Cockeyed ds-11 Read online

  “I want to believe that. I want so badly to believe that.”

  Art said, “Did you bring the letter?”

  “I hope this is the right one. Hunny, you said it was from Cobleskill, and the one I brought is the only one with a Cobleskill return address. I didn’t look inside, as you said you preferred that I don’t. Anyway, how come? Is it blackmail or something?”

  “Why would you ask that?” Hunny said.

  “I don’t know. You’ve got all sorts of shady stuff in your past.

  Maybe your mom does, too. Like mother, like son.”

  “Where would you get that idea?”

  “Hunny, honey, I’m not saying it’s the same thing. That your mom has sucked half the dicks in Albany County, plus Schenectady and Rensselaer, too, or like that. It could be something else.”

  Hunny looked stunned, and Art said, “Antoine, the way you talk!”

  Then suddenly they all burst out laughing, and this led to another group hug and some more cackling.

  “Girl, just hand me that letter. As a matter of fact, it is blackmail. Mom embezzled some money many years ago. She paid it back, but these puke-heads from Cobleskill, this skanky bitch and her annoying husband, they’re trying to get more money out of her since I got rich, and this letter has something 76 Richard Stevenson to do with all that long-ago crapola. But don’t tell anybody at Golden Gardens. Mom is over being a criminal — it was after Dad died and she was distraught — and nobody at the home has to worry about her filching anything.”

  Antoine shook his head and grinned. “Well, that Rita! Who would’ve thought. Did she do time?”

  “No, the police don’t know. That’s how she got blackmailed.”

  Antoine produced an envelope from his back pocket. “I sat on it, so it’s squished.”

  Hunny opened the envelope and laid the contents on the kitchen table. We all bent down and studied it. The letter itself was brief. It had been typed on a word processor, and it read: Hello Rita,

  Congratulations to your homosexual son for winning the Instant Warren lottery. I suppose he will now be able to indulge in many types of illicit activities that would turn the stomach of the average taxpayer.

  However, we must now invoke the clause in your contract with us that triggers a higher compensatory award based on your family’s ability to pay.

  We have demanded half a billion dollars from your son Huntington. If this amount is not paid by next Wednesday, we will go to the police. Also we will notify Golden Gardens and the Mount Zion Methodist Church.

  Maybe you had better talk Huntington into coming to his senses and pay up. In return for your cooperation in this matter, we will return the original agreement to you and we will consider this unfortunate business, which has been so painful to all of us, closed.

  Yours truly,

  Your Disappointed Former Employers, A and C B — —.

  Along with the letter were three photocopied pages of single-spaced typing in the form of a document. There were numbered items, lettered clauses, and subclauses with Roman numerals.

  The gist of it seemed to be, Rita Van Horn admitted stealing $61,000 from Crafts-a-Palooza, and her restitution included interest payments and assorted fees and add-ons. The additional amounts were to be determined by a complex formula that was impossible for any of us to decipher. It looked like a contract for one of the adjustable-rate mortgages cooked up by the type of shyster lenders who had sent millions of people plunging into bankruptcy over the past year.

  I said, “So you have never seen this agreement before?”

  “No, but Miriam has a copy,” Hunny said. “Lewis said it looked real, but they didn’t want to show it to anybody to have it checked out. Miriam said it would be too embarrassing.”

  Antoine said, “To me, it looks like a pile of shit.”

  “I think it could be exactly that,” I said. “Or semi-shit at best.

  I know a lawyer who can look it over and give us an opinion and keep his mouth shut. May I take this along? I’ll have it copied.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t make any more copies,” Hunny said.

  “What if it fell into the hands of FPAAC? Or Bill O’Malley?”

  The phone rang again and Hunny sighed. “If this is another reporter, I’m turning them over to Marylou. She is my press representative, and she has been doing an excellent job.”

  Hunny picked up the phone and identified himself. And then almost immediately he went white.

  “Yes, yes. Oh. Oh no! Yes? Oh. How much? Oh, all right, all right! Six thirty. Yes. I’ll wait for you to call.”

