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“At least,” Sanders said, but didn’t expand on that. He did add, “Don’t worry. APd has plenty of experience in handling the weirdo types that celebrities can attract.” Apparently the detective meant that Hunny’s detractors were the weirdoes and Hunny was the celebrity, a nice attitudinal switch from two decades earlier that left Art, Antoine and Hunny looking satisfied.

The phone rang again. Hunny started, and then he stared at the thing with fright. Hunny’s kitchen wall clock — with its picture of a naked Jack Wrangler and the clock’s phallus-shaped big hand protruding from the one-time porn star’s groin —

showed that the time was just five fifty, forty minutes before the kidnappers said they would call back.

Sanders said, “Answer it. The call is being monitored.”

Sanders took out a cell phone. “I’ll be able to listen in on this.”

Hunny picked up the receiver and said, “Huntington Van Horn speaking.” After a moment, he relaxed and said, “Nelson, yes, it’s true. Apparently Mom has been kidnapped. But I can’t talk now, ‘cause we’re waiting for the kidnappers to call back. We have call-waiting, but I don’t want to get confused. I’m confused enough as it is.” He listened some more. “Uh-huh. Yes, but I don’t see why they’re calling off the search just because of the kidnapping, which we don’t even know for sure if it’s real.” More listening. Sanders was looking over at Nechemias and giving him just a hint of a family-tension-coming-to-the-fore eye roll.

“Oh, wait!” Hunny’s eyes got big. “It’s call-waiting. It might be the kidnappers calling early. Nelson, hang on.” Hunny hit flash. “Huntington Van Horn speaking.” He frowned. “Miriam, I just told Nelson, I
can’t talk now
. Do I have to spell it out for you with a red crayon? I am waiting for the kidnappers to call back with instructions, and… No, I am not going to go on Matt Lauer again, and, no, I am not going to go on Regis and Kelly at all. Unless somehow it would help get Mom back. Then I would go on. Look, I have to hang up. I’m sorry. I’ll talk to you when we know what on earth is going on with Mom and with —

everything else.”

Hunny hung up. “Oh, phooey! I just hung up on Nelson,
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too. Well, he’ll call back if it’s important. Anyway, I don’t even remember why he called.”

“Probably about your mom,” Antoine said. “Did Nelson say the sheriff is calling off the search?”

“Yes, the East Greenbush authorities got wind of the kidnapping, and also I suppose budget considerations are coming into play. Plus, it’s suppertime, and Methodists like to eat. Oh Lord, I wonder if the kidnappers are feeding Mom. She likes to eat at five thirty sharp, and now it’s past six.”

The phone rang again, and Hunny stared up at it. Sanders nodded, and Hunny gingerly picked up the receiver. “Huntington Van Horn speaking. Oh, no, I’m sorry. No, I can’t deal with that now. My mother is missing and I need to keep this line open.”

Hunny listened for a moment longer and then snapped, “I
said
I can’t deal with that now. Didn’t you hear me
say
that? Good-
bye.”

Hunny hung up. “It was the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Fund. I sent them ten dollars once, and now they call every three days.”

Art said, “You should tell them that if they call again at meal time you’re going to give a billion dollars to the Republicans.

Though they might think you’re joking.”

“No, in fact if they call back I am going to make a big donation to the Democrats. Maybe fifty million or something. Oh, Lord, Art, I guess I do have to be a little careful with my money. If I give everybody at BJ’s a million — everybody except Dave DeCarlo, that is — and fifty million to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Fund, and a thousand to Stu Hood, and a thousand to Mason Doebler, plus the flat-screen TVs at Golden Gardens, and then of course maybe half a billion to the Brienings, oh my God, I’m going to be down to my last couple of hundred million dollars. And then of course I promised the twins I’d put them through medical school, too. That’s sure to cost an arm and a leg.”

“Do you and Mr. Malanowski have children?” Sanders asked.

“Just our pool boys, Tyler and Schuyler. They attend hvCC and CoCkeyed
91

live with their parents in Schodack. But their home situation is less than ideal, so Artie and I do what we can to look after them.”

Sanders said, “You mentioned someone you called the Brienings who might receive half a billion dollars. Are these relatives of yours?”

Hunny froze, and I could all but see the scenario unfolding inside his head: the Albany PD rescues Rita Van Horn from kidnappers and then notifies the Albany County DA, and Mom is immediately arrested for embezzlement.

