The Road to Omaha (32 page)

“They’re not actually one and the same, you know. Christ and the Pope, I mean. Remember, I’m Anglican, although I can’t specifically recall when I last went to church. Early teens, I think—”

“I don’t give a
damn
whether you’re Anglican or a moon drop from a Tibetan zodiac, you are
certifiable
, Counselor! You have no right walking the streets, much less—much,
much
less—being an officer of the court!”

“You’re hostile,” observed Devereaux.

“I’ve gone completely out of my mind! You make my maximum-nut brother Charlie look like Oliver Wendell Holmes!”

“I’ll bet we’d get along.”

“Oh, sure, I can see it now. Redwing and Devereaux—”

“
Devereaux
and Redwing,” interrupted Sam. “I’m older and more experienced.”

“—the law firm that set all manner of jurisprudence back to the Stone Age!”

“Probably a lot clearer then,” said Sam, nodding. “They couldn’t chip out all those codicillary phrases on the rocks.”

“Be
serious
, you idiot!”

“An idiot I’m not, Red. A playwright once said that there comes a time when there’s nothing left to do but scream. I’m simply substituting an ironic chuckle for a shriek.”

“You’re referring to Anouilh, and he also said ‘bearer of life, give light,’ and
I
substitute ‘law’ for ‘life’—which for a few moments in your house I thought you believed, too. We must give light, Sam.”

“
You
know about Anouilh? I thought I was the only person I knew who—”

“He was never a practicing attorney in Paris,” interrupted
Jennifer, “but he loved the law—especially the language of the law—and he turned a great deal of it into poetry.”

“You scare me, Indian lady.”

“I
hope
so. We’ve got a very scary problem on the docket, Counselor.”

“I don’t mean Mac’s megamess, although you’re right, it’s scary as hell. But somehow—don’t ask me how—I think we’ll muddle through, at least with our lives if not our sanity intact.”

“I’m glad you’re so confident,” observed Redwing. “I’m not, on either point.”

“ ‘Confident’ is the wrong word, Red. Let’s say I’m fatalistic because the fates will probably be on our side if for no other reason than the combine of Aaron Pinkus and MacKenzie Hawkins, two of the most resourceful men I’ve ever known, are running interference for us. And if I’m called off the bench, I’m not exactly inadequate myself.”

“Then you’ve lost me. What
were
you talking about?”

“You, lady.… In the space of a few hours, from a crazy moment in an elevator to this hotel suite, we’ve gone through quite a bit.”

“That may be the understatement of your professional career,” Redwing broke in quickly, quietly, her eyes still glaring.

“I know, I know, but something happened—”

“Has it
really
?”

“To me,” completed Sam. “I’ve watched you in what the psychology boys would probably call moments of extreme stress, and I like what I saw, respect what I saw. You can learn an awful lot about a person under those kinds of circumstances.… You can discover wonderful things, beautiful things.”

“This is getting a little saccharine, Mr. Devereaux,” said Jennifer, “and I’m very sure it’s not the time for it.”

“But it is the time, don’t you see? If I don’t say it now when I feel it so strongly, I might not say it later. It may just slip away and I don’t want that to happen.”

“Why? Because the memory of—what was it your mother said?—oh, yes, the ‘eternal love of his life,’ some
benevolent nun who ran away with the
Pope
, has come back to you? That’s only another crooked house on a crooked mile in cuckooville!”

“That’s part of what I’m saying,” insisted Sam. “Because that memory’s fading, I can feel it, sense it. Only last night I wanted to kill Mac for even mentioning her name, but now it doesn’t matter, at least I don’t think it does. I look at you and I can’t see her face any more, and that tells me something pretty goddamned important.”

“Are you telling me there actually
was
such a person?”

“Yes.”

“Counselor, I’ve got to be in the middle of a horror movie that has exhausted my popcorn, half of it sticking to a gum-laden floor.”

“Welcome to the world of MacKenzie Hawkins, Counselor. And don’t get up from your seat, because if the greasy popcorn doesn’t make you slip down on your ass, you’ll lose your shoes to the gum.… Why do you think your brother beat feet? Why do you think I did everything within the power of the very powerful Aaron Pinkus to avoid getting mixed up with the mad Hawk again?”

“Because it
is
total madness,” answered the bronze-skinned Aphrodite, her eyes softening. “Yet your brilliant Mr. Pinkus—and I concede that brilliance, because I know something about him—has
not
cut off the mad general. He’s apparently in constant touch with him,
working
with him, when we both know he could sever the relationship with one call to Washington, exonerating himself from any association whatsoever by simply stating that he never sought it.… And
you
, I watched you on the phone in the car; you were beside yourself with anxiety, no matter your feeble disclaimers.
Why
, Counselor? What hold does this creature have on you, on
both
of you?”

Sam lowered his head, his eyes roaming within an imaginary circle of his shoes. “The truth, I guess,” he said simply.

“What
truth
? It’s chaos!”

“Yeah, there’s that, too, but underneath there’s truth. Like with Pope Francesco. It started off as the biggest scam in the history of the world, as Aaron called it, but down below there was something else. That beautiful man
was being hamstrung by self-righteous people around him, men more interested in power than in progress. Uncle Zio wanted to widen the doors opened by John the Twenty-third, and they wanted to shut them. That’s why Zio and the Hawk became such friends in the Alps. Why they did what they did.”

“The
Alps
! What they
did
?”

