IN THE moment that followed there was a small zipping sound which was instantly followed by a startled gasp, as Toffee, to the electrification of all present, suddenly stood before the court bereft of two of her most valuable butterflies and all of her skirt. There was a bit of silence after that, followed by a sudden flash of a camera, a sprinkling of half-hysterical applause, and one small scream.
The judge, starting from his chair to lean across the bench for a better view of the performance, reverted to his former shade of purple. His face bloated with rage, he was rendered incapable of anything more coherent than a furious sputter. Amazingly, Toffee seemed to share the judge’s feelings in the matter. She whirled on Marc with eyes that glittered.
“Of all the shabby stunts!” she stormed. “Trying to stall for time by making a show out of me! You lousy sensationalist!”
“What...?” Marc began innocently.
But it was too late. Already Toffee had doubled her fist and wound up for the pitch. The next thing Marc knew he had been dealt with harshly in the vicinity of his nose. He lost his footing and sailed backwards.
Toffee watched the results of her handiwork with satisfaction. However she was somewhat astonished at how heavy Marc had been in the felling. The truth of the matter, though, was that she had knocked down not one Marc Pillsworth but two. George, caught at the side of the head by Toffee’s elbow staggered backwards, tripped over a chair, and fell sprawling on his back.
Marc landed heavily on the floor, skidded crazily out of sight under the table, struck his head smartly against a leg and lay inert. In the same second, the matron reached a restraining hand toward Toffee, then started back with a cry of fright; the girl had suddenly vanished. Simultaneously, George, in a fit of confusion and surprise, fully and completely materialized himself.
All this happened in the flick of an eyelash.
As far as the court was concerned the incident was fairly simple: Toffee had knocked Marc to the floor, then fled the room. All eyes turned toward
George under the misapprehension that he was Marc.
The judge beat out a deafening thunder with his gavel.
“Order!” he screamed. “Order!”
The court quieted. The matron ran forward to the bench.
“She’s gone!” the harried woman cried. “She just disappeared!”
“Good!” the judge said. “And for heaven’s sake don’t go looking for her. I hope I never set eyes on that girl as long as I live.” He turned to look evilly at George. “Get to your feet,” he commanded.
George looked up at the judge and blanched; for a moment he was afraid he’d been recalled to the chambers of the High Council. He got quickly to his feet.
“All right now,” the judge said with deadly steadiness. “Float!”
“Float?” George asked.
“Yes, of course, float,” the judge snorted. “That’s what we’re all waiting for, isn’t it? Are you going to float or aren’t you?”
George shrugged. There was certainly no accounting for the tastes of these mortals. He couldn’t imagine why this man was so insanely anxious to see him float; it seemed to mean the world and all to the poor devil. However, George supposed it would be best to humor him. He settled himself squarely on his feet, closed his eyes, and concentrated. Slowly he began to levitate from the courtroom floor.
When he had risen to a height of about eight feet, he stopped, opened his eyes, and looked down. A sea of widened eyes and opened mouths gaped up at him. An excited murmur went through the court. The judge rose up out of his seat like a great gulping porpoise, then fell back heavily.
“Lord love a lobster!” he gasped.
GEORGE gazed on these reactions with amazed satisfaction. Obviously these mortals were pathetically easy to please; if a simple demonstration of levitation could cause this much concern, just think how they’d react to some of his other accomplishments! The ham bone popped out in George’s restrained soul like an internal rash.
With a small formal bow, first fore, than aft, the self-dazzled spook sat down with a flourish, placed his hand comfortably behind his neck, and stretched out with suspenseful deliberation. Then, dangling one foot lazily in space, he dissolved his head.
As a low moan issued through the courtroom, one of the photographers nearest this dreadful scene turned to another of his kind.
“You know, Harry,” he said in a controlled voice, “I’ve been thinking. You and me, we’ve been in this racket an awful long time now.”
