“It’s no use,” Olliphant said from the floor. “That bottle’s mean.”
Heedless, the nurse braced herself and tugged with all her strength. The bottle gave by a foot, then lurched drunkenly in her grasp. Down on the floor the rivulet of syrup became disturbed, as though feet were churning through it desperately seeking to regain lost traction.
Suddenly the bottle gave way and the nurse toppled backwards into Olliphant’s lap. Olliphant received this new burden with resignation and a grunt. Across the room, however, there was another sound, as of a body coming in swift contact with the floor.
“Damn!” the nurse said hotly, turning to Olliphant. “Keep your big oafish hands off me! Stop reaching.”
“I’m only reaching for the bottle,” Olliphant said. “It’s mine.”
“It didn’t feel like it,” the nurse retorted. “It felt more like ...”
She hesitated as from the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of a long body sprawled on the floor. At first glimpse it seemed that the body had no head, but as she looked more closely she saw that it did, though she had the peculiar sensation that it had just come into being. Handing Olliphant the bottle she got to her feet and approached the prone figure. Noting that it was dressed for surgery, she stood staring down at it quizzically for a moment.
“Holy smoke!” she breathed. “It’s Pillsworth!” She turned to Olliphant. “Come on and help me. We’ve got to get him down to Surgery right away!”
MARC felt himself rising through the last shredded mists of unconsciousness. He tried to open his eyes but a glaring light made the attempt too painful.
“Give him the anaesthetic,” voice said close by.
Panic pulsed through Marc’s body. They were going to operate! Necessity gave him a surge of strength and he sat up, staring wildly at the three doctors gathered over him.
“No!” he said. “Don’t! I’m all right!”
“Lie down, Mr. Pillsworth,” the doctor nearest advised. “Just lie down and it will all be over with in a minute.”
“But I’m all right!” Marc said desperately. He glared around at the nurse holding the mask for the anaesthetic. “Get away from me!”
“Hysteria,” the doctor said. “Quite understandable after what he’s been through. He’ll have to be restrained.”
The other two nodded in agreement. Watching Marc closely, they took up positions on either side of him. The first doctor moved to a place at Marc’s feet.
“When I give the signal,” he whispered, “we’ll all grab at once.”
“I heard that!” Marc yelled. “Stay away from me, you croakers, or I’ll ...!”
“Okay!” the doctor cried. “Grab!”
The scene over the operating table, for a moment thereafter, was a living abstraction in flailing arms and legs. Though Marc managed at one point to insert his thumb into the eye of the first doctor and his foot into the mouth of the second, the odds were too great against him. In the end he found himself pinioned helplessly to the table.
“All right, nurse,” the doctor said, “fit the mask to his face. As soon as the body’s relaxed ...”
“You leave that body alone,” a pert feminine voice said tartly “That body happens to belong to me, for what it’s worth, and I don’t want it tampered with. I particularly don’t want it relaxed. I want it alert and twitching in every fibre, and if you don’t leave it alone I’m going to lay into the bunch of you bare fisted!”
A tense silence overtook the group around the operating table. The doctors looked at each other, then turned to observe the dismaying redhead who had mysteriously appeared just behind them.
“How did you get in here?” the first doctor said uncertainly.
“I’m the owner of that body you are flinging about there,” Toffee said hotly, shifting the gadget under her arm and placing a hand on her hip. “That body’s mine right down to the last molecule and I’ve come to fight for it if I have to.”
MARC sat up under the relaxed grips of the doctors, his face scarlet. “Why do you have to go around telling people things like that?” he asked plaintively.
“I could put it another way,” Toffee said. “Dirtier. For instance ...”
“No!” Marc cried. “It’s dirty enough already.”
The doctor turned to Marc. “Who is this woman?”
“I don’t know,” Marc lied quickly. “I’ve never seen her before in my life. Why don’t you throw her out of here?”
“Why, you lying old ingrate!” Toffee flamed. “For two cents I’d climb up there on that table and perform a few operations of my own!”
