MASH 08 MASH Goes to Hollywood Read online

  “What makes you think he’s here?” the warden replied.

  “We know he’s here,” Waldo Maldemer said, firmly. “Dr. Benjamin Franklin Pierce himself told us he’s here.” *

  (* This was not exactly the truth. It was a Journalistic ploy. What Dr. Pierce had actually said, when Waldo Maldemer had finally gotten him back on the telephone, was, “Why don’t you try the state prison?”)

  “Hawkeye said that?” The warden and the physician were well known to each other, each in the practice of his chosen profession. “You won’t mind if I check that out, will you?”

  “Check away,” Waldo said, grandly, helping himself to another three fingers of Leprechaun’s Delight Irish Whiskey as the warden left the room.

  The warden found the conversation with his old buddy Hawkeye simply fascinating. Hawkeye denied flatly ever having sent anyone to the prison or saying that anyone he knew was in the prison.

  “You know me better than that, Pat,” Hawkeye said. “When my pals are in the slammer, my lips are sealed.”

  “Then who are these two?” Warden Flaherty replied.

  “From the description you have given me, Patrick,” Hawkeye replied, “they sound like that team of conmen who have been selling phony Irish Sweepstakes tickets to unsuspecting nuns and innocent parochial school children.”

  “I could tell the minute I laid me Irish eyes on them, Hawkeye,” Warden Flaherty replied, “that they were dishonest scoundrels!”

  “You’re a pretty good judge of character, are you, Patrick?”

  “All we Irish are!” Flaherty replied, modestly. “Some more than others, of course.”

  “Well, you do what you think you must, Patrick,” Hawkeye said. “And top of the morning to you.”

  The warden hung up the phone and called the chief guard.

  “Jones,” he said, “this is your warden speaking. Go by Cell Block Three and get ‘Doc’ Riess, the one who’s doing thirty-to-life for knocking customers out with knockout drops in his saloon. Bring him along with you to the hospital pharmacy.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Zelda Spinopolous was more than a little surprised when the telegram welcoming her to the happy television family of ABS arrived, although it did confirm her suspicions about the level of taste of television executives generally.

  Her mother, of course, was thrilled. After spending all of the morning in a beauty parlor, Bonita Granville Spinopolous, wearing sunglasses so that the fans wouldn’t recognize her as the mother of America’s newest star, boarded an Eastern Airlines flight for New York. The network had arranged for this; it would wine and dine the lady and otherwise seek her counsel for an extended period.

  This would keep her off the set. There were going to be enough problems on the set without a stage mother, most of them rooted in the fact that Mr. Wesley St. James had not been shown the tape of his new star flashing her snaggle-toothed smile at the camera and rolling her left eye around. It would be the senior network executive’s little surprise for him when she appeared on location to film the first, hour-long special introductory program of “The Code of the Deep Woods.”

  As soon as the collect call announcing Mrs. Spinopolous’ immediate departure for New York had been received, the man in charge of things like this telephoned the new star at her home with a change of plans. Instead of flying to New York, she would be flown directly, by small chartered jet, to the Maine location.

  Zelda had not earned her cum laude degrees by accepting defeat. While she realized that not flunking the screen test had been a semi disaster, it wasn’t the end of her biological life; there was still hope.

  She resurrected the printed cotton dress from the Salvation Army, got out her jar of mascara, and found the half-inch-thick granny glasses. She had forty-five minutes from the time the man from ABS called until the limousine pulled up before the Spinopolous’ little thirty-six-room cottage overlooking Lake Michigan, time enough to do a really good makeup job.

  Zelda quite naturally presumed that her father was at his office. She had no way of knowing that her loving father was just that. He couldn’t face, sober, the thought of his little girl leaving home for the wickedness of the world of the theater. (He had not, he was forced to admit to himself, really been seeking cultural enrichment that night a quarter of a century before when he had gone to Sidney Katz’s Maison de Paris in Cicero and met the future Mrs. Spinopolous. He had been, in the quaint cant of the time, beating the bushes for a little quail. It was entirely possible, he realized, that out there in the cold cruel world there were other men who would look at Zelda, his own little duckie-wuckie, as quail.)

