“I demand to see the ambassador,” Dr. Waldowski had said.
“Oh, that’s quite impossible, I’m afraid. We have strict instructions to keep you tourists away from him.”
Four very large Marines had seen Dr. Waldowski to the door and through the gate.
“You haven’t heard the end of this!” Dr. Waldowski had cried. “I’m a personal friend of Mayor Daley!” But he knew it was a hollow threat even before the Marine replied.
“He was here last week. He told us he was a personal friend of the Secretary of State when we threw him out.”
Afraid to face Wilma’s wrath, Dr. Waldowski had assured her that everything was in order.
“It had better be,” she’d said with one of her sweet little smiles. “I just found out that Cher Boris is going to sing. The girls in Hamtramck will be simply green when they hear I heard him sing in the flesh.”
“You know this Cher Boris guy, huh?”
“Doesn’t every woman?” Wilma had breathed. Dr. Waldowski hadn’t seen that look in her eyes since the day they were married.
“Wilma, darling,” he had said, “I’m going down to the lobby to check on the car.”
“Stay out of the bar, Walter, darling,” Wilma had said, with another of her sweet little smiles.
“Of course, my love,” Dr. Waldowski had replied. Suddenly, there had been a burst of inspiration. He had walked out of the front door of the Ritz and set off at a dead run for the American Express Building on Rue Sphinx. When he’d first arrived in Paris, he had been accosted by a distinguished-looking gentleman standing outside this building who had offered to sell him postcards, and (this accompanied by a leer) “just about anything else you might want in Paris.” Dr. Waldowski’s heart had beat a little faster as he’d reached the building and seen the man standing there. He ripped out a couple more traveler’s checks.
“Is that offer of yours to get me anything I want in Paris still good?” he’d begun.
“For a price, M’sieu,” the man had replied. “Anything.”
“Great,” Waldowski had said. “Three tickets to the opera. Price no object.”
The man had laughed at him, practically doubling over with uncontrolled hilarity.
Dr. Waldowski had slunk back to the Ritz, and, forgetting Wilma’s stern injunction, headed straight for the bar.
For five beers, he’d sat staring at the bubbles with nary a thought of how he could get out of his predicament. Halfway through beer six, however, there was a faint light at the end of the dark tunnel. He would get lost.
This was a strange city. Getting lost was something that happened to people in strange cities. Far better that Wilma darling mock him for getting lost than find out that not only had he not been able to get three lousy tickets for a lousy opera, he had lied about it. She might, he reasoned desperately, even be glad that he was no longer lost.
“What do I owe you, Charley?” he demanded of the bartender.
“Three hundred francs,” the bartender replied with hauteur. “In your devalued American currency, which I will accept only because I have a big heart, that’s twelve dollars—with tax, fifteen.”
“Fifteen dollars for six lousy beers?”
“It breaks down to two-fifty a glass, M’sieu, and we have, of course, thrown in the peanuts free of charge.”
Dr. Waldowski paid the bill, walked quickly through the lobby, and turned left. Two blocks down the street, he looked up and saw the Opera building itself leering at him across the Place de l’Opera. He turned down the next alley, which happened to be Rue Danou; it was dark and looked like an entirely satisfactory street on which to become lost.
This initial gut reaction was almost immediately confirmed when he passed a set of swinging doors, around which oozed the smell of draft beer, hot dogs, and sauerkraut. He spun on his heels and pushed open the swinging doors.
It was a saloon virtually identical to a hundred saloons back home in Hamtramck, and somehow it had miraculously been transported all the way to Paris, France. There were even a waiter and a Shriner, in full regalia, drinking and having hot dogs at the bar.
“What can I do for you, Mac?” the bartender snarled in American. Dr. Waldowski, who had expected to be greeted by one more arrogant Frenchman, wondered if he was dreaming or losing his mind. He realized it didn’t matter. Whatever the explanation, he wasn’t going to rock the boat.
“Boilermaker and a redhot,” he ordered. “And see what the guys at the end of the bar will have.”
The bartender delivered the hot dog and drink to Dr. Waldowski, and then delivered what they wanted to the guys at the end of the bar. The waiter (Dr. Waldowski could tell he was a waiter because he was wearing the same black jacket with velvet lapels and bow tie that he was wearing) raised the beer glass to him, smiled, and drained it. He had a word with the bartender, and, in a moment, a foaming glass of beer came sliding down the bar. The beer stopped precisely in front of Dr. Waldowski.
