The Hunting Trip (34 page)

“Well, off the top of my head, fat lady ex-madam, maybe she got carried away by lust and as a result had to marry a
gottverdammt
American who just moved here.”

“Oddly enough, I've heard of that happening. As a matter of fact, fifty odd years ago, it happened to me, when I myself was a member of the Corps de Ballet of the Vienna State Opera.”

“And why should you expect me to believe that
you
are a former member of the Corps de Ballet of the Vienna State Opera?”

“Because I know all the backstage secrets of my beloved Corps and I'll bet you don't.”

“For example?”

“For example, how do members of the Corps de Ballet refer to the third stall in the ladies' restroom into which only lady members of the Corps de Ballet in the rank of dancer and above are permitted?”

“Ach, mein lieber Gott!”
Brunhilde said. “If you know about that, then you must be bona fide and not a Hungarian whorehouse keeper.”

“Answer the question.”

“The Gusher,” Brunhilde said. “Or Mount Vesuvius.”

“And why do they call it that?”

“Because when you sit down on that thing, and do your business, and then yank on the chain, instead of the water going down, it erupts, or gushes, upward like Mount Vesuvius.”

Madame Violet Tenser-Schultz McNamara reached for Brunhilde and gathered her to her breast.

“My dear sweet girl, I have misjudged you. Welcome, welcome, to Muddiebay, Mississippi!”

Then she turned and pointed to a septuagenarian gentleman in white tie and tails.

“That's my
gottverdammt
American,” she said. “His name is Archie. Did you bring yours?”

Brunhilde pointed. “His name is Phil.”

“Archie,” Madame Violet ordered, “take this charming young woman and her
gottverdammt
American husband here to our box and give
them a little champagne while I have a word with Whatsisname, the guy who owns the grocery stores, about a little announcement I want him to make before Maestro Whatsisname strikes up the band.”

“Yes, dear,” Archie said.

—

Five minutes later,
a diminutive gentleman in white tie and tails and holding a baton allowing Phil to intuit he was Maestro Whatsisname, walked onto the stage to somewhat less than enthusiastic applause.

Then another gentleman walked onto the stage to somewhat greater applause, waited for it to die down, which didn't take long, and announced:

“I have an announcement, ladies and gentlemen, to make before the program begins. The Patroness of the Muddiebay Symphonic Orchestra, Madame Violet Tenser-Schultz McNamara, has told me that we have a distinguished guest in the audience tonight. She, like Madame Violet Tenser-Schultz McNamara, is a former dancer in the Corps de Ballet of the Vienna State Opera. Her name is Brunhilde Wienerwald and she's sitting up there beside Madame Violet in the Patroness's box. Why don't we give Madame Brunhilde a great big hand before the performance begins?”

They did, and the performance of the Muddiebay Symphonic Orchestra Viennese music began with “The Blue Danube,” which is the name of the river, which is actually pretty muddy, rather than blue, that runs through the city of Vienna.

Phil was soon to learn the maestro's name was Stefan Woznitski and that he hated Viennese music.

The reason Phil learned this was because he had a visitor the very next day as he was writing creatively in his garage office on Creek
Drive. Phil had never met him before, but his face was familiar because he had been the gentleman who made the announcement the previous evening about Madame Brunhilde—and also because the large sign over Champ's Food Store #109 right there in Goodhope had his smiling face on it.

“Mr. Williams, I am Del Champs, president of Champ's Food Stores and of the Muddiebay Symphonic Orchestra. I am here to ask you to—to beg you to, if it comes to that—to accept a position on the Muddiebay Symphonic Orchestra's board of directors.”

“That's very kind of you, but I think I'll have to pass. Thank you just the same.”

“May I ask why?”

“May I speak freely?”

“Of course.”

