The Road to Omaha (39 page)

“Jesus
Christ
!”

“Even if He was, you’re not, soldier.”

“I won’t
be
dead, General—I’m simply gonna disappear like I
was
dead,
capisce
?”

“Not entirely.”

“Like I said, we’re working on it. It’s vital that my enemies—
your
enemies—think I’m out of the scenario.”

“What scenario?”

“The one that’s got your dead ass, and the dead asses of everybody that’s involved in your Wopotami bullshit!”

“I take exception to that remark, sir.”

“Wrong word, I swear it on—oh, forget it! I mean your crusade for a wronged people, how does that grab you?”

“Clearer in the gun sight, Commander.”

“You see, while I’m supposedly dead and out of the scenario, I got my
capos supremos
working on Wall Street. They’re gonna inflate those SAC stocks to the multibillion fuckin’ zenith on the basis of sudden Pentagon reversals where Omaha’s concerned, and then you walk into that Supreme Court and they all crash—like a nuclear bomb on all their loans, which are based on projections, and the country club boys, who can’t pay their bills, are cleaning urinals in Cairo! You dig, General? We both get what we
want
!”

“I sense a certain hostility toward those people.”

“So should you,
Thunder Head
! They want us in dirt—
all
of us!… We’ll coordinate through Little Joey. Stay in touch with him.”

“I should tell you, Commander, and I say this in front of Joseph. I really believe he’s been abusing the per diem allocations. The only way you can reach him is when he’s not calling room service, which is most of the time.”

“
Shithead
!” roared Joey the Shroud.

THE WASHINGTON POST

DIRECTOR OF CIA FEARED LOST AT SEA

Coast Guard Reveals Futile 18-Hour Search in Waters Off Florida Keys. Private Yacht Caught in Storm

Key West, Aug. 24—Vincent F.A. Mangecavallo, director of the Central Intelligence Agency and guest aboard the yacht
Gotcha Baby
, is believed to have perished at sea along with the captain and crew of the 34-foot craft that left its Key West mooring at 6:00
A.M.
yesterday on an ill-fated fishing trip. According to meteorologists, a sudden subtropical storm whipped out of the Muertos Cays at approximately 10:30
A.M.
Eastern Daylight Time, veering almost instantly north, away from the coastline, but directly in the path of the yacht, which had been heading due east toward the coral reef fishing grounds for nearly five hours. The search by Coast Guard aircraft and patrol boats will resume at daybreak, but there is little hope of survivors, as the yacht is presumed to have crashed into the reefs and been destroyed.

Upon hearing the news, the President issued the following statement. “Good old Vincent, a great patriot and a superb naval officer. If he had to go, I’m sure he’d welcome the briny deep as his final resting place. He’s at one with the fishes.”

The Department of the Navy, however, has no record of Mr. Mangecavallo having been a naval officer or even having served in the navy. When apprised of this, the President had a curt remark. “My old buddies should get their files in order. Vinnie served in the Caribbean theater of operations with Greek partisans aboard patrol boats. Golly, gosh, and zing darn, what’s wrong with those new sailors?” The Navy Department had no response.

THE BOSTON GLOBE

FIVE NUDE CULTISTS ARRESTED
AT RITZ-CARLTON

Four Found Naked on Roof
.
Fifth Assaulted Jogger in Public Garden
.
All Claim Gov’t. Immunity. Washington Shocked
.

Boston, Aug. 24—In a bizarre series of incidents during which numerous guests of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel claimed to have seen naked figures racing through the corridors at various times, the Boston police cornered four nude unarmed men who had made their way to the roof of the building. Unaccountably, they pleaded for clothing without explaining their nakedness, but nevertheless claiming national security immunity for their efforts in rooting out enemies of the U.S. A fifth naked man was subdued by a Boston jogger, the professional wrestler known as “Jaws” Hammerlocker, who told the police that the assailant tried to rip his sweat suit off him. Inquiries to Washington intelligence circles brought only consternation and swift denials of any involvement whatsoever. A highly placed unidentified source at the State Department, however, did suggest the similarity between the Boston five and a Southern California cult who commits crimes solely in the nude while singing “Over the Rainbow” and
brandishing small American flags. “They’re perverts,” said the unidentified spokesman, “otherwise they wouldn’t carry those flags. It’s them all right and we don’t even know who they are. So there!”

