“It would make it into Ripley’s.”
“I am relieved that Mrs. Van Horn didn’t have an affair with an eight-year-old.”
“You bet.”
“So then what’s the real deal with the Brienings? I’m nagged by Mr. Van Horn’s saying on Bill O’Malley — I’ve TiVoed it five times now — that if his mother’s disappearance had anything to do with the Brienings, not to worry, that he would deal with them.
I’m thinking strongly now that there is a connection, and I’m also thinking strongly that you know exactly what that connection is. No? If I’m mistaken, please explain to me how I’ve failed to grasp the obvious.”
“Look,” I said, meaning it, “if there was a connection, why wouldn’t I tell you and all the other law enforcement folks so that you all could wrap up this whole missing person sad situation pronto? It is possible that the Brienings might have spooked Mrs.
Van Horn in some way and she took off for wherever she took off to. But I have spoken with the Brienings. And believe me, they don’t have Mrs. Van Horn in their custody, and they don’t know where she is. It’s to their advantage that she be safe and in the tender arms of the staff at Golden Gardens so that Clyde and Arletta can go ahead and press Hunny for the half billion.
Having her running around loose and exposed to possible danger is exactly what they do not desire. Don’t you see what I’m saying, Lieutenant?”
“I do see, and it would be really insensitive of me to go out to Cobleskill and question the Brienings if Clyde really was Mr. Van Horn’s father and I stirred up some ugly family mess that’s none of my business or the business of the police in any way. But Mr.
Van Horn was obviously lying when he told me that real-father bullshit story. So why don’t you allay my growing suspicions by CoCkeyed
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telling me the fucking truth about this family of psychopathic liars for a change?”
I said, “Okay, look. I do know a little more. That must be obvious. But if you knew the truth it would just place you in an ethical bind that you really don’t want to be in. You know people in the department who know me, and they can vouch for me. They can tell you that if I say you’re better off not knowing everything there is to know about the Brienings and the Van Horns, then you can trust that assessment. Just ask.”
Sanders snorted. “Strachey, I’m a police officer, not a third-grader who needs to be kept out of an R-rated movie. Just fucking tell me what’s going on here.”
I said, “I can’t.”
“Why?’
“I’ve explained that. You might be obligated to report something to the DA. In the end, it would all turn out okay for the Van Horns and not so great for the Brienings, I feel confident.
But this has to do with family image and standing with church ladies and small-town embarrassment and shame. The legal part of it is the least of it. Or is according to the Van Horns. And it’s their decision to make.”
I could hear Sanders breathing. He said, “Hunny Van Horn is concerned about image? This I find hard to believe.”
“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
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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 funny she is and how she keeps everybody on the staff in stitches.”
The “joke lady”? This all sounded familiar, and I made a mental note to ask Antoine and Hunny about a phone call Mrs.
Van Horn had received — in fact a series of phone calls — that suddenly seemed important.
When I got over to Hunny’s house, Marylou had gone off to work at the tax department and Antoine had already picked up the twins and two of the Rdq guys — the ones with the mental gPs capabilities — and headed up to Lake George. Shoemaker and the other communards went out for a walk through the North End, Hunny said. The night before they had seen a Hummer parked in someone’s driveway, and they wanted to see if they could levitate it and shake the evil spirits out.
Hunny told me he had talked to the sheriff ’s department in East Greenbush and there was still no clue as to what had become of his mother. He said the officers were feeling frustrated and more and more worried, and so was he.
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 unnecessary embarrassment over a matter he need not concern himself with. But he will continue to pick at this scab, so be ready.”
“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
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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. Hunny said, “Have a nice poop, dear one?”
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, Hunny. It’s not the money, it’s the principle. Anyway, I just thought of something. For a lot less than half a billion dollars you could probably bribe the Albany County DA. It’s not like the old days when you could buy a judge or DA around here for fifty thou. But I’ll bet a hundred million would get you all the deal you’d need. And the Brienings could just take a hike. And for goodness sakes, you can afford it.”
Hunny brightened. “Oh, Artie, girl, you just might be right.
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 conniving peas in a pod.”
“This is a bad idea,” I said. “It’s illegal, it’s immoral and it’s dangerous. In Albany, it’s not 1950 anymore. Hunny, you could end up with federal charges and then your mother would really be embarrassed.”
“Oh. No, I don’t want to end up in Danbury as somebody’s white bitch.”
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“Nuh-uh,” Art said. “Connecticut has gay marriage now, but in the federal pen you wouldn’t necessarily get to choose.”
“Then I just think I have to pay them,” Hunny said.
“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,” Hunny said, “you don’t have any faith in the Rdq boys, I can tell. But their hearts are in the right place, you have to admit.”
“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 Hunny if he had a list of all the friends and family members who had been queried about Mrs. Van Horn’s disappearance.
“Sure. I stuck it in the back of the phone book. Do you want to see it?”
“Please.”
Hunny was at the kitchen table sucking down his fifth
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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 scanned the list.
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.”
“Does Tex ever visit up here?”
“Not that I ever heard of,” Hunny said. “What are you thinking? That maybe Tex is the person who picked Mom up and took her somewhere? I would doubt that. Tex has bad hips and uses a walker. I know she doesn’t drive. Mom has told me how grateful she is that even if she is losing her mind, at least she isn’t in the kind of pain Tex is in. Mom doesn’t move so great either, but at least she is not in agony whenever she tries to move.”
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?”
Hunny said he would do that, and he made the call. Mrs.
Kerisiotis’s secretary said the administrator wasn’t in her office but they would call Hunny back with the information he wanted.
“Everyone at Golden Gardens is really upset about Mom,”
Hunny said. “People think she might have been snatched, or drug gangs got her, or even vampires, Antoine told me. They watch all those vampire shows on TV. I don’t think old people should be allowed to watch that stuff. It’s too upsetting.”
“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 Hunny snatched it up. “Van Horn residence. Oh, Antoine, honey-doll! Any luck? Any trace of Mom? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Oh, girl! Oh, you can’t be serious! Oh, God, hold on a sec. I have to tell Artie!”
Hunny said to Art and me, “Antoine says they checked the Silvery Moon Motel and didn’t see Mom. And the clerk wouldn’t say who was staying there, saying it’s against the law to give out that information. But there’s a beach down behind the motel, and you’ll never guess who’s the lifeguard there!”
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.”
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Hunny asked Antoine, “So did you show the Rdq boys Sean’s tat? I know the twins have seen it. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Well, look around and maybe Ethan there, the one with the crystal ball, has some ideas. Right. Right. Okay, tood-lee-oo.”
“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.”