Cockeyed by Richard Stevenson

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?”
    “They want part of it to expand Crafts-a-Palooza and open a branch in Albany at the Crossgates Mall. The rest of it,