The Road to Omaha: A Novel

  Pinkus had pored over the probate rolls and the taxable inheritance records only to discover that there was no such relative and no such bequest. And he knew deep in his religious heart that whatever was plaguing Sam now had something to do with his unexplained affluence. What was it? Perhaps the answer was hidden inside this grand old house. He rang the bell—bass-toned chimes, naturally.

  A full minute passed before the door was opened by a plumpish middle-aged maid in a starched green and white uniform. “Sir?” she said, somewhat more coldly than was necessary, thought Aaron.

  “Mrs. Devereaux,” replied Pinkus. “I believe she’s expecting me.”

  “Oh, you’re the one,” responded the maid, perhaps even more icily, thought Aaron. “Well, I hope you like the damn chamomile tea, Buster, it sure isn’t my taste. Come on in.”

  “Thank you.” The celebrated but less than physically imposing attorney walked into the foyer of Norwegian rose marble, his mental computer estimating its extravagant cost. “And what variety do you prefer, my dear?” he asked pointlessly.

  “A cup laced with rye!” exclaimed the woman, laughing raucously and jabbing her elbow into Pinkus’s frail shoulder.

  “I’ll remember that when we have high tea at the Ritz some afternoon.”

  “That’ll be the Jesus-lovin’ day, won’t it, little fella?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Go on through those double doors over there,” continued the maid, gesturing to her left. “The hoity-toity’s waiting for you. Me, I got work to do.” With that command-cum-explanation, the woman turned and walked without precision across the expensive floor, disappearing beyond the elegantly balustraded winding staircase.

  Aaron approached the closed double doors, opened the right panel, and peered inside. At the far end of the ornate Victorian room sat Eleanor Devereaux on a brocaded white couch, a glistening silver tea service on the coffee table in front of her. She was as he remembered her, an erect, fine-boned woman, with an aging face that must have launched a thousand yachts in its prime, and with large blue eyes that said far more than she would ever reveal.

  “Mrs. Devereaux, how good to see you again.”

  “Mr. Pinkus, how good to see you. Please come and sit down.”

  “Thank you.” Aaron walked inside, conscious of the huge, priceless Oriental rug beneath his feet. He lowered himself into the white brocaded armchair to the right of the sofa, the spot indicated by a nod of Mrs. Devereaux’s aristocratic head.

  “From the rather frantic laughter I heard in the hallway,” said the grand lady, “I gather you’ve met Cousin Cora, our maid.”

  “Your cousin …?”

  “If she weren’t, do you think she’d last five minutes in this house? In a family sense, being more fortunate imposes certain obligations, doesn’t it?”

  “Noblesse oblige, madam. And very nicely said.”

  “Yes, I suppose so, but I wish to hell nobody ever had to say it. One day she’ll choke on the whisky she steals and the obligation will be over, won’t it?”

  “A logical conclusion.”

  “But you’re not here to discuss Cora, are you?… Chamomile tea, Mr. Pinkus? Cream or lemon, sugar or no?”

  “Forgive me, Mrs. Devereaux, but I must resist. An old man’s aversion to volatile oil.”

  “Good! An old woman’s, too. This fourth little dear I fill myself.” Eleanor picked up a Limoges teapot to the left of the silver service. “A fine thirty-year-old brandy, Mr. Pinkus, and its kind of acid couldn’t hurt anybody. I also wash the damn thing myself, so Cora doesn’t get ideas.”

  “My very favorite, Mrs. Devereaux,” said Aaron. “And I shan’t tell my doctor, so he won’t get any ideas.”

  “L’chaim, Mr. Pinkus,” toasted Eleanor Devereaux, pouring them each a good dram and then raising her teacup.

  “À votre santé, Mrs. Devereaux,” said Aaron.

  “No, no, Mr. Pinkus. The Devereaux name may be French, but my husband’s ancestors migrated to England in the fifteenth century—actually they were captured during the battle of Crécy but stayed long enough to raise their own armies and be knighted by the crown. We’re High Anglican.”

