Cockeyed - Stevenson Richard. Страница 9

“Is there any reason,” I asked, “that the Brienings might think they can extort half a billion dollars from you, Hunny?”

After a moment he mumbled, “Maybe.”

Art said, “Lawn, don’t you know who the Brienings are?”

“No, I never heard the name before.”

“How long have you and Nelson been together?” I asked.

“Eleven years. We met when I came back to Albany after establishing myself in the city in the financial world, and I felt ready to return to my roots and make a name for myself.”

36 Richard Stevenson

“Mary,” Art said.

“Nelson and I met in the locker room of our gym on my third day back in Albany, and we have rarely spent a day apart since then. We are just wonderfully well suited for one another, and I consider myself just incredibly lucky to have found my perfect match.”

Art had dried his hands on a paper towel, and now he went over and sat next to Hunny, who was starting to look queasy.

Hunny said, “Lawn, please shut the door, will you, dear?”

“This one is definitely not for the laundry basket,” Art said.

Lawn closed the door to the living room and said, “What laundry basket?”

“The laundry basket where we put all the letters and messages that have been coming in since Wednesday asking for money or trying to blackmail me,” Hunny said. “The basket is down in the basement, and it’s overflowing with piles and piles of all kinds of stuff. Mostly it’s people who want me to invest in something, or who want a donation for a walk or a swim for some awful disease, or their house was in a flood in Georgia or something. One lady said her astrologer told her I was her first husband in Australia and I still owe her child support. Most of the letters and phone messages are harmless like that, but some are mean and creepy and threatening. The nasty ones are the ones Donald is handling.

If this is the Brienings, Nelson has been in touch with, Donald

— girl, this is definitely a job for you.”

“The Brienings are evil,” Art said. “I hope you’re ready to wrestle with Satan’s spawn, Donald.”

“Who are these people?” Lawn said. “I’ve never even heard their name before. And Grandma Rita worked for them?”

Hunny moaned. “Maybe I should just write them a check and that will be the end of it. Maybe I should look at this as an opportunity not to be missed, and maybe finally they’ll just go away.”

“How would you go about making out a check for half a CoCkeyed 37

billion dollars?” Art said. “Would you write on it five hundred million, or half a billion, or what? And would there be room to write in all those zeros in that tiny space they give you to write out the numbers?”

Lawn stared. “You’ve got a billion dollars in your checking account, Hunny?”

“Did you think I was going to stuff it down my cleavage?

It’s actually one billion, four hundred and fifty-seven dollars. I checked the ATM on the way home this afternoon.”

“That giant check they gave Hunny on The Today Show,” Art said, “was a fake, just for show. The lottery commission provides you with direct deposit if you want it. Which is great. Direct deposit — that’s how I get my state pension and my Social Security. In Hunny’s case, it was a really good idea, so that on the way back from the city Hunny wouldn’t lose the check while he was blowing a truck driver at a Thruway service area.”

Hunny chuckled and said, “There’s an excellent reason they call them ‘service areas,’” and Art snickered, too.

On cue, Lawn looked aghast, and he didn’t look any happier when the kitchen door opened and one of the twins strolled in in his thong carrying more dirty glasses on a tray.

“Tyler, dearest, just leave everything till tomorrow morning,”

Art said.

“Yes,” Hunny added. “You and Schuyler should go on out and enjoy yourselves. Artie and I are not going to make it to Rocks tonight, it looks like. Can you get a ride with Marylou, or do you have your motorbikes out front?”

“Sho nuff,” was Tyler’s ambiguous answer. He winked at Lawn and sashayed back into the living room.

Art said, “Now that Hunny has money, he’s going to put Tyler and Schuyler through medical school. Isn’t that great? They plan on becoming podiatrists. They both like feet.”

Lawn checked his watch. “Nelson should be arriving soon.

There can’t be much traffic coming in from Cobleskill this time 38 Richard Stevenson

of night. Of course, it’s the weekend, and there are bound to be drunks. Plus people coming down the Northway from the races at Saratoga.”

Hunny and Art exchanged glances, and then suddenly Hunny began to tremble. I feared he was having a seizure, but he seemed to know exactly what to do, which was to have another sizeable snort of whatever was in his glass. Then he shuddered once and seemed to exorcise something. After which he began to snuffle quietly as Art pulled Hunny against his shoulder and gently smoothed his little frizz of scraggly hair.

Hunny said tearfully, “Poor Mom, poor Mom.”

After a moment, Art said to Lawn and me, “After Hunny’s father died at the age of sixty-four of testicular cancer, Mother Van Horn had a rough time of it.”

Hunny nodded and shook his head and cried some more.

“Rita had always enjoyed a drink before and after dinner,” Art went on. “And to ease her sorrows she — well, let’s be frank —

Rita started drinking to excess. She had gone to work at Clyde and Arletta Briening’s crafts shop as their bookkeeper, and while her imbibing did not immediately affect her work there, it did affect her judgment after hours.”

Hunny lowered his head now, and it seemed way too close to the two smoldering cigarettes in his ashtray. Not unaware of the danger, he picked up one of the burning Marlboros and took a drag on it.

Art said, “Mother Rita had always had a nice time playing the ponies at Saratoga, and unfortunately after Carl died she apparently got it in her head that she could help make ends meet with her winnings at the track. One season she had actually come out ahead, and this must have clouded her judgment. But, well, you know how it goes with gambling. Lawn, I suppose you understand, since you are in a similar line of work.”

“That’s preposterous.”

“Anyway, one thing led to another, and apparently pretty soon Mother Rita had begun covering her losses at the track with CoCkeyed 39

money she — I’m sorry, Hunny, but I have to say the word —

embezzled at Crafts-a-Palooza.”

Hunny flinched.

“By the time Arletta and Clyde realized what was going on two years later, Rita had taken sixty-one thousand and some odd dollars from the business. When they confronted her, Rita begged them not to go to the police because it would be so embarrassing for Miriam and Lewis. Hunny, too, but especially Miriam and Lewis, who are active in the Epworth League and other Methodist organizations. Hunny, of course, has a forgiving nature, and also he has always had a soft spot for the criminal element.”

“I’m afraid that’s true,” Hunny said.

“The horrible Brienings unfortunately saw this as an opportunity, and they took it. They knew that Mother Rita would begin collecting over thirteen thousand dollars a year in Social Security in just a couple of months, and they made her sign a letter confessing to stealing their money and agreeing to pay them a thousand dollars a month until the sixty-one thousand had been restored — plus interest. Except, when you figured out the interest, it came to more than two hundred thousand dollars total. So every month Mother Rita’s Social Security has been going into her account from the government and then straight out and into Crafts-a-Palooza’s account. This has been going on for thirteen years.”

Lawn stood looking grim. “I have never heard of any of this.

I’m stunned. And I’m sure Nelson couldn’t have known either.