Like a gracefully choreographed pavane with somewhat less than graceful dancers, the Milligan-Gilligan brigade began threading through the well-dressed guests in the hotel lobby. Bare arms with tattoos and T-shirts from O’Boyle’s Meats mingled with tropical worsteds and Christian Dior prints, while a swinging combat helmet kept crashing into the stomachs of Brooks Brothers blazers and Adolfo cocktail dresses, all to the growing concern of the entire front desk and the appalled victims in the lobby being assaulted by the offending intruders in their very strange costumes.
Suddenly, a heavyset man with fire in his eyes emerged from an elevator. He looked around and moved quickly to a vantage point near the front entrance where he could obviously survey the lobby. Unseen by him, a tall, gray-haired figure in a buckskin Indian jacket came out of the shadows and sidestepped his way to within several feet of the agitated man.
«¡Caramba!»
«¡Madre de Dios!»
The screaming duet filled the lobby as the two men in cutaways roared at the top of their voices while pointing accusingly at the heavyset man near the entrance.
«¡Homicidio!»
«¡Asesino!»
«¡Criminal!»
«¡Demandaré el policía!»
The stunned, unfriendly-looking gentleman who was the object of the cutaways’ shrieking accusations began to run but was instantly stopped by the tall man in the Indian costume, who hammerlocked the man’s neck and head while jamming his knee up into the base of the accused’s spine.
«That’s him, boyos!» came another roar that echoed off the walls and over the pandemonium of the crowds in the lobby. «It’s the great man himself! Erin go bragh, boyos! Charge in the memory of Saint William Patrick O’Brien!»
And, naturally, the Milligan-Gilligan brigade pummeled through hysterical bodies and fell upon the two Arab terrorists in cutaways.
«Wa chu doing, ole man?» yelled Desi the First, fending off an assault by a fat stranger now wearing a combat helmet.
«Hey, loco jerk!» cried Desi the Second, his foot sending an O’Boyle Meats advocate into a lovely Queen Anne chair that collapsed under his bulk; he gripped the bare arm of Tank Top. «Das a nice lookin’ snake, ole gringo, an’ I don’ wanna hurt it, but chu gotta leave me alone! I got no disputa wid chu!»
«Sergeants!» roared the Hawk, crashing through the collapsing figures around his two extremely adept adjutants. «Commander Pinkus has ordered an evacuation!»
«As quickly as possible,» added Aaron by the door. «The hotel security was filling out stolen property forms in the office, but they’re out of there now and the police have been summoned. Quickly!»
«Wad about the vicioso, Heneral?»
«When he wakes up he’ll have a bad back for a month or two. I wonder if the Mafia has Medicare.»
«Will you three please hurry!»
«H’okay, Comandante,» said Desi-One, looking around at the melee in the lobby. «Hey, Raul!»
«¡Si, Señor Embajador? You freak!»
«We’ll call you later, man! Maybe you wanna join the army wid us, no?»
«Maybe, amigo. It could be safer than this place. ¡Adiós!»
Aaron Pinkus’s Buick coupe raced down Boylston Street and turned around the first corner that would lead them to Arlington and eventually the Ritz-Carlton hotel. «I simply don’t understands» protested the attorney. «Who were they?»
«They were lunatics—old lunatics, senile lunatics!» replied an angry MacKenzie Hawkins, glancing into the backseat. «Did you two suffer any wounds?» he asked.
«You crazy, Heneral? Dose ole men couldn’t steal chickens.»
«What’s that?» yelled the Hawk abruptly as he watched Desi the First place four wallets on the seat between himself and Desi-Two.
«Wad’s wad?» asked D-One, innocently looking up at the general.
«Those are billfolds—wallets—four of them!»
«Ees a big crowd back there,» offered D-Two. «My fren’ don’ work so hard today ’cause he can do lots better.»
«Good Lord,» said Pinkus behind the wheel, a sense of defeat again overwhelming him. «The hotel security … those stolen property reports.»
«You can’t do that, Sergeant!»
«I’m not so lousy, Heneral. Ees only a sideline, as you gringos say.»
«Oh, dear Abraham,» pleaded Aaron softly. «I really must calm myself, my blood pressure is stratospheric.»
«What’s the matter, Commander Pinkus?»
«Let’s just say this hasn’t been a normal working day for me, General.»
«Do you want me to drive?»
«Oh, no, thank you. Driving actually takes my mind off things.» Aaron reached over to the radio and turned it on.
The strains of Vivaldi’s Concerto in D for flute filled the small car, causing Desis One and Two to look at each other in disapproval and Pinkus to breathe steadily, deeply, for a few moments of peace. However, it was only a few moments. Suddenly, the music stopped and the excited voice of an announcer replaced the soothing Vivaldi with a nerve-shattering news flash.
«We interrupt this program to bring you an exclusive bulletin. The Four Seasons Hotel on Boylston Street was only minutes ago the scene of an extraordinary incident. The circumstances have not been clarified, but apparently there was a riot in the hotels lobby causing numerous guests to be jostled and thrown to the ground—fortunately with only minor injuries so far reported. We switch you now by telephone to our correspondent at the scene, Chris Nichols, who was having a late lunch at the hotel—» the announcer paused, involuntarily adding, «Lunch at the Four Seasons? On our salaries …?»
«Not lunch, you idiot!» broke in a second voice, deep and resonant. «My wife thinks I’m in Marblehead—»
«You re ON, Chris!»
«Just kidding, folks … but there was no humor in what took place here barely five minutes ago. The police are trying to unravel the facts and it’s not an easy job. All we know at this moment is that the cast of characters might have come out of a Hitchcock film… A famous Boston lawyer, two Spanish ambassadors, Arab terrorists, a large elderly American Indian with the strength of a buffalo, an odd assortment of World War Two veterans in strange attire and even stranger hallucinations, and finally, a reputed Mafia executioner. Only the first and the last have been identified. They are the renowned attorney Mr. Aaron Pinkus, and one Caesar Boccegallupo, allegedly a capo primitivo in the Borgia family of Brooklyn, New York. The first-named, Mr. Aaron Pinkus, presumably escaped with the two Spanish ambassadors or was taken hostage by the Arab terrorists, depending on whose version one cares to accept. Mr. Boccegallupo is in custody, and according to reports keeps shouting that he insists on speaking to his lawyer, who he claims is the President of the United States. Well, regardless of political parties, we all know the President is not an attorney.»
«Thank you, Chris, thank you for this exclusive report, and good luck in Marblehead with that exciting yacht club regatta—»
«It’s over, you stupid son of a—» The Vivaldi returned but did nothing to lower Aaron Pinkus’s blood pressure.