“Madam!” Marc said distantly, “whoever you are, do you really think you ought to take on in public in this brazen way?”
“I’ll take you on in public, no holds barred, you thin-nosed phony,” Toffee gritted. “You don’t know what brazen is yet!”
The doctor turned to the nurse. “Call the orderlies and have this woman removed,” he said. “And have them give her a blanket or something to wear. We can’t delay the operation another moment. I’ll give the anaesthetic myself.”
“Hey!” Marc yelled. “Toffee ...”
“Go ahead, doctor,” Toffee said with evil satisfaction. “Rip him open. Slit him from ear to ear and top to bottom. I won’t lift a finger.”
“No!” Marc cried. He turned to Toffee in panic. “It’ll mean the end of both of us!”
“Pardon my girlish laughter,” Toffee said. “It’s worth it, dogmeat, to see you get yours after the way you’ve treated me. Either you fork over that lanky frame of yours, or you’re going to be out of frames entirely. That’s the way it stacks up.”
“Do you have to be so vulgar about it all?” Marc asked weakly. “With all this talk about bodies and frames, I’m beginning to feel like just so many soup bones displayed on a counter.”
“That’s exactly the parallel I’ve been searching for,” Toffee said complacently. “In fact if there’s anything vulgar in all this, it is your body. Come to think of it, it suddenly strikes me as so vulgar I’m no longer interested in it.”
“Please!” Marc cried as the doctors gripped him to the table. “Use that gadget of yours—anything! Please!”
“Sorry, son,” Toffee said. “I guess you’ll remember after this never to forget a lady’s name.”
Marc looked up and saw the mask bearing down toward his face. “Toffee!” he yelled. “For Pete’s sake!”
THE mask miraculously paused in its descent, stopped. The action around the table came to a sharp halt. Eyes swiveled toward the door. Marc turned on his side just in time to observe Olliphant Gunn lumbering into the room under the weight of George’s upper quarters.
The nurse, her blond hair in a state of dishevelment, followed bearing the feet and legs. Arriving at a position inside the door, they deposited their burden on the floor where it instantly curled over on its side and emitted a sodden snore.
“It’s Mr. Pillsworth,” the nurse said breathlessly, shoving back her hair. “We brought him straight down without waiting for the orderlies.” She looked up into the stunned faces staring back at her from around the table. Then her gaze fell to Marc.
“My God!” she gasped.
“Good Lord!” Marc groaned, taking in the stupid, smiling face of George.
“Jesus!” breathed the doctor.
“Amen,” Toffee put in glibly. “Who’s taking up the collection?”
Marc turned to Toffee. “It’s that gosh-awful spook again!” he breathed. “He would have to show up now!”
“Actually,” Toffee said, “he could not have shown up at a better time. I really was going to help you out, but now we have George.”
Marc’s eyes brightened with slow realization. “Of course,” he said, then turned as he felt the doctor’s hand on his shoulder. “Yes?”
“Mr. Pillsworth,” the doctor said tensely. “You are Mr. Pillsworth, aren’t you?”
Marc smiled with hypocritical innocense. “No,” he said.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to get through your thick skull.” He pointed to George. “That’s Pillsworth there on the floor. And if you ask me he’s in a pretty critical condition. You’d better start sawing away at him right now before he pops off of natural causes and robs you of the sport.”
“Oh, my word!” the doctor gasped. “How can I ever tell you ... !”
“Come,” Marc said grandly, turning to Toffee, “let’s leave this bloodsplattered slaughter house.”
“I’m all for it,” Toffee said gaily. “Let’s flee.”
“I thought you didn’t know that woman,” the doctor said confusedly.
“I begin to recognize her now,” Marc replied urbanely. “It was my horror at the crass brutality of the medical profession that drove her tender memory from my mind.”
“But, I ...” the doctor began hopelessly.
“Say no more,” Toffee said airily. “You can tell your side of it in court.”
THE two of them, linking arms, started toward the door. They were just about to sweep out of the room when suddenly the situation hit a new snag. It was at this juncture that George opened his eyes, waggled them around woozily, then reared up in a sitting position, staring at Marc.