“Easy, Counselor. You asked and I’m answering with a limited response. The Alps aren’t important, it could have been an apartment in Jersey City. What is important is the truth, and that’s Mac’s insidious trap. Through whatever circuitous routes his mind travels, he arrives somehow at a fundamental truth, always, I grant you, with a terrific scam.… Your people were
raped
, lady, and he’s produced what appears to be irrefutable evidence of that assault. Sure, there’s millions to be made by bringing even that appearance to judicial light, and more millions spread around by those refuting the evidence, but there’s no way we can deny his basic premise if his sources are authentic.… I can’t, Aaron can’t, and finally, you can’t.”

“But I
want
to deny it! I don’t want my people put through this wringer! Many are quite old and many, many more are ill-equipped by lack of education to deal with these complexities. They’d only get confused, undoubtedly corrupted by special interests, and in the end,
hurt
. It’s wrong!”

“Oh, I see,” said Sam, sitting back on the couch. “Let’s keep the happy darkies down on the plantation, singing their spirituals and driving the mules.”

“What are you saying? How
dare
you say that to me!”

“
You
just said it, Indian lady. You got out of there, and from your exalted professional perch in San Francisco you decree that the underlings are not fit to break the chains that keep them under.”

“I never said they weren’t fit, I said they weren’t
ready
! We’re building another school, hiring the best teachers we can afford, appealing to the Peace Corps, and sending more and more children off the reservation for better educations. But it’s not all done overnight. You can’t change a disenfranchised people into a politically aware society in a month or two, it takes years.”

“You don’t have years, Counselor, you’ve got right now. If you let this chance, as slim as it is, to right a vindictive wrong slip away, it’s not going to come around the bend again. Mac was right about that; it’s why he’s handled it the way he has—every weapon in place and concealed, the high command out of reach but still very much in control.”

“What does that gobbledygook mean?”

“I suppose the Hawk would call it something like Delta Strike Force, Zero Hour Shock.”

“Oh, of course. Now I understand completely!”

“Surprise attack, Red. No prior notice, no newspaper or media coverage of any kind, no attorneys proclaiming their march to the Court—everything stiletto-quick and quiet.”

“Catching everyone off guard …,” concluded Jennifer, now beginning to understand.

“Exactly,” said Devereaux. “Forget the odds, say they just get a single swing vote, there’s no appeal to a Supreme Court decision, only a legislative correction by changing the rules, the laws.”

“And Congress, even galvanized, has the speed of a turtle,” completed the lady lawyer. “Thus leaving your crazy Hawk in the catbird seat.”

“Thus leaving the Wopotamis in the same chair,” amended Devereaux. “It’s called write-your-ticket time.”

“It could also be called an express elevator to hell,” said Redwing, getting up and walking to the hotel window overlooking Boston’s Public Garden. “It can’t happen, Sam,” she continued, shaking her head slowly. “They couldn’t handle it. The carpetbaggers in their limousines and Lear jets would descend on them like an army of pterodactyls, parading Bacchus and his Bacchae in numbers they couldn’t walk away from.… And I couldn’t stop them, none of us could stop them.”

“
Us
?”

“There’s about a dozen of us, kids the Council of Elders decided were
ogottowa
—smarter than the others, is the easiest translation, although it goes deeper—who were given opportunities not available to the other children. We’re all doing pretty well, and except for three or four who couldn’t wait to assimilate and buy their BMWs, we get together and look after the tribe’s interests. We do our
best, but even we couldn’t protect them from this kind of Olympian spoils of law.”

“We’re very Greek today, aren’t we?”

“I wasn’t aware of it. Why?”

“I don’t know. Some Greek is walking around in my best J. Press blazer. Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Yes you did. You’re trying to figure out how to answer me.”

“Quick, very quick, Counselor.… Yes, I am, and I think I can. Am I correct in assuming that you’re the top gun of this specially chosen dozen?”

“I suppose so. I’m very committed and I’m in a position to advise legally.”

“Then use that expertise before the fact,
if
the fact ever becomes a reality.”

“In what way?”

“How many others of the tribal whiz kids can you trust?” answered Sam with another question.

“My brother Charlie, of course, when he’s got his head straight … perhaps six or seven others who I don’t think could be bought into Alice in penthouse-land.”

“Then form an irrevocable corporate trust, signed by each member of your Council of Elders, stating that no tribal business of an economic nature may be transacted or committed through any persons other than those constituting the executors of the aforesaid trust.”

“That opens us up to collusion prior to an anticipated legal action,” objected Redwing.

“What action? Have you been formally apprised of any legal action?”

“You’re damned right I have. By my brother Charlie the nut, and my new acquaintance, Sam of the sotted trousers.”

“So lie a little. It’s either that or an express elevator to hell.” Redwing walked back toward the desk; she paused, her hands on her hips, her head arched to the ceiling in thought. It was a provocative stance instantly provoking Devereaux. “Do you have to do that?” he asked.

“Do what?” replied the Aphrodite of the Wopotamis, her eyes leveled at Sam.

“Stand like that.”

“Like what?”

“You may be a daunting lady, but you don’t have an excess of testosterone.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You’re not a man.”

“You’re damned right I’m not.” Redwing briefly surveyed her upright frontage. “Oh, come on, Counselor, get off it. Concentrate on your nun.”

“Do I detect a note of jealousy? It’d be the best sign I could hope for.” Sam instantly began an impoverished rendition of the song. “
Jell-loos-see, I hear you my jell-loos-see
.…”

“For God’s sake, shut up!… It’s something Charlie could do.”

“I hope not.”

“What?”

“Never mind. What could Charlie do?”

“Form the corporate trust,” said Redwing, going to the desk and picking up the phone. “He can use my secretary and fax everything out, have it all wrapped up in a day.”

“
Hey,
” shouted Devereaux, jumping up from the couch, “you dial, but can I act like your secretary at
this
end?”

“Why?”

“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.”