«What are you going to Boston for?» asked Devereaux.
«To pick up dat crazy actor, Mr. Major Sooton, and drive him to dee h’airport. The great heneral has talked to him and he expects us quick.»
«What’s happening?» asked Jennifer.
«I’m not sure you should ask,» cautioned Sam the lawyer.
«We gotta hurry,» said Desi the First. «Major Sooton says he gotta stop at some big store for correcto ‘attire,’ which I don’ t’ink is for an automobile… Where ees Colonel Cyrus?»
«On the beach,» replied a perplexed Redwing.
«You get d’car, D-Two,» ordered D-One. «I’ll tell d’colonel and meet you in the garage. Pronto!»
«Sí, amigo!»
The adjutants raced away, one out to the beach by way of the sundeck, the other through the foyer to the garage off the circular drive. Sam turned to Jenny. «Did I say something about ‘Devereaux’s prophecy’?»
«Why is he keeping us in the dark?»
«It’s the devious part of his devious strategy.»
«What?»
«He doesn’t tell you what it is until he’s gone so far it’s irreversible. You can’t turn back.»
«Oh, that’s wonderful!» exclaimed Redwing. «Suppose he’s all wet, all wrong?»
«He’s convinced that’s not possible.»
«And you?»
«If you take away his original premise, which is always wrong, his track record’s not bad.»
«That’s not good enough!»
«In fact, it’s really terrific, goddamnit.»
«Why don’t I feel more reassured?»
«Because the ‘goddamnit’ means he drives you to the edge of oblivion, and one day he’ll take that extra step and we’ll all go tumbling down.»
«He’s going to have Mr. Sutton impersonate him, isn’t he?»
«Probably; he’s seen him in action.»
«I wonder where.»
«Don’t even think about it. It’s easier that way.»
Johnny Calfnose, resplendent in his brightly beaded buckskins and jacket, stared forlornly at the sheets of rain beyond the admissions window in the Wopotami Welcome Wagon Wigwam, a large, garishly painted structure in the shape of a covered wagon with the four sides of a colorful Indian tepee surging up from the center of the layers of canvas. When Chief Thunder Head had designed the edifice and brought in carpenters from Omaha to build it, the inhabitants of the reservation had looked on in bewilderment. The Council of Elders’ Eagle Eyes had asked Calfnose.
«What’s that lunatic doing now? What’s it supposed to be?»
«He says it represents the two images most associated with the old West. The pioneers’ covered wagon and the symbolic tepee from which the savage tribes came out to slaughter them.»
«He’s all heart and mashed brains. Tell him we need to rent a couple of Caterpillar backhoes, scything machines, a minimum of ten mustangs, and at least a dozen laborers.»
«What for?»
«He wants us to clear the north field and stage ‘raiding parties.’»
«Mustangs?»
«Not the cars, horses. If we’re going to gallop around the circled wagons, we’d better teach the younger ones how to ride, and the few nags we’ve got couldn’t make it from one end of the field to the other.»
«Okay, but what’s with the laborers?»
«We may be savages, Calfnose, but collectively we’re the ‘Noble Savage.’ We don’t do that kind of menial work. Or windows, either.»
That was months ago and this was now, an afternoon drenched with rain, and no summer tourists to buy a plethora of souvenirs shipped in from Taiwan. Johnny Calfnose got up from his stool in front of the admissions window, walked through the narrow leather-sheeted entrance to his comfortable living quarters, and went to the television set. He turned it on, switched the cable channels to a ball game, and sat down in his Barcelona sling chair to enjoy the late afternoon watching a doubleheader. However, all was savagely interrupted by the ringing of a telephone—the red phone. Thunder Head!
«Here I am, Chief,» cried Johnny, grabbing the phone off an Adolfo parquet table.
«Plan A-one. Execute.»
«You’re kidding—you gotta be kidding!»
«A general officer doesn’t ‘kid’ when the assault’s in progress. It’s code Bright Green! I’ve alerted the plane at the airport and the bus companies in Omaha and Washington. Everything’s at the ready. You leave at dawn, so start spreading the word. All duffels are to be packed and checked by twenty-two hundred hours and the slop shoot’s off-limits to the entire D.C. contingent. That’s gospel, soldier. There’ll be no red-eyed redskins in my brigade. We march!»
«Are you sure you don’t want to think about this for a couple of weeks, TH?»
«You’ve got your orders, Sergeant Calfnose. Swift execution is paramount!»
«That’s kind of what’s bothering me, Big Fella.»
Sundown had come and gone, the massive, awe-inspiring statue of Lincoln bathed in floodlights as hushed, mesmerized tourists weaved around one another for differing views of the masterpiece. An odd exception was a strange-looking man who seemed furtively occupied with the shadowed grass beneath his feet. He kept walking directly away from the memorial’s steps in a straight line, under his breath verbally abusing the sightseers he collided with, and every now and then thrusting his hands out into the stomachs and cameras of the offending intruders as he adjusted the red wig that kept falling over his ears and his neck.
Vincent Mangecavallo had not been born and brought up in Brooklyn’s Mondo Italiano without learning a few things. He knew when it was preferable to arrive at a «meet» long before the appointed hour, because a «meet» could be spelled differently, like in a carcass on a hook in a slaughterhouse. The problem Vinnie the Bam-Bam had was in the plural word «paces»—what the hell was a pace? Was it a foot, a yard, a yard and a half, or something in between? He had heard the stories from the old days in Sicily where duels were fought with Lupo guns, the firing marked off by paces as the enemies walked in short steps or long steps, all counted off by a referee, or sometimes by a drum, and nobody paid much attention because the one who cheated always won. But this was America. «Paces» should be more specific, in the interest of fairness and honesty.
Also, how the hell could he keep an accurate count while walking through the crowds at night? He would reach, like, number sixty-three, bump into some clowns, causing his wig to sideslip on his head and blind him, resume his «pacing,» and forget the number he had reached. So it was back to the steps and start again! Shit! On the sixth attempt, hanging a right for the final yardage, he reached a large tree that had a brass plate on the trunk spelling out the date it was planted by some President in the year one and who could care less, but there was a circular bench around the goddamned tree that made a little more sense. He could sit down, and his face would not necessarily be seen by the nut general he was to meet for the purpose of exchanging information.
Naturally, Vincent decided to walk away from the tree and wait in the shadows of another—who knew how many lousy paces away? But he knew what to watch for: a tall old joker hanging around that brass-plaqued tree and probably wearing feathers in his head.
Watching the obese figure circling the rendezvous, the uniformed General Ethelred Brokemichael was astonished! He had never liked MacKenzie Hawkins; in fact, quite the opposite, since Mac was the despised Heseltine’s buddy, but he had always respected the tough old soldier’s abilities. At the moment, however, he had to question all those years of silent admiration. What he had just witnessed was a ridiculous exercise in covert rendezvous procedures—ridiculous, hell, it was grotesque! Hawkins had obviously borrowed or bought a jacket designed for a heavyset man, filled it with stuffing, and to conceal his natural height he walked, or rather half-prowled unnaturally like an ape, through the crowds in front of the Lincoln Memorial—back and forth, back and forth—a grunting gorilla foraging for berries in the underbrush. It was a sight to sicken the creator of the Suicidal Six! And there could be no error in Brokey the Deuce’s recognizing him, for the Hawk still wore his stupid red wig, only here in the warm, humid Washington night it kept falling over his eyes. He obviously had never heard of liquid adhesive, which anyone familiar with the theater would know about; talk of amateurville, MacKenzie Hawkins was a novice’s neophyte!