The Complete Adventures of Toffee

by Charles F. Myers

  Toffee crooked a slender finger. “Follow me,” she said. “There is madness in this method. But it’ll still work.”

  She led Marc around the block, back to the alley that had proved their one-way path to dilemma in the first place.

  Marc hung back. “What’s the idea?” he asked.

  “The taxi,” Toffee explained brightly. “The one the cops arrived in. It’s the only transportation for miles that isn’t all tied up. And it’s just waiting for someone to come along and snag it.”

  Marc shrugged wearily and followed without protest as Toffee crossed to the driver’s window and stuck her head inside.

  “Is this car for hire?” she smiled.

  The driver, an open-faced fellow of obvious good will, smiled back. “I’m supposed to be waitin’ here for a couple of cops, lady,” he said. “They said I wasn’t to leave till they told me. They said . . .” Suddenly he broke off, his eyes focused on Toffee’s fiery red jersey. “Say! Ain’t that one of Neopolitain High’s sweat shirts you got on there?” Admiration grew in his face as Toffee nodded. “I gotta kid over at that school, lady. I bet you have too.” Toffee maintained a discreet silence on this point. “Maybe you seen my kid play basketball sometime.”

  Toffee looked at the driver closely. “Is he a tow-headed little devil with searching blue eyes?” she asked.

  “Could be, lady. Sounds like him. He’s a real nice kid.”

  Toffee’s answering laugh was brief and bitter, but the driver didn’t notice. He was busy opening the rear door.

  “Hop in!” he said grandly. “Anything for good old Neopolitain High!”

  Climbing into the cab, Toffee rubbed her thigh reflectively. “Yeah,” she murmured. “Anything.”

  MARC and Toffee collaborated on a deep, heart-felt sigh of relief as the taxi backed out of the alley and onto the street. They didn’t know, however, that the breath they were expending with such satisfaction was soon to be reclaimed in a horrified gasp. This curious phenomenon occurred only a moment later when the taxi slowed to a stop at the corner signal.

  They didn’t see the sacks approaching; the fearful things were just there at their feet all of a sudden, having arrived with a sickening plop. The car door on Toffee’s aide swung open, and there was suddenly another depression in the seat. The door closed again just as the taxi pulled out toward the intersection. Apparently the driver hadn’t noticed.

  “Thought I’d never catch up with you two,” George’s voice said breathlessly and pleasantly. “It was all a lot of fun, of course, but a bit fatiguing, don’t you think?”

  With a soul-searing groan Marc closed his eyes and sank deeper into the seat.

  “Go strangle yourself,” Toffee suggested waspishly.

  But George’s high spirits would not be quashed. “I really fixed things up, didn’t I?” he asked proudly. The money bags leaped from the floor and deposited themselves in Marc’s shrinking lap. “How’s that, old man?”

  Marc responded to this inquiry with a brief strangling noise. His face was turning crimson.

  “What’s the matter with him?” George asked. “Something disagree with him?”

  “I think it’s money poisoning,” Toffee said dully.

  “Well,” George sighed, “now that I’ve set things right, I guess I might as well just relax and enjoy myself from now on. It’s only four o’clock. That leaves me sixteen whole hours just to have fun. Until tomorrow noon. All’s well that ends well, eh?”

  Marc said a very singular and unprintable thing.

  The driver turned and regarded Marc interestedly. “How come?” he asked. “You been blabbin’ your head off and that’s the first time you moved your lips. I been watchin’ in the mirror. You a ventriloquist?”

  “Yes,” Toffee answered for Marc. “He throws his voice like crazy.”

  Apparently, the driver was not the sort to ask too many questions. He accepted the fact of Marc’s voice tossing accomplishments on Toffee’s say-so. And his attitude toward his customers instantly warmed. Confiding rather bashfully that he’d always thought of his own singing voice as something rather special, he burst into an unsolicited rendition of “Mexicali Rose” that had his helpless audience cringing in their seats. A truly ghastly moan issued from George’s vicinity.

