MASH 09 MASH goes to Vienna

by Richard Hooker+William Butterworth

  “Topless desk persons?” he asked. “I didn’t see any topless desk persons!”

  “I saw them,” Seymour G. Schwartz said. “Didn’t you see them, Taylor?”

  “I saw them,” Taylor P. Jambon quickly agreed, “three brunettes, a redhead and two blondes.” He didn’t know where Mr. Schwartz was going (they had, in fact, just a minute before met for the first time), but he was obviously cut from the same cloth.

  “Fascinating!” Senator Fisch said.

  “I heard the redhead say that she was just thrilled that there was a U.S. senator in the hotel,” Seymour said.

  “I thought that was one of the blonds,” Taylor P. Jambon said.

  “No, the blond said that she was even more excited because Don Rhotten was supposed to be in the hotel.”

  “She said that, did she?” Don Rhotten said, sticking his thumb in his eye to make sure the Paul Newman-blue contact lens was in straight.

  “If you gentlemen can see your way clear to excusing me,” Senator Fisch said, “I think I’ll take a little stroll.”

  “Me, too,” Don Rhotten said.

  Seymour G. Schwartz turned to Taylor P. Jambon. They exchanged a significant look but said nothing until the senator and Don Rhotten had gone.

  “You handled that very well,” Taylor P. Jambon said.

  “I thought so, Mr. Jambon,” Mr. Schwartz replied “Now, shall we get down to business?”

  “Why, I’m not sure I know what you mean, Mr. Schwartz,” Taylor P. Jambon said. He had a sudden sure sensation that he wasn’t going to like this at all.

  “This is Seymour G. Schwartz you’re dealing with, not that dummy senator of yours,” Seymour said. “You didn’t really think you were going to get Don Rhotten for free, did you?”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “We want thirty percent of the take,” Seymour said. “Clear enough?”

  Taylor P. Jambon’s smile vanished. “Clear enough,” he said. “But thirty percent is out of the question.”

  “Tell me why,” Seymour G. Schwartz said.

  “Well, for one thing, despite what the publicity said about her doing it for the love of animals, I had to pay Patience Throckbottom Worthington a bundle. Not to mention her hospital bill.”

  “Let’s get down to figures,” Seymour said.

  “I’ll lay it all out on the table for you,” Taylor P. Jambon said. “The way we have it figured, what with administrative and operating expenses, we’re going to be lucky to break even.”

  “How much do the dogs and cats get?”

  “Ten percent,” Taylor P. Jambon said. “That’s after operating and administrative expenses, of course.”

  “Since we need thirty percent, that leaves us with the problem of taking twenty percent from administrative and operating expenses,” Seymour G. Schwartz said.

  “You mean, you’re going to take the pups’s and pussycats’ ten percent?”

  “Who’s to know?” Seymour G. Schwartz said. “They can’t talk, you know.”

  “OK.” Taylor P. said. “Scratch the ten percent for the dogs and cats. But you don’t expect me or the senator to give up our consultant’s fees and expense accounts, do you?”

  “Give them up? No. Whittle them down a little. Certainly. What does your consultant’s fees and expenses come to, percentage-wise?”

  “A little over fifty percent,” Taylor P. Jambon admitted.

  “It just dropped to forty,” Seymour G. Schwartz said “Where can we get the other ten percent?”

  “No place,” Taylor P. Jambon said, obviously telling the truth. “Forty percent goes for direct-mailing expenses, typewriters, office supplies. That sort of thing.”

  “Some of your employees are about to take a cut in salary,” Seymour G. Schwartz said.

  “You don’t really think I pay them, do you?” Taylor

  P. Jambon replied. “They’re volunteers, Seymour. Free volunteers. You know the type, kooks and nuts who really like dogs and cats.”

  “Very clever of you,” Seymour said. “You’re smarter than you look, Taylor P.”

  “Thank you,” Taylor P. said. “From you, that’s a real compliment.”

  “I’ll split the difference with you,” Seymour said, “as a token of my affection and respect. The cut for you and the senator is down to thirty percent. Our cut is thirty percent. Expenses are forty percent. That adds up to one hundred percent.”

