“Does Tex ever visit up here?”

“Not that I ever heard of,” Hunny said. “What are you thinking? That maybe Tex is the person who picked Mom up and took her somewhere? I would doubt that. Tex has bad hips and uses a walker. I know she doesn’t drive. Mom has told me how grateful she is that even if she is losing her mind, at least she isn’t in the kind of pain Tex is in. Mom doesn’t move so great either, but at least she is not in agony whenever she tries to move.”

Art said, “Being old is a load of crap.”

“Maybe,” I said, “even if Mrs. Clermont hasn’t taken your mom somewhere, maybe she has been in touch with her or has some idea where your mother might have gone. It sounds as though they’re real chums.”

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“We could check.”

“Do you have a number or address?”

“No, that information would be in Mom’s address book in her room.”

“Could you call Mrs. Kerisiotis and ask her to have someone check?”

Hunny said he would do that, and he made the call. Mrs.

Kerisiotis’s secretary said the administrator wasn’t in her office but they would call Hunny back with the information he wanted.

“Everyone at Golden Gardens is really upset about Mom,”

Hunny said. “People think she might have been snatched, or drug gangs got her, or even vampires, Antoine told me. They watch all those vampire shows on TV. I don’t think old people should be allowed to watch that stuff. It’s too upsetting.”

“If it was too upsetting, they wouldn’t look at it,” Art said.

“They must like the immortality part of it.”

“And the physical contact. People of all ages appreciate a little physical affection.”

The phone rang and Hunny snatched it up. “Van Horn residence. Oh, Antoine, honey-doll! Any luck? Any trace of Mom? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Oh, girl! Oh, you can’t be serious! Oh, God, hold on a sec. I have to tell Artie!”

Hunny said to Art and me, “Antoine says they checked the Silvery Moon Motel and didn’t see Mom. And the clerk wouldn’t say who was staying there, saying it’s against the law to give out that information. But there’s a beach down behind the motel, and you’ll never guess who’s the lifeguard there!”

Art asked who.

“Sean Shea. He used to go out with Ellis Feebeaux, who works out at BJ’s. Sean is famous for the tattoo on his dick that’s a picture of Cardinal Egan.”

“It’s not a perfect likeness,” Art said. “But if you think about it, you can see that’s who it is.”

176 Richard Stevenson

Hunny asked Antoine, “So did you show the Rdq boys Sean’s tat? I know the twins have seen it. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Well, look around and maybe Ethan there, the one with the crystal ball, has some ideas. Right. Right. Okay, tood-lee-oo.”

“No sign of Mother Van Horn?” Art asked.

“No, but they are going over to the Super Eight where Ethan thinks Mom is staying. The thing is, the desk clerks can’t give out guest information.”

“I’ll bet they would for twenty-five thousand dollars.”

“Oh, that’s an idea. If I’m so rich, I suppose I should start acting like it.”

“Did the Vermont boys enjoy Sean’s tattoo?”

“They went into the men’s room, Antoine said, and had a quick look-see. But it was hard to make out. Sean had just been in the water, and that lake is cold.”

Art said, “Sean is an excellent lifeguard, but he is not a very good Catholic.”

The phone rang again and Hunny answered it. He had a brief exchange, wrote something down on his Domino’s menu and hung up.

“That’s Mrs. Kerisiotis’s girl calling back. They got Mom’s address book and found Tex Clermont’s number.”

I suggested to Hunny that he give his mom’s buddy a call and ask her if she had heard from Mrs. Van Horn or if she even knew that she was missing.

Hunny said, “This is outside our calling area, but I guess I can afford to call anywhere I please.”

He dialed and soon had an exchange with someone who apparently was not Tex Clermont. Hunny exclaimed a number of times and told the person who answered Mrs. Clermont’s phone about his mother’s disappearance and why he was calling. Then he said he thought the police in both Texas and New York ought to be notified and hung up.

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“Eileen Clermont has also disappeared,” Hunny said to Art and me. “This is just incredible. She’s been gone since last Thursday, and the police are looking for her, and everybody down there is just worried sick.”

“I thought she was on a walker,” Art said, “and couldn’t get around.”

“I talked to the nurse that answered Tex’s phone, and she said that one of the home’s aides is missing too. They think he might have taken Tex somewhere because they were always pals and joked about running off and getting married. The aide’s name is Herero Flores, and his family and friends are worried about him, too.”

“It would be useful to know, “ I said, “if Herero Flores has a car and if so what kind.”

I asked Hunny for the nursing home number he had used and then made a series of calls on my cell.

Ten minutes later I said to Hunny, “I think we’re going to get your mom back.”

“I have a feeling you’re right, Donald. I think all our thoughts and prayers are soon to be answered. But just in time, I’m afraid, for the Brienings to work their evil on Mom and on all the rest of the Van Horns. I have only twenty-four hours before the Brienings go after Mom, and I’m afraid I have no choice but to fork over half a billion dollars, tomorrow morning at the latest.”

I told Hunny I had one more idea on how to deal with the Brienings, and it didn’t involve exorcism.

ChAPteR twenty-six

By six that evening I was set up in Cobleskill and ready to take possession of the original document in which Rita Van Horn had confessed to embezzling sixty-one thousand dollars from the Brienings. It was like the situation in The Letter, the Maugham story and Bette Davis movie, except I was not going to pay a lot of money for the letter and then get knifed in the gut anyway. I was going to create a distraction that would lure the Brienings out the front door of their store, and I was going to go in the back door and take away the lock box where they told me the letter had been secured.

The crew I had assembled met me at the McDonald’s on the eastern edge of town. Marylou was there but not in drag.

She was in a business suit and looked like the average middle-aged accountant you might expect to find at the New York State Department of Taxation.

Accompanying her were several people I recognized from the two lottery-prize celebrations at Hunny’s house, the one broadcast on Channel 13 six days earlier and then the Saturday night bacchanal the neighbors had complained about. All of these people were in go-to-work professional or blue-collar gear.

The only thing that might have distinguished them from typical commuters on the way home after a summer work day was this: close up some of the men looked as if they might have been women, and some of the women looked as if they might have been men.

Marylou had on a name tag that read Buzz Beasley, Simon & Schuster. Others had name tags, too, that were whimsical — Tom Cruise, Britney Spears, Senator Charles Grassley — and they were all gathered around a van with a big sign on the side that read Sarah Palin Book Tour — Going Rogue in Cobleskill! Climbing out of a Lincoln Town Car was the sensational best-selling author herself, former vice presidential candidate and political 180 Richard Stevenson

phenomenon of the decade, Sarah Palin. Ms. Palin had on a red miniskirt and blue sleeveless top and was wearing shades with white frames to complete the patriotic color scheme. Her big hair was more orderly than it normally appears on television, and both her calves and Adam’s apple seemed to have grown.