by Gary K. Wolf
“He’s fine,” said Roger. “He said to tell you hello.”
“Tell him hello back.”
“I will,” said Roger. “I’m sure he’ll say to say hello back again.”
“Can we keep the interrogation moving?” I said to Roger.
“What? Oh, sure. I’ll skip the rest of the social niceties and get right to business.” Roger put up a great big balloon, the oversized, extra-readable kind Toons used when talking to senior citizens. “What do you remember about Willy P-P-P-Prosciutto?”
Given Tweeter’s senility, I expected this would be a big dead end. The canary surprised me.
“I remember plenty,” he said. He straightened up, showing some of the old swagger that once struck terror in the hearts of Toontown law breakers. “Willy Prosciutto was the last criminal me and Uncle Catman tried to bring to justice. Willy was too cagey for us. He bought politicians, he bought cops. He filled Toontown with corrupt officials. The combination, the force of them all together, wound up being too much for me and Uncle Catman.”
“Do you remember anything about Willy’s involvement with Clabber Clown and Mayor Joe Viality?” asked Roger.
Tweeter gazed into the distance. I could almost hear his elderly brain clanking, trying to resurrect hazy old memories. “Me and Uncle Catman, we believed Prosciutto used laundered crime money to pay somebody on Joe Viality’s staff to double cross Viality and come up with incriminating information that would force Viality out of office. Clabber was one of Viality’s insiders. That put him right up at the top on our list of prime suspects.”
Tweeter spread his reedy legs apart. He assumed a wide legged stance. He put his wing tips on his hips in the standard stance of a superhero. “We were just about to launch a full-fledged investigation when Willy Prosciutto pulled strings. He got his corrupt politicians to declare freelance crime fighting illegal. That brought me and Uncle Catman to a screeching halt. Ended our careers. We never fought crime again. Uncle Catman retired not long after that. He figured he might as well. By law he couldn’t work anymore. Neither could I.” His head drooped, his shoulders slumped. “I got only one regret about my crime fighting days. Me and Uncle Catman failed our final mission. We never brought Willy Proscuitto to justice.”
“This is kind of a maybe silly question,” said Roger. “Do you have any idea where Willy might get rid of a dead body?”
Tweeter nodded. “Prosciutto’s favorite dumping ground. Doctor Trinaire’s All Purpose Sanatorium. Me and Uncle Catman heard lots of rumors that Doc Trinaire disposed of Willy Prosciutto’s victims. We never got the goods on him, though. Never got the goods. Never. Got the goods.” His balloons became increasingly hazy and hard to read.
We walked him back to Old Mac’s farmhouse.
We followed Tweeter into the living room.
A big cage stood in one corner. Tweeter stepped into it.
“Can I have my baby?”
Roger handed him his egg.
Tweeter wrapped the egg in a big blanket and set the bundle on the cage floor, right under his cuttle bone.
He closed the door behind him.
“Nice meeting you fellows,” he said. “Let me know if there’s anything else you need. Always happy to help fellow crime fighters.”
“Right,” I said. “We’ll stay in touch.”
“Do me a favor?” asked Tweeter. “Pull the curtain around my cage?”
I stepped forward. Cooper headed me off.
“Let me,” he said. Cooper pulled the curtain around. “Sleep tight.”
I couldn’t believe what I saw.
Cooper, the stoic hard-bitten manly man’s man, the man every man wanted to be, the man who, for me, defined manhood had a tear in his eye.
Chapter Ten
We hopped on the trolley and rode out to the Toontown Hair Port, located just off Which Way.
“What are we doing here?” Roger asked.
“I got an idea.”
“Okiedokie,” said Roger. “You’re the boss. Lead the way. Lead a-way. Lead the way away. Whatever you say.”
A perfect example of one good thing about Toons. When they ask you a question, any answer will do. No need to lay out chapter and verse. Toons are perfectly happy with the Simple Simon nursery rhyme comeback.
We entered the Hair Port’s Pilots’ Lounge.