  “Just for the record, we should spend something on the dogs and cats.”

  “Take it out of your share,” Seymour said. “What have dogs and cats ever done for me?”

  “Be a sport, Seymour,” Taylor P. said. “Besides, what if it ever got out that the damned dogs and cats weren’t getting any of it?”

  “You have a point,” Seymour said, after thinking it over. “I’m a reasonable man. One percent from my share, one percent from your share. That’s two whole percent for the animals. What could be fairer?”

  “You’re a man after my own heart, Seymour,” Taylor P. Jambon said, putting out his hand.

  “Just to satisfy my curiosity, Taylor P.,” Seymour said, “what are you going to do with all the money we’re going to give the cats and dogs?”

  “It’s rather indelicate,” Taylor P. said. ”it has to do with fixing them so they can’t have any little cats, if you follow my meaning.”

  “The dogs, too?”

  “The dogs, too, of course,” Taylor P. Jambon said. “That’s how I got into this good work, incidentally. I had a cat. She had no morals at all, I’m ashamed to say. Well, I had to have her fixed. I was going broke buying cat food. And you wouldn’t believe what it cost. So I got to thinking, why should I pay for it?”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I started APPLE, of course,” Taylor P. said with quiet modesty. “I knew, of course, from my career as a gourmet, that you can tell people anything and get them to believe it.”

  “You’re a clever man, Taylor P.,” Seymour G. Schwartz said. “Almost but not quite, as clever as I am.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Mr. Ambassador,” his secretary said, breaking the news as gently as she could, “Senator Cacciatore is on the telephone.”

  “Splendid!” the ambassador said, forcing a smile and reaching for the instrument. He took a deep breath, forced an even wider smile, and took the handset from the cradle. “Good afternoon, Senator!” he said enthusiastically. “How good of me to call you. I mean, of course, how good of you to call me!”

  “I’m calling on behalf of my wife and myself, and, of course, on behalf of Senator Fisch,” Senator Cacciatore said.

  “Oh?”

  “To express my deep gratitude for all that you’ve done for us,” the senator went on.

  “Well, how nice of you.”

  “And just as soon as I get back to Washington, Mr. Ambassador, I’m going to bring your splendid performance of duty to the attention of the proper people.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Senator,” the ambassador said.

  “It’s not true, you know, just between us, that the chairman of the Senate Committee on Internal Operations and the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Operations don’t like each other.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, Senator,” the ambassador said.

  “That’s what you call a little cosmetics for the folks back home,” Senator Cacciatore said. “The only reason he called me a goddamned Yankee was for the benefit of the folks back home, you understand?”

  “I think so. Senator.”

  “And that’s why I called him a dumb redneck,” Senator Cacciatore said. “My constituents like that. The truth of the matter is, Mr. Ambassador, that his neck is as white as yours and mine.”

  “Ahhhhhh,” the ambassador said, reluctantly concluding that the truth would come out in the end anyway. “You are aware, I’m sure, Senator, that I’m an American of African descent?”

  “Of course I am,” Senator Christopher Columbus Cacciatore said.
“As I was saying to Alabama John— he’s the Chairman of the Foreign Operations Committee, you know ...”

  “Yes, Senator, I know,” the ambassador said.

  “Alabama John, I said ... we were having a haircut in the Senate Barbershop at the time ... “Alabama John, I want you to know that our ambassador to Austria is a credit to his race.”

  “That was very kind of you, Senator,” the ambassador replied.

  “Give credit where credit is due, I always say, without regard to creed, color, or national origin.”

  “That’s a splendid philosophy, Senator.”

  “We Italians are better at that sort of thing than other people, you know,” the senator said. “It’s our Roman heritage. I mean, where would America be if it hadn’t been for my namesake, Christopher Columbus?”

  The ambassador bit off the reply, “Off the coast of Ceylon, perhaps?”, that came to his lips. “You’re quite right, Senator,” he said. “Where indeed would it be?”

