Closet Governor

By Gary Perkins

Closeted Lieutenant Governor George Vantage is sworn in as governor after the sudden resignation of the incumbent but soon finds himself threatened by an anonymous caller eager to expose the "faggot governor." Reporter Michael Harrington views the new governor as his ticket onto the front page of his newspaper. He knows firsthand that Vantage is gay but he also senses that there is a bigger story.

Jason Covington is a peeping tom who gets off watching the new governor sleep. His antics end when security cameras catch him spying on Vantage.

Harrington thinks things are going well until the state patrol tracks the young man caught on security cameras to Harrington's apartment. Then his story on the governor's son and a gambling bill hits the front page. Soon Harrington becomes part of his own story when he answers his phone and a voice on the other end threatens to kill him if he doesn't back off.

The situation explodes when Vantage wakes up and sees a silhouette in his bedroom window. Security guards shoot from below and Vantage grabs his gun and shoots without thinking. A body crashes through the window exposing Vantage to all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 23, 2004
• ISBN: 9780595774104

Gary Perkins

Gary M. Perkins is a writer who has worked for two Washington Governors through three terms. He has a master?s degree in journalism. Hal Stockbridge is a physician and activist working for health care reform. Gary and Hal have been partners for over thirteen years and live in Seattle. www.garymperkins.com

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All Rights Reserved © 2004 by Gary M. Perkins

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

iUniverse, Inc.

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Lincoln, NE 68512

www.iuniverse.com

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The Olympia, Washington depicted in this book is fictional. Though it bears certain resemblances to the real city, it is a creation of the authors’ imagination. In no way are the events, individuals, businesses or governmental entities depicted in this novel to be identified with actual events, individuals, businesses or governmental entities.

ISBN: 978-0-5957-7410-4 (ebook)

ISBN: 0-595-32604-8 (pbk)

ISBN: 0-595-66654-X (cloth)

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 1

The artifacts of George Vantage’s life were spread out on the ornate dining room table before him like a body ready for viewing: real, but dead. All meaning and emotion had been drained out of each item. The people in the photographs stared up at him with an unknowing emptiness. They were his family and friends, yet he did not know their souls and they surely did not know his.

His abusive parents looked out from one photo without inflicting the terror they once had. His ex-wife’s all-too-knowing eyes failed to see beyond the edge of the snapshot taken on their honeymoon. And the unflinching confidence was gone from the smile that once seemed to beam out from the photograph he had taken of his son at graduation. George could not make the photographs on the table connect with his current self; it was like seeing soldiers looking out from Civil War tintypes: they were a part of history, but not a part of him.

The newspaper headlines that once jumped from the pages of his scrapbook now belonged to history as well. Each page a part of a past that could not be revived. Vantage elected to the legislature; Vantage takes the state senate seat; Tacoma’s Senator Vantage elected lieutenant governor; Vantage reelected. He saw his name in the headlines but he did not see himself.

He pushed the scrapbook aside and pulled a newspaper toward him. He ran a hand over his thinning brown hair and then forced himself to focus on the newspaper, folded and resting like a place mat before him. Fausto gets Education; Vantage to be Governor in days read the headline, with a picture of Governor Fausto shaking George’s hand at the State of the State speech less than a year earlier. The newspaper, delivered that morning, focused most of the front page on the meteoric rise of forty-four-year-old Governor Joseph Fausto. Fausto had gone from the Seattle city council to mayor to King County executive to governor without letting a term expire in any of the positions. With just over a year left in his current term—and no higher office open at the time—Fausto seemed stuck in the Executive Mansion next to the Capitol Campus in Olympia. Now Fausto was heading to Washington D.C. to become Secretary of Education and George was headed to the Executive Mansion.

George reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. He unfolded it and placed it on top of the newspaper before him. Printed in large font with a laser printer were the words, I KNOW WHO YOU ARE. The paper had been slipped under his hotel room door within a few hours of the phone call that let him know he was to be governor.

