«Afy doctors do, ’cause they don’t know a fucking thing about medicine!»
«I’d get a second, maybe a third, opinion—»
«General, please! It’s what I explained before. Certain parties expect me to be cold chopped liver within a day or two, and that’s the way it’s got to be—maybe I should say that’s the way it’s got to look—because while I’m dead I can operate on your behalf as well as my own.»
«I’m not much of a religious man,» concluded the Hawk pensively. «Frankly, I’ve seen too much blood spilled by all those fanatics who say they’ll kill everybody who doesn’t believe the way they do. History’s full of that shit, and I don’t go along with it. We all came from the same slime that crawled out of the water, or the same lightning bolt that put a primitive brain in our heads. So nobody’s got a right to claim exclusivity.»
«Is this a long story, General? Because if it is, we don’t have time.»
«Hell, no, it’s short. If you’re dead, Commander, you’re sure as snow isn’t pea-green going to operate from that grave of yours. Somehow I can’t figure you to be a candidate for resurrection.»
«Jesus Christ!»
«Even if He was, you’re not, soldier.»
«I won’t be dead, General—I’m simply gonna disappear like I was dead, capisce?»
«Not entirely.»
«Like I said, we’re working on it. It’s vital that my enemies—your enemies—think I’m out of the scenario.»
«What scenario?»
«The one that’s got your dead ass, and the dead asses of everybody that’s involved in your Wopotami bullshit!»
«I take exception to that remark, sir.»
«Wrong word, I swear it on—oh, forget it! I mean your crusade for a wronged people, how does that grab you?»
«Clearer in the gun sight, Commander.»
«You see, while I’m supposedly dead and out of the scenario, I got my capos supremos working on Wall Street. They’re gonna inflate those SAC stocks to the multibillion fuckin’ zenith on the basis of sudden Pentagon reversals where Omaha’s concerned, and then you walk into that Supreme Court and they all crash—like a nuclear bomb on all their loans, which are based on projections, and the country club boys, who can’t pay their bills, are cleaning urinals in Cairo! You dig, General? We both get what we want!»
«I sense a certain hostility toward those people.»
«So should you, Thunder Head! They want us in dirt—all of us!… We’ll coordinate through Little Joey. Stay in touch with him.»
«I should tell you, Commander, and I say this in front of Joseph. I really believe he’s been abusing the per diem allocations. The only way you can reach him is when he’s not calling room service, which is most of the time.»
«Shithead!» roared Joey the Shroud.
THE WASHINGTON POST
DIRECTOR OF CIA FEARED LOST AT SEA
Coast Guard Reveals Futile 18-Hour Search in Waters Off Florida Keys. Private Yacht Caught in Storm
Key West, Aug. 24—Vincent F.A. Mangecavallo, director of the Central Intelligence Agency and guest aboard the yacht Gotcha Baby, is believed to have perished at sea along with the captain and crew of the 34-foot craft that left its Key West mooring at 6:00 A.M. yesterday on an ill-fated fishing trip. According to meteorologists, a sudden subtropical storm whipped out of the Muertos Cays at approximately 10:30 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, veering almost instantly north, away from the coastline, but directly in the path of the yacht, which had been heading due east toward the coral reef fishing grounds for nearly five hours. The search by Coast Guard aircraft and patrol boats will resume at daybreak, but there is little hope of survivors, as the yacht is presumed to have crashed into the reefs and been destroyed.
Upon hearing the news, the President issued the following statement. «Good old Vincent, a great patriot and a superb naval officer. If he had to go, I’m sure he’d welcome the briny deep as his final resting place. He’s at one with the fishes.»
The Department of the Navy, however, has no record of Mr. Mangecavallo having been a naval officer or even having served in the navy. When apprised of this, the President had a curt remark. «My old buddies should get their files in order. Vinnie served in the Caribbean theater of operations with Greek partisans aboard patrol boats. Golly, gosh, and zing darn, what’s wrong with those new sailors?» The Navy Department had no response.
THE BOSTON GLOBE
FIVE NUDE CULTISTS ARRESTED AT RITZ-CARLTON
Four Found Naked on Roof.
Fifth Assaulted Jogger in Public Garden.
All Claim Gov’t. Immunity. Washington Shocked.
Boston, Aug. 24—In a bizarre series of incidents during which numerous guests of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel claimed to have seen naked figures racing through the corridors at various times, the Boston police cornered four nude unarmed men who had made their way to the roof of the building. Unaccountably, they pleaded for clothing without explaining their nakedness, but nevertheless claiming national security immunity for their efforts in rooting out enemies of the U.S. A fifth naked man was subdued by a Boston jogger, the professional wrestler known as «Jaws» Hammerlocker, who told the police that the assailant tried to rip his sweat suit off him. Inquiries to Washington intelligence circles brought only consternation and swift denials of any involvement whatsoever. A highly placed unidentified source at the State Department, however, did suggest the similarity between the Boston five and a Southern California cult who commits crimes solely in the nude while singing «Over the Rainbow» and brandishing small American flags. «They’re perverts,» said the unidentified spokesman, «otherwise they wouldn’t carry those flags. It’s them all right and we don’t even know who they are. So there!»
17
It was night, and the heavyset man of medium height, wearing dark glasses below an outsized red wig that fell over his ears, made his way down a narrow, dark, gaslit street several blocks from the fishing piers in Key West, Florida. It was a street lined with small Victorian houses crowded close to one another, miniaturized versions of their sister mansions on the shore road. The man studied the numbers on the right side, peering in the semidarkness until he found the address he wanted. Although similar in appearance to those flanking and opposing it, the house was decidedly different in one respect. Whereas the others had lights in the various first-floor and second-floor windows, quaintly subdued by fringed shades and Venetian blinds, this home had only a single dim lamp glowing from a downstairs room obviously near the rear of the small structure. It was part of the visual code; this was the clandestine rendezvous.
The red-wigged stranger to the street walked up the narrow three steps to the porch and approached the door. He rapped on the wooden strips between the stained-glass panels, a prearranged signal that avoided the doorbell—a single knock, pause, four rapid ones, followed by another pause and two more quick taps. Shave … and a haircut … two bits, considered the man, wondering what covert operations genius had thought it up. The door opened, and Vincent Mangecavallo instantly had the answer. The huge rinoceronte standing in the tiny hallway was his sometime courier, aptly nicknamed Meat, as usual wearing a white silk tie, a white shirt, and a black suitcoat.