It was night, and the heavyset man of medium height, wearing dark glasses below an outsized red wig that fell over his ears, made his way down a narrow, dark, gaslit street several blocks from the fishing piers in Key West, Florida. It was a street lined with small Victorian houses crowded close to one another, miniaturized versions of their sister mansions on the shore road. The man studied the numbers on the right side, peering in the semidarkness until he found the address he wanted. Although similar in appearance to those flanking and opposing it, the house was decidedly different in one respect. Whereas the others had lights in the various first-floor and second-floor windows, quaintly subdued by fringed shades and Venetian blinds, this home had only a single dim lamp glowing from a downstairs room obviously near the rear of the small structure. It was part of the visual code;
this
was the clandestine rendezvous.

The red-wigged stranger to the street walked up the narrow three steps to the porch and approached the door. He rapped on the wooden strips between the stained-glass panels, a prearranged signal that avoided the doorbell—a single knock, pause, four rapid ones, followed by another
pause and two more quick taps.
Shave … and a haircut … two bits
, considered the man, wondering what covert operations genius had thought it up. The door opened, and Vincent Mangecavallo instantly had the answer. The huge
rinoceronte
standing in the tiny hallway was his sometime courier, aptly nicknamed Meat, as usual wearing a white silk tie, a white shirt, and a black suitcoat.

“You the best we can do in this big fuckin’ national emergency?”

“Hey, Vinnie—it
is
you, ain’t it, Vinnie?… Sure, it’s you, I can smell the garlic and the bay rum.”

“
Basta
!” said the veteran of the Caribbean theater of operations, walking inside. “Where’s the
consigliere
? Him I want to see right away.”

“No
consigliere
,” interrupted a tall, slender man emerging from a side door into the darkened vestibule. “No dons, no Mafia lawyers, no Cosa Nostra guns, is that clear?”

“Who the hell are you?”

“I’m surprised you don’t recognize my voice—”

“Oh … 
you
?”

“Yes,” said the white-jacketed, yellow-ascoted Smythington-Fontini. “We’ve talked several hundred times on the telephone,” continued the elegant Anglo-Italian, “but we’ve never met, Vincenzo. My hand, sir—have you washed yours recently?”

“You got balls for a fruitcake, Fontini, I’ll say that for you,” replied Mangecavallo, exercising the shortest handshake since George Patton met his first Russian general. “How’d you find Meat?”

“Let’s say he was the dimmest star in your constellation, and I’m an expert in celestial navigation.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Then let’s say the dons from Palermo to Brooklyn, New York, want nothing to do with this enterprise. They give us their blessings and will gratefully accept whatever largesse may come their way, but, basically, we’re on our own.
They
selected your associate here.”

“There are some things I gotta do on the Big Street, a point of personal honor and self-respect considering what
has been decided against my physical well-being. I trust that’s understood—from Palermo to Brooklyn.”

“Most definitely, Vincenzo, a point of honor that must be answered, but
not
in like terms. I repeat, no guns, no graves, no
consigliere
leaning on the Boeskys in Wall Street. There can’t be any involvement by your familial associates—which are not
my
associates, although I certainly expect to be apprised of your moves. After all, old boy, I paid for the damn yacht we blew up on the reefs, as well as the unknown, non-English-speaking Venezuelan crew we flew back to Caracas.”

“
Meat,
” said Mangecavallo, turning to his sometime lower-level colleague. “Go make yourself a sandwich.”

“With
what
, Vinnie? All this guy’s got in the kitchen is swelled-up crackers that break if you touch ’em and cheese that smells like stinky feet!”

