by Gary K. Wolf
“There are a few questions left that might lower my curve. What happened when you contacted Potts?”
“He put me off.” Freddy laid his balloon on the table and smacked it with his hand, shattering it to pieces. “Potts told me he needed to think it over. I suspect he wanted to devise a way to cut me permanently out of the picture so he could grab the formula free.”
“How’d you hook up with Selznick?”
“Lupe’s idea. She read a story in Variety about Selznick needing to raise big money.” Freddy salted a piece of his broken balloon and popped it into his mouth. “Potts’s office and Selznick’s sit side by side. Hi-de-ho-ho-ho. I slipped out of one and into the other. I pitched Selznick my terms. He met my purchase price on the spot, and even tossed in a percentage of net.”
“You made the deal disguised as a woman.”
“To protect my true identity.” He handed me a piece of his balloon. I took a bite. It had the crunch and taste of fried pork rind. “All of us superheroes travel incognito. Hi-de-ho-ho-ho.”
“Selznick contacted you later. Told you the formula had been stolen.”
“Yeah.” He picked my hat off the table. He exhaled a brown balloon and folded it over my fedora. When he peeled it off, it formed a perfect duplicate of my headgear. Freddy always envied my Stetson. “Selznick asked If I had a copy. I told him no. I suggested he hire you to find out which one of his three suspects robbed him blind. After I thought it over, and factored in your attitude toward Toons, I regretted giving him your name. Hi-de-ho-ho-ho. The only way I could think of to get you off the case was to spook you off.”
“As usual, your timing stinks. You tried to scare me off before I was on. Why’d you take a potshot at Roger Rabbit and kidnap Baby Herman?”
“I wanted to frighten one or the other into returning the goods to Selznick.” He tore off a hunk of his foamy white balloon and formed it into a phony beard complete with ear hooks. He put it on and studied his reflection in the waxed tabletop. He liked what he saw well enough to shape four more pieces into a wig, mustache, and bogus eyebrows.
“You broke into Baby Herman’s place and searched it for the goods.”
“Yup, sonny.” His lettering was cracked and broken to match his wizened visage.
“Why’d you shoot Dodger Rabbit?”
“Brotherly concern.” A rapid shake of his head dissolved his ersatz gray beard and the wisdom that went with it. “I saw him trail you into the graveyard. He was packing a gun. I figured he was planning to blast you.”
“He wasn’t toting so much as a peashooter when he died.”
“Okay.” Freddy stroked his naked chin. “Suppose I shot him for sport, for the fun of it.” He flashed the devilish grin seen on young scamps who amuse themselves by overturning outhouses. “What’s the crime in that? Hunting rabbits out of season? It made a major star out of Elmer Fudd.” He toyed with his words, with his clothes, with his hands, with everything in reach. “I take it you found the formula.”
I nodded.
“Hi-de-ho-ho-ho. When does Selznick start to manufacture?”
“Never. I destroyed it. It’s gone for good.”
“I should have known big brother would come through.” He ate another handful of salted words. “As usual. Hi-de-ho-ho-ho.”
I pulled out a flask and handed it to him. “Drink this, Freddy.”
He gave the bottle a shake and examined the contents through the glass sides. “It’s Toon Tonic!”
“Right. The world’s sole remaining dose. It’ll turn you back into a human. You do that, and I’ll forget everything you’ve done.”
“Sorry, Eddie, but I can’t oblige.” He gave me back my container. “I’ve got a better idea. You drink it. Turn Toon and experience the bliss I’m talking about. Hi-de-ho-ho-ho.”
“Nothing doing. I was born human, and it’s human I’ll remain.”
He settled into his seat. He put his hands behind his head and crossed his legs in front of him, as relaxed as if we were discussing nothing more important than the relative merits of loafers over lace-ups. “I guess you’re faced with a major dilemma. You going to collar your own baby brother for murdering a sadistic bum and a no good Toon rabbit?”
I waffled. Yes, no, yes, no. In the end, I let him bounce away laughing into the night. I had no choice. He’s my little brother! Besides, the way I saw it, spending the rest of his life as a Toon was punishment aplenty.
I returned Ferd’s car. I thanked him and meant it. I told him he wasn’t such a bad farfafoofaloofing guy, once you got to know him. Not that I planned to.
Heddy walked me to the garage, where I retrieved my heap.
She stood beside it, with her foot propped on the running board, while I warmed the engine. I scrutinized her through the open side window.
“Why you staring at me?” she asked. She wiggled her fingers. I reached under the seat and handed her my traveling companion. She uncorked it and took a swig.
“I never realized how much you resemble Freddy. Stick him in a dress, and I couldn’t tell the two of you apart.”
“Hi-de-ho-ho-ho.” She swallowed one for the road, gave me the flagon, and I did the same. “Fine detective you are. People have been commenting on that ever since me and Freddy were kids. Most people take us for twins. Hi-de-ho-ho-ho. We even talk alike. “
“So I notice.” I stepped out of the idling car, took her in my arms, and hugged her close.