Suicide had never been an option for George Vantage. Not when his parents terrorized his youth. Not after killing a man in Vietnam. Not during his divorce. Not even during the dark days when he came to know his true self; the self no one else could ever know. Death was never an option. But now he felt that death was the only way to get out of life before life collapsed in on him.

Life had always been a series of conflicts for George Vantage. Conflicts with his parents, and between his parents, had turned to conflicts in war. War was replaced by conflicts in marriage and marriage had been replaced by the conflicts of politics. His outer dreams pulled him to new glory; all while inner conflict tore him apart. Inner conflict shackled his outer dreams, thought George. It was why his rise in politics had slowed so much over time.

The gun that George had purchased was small. He looked at it in his hands and thought about the weapons he had held in Vietnam; this was a toy by comparison. It was shiny and new looking with a short barrel and a smooth handle. It looked delicate, not lethal. It was everything George Vantage had fought against his whole political career.

As a child, George had feared the rifles that his violent father kept in the hall closet. In war he feared the weapon in his hands more than the ones the enemy held. In politics he had used his war hero status to blunt the criticism of his anti-gun crusades in his early years, but he had moderated his position by the time he ran for statewide office.

Now he returned to his earlier position that some people should not be allowed access to firearms. At least, he now thought, Lieutenant Governor—soon to be Governor—George Vantage should not be trusted with a gun.

But George had a gun. Buying it was as easy as he had always claimed it to be; he simply stopped at a pawnshop on his way back from the airport and flashed some bills at the clerk inside. The clerk went to a back room and soon returned with the dainty little gun that George now held. No questions were asked.

A ringing noise tore through the house and George jumped as if the gun had gone off. But the sound was of his telephone ringing on the stand near the stairs. Five rings and the machine picked up.

Dad? His son’s voice came through the answering machine in the hall at the bottom of the stairs. I’ve tried your cell phone but you must have turned it off. I just want to congratulate you. I’m very proud of you. Call when you

Tony, George said after he picked up the receiver next to the answering machine, can you believe that your Dad’s gonna be governor?

He tried to make it sound light, but his voice broke and he let out a long sigh at the end.

Dad, are you handling this okay?

What’s to handle?

His son said nothing.

Tony, I’m fine! George said. Why wouldn’t I be?

Dad, Tony started, I know you.. .you freak out at times like this. You can’t be thrilled.

What? Why not? George glanced across the room to the gun on the dining room table. I’m a politician, son; being governor is a good thing.

Cut the crap, Dad! Tony said. You know you hate it when people recognize you; how are you going to like everyone knowing who you are?

Son, I hate to burst your bubble but half the people who work in state government don’t know who the governor is, George answered. They know the treasurer, but only because he signs their checks.

Even so, you are going to lose a lot of privacy.

Don’t you want your dad to be governor?

Don’t use me like that!

What?

Don’t use me as your excuse to take yourself out of this.

Tony, I’m going to be governor whether or not either of us likes it.

Okay, then let’s make it work, Tony said. I’m coming down tonight.

Can’t we wait until morning?

By morning you will be bouncing off the walls.

I will not.

Remember when you decided to run for lieutenant governor? Tony said. You changed your mind five times before you announced. You were practically suicidal. If I hadn’t talked you.

You win, George said. I’ll make up the guest room.

George hung up the receiver and looked at the answering machine next to the telephone. He pushed play and listened again to the message that had been waiting for him since he returned.

The voice on the tape was muffled and distant:

Faggot governor better be good...

Faggot governor better obey...

Or everyone will know that the governor’s a faggot.

George Vantage returned to the dining room and looked across the remnants of his life and almost death. He put away the photographs and the newspapers. He put away the gun. There would be no way out, he thought; he would have to live with what was handed him. At least while Tony was around.

