Cockeyed

Officer Nechemias came back into the kitchen carrying a bulging paper sack.

Art said, “I’ll fetch the suitcase, Hu

Sanders asked Hu

Sanders suggested a particular route to the Stuyvesant Plaza shopping center, and Hu

When Art arrived with the travel bag, Sanders stuffed the stacks of hundred-dollar bills into it. He also retrieved from his 96 Richard Stevenson

jacket pocket a small metal object with a Velcro back and inserted it into one of the bag’s zippered side pockets.

“What’s that?” Hu

“It’s a small radio transmitter,” Sanders said. “In case these bozos somehow get away from us.”

“Oh, this is just like The Bourne Supremacy. Too bad Missy Matt Damon isn’t here. Mom thinks Missy Matt is just fab- ulous, and what a thrill it would be for Mom if Matt Damon rescued her in person.”

“Or even just his boyfriend,” Antoine said. “What’s-his-name.”

“Is it Brad Pitt?” Art asked.

“No, he’s straight,” Hu

“Now I remember, it’s Ben Affleck,” Antoine said. “I’ve heard that there is a video of those two going at it that is hot.”

“Matt and Ben, or Matt and Brad?”

“Miss Matt and Miss Ben. But Lord, what a sandwich all three of those would make. Ooo-eee.”

Sanders said, “You should be on your way, Mr. Van Horn.

Do you feel up to doing this? Just keep in mind that I will not be far behind you. And I can also tell you that plain clothes officers are already positioning themselves out at Stuyvesant Plaza. We’re going to make this work.”

“Oh, it’s only a matter of minutes then before Mom will be free. Praise de lawd! In fact, whoever picks her up, I think they should bring her over to the house here for a victory imbibulation.

Artie, don’t we still have some champagne in the fridge from the other night? Of course, Mumsie might go for something a little stronger, and let me tell you, so might I.”

Hu

“Are you okay to drive?” Sanders asked, wondering perhaps if CoCkeyed 97

he was about to enable a dui.

But Hu

“Don’t forget the ransom,” Art said, handing Hu

“Oh, heavens to Betsy, my mind is a sieve!”

We all followed Hu

“Where are you off to, darling?” Marylou asked.

“I can’t say,” Hu

“Will you be gone overnight?”

“I shan’t think so, snookie-ookums. But if I don’t return,”

Hu

Marylou smiled agreeably, and we all moved down the front steps and toward the TV crews lined up on the sidewalk. They had their microphones poised, and Hu

Tyler whipped his off his well-formed frame and flung it to Hu

Hu

As we followed Hu

moved on down the hill, with us not far behind.

I said, “If the First Amendment is suspended for thirty seconds, the republic will survive.”

“Yeah,” Sanders said, “Or thirty years wouldn’t hurt either.

Just kidding.”

Sanders got on his cell phone and told somebody that we were on the way, and we should get to Stuyvesant Plaza at about six-fifty-five if traffic didn’t bog down.

I said, “So who is this Elton Steckenfinger? Any idea?”

“Not yet. It’s his cell phone, and it hasn’t been reported stolen. Steckenfinger lives in Watervliet, and we’ve got officers on the way up there. They’ll be cool till we see what happens at Stuyvesant.”

“Does your experience suggest that these people will pick up the bag and then release Mrs. Van Horn?”

“I have very limited experience with abductions. But my training tells me that this thing has all the earmarks of dumb amateurs. The twenty thousand figure, for example. What’s that about, for cryin’ out loud? Why not a hundred thousand? Why not a million? These dickheads have to know that Mr. Van Horn won the Instant Warren. Half the people on the face of the earth have heard about Huntington Van Horn, the gay billionaire. And then there’s the thing that whoever did the snatch is so confident that Mr. Van Horn wouldn’t bring APd into it. Haven’t these people ever been to the movies? The cops nearly always get called in the movies, and this is also true in reality. So, all the signs are, these are not well-organized geniuses we’re dealing with here. They’re dummies, I think, and the thing with dumb amateurs is, they’re unpredictable. So, I really don’t know what to expect, and we’ll just have to see what we see.”

We swung onto the interstate and headed west. We could see Hu

in case one of his bald tires blew. The mid-August early evening sunlight was strong but shot through with the kind of tar-colored shadowyness that lets you know summer is not going to last forever and neither is anything else. Sanders had the windows up and the air conditioner on medium. Hu

Sanders gave our location to somebody on his phone —

cops seemed to be exempt from the New York State prohibition against driving with a hand-held cell phone — and then he said to me, “Who are the Brienings?”

“Good friends of Hu

“I’ll say.”

“I’m not really sure who they are. Some people Hu

“He’s giving them half a billion dollars? I find that mind-boggling.”

“So do I. If I had half a billion dollars, I wouldn’t know what to do with it. It’s unreal.”

“It just sounds weird.”

“If you had a billion dollars, detective, what would you do with it? Where would you start?”

“Well, I wouldn’t give half of it away the minute the check cleared, that’s for sure. I’d buy a few people a beer, and then I would give the matter a whole lot of thought.”