“I think I’d like to get back to the house,” he said, “if you don’t mind.”
“Don’t mind at all,” the sheriff answered amiably, following after him. “As a matter of fact, I feel a little foolish about chasin’ you around like I did. But after you locked me up and blasted my jail house, I guess it wasn’t my fault I thought you was a desperado.”
When they reached the top of the cliff and stepped out onto the highway, Marc had to close his eyes a moment against the bright morning sun. He shook his head. At first there was a sharp pain, but when it had passed he felt better. He opened his eyes again, started to turn to the sheriff, then did a quick double-take toward the beach house. His eyes grew wide with disbelief.
A blue convertible was standing pertly in the drive.
WITHOUT a word of explanation, Marc ran eagerly across the highway and toward the house, leaving the sheriff to his own reflections on the daftness of city folk.
“Julie! Julie!” he cried, reaching the path. And in the next instant he nearly stumbled as he saw his wife, cool, blonde and radiant as ever, move gracefully through the front door and smile down at him from the tiny terrace. Then, somehow, she was in his arms.
“When did you get here?” Marc asked when he could.
“Just fifteen minutes ago,” Julie said cheerfully. “I drove all night to get here. I had no idea you’d be at the beach so early. I thought I’d have to drag you out of bed.” She sighed contentedly. “I just couldn’t stand another day without you. I just couldn’t face it.”
“What about the separate vacations?”
Julie’s eyes became wide and innocent. “What are those?” she asked.
“All over it?”
She nodded, flushed just a little.
Through their conversation, Marc had been vaguely aware of a man’s voice within the house. It seemed excited.
“Who’s that?” he asked.
“Oh, that!” Julie laughed. “It’s the radio!” She looked suddenly excited, as though having just remembered something important. “You should just hear what’s going on! It’s absolutely fantastic!”
“Going on?”
“Yes. It’s the strangest thing. Early this morning there was some sort of disturbance all through the earth’s surface. In some places, it was so severe, it knocked down whole buildings. I really don’t understand it very well, but at first they thought it was just an earthquake, but scientists proved somehow that it couldn’t have been. Now, they’ve decided that it must have been some sort of weird bombardment from another planet . . . Mars or the moon, or one of those places. Russia even claims to be holding Orson Welles responsible.
“Anyway, the most amazing things have been happening ever since! Already, they’ve formed a World Army in case of further attacks. And everyone’s talking about a United World. They’re really sincere about it, too. The world has really become united in just the last few hours. It’s odd how swiftly these things can be accomplished when they really get down to it. They’ve settled matters that no one ever thought they’d agree on. It’s almost unbelievable. It seems we just had to have some sort of outside threat to pull us all together.”
“Are you sure about all that?” Marc asked.
“Oh, yes!” Julie nodded positively. “Some places got a real jolting.” She drew closer to him. “I’m so glad you weren’t in any of them,” she went on softly. “I’m so thankful you were safe here, where nothing ever happens . . . where you could have a nice, quiet vacation.”
Marc’s mouth flew widely open, then snapped shut. Grinning, he slipped an arm about Julie’s waist and pulled her gently toward the house.
“So am I,” he said quietly.
TOFFEE HAUNTS A GHOST
Having Toffee the “dream-girl” around was bad enough for Marc, but a ghost named George was just too much
AS A rule, in moments of acute peril, most faces can be relied upon to arrange themselves into the traditional expressions of open-mouthed, pop-eyed terror. Not so; however, the willful countenance of Marc Pillsworth. The lean Pillsworth phiz, openly disdainful of the accepted manifestations of fear, regally sidestepped into something that looked curiously like tight-lipped primness. At the moment it had tied itself into such a knot of horror as to appear downright priggish. As the sidewalk split under Marc’s feet, throwing him against the unforgiving granite of the Regent Building, the only expletive vigorous enough to force its way through his tightly pursed lips was a sadly depleted, but nonetheless determined “damn.”
What had just transpired was extremely upsetting, also quite impossible.
