The Road to Omaha: A Novel Page 10

  “And the paisan’s right behind him, if he’s your next in line for heavy objective thinking.”

  “Actually, he was—nothing personal, you understand, I love opera.”

  “Nothing personal, and opera loves you, especially Signor Pagliacci.”

  “Ah, yes, all those Vikings.”

  “Yeah, Vikings.… And speaking of thunder—”

  “Were we?”

  “You were.… We’re still waiting for word on that Chief Crazy Ass who calls himself Thunder Head. Once we got him, he could be our way out of this whole mess.”

  “Really? How?”

  “Because as the principal, what do you call it, the plaintiff, he has to show up in the big Court with his attorneys for all arguments. That’s mandatory.”

  “Well, of course he does, but how would that change anything?”

  “Suppose—just suppose—this big scungilli shows up like a total psychiatric outpatient screaming that the whole scam is a joke? That he doctored all those historical records to make some kind of radical statement. How about that, huh?”

  “It’s absolutely brilliant, Vincent!… But how can you possibly do that?”

  “I can arrange it. I got a few medical types on a special payroll. Like with chemicals not exactly approved by the FDA, okay?”

  “Magnificent! Why are you holding back?”

  “I got to find the son of a bitch!… Hold it, baked apple, I’ll call you back. My other subterranean line is blinking.”

  “Please do so, old boy.”

  “Basta with the old bambino crap!” The honorable director of the Central Intelligence Agency broke off one line and admitted the second call with a touch of two buttons. “Yeah, what is it?”

  “I realize that I should not call you directly, but I felt that in light of the information, you would not accept it from anyone but myself.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Goldfarb.”

  “Hymie the Hurricane? Lemme tell you, pal, you were the greatest—”

  “Stop it, silly boy, I’m in a different business.”

  “Sure, sure, but do you remember the Super Bowl of ’73, when you—”

  “I was there, pal, so naturally I remember. However, right now we have a situation that you should be apprised of before you make any moves.… Thunder Head got out of our net.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve spoken to each member of my very expensive unit, for which you will be billed via the sleazy motel in Virginia Beach, and their unanimous conclusion may appear difficult to accept, but from everything I’ve heard, it’s as good as any.”

  “What are you talkin’?”

  “This Thunder Head is, in actuality, the living person of Bigfoot, the supposedly mythical creature that roams the Canadian forests, but who is very much a human being.”

  “What?”

  “The only other explanation is that he’s the yeti, the Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas, who has crossed continents to put a curse on the government of the United States.… Have a nice day.”

  7

  General MacKenzie Hawkins, his shoulders stooped, and dressed in a rumpled, nondescript gray gabardine suit, walked through Boston’s Logan Airport looking for a men’s room. Finding one, he rushed inside with his oversized flight bag, placed it on the floor, and checked his appearance in the long mirror running the length of the sinks, where two uniformed airline personnel washed their hands at each end. Not bad, he thought, except for the color of the wig; it was a mite too red and a touch too long in the back. The thin steel-rimmed glasses, however, were splendid; sloping downward over his aquiline nose, they gave him the appearance of a distracted academic, a pointy-headed thinker who could never find a latrine in a crowded airport with the cool efficiency of a trained military man. And “military,” or specifically the lack of same, was the linchpin of the Hawk’s current strategy. All traces of his background had to be buried; the city of Boston was pointy-head territory, everyone knew that, and he had to meld in for the next twelve hours or so, enough time to reconnoiter and study Sam Devereaux in his own environment.

  Sam seemed to have some minor objections to their getting together, and as much as it pained Mac, it was entirely possible that he might have to take Devereaux by force. Time was of the essence now, and the Hawk needed Sam’s legal credentials just as soon as possible; no hour could be wasted, although several might be used up convincing the attorney to join forces in a holy cause.… Strike the word “holy,” thought the general; it could revive memories best left forgotten.