“Yeah,” said Harry. “An awful long time.”
“Yeah. Maybe too long. It’s no kind of a life for a man with any kind of sensitivity, you know. It’s liable to take a bad effect on a guy after a while.”
“I know what you mean,” Harry said thoughtfully. “You get around too much, see too many screwy things. It might begin to give you a sort of distorted view like.”
“Sure. It could even get so bad you could get kind of unbalanced. Maybe it would start with you seein’ things that aren’t real.”
“Uh-huh,” Harry nodded. “Maybe like guys floatin’ around in the air without they’ve got their heads on. Or something like that. Not that I’ve ever seen no such thing, mind you.”
“Of course not. Who would see a crazy thing like that unless it was somebody goin’ bugs or somethin’?” The photographer laughed falsely. “It’s funny to think a thing like that could happen to a guy.”
“Yeah,” Harry said. “It’s a real laugh. What say we get the hell out of here?”
“You bet! Let’s run like the devil!”
Together, the men dropped their cameras to the floor, turned, and ran as fast as they could out of the court room.
Meanwhile, a new groan of horrified amazement had gone through the room. George, in an effort to demonstrate to his audience the very last measure of his paralyzing talent, had introduced a new and even more arresting wrinkle to his performance. Alternately dematerializing and rematerializing in rapid succession, he was blinking on and off like a neon sign.
The judge took one look at this nerve-twisting innovation and rallied to a final effort. He reached for his gavel and brought it down feebly on the bench.
“Dismissed!” he whizzed. “Dismissed! I dismiss everything. For the love of Hannah, dismissed!”
Suddenly the court broke into pandemonium. The traffic to the doors was disordered and chaotic as the members of the audience trampled each other to be out of the place. In front of the bench George perceived regretfully that he had lost his audience, dissolved himself for one last time and sank slowly down to the floor.
Beneath the table, Marc roused himself and sat up to rub his head. As he did so, Toffee instantly appeared beside him.
“What happened?” he asked vaguely.
“How should I know?” Toffee asked tartly. “Just when things were getting interesting you passed out and dissolved me.” She glanced from beneath the table. “Now it’s all over.”
She crawled out from beneath the table and gathered the scraps of her costume which had remained abandoned on the floor. As she quickly zipped everything into place, she looked around.
“The judge went away without even saying goodbye,” she said injuredly.
CHAPTER VII
MARC AND Toffee swung quickly out of the courtroom and started down the corridor. They were not entirely certain that they were officially allowed this break from the smothering embrace of the law, but since it was a love that was totally unrequited they felt perfectly justified in nipping it off as cleanly and quickly as possible. Besides, neither was in a mood to ask questions.
Marc frowned deeply. The future, in view of past events, was not reassuring. He wondered what night it was that he had lain awake and felt a happy anticipation at strange and wonderful things about to happen. It didn’t seem possible that it could have been only night before last; it must have been years and years ago in view of all that had happened. Certainly, in a most disturbing way, the strange and wonderful things
had come to pass, but the feeling of happy anticipation had been shot to hell in its very beginnings.
How could things possibly have gotten themselves into so incomprehensible a snarl in just the space of a few short hours? Only a day and a night had passed and now, here he was with a divorce, an irresponsible redhead, a criminal record and several volumes of unfavorable publicity on his hands. And to top it all off, though he was subject to the laws of gravity at the moment, he had taken to floating about in the air like a demented balloon. Also, he had the forbidding feeling that he might revert to a condition of buoyancy at any given moment.
Marc sighed heavily and cursed the day he conceived the idea of the basement laboratory. If there was any small comfort remaining to him at all came only from a patently comfortless cliche: things couldn’t possibly get any worse. He didn’t see the courtroom door swing mysteriously open behind him, waver for a moment, then swing shut again.