  And it was a moan that Marc would certainly have echoed had he been able. He was wondering if a sort of plague of theatrical ambition had descended on all humanity. Thoughts of Julie and the imminent opening of “Love’s Gone Winging” crept despairingly through his mind. He tried to console himself with the old bromide that things were always darkest before the dawn, but he couldn’t help wondering where fate had stumbled onto this newer, darker shade of black and why the nights of misfortune had to be so interminably Alaskan.

  Afterwards, it seemed to Marc that it was Toffee who suggested that they hide themselves in a movie theater. It seemed so, but Toffee stoutly denied it. But Marc’s memory of that dark period was far too confused to be relied upon. Certainly, though, it was Toffee who invited the taxi driver along so that they might hide the money bags under the seat of the cab.

  Once inside the theatre, it is doubtful that anyone, except Toffee saw much of the film, and that young lady, having never attended a movie previously, was far too engrossed in the activities on the screen to notice anything else. To her, the gigantic reflections of racing vehicles and exploding firearms were a terribly personal matter. Mostly, she concerned herself with repeated attempts to gain the doubtful protection of Marc’s lap.

  THE others of the party, though, were absorbed in other, more immediate problems . . . most of which stemmed from the dogged efforts of a bewildered usher to seat terrorized patrons in George’s seat, which indeed appeared quite vacant. On these occasions the mouthings of the screen were rudely interrupted by startled cries of surprise and subsequent accusations that usually involved Marc who was occupying the next seat. One spinsterish female, thus offended, summoned the usher and accused the cowering man of inflicting upon her unlovely person brutalities which included pinchings, proddings and other familiarities too terrible to mention. In a whisper, George vehemently denied these charges to Marc, but the die had already been cast, the usher had already threatened to call the manager if they didn’t remove themselves from the premises at once.

  Flushed from its retreat like a covey of reluctant quail, the party made its way silently back to the cab which was waiting in a nearby taxi stand. No one spoke to George of his misdemeanors, lest they stir in his perverse soul a rebelliousness and a will to even more awful achievements. Besides, it didn’t seem that mere reprimand could possibly be enough. Apparently the taxi driver was used to being thrown out of theatres, for he seemed to find nothing untoward in this latest ejection. He seemed to take the affair of the offensive seat in his stride, too.

  It was hunger that next drove the strange foursome from the semiprivate confines of the taxi, and again it seemed to Marc, in retrospect, that Toffee was the one to set the project afoot.

  His face a study in calamity, Marc followed his curious companions into an obscure diner with the lusterless resignation of a man who no longer gives a damn. Fully aware that the venture hadn’t a Chinaman’s chance for turning out well, he only hoped it would not fall into complete ruination before he at least had a chance to fortify himself with a cup of coffee.

  The affair of the diner, however, all things considered, really turned out better than expected. Marc managed to choke down not just one cup of coffee, but two, before disaster came storming over the horizon. It is perfectly true, of course, that George greedily and invisibly downed a milk shake while a counter boy, three waitresses and a handful of customers looked on with goggle-eyed fascina-tion. Even the incurious taxi driver found this phenomenon somewhat diverting. He was not entirely certain in his own mind that long distance guzzling was a standard accomplishment in the bonafide ventriloquist’s bag of tricks. In the end, he decided it probably was and looked on Marc with new respect. But
there were others who gazed on the driver’s new-found hero not so much with respect as disgust. Marc, for his part, pretended not to notice.

  The main event, so to speak, patiently bided its time until Marc had downed the second cup of coffee. Then, on the stroke of the last drop, it commenced promptly and devastatingly. It will never be known exactly what George did to the waitress to make her so hostile, but the record definitely shows that the young woman, just passing George’s stool bearing a platter of ham and eggs, suddenly jerked to a halt, turned beet red, wheeled and bestowed her messy burden squarely in Marc’s face. This she followed up with a few observations on the type and dexterity of Marc’s hands, which were uttered in round phrases, no cooler, in any noticeable degree, than the sizzling platter now resting on Marc’s lap.

