Chain of Fools - Stevenson Richard (читать книги без TXT) 📗

Chester did admit that he had brought Tacker Puderbaugh back from Tahiti to "play some pranks" on the pro-Griscomb Osbornes. But Tacker and a friend of his from Lake George had "gone too far," Chester said, when they committed arson and then demanded that Chester pay them $150,000 in hush money so that they could open a surfboard rental business on Okinawa.

Both Tacker and his friend were picked up at the friend's house and charged with arson and attempted murder. Janet identified Tacker's friend as the man who attacked her—and later attacked her, Dale, Timmy, and me—on a Jet Ski. At first, Timmy wanted to charge the Jet

Ski maniac with assault too for breaking his foot, but after thinking it over decided to let it go.

For the moment, Chester escaped being slapped behind bars—the DA was considering what charges to bring against him—and Chester's dodging a murder rap was the one disappointment suffered by full-dentured Bill Stankie. Stankie did get to see Torkildson and Tacker occupy adjoining cells (having admitted complicity in the jewel robbery, Dan was released on bond), and Stankie took satisfaction in Tacker's determination to incriminate Chester to the utmost extent. Stankie and the DA were also interested—as was I—in Tacker's assertion that "Mummy"—i.e., June—knew all about Tacker's campaign of terrorism against the pro-Griscomb Osbornes.

When she was informed of all these developments Saturday night, Ruth Osborne seemed unsurprised to learn that Dan, Chester, Tacker, and possibly even June had been involved in criminal activities that grew out of the battle for the soul of the Herald. "The Osbornes have always tended toward ruthlessness in support of their causes," she said. But the news of Stu Torkildson's arrest for Eric's murder was even more deeply shocking. Mrs. Osborne began to tremble when Janet told her, and she went up to her room soon after.

"The family always relied on Stu," Janet told Timmy, Dale, and me on the Osborne back porch later that night. "Stu was the man Dad depended on to keep us all both solvent and honest. So to Mom what itu did must feel like the ultimate betrayal."

"Was the ultimate betrayal," Dale said, and we all agreed solemnly with that.

Both Janet and Dale were exhausted from working to salvage belongings from the half of the lake house that remained standing after the fire that Tacker set, and from the shocks of the previous thirty-six hours. They weren't too tired, however, to speculate on the upcoming family board of directors' vote.

"The outcome," Janet said, "is going to depend on which board members are behind bars on September eighth, and which ones will be available to vote. If Dan is still out on bail, that should seal it for Griscomb. If Chester is unable to vote and Tidy comes on to the board, that won't change anything one way or another."

"And certainly your mother should survive the mental competency hearing on Monday," Timmy said. "She's understandably devastated by

all this rotten stuff coming out about the family and the fight over the paper. But at this point, anyway, I don't think anybody can deny that her faculties are intact."

"It's also to Ruth's credit," Dale said, "that she hasn't been arrested."

Janet tried to smile but couldn't. "That does seem to be a rarity among Osbornes these days." Janet had spent two hours earlier in the evening giving interviews to reporters from The New York Times and the Boston Globe, who were preparing big stories on the dissolution of one of the great families of American journalism.

"Have either of you ever been arrested?" Dale asked Timmy and me. It seemed an odd question to ask, but Dale's tight look and bright eyes suggested she had something in mind.

I said, "I've been manhandled a few times in the line of duty by the Albany criminal justice establishment, Dale, and I wear every scar from those encounters as a badge of—not honor, I guess. Bemusement would be more like it, mixed with disgust."

"And what about you, Timmy?" Dale said. "Have you ever been arrested?"

His fiberglass-encased foot bobbed once, his face went white, and sweat popped out on his forehead. Timmy stared at Dale and said, "No. I've never been arrested."

"But I have," she said with a look of triumphant contempt. "Haven't I, Timmy?"

He said, "Oh, hell. You were in that ACT-UP group Oh, hell."

"Yes, I was in that ACT-UP group, oh, hell. In April 1987. I see it all is starting to ring a bell now somewhere deep inside your big, adorable head. Bong, bong, bong."

"Jeez. I felt bad about that. It was after the Health and Human Resources Committee vote on AIDS home-care funding, right?"

"Right you are, Tim."

"And your group thought Assemblyman Lipschutz shouldn't have compromised so much with the Republicans on the budget. You all came over to the office and wouldn't leave—there were forty or fifty of you, as I recall—and you demanded to see Myron."

"Asked nicely to talk to him," Dale said. "Forcefully but nicely."

"No, you demanded to talk to him. Except, as I remember it, he was off in a meeting somewhere with the Speaker."

"That's what you told us at the time. That was all bullshit, of course."

"And you refused to leave the office. Your whole group sat down on the floor, and you said you weren't leaving until Myron heard what you had to say. You were the spokesperson for the group. That's when I left. I went over to the Speaker's office to see if I could pry Myron out of the meeting."

"Uh-huh. So you said."

"And while I was over there, the Capitol Police got word that you were sitting in Myron's office—"

"You called them, Timothy! Admit it! You told us we could meet with Assemblyman Lipshutz, and then you went out and called the cops, and we all got arrested. We spent the night in the lockup while you were probably down at the bar at Le Briquet having a good laugh over how you put one over on the dyke and faggot riffraff."

"Dale," Timmy said, "you are wrong, wrong, wrong—as you are every once in a great while You are as sharp as they come, Dale, but you don't know me. Or Myron Lipshutz. It was Assemblyman Metcalfe, across the corridor, who called the cops on you, and both Myron and I were furious when we came back to the office fifteen minutes later and found out what had happened. It was Myron who got you all a lawyer from Lambda Legal Defense, and it was Myron who, a week later, got another twelve million transferred to AIDS home care from the health administration budget. So if that incident is the cause of your attitude toward me, an adjustment is in order. An apology, I'm sure, is much too much to hope for."

Janet and I each had a swig of beer and watched as Dale carefully considered this. Finally, she said, "How come we never heard this version of events at the time?"

"Because," Timmy said, relaxed and enjoying himself now, "Myron knew he'd never get the extra twelve million if it looked like he was in bed with extortionists. He wanted results, not a lot of—'diarrhea' was Saul Alinsky's term for righteous public explosions that make the demonstrators feel better but achieve nothing lasting. And Myron got results "

Dale sniffed. "The twelve million was a drop in the bucket, speaking of diarrhea. Anyway, without ACT-UP there to remind the legislature of the huge, crying need, the appropriation would have been half what it was."

"That is correct," Timmy said. "ACT-UP and other better-behaved