«Oh, yes, of course, sorry.» Devereaux picked up the phone, greeted whoever was on the line, paused for a reply, and then proceeded to scream hysterically, with such uncontrollable frenzy that his mother bolted up from the settee, shot over the oval coffee table, and ended up splayed out on the floor.
6
«Sammy!» shouted Aaron Pinkus, dashing back and forth between the unconscious Eleanor and her son, who was now, in an outburst of panic, ripping down every framed photograph he could reach on the walls and smashing them down on the floor. «Sam, get hold of yourself!»
«Slugworm!» screamed Devereaux. «Maggot of the universe, the most despicable human being on the face of the earth! He has no right—»
«Your mother, Sammy. She may be dead!»
«Forget it, she wouldn’t know how,» replied Devereaux, racing to the wall behind the desk and continuing his assault on the myriad photos and newspaper clippings. «He’s sick, sick, sick!»
«I didn’t say sick, Sam, I said dead,» continued Aaron, kneeling painfully and holding the mother’s quivering head firmly, hoping his ruse might have an effect on the son. «You really should show some concern.»
«Concern? Has he ever shown me any concern? He tears my life apart then steps on the pieces, grinding them into the dirt! He rips my heart out and blows it up into a balloon—»
«I didn’t say he, Sam, I said she! Your mother.»
«Hello, Mother, I’m busy.»
Pinkus withdrew the beeper from his pocket and held his finger down on the signal button; then he kept pressing it in bursts. His driver, Paddy Lafferty, would somehow get the message of emergency: He had to.
He did. In moments, Paddy could be heard crashing through the east wing entrance, ordering Cousin Cora in his most commanding sergeant’s roar to get out of his way or he’d throw her to a bunch of war-weary drunken infantrymen looking for a little feminine amusement.
«It’s no threat, Mick!»
Sam Devereaux was tied to the chair behind his desk, his arms and legs bound with sheets torn from his bed and ripped with abandon by the once and former Sergeant Patrick Lafferty of Omaha Beach, World War II. Ripped, that was, after he had cold-cocked Sam and found the bedroom. Devereaux shook his head while blinking and attempted a semblance of his voice. «Five drug addicts attacked me,» he offered.
«Not exactly, Sam boyo,» said Paddy, holding a glass of water to the lawyer’s lips. «Unless you consider a touch of Bushmills in that category, which I don’t advise you to do in old Southie, or even in O’Toole’s saloon.»
«You did this to me?»
«I had no choice, Sam. When a man goes over the edge of combat fatigue, you bring him back however you can. It’s no disgrace, boyo.»
«You were in the army? In combat …? You were with MacKenzie Hawkins?»
«You know that name, Sam?»
«Were you?»
«I never had the privilege of meetin’ the great general personally, but I seen him! For ten days in France he took over our division, and I tell you this, laddie, Mac the Hawk was the finest commanding officer the army ever had. He made Patton look like a ballet dancer, and frankly I kinda liked old George, but he just wasn’t in the Hawk’s league.»
«I’m screwed!» screamed Devereaux, straining at the binding sheet strips. «Where’s my mother … where’s Aaron?» he asked suddenly, glancing around the empty room.
«With your mother, boyo. I carried her to her bedroom. Mr. Pinkus is administering a little brandy to help her sleep.»
«Aaron and my mother?»
«Be a touch flexible, lad. You’ve met Shirley with the concrete hairdo… Here, now, drink a little water—I’d give you some whisky, but I don’t believe you could handle it. Your eyes don’t convey much human, more like a cat’s that’s heard a loud noise.»
«Stop it! My whole world is coming apart!»
«Don’t unravel, Sam, Mr. Pinkus’ll stitch it back together. A grander man in that department there never was… There, he’s comin’ back now. I hear what’s left of the door.»
The exhausted, frail figure of Aaron Pinkus trudged into the off-limits office as if he had just returned from an assault on the Matterhorn. «We have to talk, Samuel,» he said, sinking breathlessly into a chair in front of the desk. «Would you please leave us, Paddy? Cousin Cora suggested that you might enjoy a char-grilled porterhouse in the kitchen.»
«A porter?»
«With Irish ale, Paddy.»
«Well … you understand that first impressions are not always written in stone, am I correct, Mr. Pinkus?»
«That, too, is written in stone, my old friend.»
«What about me?» yelled Devereaux. «Will somebody cut me loose?»
«You will remain exactly where you are and how you are until our conversation’s over, Samuel.»
«You always call me ‘Samuel’ when you’re mad at me.»
«Mad? Why should I be mad? You’ve only involved me and the firm in the most heinously insidious crime in the history of civilization since the Middle Empire of Egypt four thousand years ago. Mad? No, Sammy, I’m merely hysterical.»
«I think I’d better leave, boss.»
«I’ll beep you later, Paddy. And enjoy your porterhouse as if you were having my last meal in this life.»
«Oh, you carry on so, Mr. Pinkus.»
«Then carry me out to the temple if I do not signal you within the hour.» Lafferty made a rapid exit, signified by the screeching sound of the shattered outside door being pulled shut. Hands folded in front of him, Aaron spoke. «I must assume,» he began calmly, «that the person who contacted you on the telephone was none other than General MacKenzie Hawkins, am I correct?»
«You know damn well you’re correct, and that sewer rat can’t do this to me!»
«What precisely has he done?»
«He talked to me.»
«There’s a law prohibiting communication?»
«Between the two of us, there certainly is. He swore on the Manual of Army Regulations never to speak to me again for the rest of his miserable, misbegotten life!»
«Yet he saw fit to violate this solemn oath, which means he felt he had something of great import to tell you. What was it?»
«Who listened?» yelled Devereaux, again straining against the constricting white strips pinning him to the chair. «All I heard him say was that he was flying into Boston to see me and everything went crazy.»
«You went crazy, Sam… When is he to make this journey?»
«How do I know?»
«That’s right. You turned off your ears and turned on your precordial anxiety… However, based on the assumption that he had something vital to tell you, or he would not have broken his agreement never to contact you, we can assume that his flight to Boston is imminent.»
«So’s my departure for Tasmania,» said Devereaux emphatically.
«That is the one thing you must not do,» interjected Pinkus with equal firmness. «You cannot run away nor can you avoid him—»
«One reason!» broke in Sam, shouting. «Give me one reason short of murdering the son of a bitch why I shouldn’t avoid him? He’s a walking distress signal from the Titanic!»