The Road to Omaha (69 page)

“Have to do it, old sport!” shouted the grinning skipper, his braided captain’s hat askew. “These thin things can go belly-up if you don’t take the water on head first!”

“You mean we could
sink
?”

“Actually, I’m not sure; never happened!” A gigantic spray washed over the boat’s windshield, soaking both men. “Damned
exhilarating
, isn’t it, sport?”

“Geoff, are you
sober
?”

“Perhaps a touch, old boy, but it won’t interfere!” yelled Frazier. “The sauce always makes one better in these sudden squalls! Gives you the edge over nature, if you know what I mean.… Can you
hear
me, Dewy?”

“Unfortunately yes,
Frazie.
”

“Not to worry. These billy-blows kick up quickly but they can go away sometimes just as fast!”

“How
long
?”

“No more than an hour or so,” shouted the happily grinning Frazier. “Our only problem will be finding a basin until then.”

“A
basin
?”

“Can’t head in till we find a cozy nook, as it were.”

“Speak
English
!”

“Just did, sport. An inlet that reduces the wind and the water, and there’s damn few along the shoreline.”

“Go into the beach!”

“There are a lot of rocks and jetties, Dewy, and these sweet things aren’t the easiest to control in weather.”

“Whether what …?”

“Never mind—”

“Damn it, go into the
beach
! There’s a whole stretch up ahead without a rock in sight and I’ve got important things to do!”

“Well, rocks and shoals aren’t the only impediments, old fellow,” yelled Frazier. “Boats like this one beaching on private property aren’t exactly welcome sights, and if you’ll look closer, there’s nothing but dune houses as far as you can see!”

“You went in almost a half hour ago down in Swampscott!”

“Down there people like me pay for beachfront they never use so the neighbors can’t hear us or pollute our waters. Also, everyone knows the Birnbaums’ house, and anyone who reads the society pages knows they’re at the estate auctions in London. I took a chance, Dewy, but not up here—not with this squall and not with my past boo-boos!”

“
Boo-boos
…?”

“Just silly little traffic violations, you might say, old
boy. Nothing to worry about, but there
are
rotten apples in every decent barrel, you know!”

“What apples?
What
barrels?” roared Sam as harsh, simultaneous sprays from both port and starboard overwhelmed him, drenching him to the skin.

“Grandpapa’s stupid Power Squadron—snitches, all of them, and they hate me because my boat’s faster than any of theirs!”

“What the
hell
are you talking about, Frazie?” A tremendous midair lurch and subsequent pounding return into an onrushing wave caused Devereaux to lose his grip; he crashed to the deck, grabbing the handle of a stow-away cabinet and yanking it down, the force propelling his head inside. “
Help
!” he screamed. “I’m
stuck
somewhere!”

“Can’t hear you, Dewy, but not to worry, chum! I can see the Gloucester markers up ahead. ‘Red right return,’ as they say.”

“Red … 
mftt
 … 
mfitt
!”

“You’ll have to be
clearer
, Dewy! Can’t make you out in this wind, but I’d be most grateful if you’d uncork a bottle of Dom Perry for me. There’s an iced case in the aft locker, that’s a good fellow!… Just spin it up on the deck the way we used to do with the girls from Holyoke,
remember
? The centrifugal motion loses only half the precious liquid. Physics One-Two at dear old Andover! Most vital thing I ever learned!”

“
Mfttt
 … 
oww
 … 
ouch
!” shrieked Sam, pulling his head out of the deck recess, a coil of white rope around his skull. “You want a bottle of wine when we’re in the middle of a
hurricane
? You’re
certifiable
, Frazie, absolutely
nuts
!”

“Come now, sport, this is merely a heavy squall, that’s all.” The grinning captain, the visor of his cap of authority now over his right ear, turned and looked at his deck-prone passenger with the rope around his head. “Oh, come now, old boy, is that your crown of thorns?” he roared, laughing.

“I will
not
get you a bottle of champagne, and I
demand
that you get me on shore or I’ll personally wax your tail as an officer of the court with regard to your incapacity on the high seas!”

“Two hundred yards offshore?”

“
You
know what I mean!” As Devereaux rose to his knees, another massive wave crashed over his shoulders, splaying him back on the deck. “
Frazier
!” screamed Sam, once more gripping the stainless steel railing on the gunwale. “Don’t you care about
anything
but yourself?”

