“Is that so?” Zelda said.
“The thing is, Zelda,” Steven Harris said, “I need the money. I’m saving up to go to medical school.”
“No kidding?” she said. “I want to be an analytic biologist myself,” Zelda said.
“Yeah? Maybe we might be at the same school together.”
“That thought crossed my mind,” Zelda said.
“You must be Steve Harris,” Hot Lips, who had abandoned her theological vestments and was now wearing a bikini, said, stepping to the door of the cabin with a martini glass in her hand.
“Yes, ma’am,” Steve said, modestly averting his eyes. “And who are you, ma’am?”
“I’m the Reverend Mother Emeritus Wilson,” she said. “My friends call me Hot Lips, and any friend of my pal Boris is a friend of mine.” She looked at Zelda. “Honey, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but your mascara has slipped.”
“Steve!” Boris said. “Where the hell have you been?” He looked at Zelda. “Hello, sweetie,” he said. “I am Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov, the world’s greatest opera singer.”
“Zelda, ignore him!” Steve hissed.
“What happened to your beard, Mr. Korsky-Rimsakov?” Zelda replied. “I’m one of your greatest fans.” She qualified the comment. “Musically, not biologically.”
“Where did you find this delightful patroness of the arts, Steve?” Boris asked. Then, remembering: “Hey, they’re trying to get you on the radio. Some heiress has been kidnapped. They’re offering a million-dollar ransom for her.”
Zelda winced. “What was the name?” she asked. This would be the sixteenth time her father had mistakenly reached the conclusion that she had been kidnapped.
“Some wild name. Greek.”
“Spinopolous?”
“That’s it,” Boris said. “How did you know?”
“Stab in the dark,” Zelda said.
“I have been talking to Hot Lips about your little problem, Steve.”
“Which little problem is that?”
“About getting into medical school.”
“It’s a lost cause,” Steve said. “I can’t get in, and I don’t have the money, and I just threw Wesley St. James into Lost Crystal Lake. So I’m out of a job, too.” He looked on the edge of tears.
“Are you really a reverend mother?” Zelda asked suddenly, knowing she had to take the chance.
“Well, of course I am,” Hot Lips said, gesturing emphatically with her right hand, which held the martini glass, while she pulled up her bikini top with the other. “Can’t you just tell by looking?”
“I need to talk to someone,” Zelda said. “Will you help me?”
“Of course I will, darling,” Hot Lips said. “Come with me into the cabin, and we’ll have a little talk and a little martini, and get that mascara off your teeth all at once. Little smashed when you fixed your face, were you? Booze never helps, darling. Mother Emeritus knows that very well.”
Boris waited until the girls were inside the cabin. Then he turned to Steven Harris.
“I think the time has come for us to fish or cut bait,” he said. “Are you really serious about wanting to be a doctor?”
“Of course I am.”
“You want it bad enough to swallow your pride and take the money to pay for it?”
“Charity, you mean?” Steve asked.
“Call it what you want to,” Boris said. “Call it an investment in the future of mankind, in the health of the world.”
“You really are an opera singer, aren’t you?” Steve asked. “Zelda recognized you.”
“I am not an opera singer, my dear boy,” Boris said. “I am Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov, the world’s greatest opera singer.”
“And you’re offering to give me the money to pay for my medical education?”
“Me? Don’t be absurd. We’ll get the Frogs to pay for it,” Boris said. “You told me one time that you could talk to anyone in the world on that police radio. Is that so? Or had I been tippling?”
“I said you can be patched through to any police station in the world,” Steve said.
“Come with me, my lovesick pal,” Boris said. “I have a sudden urge to speak to Paris, France, the city of lovers.” He walked to the radio, picked up the microphone, and asked, “What button do I push?”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Steve said, sitting down at the table. “Who do you want to talk to?”
“The desk sergeant at the Place de l’Opéra Station of the Paris gendarmerie,” Boris said. “Can you call collect?”
“It’s not a telephone,” Steve said. He picked up the microphone. “This is Maine Zebra station,” he said. “Patch me through to Montreal.”
In about sixty seconds, he handed the microphone to Boris.
“Push the button to talk,” he said, “and say ‘over’ when you’ve finished a sentence.”
“Am I speaking with the Paris gendarmerie at the Place de I’Opéra station?” he asked. “Over.”
“Yes. What sort of international crime can the Gendarmerie Nationale solve for you? Over.”
“This is Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov,” Boris said. “I have an announcement to make. My triumphant return to the Paris Opéra will be a medical benefit performance magnifique.” He handed the microphone to Steve. “You may hang up. We now have to call New Orleans.”
