«You should have thought of that before—»
«But I had nothing to do with it. For God’s sake, don’t destroy the messenger because of the message he brings!»
«That has a familiar ring to it,» said Bricky. «Commie-pinko propaganda, I think.»
«No, I think it’s Japanese,» explained the green-jacketed Moose, «and that’s worse! They say our refrigerators are too big to sell and our cars too large for their streets. Why can’t they build bigger houses and wider streets, the goddamned protectionist bigots?»
«It’s none of those things, old fellows,» cried the Secretary of State. «It’s the truth!»
«What’s the truth?» demanded Froggie.
«The message and the messenger. He bribed waiters and gardeners to install the equipment!»
«What the hell are you talking about, you Benedict Arnold?» shouted Petrotoxic’s Doozie.
«That’s it—that’s him! Arnold!»
«Arnold who?»
«Arnold Subagaloo, the President’s Chief of Staff!»
«Never could get his name straight. Certainly not one of us. What about him?»
«He’s the one who sent the message—through me! What would I know about voice-activated tapes? Good heavens, I can’t even work my damn VCR.»
«What did this Subaru do?» repeated the pale-faced New England banker.
«No, that’s the automobile,» clarified the Secretary. «It’s Subagaloo.»
«Is that the refrigerator?» asked Moose of Monarch-McDowell. «Sub-Igloo’s a damn fine machine and should be in every lousy little Japanese household.»
«No, you’re thinking of Subzero. This is Subagaloo, the Chief of Staff.»
«Oh, that bright fellow from Wall Street?» broke in Smythington-Fontini. «He was very amusing on television a few years back. I thought they might give him his own show.»
«Sorry, Smythie, he’s gone. That was before, with the other President.»
«Oh, yes,» agreed the yachtsman. «The nice fellow from the cinema with the smile my wife went bonkers over—or was it my mistress, or the little chippie in Milan? Frankly, I never understood a word he said when he wasn’t reading something.»
«I’m talking about Arnold Subagaloo, this President’s Chief of Staff—»
«Certainly not one of us, not with that name.»
«He told me to tell you about the tapings of your meetings. He had them made!»
«Why would he do that?»
«Because he’s against anyone or anything that could be a potential threat to the White House,» observed Froggie. «Therefore, during the transition, he projected all manner of conceivable future problems and took appropriate protective measures—»
«In a damned ungentlemanly way!» interrupted Bricky.
«Forcing us to do exactly what we’re doing,» completed the blond cynic, checking his gold Girard-Perregaux wrist-watch. «Eliminate Mangecavallo ourselves, thus removing the problem we, ourselves, created without touching the President… That Subagaloo is one devious son of a bitch!»
«Must be a whale of an executive,» concluded the crested Doozie of Petrotoxic. «Probably sits on a dozen boards.»
«When his term’s over,» added the green-jacketed Moose, «I’d like his résumé. Anyone that devious is heaven-sent.»
«All right, Mr. Secretary,» said the blond Froggie. «My time is limited, and since Smythie’s solved one vital problem, I suggest you address that other difficulty you mentioned before. I refer, naturally, to that insane and obscene brief to the Supreme Court that would turn Omaha over to the Tacobunnies, whoever the hell they are.»
«Wopotamis,» corrected the Secretary. «I’m told they’re a branch of the Hudson Mohawks, who disowned them because they wouldn’t get out of their tepees when it snowed.»
«We don’t give an Indian’s fart who they are or what they did in their filthy igloos—»
«Tepees.»
«Are we back to the refrigerators …?»
«No, he’s the Chief of Staff—»
«I thought he played for Chicago—»
«The Japs are buying Chicago …?»
«Where will they stop? They’ve already got New York and Los Angeles …!»
«They bought the Dodgers …?»
«No, I heard it was the Raiders …!»
«I thought I owned the Raiders…»
«No, Smythie, you own the Rams…»
«Will you all shut up?» shouted Froggie. «I have a meeting in Paris in exactly seven hours… Now, Mr. Secretary, what steps have you taken to kill this ridiculous brief and any public exposure of it? Any public airing would lead to a congressional inquiry and that could take months, every minority-prone freak spewing his intestines across the floors of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The prospect is intolerable! It could cost us billions!»
«Let me give you the bad news first,» replied the Secretary of State, now crashing the palm of his left hand against his head to control his swinging left eye. «Believing we might buy ourselves guaranteed insurance, we employed the finest patriotic sleazeballs in the business to get something on those fruitcake judges who found some merit in that putrid brief. It all came to nothing. We even began to wonder how they managed to get through law school; no group of lawyers is that clean.»
«Did you try Goldfarb?» asked Doozie.
«The first, the first! He gave up.»
«He never gave up in the Superbowl. Of course, he’s Jewish, so I couldn’t ask him to dinner at the Onion Club, but he was a damn fine linebacker… He couldn’t find any dirt?»
«Nothing. Mangecavallo himself told me that Hymie the Hurricane had lost—and I quote—‘most of his marbles.’ He even told Vincent that this Chief Thunder Head was either the Canadian ‘Bigfoot’ or the Himalayan yeti, the Abominable Snowman!»
«The Golden Goldfarb is history,» said the crested CEO of Petrotoxic sadly. «I’m going to sell my ‘Hurricane’, bubble gum cards as soon as possible. Mummy and Daddy always told me to anticipate the market.»
«Please!» roared the blond-haired owner of Zenith Worldwide, once more studying his gold wristwatch and glaring at the Secretary of State. «What, if any, is the good news?»
«Put simply,» answered Pease, his left eye now somewhat in place. «Our soon-to-be deceased director of the CIA has shown us the way. The appellants of the Wopotami brief—namely one Chief Thunder Head and his attorneys—must appear before the Supreme Court for oral interrogation prior to any Court decision.»
«So?»
«He’ll never get there—they’ll never get there.»
«What?»
«Who?»
«How?»
«Vinnie the Bam-Bam used his Mafia connections. We’ll go one better.»
«What?»
«Who?»
«How?»
«We’re going to unleash certain segments of our Special Forces—a number of whom are still in cages—and program them to terminate this Thunder Head and his associates… You see, Mangecavallo—the soon-to-be-the-late Mangecavallo—was right. Eliminate the cause, you eliminate the result.»
«Hear, hear!»
«Good show!»
«Damn fine scenario!»
«And we know that son-of-a-bitch Thunder Head and his Commie associates are in Boston. We just have to find him and his rotten, unpatriotic colleagues.»