Now, if Marc had been careless about looking where he was going . . . But he hadn’t. He had been fully aware of the suspended safe . . . an object of considerable tonnage by the look of it . . . and its precarious position outside the sixth story window. Dangling threateningly out over the street like that, how could he have missed it? He had even taken special care to keep well outside the roped-off safety area. And yet, when the pulley had slipped, and the safe begun to fall, it was as though the great hand of Satan, himself, had taken hold of it and hurled it directly at Marc. It had missed him not by inches, but by the merest fraction of an inch. It was impossible that it should have happened that way; all the laws of physics forbade it. However, for Marc, the morning was already fairly bristling with impossibilities, and while this was not the least of them, neither was it the greatest. Staring apprehensively at the great black lump, now imbedded in the sidewalk, he wondered if it were going to leap from its resting place and crush him against the wall. He wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if it had. In the last few hours he’d come to expect almost anything.
“Damn,” he repeated breathlessly.
“You hurt, Bud?”
Marc directed bewildered eyes toward the entrance of the building and saw a workman running swiftly toward him. “No,” he said weakly. “It missed me. I’m all right . . . I think. If you want me to sign a statement to that effect, I’ll be glad to.” He leaned down to flick a bit of cement dust from his trouser cuff and, because of a hand that was trembling badly, did a more complete job than was strictly necessary.
If there was a hand, though, that had every right to tremble, it was the hand of Marc Pillsworth. Actually, it was a wonder the thing wasn’t thrashing about like a hooked tuna. His nerves, by now, were as taut and as prickly as the strands on a barbed wire fence.
IT HAD all started early that morning when absenteeism had reared its unlovely head among the ranks of his shirt buttons, thereby making him miss his bus. But Marc, long since hardened to life’s minor misfortunes, had waited for a replacement, kissed Julie goodbye at the completion of repairs, and gone in search of a taxi with a certain amount of equanimity. And he had even managed not to be too dismayed when, after going to some lengths to snare a cab, the perverse vehicle had had a flat only two blocks from the apartment. It was not until, upon stepping out of the cab to inquire about the delay, he had looked up to see a truck, out of control, heading directly for him ... it was not until then that he finally came to the bitter realization that the routineness of the morning had been irrevocably shattered.
After picking himself stiffly out of a nearby hedge, into which he had hastily retreated for safety, and making sure that no one was injured, Marc had signed an injury waiver, shaken the dust from his soiled dignity and gone quietly in search of other transportation. Even then, all things being equal, the morning might still have resolved itself into a fair semblance of normalcy. Only all things were just about as equal as a private and a general on pay day. If Marc had only known it, further disaster, just three blocks distant, was already rushing toward him in the person of a bundle-laden, middle-aged woman, hurriedly returning home from an early-morning expedition to the neighborhood market.
The woman had walked sightlessly into Marc just as he stepped from the curb. Ordinarily, such an incident would have meant only a hasty exchange of insincerities. It would have, that is, if it hadn�
�t happened on the very brink of a workman’s ditch where some new and very iron pipe was being laid. Catapulted head-first into the trench, Marc would certainly have died of assorted abrasions and fractures if a beefy workman hadn’t been standing in precisely the right spot to cushion his fall.
He had signed two waivers that time.
After that, it had only been the negligible journey of five blocks to the incident of the falling safe. It would seem that the fates, gotten up on the murderous side of the bed, were going a bit out of their way to give Marc an untimely nudge into the hereafter.
Now, after quaveringly signing papers for the Regent people, he hurried away from the building and started down the sidewalk. With a rather harassed expression replacing the one of prim fright, he moved toward the corner bus stop. After all, he thought, even if it was only a few more blocks to the office, he would probably do better to play it safe and put himself in the mechanized hands of the city bus company. They’d always taken good care of him before. Besides, his knees were feeling a trifle unhinged.
A small group had already assembled at the corner to await the arrival of the bus, and Marc drew close to it. He wanted to dispel the uneasy feeling that he alone had been singled out and set apart for disaster. He wanted the feeling of safety that is always inherent in any human gathering, no matter how small. It was unfortunate that this gregarious impulse only led to the brutal trampling of a delicate foot, the property of the most attractive lady in the assemblage.
