The Road to Gandolfo (6 page)

“He wouldn’t put it into words, Major,” said Lillian, “but it was a stronger rule than any oath he ever took.”

“For two reasons,” added Ginny. “He surely didn’t want to disgrace his rank, but just as important, he didn’t like for the pricky-shits to laugh at him because of booze.”

“So you see,” stated Madge in the bean bag, “Mac didn’t do what they said he did to the Lincoln Memorial. He just wouldn’t.”

Sam looked back and forth at the girls. Not one of these ex-Mrs. Hawkinses was going to help him; none would utter a negative word about the man.

Why?

He struggled like hell to get out of the bean bag and tried to assume the stance of a cross-examining attorney. A very soft, gentle attorney. He paced slowly in front of the massive window. Anne went to the bean bag.

“Naturally,” he began, smiling, “these circumstances, this group here, evoke several questions. Not that you’re under any obligation to answer, but frankly, speaking personally, I don’t understand. Let me explain—–”

“Let
me answer
,” interrupted Regina. “You can’t figure out why Hawkins’s Harem protects its namesake. Right?”

“Right.”

“As spokeswoman,” continued Ginny, receiving nods of assent from the others, “I’ll be brief and to the point. Mac Hawkins is one great guy—in bed and out, and don’t snicker at the bed because most marriages haven’t got it.
You can’t live with the son of a bitch, but that’s not his fault.

“Mac gave us something we’ll never forget because it’s with us every day. He taught us to break our molds. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? ‘Break your mold.’ But, lover, it sets you
free
. ‘You’re your own goddamned inventory,’ he used to say. ‘There’s nothing you
have
to do and nothing you
can’t
do; use your inventory and work like hell.’

“Now, I don’t think that all of us believe that’s holy writ. But by gawd, he made each one of us try a lot harder. He set us free before it was chic and we haven’t done badly. So, you see, there’s not one of us—if Mac came knocking at the door—who wouldn’t accommodate him. You dig?”

“I dig,” replied Sam quietly.

The telephone rang. Regina reached behind the couch to the French phone on the marble table. She turned to Sam. “It’s for you.”

Sam looked a bit startled. “I left your number with the hotel but I didn’t expect …” He walked to the table and took the phone.

“He
what
?!” Blood drained from Sam’s face. He listened again. “Jesus! He
didn’t
!” And then in the weariness of aftershock: “Yes, sir. I can see he most certainly did.… I’ll go back to the hotel and await instructions. Unless you’d rather turn this over to someone else; my tour is up in a month, sir. I see. Five days at the outside, sir.”

He hung up and turned to Hawkins’s Harem. Those four magnificent pairs of mammaries that both invited and defied description.

“We’re not going to need you, ladies. Although Mac Hawkins may.”

“I’m your only contact with Sixteen-hundred, Major,” said the young lieutenant as he paced—somewhat childishly, thought Sam—the plush Beverly Hills Hotel room. “You can refer to me as Lodestone. No names, please.”

“Lieutenant Lodestone, Sixteen-hundred. Has a nice ring to it,” said Devereaux, pouring himself another bourbon.

“I’d go easy on the alcohol.”

“Why don’t you go to China instead? Of
me
, that is.”

“You do have a long, long flight.”

“Not if
you
make it, I don’t.”

“In a way, I wish I could. Do you realize there are seven hundred million potential consumers over there? I’d really like to get a see-you shot of that market.”

“A who?”

“Close-up look. A real peek-see.”

“Ohh. C-U. Not see-you—–”

“What an opportunity!” The lieutenant stood by the hotel window, his hands clasped behind his back.
Caveat consumer
.

“Then
go
, for Christ’s sake! In thirty-two days I’ve got a permit to get out of this Disneyland and I don’t want to trade my uniform in for a Chinese smock!”

“I’m afraid I can’t, sir. Sixteen-hundred needs pro-PR now. All the other slambangs are gone. Some are turning out a crackerjack house organ at Dannemora.… Damn!” The lieutenant turned from the window and walked to the writing desk where there were a half dozen photographs, five by seven. “It’s all here, Major. All you need. They’re a little hazy, but they show Brand X, all right! He certainly can’t deny it now.”

Sam looked at the blurred but definable telephotos from Peking. “He almost reached, didn’t he?”

