Cockeyed

by Richard Stevenson

  He says Nelson has gone off somewhere to deal with a situation I am supposedly the cause of, and he said Nelson told him that I have really done it this time, and Lawn is coming over here to wring my neck.”

  ChAPteR five

  An Albany police cruiser was just pulling away from Hunny and Art’s brightly lighted house as I drove up, and I wondered if Hunny’s new “situation” had already escalated into a law-enforcement matter. It hadn’t, I soon learned, from a group of men ambling down the front steps. They informed me that the cops had come by in response to noise complaints from neighbors. The officers had asked Hunny nicely — he was a celebrity now — to have some consideration. He had graciously agreed, and now the party was winding down and people were heading off to the bars and clubs. A soft-spoken young Hispanic man with enough metal rings in his lower lip to hang a shower curtain on pointed out that there was still plenty of liquor and drugs available inside, and he suggested that I go on inside and help myself to some of “Hunny’s good shit.”

  Hunny’s living room looked like the debris field after an air disaster, with dazed survivors lying around on couches and easy chairs while they snacked on Doritos and chips and Price Chopper clam dip. The twins, clad only in red thongs, were very much a presence, one of them doing some perfunctory tidying up, the other chatting idly as he sat on the lap of a man who looked like Karl Rove but probably wasn’t. A man in a pink ball gown introduced himself as Marylou Whitney and told me that Hunny and Art were in the kitchen.

  “Oh, Donald, you have come to my rescue!” Hunny crooned, as he hung up the wall phone. “I hope you’re armed, ‘cause Lawn just called again and he is on his way over here to kill me. Nelson is on his way, too, and I think you should shoot them both as soon as they walk in the front door. It’s Bette Davis in The Letter.

  Blam, blam, blam, blam! You can plead self-defense, and Artie and I will back you up. So, Donnie, are you carrying a pistol, or are you just glad to see me?”

  “Neither, really. What’s going on now, Hunny?”

  32 Richard Stevenson

  Hunny was seated at the kitchen table with a glass of something amber in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Art was bent over the sink rinsing out some glasses.

  Art said, “We have apparently interfered with Nelson and Lawn’s dinner at Jack’s Oyster House with some local felons.

  Dinner at Jack’s is a sacred ritual and I guess we have somehow blasphemed. Nelson went off to see some people about Hunny and his money, and he didn’t show up for dinner, and now Lawn is all higglety-pigglety-pooglety-swooglety.”

  Hunny flung some cigarette ash my way. “Nelson supposedly is going to explain it when he gets here, but Lawn said Nelson said some people have demanded half of my billion dollars and we might have to give it to them. I mean, what’s half a billion to me, but I have to say, this does sound nervous-making, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Yeah. It does.”

  “Now, Donald, girl, I don’t like the looks of your dour expression. I think you might need a drink. Are you a Cutty Sark drinker with a Dos Equis chaser? Or how about some weed?

  What can I get for you, sweetie? What about some dick? The twins are hung like Jeff Stryker, plus they’re more interesting.

  Donald, take a load off and let us entertain you. It bothers me that you’re not having any fun. What can we do to cheer you up?

  You look morose.”

  “I’m all set, thanks.”

  Art said, “Nelson and Yawn hang out with these horrible people — the city and county officials and state senators the banks and insurance companies are all paying off to get city and county business. You go into Jack’s Oyster house and it looks like a scene from Warner Brothers in 1932. You expect to see Edward G. Robinson at a front table cuddling with his moll and his tommy gun.”

  “Though it’s a miracle those crooks will even be seen at Jack’s or anywhere else in public with Lawn nowadays,” Hunny said.

  “Everybody who invested money with Lawn is flat-ass broke.

  CoCkeyed 33

  Lawn specialized in tranches. Derivatives and tranches. Donald, do you know what a tranche is?”

  Art said, “It sounds like one of Sarah Palin’s kids.”

  “Nobody knows what a tranche is,” Hunny said, “because it’s just a bunch of dumb, worthless pieces of paper. Yawn made millions on this phony-baloney crapola and then he got out, and then everybody else went straight down the toilet.”

