Marc watched his wife’s performance as long as was bearable, then turned away. He wondered how he would ever manage to say the right thing to her when it was all over. The taxi driver, however, still in the wings, seemed completely enthralled by what he saw. Marc only wished there were a thousand more of his benighted kind in the audience. Somewhere backstage a chorus girl yipped, turned about, and slapped the nearest male within reach. Apparently, George was also enjoying himself.
Marc was still deep in thought when the policeman suddenly bore down on him.
“You’re Marc Pillsworth, ain’t you?” the cop asked.
Marc nodded absently, and, before he thought, murmured, “Yes.”
“I thought so!” the cop said triumphantly. “I was cautioned to look out for you around here. But I didn’t have anything to go by except a picture in your wife’s dressing room. I think the Chief might be interested in seeing you about a little bank robbery.”
Marc started to back away. He’d been taken completely by surprise.
BUT, at that moment, Marc was not the only surprised person in the theatre. Many an eyebrow was being simultaneously hoisted out in the audience. The chorus, having accomplished a brief change of costume, had returned to the stage, their number mysteriously increased by one. At the very end of the line a blazing redhead dressed in a seedy fur coat and a red jersey ambled calmly onto the scene, two large sacks and a whisp of filmy grey material clutched tightly in her arms. Moving quickly before a mirror that was part of the scenery, this new performer proceeded serenely about the intimate business of removing the coat and shirt, and wriggling into a light grey dress that was obstinately uncooperative. Slowly, her efforts became more and more vigorous and, from the audience’s point of view, more and more exciting. This gaudy newcomer was doing a dance they hadn’t seen since the days of Little Egypt, and doing it surpassingly well. In her efforts to get into the dress, she was putting her provocative anatomy through a series of gyrations and contortions that seemed beyond the limitations of mere flesh and blood. Also, to some, they seemed to outdistance the limits of ordinary decency as well.
Julie, unaware of the performance in progress behind her, misunderstood the sudden enthusiasm of the audience. She thought they had at last caught on to her subtle style of singing and were showing their appreciation. Then, turning ever so slightly, she learned, from the corner of her eye, the awful truth. At the sight of the wriggling redhead, she stopped in the middle of her song and succumbed to a tremor of rage. She didn’t know who this interloper was, but she did know the stage wasn’t big enough to hold the two of them. Clenching her fists, she started toward center stage and the squirming dervish in the grey dress.
A chorus girl, seeing that events were coming to a head, danced close to Toffee.
“Better put up your guard, honey,” she whispered. “Here comes the star with blood in her eye.”
Toffee’s round eyes peered out at the girl through a chiffon fog. “What’s she so upset about?” she asked innocently.
“In case you haven’t heard,” the girl hissed, “what you’re doing is called upstaging. Honestly, you didn’t think you’d get away with it, did you? In a way I’m not going to blame that Pillsworth dame when she strangles you.”
“Stage!” Toffee shrieked. “Isn’t this the ladies’ lounge? I saw all you girls coming in here, all undressed and everything, and I ... Oh, my gosh!”
Meanwhile, backstage, Marc was too busy watching his own troubles mount to notice Toffee’s predicament.
“Also, Mr. Pillsworth,” the policeman was saying with maddening deliberation, “there is a certain restaurant owner that would like to have words with you. Do you want to come along quietly, or shall we mix it up a little first?”
“Oh, no,” Marc moaned. “Not now, officer. Can’t you put all this aside for just a bit?”
The officer shook his head and grinned nastily at the sudden flash of fear in Marc’s eyes. Had he known, however, the cause of Marc’s fear, he might have been less flattered by it. Behind him a steel framed folding chair was floating swiftly upward, poising itself carefully over his head.
“No!” Marc yelled. “No!”
“It’s nothing to get hysterical about,” the cop laughed. “We’ll treat you right. . . .”
