sure he'd like to help remember Greg.'
'I'll be sure to get in touch.'
Ying checked his watch. 'I have to get going. I have a date-actually two dates.' He grinned. 'One at two and another one tonight. I promised my parents I'd be married by the time I was thirty. I'm twenty-eight, so I'm sowing my wild oats while I still can. They have a nice Chinese girl they want me to meet, and that'll be fine when it happens. But meanwhile it's gather ye rosebuds while ye may, if you know what I mean.'
I said I thought I did.
Chapter Nineteen
I asked Dunphy, 'Does the campaign have an airplane I could use? I have to be in Hall Creek Monday morning and Burlington, Vermont Monday afternoon. I'm actually making some progress.'
'We occasionally charter a plane for Shy, and we'll be doing a lot more of that as the campaign heats up. But do we have an aircraft standing by for your personal use? No, Strachey, we don't.'
I told Dunphy about the possibility of other young men with whom Kenyon Louderbush had had abusive relationships and that I was trying to track down at least one of these people.
'Fantastic! That'd be the final nail in that asshole's coffin.
Great work, Strachey. This is terrific!'
'I'm not there yet, but it's looking worse and worse for the assemblyman. Though here's a new twist, Tom. Louderbush has actually contacted me, and he wants to meet with me and his wife on Tuesday. He claims this is all just a misunderstanding, and once I hear his side of the story I'll report to you and McCloskey and we'll drop this whole opposition research operation. I think it's a crock, but I'm going to go ahead and hear him out. Can you get me wired up for the meeting?'
Dunphy whooped, 'Holy shit, Strachey! Louderbush just called you up? That is incredible!'
'Oh my God, of course we can get you wired. Clean-Tech can probably do it. I'll check with them to see if they're equipped for that type of thing. Let me just run it by legal.'
'Meanwhile, I can't be in two places at the same time.
What's the air charter service you use? I'll set it up myself and bill you.'
He fumed for another minute and then gave me a name and number. 'I guess,' he said, 'after Kenyon falls by the wayside, the serious dough will start pouring in and the campaign will be able to afford you. But fuck, this had just better work.'
'My thoughts exactly.'
My semidetached ear was feeling more itchy than painful by now, but I went home and changed the dressing per my instructions from Albany Med. My headache was pretty much gone, and the atrocious hickey was fading away, too. My muscles were still achy, but I felt as though I could function more or less normally and would be ready to do what I had to in case the Serbians showed up again. I carried the gun in the chic shoulder bag with me at all times.
I got the air charter service on the phone and made arrangements for a Sunday night flight to the airport nearest to Hall Creek-it turned out to be Kurtzburg-and then a late-morning Monday flight up to Burlington, Vermont. Dunphy had already phoned the service and okayed the billing. I also asked for a rental car with a GPS at each location and a motel room in or near Hall Creek.
I e-mailed Bud Giannopolous and requested the name of someone in the human resources office at Hall Creek 167
Red White and Black and Blue by Richard Stevenson
Community College. I said I also needed everything Giannapolous could come up with on a Randy Spong, who was on the faculty at UVM-or had been as recently as two years earlier.
Timmy came home, and we spent a couple of hours looking at Humpy Mat Humpers and wearing ourselves out in ways that were so much more enjoyable than my exertions on behalf of the Shy McCloskey gubernatorial campaign. I fantasized about Alex Ying's incredible long tongue and asked Timmy if he was doing the same. He said, 'Eeww.'
On Sunday, I updated and went over my notes, adding the names and data Bud Giannopolous had e-mailed me overnight. At five in the afternoon I drove out to Cavenaugh Air Service at Albany airport and was soon ushered out onto the tarmac and to the conveyance Dunphy had paid for. It was a three-seat single-engine Cessna piloted by a large florid man named Walt who took up most of the front two seats. I crouched in the single seat behind him and thought about Jesus. This flying tuk-tuk soon lifted off successfully and pitched about for two hours and fifteen minutes-I could see highway traffic down below moving only a little more slowly than we were-before oofing down onto the runway at Kurtzburg Municipal Airport. It was June and still light out, and I worried about running into Louderbush. But he was nowhere in sight among the business and recreational flyers I passed as I crawled out of my saltine tin and was led out to the rental car.
The motel the air service had booked me into-Walt would be putting up there also-was a locally owned relic called the Hall Creek Lodger Inne that advertised 'color TV.' The plumbing rattled as I unpacked my few belongings, and the fluorescent light in the bathroom buzzed like an alarm clock going off. But the place smelled of nothing worse than disinfectant, and after dining at the KFC down the road, I came back, read through the Times I'd brought along, and fell asleep. I dreamed yet again of the elegant blond woman jumping into San Francisco Bay.
The nice woman in the human resources office at HCCC, Melanie Fravel, asked me if I'd like some coffee, and I said thank you, I would. As I mentally rummaged through her files, she walked down the hall and came back shortly with a mug of coffee with the HCCC logo on it and two cinnamon buns, one for each of us.
'I can't recall that we ever had a visit from the FBI before now, so I have to tell you that this is a special occasion for us. I hope you won't be offended if I tell you that it's actually a bit creepy.'
'Creepy? How so? Most special agents think of ourselves as workaday public servants.'
Ms. Fravel went to work on her sweet bun, which from the looks of her was not her first of the day.
'It's not creepy because of you, but because this is the second time in-what? three days? — that someone from law enforcement has come asking about Gregory Stiver and his faculty appointment at HCCC five years ago.'
'Really?' I chuckled knowingly. 'Your tax dollars at work.