  “So what should I say?”

  “How about ‘Up your banners’?”

  “That’s religious?”

  “If you’re convinced He’s on your side, I imagine it is.” They both sipped, and replaced their cups in the delicate saucers. “That’s a good beginning, Mr. Pinkus. And now shall we plunge right into the puzzling issue at hand—namely, my son?”

  “I believe it would be prudent,” nodded Aaron, glancing at his watch. “Right now he’s about to go into a conference entailing an extremely complex litigation that should take the better part of several hours. However, as we both agreed over the telephone, these past months he’s frequently displayed erratic behavior; he might very well leave the conference in midsentence and drive home.”

  “Or go to a museum or a movie or, God forbid, to the airport and take a plane to heaven knows where,” interrupted Eleanor Devereaux. “I’m all too aware of Sam’s impetuous proclivities. Only two Sundays ago I returned from church and discovered a note that he’d left for me on the kitchen table. In it he wrote that he was out and would call me later. He did so during dinner. From Switzerland.”

  “Our experiences are too painfully similar, so I will not take up our time recounting my and my firm’s variations.”

  “Is my son in danger of losing his position, Mr. Pinkus?”

  “Not if I can help it, Mrs. Devereaux. I’ve looked too long and too hard for a successor to give up so easily. But I’d be less than honest if I told you that the status quo was acceptable. It isn’t. It’s not fair to Sam or to the firm.”

  “I’m in total agreement. What can we do—what can I do?”

  “At the risk of presuming on the privilege of privacy, and I do so only out of affection and professional concern of the highest regard, what can you tell me about your son that might shed light on his increasingly enigmatic behavior? I assure you that whatever is said between us will remain in the strictest confidence—as it were, a lawyer-client relationship, although I would never presume to be your attorney of choice.”

  “Dear Mr. Pinkus, a number of years ago I could never presume to approach you to be my attorney of choice. Had I felt that I was capable of paying your fee, I might have salvaged large sums of money owed my husband’s estate after his death.”

  “Oh …?”

  “Lansing Devereaux steered a great many of his colleagues into immensely lucrative situations with the understanding of reasonable participation after their venture capital was recouped. Once he died, only a few honored those agreements, a precious few.”

  “Agreements? Written agreements?”

  “Lansing was not the most precise person when it came to specifics. However, there were minutes of meetings, synopses of business conversations, that sort of thing.”

  “You have copies of these?”

  “Of course. I was told they were worthless.”

  “Your son, Samuel, confirmed that judgment?”

  “I’ve never shown him those papers and I never will.… He had a rather painful adolescence in some regards, no doubt character building, but why open healed wounds?”

  “One day we may go back to those ‘worthless’ papers, Mrs. Devereaux, but at the moment let’s return—to the moment. What happened to your son in the army? Have you any idea?”

  “He had a ‘rather good show,’ as the British say. He was a legal officer both here and overseas and, I’m told, did outstanding work in the Far East. When he was discharged, he was an adjutant in the office of the Inspector General with the temporary rank of major. You don’t do much better than that.”

  “The Far East?” said Aaron, his antennae picking up a nuance. “What did he do in the Far East?”

  “China, of course. You probably wouldn’t remember because his contribution was ‘played down,’ as they say p
olitically, but he negotiated the release of that crazy American general in Beijing, the one who shot the … private parts … off a venerated statue in the Forbidden City.”

  “ ‘Madman’ MacKenzie Hawkins?”

  “Yes, I believe that was his name.”

  “The most certifiable lunatic of the lunatic fringe? The gorilla’s guerilla who almost plunged the entire planet into World War Three? Sam represented him?”

  “Yes. In China. Apparently he did a fine job.”

  Aaron swallowed several times before he found his voice again. “Your son never mentioned any of this to me,” he said barely audibly.

  “Well, Mr. Pinkus, you know the military. So much is hush-hush, as I understand it.”

