Cockeyed

“Does Tex ever visit up here?”

“Not that I ever heard of,” Hu

Art said, “Being old is a load of crap.”

“Maybe,” I said, “even if Mrs. Clermont hasn’t taken your mom somewhere, maybe she has been in touch with her or has some idea where your mother might have gone. It sounds as though they’re real chums.”

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“We could check.”

“Do you have a number or address?”

“No, that information would be in Mom’s address book in her room.”

“Could you call Mrs. Kerisiotis and ask her to have someone check?”

Hu

Kerisiotis’s secretary said the administrator wasn’t in her office but they would call Hu

“Everyone at Golden Gardens is really upset about Mom,”

Hu

“If it was too upsetting, they wouldn’t look at it,” Art said.

“They must like the immortality part of it.”

“And the physical contact. People of all ages appreciate a little physical affection.”

The phone rang and Hu

Hu

Art asked who.

“Sean Shea. He used to go out with Ellis Feebeaux, who works out at BJ’s. Sean is famous for the tattoo on his dick that’s a picture of Cardinal Egan.”

“It’s not a perfect likeness,” Art said. “But if you think about it, you can see that’s who it is.”

176 Richard Stevenson

Hu

“No sign of Mother Van Horn?” Art asked.

“No, but they are going over to the Super Eight where Ethan thinks Mom is staying. The thing is, the desk clerks can’t give out guest information.”

“I’ll bet they would for twenty-five thousand dollars.”

“Oh, that’s an idea. If I’m so rich, I suppose I should start acting like it.”

“Did the Vermont boys enjoy Sean’s tattoo?”

“They went into the men’s room, Antoine said, and had a quick look-see. But it was hard to make out. Sean had just been in the water, and that lake is cold.”

Art said, “Sean is an excellent lifeguard, but he is not a very good Catholic.”

The phone rang again and Hu

“That’s Mrs. Kerisiotis’s girl calling back. They got Mom’s address book and found Tex Clermont’s number.”

I suggested to Hu

Hu

He dialed and soon had an exchange with someone who apparently was not Tex Clermont. Hu

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“Eileen Clermont has also disappeared,” Hu

“I thought she was on a walker,” Art said, “and couldn’t get around.”

“I talked to the nurse that answered Tex’s phone, and she said that one of the home’s aides is missing too. They think he might have taken Tex somewhere because they were always pals and joked about ru

“It would be useful to know, “ I said, “if Herero Flores has a car and if so what kind.”

I asked Hu

Ten minutes later I said to Hu

“I have a feeling you’re right, Donald. I think all our thoughts and prayers are soon to be answered. But just in time, I’m afraid, for the Brienings to work their evil on Mom and on all the rest of the Van Horns. I have only twenty-four hours before the Brienings go after Mom, and I’m afraid I have no choice but to fork over half a billion dollars, tomorrow morning at the latest.”

I told Hu

ChAPteR twenty-six

By six that evening I was set up in Cobleskill and ready to take possession of the original document in which Rita Van Horn had confessed to embezzling sixty-one thousand dollars from the Brienings. It was like the situation in The Letter, the Maugham story and Bette Davis movie, except I was not going to pay a lot of money for the letter and then get knifed in the gut anyway. I was going to create a distraction that would lure the Brienings out the front door of their store, and I was going to go in the back door and take away the lock box where they told me the letter had been secured.

The crew I had assembled met me at the McDonald’s on the eastern edge of town. Marylou was there but not in drag.

She was in a business suit and looked like the average middle-aged accountant you might expect to find at the New York State Department of Taxation.

Accompanying her were several people I recognized from the two lottery-prize celebrations at Hu

The only thing that might have distinguished them from typical commuters on the way home after a summer work day was this: close up some of the men looked as if they might have been women, and some of the women looked as if they might have been men.

Marylou had on a name tag that read Buzz Beasley, Simon & Schuster. Others had name tags, too, that were whimsical — Tom Cruise, Britney Spears, Senator Charles Grassley — and they were all gathered around a van with a big sign on the side that read Sarah Palin Book Tour — Going Rogue in Cobleskill! Climbing out of a Lincoln Town Car was the sensational best-selling author herself, former vice presidential candidate and political 180 Richard Stevenson

phenomenon of the decade, Sarah Palin. Ms. Palin had on a red miniskirt and blue sleeveless top and was wearing shades with white frames to complete the patriotic color scheme. Her big hair was more orderly than it normally appears on television, and both her calves and Adam’s apple seemed to have grown.