“Don’t ever say that!” shouted MacKenzie.
“Sorry, General, but I think it’s the truth.”
“Then keep it a secret, son!” said the Hawk. “We’re dealing with ‘high concept’ here. We keep it big, not small.”
“What does that mean?” asked Sly.
“Don’t bring in details; their attention spans can’t handle it.” MacKenzie walked to the desk and picked up the clipped pages of his third wife’s literary labors; he turned back to the unit. “This is what’s known as an outline, or a ‘treatment,’ or something just as dumb-sounding, and there’s only one copy—that’s to keep its security at a maximum. It’s a high-powered summary of your activities over the past few years, and let me tell you, it’s a nuclear missile. When each of these vultures arrives, I’ll give him this single copy and tell him he’s got fifteen minutes to read it and then ask whatever questions he likes, the answers to which will be subject to national security. I want you to sit in those chairs over there that I’ve placed in a semicircle maintaining that collective—whatever you call it.”
“Collective image of silent strength with an admixture of intelligence and perception?” suggested Telly the professor.
“Yeah, that one. And maybe it wouldn’t hurt if a couple of you slap the holsters of your forty-fives whenever I say ‘national security.’ ”
“You, Sly; then you, Marlon,” ordered The Duke.
“Got it.”
“Got it.”
“Now, here’s the kicker,” continued the Hawk quickly. “At first, you answer the clowns’ questions in your normal, regular voices, then when I nod at each of you, you switch to the impersonations of the people—the actors—you imitated for me and Colonel Cyrus.”
“We’ve got lots of others,” said Dustin.
“Those will do,” replied Hawkins. “They were damned convincing.”
“What’s the point?” asked the skeptical Marlon.
“I’d think you’d see that right off. We prove that you’re real talented professionals, that you’ve done what you’ve done because you are actors.”
“That can’t hurt us, pilgrims,” said The Duke, reverting to his histrionic persona. “What the hell, not too many other honchos in the business ever listened to us.”
“Confidence, men. You’ve got it all!” The telephone rang again. “Chow down, gentlemen,” MacKenzie went on, reaching for the phone as the Suicidal Six rushed to the room-service tables. “Yes, who’s this?”
“The twelfth son of the sheik of Tizi Ouzou by his twenty-second wife,” said the soft voice over the line. “Thirty thousand camels may be yours if our talk bears fruit, otherwise a hundred thousand Western dogs may die if the fruits are barren.”
“Ream it! Come back in six hours or go bury your balls in the desert sand!”
Seven hours later, the good ship, Hawk’s Assault, had made its initial foray into the turbulent waters of the motion picture industry. In its treacherous wake and struggling to keep from drowning were a former British Grenadier named Ogilvie, who blustered about thankless wog colonials; one Emmanuel Greenberg, whose copious weeping touched all but one MacKenzie Hawkins; a certain exhausted head of Holly Rock’s development named Scrimshaw, who finally said he’d temporarily settle for a bed he didn’t have to pay for; a shrieking “Cruiser” Motoboto, who made it abundantly clear that prison camps in “Horrywood” were not entirely out of the question; and lastly, a snarling Sheik Mustacha Hafaiyabeaka, in flowing robes, who made constant and odious comparisons between camel droppings and the American dollar. Nevertheless, to a man and his corporate entity, each profoundly hoped to be chosen as the producing force behind the most spectacular motion picture to be made in modern times, and each, stunned speechless by the six extraordinary actor-commandos, agreed without reservation that they would portray themselves in the film of their exploits. Only Greenberg offered the suggestion: “Maybe a little skin, fellas? Y’know, a few girlies so there shouldn’t be any questions, y’know?” The Suicidal Six agreed enthusiastically, especially Marlon, Sly, and Dustin. “Thirty-six-carat gelt!” whispered Manny, even more enthusiastically.
Business cards were proffered, but Hawkins was clear: no decision would be made until early the following week. When the last of the supplicants left, namely the growling twelfth son of the sheik of Tizi Ouzou by his twenty-second wife, MacKenzie turned to his elite Delta Force by way of the theater and rendered his judgment. “You were great, every one of you. They were hypnotized, blown out of their foxholes—you did it!”
