The Road to Omaha (21 page)

“Take an extra half-hour for lunch and let me talk to my brother.” Redwing touched the lighted button on the telephone line. “Charlie, darling, how
are
you? I haven’t heard from you in … in months.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“The clerking? How’s it going?”

“It’s over. Finished.”

“That’s good.”

“Actually, I’ve been spending some time in Washington.”

“That’s even better,” exclaimed the sister.

“No, it’s not. It’s worse—
the
worst.”

“Why, Charlie? A good D.C. firm would be terrific for you.… I know I shouldn’t tell you this, but you’ll find out in a day or so. I had a call from an old friend on the Nebraska bar and you not only passed the exam, little Brother, you were in the highest percentile! How about that, you genius you?”

“It doesn’t matter, Sis, nothing matters anymore. When
I said it was over and finished, I meant me and all thoughts I ever had of a legal career. I’m destroyed.”

“What are you
talking
about?… Oh, is it money?”

“No.”

“A girl?”

“No, a guy. A man.”

“
Charlie
, I never even
suspected
!”

“Oh, for God’s sake, not that.”

“Then
what
?”

“We’d better have lunch, Sis.”

“In
Washington
?”

“No, here. I’m downstairs in the lobby. I didn’t want to come up—the less you have to do with me in public, the better it is for you.… I’ll get to Hawaii first, then work on the ships and maybe reach American Samoa, where, with any luck, they don’t get much news—”

“You stay right where you are,
feather head
! Big Sister’s on her way down and I might just beat the
crap
out of you!”

A stunned Jennifer Redwing stared at her brother across the table; she was speechless, so Charlie struggled to break the silence. “Nice weather you have in San Francisco.”

“It’s pouring, you idiot.…
Charlie
, why didn’t you
call
me before you got mixed up with this lunatic?”

“I thought about it, Jenny, honest, but I know how busy you are, and in the beginning it seemed like one big joke and we were all having a lot of fun and the joker was spending money and no one was getting hurt—a little broiled now and then but not hurt—then all of a sudden it wasn’t a joke any more and I was in Washington.”

“A litigant before the Supreme Court under false representation,
that’s
all!” interrupted the older sister.

“It was only for show, Jenny, I didn’t actually
do
anything … except meet two of the justices—on a very informal basis.”

“You
met
with—”

“
Very
casually, Sis, they’d never remember me.”

“How and why not?”

“Hawkins told me to hang around the lobby every once
in a while in a tribal jacket and buckskins—I tell you, I felt like a goddamned fool—and one day the big black judge came out and shook my hand and said, ‘I know where you’re coming from, young man,’ and a week later the Italian fellow met me in a hallway and put his arm around my shoulder and said kind of sadly, Those of us who came from across the sea were frequently treated no better than you.’ ”

“Oh my
God
 …!” mumbled Red Redwing.

“It was very crowded, Sis,” added the brother quickly. “Lots of tourists and lawyers—whole crowds.”

“
Charlie
, I’m an experienced attorney; I’ve argued before the Court, you know that! Why didn’t you pick up a phone and
call
me?”

“I guess part of the reason was that I knew you’d get all upset and ream me out, but the real reason was that I figured I could talk Mac the Clown out of the whole mess. I explained to him that it was a lost cause because of my situation, which would annihilate any conceivable leanings in the brief’s favor, a prospect as improbable as my entering a rodeo. My idea was to immediately file a writ of default based on subsequent discoveries, wiping the slate clean.… I learned this much while wandering those hallowed halls like Minnie Ha Ha’s brain-damaged kid. They’ll drop a case quicker than Uncle Eagle Eyes can belt down a shot on the slightest pretext.”

“What did this Hawkins say to your suggestion?”

“That’s the problem, I never got a chance to spell it out in full. He wouldn’t listen; he only shouted, and when he finally gave me my clothes back, the clothes you sent me the money for while clerking—”

“Your
clothes
?”

“It’s another story. Anyway, I was so grateful to get ’em and so pissed off, I just ran. Again, I figured I’d call him later, like in the morning and try to reason with him.”

“Did you?”

“He was gone.
Split
. Johnny Calfnose—you remember Johnny …?”

“He still owes me bail money.”

“Well, Johnny was sort of Mac’s special adjutant for security matters, and he told me that Hawkins left for Boston
but made it clear that if there were any calls or mail from Washington, Johnny was to reach him immediately at a number in Weston, Massachusetts—that’s outside of Boston.”

“I know where it is. I spent a few years in Cambridge, remember? So did you call him?”

“I tried to. Four times, in fact, and each time all I got were minor variations of the same woman’s hysterical scream along with incoherent accusations that I think somehow concerned the Pope or
a
Pope.”

“That’s not unusual. Boston’s predominantly Catholic, and in times of stress its communicants seek solace from their Church. Wasn’t there anything else?”

“No. After the last call, whenever I tried again, all I got was a busy signal, which I took to mean that crazy lady took the phone off the hook.”

“It also means that Hawkins is in Boston.… Do you have the number?”

“I know it by heart.” He recited it and sighed. “I’m sunk.”

“Not yet, Charlie,” said Jennifer, glaring at her sibling. “I have a not-so-minor vested interest in your predicament. I
am
your sister and I
am
an attorney, and regardless of what the law states, there’s a hell of a lot of guilt by association in this business. Also, you’re a pretty nice kid and, God help me, I love you.” She signaled a waiter, who came over immediately. “Bring me a phone, will you please, Mario?”

“Certainly, Miss Redwing. I’ll get the one from the next booth.”

