“It can move all right,” Toffee said gloomily. “The way it was whipping that bottle around I wouldn’t be surprised to see it get up and start doing an Irish jig, though the mere thought of it makes my flesh fairly scamper.”
“That’s right,” Marc mused, “Whatever it is, it seems to be in splendid working order.”
“Too damn splendid,” Toffee agreed.
“Maybe we should assert ourselves,” Marc suggested. “Maybe we could throw it out.”
“I, personally,” Toffee replied firmly, “would rather slash my wrists than lay a finger to the clammy thing.”
“As I recall,” a voice said hollowly from across the room, “you didn’t mind in the least laying a finger to me a while ago. And a shockingly intimate finger it was too. In fact I was quite embarrassed by it. And if you two mental cases really want something to do, I suggest you open up that window and throw yourselves out into the street. Your feeble-minded gibbering is keeping me awake.”
Marc and Toffee nearly collided as they swung about. Then, in perfect unison, they gasped. The figure, now graced with a head, was glaring at them evilly.
“Wha ... who?” Marc sputtered. Turning away, slightly, he passed a trembling hand over his eyes, then looked again. “OOooo!” He looked like a man who’d just received a ball bat across the stomach. The face into which he gazed was an exact duplicate of his own. It was like looking at his own reflection ... only there wasn’t any mirror.
“You,” the figure observed dryly, “sound like a bilious Indian. For that matter you may be one, for all I know. But, in any case, if you can’t say anything intelligent, please go away. I’m very tired.”
THIS seemed to jolt Marc out of his state of temporary paralysis. With the air of one who had had quite enough, he stepped forward and leveled a long finger at the figure in the chair. “Who . . . who are you?” he asked.
“Why, I’m . . .” The figure turned and regarded Marc closely for the first time. A look of astonishment came into its face. “Who are you?” it countered suspiciously.
“I’m Marc Pillsworth,” Marc returned impatiently. “This is my office. And whoever you are, and whatever kind of trick you think you’re playing, I’ll thank you to clear out before I call the police and have you dragged out . . . er . . . bodily.” He cleared his throat uneasily. “A section at a time if need be.”
Suddenly the figure was on its feet, staring at Marc in unmixed alarm.
“You’re lying,” it said. “You can’t be Marc Pillsworth. I’m Marc Pillsworth . . . at least, in a sense I am.” It turned to Toffee. “He isn’t Marc Pillsworth, is he?” “I thought he was,” Toffee replied confusedly. “Now I’m not so sure. Right now, I don’t even know who I am. Maybe I’m Marc Pillsworth and you two are Toffee. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if it turned out that way.”
“He can’t be!” the figure insisted. “Marc Pillsworth was due to die at eight-thirty sharp this morning.” Suddenly it turned to Marc. “You’re dead!” it said firmly. “You’d better stop running around like this. It isn’t right. I was ordered here to haunt this place, and how can I do it with you around? It ruins everything. I’m a self-respecting spectre and I won’t have this sort of thing. I won’t!”
“I’m not dead,” Marc snapped peevishly. “And ... and ...” Suddenly he stopped short and blinked. “You ... you’re a ghost?”
“Naturally,” the figure replied with solemn dignity. “Yours. What did you think? So you see, you simply can’t be alive. It just isn’t possible. These things just aren’t handled that way.”
Fearful uncertainty crept into Marc’s eyes. “Well,” he murmured, “I did have a lot of accidents this morning, and maybe I did . . . I don’t feel so good.” Suddenly he shook his head. “No! This is insane. I’m just as alive as ever.”
“Holy smoke!” the figure cried. “You mean you loused things up and didn’t get killed? You’re actually here, you and that naked lady?”
Toffee drew her brief tunic closer around her. “Ghost or no ghost,” she said icily, “I’ll not be referred to as that naked lady.”
The ghost looked at her appraisingly. “You may not be any lady,” he said, “but you are certainly naked.”
“For heaven’s sake!” Marc cried desperately. “This is no time to be going on about naked ladies.”
“It’s as good a time as any,” Toffee said pertly. “You stay out of this. It may develop into something interesting.” Her hold on the tunic relaxed slightly. “Naked ladies don’t grow on trees, you know.”