  So, while his secretary had been telling all callers that Mr. Spinopolous was out at Plant Thirteen, watching a test batch of Chef Pierre’s newest frozen delight, Goulash a la Les Hongroise, being ran through the ovens, Mr. Gus Spinopolous had in fact been in the basement recreation room of his humble home, soaking up ouzo, a licorice-flavored potable he imported from his cousin Sid in Athens. He hadn’t even dressed to go to work. He had been virtually sleepless the night before, tormented by the knowledge that this was the last night his little duckie-wuckie would be spending under the familial roof. He had given up trying to sleep at half past five, rolled out of bed, and put on a pair of rather disreputable khaki pants and a sweat shirt emblazoned with the message “CHIEF PIERRE FREEZES FOR YOU!” which garment had been part of a spectacularly unsuccessful advertising campaign.

  He could see out of the basement recreation room and thus had seen his bride of the past quarter century roll off in the blue Rolls. And he saw the black Cadillac limousine roll up and the neatly dressed, rather good-looking young man jump nimbly from the back seat and go up the stairs.

  He pushed the downstairs butler’s number on the intercom.

  “If anybody should ask, Herman,” Gus Spinopolous said, “I ain’t home.”

  “I understand, sir. The rather tacky little limousine, if that is the source of your concern, is here to take Miss Zelda . . . pardon me, Miss Daphne Covington ... to the airfield.”

  “Thanks, Herman,” Gus said. He refilled his ouzo glass, drained it, refilled it, and then went to the window again, steeling himself for the sight of his little duckie-wuckie leaving home and hearth. He told himself that he wouldn’t cry. Miss Daphne Covington, made up, came down the stairs on the arm of the young man from ABS-Chicago. Gus realized suddenly that his snap judgment of him was wrong. If there had been a sex-crazed maniac, devoting his life to the ruination of young girls, one was coming down the stairway now with his duckie-wuckie on his arm, leering wickedly at her.

  He cursed himself then, loudly, not only for sending duckie-wuckie into the world with his paternal protection but, selfish father that he was, for getting so snockered on the ouzo that it looked to him as if his duckie-wuckie was missing a couple of teeth and had big black bags under her eyes.

  “Stop!” he shouted, but it was too late. The Cadillac rolled out of the drive.

  Gus, first stopping to grab a fresh bottle of ouzo from the case, rushed upstairs.

  “Herman!” he bellowed. The butler appeared. “Did you notice anything about duckie-wuckie, anything strange?”

  “I . . . uh . . . took the liberty of inquiring of Miss Daphne Covington, sir, if there was anything amiss. Because of her appearance, sir.”

  “And? What did she say?”

  “Her exact words, sir, were ‘You’re sweet for worrying, Herman, but don’t. This is the way I’m going to look for the rest of my theatrical career.’ ”

  “And did you see the sex maniac with her?”

  “Indeed, I did, sir,” Herman, highly indignant, said. “While he was waiting for Miss Daphne Covington, he made an indecent proposal to the assistant gardener.”

  “Did she say where she was going to be staying in New York, Herman?”

  “I happened to overhear, quite by accident, sir, when ABS called, that Miss Daphne Covington is not going to New York. She is being flown, by chartered
aircraft, to some place called Spruce Harbor, Maine.”

  “Is there a car here, Herman?” Gus asked. “I sent the green Rolls to the factory so the Missus would think I was gone.”

  “I believe the red Rolls is here, sir, and of course the yellow Rolls, the Corniche convertible. The one you gave Miss Daphne Covington for Christmas and which she refused to drive.”

  “Don’t ever let me hear you say that again, Herman,” Gus said.

  “Don’t say ‘yellow Corniche convertible,’ sir?”

  “No, you idiot. Daphne Covington,” Gus said.

  “I never really liked the sound of that name,” Herman said. “Is there any way I might be of service, sir?”

  “Call the airport,” Gus said. “Tell them I’m on my way. Have them warm up the engines.”

  “Yes, sir,” Herman said. “Which aircraft would you like?”

  “The fastest one in the Chef Pierre fleet,” Gus said. He rushed for the front door.

