Cockeyed (20 page)

Hunny flicked an ash from his lit cigarette into the ashtray on top of the computer, whose keyboard was brown with nicotine stains. “Oh Lord, all we need is for the Brienings to distribute letters out at Golden Gardens calling Mom a crook right before she walks in the door out there or she is found in a hospital in New Jersey waking up from a coma.”

“Why New Jersey?” I asked.

“Because that’s where Karen Ann Quinlan was in her coma.”

“New Jersey, the coma state,” Art said. “It’s on the license plates.”

“I am thinking more and more,” Hunny said, “that maybe I should just give the Brienings the half a billion dollars. That money isn’t even real to me anyways. I would never miss it. And then we could just concentrate on getting Mom back and not have the Brienings hanging over our heads and breathing down our necks.”

“That is what Mother prefers,” Nelson said. “But that’s easy for her to say, because she and Dad have nice pensions from the county. No, I think you’ve been right, Uncle Hunny, to try to keep the money away from those terrible people. Lawn has some ideas on how you can invest it that he wants to discuss with you, but of course that can easily wait until we have resolved the situation with Grandma Rita.”

“I am just so grateful,” Hunny said, “that that poor old lady over in Nassau wasn’t Mom. I never imagined Mom dying like that. Out in the woods, I mean. She doesn’t like nature as much as she likes comfy and cozy and a good time. She’s always preferred town over country.”

Art said, “That lady who died was a farmer. Maybe she went the way she always wanted to go.”

“I can see Mom keeling over at Applebee’s with a huge plate of nachos in front of her. She would be dying happy.”

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“Like mother, like son,” Art said. “A fatal helping of Applebee’s nachos sounds like just the ticket for you, dear one.

In fact, include me in. Or would we rather die in the sack with a pair of humpy rugby players sitting on our faces?”

Hunny laughed. “That’s a tough one.”

Nelson shot a glance at me — he badly wanted me to be his ally in disapproving of Hunny and Art’s far-from-Noel-Coward-like sexual humor — but I found myself letting him down, and I was almost sorry I could not oblige. Though I did hope that Hunny could find a way to contain himself in the future when on national television.

“Well, let’s get going then,” Nelson said. “Lawn and I are driving back over to East Greenbush to see how Mother is doing, and I guess you’ll be talking to Antoine. Right, Uncle Hunny? I’ll get the name of the motel.”

“Yes, but I do have to do one thing. My old boss at BJ’s called earlier and said most of the staff had quit because I was going to give them all a million dollars. The managers are having trouble both with stocking and at the checkouts, and Earl asked me if I would urge the gals and guys to come back temporarily and then give a week’s notice after I presented them with their checks.

I said I would do that for the sake of the customers who are apparently waiting an eternity to get out to the parking lot with their three hundred rolls of toilet paper, so I have to make a few phone calls.”

“Okay.”

“One other thing, Nelson. Tell Lawn I will invest some money with him — maybe a million or so — as a favor to you and my sister. But the bulk of my fortune, whether or not it includes the half a billion the Brienings are after, is going to be placed in safe investments that are socially responsible. I was just thinking about this after something Arthur said, and my plan is to invest heavily in — for one thing — Applebee’s. tgi Friday’s also, even though it has some unpleasant associations for me now, what with the kidnapping scam and the tgi‘s Dumpster’s role in that. But I love their nachos, too. I just want you and Lawn to CoCkeyed
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understand that this is the first time anybody in our family ever had such a huge amount of money, and I simply am not about to take any chances with it.”

Nelson did not sigh or roll his eyes over this announcement.

He looked as if he could not figure out for the life of him exactly how to respond.

Quentin Shoemaker and eight of his Radical Drama Queen friends arrived around eleven that night. They had a big wooden box full of the paraphernalia Quentin said they would need for any “action” that might be called for. Among the six was Ethan Kulak, the Rdq‘s psychic, and Savion Davenport, the commune’s astrologer. Kulak was even tinier than Shoemaker, with intense black eyes and a small round mouth that made him look as if he was always about to say something starting with a
W
. Davenport was also skinny, and had a brown bony face and enough dreadlocks for a small sheep to get lost in. The communards were all in raggedy shorts or jeans and T-shirts, except for a rugged older man named Graham who wore a Hawaiian grass skirt and halter top.