“I don’t care if they grow in ash cans!” Marc rasped, a little out of control. “I don’t care about naked ladies at all!”
“You don’t?” The ghost stared at Marc wonderingly.
“No, I don’t! What I care about is this mess you’ve gotten me into. It’s got to be straightened out!”
“Oh, that,” the ghost said, suddenly unconcerned. “That’s easy, now that I think about it. There was some sort of slip up this morning, but I’m sure it was all your own doing. Our office never makes mistakes. All you have to do now is just bump yourself off, and everything will be all right. Better late than never, I suppose.”
“What!” The word shot from Marc’s mouth like a handful of gravel. “You expect me to commit suicide just for the sake of your precious records! I never heard of anything so callous!”
“Oh, come now, old man,” the spirit smiled blandly. “Let’s not be sentimental about it. Why don’t you just toddle down to the corner and slip quietly under a truck?” Suddenly he burped and his legs, in simultaneous accompaniment, disappeared up to the knees. For a moment he seemed to hover, half-legless, in mid-air. Looking down at this curious phenomenon, he smiled apologetically. “It’s the liquor,” he said. “Can’t handle my ectoplasm worth a damn when I’m drinking.” Closing his eyes, he seemed to concentrate a moment, and the legs reappeared in their entirety. He looked up, beaming proudly.
“Oh, good grief,” Toffee moaned. “As long as I live I’ll never see anything worse than that!”
“And now,” the spirit began, turning to Marc, “as I was saying . . .”
“No!” Marc looked like an animal at bay.
MOVING to the chair, the spirit sat down, crossed his legs and elegantly lifted the bottle from the floor. After a long swallow, he looked up and shook his head. “It’s on the books that you’re dead, and I’ve got my ectoplasm and a job to do. I don’t care what you do, I’m going to stay and haunt this place.” He crossed his arms defiantly over his chest.
Marc glanced up peevishly. “Haunt this place?” he said sarcastically. “A wrecking crew could do the same thing, if that’s what you call it.”
“It’s the new method,” the spirit said languidly. “The old-fashioned moaning and chain rattling is out nowadays. The new haunting manual tells us just to use our own imagination and initiative. You know, make the thing more personal through self-expression.” He leaned forward and looked at Marc more closely. “Say, you don’t look so good.” He held out the bottle. “You better have some of this.”
Marc accepted the bottle with hesitation, regarded it suspiciously for a moment, then, with a shrug, took a long drink. After savoring the taste and the feel of the warm liquid, he thoughtfully took another ... and another.
“Let’s not get greedy about this thing!” the spirit said with some show of alarm. “Let’s not go overboard. That grog was hard come by. I had to hijack a delivery truck and nearly got a free ride to the next city.”
“That would have been awful,” Marc countered wryly. He returned the bottle and turned to Toffee. “You are naked,” he mused. “Awful naked. And things are complicated enough without it. Why don’t you trot off and put on some clothes?”
“And where do I get these clothes?”
Marc waved an expansive hand toward a door at the far end of the room. “I think the boys were doing some models in there yesterday. There are probably some clothes left over.”
“Good nig
ht!” Toffee said, scandalized. “What were those boys doing to the poor things. What, with clothes left over, it must have been awful.”
“They were photographing them for ads.”
“Oh,” Toffee said disappointedly, and pivoting, went to the door. Opening it, she paused a moment to look back. “This won’t take long. Don’t go away.” She stepped into the dimness of the next room, and softly closed the door.
Marc directed his attention back to the spirit. “Now there must be some way out of this, Mr . . . uh . . .”
“Just call me George,” the spirit said. “It’s your second name, you know. You’re already using the Marcus part of it yourself.”
Marc nodded gravely. “Well, anyway, George, you must understand that this thing can’t go any further.” George yawned expansively, and Marc increased the volume of his voice. “You’ve simply got to go, George. I’m sure that . . .”
His voice trailed off into the distant reaches of the room and faded into nothing. George had suddenly disappeared, and a hollow snoring sound rattled ominously from the depths of the now empty-looking chair.