  He hung up and said in a quavering voice, “They’ve got Mom.

  They want twenty thousand dollars for her. Oh God, oh God!”

  Art said, “Twenty thousand dollars? Not twenty million?”

  We all looked at Hunny. “That’s what the man said.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “They’re calling back at six thirty,” Hunny said, his voice thin and wobbly. “When they call, they’ll give us instructions on where to leave the money. The guy said don’t go to the police or they will torture Mom and kill her.” Hunny buried his head in his hands and wept. “My God, my gawwdd!”

  I tried to retrieve the caller’s number but it was blocked. I said,

  “We don’t know who this person is, so we can’t deal with this on our own. Six thirty is under two hours. That’s enough time to get the police to monitor and trace the next call. I think you should do that, Hunny. The alternative is to make your own arrangements for a swap — the money for your mom — and hope that these people can be trusted to keep their word, and then track them down after your mother’s been returned. But that’s risky, since we have no idea what kind of people the kidnappers are.”

  Art muttered, “Those bastards.”

  “Your mom is an old lady who had a good life,” Antoine said.

  “But her time hasn’t come yet. I just know it. I would just pay the twenty K. Girl, that’s pocket change for you.”

  I said, “The caller was a man?”

  “Yes. Or a serious dyke-a-rooney. But I think a man, yes.”

  “But it was not a voice you recognized?”

  “No, I’d have recognized a voice I recognized. Oh, Lord, what am I saying? I think I need a drink. Artie, dear, can you fetch me the Jack Daniels?”

  “Of course, luv.”

  Art retrieved a bottle from under the sink and said to Hunny,

  “Anyway, you don’t have twenty thousand dollars in cash. How much do you think you have on hand?”

  “Seventy or eighty dollars.”

  “I might have a hundred.”

  “I could come up with forty,” Antoine said.

  “I have the billion dollars in my checking account,” Hunny said. “But my ATM limit is five hundred a day.”

  “Even if you went to forty different AtMs,” Antoine said, “I don’t think it works that way. I’ve tried it.”

  The phone rang again and Hunny grabbed the receiver.

  “Huntington Van Horn speaking. No, no, I have not. Now, I am quite busy. Please speak to my press representative, Mrs.

  Whitney. I’ll send her out in a few minutes, but right now she is helping the boys with their homework.”

  Hunny hung up and said, “It’s that obnoxious woman from Focks News. She says Bill O’Malley wants to interview me tonight at the Focks studios in Albany, and do I have a lawyer yet, and when can I do a pre-interview? I told her to talk to Marylou.

  In fact, I think Bill O’Malley should interview Marylou instead.

  I’ve had my fifteen minutes of fame, and do you know what? I am sick of it. If I hadn’t won the lottery, none of this with the Brienings and the blackmailers and the kidnappers would ever have happened! Oh, God, God, what should I do about Mom?

  Oh, poor, poor Mom. Donald, do you really think they would hurt an old lady like that? Oh, she must be so frightened.”

  “I don’t know if they would actually harm your mot
her, Hunny. But because we know nothing really about who we’re dealing with here, it’s probably best to notify the police. The Albany cops have some competent people working for them these days, and they and the state police have the resources to put an operation together fast. They could trace the call when it comes in at six thirty, and they could monitor the cash pickup

  — and maybe even arrange for you to borrow the cash — and then track the kidnappers to wherever you mom is being held.

  The twenty thousand figure suggests to me that these people are small-bore amateurs who aren’t likely to grasp what they’re really into. This doesn’t sound like the mob or some Mexican drug cartel or a major psychopath. What it sounds like is some opportunistic hapless dorks. These are the kinds of people cops run into all the time, and dealing with them is generally a piece of cake.”

  Hunny slugged back some of his whiskey and thought this over. “I guess you’re right, Donald. Let the pros take over. I just have such bad memories of the Albany cops. In the seventies and eighties I had some unfortunate run-ins. For girls like us, they were the Gestapo.”

