Exposed in Spokane, Washington

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In April, as West arranged a first date with Moto-Broc at a golf course, he intimated that he was worried: "Guys like you don't come along very often and I want it to last .. ?am I crazy here?" Later West, having revealed his identity, expressed a more pragmatic concern. "Someday I may run for Governor, and this would be bad if you know what I mean," he wrote. Of course, Moto-Broc never made it to the rendezvous. But three people from the Spokesman-Review were there to witness the mayor's hopeful arrival.

The night before the story broke, West sat down for a two-hour interview with the Spokane-Review and left so distraught that its editor, Steven Smith, asked the police chief to check on him. "We did not want the man's suicide on our hands," Smith says. Yet three days after the story ran, he says, an unhinged and rambling West called him and in the course of the conversation "thanked us for our diligence." Although the paper's covert methods have prompted tut-tutting from some editors, Smith says reader responses have been at least 10 to 1 in the paper's favor.

West has refused to resign, but he is taking what city spokeswoman Marlene Feist calls "a vacation ... to sort this situation out." So far, few Republican leaders have demanded he step down. One exception is Shaun Cross, a Spokane conservative who ran for Congress last year. The mayor, he says, "has created a tsunami of hypocrisy." Feist says Spokane's response has been mixed. Some people have called in sounding supportive, some upset. Still others say West is in their prayers. --Reported by Sandeep Kaushik/Spokane