The Road to Omaha (61 page)

“Good
heavens
,” cried Sir Larry. “I just remembered! Our clothes, the luggage your young adjutants picked up for us at the hotel last night, everything’s badly in need of pressing. It would hardly be proper for us to be seen at the Waldorf walking around in wrinkled clothing. Or, God knows, into Sardi’s!”

“Good point.” It was a wrinkle Hawkins had not considered, and it had nothing to do with clothes. The last thing they needed was for the exuberant actor-commandos to be parading around anywhere! Especially six high-spirited performers who believed they were on the edge of great success.
Christ
! thought MacKenzie, recalling his brief Hollywood days: All any actor—specifically any unemployed actor—needed was the slightest hint that a coveted role was in the offing and his or her personal network went to work. He never faulted the actors, for unrewarded
talent needed all the confidence it could corral, but this was no time for the Suicidal Six to revert to their preclandestine lives.
Sardi’s
! A theatrical institution! “Tell you what,” the Hawk continued, “the minute we get to the rooms we’ll have everything sent out to the hotel cleaners.”

“How long will that take?” asked The Duke-
cum
-chairman of the board.

“Well, it doesn’t really matter,” Mac replied, “at least not for tonight and maybe not even tomorrow.”

“What?” said Marlon.

“Hey, come on!” added Sylvester.

“I haven’t seen the West Forties in years!” interrupted Dustin.

“And Mr. Sardi is a close personal friend,” said Telly. “He’s the owner, an ex-marine, by the way—”

“Sorry, gentlemen,” the Hawk broke in. “I’m afraid I wasn’t clear about this bivouac, I just thought you’d naturally understand.”

“Understand what?” Sly spoke again, none too kindly. “You sound like an agent.”

“Your upcoming conferences demand the … utmost secrecy. Although your splendid commander, General Brokemichael, is going to bat for you with these Hollywood people, you’re still in the army, and everything could fall apart if word gets out. I mean really fall
apart
. Therefore, you’re confined to quarters until he says otherwise.”

“We’ll call him,” suggested Marlon.

“That’s
out
!… I mean all communications are on status ‘black drape.’ ”

“That’s for emergencies,” said Dustin. “Frequency interception.”

“And that’s what we’re talking about. Those rotten politicians who tried to pit us against one another are out to wreck your film, your careers. They want it all for themselves!”

“Dirty
bastards
,” exclaimed The Duke. “I won’t deny a lot of them are actors, but all their crap is shallow!”

“Not an honest spine in their motivations,” added Sylvester.

“Not an ounce of truth,” stated Marlon emphatically.

“You’ll grant there’s technique,” said Sir Larry. “But it’s Pavlovian, over-rehearsed, as it were.”

“As it
is
!” confirmed Telly. “Sound bites, programmed expressions, and wrinkled eyebrows when they forget their lines—when will people wake up?”

“Well, they may
try
to act, but they’re not
actors
!” cried The Duke. “And I’ll be damned if they’ll take work away from
us
!… We’ll confine ourselves to quarters and do whatever else you like, General!”

MacKenzie Hawkins, neat but less than impressive in his gray suit, steel-rimmed glasses, reddish toupee, and slightly stooped shoulders, walked across the carpeted, crowded lobby of the Waldorf, looking for a pay phone. It was shortly past one o’clock in the afternoon, the actor-soldiers of Suicidal Six safely ensconced in adjoining suites on the twelfth floor. Spared Desi the Second’s more deleterious culinary fare, refreshed by large amounts of wholesome, restorative food, exercise, and a decent night’s sleep without spiders crawling up the walls, all the members of the unit were fully recovered and in exuberant spirits. The men had assured him that they had their combat fatigues with them—a vital component—and that they would stay in their suites and make no outside calls, no matter how tempting the urge. As they were getting settled, the Hawk had taken out the original tape recorder from Fort Benning, duplicated the entire conversation with Brokey the Deuce, given the duplicate to Paddy Lafferty, and instructed him to take it to Swampscott. Now, bouncing several balls in the air at the same time, he had to make several untraceable calls—the first to Little Joseph in Boston; the second to a retired la-di-da admiral who had sold his soul to front for the State Department and who also owed Mac a favor for saving his miscalculating ass on an offshore battlewagon in Korea’s Bay of Wonsan; and finally to one of his dearest old buddies, the first of his four delightful wives, Ginny, in Beverly Hills, California. He dialed the zero code, entered his credit card number, and dialed.