“Why New Orleans?” Steve said. “This is Maine Zebra, Paris, thank you, break it down, and Maine Zebra out.”
“Fascinating!” Boris said. “What won’t they think of next?”
“Why do we have to talk to New Orleans?” Steve asked, again.
“Hot Lips!” Boris shouted. “Knock it off in there. Steve’s going to call New Orleans for us.”
Hot Lips and Zelda came back in the room. Gone was the Salvation Army dress; gone was the mascara on her cheeks: gone was the mascara on her teeth. Gone, too, was the tightly brushed back hair; it now cascaded in golden strands down her shoulders.
“Notice anything different?” Zelda asked, shyly.
“What happened to that dress you were wearing?” Steve asked. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll catch cold dressed in shorts and a halter like that?”
“I’ll take my chances,” Zelda said.
“God, he’s just like you are!” Hot Lips said to Boris. “He is simply unable to appreciate a beautiful woman.”
Boris shut her off with an imperious palm: “You want to talk to Reverend Doctor Mother Bernadette of Lourdes at the Gates of Heaven Medical Center, right?”
“Please,” Hot Lips said. “She’s the chief of staff, so you’ll have to use my name to get right through to her.” In just a matter of seconds, the New Orleans police radio operator, ever willing to come to the aid of distinguished theological and medical personnel, had the connection completed between Reverend Mother Emeritus Margaret H. W. Wilson, R.N., in Maine and Reverend Mother Bernadette of Lourdes, M.D., F.A.C.S., Chief of Staff of Gates of Heaven Medical Center.
“I’m ready for you, Reverend Mother,” Steve said, handing her the microphone.
“Bernie? This is Maggie. I need a little favor. You’re just going to have to push in one more chair in the medical school, dear, as a favor to me. And to Boris. And to Hawkeye and Trapper John. Over.”
There was a pause.
“Did you get all that, Bernie?” Hot Lips said again. “Over.”
“I’ve already talked to Trapper John and Hawkeye,” Reverend Mother Doctor said. “I told them I’d let this guy into the medical school . . . finest kind, they said he was . . . but I told them no dice on finding some female for him. I want you to understand that, too, Maggie. Over.”
“Oh,” Hot Lips said, “you won’t have to worry about that, Bernie! He’s bringing his own biologist with him. Now, is there anything I can bring you from Maine? Over.”
“Nothing, thank you. Good-bye, Reverend Mother. Over and out.”
“Bye-bye, Reverend Mother Doctor,” Hot Lips said. “Over
and out.”
The radio immediately snapped to life. “Zebra station, if you’re finished fooling around, the father of the kidnapee wants to make another appeal for the return of his daughter. The ransom he’s offering is now up to two million.”
“Boy, can you imagine that kind of money?” Harris said.
Zelda picked up the microphone.
“Hello, Daddy?” she said. “Cool it. Everything’s just fine.”
Trooper Steven J. Harris, in full uniform, fainted. Learning that his little Zelda, whom he had loved from the first moment he looked into her eyes, was loaded was quite a shock to him. He still looked stunned eight hours later when, with the blessing of His Bureaucratic Majesty the governor (as he was described by Dr. Pierce), who waved the normal waiting period, he was united in holy matrimony with the lady, three minutes and six seconds, by Bulova watch, before the bride’s mother arrived, blood in her eye, from New York with the intention of stopping the ceremony, which she termed then and later to be the greatest loss to the theater since she herself had turned in her ballet slippers.
Despite the absence of the bride’s mother, the wedding ceremony was a great success. A certain touch of class was added by the presence not only of Sheikh Abdullah ben Abzug but also of his Islamic Majesty’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Sheikh El Noil Sniol, who together with the secretary of state sang “I Love You Truly” during the recessional.
The ceremony, of course, was conducted by the Right Reverend Mother Emeritus Margaret H. W. Wilson of the God Is Love in All Forms Christian Church, Inc. The bride was given in marriage by her father, who borrowed a suit for the occasion and was heard to remark during the reception (the bartenders were Drs. Benjamin Franklin Pierce and John Francis Xavier McIntyre) that despite the English-sounding name, he was convinced his new son-in-law must be a Greek, for who but a Greek could meet, woo, and wed his little duckie-wuckie in something under twelve hours?
Bonita Granville Spinopolous, however, truth to tell, although she danced at the wedding, didn’t make her peace with her son-in-law until about a year later, when Zelda presented her with a grandson. At that point, Grandmother Spinopolous announced that anyone able to father such an obvious future Barrymore couldn’t be all bad.
MASH 08 MASH Goes to Hollywood Page 20
