“Vincent figured that, too.”
“What are you driving at, Mr. President?”
“Frankly, Vincent’s trying to protect you, protect your place in history.”
“What?”
“Although you’re the strictest of the strict constructionists, you’re against the Wopotamis, yet I’m told you even refuse to read the brief. Is that because they’re ‘no better than the Negroes’? Do you really want to go down in the books as the racist Chief Justice who’s going to vote against the purported evidence because of the color of the plaintiff’s skin in a landmark decision?”
“Who could think that?” asked the flustered champion of constitutional law. “My interrogations will be filled with compassion ultimately overridden by the practical realities, which I’m firmly convinced will be the Court’s finding by at least three votes. The country will understand. The hearings must be open.”
“Would that mule ca-ca stand up against the published record of your excessive convictions of darker-skinned minorities as an assistant prosecutor—especially if that record revealed that you frequently chose the public defenders, most of whom had rarely tried a case?”
“Oh, my God …! Those records could surface?”
“Not if you give Vincent time to expunge them. National security concerns, of course.”
“He could do that?”
“He says he can manage it.”
“The time?… I don’t know what my colleagues would say if I delay the public hearings. I can’t appear to be recalcitrant, it might look … heaven forbid … suspicious.”
“Vincent understands that, too. He knows that there are several members of the Court who can’t stand your ‘apricots’—I believe it’s a pejorative term, Reebock.”
“Christ, I’m being compromised for doing the right thing!”
“For the wrong reasons, Mr. Chief Justice. Vincent counted on it. What shall I tell him?”
“How long does he think it would take to … shall we say, remove the misunderstood materials that could lead to erroneous conclusions?”
“To do a thorough job, he says a year—”
“The Court would revolt!”
“He’ll settle for a week.”
“It’s yours.”
“He’ll manage it.”
Mangecavallo leaned back in his chair and relit his Monte Cristo cigar, a temporarily satisfied man. He had seen the light when everyone else, including Hymie the Hurricane, saw only the dark clouds of confusion. So the gumballs on the Supreme Court who were maybe leaning toward the vicious Wopotami savages were whistle-clean, there had to be another way to buy some time to catch this Thunder Head phony and either blow him full of holes or mess his head up so bad he’d be happy to call the whole thing off, labeling it for what it was: a very major scam. The suspicious five or six frutti got them nowhere, so why not look in the other direction, say with the big banana himself? That fascista couldn’t possibly vote for the Wopotamis; it just wasn’t in his heart. And since it wasn’t, what kind of rotten heart was in his bigoted chest that made him immediately turn off his big brain? Maybe someone should inquire.
Now they had an extra week, which was about all they could hope for, what with the big banana’s popularity rating among his colleagues at zip-minus. And a week should be enough, since Little Joey the Shroud had cornered the Section-Eight General Lasagna with the Wopotami feathers hanging down to his ass in Boston, where, as everyone knew, accidents happened with alarming frequency. Maybe not in the New York-L.A.-Miami league, but it wasn’t small-time, either. Mangecavallo blew three perfect smoke rings and looked at his diamond-rimmed watch. The Shroud had two minutes left in the prescribed morning’s timespan to call; the unseen telephone buzzed in the lower right-hand section of the director’s desk. He reached down, opened the drawer, and picked it up. “Yes?”
“It’s Little Joey, Vin.”
“You always gotta wait until the last second to call? I told you, I got a high-level conference at ten o’clock and you make me nervous. Suppose this phone rang when the guys in suits were here in the office?”
“So you tell ’em it’s a wrong number.”
“Pazzo-head, they don’t see the phone!”
“You hire blind spies, Vinnie?”
“Basta. What’ve you got? Quick!”
“Hoo-hay, a bundle, Bam-Bam—”
“I told you—”
“Sorry, Vincenzo.… Anyway, quick, I gotta room at this fancy hotel like I mentioned before.”
“No long stories, Joey. I know you got a room last night down the hall from the yarmulke, so?”