“In here, Miss McGuire?” The voice was Julie’s and it came from just beyond the outer door.
Marc leaped to his feet in alarm, started frantically toward the chair, the door to the photographer’s room, then, hopelessly, he whirled about, threw himself down on the lounge and closed his eyes tight. Maybe if Julie thought he was sleeping, she would leave. There was the sound of a hand on the door knob.
The door whined open, and muted footsteps sounded on the carpet. From the sound of it, there seemed to be several people, among them a man. Marc wondered desperately who it was, but kept his eyes determinedly shut.
“There he is,” came the sound of Memphis’ voice, “just as I left him.”
“Is that good, doctor?” This time it was Julie’s voice, anxious and fearful.
“I really couldn’t say, Mrs. Pillsworth. Maybe. Maybe not.”
The doctor’s voice was a solemn one with sonorous, church-like overtones.
“Well, I’ll leave you two with him,” Memphis said. “I hope everything will be all right.”
“Thanks so much for calling me,” Julie returned.
As the door closed with a snap, Marc struggled valiantly against a driving impulse to open his eyes ... one of them at least . . . just a little.
“Smell the liquor, doctor?” Julie was saying. “This sort of thing has never happened before. I just don’t understand it. If what Miss McGuire tells me is true, he’s been behaving like a regular hoodlum.”
“Sometimes,” the doctor replied, “they just snap all of a sudden. There’s no telling what sets them off at all. It might be anything.”
The footsteps came closer and Marc felt a hand on his shoulder. It shook him gently. “Wake up, dear,” Julie’s voice cooed. “It’s Julie.”
MARC opened his eyes and looked up guiltily. Julie’s anxious face was just above his own, smiling a tragic little smile. And just beyond her shoulder there was also the face of a man, studious and intelligent in a musty, smug sort of way. Marc disliked it on sight.
“Do you feel very awful?” Julie asked.
Marc nodded. “Yes, dear,” he murmured wanly. “Terrible.”
Her hand patted his shoulder reassuringly. “Well, everything’s going to be all right,” she said. “I’ve brought Dr. Polk to see you. He wants to talk to you.”
Marc’s thoughts raced wildly as he boosted himself into a sitting position.
He glanced nervously at the chair across the room and the door behind which Toffee was dressing. The situation, he felt, was almost too atomic to be endured. It might explode at any minute if he didn’t get Julie and the doctor out of there. He regarded the doctor with mistrust.
“I don’t want to talk to him,” he said peevishly. “I won’t.”
Undismayed, the doctor calmly sat down on the edge of the lounge. “You mustn’t feel that way, Mr. Pillsworth,” he said soothingly. “We’re going to be great friends, you and I.”
“Want to bet?” Marc scowled. He turned to Julie. “What kind of quack is this guy, anyway?”
“Dr. Polk is a . . . a . . .”
“I’m a psychiatrist,” the doctor broke in. “You’re suffering from a nervous disorder, Mr. Pillsworth, and I’m here to help you.”
Marc’s eyes widened with astonishment. They thought he was nuts! What was he ... ! His mind leaped to other things as the hissing noise from George’s chair suddenly increased in volume. They were bound to notice it in a moment.
“I’m all right, doctor,” Marc said, his voice unnaturally loud. “I’m perfectly okay. So you see, I really don’t need you! It was just a little joke. Hah, hah!” His laugh was false and a little hysterical. “So you can run along back to your nuts ... ah ... patients.” He glanced nervously at the door to the photographer’s room. Everything was ominously quiet. The hissing from George’s chair had stopped.
The doctor cleared his throat, glanced significantly at Julie. “Well, yes,” he said, edging closer to Marc. “I’ll run along. But I want you to answer a few simple questions for me first. Is that all right?”
“Sure! Sure,” Marc said feverishly. “I’ll answer your questions. Only make it fast, doctor. I’m a busy man, you know.”
“All right,” the doctor said, taking a pencil from his pocket and carefully spreading a notebook over one knee. “I’m going to give you a list of words and I want you to give me the first response that comes into your mind. Understand?”
“Sure, doctor,” Marc replied. “You say a word and I come back at you with the first thing it reminds me of. Only hurry, will you?”
