The Road to Omaha (43 page)

“Your children?” asked the Hawk somewhat awkwardly as Mrs. Lafferty replaced the phone.

“Have you got your brains anywheres near your head, man? Do I look like a woman who’s got wee tots?”

“I merely overheard your conversation, madam—”

“That was my youngest, Bridget, who’s lookin’ after my older lad’s—my second oldest lad’s—kids, while them two-toilet suppositories are on a cruise … would you believe, a
cruise
?”

“Did your husband object?”

“How the hell
could
he? Dennis-boyo is a big accountant with all those letters after his name. He does our taxes.”

“I see.”

“May the devil fart perfume, you do! Never have kids who are brainier than you. There’s hell to pay.” The car telephone buzzed and Mrs. Lafferty picked it up. “What is it, Bridgey? You can’t find the refrigerator, girl?… Oh, it’s you, Paddy, darlin’, who I may just push your head into a barrel of used crank case oil.” Erin Lafferty held the phone out for Hawkins. “Paddy says Mr. Pinkus wants to talk to you.”

“Thank you, madam.… Commander?”

“No, it’s still Paddy, great General. I’ll put the boss on in a second or two. I just wanted to tell you not to pay no attention to my woman. She’s a good girl, sir, but she’s not been in true combat, if you know what I’m drivin’ at.”

“I understand, Gunny. But if I were you, I’d make damn sure ‘Buster boy’ gets his oatmeal with real milk and the ‘tiny lass’ has her fried bread with two eggs.”

“Oh, she’s been on the breakfast bit again, has she?
Grandmothers can be the end of the good life, General.… Here’s Mr. Pinkus.”

“General?”

“Commander? What’re the map coordinates, sir?”

“The what?… Oh, where we’re going. Yes, well, I’ve just made arrangements for us all to stay at my brother-in-law’s summer house in Swampscott. It’s on the beach and rather delightful, and as he and Shirley’s sister are in Europe, it’s completely available.”

“Well done, Commander Pinkus. A comfortable bivouac under combat conditions is good for the troops’ morale. Do you have an address? I have to relay it to Little Joseph in Boston because our support personnel will be arriving shortly.”

“It’s known as the old Worthington estate on the Beach Road, now owned by Sidney Birnbaum. I’m not sure there are numbers, but the entire front wall is painted in royal blue, which very much appealed to Shirley’s sister.”

“That’s good enough, Commander Pinkus. Our support will undoubtedly be chosen from an elite corps and they’ll find it. Anything else?”

“Simply tell Paddy’s wife where we’re going. If we get separated in the traffic, she knows the way.”

The Hawk relayed the information, only to be greeted by Erin Lafferty’s succinct reply. “Oh, Jesus Himself be praised! I’ll be dealin’ with the kosher boys, and let me tell you, General, they
really
know where to get the best meat and the freshest vegetables!”

“You’ve been there before, I presume?”

“
Been
there! Don’t ever tell my parish priest, but the grand Sidney and his dear wife, Sarah, made me the godmother of their boy, Joshua—Jewish style, you understand. Josh is like one of my own, and Paddy and I keep prayin’ that he and Bridgey can get it together, if you know what I mean.”

“Would your parish priest—”

“What the hell does he know? He drinks all them French wines and bores us to death about their
bookays
. A loser.”

“The true, fine melting pot,” said the Hawk quietly.
“Have you ever thought of running for Pope?” he added, chuckling. “I once knew one who thought like you.”

“Awe, gowann! A dumb Irish broad like me even thinkin’ like that?”

“ The meek shall inherit the earth,’ for on their shoulders lies the morality of all mankind.”

“Hey, you! You tryin’ to come
on
with me? Because if you are, my Paddy could break you in half!”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, madam,” replied the Hawk, looking at Erin Lafferty’s profile. “And I’m sure he could,” added the soldier who was arguably the most proficient hand-to-hand combat officer ever to have served in the military. “He would, of course, demolish me.”

“Well, he’s gettin’ on, but my boy still has it.”

“He has you, and that’s far more important.”

“Where’re you
at
, Buster? I’m an old lady, for Christ’s sake!”

“And I’m an older man, and one thing has nothing to do with the other. I’m merely saying that it’s a privilege to know you.”

“You
confuse
me, soldier man!”