  Art waved a sponge at me and said, “Now Lawn is all mopey because the SEC is breathing down everybody’s neck and he can’t commit highway robbery and get away with it anymore. The poor dear has been forced to operate on a somewhat reduced level of criminal behavior, like income tax evasion or shoplifting.”

  “Poor, tragic Lawn. We call him Tranche DuBois.”

  Art hung a freshly washed shot glass on a fork protruding from the drying rack and said, “All these Albany mucky-mucks he no doubt swindled just like he did everybody else put up with Lawn because I’m sure he’s sucking their dicks. They’re all married closet queens, that crowd.”

  Hunny picked up on this theme. “It’s just like the ‘70s. You’d go into the back room at the Mineshaft, and all the pols would be there crawling around naked on their hands and knees. Today it’s no different — Cuomo, Schumer, the Supreme Court. They’re all taking it up the butt and they’re all just such disgusting phonies.”

  The shot glass fell off the drying rack and back into the sink, and Hunny said, “Artie, dear, why don’t you come set for a spell and have another mai tai? At least until Nelson gets here, I’ll be the darky and you be the lady.”

  “Oh, pshaw,” Art said, waving Hunny down into his seat, where he poured more of what appeared to be whiskey from a plastic pitcher with a spout shaped like a daisy.

  I said, “Did Lawn give you any idea who might be in a position to insist on being paid half a billion dollars?”

  “No,” Hunny said. “Stu Hood wanted half a billion, but he’s only getting a thou, and that sorry little fire setter will have to be grateful for that.”

  34 Richard Stevenson

  “He’s an arsonist,” Art said, “but, Lord, is that boy hung.”

  Now there was some commotion in the other room, and soon a tall, austere-looking man wearing an Armani jacket and ten thousand dollars’ worth of pectorals strode into the room.

  “Congratulations, Hunny,” the man said, not smiling, “for doing the absolutely most idiotic thing you have done so far. You are going to hear all about it when Nelson gets here. He left Cobleskill forty-five minutes ago, and he is on his way here, and Nelson is so upset I had to talk him down and tell him to pull off the road if he felt he couldn’t drive safely.” Taking note of me, he said, “Are you the private investigator? I’m Lawn Brookman.”

  “Don Strachey.”

  “I am Nelson’s partner. He said you seemed to be on top of things, which I was quite relieved to hear, and that I could go ahead and brief you.”

  “Yes, I’d like to hear about this one.”

  “Nelson used to faint,” Hunny said. “When he was thirteen, he passed out in church and had to be carried out. It was a salt deficiency or something.”

  Art said, “Lawn, did you tell Nelson to put his head down between his legs?”

  Hunny laughed and said, “Ooo, that should help. For those who can do it.”

  “The twins almost can,” Art said, rinsing out an olive jar.

  “And we have that one video,” Hunny added.

  Lawn glared at Hunny. “Do you two ever think about anything besides sexual activity? When Nelson arrives you’ll have a whole new topic of conversation, I can guarantee you that.”

  Hunny lit another cigarette from one that was smoked down to the filter and about to go out. “If you say so, Aunt Eller.”

  “You know, it was tremendously awkward, Hunny, meeting people for dinner and Nelson not showing up without calling.

  He was so upset and distracted
that he neglected to phone or CoCkeyed 35

  text and inform me he would be unable to meet us. And when I was unable to explain his absence I was both concerned and irritated, and I’m sure people noticed. They probably thought it was something I did or said. It was incredibly embarrassing. Then when Nelson phoned midway through the meal, he said I should not actually tell people where he was and what he was involved with, and I had to make something up. Instead of saying it was about Hunny’s mother, I said he was dealing with a cousin who had been in a boating accident. But now my dinner companions will look in the paper about a boating accident, and there won’t be any, and I will look like such a fool.”

  Hunny looked up. “This has something to do with Mom?”

  “With some people she used to work for,” Lawn said. “He didn’t say what it was, just that it was serious and it might involve a large part of Hunny’s lottery winnings. Half of the winnings, in fact.”

  Art put down his sponge and turned to face us, and Hunny lit a second cigarette. One was now smoldering in his filthy ashtray and the second he held in a hand that was trembling slightly.