“You won’t see me again for years,” her brother began. “Once I get to Honolulu or Fiji, I’ll find work on the ships and—”

“Oh, shut up, Charlie,” Jennifer said as Mario plugged in the telephone and handed it to her. She dialed, and seconds later spoke. “Peggy, it’s me, and you can have two hours for lunch if you’ll take care of a couple of things for me. First, find out the name and address of the person who has this phone; it’s in Weston, Massachusetts.” She recited the number as Charlie wrote it out on a napkin. “Then book me on a late afternoon flight to Boston—yes, I said
Boston, and no, I won’t be in tomorrow, and to anticipate your next question, I will not send my brother in to take my place, because you’d corrupt him.… Oh, and Peg, get me a hotel reservation. Try the Four Seasons, I think it’s on Boylston Street—we had our
Law Review
party there.”

“Jenny, what are you
doing
?” cried Charlie Redwing as his sister hung up the phone.

“I think it’s pretty obvious. I’m flying to Boston and you’re not going anywhere but to my apartment, where you will behave and stay by the telephone. Your only other option is for me to have you arrested for fraud and nonpayment of outstanding debts—or possibly I could call up a close friend and client to watch over you. Frankly, I think jail’s preferable; my friend plays offensive guard for the Forty-niners.”

“I refuse to dignify terrorist threats, and I repeat: What the
hell
do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m going to find this lunatic Hawkins and stop him. Oh, not just for you, Charlie, and parenthetically for me, but for our people.”

“I know. We’d be the laughingstock of the reservations. I told Mac that.”

“Far worse, little Brother,
far
worse. Everything you’ve told me boils down to one irreducible catastrophe. Offutt Air Force Base, the global headquarters of the Strategic Air Command, which is smack-dab in the center of this lunatic general’s grand design. No matter how insane it sounds and unquestionably is, do you think those goliaths in Washington will sit still for a minute at even the hint of any interference with SAC?”

“What can they do except laugh it out of court or pay no attention at all and fry me on the side for false representation? I mean, what
can
they do?”

“Make new laws, Charlie, laws effectively destroying the tribe. They could start by condemning the land we do have and dispersing the inhabitants thereon. Hell, it’s been done for highways—even country roads and backwater bridges by politicians owing a few debts. What are they compared with SAC’s limitless payrolls?”

“Disperse …?” Charlie asked softly.

“Sending our people hither and yon to ratty houses and
dinky apartments as far away from one another as possible,” replied Jennifer, nodding. “What we—or they—have now is no Garden of Eden, but it’s
theirs
. Many of them have lived there all their lives and most of those lives span seventy and eighty years. They’re the human stories behind the cold government statistics that supposedly justify national interests.”

“Could Washington
do
that?”

“At the blink of an eye on a campaign contribution; it’s legend. Country roads and backwater bridges are only a spit in the taxpayers’ ocean, but the government’s largesse where SAC’s concerned is Lake Superior.”

“Again, Sis, what can you really
do
in Boston?”

“Break a retired general’s ass, little Brother, and everyone else’s around him.”

“
How
?”

“I’ll know better when I find them, but I suspect it’ll be something as outrageous as the lunacy in their own ballpark.… Say a conspiracy mounted by the enemies of democracy to bring the honorable giant to its knees and destroy our beloved America’s first-strike capabilities worldwide. Then tie in legal terrorism with racist undercurrents by trumped-up depositions tracing the cabal to fanatical Arabs and resentful Israelis in concert with the hard-liners in Beijing along with the Reverends Moon, Farrakhan, and Falwell, joined by the Hare Krishnas, Fidel Castro, the peaceniks on
Sesame Street
—and God knows what else. This planet abounds with rotten fish and perceived rotten fish that provoke instantaneous and passionate reactions. We’ll guarantee in pretrial examinations to throw the whole spectrum at them.”

“
Pretrial
 …?”

“You heard me.”

“This is all positively
nuts
, Jenny!”

“I know that, Charlie, but so are
they
. Anyone can sue anybody in a free society, that’s both the insanity and the glory. It’s not the litigation that’s important, it’s the threat of public exposure.… Good Lord, I can’t wait to get to Boston!”

Desi the First knocked sharply on the hotel door for the third time, shrugging as he did so at his comrade-in-arms, Desi the Second, who shrugged back in reply. “Maybe our
loco
man, the great heneral, has taken a poof-powder, no?”

“Wa’ for?”

“He owes us
dinero
, yes?”

“I don’ think he’d do dat—I don’
wanna think
he’d do it.”

“Neither do I, man, but he tol’ us to come back in an hour, no?”

“Maybe he dead. Maybe that even more
loco
gringo who yells all the time put him and the liddle old man away.”

“Then maybe we break the door down.”

“And make so much noise the gringo police come after us and we eat the lousy gringo food again for a long time? You make good plans,
amigo
, but chu got no mechanical abilities, y’know wad I mean to say?”

“What
mecánico
?”

“Hey, man, we promise each odder, we speak h’English, no?” replied Desi-Two, removing a small, many-bladed contraption from his pocket, a penknife-type instrument
that defied description. “So better we can ‘h’assimilate,’ waddever that means.” The jump-starter of Chevrolet automobiles approached the door, briefly glancing up and down the deserted corridor. “We don’t gotta break down no door. Dese liddle
plástico
locks no problem—dey got a liddle white
plástico
release.”

“How chu know so much about hotel doors, man?”

“I work lotsa times as a waiter in Miami, man. The gringos call for room service and by d’ time you got the tray there, they too drunk to find d’ door an’ if you bring the tray back, you get yelled at in the kitchen. Ees better to know how to open doors, no?”

“Ees good school you go to.”

“Before that I worked in d’ parking lots.
Madre María
, they are
universidades
!” Desi the Second, ebullient, twisted a white plastic blade in the vertical lock space and slowly opened the door. “
Señor
!” he exclaimed at the figure inside. “You
h’okay
, man?”