“So much activity, Vin! The big General Indian Chief is here with the yarmulke, only they left for a couple of hours last night. Then the chief’s soldiers came back and they left after talkin’ to somebody else inside before the chief and the yarmulke came back. Then the old Jewish guy left, leavin’ the chief with whoever it was inside, but before that there was a lot of yellin’—I mean real stridore—and then the yarmulke left and everything was silenzio.”
“You’re tellin’ me, Little Joey, that the nest of this terrible cospirazione is right down the hall from you, right?”
“Right, Bam-Bam!… Sorry, Vin, it comes natural, you know what I mean, from the old days?”
“Basta. What else, although I think we got all we need? Can you find out who the crumb was inside—maybe just a broad, huh?”
“Hoo-hay, Vinnie, it was no broad and I saw him. He’s a mental case, a real vegetale.”
“What are you talkin’?”
“Like always, I keep the door open an inch, maybe an inch and a half, maybe two inches—”
“Joey!”
“Okay, okay. I see the gumbar come out and he goes to the elevators, right?”
“That makes him a mental case …?”
“No, Vin, his pants do.”
“Huh?”
“He’s pissed all over ’em! Big wet circles down to his knees—on both sides. I mean, he’s walkin’ out in public with his pants filled with pee! If that don’t make him a mental case, you tell me what does, huh, Bam-Bam?”
“He’s all shook up, that’s what he is,” concluded the astute director of the Central Intelligence Agency. “Around this place they call it ‘operational burn-out,’ or sometimes ‘deep-cover bends,’ depending on the mission.” Mangecavallo’s console hummed; it was his secretary’s line. “I only got a couple of seconds, Little Joey. Try to find out who this creep with the pissed-up trousers is, okay?”
“I know, Vinnie! I went to the front desk and made like a friend of a priest who was lookin’ for him on account of some personal tragedy and described him, although I didn’t make a big thing about the pants.… I thought maybe I should get a religious collar, you know what I mean, but I figured it would take too long—”
“Joey!” roared Mangecavallo. “Stop already! Who is he?”
“His name is Devereaux, and I’d better spell it out for you. He’s a sharp attorney in the big yarmulke’s firm.”
“He’s a ferocious un-American traitor, that’s what he is,” pronounced the DCI, writing out the name as the Shroud spelled it. The director’s visible phone rang again; his visitors were impatient. “Stay put with your eyes open, Little Joey. I’ll be in touch.” Mangecavallo hung up and placed his private telephone back into the drawer. He then buzzed his secretary twice, the signal to admit subordinates. As he did so, he picked up a pencil and wrote out in block letters another name below that of Devereaux. BROOKLYN! Enough was enough; it was time for solid professionals.
Colonel Bradley “Hoot” Gibson, pilot of the still-airborne EC-135, the “Looking Glass” for the Strategic Air Command’s global operations, shouted into his radio. “Have you idiots gone to lunch on the last quasar beyond Jupiter? We’ve been up here for fifty-two hours, refueled three times, and apologized in six languages, two of which weren’t even in the fucking computers! Now, what the hell’s going on?”
“We read
you loud and clear, Colonel,” came the reply from Offutt’s control tower, using its UTF radio band, otherwise known as Ultra Tropopausic Frequency, which, unfortunately, had a tendency to pick up cartoons from Mongolian television but otherwise had a clear range throughout the Pacific. “We’ve handled the complaints on this end very effectively. It’s a pretty good bet you won’t be missiled down, how about that?”
“You get our maximum leader on the horn or I’m heading off your screens to Pago Pago and sending for my wife and kids! I’ve had it—we’ve had it!”
“Easy, Colonel, there are five other aircraft in roughly your same predicament. Think about them.”
“I’ll tell you what I think about them. I think we’ll rendezvous, head to the Australian Outback, auction off these electronic tubes of spaghetti to the highest bidders, and have enough cash to start our own country!… Now get that clown of a commander on the phone!”
“I’ve been on it, Colonel Gibson,” said a distinctly different voice over the radio. “I’ve got a patch here to all airborne equipment.”