George watched his son walk from his pickup to the front steps of George’s Victorian house. Tony, thought George, was everything his dad wasn’t. Tony was tall and handsome; confident and carefree; open and unassuming. There was a truth about Tony; an integrity of identity that permeated his being.

Dad, you’re wearing a tie, Tony said by way of greeting. You’re not pretending to be a fifties sitcom father again are you? Real people don’t wear ties at home, you know.

George smiled as Tony gave him a hug and then headed into the house.

I didn’t have time to stock the refrigerator, George yelled at Tony’s back.

Sitcom humor too...you really need to get out more.

George followed Tony to the kitchen and watched as his son pulled two beers out of the refrigerator and opened them. Then he opened a bag of chips and some salsa and placed beer on the table before George and then sat down across from his dad. They sat silently for a few minutes eating and drinking. George was unsure what Tony expected; what he wanted.

I’m worried about you, said Tony as he got up to get another beer.

Tony.

You have these panic attacks. You disappear during stressful times. God knows how you got this far in politics.

Well, thanks! I’m glad to have your vote of confidence, George said.

Dad.. .you’re like two people in one. You have this great career that has brought you some degree of fame in the state yet you hate to be recognized. You run for office and you also run from public view.

You are taking this too seriously.

Remember when you first ran for lieutenant governor?

That was different.. .I had to work for that, George said with a smile. This time it’s handed to me.

The phone rang and Tony answered it before George could stop him.

No, he’s having trouble with his cell phone, George heard Tony say to the caller. He should be back tonight. I’ll have him call you in the morning.

Tony made a face at his father and rolled his eyes.

No, Tony said into the phone. Tonight won’t work; he’ll have to call you in the morning.

Don’t you think I should be deciding who I want to talk to? George asked when Tony had hung up the phone. It is my life.

I’m sorry, Tony said, but I think you need some time to absorb all this. Besides, I can be of help. I have a lot more experience being the bad cop in negotiations than you do.

Tony was right, thought George. Tony had built up an impressive business enterprise. His business prowess and ability to make money were well known across the state. George knew he would be a fool not to use his son’s help.

Okay, you win! George said. You can lead my transition team. Now, who was on the phone?

Max Eton—what a little prick!

Tony!

Sorry, but he is. You think he wants to stay on with you?

I don’t know. I haven’t even thought about all that.

I say fire his ass!

We are too close to session to make drastic changes.

Right now I think the best thing for you to do is get drunk with your son, Tony said. These people are best dealt with with a hangover.

I think I will leave that to you, George said. I have to get some sleep.

George walked up the stairs to his room quickly, almost stumbling over the steps as he climbed them. The wave of depression that had hit him when he first learned the news of his elevation to governor was overwhelming him again with an even greater force. He stumbled into his room and collapsed onto the bed.

He woke from a dream just after an arm had reached out and saved him from jumping off a cliff. He sat up in his bed and looked at the clock on the night-stand; he had only been asleep for a few minutes but the dream had covered a few days. It had started with him sitting by the pool in Palm Springs, he remembered. But as his mind woke up the dream began to slip away. A group had gathered around him at the pool. People from his life. People who had died years ago. He feared them in the dream. They were out to destroy him, he knew, and he ran.

He ran through a desert. He ran through the muck of Vietnam. He ran up a mountainside. He ran to a cliff and as he ran to the edge a hand reached out and grabbed him and he woke up.

His clothes were soaked through and the sheets were wet beneath him. George got up and pulled his clothes off and then pulled the sheets off the bed. He walked to the room across the hall and put the clothes and sheets in a hamper. He then took fresh sheets out of a closet in the room and returned to his bedroom and made the bed up.

George changed into his pajamas and considered going back downstairs but he could still hear Tony in the kitchen and he decided against facing his son. He had to figure it all out without his son. He knew that what had to be done would have to be done by himself.