“Outside of putting on a pretty good show,” said the erudite Telly, “I’m not exactly sure what we did.”
“Did you just lose your flak jacket, son?” broke in the startled Hawkins. “Didn’t you hear what they said? To a sweaty palm, they want this project so bad they drooled!”
“Well,” observed Dustin, “I heard a lot of noise, a lot of shouting and pleading, especially Mr. Greenberg’s crying—he was especially effective, very much like a Greek chorus—but I’m not sure what it all meant.”
“We didn’t see anyone pulling out a contract,” said Marlon.
“We don’t want any contracts. Not yet.”
“When’s ‘yet,’ General?” asked Sir Larry. “You see, we’ve been through all this before. There’s always a great deal of talk but very few pieces of paper. Paper is a commitment, sir, the rest is just… well, talk.”
“If I remember correctly, gentlemen, negotiations are left to the negotiators. We’re the creative side; we do and they haggle.”
“Who negotiates for us, if anybody really wants us… pilgrim?”
“Good point, Duke. Maybe I’d better make a phone call.”
“I’ll pay for it,” said Sly.
Instead, the Waldorf-Astoria’s telephone rang. The Hawk crossed to the desk. “Yes, who the hell is this?”
“Sweetie, I couldn’t wait any longer! How’s everything going?”
“Oh, hi, Ginny, everything went fine, but as the boys explained to me, we may have a problem.”
“Manny?… You didn’t kill him, did you, Mac?”
“Hell, no. As a fact, the boys were kinda taken by him.”
“The crying bit, huh?”
“You got it.”
“He’s very good at that, the bastard.… Then what’s the problem?”
“Well, as the men say, it’s real splendid that these vultures liked us, or pretended to like us, but how do we get anything on paper—”
“It’s all arranged, Mac. The William Morris Agency is handling everything—right up at the top. Robbins and Martin themselves.”
“Robbins and Martin? Sounds like a classy men’s shop.”
“Class they are, and we should all have their brains, sweetie. Not only brains, they speak English you can understand, not Hollywood crapola. That’s why they confuse everybody and take home the bread. They’ll go to work when I tell them.”
“Make it early next week, okay, Ginny?”
“Sure. Where can I reach you, and who exactly besides Manny showed up?”
“Here, I’ve got their cards.” The Hawk picked up the business cards on the desk and read each off to his former wife.
“Wasn’t there a nut studio in Georgia or Florida? Of course, no legitimate company in the South will deal with them, but they’ve got several cathedrals full of money and can push up the bids.”
“I have an idea they may run into a bit of trouble tonight in Washington.”
“What?”
“Let it pass, Ginny.”
“I know that tone; it’s passed. Now how about you? Where will you be?”
“Call a Johnny Calfnose at the Wopotami reservation outside of Omaha, he’ll know where to find me. Here’s his private number.” Hawkins gave it to her. “Got it?”
“Sure, but what’s a Calfnose, and what the hell is a Wopotami?”
“He’s a disenfranchised member of that downtrodden people.”
“Your windmills, Mac?”
“We do what we can, little lady.”
“Who to this time, sweetie?”
“Bad protectors of the republic with very bad attitudes.”
“Oh, the D.C. pricky-shits?”
“And their forebears, Ginny, going back over a hundred years.”
“How delicious!… But how did you ever get Sam involved?”
“He’s a very principled man—far more mature than he was and with seven children—but he knows right from wrong.”
“That’s what I mean! How did you get him back? That beautiful boy thinks you’re Ali Baba’s forty thieves all walking around on one pair of legs.”
“Well, as I say, he’s changed, mellowed over the years. Probably goes with his haggard looks and the arthritis that kinda makes him stoop… I guess nine kids would do that to anybody.”
“Nine? I thought you said seven?”
“I get mixed up, but then so does he. I’ll say this, though, he’s become a far more tolerant man.”
“Thank heavens he got over Annie. We were all worried about him.… Wait a minute! Seven kids … nine? What did his wife do, drop two and three at a time?”