“Eavesdropping, General? Isn’t that against the law?”
“Not in this outfit, fly-boy.… Come on, Hoot, how do you think I feel?”
“I think you feel your ass in a cushioned chair inside a building on dry ground, that’s what I think you feel, Owen.”
“I suppose you also think I issued those orders myself, don’t you? Well, I’ll let you in on a little national security secret: I’m not permitted to. They were issued to me—code Red Plus.”
“To repeat myself, what the hell is going on?”
“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you, but then I couldn’t, because I didn’t understand a word the trench coats said—well, I understood most of the specific words, but not what they meant when put together.”
“What trench coats?”
“Again, you wouldn’t believe me. It’s hot as hell down here, and they kept their coats and hats on, and they don’t open doors for women.”
“Owen … General Richards,” said the pilot, with firm gentleness. “Have you been to the base hospital lately?”
In his office, the commandant of SAC sighed as he replied to the pilot 800 miles west and 40,000 feet above. “Every goddamn time the red phone rings I want to turn myself in.” So, of course, the red telephone hummed as its red light flashed on and off. “Holy shit, there it goes!… Hang on, Hoot, don’t go anywhere.”
“I’m not canceling the Australian Outback, Owen.”
“Oh, shut up,” ordered the commandant of SAC as he picked up the red telephone. “Rec-Wing Headquarters, General Richards,” he said with ill-felt authority.
“Beam ’em down, Scotty!” cried the half-whining, half-wheezing voice of the Secretary of Defense. “Beam ’em all down!”
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Secretary?”
“I said bring ’em back, soldier! We’ve got ourselves a little breathing room, so stand down till I call you again and then be prepared to send up the whole flotilla!”
“Flotilla, sir?”
“You heard me, whatever your name is!”
“No, Mr. Secretary,” said Richards, a calm suddenly spreading through him. “You hear me, sir. You’ve just given your last order to whatever-my-name-is.”
“What did you say, mister?”
“You heard me, sir, and my title is ‘general’ in contradistinction to the civilian ‘mister,’ not that either term would mean anything to you.”
“You being insubordinate?”
“To the fullest extent of my vocabulary, mister.… Why we put up with you Washington sewer pipes is something I’ll never understand, but I’m told it’s spelled out somewhere by somebody who never ran into anyone like you, and I’m not about to introduce you because all the rules would be changed—like opening doors for ladies—and I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”
“Are you sick, soldier boy?”
“Yes, I’m sick, you sniveling, tiny rat with a rug on your tiny head, sick of you dumb politicians who think you know more about my business than I do after thirty years in this uniform! And you can bet your butt I’m beaming them all down, Scotty, and I would have done so whether you called or not!”
“You’re fired, soldier!”
“Stick your head in a toilet, toupee and all, civilian. You can’t fire me. You can relieve me, and I hope to Christ you do, but you can’t fire me. It’s in my contract. Good-bye and have a rotten fucking day!” The general slammed down the red telephone and returned to the UTF radio connection. “You still there, Hoot?”
“I’m here and I heard you, Private Richards. You ready for latrine duty?”
“Is that son of a bitch ready for my press conference?”
“Good point, Corporal.… I gather we’re coming back.”
“Everybody. We resume normal operations as of now.”
“Call my wife, will you?”
“No, I’ll call your daughter; her head’s on tighter. Your wife thinks you were shot down over Mongolia and she’s enshrined a plate of roast beef hash.”
“You’re right, talk to the kid. And tell her to wear longer skirts.”
“Over and out, Colonel.” General Owen Richards hung up the UTF receiver and pushed his chair back, pleased with himself. Career be damned, he should have done what he did a long time ago. Retirement wouldn’t be so awful, although he had to admit it would not be all that easy to put his uniform in a cedar chest. He and his wife could live wherever they wanted—one of his pilots told him that American Samoa was a terrific place. Still, it was going to be rough sledding leaving the one thing he loved best outside of the wife and children. The air force was his life—to hell with it!