He turned the lights off in the room and walked to the window. He had never put much thought into whether dreams had meaning or not. But this dream was different from the usual nightmares that had bothered him over the years. It was more intense and seemed more personal; like it was directed at him instead of from him. His other dreams and nightmares had always been related to the day that had just passed. He assumed it was just the mind’s way of organizing the day’s information. And all that he could remember of this dream also seemed to fit into the day’s events. In fact he had pretty much lived the dream that day. He had rushed out of the hotel in Palm Springs. His flight had taken him up from the desert to the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. He had brooded over the photographs of people in his life and had reflected on Vietnam. Everything fit.

George returned to his bed and pulled the blankets tight around him. There was more to the dream than he could remember; he was sure of that. And the missing part would explain why it was all more personal. It was more than a retelling of the day; it was a warning.

CHAPTER 2

Michael Harrington stared at the computer screen before him. He had been waiting since graduating from community college for a chance to break out of the business section and this, he thought, was just what he needed. God he loved this time of year; everyone was on vacation: good thing he had no life.

The screen flickered and the CPU hummed before finally yielding a list of articles on George Vantage. Vantage had been mentioned in over 300 articles in the last year alone. Harrington narrowed the search to any mention of Vantage in the business pages. Vantage still showed up in fifty articles.

Harrington stared at the screen some more before clicking on a link that stuck out: Feds Investigate Vantage; Ties to Gambler Cause of Concern. The article went on to detail a Justice Department investigation into the business agreement between casino owner Francis Eton and Anthony Vantage, owner of Vantage Investments, a property development company. Harrington skimmed the article quickly and was about to move on when he saw the last line, Anthony Vantage is the son of Lieutenant Governor George Vantage.

Harrington sat back in his chair. This is too good, he thought. Can I play this connection out? Will this take me out of the business section? Keep your hopes down, Mikey! And pray that Proctor doesn’t come flying back thinking he can steal this baby out from under the rookie.

‘’Time to make mama proud,’’ he said to the nearly empty office.

Harrington leaned forward and began punching keys as fast as the system could keep up. He focused on Anthony Vantage; a businessman was what Harrington understood. Stay with your strength, Mikey.

Harrington reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small electronic device. He flipped open the top and pushed a button on its face. The gray screen displayed a menu of options and Harrington began tapping a small stylus on the screen. He tapped until a list appeared.

Soon Harrington had a plan mapped out. Nothing would stop him, he felt. All he needed was to ride this story for a week or two. Just enough time to get on the front page. Which would be more than enough time to knock Proctor off stride.

‘’Mike!’’

Harrington looked up and saw his boss-of-the-day standing over his desk. With short legs and a very long body, the boss looked more like a cartoon character than a newspaper editor.

‘’You need to get something for the front page now!’’ It was still Jack, the editor, talking and Harrington sensed that he had missed a few key words.

Um... was all that Harrington could come up with as a response.

‘’You only have an hour.’’

‘’The final.I get the final?’’

‘’What? Weren’t you listening?’’ Jack said as he walked away.

Damn!

‘’And Harrington, Fausto is the story,’’ Jack the editor yelled from somewhere in the newsroom.

‘’Fausto is gone.’’

‘’Why?’’

‘’Why what?’’

‘’Why did Fausto resign?’’ Jack had returned and was standing over Harrington’s desk again. "You have to go back to the basic questions of any story: who, what, when, where, why and how.’’

Harrington remembered now, it was Professor Jack Winkelman. Winkelman taught journalism at the community college at night. Everyone on staff called him Professor because he always lectured reporters and critiqued their work. If you had a byline today you would likely have Professor Winkelman’s red-inked comments in your in-box tomorrow.

‘’Jack, I know a little about what I’m doing,’’ Harrington said.

‘’Humor an old man,’’ Winkelman said as he plopped his odd body down in a chair from a neighboring desk. ‘’You don’t quit your current job until you know you have the new one nailed down. So I ask again: why did Fausto resign?’’

‘’He doesn’t seem to have any reason to think he won’t be confirmed.’’

