Red White and Black and Blue

by Richard Stevenson

  "Do you really want to get into that? Your own qualms and so forth? Okay. Sure. I'm a fucking archcriminal, no doubt about it."

  "You don't worry about being prosecuted and being sent to prison?"

  "Oh, yeah, I do. Prison sucks, I'm sure. But I pick and choose. I don't do military secrets, and I don't do Tom Cruise.

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  stick with that. It's okay. Everybody does it is a weak moral argument, I know. But law enforcement goes along. Cops have better things to do, like terrorism and clubbing persons of the colored races for backtalk. Once in a while some doofus-y kid hacker fucks up a country's banking records or whatever. He's immediately clapped in irons, and I understand that. I don't want my bank statements arriving in my mailbox in Burmese any more than you do. But basically all a hacker has to do to remain at large is, don't do sabotage. I'll concede that political dirty tricks, so-called, can be a problematical area. But in this case I'm going to turn the raw material over to you, and it's going to be your set of practical and ethical quandaries from then on."

  "How did you get into this line of work, Bud? Where did you study?"

  "I went to Simon's Rock, but my gift for electronic information gathering may be genetic. I'm half Ethiopian and half Greek, and my Ethiopian mother was a spy for the anti-Mengistu coalition during the Marxist reign of terror after the monarchy was overthrown in 1973. She worked for the State Bank of Ethiopia, and she provided data on the regime's finances for the Tigreans and the Eritreans and for the CIA.

  My father's parents had a restaurant in Addis Ababa, but in those disastrous years nobody could afford to eat in it, so they got out and went to Greece.

  "At some point in '81, Mom realized she was being watched and had probably been found out and was likely going to be arrested and shot. So my parents got out of bed one night and disguised themselves as peasants and 234

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  commenced to walk to Khartoum, six hundred miles away.

  They nearly died from starvation and exposure and exhaustion, but they made it. My Uncle Getachew took the same route a month later. Thanks to a Baptist Church organization, they all ended up in Washington, where my parents now work for the Marriott Corporation. I was born in 1985 and my sister Yarukanesh two years later. She's quite respectable. Went to Brown and is a research scientist at the NIH. Don, what do you think? Am I unworthy of that amazing family history? Should I be embarrassed?"

  "No, I think you just like living on the edge. You've found your own dangerous way of living among secrets."

  He nodded. "I think you got me on that one."

  "But aren't there less morally ambiguous ways of living this kind of life?"

  "Like what?"

  "I don't know. Cybersecurity?"

  "What? For banks? For Wall Street greed pits?"

  "What about antiterrorism? That's not so morally unclear."

  "No, not usually. I could actually see myself doing that under the right circumstances. If antiterrorism meant more than just the police work end of it. Anyway, are you really the man to be lecturing me on questions of professional moral ambiguity? I know as much about the way you operate as you know about me, don't forget."

  I thought about that. "I'm not sure what my excuse is. My mother only walked as far as Safeway. Generally of course she drove."

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  "There you go. You stand naked in your casual means-to-an-end-ism."

  "God, Bud, you sound just like my boyfriend."

  "Well, you were starting to sound just like my girlfriend."

  "Then I'll stop. One more question, though, about these files. Is the Sam who is so busy behind the scenes orchestrating the election outcome for the Wall Street titans a man named Sam Krupa?"

  "Yes, his name comes up in a couple of spots. My sense was that he was trying to keep his last name out of it. But some of the CEOs on a few occasions do refer to his full name. Who is that? The name sounds familiar."

  "Years ago he was a political dirty trickster for Richard Nixon. More recently, he's believed by the political cognoscenti to be the man who—working for the same Wall Street gang trying to control the current gubernatorial election outcome—brought about the downfall of the bankers'

  archenemy, the crusading reformer Eliot Spitzer.

  * * * *

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  Chapter Twenty-eight

  I left word on Timmy's voice mail that I would be out late.

  I said I'd leave a key card for my motel room at the front desk, and he should come on in and not wait up for me.

  I drove over to Staples and bought four large padded envelopes. Then to Target for a cheap wash cloth. At ampm, I bought a bottle of Snapple iced tea, then went into the men's room and flushed the contents—way too sweet for me—down the toilet. When I topped off my rented Honda's tank, I also filled the Snapple jar with gasoline and capped it. Something was missing, so I went back inside and asked for some matches with the pack of Lucky Strikes I purchased, and then tossed the cigarettes in the trash and kept the matches.

  The Honda came equipped with an excellent Garmin GPS. I had looked up the address online, and I keyed in the Belgrade Grotto in Hummerston, New Jersey. The driving time was given as three hours, ten minutes.

  I left Colonie at nine and was actually in Hummerston by eleven forty-five—traffic was light—and I drove in and out of the parking lot of the Belgrade Grotto. A few cars were still there, although it looked as if closing time was probably going to be twelve. Among the vehicles was a black Lincoln Navigator with a green dump sticker on a rear side window.

