"Stop the car!" George shouted. "Let me out!"
"No brakes," Toffee said. She nodded toward the limousine. "Besides,
they won't let me. You'd better get down in the seat or they'll think
it's funny."
"I hope they do," George said sullenly. "I hope they think it's funny
as hell and do something about it. It's so damned unfair." And with
that he leaned across Toffee, jutted his head out the window and began
baying in the direction of the limousine.
"Stop that!" Toffee said. "It sounds awful."
* * * * *
George swiveled his frightful head around in her direction. "It
should," he said. "It's the _Torment Lament_. I learned it in the
Moaning Chorus and it's guaranteed to drive you mad in nothing flat."
He turned back to the night and the limousine and sent his voice
wailing into the wind.
It was an effort that was not lost on its audience. The occupants of
the limousine looked around sharply with horrified eyes.
"Jesus in Heaven!" the thug gasped.
At his side the congressman was so taken with the fearsome recital that
he completely forgot he was driving. As the car careened dangerously,
the thug reached out and pulled the wheel.
"Isn't it awful, boss?" he breathed.
"Awful doesn't begin to tell it," the congressman choked. "It's--it's
_awful_!"
"Yeah. That's what I mean to say."
"How can anything sound like that?" the congressman asked hauntedly.
"If it can look like that," the thug said, "I guess it shouldn't have
no trouble soundin' like that."
"And look at that girl, will you? She's actually talking to the filthy
thing."
"She looks plenty hot under the collar."
"Why not? I'd be sore as hell myself."
"When do we get to the curve, boss?"
"I don't know," the congressman said. "But I can't wait. The sooner
that car crashes and takes that frightful thing with it the better."
* * * * *
Meanwhile, as the two cars skidded and reeled toward the appointed spot
of disaster, Marc continued to loiter several blocks behind. Having
deliberately cut across traffic in the middle of the block, he pulled
up beside the police car and leaned out the window.
"I just cut across traffic!" he called out.
The cop behind the wheel left his conversation with his companion and
observed Marc dubiously.
"So what?" he asked. "You want me to give you a gold star on your
driver's license?"
"I don't have a driver's license," Marc offered hopefully. "What are
you going to do about it, you big, thick-headed slob?"
The cop turned back to his partner. "A kidder, we've got here," he
said. He turned back to Marc. "Beat it, comedian, you and your girl
friend take off."
"Aren't you going to chase me?" Marc asked. "I'm a lawbreaker."
"Move along, chum," the cop drawled, "before I sell you a ticket to the
orphan's picnic."
"But you've _got_ to chase me," Marc said urgently.
"No I don't, friend," the cop said. "I've got to sit here and listen
for radio leads on this goofy Pillsworth guy."
"But that's me!" Marc said. "I'm Pillsworth!"
The cop looked at him with forced patience. "Sure, sure," he said. "And
I'm Miss Atlantic City. Beat it." He turned back to his companion.
"What if I told you I knew where a murder was going to happen?" Marc
ventured.
The cop looked around. "You're just full of news, aren't you?" he said,
and turned away again.
For a moment Marc sat in silent indecision. Then he turned to the
blonde.
"Why don't you scream?" he asked.
"Why should I?" the woman asked interestedly. "Do you really know where
a murder's going to happen?"
"You said screaming made you feel good," Marc suggested.
"I feel fine," the woman said. "I always do with a lot of stuff going
on. Who's going to get murdered?"
Marc glanced desperately from the woman to the cops and back again. A
determined look came into his eyes. He cautiously extended two fingers
to the woman's thigh. "I'm sorry," he said, and pinched as hard as he
could.
* * * * *
The results were everything to be wished for--and more. Stiffening in
her seat, the woman let out a bleat that surpassed even her previous
efforts. Even George might have envied the torment in her voice as it
soared, swooped, scaled the heights and dipped into soul-shattering
depths. At its completion, the blonde turned and took a clawing swipe
at Marc's face.
Marc ducked. "That's the stuff!" he said happily, noting from the
corner of his eye that he had finally gained the undivided attention
of the police force. Pinching the blonde again and nodding his
satisfaction at the second chorus, he threw the coupe into gear, cut
across traffic and headed down the speedway. It was only a moment
before the wail of a siren mingled with the shrill vocalizations of
his companion. He pushed the gas feed to the floor.
