«I want to hear the voice of the poor son of a bitch who got suckered into the Hawk’s larceny like I did. Call it perverse, but I did overlook your proposal of marriage. How about it?»
«Be my guest,» said Jennifer, dialing.
«What’s his full name?» asked Sam, standing beside the stunning Indian attorney. «So he knows I’m authentic.»
«Charles … Sunset … Redwing.»
«You’re kidding!»
«He was born during the last rays of the descending sun, and I don’t care to listen to any fatuous comment from you.»
«I wouldn’t dare.» Jennifer completed dialing and handed the phone to Devereaux. After several moments, Sam replied to the quiet «hello» at the other end of the line. «Is this Charles Sunset Redwing?»
«You calling for Eagle Eyes?» said the brother. «Is anything wrong back there?»
«Eagle Eyes?» Devereaux covered the phone with his hand and turned to Jennifer. «He said ‘Eagle Eyes.’ What does that mean? Is it an Indian code?»
«He’s our uncle. You used Charlie’s middle name, which he doesn’t exactly advertise. Let me talk to him.»
«He scares the hell out of me.»
«Charlie? Why? He’s a nice kid.»
«He sounds like me!»
«Two points for the white man,» said Redwing, taking the telephone. «Hello, you jackass, it’s your big sister and you’re going to do precisely what I tell you to do, and don’t you dare make any moves on my secretary or I’ll re-diaper you like I used to do but with a couple of missing parts. Got that, Charlie?»
Sam returned to the couch, then decided against sitting down, opting instead for the suite’s mirrored bar built into the wall and stocked with all manner of spirits. As Red Redwing harangued her brother with instructions, he began producing a large glass pitcher of dry martinis. If there was nothing left to do but scream, he might as well yell half-plastered.
«There!» said Jennifer, replacing the phone and turning, expecting to find Devereaux on the couch, instead shifting her eyes to the bar and the mixologist performing his ritual. «What are you doing?»
«Making pain less painful, I guess,» answered Sam, poking a tiny fork into a jar of olives. «Aaron should be here shortly, and sooner or later Mac also—if he ever gets out of the Four Seasons… It’s not a conference I look forward to. Care for a belt?»
«No, thanks, because that’s what it would be. A heavy belt landing me on the floor. I’m afraid that, too, is part of the genes, so I stay away.»
«Really? I thought that was just a dumb myth—Indians and firewater.»
«Do you think Pocahontas would have looked twice at that scrawny WASP John Smith if she wasn’t tanked? Not with all those cute braves around.»
«I consider that a racist remark.»
«You bet your ass. Leave us something.»
The elegant manager of the exclusive Fawning Hill Country Club on the Eastern Shore of Maryland turned to his assistant as the heavyset man walked through the imposing front entrance and then past them, nodding his acceptance at having been greeted silently, no name mentioned. «Roger, my boy,» said the tuxedoed manager, «you have just witnessed at least twelve percent of the entire wealth of this country walk through those doors.»
«You’re kidding,» said the younger, equally clean-cut subordinate, also in a tuxedo but without the white rose in his lapel.
«Not for an instant,» continued the manager. «It’s a private meeting in the Gold Room with the Secretary of State. No lunch, no drinks other than bottled water, nothing. Very serious. Two men from the State Department arrived an hour ago and swept the room with electronic devices to make sure there were no taps anywhere.»
«What do you figure it is, Maurice?»
«The movers and the shakers, Roger. Inside that room are the heads of Monarch-McDowell Aircraft, Petrotoxic Amalgamated, Zenith Ball Bearings Worldwide, and the Smythington-Fontini Industries, which stretch from Milan, Italy, to California.»
«Wow! Who’s the fifth guy?»
«The king of international bankers. He’s from Boston and holds more purse strings than the Treasury Department.»
«What do you think they’re doing?»
«If I knew, I could probably get rich.»
«Moose!» cried Warren Pease, greeting the owner of Monarch-McDowell Aircraft at the door with a hearty handshake.
«Your left eye’s in orbit, Warty,» said the bull of a man. «Do we have problems?»
«Nothing we can’t handle, sport,» replied the Secretary of State nervously. «Say hello to the crowd.»
«Hi there, old buddies,» said Moose, walking around the table in his honorary green Fawning Hill golf jacket and shaking hands.
«Good to see you, chum,» said Doozie from Petrotoxic Amalgamated, his blue blazer encrested, not with the emblem of a club but with the escutcheon of his family.
«You’re late, Moose,» said the blond-haired Froggie, owner and CEO of Zenith Ball Bearings Worldwide. «And I’m in a hurry. They’ve developed a new alloy in Paris and it could make millions in our defense contracts.»
«Hell, I’m sorry, Frog-face, but I couldn’t change the weather over St. Louis. My pilot insisted on a detour… Hello, Smythie, how are the ladies in Milan?»
«They still pine for you, Moose!» replied Smythington-Fontini. The half-British, half-Italian yachtsman wore his white flannels and his billowing yachtsman’s blouse replete with the ribbons of his yachting triumphs.
«So, Bricky,» said Moose, grasping the extended hand of the Boston banker. «How’s the money pot? You made a bundle out of me last year.»
«Most of it tax-deductible, old chum,» countered the New England banker, smiling. «Would you have it any other way?»
«Hell, no, Brick! You sweeten my coffee every morning… I sit here, right?»
«Right.»
«Right!» insisted Froggie. «I’m in a hurry. Those new alloys in Paris could fall into the hands of German industry. Get with it, Warren.»
«All right, I shall,» said the Secretary of State, sitting down and furiously tapping his left temple to keep his wavering eye in place. «I’ve informed you all by security phones that our good buddy and my old roomie, the President, has put me on top of the Italian problem at the CIA.»
«I suppose somebody has to be,» observed Doozie of Petrotoxic. «The man’s become something of a menace, I understand. The stories of his so-called abusive tactics are practically legend.»
«Yet, since taking office,» said Moose, «he’s been effective. From the day he walked into Langley, our companies haven’t had a serious union problem. Whenever there’s a threat, former colleagues of his show up in limousines and the threats go away.»
«Nice touch, the limousines,» said Doozie, dusting a speck of lint off the family crest on his jacket. «And I must say, he’s been an inspiration, the way he throws around his national security prohibitions at those scruffy environmentalists. Mummy and Daddy would have thought the world of him.»
«And although he’s thoroughly unacceptable socially,» added the aristocrat of Boston merchant bankers, «through his connections with certain offshore institutions, he’s made possible extraordinary extensions of your corporate finances. We’ve all made millions by not paying millions in taxes.»
«Damn decent fellow,» admitted Moose of Monarch-McDowell Aircraft, his jowls jiggling as he nodded his head.
«No question,» concurred Doozie. «He truly understands that the success of his betters can mean the betterment of himself. The real trickle-down theory, indisputably proven.»