“Live today, for tomorrow we die,” Dr. Waldowski philosophized, raising the beer glass and draining it and then signalling to the bartender to send another one down the bar.
The waiter, instead of drinking the beer, picked it up and walked down the bar to Dr. Waldowski.
“T. Mullins Yancey,” he said. “Always a pleasure to meet a fellow beer drinker.”
“Walter . . . they call me Walt . . . Waldowski,” Dr. Waldowski said. They shook hands. Dr. Waldowski raised his beer glass and drained it. “Mud in your eye, T. Mullins,” he said.
“Mud in your eye, Walt,” T. Mullins Yancey replied, raising his glass and draining it. “I’m really glad to meet you, Walt,” he said. “There’s nothing worse than trying to drink beer with a total teetotal, if you know what I mean.”
“You mean your Shriner friend’s on the wagon?”
“Nothing but orange juice,” T. Mullins replied, as the Shriner, adjusting his ornate headdress, slipped off the barstool and started down the bar. Waldowski saw that he was a little guy, not more than five-five, and had a dark skin.
“Give us a couple more, Eddie,” T. Mullins Yancey said to the bartender, “and another orange juice for the prince.”
“Good evening,” Waldowski said.
“Prince, say hello to Walt. Walt, shake hands with the prince.”
“How are you, Prince?” Waldowski said. “My Cousin Mable married a Protestant, and he’s a Shriner.”
“How interesting,” Prince said.
“Yeah,” Walt Waldowski said. “I’m K. of C., myself, but I always admired the Shriners.”
“As it happens,” Prince said, brightening, “I am an honorary member of the Knights of Columbus.” Walter Waldowski had never heard of any honorary Knights of Columbus, and was surprised when the man flashed a genuine-looking K. of C. membership card issued by Subconsistory Number Eighteen of some Deep South Consistory. (His eyes, truth to tell, were not focusing too well at the time.)
“It’s always a pleasure to meet a fellow Knight,” Waldowski said. “Bartender, two more boilermakers and a glass of whatever my brother Knight is having.”
“What brings you to Paris, Walt?”
“I’m here with the wife and daughter,” Waldowski replied. “You?”
“I’d rather not talk about it,” T. Mullins Yancey said. “I’m working.”
“Yeah, I suppose it is a tough racket,” Waldowski said. “I’m a dentist, myself.”
“Is that so?”
“I’d rather not talk about it,” Waldowski said.
“I’ll drink to that,” T. Mullins Yancey said. “Two more boilermakers, Charley.”
“No more for me,” the prince said. “I’m up to my ears in fruit juice.”
“You’re a real drag, Prince, you know that?” T. Mullins Yancey said.
“If you insist,” the prince said.
“Maybe you thought I was a waiter, too,” Waldowski said. “The way I’m dressed and all. But I’m not. The reason I’m dressed up like this is because I’m s
upposed to go to the opera.”
“I’d rather not talk about the opera, either,” T. Mullins Yancey said. “I’m as full up with the opera as the prince is with orange juice.”
That brilliant riposte naturally called for another boilermaker.
“I know why I don’t like the opera,” T. Mullins Yancey said. “But what have you got against it?”
“It’s not so much what I’ve got against it, as what my wife is going to do to me when she finds out I can’t get tickets for it like I promised.”
“She should have known that getting tickets for a performance magnifique was too much to ask,” T. Mullins Yancey said.
“What’s with this Cher Boris guy?” Dr. Waldowski asked.
“Don’t ask,” T. Mullins Yancey replied. “You wouldn’t like the answer.”
“In that case, I won’t ask,” Dr. Waldowski said, going along. He changed the subject. “You here in Paris on some sort of Shriner’s convention, Prince?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“He lives here,” T. Mullins Yancey answered for him.
“I didn’t know that the Shrine had temples in Europe,” Dr. Waldowski said.
“What is he talking about?” the prince asked.
“You wouldn’t understand, Prince,” T. Mullins Yancey said. “Shut up and drink your orange juice.” He returned his attention to Dr. Waldowski. “You say the little woman is going to blow up when she finds out you don’t have tickets?”
