The Complete Adventures of Toffee

by Charles F. Myers

  “I don’t know where she is,” he said. “Let’s just try to forget her, shall we? Things are confused enough already. In the meantime, I’ve got to get down to the bank.” He frowned thoughtfully. “But what am I going to do with you?”

  “Oh, come along!” George said eagerly. “There’s no telling where I might stumble onto just the sort of thing I’m looking for. What’s a bank?”

  “They keep money in a bank,” Marc said absently. Finally he shrugged. “I guess I’ll just have to put you on your honor, though I’ve a feeling it’s rather like putting a man-eating tiger on a lettuce diet. You’ll have to promise to stay here and keep out of sight. I’ll lock the office door so no one will walk in and surprise you. Do you promise?”

  A perfunctory “uh-huh” echoed from George’s direction. Then there was a brief scuffling sound and Marc’s hat whirled crazily from the rack in the corner, flashed across the room and settled in a raffish angle on its owner’s startled head. Invisible hands began to fuss at Marc’s tie.

  “Don’t!” Marc cried. “How often do I have to tell you I don’t want to be helped? Why can’t you be yourself? I think I liked you better when you were trying to do me in.”

  “I want you to make a good impression,” George explained.

  Marc started toward the door. “That’s very nice of you, I’m sure. But all I ask is that you just remember to behave yourself while I’m away.”

  “Oh, I will!” George’s voice proclaimed earnestly. “I will!”

  If Marc’s mind hadn’t been so filled with dread of the impending meeting at the bank he might have noticed that the voice was being just a little too earnest.

  MARC turned the grey business coupe into a side street and headed for the parking lot behind the bank. He wasn’t thinking too much, though, about what he was doing. Instead, his mind was occupied with a sneaking suspicion. There was something strange about the car, something odd about the feel of it and the way it rode. The body seemed to lean to the left a bit, almost as though someone were clinging to the side. Also, there had been the incident at the intersection, when a truck had broken through the light and headed directly toward the grey coupe. He could have sworn someone yelled at him to look out, someone very close to his left ear. It had given him a creepy feeling at the time. And thinking back on it, he was no longer so certain about the gust of wind that had brushed past him as he was closing the office door. It might have been . . .

  Reaching the parking lot, he swung the car quickly to the right, into a drive, and pressed down on the gas as it turned onto a short, steep incline. Then he went tense in his seat. The post and chain barrier hadn’t been visible from the street. Neither had the sign saying, “Use Other Entrance.” And now that they were visible, there wasn’t time to do anything about them. Sign, posts and chain were swarming over the car in a rush.

  There was a tearing, whacking sound and the coupe jerked wickedly to the right. Suddenly, the steering wheel seemed to be leaving its post, spiraling upward toward Marc’s face. A split second later everything went black to the raucous accompaniment of a blaring horn.

  The horn continued to scream in the darkness, and, to Marc, its windy blast seemed to be hurling him outward. He shot swiftly out and up into lightless, unknown regions, his body curiously unhampered by the faintest trace of atmospheric resistance. He sailed through space, arms outspread, unrestrained, as though in a vacuum, and strangely, he felt wonderfully free, almost exultant. As he moved further into the distance the sound of the horn took on a thin, silvery tone that was almost musical.

  Then, slowly, like a projectile approaching the apex of its arc, his body began to lose momentum. For a time there was the sensation of treading air as a swimmer treads water. Gradually, he churned to a complete, suspended stop. He felt himself hovering precariously in midair, and then, all of a sudden, he plunged downward.

  In his descent there was no sense of easy motion as there had been before. Instead, he was falling rapidly, hurtling through the dark, a tangled mass of helpless arms and legs. His efforts to fight the force that was sucking him downward were useless. Then, sooner and more easily than he had expected, he came to rest. All at once there was a soft, cool surface beneath him that seemed to give with his weight, then lift him gently.

