by Gary K. Wolf
“Willy P is paying money to underwrite a movie Sands is planning to make in Toontown.”
Willy P was Sands’s big investor. No wonder Sands didn’t want his investor riled. Those who angered Willy P tended to wind up dead.
“Willy P is more of a pipe than a spigot.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Willy P is only funneling the money to Sands. The true source of the cash is Dowdy Chemical.”
“Got any more blockbusters to dump on me?”
He flipped through the balloons. He paused and tapped on with his finger. “Aren’t you friendly with a Professor named Wordhollow?”
“Indeed I am. How does he figure in this?”
“Professor Wordhollow works as a consultant for Dowdy Chemical.”
Looked like Wordhollow was doing more for Dowdy than translating government proposals into gobbledygook.
I took back the ledgers. “How about coming to The Telltale with me? Explain to Delancey Duck what’s going on. He won’t listen to me, but he will listen to you.”
“I’m sorry, Eddie. I won’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“I’m afraid of what Willy P would do in retribution. I go public with this; I’m Willy’s clay pigeon.”
“Aren’t you a little bit concerned that if Willy’s deal goes through, life in Toontown will never be the same?”
“Eddie, I’m old. I’m almost ready to retire. When that happens, I’m gone from here. I’m currently checking out retirement places where the sun always shines, the living is easy, and life is more than a constant joke. As far as Toontown is concerned, I’m sorry, but I don’t give a hoot.”
A Toon onion wearing a cowboy outfit met me in the lobby of the hotel.
“Western Onion,” he said. “I got a singing telegram for one Mister Eddie Valiant.”
The onion had his pitch pipe out and ready to blow.
“That’s me. Gimme a break, would ya? Just hand the thing over. Don’t sing it, okay?”
The onion nodded and put his pitch pipe away.
A tear dribbled out of the onion’s eye. He wasn’t sad about not getting to croon his ditty. He was an onion. He went around all day making his own eyes water.
The onion handed me the telegram.
The telegram came from Baby Herman.
I read the message. “Meet me at The Sand Bar.”
The Sand Bar, way out on Rowrow Row, attracted singles looking for shallow relationships.
Baby Herman, one of the shallowest people I knew, sat at the bar, hustling anything with lipstick including the unwashed bar glasses.
“Hey, Valiant. Let’s grab a table. I got hot poop.” Fifteen small umbrellas, toppers on the fruity drinks the baby had ordered and downed while waiting for me to arrive, made the bar space in front of the little guy resemble a rainy day in a flea circus. “I don’t mean poop literally. Like in my pants. I didn’t do that. I mean info. I got hot info.”
Baby Herman crawled down off his bar stool.
“Hand me my bottle, would ya?”
I picked the rubber-nippled glass baby bottle off the bar and handed the bottle down to him.
“Whenever I’m in public, my PR flack wants me to drink out of a baby bottle. Better for my image, he says. I resisted at first, but I got to liking the sucking action. Next best thing to a hot date on a Saturday night. Now I wouldn’t drink any other way.”As Baby Herman toddled toward an empty table in the dining room, he grabbed a waitress by the ass. “Oops, sorry, toots. I was reaching for your arm, but this is as high as I could get.”
The comely waitress was a delicate bird in a scoop-necked blouse and tight skirt. Her nametag identified her as Sandy Piper. She slapped Baby’s hand.
Not one to give up easily, Baby countered with, “How about slipping me out of my wet diaper and into a dry hump?”
Sandy wasn’t buying Baby’s come on. She slapped him again, in the chops this time. “I oughta wash your mouth out with soap.”
“My tub or yours?”
Sandy ignored him.
Baby Herman leered at the bouncing breast beneath her nametag. “How’s about letting me play in your Sandy box?”
Still no reply.
He tried one last time. “I’m a private eye. Come on over to my place. I’ll let you put your eye on my privates.”
