MASH 14 MASH goes to Moscow by Richard Hooker+William Butterworth Read Free Book Online Page B

Ambassador, I’m a busy man. With all those armored divisions being moved around Poland and East Germany, I’ve got to make up my mind which of your cities I’m going to blow up first …” Again he stopped in midsentence and shifted downward in his chair, as if he were being pulled under his desk. “Have some more boiled peanuts,” he said.
    “Not just now, thank you, sir,” the ambassador said. “Is there something wrong, sir. Something under your desk?”
    “Just an old spittoon,” Jim-Boy said. “Sometimes it gets in my way. You were saying?”
    “I’ll get right to the bottom line, sir,” the ambassador said. “If you can give me your personal assurance that Boris Korsky-Rimsakov will appear, twice, at the Bolshoi, I am prepared to give you my personal assurance that the maneuvers of our tank divisions in East Germany and Poland will cease.”
    “Let me think about that,” Jim-Boy said. “My gut reaction is to say, hell, yes, you got a deal, but my Secretary of State warned me about you guys. Said you can’t be trusted as far as I can throw you.”
    And again Jim-Boy seemed to be struggling with something attacking his right leg.
    A disembodied voice spoke. “Tell him yes, for God’s sake.”
    “I beg your pardon, sir?” the Soviet ambassador said.
    “That was just me thinking out loud,” Jim-Boy said. “Now, let’s go over this again. If I give you my word that this Korsky-Borsky , whatever, comes to Moscow, you’ll give me your word that you’ll stop the hanky-panky with your armored divisions. Is that about the nut of it?”
    “That’s it. Deal?”
    “Let’s not get carried away. If I give you my word, you got something. I never lie. Anybody will tell you that. If I say What’s-his-name will go to Moscow, you can bet your last two cents on it. But I’m not so sure about your word. I mean, what if I sent Korsky-Borsky all the way over there, and you didn’t stop fooling around with the tank divisions? You know where that would leave me? It would leave me standing there with egg on my face, that’s where it would leave me. God knows, the Republicans would just love something like that!”
    “Have you something in mind, sir?”
    “I think you should sweeten the deal a little,” Jim-Boy said.
    “How, exactly?”
    “You get in touch with your boss and tell him if he can get that fat fella who keeps calling me names in the UN to knock it off, and to keep his shoes on his feet instead of banging on his desk with them, I would accept that as proof of your good faith, and Ol ’ What’s-his-name will be on the next plane to Moscow. How does that sound?”
    “You’ve got a deal, sir,” the Soviet ambassador said.
    “It’s a pleasure doing business with you,” Jim-Boy said. He opened his desk drawer, took a small paper bag from it, and handed it to the ambassador. “Take these home to your wife, Mr. Ambassador,” he said. “A little souvenir from me.”
    “Thank you so very much, sir,” the Ambassador said. He opened the bag. “Oh, boiled peanuts! My wife will be thrilled.”
    “My pleasure,” Jim-Boy said, beaming. “Thanks for coming to see me.”
    He walked the Russian ambassador to the door.
    “Y’all come back, hear?” he called after him in the Southern manner, and then he closed the door. “O.K., Cy-Boy, get out from under the desk. He’s gone.”
    The Secretary of State crawled out from under the desk.
    “Say what you like about Nixon,” he said, “but his Secretary of State got to eavesdrop on private conversations sitting in an upholstered chair with earphones on his head.”
    “There will be no bugging in my White House,” Jim-Boy said firmly.
    “Then you’re going to have to get a bigger desk,” the Secretary of State said. “That’s the last time I’m going to spend ten minutes with my nose in your spittoon.”
    “How’d I do, Cy-Boy?” Jim-Boy asked, to change the conversation.
    “On the whole, rather well, I would judge. I think we came