“Just leave us, Meat.”

“Maybe I should call for a pizza—”

“No phones,” interrupted the cosmopolitan industrialist. “Why not keep your eyes on the back courtyard? We wouldn’t want any intruders, and I’m told you’re an expert at preventing such intrusions.”

“Hey, I guess you’re right about that,” said Meat, mollified. “And about the cheese, hell, I don’t even like Parmesan, you know what I mean?”

“Certainly.”

“And don’t you worry about no intertrusions,” added the
capo subordinato
, heading for the kitchen. “I got eyes like a bat; they never close.”

“Bat’s eyes don’t see so good, Meat.”

“No kiddin’?”

“No foolin’.”

“Where did you ever find him?” asked Smythington-Fontini as Meat walked into the kitchen. “And why?”

“He gets certain things done for me, and most of the time he’s not sure what he did. That’s the best kind of street gorilla you can have.… But I’m not here to talk about Meat. How’s everything going?”

“Efficiently and on schedule. By early daybreak tomorrow the Coast Guard patrols will find debris, as well as several life jackets and various personal articles, including
your floating waterproof cigar case with your initials on it. Naturally, the search will be called off, and you’ll have the unique privilege of reading all those marvelous things people who despise you say after you’re dead.”

“Hey, you know some of those things could be very sincere, did you ever think of that? I mean, I gotta lot of respect in certain areas.”

“Not in our crowd, old boy.”

“Here we go with the ‘old boy’ crap, huh? Well, lemme tell you, chum-chum, you’re lucky you had an
aristocratica
mama who had more smarts than that dizzy title she picked up in Tea Town ever dreamed of. If it wasn’t for her, the only football team you’d own would be a gang of scrawny hoods kicking a round ball in the streets of Liverlake or Liverpool, or whatever the fuck it is.”

“Without the Smythington banking connections, the Fontinis could never have gone international.”

“Oh, so that’s why she kept the Fontini name permanently attached, so people would know who was picking up the markers, ’cause the fox-trot horsey boy couldn’t.”

“This isn’t getting us anywhere—”

“I just want you to know where you sit,
Smythie
—not
stand
, but sit! The rest of your silk-underwear crowd are going down the tube!”

“So I’ve been given to understand. Socially, it’s a dreadful loss, of course.”

“
Naturalmente, pagliaccio
.… So after this big Coast Guard search is over and I’m memorialized, what happens?”

“When the time is right, I foresee that you’ll be found on one of the farthest-out islands of the Dry Tortugas. Two of the Venezuelans will join you and swear, while continually blessing God, themselves, and you, that it was your courage and perseverance that saved all your lives. They’ll be immediately flown back to Caracas and disappear.”

“Not bad, not bad at all. Maybe you’re your mama’s boy after all.”

“Conceptually and artistically, I believe you’re right,” agreed the industrialist, smiling. “Mother always said, ‘The blood of the Caesars will always be there, if only more of
our southern cousins had blue eyes and blond hair like me.’ ”

“A real queen, so filled with
tolleranza
.… Now, what about Thunder Ass? How do we keep him and his crazy Indian lovers above ground? They’re no good to me in dirt.”

“That’s where you come in. Apparently only you can make contact—”

“Correct,” broke in Mangecavallo. “They’re all in place and nobody knows where they are but me, and that’s the way it’s gonna stay.”

“If it stays completely that way, there’ll be no protection. One cannot protect a quarry one cannot find.”

“I’ve got that worked out. You tell me what you’ve got in mind, and if I like it I reach the go-between and we set up the meet. What have you got in mind?”

“On the telephone before you flew down here, you said the general and his associates were in what you called ‘safe shelter,’ which, as a yachtsman, I assume is equivalent to ‘safe harbor,’ which basically means the ship is sheltered from a storm, usually in a deep leeward cove,
ergo
‘safe shelter’—”