It doesn’t work that way! Winkelman wiped his face with his hand in an exaggerated manner. An Elected never takes a chance like that.

But he won’t be an elected official at Education anyway.

It’s almost the same. It’s viewed as a promotion to anyone political.

So you think something weird is up? Harrington leaned back in his chair.

That’s the question you need to answer.

Fausto’s resignation was all over the Networks when Harrington turned on the evening news when he got home. The sudden resignation of Washington’s governor had clearly been the story all day. It was obvious to Harrington that Winkelman was right: Fausto was the story. How could you have missed it?

But even now Harrington wasn’t sure why it was the story. The Networks were focusing on Fausto because Fausto is the national story, he decided. Winkel-man wasn’t thinking about the story locally. Vantage was the better story. At least to someone trying to break out of the business page. Vantage—father and son—looked like better prey to track than some overeager Cabinet wannabe.

Harrington clicked off the small TV that sat on a dresser facing his rumpled queen bed. The bed took up most of the studio apartment. Along the wall to the right of the bed was a sink, stove and refrigerator; to the left was a small closet, the door out to the hallway and a bay window looking out at the library across the street. A small wooden desk with a laptop computer on it was against the window.

Harrington stood and stepped over dirty clothes to the metal-framed chair at the desk. He pressed a switch on the side of his computer as he sat down. Across the street the lights were on at the library. Harrington sat staring at the people as they strolled among the bookshelves or sat at tables. His computer finished flickering to life and he took his eyes off the library window and focused them on the computer screen. The computer was the best he could afford; better than he could afford actually. Only the phone lines limited his Internet speed.

Hurry up, damn it, he said to the screen.

Harrington stood and walked to the wall that served as his kitchen. He filled a small pan with water and set it on a burner and turned the burner’s knob to high. He returned to his desk and began his study of all things Vantage.

A few minutes into his search a picture appeared on the computer screen that made him stop and stare; it took several more minutes before he could place the face. Sure, it was the new governor that looked out from the photo on the Lieutenant Governor’s Office Web site; but it was also the face of the nervous man that he had met in Palm Springs.

Harrington leaned back in his chair and pulled his work pants off the floor. He reached into the left front pocket and found his latest toy: a Palm Pilot m100. It wasn’t the top of the line, like his laptop, but it was all he could afford at the time. And he wanted it before he went to Palm Springs for his grand four-day vacation.

He turned the Palm Pilot on and took the stylus from its holder on the device’s back. He clicked the stylus to the small screen on the Palm Pilot’s face and found the note he was looking for: middle aged man, heavy-set but not fat, very pale. Met by pool. Nice until I mentioned I’m from Olympia. Picked up his stuff and left pool area. He seems to be avoiding me now.

Harrington remembered making the entry the day after he had met the man. The man whose photo Harrington was now looking at on the screen of his laptop computer. The same man whose photo was also that of the new governor.

How could you not know? Harrington screamed to the room. Mikey! You work for a fucking newspaper!

Harrington pushed back from the desk and began pacing the small room. He was on his third lap when he realized that his pan of water was boiling. He walked to the stove, pulled a box of macaroni and cheese from a paper bag on the floor, opened the box by tearing the top off it, and then dumped the macaroni into the boiling water while catching the packet of powdered cheese. He set the packet of cheese on the counter between the sink and the stove, picked up a large serving spoon and stirred the macaroni before resuming his pacing.

After pacing for a few minutes, and stopping to stir the macaroni some more, Harrington sat at his desk again, found the Web site for the place in Palm Springs where he had stayed and clicked on the e-mail address listed. He wrote a short note saying that he had met George from Olympia, Washington at their establishment but had lost his business card; could they give him some information so that he could contact George. He clicked send and then stood up and returned to the side of the room that served as a kitchen.

Harrington opened his refrigerator and stared inside: a container of Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough ice cream sat in the small square door-less freezer; three cans of Mountain Dew were on the top shelf;