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“I understand,” the reporter said, “that the Lottery Commission is actually paying out nearly two billion dollars so that even after taxes you will still end up with an entire billion dollars.”

“Hey, does Warren Buffet pay his own taxes?” Hunny asked.

“Not on your life.”

“We’re going to get the check on Friday,” Art said. “They’re going to present it to us on The Today Show. Isn’t that fabulous?

They probably don’t remember that about ten years ago when we went down to hold up a sign on Hunny’s birthday, he got arrested for mooning Al Roker.”

“I wasn’t arrested,” Hunny insisted. “I was just locked in an office until the show was over. And anyway the security guard

— one of the biggest queens I ever saw wearing a uniform —

that big black ol’ Miss Mary Mary Quite Contrary told me that Al thought it was pretty funny, and the problem was tight-assed 8 Richard Stevenson

Katie Couric.”

Timmy said, “We have to put this on the calendar. Friday morning at seven.”

“Maybe we should have a few people over.”

The Channel 13 reporter didn’t look as eager as Timmy and I were to witness this groundbreaking media event, and also she appeared to be receiving signals from somewhere to wind up the interview.

Before she could speak, though, the screen suddenly went black. A few seconds later one of the anchors on the studio news set appeared and said, “Well, it looks like we’ve lost Tiffany.”

“Yes,” said his female colleague, “But wasn’t that fascinating?”

Looking unsure of how to respond — even this codger seemed to understand that hint of mint cracks were a thing of the past — the anchor simply nodded and moved on to the house fires and convenience store holdups that somebody at the TV station thought the people of New York State’s capital region needed to know about.

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“Uncle Hunny asked for trouble, and he got it,” Nelson Van Horn said, indicating the man slouched in a chair across from me. “You just cannot live the life my uncle’s led and not have chickens coming home to roost by the dozens — by the hundreds, for heaven’s sake! And it certainly doesn’t help when you go on television and flaunt your irresponsible lifestyle, and at the same time you’re practically wearing a sign that says thReAten Me, bLACkMAiL Me, exPLoit Me. Uncle Hunny,” Nelson went on, shaking his head with exasperation, “what in God’s name did you expect was going to happen when you said all those idiotic things about giving away millions of dollars? Especially considering all the incredibly sleazy people you’ve chosen to associate with over the years?”

Art Malanowski was seated next to Hunny looking much more subdued than he’d been on Channel 13 Wednesday night or on The Today Show on Friday. It was Saturday morning now, and the three men were not just tense and unhappy but also wilting in the tropical heat of my Central Avenue office. The air conditioner was on the fritz again, and I had the window above the useless unit propped open with my twenty-year-old bicycle pump, itself no longer operable.

“Nelson, don’t you talk to me about sleazy!” Hunny shot back.

“Girl, you had just better watch your tongue when it comes to sleaze, what with you working for those Wall Street rip-off artists who practically made the whole economy of the country crash down on everybody’s head but yourselves. If you calling my friends sleazy isn’t the pot calling the kettle un-ironed chiffon, I don’t know what is.”

“Uncle Hunny, let’s have a reality check here. Can we just do that? First of all, Livingston Brothers is one of the most conservative investment concerns in the country, and we have been injured by the current downturn just like every other 10 Richard Stevenson

financial institution. Badly off as we are for the moment, we have few personal regrets down on State Street. Secondly, it is you whose past is finally catching up with you. Good grief, why would we even be sitting here talking to a detective if you hadn’t been so totally reckless and irresponsible, chasing after all those seedy characters for all those years. And you still don’t know how to control yourself.” Nelson looked at me and said, “Did you catch Uncle Hunny on The Today Show yesterday?”

I said I had.

“Well, you tell me, Don. Did Uncle Hunny do himself any good — or the cause of gay rights or gay marriage any good —

by complimenting Matt Lauer on his ‘nice basket’?”

Hunny and Art looked at each other, grinned and gave each other a fist bump. “For goodness’ sakes, I thought we were already off the air,” Hunny said, and then he and Art started giggling all over again.

The nephew, a carefully toned, attentively groomed man in his early forties, sighed heavily and said to me, “So you can see what we’re up against.”

I said, “Matt Lauer seemed to take the comment in stride. It isn’t clear he even knew what your uncle meant.”

“Oh, girl, he knew,” Hunny piped up.

Art added, “Don’t you believe, dearie, that that was the first time anybody ever said something nice about his bulge to Missy Matt Lauer. And everybody knows about the casting couch at NBC. Do you think those people on those shows get those jobs just on their looks?”

“Brian Williams, Alex Trebek, Chris Matthews, Perry Como back in the old days — they all had to put out,” Hunny said and mimed an act of fellatio.

“Do you see what I mean?” Nelson said to me disgustedly. “Is it any wonder that somebody on Moth Street cut the Channel 13

cable the other night with an ax, presumably to shut my out-of-control uncle up?”

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“Nelson,” Hunny said, “them thar was outside agitators that chopped up the TV line. None of Arty’s and my neighbors feel that way about us or would do such a thing on the night of my lifetime achievement award. Well, maybe the Brownlees. Or the Haneses. Or Peter Petengill. They all hate our guts. Or Evelyn Seltzer.”

“Possibly the Fromes,” Art mused additionally.

“Now you are making my point for me,” Nelson said to his uncle. “Some people just do not appreciate your flamboyant personalities and have it in for you. They don’t like the constant sexual innuendos, and they don’t at all like the activities that everybody thinks go on behind those innuendos.”

“It is true,” Hunny said, “that some people think it’s tacky pulling college boys’ underpants down as often as possible and enjoying a nice gobble. But certainly you are not one of those narrow-minded people, Nelson.”

“Ho!” Nelson rolled his eyes. “If only they were col ege boys.”

I said, “So, are you also gay, Nelson?”

“Yes, I am. There seems to be one of those genes jumping around in the Van Horn family. But it’s one thing to be gay and it’s another thing entirely to make a sorry, obscene spectacle of yourself, and your family, and most of gay America. A friend who works for the Human Rights Campaign in Washington called me last night and asked if there wasn’t anything I could do to control Uncle Hunny. This man, who my partner went to Dartmouth with, saw The Today Show fiasco, and he pointed out — as if I needed reminding — that Art and Uncle Hunny were playing right into the religious right’s hands.”

Hunny said, “Nelson’s boyfriend is so drop-dead fab- ulous that hardly anybody can stand it. He’s into derivatives, which have gone out of fashion, though he is just too, too fashionable otherwise. The two of them have places — places is what they call them — in Clifton Park and Palm Springs. Nelson’s squeeze is named Lawn Brookman, spelled L-A-w-n. Art and I call him Yawn.”

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“So, Nelson,” I said, “it’s not only your uncle’s well-being that led you to bring him to me? Are you also hoping I might help alter his personality? That’s really outside my area of expertise.”