Neither did Marc see the horrible Blemish twins following behind him and Toffee in the corridor shadows. His attention, instead, had been drawn to the two men in double breasted suits who were shoving their way toward him through the crowd. Though Marc was certain that the two, regardless of what their business might be, could be the bearers of only bad tidings, he hadn’t the will left in him to try to avoid them. One more worry, added to the multitude he already had, would hardly be noticed. Taking Toffee’s hand, he stopped and waited resignedly for the two to catch up to them.
“Mr. Pillsworth?” the first man nodded.
“Could there be any doubt?” Toffee said dully.
The man glanced at Toffee, startled a little at her costume, then turned his gaze firmly and resolutely to Marc.
“We are with the Federal Government,” he said.
He nodded toward the courtroom from which Marc and Toffee had just departed. “I’m sorry we didn’t get here sooner; we could have saved you all that trouble.”
“Now it’s the Feds,” Toffee murmured. “More cops ... more courtrooms ... more judges ... more questions ... wurra, wurra.”
No one paid any attention.
“We’ve been to your home, Mr. Pillsworth,” the man went on. “We’ve gone over your laboratory very thoroughly, and it’s our opinion that you’ve turned up something that could be of great interest to the government. In a military way. Your wife explained to us that your intention was to facilitate construction, and I suppose, in a way, you’ve succeeded. However, in the process, you’ve also discovered an explosive of most extraordinary properties.”
“How was Julie when you saw her?” Marc asked.
“Mrs. Pillsworth was most cooperative,” the man said, acknowledging the interruption. “However, she was quite busy while we were there. I gathered she was closing up the house, taking a trip somewhere.”
“Did she say when she was leaving?” Marc asked anxiously.
“I believe she said this evening,” the man said. “I supposed you knew all about it. Anyway, to get on—in our opinion you have stumbled across a new type of bomb that is so advanced as to make the A bomb completely obsolete. Briefly, it is easily possible that a bomb could be made of your formula and constructed in such a way as to be detonated by the final chemical. It could be used to wipe out whole cities, to wipe them off the face of the earth without a trace. Every stick, stone, human being and piece of mortar could be made to simply rise and disappear from the earth’s surface within a matter of minutes. That’s rather a terrifying secret to hold entirely in your own possession, Mr. Pillsworth.”
“Yes, indeed,” Marc said absently. “Terrifying.”
“In other words, for the sake of national security, the government cannot possibly allow you to have your discovery all to yourself any longer. I’m sure you can understand that. We would like to talk to you and go over your formula in private. Your notes are still intact, aren’t they?”
MARC’S HAND went automatically to the inner pocket of his jacket where he had secured the notebook. He nodded.
“Oh, yes,” he murmured.
“Good. Then suppose we go to one of the...”
“I’d like to go home first, if I may,” Marc broke in. “I have to see my wife before she leaves. It’s very important. And there are a few extra notes in my room at the house, I could get them all together...”
The man hesitated for a moment, then finally nodded. “All right,” he said. “After all we’re the only ones who know about this. Only let me caution you not to talk to anyone.”
“I won’t say a word,” Marc said, and nodded toward Toffee. “She couldn’t say anything; she doesn’t understand any of it.”
“Fine,” the man said. “Then will it be all right if we come to your house this evening?”
“That’ll be fine,” Marc said quickly, anxious to be free of them. “I’ll see you then.”
Marc and Toffee watched the two men disappear down the corridor and up a stairway.
“Terribly morbid pair, aren’t they?” Toffee said. “It’s enough to make your flesh crawl, all this talk about wiping out cities and people and things.”
“It’s their business,” Marc said.
Toffee glanced behind her. “I don’t like to mention it,” she said in an undertone, “but there are a pair of perfectly loathsome little men back there, and I think they’re following us. For my money they look exactly like spies. They seem to skulk, if you know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean,” Marc said. “I saw them in the courtroom. Probably they’re perfectly harmless. Anyone who looked like that would have to be. Anyway, I haven’t time to worry about any skulking; I’ve got to get home. Let’s get out of here.”
