The Road to Omaha: A Novel

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” she said in a high-pitched, tremulous voice, standing in front of him under the overhanging maple blocking his way.

  “Yes, well … vox populi and all that sort of thing. Some of you aren’t perfect, but that’s the way it goes—”

  “I’d like to confess, Father. I must confess!”

  “That’s probably very commendable, but I don’t think this is the place for it. Besides, I’m in a hurry.”

  “The Bible says that in the eyes of the Lord a desert can be the House of God if a sinner’s spirit wills it.”

  “Hogwash aside, I told you I’m in a hurry.”

  “And I’m telling you to get your ass behind the tree.”

  “Oh, very well, you’re forgiven whatever you’re capable of doing—what did you say?”

  “You heard me, Angel Puss!” whispered the now grotesque harridan, her voice abruptly lower, harsher, as she withdrew a straight razor from the folds of her dress and whipped it open. “Now get behind the tree, or the last thing you’ll worry about is your vow of chastity.”

  “Oh, my God—you’re not a woman, you’re a man!”

  “It’s debatable on both counts, but what I am is a cutter—I love to cut. Now, move!”

  “Please, please don’t hurt me, don’t … oh, my God … don’t cut me!” His whole body trembling, the Secretary of State stepped awkwardly back into the shadows of the tree. “You really shouldn’t, you know. Cutting a priest is a very, very big sin.”

  “I had you marked fifteen minutes ago, Angel Puss,” hissed the man/woman, his or her wrinkled scarlet lips and swollen purple eyelids revolting in the dim light. “You and that ugly rug on your head, you’re a disgrace to honest deviants everywhere!”

  “What …?”

  “How dare you walk around like that? Looking for little boys, you creep? And dressed like a priest? That’s disgusting!”

  “Now, really, madam—mister, whatever you are—”

  “What was that? You insulting me, Snake Face?”

  “On my word, never!” Pease’s left eye was in pivotal-orbit. “I’m only telling you that you don’t understand—”

  “I understand, all right! Creeps like you carry lots of bread in case somebody blows a whistle. Up with it, you pervert!”

  “Money, you mean money? For God’s sake, take everything I’ve got!” The Secretary dug into his pockets and pulled out a number of folded bills. “Here, here, take it!”

  “Take what? That’s chickenshit. I’ll have to slash your pockets before I start the real cutting!” The androgynous monster forced Pease behind the tree. “You make a sound, your lips are on the ground, you dirty, dirty boy!”

  “Please!” begged the Secretary of State. “You don’t know who I am—”

  “But we do!” interrupted the strange, deep voice from the shadows beyond. “All right, Brokey … you, too, Commander Y, disarm the assault! Now!” As one, the elderly West Pointer and the portly middle-aged capo supremo from Brooklyn attacked, the former wrenching the razor away from the hand that clutched it, the latter tackling the legs encased in a wide, flowery skirt.

  “It’s a fuckin’ broad!” yelled Mangecavallo.

  “The hell he is!” shouted Brokemichael, yanking the gray-haired wig off the wrinkle-faced, rough-faced mugger.

  Vinnie the Bam-Bam saw his error instantly, and began pummeling the ugly cosmeticized figure that was falling to the ground. “You no-good piece of rotten mozzarell!” he roared.

  “Let him go, Commander!” ordered the Hawk.

  “Why?” asked Brokey the Deuce. “The scumbag should be behind bars!”

  “With his fuckin’ legs broken!” added the presumably deceased director of the CIA.

  “Are we going to press charges, gentlemen?”

  “What …?” Brokemichael stepped back as Mangecavallo snapped his head up, his red wig once more askew, a sideburn now partially covering his nose, his eyes barely seen. “He’s got a point, Commander whoever-you-are,” said the Deuce.

  “Yeah, well, maybe he does,” agreed Vincent, administering a last knee into the rib cage of the mugger. “Pound sand and get outta here, you lowlife!”

  “Hey, fellas!” shrieked the perpetrator, grinning exuberantly as he grabbed his wig and got to his feet. “You wanna come to my place? We could really have a ball!”

