The Mason Doebler threat was going to be harder to finesse.
Doebler had apparently contacted O’Malley’s people and lied about having been molested by Hunny, borrowing and whimsically altering Stu Hood’s story, in a desperate attempt to extract more than the thousand dollars Hunny had promised Mason for his new catalytic converter. Three hundred seventy-five million dollars could put a real dent in Hunny’s bank account. Hood was sure to get wind of this development, and perhaps he would then sue Doebler for either invasion of privacy or plagiarism. Either way, I knew of lawyers the aging arsonist could hire who would gleefully take this on.
I arrived at Hunny’s house and parked across the street just as Art drove up and eased their dingy Explorer into the driveway, which was so tiny the suv stuck out about a foot onto the cracked sidewalk. Several TV crews were still on the scene, but instead of pouncing in their normal way they approached the vehicle tentatively. As I approached, Art told them, “Mr. Van Horn is under the weather and will have nothing more to say to the media until further notice.” The reporters all seemed to accept this.
Some looked chastened, others bordering on queasy. They had either seen or heard about the O’Malley fiasco. The two Gray Security guards also stood off to the side looking pensive.
Hunny climbed out of the back seat with a Budweiser beach towel over his head and face, and Art led him as quickly as Hunny’s unsteady gait would allow up the front steps and into the house. I followed close behind.
Antoine and the twins had left for the night, but Marylou was in the living room stretched out on the couch, her ball gown up around her knees. As we came in, Marylou switched off the TV, stood up and straightened her skirts. “Huntington, you naughty boy!” she said gaily. “Am I going to have to send you to the woodshed? Oh, my word, when they showed that female impersonator pretending to be me, and you said, no, that’s not Marylou Whitney, that’s Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of Dick Cheney, the war criminal, I just thought I was going to wet my pants!”
Hunny flopped into a chair and lit a Marlboro from a pack on the coffee table. “Well, they can insult me, Marylou. I am just one of Sarah Palin’s reg-ler Amur-kins. But when they start in on the elite such as yourself, then they have gone too far. I have the deepest respect for the elite, especially an elegant society lady like yourself. Oh, Artie, dearest, I think I need a pick-me-up. Would you be so kind as to indulge your favorite old tosspot?”
Marylou tsk-tsked Hunny. “Is that wise, Huntington?”
Art’s thinking was similar. “Hunny, honey, I’m shutting you off, and you are going right straight to bed. You have to be up bright and early when they resume the search for your mom. Or maybe she’ll turn up while you’re dreaming, and you ought to be bright and perky to welcome her back at the crack of dawn.”
Hunny was suddenly alert. “The crack of who? The crack of Don Johnson?”
“How about Donnie Osmand?”
“Yecchh.”
“Or Don Giovanni,” Marylou said, and then trilled something Timmy would have recognized.
“How about Don Strachey’s adorable crack?” Hunny cooed in my direction. “Donald, you aren’t saying much. I think you have turned morose again. I can’t imagine why. I don’t suppose you caught me on the Bill O’Malley show, did you, by chance?”
“I did. Hunny, you might need to sober up until your multiplicity of problems have been taken care of. It would be really helpful if you did that.”
“Artie, do get me one more shot, would you, please, doll face?”
“Nuh-uh. You’ve had more than enough. Donald is correct.”
Hunny snapped, “All right, then don’t! Anyhoo,” he went on, his head suddenly pitching forward, “maybe we should all call it a night. Don, will you be joining Arthur and me in our bed chamber? If you do, you’ll be glad you did. Ecstatic, in fact.
Thrilled to your receding hairline.”
“No, thank you.”
“Oh, you must have attended the church up the street from the one I went to. Methodists sometimes allow a bit of leeway, but Presbyterians are generally stick-in-the-muds when it comes to sharing the masculine booty. Are you Presbyterian, Donald?”
“I once was. You nailed me, Hunny. Now I am more of an anarcho-vaguely Buddhist-secular humanist-worshiper of a good night’s sleep.”
Hunny arched an eyebrow and was about to say something else when his head suddenly toppled over again and his eyes blinked shut.
“Not to worry,” Art told me. “Hunny isn’t dead. He’s just through for the night.” Hunny’s Marlboro dangled from his fingers and Art bent down and took it away. “Anybody want the rest of this? I hate to waste cigarettes. Do you know how much these things cost nowadays? I’ve tried to get Hunny to quit, mostly because of the incredible expense. But he said he’d give up food first, or his blood pressure pills, which cost nine hundred fifty-eight dollars a month, and his co-pay is almost two fifty.
Of course, now that he’s richer than Prince Harry, Hunny won’t have to worry about co-pays and what have you. Still, where I grew up in Schenectady, you didn’t waste money and put out a perfectly good cigarette until it was smoked down to the filter. Or if it didn’t have a filter, my dad might get out the tweezers like it was a roach. Not that he ever knew what a doobie was. Anybody want this?”
“Just snip off the hot end and save the rest for later,” Marylou said. “I’ve seen people do that in Palm Beach since Madoff.”
I asked Marylou, “Were there any useful phone calls while Hunny was out? Nothing new from Golden Gardens, I take it.”
“No, darling, there was just a brief call from Detective Sanders.
He saw Hunny on Bill O’Malley, and he asked me if I knew who the Brienings were. Who are they, anyway? As Hunny’s media representative, I need to be kept in the loop and on top of the information flow. And don’t worry yourselves over what I might have to say to anyone on the subject of the Brienings, whoever they are. Everybody who knows me knows that spin is my forte.”
Art said, “Hunny will brief you in the a.m., Marylou. The Brienings may actually be the biggest fly in the ointment we’re having to deal with.”
“No other calls?” I asked.
“No. Oh, there was one, actually. Do either of you know a Quentin Shoemaker?”
Art said no, but I said I thought the name sounded vaguely familiar.
“Mr. Shoemaker said he saw Hunny on Bill O’Malley and he wants to come down from Vermont where he lives and help Hunny out. He is one of the original Radical Fairies, he said. And now Mr. Shoemaker is part of a commune up in Ferrisburg called the Rdq, and he thinks Hunny is getting a raw deal both from horrid right wingers like Bill O’Malley and also from all the gay people in Albany and across the nation who are not coming to Hunny’s defense as he gets dragged through the slime.”
“That’s where I heard of Shoemaker,” I said. “I’ve read about the Rdq. It’s a kind of neo-hippie group, the Radical Drama Queens.”
“Oh, lovely, lovely! I think this is just the pick-me-up that Hunny needs at this point. I’m sure the RDQ will bring a breath of sanity and fresh air into all our lives. And at this dark moment, we certainly could use a ray of sunshine or six. Since Hunny won the Instant Warren, his life has just gotten so… complicated.
Perhaps some people who have been placed on this earth to promote peace and love will simplify things and remind every one of us what is really important in life.”
Art said, “Marylou, honey, what you are saying sounds an awful lot like wishful thinking.”
That sounded right to me.
First thing in the morning, Hunny announced he was going to have “a shot of the twink that bit me,” but Art said, “No, pootykins, I am shutting you the hell off again.”