  Herman, a faithful retainer of the old school, went a bit beyond his instructions. He not only called the aviation division of Chef Pierre’s Frozen Delights, International, scrambling the fastest corporate jet available, but made two other calls. The first was to the Chicago police. He chatted briefly with a deputy commissioner, reminding him how long and how well the political fortunes of the mayor had been supported by his good friend Gus Spinopolous, and then informing him that Mr. Spinopolous was at that moment rushing to the airport in a yellow Corniche convertible on pressing personal family business. Within moments, the word flashed over the police radio. The convertible was intercepted as Gus reached Lake Shore Drive. Two motorcycle cops, sirens screaming, caught up with the car, pulled abreast, waved at the driver in a friendly way, and then pulled ahead. They turned on their flashing lights and cleared the way.

  Traffic all along Lake Shore Drive had, of course, already been stopped. As Gus, preceded by the motorcycle cops, raced along it, other police vehicles, lights flashing, sirens and whoopers whooping, joined the procession. As they passed the traffic policemen barring traffic at intersections, these minions of the law saluted crisply.

  It was all accomplished with practiced skill and efficiency. They did this all the time, of course, for His Honor the Mayor, when the boss had to go to an Irish wake, or a Bonds for Israel dinner, or a Hungarian hoedown, and they were perfectly happy to do it for any close personal friend of His Honor’s, whose number was apparently legion.

  The procession reached Lake Front airport. Sitting on the threshold of the active runway was a Sabreliner bearing the familiar logotype of Chef Pierre’s smiling Gallic face on the nose; its engines were whistling softly.

  The Rolls skidded to a stop. Gus Spinopolous, a bottle of ouzo (from which he had taken several large nips en route to steady his nerves) in his hand, jumped out and ran up the steps. Immediately the steps folded into the fuselage.

  “Lake Front clears Chef Pierre Number Sixteen for takeoff,” the radio controller said. “For direct flight to ... where is it you said you were going?”

  “Mr. Gus?” the pilot asked.

  “Spruce Harbor, Maine,” Mr. Gus replied. “And hurry!”

  “Chef Pierre Number Sixteen rolling,” the pilot reported. “Direct to Spruce Harbor, Maine.”

  Among the aircraft at O’Hare Field that had been told their departure would be delayed at least thirty minutes in order to facilitate the immediate departure of a personal friend of His Honor the Mayor was the charter aircraft in which Miss Daphne Covington was being carried to Spruce Harbor.

  Meanwhile, back at Chez Spinopolous, Herman, the faithful family retainer, was making one more telephone call, this one long distance.

  “Is this Factory Number Forty-three, Shrimp and Oysters?”

  “It is.”

  “Let me speak to the union steward, please.”

  “Your dime, start talking,” that luminary opened the conversation in a voice which would send chills up the spine of anyone who didn’t know him long and well, as both Herman and Mr. Gus did.

  “This is Herman, Lester,” Herman said. “I think Mr. Gus might need your help.”

  Ten minutes later, the six largest members of the warehouse staff of Factory Number Forty-three, Shrimp and Oysters, of Chef Pierre’s Frozen Delights, International, left the plant in a Chef Pierre station wagon bound for Spruce Harbor International Airport. They wore looks of both grim determination and pleasant anticipation on their faces. Not only were they more than willing to assist Mr. Gus in his hour of need, but it had been almost two weeks since any of them had been in anything that could really be called a good fight.

  About an hour after his little chat with the governor, State Trooper Steven J. Harris, in what he realized with deep regret would probably be his last official role as an officer of the law, rolled up to the gates of the Maine state slammer in his patrol car.

  The warden himself opened the gate and waved him through with a cheery smile.

  “I knew you were coming, Officer Harris,” Patrick O’Flaherty said. “I just spoke with His Honor the Governor myself and told him that Patrick O’Flaherty had the situation well in hand.”

  “You mean you found this Abzugian ambassador?”

  “Of course, I did. He was practically in front of my nose all the time. You know how it is when you’re looking for something. I not only found the ambassador, but I found his assistant, too.”

  “I didn’t know there were two of them,” Harris said. “I only got a pardon for one.”