  “What I said to Alabama John, Mr. Ambassador, was before I knew I wasn’t invited to the party.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The next time I see Alabama John, Mr. Ambassador, I’m going to have to qualify what I said before.”

  “I don’t think I quite follow you, Senator Cacciatore,” the ambassador confessed.

  “What I’m going to have to say, I’m afraid, is ‘Alabama John, what I said about our ambassador to Austria being a credit to his race is good only so far as it goes. When it comes down to getting two U.S. senators, far from home, invited to a party, he’s a complete bust. And I say that without reference to his color, creed or national origin, simply as a statement of fact.’ That’s what I’m going to have to tell my good friend, the distinguished senator from the great state of Alabama.”

  “What party are we talking about, Senator?” the ambassador asked.

  “Put it from your mind,” Senator Cacciatore said. “Don’t give it another thought. We all have our limitations. I have mine, and you have yours, Mr. Ambassador, especially when it comes to getting two United States senators invited to a fancy dinner party. Think nothing more about it. Think about your future. Think how happy you’re going to be as second assistant passport officer in the consulate in Zamboanga.”

  “Senator,” the ambassador said, “if you’ll only tell me which party it is to which you make reference, perhaps something can be worked out.”

  “Worked out? Worked out? You’re trying to tell me that maybe, just maybe, you can fix it for two United States senators, members of the most exclusive club in the world, to get invited to some lousy party?”

  “Which party, Senator?”

  “Since you insist, I personally would never think of going somewhere I wasn’t wanted, but since you insist, I’m talking about the party the Australian government is giving for Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov, that’s what party.”

  “The Australian government?” the ambassador said.

  “Austrian. Australian, what’s the difference?” the senator replied. “The bottom line, you lousy bureaucrat, is that there’s going to be a party for Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov, my wife wants to go, and we’re not invited. All you diplomats are good for is standing around in striped pants drinking champagne. When it comes to doing something important for your United States senators, you’re useless.”

  “Senator Cacciatore,” the ambassador said, “I’m sure there’s been some sort of a simple mistake. I’ll check into it and get right back to you.”

  “Don’t bother,” Senator Cacciatore said. “I wouldn’t want you to put yourself out any for a simple servant of the people like myself.”

  “It will be my great pleasure, Senator,” the ambassador said. “I’ll get right back to you.”

  “If you insist,” Senator Cacciatore said.

  The ambassador broke the connection with his finger and told his secretary to get His Excellency Franz Schubert von und zu Gurkelhausen, deputy chief of protocol of the Austrian Foreign Ministry on the line immediately. “Franzl? Homer.”

  “What can I do for you, Homer?”

  “Need a little favor, buddy,” Homer said.

  “Name it, you got it.”

  “You’re throwing a little bash tonight for some singer?” There was no reply. “You hear what I asked, Franzl?”

  “I heard, Homer,” Franzl said.

  “I need three tickets,” Homer said.

  “You don’t want to go to that party, Homer,” Franzl said. “Trust me, you wouldn’t like it.”

  “They’re not for me, Franzl. They’re for somebody else.”

  “They wouldn’t like it either, Homer, believe me.”

  “Why not?”

  “OK.” Franzl said. “We’re friends. I can tell you the truth, right?”

  “Right.”

  “There’s no more room,” Franzl said. “That’s the bottom line, Homer.”

  “What do you mean, no more room?”

  “It started out as a nice little supper for twenty,” Franzl said, “and then it just grew and grew and grew. The way it stands now, the whole restaurant has been taken over for the evening. There’s just no more room.”

  “Franzl, this is important to me. I need the tickets for two United States senators.”

  “I just told the chargé d’affaires of the Russian Embassy there’s no tickets, and you’re asking me to give tickets to a couple of lousy senators?”

  “Plus one for a wife,” the ambassador said.

  “Homer… ”

  “Don’t Homer me, Franzl,” the ambassador said. “You owe me. Did I, or didn’t I, get you and Frau von und zu Gurkelhausen into Walt Disney World when it was booked solid?”

  “You did that,” Franzl admitted.

  “And you told me that if there ever was anything you could do for me, all I had to do was ask.”

  “I might have said something along those lines,” Franzl admitted.

  “Might have? Might have? Are you trying to weasel out of a solemn promise, Franzl?”

  “Of course not,” Franzl said. “I’ll get three tickets over to you right away, Homer. But you understand that this evens us up? We’re square, even-steven?”

  “Send the tickets, Franzl,” the ambassador said.

  Franz Schubert von und zu Gurkelhausen called the Drei Hussaren Restaurant’s maître d’hotel.

  “Fritzl? Here is Franzl,” he began.

  “Don’t bother me, von und zu Gurkelhausen, I got three-hundred-sixteen people coming for dinner in an hour.”

  “Put in three more chairs, Fritzl,” Franzl said. “You got three-hundred-nineteen people coming.”

  “You’re either crazy or drank,” Fritzl replied. “There’s no more room, period.”

  “You’ve got to make room,” Franzl said. “That’s all there is to it.”

  “This is the Drei Hussaren Restaurant, Franzl,” the maitre d’hotel said. “When people come here to eat, they expect to sit down.”

  “Look, the minute it starts, the minute you start with the appetizer, some ladies will go and powder their noses. They always do that, you know they do.”

  “So?”

  “So when they do, steal their chairs,” Franzl said. “It’s as simple as that.”

  “They’re not going to notice their chairs are gone?”

  “With Unseren Lieben Boris at the head table, they wouldn’t notice,” Franzl said, “this isn’t the first state dinner you’ve given for Unseren Lieben Boris.”

  “I know. We’re still repairing the damage for the last one,” Fritzl said. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Franzl. Because I like you.”

  “So tell me.”

  “You don’t notice that all the champagne maybe ain’t really champagne, I’ll squeeze in three more somehow.”

  “You got a deal, Fritzl,” Franzl said. “Just make sure I don’t get anything but the real thing.”

  “It’s a pleasure doing business with you, Franzl.”


  When Don Rhotten (pronounced “Row-ten”) and Senator J. Ellwood “Jaws” Fisch could not find the topless desk persons in the lobby of the Bristol Hotel, they were, of course, somewhat disappointed, but not quite at the point of despair.

  “Think about it, Don,” Jaws said. “If you were a topless desk person looking for a little action in a hotel lobby and you couldn’t find it, what would you do?”

  “Try another hotel?” Don Rhotten replied. “Gee, Jaws, I’d rather not. It’s windy out there, and I’m wearing one of my best rugs.”

  “What I meant,” Jaws replied, “what I would do, if I were a topless desk person in similar circumstances, would be to go to the hotel bar.”

  “Good thinking, Jaws,” Don said.

  “I’m a senator, you know. You don’t get to be a senator unless you learn to stay on top of things.”

  “You’re a wise man, Jaws. You remind me very much of my pal the Honorable Edwards L. Jackson. Except for the hair, of course. His is silver gray.”

  “The Edwards L. Jackson on the House Committee on Sidewalks, Subways and Sewers, that Honorable Edwards Jackson?”

  “Right,” Don Rhotten replied. “He lets his friends, and I am proud to be able to include myself in that noble legion, call him ‘Smiling Jack.’ ”

  “I know him well,” Senator Fisch said.

  “Do you really?” Don Rhotten said as they walked into the bar. “It’s a small world, ain’t it?”

  “A congressman is not quite the same thing as a senator,” Jaws said. “But they’re better than lousy civilians, of course. Present company excepted.”

  “No offense taken,” Don Rhotten said.

  “How did you meet ol’ Smiling Jack?”

  “I’d rather not get into that, if you don’t mind,” Don Rhotten said. He changed the subject. “There’s no topless desk persons in here either,” he said, quickly scanning the bar.

  “Well, let’s have a little drinky-poo, anyway, since we’re here,” the senator said.

  “Why not?” Don Rhotten said. “Maybe if we stick around, one or two of them will show up.”

  “I wanted to talk to you anyway, Don,” the senator said. “About out spontaneous interview.”