  “I remember. But nearly all of those goons are gone. I know somebody in the department I can call and get the ball rolling if you decide that’s the way you want to go, and it’s what I suggest.

  But you really have to decide now.”

  Hunny lit a fresh Marlboro from one that was half smoked.

  He seemed about to speak when the phone rang again.

  “Hunny speaking.” Now he looked irked. “Stu, I told you I would help you out, but I am too busy to take care of you just now. Yes, you will receive one thousand dollars, and yes it will be in cash. Detective Strachey will get the money to you this week.

  But I can’t deal with that matter at this particular moment. Don’t you know that my mother is missing from Golden Gardens?”

  Hunny listened and shook his head. “Are you calling from the Watering Hole? No wonder you’re out of the loop. Now, call me early in the week and we’ll make some arrangements. No, girl, I haven’t forgotten all the nice times we had, but right now I have more pressing matters to worry about, and I am going to hang up. Goodbye, Stu.”

  “Stu Hood?” Art asked.

  Hunny nodded.

  Antoine said, “I have enjoyed Stu’s company on a few occasions. Stu can be fun. Just so he doesn’t ask you for a match.”

  I had my cell phone out and was poised to dial the number of a young Albany police detective I knew who was smart and competent and would not likely be freaked out by Hunny’s entourage or his personal style.

  But now Hunny’s phone rang yet again.

  “Hunny speaking.” He stared hard at the receiver. “ What?” He listened with big eyes. “Are you serious?” Now he was slumping over the table and shaking his head. “Did you call before? About ten minutes ago?” He looked exhausted, on the verge of collapse.

  “Well, someone else claims to have my mom also. Why should I believe you? What is going on?”

  I leaned down with my head next to Hunny’s so I could also hear the voice on the phone. Hunny was wearing some kind of heavy cologne, but his whiskey-and-cigarettes aura was even more potent, and he smelled like a figure from a long-ago era. I felt both revulsion and nostalgia.

  I heard an unaccented man’s voice, a bit gravelly, say that Mrs. Van Horn could not come to the phone because she was in the bathroom “taking a tinkle,” but he could prove that he was holding her hostage. He said that she was wearing a bathrobe and slippers and she was a short, heavy-set lady with blue eyes and gray hair and her hair had recently been “done.”

  Hunny said, “That was on TV. Everybody in Albany County knows what Mom was wearing and what she looks like.”

  “If you want the old lady back in one piece,” the voice said,

  “it’s going to cost you ten thousand dollars. Put the money in a paper bag with Mom written on it and leave it on the bench outside Price Chopper on Delaware Avenue at seven o’clock.

  Then we will let her go. If you don’t do like I say, I might have to get rough with your mother. Punch her in the face or somethin’.”

  Hunny looked at me, and I shook my head. He said, “I think you are full of it,” and slammed the phone down.

  Again, I tried to retrieve the caller’s number, but this number was blocked, too.

  “Was this another one?” Art said. “A second kidnapper?”

  “He said I should leave ten thousand dollars on a bench outside the Delaware Avenue Price Chopper. He sounded like a complete doofus. Artie, girl, I think we’re going to have to get an unlisted number. I’ll call Verizon tomorrow. They’d be closed today, it being Sunday.”

  “This kidnapper was cheaper than the last one,” Antoine said.

  “If your mom wasn’t in grave danger, you could almost shop around.”

  I said, “This one did sound like a flake. If he’s somehow for real, he’ll call back. It’s possible the first call was also a hoax, but you shouldn’t take that chance. I’m going to call the police, Hunny.”

  “Oh, yes, Donald, I suppose you must. Do whatever you think is best.”

  I made the call on my cell phone and luckily was able to reach my friend in the Albany PD. I explained the situation, and he said he would (a) notify the Rensselaer sheriff of this new development and (b) explain to the detectives on duty in Albany that they needed to set up a trap on Hunny’s phone line, and then be prepared to surveil the ransom drop-off and follow the kidnappers to wherever Mrs. Van Horn was being held. I said I couldn’t guarantee that this wasn’t a hoax, but my contact agreed that we couldn’t risk that the threat wasn’t real. He said that kidnapping claims directed at the very wealthy always had to be taken seriously. He said two Albany PD detectives would arrive at Hunny’s house within ten minutes.