The lounge had become the local hang-out for humanoid Toon World War II aviators. I admired this bunch. These Toons and other Toons like them had been overhead, flying missions, aviating hostile skies, braving flack and ack ack fire, right alongside their human counterparts. Giving me and my fellow dog faces air support as we slogged our way through foreign lands. All of us together fighting to make the world safe and free for democracy.
Even though these flyboys were Toons, I would always owe them my gratitude, and my life.
I spotted Terry and his Pirates, the Blackhawk Gang, ace test pilot Pat Nelson, Steve Canyon, and that famous Belgian fly guy Buck Danny.
You want to turn heads in a flyer’s bar, walk in with the Academy Award winning star of Wings.
When the fighter pilots spotted Cooper, they broke out the hijinks exclusively reserved for a fellow member of their high flying fraternity. A hearty round of applause, a stalwart rendition of Off We Go Into The Wild Blue Yonder, and my personal favorite flyboy tradition, unending rounds of free drinks.
Cooper accepted the acclaim with his customary modesty.
He patiently shook every hand extended to him. He autographed A-2 leather flight jackets, the backs of combat medals, the brims of flight caps, and so many cocktail napkins that you could make them into paper airplanes and restage the Battle of Britain.
Roger stuck close to Cooper, basking in Cooper’s reflected glow and telling anybody who would read his balloon, “We’re making a movie together.”
For the trip to the Hair Port, Miss Ethyl had gussied up Sands’ camera to look like an airplane. Using silver-painted balsa wood, she had fabricated wings and a tail. She glued them into position She had pried the propeller off a kid’s beanie and nailed the prop to the camera’s front. She had stripped the camera of black paint, restoring the camera’s body to a glistening, aerodynamic sheen. With these artificial airfoils and steel body, the camera looked like something that could really roll down a runway and build up enough gumption to fly.
Sands swooped around the Lounge, memorializing the worshipful interaction between Cooper and the flyers.
Half a dozen flying squirrels lolled around, waiting for somebody to come along with a job that involved navigating some aspect of the wild blue yonder.
Flying squirrels made moola in lots of ways. They towed huge product-themed word balloons above sports events. Using pressurized cans of Barbasol shaving cream as their medium, they sky wrote ads. If a client wanted an aural instead of visual come-on, flying squirrels circled Toontown with record players strapped to their backs, hyping stuff at 78 RPM. Flying squirrels worked the agricultural market, aerially fertilizing Toontown’s farms and golf courses.
I was looking for a flying squirrel named Buzz Bomb.
I headed over to the lounge’s gaming area which featured dart boards, card tables, pinball machines, and a juke box. The juke was of the Toon variety. Feed the juker a nickel, and the juker sang you a song in whatever voice and style you choose. Right now the juker was doing a passable impression of The Andrews Sisters harmonizing Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.
Mutt must have had a little pointer or maybe a touch of squirrel hound in him. The dog spotted Buzz Bomb before I did. Mutt’s tail stayed pointing skyward, but his body stretched out arrow straight. I followed the sight line of Mutt’s extended nose.
Dumbo notwithstanding, Toon animal flyers tended to be on the tiny side, birds, squirrels, mice, insects, and the occasional fairy.
&n
bsp; The Hair Port had a special foot-high pool table to accommodate these diminutive sky pilots.
Buzz Bomb was shooting eight ball. He was partnered up with another squirrel.
They were playing against a pair of the bluebirds who worked for the Toontown Chamber of Commerce, overflying Toontown every morning, dropping exploding whiffs of happiness and good cheer.
Buzz was one of my most reliable resources. Whenever I needed aerial surveillance, no-questions-asked, Buzz was my go-to squirrel. I also used him for another, more practical reason.
Buzz worked for peanuts.
“How you doing, Buzz?” I asked.
“Flying high,” said Buzz. He wore the heavyweight, shearling-lined, fur-collared flight jacket favored by the bomber crewmen who flew at higher, colder altitudes. For headgear he chose a leather flight helmet, the kind with ear flaps. The flaps curled up at the ends like military versions of Pippi Longstocking’s pigtails. He completed his flight ensemble with strap-secured aviator goggles perched jauntily above his helmet’s small leather bill.
