Joseph Heller - Catch-22

“Because I wouldn’t sell it to them.”

“Why wouldn’t you sell it to them?”

“Because then there wouldn’t be as much room for profit. At least this way I can make a bit for myself as a middleman.”

“Then you do make a profit for yourself,” Yossarian declared.

“Of course I do. But it all goes to the syndicate. And everybody has a share. Don’t you understand? It’s exactly what happens with those plum tomatoes I sell to Colonel Cathcart.”

“ Buy ,” Yossarian corrected him. “You don’t sell plum tomatoes to Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn. You buy plum tomatoes from them.”

“No, sell ,” Milo corrected Yossarian. “I distribute my plum tomatoes in markets all over Pianosa under an assumed name so that Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn can buy them up from me under their assumed names at four cents apiece and sell them back to me the next day for the syndicate at five cents apiece. They make a profit of one cent apiece. I make a profit of three and a half cents apiece, and everybody comes out ahead.”

“Everybody but the syndicate,” said Yossarian with a snort. “The syndicate is paying five cents apiece for plum tomatoes that cost you only half a cent apiece. How does the syndicate benefit?”

“The syndicate benefits when I benefit,” Milo explained, “because everybody has a share. And the syndicate gets Colonel Cathcart’s and Colonel Korn’s support so that they’ll let me go out on trips like this one. You’ll see how much profit that can mean in about fifteen minutes when we land in Palermo.”

“Malta,” Yossarian corrected him. “We’re flying to Malta now, not Palermo.”

“No, we’re flying to Palermo,” Milo answered. “There’s an endive exporter in Palermo I have to see for a minute about a shipment of mushrooms to Bern that were damaged by mold.”

“Milo, how do you do it?” Yossarian inquired with laughing amazement and admiration. “You fill out a flight plan for one place and then you go to another. Don’t the people in the control towers ever raise hell?”

“They all belong to the syndicate,” Milo said. “And they know that what’s good for the syndicate is good for the country, because that’s what makes Sammy run. The men in the control towers have a share, too, and that’s why they always have to do whatever they can to help the syndicate.”

“Do I have a share?”

“Everybody has a share.”

“Does Orr have a share?”

“Everybody has a share.”

“And Hungry Joe? He has a share, too?”

“Everybody has a share.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” mused Yossarian, deeply impressed with the idea of a share for the very first time.

Milo turned toward him with a faint glimmer of mischief. “I have a sure-fire plan for cheating the federal government out of six thousand dollars. We can make three thousand dollars apiece without any risk to either of us. Are you interested?”

“No.”

Milo looked at Yossarian with profound emotion. “That’s what I like about you,” he exclaimed. “You’re honest! You’re the only one I know that I can really trust. That’s why I wish you’d try to be of more help to me. I really was disappointed when you ran off with those two tramps in Catania yesterday.”

Yossarian stared at Milo in quizzical disbelief. “Milo, you told me to go with them. Don’t you remember?”

“That wasn’t my fault,” Milo answered with dignity. “I had to get rid of Orr some way once we reached town. It will be a lot different in Palermo. When we land in Palermo, I want you and Orr to leave with the girls right from the airport.”

“With what girls?”

“I radioed ahead and made arrangements with a four-year-old pimp to supply you and Orr with two eight-year-old virgins who are half Spanish. He’ll be waiting at the airport in a limousine. Go right in as soon as you step out of the plane.”

“Nothing doing,” said Yossarian, shaking his head. “The only place I’m going is to sleep.”

Milo turned livid with indignation, his slim long nose flickering spasmodically between his black eyebrows and his unbalanced orange-brown mustache like the pale, thin flame of a single candle. “Yossarian, remember your mission,” he reminded reverently.

“To hell with my mission,” Yossarian responded indifferently. “And to hell with the syndicate too, even though I do have a share. I don’t want any eight-year-old virgins, even if they are half Spanish.”

“I don’t blame you. But these eight-year-old virgins are really only thirty-two. And they’re not really half Spanish but only one-third Estonian.”

“I don’t care for any virgins.”

“And they’re not even virgins,” Milo continued persuasively. “The one I picked out for you was married for a short time to an elderly schoolteacher who slept with her only on Sundays, so she’s really almost as good as new.”

But Orr was sleepy, too, and Yossarian and Orr were both at Milo’s side when they rode into the city of Palermo from the airport and discovered that there was no room for the two of them at the hotel there either, and, more important, that Milo was mayor.

The weird, implausible reception for Milo began at the airfield, where civilian laborers who recognized him halted in their duties respectfully to gaze at him with full expressions of controlled exuberance and adulation. News of his arrival preceded him into the city, and the outskirts were already crowded with cheering citizens as they sped by in their small uncovered truck. Yossarian and Orr were mystified and mute and pressed close against Milo for security.

Inside the city, the welcome for Milo grew louder as the truck slowed and eased deeper toward the middle of town. Small boys and girls had been released from school and were lining the sidewalks in new clothes, waving tiny flags. Yossarian and Orr were absolutely speechless now. The streets were jammed with joyous throngs, and strung overhead were huge banners bearing Milo’s picture. Milo had posed for these pictures in a drab peasant’s blouse with a high collar, and his scrupulous, paternal countenance was tolerant, wise, critical and strong as he stared out at the populace omnisciently with his undisciplined mustache and disunited eyes. Sinking invalids blew kisses to him from windows. Aproned shopkeepers cheered ecstatically from the narrow doorways of their shops. Tubas crumped. Here and there a person fell and was trampled to death. Sobbing old women swarmed through each other frantically around the slow-moving truck to touch Milo’s shoulder or press his hand. Milo bore the tumultuous celebrations with benevolent grace. He waved back to everyone in elegant reciprocation and showered generous handfuls of foilcovered Hershey kisses to the rejoicing multitudes. Lines of lusty young boys and girls skipped along behind him with their arms linked, chanting in hoarse and glassy-eyed adoration, “Milo! Mi-lo! Mi-lo!”

Now that his secret was out, Milo relaxed with Yossarian and Orr and inflated opulently with a vast, shy pride. His cheeks turned flesh-colored. Milo had been elected mayor of Palermo-and of nearby Carini, Monreale, Bagheria, Termini Imerese, Cefalu, Mistretta and Nicosia as well-because he had brought Scotch to Sicily.

Yossarian was amazed. “The people here like to drink Scotch that much?”

“They don’t drink any of the Scotch,” Milo explained. “Scotch is very expensive, and these people here are very poor.”

“Then why do you import it to Sicily if nobody drinks any?”

“To build up a price. I move the Scotch here from Malta to make more room for profit when I sell it back to me for somebody else. I created a whole new industry here. Today Sicily is the third largest exporter of Scotch in the world, and that’s why they elected me mayor.”