“That, T. Mullins, old buddy, is the understatement of the year,” Dr. Waldowski confessed.
At that point, as if on cue, the swinging doors to Harry’s New York Bar swung open and Mrs. Wilma Waldowski, accompanied by Miss Wanda Waldowski, both attired in brand-new and rather attractive evening dresses, swept in.
“Ah ha!” Mrs. Waldowski cried. “The concierge was right. I couldn’t believe you capable of such perfidy, but the concierge laid me three to seven that I could find you in this transplanted saloon, and he was right!”
“Papa dear, how could you?” Wanda Waldowski asked. “With me in my present heart-broken condition?”
“Hello, Wilma, darling,” Dr. Waldowski replied somewhat weakly.
“Don’t you ‘Wilma darling’ me, you Polish snake in the grass,” Wilma darling said. “When we get to the opera, everyone will know, everyone will smell, that you’ve spent the afternoon and early evening with your snout in a beer mug.”
“About the opera, Wilma, darling,” Dr. Waldowski began.
“What about the opera?” Wilma darling demanded. “You haven’t lost the tickets, have you?”
“Not exactly,” Dr. Waldowski said.
“What do you mean, ‘not exactly’?”
Dr. Waldowski took a deep breath. “The truth of the matter, Wilma, darling—” he began.
Wilma darling picked up a two-gallon container of dill pickles from the bar and held it above her head as she awaited his answer. Dr. Waldowski, always the optimist, thought things could be worse. The two-gallon jar of pickles and pickle juice was only half full.
“Go on,” Wilma said. “Explain yourself, you puli-cose* Polack—while you still have the ability!”
(* Mrs. Wilma Waldowski, then Miss Wilma Q. Kelly, had won the Greater Chicago Area Ninth-Grade Spelling Contest by correctly spelling “pulicose” (pu-ll-cose, from the Latin pulicosis, adj.: infested with fleas). She had thereafter, perhaps in a subconscious attempt to regain her moment of glory, often injected the word into her conversation, most often when discussing her husband.)
Chapter Seven
“Walter,” T. Mullins Yancey said, “you said she was beautiful, but you didn’t tell me that she’s nothing but a child bride.”
Wilma Waldowski looked at T. Mullins Yancey with suspicion in her eyes, but she did not throw the pickle jar still poised over her head.
“Permit me, gracious lady,” T. Mullins Yancey said, “the great privilege of introducing myself. I am Theosophilus Mullins Yancey. Doctor T. Mullins Yancey.”
“I’ve been married to this porcine Polish tooth-jerker long enough to know how you molar mechanics stick together,” Mrs. Waldowski said. “You can stop wasting your hot air on me, Curly. I’ve got your number.”
“Madame, I assure you that I am not a member of the dental profession,” T. Mullins Yancey replied.
“What are you, then, some kind of quack?”
“I am a doctor of medicine, dear lady,” T. Mullin: Yancey replied.
“M.D.?” she asked in disbelief.
“M.D., Ph.D., D.D., and D.V.M.,” he replied modestly, extending his card.
It was necessary, of course, for Mrs. Waldowski to put down the pickle jar in order to take Yancey’s card, which she did. Walter Waldowski let out his breath. Mrs. Waldowski examined the card.
THE T. MULLINS YANCEY FOUNDATION
Manhattan, Kansas
Theosophilus Mullins Yancey
M.D., Ph.D., D.D., and D.V.M.
Chief of Staff
“Doctor,” Wilma Waldowski said, oozing feminine charm from every pore, “whatever must you think of little me?”
“Only that you must have brought beauty and joy beyond measure into Walter’s otherwise drab life,” T. Mullins Yancey said.
“Yes,” Mrs. Waldowski purred. “How discerning you are, Doctor!”
“He was talking of nothing but you, dear lady,” T. Mullins went on, “telling us how much you appreciated the opera, and Cher Boris in particular, and how happy he was, as a small token of his boundless gratitude to you for sharing his drab and miserable life, to have been able to obtain the president’s . . . formerly the Emperor Napoleon’s . . . box for you and your lovely daughter.”
“Walter did what?” Wilma darling asked.
“What did I do?” Dr. Waldowski asked.