  “I’m releasing the other one for good behavior,” Warden O’Flaherty said. “Now, if you’ll just sign the receipt, Officer Harris, you and I can have a wee drop of Leprechaun’s Delight while my men load them in your car.”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Officer Harris said. “This is a sad day for me.”

  “So the governor told me,” Warden O’Flaherty said. “Well, I think we should have a little nip, to toast your new career.”

  “Well, just one, maybe,” Harris said.

  “You can’t fly on one wing, my boy,” the warden said. “And don’t worry about them two giving you any trouble. They’re both out like a light.”

  “How come?”

  “Well, to tell you the truth, I offered them a little nip,” Warden O’Flaherty said, “to toast their liberty, don’t you know. Well, I’ll tell you this, neither of them is an Irishman. Two drinks and they both collapsed to the floor.”

  “I’m supposed to deliver them,” Harris said, interrupting his sentence to raise his glass to the warden and toss down three fingers of Leprechaun’s Delight, “to the Spruce Harbor Jail.”

  “And I’ve already called me good friend Chief Ernie Kelly, a fellow officer of the Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick, and told him what to expect,” Warden O’Flaherty said. “And he said he’d be waiting for you.”

  “Thank you very much,” Harris said.

  “Have another nip,” the warden said. “Tell me, Harris, how come I never saw you at one gathering or another of the Friendly Sons?”

  “I don’t belong to the Friendly Sons,” Harris said.

  “Come on! A great big ugly buck of a lad like you, and ye’r not in the Friendly Sons? Now, how can that be?”

  “I’m an Englishman,” Harris said, without thinking. “Or my parents were.”

  The glass he was about to raise to his lips was snatched from his hands.

  “There’ll be no drinking on duty when Warden O’Flaherty’s around,” he said. “Englishman, indeed! It’s a good thing they’ve thrown you off the force, you disgrace to policeman’s blue, or I’d have to arrange that myself.”

  The warden carefully repoured the three fingers of Leprechaun’s Delight back into the bottle, turned on his heel, and marched across the prison yard to his office. Steven Harris turned and looked at his car. The two Abzugians, both of whom looked vaguely familiar somehow, were propped up on the back seat, mouths open, snoring in harmony.

  Steven Harris got behind the wheel,
started the engine, and drove out of the Maine state slammer.

  Chief Ernie Kelly of the Spruce Harbor Police Department thought of himself as the finest of Spruce Harbor’s finest. If he wasn’t, he reasoned, obviously someone else would be chief and get to wear the chief’s hat . . . which was actually a helmet. The helmet was left with Chief Kelly by a friendly salesman of the Peace, Law, and Order Equipment Company as an absolutely free, no-strings-attached gift. It was dark blue in color and had, in addition to a clear-plastic face mask and a leather strap for the chin, a short-wave antenna rising from its center and a microphone boom fixed to the side dangling the mike itself before the chief’s mouth. It said “CHIEF” in large gold letters on the front, a burst of lightning bolts was portrayed on each side, and the word “POLICE” was printed on the back, presumably to reassure the citizenry that the wearer had not come from Mars.

  The salesman, of course, had believed that such a device would be absolutely irresistible as an item of police equipment and that he could shortly expect an order for thirty-six similar items to fully equip the active (twelve men) and reserve (twenty-four men) police forces of the Spruce Harbor Department of Public Safety and Sanitation, at the special three-dozen price of $109.75 each.

  No such order was forthcoming, although Chief Kelly had indeed presented himself before the City Council in his helmet to make such a request. All the chief had gotten for his trouble was the sight of the entire City Council, to a man, bent double in hysterics.

  Chief Kelly, however, continued to wear his helmet on any occasion when he thought he could get away with it. He frankly didn’t understand why everyone thought it was so funny. If the state police could march around wearing their Smokey-the-Bear hats, with no one laughing at them, what was so funny about him wearing the helmet?

  The police department today was on full mobilization, which is to say that all leaves had been canceled and the reserves mobilized, which meant that no garbage would be collected until further notice, the garbagemen having been called to duty to preserve the peace of Spruce Harbor against the threat presented by the following: