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.'
Chapter Twenty-seven
I phoned Bud and made arrangements for his cousin to pick up the recording of my conversation with Trey Bigelow and get it onto a couple of disks that would be stored in two separate locations.
I called Albany Med and learned that there was a Scott Hemmerer who was a patient in an orthopedic unit there, but I wasn't about to descend on him just yet.
Timmy called to check up on me, and I said, 'I'm at the Comfort Inn in Colony. Would you mind coming out here for a few days? It's better if we stay away from the house, because I'm closing in on what's actually going on in this thing, and I have a bad feeling the Serbians are going to turn up again.
And this time they're going to really mean business.'
'Oh please. Worse than your car and your ear?'
'You know how the Balkans are.'
'I'm having dinner with Myron and some big donor he's reeling in. I can get to the motel around nine. But how did everything change so fast? I thought Louderbush had brilliantly checkmated you and McCloskey.'
I described my visit with Trey Bigelow and his list of grotesque revelations.
'Are you surprised?'
'No. After Stiver died-or Louderbush killed him-the only thing that really changed with this guy was, he switched MOs.
Instead of seducing young academics, he began trolling online for down and out, low-IQ kids who were going to be even more malleable. He's got Bigelow now, and apparently there have been-and are-others. In one narrow but critical sense, it's Eliot Spitzer all over again. The compulsion, the hubris, the delusionary sense that he'll never get caught, and if he does he can somehow boogaloo his way out of it.'
'But it doesn't sound as if Louderbush is going to end up with his own show on CNN.'
'You never know. But this guy is not merely horny and hypocritical. He is deeply sick and deeply dangerous.'
'He'd've made an interesting governor.'
'Not gonna happen. I'm going to save the state of New York from Louderbush, and I'm going to save Louderbush from himself. Even in the unlikely event he ever got elected, he'd never last through the first year of his term. The guy is way, way out of control.'
'He's not going to go gentle into the good night you have in mind for him, I'll bet.'
'No, I'm counting on his staying in character, and I'll bet everything I've invested in this case that he will.'
I was having a beer and a burger down the road from the motel around seven when Bud reached me on my- his cousin's-cell and said, 'I have some interesting tidbits for you. The cyberwars are heating up. Can I bring these shiny nuggets to wherever you are?'
He closed the door to my room behind him at seven thirty, and we both sat on the edge of the bed while Bud opened his laptop and showed me what a fellow hacker had sent him: 229
Red White and Black and Blue by Richard Stevenson some hacked files from yet another hacker who had once stolen the 'incredible babe' girlfriend of hacker number two and now was going to be made to pay for his treachery.
I said, 'I'm just glad all you cyberhackers are good Americans, and none of you are working for Muammar Qaddafi or the Syrians or anything.'
'No, we're all patriots at heart. What we do is as American as Hostess Fruit Pie.'
'So, these files are what? The e-mail correspondence between who and who?'
'Between my hacked hacker colleague-let's call him Todd, since that's his name-who is known in the community for being totally bottom-line oriented-and a current client of his.
Plus of course e-mails from his client to other parties which Todd made a point of hacking into and then saving for a rainy day. Todd is a man who is always available to the highest bidder, and on top of his amorality, he's good. One of the most talented in the field. His client this time is a name you may or may not know. His name is Sam, and right there is his e-mail address.'
'Sam.'
'Sam has regular correspondence with men in high places, as you'll see.' Bud clicked and scrolled this way and that.
'Now here's a note to Sam from Stanley Weaver, CEO at BravuraCorp, the-what? — third largest bank in the United States?'
'Third or fourth.'
'Quote: If this nutcase Louderbush wins the Democratic primary, we are so so fucked. It'll be four years of McCloskey making life all but impossible for free enterprise to function.