“Disgraceful!” The lieutenant winced as he studied the photographs. “There’s nothing left to be said.”

“Except that he almost made it.” Sam crossed to an armchair and sat down with his bourbon. The lieutenant followed him.

“Your head IG investigator in Saigon will fly his reports directly to you in Tokyo. Take them with you to Peking. They’ve got a lot of real dirt.” The young officer smiled his genuine smile. “Just in case you need some final stickum for the coffin.”

“Gee, you’re a nice kid. Ever meet your father?” Sam drank a great deal of his bourbon.

“You mustn’t personalize it, Major. It’s an objective operation and we have the input. It’s all part of the—–”

“Don’t say again—–”

“… game plan.” Lodestone swallowed the words. “Sorry. And anyway, if you do personalize it, what more do you
want? The man’s a maniac. A dangerous, egotistical madman who’s interfering violently with peaceful pursuits.”

“I’m a lawyer, Lieutenant, not an avenging angel. Your maniac made several contributions to other—game plans. He’s got a lot of people in his corner. I met with eight—
four
—this afternoon.” Sam looked at his glass; where did the bourbon go?

“Not any more, he doesn’t,” said the officer flatly.

“He doesn’t what?”

“Whatever constituency he had will disappear.”

“Constituency? He’s a politician?” Sam decided he needed another drink. He couldn’t follow this Buster Brown any longer. So why not get really drunk?

“He
peed
on the Stars and Stripes! That’s a Peoria no-no!”

“Did he really reach?”

“We’re sending you to China,” continued Lodestone, overlooking the question, “in the fastest way possible. Phantom jet aircraft over the northern route, stops in Juneau and the Aleutians, into Tokyo. From there a supply carrier to Peking. I’ve brought all the papers you need from Washington.”

Devereaux mumbled into his bourbon. “I don’t like moo goo gai pan and I hate egg rolls.…”

“May I suggest you get some rest, sir? It’s almost twenty-three hundred and we have to leave for the airbase at oh four hundred. You take off at dawn.”

“Wish I’d said that, Lodestone. Nice ring to it. Five hours. And you’re down the hall but not
in here
.”

“Sir?” The young man cocked his head.

“I’m going to give you an order. Go away. I don’t want to see you until you come to sew in my name tags.”

“What?”

“Get the hell out of here.” And then Sam remembered and his eyes—though slightly glazed—were laughing. “You know what you are, Lieutenant? You’re a pricky-shit. A real, honest-to-God pricky-shit. Now I know what it means!”

Four hours.… He wondered.

It was worth a try. But first he needed another drink.

He poured it and walked to the writing desk and
laughed at the Peking telephotos. The son of a bitch had flair, no question about it. But he was not at the desk to look at the photographs; he opened the drawer and took out his notebook. He turned the pages and did his best to focus on his own handwriting. He walked to the telephone by the bed, dialed nine, and then the number on the page.

“Hello?” The voice was magnolia-soft and Sam could actually smell the oleander blossoms.

“Mrs. Greenberg? This is Sam Devereaux—–”

“Well, how’re
you
?” Regina’s greeting was positively enthusiastic; there was no attempt to conceal her pleasure that the caller was a man. “We were all wondering which one you’d call. I’m really flattered, M
ay
jor! I mean, actually, I’m the elder stateswoman. I’m really touched.”

Her husband was probably out, thought Sam through the bourbon, warmed by the memory of her challenging, translucent shirt.

“That’s very kind of you. You see, in a little while I’m going to go on a long, long trip. Over oceans and mountains and more oceans and islands and …”
Jesus!
He hadn’t figured out how to put it; he hadn’t really been sure he could dial her number. Goddamn bourbon fantasies! “Well, it’s sheecrit—
secret
. Very covert. But I’m going to talk to your—namesake?”

“Of
cawsse
, lover! And naturally, you didn’t get half a ch
ay
nce to ask all those important government questions. I understand, I
really do.
”

“Well, several items came up, one in particular—–”

“It usually does. I do believe I should do all I can to help the government in its delicate situation. You’re at the Beverly Hills?”

“Yes, ma’m. Room eight twenty.”