“You!” he said with a strangled gasp. “You’re alive!” The way he said it, it sounded like a hideous accusation.
Marc stopped short, caught off guard. “Of course I’m alive,” he said.
“But you can’t be!” George wailed, great tears of awful disappointment welling in his eyes. “It isn’t fair! You have to be dead!”
“I’m sorry,” Marc said, somewhat at a loss. “I’m not.”
“It’s rotten,” George said with drunken bitterness. “It’s cruel. I’m probably the only ghost alive who’s haunted by a human!”
“Well, it’s a distinction,” Toffee offered hopefully.
“Just a minute,” the doctor put in suspiciously. “What’s going on here? What are you people talking about?
Marc nodded sadly toward George. “The poor chap’s delirious,” he said. “We’re only trying to humor him.”
“Oh, yeah?” the doctor said. His gaze moved from Marc to George and back to Marc again. “Just which one of you really is Marc Pillsworth?”
Marc and George pointed at each other in unison. “He is!” they chorused.
The doctor passed a trembling hand over his forehead and lifted his gaze to the ceiling. A tremor of frustration passed through his sturdy frame. He turned to the small blonde.
“Is Mrs. Pillsworth still in the waiting room?” he asked.
“I believe so, sir,” the nurse said.
“Will you please call her in here to make an identification?”
“No!” Marc said, glancing uneasily in Toffee’s direction. “Don’t do that ... ! I mean there’s no need to disturb Mrs. Pillsworth. Obviously this pitiful creature here on the floor is Pillsworth. Just by looking at him you can see he’s under the weather.”
At this George drew himself up sedately, stiffling a hiccough. “Nothing of the sort,” he said piously. “I’m in perfectly splendid condition.”
“Go ahead, nurse,” the doctor said firmly. “Bring Mrs. Pillsworth.”
“Yes, sir,” the nurse said, and departed.
“But, you can’t afford to delay the operation that long,” Marc said. “You said so yourself. Anyone with half an eye can see that this poor man is getting more feeble by the second. You owe it to him to slit him open immediately ... !” In speaking Marc had paused to look at George. The result was that the words froze on his lips. Never had he spoken more truly; George was not only getting more feeble but more nonexistent by the second. His legs had evaporated to the knees, his arms were entirely gone. Where his eyes should have been there were now only empty sockets. Staring at this awesome demonstration, the doctor tottered slightly and braced himself against the operating table.
“Oh, good Lord!” he moaned.
“Stop that, you coward,” Marc said angrily. “Stop sneaking out like that!”
IN response, George merely dissolved his head to a grinning skull. “Gotta go now,” he chortled hollowly. “Gotta be corking off.” He turned to the others and clacked his teeth menacingly. Olliphant Gunn was the first to snap.
“There’s just so much that human flesh and blood can stand,” the poor man wailed, and leaping to the operating table he snatched up the anaesthetic mask and plunged it over his face.
“Come on,” Toffee said urgently, tugging at Marc’s sleeve. “Let’s get out of here before that cheap ghost sticks us with an operation.”
Marc jolted into action. Under Toffee’s guidance, he lunged out the door and started down the hall.
“Let’s leave this place,” Toffee said. “Let’s go somewhere where we can have fun.”
“We can’t leave like this,” Marc said, indicating their brief attire. “We can’t go out on the street half naked.”
“We can say we’re artists’ models on our way to work,” Toffee said. “Come on.”
Marc didn’t pause to debate the point as a cry from the operating room indicated that the doctors had recovered from their dismay with an urgent sense of loss.
Together, he and Toffee began to run. They proceeded swiftly around a corner and down a flight of steps to the floor below. Suddenly Marc stopped.
“What’s wrong?” Toffee asked.
“Listen,” Marc said. “What’s that?”
Toffee listened. Descending footsteps sounded on the stairs behind them. She whirled about. The stairway was unoccupied.
“George,” she said disgustedly. “He’s following us.”
The footsteps stopped guiltily.
