The Road to Omaha (11 page)

“Well, yes. He wasn’t well and … well, that’s another part of the story, but Zio was smarter than any of us. I mean he was really
with
it.”

“How did it
happen
, Sam? It was because of this lunatic General MacKenzie Hawkins, wasn’t it? He’s in all these photographs.
He
was the one who made you become the most unknown notorious kidnapper in the history of the
world
! Am I even reasonably accurate?”

“You might say that. Then again you might not.”

“How, Sam?
How
?” pleaded the elderly attorney, as he picked up a copy of
Penthouse
from the coffee table and began waving it in front of the comatose face of Eleanor Devereaux.

“There are some excellent articles in that magazine.… very academic.”

“Sammy, I beg you, do not
do
this to me, or to your lovely mother here, who bore you in pain, and at this moment may be in need of ministrations beyond our capabilities. In the name of the Lord God of Hosts, to whom I shall vigorously protest in temple on tomorrow’s Sabbath, what
possessed
you to be a part of this monstrous act?”

“Well, actually, Aaron, ‘possessed’ is a fairly accurate
description of the alleged—I restate, the
alleged
—criminal enterprise to which you refer.”

“I don’t have to ‘refer,’ Sam, I simply point to these very specific articles of evidence on your walls!”

“Yes, well, actually, Aaron, they’re not entirely conclusive—”

“You want I should subpoena the
Pope
?”

“Vatican executive privilege wouldn’t permit it.”

“These photographs
alone
would obviate the rules of evidentiary procedure! I’ve taught you
nothing
?”

“Pick Mother’s head up, please.”

“It’s better she’s out, Sam. What was this ‘possessed’?”

“Yes, well, actually, Aaron, without any intent on my part, I walked out of the army intelligence G-Two computer banks with copies of maximum-classified files chained to my wrist twenty-four hours before my discharge.”

“So?”

“Well, you see, Aaron, as MacKenzie Hawkins’s attorney-of-record, I had to accompany him to his final Six-thirty-five resolution of all the classified intelligence reports relative to his military career, from World War Two through Southeast Asia.”

“
So
?”

“Well, you see, Aaron, that’s when Mac’s friends in the army intruded on the procedure. I’d made a minor mistake in the Golden Triangle and instituted charges against a certain General Ethelred Brokemichael for dealing in drugs, when it actually was his cousin Heseltine Brokemichael, and Ethelred’s supporters were mad as hell, and since they were all friends of Mac Hawkins, they rallied around the Hawk and played his game.”

“What
game
? Heseltine … Ethelred! Drugs, Golden Triangle! So you made a mistake, you withdraw the indictment. So?”

“It was too late. The military’s worse than Congress. Ethelred didn’t get his three stars, and his buddies blamed it on me and helped Mac.”

“
So
?”

“One of those bastards chained a briefcase on my wrist, slapped a max-security label on it, and I signed out with
two thousand six-hundred forty-one copies of top-secret files on my person, the majority of which had nothing to do with Mac Hawkins, who stood innocently at my side.”

Aaron Pinkus closed his eyes and sank back on the small settee, his shoulder touching the totally dazed Eleanor Devereaux. “So you were his for the immediate future—roughly five months.” Aaron cautiously opened his eyes.

“Either that or have my discharge postponed indefinitely … or I’d spend twenty years in Leavenworth.”

“Then the money came from the ransom—”

“What money?” interrupted Sam.

“The money you spent so lavishly on this house … hundreds of thousands of dollars! It was your share of the ransom, wasn’t it?”

“What ransom?”

“For Pope Francesco, naturally. When you released him.”

“We didn’t get any ransom. Cardinal Ignatio Quartz refused to pay.”

“Cardinal
who
?”

“It’s another story. Quartz was happy with Guido.”

“
Guido
?”

“You’re shouting, Aaron,” murmured Eleanor.

“Guido Frescobaldi,” answered Devereaux. “Zio’s look-alike cousin; he was an extra in La Scala’s third opera company and sometimes got to play small parts.”

“
Enough
!” The celebrated attorney took several deep breaths, doing his best to find some self-control. Lowering his voice, he spoke as calmly as possible. “Sam, you returned home with a great deal of money that did not come from a deceased wealthy Devereaux. Where did it come from, Sam?”

“Well, actually, Aaron, as a general partner, it was my pro rata share of the remaining capitalization initially raised for the corporation.”

“What corporation?” asked Pinkus, his quiet voice floating and barely audible.

“The Shepherd Company.”

“The Shepherd …?”

“Like in the Good Shepherd.”

“Like in the Good Shepherd,” repeated Aaron, as if in a trance. “Money was raised for this corporation—”

“Actually, in increments of ten million dollars per investor, said investors restricted to four and forming a limited partnership with the general partners, their individual risks naturally limited to the capital ventured and based on projections anticipating a ten-to-one return on their investments.… Actually, none of the four investors cared to be legally acknowledged and preferred to consider their investments as charitable contributions in exchange for anonymity.”

“Anonymity …? Forty million dollars’ worth of
anonymity
?”

“Actually, that was pretty much guaranteed. I mean, where could I possibly file the papers of incorporation, Aaron?”

“
You
? You were
counsel
for this travesty of a business enterprise?”

“Not by choice,” protested Devereaux. “
Never
by choice.”

“Oh, yes, those two-thousand-plus intelligence files you walked out with. No discharge. Leavenworth.”

“Or worse, Aaron. Mac said there were ways less public than a firing squad if Pentagon public relations ruled out an execution.”

“Yes, yes, I understand.… Sam, your dear mother here, who mercifully is in a state of shock, mentioned that you told her your money came from religious artifacts—”

“Actually, as was clearly stated in the bylaws of the limited partnership, the primary function of the corporation was the ‘brokering of
acquired
religious artifacts.’ I covered it rather nicely, I thought.”