“Wait a sec.” She put her hand over the receiver, but Sam could hear her calling out. “
Manny!
There’s a national emergency. I have to go to town.”

“Major! Major Devereaux! Your phone is off the hook. That’s a no-no.”

An incessant, ridiculously loud knocking accompanied Lodestone’s nasal screams.

“What the gawd-almighty hell is
that
?” asked Regina Greenberg, nudging Sam under the covers. “It sounds like an unoiled piston.”

Devereaux opened his eyes into the visual abyss of a hangover. “That, dear patron saint of Tarzana, is the voice of the evil people. They surface when the earth churns.”

“Do you know what time it is? Call the hotel police, for heaven’s sake.”

“No,” said Sam, reluctantly getting out of bed. “Because if I do, that gentleman will call the joint chiefs of staff. I think they’re scared to death of him. They’re merely professional killers; he’s in advertising.”

And before Devereaux could really focus, hands had dressed him, cars had driven him, men had yelled at him, and he was strapped into an Air Force Phantom jet.

They all smiled. Everyone in China smiled. With their lips more than their eyes, thought Sam.

He was met at the Peking airfield by an American diplomatic vehicle, escorted by two flanking Chinese army cars and eight Chinese army officers. All smiling; even the vehicles.

The two nervous Americans that came with the diplomatic car were attachés. They were anxious to get back to the mission; neither was comfortable around the Chinese troops.

Nor did either attaché care to discuss very much of
anything except the weather, which was dull and overcast. Whenever Sam brought up the subject of MacKenzie Hawkins—and why not? he had relieved himself on
their
roof—their mouths became taut and they shook their heads in short, lateral jerks and pointed their fingers below the windows at various areas of the automobile. And laughed at nothing.

Finally Devereaux realized they were convinced that the diplomatic car was bugged. So Sam laughed, too. At nothing.

If the automobile
was
fitted with electronic surveillance, and if someone
was
listening, thought Devereaux, that person was probably conjuring up a picture of three adult males passing dirty comics back and forth.

And if the ride from the airfield seemed strange to Sam, his half-hour meeting with the ambassador at the diplomatic mission in Glorious Flower Square was ludicrous.

He was ushered into the building by his cackling escorts, greeted solemnly by a group of serious-faced Americans who had gathered in the hallway like onlookers in a zoological laboratory—unsure of their safety but fascinated by the new animal brought in for observation—and propelled quickly down a corridor to a large door that was obviously the entrance to the ambassador’s office. Once inside, the ambassador greeted him with a rapid handshake, simultaneously raising a finger over his slightly quivering moustache. One of the escorts removed a small metal device about the size of a pack of cigarettes and began waving it around the windows as though blessing the panes of glass. The ambassador watched the man.

“I can’t be sure,” whispered the attaché.

“Why not?” asked the diplomat.

“The needle moved a touch, but it could be the loudspeakers in the square.”

“Damn! We have to get more sophisticated scanners. Scramble a memo to Washington.” The ambassador took Sam’s elbow, leading him back to the door. “Come with me, General.”

“I’m a major.”

“That’s nice.”

The ambassador propelled Sam out of the office, across
the corridor to another door, which he opened, and then preceded Devereaux down a steep flight of stone steps into a large basement. There was a single light bulb on the wall; the ambassador snapped it on and led Sam past a number of wooden crates to another door in the barely visible wall. It was heavy and the diplomat had to put his foot against the surrounding cement in order to pull it open.

Inside was a long-out-of-use, walk-in refrigerator, now serving as a wine cellar.

The ambassador entered and struck a match. On one of the racks was a candle, half burned down. The ambassador held the flame to the wick, and the light swelled flickeringly against the walls and the racks. The wine was not the best, observed Devereaux silently.

The ambassador reached out and yanked Sam into the center of the small enclosure and then pulled the heavy door almost shut, but not completely.

His lean, aristocratic features accentuated by the wavering flame of the candle, the ambassador smiled apologetically.

“We may strike you as a touch paranoid, but it’s not the case at all, I can assure you.”

“Oh, no, sir. This is very cozy. And quiet.”

Sam tried to return the ambassador’s smile. And for the next thirty minutes he received his last instructions from his government. It was an appropriate place to get them: deep underground, the surrounding earth inhabited by worms that never saw the light of day.