I knew from personal experience that line never worked. We reached the table and sat down. I asked Sandy to fetch us a bottle of bourbon and two glasses.
“The little foul-mouth got an I.D.?”
“You bet,” said Baby. “I keep my essential credential right here.” He pulled the front of his diaper away from his body. “This’ll prove I’m long enough in the tooth for whatever you’re willing to serve up.”
Sandy shook her head, left, and returned with booze and glasses. I poured stiffies for me and the baby. I used a funnel made out of a paper placemat to transfer his firewater into his baby bottle. I tossed mine straight down the hatch and poured another.
“Don’t you know drinking is slow death?” said Baby sucking on his bottle.
“I’m in no hurry.” I emptied my glass.
“Me either,” said Baby.
Even though Baby Herman had to literally suck down his booze, he still matched me shot for shot.
“Smoke?” asked Baby.
“Every chance I get.”
Like Ollie, Baby also smoked long, strong Cubans. Baby Herman didn’t keep his in a wooden humidor. At least I don’t think he did since he got to them by reaching into the butt end of his diaper.
He handed me a stogie. “You might want to wipe that off with a napkin first.”
I did and lit up.
“What you got for me?”
Baby pulled his diaper away from the front of his body again, groped around inside.
Given his diaper’s absence of pockets, I thought he might be fishing out a notebook. Nope. Since Sandy Piper wouldn’t play a game of mousey mousey with him, the baby played with himself.
“I did like you asked,” he said.
He pulled his hand out of his diaper. He first sniffed than licked his thumb.
“I checked into Doc Trinaire’s Sanatorium. What a dull place! They don’t have a bar. Not even a hospitality tray of nips in my room.”
“That’s one of the reasons people go there. To dry out. That was your cover story. You went there to kick your drinking habit.”
“Yeah, I know. I agreed to go that route because I figured that whole rehabilitation angle was only publicity stuff. A way for bad eggs to shake their notoriety and get their respectability back without really having to change. The joke was on me. Those Sanatorium people were serious. They went through my luggage and confiscated my portable pub. Even patted me down to make sure I wasn’t hiding hooch in my nappy. Though I did enjoy that part. My frisky frisker was a buxom nurse named Brunhilda. Had big hands and a strong grip. Grew up on a farm in Minnesota. Learned her frisking technique milking cows. She gave me udder bliss.”
“That’s all interesting, but not to me. What did you find out about my case?”
“Plenty. I nosed around. I found the old lady you wanted me to talk to.”
“Annie Mation.”
“One and the same,” said Baby.
“You was right to send somebody inside. You never would have contacted her otherwise. They had her tucked away good. In an isolation ward where they sequester the severe wackos. Lucky for me, one of the nurses was a big fan of mine. In return for me demonstrating a few of my medical proficiencies, mouth-to-mouth and mouth-to-elsewhere, nursey gave me a few minutes alone with Miss Mation.”
“Did you give Annie an earful?”
“Naw. Way too perverse even for me.”
“Oh, yeah. I did. She’s willing to come forward and spill everything she knows. On one condition. She wants you to get her released from Doc Trinaire’s institution.”
Baby Herman spit up on the tabletop.
“Sorry, Valiant. Wish I could learn to control that. Really kills the mood in romantic tête-à-têtes.” He snapped his fingers. “Hey, Sandy. We need a cleanup over here.”
Baby Herman was a Sand Bar regular. The waitresses knew his routine. Sandy came over wearing long rubber gloves and carrying a dishrag and a pail of water. “Next time you’re cleaning the table,” she said.
“Good practice for when we make our baby,” said Baby Herman.
“In your dreams,” she answered.
“You’re already there, every night,” he responded.
Sandy returned to the bar.
I was curious. “Does that crude style of yours ever work?”
“Law of averages, Valiant. I land one out of a hundred. All I need, all I can handle.”
“Let’s get back to Annie.”
