"Really!" Toffee's interest shot ahead like an arrow discharged from a
sixty pound bow. "I would be investigated by this body of men?"
"Minutely, honey," the congressman assured her. "And from every angle."
* * * * *
Toffee was almost beside herself with anticipation; she almost forgot
the purpose at hand. "I'll kill 'em," she said. She composed herself.
"Could you arrange to have me hauled up for investigation?"
"Well ... I wouldn't do it for just anyone, you know."
"But you would for me, wouldn't you? Don't forget; I do have a secret
weapon."
"I'm not forgetting," the congressman murmured. "No, indeed. However,
I'll have to convince the Congress that you're a substantial menace."
He was thoughtful for a moment. "I think I'll call the Congressman from
Idaho and say that you've been insulting his wife. I think something
can be worked out." He rose.
"Just a minute," Toffee said. "There's just one more thing; include my
friend, Mr. Pillsworth. Say he's been insulting Texas."
"Well...." the congressman hesitated.
"Please," Toffee cooed. "He might get his feelings hurt if we left him
out."
"Well, okay," the congressman agreed, and left.
Seeing that there was an opening, Marc edged closer. "Is the
congressman leaving?" he asked.
"He'll be right back," Toffee said pleasantly. "He's gone off to
arrange something for me."
"What?" Marc said evenly. "Just what has he gone off to arrange?"
"Oh, just a little investigation."
"What kind of an investigation?"
"He mentioned something called Congress," Toffee said. "I think it's
some kind of a club he belongs to."
"A Congressional investigation?"
"Uh-huh," Toffee nodded. "I believe those were his very words."
"Who's going to be investigated?"
Toffee smiled the sublimely innocent smile of one of heaven's nicer
angels. "Me," she announced, "and you."
"_What!_" Marc jumped to his feet as though he'd been wrenched by a
pulley. "Why you...! What did you tell that old idiot?"
"Nothing really," Toffee said. "I just told him I had a secret weapon,
and he assumed the rest. He's including you as a personal favor."
"Dear God in heaven!" Marc yelped. "Let's get out of here before he
comes back!"
"Oh, no!" Toffee cried. "I have to wait and see if he could arrange it."
"Come on!" Marc said, taking her by the arm and dragging her out of her
chair. "Where'd he go? We'll go the other way."
"I must say I don't understand your attitude," Toffee said woundedly,
following him into the entry. "After I worked like a demon to charm
the daffy old vulture...."
"_Just_ like a demon!" Marc said hotly. "_Exactly_ like a demon! You
take the words from my mouth."
"And I should dip them in cyanide and put them right back!" Toffee
said. "I suppose it hasn't penetrated your blunted intelligence that
I'm only trying to do something to help save this preposterous world of
yours."
"I see," Marc said. "You propose to save the world by ruining me.
That makes such brilliant sense it fairly blinds me." By now they
had reached the outer hallway and were covering space rapidly in the
direction of the elevators.
"I'm not going to stand for it!" Marc said testily. "And that's my
message to you." He stopped before the elevators and placed his finger
firmly to the button. "If you think I'm going to allow my life to be
governed by the noxious fermentations of that fluttering mind of
yours ... you're wrong!"
* * * * *
Toffee parted her lips for an angry reply, but just then the door
across the hall opened, and Congressman Bloodsop appeared on the scene.
His ruddy face was wreathed with smiles.
"Ah, there you are!" he boomed expansively. "Well, the news is good
tonight. You're to be investigated tomorrow. I'm to take you into
custody right now, and there'll be a couple of government boys to
guard you. You're to stay at my home under guard tonight, and we'll
fly up to Washington in the morning for the festivities." He swayed
back on his heels in a seizure of self-appreciation. "Fast action, eh?"
"Mr. Bloodsop...!" Marc sputtered. "Mr. Bloodsop...!"
But the congressman held up a hand. "No need to thank me, boy," he
said. "It's nothing to pull a few strings for friends."
"Mr. Blood...!"
Just then the elevator doors slid back to disclose Dolly, the
impassioned wild-gamester, struggling with the stringy vagaries of an
enormous tuna net. She staggered forward and paused to disentangle a
cork float from the door latch. Then, hunched forward under her burden,
she started determinedly toward the salon.
