Cockeyed

I could hear Sanders breathing. He said, “Hu

“With your indulgence, I can’t really say any more.”

“One of the Van Horns did something to the Brienings that was so bad that it’s worth half a billion dollars to the Van Horns to cover up. For that amount of money, it must have been murder.”

“You’d think so.”

“Of course, these days celebrities like Mr. Van Horn can get away with pretty much anything. You get drunk and shove a school bus off a cliff, and then you go on Barbara Walters and cry and get a nice book deal and maybe serve a month in the county lockup and then you get out and bake sheet cakes at a soup 170 Richard Stevenson

kitchen, and that’s all there is to it. What’s this embarrassment and shame stuff? They don’t exist anymore. Haven’t the Van Horns heard about that?”

“They are not culturally up-to-date, Lieutenant.”

“Mrs. Van Horn, once she’s back, she could get a stand-up comedy gig on Jay Leno. At Golden Gardens, the staff all say she’s the joke lady. I was over there, and I had a hard time getting people to talk about Rita because all they wanted to do was tell me how fu

The “joke lady”? This all sounded familiar, and I made a mental note to ask Antoine and Hu

Van Horn had received — in fact a series of phone calls — that suddenly seemed important.

ChAPteR twenty-five

When I got over to Hu

Hu

I asked, “Did Lieutenant Sanders call you?”

“No.”

“He called me. He found out that Clyde Briening was eight years old when you were born.”

“Whoopsy daisy.”

“Yeah.”

“That Clyde. What a stud. Ooo-eee. So the detective knows I fibbed? Oh boy.”

“I told him you were only protecting the family from u

“Oh, Donald, girl, I’m just so scared Mom is going to be found — her mind gone, and working next to the ovens at Arby’s or something — and the cops are going to rush in with their Tasers drawn and arrest her for embezzlement in front of all her new friends. Or she shows up at Golden Gardens just when the Brienings waltz in and write on the name card outside her door Mrs. Thief Van Horn and all the old gals out there will start 172 Richard Stevenson

treating her like some seedy shoplifter and calling her Ma Barker.

You know, it would be so easy to just drive out to Cobleskill and write a check for half a billion dollars and throw it in Clyde and Arletta’s face. And that would be that. Tomorrow is their deadline, so-called, and that is what I am so, so tempted to just go ahead and do.”

Art came downstairs and into the kitchen. Hu

Art shrugged. “Eh. So-so.”

“Artie, I am thinking of paying off the Brienings. I am just sick of that whole situation. Would you mind if we only ended up with five hundred million dollars? We’d still be on easy street, heaven knows. That cute cop, Sanders, is closing in on Mom and her misdeed. She’s like Jimmy Cagney in White Heat. I hate to reward evil people, but one day the Brienings will meet their maker and they’ll get theirs real good. I’d love to be there to watch it, but of course I don’t know which place I am going to end up in.”

“I wouldn’t pay them a red cent, Hu

Hu

I should run that by Nelson and Lawn. They know all those people. They are crooks just like the people they eat with at Jack’s.

They’re all co

“This is a bad idea,” I said. “It’s illegal, it’s immoral and it’s dangerous. In Albany, it’s not 1950 anymore. Hu

“Oh. No, I don’t want to end up in Danbury as somebody’s white bitch.”

CoCkeyed 173

“Nuh-uh,” Art said. “Co

“Then I just think I have to pay them,” Hu

“Maybe you’re right, luv. And your tough-guy private eye here still refuses to have the Brienings offed. Is that still your position, Donald?”

“Yes, homicide is out. The impulse is understandable, but the deed would have consequences.”

“Anyway,” Art said, “Quentin Shoemaker said this morning that he and his hippies have a plan for the Brienings.”

“They do?”

“I heard them talking about it out in the hall when I was in the bathroom for my first BM.”

“What plan?” I asked.

“Some kind of exorcism.”

“That should help.”

“Donald,” Hu

“I admit that. And I like them. I even admire them in a lot of ways. But they’re not going to help with the Brienings, and they’re not going to get your mother back. People with a firmer grip on reality are going to do both of those things, if anybody is.”

“You don’t seem to have any better ideas,” Art said. “How much was your fee?”

I ignored that — reasonable as the question was — and asked Hu

“Sure. I stuck it in the back of the phone book. Do you want to see it?”

“Please.”

Hu

Marlboro of the day according to the evidence in the ashtray. He extracted a Domino’s Pizza take-out menu that had been stuffed in his Albany County phone book and flipped it over. Written in pen on the back was a long list of names. I sca

I said, “Who is your mother’s friend who calls her once a week with a fresh supply of jokes?”

“That would be Tex Clermont. But she is not on the list.”

“Why not? She sounds like a close friend.”

“She is, but Tex — Eileen is her actual name — lives in assisted living in Houston. She’s not around here.”

“Who is she? What’s their relationship?”

“When Tex was married to her fourth husband, Roberto, they lived in Albany. He was a state trooper. But when Cuatro croaked

— that’s what Tex called him, Numero Cuatro — Tex moved back to Texas to be near her daughter down there.”

“So Tex and your mom were pals?”

“Oh, they did everything together. They met at the racetrack, so they did a lot of playing the ponies, and they went down to Foxwoods sometimes to hit the tables. Mom really missed Tex when she moved back to Houston.”