  Just as I was finishing up with the cop, there was a ruckus in the living room, and the kitchen door flew open. An excited Marylou Whitney came crashing into the room bathed in white light, which we soon saw was from the television lights mounted atop a video camera. She was trying unsuccessfully to keep a pinch-faced, scowling middle-aged man in a jacket and tie from entering the kitchen with her. The man looked at Hunny and barked, “Huntington Van Horn? I think you need to answer a few questions. This hoax has gone on long enough, and so has your refusal to return the billion dollars that came out of the pockets of hard-working Americans who do not support the radical homosexual agenda.”

  Antoine said, “Who is this Froot Loop?”

  “Girl, I guess you don’t watch Focks News,” Hunny said. “I don’t either, but I recognize Mr. Bill O’Malley from seeing his picture on Inside Edition. Come on in, girl, sit your skinny ass 84 Richard Stevenson down here and I’ll pour you a drink. Or would you prefer some weed?”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Hunny, I don’t think this is the right time for a television interview,” I said. “The police will be here any minute now, and we have to deal with the urgent situation concerning your mom.”

  Beady-eyed and blotchy, O’Malley thrust a microphone at Hunny and barked, “We know this missing mom business is a hoax! We have our sources at All-Too-Real TV, and we know that you have been in touch with them about getting your own reality show. Do you deny it?”

  Hunny blinked into the lights mounted on the camera that was aiming at him. “You know, Bill,” he said, “you are a wee bit cuter in person than you are on TV. But I have to say, in the cutie-pie department you are a long, long way from competing with Missy Matt Lauer.”

  “Careful what you say, luv,” Art said. “You know what happened last time. Nelson and Lawn might be tuning in.”

  “Anyway,” Hunny said, “my people told your people in no uncertain terms that I would only talk to Anderson Cooper. Did your assistants not inform you?”

  “That’s right, Hunny,” Marylou said, “I did make that abundantly clear to that Focks gorgon.”

  “Anderson Cooper’s ratings are a tenth of what mine are,”

>   O’Malley snorted. “Now, you have not answered my question. I am going to ask it one more time. Have you or have you not been talking to All-Too-Real TV about a reality show deal? Just answer the question. Is your answer yes, or is it no?”

  “I don’t think you should talk to this liar,” Antoine said. “Bill O’Malley called President Obama a communist.”

  “I never said any such thing. But he is a socialist, and he is destroying our country and robbing us of our precious freedoms.

  But right now taking my country back is beside the point. You still have not answered my question, Huntington. Are you in negotiations for a reality show on All-Too-Real? Keep in mind before you answer that anything you say can be held against you in the Focks News court of public opinion.”

  Marylou said, “Hunny, should I call security?”

  Hunny looked at me, and I nodded, and Marylou turned in her ball gown and left the room.

  I said, “O’Malley, go fuck yourself.”

  “Who are you, mister? Maybe you need to have your mouth washed out with soap.”

  Jane Trinkus said, “Should I leave that in? I can bleep it just enough to get it by the fCC, but viewers will know that you have been disrespected, Bill. It makes you look small, but it’s great television.”

  Now another cameraman appeared in the doorway, and the young woman from Channel 13 who Timmy and I saw Wednesday night on TV at Hunny’s won-the-lottery party edged into the kitchen in front of the videographer and said, “It seems unjust to the local media that out-of-town people should get an exclusive at this tragic time, Hunny. We really think out of fairness we need to be included.”

  “Tragic?” Hunny asked, going pale. “Has Mom’s body been discovered?”

  “No, I mean to say, tragic that she is still missing. She is, isn’t she? Or have there been late-breaking developments?”

  Waggling her fingers, Trinkus said, “Oh, there have been developments, all right. How do you spell h-o-A-x?”

  O’Malley shook his head vehemently at Trinkus and mouthed Our story.