Antoine had gone off to work the overnight shift at Golden Gardens, but Marylou and the twins were in the living room monitoring the eleven o’clock local newscasts for any reports on Mrs. Van Horn, or any new outbreaks of anti-Hunny activity.

The rest of us gathered in the kitchen, where Shoemaker astonished Hunny, Art and me by declaring, “Ethan and Savion have consulted the heavens, the spiritual and energy flows, and each other. And they can say with some degree of certainty, Hunny, that your mother is at the present moment in the town of Lake George.”

“Whoa. Really?”

“That’s amazing,” Art said.

Kulak had placed the photograph of Mrs. Van Horn that Shoemaker borrowed earlier in the center of the kitchen table.

She grinned up at us, and just at the bottom of the frame was the top of a cocktail glass with a swizzle stick peeking out.

“Whereabouts in Lake George?” Hunny asked. “And what is she doing? Is she well? Is she being held captive or anything?”

“Your mother is asleep right now,” Kulak said. “So it wouldn’t
162 Richard Stevenson

be good to call her even if we had her number. She is healthy and contented but somewhat worn out.”

“Wow. How can you tell that?”

“Savion Googled her name, and that helped. There was some kind of blog saying she had been seen in Lake George.”

Hunny’s face drooped. “Oh. You’re getting your information from Tom In Paine. Now I don’t know. That guy is an idiot.”

“Yes, I know he is, but we confirmed the sighting,” Davenport said. “Your mother’s sign of Jupiter is entering the seventh house, and today is August seventeenth, so she is sure to be equidistant between Saratoga Springs and Schroon Lake. That has to be Lake George.”

Hunny looked at Art, who shrugged. “Why the hell not?”

I said, “So you guys have a wireless laptop you carry around to make your calculations?”

“I’ve got my Blackberry,” Shoemaker said. “And Ethan has his human mind.”

I said, “So, Ethan, can your human mind come up with an address for us where Mrs. Van Horn can be found?”

Nelson had phoned earlier to tell us that the motel where Rita and Miriam Van Horn used to like to stay was called the Silvery Moon. We had let Antoine know about that, but no one else had yet been told.

Kulak said, “I am fairly sure it’s the Super 8, but I’m not one hundred percent certain.”

“Hunny and Art’s friend Antoine, along with Tyler and Schuyler, who you met out in the other room, are going to take a drive up to Lake George in the morning to try to check out the supposed sighting of Mrs. Van Horn. Maybe a couple of you could ride along and add your extrasensory gPs.”

The Rdqers agreed to do that and asked if they could spend the night in Art and Hunny’s house. They said they had their Tibetan prayer mats they could sleep on, and they had brought their own dried head cheese breakfast cakes. Hunny said, sure, CoCkeyed
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there was plenty of room. I said they were also welcome to Hunny and Art’s guest room and I would spend the night at home. I thought about inviting some of them to come over and spread their mats out at the foot of Timmy’s and my bed but concluded that Timmy’s bemusement might be limited.

I asked Hunny to walk with me out to my car. It was a hot moonlit buggy August night on Moth Street. We passed the two security guys sitting on the porch, and one of them said to me,

“Are those hippies?”

“You could call them that. I doubt if they would use the word.”

“They look like they are.”

“That word is mostly used now for revivals of
Hair
. These guys aren’t actors. They’re genuine.”

“I just wondered.”

When we got out to my car, I said to Hunny, “You know, Quentin and his crew are full of shit.”

“I thought they might be.”

“They are good and sweet and decent, but they have no more idea where your mother is than Bill O’Malley does, or the balloon boy.”

“I know. But Quentin is nice to me and he doesn’t treat me like I’m a bad gay person and a traitor to gays just because I’m so fun-loving and enjoy a stiff one once in a while. Oh, I mean drink,” he added and chortled.

“I wasn’t sure.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like a nice blowjob, Donald?”

“No.”

“It relieves tension.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“I guess you’re getting it at home.”

“That’s part of it.”

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“Variety is nice.”