Marc started to yell again but his words were drowned out as the wooden bottom of the chair splintered noisily over the policeman’s head. A moment later the policeman tumbled to the floor, rolled over once, and then began to slither weirdly, feet first, toward the darkness beyond a nearby screen of drapes.
“No, George!” Marc yelled. “Don’t drag him away! Get him some water!”
George’s voice echoed back from the vicinity of the policeman’s ankles. “I guess I turned up just in time, eh?”
MARC rattled off a list of words that will never be found in any dictionary. Then he started forward. It was a mistake that, in his anger, he leaped. His foot became ensnared in the wreckage of the shattered chair, and he shot head-first into space. He came down heavily against the floor, rolled partly over on his back, grinned foolishly, and lay still.
It was precisely at this moment that Julie drew abreast of the struggling redhead out on the stage.
“I’ll lay you out so stiff,” she grated, “people will think you’re a pool cue!”
She reached out a slender, redtaloned hand and clutched a handful of grey chiffon. There was a sudden ripping sound, and then it happened. The redhead, dress and all, instantly vanished into thin air. Julie drew back with a startled cry.
The explanation of Toffee’s disappearance was simple. Since she was projected into the world of reality only through Marc’s full consciousness, the blow that had temporarily put an end to Marc’s activities had simultaneously snuffed out Toffee’s earthly existence.
To the audience, though, it was a matter of even greater simplicity. The vanishing girl was merely an excellent stage effect, excellently executed, and they applauded it with bountiful enthusiasm. They were still applauding when the curtain swung together to hide the confusion that followed.
Behind the scenes, George was briskly brushing the dust of the law from his hands as he returned to the wings where Marc still slumbered. Just why the ghost had chosen this particular moment to expend a portion of his limited ectoplasm on materialization was never quite clear; perhaps it had somehow aided him in his labors with the prostrated minion of the law. At any rate he strode, a full figure of a man, as it were, from the shadows, just as Julie emerged from the stage, the picture of pent-up rage. It was unfortunate that the paths of these two beings were fated to cross at this particular moment. Julie regarded the replica of her husband as a frost might look on a blossoming violet just prior to administering the chilly sting of death.
“You!” she seethed, unreason glowing in her eyes. “You were behind all that, Marc Pillsworth!” She gestured angrily toward the stage. “I feel it in my bones.”
“I don’t doubt it,” George said amiably, a bit bewildered. “That dress you have on is terribly thin, isn’t it?”
The barometer of Julie’s control registered DANGER just before she struck George squarely on the chin. It was a blow that any professional might have been proud of. And it caused a curious sort of short-circuiting reaction in George. At the precise moment of contact, he vanished completely.
Julie stepped back, aghast. According to her tastes, this sort of thing was happening all too consistently. Then her eyes darted to Marc’s hitherto unnoticed form, still crumbled some yards distant.
“Oh, my heavens!” she gasped. “I knocked him clear across the stage!”
At first she started contritely forward, then suddenly she stopped. “Serves him right,” she said self-righteously.
“On stage!” a voice yelled, and Julie whirled about. A call boy was hurrying toward her. “Curtain going up on the second scene, Mrs. Pillsworth,” he said. “You’re supposed to be on.”
Julie squared her lovely shoulders, took
a deep breath, and started regally stageward. A moment later her voice rang out with a certain deadly sincerity in a song called, “I Wouldn’t Give a Dime For the Ten Best Men in Town.”
MEANWHILE, Toffee, finding herself suddenly rematerialized, gathered up the money bags and the fur coat from a piece of scenery which was now thankfully hidden from the eyes of the audience and started in search of Marc. The redhead was now entirely clothed in the filmy grey dress that had proved the making of her theatrical success. When she found Marc he was sitting up, shaking his head. He looked at her blankly for a moment, then leaped to his feet.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said. “George slugged the cop. Incidentally, where is that fiend?”
The fiend obligingly appeared, lengthwise on the floor, looking singularly unfiendish. He was a trifle fuzzy about the extremities, perhaps, but he was all there. He sat up and stroked his chin gingerly.