  But his relief was shattered by a sudden, terrifying blast from the ghostly horn. Instantly, light began to show through the blackness which was being ripped into fleeting whisps and fragments by a strong, angry wind. Oddly, though, the wind didn’t seem to affect Marc; it was blowing all about him without stirring so much as a hair on his head. He sat up and gazed at the scene before him as the last remnants of the shredded blackness disappeared into the distance. At once, the wind died and everything became quiet.

  Marc was in the very center of a small grove of strange feathery trees that seemed to have deliberately arranged themselves into a perfect circle. A light blue mist lay motionless beneath the trees, blending softly into the green mossy carpet upon which he was resting. There was a cool restfulness about the place which he recognized at once. It was the feeling that always came to him when he entered the valley of his own mind.

  He threw his hands out behind him on the grass and leaned back luxuriously. He was just closing his eyes when a soft sound whispered against the grass behind him. He started to swing about, but he was too slow. Mid-way, two cool hands pressed down gently over his eyes and two lips closed simultaneously over his mouth. The lips were not nearly so cool or so gentle as the hands, and they went directly to the business of kissing him with an air of abandon and authority. Marc struggled away from them.

  “Guess who, you old monster,” a voice whis-pered gaily.

  “Unhand me, you perfidious little heller,” Marc grated.

  “Beast!”

  THE hands snapped away from Marc’s eyes, and he looked up to see Toffee scowling down at him. Her green eyes were alive with annoyance, and her red hair hung loosely about her shoulders like cascading flame. Her transparent emerald-colored tunic was, as always, a completely disinterested party when it came to the matter of concealing her comely figure. One gold sandaled foot was tapping a silent tattoo against the grass.

  “Sometimes,” she said evenly, “you turn my stomach. The way you keep shoving me away from you all the time, you’d think I wasn’t gorgeous or something. It’s beginning to ruin my self-confidence. Just a little peck or pat at the proper moment wouldn’t hurt you any, you know.”

  “Do you have to be quite so effusive with your greetings?” Marc asked timidly. “Couldn’t we just shake hands?”

  “Shake hands!” Toffee exploded. “If that doesn’t take the brass-lined girdle! I don’t care what you shake. You can shimmy from one end of this valley to the other, but you needn’t expect me to be a party to it. I wash my hands of you. And good riddance!”

  And with that, she retreated to the far side of the grove and draped herself angrily against a tree, arms folded. She regarded Marc icily from the corner of her eye.

  “Of all the thankless, gutless worms, I would have to wind up with you,” she muttered. “You’d look good with your ugly head bashed in.”

  Marc flinched. “I’m sorry,” he began cautiously. “I . . .”

  Toffee was instantly in his arms, and he hadn’t the faintest idea how she had gotten there.

  “I knew you couldn’t resist me,” she cooed. “If you’re really sorry . . .”

  “Wait a minute!” Marc yelped, trying to free himself. “I didn’t mean . . .”

  The words froze on his lips. Over Toffee’s slender shoulder he could see the blackness, whole again, rushing down on him, borne on the tide of the shrieking wind. His hands grew limp on Toffee’s wrists as the darkness closed in swiftly and snuffed out the last glowing light of the quiet valley.

  Then the wind caught them full force, and for a moment they swayed together under its sudden impact. Marc tried to get to his feet, but it was useless. Already, they were being lifted upward, shooti
ng outward into space. Toffee’s arms tightened around Marc’s neck.

  “Since you apologize,” she whispered in his ear, “I forgive you.”

  Marc stirred and opened his eyes with an effort. Instantly, inside his head, a tin-pan symphony swung into a jangling rendition of “Hold That Tiger,” and whaled it to a fare-theewell. The universe seemed to rotate once, twice, and then skidded to a jittery stop and remained fixed. The discordant symphony became muted and distant. Marc discovered confusedly that he was in a sort of small shack-like structure. Bare boards with blinking knot holes stared back at him from an unlovely ceiling. Then an aged head blurred into sight, looking down at him with worried concern. It made a terrible clicking noise with its mouth and moved off to one side. Marc felt strengthless arms moving about his shoulders and with their negligible help, boosted himself into a sitting position. The owner of the head, a little, worried-looking man, was crouching beside him.

