Cockeyed

Hu

“Mason and several others. You had calls earlier this morning from people we know who said not very nice things about you.

Not our friends, but people we know. People who saw you on Bill O’Malley. Or on Cha

“Don’t tell me who. Not yet. Well, at least I got Mom’s picture on TV. I can’t believe that nobody has called with news of her.

Why hasn’t anybody spotted her somewhere? Unless she has had plastic surgery. But it’s been too soon for that. And Medicare wouldn’t cover a makeover. It’s cosmetic.”

I said, “Are you sure, Hu

“I gave them a list. I wracked my brain.”

“Somebody phoned your mom fifteen minutes before she left the nursing home. Is there anybody you can think of who might feel free to phone her at seven forty-five in the morning? That’s pretty early to call most people.”

“I know. Though since Mom eschewed the bottle, she’s been one to rise and shine with the rosy-fingered dawn. So it could have been anybody who knows her.”

“Right. So perhaps there is someone she knows that you’re not thinking of. A church friend or a work friend maybe.”

124 Richard Stevenson

Hu

After a moment, he said, “Arthur, I need a drink. One.”

“No. That would be unwise, dear one.”

“Well…Godfrey Daniels! Am I going to have to start sneaking down to the coal bin?”

The phone rang and Hu

He hung up and said, “Verizon must be open by now. Artie, we really do need to get an unlisted number. Today.”

I said, “You should probably keep this number as long as people need to reach you about your mother. This is not the time to be going incommunicado, even if you have to put up with some cranks.”

Hu

In his desolation, he looked so unlike the euphoric Hu

The phone rang again, and this time it was not another gay person calling up to criticize Hu

ChAPteR seventeen

As I drove out to Cobleskill, low clouds moved in and soon I turned on the wipers to deal with a light drizzle. Swoosh, two, three — swoosh, two, three. Nissan, the waltz king. Did windshield washers Argentine tango? The temperature was up in the eighties, even with the rain. So if somehow Rita Van Horn was stuck out of doors she would not likely suffer too much from exposure to the elements, provided she was found soon.

Except, it seemed more and more likely that Hu

Cobleskill looked fresh in the benign light rain, although Crafts-a-Palooza, lightly patronized on a Monday morning and smelling of what I took to be New York Thruway-restroom-scented candles, gave off a less welcoming vibe.

“You know what this is?” Clyde said, pointing a metal object at me. “It’s a glue gun, and believe me, I know how to use it.” He yelled at a curtained-off area in the back of the store, “Arletta!

Arletta, that goon working for Hu

She came through the curtains wielding her own weapon, a Mike Huckabee-brand crown of thorns. The wreath was still in its plastic wrapper, so if she came at me with it I would not likely be injured.

“So,” Arletta said, “did you bring Clyde and I a big fat check 126 Richard Stevenson

from Rita’s drunken son?”

“Drunken?”

“Oh, don’t think we didn’t see him on Bill O’Malley last night making an ass of himself and of every one of his sorry ilk.”

“Then you must know that Rita Van Horn is still missing.

Hu

Clyde said, “Mr. O’Malley thinks this missing-Rita shenanigan is all a hoax. He has proof, he said.”

“Did he? I just heard a lot of wild speculation based on nothing at all.”

“It’s all about some reality TV show,” Arletta said. “I would no sooner believe anything any of the Van Horns told me than I would believe Barack Obama.”

I said, “Hu

This caught Clyde up short. “Why would he say no to that?

Don’t those people on those shows get paid a lot?”

“Since we’re so important in Hu

Anyway, we’ll have plenty of money when Hu

“Don Strachey.”

Clyde said, “But, Arletta, after we get the half a billion from Hu

She screwed up her face. “That’s true.”

I said, “Let me run this by Hu

later in the week. There is also the possibility of Oh Look! TV

doing a biopic of Hu

Clyde and Arletta perked up even more. Maybe they thought they could play the vampires.

Arletta said, “Just make sure Hu

“I’ll see what I can do. You understand, of course, that at this point Hu