To the witnesses along the speedway, the pedestrians, the vendors, the
shop owners and just plain malingerers, the events of the evening were
never entirely clear. Some, judging simply by the volume of noise,
settled for the notion that what had passed was nothing more than an
overly exuberant wedding procession. The sticklers, however, rejected
this notion flatly, pointing to the significant details of the affair.
Which, they demanded to know, was the wedding couple? Certainly it
couldn't have been the redhead and the wailing man in the green sedan;
certainly no bride--or at least very few--had ever used that kind
of language to her groom on the wedding night. And it took the most
wretched husband years to achieve the note of despair which this poor
fellow was loosing on the evening air.
As for the black limousine, that was out. Though its occupants seemed
locked together in some sort of mad embrace, the arrangement appeared
to have its roots in terror rather than affection.
The couple in the coupe that followed was even more difficult to wedge
into the picture of the young couple united. After all, wasn't she
screaming her lungs out and hammering on his head with both fists?
As for the police who followed--and they probably knew the truth of the
matter--they looked shocked to the core. So there simply wasn't any
answer for it until the morning papers came out.
The participants in the demented chase along the speedway, however,
were far too engrossed in their own problems to care for the conflict
they introduced into the lives of innocent bystanders. Toffee, for one,
could not have been less concerned; she was too mad at George.
"Stop that caterwauling!" she yelled. "Stop it, you idiot."
* * * * *
George pulled his disconnected head inside the window and eyed Toffee
owlishly. His other parts adjusted themselves and the head sank into
Toffee's lap. There, gazing up at her, it lazily crossed its eyes and
began to whimper piteously.
"Ugh!" Toffee cried. "I'll go mad!"
The head relaxed its face obligingly into an expression of
feeble-minded delight, letting its tongue loll loosely from the corner
of its mouth.
"That's all!" Toffee screamed. "I'm getting out of here!"
Without further consideration for the occupants of the limousine and
the approaching curve, she relinquished the wheel, threw the car door
open, and with one last agonized glance at the loathsome head, which
was now foaming prettily at the mouth, prepared to depart its company.
In the limousine this bit of action was not unobserved.
"She's trying to get away!" the congressman yelled. "Stop her!"
The thug turned to the window and looked. "Get back!" he hollered. "Get
back or I'll blast you!"
"Go ahead," Toffee cried. "It'll be a positive pleasure next to what
I've just been through."
"Okay!" the thug said grimly. "You asked for it!"
His finger closed down on the trigger. It was just at that moment,
however, that the green sedan, no longer benefitted by a driver,
swerved toward the limousine, throwing Toffee back inside. The
congressman cramped the wheel of the limousine sharply to avoid a
crash. The gunman, thrown sharply against the door, fired wildly into
the night. From the rear there was the sound of screeching tires and
forced brakes.
"Good night!" the congressman panted, righting the limousine as the
green sedan veered away again. "What did you hit?"
"I think it was that coupe back there," the thug said, peering out the
window. "I must have hit a tire: it's out of control."
"Good Lord!" the congressman yelled, "the curve's right ahead! We're
pinned in between them. We're going to crash. Everybody's going to
crash!"
No sooner was this dire prediction out of the congressman's mouth than
it became a deafening reality. Ahead, the green sedan raced headlong
into the concrete embankment with a rending smash and almost literally
flattened itself into two dimensions.
This was the signal for the two lesser crashes that followed. The
limousine engaged its radiator forcibly into the wreckage just in time
to receive a skidding broadside from the coupe.
* * * * *
A moment of silence followed, emphasized by the approaching scream of a
siren. The police car jolted to a stop and the two cops ran forward to
the scene of destruction. They reached the coupe first.
"Here!" the first cop said. "What's going on?"
The faded blonde jutted her head out of the window. "He blew out my
tire!" she rasped. "Not to mention all that pinching!"
"Pinching?" the cop asked curiously. "What kind of pinching, lady?
Where?"
"All kinds of pinching," the woman said evilly. "Everywhere."