“I don’t mean to.”

Erin Lafferty pressed the accelerator to the floor and sped ahead.

Wolfgang Hitluh, born Billy-Bob Bayou, walked through the gate and followed the signs in the wide corridor to Logan Airport’s baggage claim area. As one third of the highly, if mysteriously, paid security unit recruited by Manpower Plus Plus, he was to meet his two
Kameraden
in the enclosed parking lot across from the taxi stand. As identification, he was to carry a folded
Wall Street Journal
, with various articles clearly circled in red ink, although he had stubbornly argued for a copy of
Mein Kampf
.

If he hadn’t needed the employment so badly, he would have turned down the job on principle. The
Journal
was a well-known symbol of the decadent, money-grasping democracies and should be burned along with ninety-nine percent of all of the country’s newspapers and magazines, starting with the despicable
Amsterdam News
and
Ebony
,
which were published in and for Harlem, a steaming hotbed of inferior black troublemakers, just as Wall Street was a treacherous armed camp of Jewish money! Unfortunately, however, Wolfgang did need the job, as his welfare checks had been cut off—by a suspicious
black
clerk at the unemployment office!—and so he had put his principles on a back burner and accepted the advance of two hundred dollars and an airline ticket.

All he knew was that he and his two
Kameraden
were to protect a group of seven people who were in hiding, and three of those were military themselves. That meant that there were six mercs watching over four civvies—a piece of Strudel, which he had come to love from his two glorious months training in the Bavarian mountains with his Fourth Reich
Meister
. Wolfgang Hitluh, the
Journal
in one hand, his carryon in the other, dodged the traffic and crossed the unroofed two lanes that led to the parking lot. He must
not
be conspicuous! he considered as he walked through the late afternoon sunlight toward the huge garage. Everything was so secret, according to Manpower Plus Plus, that he could not breathe a word of the job even to the Führer, if he was alive—always a possibility,
natürlich
! The assignment obviously entailed the protection of such high officials that the government could not trust the weak, non-Aryan types that had infiltrated the Secret Service.… Where were his
Kameraden
? he wondered.

“You Wolfie?” asked an enormous black man, emerging from the shadows of a circular concrete pillar and approaching Hitluh.

“What?… 
Who? What
did you say?”

“You heard me, little fella. You’ve got the newspaper and we saw the red ink when you crossed those two streets out in the open.” The dark giant extended his hand and smiled. “Nice to know you, Wolf—that’s one hell of a name, by the way.”

“Yes, well … I guess it is.” The Nazi accepted the hand as though having touched the flesh would infect him for life.

“It seems like a good gig, brother.”

“
Brother
?”

“Here,” continued the huge man, gesturing behind him, “let me introduce you to our partner, and don’t be put off by his appearance. Once we broke out, he couldn’t wait to get back into his usual threads. I tell you, Wolfie, you wouldn’t believe the way those old fortune-tellers and their crazy mustachioed husbands talk!”

“Fortune-tellers …?”

“Come on, Roman, get out here and meet Wolfie!”

A second figure came out from the shadows of the pillar, a muscular man in a billowing orange blouse with a blue sash around his waist above skin-tight black trousers and circlets of dark hair on his forehead; he also wore a single gold earring. A
Gypsy
! thought Wolfgang. The scourge of the Moldavians, worse than the Jews and the Negroes!
Deutschland Über Alles
, a
Gypsy
!

“
Hallo
, Misstair Wolfowitz!” cried the earringed man, holding out his hand, his blinding white teeth below a dark mustache, the antithesis of Wolfgang’s vision of a
Kamerad
. “I can tell by the shape of your eyes that you will have a long, long life with great financial assets! No money is required for this precious information—we work together, no?”

“Oh, great Führer, where the hell are ya?” whispered Hitluh to himself, absently shaking hands.

“What’s that, Wolfie?” asked the large black, clamping his huge, strong hand on Wolfgang’s shoulder.

“Nothing,
nothing
!… You’re sure there’s no mistake? You’re from Manpower Plus Plus?”

“Nowhere else, brother, and from what Roman and I can figure out, this is going to be like picking up bread in the street. By the way, my name’s Cyrus—Cyrus M. My buddy’s name is Roman Z, and you’re Wolfie H. Naturally, we never ask what the letters of our last names stand for—which wouldn’t make a hell of a lot of difference anyway because we got so many different ones, right, brother?”