  HERE, the situation reached the point at which it might have taken a course for either the better or worse, pending Marc’s apology to the truculent waitress. But just as Marc opened his mouth, Toffee, smitten with the injustice of it all, gave the rail switches a deft twist and sent the whole issue into a sharp decline. Lifting her water glass, in which several large cubes of ice were still afloat, she calmly and deftly reached out and poured the entire contents into the startled waitress’s accommodating bodice.

  It is to be supposed that a dining room brawl, at best, is bound to be an untidy business. The one that followed was hardly an exception. The employees of the diner, all accomplished hash slingers by profession, exerted every effort to prove their professional standing in a horribly literal way. What the good people lacked in cool headed aim, they made up for in sustained volume. The members of the Pillsworth party, not too ambitious, anyway, to be the victors in this war on foodstuffs, were quickly beaten into a disordered retreat. Running swiftly down the sidewalk toward the waiting taxi, their last glimpse of the enemy only caused them to redouble their efforts to be elsewhere. The counter boy and the waitresses, joined by a managerial reinforcement who had miraculously arrived on the scene in the midst of hostilities, were lined up on the sidewalk like a bespattered operatic chorus. In unison, and with gusto, they were calling for the law and horrible revenge. One of the waitresses, distinguished from the others by a spasmodic addition to quivering disturbances about the upper torso, was loudly describing the abysmal blackness of Toffee’s future should she ever be permitted to arrange it.

  After the skirmish in the diner, there followed a long ride in the country which might have been restful except for the persistent singing of the driver, whose favorite selection continued exasperatingly to be “Mexicali Rose.” Through it all, Marc tried to assemble his thoughts, a task rather like trying to assemble a house of cards in a derailed streetcar. However, he did come to several definite conclusions. Out of the shambles that was now his life, there were two things that surely had to be salvaged. Those were his love for his wife and hers for him. Having those two ingredients with which to work he might be able to rebuild from the beginning again, providing, of course, that he did not become a permanent resident of the state penitentiary because of George’s misbegotten helpfulness. Another conclusion concerned Julie’s debut as a Broadway star and her certain failure as same. If Julie was to go down in humiliation, he would be there to help cushion the fall, no matter what the consequences might turn out to be.

  Thus, Marc’s conclusions determining their course, darkness found the taxi and its odd crew heading warily back toward the city and the Hamilton Theatre. They traveled quietly through side streets and alleys, displaying a noticeable reticence in the vicinity of bright lights and police cars. Besmirched both in character and person, the fugitives ordered their movements in concurrence with their recently lowered social status.

  Marc’s hope that he might be able to make his entrance into the theatre unaccompanied proved nothing more than an empty dream. The taxi driver, Toffee and the stealthy scuffling noise that was George pressed close behind him as he identified himself to the doorman backstage and went inside. Toffee had decided that the money should be carried inside the theatre for purposes of security and elected to smuggle it in under her coat. Unfortunately, with the bags stowed around her middle, the little redhead looked curiously like a very unconcerned young lady in a very delicate condition. It was an extremely unhappy arrangement.

  MARC had forgotten the backstage policeman, a regular fixture in the theatre. And now that he did remember him there wasn’t much that could be done about it. Standing just inside the door, the cop turned inquisitive eyes on the newcomers and started forward. As the law approached, however, the little company retreated in kind toward a shadowed area beyond several frames of scenery. They were about mid-way to this retreat when Toffee, in her haste, relaxed the hold on her coat and one of the money bags dropped to the floor with a sickening thud.

  For a moment the little group stopped, transfixed in a horrified tableau, then in unison, they all became wildly animated in an attempt to retrieve the wayward pouch and return it to the place from whence it had come. By the time the policeman had drawn close enough to see what was going on, these activities were in full cry. The man of law stopped short with a startled gasp. Just why these demented people should be clutching so furiously at this woman’s stomach was beyond him.

  “Here, you!” he called out. “Stop that!”

  The trio looked up with matching expressions of fright and guilt. All hands, except Toffee’s suddenly abandoned ship. Toffee, left to shift for herself, bent forward in a sort of agonized, doubled-up position.

