“Which is more distasteful, Crumbum,” Hawkeye asked, “disturbing Jambon or not getting paid?”
“Thank you, Doctor,” T. Alfred Crumley said. “I’ll return to my office and telephone Mr. Jambon immediately.”
Closing the door on him, Hawkeye thought that would be the end of it. He had returned to his desk and to his monthly correspondence. He had before him a roll of heavy-duty, fiberglass-reinforced plastic tape, a pile of discarded bricks, and a stack of the little cards with which all Americans over the age of six are very familiar, the postage-will-be-paid business-reply coupons with which advertisers tempt the buying public with all sorts of quasi-free offers.
“Yes,” read one such postage-paid card, “I would like to accept your free trial offer of my own barrel stave -making machine, reduced this week to $299.95, with which I may start myself on the path to financial security in my basement.”
Hawkeye had come across the card, and twenty-five more very much like it, firmly stapled into magazines for which he had paid cash money. In order for him to read the stories in which he was interested, it was generally necessary for him to interrupt his concentration, very carefully rip the postage-will-be-paid business-reply coupon from the magazine (unless one ripped very carefully, one generally ripped out the article in which one was interested as well), find a wastebasket for same, and then returned to the magazine. By the time this had all transpired, he had at the very least lost his place, as well as his line of thought, and at worst the magazine had been confiscated by Mrs. Pierce.
Although, as a matter of principle, Hawkeye had as little to do with United States governmental officials as humanly possible, he was so annoyed with the postage- will-be-paid business-reply coupons with which his magazines and mailbox were stuffed that he brought it to the attention of the highest-ranking federal official in Spruce Harbor, Maine, the postmaster.
That official informed him that there was absolutely no law on the books that forbade advertisers ruining magazines with their postage-will-be-paid business- reply coupons or filling his mailbox with direct mail advertising including such postage-will-be-paid coupons.
“When I was a soldier,” Hawkeye said, “I had a wide reputation as the best guardhouse lawyer north of Chunchon and south of Pyongyang. Lemme see the regulations.”
The regulations were fascinating. They said that while there would be no charge for postage-will-be-paid coupons which were not returned through the mail, the Post Office Department would charge the addressees a small fee, in addition to the regular postage, based on the weight of the item returned, for each such postage-will- be-paid coupon actually used to carry something through the mails.
“Tell me, Howard,” Hawkeye had said to the postmaster, “what would you do if you got one of these deleted expletive coupons tied to a brick?”
“I’ll look into it, Hawkeye, and get back to you,”
Postmaster Howard P. Jefferson, who had not risen high in the postal hierarchy by making snap decisions and shooting from the hip, replied.
Two weeks later, after consulting both his superiors and a nephew who was in the second year of law school, Postmaster Jefferson issued his pronuciamento:
“Hawkeye, in reply to your interrogatory of recent date,” he said, “it is our decision, subject of course to reversal and/or review by higher authority, that if someone, for reasons which escape me, should attach a postage-will-be-paid coupon to a brick or other heavy object, the addressee would be liable for the first-class postage of brick and postage-will-be-paid coupon.”
“You mean he would have to pay first-class postage by the ounce for whatever the brick weighed?”
“Theoretically, that is the case,” Postmaster Jefferson said. “But who would want to do something like that ... what’s in that burlap bag, Hawkeye?”
“Seventeen bricks and seventeen postage-will-be- paid business-reply coupons,” Hawkeye replied. “Don’t let anything stay you from the swift completion of your appointed rounds, Howard.”
Correspondence Day, as Dr. Pierce thought of it, was one of the bright moments of his month. He, personally, was helping reduce the post office deficit. Bricks generally cost the addressee $2.30 in postage each. One particularly dedicated purveyor of phonograph records in Ohio who hadn’t learned to take “no” for an answer was soon going to have enough $2.30 bricks to build a garage.
Since he was, thus, merrily engaged in such a worthwhile practice, it is understandable that Dr. Pierce was a little annoyed when Mr. T. Alfred Crumley, Talyor P. Jambon in tow, reappeared at his office door.
“Now what, Crumbum?” he inquired, not at all kindly.
“Doctor,” Taylor P. Jambom said. “You have to help me!”
“It is not necessary for you to approach me on your knees, Mr. Jambom,” Hawkeye replied. “Just telephone my secretary for an appointment, and I will be happy to discuss cutting your throat or whatever else seems to be bothering you.”
Chapter Twelve
Taylor P. Jambon lied well. The story he told Dr. Benjamin Franklin Pierce, chief of surgery of the Spruce Harbor Medical Center was, furthermore, one of his better efforts.
According to Mr. Jambon, Patience Throckbottom Worthington, America’s most beloved thespian, was, as the result of her accident, “in the most severe pain, suffering excruciating agony whenever she had to move. Far too brave to complain, and determined to do what she could to help Americans’ suffering pups and pussies,” she had finally resorted to taking “a glass or two of spirituous liquor” to dull the pain. Being “wholly unaccustomed to anything stronger than sherry,” and that only once a year, when she had concluded her traditional Christmas Eve rendition of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, the sad truth was that she was.
“I say this, Doctor, only because I am sure it will go no further, because of the patient-doctor confidentiality code, a wee bit tipsy.”
“No,” Hawkeye replied, visibly shocked. He had not, of course, believed a word Jambon had so far said. He was curious, however, to see to what heights the Jambon imagination would carry them all.
“Yes,” Taylor P. Jambon said, wiping a tear from his eye.
“I will rush to her side and pump out her stomach,” Hawkeye said.
“No!” Mr. Jambon said, very quickly.
“Followed by a long, cold shower and copious quantities of steaming coffee,” Hawkeye went on. “After which I will ask Mr. Crumbum here to detect and locate the black-hearted scalawag who has dared to profane the lips of America’s sainted thespian-lady with spirituous liquors.”
Taylor P. Jambon looked a little confused.
“If I may continue, Doctor?” Jambon said.
“By all means,” Hawkeye said.
“There is another problem,” Taylor P. Jambon said. “I’m sure that you are familiar with Senator Christopher Columbus Cacciatore, Doctor?”
“The very sound of his name causes my heart to flutter and my mind’s eye to fill with visions of Old Glory fluttering over our nation’s Capitol, where that sainted man gives so freely of his time to save us poor taxpayers from our folly,” Hawkeye said.
“Yes,” Jambon said. “I tell you in absolute confidence, Doctor, that Senator Christopher Columbus Cacciatore, himself, is coming right here to Spruce Harbor, this very afternoon, to take Miss Worthington away.”
“No!”
“Yes!” Mr. Jambon said. “Senator Cacciatore is one of Miss Worthington’s greatest admirers.”
“I can certainly understand that,” Hawkeye said softly.
“And vice-versa,” Taylor P. Jambon said.
“I can understand that, too,” Hawkeye said. “Birds of a feather, to coin a phrase.”
“Precisely,” Taylor P. Jambon said. Somehow, however, he suspected that things weren’t going exactly as he intended them to go. “Well, Doctor, you can well imagine how absolutely crushed and humiliated our dear Miss Worthington would be if her dear friend Senator Cacciatore should learn that she was, well, a little tiddly.”
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br /> “What are you asking of me, Mr. Jambon?”
“I had hoped that a physician and surgeon of your obvious intelligence and vast experience, not to mention compassion, would perhaps be able to think of something that would solve the problem,” Taylor P. Jambon said.
“Tell you what I’m going to do, Jawbone,” Hawkeye said.
“That’s Jambon, Doctor.”
“Don’t interrupt me when I’m displaying my obvious intelligence, vast experience and practically bottomless compassion,” Hawkeye said.
“Sorry,” Taylor P. Jambon said.
“You square the lady’s bill with Crumbum here,” Hawkeye said, “and I’ll give her a little something that’ll keep her under long enough to get her on the plane.”
“I’m sure,” Taylor P. Jambon said, “that something can be worked out with regard to her bill.”
“In cash,” Hawkeye said. “And now.”
“That isn’t, exactly, what I had in mind,” Taylor P. Jambon said.
“That is, exactly, what I have in mind,” Hawkeye replied. “Otherwise, when the senator arrives at our airfield, he’s going to find Miss Worthington waiting for him, sitting on her little stretcher, waving her bottle around and singing ‘Show Me the Way to Go Home’!”
