MASH 14 MASH goes to Moscow (18 page)

(* Mr. Barnum’s most famous philosophical observation, of course, is, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” However, as the high
muckety
-mucks of TV are well aware, there is such a thing as too much truth, and for this reason it was decided to emblazon the Barnum medallion with the immortal words with which Mr. Barnum had gotten the suckers out of his museum as quickly as possible.)

Ms.
Strydent
, who had been lost in thought at this fascinating turn in her life, wondering what surprise would come next and what she could get out of it, suddenly sat upright in her seat as she saw Mr. St. James leap nimbly over the side of the Rolls onto the ground.

“What the bleep is that?” she asked, lapsing for a moment into the quaint and picturesque Staten Island patois she had learned at dear daddy’s knee.

“That, Ms.
Strydent
,” one of the vice-presidents said, “is Wesley St. James!”

“What the bleep is a Wesley St. James?” she demanded.

Before the question could be answered, the door of the aircraft opened and Mr. St. James bounded inside, looking not at all unlike a two-legged mountain goat.

“Dear Ms.
Strydent
!” he declaimed (more accurately, piped). “Welcome to gay and glamorous Hollywood! I am, of course, Wesley St. James! I am to daytime drama what Bill Shakespeare is to Stratford-upon-Avon.”

“You’re a dear little man, I’m sure,” Ms.
Strydent
said, extending her hand to be kissed. “But if you’re important, how come you’re driving an old Packard?”

Wesley St. James was slightly, but only slightly, taken aback by Ms.
Strydent’s
lack of recognition of his Rolls
Corniche
as the ne plus ultra of status symbols. He was, after all, quite accustomed to dealing with performers of one kind or another and fully aware that many of them are not very bright.

“Let us go, my dear Ms.
Strydent
,” Wesley St. James said. “First to the room I have engaged for you at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and then to the Wesley St. James Studios, where we begin to consider what contribution you can make to the world of daytime drama.”

“I am, of course, delighted to be here in Hollywood,” Ms.
Strydent
replied. “But before our relationship goes one inch further, little man, there are a couple of things we should have perfectly understood between us.”

“Which are?”

“You said ‘a room’ at the Beverly Hills Hotel, I believe?”

“Yes, indeed,” Wesley St. James replied. “With a lovely view out the window directly upon Beverly Glen.”

“I am a superstar,” Ms.
Strydent
said. “Superstars don’t have rooms, little man. Superstars have
suites.”
Possibly because he was not at all used to being talked back to at all, and possibly because in his judgment
Shur
-lee
Strydent
was even more of an overwhelming beauty up close than she had been over the boob tube, Wesley St. James caved in.

“Of course,” he said. “Forgive me.”

“And for another,”
Shur
-lee
Strydent
said, “superstars of my class don’t do soap opera. Specials, perhaps, if the price is right, but soap operas, never!”

“We’ll talk about it,” Wesley St. James said, as he led Ms.
Strydent
to his Rolls. “I’m sure that something can be worked out.”

An hour later, they were in Mr. St. James’s office at the
Welsey
St. James Studios. Seated on
Chilian
llama-upholstered armchairs, with a bottle of Moet &
Chandon
’66 before them on a 12-by 18-foot plate-glass coffee table, the conversation began.

“I flatter myself,” Wesley St. James said, “to think of myself simply as the medium through which the great talent of people like yourself, dear Ms.
Strydent
, is funneled to the folks over there in TV land. My modus operandi is simplicity itself. I see to it that you have anything your little heart desires, and in turn I ask only that you bring joy and happiness, plus a tear or two, into the drab and empty life of the American housewife.”

“How sweet of you! Anything my heart desires?”

“Anything at all,” Wesley St. James purred.

“Sean O’Casey
O’Mulligan
,” Ms.
Strydent
purred right back.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You deaf or what? I said, ‘Sean O’Casey,
O’Mulligan
.’ You said I could have anything my heart desires, and I desire Sean O’Casey
O’Mulligan
.”

“I don’t quite understand,” Wesley St. James confessed.

“This morning, when I woke up,” Ms.
Strydent
said, “I realized that I had everything a girl could want. I had overnight become a superstar. ABS said I was a superstar, so I knew it must be true. I mean, if you can’t trust ABS, who can you trust, right?”

“Right!”

“And beside me, his tender body close to mine, so to speak, was Sean O’Casey
O’Mulligan
.”

“Oh?”