Since both his paws were already occupied—one holding a pool cue and the other wrapped around one of the Welcome-To-Cooper free beers—Buzz pointed his tail at his pool partner. “Eddie Valiant, meet Rocky Squirrel. He’s a newcomer. I been giving him lessons on doing the tricky, showy stuff. The kid’s a natural. Keep your eye on him. He’s gonna be one of the greats.”
Rocky aped his mentor, wearing a duplicate of Buzz’s flying ensemble. “Good to meet you, Rocky.”
“Likewise,” said the squirrel.
“Can we talk private?” I said to Buzz.
“Sure,” he answered. “Rocky, gimme a minute.”
“Okay,” said Rocky.
Rocky went to the bar. He seemed to be pals with the bartender, a slow witted moose named Bullwinkle. Me and Buzz slipped into a booth.
I would have preferred to keep our little confab private. No such luck.
Cooper had finished signing autographs, so he joined us. His new best friend Roger naturally tagged along. Wherever those two went, Sands followed. Roger and Cooper slid into the booth with me and Buzz. Sands hopped up on the booth top. He filmed us from overhead. Either he was doing his own style of method acting, channeling the airplane he resembled, or this was his idea of an artsy shot.
“You know Roger,” I said to Buzz.
“Sure do,” he answered. “Everybody in Toontown knows Roger Rabbit. How you doin’, Rog?”
“The B-25 standing on the booth top is Barney Sands,” I said.
Buzz gave Sands a once over, then cocked his head quizzically at me.
“Don’t ask. A complicated story.”
Buzz shrugged.
“This is Gary Cooper.”
Buzz put out his paw and shook Cooper’s hand. “I’m a big, big fan. Your movie Wings? A classic. I saw that movie a half a dozen times when I was growing up. Your movie inspired me to learn to fly. Without you, I’d be living in a tree and eating acorns.”
“Flying’s better,” said Cooper.
“You got that about right,” said Buzz.
Buzz returned his attention to me. “I know this ain’t no social call. You need a flying job, right?”
I nodded. “I need you to fly over Toontown. Check the backyard clotheslines. Let me know if you spot anybody laundering money.”
“What a great idea!” said Roger in a balloon gushy enough to have been a review of the latest Hemingway novel. “Eddie, that’s why you’re the champ.”
Sands and Cooper looked at me like I’d gone loony.
“What?” said Cooper.
Sands put down his camera. He stepped to the floor. “I know you’re the private eye. You know what’s what regarding crime. I have to tell you. You’re way off base. When Tweeter said that Prosciutto laundered crime money, that doesn’t mean Prosciutto washes the money in soap and water and hangs the bills out on a line to dry. Laundering money means running cash through a complex series of accounting shenanigans to obscure where the money came from.”
“No kidding,” said I.
“Absolutely. I ought to know. Being in the film business, I’ve certainly done my share.”
“Wanna call off the job?” asked Buzz.
I shook my head. “Do the fly over. Report to me what you see.”
We went to the next scenic lowlight on our tour of Toontown’s underbelly. Doctor Trinaire’s All Purpose Sanatorium.
The good Doctor had built his healing emporium beside the bubbling fountainhead called Hope Springs Eternal.
Roger’s pulled out his Gossipy Guidebook. “There’s a lot of gossip in Toontown about Doc Trinaire,” said Roger. “So much that I gave him a whole chapter. Wanna hear? Pretty juicy stuff if I do say so myself. Which, in fact, I did since I was the one who wrote the book!”
“Skip the fluff. Just give me the low lights.” I didn’t want to spend a lot of time listening to medical horror stories.
Roger held the book in his hands while his ear did a line by line search. Must have been plenty of filler. The ear flipped over three pages before Roger started reading.