Taylor P. Jambon turned slightly green, but he reached for his wallet.
“And now, Mr. Jambon, if you will excuse us,” Hawkeye said, “Mr. Crumbum and I will confer privately as to the exact dosage of the depressant I will administer to Miss Worthington.”
“Certainly,” Mr. Jambon said. “I don’t want to know any of the details!”
T. Alfred Crumley, although he said nothing, looked at Dr. Pierce with shock and concern in his eyes. While, it is true, he did not understand at all how someone of Dr. Pierce’s general character could possibly be regarded as a first-class chest cutter, he had never believed that he would stoop to administering a drug to anyone without sound medical reason.
As soon as Taylor P. Jambon had left the office, Dr. Pierce went to a filing cabinet, unlocked it and withdrew a gallon bottle filled with a crystal-clear liquid.
“I hope you realize, Crumbum,” he said, “how this violates my principles.”
“What is that?” Crumley asked.
“Essence de Bayou,” Hawkeye said. “My very last one.”
“But what is it?”
“It is a preparation made with loving care by a first- class craftsman in simpler times,” Hawkeye said. “It is no longer made. The chemist, so to speak, now can’t spare the time from the press of his other duties. The Bayou Perdu still bubbles no more.”
“Are you saying that’s ... moonshine? Untaxed, illegal corn liquor?”
“Actually, it’s a skillful blend of corn liquor and rice liquor, with just a hint of brandy added to give it a little je ne sais quoi,” Hawkeye said. “It is from the last run, made the day before Chevaux Petroleum bulldozers came to prepare the site for drilling. Horsey gave me six gallons, for auld lang syne, and this, Crumbum, is the last, so to speak, of the last. I tell you this so that you will appreciate what a sacrifice I am personally making in order to get your bill paid and that nasty broad out of our hospital.”
“How much am I supposed to give her?” Crumley asked.
“As much as necessary,” Hawkeye said. “I should think that a quart would be enough to send even Miss Worthington to dreamland.”
“But is it safe?”
Dr. Pierce looked thoughtful.
“Good thinking, Crumbum,” he said finally. “It wouldn’t do, would it, to give Miss Worthington something we weren’t absolutely sure of, would it?” He then bent his mouth over the neck of the bottle, skillfully extracted the cork with his teeth, and with a certain élan, his finger hooked in the bottle ring, threw the bottle over his arm and took a good swallow.
He lowered the bottle, smacked his lips, thumped his chest with his fist, looked thoughtful, and then, finally, smiled.
“Here you go, Crumbum,” he said, handing him the bottle. “Now get out of here before I change my mind. Noble self-sacrifice, even in a good cause like this one, comes hard to me.”
And so it came to pass, as it says in the Good Book, that as Wrong Way Napolitano’s pickup, bearing the secretary of state, Reverend Mother Emeritus, and the chairman and chief executive officer of Chevaux Petroleum International (plus, of course, Darling and Beauregard) rolled somewhat unsmoothly from Spruce Harbor International Airfield toward the Spruce Harbor Medical Center, they encountered, rolling majestically in the opposite direction, the hearse of the Spruce Harbor Funeral Home.
Horsey, Wrong Way and the Secretary of State politely removed their hats as the two vehicles met and Reverend Mother Emeritus raised her hand in blessing.
“She must have just recently gone to the Great Rollcall in the Sky,” Reverend Mother said. “I saw her husband kneeling beside the corpse. I could even see the tears in his eyes.”
It wasn’t, of course, either a corpse or a bereaved husband. It was Patience Throckbottom Worthington being carried to her rendezvous with Senator Christopher Columbus Cacciatore. Taylor P. Jambon, whom Reverend Mother Emeritus had understandably mistaken for the husband, did indeed have watering tear ducts. The tears in his eyes, however, were a physical reaction to the fumes which rose from Miss Worthington with every breath; the look of concern on his face was for his own safety. All it needed was one spark to ignite those fumes, he realized, and they’d be blown up all over the rock-bound coast of Maine.
Taylor P. Jambon, realizing that unless he got some fresh air the hearse would deliver two unconscious bodies to the aircraft, rolled down the window and stuck his head out. His eyes cleared; he saw they were at the airfield. And then he saw something else.