“Sure. You ask me, you’re gonna have a major problem meeting her condition. I checked in voluntarily. I could leave any time I wanted. Which I did as soon as I found out what you needed to know. Miss Mation won’t be so easy. She’s legally committed. You’re gonna need a court order to spring her.”
I hooked up with legal eagle Shy Stern, avian Attooney at Law. Shy met me at the Toontown Courthouse that occupied the far end of Kangaroo Court. I’d used Shy many times before.
Being an eagle gave Shy a patriotic, red, white, and blue measure of gravitas he put to good use when jockeying judges and juries. Shy looked like a regal eagle but behaved more like a vicious vulture. Like me, Shy would do anything to give his client a win.
Our case came up before the honorable Judge String Bean.
“You’re gonna have tough sledding,” I told Shy. “Willy Prosciutto’s ledgers show that Judge Bean is on Willy P’s payroll.”
“Don’t worry, Eddie. I did my due diligence. The good judge is visiting the pea patch this afternoon for an assignation with a leggy legume. He’s thinking about his rigid beanpole. About the hot and succulent sweet pea waiting for him to come by and shuck her. Judge Bean wants to hurry away to his Garden of Eden. He wants this morning’s cases cut and dried, short and sweet. You take a seat, sit back, relax, and watch me do my thing.”
My squirrelly flying eye in the sky told me that Doc Trinaire was taking his patients to the Toontown Observatory today on an outing.
I went up to the Observatory and settled in, taking a seat on a bench in the lobby.
Seymor Twinkles, a humanoid Toon whose nametag identified him as the Observatory’s Celestial Facilitator, stood just past the ticket booth, by the entrance to the Observatory proper. Seymor wore a red usher’s uniform resplendent with brass buttons and gold braid. Last time I saw an outfit that gaudy was at a Pasadena yard sale thrown by a deposed South American dictator.
Visitors handed Seymor their tickets.
Seymor bopped each visitor over the head with a long-handled wooden mallet.
The boppees immediately saw stars.
Seymor opened the door and pushed the starry-eyed visitors into the Observatory’s darkened interior.
Given my already knobby noggin, I was glad I chose to wait outside rather than inside.
Doc Trinaire’s Sanatorium bus pulled up to the curb. One by one, Doc Trinaire’s patients disembarked. As the patients entered the Observatory, Seymor gave each one a hard wallop.
Annie Mation got off the bus last.
I walked up to her.
“Annie,” I said. “Eddie Valiant, Remember me? I’m investigating Clabber Clown’s murder. You agreed to help me if I sprung you from the Sanatorium.” I held up the paper officially granting her freedom. “I did my part.”
Annie gave the paper a cursory glance. “Of course, Mister Valiant. I will gladly honor our deal. I’ll go with you to the authorities, and tell them everything I know.”
Doc Trinaire came up and stood beside us. His traveling clothes seemed to indicate a continental shift in his medical methodology. He had swapped his white lab coat for a white dashiki of the style worn by Eastern fakirs. His stiff white prayer cap resembled an upside down round candy box. “What are you doing here, Mister Valiant?”
“I got a court order instructing you to cut Annie loose.”
“May I see the document?”
“You bet. Here you go. Official as can be.” I handed him the paper.
Doc Trinaire turned to Annie. “Annie, while I make sure this is authentic, you go inside the Observatory with the others. I’ll come get you once I’ve made my decision.”
“No decision to be made, Doc. According to that paper, Annie’s out of here.”
“Then Annie won’t have long to wait. Go on, dear. Go inside.”
Annie stepped toward the entry door.
Seymor smacked her a good one.
An entire constellation of stars circled Annie’s head. She staggered and almost fell.
I rushed to her, grabbed her by the arm and gave her support.
“Thank you,” she said. “I almost lost my balance.”
“Come on, Annie. We don’t need to wait for the Doc to give us an okay. The court order’s legit. You’re out of here. Let’s go.”