“Little Joseph, it’s the general.”

“Hey,
fazool
, what took you so long? The big man wants to talk to you, but he don’t want to call that swamp place ’cause he don’t know what could be on the Ameches!”

“That dovetails with my strategy, Little Joseph. I want to talk with him.” The Hawk looked down at the number of the pay phone. “Can you reach him?”

“Yeah. Every half hour he walks by a phone on Collins Avenue in Miami Beach. That’s in about ten minutes from now.”

“Should I call him direct?”

“No win, place, or show,
fazool
. He calls you, not the revoice, that’s the word.”

“All right, tell him to call this number in New York, but give me twenty minutes, I’ll be here.” Mac gave the number of the Waldorf’s pay phone and hung up. He then reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a small notebook; he fingered through the pages until he found the one he wanted. Again, he went through the credit card procedure. “Hello there, Angus, how’s the bull of the North Korean Pampas who just happened to blow up our buried beach radio stations in Wonsan?”

“Who the
hell
are you?” replied the harsh voice of a three-martinied former naval admiral.

“One guess, Frank. You want to go over the sixteen-incher coordinates?”

“
Hawk
? Is that
you
?”

“Who else, sailor?”

“You know damned
well
I had faulty intelligence—”

“Or you misread the figures—eyes-only figures, for you only, Frank.”

“Cut it out, Hawk! How the hell could I know you were there? Give or take a few miles or so, who knew, who
cared
?”

“My ass cared, Frank, along with my team. We were way behind the lines.”

“It’s over! I’m
retired
!”

“But you’re a consultant, Frank, a big respected expert to the State Department on Far East military affairs. All
those parties, the perks, the private planes and vacations, courtesy of the contractors.”

“I’m damned well
worth
it!”

“Except that you can’t tell one beach from the other—give or take a few miles or so. That’s an expert?”

“Hawk, give me a break! Bringing up old stuff won’t do either of us any good.
Jesus
, I saw on television that you were getting a big Swedish award, so what do you want from me? I pick up a few goodies and look after my garden—arthritis and all. So what?”

“So you talk to State.”

“That I do, and I give them my best input.”

“Here’s additional input you’re going to give them, Frank, or the Soldier of the Century is going to blow the whistle on one of the biggest military blunders in Korea.” The Hawk then detailed his addendum.

The call to Beverly Hills started off poorly. “Mrs. Greenberg, please?”

“There’s no Mrs. Greenberg at this residence,” said the cold male British voice from California.

“I must have dialed the wrong number—”

“No, you simply used the wrong name, sir. Mr. Greenberg left over a year ago. Did you, by chance, care to speak with Lady Cavendish?”

“That’s Ginny?”

“That’s Lady Cavendish. May I ask who’s calling?”

“Hawk’s good enough.”

“ ‘Hawk’? As in the revolting predatory bird, sir?”

“Very revolting and
very
predatory. Now tell Lady Caviar or whatever the hell her name is that I’m on the line!”

“I’ll tell her, but I guarantee nothing.”

The abrupt silence of a telephone on hold was broken by the loud, excited voice of Mac’s first wife. “
Sweetie
, how
are
you?”

“I was better before I talked to that clown who should have his adenoids taken out. Who the hell
is
he?”

“Oh, he came with Chauncey; he’s been the family butler for years.”

“Chauncey?… Cavendish?”

“
Lord
Cavendish, sweetie. Oodles of money and everyone wants to meet him. He’s on everybody’s A list.”

“
A
list?”

“You know,
invitations
, sweetie.”

“What happened to Manny?”

“He got bored with an older woman so I set him free for a large hunk of change.”

“
Goddamn
, Ginny, you’re not old!”

“In Manny’s eyes, any girl over sixteen is also over the hill.… But enough about me, darling,
you’re
the one. I’m so proud of you, Hawk—the Soldier of the Century! All the girls are proud of you!”

“Yeah, well, hold up the parties, kid, it all could be a con.”