“Ouch!” yelled Marc’s diminutive victim. “You crazy ox!” She glanced significantly at Marc’s feet. “Why don’tcha look where you’re puttin’ them big hooves? You could cripple a girl fer life!”
“Sorry,” Marc murmured embarrassedly. “Terribly sorry.”
“I should think so!” The girl turned away, still mumbling fretfully.
Edging back, Marc continued to stare at the girl. She reminded him of someone. But who was it? The angry flash of her green eyes, the flaming red of her hair, even the arrogant, curving lines of her supple young body were strongly reminiscent of someone he had once known. His wife? He immediately vetoed the idea. Julie was a stately blonde, and her eyes were blue.
Who then? Someone he’d dreamed? Marc’s heart suddenly did a quick backflip. Why Toffee, of course. Toffee!
MARC glanced nervously at the people about him. For a moment he was almost afraid that he’d called out aloud. But apparently he hadn’t, for no one was looking at him. Wasn’t it odd, he thought, how Toffee faded from his memory almost the moment she was out of sight. Maybe it was because her existence sprang from so strange a source . . . from the depths of his own subconscious mind. Maybe it was because she was really a part of him that he thought of her so seldom; it would be almost like keeping constantly in mind one’s liver or kidneys. His smile was almost wistful as his memory returned to that hectic morning when he’d seen Toffee for the first time . . . outside his dreams. Titian-haired mistress of his subconscious, it had been quite a shock when she had decided to materialize from his dreams, assume physical proportions and step full-blown, as it were, right into the center of his waking hours. Her penchant for building the quietest situation into an affair of raging insanity had made itself distressingly apparent right from the start. And yet, Marc had to admit it, she also possessed a rather endearing aptitude for clearing up the snarls in his life . . . even if her methods were somewhat devious at times. Yes, Toffee was sweet in her way . . . sweet, like a sugar-coated time bomb. Almost affectionately, Marc wondered what she was doing in his subconscious this morning. Probably seething with anger that he hadn’t admitted her to his dreams last night so that she might have a hand in the morning’s mishaps. Falling into ditches, being nearly crushed under safes or run down by trucks would be her notion of a real frolic; such was her disposition toward peril and threats of sudden death. Small matters in her gladsome existence. Marc’s smile broadened, then vanished as he saw the bus approaching the corner.
Waiting his turn, he absently watched the well-turned ankle of the outraged redhead as its owner moved smartly up the steps, into the bus. That hazard out of the way, he reached for the gleaming handrail and drew himself up to the first step, a little surprised to find that he was still a bit shaky from the morning’s excitement. Inside the bus, he steadied himself and reached quickly into his pocket and drew out a handful of change. He searched hastily for the correct fare, found it, and held it out toward the shining collection box. It was just as his hand drew even with the box that the red sedan suddenly came careening across the intersection and headed directly for the bus. It came head-on, for all the world as though its prime purpose in the scheme of things was to demolish the big vehicle. There was a rending, crashing sound, and suddenly all the air was filled with splintering glass and noise. The sound of Marc’s fare falling to the floor was lost in the din of the crash.
MARC’S thirty-two years seemed almost to have doubled as he climbed feebly out of the taxi and paid the driver. Turning, he gazed gratefully at the stairs leading to the Pillsworth Advertising Agency and started uncertainly toward them. Actually, though, for a man who had just suffered four consecutive escapes from lascerated death, he was in comparatively good shape. Nevertheless, having one’s head wedged into the baggage rack of an interurban bus for over fifteen minutes is an experience that is bound to take its toll. Moving up the steps, Marc weaved and groped his way like a man in a drunken stupor. Finally reaching the door to the outer office, he threw his weight against it, wedged it open, and stumbled inside in a manner sharply reminiscent of the entrance of Dan McGrew into the Malamute Saloon. For a moment he just stood there, his arms dangling lifelessly at his sides, staring stupidly at his employees, who returned the compliment by remaining rigidly spellbound at their desks. Dazed as he was, Marc didn’t see the girl coming down the aisle between the desks. And she didn’t see him.
