Cockeyed

He would never have put up with extortion. He would have gone to the police, or he would simply have held his nose and paid these people off.”

“It’s true,” Hu

40 Richard Stevenson

“A crook in the family that got caught,” Art said by way of clarification.

I asked, “How did your mother live, Hu

“We all helped out. I paid her oil and electric and cable, and Miriam and Lewis dropped off groceries. We all pitched in one time for a new roof. For a number of years Mom worked off and on at McDonald’s. Then her mind started slipping a couple of years ago and she became frail at around the same time. She had to get out of the house, so we sold it and that’s when we got her into Golden Gardens. The house proceeds paid for the nursing home until that money ran out, and then the home said Mom would have to turn over her Social Security every month.

We told the Brienings, and they got mad and said all the money hadn’t been paid back yet and they might have to go to the police.

That was last month. So I bought two hundred dollars’ worth of Instant Warren tickets, hoping I would win and could pay off the Brienings, and — praise de Lawd! — I did win.”

“But now, apparently,” Art said, “the Brienings want half a billion dollars to shut them up, not just what Mother Rita still owes.”

Lawn said, “This is just totally bizarre. It’s no wonder Nelson is so distraught that he missed a di

“The Brienings have been leaving phone messages since I won the lottery,” Hu

The door to the living room opened again, and this time Nelson himself walked through it. He looked frazzled and bordering on the unkempt.

CoCkeyed 41

Nelson said, “Uncle Hu

Hu

Cha

Nelson said, “They showed me their ID from Focks News in New York. There are two of them — a woman and a cameraman

— and they say they’re from The Bill O’Malley Show.”

ChAPteR six

“This is a damned impertinence,” Hu

“Bill O’Malley is doing a report,” Nelson said, “on some organization that wants the lottery commission to take back your wi

“Oh, some PR woman from the lottery called this afternoon.

She said not to worry, that as long as I was eighteen years old and didn’t have a relative who worked for the lottery commission, I was the legal wi

“These O’Malley people have just driven up from the city, they said. One of your neighbors is an O’Malley viewer and called them and said you were partying and driving everybody in the neighborhood crazy with the noise. I can only begin to imagine how accurate that description was.”

“That was earlier. Anyway, what immoral purposes? There’s nothing immoral about playing some peppy dance music and throwing a party in your own home.”

Lawn said, “I’d be willing to bet that there is a good deal more to it than that.”

“It’s some religious group,” Nelson said. “The Family Preservation Association of Albany County. I told the Focks News people it was too late for an interview, but they said they could see that a party was still going on and they refused to leave.

Donald, maybe you are the man to handle this. Would you mind?”

“Normally I don’t do press relations.”

Art said, “We could send the twins out to talk to them. They could tell about how Hu

44 Richard Stevenson

Lawn shut his eyes, and Nelson said, “Art, I don’t believe that will help. Having those two tarts speak for Uncle Hu

Hu

“Well, we certainly have to get these O’Malley people out of here,” Nelson said, “so that we can discuss a far more difficult matter. Do you know where I have just come from, Uncle Hu

“Lawn told us Cobleskill.”

“Yes, Cobleskill. And can you guess who it was I was meeting with out there?”

“I was told it had to do with Mom,” Hu

Art asked, “Was it the Brienings?”

Nelson looked as if the weight of it all hit him all over again.

He said somberly, “Yes. Clyde and Arletta Briening.”

“Your parents decided a long time ago not to tell you about them — and about Grandma Rita,” Hu

Lawn looked as though he did not like the sound of some of this, but he kept his mouth shut.

Nelson said, “I am sad for Grandma Rita, that’s all. She was devastated by the loss of Grandpa Carl, and in her grief she made a terrible mistake. Now she has paid for this lapse many times over, and other family members have paid also. If I had known, I would have found a way to deal with these wretched people. But now they are completely out of control. They are CoCkeyed 45

demanding the insane sum of half a billion dollars. And if they don’t receive it, they say, they will make public the letter Grandma Rita signed confessing to stealing sixty-one thousand dollars.”

Hu

I said, “Hu

“Most days, she would. Others, not so much.”

“I have to tell you that I spoke with my parents by phone,”

Nelson said, “and they think Hu

Everyone looked at me. Hu

“Since this is plainly extortion at this point,” I said, “I could sit down with them and point out the serious legal consequences of what they are doing. Just laying it all out sometimes is sobering for people like this. There is also the possibility perhaps of negotiating with them. Offer them a hundred thousand or whatever relatively small amount you think you can part with in order to see the end of this. You’d need some kind of legal document signed by them, however, nullifying the agreement Hu