“That in itself—or myself—is a very large territory, chum, but, of course, I do. I care about old friends who still call me a friend. I care about you because you called me in need!”

“I can’t deny that,” said Devereaux, deciding to open the stern ice cabinet, suddenly thinking that Frazie might need that “edge over nature” after all.

“
Oh
, oh!” roared the captain of the Swampscott rescue mission. “We’ve got a problem, Dewy!”

“What?”

“One of those snitches from Grandpapa’s dumb Power Squadron must have spotted us!”

“
What
?”

“There’s a C.G. cutter on our tail, old friend! Turn aft and look!”

“Holy
shit
!” whispered Sam to himself as he saw the sharp-bladed bow of a white Coast Guard patrol boat with red stripes leaping over the waves several hundred yards behind them. Then through the erratic bursts of wind he heard the sound of a siren. “Are they trying to
stop
us?” he roared.

“Let’s put it this way, sport, it’s not a courtesy call!”

“But I
can’t
be stopped!” yelled Devereaux, uncorking a bottle and spinning it across the wet deck. “I have to get to the authorities—the police, the FBI,
The Boston Globe, somebody
! I have to expose one of the most powerful men in Washington who’s done a terrible thing! I
have
to
do
it! If the Coast Guard or anyone in the government finds my evidence, they’ll
stop
me!”

“That sounds heavy, old boy!” shouted Frazier, his voice carrying over the wind and through the sprays of the waves as he picked up the bottle. “But I have to ask you a question! You’re not carrying little pills or packets of powder or anything like that, are you, sport?”

“Christ, no!”

“I really have to be sure, Devvy, please understand that!”

“
Believe
me, Frazie,” screamed Sam over the now thunderous sounds of the New England squall. “We’re talking about a man who can shape the nation’s policies, who next to the President is considered the most powerful man in our government! He’s a liar and a crook and he hires killers! I’ve got it all in my pocket!”

“
Someone’s
confession
?”

“No, a
tape
that confirms the whole conspiracy!”

“That’s
really
heavy, isn’t it?”

“Get me on shore, Frazie!”

“Then I’d suggest you really do hold on, chum!”

The next minutes, the approximate number a hysterical Devereaux would never know, were like plunging, swirling, plummeting submersions into all of Dante’s circles of hell. Crazy Frazie suddenly became a maniacal Ahab, but instead of attempting to kill the great beast, he was doing his God-commanded damnedest to avoid its massive jaws. Like a satanic captain from the netherworld, a grinning Geoffrey Frazier, the bottle of Dom Perignon sporadically at his lips, whipped and thrashed the machine beneath him to obey his commands as he spun the wheel repeatedly back and forth, expertly crashing into and ebbing away from the angry swells on all sides.

The less maneuverable patrol boat behind was obviously skippered by a furious Coast Guard officer. Joining the bursts of the wailing siren came indignant, commanding words shouted over a loudspeaker. “
Cut back your engines and head for marker seven due northwest! Repeat, you maniac, marker seven and knock off the horseshit
!”

“We couldn’t ask for anything better,” yelled Captain Crazy Frazie to his stunned passenger. “He’s a fine fellow!”

“What are you
saying
?” screamed Sam. “They’ll board us with cutlasses and knives and guns and
capture
us!”

“Capture me, no doubt, old sport, but not you if you do as I tell you.” Frazier did not reduce his twin engines, but he did wave-tack against the squall until he was heading roughly northwest. “Now, listen to me, Devvy! I haven’t been up this way in a while, but the ‘marker seven’ jogged
my memory. It’s about a hundred and fifty yards to the left of a rather large rock formation that juts out of the water, a small land mass that cuts down the wind—the sails frequently complain it’s four hundred feet of dead air.”

“
Rocks
? Dead
air
 … For Christ’s sake, Frazie, I’m fighting for my sanity, for my country’s
integrity
!”

“Just a sec, old boy!” shouted Devereaux’s rescuing skipper as he bounced the bottle of champagne against the top of his dashboard. “You broke the cork, chum, and it’s choking the neck!” The Dom Perignon back to his lips, he added. “There, that’s better! Now, what was it, sport?”

“Oh, my God, you’re
impossible
!”

“Seems I’ve heard that before—” Frazier’s words were interrupted by a starboard lurch with its subsequent spray catching him directly in the face. “
Damn
! Salt water never did mix with the bubbly!”

