SOME PRETTY STRANGE PEOPLE ARE DESCENDING ON SAN FRANCISCO
BARBARA ANN MILLER Alias Betsy Boobs - a curvaceous student nurse and honours graduate of Sadie Shapiro's Strip Joint. The operating theatre has never been the same since she arrived!
PANCHO HERMANEZ A gifted Balalaika player living in Paris, he had spent his boyhood - would you believe ? -in a Russian Orthodox monastery!
FRANCIS BURNS, M.D. One-time Major in the Medical Corps in Korea, he was now a prosperous practitioner in the field of vasectomology, and was besotted with the Reverend Mother Emeritus Hot Lips.
COLONEL C. EDWARD WHILEY Pillar of San Francisco society, henpecked by his veritable horror of a wife, he was destined to become the first man to pilot a plane under the Golden Gate Bridge.
Other riotous M*A*S*H titles in Sphere Books:
M*A*S*H
Goes To San Francisco
RICHARD HOOKER and
WILLIAM E. BUTTERWORTH
SPHERE BOOKS LIMITED
30/32 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1X 8JL
First published in Great Britain by Sphere Books Ltd, 1977 Copyright © Richard Hornberger and William E. Butterworth 1976 Published by arrangement with the authors' agents
In fond memory of Malcolm Reiss, gentleman literary agent June 3, 1905 - December 17,1975
- Richard Hooker and W. E. Butterworth
TRADE MARK
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Set in Monotype Times
Printed in Great Britain by Hazell Watson & Viney Ltd Aylesbury, Bucks
CHAPTER ONE
When Mrs C. Edward Sattyn-Whiley, a rather formidable lady of generous proportions, rolled up to the main entrance of the San Francisco Opera House in her white Rolls-Royce, she was the cynosure of all eyes, which was, frankly, the way she both planned and wanted it.
Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley was the undisputed grande dame of San Francisco society, and she had dressed the part tonight. Her blue hair was topped with a diamond tiara, and she was actually wearing a stomacher, which is a piece of jewelry that hangs about the neck and terminates in a large jewel in the vicinity of the bellybutton.
She descended from the white Rolls-Royce, a 1935 model, the 'Silver Ghost,'* rather regally on the arm of her husband of some thirty years, Colonel C. Edward Whiley, and was followed a moment later by her son, Cornelius E. Sattyn-Whiley, M.D.
Neither Colonel Whiley, a pale-faced chap who would have registered about 125 pounds on the scales if he and his top hat and tails were all soaking wet, nor his son, who took after his mother's side of the family and would have registered about 230 pounds on the scales, bone-dry, looked positively overjoyed at the prospect of an evening at the opera.
Dr. Cornelius E. Sattyn-Whiley had just returned to San Francisco after an extended absence, and tonight was, in a manner of speaking, his reintroduction to society. Cornelius Dear, as his mother called him, had, in fact, just returned from the jungles of the Northeast, where he had been educated,
* One of the reasons Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley was the grande dame of San Francisco society was her wealth. And one of the reasons she was wealthy was that she had four cents out of every nickel she had ever made and/or inherited. She had inherited the 1935 Rolls-Royce from her Uncle Max, and was not, as she told one Rolls-Royce salesman after another, going to buy a newer model so long as this one could be coaxed into life.
had graduated as a doctor of medicine, and had spent a year as an intern and then three years as a surgical resident - all at a large medical establishment that shall herein be unnamed, but which is located on the banks of the Charles River in a large city in Massachusetts.
Cornelius Dear was an only child, which had prompted his godfather, Dr. Aloysius J. Grogarty, to suggest that marital relations were something else that Mrs. C. Edward Sattyn-Whiley had tried once, found undignified, and never tried again.*
With her son and husband at her side, Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley marched into the grand foyer, acknowledged with a barely perceptible nod of her blue-haired head those few people whom she felt worthy of that honor, and then proceeded backstage. She felt that her position was such that it behooved her to visit the performers before a performance, to let them know, so to speak, that even if she was in the audience, they should not be nervous.