“Doc Trinaire repairs damaged Toons. According to what I hear, and I hear that what I hear is what is here, he keeps a bin of spare parts. When a Toon comes in missing a part, he finds a replacement and glues that part on. Once he got his parts mixed. He created Gams Casino, the only clam with legs better than Betty Grable’s. Maybe you’ve seen her. She’s the spokesclam for Clam Up clam juice.”
“I missed that one.”
“Doc Trinaire also experiments with cryogenics. Poppin Jay, the Toontown dandy, had himself frozen with instructions to thaw him out when science discovered a cure for baldness. He became the first Poppinsicle.” Roger put up a Yuck Yuck balloon.
“What else you got?”
“Plenty. Doc Trinaire’s medical discoveries include Radicator. That’s a solution that turns a Toon’s skin translucent. Researchers use Radicator to photograph illustrations for medical journals. Bartenders use Radicator to keep Toons out of human-only bars. Bartenders put a font of Radicator just inside the door. There’s always a sign above reading something like this.” Here he put up a balloon which could have be the sign he described.
Don’t fidget, dip your digit.
If it turns to glass, you don’t pass.
If it stays a thumb, come in, Chum.
“Interesting, but irrelevant. Anything that might tie in to Clabber Clown?”
“How about the fact that Toontown’s rodent population idolizes Doc Trinaire? He’s the only doctor in town willing to make mouse calls.”
“Enough with the jokes, puns, and lame gags. Gimme something I can use.”
“How about this? Doc Trinaire performs psychotherapy on loony Toons. He advertises his service with the slogan ‘Feeling off key, discordant? Doc Trinaire will soon have you singing a different Toon.’ He practices the three most popular psychoanalytic techniques, Freudian, Jungian, and Simian, the last for people who have gone especially bananas.”
“Come on. You gotta have something better than that.”
“Oh, here’s a really good one. Using a patented ink and dip concoction, Doc Trinaire performs plastic surgery on Toons to make them more attractive. The Doc did a lot of work on Willy Prosciutto.”
He showed us Willy Prosciutto’s before picture. To my eye, he looked exactly as he did now. The after picture didn’t look any different from the before.
“I don’t get it. What’s the difference?”
“Look at his tail!” said Roger.
I took a gander. In the before picture, his tail stuck out perfectly straight, like the tail of a hairless rat. In the after picture, his tail was coiled into a screw shape you could have used to uncork a bottle of wine.
; “Doc Trinaire made Willy P look more porcine,” said Roger. “That’s important for a pig. They’ve got a lot of piggy pride. You know the old nursery rhyme. This little piggy went to market. This little piggy stayed home. This little piggy had a straight tail, it made him look like a gnome.”
I never saw a gnome with a tail. I never saw a gnome without a tail. I never saw a gnome period. Toons come up with the oddest poetry.
“Yeah, swell. So far, I don’t see where this Doc Trinaire guy is doing anything illegal. To be honest, he sounds like a saint. Helping Toons look and feel better. Let’s go inside, spook around a little bit, and check the place out for ourselves.”
Getting inside was easier said than done. The front gate was locked. No guard on duty. No intercom to announce our presence. From the setup, Doc Trinaire’s Sanatorium resembled a prison more than a medical facility.
We took the only possible way in. We climbed over the wall.
Cooper and I grabbed Roger by the arms and gave him a good fling.
We heard him land on the other side.
He sent a balloon over the wall reading “All clear!”
We put Sands’ camera on the ground. The camera, built for rugged battleground conditions, easily supported me and Cooper together. I lifted him up to the top of the wall. He reached down, pulled me up and over with him.
That left Sands on the outside looking in.
“Hey, what about me?” said Sands. “What am I supposed to do?”
I whispered down at him. “Keep an eye on my dog.”
The three of us strolled around the grounds.
Doc Trinaire’s Sanatorium resembled any normal day in Toontown. Scores of Toons doing goofy, bizarre things. Me and Cooper were the oddballs in this crowd, the only ones acting normal.
Since all of the patients were Toons, I let Roger take the lead.