  Mac washed his hands, then proceeded to remove his glasses and dab water on his face, careful not to disturb the reddish wig, which was also a touch loose. He had a tube of scalp adhesive in his flight bag, and when he checked into a hotel …

  All thoughts of the inadequate wig instantly vanished as the Hawk felt the presence of a nearby body. He rose from the sink to find a uniformed man standing beside him, his ugly grin revealing that several of his teeth were missing. A short glance to his right revealed a second man in uniform shoving a couple of rubber doorstoppers under the door of the men’s room. Further swift appraisal of both men disclosed the obvious: the only airline they could possibly be associated with had neither aircraft nor passengers, only getaway cars and mugging marks.

  “You got yourself a liddle agua refreshment, hey man?” said the first grinning hostile, in a pronounced Hispanic accent, confidently smoothing his dark hair, which flared from the sides of the visor of his officer’s hat. “You know, is good for you to splash a liddle agua on the face after a long flight, h’ain’t it?”

  “Oh, yeah, man!” cried the second hostile, approaching, his officer’s hat improperly askew. “Is better than shoving your head into a toilet, right, man?”

  “Is there a point to these remarks?” asked the former general of the army, alternately staring at both men, appalled at the sloppy open collars of their shirts beneath their tunics of authority.

  “Well, is not such a good idea to put your head in a toilet, h’okay?”

  “I must agree with you there,” replied the Hawk, suddenly considering that which he actually considered impossible. “You’re not by any chance advance combat intelligence, are you?”

  “We got enough brains—and kindness—not to let you put your head in a toilet, which would not be so intelligent, right?”

  “I didn’t think so. The man who’s expecting me wouldn’t consider recruiting battle scouts like you. I taught him better than that.”

  “Hey, man!” said the second improperly dressed impersonator of an officer, as he edged himself to the Hawk’s opposite flank. “You trying to insult us? Maybe you don’t like the way we talk—we’re not good enough for you?”

  “Get this straight, soldados estúpidos! Never in all my years have I ever let a man’s race, religion, or the color of his flesh have a goddamned thing to do with my appraisal of his qualifications. I’ve promoted more Coloreds and Chinks and Spanish-speaking personnel to the officer corps than most anyone in my position—not because they were Coloreds or Chinks or Spies, but because they were better than their competition! Is that clear?… You’re just not in their ranks. You’re pissants.”

  “I think that’s enough conversation, man,” interrupted the first hostile, his grin disappearing as he withdrew a long-bladed knife from under his jacket. “Popguns make too much noise—just hand over your wallet, your watch, and anything else us Spanish-speaking Spies might consider valuable.”

  “You’ve got balls, I’ll say that for you,” said MacKenzie Hawkins. “But tell me, why should I?”

  “This!” yelled the grinless man, snapping the knife up in front of the Hawk’s face.

  “You’ve got to be kidding!” With that expression of bewilderment, the Hawk spun in place, gripping the wrist holding the knife and wrenching it counterclockwise with such force the weapon was instantly dropped while he crashed his left elbow up into the throat of the man behind him, rendering him suf
ficiently dazed to administer a chi sai chop to his forehead. He then immediately returned to the thug with missing teeth who was on the floor holding his painfully injured hand. “All right, you jackasses, that’s a short lesson in counterinsurgency.”

  “What … man?” mumbled the conscious hostile on the floor, trying to reach for the hunting knife, which Hawkins pinned to the tiles with a stomping foot. “H’okay, I got no leverage,” admitted the perpetrator. “So I go back to a cell, what else is new, huh, man?”

  “Just hold it, amigo zonzo,” said the Hawk, squinting and thinking rapidly, “maybe you can be better than that. For a fact, your tactics weren’t bad, just poorly executed. I liked the uniforms and the doorstoppers, that showed imagination under these flexible rules of engagement. What you didn’t have was your follow-up strategy—the what-ifs in the event the enemy counters with a sidewinder you hadn’t considered. You simply didn’t project your analysis properly, son!… And for another fact, I’m going to need support adjutants who’ve faced fire. Maybe with a little discipline I can use you. You got a vehicle?”

  “A what?”

  “A car, an automobile, a means of conveyance that isn’t necessarily registered to a person living or dead who could be traced by a license plate.”

  “Well, we got a chopped-up h’Oldsmobile from the Midwest that’s still registered to a big shot who don’t know he’s got a duplicado with a very old Mazda engine.”