“Fine.” The doctor poised the pencil over the notebook. “Now this is the first word. Black.”
“Future,” Marc answered absently, gazing fearfully at George’s chair.
“Hot,” the doctor continued.
“Seat,” Marc replied, sill absorbed in the chair.
“Cut.”
“Throat.”
“Door.”
Marc glanced frightenedly at the door to the photographer’s room. “Closed!” he yelled, taking advantage of the situation. “Keep the door closed!”
The doctor turned worriedly to Julie. “These are very strange responses, Mrs. Pillsworth,” he said. “Frankly, I don’t know what to make of them. There’s some sort of anxiety complex here that’s not quite clear.”
“Ask half-witted questions, and you get half-witted answers.”
The voice was Marc’s, but still it hadn’t come from Marc, though it appeared to. Obviously George was awake and entering into the spirit of things again. Marc’s gaze went wild and finally stopped at the chair. It was still empty.
“What did you say?” the doctor asked politely, turning back to Marc.
“I said,” the voice broke out again, “that I wish you would get the hell out of here and leave me alone. If I have to listen to you any longer, I’ll probably get sick all over myself.”
THE doctor stared at Marc, his face heavy with incredulity. “Now,” he whispered, “he’s talking without even moving his lips.”
“Marc Pillsworth!” Julie put in severely. “I don’t care if you are sick, you can at least be civil.”
“Oh, stop your silly yapping,” the voice returned. “You’re no seasick remedy, yourself.”
“What!” Julie’s blue eyes were suddenly as hard as ice and twice as chilly. The very sight of them put icicles on Marc’s spine.
“I didn’t mean it!” he cried. “I mean, I didn’t say it!”
“You’ve made your bed,” Julie snapped. “Don’t try to lie out of it.”
It was at this juncture that the door to the photographer’s room suddenly started to open. But, it didn’t open all the way, just a crack.
“Oh, Marc!” Toffee’s happy voice-trilled. “Just wait till you get a look at me in this. I’m a scandal to the jaybirds!”
Toffee, in a whimsical mood, had appa
rently decided to make her entrance a memorable one. Instead of swinging the door all the way open, and walking into the room as anyone else would have, she held it open just enough to allow the seductive passage of one exquisite lace-clad leg. “That,” she called, “is only a promise of things to come. There ought to be music to go with this.”
Julie, who had remained transfixed up to this point, suddenly came to life with a vengeance. “I’ll give you something to go with it, you little tramp,” she raged. “How about a fracture!” She started toward the door, but reached it too late. Already it had slammed to, and there was the sound of a key being turned in the lock. She pounded on the panel with both fists.
“Come out of there, you little sneak!” she yelled.
“Go away,” Toffee’s voice came back demurely. “I’m dressing.”
Julie kicked the door in a fit of frustration. “You little ... little ... social leper!” she fumed.
“What was that!” Toffee called back, anger rising suddenly in her voice. “What did you call me?”
“Leper!” Julie screamed. “Leper! Social leper!”
“Oh,” Toffee’s voice was suddenly mollified. “I thought you said lecher.”
“Take it either way,” Julie shot back. “It won’t make any difference what you are when I get hold of you!” She swung around to Marc. “Let’s hear you explain that!” she demanded menacingly, pointing to the door. She moved toward him. “Stand up, Marc Pillsworth.” Her voice was deceptively quiet now. “Stand up so I can knock you down. I’m going to lay you out colder than a cast iron cuspidor, you philanderer!”
“But . . . but,” Marc searched for something to say against desperate odds. “What . . . what about our marriage?” he asked lamely,
“Marriage!” Julie snorted. “From now on, this isn’t marriage, it’s mayhem! Prop him up, doctor, and stand back!”
Marc was stunned. The transformation in Julie was almost unbelievable. He’d seen her angry before, but never this angry. Apparently the old jealousy that he’d thought cured had merely been lying dormant all the while. Now it was all the worse for having been suppressed. He got slowly to his feet, without quite realizing he was doing it. He stared at Julie in blank amazement.
The Complete Adventures of Toffee Page 17
