Cockeyed - Stevenson Richard - Страница 10
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He would never have put up with extortion. He would have gone to the police, or he would simply have held his nose and paid these people off.”
“It’s true,” Hunny said, “that Miriam and Lewis decided not to tell Nelson. He had always thought so highly of Grandma Rita, and they were afraid it would break his heart. And also it might not be appreciated by Nelson’s investment clients that there was a crook in the family. It could have been bad for business.”
40 Richard Stevenson
“A crook in the family that got caught,” Art said by way of clarification.
I asked, “How did your mother live, Hunny? With no income to speak of.”
“We all helped out. I paid her oil and electric and cable, and Miriam and Lewis dropped off groceries. We all pitched in one time for a new roof. For a number of years Mom worked off and on at McDonald’s. Then her mind started slipping a couple of years ago and she became frail at around the same time. She had to get out of the house, so we sold it and that’s when we got her into Golden Gardens. The house proceeds paid for the nursing home until that money ran out, and then the home said Mom would have to turn over her Social Security every month.
We told the Brienings, and they got mad and said all the money hadn’t been paid back yet and they might have to go to the police.
That was last month. So I bought two hundred dollars’ worth of Instant Warren tickets, hoping I would win and could pay off the Brienings, and — praise de Lawd! — I did win.”
“But now, apparently,” Art said, “the Brienings want half a billion dollars to shut them up, not just what Mother Rita still owes.”
Lawn said, “This is just totally bizarre. It’s no wonder Nelson is so distraught that he missed a dinner engagement.”
“The Brienings have been leaving phone messages since I won the lottery,” Hunny said, “but I’ve just been tossing them in the laundry basket with the other requests. I did mean to get to them, but I thought it wasn’t going to hurt if we all did a little partying first and got mellow and the friggin’ Brienings could just wait their turn. But they must have gotten antsy and called Nelson. The poor lad. First he has to put up with his rude, crude, proud-to-be-lewd Uncle Hunny, and now he has to deal with these shakedown artists from Cobleskill. The embarrassments for Nelson just keep a-rollin’ in, poor sweetie-pie.”
The door to the living room opened again, and this time Nelson himself walked through it. He looked frazzled and bordering on the unkempt.
CoCkeyed 41
Nelson said, “Uncle Hunny, I don’t know if you want to go out there. Probably not. But there are some more TV people out front, and they say they want to interview you and it would be best if you agreed to talk to them.”
Hunny looked uncharacteristically nonplussed. “At two in the morning? Who are they? Channel Ten? Channel Thirteen?
Channel Six? What is this?”
Nelson said, “They showed me their ID from Focks News in New York. There are two of them — a woman and a cameraman
— and they say they’re from The Bill O’Malley Show.”
ChAPteR six
“This is a damned impertinence,” Hunny said. “Tell them I’ll only talk to Anderson Cooper.”
“Bill O’Malley is doing a report,” Nelson said, “on some organization that wants the lottery commission to take back your winnings because they object to a state agency providing money for immoral purposes. Have you not heard about this? When they told me, my heart just sank.”
“Oh, some PR woman from the lottery called this afternoon.
She said not to worry, that as long as I was eighteen years old and didn’t have a relative who worked for the lottery commission, I was the legal winner. Some other reporters called, too, but they went into the laundry basket.”
“These O’Malley people have just driven up from the city, they said. One of your neighbors is an O’Malley viewer and called them and said you were partying and driving everybody in the neighborhood crazy with the noise. I can only begin to imagine how accurate that description was.”
“That was earlier. Anyway, what immoral purposes? There’s nothing immoral about playing some peppy dance music and throwing a party in your own home.”
Lawn said, “I’d be willing to bet that there is a good deal more to it than that.”
“It’s some religious group,” Nelson said. “The Family Preservation Association of Albany County. I told the Focks News people it was too late for an interview, but they said they could see that a party was still going on and they refused to leave.
Donald, maybe you are the man to handle this. Would you mind?”
“Normally I don’t do press relations.”
Art said, “We could send the twins out to talk to them. They could tell about how Hunny is going to put them through medical school.”
44 Richard Stevenson
Lawn shut his eyes, and Nelson said, “Art, I don’t believe that will help. Having those two tarts speak for Uncle Hunny is exactly what we do not need at this point.”
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 CoCkeyed 45
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?”
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