  “Hush-hush, mush-mush,” mumbled Boston’s celebrated attorney, in his voice a Talmudic prayer. “Tell me, Mrs. Devereaux, did Sammy—”

  “Sam or Samuel, Mr. Pinkus.”

  “Yes, of course.… Did Sam ever mention this General Hawkins to you after his separation from the army?”

  “Not with that title or that name, and never when he was entirely sober.… I should explain that before he was discharged and came back to Boston, somewhat later than we expected, I should add—”

  “Don’t add to me, Mrs. Devereaux. Explain to the deli that supplied fifty pounds of lox why he never showed up.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “It’s insignificant. What were you saying?”

  “Well, a colonel in the Inspector General’s office phoned me and told me that Sam had been put through ‘pressure-point-max’ in China. When I asked him what that meant, he became rather abusive and said that as a ‘decent army wife’ I should understand. And when I explained that I wasn’t Sam’s wife but his mother, that very abusive man said something to the effect that he ‘figured the clown was a little weird,’ and told me that I should expect a couple of months of mood swings and conceivably some heavy drinking.”

  “What did you say to that?”

  “I wasn’t married to Lansing Devereaux without learning a few things, Mr. Pinkus. I know damned well that when a man gets broiled because the pressures become too much, it’s a reasonable petcock to let off steam. Those Janie-come-lately liberated females should give a little in that department. The man still has to keep the lion from invading the cave; that hasn’t changed, and biologically it shouldn’t. He’s the poor fool who has to take the heat—physically, morally, and legally.”

  “I’m beginning to see where Sam gets his acumen.”

  “Then you’d be wrong, Aaron—may I call you Aaron?”

  “With the greatest of my pleasure … Eleanor.”

  “You see, ‘acumen’ or perception or whatever you want to call it can only be useful if there’s imagination first. That’s what my Lansing had, only the macho times restricted my supplying a stronger balance, the supplemental caution, if you like.”

  “You’re a remarkable woman … Eleanor.”

  “Another brandy, Aaron?”

  “Why not? I’m a student in the presence of a teacher of things I have never really considered. I may go home to my wife and fall on my knees.”

  “Don’t overplay it. We like to believe we’re manipulators.”

  “Back to your son,” said Pinkus, sipping his brandy in two swallows rather than one. “You say he didn’t refer to General Hawkins by name or by title, but you implied that he did allude to him … when not necessarily sober, which is perfectly understandable. What did he say?”

  “He’d ramble on about ‘the Hawk,’ that’s what he called him,” mused Eleanor softly, her head arched back in the brocaded sofa. “Sam said he was a legitimate hero, a military genius abandoned by the very people who once praised him as their spokesman, their idol, but who fled from him the moment he became an embarrassment. An embarrassment despite the fact that in his actions he was fulfilling their fantasies, their dreams. But he was doing it for real, and that terrified them, because, again, they knew that their fantasies, if acted upon, might lead to disaster. Like most fanatics who’ve never been in a real fight, they find embarrassment and death unattractive.”

  “And Sam?”

  “He claimed he never agreed with the Hawk, never wanted to be associated with him, but was somehow forced to—how I don’t know. Sometimes when he just wanted to talk, he’d make up incredible stories, pure nonsense, like meeting hired killers at night on a golf course—he actually named a country club on Long Island.”

  “Long Island, as in New York?”

  “Yes. And how he negotiated contracts worth a great deal of money with British traitors in London’s Belgrave Square and with former Nazis on chicken farms in Germany … even Arab sheiks in the desert who were actually slumlords in Tel Aviv and wouldn’t permit Egypt’s army to shell their properties during the Yom Kippur war. Insane stories, Aaron, I tell you they were—are—totally mad.”

  “Totally mad,” repeated Pinkus quietly, weakly, a knot forming in his stomach. “You say, ‘are’? He still tells these crazy stories?”

  “Not as much as he used to, but yes, when he’s terribly distressed or has had that extra martini he didn’t need, and wanders down from his lair.”

  “His lair, like in cave, perhaps?”