  Hunny said, “Were these people the Brienings?”

  “Nelson didn’t mention their names.”

  I asked, “Who are the Brienings?”

  “They own a crafts store out in Cobleskill,” Art said. “It’s where Rita worked until she retired thirteen years ago.”

  “Is there any reason,” I asked, “that the Brienings might think they can extort half a billion dollars from you, Hunny?”

  After a moment he mumbled, “Maybe.”

  Art said, “Lawn, don’t you know who the Brienings are?”

  “No, I never heard the name before.”

  “How long have you and Nelson been together?” I asked.

  “Eleven years. We met when I came back to Albany after establishing myself in the city in the financial world, and I felt ready to return to my roots and make a name for myself.”

  36 Richard Stevenson

  “Mary,” Art said.

  “Nelson and I met in the locker room of our gym on my third day back in Albany, and we have rarely spent a day apart since then. We are just wonderfully well suited for one another, and I consider myself just incredibly lucky to have found my perfect match.”

  Art had dried his hands on a paper towel, and now he went over and sat next to Hunny, who was starting to look queasy.

  Hunny said, “Lawn, please shut the door, will you, dear?”

  “This one is definitely not for the laundry basket,” Art said.

  Lawn closed the door to the living room and said, “What laundry basket?”

  “The laundry basket where we put all the letters and messages that have been coming in since Wednesday asking for money or trying to blackmail me,” Hunny said. “The basket is down in the basement, and it’s overflowing with piles and piles of all kinds of stuff. Mostly it’s people who want me to invest in something, or who want a donation for a walk or a swim for some awful disease, or their house was in a flood in Georgia or something. One lady said her astrologer told her I was her first husband in Australia and I still owe her child support. Most of the letters and phone messages are harmless like that, but some are mean and creepy and threatening. The nasty ones are the ones Donald is handling.

  If this is the Brienings, Nelson has been in touch with, Donald

  — girl, this is definitely a job for you.”

  “The Brienings are evil,” Art said. “I hope you’re ready to wrestle with Satan’s spawn, Donald.”

  “Who are these people?” Lawn said. “I’ve never even heard their name before. And Grandma Rita worked for them?”

  Hunny moaned. “Maybe I should just write them a check and that will be the end of it. Maybe I should look at this as an opportunity not to be missed, and maybe finally they’ll just go away.”

  “How would you go about making out a check for half a CoCkeyed 37

  billion dollars?” Art said. “Would you write on it five hundred million, or half a billion, or what? And would there be room to write in all those zeros in that tiny space they give you to write out the numbers?”

  Lawn stared. “You’ve got a billion dollars in your checking account, Hunny?”

  “Did you think I was going to stuff it down my cleavage?

  It’s actually one billion, four hundred and fifty-seven dollars. I checked the ATM on the way home this afternoon.”

  “That giant check they gave Hunny on The Today Show,” Art said, “was a fake, just for show. The lottery commission provides you with direct deposit if you want it. Which is great. Direct deposit — that’s how I get my state pension and my Social Security. In Hunny’s case, it was a really good idea, so that on the way back from the city Hunny wouldn’t lose the check while he was blowing a truck driver at a Thruway service area.”

  Hunny chuckled and said, “There’s an excellent reason they call them ‘service areas,’” and Art snickered, too.

  On cue, Lawn looked aghast, and he didn’t look any happier when the kitchen door opened and one of the twins strolled in in his thong carrying more dirty glasses on a tray.

  “Tyler, dearest, just leave everything till tomorrow morning,”

  Art said.

  “Yes,” Hunny added. “You and Schuyler should go on out and enjoy yourselves. Artie and I are not going to make it to Rocks tonight, it looks like. Can you get a ride with Marylou, or do you have your motorbikes out front?”

  “Sho nuff,” was Tyler’s ambiguous answer. He winked at Lawn and sashayed back into the living room.

  Art said, “Now that Hunny has money, he’s going to put Tyler and Schuyler through medical school. Isn’t that great? They plan on becoming podiatrists. They both like feet.”

  Lawn checked his watch. “Nelson should be arriving soon.

