“Insipid? Donald, do you think our life is insipid?”

“No, I like it. It’s nice. It’s comfortable. I wouldn’t have it any 56 Richard Stevenson

other way.”

“Then what are you saying? Would our lives — and the lives of our gay friends who are like us — be improved if we were all more like Hunny and Art and that gay menagerie they surround themselves with?”

“No. But you know I like to quote Ogden Nash. ‘Home is heaven, and orgies are vile, but I like an orgy once in a while.’

You’ve even been known to quote him yourself in recent years.

If not in Albany, then certainly from time to time on vacation in Thailand.”

He pretended to bristle, then laughed. “Of course we all have a streak of Hunny in us, expressed or unexpressed. But it’s the flaunting — there, I said the right-wingers’ word — it’s the flaunting of this life of booze and boys and mayhem that just gets tiresome. And, yes, embarrassing. There, I said that, too. In the straight world, people like Hunny make me embarrassed to be gay.”

“Me too. Except I’m kind of embarrassed to be embarrassed.”

“Yes, you would be. I’d like to be. But I can’t. I’m just embarrassed.”

“The TU story doesn’t mention any gay groups in Albany or elsewhere coming to Hunny’s defense. That’s disappointing. I guess they’re embarrassed, too.”

“With his billion dollars,” Timmy said, “Hunny probably doesn’t need any help. He can hire all the help he needs. Like you.”

“Me, and he’s getting a lawyer to deal with the DeCarlo lawsuit. Plus, we agreed that after last night’s paintball episode he should hire some private security people for his house. I put him in touch with Gray Security, and they should have some people over there by now.”

“You said it was unclear who the paint shooter this morning was trying to hit. Only the TV people and the Marylou Whitney impersonator were on the front steps at the time. But isn’t it possible that somebody who hates Hunny just took some CoCkeyed 57

potshots at the house, and they didn’t care who they hit? They just wanted to frighten Hunny and complicate his life?”

“That’s what it looks like. And maybe with a little luck, humiliate a few fags. Not knowing that the Bill O’Malley people were in the line of fire.”

“I am guessing that we haven’t heard the last of Focks News.

I’m sure O’Malley will call for the death penalty.”

“This is a job for the Albany PD, and all the indications are they’ll take it seriously. They know that paint is only paint, but those war-game pellets can do real harm to people who aren’t wearing vests and goggles. What happened last night was assault, and the cops I met seem prepared to treat it that way.”

“Wouldn’t it be interesting,” Timmy said, “if the paintball attack could be traced back to one of the Family Preservation people. fPAAC is up to its eyebrows in local conservative wing-nuts — tea-baggers, birthers, deathers and other types of Obama haters.”

“Except, when Second Amendment crazies lose control, they tend not to just shoot paint. They go in with real Uzis and go down in a blaze of glory taking as many people with them as they can. This thing feels more like a homophobic out-of-control loony or drunk.”

“So, Donald, what exactly is your role at this point? The police will investigate the paint attack and the security people will protect Hunny. What will you be doing to earn your fee?”

“There are still a few of Hunny’s former occasional and short-term boyfriends I need to check out. Guys who have sent threatening notes or phone messages.”

“By short-term, I suppose you mean ranging from several hours down to ten minutes.”

“Yes, speed dating seems to be one of Hunny’s favorite pastimes.”

“And these Briening people. Surely you can be helpful dealing with them. You’ve dealt with extortionists before — though none 58 Richard Stevenson

that I can recall who were quite as grandiose in their expectations as the Brienings.”

“I’m trying to figure out whether the Brienings’ delusional venality will be an advantage or a disadvantage. Lack of rationality is generally an obstacle in situations like this, but these people are so off the wall that I may mau-mau them and they’ll just go poof.

Anyway, I should soon get an inkling as to what I am dealing with. I’m going to drive out to Cobleskill this afternoon.”

Something somebody was saying on Meet the Press caught Timmy’s attention, and then my cell phone went off.

“Strachey.”

“Don, I need your help,” Hunny said, his voice shaky. “Can you drive over to East Greenbush? Art and I came out to Golden Gardens to see Mom. But she’s gone.”

Gone? “Hunny, do you mean that your mother has passed away?” This could solve certain problems.

“No, she’s just not here. And nobody knows where Mom went. ”

I said I’d be there in ten minutes.

§ § § § §

“They say they’re going to have to notify the police,” Hunny said. “They’re searching the premises one more time, and if Mom doesn’t turn up they are going to have to call the sheriff ’s office.

I’m thinking maybe they shouldn’t wait. I mean, they found her wheelchair by the front door, for heaven’s sake. It sounds like she somehow just left. Got out the door and wandered away somewhere.”

“There’s a receptionist,” I pointed out. “Or isn’t she always at her desk?”

Art said, “We’ve come in here when she’s back out of sight in the office, catching some zees, or trimming her nose hairs, or whatever.”

“Mom rides around in that chair — she calls it her taxi to nowhere — but she can walk in her slow, rickety way. There was nothing to prevent her from strolling right out the door and —

CoCkeyed 59

what? Hitching a ride to almost anyplace.”

“The other doors are alarmed,” Art said, “but not the front.”

“What was she wearing when she was last seen?”

“Just her bathrobe and slippers. Mom has been meticulous about her appearance all her life. Or she was until recently. She might not have been aware that she was dressed somewhat inappropriately for appearing in public.”

I was standing and Hunny and Art were seated on a bench in the corridor outside the administrator’s office. Elderly men and women in various stages of inert disrepair were slumped in wheelchairs up and down the hallway. Some had looked up at me as I walked in, but most took no notice. The place was decorated with pretty-posy wall stencils, under the apparent assumption that none of the inmates would have found Motherwell interesting or gotten a charge out of a Munch or two. The hall we were in did not smell fetid, but the stench of disinfectant was not much of a substitute.

“I talked to Mom yesterday afternoon,” Hunny said, “and she told me how much she was looking forward to my visit. The staff here had told Mom about me winning the lottery even before I called her on Thursday, so I guess everybody here knew I was coming. And I told Mrs. Kerisiotis, the administrator, that I would donate new flat-screen TVs to all the rooms. That went over big, and I have to say, it went through my mind that Mom might get a little extra tLC as a result.”

Art said, “Hunny also offered to have the dietician sent on a long trip to Hawaii and replaced by somebody who could cook, but nobody here has said any more about that.”

“Was yesterday afternoon the last time you spoke to your mother?” I asked.

“Not long after I got home from your office.”

“And she sounded normal?”

“Normal? Well, normal for Mom in the past couple of years is not exactly what Dr. Joyce Brothers would call normal.

60 Richard Stevenson

Sometimes she’s her good old self. Other times she forgets things and people. And she gets frustrated and mad. A couple of weeks ago one of the nurses told me that Mom had thrown her Depends at an aide and told people to stop treating her like a baby. I asked her about this, but she said she didn’t remember doing it, and we both had a good laugh over that one.”