“At least until I reached over and kissed him tenderly on the forehead,” Ms.
Strydent
said, and a tear formed in her eye.

“What happened then?”

“Darling Sean opened one eye, sat up abruptly, and ran screaming out of the room.”

“Why did he do that?” Wesley St. James asked.

“I have no idea. I don’t care. All I know is that I want him back.”

“I’ll get right on it,” Wesley St. James said. He reached for the telephone and gave the number which connected him with the gold telephone on the chairman of the board’s desk.

“I’m afraid,” he said, ninety seconds later, “that we have a little problem.”

“Which is?”

“Mr.
O’Mulligan
seems to have left the country,” Wesley St. James said. “Together with Mr. Birdwell Richards.”

“Get him back,” Ms.
Strydent
said, reasonably.

“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” Wesley St. James said. “He has sought, and been granted, asylum in the Royal
Abzugian
Embassy in Paris.”

“Asylum from what?”

“That’s not quite clear at the moment,” Wesley St. James smoothly lied. “All we know is that he’s under the personal protection of his old friend, Sheikh El
Noil
Snoil
the Magnificent, Royal
Abzugian
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the World.”

While it is quite true that Mr.
O’Mulligan
had previously awakened in some rather strange places, after having shared his resting place with some rather strange females, never before had the sight of a vaguely remembered face staring down at him with lust and adoration quite so terrified and revolted him.

With his heart beating furiously, and fighting a near irresistible urge to end it all by jumping out of the window, he fled into the corridor and down it until he came to Mr. Birdwell Richards’s suite. Entering without knocking, he rushed into Mr. Richards’s sleeping chamber and roused his friend from a sound sleep.

“Fine buddy you are, you lousy Welshman!” he screamed. “How dare you do something like that to me!”

“Something like what to you, old top?” Mr. Birdwell Richards inquired. “Are you by chance referring to the lady, so to speak, with whom you got through the night?”

“You admit it, then? Sneaking that … that …
creature
into my bed in what must be the worst practical joke of all time?”

“The cold truth, old boy, is that you took her there …” Birdwell Richards said.

“Nobody, not even me, could get that drunk!”

“… After you announced that she was the woman you had been looking for all your life.”

“I did no such thing!”
O’Mulligan
said, horror in every syllable.

“Oh, but you did,” Birdwell Richards replied, leering delightedly. “You even called a press conference to make the announcement.”

“The last thing I remember was some idiot swinging on the chandelier in the Oak Room,”
O’Mulligan
said. “Crying ‘Me Tarzan, you Jane!’ ”

“You don’t remember kissing her on the
telly
, then?”

“On the where?”

“On the television,” Birdwell Richards said.

“Oh, my God!”
O’Mulligan
said. “Birdwell, you’ve got to help me!”

“There’s only one person in the world who can get you out of this, Sean,” Birdwell Richards said.

“Who?”

“Boris!”

“Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov, the world’s greatest opera singer? That Boris? How can he help me?”

“He can surround you with his Arabian bodyguard, that’s how,” Birdwell said. “That bloodthirsty platoon of six-foot-six Arabs, armed with scimitars and the very latest submachine guns. That’s what it’s going to take, in my professional judgment, to keep you safe from that female. She said that you were the man she’s been looking for all her life, too. And she was sober.”

A shrill, piercing voice penetrated the thick walls of the Plaza Hotel.

“Sean, darling! Where is
Shur
-lee’s precious Sean-
ikins
?”

“Oh, my God!” Sean cried. “It got out of its cage! It’s looking for me!” His eyes darted desperately around the room. They came to rest on the dumbwaiter door. In less time than it takes to tell, he was crowded into the dumbwaiter and frantically lowering himself into the kitchen. He concealed himself there, up to his nose in a cauldron of beef
consomme
, until Mr. Birdwell Richards could secure the services of a Department of Sanitation garbage truck, in which Mr.
O’Mulligan
was carried to Kennedy International and spirited aboard the very next flight to Paris, France.

At first, Mr. Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov turned a deaf ear to Mr. Sean O’Casey
O’Mulligan’s
plight. He had, he said, enough trouble of his own avoiding lust-crazed women. But after Mr. Birdwell Richards pointed out that professional courtesy dictated that the world’s greatest opera singer offer what succor he could to the world’s greatest actor in his hour of need, and after
he was shown the front-page photo of Mr.
O’Mulligan
kissing Ms.
Strydent
, he gave in.