“While I certainly don't pretend to be an expert in classical musical, I couldn't help but think last night—as Maestro Woznitski led the Muddiebay Symphonic Orchestra in its version of ‘The Blue Danube,' also known as
‘An der schönen blauen Donau'
—that its composer, Johann Strauss the Second, sometimes known as Johann Strauss the Younger, never intended it to be played on two empty fifty-five-gallon oil drums, one xylophone, one steam whistle, and one jawbone of an ass. With that in mind, I don't think I'd be a happy camper on your board of directors.”

“Well, let me first agree with that assessment of what Maestro Stefan Woznitski gave us last night. He tends to hate melodious Viennese music, preferring instead the compositions of modern—that is to say, painfully discordant—composers. Between you and me, Mr. Williams, I can't stand the Polack
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
or his
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
incredibly awful choice of musical selections. Two weeks ago, he had the orchestra play ‘Ode to a Parisian Pissoir' by the
Herzegovinian composer Humberto Jones. That really
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
up my eardrums.”

“Then why is he the conductor?”

“Because Madame Violet Tenser-Schultz McNamara likes him, and Archie McNamara is one of the major contributors to the Muddiebay Symphonic Orchestra, which usually runs at a loss.”

“Well, that would explain that, I guess. What about the other supporters?”

“There's three other major contributors. One wishes to keep his support secret, because he's afraid of Madame Violet, the second is K. J. O'Hara, Senior, and I'm the other one.”

“And what does Mr. McNamara think of Maestro Stefan Woznitski?”

“When Madame Violet's not around, Archie calls Maestro Woznitski ‘that
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
Polish Pissant.'”

“Then why does he give the money?”

“Archie said, when he sent me here today to ask you to join the board of directors, that, inasmuch as you're married to one of them, you may know how difficult former members of the Corps de Ballet of the Vienna State Opera can be on occasion.”

“Ah. As indeed I do. Why do you think he told you to tell me that?”

“Archie also said that if your former member of the Corps de Ballet is as fond of Slivovitz, which I understand is a brandy distilled from Hungarian plums, as his, that is to say, Madame Violet is, he may have a solution for the dilemma.”

“Which is?”

“That, to celebrate your swearing in as a member of the board, Madame Violet will have a small dinner at the McNamara mansion, which is called ‘Pine Tree House' even though it's made of the finest
California redwood, because Archie owns more pine tree forests in the South than anybody but Randolph C. Bruce, who with a little luck will never enter your life . . . Where was I?”

“Small dinner at Pine Tree House,” Phil furnished.

“Right. At which dinner will be Archie and Madame Violet, and me as president of the symphony, and my wife, and you as the guest of honor, and of course your former ballet dancer. You and Archie will ply your respective wives with Slivovitz.”

“That won't be hard. And what happens when the two ladies are bombed out of their minds?”

“You will drop into the conversation that you deeply admire Maestro Woznitski's version of ‘The Blue Danube' because it is so much better than the overrated version of the original composition by that overrated Viennese composer Johann Strauss the Second. If you can get your wife to disagree with you—”

“No problem there.”

“—this would cause Madame Violet to ally herself with your wife.”

“That seems to be a very reasonable assumption to make.”

“Then—this is where you really come in—you say that since you admire Maestro Woznitski so much that you couldn't possibly agree to fire him, despite all the unkind things he has been saying about both old and younger former members of the Corps de Ballet, even though firing him would please you, because you think that all former members of the Vienna Opera, young and old, are treasures.

“To which Archie will add, ‘And I won't, either.'”

“And then,” Phil responded, having had an epiphany, “Madame Violet will say, ‘Archie, that miserable Polack has to go,' or words to that effect.”

“Right!”

“And then Madame Brunhilde, as she now likes to be called, will
say, ‘You heard what Madame Violet said, Phil, that
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
Polack has to go. And you will vote to get rid of the
EXPLETIVE DELETED!!
.'”

But then Phil had a second thought: “But what if Madame Violet and/or Madame Brunhilde asks, ‘What unkind things has Maestro Woznitski been saying about our beloved Corps?'”