And, naturally, the red telephone erupted. Richards picked it up, his temper in flames. “What is it, you fucking skinhead?”
“Golly, gosh, and gee whillikers, General, is that any way to answer a friendly telephone call?”
“What?” The voice was familiar but Richards couldn’t place it. “Who the hell is this?”
“I think I’m called your Commander in Chief, General.”
“The President?”
“You can bet your socks on it, sky jock.”
“Sky jock?”
“Different uniform but pretty much the same equipment, General, except for the high-tech jet stuff.”
“Equipment?”
“Ease off, pilot. I was there when you were in diapers.”
“My God, you are him!”
“ ‘He’ is better grammar, Owen. I only know that because my secretary tells me.”
“I’m sorry, sir!”
“Don’t be, General. I’m the one who’s apologizing. I just got off the horn with our Secretary of Defense—”
“I understand, sir. I’m relieved of my command.”
“No, Owen, he is. Well, not actually, but he’s not making any more decisions where you’re concerned without checking with me. He told me what you said, and I couldn’t have put it better with my best speech writers. You have any more problems, you call me direct, got it?”
“Got it, Mr. President.… Hey, you’re okay!”
“Let’s just say I kicked a little ass—but for God’s sake, don’t quote me.”
Sam Devereaux paid ten dollars for the doorman to shriek his whistle at all points of the compass so as to find him a taxi. For three minutes none were to be had, although two swiftly passed a frustrated Sam in the middle of the street, the drivers’ eyes focused on his trousers. He rejoined the doorman as a couple arrived at the Four Seasons’ curb, said couple somewhat flustered as Sam threw their luggage out of the trunk and ignored their objections, opting only to leap into the cab and scream the address of his own residence in Weston.
“What the hell are you stopping for?” yelled Devereaux after several blocks.
“Because if I don’t, I’ll hit the jerk in front of me,” replied the driver.
It was an early-morning traffic jam in Boston, as always, extend
ed by the insane one-way streets that forced unfamiliar drivers to travel eleven miles to reach an address fifty feet away. “I know a shortcut to the Weston road,” said Sam, leaning far forward and embracing the rim of the front seat.
“So does everybody else in Massachusetts, buddy, and unless you got a gun, get the hell away from me.”
“No gun, no threat. I’m just a nice person in a terrible hurry.”
“I figured you took care of that ‘hurry’ by what I seen of your pants. If you got another ‘hurry,’ get outta here!”
“No—no, that’s coffee! I spilled a cup of coffee!”
“Who am I to argue? Would you mind sitting back in the seat—it’s in our insurance?”
“Sure,” said Sam, moving back but still on the edge of the rear seat. “Look, I’m just trying to impress upon you that this is an emergency, a real one! A lady whose name I don’t know is heading out to my house and I’ve got to get there before she does. She left a few minutes ago from the hotel in another cab.”
“Naturally,” said the driver with philosophical resignation. “She got your address from your wallet during the night and now she figures she can pick up a little extra mattress money by dropping in on the missus. When will you fishtails learn?… Hey, we got a break up ahead. I’ll swing down Church Street and up to the Weston road.”
“That’s the shortcut I was talking about.”
“With any luck, not too many of the summer crowds know about it.”
“Just get me home as fast as you can.”
“Listen, mister, the law says that without indications of harmful intent or abusive language or unsanitary appearance, I gotta take you where you tell me. Now, you are close to the line on all three counts—over it on one, in my opinion—so don’t push, okay? Nobody wants you home and out of this cab faster than me.”
“Of course it’s the law,” rejoined a slightly bewildered Devereaux. “You think I don’t know that? I’m an attorney.”
“Yeah, and me, I’m a ballet dancer.”
Finally, at last, the cab swung into Devereaux’s street. Checking the meter, Sam dropped the amount of the fare over the front seat along with a generous tip. He opened the door, leaped out on the pavement, and saw that there was no other taxi in sight.
The Road to Omaha: A Novel Page 18
