Cockeyed

That sounded right to me.

ChAPteR sixteen

First thing in the morning, Hu

“Then bacon and eggs, it is!” Hu

Hu

Now the kitchen phone rang, and Hu

He picked up the receiver. “Van Horn residence.” He listened for a minute or so with a look of consternation and finally said,

“Well, maybe you should be in rehab — butting-in rehab is what you really ought to sign up for!” He banged down the receiver.

“It was just one of my thousands of non-fans,” Hu

Was I charming, and was I an effective spokesperson for the celebrity community? Or did I arrive at the studio snockered, and did I hop around on one foot and stick my other foot up my ass so that it was coming out of my throat and looked really weird on TV and grossed everybody out?”

“The latter,” I said.

“Donald,” Hu

“The metal bar in the middle hit me in the back. But I folded up the bed and placed the mattress on the floor and slept there.

It was fine.”

“On the floor! Donald, you are such a primitive. It’s Jungle 120 Richard Stevenson

Jim. It’s Bomba the Jungle Boy. This is starting to turn me on.”

Busy getting breakfast together, Art looked over his shoulder and said, “How do you like your eggs, Donald?”

“Scrambled, thank you.”

The phone rang again. “Van Horn residence. Oh, Detective Sanders. I am so glad to hear your official-sounding voice. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yes, Detective Strachey is just to my port side. In fact, I was just about to offer him a glass of port. Here, let me put him on.” To me, Hu

“I’ve been in touch with the East Greenbush sheriff,” Sanders told me, “and people over there have resumed the search for Mrs.

Van Horn. But they’re starting to run out of territory the old lady might have wandered into on her own. It’s looking more and more as if she got a ride somewhere, and yet nobody has reported picking up an elderly woman in her bathrobe and slippers. That pretty much leaves us with, she’s with somebody she knows. Her family and friends all deny taking her anywhere, but there may be somebody who’s been left out of that equation that you all are not thinking of. Would you please ask Mr. Van Horn about friends of his mother who maybe haven’t been contacted yet?”

“Sure. Mr. Van Horn’s mind is functioning more efficiently than it was yesterday, and I’ll see what I can find out.” Hu

“I take it,” Sanders said, “that there have been no more calls from supposed kidnappers.”

“No.”

“An abduction is unlikely then. Anybody doing it would likely have made their ransom demands by now. But I’m still intrigued by these people the Brienings. Mr. Van Horn mentioned them again last night on Bill O’Malley. He said that if his mom was watching she should not worry about the Brienings, that he would deal with them. These are the same Brienings, I take it, that Mr. Van Horn might give half a billion dollars to?”

CoCkeyed 121

“Probably. Are you sure he said Brienings on O’Malley? Some of his speech was indistinct.”

“You heard it as clearly as I did, Strachey. I’ve replayed the video of the O’Malley show twice. Now, what gives here? Who are the Brienings, and where do they fit into the equation? Look, I am playing straight with you, and I expect you to play straight with me. Otherwise, well…I don’t know. You’ll find that I am not a policeman to be screwed around with.”

“Lieutenant, let me get back to you on that. I do appreciate your interest and concern.”

“I’ll be back over to Mr. Van Horn’s residence this afternoon.

I’ll expect to be clued in. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

“Fair enough.”

I hung up and said to Hu

“I did? What in heaven’s name did I say?”

“That your mom should not worry about them. That if they had something to do with her disappearance, you would deal with them.”

“I said that on TV?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Blabbety-blabbety-blabbety. That must have been me.”

“Yes, Hu

He thought this over and then winced. “I may have to go on the wagon. I’ve done it before.”

“That would help a lot.”

“For Mom. Just until she is safely back.”

“Hu

“I was off the sauce for three days when Larry Tralongo 122 Richard Stevenson

died,” Hu

I thought everything was going to be different from then on, and I might as well get used to it. But I never did get used to it, even though there were many more opportunities — too many opportunities — to do so. I came home after Larry’s funeral that day and got lit. However, Donald, I’m just a social drinker, I want you to know. I never missed a day of work on account of the booze. Oh, Artie, what time is it? Lord, I ca

“Why don’t you just pretend,” Art said, “that this is a workday and you’re not going to have your first cocktail until after work.

Later on you can be as social as you please. Just as long as you don’t have to go on TV again.”

Hu

“You did. We were all so proud of you. Marylou and Antoine were rolling around on the floor, they were laughing so hard. The twins thought it was a riot, too, even if they weren’t sure who Mary Cheney was. Tyler asked if she was part of that old folk-song group.”

“Bill O’Malley must have swallowed his tongue.”

“He thinks he’s the unperturbed type, but you could tell that your remark got to him.”

“Mom would have loved it. She’d have been falling out of her wheelchair.”

“It’s good that you insisted on showing her picture. O’Malley was just going to blow her off. He just wanted to distort everything and make you look bad. And then showing Mason Doebler and saying you molested him. What a lot of BS that was.”

Hu

“The twins taped it.” Art said to me, “The boys know how to work the vCR.”

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“Oh. Should I watch it?” Hu

“No. Don’t.”

“What did Mason have to say? That he crashed his car while I was sucking his dick? He likes to go around making a big deal of that dumb incident.”

“He said you molested him when he was an altar boy. He’s suing you for three hundred seventy-five million dollars.”