“Okay,” Marc said, addressing himself to the empty stairs. “It’s no use pretending you’re not there. You might as well show yourself.”
A subdued hiccough echoed out of the emptiness, but that was the extent of George’s communication.
“If you’re entertaining any notion of bumping me off so you can stay here,” Marc warned, “just forget it. I’m alive and I intend to stay that way.”
“Just ignore him,” Toffee said. “He’s bound to get bored and go away if we refuse to pay any attention to him.”
THE discussion went no further, for suddenly there were sounds of approaching pursuit from above. Grabbing Toffee’s arm, Marc raced ahead, down the hall and around another corner. A third set of footsteps continued to sound in their wake.
“He’s still with us,” Toffee panted.
“The vulture,” Marc said. “He’s just hoping they’ll catch me. Run faster.”
Renewing their efforts, they left behind another stretch of corridor, turned another corner. There they stopped abruptly. Ahead a group of orderlies loomed before them.
“That’s them!” a young athletic type yelled. “That’s Pillsworth!”
“To hell with Pillsworth!” a companion responded. “Get the dame! She’s practically all skin, just like they said!”
Marc and Toffee darted back around the corner.
“Surrounded!” Toffee panted. “I think that sums up the situation.”
“What’ll we do?” Marc asked confusedly.
Toffee pointed to a door marked JANITOR’S CLOSET. “In there,” she said. “Quick!”
They ran to the door, threw it open and darted inside just as their pursuers surged into view at either end of the hallway. They paused in the darkness to listen. As the sounds of the chase continued outside they turned their attention to their new surroundings. The air was close with the heady aroma of cleaning fluid, wax polish and disinfectant.
“Isn’t there a light in here?” Toffee asked.
“I can’t find one,” Marc said. “I’ve looked all over.”
“Well,” Toffee said, “at least it’s a place to relax for a bit and catch our breath. I just wish it didn’t smell so oppressively clean. I was hoping for a bit of dirt tonight of the right sort, of course.”
“You stay on your side o
f the closet,” Marc said, “and I’ll stay on mine.”
“We’ll never get anywhere that way,” Toffee said. “Suppose Romeo had taken that attitude with Juliet?”
“They’d both have lived a lot longer,” Marc said.
“I suspect that George is in here with us,” Toffee said. “I fancy I hear him breathing back there amongst the mops and brooms.”
“I suppose he is,” Marc said. There was a pause, followed by a number of rattling sounds. “What are you doing?”
“There’s a whole shelf of bottles over there,” Toffee said. “I’m just sniffing about to see if there’s anything interesting. And there is. The janitor has strong tastes. Irish whiskey, I should judge, by the jolt of it. Have some?”
MARC paused, took note of the new vapors overriding those of the cleaning fluids.
“Well,” he said, “it is a little drafty in this nightgown.”
Toffee handed him the bottle in the darkness. “Bottoms,” she said pleasantly.
“The expression,” Marc said sedately, “is bottoms up.”
“Up or down,” Toffee said, “it doesn’t matter. I was just tossing in bottoms at random. Assorted bottoms, so to speak. If you prefer them up, you’ll get no argument out of me.”
There was a smacking sound as Marc lowered the bottle from his lips. “Let’s just skip the bottoms,” he said, “and go on to something else.”
“Sounds pretty giddy,” Toffee mused, “all this leaping about over bottoms. However ...”
“Look outside,” Marc suggested wearily, “and see if they’re still out there.”
“Okay,” Toffee said. A small shaft of light darted in and out of the closet as she opened the door and closed it again. “They’re churning about like cattle in a loading chute,” she reported. “Where are you?”
“Sitting on the floor,” Marc said. “I’m beginning to find this place restful.”
“You’re beginning to stink of Irish whiskey,” Toffee said. “Stop gulping at that bottle like a great fish and hand it back.”
“I wonder if we should offer George a drink?” Marc said with growing amiability. “I definitely heard him breathing back there just now. Sounds a trifle wheezy, I’m afraid.”
The Complete Adventures of Toffee Page 63
