«I’m really touched by your concern, son, but I’ve got a little time to pick up the bivouac and remove all the papers.»
«How do you know that? I hate to tell you, but you’re not actually invincible. That son of a bitch could be coming up after you right now!»
«No, not for a while, Sam. Desi-Two did a job on that son of a bitch’s lock that jams it from both the outside and the inside. The only way he can get out is through the fifth-floor window or when the hotel takes the whole door down, which, being steel-plated under the fancy paneling, means a blowtorch. Goddamn, can I pick personnel or can I pick personnel?»
«I’ll reserve judgment on that, but I will tell you I had a very strange conversation with them last night.»
«Heard all about it, boy. Guess what? They’re joining the army! I told ’em to hold off for a day or two and I’ll have ’em sent directly to postbasic G-Two training. Christ Almighty, they’re already light-years ahead of the assholes who’ve finished the course! Naturally, Desi-One’s got to get his teeth fixed; it simply isn’t proper for him to have that gap in his mouth, but I’ve still got my connections. The army’ll take care of that—»
«We’re getting out of here, Mac,» interrupted Devereaux sharply. «As you said, we can’t waste time.» With those words, Sam slammed down the phone and turned to Red Redwing. «We’ve got a serious problem,» he said, his hands clasping her shoulders. «Recalling the essence of our prior communication, will you trust me, please?»
«Emotionally or intellectually?» asked the suddenly doubting legal adversary.
«They’re inseparable. We could get our asses blown away, maybe our heads. I’ll explain later.»
«You mentioned something about getting out of here, so what are we waiting for?»
«We have to get Mother and Cousin Cora.»
«In the parlance of Indian legend, let’s run like the northern winds before the palefaces close in on us with their thunder sticks!»
«God, that’s magnificent!»
«What is?»
«The ‘northern winds,’ the ‘thunder sticks’!»
«Not if you’re born into a tribe, buster. Come on! You get Cousin Cora and I’ll get your mother.»
«Shouldn’t it be the other way around?»
«Are you kidding? Your mother doesn’t trust you for a second.»
«She has to, I’m her son.»
«She’ll deny that, take my word for it.»
«But I love you—you love me. We agreed!»
«We were both carried away—you superficially; me, I was intellectually moved. We’ll discuss it later.»
«That’s the most hurtful thing I think I could ever hear you say.»
«Try me with a thunder stick pointed at my head in a calm northern wind, Counselor. Let’s go. The last time I saw Cora she was in the pantry checking out the teapots. You find her, and I’ll bundle up your mother. We’ll meet in the garage. Bring the keys to the Jag.»
«The garage …?»
«You forget I’m an Indian. We circle an encampment before we strike. White man never learns.»
«Magnificent!»
«Oh, shut up. Let’s go!»
Cora, however, refused to budge, and when Sam implied that there was the possibility of a real physical threat to her life, his distant uncle’s cousin opened a concealed, magnetically released drawer below the oven and pulled out not one, but two .357 magnums, both loaded, proclaiming that she was the true protector of the house. «You think I’d count on those lousy alarms no one can figure out that go off whenever the technical bullcrap meets their fancy, Nephew? No way, Sammy! I come from another branch of the family, one the hoity-toity and her smooth-talkin’ husband didn’t care too much about—but my God, I’ll earn my keep!»
«I don’t believe in guns, Cora!»
«So believe what you like, Sammy. This place is what yer hard-drinkin’, faraway cousin is paid for lookin’ after, and you ain’t goin’ to take that away from me, you got that, buster?»
«Buster …? I can’t handle two ‘busters’ within the space of five minutes.»
«You always talk funny, Sam-boy.»
«Did I ever tell you that I love you, Cora?»
«A couple of times, Sammy, when you were oiled up to your last cylinders. Now, you and the leggy unbelievable take the hoity-toity and get out of here… And may the good Protestant Lord have mercy on any bastards who try to get in. Just in case, however, I may give the police a ring; let ’em earn their keep for a change.»
The yellow Jaguar, with Redwing holding a semicognizant Eleanor in the backseat, sped out of the driveway and headed for the streets that led to the Boston road. At the second corner they passed a long black limousine that had all the earmarks of a vintage 1930s Black Maria, including a face pressed against a window whose features were best described as having been caught in the lens of a zoological photographer. Despite disinclinations, Devereaux pressed forward, confident in the knowledge that Cora was more than a match for two gunsels who were stupid enough to look for an unfamiliar house in a huge black automobile in broad daylight. Police aside, his ersatz cousin from the other branch of the family would blow them away with her magnums. Where did she ever get them?
«Sam, your mother has to go to the bathroom!» said Redwing twelve minutes later, cradling Eleanor Devereaux in her arms.
«My mother doesn’t do that. That sort of thing’s for other people. She never goes to the bathroom.»
«She says it runs in the family—witness your trousers.»
«Coffee!»
«You say.»
«We’ll be at Nanny’s in a couple of minutes. Tell her to hold on.»
«Nanny’s Naughty Follies?» cried the lawyer-daughter of the Wopotamis. «We’re going there?»
«You know it?»
«Well, when I was at school we had a couple of legally oriented … orientations. A course in constitutional censorship, that sort of thing… You can’t take her there! It’s open twenty-four hours a day.»
«No choice, Counselor. It’s only two or three minutes from here.»
«She’ll be mortified!»
«Then she can blame it on the family trait of incontinence.»
«You are a male child carrying the demon seed of the evil spirits below the earth.»
«What the f—f … what does that mean?»
«It means your birth was not acceptable to the benevolent gods, and your carcass will be devoured by carrion after a painful death.»
«That’s not very sociable, Red. I mean it doesn’t sound in tune with our little talk in my office.»
«I told you, I was carried away. I heard words I haven’t heard in a very long time—too long. The practice of law is frequently in conflict with a love for the law. I momentarily lost control of my perspective, and I do not enjoy losing control.»
«Wow, thanks a lot. A little soul-searching turns you on no matter who the idiot is who brings it up, is that it?»
«I think we could all do with a little soul-searching now and then in our profession.»
«Then you really are a lawyer.»
«I am.»
«What firm?»
«Springtree, Basl and Karpas, San Francisco.»