“Stop!” he suddenly shouted. His voice, while not loud, had a certain penetrating quality, like the sound fingernails make when scraping along a slate blackboard. That timbre, plus the fact that the hearse driver wasn’t used to receiving orders from the back seat, shocked the driver into action. He took his foot from the accelerator and jammed it on the brakes. The hearse slid to a stop. Patience Throckbottom Worthington, who had been installed on the rolling-wheels arrangement designed for easy removal of a casket, kept moving until she encountered the back of the driver’s seat.
It roused her momentarily from her slumber, long enough to deliver a brief, if somewhat scathingly scatological opinion of the driver’s skill, intelligence, and obviously canine parentage. Then she resumed, with an awesome snore what was anything but her sleep of innocence.
“Jaws,” Taylor P. Jambon said, “what are you doing wandering around the end of the runway?”
“What are you doing in that hearse, Taylor P.?” Senator Fisch inquired without replying to Mr. Jambon’s question. “Nothing, God forbid, has happened to America’s most beloved thespian?”
“Of course not,” Taylor P. Jambon replied.
“Then what are you doing in a hearse?”
“Trying to cheat an honest businessman, that’s what he’s doing,” the driver said. “He told me that ugly old broad was a stiff.”
“So I did,” Mr. Jambon said. “And stiff she is.”
“I meant dead-stiff,” the driver said, “not drunk-stiff.”
“That’s your problem,” Taylor P. Jambon said. “Get in, Jaws. Which airplane is ours?”
“The medium-sized one,” Senator Fisch said. He stuck his head in the hearse, looked around nervously, and withdrew it. “You just go ahead, Taylor P.,” he'said. “I’ll trot along after you.”
“You’re a sissy, Jaws, you know that?” Taylor P.
Jambon said disgustedly, slamming the hearse door. “Drive on,” he ordered.
“I’m not driving two feet until you pay me the live-body rate,” the driver said.
“My good man, do you have any idea who you have the great privilege of ferrying around in your somewhat ratty hearse? Patience Throckbottom Worthington, that’s who!”
The driver jumpe
d from behind the wheel. He pulled open the rear door, grabbed Taylor P. Jambon by his shirt-front, and threw him out of the hearse. Then he went to the rear door, opened it, grabbed the stretcher on which Patience Throckbottom Worthington slept soundly, and rolled it out of his hearse. It dropped three feet to the ground, but the bump did not disturb Miss Worthington’s sleep.
“I thought that telling me that drunken old broad was dead to get the cheaper stiff rate was the lowest thing I’d ever heard,” the driver said, “but bringing in the name of Patience Throckbottom Worthington is really rotten. You should be ashamed of yourself!”
“There seems to be a slight misunderstanding,” Senator Fisch said, trying to pour a little oil on the troubled waters.
“And you, too!” the driver said. He slammed both doors, got behind the wheel, slammed the driver’s door, and drove off.
“Well, Taylor P.,” Senator Fisch said. “Now what?”
“Things could be worse,” Taylor P. Jambon said. “Quick, grab your end of the stretcher.”
“How could they be worse?”
“I could have paid him in advance,” Taylor P. Jambon said. “If you trot a little, Jaws, and with a little luck, we can have her aboard the plane and be out of here before he remembers I haven’t paid him.”
With Miss Patience Throckbottom Worthington suspended between them, they trotted down the runway to Air Force Six-Two-Six. Senator Cacciatore saw them coming. He came down the stairs, took off his pearl-gray homburg and held it over his heart as Senator Fisch and Taylor P. Jambon carried Miss Worthington up the stairs.
“She looks,” the senator said, emotion evident in his voice, “just as I thought she would.” He dabbed at his eyes with his hankie. “A saint, that’s what she is. A saint! There must be Italian blood in her somewhere.”
He climbed back up the stairs. The stairs folded back into the plane. The engines started. The pilot picked up his microphone.
“Spruce Harbor Departure Control,” he said. “Air Force VIP Six-Two-Six requests....” He remembered where he was. “Oh, to hell with it,” he said, hanging the microphone up and then shoving the throttle forward. Air Force VIP Six-Two-Six roared down the runway and into the air.
MASH 09 MASH goes to Vienna Page 13
