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Griddle Company. The FBI investigation is not stopping at taxpayer-subsidized sex. Hays' use of Government funds while on congressional junkets overseas is also under scrutiny. There have been reports that Hays bought antiques, paintings and Oriental rugs with expense-account money. His press secretary denies this, and says that Hays can produce canceled checks to show that he paid for these costly items himself.
Though it was no consolation to Hays, he was getting company on the griddle last week. Armed with a book containing pictures of all members of Congress, FBI agents have been interviewing hotel desk clerks, among others, to discover Ray's other playmates. Another cozy arrangement came to light when Colleen Gardner, 30, decided to tell much, if not all. A former secretary to Congressman John Young, 59, a Texas Democrat, Gardner claims that she received large pay raises—her salary had gone from $8,500 to nearly $26,000 when she quit in March—on condition that she sleep with the boss. She was also friendly with a few of Young's friends. Unlike Ray, Gardner is a qualified and apparently conscientious office worker. In a New York Times interview she said: "It wouldn't have been so bad going to bed with him, if he'd at least have let me work. But he wouldn't. He wanted me to be available to him whenever he wanted." Young says that the taxpayers got full value for the dollars paid to Gardner.
The scandal threatened to touch still others in Washington. At week's end Gardner said that in 1972 or '73 she had stumbled upon Alaska Democratic Senator Mike Gravel making love to Ray on a houseboat owned by former Congressman Kenneth Gray of Illinois, Ray's ex-boss. Gravel denied the accusation. Meanwhile, Ray preened in a strange celebrity status that made her seem a combination of Virginia Hill and Typhoid Mary. She attracted stares and journalists at every stop. But when she showed up at Duke Zeibert's last week, at least 20 men, by one count, headed toward the restaurant's back door, apparently dreading signs of recognition.