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"For you to tell me how you're doing, for example?"
"I'm up to my ass, literally, in about thirty pounds of plaster of paris."
"How do you feel?"
"How would you feel, Joel, if you were up to your ass, literally, in thirty pounds of plaster of paris?"
"I thought they might let you go home on recuperative leave."
"They are trying to make me go home on recuperative leave."
"You don't want to go?"
"Tell me, Joel, if you were up to your ass in thirty pounds of plaster of paris, would you want to spend your days taking the correspondence courses offered by the Command and General Staff College?"
"I don't follow you."
"That is what Major General Miller has in mind for his beloved son to do. He has this thing about using one's time profitably, and never wasting a second."
"So what are you doing with your time?"
"Watching reruns of Hollywood Squares and M*A*S*H on the tube. I haven't been too successful in enticing any of the nurses to hop in bed with me."
"We need some help in the office. Couple of hours a day. Interested?"
"Joel, when was the last time you were kissed by a six-foot-two black man? When do you want me?"
"You didn't even ask what we need you to do."
"Quoting Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind, which I have seen two more times since I have been in here, 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!'"
"What if I came over in the morning and picked you up? You're still welcome in Charley's apartment, I guess?"
"What if you come over right now and pick me up? And where is that sonofabitch? He was supposed to bring me a bottle the day before yesterday and never showed up."
"He's in Argentina."
"I just saw that on Fox News. The bad guys blew Jack the Stack away. What's Charley got to do with that?"
"I'll tell you when you get here."
"And, back to that question, when will that be?"
"Hold one, Dick," Isaacson said, punched off the speakerphone, covered the microphone with his hand, and looked at Secretary Hall.
"Go get him," Hall ordered.
"Dick, I'll be over there in, say, half an hour," Isaacson said.
"Well, if that's the best you can do," Miller said, and hung up. [THREE] Castillo came out of the phone booth and smiled at the guy in charge of the communications room.
"Thank you," he said, and then, pointing at a coffeemaker, "What are my chances of getting a cup of that?"
"Couldn't be better, sir," the man said, and handed Castillo a china mug.
"Soldier or Marine?" Castillo asked.
"Soldier, sir. Sergeant First Class."
