“No?”
“No. Why should he be locked up if he isn’t crazy? If you ask me, if anybody’s crazy it’s Jason and Fred.”
“Oh?”
“Oh, not crazy crazy. I don’t mean like they’re nuts. I just mean like they’re weird.”
“You still haven’t answered my question.”
“What question?”
“What’s your interest in this?”
“To get Uncle Jack out. Oh, you mean why.” Jeremy shrugged. “I dunno. I like him. I guess that’s it. I like him. Like, you gotta understand. My family’s kind of weird. The whole setup, I mean. Like I never had a mother or a father. I was brought up by Aunt Rose-there’s a winner. And Jason and Fred. And Carl, for Christ’s sake.” Jeremy rolled his eyes. “You have no idea what it’s like. And all of ‘em living in the big house in Great Neck, livin’ there and sponging off Uncle Jack. If you ask me, he’s the only straight one in the bunch. Sure, he’s weird. Sure, he’s old. But crazy? No. He never treated me like-I don’t know-like some stupid kid got no business being there.
“So it’s not right. Them locking him up, I mean. It’s not because he’s crazy. It’s just ’cause they want to get their hands on the money.
“So you got to get him out. Can you do it?”
Steve sighed and rubbed his head. “It’s a little complicated.”
“Complicated? What’s complicated? They put him in Bellevue, he isn’t crazy, he shouldn’t be there, he should get out.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Why not?”
“Well, let me ask you some questions. Where you living now?”
“Jersey, why?”
“When’d you move there?”
“Six months ago.”
“Why?”
“You know why. Carl told you. Uncle Jack sold the house and we all had to move. Why are you asking that?”
“I told you. I’m not really free to discuss this or give you any information. So it simplifies things if I ask you for the information we need to discuss.”
Jeremy thought that over. “I gotcha. O.K. Shoot.”
“You say Uncle Jack sold the house. So where’s he living?”
“Like nowhere.”
“Nowhere? You mean he has no home?”
“Right.”
“So where’s he sleep?”
“On the subway.”
“I take it Uncle Jack has some money?”
“You kidding? He’s worth millions.”
“And yet he has no home and sleeps on the subway with the bums and winos.” Steve spread his hands wide. “I rest my case, Your Honor, the man is nutty as a fruitcake.”
Jeremy shook his head. “You can’t go by that.”
“Oh yeah? Well, a judge can.”
“That’s not fair. Sleeping on the subway doesn’t prove a man’s nuts.”
“Well, it doesn’t prove he’s sane, either. I gotta convince a judge a man who sleeps on the subway’s sane, I gotta come up with a pretty good reason. So you tell me. Why’s he doing it?”
“To spite them.”
“To spite who?”
“Jason, Fred, Carl. All of us, really.”
“Again we come back to why. Just they’re after his money?”
“Yeah, well partly. But that’s not really it.”
“Well, what is?”
“Well, I guess it’s about Julie.”
“Julie?”
“Yeah. You don’t know about Julie?”
“Assume I don’t. Who’s Julie?”
Jeremy snuffled. “This is stupid.”
Steve nodded. “Yeah.”
Jeremy looked at him. shrugged. “O.K. Have it your way. Julie’s this woman Uncle Jack met about a year ago. When the family found out they went nuts.”
“What do you mean, when the family found out?”
“Oh, like Uncle Jack had been acting different for a while, you know? Like not talking. Which wasn’t like him. So Jason and Fred were concerned about it. I heard ‘em talkin’. They were wondering what’s up. They asked Uncle Jack questions, trying to worm it out of him. He wasn’t talking.
“Then one day he brings her to the house.”
“Julie?”
“Yeah, Julie. I tell you, Jason nearly hit the roof.”
“How come?”
“Well, for one thing, she’s young. Well, not young young. She’s like forty. But compared to Uncle Jack.”
“So what happened?”
“I told you. Jason went bananas. Fred and Carl too. I mean, this is the worst thing that could happen. Like they’re all expecting one day Uncle Jack’s gonna kick the bucket and they’re gonna come into the money. And now this. You should have heard ‘em. I mean, it’s twenty-five years since his wife died. He’s never been serious about another woman since. Suddenly, at age seventy-five he’s got a girlfriend. Well, Jason and Fred take one look and see their inheritance going out the window. What if Uncle Jack should marry?”
Steve looked at Jeremy narrowly. “How would you feel about that?”
Jeremy shrugged. “Hey, it’s his life and his money. At seventy-five it’s hard to figure, but if the guy wants to have fun, that’s his business.”
“What about you? Don’t you stand to inherit?”
“Oh, sure. A nice trust fund with Aunt Rose in charge. Whoopdedo.”
“Still, something to lose.”
Jeremy shrugged. “Uncle Jack wouldn’t screw me. Even if he got married, so what? There’s enough to go around. Jason and Fred, they want it all.”
“And Carl?”
“Carl too, but he’s a numbnuts, you know? Well, they all are, but Carl in particular, you know what I mean?”
“Yeah. So what happened with Julie?”
“About what you’d expect. Jason and Fred start working on Uncle Jack, trying to poison him against her. I tell you, it didn’t work. He just got pissed off. Clammed up more than ever. Told them to fuck off.
“That’s when they got smart. Instead of working on him, they started working on her. Not directly, you know. They hired a private dick to dig into her background. The guy nosed around, and it turned out there was something to find.
“This woman-Julie Creston-she was an actress. Turns out Creston was her stage name. Her real name was Harwell. She was from Minnesota. Came out here when she was young, tried to make it as an actress. Evidently had a rough time getting started. Anyway, about twenty years ago she’s busted twice for prostitution.”
Steve nodded. “I see.”
“Yeah,” Jeremy said. “So did Fred and Jason. When they found out, they figured they hit the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. They took the report and gave it to Uncle Jack.”
“What happened?”
“He hit the ceiling. Went bananas. Screaming. Cursing. I was upstairs in my room, I still heard him. He laid it on the line. If they ever mentioned it again, if he ever heard one word of this, he’d kill them.”
“So what happened then?”
“Then they did what they should have done in the first place. From their point of view, I mean-really they shouldn’t have done nothing, it was none of their business. Anyway, instead of going to him they went to her.” Jeremy shrugged. “At least that’s what I figure they did.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I didn’t actually hear them talking about it. All I know is what happened.”
“What was that?”
“Julie disappeared.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Uncle Jack went to see her, she was gone. Packed up. Moved out. No forwarding address.
“So the way I see it, Jason and Fred went to her, dangled that report in front of her face. Told her they’d smear her with it.”
“How could they do that if Uncle Jack didn’t care?”
“Yeah, but she didn’t know that. And she was working now. As an actress, I mean. She’d done an Equalizer, a Kate and Allie. Probably told her they’d sell her story to the National Enquirer.”
Steve frowned. “That’s pretty thin.”
“Well, it worked. When Uncle Jack went to look for her, she was gone.
“Well, that’s when the shit hit the fan. Uncle Jack came back, gave us all hell. Never seen a man so mad. Screaming. Cursing. His face was bright red, his veins popping out of his forehead. I thought he’d have a stroke.
“And he’s ordering everybody out of the house. ‘Get out of my house!’ that’s what he said. Over and over. ‘I want you out!’”