«But can you do that?» asked the ice-cold, Paris-bound Froggie. «You haven’t done much else right.»
«It’s practically done,» replied the Secretary, his left eye completely stable for once. «That dreadful man they arrested in Boston, Caesar the Unpronounceable, is currently in a State Department sterile house clinic in Virginia, being—as they say—‘shot to the moon’ with a truth serum. Before the day is over, we’ll know everything he knows. And Smythie, I think you should go to work immediately.»
«It … can be arranged.»
Algernon Smythington-Fontini got out of his limousine at a most unlikely place. It was a run-down gas station on the outskirts of Grasonville, Maryland, a relic of the days when local farmers would fill up their trucks in the early mornings and spend several hours grousing with one another about the weather, the falling market prices, and most of all, the invading agro industries that were their death knell. Smythie nodded at the owner-attendant, who sat in a dilapidated wicker chair by the front door. «Good afternoon,» he said.
«Hi ya, fancy fella. Go right inside and use the phone… Leave your money on the counter as usual, and, as usual, I never saw you before in my life.»
«Diplomatic security, you understand, old man.»
«Tell your wife, not me, pal.»
«Impudence doesn’t become your position.»
«Hey, I got no problem with that—any broad, any position—»
«Really!» Smythington-Fontini proceeded to go inside the small gas station. He walked to his left, where there was a cracked Formica counter smudged with grease; there was also a decades-old black telephone. He picked it up and dialed. «I trust the time is convenient,» he said.
«Ah, Signor Fontini!» replied the voice on the other end of the line. «To what do I owe the honor? I trust everything goes well in Milano.»
«Exceedingly, as in California.»
«I’m happy we can be of service.»
«You won’t be happy to learn what has been decreed. Among other ugliness, it’s irrevocable.»
«Come now, what could be so serious for such words?»
«Esecuzione.»
«Che cosa? Chi?»
«Tu.»
«Me?… Sons of bitches!» roared Vincent Mangecavallo. «Slimeball tutti-frutti bastards!»
«We must discuss arrangements. I suggest a boat or a plane, leaving open a return.»
An apoplectic Vinnie the Bam-Bam furiously punched the buttons on his concealed telephone in the lower right-hand drawer of his desk. Twice he drew blood on his knuckles, as he misjudged the sharp wooden edges of the side panels. He barked the number of the hotel room he had to reach.
«Yeah?» said Little Joey the Shroud sleepily.
«Get off your fuckin’ butt, Joey, the whole scenario got changed!»
«What are you talkin’?… Is this you, Bam-Bam?»
«You can bet the fuckin’ graves of your ancestors in Palermo and Ragusa! The fuckin’ fairies in their silk underwear just ordered my esecuzione! After all we done for ’em!»
«You gotta be kiddin’! Maybe it’s a mistake. They talk in such polite language you can never tell when they want a shiv in your back or a pair of lips on your—»
«Basta!» yelled the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. «I heard what I heard and it’s gold!»
«Holy shit! Wadda we do?»
«Stay cool, Little Joey. I’m gonna disappear for a while, maybe a week, maybe two—we’re working out the particulars—but right now, you got a new assignment. And you gotta do it right, Joey!»
«On my mother’s grave—»
«Try someone else. Your momma did too much time.»
«I got a niece. A nun—»
«She got thrown out of the convent, remember? She and the fuckin’ plumber!»
«Awright, awright! My aunt Angelina … she died after eating clams at Umberto’s, and never was there a holier person. On her grave!»
«She was so fat she took up six plots—»
«But she was holy, Bam-Bam, really holy! The Rosary every hour of the day.»
«She didn’t have nothin’ else to do or do it with, but I accept your Aunt Angelina. You ready to swear on that holy grave?»
«I swear on the threat of demonic possession, which is a big fuckin’ thing with these gibrones in New York… Sometimes I think those Irish clowns don’t have both oars in the water.»
«It’s good enough,» pronounced Vincent Francis Assisi Mangecavallo. «I accept your silence on what I am about to tell you.»
«And I will thank God for your guidance, Bam-Bam. Who do I cause to have his life cut short?»
«The opposite, Little Joey. You keep them alive!… I want you should set up a conference with this Thunder Head and his associates. I am suddenly very much a champion of their cause. Such minorities have been trampled upon too much and too often. It’s intolerable.»
«You gotta be outta your fuckin’ mind!»
«No, Little Joey, they are.»
15
The door of the Ritz-Carlton suite crashed open as Desis One and Two in their white ties and tails lurched into the room, prepared to do battle. Devereaux dropped his martini and Jennifer Redwing spun out of her chair, plummeting to the floor, genetically, perhaps, anticipating the worst from the white man.
«Well done, adjutants!» roared the buckskinned MacKenzie Hawkins, striding into the suite, followed by a perplexed Aaron Pinkus. «There’s no hostile action in evidence so you may stand to. At ease—casual positions are acceptable.» The Desis First and Second slouched. «Not that casual, Sergeants!» Instantly, D-One and D-Two stood erect. «That’s better,» admonished the Hawk. «Eyes alert! Assault tactics at the ready!»
«Wad chu mean now?» asked Desi the First.
«Instant submission is the first sign of counterattack. Forget the tall skinny one; he’s useless, but watch the female! They frequently carry grenades under their skirts.»
«You antediluvian son of a bitch!» yelled Redwing, getting to her feet and angrily smoothing her hair and her dress. «You barbarian! You bellowing relic from a fifth-rate war movie, who the hell do you think you are?»
«Guerrilla tactics,» said Mac under his breath to his adjutants. «The second phase after submission is loud verbal abuse—that’s when they distract your concentration and pull the pins.»
«I’ll pull your pin right out of its hairy recess, you walking junk bond! And how dare you wear those clothes? You look like a refugee from a Shriner’s convention, you horse’s ass!»
«You see, y’see?» muttered the Hawk, mangling the cigar in his mouth. «She’s trying to distract me now—watch her hands, men. Those knockers she’s got are probably plastic explosives.»
«I’ll find out, Heneral!» cried Desi the First, his eyes focused properly on the targets as his starched shirt whipped up out of place. «Wad chu think?»
«You take one step toward me,» said Redwing, lowering her shoulders and grabbing the strap of her purse from the chair, then suddenly, snapping it open with her left hand and removing the cylinder of Mace with her right. «… you’ll be blinded for a month,» she completed, waving her weapon back and forth between the two formally clothed subordinates and their Wopotami-dressed superior. «Try me and you won’t merely make my day, you’ll make my week.»