  There can’t be much traffic coming in from Cobleskill this time 38 Richard Stevenson

  of night. Of course, it’s the weekend, and there are bound to be drunks. Plus people coming down the Northway from the races at Saratoga.”

  Hunny and Art exchanged glances, and then suddenly Hunny began to tremble. I feared he was having a seizure, but he seemed to know exactly what to do, which was to have another sizeable snort of whatever was in his glass. Then he shuddered once and seemed to exorcise something. After which he began to snuffle quietly as Art pulled Hunny against his shoulder and gently smoothed his little frizz of scraggly hair.

  Hunny said tearfully, “Poor Mom, poor Mom.”

  After a moment, Art said to Lawn and me, “After Hunny’s father died at the age of sixty-four of testicular cancer, Mother Van Horn had a rough time of it.”

  Hunny nodded and shook his head and cried some more.

  “Rita had always enjoyed a drink before and after dinner,” Art went on. “And to ease her sorrows she — well, let’s be frank —

  Rita started drinking to excess. She had gone to work at Clyde and Arletta Briening’s crafts shop as their bookkeeper, and while her imbibing did not immediately affect her work there, it did affect her judgment after hours.”

  Hunny lowered his head now, and it seemed way too close to the two smoldering cigarettes in his ashtray. Not unaware of the danger, he picked up one of the burning Marlboros and took a drag on it.

  Art said, “Mother Rita had always had a nice time playing the ponies at Saratoga, and unfortunately after Carl died she apparently got it in her head that she could help make ends meet with her winnings at the track. One season she had actually come out ahead, and this must have clouded her judgment. But, well, you know how it goes with gambling. Lawn, I suppose you understand, since you are in a similar line of work.”

  “That’s preposterous.”

  “Anyway, one thing led to another, and apparently pretty soon Mother Rita had begun covering her losses at the track with CoCkeyed 39

  money she — I’m sorry, Hunny, but I have to say the word —

  embezzled at Crafts-a-Palooza.”
r />   Hunny flinched.

  “By the time Arletta and Clyde realized what was going on two years later, Rita had taken sixty-one thousand and some odd dollars from the business. When they confronted her, Rita begged them not to go to the police because it would be so embarrassing for Miriam and Lewis. Hunny, too, but especially Miriam and Lewis, who are active in the Epworth League and other Methodist organizations. Hunny, of course, has a forgiving nature, and also he has always had a soft spot for the criminal element.”

  “I’m afraid that’s true,” Hunny said.

  “The horrible Brienings unfortunately saw this as an opportunity, and they took it. They knew that Mother Rita would begin collecting over thirteen thousand dollars a year in Social Security in just a couple of months, and they made her sign a letter confessing to stealing their money and agreeing to pay them a thousand dollars a month until the sixty-one thousand had been restored — plus interest. Except, when you figured out the interest, it came to more than two hundred thousand dollars total. So every month Mother Rita’s Social Security has been going into her account from the government and then straight out and into Crafts-a-Palooza’s account. This has been going on for thirteen years.”

  Lawn stood looking grim. “I have never heard of any of this.

  I’m stunned. And I’m sure Nelson couldn’t have known either.

  He would never have put up with extortion. He would have gone to the police, or he would simply have held his nose and paid these people off.”

  “It’s true,” Hunny said, “that Miriam and Lewis decided not to tell Nelson. He had always thought so highly of Grandma Rita, and they were afraid it would break his heart. And also it might not be appreciated by Nelson’s investment clients that there was a crook in the family. It could have been bad for business.”

  40 Richard Stevenson

  “A crook in the family that got caught,” Art said by way of clarification.

  I asked, “How did your mother live, Hunny? With no income to speak of.”

  “We all helped out. I paid her oil and electric and cable, and Miriam and Lewis dropped off groceries. We all pitched in one time for a new roof. For a number of years Mom worked off and on at McDonald’s. Then her mind started slipping a couple of years ago and she became frail at around the same time. She had to get out of the house, so we sold it and that’s when we got her into Golden Gardens. The house proceeds paid for the nursing home until that money ran out, and then the home said Mom would have to turn over her Social Security every month.