A racing cloud of disheveled hair and apparel, she stormed toward Marc in what was obviously a blind rage. The tap of her high heels sounded against the floor with the rapidity of a riveting machine, and an enormous handbag flapped angrily against her slender thigh. It wasn’t until she was nearly abreast of Marc that she finally noticed him.
At the sight of Marc, the girl came to a sudden, jerking halt, as though she had run full-tilt against the face of a brick wall. More than that, she looked just as stunned. Going tensely rigid, like a cardboard cut-out of her self, she drew her arms stiffly to her sides, closed her eyes and screamed till it seemed that her vocal chords would snap under the strain. True and strong, her voice shrilled through the office ripping the silence to shreds. Finally completing this awful recital with a flourish right out of the Lucia mad scene, she opened her eyes and pointed a commanding finger at Marc.
“Stay where you are, Mr. Pillsworth!” she bleated. “One step and I’ll scream!”
“You’ve already screamed,” Marc reminded her thickly. “And you really mustn’t do it any more.”
“If you move,” the girl replied vehemently, “I’ll not only do it some more, but louder!”
Marc’s blood ran cold at the thought. “Oh, don’t,” he pleaded, “Please. Whatever the trouble is, I’m sure we can . . .” Holding out a placating hand, he swayed toward her.
“Get away!” the girl yelped with honest terror. “Get away, you . . . you wolf!” And grasping her handbag firmly by its straps, she took hasty aim at Marc’s head and arranged a resounding introduction of the two.
Under the impact of the bag, which seemed to be harboring at least a couple of flat irons, Marc sat down heavily on the floor, like a sack of soggy meal. In the blurred starlit confusion that followed, he was vaguely aware of tapping heels and the thunderous shim of a door.
AFTER a moment, in which the spinning universe settled down to a more reasonable pace, Marc prodded his head with a cautious finger and, finding it still where he’d remembered it, looked up. “What happened?” he asked.
He waited for a reply that was not forthcom
ing. The agency employees, still rigid at their desks, merely stared back at him with what appeared to be only faintly disguised contempt. Then a door slammed somewhere at the far end of the office and Memphis McGuire, Marc’s current secretary, big as the city for which she was named and twice as colorful, swung heavily into view. Just barely avoiding a collision with a desk, she started down the aisle.
Angrily waving a sheaf of papers over her head, her multi-colored dress flapping loosely about her hammy legs, Memphis looked like nothing so much as a circus tent, flag unfurled, being blown along in a typhoon. Reaching Marc, she stopped in front of him, her weight settling itself around her with a sudden shake. She bent down and waved the papers accusingly under his nose.
“You louse!” she bellowed. “You utter, ring-tailed louse!”
Marc stared up into her scowling face like a bewildered child who had just been spanked for saying her prayers. It didn’t make sense. None of it, Everyone . . . the world, itself . . . had chosen this day to turn on him. That Memphis, too, should enlist in the ranks of his demented attackers was just too much. He felt like crying. Always, from the very first day of her employment, Memphis had been his staunchest supporter. She had championed his every cause. It was inconceivable that, now, on this mad morning of meaningless outrage, she should turn against him. What had happened? Had she . . . and everyone else in the world . . . gone stark, raving mad?
“Wha . . . what’s going on here?” Marc stam-mered. “Has everyone gone crazy?”
“Crazy is the word!” Memphis thundered. “I must have been clear out of my mind to stay up half the night typing these reports! There’s just one thing I want to know. When I sent Miss Hicks into your office with these papers, did you or did you not tell her to go hang them in the lavatory? Just answer me that! That’s all!” She straightened up and glowered down at him, a trembling tower of fury. Marc only stared back at her in silent disbelief. “Well, did you! Her voice pounded against the walls like the beat of a bass drum. “And did you leap at Miss Dugan when she went in with the mail? And chase her around the room! Deny it! I dare you! Just you try and I’ll smash the ears right off your two-faced head!”
The Complete Adventures of Toffee Page 15
