Hunny leaped from his chair and shouted, “Tarts? Tyler and Schuyler are a couple of tarts? Why hasn’t anyone told me about this? It’s the shocker of the century. I think we should get them in here and all sing ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic.’”
“Well, we certainly have to get these O’Malley people out of here,” Nelson said, “so that we can discuss a far more difficult matter. Do you know where I have just come from, Uncle Hunny?”
“Lawn told us Cobleskill.”
“Yes, Cobleskill. And can you guess who it was I was meeting with out there?”
“I was told it had to do with Mom,” Hunny said, and seated himself again and slugged down some more of whatever he was drinking.
Art asked, “Was it the Brienings?”
Nelson looked as if the weight of it all hit him all over again.
He said somberly, “Yes. Clyde and Arletta Briening.”
“Your parents decided a long time ago not to tell you about them — and about Grandma Rita,” Hunny said. “And rightly or wrongly, I went along. They all thought there was no need for you to be hurt. But Grandma Rita is only human, like Art and me, and like you, and like Lawn. And now you know the unfortunate truth.”
Lawn looked as though he did not like the sound of some of this, but he kept his mouth shut.
Nelson said, “I am sad for Grandma Rita, that’s all. She was devastated by the loss of Grandpa Carl, and in her grief she made a terrible mistake. Now she has paid for this lapse many times over, and other family members have paid also. If I had known, I would have found a way to deal with these wretched people. But now they are completely out of control. They are demanding the insane sum of half a billion dollars. And if they don’t receive it, they say, they will make public the letter Grandma Rita signed confessing to stealing sixty-one thousand dollars.”
Hunny said, “An incriminating letter. Just like in the Bette Davis movie. Wouldn’t you just know?”
I said, “Hunny, what exactly is your mother’s mental state at this point? If the embezzlement was revealed, would she even know it?”
“Most days, she would. Others, not so much.”
“I have to tell you that I spoke with my parents by phone,”
Nelson said, “and they think Hunny should pay the five hundred million. They think this would end the whole business with the Brienings and save them a lot of embarrassment in church. I don’t agree, and I think we have to find other ways to get rid of the Brienings. Don, you must have dealt with blackmailers before. What’s your advice?”
Everyone looked at me. Hunny lit another cigarette.
“Since this is plainly extortion at this point,” I said, “I could sit down with them and point out the serious legal consequences of what they are doing. Just laying it all out sometimes is sobering for people like this. There is also the possibility perhaps of negotiating with them. Offer them a hundred thousand or whatever relatively small amount you think you can part with in order to see the end of this. You’d need some kind of legal document signed by them, however, nullifying the agreement Hunny’s mother signed. What do they think they are going to do with half a billion dollars anyway? Build Cobleskill’s first aircraft carrier, or what?”
“They want part of it to expand Crafts-a-Palooza and open a branch in Albany at the Crossgates Mall. The rest of it, they said, was for what they called their nest egg. They want to retire in a few years, and they want enough for an RV and a house in Tavernier, Florida, where their grandchildren can visit them.”
Lawn said, “That sounds like maybe four hundred K. Five at most.”
“Maybe,” Art said, “we could convince them to take five hundred million worth of tranches.”
Hunny couldn’t help but chuckle — as he did at nearly everything Art said — but then he remembered something and his face fell. “Tomorrow’s my day to visit Mom. The Brienings haven’t said anything to her, have they?”
“Not yet,” Nelson said. “But part of their threat is simply disgusting. If you don’t give them what they’re asking for, Uncle Hunny, they say they’ll send letters to all the residents at Golden Gardens warning them to be careful of Grandma Rita because she is a thief and people should watch their valuables when she is around.”
Hunny clutched his head and shook it. “No, no! Oh, poor Mom! Poor, poor Mom!”
“It’s too bad,” Art said, his jaw tight, “that these Brienings can’t just be…oh, I don’t know. Don, in your line of work do you ever play rough with bad guys? Or, if you don’t, do you know anybody who might?”
Composing himself, Hunny said, “Art doesn’t mean that.
Well, he means it, but he’s not really serious. Anyway, in The Letter, it’s not the blackmailer that gets killed in the end. It’s Bette Davis, who only did what she did out of passionate infatuation.
And I don’t think any of us want to go down that road. No, this situation is different. More like I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang.
No offense to Mom.”
Nelson said, “The Van Horn family is not the Sopranos.
We’re going to have to deal with these dreadful people, and we have to be firm with them, but of course we’re not going to hurt them physically or otherwise do anything unlawful.”
I said, “How do the Brienings think they are going to explain to people their sudden vast wealth? To friends and family, not to mention the IRS?”
“They said they talked to a lawyer in Schenectady, and they can have the money held in a bank in the Cayman Islands. They told me not to be concerned about that, and they would work it out.
They said they saw a report on ABC 20/20 about how people get away with this kind of thing all the time. They said they had worked hard all their lives, and other people were getting away with murder, and now it was their turn to make the system work for them, and it was time for them to clean up.”
The wall phone next to Hunny rang, and he picked it up.
“Good evening, Mr. Sands’ office. Susie MacNamara speaking.
May I help you?”
Hunny listened and said uh-huh several times, and then, “Just a minute.” He put his hand over the receiver. “It’s the Focks News people out front. They said they know I’m in here and if I don’t come out they will stay all night, and sooner or later I’ll have to talk to them. Maybe I should say something. They’ve already interviewed Marylou, and I doubt she told them anything helpful to our situation. Also, they may check and find out she isn’t the real Marylou Whitney, and this will only add to all our woes.”
Lawn said, “Well, you certainly can’t allow them into the house. The place is a pig sty, and there are people in the living room in varying states of undress, and they’re looking at some obscene video. It will just be fodder for what this busybody antigay, pro-morality organization is trying to do.”
Art said, “It’s a great video. Carnival in Costa Rica. But it’s not the one with Cesar Romero and Vera-Ellen.”
Hunny said into the phone, “Give us just another minute, okay?” A few seconds later, he yelped, “Oh no!” and hung up the phone. “They said Marylou invited them into the house for some good weed, and they’re on their way in!”
That’s when we all heard the sound of a woman’s high-pitched shriek.
Chapter Seven
The Focks cameraman lay on the porch moaning and clutching his chest, and the woman with him was prone behind the porch railing, yelling into her cell phone, “Send the police! Send the police!” The 911 operator must have asked her where she was, because she said, “It’s on my gPs! It’s in the car on my gPs!”
I asked Hunny to remind us of what his house number on Moth Street was, and he said 126, and the woman yelled into her phone, “One twenty-six Moth Street, in Albany!”
We had all heard a car screech away, but there was no sign of the vehicle by now.