  “Get outta here.”

  “I’m going, I’m going.” Skirt flying, the mugger ran across the lawn and disappeared into the crowds.

  “Oh, my God, oh, my God …!” came the quivering sounds from the prone figure on the ground beside Hawkins, his head facedown in the grass, his hands gripped above his head. “Thank you, thank you! I might have been killed!”

  “Why don’t you turn over and get up and see if you want to live?” said the Hawk gently, reaching into his pocket and withdrawing a tape recorder.

  “What?… What are you talking about?” Slowly, Warren Pease pushed himself off the ground, pivoted painfully on his buttocks, and, from his sitting position, saw first the resplendent uniform on his right, then the face. “Brokemichael! What are you doing here?”

  MacKenzie activated his recorder, and the sound of Brokemichaers voice filled the enclave. “The Secretary of State. He’s the one my Suicidal Six are on the Boston mission for!… That wall-eyed Pease made a hell of a case against you!”

  “Only it wasn’t a legitimate case, was it, Mr. Secretary?” said General Brokemichael as the Hawk turned off the machine. “It was a sacrifice. One exonerated old soldier who could never get out from under that cloud of suspicion and his unit of fine young men. We were as expendable as Mac here, not my closest old buddy, but he doesn’t deserve to be dropped into an arctic ice flow, either.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Perhaps I didn’t introduce him. This is the former General MacKenzie Hawkins, twice winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, who you first tried to have … let’s say ‘neutralized’… and then ordered my unit to kidnap, destination TBDL, ‘to be determined later,’ but definitely north, way far north.”

  “Not too terribly pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Secretary,” said the Hawk. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t offer my hand.”

  “This is insane, absolutely insane! Great issues are at stake, the ultimate strength, the strike force of the nation is in the balance!”

  “And the only way to put it right is to get rid of those complaining?” asked MacKenzie. “You can’t talk, you can only get rid of the nuisances, who, incidentally, have a very legitimate case.”

  “You’re twisting everything! There are other issues, economic issues, gargantuan financial losses—my God, my boat, the Metropolitan Club, my class reunion, the life I deserve, I was born to! You don’t understand!”

  “I do, you smelly prichute,” said Vincent Mangecavallo, walking forward in the dull wash of light. “Like certain people can be useful to you, but you got no use for them!”

  “Who are you? I’ve seen you before, I know your voice, but I can’t… I can’t—”

  “Maybe because my own mother, may she rest in peace in Lauderdale, wouldn’t know me, either, due to my one terrific disguise.” Vinnie removed his red wig and squatted in front of the Secretary of State. “Hello, fazool, how are ya? Maybe your country club boys blew up the wrong boat, wadd’ya think of that?”

  “Mangecavallo!… No, no! I went to your memorial service the other day! You’re gone, you’re dead! This isn’t happening to me!”

  “Maybe it isn’t, you big diplomatico, maybe it’s all a bad dream brought on by the evil in your rotten soul. Maybe I just rose from the arms of Morphine—”

  “Morpheus, Commander Y, Morpheus.”

  “Yeah, him.… Like from the dead across that big river, come back to haunt you pricks who think you’re so superiore, like what goes through your stomachs comes out vanilla ice cream. Yeah, fazool, I’m back from the fishes, and the sharks came with me. They give me respec
t; you never did.”

  “Auggh!” Suddenly, with a shriek that pierced the night and disturbed the floodlit crowds at the Lincoln Memorial, the Secretary of State wriggled like a trapped reptile, sprang to his feet, and raced screaming hysterically across the grounds.

  “I gotta catch that son of a bitch!” yelled Mangecavallo, getting up, but not easily, because of his weight. “He’ll spill everything!”

  “Forget it!” cried the Hawk, tripping the CIA director. “He’s finished, he’s out.”

  “Wadd’ya talkin’? He’s seen me!”

  “It won’t matter. No one will believe him.”

  “Mac, you’re not making sense!” insisted Brokey the Deuce. “Do you know who this man is?”

  “Sure I do, and I’m making sense, too.… So you’re really that Italian fella who ran the Agency?”