“Well, we haven’t really—” Fortunately for MacKenzie Hawkins, there were several clicks on the line followed by the excited voice of an interrupting operator.
“Suite Twelve A, you have an emergency call! Please terminate your current conversation so I can connect you.”
“Bye, Ginny girl, we’ll make contact later.” MacKenzie slammed down the phone and held it in place; it rang three seconds later and he yanked it up. “This is Suite Twelve A. Who’s this?”
“Redwing, you prehistoric monster!” roared Jennifer from Swampscott, Massachusetts. “Sam heard the Brokemichael tape last night, and it was all Cyrus, Roman, and our two Desis could do to hold him down! Finally, Cyrus managed to get practically a whole bottle of whisky into him—”
“When he sobers up, he’ll come to his senses,” interrupted the Hawk. “He usually does.”
“Nice of you to say so, but, of course, we’ll never know.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s gone!”
“That’s impossible! With my adjutants and Roman Z and the colonel all there?”
“He’s one sneaky son of a bitch, Thunder Ass. His door was closed and we figured he was still sleeping it off, then five minutes ago Roman was patrolling the beach when he saw a speedboat pull close to the shore about a quarter of a mile away and a figure run from the dunes into the water and get on board!”
“Sam?”
“Binoculars don’t lie, and Roman Z’s eyesight’s got to be damn sharp or he’d have a much longer record than he has.”
“Goddamn, there he goes again! It’s Switzerland all over again!”
“You mean when Sam tried to stop you—”
“Damn near did,” broke in MacKenzie, furiously checking his pockets with his free hand for his pacifier—namely, a mutilated cigar. “He must have used a phone and called somebody.”
“Obviously, but who?”
“How would I know? I haven’t seen him in years … still, what can he do?”
“Last night he kept shouting about the manipulators in high places, how the corruptors were selling out the country and should be exposed and he was going to expose them—”
“Yeah, he goes on a lot about that stuff, believes it, too.”
“Don’t you? I think I heard you say practically the same thing at the Ritz-Carlton, General.”
“Yeah, I believe it, but there’s a time and place to act on those principles and this isn’t it!… Yet what can he really do? A hysterical lawyer with bloodshot eyes and wet clothes running to a newspaper, like he suggested, with a story like ours? There’s no way they could confirm it; they’d call a truck from a funny farm.”
“I think I left out something,” said Jennifer.
“What?”
“He’s got the Brokemichael tape.”
“Sherman in Atlanta, you’ve got to be kidding, Redskin lady!”
“With all my Redskin heart, I wish I were. We can’t find it anywhere.”
“Holy pistols of Georgie Patton! He could nuke the whole enterprise. We’ve got to stop him!”
“How?”
“Call the Boston papers, the radio and television stations, and tell ’em all a lunatic’s escaped from the biggest mental institution in Massachusetts.”
“That won’t do much good when they hear the tape. The first thing they’ll do is make copies, then voice-print scans and match them with your friend General Brokemichael, either from newsreel tapes or just over the telephone.”
“I’ll call Brokemichael and tell him to stay off the phone!”
“The phone …?” said Jennifer pensively. “That’s it! All telephone companies have computerized printouts of every number called; it’s standard billing procedure. I’m sure Mr. Pinkus can get an immediate police order.”
“For what?”
“The number Sam called from the Birnbaum phone here! Except when you reached us early this morning, no one’s used that phone.”
“Someone did, and his name is Devereaux.”
Thanks to Aaron Pinkus’s exemplary relations with the authorities, Redwing’s suggestion was swiftly effective. “Counselor, this is Lieutenant Cafferty, Boston P.D. We have the information you want.”
“Thank you so much, Lieutenant Cafferty. Had there not been an emergency, I would never have prevailed upon your office or your kindness.”
“Hey, come on, no trouble, sir. After all, every year at the department’s annual dinner it’s always Tinkus’s Corned Beef and Cabbage.’ ”
“An insignificant contribution compared to the services you render to our fair city.”
