“You’re sure you’re okay?” I asked.

“I am feeling a bit moist, but that may be from the excitement.”

I yelled, “She seems to be uninjured. We’ll be with you in a second.”

Hunny said, “Maybe the attackers will be back. Oh, where are the Albany police when you need them!”

There was a sudden brightness, and as Marylou and I wriggled free of the forsythia and I helped her to her feet, I saw the woman in the tight jeans wielding a video camera with a light atop it and recording our struggles. Apparently this would be Marylou’s debut on Focks News, and mine also.

I said, “I heard you speculating on who the paint shooter was after. It’s a safe bet that they were not shooting at you but at Hunny or Art or their friends. No one even knew you were here.”

“Who are you?” she snapped. “I need a name please. And your position here.”

“Don Strachey. I’m a private investigator working for Hunny.

Billionaires attract bad people occasionally, and that’s why I am present. Based on your remarks on the phone just now, it sounds to me as if you are among the bad people Hunny needs to be protected from.”

“I’m Jane Trinkus and I don’t need lectures from you on how to do my job. If Bill was here, he would make short work of a dickhead like you. As his representative, I am telling you to watch out or I will do the same.”

“I’m making a note.”

There were no sirens, but the cop car that turned off Transformer came up Moth Street fast, flashing like a meteor.

Art said, “Finally, Alice Blue Gown.”

52 Richard Stevenson

There were plenty of parking places along the street, but the patrol car double parked and two officers got out. “Who made the 911 call?” the older one asked.

Trinkus identified herself as a producer for The Bill O’Malley Show and said, “We know that we are not liked in the homosexual community, but this is the first time anyone actually tried to kill us. My cameraman Bert Spatz is lying on the porch severely wounded, and I am just lucky to be alive.”

The cop indicated to his junior officer to go up and check on the cameraman, while Hunny said, “Somebody shot paint pellets from a car and raced off. Very noir-ish, even without the fog and other cheesy effects. But I don’t think they were shooting at these Bill O’Malley lovelies. I won the lottery this week, and I’ve had nothing but trouble since then. I have a private detective, in fact, Don Strachey here, who is looking into a number of unfortunates who have shown up since Wednesday.”

The cop acknowledged me with a nod but was more interested in Hunny. “So you’re Huntington Van Horn?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Congratulations, sir. Yes, I’ve heard of this happening.

Lottery winners are shown on TV, and then people start bothering them and trying to walk off with a piece of the winnings, legally or illegally.”

Now Trinkus was on the phone again with somebody, saying,

“We may be in danger. The cops up here are in bed with the gays.

Maybe somebody should wake Bill up. This is incredible!”

There were more flashing lights, and an ambulance rolled up the street and halted behind the police cruiser. A young man and a young woman in uniform got out quickly and the cop pointed to the porch.

The officer, a Sergeant Filio, took statements from everyone who had witnessed the paintball attack. Trinkus stuck to her theory that the Focks News crew were “shot at” by radical gays, probably people who Hunny phoned and alerted that Focks News was about to ambush him. The officer said he just wanted CoCkeyed 53

a narrative of what actually happened, and when, and he said detectives would soon arrive to question witnesses and listen to any ideas they had on who might have done the shooting.

After Marylou gave her version of events, the cop said, “Mrs.

Whitney, you probably shouldn’t leave Saratoga without some kind of security whenever you are wearing your jewels.”

“Oh, officer, thank you so much for such sound advice.”

Trinkus said, “That’s not Marylou Whitney. It’s a fucking drag queen. Are you serious?”

Sergeant Filio said, “I’m just going to pretend I never heard that,” and winked at Marylou.

The cop turned his attention to the eMts, who were now hauling the cameraman down the steps on a gurney, and Art said to Hunny under his breath, “I know that cop. He used to date Malcolm Thibidoux.”

“Where are you taking him?” Trinkus yelled after the eMts as they slid the gurney into the ambulance, and they told her Albany Medical Center.

“Is he going to be okay?”

“Should be. He says his back hurts. Probably from when he fell over. But the paint didn’t get in his eyes or anything”

“Be brave, Bert, be brave,” she called after him. “Bill will be so supportive of you.”

Another police car arrived as the ambulance was pulling away, and two plainclothes officers led us through our recitations a second time. Again, Jane Trinkus speculated that she and her cohorts had been shot at by “gay terrorists.”

Hunny and I had a quick, private back-and-forth as to whether we should mention to the detectives Stu Hood, Mason Doebler and Hunny’s several other assorted boyfriends and tricks who had made vague or specific threats over the past three days. We decided not to. Hunny said, “They’re not all model citizens, but now that I am a billionaire I guess I can deal with them on my own, no? With your help, Donald, I mean. And if any of these 54 Richard Stevenson

lads turns out to be into paintball wars, you can hand him over to the girls in blue. Why stir up trouble for these unfortunate youths, many of whom are practically middle-aged by now, and perfectly harmless?”

I guessed what Hunny was also saying was, let’s not go poking a stick into the busy hive of his sexual past, for God knew what else might come buzzing out to chase Hunny up and down his hectic erotic landscape. Keeping this part of his life separate for the moment and away from the police did seem to make sense.

Especially given that Hunny had so many people angry at him at this point that focusing on a few unstable tricks and rent boys just felt laughably limited.

ChAPteR eight

“Well, at least Hunny’s not on Meet the Press,” Timmy said, indicating the kitchen television set. “Not yet.”

He had one eye on two Sunday morning health-care-debate talking heads, another eye on the Times Union spread out on the kitchen table, and a third eye — I was always amazed that he could do this — on his masala tea, a relic of his long-ago Peace Corps days, that was busy coagulating in a large mug that sat between us. I was having coffee and an English muffin, and I was fretting over Tom Friedman’s dark forecasts in the Times. Global warming, with its inundated cities and wars over vanishing natural resources, was a good momentary distraction from Hunny.

“These people are just bonkers,” Timmy said, as he read the TU page one story on the Family Preservation Association of Albany County. “They can’t actually believe that the Lottery Commission might take back Hunny’s billion dollars. But they are having a high old time making lottery officials squirm, and they’re getting all kinds of ink for their screwball organization while they’re at it.”

“Ink is who they are.”

“And of course Hunny is a godsend.”

“He is a bit of a right-wing gay caricature. If Hunny hadn’t existed, Rush Limbaugh would have had to invent him. It’s why I think I’m basically glad to be working for him. I mean, in addition to walking away with a tiny portion of his billion dollars.

In a world of gay folks like us who are busily turning queer life in America into a kind of insipid parody of our parents’ dull, stable existences, Hunny is this horrifying creature climbing out of the primordial homo ooze. I have to say that I find him alternately hair-raising and beguiling.”