  “Yeah, it’s a long story, and I don’t like long stories. I got carried away. Shit!”

  “Melodramatic emotionalism is one of the finest gifts of your race, signore. Think of the great operas—no one could have created them but yourselves. Capisce Italiano?”

  “Sure, I speak.”

  “Lo capirete inoltre.”

  “That’s beautiful, but that cannoli is going to blow apart the whole fuckin’ ball of wax!”

  “No, he’s not, Signor Mangecavallo.… Brokey, do you remember Frank Heffelfinger?”

  “ ‘Finger Frank,’ with his digits on the wrong six-inchers? Who the hell wouldn’t? He blew up the wrong beaches in Wonsan. Naturally, none of us ever say anything, especially now since he’s the President’s clown prince in the navy stag department.”

  “I spoke to Frank. That’s why Pease was here.”

  “So?”

  “The Finger’s waiting by his phone now. He’s got one other call to make. To his buddy, the President.”

  “About what?”

  “About Pease’s state of mind, which is the result of a very strange telephone conversation Frank had with the Secretary this afternoon. After thinking about that call all day, he’s decided to tell his friend in the White House about his concerns.… Come on, we’ve got to find a phone booth. And damn quick, too, I’ve got to catch the shuttle back to New York.”

  “Hey, G.I. Joe!” cried Mangecavallo. “What about you and me getting to that hearing?”

  “That’s under control, Commander Y. You’ll be with the Wopotamis. Naturally, I’ll have to get your measurements, but we can do that quickly. The squaws are excellent seamstresses—almost as good as Mrs. Lafferty.”

  “Squaws? We got Irish-American Indians? This guy’s pazzo!”

  “Have faith, Mr. Director. The Hawk moves in mysterious ways.”

  “Come, gentlemen,” ordered MacKenzie. “Triple quick-march. There’s a phone booth at the edge of the parking lot. Let’s roll!”

  The three red-wigged men ran across the grounds in varying degrees of breathlessness, the only words, however, from Vinnie the Bam-Bam, who kept repeating. “Mannaggia, mannaggia! It’s all crazy! Pazzo, pazzo, pazzo!”

  THE WASHINGTON POST

  SECRETARY OF STATE HOSPITALIZED

  TAKEN TO PSYCHIATRIC WARD

  AT WALTER REED HOSPITAL

  Warren Pease, Secretary of State, wearing the garb of a Catholic priest, was taken into custody last evening while running amok through the crowds at the Lincoln Memorial. According to the police, as well as witnesses, Mr. Pease kept screaming that some “specter” he could not or would not identify had “risen from the dead” and had “come back to haunt his rotten soul.” He also claimed that a “painted hermaphrodite from hell” had threatened to slash his “pockets and his throat” because he/she determined he was an (expletive deleted) which he kept screaming he was not because “he forgave her for her sins.”

  The Secretary has no history of being an ordained priest or minister, and would therefore have no powers of religious absolution. (Our editors have diligently researched this fact.)

  A late report from the White House, however, may shed light on this incredible event. Maurice Fitzpeddler, the press secretary, said that the nation should have only great sympathy for the stressed, overburdened Mr. Pease and his family, although when questioned, Mr. Fitzpeddler admitted that the divorced Secretary Pease had no family. Adding to this, the President allowed, through Mr. Fitzpeddler, that he had received a telephone call yesterday calling into question the state of the Secretary’s extreme stress under the pressures of his office. He asked that the nation pray for Mr. Pease’s recuperation and “his release from a straitjacket.”

  It should be noted here that the President’s Chief of Staff, Arnold Subagaloo, smiled throughout the press conference. When questioned about his expression, the Chief of Staff gave the press an erect middle finger.

  27

  It was shortly past midnight when MacKenzie Hawkins walked into the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria and, as arranged, went to the front desk to pick up whatever messages were left for Suite 12A—no names, merely the room number. There were two:

  Call Beverly Hills.

  Reach Worm City.

  As it was three hours earlier in California, he decided to call Madge first in Greenwich, Connecticut. He recrossed the lobby to a pay phone.