“Boy, that dame packs a wallop,” he said unhappily.
“So justice has finally prevailed,” Toffee said with satisfaction. “One of them finally nailed the right guy. And high time, too, if you ask me.”
“And speaking of justice,” Marc said evenly. “You have a little duty to perform, George.” He removed the money bags from Toffee’s arms and thrust them ungently into George’s lap. “You’re going to return those hellish things,” he continued. “Slugging that cop was the last straw. I’ve had enough!”
“But I was only trying to help,” George said.
Something snapped somewhere in the depths of Marc’s forgiving soul. “You say that once more,” he yelled, “and I’ll belt you one myself!”
Hugging the bags to him, George stood up. “But the bank’s closed,” he said hopefully. “I can’t take them back tonight.”
“You’ll take them back tonight, all right,” Marc said with quiet intensity, “before the police find us with them. You were so smart about getting them out, now you can just dream up a way to get them back in.”
The bank building loomed darkly as the taxi eased up to the curb and discharged three silent figures onto the sidewalk. Silhouetted against the glow of a distant street lamp, the figures moved forward with obvious conspiratorial intent. The first, burdened with two ominous-looking lumps of darkness, tried to hang back, and was rudely, shoved forward by the other two for his efforts.
“Get those things back inside,” Marc hissed, “and be snappy about it. There might be a night watchman around.”
George remained unenthusiastic. “Even if I manage to fade myself through the wall,” he protested, “I’ll never be able to take these sacks with me. You’re asking for miracles.” But as Marc advanced threateningly, he started forward. “All right,” he mumbled, “I’ll think of something.”
Marc and Toffee peered into the darkness after George as he proceeded toward the bank and finally reappeared, in silhouette again, against one of the bank’s huge plate glass windows, which was dimly illuminated by a night light somewhere inside.
George seemed to hover uncertainly before the window for a time, then he bent down and seemed to take an intense interest in a trash container standing nearby. Finally he straightened up, fumbling with the bags.
“What’s he doing?” Toffee asked. “He wouldn’t have the nerve to pocket that money, would he?”
“I don’t know,” Marc replied. “He seems more to be putting something into the sacks. Rocks or something.” Then he stiffened as George’s motives suddenly became hideously clear. “No!” he yelled. “Don’t, you fool!”
But it was too late. Already, George had swung the sacks over his head and hurled them at the window. Marc’s cry rang out just as they completed their grisly mission. A horrible crashing sound was instantly followed by a loud clamor of bells, the bank’s burglar alarm was heralding the awful news with a din that froze Marc and Toffee in their tracks. For one panicky moment their blood seemed to stand still in their veins.
AS THOUGH by magic, the scene was suddenly filled with bounding, milling figures, most of which had a nasty, official-looking cut to them. They swarmed down on Marc and Toffee, forcing them back toward the taxi, which promptly streaked away from the curb, withdrawing its sanctuary. Apparently, the little driver had at last begun to see his new-found friends in a different light . . . a prison grey, for instance. Marc and Toffee were promptly surrounded.
“We got two of ’em!” a voice yelled. “You get the other one?”
“No!” another voice answered bewilderedly. “We thought we had him but he got away somehow. Darned if I can figure out how he did it. One minute he was right here in our hands, next minute he was gone. He’s a slippery rat, that one.” A dull whack interrupted the voice briefly. “Ouch!” it continued. “Which one of you wise guys slugged me in the nose?”
There ensued a whole series of whacking sounds, followed by accusations, counter-accusations and athletic retaliations. Departmental jealousies and prejudices suddenly flared into the open, and the result was a sort of policemen’s brawl. Later, one of the participants was heard to proclaim, whilst nursing a black eye, that he had seen a disembodied fist flying about delivering blows willy-nilly in all directions, without any noticeable favoritism to any of the various contestants. For his very accurate reportorial work, the fellow was quickly hustled off to the police psychiatrist.