  “Perfect. We ride, caballeros! And with thirty minutes’ worth of training and a couple of haircuts, you’ve got yourselves temporary, respectable employment that pays handsomely.… I do like the uniforms—very imaginative and extremely useful.”

  “You’re one loco, mister.”

  “Not at all, son, not at all. I’ve always believed in doing my best for the disenfranchised—which is at the heart of my current pursuits.… Come along now, fall to, and stand up straight, boy, I want perfect posture from both of you! Help me get your comrade off the floor, and let’s roll!”

  Devereaux’s head slowly emerged from the right panel of the heavy glistening double doors that led to the exclusive penthouse offices of Aaron Pinkus Associates. Furtively, he peered first to his right, then to his left, repeated the exercise, and nodded. Instantly, two heavyset men in brown suits walked out into the corridor and faced the elevators at the end of the hallway, sufficiently apart to allow Sam to walk between them.

  “I promised Cora I’d pick up some scrod on my way home,” said the attorney without expression to his guards as they proceeded down the corridor.

  “We get scrod,” said the man on Sam’s left, looking straight ahead, in his voice a mild complaint.

  “She feeds Paddy Lafferty porterhouses,” added the guard on the right, more than a mild complaint in his voice. “Char-grilled.”

  “All right, all right, we’ll also stop and get a couple of steaks, okay?”

  “Better get four,” suggested the left guard in a quiet monotone. “We’re relieved at eight o’clock, and those gorillas will smell the porters.”

  “It’s the rim of fat,” opined the right guard, his focus rigidly forward. “It lingers so good for a long time.”

  “So be it,” agreed Devereaux. “Four steaks and the scrod.”

  “What about potatoes?” asked the left guard. “Cora’s not too big with potatoes, and everybody likes potatoes.”

  “After six o’clock Cora don’t cook potatoes so good,” said the RG, permitting himself a slit of a smile on his impassive face. “Sometimes it’s a little rough finding the oven.”

  “I’ll bake ’em,” said LG.

  “My Polish associate can’t live without his ‘cartoffables.’ ”

  “That’s kartofla, you dupa. My Swedish associate shoulda stayed in Norway, right Mr. D?”

  “Whatever.”

  The elevator doors parted and the threesome walked inside, where they were startled to find two uniformed men who had obviously ridden to the penthouse by mistake, since they made no attempt to get off. Sam nodded politely, turned to face the closing panels, and then blanched, his eyes widening in astonishment. Unless his practiced lawyer’s vision had deceived him, both uniformed officers at the rear of the elevator had small swastikas attached to their shirt collars! Pretending to have an itch at the back of his neck, Devereaux turned casually to scratch, his eyes taking in their necks. The small black emblems were swastikas! He briefly locked eyes with the man in the corner who smiled, the friendly grin somewhat diminished by the absence of several teeth. Sam quickly turned his head back to the front, his confusion mounting—then suddenly the explanation was clear. In New York’s Broadway parlance, Boston was a “tryout town.” Obviously, there was a World War II play, probably at the Shubert or the Wilbur, presenting its wares in Bean Town before assaulting the Big Apple. Still, these actors should know better than to appear off the stage and on the streets in such costumes. On the other hand, he had always heard that actors were a breed apart; some lived their roles twenty-four hours a day. Wasn’t there an English Othello who actually tried to kill his Desdemona in a Jewish delicatessen one night on Forty-seventh Street over a pastrami sandwich?

  The doors opened onto the crowded lobby and Devereaux stepped out; he stood in place, glancing around, as his guards flanked him. The threesome proceeded rapidly toward the building’s entrance, dodging bodies and a plethora of attaché cases, finally emerging on the wide pavement, where Aaron Pinkus’s limousine awaited them at the curb.

  “You’d think we were in Belfast, coverin’ our asses from all those bomb-throwin’ lunatics,” said Paddy Lafferty behind the wheel, as the three passengers plummeted into the rear seat, Devereaux vised between his two barrel-chested protectors. “Straight home, Sam?” continued the chauffeur, as he swung the huge car into the flow of traffic.

  “Two stops, Paddy,” replied Devereaux. “Scrod and steaks.”