“Well, you just call us any time.… Here’s what we got from the telephone company. During the past twelve hours there’ve been only four calls made from the Swampscott number, the last being six minutes ago to New York City—”
“Yes, we’re aware of that one, Lieutenant. The other three, please.”
“Two were to your own house, Mr. Pinkus. The first at six-thirty-three last night and then this morning—”
“Oh, yes, I was reaching Shirley, that’s my wife. I forgot.”
“We’ve all met the missus, Counselor, and a grand lady she is. So tall and graceful, sir.”
“Tall? No, actually she’s quite short; it’s her hairdo. Never mind, what’s the fourth call, please?”
“It was made on the unlisted number out there at seven-twelve this morning to the residence of Geoffrey Frazier—”
“Frazier?” interrupted Aaron involuntarily. “How extraordinary …!”
“He’s a lot of things, if you don’t mind my saying so, Mr. Pinkus, including a royal pain in the arse, forgive my language, sir.”
“I’m sure his grandfather employs far worse, Lieutenant Cafferty.”
“Oh, I’ve heard him, Counselor! Whenever we pull the lad into the tank, the old man asks if we can’t keep him a few more days.”
“Thank you very much, Lieutenant, you’ve been a great help.”
“Anytime, sir.”
Aaron replaced the phone and looked quizzically at Jennifer. “At least we know how Sam found the tape; he used Sidney’s private line in the study. That’s where we played it last night.”
“But that’s not what’s shocked you, is it? It’s someone named Frazier, right?”
“Exactly. He’s one of the most charming—I might even say lovable—men you could ever meet. A totally nice person whose parents died years ago in a plane crash when the inebriated Frazier, Senior, tried to land his seaplane on the Grand Corniche in Monte Carlo. Geoffrey was a classmate of Sam’s at Andover.”
“Then that’s why he called him.”
“I doubt it. Sam doesn’t hate people, that’s not in him, really, even MacKenzie Hawkins, as you’ve seen. But he does disapprove, disapprove deeply.”
“Disapprove—in what way, and why thi
s Frazier?”
“Because Geoffrey’s abused and wasted his privileges. He’s a functioning alcoholic whose only purpose in life is the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain.… And Sam has absolutely no use for him.”
“He did today—about ten minutes ago on the beach.”
“The general’s right, we have to stop him!” said Aaron suddenly, turning back to the phone.
“How?”
“If we knew where he went in the boat, it’d be a place to start.”
“That could be anywhere.”
“No, not really,” said Aaron. “Things have changed along the shoreline; the Coast Guard and the Power Squadrons are constantly on the alert, not only for reckless boaters, but for people bringing in illegal substances from other craft farther out. Those with houses on the beach are asked to report any suspicious activity on their water frontages.”
“Someone may have called already then,” interrupted Jennifer. “That boat came up to the beach.”
“Yes, but Sam went out to get on board, no one got off.”
“Then we have the why-get-involved syndrome?” concluded Jennifer.
“Exactly.”
“Still, why not call the Coast Guard?”
“I would in a second if I knew what kind of boat it was, even its size or shape or color or the marina where it’s berthed.” Pinkus reached for the telephone, adding as he dialed. “But I just remembered, I do know something else, someone else.”
One of the secluded crowns of Boston is an isolated patch of ground on top of Beacon Hill called Louisburg Square. It is a compound of elegant town houses originally built in the 1840s, its small, manicured park guarded at the north end by a statue of Columbus, at the south by a monument to Aristides the Just. It is not isolated physically, of course: Mail must be delivered, garbage picked up, and the daytime servants have to get there as best they can without leaving their distressed vehicles among the Rolls-Royces, Porsches, and whatever cute, new American pretenders catch the fancy of the lairds of Louisburg. These lairds, however, are demographically semi-democratic—small d, presumably—for there is old, old money, old money, first-generation money, and newly acquired cash. There are inheritors, stockbrokers, lawyers, several CEOs, and doctors, especially one doctor who is also a major American novelist the medical profession would like to put into a coma, but he’s too good at both professions.
The Road to Omaha: A Novel Page 50