Cockeyed

by Richard Stevenson

  “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 159

  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.

  ChAPteR twenty-thRee

  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 163

  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.”

  164 Richard Stevenson

  “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, so
me 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.”

  CoCkeyed 165

  “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.

  ChAPteR twenty-fouR

  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.”

  “It would make it into Ripley’s.”

  “I am relieved that Mrs. Van Horn didn’t have an affair with an eight-year-old.”

  “You bet.”

  “So then what’s the real deal with the Brienings? I’m nagged by Mr. Van Horn’s saying on Bill O’Malley — I’ve TiVoed it five times now — that if his mother’s disappearance had anything to do with the Brienings, not to worry, that he would deal with them.

  I’m thinking strongly now that there is a connection, and I’m also thinking strongly that you know exactly what that connection is. No? If I’m mistaken, please explain to me how I’ve failed to grasp the obvious.”

  “Look,” I said, meaning it, “if there was a connection, why wouldn’t I tell you and all the other law enforcement folks so that you all could wrap up this whole missing person sad situation pronto? It is possible that the Brienings might have spooked Mrs.

  Van Horn in some way and she took off for wherever she took off to. But I have spoken with the Brienings. And believe me, they don’t have Mrs. Van Horn in their custody, and they don’t know where she is. It’s to their advantage that she be safe and in the tender arms of the staff at Golden Gardens so that Clyde and Arletta can go ahead and press Hunny for the half billion.

  Having her running around loose and exposed to possible danger is exactly what they do not desire. Don’t you see what I’m saying, Lieutenant?”

  “I do see, and it would be really insensitive of me to go out to Cobleskill and question the Brienings if Clyde really was Mr. Van Horn’s father and I stirred up some ugly family mess that’s none of my business or the business of the police in any way. But Mr.

  Van Horn was obviously lying when he told me that real-father bullshit story. So why don’t you allay my growing suspicions by CoCkeyed 169

  telling me the fucking truth about this family of psychopathic liars for a change?”

  I said, “Okay, look. I do know a little more. That must be obvious. But if you knew the truth it would just place you in an ethical bind that you really don’t want to be in. You know people in the department who know me, and they can vouch for me. They can tell you that if I say you’re better off not knowing everything there is to know about the Brienings and the Van Horns, then you can trust that assessment. Just ask.”

  Sanders snorted. “Strachey, I’m a police officer, not a third-grader who needs to be kept out of an R-rated movie. Just fucking tell me what’s going on here.”

  I said, “I can’t.”

  “Why?’

  “I’ve explained that. You might be obligated to report something to the DA. In the end, it would all turn out okay for the Van Horns and not so great for the Brienings, I feel confident.

  But this has to do with family image and standing with church ladies and small-town embarrassment and shame. The legal part of it is the least of it. Or is according to the Van Horns. And it’s their decision to make.”

  I could hear Sanders breathing. He said, “Hunny Van Horn is concerned about image? This I find hard to believe.”

  “With your indulgence, I can’t really say any more.”

  “One of the Van Horns did something to the Brienings that was so bad that it’s worth half a billion dollars to the Van Horns to cover up. For that amount of money, it must have been murder.”

  “You’d think so.”

  “Of course, these days celebrities like Mr. Van Horn can get away with pretty much anything. You get drunk and shove a school bus off a cliff, and then you go on Barbara Walters and cry and get a nice book deal and maybe serve a month in the county lockup and then you get out and bake sheet cakes at a soup 170 Richard Stevenson

  kitchen, and that’s all there is to it. What’s this embarrassment and shame stuff? They don’t exist anymore. Haven’t the Van Horns heard about that?”

  “They are not culturally up-to-date, Lieutenant.”

  “Mrs. Van Horn, once she’s back, she could get a stand-up comedy gig on Jay Leno. At Golden Gardens, the staff all say she’s the joke lady. I was over there, and I had a hard time getting people to talk about Rita because all they wanted to do was tell me how funny she is and how she keeps everybody on the staff in stitches.”

  The “joke lady”? This all sounded familiar, and I made a mental note to ask Antoine and Hunny about a phone call Mrs.

  Van Horn had received — in fact a series of phone calls — that suddenly seemed important.

  ChAPteR twenty-five

  When I got over to Hunny’s house, Marylou had gone off to work at the tax department and Antoine had already picked up the twins and two of the Rdq guys — the ones with the mental gPs capabilities — and headed up to Lake George. Shoemaker and the other communards went out for a walk through the North End, Hunny said. The night before they had seen a Hummer parked in someone’s driveway, and they wanted to see if they could levitate
it and shake the evil spirits out.

  Hunny told me he had talked to the sheriff ’s department in East Greenbush and there was still no clue as to what had become of his mother. He said the officers were feeling frustrated and more and more worried, and so was he.

  I asked, “Did Lieutenant Sanders call you?”

  “No.”

  “He called me. He found out that Clyde Briening was eight years old when you were born.”

  “Whoopsy daisy.”

  “Yeah.”

  “That Clyde. What a stud. Ooo-eee. So the detective knows I fibbed? Oh boy.”

  “I told him you were only protecting the family from unnecessary embarrassment over a matter he need not concern himself with. But he will continue to pick at this scab, so be ready.”

  “Oh, Donald, girl, I’m just so scared Mom is going to be found — her mind gone, and working next to the ovens at Arby’s or something — and the cops are going to rush in with their Tasers drawn and arrest her for embezzlement in front of all her new friends. Or she shows up at Golden Gardens just when the Brienings waltz in and write on the name card outside her door Mrs. Thief Van Horn and all the old gals out there will start 172 Richard Stevenson

  treating her like some seedy shoplifter and calling her Ma Barker.

  You know, it would be so easy to just drive out to Cobleskill and write a check for half a billion dollars and throw it in Clyde and Arletta’s face. And that would be that. Tomorrow is their deadline, so-called, and that is what I am so, so tempted to just go ahead and do.”

  Art came downstairs and into the kitchen. Hunny said, “Have a nice poop, dear one?”

  Art shrugged. “Eh. So-so.”

  “Artie, I am thinking of paying off the Brienings. I am just sick of that whole situation. Would you mind if we only ended up with five hundred million dollars? We’d still be on easy street, heaven knows. That cute cop, Sanders, is closing in on Mom and her misdeed. She’s like Jimmy Cagney in White Heat. I hate to reward evil people, but one day the Brienings will meet their maker and they’ll get theirs real good. I’d love to be there to watch it, but of course I don’t know which place I am going to end up in.”