Most of the time, she was a bit uncomfortable with the singers, because the vast majority of them were not of her social class. Tonight, however, that wasn't the case. Tonight she would visit Madame Kristina Korsky-Rimsakov, who was singing the lead role in Giacomo Puccini's Madame Butterfly.
When Madame Korsky-Rimsakov had been first proposed, some six years before, as the prima donna of the San Francisco Opera - on the board of directors of which Colonel C. Edward Whiley sat - Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley** had been aghast
* Dr. Grogarty had made this comment at Cornelius Dear's second birthday party. Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley had had the upstairs butler show him the door, and he had been persona non grata ever since.
** Perceptive readers may be wondering why it is Colonel Whiley and Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley. This is because Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley had announced after the colonel had proposed to her, that she had no intention of permitting the Sattyn name, which went back all the way to the days of the Gold Rush of 1849 (Ezekiel Sattyn had owned 160 acres adjacent to Mr. Sutter), to die simply because her father's chromosomes had been the wrong kind to produce a son.
'Fifty thousand dollars a year!' she had commented. 'That's an awful lot of money for a singer, Edward.'
'Not for a singer like this one,' her husband had (for once) argued. 'She's been getting that much from the Metropolitan.'
'So what?' Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley had responded. 'What else do you know about her?'
'Her brother is the star of the Paris Opera,' the colonel had replied.
'I don't like the French and never have,' she'd said. 'All they think about is sex.'
'I don't think he's French,' the colonel had replied. 'Not with a name like that. Sounds more like Russian.'
'Perhaps,' Mrs. C. Edward Sattyn-Whiley had said, suddenly struck with an entirely pleasant notion, 'they are both exiled Russian nobility!'
'I don't mean to sound argumentative, darling,' the colonel had then said, quite unnecessarily, 'but I hardly think that's possible. She's only in her late thirties, and the Russian Revolution was over fifty years ago.'
'The children of impoverished noblemen!' Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley had cried. With that she'd picked up the telephone and called the San Francisco Public Library's Genealogical Collection. Within a matter of minutes, she'd been informed of the existence of the Grand Duke Sergei Korsky-Rimsakov, Lieutenant General of the Imperial Army, who was known to have fled to the West with his family in 1917.
'You see, Edward?' Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley had said. 'I have a feeling about things like this. How soon did you say the grand duchess can join us here in San Francisco ?'
If Mrs. C. Edward Sattyn-Whiley had been the sort of woman who could admit to having made a slight error of judgement, which she was not, she might have confessed to being somewhat disappointed in Madame Korsky-Rimsakov, at least personally. Not only did she not look like what Mrs. C. Edward Sattyn-Whiley thought a grand duchess should look like - she looked, actually, like the jolly and well-stuffed workers and peasants one sees in advertisements for travel in Russia - she also flatly refused to even discuss her family tree, other than to inform Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley that,
so far as she knew, her only living relative was her brother Boris in Paris.
Worse, several years before, showing a shameful disregard for what Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley thought of as noblesse oblige, Madame Korsky-Rimsakov had married far beneath her. She had married, in fact, a man named J. Robespierre O'Reilly, who was nothing more than a short-order cook who'd made it big. Mr. O'Reilly's considerable fortune came from his chain of fast-food restaurants, which were known as Mother O'Reilly's Irish Stew Parlors.*
About the only kind thing Mrs. C. Edward Sattyn-Whiley could find to say about Mr. J. Robespierre O'Reilly was that he did have enough common decency, as she thought of it, to secretly donate to the Opera Guild an amount of money equal to that which the opera paid his wife.
Mr. O'Reilly was in Madame Kristina Korsky-Rimsakov's dressing room when Mrs. C. Edward Sattyn-Whiley, trailed by her husband and son, swept in.
'Good evening, Mr. O'Reilly,' Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley said. 'Do you suppose that the grand duchess might possibly be gracious enough to grant me a moment of her time?'