“
Jawohl.
” Wolfgang nodded, then blanched. “I mean you’re absolutely correct … 
Bruder.
”

“What?”

“Brother,” added Hitluh instantly, apologetically. “
Brother
, I mean brother!”

“Hell, don’t get upset, Wolfie, I understood you. I speak German, too.”

“You
do
?”

“Hell, yes. Why do you think I’ve been in prison?”

“Because you speak
German
…?”

“Sort of, little fella,” said the dark-skinned giant. “You see, I’m a government chemist, and I was loaned out to Bonn to work for a plant in Stuttgart to help out in a fertilizer project, only it wasn’t.”

“Wasn’t what?”

“Fertilizer.… Oh, it was shit, but it wasn’t fertilizer, just gas, very unhealthy gas. On its way to the Middle East.”

“
Mein Gott
! But perhaps there were reasons …?”

“Sure, there were. Cash and the wasting of a lot of people the bosses didn’t think were too important. Three of them found me one night analyzing the final compounds. They called me a
Schwarzer
and rushed me, two pulling guns on me.… That was that.”

“That was
what
?”

“I threw all three of those honky Krauts into the vats—which sort of meant they couldn’t show up in court to answer my plea of self-defense.… So, in the interests of diplomatic relations, I drew five years in the can over
here
rather than fifty over
there
. I figured I owed three months, so Roman and I broke out last night.”

“But we’re supposed to be
mercs
, not chemists!”

“A man can be different things, little fella. To put myself through two universities in seven years, I took a few months off now and then. Angola—both sides, incidentally—Oman, Karachi, Kuala Lumpur. I won’t be a disappointment to you, Wolfie.”

“
Misstair
Wolfowitz,” interrupted Roman Z, expanding his orange-clothed chest, and planting his feet as though he were about to do a Gypsy dervish. “You see before you the greatest man with a blade, a
silent
blade, that you could ever hope to meet!… Slash,
slash
, parry,
thrust
!” The words were accompanied by wild gestures and rapid pivots as the blue sash whipped through the air and the orange blouse billowed. “Ask anyone in the mountains of Serbo-Croatia!”

“But you were in prison over
here
—”

“I passed several hundred bad checks, what can I tell you?” added Roman Z in a disconsolate voice, his hands extended in a plea. “One immigrates, however the methods, he comes to nothing in a foreign land that does not understand him.”

“There, Wolfie,” said Cyrus M, in his voice a certain finality. “You know about us now, what about you?”

“Well, fellas, you see,
Ah’m
what some people call a roguelike underground investigatah—”

“You’re also a southern boy—a southern boy who speaks German,” interrupted Cyrus. “Now, that’s a strange combination, isn’t it?”

“You can tell?”

“I think it comes out when you’re kind of excited, Wolfie. Why are you excited, little fella?”

“You’re not readin’ me, Cyrus. Ah’m just anxious to git started on this heah gig!”

“Oh, we’ll get started on it right away, you can bet your uptight ass on that. It’s just that we’d kinda like to know a little more about our partner. You see, we could be putting our lives in your hands, you can understand that, Wolfie, can’t you?… Now, how did a good ole boy like you learn German? Was it part of that underground investigating you did?”

“You’re right on!” answered Wolfgang, a flat, petrified grin plastered on his lips. “Y’see, Ah was trained to interfilterate all them German cities lak Berlin and Muniken lookin’ for them dirty Commies, but y’know what Ah found out?”

“What did you find out,
mein Kleiner
?”

“Ah found out that our mewly-mouthed gov’mint looks the other way an’ don’t give a shit!”

“You mean like all those communist bastards around the Brandenburg Gate and walking on Unter den Linden?”

“They sure was under rocks, I tell y a that!”

“
Sie sprechen nicht sehr gut Deutsch.
”

“Well, Ah never learned so much to catch it so quick, Cyrus, but I got yer drift.”

“Sure, I understand. Just certain key words and
phrases.…” Without warning, the huge black suddenly shot out his right arm in an angled salute. “
Heil
Hitler!”

“
Sieg Heil
!” screamed Wolfgang with such a roar that a number of Logan Airport’s arrivals spun their heads around, stared, and immediately fled from the scene.