“Dear
God
,” exclaimed Pinkus, swallowing. “And naturally the ‘acquired’ religious artifact in question was the person of Pope Francesco the First, whom you
kidnapped
.”

“Well, actually, Aaron, that’s not really legally sound, much less conclusive. The allegation itself might even be considered libelous.”

“What are you
saying
? Look at your walls, the
photographs
!”

“Actually, I might suggest that you—you, Aaron—look at them again. Legally speaking, kidnapping is defined as abduction by force or coercion and holding a person or personages against their will, their being freed subject to the payment of funds. Although, as I’ve acknowledged, a preliminary strategy had been meticulously financed and was in place to implement such an objective, the strategy failed and would have been aborted but for the voluntary—I might say enthusiastic—cooperation of the subject. And those photographs hardly depict the subject in question to be under any constraints whatsoever. In fact, he appears to be content and in excellent spirits.”

“
Sam
, you belong in a room made of thick sponge rubber! Hasn’t the enormity of what you did made even a dent in your moral armor?”

“The crosses I bear are heavy, indeed, Aaron.”

“That’s not the most appropriate allusion you could employ.… I don’t really want to know, but how did you ever get—
him
—back to Rome?”

“Mac and Zio worked it out. The Hawk called it a ‘very back-channel’ mission, and Zio began singing opera.”

“I’m exhausted,” whispered Pinkus. “I could only wish this day never happened, that I had not heard a word uttered in this room and that my sight had deserted me.”

“How do you think I feel every day of my life? The eternal love of my life is gone, but I’ve learned something, Aaron. Life
must
go on!”

“How uniquely phrased.”

“I mean it, it’s
over
. It’s all in the past, and in a way, I’m glad today
did
happen. Somehow, it’s freed me. Now I have to get off my ass and charge ahead, knowing that slugworm son of a bitch can never touch me again!”

And, of course, the telephone rang.

“If that’s the office, I’m in temple,” said Pinkus. “I’m not prepared for the outside world.”

“I’ll get it,” said Sam, rising and heading for the desk as the phone rang again. “Mother’s up here—sort of—and it’s better Cora doesn’t answer. You know, Aaron, now that it’s all out in the open, I really feel better. With your support, I
know
I can charge ahead and face new challenges, find new horizons—”

“Answer the damn thing, Sammy. My head is splitting.”

“Oh, yes, of course, sorry.” Devereaux picked up the phone, greeted whoever was on the line, paused for a reply, and then proceeded to scream hysterically, with such uncontrollable frenzy that his mother bolted up from the settee, shot over the oval coffee table, and ended up splayed out on the floor.

“
Sammy
!” shouted Aaron Pinkus, dashing back and forth between the unconscious Eleanor and her son, who was now, in an outburst of panic, ripping down every framed photograph he could reach on the walls and smashing them down on the floor. “Sam, get
hold
of yourself!”

“
Slugworm
!” screamed Devereaux. “Maggot of the universe, the most despicable human being on the face of the
earth
! He has no
right
—”

“Your
mother
, Sammy. She may be
dead
!”

“Forget it, she wouldn’t know how,” replied Devereaux, racing to the wall behind the desk and continuing his assault on the myriad photos and newspaper clippings. “He’s sick, sick,
sick
!”

“I didn’t say sick, Sam, I said
dead
,” continued Aaron, kneeling painfully and holding the mother’s quivering head firmly, hoping his ruse might have an effect on the son. “You really should show some concern.”

“
Concern
? Has he ever shown
me
any concern? He tears my life apart then steps on the pieces, grinding them into the dirt! He rips my heart out and blows it up into a balloon—”

“I didn’t say
he
, Sam, I said
she
! Your
mother
.”

“Hello, Mother, I’m busy.”

Pinkus withdrew the beeper from his pocket and held his finger down on the signal button; then he kept pressing it in bursts. His driver, Paddy Lafferty, would somehow get the message of
emergency:
He
had
to.

He did. In moments, Paddy could be heard crashing through the east wing entrance, ordering Cousin Cora in his most commanding sergeant’s roar to get out of his way or he’d throw her to a bunch of war-weary drunken infantrymen looking for a little feminine amusement.

“It’s no threat, Mick!”

Sam Devereaux was tied to the chair behind his desk, his arms and legs bound with sheets torn from his bed and ripped with abandon by the once and former Sergeant Patrick Lafferty of Omaha Beach, World War II. Ripped, that was, after he had cold-cocked Sam and found the bedroom. Devereaux shook his head while blinking and attempted a semblance of his voice. “Five drug addicts attacked me,” he offered.

“Not exactly, Sam boyo,” said Paddy, holding a glass of water to the lawyer’s lips. “Unless you consider a touch of Bushmills in that category, which I don’t advise you to do in old Southie, or even in O’Toole’s saloon.”

“
You
did this to me?”

“I had no choice, Sam. When a man goes over the edge of combat fatigue, you bring him back however you can. It’s no disgrace, boyo.”

“You were in the army? In
combat
…? You were with MacKenzie
Hawkins
?”

“You know that
name
, Sam?”

“
Were
you?”

“I never had the privilege of meetin’ the great general personally, but I seen him! For ten days in France he took over our division, and I tell you this, laddie, Mac the Hawk was the finest commanding officer the army ever had. He made Patton look like a ballet dancer, and frankly I kinda liked old George, but he just wasn’t in the Hawk’s league.”

“I’m
screwed
!” screamed Devereaux, straining at the
binding sheet strips. “Where’s my mother … where’s
Aaron
?” he asked suddenly, glancing around the empty room.

“With your mother, boyo. I carried her to her bedroom. Mr. Pinkus is administering a little brandy to help her sleep.”