Hunny said, “No, the Brienings are not relatives. Just good friends.” He peered up at Sanders, probably looking for doubt or suspicion in his face. Sanders did look mildly puzzled, but before he could say anything, the phone rang again.

Hunny looked up at Jack Wrangler. “Oh boy. But what’s going on? It’s not quite time yet.”

“Maybe they are unfashionably early,” Art said. “Kidnappers don’t have to be well-mannered.”

Hunny picked up the receiver again. “Huntington Van Horn speaking… No! No, Jane, not now! Look, okay, yes, all right, I give in, I will talk to Bill, since it seems that Anderson Cooper is nowhere to be seen, and Bill did take the trouble to drive all the way up here from New York. But it will just have to wait until later tonight or until tomorrow. Right now I just need to get my mom back. But do not phone here again in the next hour, and in fact I have asked you once and I will ask you one more time, puh-leez deal with me through my press representative, Marylou Whitney… No, Jane that person in my living room most certainly
is
Marylou Whitney. It’s the racing season at Saratoga, and Marylou is always up from Palm Beach for the month of August. In fact, the racing season just wouldn’t be the racing season without Marylou jetting in, and sometimes she stays over for a few days with Artie and me. Now, dearie, I really do have to be off, so you just cool your jets, okay, girl?”

Trinkus must have said something else, but Hunny wrinkled his nose and hung up.

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Antoine said, “Hunny, honey, I don’t know why you even lower yourself to talk to those conservative medias. They just gonna fuck you over, girl, you better believe it.”

“I know, dear one, that the only thing those folks are really up to is wrecking my last nerve. That’s what they get off on. But I want to go on Focks anyway and try to win over a few listeners. I think if some people see how nice and well-adjusted and happy-as-a-clam I am, and Art and I am, that will be doing a good deed for gay America. Gay people all over the country will thank me for it, and it’s just a responsibility I have to fulfill. It will help the cause of gay marriage and gay equality, so I must use this occasion to speak out.”

This sounded as if it could lead to Lawn getting more complaints from his Dartmouth classmates. But before I could say anything to that effect, Jack Wrangler’s member indicated that at last it was actually six thirty, and, on schedule, the phone rang once again.

“Oh, God, just don’t hurt her,” Hunny told the caller. “You can torture me if you want to, but my mom never hurt a flea, and she is just the sweetest old gal you’d ever want to run into —

everybody says that about her — and I am begging you just to let her go as soon as I drop off the money.”

Sanders was listening on his cell phone and nodding at Nechemias. Art, Antoine and I stood straining to hear any sound that leaked out from the receiver next to Hunny’s sweating ear, but I could make out only an occasional hiss or low growl.

“Yes, yes,” Hunny said. “I understand. No, no, I have not notified the police. Why would I do that?” He reached up and showed us his crossed fingers. “Twenty thousand dollars is nothing to me, and I will certainly pay you anything at all to get my dear mother safely back in my arms.”

Sanders’ eyebrows went up. Hunny seemed to be telling the kidnappers that they could have extracted a much larger sum from him, and perhaps they still might. But they did not up the ante, apparently, for Sanders began to nod again, and Hunny said,

“I understand. I should put the twenty thousand…did you say in a gym bag? Oh God. I don’t have a gym bag. I haven’t set foot in a gym since seventh grade. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Oh. Okay, a small suitcase. I have a small suitcase that is black with a purple ribbon on the handle so I can always spot it when the driver takes it out from the luggage compartment under the bus.”

Sanders held his cell phone away from his face and whispered to Hunny, “Arrange for the swap.”

Hunny said into the phone, “Just so Mom is right there when I give you the money, and we can be reunited at last. That’s all I hope and pray for. To lay eyes on Mom. Then you can leave with the money.”

Hunny listened again, and now he frowned. “Oh. But how do I know that you will do what you say after I drop off the
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money at TGI Friday’s? Where will Mom be at that point in time?

Yes. Yes. Uh-huh. Well, I guess I will just have to trust you.”

Sanders was nodding again. “But is Mom still in her bathrobe and slippers? If you drop her off at a store, she’s going to be so embarrassed. Why not bring her to tgi Friday’s and I’ll get her right into my car and drive her over to Golden Gardens, and then we can all just forget this whole horrible episode?”

