«Help, help!» shrieked the female voice over the line. «The worms are slithering up from the floors and out of the walls! Thousands of them! They’re after me! It’s in their weaving heads! They’re going to assault me!»
Abruptly there was silence, the silence of dread.
«Hold on, Midgey, I’m on my way! What’s the goddamned address?»
«Oh, come on, Hawk,» said the calm voice suddenly over the line. «That’s only a promo tape.»
«What …?»
«The thing they play on the radio and television commercials. The kids love it, and their parents want me deported.»
«How’d you know it was me?»
«Ginny called a few minutes ago and nobody has this number but us girls and my agent, who never calls me unless there’s a problem, and wouldn’t you love it, but there never is! You did this for me, Mac, and I’ll never know how to thank you enough.»
«Then Ginny didn’t tell you?»
«Oh, the screen treatment thing, the ten-page proposal; sure she did. I’ve got the courier service on standby, waiting for your address. Just give the driver the tapes and you’ll have something by morning. Good Lord, it’s the least I can do!»
«You’re a swell girl, Midgey, and I really appreciate this.»
«‘Swell girl’—that’s so like you, Hawk. But if the truth be told, you’re the swellest guy any of us girls ever knew—except sometimes I think you went too far with Annie.»
«I didn’t do it—»
«We know; she stays in touch and we’ve all promised not to say anything. My God, who’d believe it?»
«She’s happy, Madge.»
«I know, Mac. That’s your genius.»
«I’m no genius—except maybe in certain military situations.»
«Don’t try to sell that to four girls who had nowhere to go until you came along.»
«I’m at the Waldorf,» said Hawkins abruptly as he wiped the start of a tear from his eye, revolted by its appearance. «Tell your courier service to go directly to Suite Twelve A; it’s in the name of Devereaux, in case he’s stopped or questioned.»
«Devereaux? Sam Devereaux? That lovely, delicious boy!»
«You stay in two-o-three, Midgey. He’s aged considerably and has a wife and four kids now.»
«Son of a bitch, that’s a tragedy!» cried the third ex-wife of MacKenzie Hawkins.
26
The day at Swampscott passed in ennui, the lack of activity causing the three attorneys to make constant calls to their offices in the hope that someone wanted their individual judgments, expertise, decisions … anything. Unfortunately for each, as the games of summer were at full revel, no one seemed to require anything except bits of information relative to inconsequential problems. The idleness, compounded by the frustration of not knowing what the Hawk was doing, led to a degree of testiness, especially between Sam and Jennifer, the latter again ruminating on the whole insane situation.
«Why did you and your mental permutation of a general ever come into my life, our lives?»
«Hey, just wait a minute, I didn’t come into your life, you took a taxi to my house!»
«I didn’t have a choice—»
«No, of course not, the cabdriver pulled out a gun and said that’s where you’re going—»
«I had to find Hawkins.»
«If I recall correctly, and I do, Charlie Sunset found him first; and instead of saying ‘No, you can’t play in the tribe’s sandbox,’ he said ‘Sure you can, old man, let’s make a castle.’»
«Unfair, unfair! He was tricked.»
«Then as a lawyer he’d better have the fastest feet in ambulance row, because it’s the only way he’ll get clients.»
«I won’t listen to you … you’re a bigot.»
«Where feeble-minded apologists are concerned, I certainly am.»
«I’m going for a swim—»
«You shouldn’t.»
«Why not? Aren’t there enough frenzied sharks out there for you?»
«If there are, say adiós to Aaron and my mother, as well as Cyrus and Roman Z.»
«They’re all swimming?»
«Mother and Aaron wanted to, and our mercs said they couldn’t go alone.»
«That’s sweet.»
«I don’t think they get paid if people drown.»
«Why shouldn’t I join them?»
«Because the giant Aaron Pinkus of Boston law said you ought to read and reread Mac’s brief until you can quote from it. As an amicus curiae you may be challenged by the Court.»
«I’ve read and reread it and there’s no section I can’t quote from.»
«What did you think?»
«It’s brilliant … goddamned brilliant, and I hate it!»
«Precisely my first reaction. He had no right being able to do it… Is it true?»
«You know, it could well be. The legends we all heard growing up, passed from generation to generation and undoubtedly exaggerated and twisted in the process, have a lot of melodramatic correlations. Even symbolically.»
«What do you mean ‘symbolically’?»
«Fables of animals anthropomorphized. The cruel albino wolf tricking the dark-furred goats into grazing in a mountain pass from which there was no escape except through the flames of a forest fire, a fire that spread down from the pass and through the fields, taking away their food, their homes, really.»
«The bank in Omaha that was torched?» asked Devereaux.
«Maybe. Who knows?»
«Let’s both take a swim,» said Sam.
«Sorry I blew up—»
«An eruption now and then cools off the volcano. It’s an old Indian proverb—Navajo, I think.»
«Forked-tongue lawman has horse tails for brains,» said Jennifer Redwing, laughing softly. «The flatlands of the Navajo don’t have mountains, much less volcanoes.»
«You never saw a Navajo brave pissed off because his wife gave a turquoise armband to the flasher in the next tepee?»
«You are incorrigible. Come on, let’s get suits.»
«Let me take you to the cabana—it’s not the Casbah, but it might do.»
«Let me give you a real Indian proverb. Wanchogagog manchogagog—oh, hell, in English, since there are two cabanas, it sort of means one for the girls and one for the boys. ‘You fish on your side, I’ll fish on my side, and nobody fishes in the middle.’»
«How arcane, if not Victorian. No fun at all.»
The kitchen door swung open as Desis One and Two appeared, both obviously in a hurry. «Where’s d’big black Cyrus?» asked Desi the First. «We gotta go!»
«Go where? Why?»
«Into Boston, Mr. Sam,» replied D-Two. «We got h’orders from the heneral!»
«You talked to the general?» said Redwing. «I didn’t hear the phone ring.»
«No teléfono ring here,» said D-One. «We call the hotel every hour to check with José Pocito. He tells us what to do.»