“Am I going with you?” Toffee asked. Marc nodded. “I’ve decided it’s the best way. We’ll just sit down and tell Julie all about you.”
“She’ll never believe it,” Toffee said. “If she does, she’s a lot crazier than I think she is.”
“She’ll have to believe it,” Marc said earnestly. “If worst comes to worst, I’ll knock myself out and she can see you vanish and reappear for herself.”
“We could ask the neighbors in too,” Toffee observed wryly. “We could serve punch and do it as a sort of parlor entertainment.”
“Don’t be silly,” Marc said. “Come on.”
“I’m game,” Toffee murmured. “I just wonder if Julie’s up to it, that’s all.”
“Maybe I should call her first,” Marc said, catching sight of a row of phone booths at the end of the corridor. “Just to make sure she’s there.”
“You might check on the condition of her heart, too,” Toffee said. “Just as a precaution.”
They started forward and had nearly reached the booths when Marc suddenly stopped short. “Now what?” Toffee asked.
Marc inclined his head to listen. “Do you keep hearing footsteps?” he asked.
“Sure,” Toffee said. “All over the place. With these marble floors....”
“No, not those,” Marc said. “Right behind us. I keep hearing someone walking right behind me, but there’s no one there.”
“Well,” Toffee said slowly, “I didn’t want to be the first to mention it, but...”
SUDDENLY, they were both silent, their eyes intent on the floor and a cigarette stub that had begun to behave with shocking abnormality. Still alight, as it had been dropped, it suddenly crushed itself out flat against the floor and ceased to smoke. It was for all the world as though someone had stepped on it to put it out, and yet there wasn’t a human foot within yards of the thing.
“Oh, my gosh!” Toffee breathed. “Do you suppose that thing realizes what it can do to a nervous system with a trick like that?”
“What do you suppose it is?” Marc asked.
“It’s a cigarette stub,” Toffee said. “And it’s gone mad. It’s completely out of its head. Let’s just pay it no mind, treat it with complete contempt. Maybe it’ll crawl away and do its odious little stunt for someone who likes that sort of thing.”
&n
bsp; “You may be right,” Marc said without the slightest tone of belief. He turned away, but his gaze remained furtively on the flattened stub. Since there was no further disturbance, he pulled himself together and started toward one of the phone booths. Toffee watched after him with careful intensity.
But if either of them thought they’d had the last of madness from inanimate objects, they were woefully mistaken. The phone booth was next to become possessed. It was as though the hulking enclosure had been waiting in prey for Marc. No sooner did Marc stick his head inside the booth than the doors, without any visible guidance, snapped shut, caught him by the neck, and held him fast. Toffee started back with a cry of pure surprise.
“Help!” Marc wheezed from inside the booth. “Help!”
It was a moment before Toffee was capable of action, but she did her best to make up for lost time. She started forward to the attack with a vengeance. But no sooner had she come within reaching distance of the booth and the door than she was mysteriously and invisibly thrust back. She renewed her efforts but was only repelled for a second time. She paused to consider the door, the booth and her own emotions, rapidly approaching a state of blind rage.
It was just as she had braced herself and hunched angrily forward for the third attack that the woman came out of the booth next to the one in which Marc was trapped. She took one look at the determined redhead and drew her own conclusions.
“Hold off, honey!” she screamed. “You can have the booth! I’m through!”
But Toffee had already hurled herself forward in a headlong, firm-jawed lunge. The woman screamed shrilly and departed the booth and the vicinity with the speed of a deer in season. In the next split second Toffee collided with Marc’s invisible captor.
There was a dull thud, a small skirmishing, and then Toffee, apparently bearing her opponent to the floor with her, went down in tangled triumph. The door of the telephone booth flew open and Marc dropped to his knees, gasping for air.
The Complete Adventures of Toffee Page 42