  The club was a featureless single-story cinder block rectangle with a couple of blacked-out windows about seven feet up.

  Some grotto.

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  I picked up a coffee at an all-night 7-Eleven and then sat in the car and sipped it and read the Hummerston Courier from cover to cover. The health department had warned Mikey's Eats about reusing its cooking oil more often than the department recommended, and the Tarantella twins had just turned three.

  Just after one, I drove back over to Belgrade Grotto. All the cars were gone and the place was quiet. There were a couple of security lights blazing out in front, but the rear of the building was dark. I parked down the road at a disused gas station that had been turned into a used car lot. The place was deserted, so there was no chance anybody would be making an offer on my rented Honda in the next ten minutes.

  I made my way in the darkness behind a muffler dealer and a porn shop back to the Belgrade Grotto. A few cars drove by out on the highway, but none slowed down or stopped.

  The Grotto had a mailbox next to the road. I flipped it open and inserted an envelope containing one of Bud's four disks. On the front of the envelope, I had written From Sam Krupa. Copy to USCIS, the immigration service . Handwriting?

  Fingerprints? I didn't think either was going to be a problem in this particular situation.

  A car approached and I sank back behind a portable sign that said KARAOKE THURSDAY . After the car went by, I made my way to the rear of the Grotto. I assembled my petrol bomb—a bottle of gasoline with a gas-soaked rag as a wick—

  and then smashed a window just above my head with a steel 238

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  bar that lay nearby. An alarm went off— whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop! I ignited the bomb and tossed it through the window, and it exploded with a frightful ka-bang!

  I trotted back behind the porn and muffler shops to my car, tripping once but catching my balance, an
d got into the Honda and drove off.

  By the time I hit the Garden State Parkway, I was no longer shaking, and after I got on the Thruway, with Albany a straight shot north, I stopped at a service area and left with a large bottle of cold water and a slice of pizza. The pizza smelled of gasoline, however, from my hands, and as I pulled back onto the highway I tossed it out the car window.

  Littering! That, I was ashamed of, and I almost went back and picked up my garbage. But the pizza was biodegradable, after all, and I was bone tired.

  Timmy stirred but didn't awaken when I came in at four thirty-five. I showered and crawled into the second bed in the room. I lay awake for fifteen or more minutes, and then I was far away from it all.

  * * * *

  Just after nine Wednesday morning, Timmy brought some coffee back to the room, and I woke up. "Donald, I think I heard you when you came in. What time was it?"

  "Late. After midnight."

  "Where were you?"

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  "Making a mail delivery. Did you look at Bud's disk?" I had left a CD and a note for Timmy suggesting he examine the contents on my laptop.

  "It's all incredible. Except it's not. They're the same people who brought Eliot Spitzer down. They're monstrous. They destroyed the US economy with their recklessness, and they're so morally bankrupt—or in such total denial—that they can't stand the idea of mending their greedy ways and abiding by regulations meant to protect ordinary investors and promote even a semblance of economic justice. And Sam Krupa, that evil old Republican troll! Wouldn't you just know."

  "Everything old is new again. Not all of Nixon's thugs found Jesus and repented."

  "So apparently you were being manipulated all along?

  Krupa wanted you to get the goods on Louderbush, so he had you roughed up, knowing how pigheaded you are and how you'd just keep at it?"

  "The question is, how did he know me so well? Some PIs would have said the hell with this, these people must not be messed with. He was sure I'd react the way I did. There's a reference to someone who claims to know me and who assures Krupa I could be danced around like a marionette."

  "I could have told them how you'd react to being pushed around. But I didn't."

  "What do you think Myron told Dunphy about me?"

  "Probably that you were stubborn and a pain in the ass but a decent human being and quite effective at what you do.

  And, yes, probably that you'd only be spurred on by a dangerous and challenging situation."

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  "I'd ask Dunphy, but he's obviously not going to admit to anything."

  "I'm not sure he's that cynical. It could have been a lot of people. You're known around Albany."

  I climbed out of bed and had a slug of the motel's watery coffee. "Did you listen to the CD and my interview with Trey Bigelow about Louderbush? Speaking of cynical."

  "No, I fell asleep before I got to that."

  "It's sickening. And heartbreaking." I described Louderbush's brutal treatment of this sad case of a young man and Bigelow's story about at least one other boyfriend Louderbush had apparently put in the hospital. "And then there's Greg Stiver. Louderbush got drunk and violent one time when Bigelow threatened to lock him out and said he'd once killed a recalcitrant boyfriend, and if Bigelow didn't cooperate he'd do it again. He said he had pushed this guy off a building."

  Timmy sat down. "God. It's what the woman at SUNY

  almost saw happen."

  "Possibly. Or it might only have happened in Louderbush's head. I'll have to ask him."

  "Why would he admit anything to you? Anyway, he thinks he's got you defanged with all his blackmail crapola—the Bud stuff and so on that...who? Sam Krupa?—shoved through his mail slot."