  “Cora’s doin’ her thing, eh, boyo? She cooks a mean porter as long as you remind her to get it off the fire quick enough. Otherwise you’ve got nuked gristle, and floatin’ in bourbon, it is. But you better make it three porters, Sam. My orders are to stay and bring you back into town by eight-thirty.”

  “That’s five porters,” said the Polish praetorian.

  “Thanks, Stosh, but I’m not so hungry—”

  “Not you, the relief.”

  “Oh, yeah, they’ll smell ’em. You know why, don’t you? It’s the border of fat that sizzles and hangs around—”

  “All right,” cried Devereaux, trying to find a pause in the rapid conversation so as to ask what he felt was a fairly vital question. “Scrod, five porters, rims of sizzling fat, and the goddamned relief’s olfactory senses—it’s all settled. Now why is Aaron bringing me back into town at eight-thirty?”

  “Hey, boyo, it was your idea, Sammy, and I tell you, Mrs. Pinkus thinks you’re the darlin’ of the day.”

  “What for?”

  “You got that fancy invite to the art gallery soiree—how do you like that? I heard her say soiree, which means you get pickled at night after work and nobody cares.”

  “Art gallery …?”

  “Remember, lad, you told me it was that fancy-dan client who thinks his wife has the hots for you, which is fine by him, and then you told Mr. Pinkus that you didn’t want to go, and he told Mrs. Pinkus, who read that the senator was going to be there, so now you’re all going.”

  “That crowd’s a bunch of leeching fund-raisers and political vultures.”

  “They’re top society, Sammy.”

  “Same thing.”

  “Then we go back with you, Paddy?” asked the guard on Devereaux’s right.

  “No, Knute, there won’t be time. You take Mr. D.’s car here. Your relief can follow us in their own.”

  “What’s with the time?” Stosh objected. “Just drop us off downtown. Mr. D.’s car is very shaky in the turns.”

  “You didn’t get it fixed, Sam?”

  “I forgot.”

  “
You’ll have to live with it, Stosh. Nothing suits the boss better than driving his little Buick like he’s doing now from the office, but not Mrs. Boss. This is her chariot, especially with the license plate he happens to hate, and especially for a wingding like tonight.”

  “Leeches and politicians,” muttered Sam.

  “Same thing, huh?” said Knute.

  • • •

  MacKenzie Hawkins squinted through the windshield of the stolen Oldsmobile at the limousine’s license plate directly in front of him. The raised white letters across the green background spelled out the name PINKUS as though the announcement should strike fear in the hearts of observers. It would help if the name were somewhat more threatening, thought Mac, nevertheless glad that he had spotted it in front of Devereaux’s place of employment, the name itself one the Hawk would never forget. For weeks during the young lawyer’s initial work on behalf of their former corporation, Sam had kept yelling, What would Aaron Pinkus think? until Mac could not stand it any longer and confined the hysterical attorney to quarters just to get some peace. This afternoon, however, a brief telephone call to the law office confirmed the fact that Sam had come home and somehow—God knew how—made peace with one Aaron Pinkus, whose name was anathema to the Hawk.

  From there it was a simple matter to show his newly trained and newly sheared aides-de-camp a six-year-old photograph of Devereaux and order them to stay riding on the single elevator that went up to the penthouse floor until the subject appeared and subsequently to follow him at a discreet distance wherever he walked, keeping in touch with their commanding officer over the walkie-talkies he supplied them from his flight bag. Don’t get any ideas, caballeros, because stealing government property is a thirty-year offense, and I’ve got your stolen car with your fingerprints all over it.

  Frankly, Mac thought that Sam would head to a friendly bar after work. Not that his former legal liaison was a heavy drinker—he was barely a decent one—but he did like a nip or two after a hard day in the field. Well, goddamn, the Hawk had thought when he saw Sam emerge from the building under protective escort. How suspicious and how ungrateful could a man be? Of all the unmitigated, detestable strategies to employ—convoys! And to bring in his employer, the obviously equally detestable Aaron Pinkus, was downright treasonous, definitely un-American! The Hawk was not sure his newly acquired aides-de-camp were up to a new strategy. On the other hand, a good combat officer always brought out the best in his troops, no matter how raw they were. So he glanced at them, scrunched beside him in the front seat—he certainly could not permit a potential adversary to sit behind him in a foxhole.