“
What
? I won’t have it—
we
won’t have it!”

“Ginny,” interrupted MacKenzie, “I don’t have time. The D.C. pricky-shits have got my ass in a sling again and I need help.”

“I’ll call the girls together this afternoon. What can we do and whom can we do it to?… Of course, I can’t get hold of Annie; she’s back in one of those leper colonies, I think, and Madge is on the East Coast—New York or Connecticut or someplace like that—but I’ll get her and Lillian on a conference call.”

“I was really just calling you, Ginny, because I think you’re the one who can help me.”

“Me, Hawk? Look, I appreciate your chivalry, but I really
am
the oldest. It doesn’t exactly thrill me to admit it, but Midgey and Lil are probably better suited to your needs. They’re both still darling to look at. Of course, Annie remains the champ in that department, but I think the clothes she prefers these days would scare the hell out of anybody in a pair of vulnerable pants.”

“You’re a fine and generous woman, Ginny, but it’s nothing like that.… Do you still talk to Manny?”

“Only through the lawyers. He wants some of the paintings we bought, but I’ll be damned if I let the horny little bastard scrape the paint off the cheapest frame.”

“
Goddamn
, there goes the shot I was hoping for!”

“Spell it out, Hawk. What is it that you need?”

“I need one of those screenwriters he hires at the studio to put something together for me.”

“Are they going to do another
movie
about you?”

“Hell, no. Never!”

“I’m relieved to hear it. So what do you need a writer for?”

“Some pretty incredible material, all true, that I want to dangle in front of those Hollywood buddhas, only it’s got to look good and I’ve got to do it quickly. Like in a day, maybe.”

“A
day
?”

“Hell, boiled down it wouldn’t be any more than five or ten pages, but pages of pure dynamite, Ginny. I’ve got it all on a few tapes. Manny would know someone who could do it—”

“So do
you
, sweetie! What about
Madge
?”

“Who?”

“Your number three,
mon général.
”

“Midgey? What about her?”

“Don’t you read the trades?”

“The what?”

“
The Hollywood Reporter
and
Daily Variety
, those bibles of soaked-orange land.”

“I’m not so hot on the real Bible, either. What about them?”

“Madge is one of the hottest writers in town! She’s so hot she can get
out
of town and write in New York or Connecticut. Her last screenplay,
Mutant Homicidal Lesbian Worms
, cleaned up!”

“I’ll be damned. I always knew Midgey had a literary bent, but—”

“Don’t
use
that word iiterary’!” Lady Cavendish broke in. “Out here it’s death.… Here, I’ll give you her telephone number, but you give me a couple of minutes to reach her first and tell her to expect your call. She’ll be
so
excited!”

“Ginny, I’m in New York now.”

“Isn’t she the lucky one! She’s in two-o-three.”

“What’s that?”

“The area code, a place called Greenwich, but not in England. Call her in five minutes, sweetie. And when this is all over, whatever it is, you must come out and meet Chauncey. He’d really like that because he’s a great admirer
of yours—he was with the Fifth Grenadiers; the Fifth or Fifteenth or Fiftieth, I’ve never gotten it straight.”

“The Grenadiers were among the
finest
, Ginny! You’ve really bettered yourself, and you can bet your nylons I’ll be out to see both of you!”

The sun was briefly shining on MacKenzie Hawkins as he hung up the pay phone in the Waldorf lobby, having scratched his third wife’s telephone number on the marbelite counter with the point of his penknife. He was so pleased with the turn of events that he reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a cigar, masticated it until the proper juices flowed, then lighted it with a field match, also scratched on the counter. A matronly lady in a loud print summer dress at the wall pay phone to his left began coughing violently. She glared at the Hawk between seizures and managed to spew out.

“Such a proper-looking man with such a despicable habit!”

“No worse than yours, madam. The management insists that you stop taking those young weight lifters up to the rooms.”

“Good God, who
told
…?” The proper lady blanched and raced away in panic as Mac’s phone rang.

“Commander Y?” said Hawkins quietly.

“General, it’s time we met.”

“Optimum, sir! But if you’re still dead, how can we?”

“I’ve got such a hell of a disguise my own mother wouldn’t know me, may she rest in peace.”