«That’s Devereaux,» said Sam.
«Look, Mr. Devereaux, I speak English, Polish, Russian, Lithuanian, Czech, and would you believe Finnish, due to the Estonian influence on the language, but French has always eluded me. Perhaps it’s a natural aversion; my wife and I spent a week in Paris, and she spent the better part of my annual salary while we were there… Now, my error explained, may we start over again?»
«You mean, you don’t know my name?»
«I’m sure it’s my loss, but then I doubt you’ve heard of Casimir the Third, also known as Charles the Great, King of Poland in the fourteenth century.»
«Are you crazy?» cried Sam. «He was one of the most brilliant diplomat-rulers of his time! His sister was on the throne of Hungary and he learned from her court the expertise he needed to unify Poland. His treaties with Silesia and Pomorze were models of legal temperance.»
«All right, all right! Then maybe I’ve heard your name or read it in the papers, okay?»
«That’s not what I’m asking, Agent Mikulski.» Devereaux leaned forward in the chair, a small bubble of water in his shirt unfortunately bursting through the buttons. «I’m talking about the dragnet,» he whispered.
«The old television show?»
«No, me!… I have to assume it’s been spread by those bastards in Washington, because my associates were obviously taken—probably tortured to find out about Frazie’s boat—but there are times when subordinates must learn the lesson of ‘I was only following orders!’ … You can’t take me in, Mikulski, you must hear what I have to tell you and listen to the tape recording that confirms everything I say!»
«You haven’t told me anything. All you’ve done is wet my floor and ask me if my office is tapped.»
«Because the arm of this conspiratorial government-within-the-government is evil incarnate! They—it—will stop at nothing! They stole half of Nebraska!»
«Nebraska?»
«Over a hundred years ago!»
«A hundred … no fooling?»
«Tragically, obscenely, Mikulski! We have the proof and they’ll do anything to stop us from being at the Supreme Court tomorrow to present ourselves personae delectae!»
«Oh, yeah, that,» said the FBI agent, pressing a button on his telephone console. «Prepare psychiatric,» he said quietly into the intercom.
«No!» screamed Sam, yanking the sealed plastic bag from his pocket. «Listen to this!» he demanded.
Agent Mikulski took the plastic bag, which dripped, profusely soaking his clean blotter, removed the tape, and placed it into his desk recorder. He pressed the button; there was a sudden eruption of static followed by a spinning circle of water that splashed across the faces of both men as the thin black tape exploded from the machine, reeling across the room in splintered fragments. Whatever was on the tape had been obliterated.
«I don’t believe it!» shouted Devereaux. «I matched the yellow and the blue lines to reach green on that pouch and sealed it! Those commercials are bullshit!»
«Maybe your eyesight’s not so good,» said Mikulski, «although I’ve got to agree with you, I can’t freeze a kielbasy in one of these mothers.»
«It was all there—everything! The general, the Secretary of State, the whole conspiracy!»
«To steal Nebraska?»
«No, that was a hundred and twelve years ago. Federal agents burned the bank where the Wopotami treaties were kept.»
«Not me, pal. My grandparents were still slinging cowshit over in Poznań…. Woppa-who?»
«Another general, my general, pieced it all together from the records in the archives—records and missing records he knew were missing!»
«Archives …?»
«The Bureau of Indian Affairs, naturally.»
«Oh, naturally.»
«You see, he was able to do it because there’s another general with the same name as the general who was viciously conscripted by the Secretary of State. He retired from the army because the names got mixed up when I pressed drug-running charges against his cousin—»
«Speaking of such matters,» interrupted Mikulski. «What brand of cigarettes do you smoke?»
«I’m trying to give them up—you should, too… Anyway, it was a big mistake, and this other general was given the job at Indian Affairs and my general, who’s a friend of his, got to invade the sealed archives and wrote the brief based on those documents. It’s all really very simple.»
«Absolutely fundamental,» said Mikulski in a monotone, nodding his head slowly, his wide eyes riveted on Sam as his hand inched back to his console and the intercom.
«You see, the Wopotami tribe could actually own all the territory in and around Omaha.»
«Of course … Omaha.»
«SAC, Agent Mikulski! The Strategic Air Command! According to law, illegally usurped property that’s been reclaimed by its rightful owners, the said criminally injured owners are entitled to whatever developments have been made on said usurped property. That’s basic.»
«Real basic, oh, real basic.»
«And because certain corrupt persons in the government refuse to negotiate, they intend to eliminate the whole problem by eliminating the plaintiffs to the Supreme Court, which has recognized the Wopotami brief for argument and may just possibly adjudicate in its favor.»
«It might do that …?»
«It’s entirely possible—remote but possible. The dirty bastards in Washington hired someone named Goldfarb and fielded the Filthy Four and the Suicidal Six to stop us!»
«Someone named Goldfarb …?» muttered the mesmerized Mikulski, his wide, sad eyes briefly closing. «… the Filthy Four and the Suicide-whatever?»
«We sent the Filthy Four back to their base in body bags.»
«You killed them?»
«No, Desi Arnaz the Second laced their food with sleep-inducing ingredients, and there were air holes in the body bags.»
«Desi Arnaz the …?» Special Agent Mikulski could not continue; he was a defeated man.
«It’s now obviously clear to you, or should be, that we must move quickly and expeditiously to expose the Secretary of State and all those around him who would deny by violence the fundamental rights of the Wopotami tribe!»
Silence.
Finally:
«Let me tell you something, Mr. Devereaux,» said the FBI man quietly, bringing to the fore what immediate resources he had left. «What’s obvious to me is that you are a troubled man beyond my ability to help you. Now, we have three choices. One, I can call the hospital in Gloucester and recommend psychiatric counseling; two, I can phone our friends at the police department and ask them to take you into custody until whatever you’ve been on wears off; or, three, I can forget you walked into my office, dripping wet with one shoe and flooding my floor, and let you walk out, trusting that your imaginative powers will lead you to friends who can assist you.»
«You don’t believe me!» yelled Sam.
«Where do you want to start? With Desi Arnaz the Second and someone named Goldfarb? Or body bags with air holes and three generals who wouldn’t last two minutes in the Pentagon without being put in straitjackets?»