“Then, Phil, you would have to lie,” Del Champs said. “And come up with something that would really enrage them. Could you handle that?”

“Del, old boy,
entre nous
, I have had professional training in lying through my teeth or otherwise. Trust me when I tell you that you are looking at one of the best liars you'll ever meet in this backwater of the world.”

“I'm happy to hear that. So I can tell Archie you're onboard about being on the board?”

“Absolutely.”

[ FIVE ]

A
month after Phil joined the board of directors of the Muddiebay Symphonic Orchestra, and a week after that body announced with deep regret the resignation of Maestro Stefan Woznitski because he planned to follow his musical muse elsewhere, Rollo the Grand Hotel bell captain rolled up at the door of 105 Creek Drive in the hotel Rolls to deliver an invitation:

On reading it, Madame Brunhilde inquired, “What the hell does ‘white black tie' mean? And what's that Frog all about?”

“It means a white dinner jacket with a black bow tie,” Phil said. “This is going to be a classy social event.”

“And what does it say in Frog?”

“Essentially: ‘If it pleases you to do so, let us know if you're coming—and bring your checkbook.'”

“You mean we have to pay to get in this classy social event?”

“It means that your new bosom buddy, Madame Violet, and Mrs. O'Hara, who is throwing the shindig, are graciously permitting the affluent members of the Muddiebay community, both those above and those below the salt, to make contributions to the McNamara-O'Hara Chair of Classical Ballet Dancing at Hilly Springs College, at which you will be an adjunct professor.”

“How come you know so much about this classy social event?”

“I happened to bump into Mrs. O'Hara at the Goodhope Slightly Used Children's Clothing Discount Outlet, where I was again buying shoes for Little Phil and she was buying shoes for her grandchildren, and she happened to casually fill me in.”

That was not exactly true.

What had happened was that Gladys had confided in her confidant Phil that K.J. Sr. had been more than a little pissed when he heard how much it was going to cost him to fund the McNamara-O'Hara Chair of Classical Ballet Dancing at Hilly Springs College.

“Gladys,” Phil had said, “I don't know how things are done here in Muddiebay, but in New York, Boston, and South Orange, New Jersey, the way things like this are done is that the people who get their names on a project, such as the McNamara-O'Hara Chair of Classical Ballet Dancing, arrange for other socialites and, more important, social climbers, to pay for it by throwing a party to which they otherwise would not be invited and telling them to bring their checkbooks.”

“Okay. I'll throw a soiree. That would get the women, Phil, but what about the men?”

“You told me, Gladys, that this is a shotgun society, and that Muddiebay men will go anywhere at any time to shoot anything. So why don't you quietly spread the word that there will be clay bird shooting off your pier while the soiree is going on?”

“You're a genius, Phil, my confidant. And . . . I just thought of this . . . it would give me the chance to put you and K.J. Junior together so that you can take him under your wing and divert him from buying exotic cars he can't afford and chasing airheaded blondes with large bosoms and tight little rear ends toward something approaching respectability.”

“What the hell does this mean?” Madame Brunhilde asked,
pointing to a handwritten addendum to the invitation, on the back thereof, which read
Don't forget to bring your shotgun
.

“I have no idea,” Phil lied. “But if that's what our hostess wants, I couldn't leave my shotgun home.”

[ SIX ]

A
s Phil was taking his shotgun from the trunk of his Jaguar, which he had parked on the lawn of 1001 Scenic Highway 98, a canary-yellow Mercedes-Benz convertible pulled in beside him. A good-looking man in a white dinner jacket and black tie got out of it, bringing with him a shotgun case that Phil, because he knew a little bit about shotguns generally, recognized to be that of the Beretta Corporation, a firm that despite its being Italian made some fairly decent if outrageously priced shotguns.

“Good evening,” the man said. “I couldn't help but notice the alligator-hide shotgun case you just took out of your trunk. Does it perhaps contain a Diamond Grade Browning Over and Under with full factory engraving, a gold trigger, and selective ejectors?”