  “You come around pretty fast,” he wheezed. “Ain’t really been out no time at all. You had me scared at first, though. Thought maybe you was hurt bad.”

  MARC stared out a slit-like door that was directly in front of him. Beyond, a row of assorted automobiles testified to his whereabouts. His memory jogged back a bit and arrived successfully at the accident in the drive.

  “How’s my car?” he asked.

  “Not so bad,” the man replied. “Bumper’s ripped off, and the radiator’s not so fancy as she used to be, but it still runs good. I drove it around here to the shack for you. Want me to call a doctor?”

  Marc got shakily to his feet and awaited results. His nose throbbed dully, but the rest of him seemed all right. “Never mind,” he said. “I’m okay.”

  “Guess the steering gear smacked you in the nose,” the little man observed mildly. “Guess I shoulda put that sign down on the street. Sorry.”

  Marc nodded curtly and went outside. The grey coupe was standing alongside the shack, looking a little crestfallen with its twisted bumper draped loosely over one crinkled fender. He stared at it unhappily.

  Then he stiffened.

  There was a movement inside the car and a brief flash of red.

  “It’s on fire!” he yelled.

  “I do believe,” the sign-hider collaborated calmly. “Maybe we should look.”

  Marc ran to the car, the little man ambling casually along in his wake. Then they both stopped short as the red flash repeated itself at the window and was suddenly followed up with a puckish face. Toffee, her chin poised on the sill, peered out at Marc relievedly.

  “I was wondering where you were,” she said. “Thought maybe you’d been crumpled up on the floor. You really mashed things up, didn’t you?”

  “Oh, Lord!” Marc moaned. “Now I’ve got you on my hands!”

  “It would be better,” Toffee said insinuatingly, “if you had me in your arms.”

  At this point the little man shuffled over to Marc’s side. “Well, I’ll be!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t see no woman in there before.” He peered at Toffee nearsightedly. “You’re one of them redheaded hussies, ain’t you?”

  “How did you know?” Toffee asked.

  “Oughta know,” the man said cryptically. “The old woman always blasphemin’ about redheaded hussies.”

  “What does she say?” Toffee asked interestedly.

  “Couldn’t repeat it,” the little man said, “even to a hussy.”

  “Then you can believe every word of it,” Toffee said. And opening the door, she stepped lightly out of the car.

  The little man gasped at Toffee’s faintly obscured charms. “Oh, lady!” he sighed. “The old lady didn’t say nothin’ about anything like that!”

  By this time, Marc was already at Toffee’s side. He reached inside the car and quickly drew out a rather unkempt fur coat. It was one of Julie’s old ones that she used for driving in cold weather. Fortunately, no one had remembered to remove it from the car. He threw it unceremoniously around Toffee’s shoulders.

  “It would make a refreshing change,” he said darkly, “if you showed up just once without being in a state of indecent exposure.”

  “There are some,” Toffee sneered, “who think this is one of the most decent exposures they’ve ever seen. And I’m inclined to agree with them.”

  MARC was in no mood to argue the point. He stared nervously at the inquisitive little man. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “Accident or no accident I have to go to the bank.”

  As they left the little man behind and walked toward the sidewalk Marc poured out his troubles to Toffee. He told her of George’s untimely reappearance and the unpleasant business at the bank. Mostly, though, he entered a stirring plea for her cooperation and good behavior. They had nearly reached the street when he suddenly stopped and raised a finger to his lips. A crunching noise sounded briefly on the gravel behind them, then stopped guiltily.

  “What’s that?” Toffee asked.

  “Maybe nothing,” Marc said. But he feared the worst.

  Marc left Toffee just inside the bank entrance with firm instructions to remain where she was, to do nothing and say nothing until he returned. Also, he advised that she keep Julie’s coat drawn tightly around her as certain misunderstandings were sure to arise if she did not. Toffee nodded and cooperated to the extent that she gave the appearance of a mute paralytic freezing in a snowstorm. The effect did not become her.