Annie looked at me. “Who are you? Do I know? Have we met before?”
“What are you talking about? I’m Eddie Valiant. We got a deal. You’re gonna help me flip Willy Prosciutto.”
“Flip? Flip? Absolutely. Happy to do one for you.”
She did a back flip followed by a cartwheel followed by another back flip. All the while babbling a string of word balloons that made less sense than what came out of a scat singer.
Annie was no longer a scholarly, serious woman. She had become the Marx Brothers, the Ritz Brothers, and the Ringling Brothers rolled into a single, zany, gray haired package.
Doc Trinaire puffed out his chest proudly. “How wonderful,” he said. “Annie responded to Seymor’s concussive shock treatment exactly as I hoped she would. Seymor knocked the nonsense back into her. Annie is totally cured.”
Doc Trinaire handed me back the court order. “This won’t be necessary. I don’t need a legal document. I’m releasing Annie from the Sanatorium with my blessing.”
“Annie,” I said, trying again. “You remember our conversation? About Clabber Clown?”
Annie gave me a blank stare.
“I’m sorry, Mister Valiant,” said Doc Trinaire. “Now that Annie’s back to being her old, zany self, she will remember nothing about what happened during her delusional phase. That includes anything that occurred during her entire stay at my Sanatorium.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Me, Cooper, Sands and Roger went to Easterby’s Auction House located slightly Northwest of Southeby’s on Gavel Gravel Road.
Only one item was scheduled to go under the gavel today, Toonie Island.
The clerk at the front desk asked if we wanted a bidding number. I shook my head. Roger did too.
Cooper said “Sure.”
The auctioneer ascended to his podium.
The auctioneer gave the bidding rules. “As always, here at Easterby’s, we deal in cash on the barrelhead. All accounts to be settled up immediately after the auction ends. Now, who’ll start the bidding off with one thousand simoleons?”
Willy Prosciutto was a few rows in front of us, sitting next to a dummy, the president of one of Willy’s companies.
The dummy raised his bidding paddle.
“I have one thousand simoleons. Do I hear two?”
Cooper raised his paddle.
I looked at
him.
Cooper cocked his head at Willy P. “No good pig,” he said. “Can’t let him win.”
I counted on my fingers. I tallied more words than I’d ever heard Cooper utter at one time. He must really be riled.
Willy P’s dummy raised his paddle again.
“I have two thousand. Do I hear three?”
Cooper raised his paddle.
“Three thousand from the illustrious Mister Gary Cooper. Do I hear four?”
Willy P’s corporate dummy looked at Willy P for instructions.
Willy P turned around and gave Cooper a hard, mean stare.
Willy P faced the auctioneer.
Willy P took over his own bidding. He put up a balloon, a big one, filled with zeros.
The balloon drifted up to the auctioneer. He grabbed the balloon and read Willy’s bid aloud. “Mister Prosciutto bids thirty thousand simoleons.”
Willy P turned to face Cooper again.
Willy P drew the tip of his manicured hoof across his throat in a slicing motion. His implication was quite clear. Stop now or suffer dire consequences.
“Do I hear an advance on thirty thousand simoleons?” asked the auctioneer.
“Gary, stop,” said Sands. “You don’t want to risk your life for a bunch of stupid Toons.”
“Mister Sands,” said Roger. “I’m shocked. I thought you liked Toons.”
“Me too,” said Cooper giving Sands a dirty look.
“No advance on thirty thousand? All right. Going once, going twice…”
Cooper stood up tall. “Check okay?” he asked the auctioneer.
The auctioneer pushed his half-emerged SOLD balloon back into his cranial balloon hole. “I’m sorry, Mister Cooper. I’m sure your check is good. However auction rules are quite specific. Strictly cash, receivable immediately at the end of the auction.”
Willy P reached into his coat pocket. He pulled out a thick sheaf of freshly laundered simoleons. He fanned them out and waved them at Cooper.