'Who?' Mr. O'Reilly replied. 'Oh, you mean Kris!’ He turned his head slightly and called out, 'Hey, pumpkin, you decent?' He turned to Colonel Whiley. 'Hiya, Colonel,' he said.
'Hello, Mr. O'Reilly,' the colonel replied. His wife glowered at him.
Kristina Korsky-Rimsakov, already dressed for her role as Cio Cio San, came into the room.
*Those readers with a burning curiosity to know how a former corporal of the Medical Service Corps rose from dishwashing to command an empire of 2,108 stew parlors, worldwide, and to win the hand of Madame Korsky-Rimsakov, will find all the sordid details related in M*A*S*H Goes to Las Vegas (Sphere Books).
"This your boy, Colonel?' Mr. O'Reilly asked. 'Looks a lot like his mother. Well-stuffed, if you know what I mean.'
'Robespierre!' Madame Korsky-Rimsakov said.
'Gee, pumpkin,' Mr. O'Reilly said, getting his first look at her. 'You look great! If I didn't know better, I'd say you were really one of those geisha girls.'
'Thank you, dear,' Madame Korsky-Rimsakov said.
'Gee, I just thought of something,' Mr. O'Reilly said. 'This opera you're going to sing isn't a dirty opera, is it?'
'Of course not, dear,' Madame Korsky-Rimsakov said.
'Whatever possessed you to ask such a thing ?' Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley demanded to know, her intention to ignore Mr. O'Reilly overcome by his violation of all that she held sacred.
'You wouldn't believe the things I could tell you about geisha girls,' Mr. O'Reilly said. 'And I bet you could, too, huh, Colonel ? You went on R&R to Japan, too, didn't you ? Boy!'
'I am sure, Mr. O'Reilly,' Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley said, 'that the colonel did not patronize establishments of the kind with which you are familiar.'
'Oh, I know that,' Mr. O'Reilly said. 'I'm sure the colonel knows even more about it than I do. They kept the good ones just for the officers. But I heard the officers talk about it. That's about all they ever talked about. Would you believe that they take off everything but their underwear and then walk around on your back ?'
'Robespierre, shut up!' Madame Korsky-Rimsakov said.
'Sorry, pumpkin,' he said. 'If you tell me this opera's not dirty, that's good enough for me.'
'I just wanted to take a moment of your time, Your Highness,' Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley said, 'to tell you that we're all looking forward to your performance tonight.'
'You know,' Mr. O'Reilly said, 'I checked the box office just before I came in here. It's sold out. I'll bet a lot of people out there think they're going to see something dirty.'
The door to the dressing room was suddenly flung open. A bearded gentleman in full Arabian robes stepped in, and then, as he bowed low, announced in a loud voice, 'His Royal Highness the Sheikh of Abzug!'
Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley's mouth opened wide. A very large Arabian gentleman with a pointed beard swept into the room.
'Hey, Abdullah!' Mr. O'Reilly said. 'You're early.'
His Royal Highness, smiling broadly, bowed to Madame Kristina Korsky-Rimsakov. 'Mud in your eye!' he said. He turned to Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley and bowed again. 'Up yours!' he said. 'Your mother wear army shoes !'*
*What did he say?' Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley inquired, aghast.
'His Royal Highness doesn't speak very much English,' Madame Korsky-Rimsakov said, somewhat lamely. 'I hope you misunderstood him.'
'I bring greetings, my lady,' the Sheikh said, switching to French, which Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley understood. 'From your brother. I have just seen him and the baroness** in Paris.'
'Did you ?' Kristina Korsky-Rimsakov said.
'Hey, Abdullah,' Mr. O'Reilly said. 'Ix-nay! Utshay Up-hay!'***
'My brother sometimes doesn't choose his friends with care,' Madame Kristina, whose concept of sexual morality was somewhat at variance with that of the baroness, explained.
'I understand perfectly, Your Highness,' Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley said. 'The Baroness is beneath your brother.'
'Is she ever!' Mr. O'Reilly replied. 'Every time you turn your back.’
