The Road to Omaha Read Online Free PDF

over the beeper,” completed the Irishman, grinning, obviously enjoying the subterfuge.“If I spot Mr. Devereaux’s car, I signal you, and you can get out through the back door.”
    “You know, Paddy, if our words were part of a transcript, any transcript, we’d lose the case, whatever it was.”
    “Not with your office defending us, sir.”
    “False pride again, my old friend. Also, criminal law is but a small part of the firm and not really outstanding.”
    “Hey,
you
ain’t doing nothin’ criminal!”
    “Then let’s lose the transcript.… Do I look presentable for the grande dame, Paddy?”
    “Let me straighten your tie, sir, it slipped a touch down.”
    “Thank you,” said Pinkus as the driver adjusted his tie. His eyes strayed to the imposing blue-gray Victorian house, fronted by a white picket fence and profuse with gleaming white trim around the windows and below the high gables. Inside was the matron of this landmark residence, the formidable Mrs. Lansing Devereaux III, mother of Samuel Devereaux, potential attorney-extraordinary and currently an enigma to his employer, one Aaron Pinkus.
    “There you are, sir.” The chauffeur stepped back and nodded approvingly. “You’re a grand and splendid sight for one of the opposite sex.”
    “Please, Paddy, this is not an assignation, it’s a mission of compassionate inquiry.”
    “Yeah, I know, boss. Sam’s been kind of off the wall every now and again.”
    “You’ve noticed then?”
    “Hell, you’ve had me pick him up at Logan Airport a dozen times or more this year. As I say, every now and again he seemed a little squirrelly, and it wasn’t just the boyo booze. He’s troubled, Mr. Pinkus. The lad’s got a trouble in his head.”
    “And that head contains a brilliant legal mind, Paddy. Let’s see if we can find out what the trouble is.”
    “Good luck, sir. I’ll be out of sight but
in
sight, if you know what I mean. And when you hear my beep, get the hell out of there.”
    “Why do I feel like a bony, overage Jewish Casanova who couldn’t scale a trellis if a horde of pit bulls was snapping at my rear end?” Pinkus understood that he askedthe question of himself, as his driver had raced around the hood of the limousine so as to climb inside and vanish—in sight but out of sight.
    Aaron had met Eleanor Devereaux only twice over the years since he had known her son. The first time was the day Samuel came to work for the firm several weeks after his graduation from Harvard Law School, and then, Aaron suspected, it was because his mother wanted to look over her son’s workaday environs as she might inspect the counselors and the facilities of a summer camp. The second and only other time was at the welcome-home party the Pinkuses gave for Sam upon his return from the army, said homecoming one of the strangest in the chronicles of military separation. It took place over five months past the day that Lieutenant Devereaux was to arrive in Boston as an honorably discharged civilian. Five months unaccounted for.
    Five months, mused Aaron, as he started toward the gate in the white picket fence, nearly half a year that Sam would not talk about—would not discuss except to say he was not permitted to discuss it, implying some type of top-secret government operation. Well, Pinkus had thought at the time, he certainly could not ask
Lieutenant
Devereaux to violate a sworn oath, but he was curious, both personally as a friend and professionally in terms of international legal negotiations, and he did have a few connections in Washington.
    So he telephoned the President on the private White House line that rang in the upstairs living quarters and explained his conundrum to the chief executive.
    “You think he may have been involved in a covert operation, Aaron?” the President had asked.
    “Speaking frankly, I wouldn’t think he’s at all the type.”
    “Sometimes they go for that, Pinky. You know, rotten casting turns out the best casting. Also