  "Yes, but I've got my own Bud crapola, and Assemblyman Louderbush's mail slot is about to be the recipient of another eye-opening deposit."

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  Timmy had called his office to say he'd be a little late, but now he was transitioning into his chief of staff mode, and he began climbing into his elegant costume. I said I wouldn't be back until late in the day and I'd be in touch. We kissed, and he was on his way.

  I phoned the air service that had flown me to Kurtzburg and asked if somebody could fly me out there again that morning. They said they'd have to get an okay from the McCloskey campaign, but I told them I'd use a credit card and get reimbursed, and they said they thought Walt was around somewhere with his Cessna.

  The day was breezy, and Walt did a couple of inadvertent loop-de-loops, but we arrived in Kurtzburg in one piece. There was no rental car waiting this time, but Walt suggested I call Dom's taxi.

  I told Dom, "Special courier delivery for Assemblyman Kenyon Louderbush."

  "Sure, I know where he lives. Everybody knows Kenyon.

  Good man. Make a good governor. No bullshit."

  I got out the envelope on which I had written Special Delivery to Kenyon Louderbush—from Don Strachey—Private and Confidential. I walked up the front steps to the handsome old Louderbush house on Church Street and shoved it through the mail slot in the big oak front door.

  Before I climbed back into Walt's little plane, I phoned Timmy. "Can you find out discreetly if Louderbush suddenly bolts out of his office later this afternoon and hightails it out to Kurtzburg?"

  "Sure, I'll let you know."

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  Then I swooped back to Albany, checked out of the Comfort Inn, drove to our house on Crow Street, and waited for Sam Krupa to call.

  * * * *

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  Chapter Twenty-nine

  "It looks like we need to talk," Krupa said. He spoke in a low rumble bordering on a croak that sounded about right for a man of his age—mid-eighties, I guessed.

  "You bet."

  "Can you get into the city?"

  "Sure. What about the Serbians?"

  "I'm not sure what you mean."

  "Look, if this call is being recorded by either of us, neither of us is going to be able to make any use of it. We're at that stage, I think."

  "The Serbians have been taken care of. They'll leave you alone. You know, you really didn't have to burn down their night club."

  "I'm not sure what you mean."

  "Now they're mad at me."

  "Swell."

  "I live on Sutton Place. Do you know the small park at the end of East Fifty-seventh overlooking the river?"

  "I can find it."

  "Tomorrow morning at eleven?"

  "That works. And we'll both show up alone?"

  "Oh sure."

  I didn't give him my new cell number—I didn't want Todd monitoring my calls—but I gave him my e-mail address and said I'd check my Blackberry for any updates from him. Krupa recited his e-mail address, though of course I already had it—

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  at this point, everybody knew everything about everybody else.

  At my request, Trey Bigelow had given me the Albany Med receipt from his last visit there. He'd also shown me the state employee's insurance card Louderbush had arranged for him to use, and I had made a note of the policy number. I called the Times Union, hit zero, and was put through to Vicki Jablonski, the investigative reporter I'd been told was the smartest and most aggressive in town.

  "Don Strachey. I'm a private investigator. Rhonda Saltzman suggested I call. I've got a good story for you."

  "Okay."

  "I've got the goods on Kenyon Louderbush. The guy's not fit to hold public office."

  "Uh-huh."


  "Do you want to hear what he's guilty of?"

  "Sure."

  "Insurance fraud."

  "All righty."

  "Here's the thing. Louderbush arranged for an acquaintance with no health insurance to get onto his state employee family plan. This acquaintance is supposedly Louderbush's quote-unquote adopted child. But it's not true."

  "It sounds as if you're saying Assemblyman Louderbush might be more of a humanitarian than some people give him credit for."

  "Au contraire."

  "Okay, au contraire."

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  "I'm not going to get into motives. You can if you want to.

  I'm just sticking to the facts."

  "What's your evidence, Don?"

  "Could I fax you a couple of things?"

  "Sure." She gave me the number.

  "They'll arrive in two minutes."

  "Let me just ask you something. Are you by any chance associated with the McCloskey campaign?"

  "You bet. But that in no way alters the facts of the situation."

  "Uh-huh. Send me what you've got, and maybe we'll go from there."

  "What I can also tell you, Ms. Jablonski, is that there's a lot more to this story. It's going to finish off Louderbush's gubernatorial candidacy. Just follow the insurance card."

  "What are you, some kind of Deep Throat wannabe?

  Exactly what are you trying to tell me, Don?"

  "Just follow the health insurance."

  I gave her my new cell number, rang off and faxed her Bigelow's receipt and the number of his insurance policy.

  Hospital records were confidential, but I assumed Jablonski had her sources, just as I did.

  Timmy called at ten till four and said, "I called Louderbush's office and asked if he was available for a short budget committee meeting later today. I was told no, he'd been called back to Kurtzburg on some family matter, and he wouldn't be back in Albany until sometime tomorrow."

  "Good. I'm headed back out there, then to the city. I'll be in the car a lot, but that's okay. I'll listen to some 246