«I hate long stories, Little Joey!»
«Okay, okay. So I went to his house, which wasn’t much after his long years of public service, and we raised a glass or two of good cheer to the old days.»
«Joey, you’re driving me nuts!»
«Awright, awright. I implored him to maybe put his downtown connections to work, along with five C-notes for himself, to find out who owned the limo with the funny license plate, and maybe also where it went when it was followed by the Olds and maybe even where it was at the present time… Would you believe he answered the first question without so much as a break between whiskies?»
«Joey, I can’t stand you!»
«Calma, calma, Bam-Bam. Right away he tells me the limo belongs to one of the biggest lawyers in Boston, Massachusetts. He’s a yarmulke named Pinkus, Aaron Pinkus, who is considered a very upright guy and very respected by the lowest and the highest of the fish, both legit and not so legit. He’s immaculate—God forgive me—but it’s true, Vinnie.»
«He’s a fuckin’ slime, that’s what he is! What else did the shamus tell you?»
«That as of twenty minutes ago the stretch is parked outside the Four Seasons Hotel on Boylston Street.»
«What about the Olds and the big phony Indian chief? Where the fuck is he?»
«We don’t know where the Olds is, Vinnie, but my shamus got the word on the Midwest license plate and you ain’t gonna believe it—I mean it’s unreal!»
«So try me.»
«It belongs to the Vice-President!»
«Magdalene?» yelled the Vice-President of the United States, slamming down the telephone in his study. «Where’s that darn Oldsmobile of ours?»
«Back home, honeybunch,» replied the lilting voice of the Second Lady from the living room.
«Are you sure, lovey-dove?»
«Of course, lamb chop. Just the other day the maid called to say the gardener’s assistant had trouble driving it on the highway. It simply stopped and wouldn’t start again.»
«My God, did he leave it there?»
«Heavens, no, dimplekins. The cook called the garage and they towed it in. Why?»
«That awful man from the CIA, the one with the name I can’t pronounce, just phoned to tell me it was seen in Boston being driven by vicious criminals and when did I lend it to them. We may have image problems—»
«You’ve got to be shitting me!» screamed the Second Lady, bursting into the room, her hair rolled up in pink curlers.
«Some son-of-a-bitch bastard must have stolen the fucking thing!» yelled the Vice-President.
«You sure you didn’t lend it to one of your crumb-bum buddies, you asshole?»
«Christ no! Only your scumball friends would ask to borrow it, you bitch!»
«Hysterical recriminations will get us nowhere,» stated an emphatic but shaken Aaron Pinkus, as MacKenzie Hawkins straddled Sam Devereaux, the general’s knees pinning the lawyer’s shoulders to the floor while an occasional cigar ash fell on Sam’s contorted face. «I suggest we all cool it, as the young people say, and try to understand the position each of us finds himself in.»
«How about a firing squad right after my disbarment proceedings?» choked Devereaux.
«Come on, Sam,» said the Hawk reassuringly. «They don’t do that anymore. The goddamned television loused it up.»
«Oh, I forgot! You explained it once before—public relations, I remember now. You made it clear that there were other ways, such as shark-fishing trips for three and only two come back, or duck hunting in a blind where suddenly a dozen water moccasins show up when nobody knew there were any snakes around. Thanks a bunch, you psychotic maggot!»
«I was only trying to keep you in line for your own benefit, son, because I cared for you. Like Annie still does to this day.»
«I told you! Never mention that name to me!»
«You really lack understanding, boy.»
«If I may, General,» interrupted Pinkus from behind the desk, «what he lacks at the moment is a clarification of the circumstances, and he’s entitled to that.»
«Do you think he can handle it, Commander?»
«I believe he’d better try. Will you try, Samuel, or shall I call Shirley and explain that we are not at that art show because you appropriated her limousine, packed it with exuberant elderly Greeks, and forced me, as your employer, to attend to your personal difficulties—which, by extension, are not legally inseparable from my own?»
«I’d rather face a firing squad, Aaron.»
«A wise decision. So would I. I understand that Paddy has to send the velour curtains to the cleaners… Let him up, General, and allow him to take my chair here.»
«Behave now, Sam,» said Hawkins, cautiously getting to his feet. «There’s nothing to be gained by violence.»
«That’s a fundamental contradiction to your entire existence, Mr. Exterminator.» Devereaux rose from the floor and proceeded to hobble around the desk as Pinkus gestured at his chair. Sam sat down with a resounding thump, his eyes on his employer. «What am I looking at and for, Aaron?» he asked.
«I’ll give you an overview,» answered Pinkus, walking across the room to the mirrored bar recessed in the hotel suite’s wall. «I will also bring you a decent thirty-year-old brandy, a luxury your lovely mother and I have in common, for you will need the effects of a mild depressant as, indeed, we did prior to our examination of your ‘château’s lair.’ I may even give you a very generous portion, because it could not possibly alter the sobriety your attorney’s mind will be shocked into by what you read.» Aaron filled a crystal goblet with a richly dark-brown cognac, brought it to the desk, and placed it in front of his employee. «You are about to read the incredible, and after doing so, you’re going to have to make the most important decision of your life. And may the God of Abraham—said Abraham who I sincerely believe has royally screwed up—forgive me, but I, too, shall have to make a momentous decision.»
«Cut the metaphysical stuff, Aaron. What am I looking for? What’s your overview?»
«In a matzo ball, my young friend, the United States government stole the lands of the Wopotamis through a series of conspiracies in which promises were spelled out in treaties, said treaties subsequently determined never to have existed, yet actually buried in the sealed archives of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington.»
«Who the hell are the Wopotamis?»
«An Indian tribe whose territories extended north along the Missouri River, including all lands within the flights of a thousand arrows to what is now Fort Calhoun, then west following the Platte to Cedar Bluffs, south to Weeping Water, and east to Red Oak City in Iowa.»
«So what’s the big deal? Historical real estate was compensated by the coin-of-the-era as spelled out by the Supreme Court in—I think in 1912 or 1913.»
«Your photographic memory is, as usual, extraordinary, Sam, but you’re permitting a gap, a lapse, as it were.»
«I never do that! I’m perfect—legally, that is.»
«You’re referring to treaties that were part of the record.»