  Upstairs, on the mezzanine, Marc made his way fearfully toward the president’s office, a glass-fronted arrangement that overlooked the main floor of the bank like a guard tower in a concentration camp. As Marc approached, the president, looking up, caught sight of him and raced him to the door. The scene reminded Marc of a saber-toothed shark he had once observed in an aquarium, pursuing a small unidentified fish with murderous intent. Pausing for a moment, he glanced wistfully down at Toffee standing by the door.

  Then he turned quickly and ran to the rail.

  Even from that distance the mark of horror was plain on Toffee’s face. Marc followed her stricken gaze and came very close to screaming.

  Downstairs, in the clerk’s enclosure, a riot seemed to have broken loose behind the counters. At first glance it seemed, the clerks were merely roughhousing among themselves, but a second look told an entirely different story. It was a scene that flagrantly thumbed its nose in the face of credulity, spat on the carpet of comprehension and sashayed out the door of sanity with an airy flip of the hip.

  A pair of large money sacks, bearing the bank’s name on their coarse sides, had plainly taken wing in a fit of convulsive madness. And whatever else these frightful sacks may have had on their minds, it was certain they possessed a boundless hatred for bank clerks. Progressing from the door leading into the vaults, they were savagely bludgeoning their way through the windowed enclosure, leaving a litter of prostrate figures and wilted white collars in their wake. The fugitive bags were making it emphatically clear that they would brook no nonsense from any faction desiring to frustrate them in their desire to be away from there. The current clientele of the bank was hastily arranging itself against the opposite wall.

  One of the clerks, having miraculously escaped the ravages of battle, was streaking up the stairs to the mezzanine in a state of gibbering hysteria. Reaching Marc and the president who was now gasping at Marc’s side, the fellow slowed to a sliding stop and began visibly to wilt with terror. The president grabbed him quickly beneath the arms and held him away from the floor.

  “What is it?” he yelled. “What’s going on down there? Tell me!”

  The clerk shivered in his employer’s arms. “I . . . I don’t know,” he gasped. “I . . . I was down in the vaults . . . in the vaults . . . making up the payroll for the Reedley Chemical Works . . . and . . . and . . .” His voice trailed off into a shuddering whine. “It was aw-w-w-ful!”

  The president shook him energetically. “What happened?” he demanded. “Speak up, you ninny!”

  THE clerk’s eyes rolled loosely in
their sockets, fell inadvertently on the scene below and darted away. “Those two sacks of money . . . they were behind me . . . they went crazy all of a sudden. They flew up into the air and started singing and carrying on something terrible! Then . . . then, they started out the door . . . well, I tried to stop them. At first I tried being nice about it . . . I tried to reason with them . . . and . . . and they struck me! And that isn’t all! Those are the most foul-mouthed money bags in existence!”

  The bank president promptly dropped the clerk to the floor. “The fellow’s hysterical,” he said. “It’s a plot, a foul plot to rob this bank! Where are the police?” He stared over the rail and his question was promptly answered. The bank police, two of them, were trembling outside the enclosure, trying to nudge each other forward. “They practice the rhumba,” he screamed, “while the bank is looted!”

  At this point Marc left the president abruptly, vaulted over the collapsible clerk and made his way to the stairs. Half way down the flight he paused and prepared to take the second half in one heroic leap. There was no question in his mind that his suspicion had borne the deadly fruit he had feared; George had indeed followed him to the bank. Now the soulless shade, in a burst of misguided boy-scoutishness, was blithely playing fast and loose with the Reedley Chemical Works’ payroll.

  Marc made his appearance on the scene of strife in a confused sprawl that was far from heroic. Then, he sat up, bewilderment written into every line of his face. Not until this moment had he stopped to consider the course that he was about to take. Clearly, to be seen in close association with those demented sacks would be to invite disaster. The implication would be entirely clear to everyone, especially to the irate bank president. The only safe procedure, then, was to stay clear of the whole affair and let the money bags shift for themselves, which they seemed to be doing with remarkable agility from the sound of things behind the enclosure. Then he started with shock as a hand fell to his shoulder. He glanced up to find Toffee standing beside him.