“I can’t deny that.”

“Well, maybe some of the Rdq boys will be up for a romp.”

“Hard to say.”

“Donald, girl, do you think I should tell them to go back to Vermont? They aren’t going to be much help, it looks like. But I like having Quentin around to boost my morale. I love that he wanted to lick my feet. At first, I thought, oh, what a weirdo. But he wasn’t referring to shrimping, I don’t think. He meant to show his respect.”

“He admires you a lot. And he’s not alone.”

“Oh, I know. Not everybody’s dumping on me. All the gals out at BJ’s have called and expressed their heartfelt wishes about Mom, and some said I should have kicked Bill O’Malley in the balls. A lot of the gang we normally see at Rocks on Saturday night have been supportive, calling and sending nice cards. I heard that some radio program in Troy called
Homo Radio
said nice things about me. It’s just phonies like Nelson and Lawn and that type of straight-acting gay person who have been pissing all over Artie and me.”

“I don’t know that they’re all phonies. They just find your uninhibitedness and your…zest for life a little scary.”

“Well, tough titty. Anyway, they are so phonies. I would never tell Nelson — he is so innocent and it would break his heart —

but Artie saw Lawn one time out behind a Thruway rest stop getting his dick sucked by a state assemblyman from Buffalo who had just had his picture in the paper for getting a prize from the Boy Scouts.”

“That sounds complicated. But a lot of guys really are monogamous and very comfortable with the old-fashioned two-people-devoted-to-each-other model. It’s safe and comfortable and emotionally rewarding. Biology being biology, some of them may slip once in a while. But overall they aren’t particularly hypocritical. They live the way they live not just for convention’s sake but for love.”

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“Oh, Donald, darlin’, you obviously haven’t seen what I’ve seen. For a detective, you don’t seem to have been around the block all that much. And anyway, don’t tell me about love. If there’s any love in this world truer than Artie’s and mine, I would be very surprised to see it. We have two brains and two dicks but only one funny soul. Our two hearts beat as one. When one of us croaks, the other one will drop dead in about two seconds.

We share everything from money to boys to sorrows to nacho supremes at Applebee’s. We know so much about love that there ain’t nothin’ that you or Nelson or even Branjolina can teach us on that subject, not one single thing. So when I get criticized for the way I talk or drink or carry on, I don’t like it — it hurts my feelings, it really does — but I know I have love in my life and because of that I know I can stand just about anything.”

I drove home and told Timmy, who was half asleep, about the Rdq guys arriving and about what Hunny had told me about him and Art and their — marriage was the best word for it. Timmy heard what I was saying about Hunny and Art and squeezed my hand. He also said he was truly grateful that I had not brought any Tibetans home to sleep on the floor at the foot of our bed.

I was barely awake myself when the phone rang at seven thirty in the morning. It was Card Sanders and his tone was cool.

“I just checked with East Greenbush. There’s no sign yet of Mrs. Van Horn.”

“Jeez. This is really getting worrisome. Has the fbi been brought in yet?”

“No, because there’s no indication of foul play. Huntington’s mother is just an old lady who wandered out the front door of a nursing home. In fact, there’s no indication of anything at all. She just went poof. It’s very odd.”

“That’s what it looks like. But with no corpse having turned up, it sure looks as if somebody picked her up. But who? Family and friends all deny any contact with her, and surely strangers giving her a ride would have seen news reports and alerted the sheriff.”

I was in the kitchen with my juice and muffin, the
Times Union
spread out on the counter, and Timmy was upstairs performing his before-work extensive toilette.

Sanders said, “I’m still curious about these people the Brienings who Mrs. Van Horn used to work for.”

“How come?”

“For one thing, Mr. Van Horn told me he is considering giving the Brienings half a billion dollars because Clyde Briening is his biological father.”

“It’s a strange, heartbreaking story.”

“Yeah, but more strange than heartbreaking.”

“How so?”

“For one thing, when Hunny Van Horn was born, Clyde Briening was just eight years of age.”

168 Richard Stevenson

“Nah, that couldn’t be.”

“That’s right, Strachey. Fathering a child at that age is pretty close to being biologically impossible. But I checked the ages of both men.”