right.
The Brienings were at it again. They had phoned Nelson and told him that they had read on somebody’s Internet blog that Rita Van Horn’s disappearance was a hoax, just as Bill O’Malley suspected it was. Mrs. Van Horn, the blogger reported, had been spotted in a motel in the town of Lake George where she was staying under an assumed name. Obviously, Arletta Briening told Nelson, this was all part of a scheme to delay or even avoid paying the Brienings the half billion dollars they were owed. When Nelson insisted that the Van Horns knew nothing of this, Arletta said she was sure the report was reliable because the information came from one of her fPAAC friends and they were honest people.
“Did the blogger give the name of the motel?” I asked Nelson.
I was back at the house on Moth Street, where Nelson and Lawn had arrived in person to deliver news of the new threat from the Brienings.
“No, he didn’t. I asked Arletta and she said no.”
“This is probably somebody’s malicious imagination at work.
Do you have the blog URL?”
Hunny said, “What’s a URL? Is that like ‘you are luscious’ in e-mail language?”
“No, Uncle Hunny, it isn’t.”
Nelson had the address at blogspot, and while Lawn sat by the kitchen phone scanning the Financial Times, Art, Hunny, Nelson and I went upstairs to Hunny and Art’s room, where they kept their computer on what might have been somebody’s boyhood desk. Hunny and Art had a double bed with a veneer headboard that looked like Richard Widmark might have slept in it in Kiss of Death. Clothing was heaped around the room and tumbling out of closets. A bookcase contained only a few books — some paperback movie guides and a glossy photo book called Butt Boys of Budapest. The flat-screen TV was nearly identical to the one in the living room downstairs.
Art went online and found the blog called Blood of Tyrants, a right-wing anti-Obama bilge-fest. It was the work of someone calling himself Tom In Paine. In addition to the flag-draped anti-tax and pro-gun screeds, there were stories on “typical” gays as child molesters and links to ex-gay ministries.
A posting from that morning described Bill O’Malley’s
“expose” of “Huntington Van Horn’s gay lifestyle” and the FPAAC suit against the lottery for spreading “perversion and immorality.”
Tom In Paine credited O’Malley for first revealing that a missing persons report involving Hunny’s mother was actually a publicity stunt concocted to obtain a TV reality show contract, like the recent balloon-boy hoax. The blogger stated that Mrs. Van Horn was in hiding at a Lake George motel. She had been spotted coming and going by an FPAAC member who had seen her photo on the O’Malley show when Hunny was waving it around. The motel was not named.
I said, “There must be dozens of motels in Lake George.
Tom In Paine had to know that this would be hard for us or anybody else to check out and refute.”
“Mom enjoys Lake George,’ Hunny said, “but I think this is just a pack of lies.”
“I’m sure you’re right, Uncle Hunny. Most of the stuff on these right-wing blogs is pure fiction. But I know Mother and Grandma used to go up to Lake George and ride around on a paddleboat and stay at a place near the lake where they liked the stuffed haddock at the restaurant across the street. It might be a good idea if somebody rode up there and just took a look.”
I asked Nelson if he knew the name of the motel.
“No, but Mother would know.”
“Antoine doesn’t go in to work till four o’clock tomorrow, so maybe he and the twins could ride up there. Tyler and Schuyler could work on their homework in the car.”
‘Well, we really have to do everything possible to get Grandma Rita back quickly,” Nelson said. “Arletta reiterated to me that their deadline is Wednesday for the half billion to be turned over.
In fact, she said noon Wednesday, not a minute later.”
Hunny flicked an ash from his lit cigarette into the ashtray on top of the computer, whose keyboard was brown with nicotine stains. “Oh Lord, all we need is for the Brienings to distribute letters out at Golden Gardens calling Mom a crook right before she walks in the door out there or she is found in a hospital in New Jersey waking up from a coma.”
“Why New Jersey?” I asked.
“Because that’s where Karen Ann Quinlan was in her coma.”
“New Jersey, the coma state,” Art said. “It’s on the license plates.”
“I am thinking more and more,” Hunny said, “that maybe I should just give the Brienings the half a billion dollars. That money isn’t even real to me anyways. I would never miss it. And then we could just concentrate on getting Mom back and not have the Brienings hanging over our heads and breathing down our necks.”
“That is what Mother prefers,” Nelson said. “But that’s easy for her to say, because she and Dad have nice pensions from the county. No, I think you’ve been right, Uncle Hunny, to try to keep the money away from those terrible people. Lawn has some ideas on how you can invest it that he wants to discuss with you, but of course that can easily wait until we have resolved the situation with Grandma Rita.”
“I am just so grateful,” Hunny said, “that that poor old lady over in Nassau wasn’t Mom. I never imagined Mom dying like that. Out in the woods, I mean. She doesn’t like nature as much as she likes comfy and cozy and a good time. She’s always preferred town over country.”
Art said, “That lady who died was a farmer. Maybe she went the way she always wanted to go.”
“I can see Mom keeling over at Applebee’s with a huge plate of nachos in front of her. She would be dying happy.”
“Like mother, like son,” Art said. “A fatal helping of Applebee’s nachos sounds like just the ticket for you, dear one.
In fact, include me in. Or would we rather die in the sack with a pair of humpy rugby players sitting on our faces?”
Hunny laughed. “That’s a tough one.”
Nelson shot a glance at me — he badly wanted me to be his ally in disapproving of Hunny and Art’s far- from-Noel-Coward-like sexual humor — but I found myself letting him down, and I was almost sorry I could not oblige. Though I did hope that Hunny could find a way to contain himself in the future when on national television.
“Well, let’s get going then,” Nelson said. “Lawn and I are driving back over to East Greenbush to see how Mother is doing, and I guess you’ll be talking to Antoine. Right, Uncle Hunny? I’ll get the name of the motel.”
“Yes, but I do have to do one thing. My old boss at BJ’s called earlier and said most of the staff had quit because I was going to give them all a million dollars. The managers are having trouble both with stocking and at the checkouts, and Earl asked me if I would urge the gals and guys to come back temporarily and then give a week’s notice after I presented them with their checks.
I said I would do that for the sake of the customers who are apparently waiting an eternity to get out to the parking lot with their three hundred rolls of toilet paper, so I have to make a few phone calls.”
“Okay.”
“One other thing, Nelson. Tell Lawn I will invest some money with him — maybe a million or so — as a favor to you and my sister. But the bulk of my fortune, whether or not it includes the half a billion the Brienings are after, is going to be placed in safe investments that are socially responsible. I was just thinking about this after something Arthur said, and my plan is to invest heavily in — for one thing — Applebee’s. tgi Friday’s also, even though it has some unpleasant associations for me now, what with the kidnapping scam and the tgi‘s Dumpster’s role in that. But I love their nachos, too. I just want you and Lawn to CoCkeyed 159 understand that this is the first time anybody in our family ever had such a huge amount of money, and I simply am not about to take any chances with it.”
Nelson did not sigh or roll his eyes over this announcement.
He looked as if he could not figure out for the life of him exactly how to respond.