*What few phrases of English His Royal Highness knew he had learned in the company of Mr. Boris Alexandrovich Korsky-Rimsakov in Paris. The details have been recorded for students of Arabian-American socio-economic affairs in M*A*S*H Goes to Morocco (Sphere Books).
**His Highness here referred to the Baroness d’Iberville, one of Mr. Korsky-Rimsakov's very good friends.
***For those whose pig Latin is a little rusty, this, freely translated, is, 'Stop it, shut up !'
Before the conversation could deteriorate further, decorum was restored by the bell announcing that the curtain would ascend in three minutes.
'I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me, Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley,' Kristina said.
'I understand perfectly, Your Highness,' Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley said. 'Thank you for receiving us.'
She made a double curtsy, first to Shiekh Abdullah and then to Madame Korsky-Rimsakov, and then made her exit, pulling her husband and her son after her.
'And she denies being a grand duchess!' she said, as she walked rapidly toward the Sattyn-Whiley box. 'Well, I'll tell you this, I saw His Highness' picture in the paper today. He's in San Francisco, it said, to visit old friends. And now we know who the old friend is, don't we ? The grand duchess, that's who!'
'I got the impression, Mother Dear,' Cornelius Dear said, 'that he had come to see Mr. O'Reilly.'
'Don't be absurd, Cornelius Dear,' his mother said. 'Whatever would someone of noble blood see in that horrid man ?'
They got to their box just as the conductor entered the orchestra pit and the caterwauling of the instruments being tuned died with an agonized whimper.
Mounted directly above the proscenium arch in the San Francisco Opera is a small electrical device that, when activated, flashes a number on and off. Each practitioner of the medical arts is assigned a number, so that in case of medical emergency he can be summoned from his seat without the necessity of broadcasting his name over the public-address system, thereby disturbing the music lovers.
As the conductor rapped his baton on his music stand and then raised it preparatory to beginning the overture, the electrical device came to life. Number thirteen flashed on, then off, and then on again.
'Cornelius Dear,' Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley said, 'Mommy has another little surprise for you. Whenever that thing flashes number one, that will be for you.'
'Number one? But Mother Dear, there are hundreds of physicians registered.'
'That's true, Cornelius Dear,' his mother said. 'But their mommies aren't the chairperson of the Opera Guild and their daddies don't sit on the board of directors.'
The music began as the house lights went down. Number thirteen stopped flashing, indicating that healer number thirteen had seen it, and, true-blue to the Hippocratic oath, had left his seat to bring aid and comfort to his fellow man.
There was some Japanese-sounding music, and then the curtain rose. A Japanese gentleman and an officer of the United States Navy were at stage left.
> Number one started to flash on and off on the device over the proscenium arch.
'Cornie,' Colonel Whiley said, 'they're flashing your number’
'I wish you wouldn't call him that,' Mrs. Sattyn-Whiley hissed. 'It's undignified for a doctor of medicine, not to mention someone named Sattyn-Whiley.'
'I'll have to go,' Dr. Sattyn-Whiley said.
'If I'd known they would call you from the opera,' Mother Dear said, 'I would have gotten you an unlisted number.'
Dr. Cornelius Sattyn-Whiley made his way from the Sattyn-Whiley box down to the grand lobby in search of whoever had summoned him. He had no idea what it was all about, but, truth to tell, he really didn't mind at all being called away from his Sattyn-Whiley box.
'Dr. Sattyn-Whiley?' an usher asked. He was a venerable gentleman whose purplish-veined nose told Dr. Sattyn-Whiley's trained eye that he had for years been rather over-fond of the grape.
'Yes,' Dr. Sattyn-Whiley replied.
'Come with me, please, Doctor,' the usher said. He led Dr. Sattyn-Whiley back into the building, through a corridor running parallel to the auditorium, and then held a door open for him.
'Good luck, Doc,' the usher said. 'You'll need it.'
He found himself in a small room containing an octagonal table covered with what appeared to be an army blanket. There was only one person in the room - a tall, red-headed, ruddy-faced chap attired in white tie and tails.
'Do you know who I am, Cornie?' the man asked.
Mash goes to San Francisco Page 1