  “Midgey, I’m sorry it’s so late, but I just got in.”

  “No sweat, Mac dear, I’m still working on the outline. I’ll have it finished in less than an hour, and the courier service will bring it down right away; you should have it by two-thirty. Hawk, it’s terrific! Straight boffo box office across all markets!”

  “Now, Midge, don’t go sounding too Hollywood, it gets a mite hard.”

  “Sorry, you’re right, darling. It’s just that everyone talks like that to work up enthusiasm for a project. The more the hype, the better the pitch.”

  “March to your own drummer, girl. You’ve got too much class for that.”

  “With worms, Mac?”

  “Well, you were fashioning a commodity.”

  “You can bank on it, and I have.”

  “But I’m pleased you think the Suicidal thing’s got possibilities… frankly, I did, too.”

  “Darling, it’s pure gelt!… Gold, Mac, I mean gold. Actors traveling the world over as an antiterrorist unit, and it’s real!”

  “You think I could get a couple of West Coast types interested—”

  “Interested?” she interrupted. “Then you haven’t talked to Ginny yet, have you?”

  “No, I figured it was earlier out there, so I called you first.”

  “I spoke to her late this afternoon, after I listened to the tapes, and we had a long talk. You’re in for a surprise, Mac. She’s been networking since three-thirty, California time.”

  “ ‘Networking’? Midgey, you’re picking up some very odd language, and I’m not sure I approve. It sounds coarse.”

  “No, darling, that one’s okay, it’s really standard. It’s just taking a noun and turning it into a verb.”

  “That sounds better—”

  “But, Hawk, you listen to me,” broke in Madge of Worm City. “I know you sometimes get a little overprotective about us girls, and we love you for it, but you’ve got to promise me something.”

  “What is it?”

  “Don’t beat the shit out of Manny Greenberg. Don’t give him the deal, but don’t break his face.”

  “Now, Midgey, that’s plain vulgar—”

  “Gotta go, Mac. I’m getting near the finish line here and my word processor’s smoking. Call Ginny, darling. Love, as always.”

  “The residence of Lord and Lady Cavendish,” announced the adenoidal Anglican on the line from California. “The name, please?”

  “Guy Burgess calling from Moscow.”

  “It’s all right, I’ve got it!” Ginny broke in quickly. “He’s such an old tease, Basil.”

  “Yes, madam,” said the butler in a devastating monotone as he hung up the phone.

  “Mac, sweetie, I’ve been waiting hours for your call. I’
ve got wonderful news!”

  “Which, I gather from Madge, includes not engaging Manny in hand-to-hand combat.”

  “Oh, him—no, don’t, he can be useful in an auction but not if he’s in the hospital. To tell you the truth, I started with Manny, breaking my rule never to talk to ex-husbands while my lawyers are talking to their lawyers, and it worked.”

  “What worked? What’s an auction?”

  “Midgey says the concept is not only sensational, it’s a landmark in the worldwide gold stakes! She says it’s all there, everything—and it’s got everything! Actors—hunks, six of them—flying all over freeing hostages, capturing terrorists, and it’s all true I gave Manny just a hint … after he agreed to leave the paintings alone, naturally … and when I told him that Chauncey was reaching some ‘cinema chaps’ in London, Manny screamed for his secretary to schedule the studio plane.”

  “Ginny, for God’s sake, slow down! You’re grasshopping from one thing to another and not making sense.… Now what’s Manny doing, and what did this ‘Chauncey’ do, and who the hell is he?”

  “My husband, Mac!”

  “Oh, the Grenadier, yes, I remember now. Damn fine regiments, all of ’em; first rate in combat. What did he do?”

  “I told you, he’s a great admirer of yours, and when Madge called and began explaining what you had on those tapes, I asked him to get on the line—what with his being so military and everything.”

  “What did he think?”

  “He said it was similar to the Fourth or Fortieth Royal Commandos who were recruited from the Old Vic and had what he called ‘only marginal success,’ because they kept ‘breaking silence.’ He wants to talk to you about it and compare notes.”