Sanders gave thumbs up to this suggestion, but the kidnappers must not have gone for it. Hunny looked glum again and said,

“Okay, Mister Kidnapper, whoever you are. It will take me fifteen minutes or so to get out to Stuyvesant Plaza, depending on traffic. And I’ll toss the black bag with the purple ribbon on the handle in the Dumpster behind tgi Friday’s. Then I will drive out onto Western Avenue and head back this way. Before I get home, Mom will call this number and tell whoever answers the phone where she has been let off. Did I get that straight? Everything is all right, then?”

Antoine whispered, “Ask the asshole how you gonna get your suitcase back?”

Hunny shook his head and said to the caller, “I am paying you in order to save my mother, but I have to say to you that I am not sending you
any
of my thoughts and prayers. You really should be ashamed of yourself for scaring an old lady like this who is a good Christian and has spread good cheer wherever she goes.” Sanders was energetically shaking his head at Hunny, who nonetheless added, “Don’t let the twenty thou burn a hole in your pocket, ya shit-head.”

Hunny hung up. “Should I have said those things? Oh Lord, me and my big mouth.”

“They had it coming,” Art said. “So, what’s the situation?

You’re supposed to toss the money in a Dumpster at Stuyvesant Plaza?”

“Yeah, right now. I’m supposed to come alone.”

Now Sanders was on his cell with somebody. He said to Hunny, “Get your black bag. The twenty K is in an unmarked CoCkeyed
95

car out in front. Lester, why don’t you bring that on in here?”

Nechemias hurried out the door.

“tgi Friday’s will be covered by APd undercover officers. Just take the money, Mr. Van Horn, and drive it out there and do like the caller said. Do you know your way out there?”

“To Stuyvesant Plaza? Girl, of course I do.”

“We still don’t know where the caller was located — it was a cell — but Verizon is working on that. We do know the number of the cell and who the subscriber is. Does the name Elton Steckenfinger mean anything to you?”

“Steckenfinger?”

“Yes.”

“No. I’d remember that one. ‘Ooo, I think my finger is stecken. Just try to relax.’”

Sanders stared at Hunny. He must have been thinking that celebrities are a species unto themselves, but in America we have to love them no matter what.

Officer Nechemias came back into the kitchen carrying a bulging paper sack.

Art said, “I’ll fetch the suitcase, Hunny,” and headed out the door.

Sanders asked Hunny for his cell phone number and added the number to his phone. He said, “I’ll follow you, about a block behind. Strachey, you ride along with me. Mr. Malanowski, you should stay here with Officer Nechemias in case the kidnappers call with the location of Mrs. Van Horn’s drop-off. We will not pick anybody up until Mrs. Van Horn has been rescued. But we will surveil the Dumpster and tail whoever leaves with the money bag.”

Sanders suggested a particular route to the Stuyvesant Plaza shopping center, and Hunny said, “Doll-face, that is how I would go anyways. I grew up in Albany, sweetheart.”

When Art arrived with the travel bag, Sanders stuffed the stacks of hundred-dollar bills into it. He also retrieved from his
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jacket pocket a small metal object with a Velcro back and inserted it into one of the bag’s zippered side pockets.

“What’s that?” Hunny said. “Some kind of explosive?”

“It’s a small radio transmitter,” Sanders said. “In case these bozos somehow get away from us.”

“Oh, this is just like
The Bourne Supremacy
. Too bad Missy Matt Damon isn’t here. Mom thinks Missy Matt is just
fab-
ulous, and what a thrill it would be for Mom if Matt Damon rescued her in person.”

“Or even just his boyfriend,” Antoine said. “What’s-his-name.”

“Is it Brad Pitt?” Art asked.

“No, he’s straight,” Hunny said. “Or so we are expected to believe.”

“Now I remember, it’s Ben Affleck,” Antoine said. “I’ve heard that there is a video of those two going at it that is
hot
.”

“Matt and Ben, or Matt and Brad?”

“Miss Matt and Miss Ben. But Lord, what a sandwich all
three
of those would make.
Ooo-eee
.”

Sanders said, “You should be on your way, Mr. Van Horn.

Do you feel up to doing this? Just keep in mind that I will not be far behind you. And I can also tell you that plain clothes officers are already positioning themselves out at Stuyvesant Plaza. We’re going to make this work.”