She pushed me away, flustered. “What was that for? You’re not going mushy on me, are you?”
“Heddy, you’re the only family I’ve got left.”
She staggered backwards, colliding hard with Ferd’s tool bench. His set of left-handed wrenches fell to the concrete floor. A quarter-inch hex head skinned her ankle. She didn’t flinch. “Freddy?”
“Forget him, Sis. Put him out of your mind. I’m sorry, but he’s never coming back.”
Tears welled up in her eyes. She wiped them away with a page she ripped off Ferd’s wall-hung girlie calendar. “Was it quick, Eddie. Did he suffer?” She uncrumpled her makeshift hankie and realized she had been wiping her misery on a baboon’s backside.
“Not a bit. He went fast and painless. Take comfort in knowing he’s gone to a better place where the living is easy.”
With tears streaming down her cheeks, she tore Ferd’s calendar off its nail and ripped it into tiny pieces. She left them heaped on the bench top, weighted by one of her husband’s hardened blue profanities.
I climbed back into my car. Heddy reached through the window and ran her fingertips gently over the stitches lacing my head together. “Take care of yourself, Eddie.”
“Don’t worry about me, Toots. I plan to die an old man in bed.”
She walked along beside the car as I backed down the driveway. “Eddie, there’s something else we’ve got to clear away. This foolish notion of yours that I’m a Toon.”
I pointed to my banged-up noggin. “I’ve been imagining all sorts of goofy stuff the past couple of days. Chalk it up to delusions.”
“I told you so.”
“I know. I should have listened.”
31
Apartments in this town come with a special closet for storing broken dreams. The residue from this case filled mine to overflowing. One more busted fantasy, and I’d have to pop extra for a storage locker.
I emptied a bottle of Smith Brothers Cough Syrup and refilled it with my dose of Toon Tonic. I tucked it into my medicine cabinet behind my razor blades and corn plasters. Horrible though Toon Tonic might be, I wanted to keep it handy on the off chance Freddy one day came to his senses and realized his terrible error.
I went into the kitchen to build myself a sandwich.
A single large cupcake sat in the middle of my Formica table. It hadn’t been there when I left.
A booby trap? I debated d
unking it in water, but the smell of fresh vanilla dulled my judgment. If I had to go, what better way than in a blast of flour, butter, milk, sugar, and eggs.
I reached for the confection.
The top sprung off.
Little Jo uncurled herself from inside. “Hi, Eddie.” She was in hair by Veronica Lake, jewelry by Mrs. Rockefeller, makeup by Max Factor, evening gown, what there was of it, by sister Jessica. “Sorry for the cheap trick, but I wanted to make certain I had your undivided attention.”
“You succeeded.” I lifted her out of her pastry.
She kneeled on my palm and placed her delicate hand on my inner wrist. Her fingers caressed my artery. The tingle plucked my heartstring. “I couldn’t let you go without a fight, Eddie. I love you, and I believe you love me. Let’s at least give our romance an opportunity to blossom. We’re not as incompatible as you think. Not if you put your imagination to work.”
I did. And guess what? It worked fine.
AFTERWORD
I escorted Joellyn to the party Roger and Jessica threw to introduce their offspring to the world.
Jessica greeted us at the door. The men of our proud nation would be happy to know Jessica got her figure back in no time flat, if “flat” is a term you can use in the same breath with “Jessica Rabbit.”
Roger stood proudly beside the bassinet holding his triplets. Joellyn and I took a peek. The girl was the spitting image of Jessica, the bunny a spitting image of Roger. Then there was the baby boy. He was spitting, period.
“He looks just like Baby Herman,” I whispered to Joellyn.
“All babies look alike,” said Jessica over my shoulder.
“Not under the sheets, they don’t,” smirked Baby Herman, sticking his head beneath Jessica’s skirt.
“Aw, Baby,” said Roger. “You’re sooooo funny.”
For the first time in his furry life, Roger Rabbit didn’t get the joke.
THE AFTERNOON AFTER THE AFTERWORD
My office door banged open. Roger Rabbit stood on my threshold. “Eddie, I’m in terrible, terrible trouble. Nono Nuttingood was murdered last night. The police are turning the town upside down looking for the redheaded fellow who pasted him with a pie. They think he, I mean I, I mean me, I mean myself, came back later and killed he, him, whomever. Oh, Eddie. I don’t know what to do, done, ditty. I is positively ungrammatical! You have to help me Eddie, p-p-p-please, p-p-p-pretty, p-p-p-pretty p-p-p-please.”
I reached into my desk, pulled out his sworn promise to leave me alone, and waved it under his fuzzy pink nose.
He rolled his eyes and unrolled a wad of money, no bill smaller than a Cleveland.
How could I resist?
“And one other thing, Eddie,” he said after he had me, and his note, in his pocket. “About Jessica. I think she’s dating Cary Grant.”
