«Good thought, boyo. Off with you now—there’s no time to waste!» Milligan checked his watch as the three-man advance unit dodged the Boylston traffic and ran as fast as their elderly legs could manage into the hotel. The sight of them did not exactly overwhelm the uniformed doorman with inspirational thoughts. Harry turned to the remaining three and issued his orders. «When we get inside I’ll go to the front desk, very casually, mind you, like I walk through the lobby every day of me life, and sort of lean over the counter like a very important man, maybe winkin’ a couple of times to convey the fact that I got a confidential message for other important persons. Then I’ll hit ’em with the one-two punch, namely the two illustrious names of Hawkins and Pinkass.»
«I think that’s Pinkoos, Harry,» offered a florid-faced, balding man in his late sixties, who was obviously a bowling colleague of the infantryman; unfortunately, the O’Boyle’s Meat Market T-shirt was inside out.
«He’s right, Milligan,» confirmed a short man sporting a large, bushy mustache usually associated with English sergeant-majors at the turn of the century. Contrarily, his present uniform consisted of soiled Levi’s held up by red suspenders over a yellow and black plaid shirt. «I heard Paddy say Pinkoos lotsa times.»
«Pinkuss is closer,» corrected the third member of Harry’s unit, an inordinately tall reed of a man wearing a dark green tank top that afforded a generous view of the tattoos on both his arms, especially an elongated hissing blue snake with the legend below it reading Don’t Thread on Me.
«I’ll just say ‘Pinkiss’ real quicklike, that’ll cover it… All right, boyos of Post O’Brien, we charge and win this one for the general!»
Inside Aaron Pinkus’s Buick coupe, the sartorially stunning Desis One and Two, the former’s mouth somewhat enlarged by a plastic front denture, sat in the cramped backseat, each admiring himself and both constantly running their hands over the smooth dark fabric of their cutaways, especially the satin lapels.
«Remember now, Sergeants, pretend you don’t understand a word of English,» said Aaron behind the wheel as they turned into Boylston Street. «You’re ambassadors to the United Nations from Spain and very important men.»
«Dad’sss nice,» interrupted Desi-One, lisping heavily due to the intrusion behind his lips, «but we still don’t know how we get the vicioso to be so mad at us.»
«You mistake him for someone else, Sergeant, we’ve gone over that. When you see him in the lobby, you rush over and point at him, yelling that he’s a hunted criminal from Madrid.»
«Yeah, we gone over dat,» said Desi-Two. «An’ we don’ like dat. The vicioso, like all viciosos, gotta gun, man, an’ he gonna let us know dat!»
«He won’t have a chance to do you any harm at all,» replied Aaron to the implied protest. «The general will be right behind him and will immediately interfere—‘immobilize,’ I believe was the word he used. You trust the general, don’t you?»
«Oh, yeah, we like him,» answered Desi-One. «We really like that crazy hombre. He gonna get us into da army!»
«He also beat d’shit out of us at d’airport, amigo. Dad’s why I trust him.» Desi-Two kept nodding his head as he fingered the crease on his cutaway trousers. «Dad ole man got big testículos.»
«So what den, Comandante?» asked a bewildered Desi the First.
«The general, in his uniquely peculiar way, is quite astute,» replied Pinkus, hugging the curb behind several taxis to the Four Seasons’ entrance. «No government dares offend an allied government over lapsed security, especially countries that are strategically important. They might shut down their embassies and sever relations!»
«Dad’ses wad we don’ like,» broke in Desi-One. «We don’ want no embassy español shut down, even tho’ we never been to España, especially if we gotta get shot. Our relations won’ like dat.»
«The general has given you his word.»
«Ees better be fooking good!… But den what?»
«Well, the best way to explain it to you is that whoever sent this terrible person to Boston after the general will be forced to reconsider his methods.»
«Don’ understand.»
«He’ll be frightened to the point of calling off such assaults, warning everyone in Washington who had anything to do with sending such a vicious criminal after the general to cease and desist or disappear. Hawkins is geopolitically accurate. Our bases in Spain—mainly those with planes—must be sustained.»
«¡Olé, Comandante!»
MacKenzie Hawkins gave his command. «Blowtorch the door open now! I want it down in five minutes, got that, Captain?»
«You got it, General,» replied the voice of the hotel’s engineer over the telephone. «But you promised, sir. I get a picture of you and me together, right?»
«My pleasure, son, and I’ll put my arm around your shoulders like we crossed the Rhine by ourselves.»
«Holy Christ, I’m in heaven before I lay down to die!»
«Now, Captain. It’s imperative to the assault.»
«Four minutes and eight seconds, General!»
Hawkins punched the bar of the telephone and dialed the number of the cellular phone in Aaron Pinkus’s Buick. «Commander?»
«Yes, General?»
«I’ll be down in five minutes. Where are you positioned?»
«Three cars from the entrance.»
«Good. Establish yourselves at the front desk and synchronize your watch. Zero option is between thirteen and seventeen minutes. Read me?»
«You’re not entirely illegible, General. I understand.»
The Post O’Brien brigade was in place—tank top, tattoos, flight jacket, a bulging combat helmet, red suspenders, Hawaiian shirt, soiled Levi’s, and a squinty-eyed, winking leader at the front desk.
«Yes, sir?» said the clerk, pulling a handkerchief from his breast pocket as if the sight of the man might produce an accompanying odor.
«I’ll tell ya what I got, boyo, and you better move quick. Does the names Pinkiss and Hawkins strike a bell, lad?»
«Mr. Pinkus maintains a suite here, if that’s what you mean.»
«I’m not referrin’ to his inner private life, boyo, and I don’t give a damn how many sweeties he’s got. I gotta get a message to him and the general. It’s urgent and confidential. Now, how do you propose I do that, eh?»
«I suggest you telephone Mr. Pinkus’s … rooms. Extension five thousand five.»
«Five-zero-zero-five, right, lad?»
«That’s correct.»
«That’s his room number?»
«We do not have fifty floors, sir. No hotel in Boston has fifty floors. That is the telephone extension number.»
«It don’t make no sense. In any decent hotel the room number is the phone number!»
«Not necessarily.»
«Why not? How can a person know where it is?»
«Good point,» agreed the clerk. «You yourself might illustrate it.»
«Illustrate what, boyo?»
«The point, sir… The house phones are over on that ledge.»
Bewildered, Harry Milligan turned and hurried toward the bank of telephones on a marble counter attached to the wall. He picked one up and dialed rapidly. The line was busy.
«This is your Washington surveillance,» said MacKenzie Hawkins into the phone, lowering his voice and speaking softly, urgently.