George’s little ruse, however, did not have the desired effect. Before the fight had effectively gotten under way, Marc and Toffee were rushed off to a police car that had screamed onto the scene with depressing promptness.
Stepping into the car, Toffee nodded toward the field of battle. “George is still helping,” she observed bitterly.
“I’d like to help him,” Marc replied dully. “I’d like to help him right through the gates of Hell.”
Justice Harvey was a bear with a gavel, and he was proud because of it. With only the most delicate twist of the wrist, he could produce a resounding smack that rivaled even the awesome clatter of heavenly thunder. When the good Justice laid gavel to stand, men, women, children and morons sat up and silently searched their souls. Promptly at eleven o’clock, A. M., the Justice displayed his talent with an even greater finesse than was common. The crowded courtroom became silent, and all eyes turned hopefully to the bench.
Most of those in attendance, being either complainants or voluntary witnesses, were present in the interests in seeing a terrible justice done as speedily as possible. Many a face was alight with the fanatical gleam of vengeance.
The justice cast a hawk-like eye toward a nearby official. “Let the crim . . . the prisoner . . . be brought before the bar,” he proclaimed.
The official hurried importantly to a distant door and made quite a show of throwing it open. Marc, in the company of an iron-faced guard, was rudely revealed to the court, looking rather like a modest maiden lady who had been surprised in her bath. He gazed on the courtroom with an expression of embarrassment and fearful expectancy. Then he shuddered as his gaze was returned coldly by an assemblage that included the faces of such hostile personages as the bank president, the owner of the ravaged diner, the counter boy and the three waitresses. Also, among many others, there was a sprinkling of bank clerks and policemen whose features seemed not altogether unfamiliar. Marc glanced studiously at the floor as, with lagging step, he followed the official to a position of frightening prominence before the bench. A moment later, he was joined by Toffee, in the custody of a grim-looking matron.
TOFFEE nudged Marc. “I’m your accomplice,” she said pridefully. “They say you used me for a lure.”
But Marc didn’t respond; he was far too fascinated by the disgusting sight of the justice, rattling through a noisy throat-clearing operation. When it was over, the formidable servant of the public peered down at him maliciously.
“Prisoner,” he thundered, “You are to be congratulated!”
“Thank you, your Honor,” Marc said confusedly.
The gavel barked against the stand. “The prisoner will
be silent until requested to speak,” the Justice reproved. “As I was saying, you are to be congratulated. In a single day you seem to have established a criminal record that would ordinarily take a hardened thug a full year to achieve. The list of your wrongdoings is so extensive that frankly I can hardly bring myself to believe it. Virtually single-handed you have perpetrated a crime wave the like of which has not been seen in this city for the past thirty years.”
“Single-handed!” Toffee snorted, injured at being relegated to a role of insulting minority. “I like that!”
The Justice fixed Toffee with a steady eye. “The court is all too well aware of your part in all this, young lady,” he said. “I can only say that a girl who would allow herself to be used as a foil for innocent citizens . . . who would lend her charms to the perpetra . . .”
“Oh, go on,” Toffee broke in, pleased at having gained so much attention. “Flattery will get you almost any place with me.”
The gavel performed new wonders. For a time the Justice seemed to fall into a painful lethargy. When he finally roused himself, he directed his gaze carefully at Marc.
“To continue,” he said in a controlled voice, “the list of your crimes has seldom been equalled. Just for a sample, I will read off a few of the more outstanding ones. At the top of the list is a bank robbery. There is some confusion surrounding the methods used in the performance of this deed, but we are sure you will choose to explain everything at the proper time. After that, in rapid succession, there are a dozen charges of assault and battery, one of inciting to riot, two of resisting arrest, two of destruction of private property, seven of traffic violation, and one of attempted breaking and entering. The other, miscellaneous charges of improper conduct and ordinary misdemeanor seem hardly worth mentioning after all that.”
The Complete Adventures of Toffee Page 26