“
Frazie …
!”

“Oh, yes, now listen up, Devvy!… We’ll reach marker seven, where I’ll throttle back in the calmer stretch—that’s your signal to prepare to abandon ship, as it were.”

“You mean like in ‘man overboard,’ where those navy fascists behind us can pick me
up
?”

“I said ‘
prepare
,’ not execute—”

“For Christ’s sake, use another word!”

“When I slow down, get to the starboard but stay below the gunwale, then I’ll suddenly hit full throttle and make a large arc to port, bringing you within forty or fifty yards of the beach.
That’s
when you slip over the side—the spray will cover your disappearance—and I’ll continue to give our water commandos a merry chase!”

“Good
Lord
, Frazie! You’d do this for
me
?”

“You asked for my help, Devvy—”

“Sure, but that’s because I knew you had a fast boat and … and … well, I sort of thought.…”

“That ‘Crazy Frazie’ might just be your man, being the man he was?”

“I’m
sorry
, Geoff. I don’t really know what to say.”

“Don’t bother, sport, it’s all fun!”

“You could get in a great deal of trouble, Geoff, and I never counted on that, honest I didn’t!”

“Of course, you didn’t. You’re the most irritatingly honest
person I’ve ever known!
Hang
on, now, Devvy, we’re going in.”

They entered the narrow channel that held the red marker seven, the reedlike cigarette boat abruptly slowed down in the smoother waters. The Coast Guard patrol approached within thirty yards aft.

“
Hear this, and hear me well
!” came the agitated voice over the loudspeaker. “
You have been identified as one Geoffrey Frazier and your passenger is a man named Samuel Devereaux, and you are both now under arrest. Hold to, as three of my crew board your craft and take full control.
”

“Geoff!” cried Sam Devereaux, lying prone on the starboard deck. “I really didn’t expect anything like this to happen—”

“Oh, shut
up
, old boy! Another few moments—as soon as they lower their dinghy—I’ll start up and swing toward the beach. I’ll signal you when I think we’re as close as we can get and that’s when you slip over.
Got
it?”

“Got it and I’ll never forget it! Not only that, I’ll defend you in court with all the legal expertise Aaron Pinkus Associates has!”

“That’s terribly considerate, sport … all right, Devvy, here we go!” With those words the powerful speedboat lurched forward with such force its bow sprang out of the water like an ascending egret. The roar of the engines muted all other sounds as the craft sped out of the briefly sheltered area back into the angry waves past marker seven. Then, true to his word, Frazier went into a wide, steep bank to the left, sending up a huge sheet of ocean spray to the starboard, a continuous wall of dense foam and sea that provided complete cover for any activity in front of or behind it—such as a prone figure rolling over the side into the water.

Which was precisely what a determined if anxiety-prone Sam Devereaux did, hardly buoyed by his captain’s last words, shouted as he waved his hand. “
Now
, old chum, and I know you can
do
it. You were on the school’s swimming team!”

“
No
, Frazie! It was tennis! I didn’t
make
the swimming team!”

“Oh, sorry … 
over
you go!”

Buffeted by waves, Sam kept his head half-submerged as the Coast Guard patrol boat whipped to the left in pursuit of his former classmate, its loudspeaker blaring. “
You can run but you can’t hide, you swizzling son of a bitch! We’ve got you this time—resisting arrest, drinking while piloting your craft, recklessly endangering the life of your passenger, who’s also under arrest! Oh boy, I’m gonna ream you
!”

Suddenly, further stunning a bobbing Devereaux, who gasped for air, came the sound of a much more powerful loudspeaker—from
Frazie’s
boat. The noise it emitted could best be described as that of a blaring seagoing whoopee cushion.

“
… who’s also under arrest … a man named Samuel Devereaux, and you are both under arrest.
” Under
arrest
?
He
was under
arrest
? He had vaguely heard the words while clinging to the deck, but in his own personal hysteria they had not registered.
Arrest
! By
name
!
Oh, my God, I’m a fugitive
! They were searching for him; there was probably a dragnet! It had to mean that Aaron and Jenny and Cyrus and Roman and the two Desis had been taken—taken and
broken
, forced to confess everything! And Mac—he’d probably be executed!… And Jenny, the new love of his life—they would hurt her, maybe do terrible things to her. The desperate men in Washington would stop at nothing!