  “That’s what he calls it, his ‘château’s lair.’ ”

  “ ‘Château,’ like in a very big house or a castle?”

  “Yes, he even speaks now and then of a great château in Zermatt, Switzerland, and of his ‘Lady Anne’ and ‘Uncle Zio’—pure unadulterated fantasies! I believe the word is ‘nuts.’ ”

  “I sincerely hope so,” mumbled Pinkus.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Oh, nothing. Does Samuel spend much time in his ‘lair,’ Eleanor?”

  “He never leaves it except for an occasional dinner with me. It’s actually the east wing of the house, shut off from the rest of us with its own entrance and facilities—two bedrooms, office, kitchen—the usual amenities. Even his own cleaning service—oddly enough, they’re Muslims.”

  “His own apartment, really.”

  “Yes, and he thinks he has the only keys—”

  “But he doesn’t?” asked Aaron quickly.

  “Good heavens, no. The insurance people insisted that Cora and I should have access. Cora stole his key ring one morning and had duplicates made.… Aaron Pinkus!” Eleanor Devereaux looked into the attorney’s deep-set eyes and saw the message in them. “Do you really think we might learn something by … by going through the château’s lair? Isn’t that illegal?”

  “You’re his mother, my dear lady, and you’re justifiably concerned about his current state of mind. That’s a calling beyond any law. However, before you make that decision, one or two more questions.… This house, this grand old house, has had many splendid things done to it over the past years. From the outside alone, I judged the expenditures to be in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand dollars. Now, seeing the inside, I’d have to place the figure at many times that. Where did the money come from? Did Sam tell you?”

  “Well, not in so many words; that is, not precisely.… He said that while he was in Europe on this very secret mission after his discharge, he invested in some works of art, newly discovered religious artifacts actually, and in a matter of months the market exploded and he did enormously well.”

  “I see,” said Pinkus, the knot in his stomach tightening, but nothing clear, only the rumbling of distant thunder in his mind. “Religious artifacts.… And this ‘Lady Anne’ you say he talked about. What did he say?”

  “It was all pure rubbish. In my son’s delusions, or deliriums, if you will, this Lady Anne, this fantasy of his that he calls the perpetual love of his existence on earth, left him and ran away with a Pope.”

  “Oh, dear God of Abraham,” whispered Pinkus, reaching for his teacup.

  “We of the High Church of England can’t really accept that connection, Aaron. Henry the Eighth aside, the apostasy of any pontiff’s infallibility simply
doesn’t wash. He’s a reasonable, if somewhat pretentious, symbol, but not a scratch more.”

  “I think it’s time you made your decision, dear Eleanor,” said Pinkus, swallowing the rest of his brandy, wishing the spreading pain in his stomach would go away. “To glance over the château’s lair, I mean.”

  “You really think it might help us?”

  “I’m not sure what I think, but I am sure that we’d better.”

  “Come along, then.” Lady Devereaux rose from the couch, a touch unsteadily, and gestured toward the double doors. “The keys are in a flower pot in the foyer. ‘Flower pot in the foyer,’ that’s a hell of a mouthful, isn’t it? Try it backwards, Aaron.”

  “Foyer, flowerflot, flowernot, floyer,” attempted Pinkus, getting to his feet, not entirely sure where they were.

  They approached the thick, heavy door of Samuel Lansing Devereaux’s château’s lair, and Sam’s mother inserted the key with the gentle assistance of the man who was now her attorney of choice. They entered the sanctum sanctorum, walking down a narrow corridor that opened onto a wider hallway, the rays of the afternoon sun streaming through an imposing, seemingly impenetrable glass-paneled door on the left, which was the apartment’s separate entrance. They turned right, and the first open door they came to revealed a darkened room; the Venetian blinds were securely down and closed.

  “What’s in here?” asked Aaron.

  “I believe it’s his office,” replied Eleanor, blinking. “I haven’t been up here since I can’t remember when—probably when the construction was finished and Sam showed me through.”

  “Let’s take a look. Do you know where the lights are?”