“Oh, that is so sweet. You boys make such a nice couple. You know, I’m so glad there are so many gay boys in our family. Boys who really know how to have fun. Not a bunch of stick-in-the-muds like most Van Horns have been.”
Nelson blushed and Lawn quickly scanned the room to see if anyone was listening.
Tex said, “Yes, you gay boys are baaaad. And I think we can see plenty of evidence of that right at this table. Herero, honey, you can barely keep your eyes open. I know you were out tomcatting around all night because I heard you come in next door at four fifteen a.m. You know, I left my Zolpidem in Houston, so I sleep 206 Richard Stevenson very poorly.”
“Oh, Tex,” Hunny said, “I can get you some pills. The twins have a regular pharmacy in their bike bags. They’re two young friends of Artie’s and mine who plan on practicing medicine. I’m putting them through podiatry school.”
Nelson and Lawn exchanged glances, and Lawn reached for the bread basket.
Herero did look droopy-eyed, but now he perked up and said,
“I haven’t yet completed my education. But Hunny is gonna help me out, too.”
“What are you studying, Herero?” Art asked.
“Nursing. I’m pretty good with the tLC already, but I need more skills and the piece of paper.”
“You can tLC me anytime, Herero,” Hunny said gaily, and everybody guffawed except Nelson and Lawn.
“Uncle Hunny, we’re out in public now,” Nelson said.
“You’re right, Nelson,” Mrs. Van Horn said. “We’re not locked up in the old folks’ dungeon today, so I guess I can’t tell any rude jokes, either.”
Tex said, “Well y’all can play goodie-goodie if that’s what y’all want to do. Me, I’m too old and too bowlegged to care. Now, Nelson. Did you hear the one about the lady and the supermarket bag boy?”
“Oh, Tex, you old devil, you,” Hunny said. “That joke is not for tender ears like Nelson’s.”
Art said, “You could change it to scratchy Toyota.”
Tex, Rita, Herero and Hunny howled over that one. Nelson and Lawn looked perplexed, but neither asked for a clarification.
The stuffed haddock lunch went on in this jolly vein until, as coffee was being served, my cell phone rang, and I walked out to the parking lot to take the call.
“I’ve got good news and semi-bad news,” Card Sanders said.
“The good news is, I was there when the fire marshal located the lockbox, so-called. It was at the bottom of the remains of a burned wooden crate that may well have contained the dead-leaf smelly stuff you described to me. The contents of the lockbox, however, were charred. The box was not airtight and the material inside combusted. There appeared to be the remains of paper documents and what the inspector said were crumbled bits of U.S. currency. Quite a bit of it, in fact.”
“That’s the semi-bad news, I take it. So, what’s the good news, Lieutenant?”
“Clyde and Arletta Briening were on the site when we recovered the lockbox and its contents. Asked about it, they claimed they had no idea what it was or how it had gotten there.
They said maybe the arsonist left it to confuse the police. They said there had been a break-in earlier in the day, and their back door had been pried open.”
“Uh-huh.”
“That’s bullshit, of course. But with nothing to go on but Mrs. Van Horn’s unsubstantiated allegations, the DA isn’t likely to want to send the charred papers to the state lab for a time-consuming and very expensive forensic analysis. The upshot is the Brienings are out their million-plus dollars in unreported income, and the Van Horns are free of any charges or accusations the Brienings were intending to make against them, whatever those charges and accusations might have been. I’ll bet you know what those charges and accusation were. Am I right?”
“Sure.”
“Both Clyde and Arletta told me they don’t like the Van Horns
— they called Hunny a degenerate fruitcake — but as far as that family is concerned they’re willing to let bygones be bygones.
They said they were glad to hear that Mrs. Van Horn had been located and that she wasn’t dead at the bottom of a quarry, as they put it. And now they just want to concentrate on collecting the insurance money and rebuilding their store, they said.”
“Sounds good.”
“They do, of course, want the arsonist caught and the crime 208 Richard Stevenson prosecuted.”
“Yeah. He should be restrained. That I can’t argue with. The guy could really hurt somebody the next time.”
I only wished that the priest who had raped Stu Hood when he was a child and probably wrecked his conscience and filled him with loathing could also be locked up, maybe in the same state prison. But that wasn’t anything I or Sanders could do anything about for the moment.
I went back inside the restaurant and announced to Hunny and the others that the Brienings had been neutralized and both Mrs. Van Horn’s good name and Hunny’s billion dollars had been saved and were now secure.
Hunny said, “Well, I am so relieved that those wicked cretins in Cobleskill are now off Mom’s back. Now, Mom, no more bezzy-wezzy for you. Promise?”
“Bezzy-wezzy?”
“Hand in the till. You know?”
“Oh, my word, I forgot all about that tomfoolery. It was so long ago. I can’t remember what I did last week, for heaven’s sakes.”
Art said, “So, Hunny, you get to keep the billion dollars. We could have made do without it, but you have to admit that it’s sure to come in handy.”
Hunny looked pensive. “The billion dollars is actually more of a burden than I really want to shoulder. It has brought me mainly grief, and I almost wish I had never bought my Instant Warren tickets and then won that gosh- darn prize.”
All eyes at the table watched Hunny anxiously, including mine.
Lawn’s mouth was actually hanging open.
“But,” Hunny said, “if some tired old fart like Warren Buffet can put up with being a billionaire, I guess I can, too.”
“Yes, Hunny, be brave,” his mother said. “You can do a lot of good in the world with that amount of money. Help the less fortunate, spruce up Moth Street at Christmas with loads of CoCkeyed 209 pretty lights.”
“Support education,” Herero said. “You already said that.”
“And of course if you invest wisely,” Nelson said, “you can increase your considerable assets substantially.”
“Nelson, you are on the money with that sound investment comment,” Hunny said. “And I have only one word for you — all of you gathered here who may end up with a piece of my big yummy money pie.”
“What’s that?” Tex said. “I hope it’s not playing the ponies like your mother.” Tex and Mrs. Van Horn looked at each other and snickered.
“Is the word plastics?” Art asked.
We all leaned in to listen to Hunny’s one-word investment strategy. “Oh, Artie, who do you think you’re talking to? Am I Hunny Van Horn, or am I Hunny Van Horn? The investment word has got to be Applebee’s!”
Epilogue
Hunny did buy over eight hundred million dollars’ worth of Applebee’s stock, enabling the restaurant chain to expand into such locales as Lock Haven, Pennsylvania; Bethel, Maine; and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. At the company’s annual meeting, Hunny was elected to the board of directors. He and Art toured many of the franchises. They were popular visitors, although they were asked to leave Utah following an incident with a bus boy whose fake ID misstated his actual age.