“We were, at the very instant you and your charming daughter entered, like dual rays of sunshine, this dark hole to which we repaired in desperation when the limousine broke down, about to come for you,” Dr. Yancey went on.
“What limousine?” Wilma Waldowski asked, mixed awe and suspicion in her voice.
“Tell her what limousine, Prince,” Dr. Yancey said. Then, before Prince could open his mouth: “Oh, forgive me, forgive me! Mrs. Waldowski, Miss Waldowski, may I present His Royal Highness Prince Hassan ad Kayam, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Sheikhdom of Hussid to the French Republic?”
“Charmed,” the prince said, bowing as he kissed Mrs. Waldowski’s hand.
“Walter,” Mrs. Waldowski said to her companion on the march down life’s rocky road, “I’m sure there will be a limousine outside, and that this isn’t one of your clever little deceptions.”
“You’re going to the opera with us, Your Royal Princeship?” Miss Wanda Waldowski asked.
“Your father has, as one more manifestation of his all-around generosity,” Dr. Yancey said, “very graciously has asked His Highness and myself to join you. Unless, of course, you would rather that we didn’t?”
“Of course you will,” Mrs. Waldowski said. “Any friends of my beloved Walter are friends of mine.”
Dr. Yancey looked a bit disappointed, but smiled bravely.
“See if the car is out there, Prince,” he said. “Walter and I are going to have another little libation.”
“A drink?” Mrs. Waldowski asked, suspicion returning.
“It is an old Parisian custom, Mrs. Waldowski,” Dr. Yancey said, “dating back to the days of Napoleon, in whose box you are about to sit. It’s called 'une pour le route.’ You do speak French, of course?”
“I’m afraid not,” Mrs. Waldowski confessed.
“Encore une fois,” Dr. Yancey said to the bartender.
“Isn’t that odd?” Mrs. Waldowski said as the drinks were delivered. “If I didn’t know better, if we weren’t in Paris, I’d say they looked like boilermakers.”
“Would you?” Dr. Yancey replied. He drained his in two gulps. “Allons, mes enfants,” he said, “à l’
opera!”
“This is,” Mrs. Wilma Waldowski said to her spouse, “what I believe is known as the moment of truth.”
Dr. and Mrs. Waldowski and their daughter, Wanda, were quite surprised to find waiting outside the swinging doors of Harry’s New York Bar (“Just tell the cab-driver sank Roo Dan-oo”) the promised limousine. It was a Cadillac, bearing on its rear doors in gold the coat of arms of the Sheikhdom of Hussid.*
(* The Royal Coat of Arms of the Sheikhdom of Hussid consisted of two crossed scimitars surmounted by an oil-well drilling rig, in turn surmounted by the dollar sign.
The gleaming front fenders of the Cadillac each bore the coat of arms on a flag. The limousine was part of a procession. Out in front were two motorcycles ridden by members of the French Gendarmerie Nationale. Behind the motorcycles were two black Citroën sedans, each flying the flag of Hussid and filled with His Royal Highness’ bodyguards; these were dressed in flowing robes and armed with silver-plated submachine guns. A third Citroën also filled with bodyguards brought up the rear.
The Sheikhdom of Hussid provided thirty-eight percent of the petroleum needs of the Republic of France. For that reason alone the Hussidic ambassador would be granted every courtesy at the disposal of the French government, but the relationship had been made even warmer by the connection between Air Hussid and the French aviation industry. Air Hussid was the only airline in the world to have purchased the droopnosed supersonic transport aircraft Le Discorde designed and built by the French. Only Air Hussid, which was funded by petty cash from the Hussidic Royal Exchequer, and thus not forced to consider such mundane things as the cost-per-seat-per-mile ($2.07), could afford it.)
As soon as the limousine door closed on Mrs. Waldowski, the sirens of the motorcycle escort began to wail, and the convoy moved out of Rue Danou. It turned right on Rue de Rivoli, toward the Opera. Gendarmes on duty in the Place de l’Opera furiously blew their whistles, twirled their capes, gestured menacingly with their batons, and finally stopped all traffic passing through the Place de l’Opera and made room for the convoy to swoop up to the main entrance to the Opera.
MASH 10 MASH goes to Miami Page 7