  The policeman drew closer for a second look, and, getting it, instantly clamped his eyes shut, his features crowding together in a look of pain. The glimpse he’d had of Toffee’s midsection had twisted his very soul. When he opened his eyes again he was careful that their gaze fell no lower than the girl’s chin.

  ‘“I don’t understand it, lady,” he said. “What seems to be the trouble?”

  Toffee flushed a deep red. “I ... I don’t know, officer,” she said demurely. “It just came over me all of a sudden. It’s terribly embarrassing.”

  “I can imagine,” the policeman said shortly. “If I were you, I’d be throwin’ fits all over the place.”

  “If you were me,” Toffee observed reasonably, “you’d be entitled to every fit you throw. I shouldn’t think a few convulsions would go amiss, either.”

  This didn’t rest well with the policeman and as much was registered in a disapproving scowl. “You come with me,” he said sternly. “We’ll find a place for you to lie down and rest a bit.”

  Toffee darted entreating glances to her companions, but when she received no response from either quarter, she resignedly hugged the bulging coat to her and hobbled forward in a tortured half-squat.

  But the policeman didn’t leave immediately. Instead, he lingered long enough to favor Marc with a long and searching glance, a glance that clearly implied an unusual interest in Marc’s face. Marc didn’t like the look of it. Plainly, it was the manifestation of a methodical mind that was moving methodically toward a memory that Marc feared would not be to his advantage.

  All this was accomplished to a musical accompaniment that issued from the general direction of the stage. When the policeman and Toffee had gone, Marc moved quickly toward the wings.

  Left with nothing else to do, the little taxi driver followed Marc, filled with the wonder of it all. It was his own impression that he had fallen in with people of true greatness. Show people. He was not concerned over the curious presence of the money bags. These folks were clearly artists given to eccentric practices in all matters . . . including those of money. If they chose to carry their loose cash about in a couple of official bank sacks, why, who was he to ask questions? It was enough that they suffered him to remain in their wonderful company. The little fellow clamped the gift horse’s mouth tightly shut and looked blankly in the opposite direction.

  ON THE stage a whole regiment of very remarkable chorus girls were doggedly stomping their way through a lot of expensive scenery in p
ursuit of a dance routine that seemed hardly worth the effort. Marc’s gaze darted beyond the girls to the other side of the stage, and his heart suddenly lifted, then shortly after, scraped against his shin on its way south of his instep. Julie, apparently awaiting a cue in the opposite wings, stared back at him wretchedly, her face too filled with fright to have room for recognition. The miracle that was needed to pull her through to success obviously hadn’t come to pass.

  At Marc’s side, this impression was being vigorously corroborated by two diminutive bit actresses, chummily exchanging job tips to be looked into first thing in the morning.

  “Too bad Linda Godfrey isn’t in that dame’s shoes,” one of them commented sadly. “We wouldn’t have to beat the pavement for the next two years.”

  “Yeah,” the other agreed. “You know, this show was really written with Godfrey in mind. I heard the author say so himself, the other night. The poor guy was ready to hang himself when he saw La Pillsworth murdering all his best numbers.”

  “I hear this Pillsworth put up enough cash to steal the show from under Godfrey,” the other replied. “Bet it cost him about a dozen solid gold fortunes. Money still talks, I guess.”

  “Too bad it doesn’t sing, too. This show could use some good singing.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. The dame’s got a nice little voice when you come right down to it.”

  “I don’t think the audience is going to get that far down, though. Anyway, that’s just the trouble with her voice, it’s too nice and too little. What this show needs is a big dirty voice with lots of guts. Like Godfrey’s.”

  Marc edged away, too saddened by what he’d heard to listen to any more. Out on the stage the chorus had ceased to stalk the scenery and Julie, looking terribly alone and lonely, was moving uncertainly before the footlights. Marc felt his heart head south again as her nice little voice began to quaver over the words of a musical cynicism called “Love is a Clop in the Chops.” The words of the song to the contrary, she looked and sounded like a very small girl singing in a church choir. Her lovely blondness seemed suddenly dulled and all the natural animation was drained from her blue eyes. The audience was starkly unresponsive.