"On the scent again already?" Toffee inquired amiably.
Dolly stopped and peered back over her muscular shoulder. "Uh-huh," she
panted. "Only this time I've got a switcheroo for the sonofagun. This
time I not only toss him into the trap but fling myself in after him."
She winked. "Get it?"
"In detail," Toffee said. She turned to Marc. "Isn't it nice to meet
a girl who knows her own mind--even when it's cracked seven ways to
Sunday?"
"You should know," Marc glowered. "You should damned well know, you
little heller."
Congressman Bloodsop's study was a mammoth vault paneled solidly with
the finest oak that purloined money could buy. It was vast-ceilinged
and set solidly at one end with leaded windows of a thousand panes.
Beyond the windows, like a magazine illustration, one could see formal
gardens softened with twilight. To Toffee's mind it fairly stank with
class.
* * * * *
From the depths of her leather-covered chair, she lowered her coffee
cup to the table and observed the spectacle of Congressman Bloodsop
sitting like a high magistrate behind a kennel-sized mahogany desk.
"Do the guards _have_ to stay outside in the hallway?" she asked.
"Won't they be lonesome?"
"A matter of form, dear," the congressman said. "Looks good. Besides,
I've told the maid to give them tea."
Marc standing beside the fireplace stirred with agitation. "Mr.
Bloodsop...!"
The congressman raised his eyes with slow patience. "Young man," he
said evenly. "Is there something the matter with you? What is this
curious compulsion of yours to rasp my name every few minutes? If you
have something to say, say it."
"Yes, Marc," Toffee said sweetly. "Don't let the congressman think
you're dull."
Marc choked, presumably with emotion. "I only wanted to inquire just
why I can't use the telephone to try to find my wife?" he said in a
strained voice.
"Another matter of form," the congressman said. "Good heavens, man, do
you really care so much to find your wife? It's the most extraordinary
thing I've ever heard of. I must remind you that you and the young lady
now constitute a matter for official inquiry."
Marc clenched his fists tight at his sides. "Oh, Christ!" he wailed.
"At least he's shouting for someone else for a change," the congressman
said complacently. "An erratic type. Subversives usually are, though.
Next he'll be calling for Phillip Morris."
"Poor Marc," Toffee put in appealingly. "He just can't bring himself to
view the end of civilization with the same happy composure the rest of
us do. It upsets him."
"No use fighting the inevitable," the congressman said. "When the whole
country has gone gypsy, you might just as well snatch up your skirts,
so to speak, and join in the innocent merriment."
"Seems a trifle fatalistic," Toffee said. "Sometimes I rather agree
with Marc that you owe it to yourself to resist to the end ... even if
it's only an attitude. It seems more ... human ... somehow."
"Thank you for that much," Marc said with heavy irony. "At least my
attitude pleases you."
"Welcome, I'm sure," Toffee murmured, then turned back to the
congressman. "Tell me, congressman, just who is it that's going to do
all this bomb dropping anyway? I haven't heard any name mentioned yet."
* * * * *
The congressman gazed at her. "You mean you're not really one of them,
after all? You're with another interest?"
"A private concern, you might say," Toffee said.
"Well, it's a good thing we're investigating you then," the congressman
said. "One does like to know who's killing one, you know. It gives you
a clue whom to curse with your dying breath."
"But getting back to these others," Toffee said, "who is it? What
country, I mean?"
"Why, You Know Where, of course," the congressman said.
"I beg your pardon?"
"You Know Where, who else?"
"Did someone put something in my coffee," Toffee asked, "or are you
just being terribly coy about this thing?"
"I'm not being coy at all, damm-it," the congressman said. "You Know
Where is the country."
"Good grief," Toffee said, "now he's lapsing into baby talk. Very well,
congressman, if you can't bring yourself to tell me the name of the
country in a straightforward manner, perhaps you'll just mention the
man who's at the head of it. Just as a hint."
"You Know Who," the congressman said flatly.
For a long moment there was silence as Toffee gazed toward the gardens
with apparent serenity.
"All right, congressman," she said presently. "Just forget the whole
thing. Forget I even mentioned it."
"Come here," the congressman said, drawing a globe atlas forward across
his desk. "I'll show you."
Toffee got up and crossed to the desk. She followed the congressman's
finger as it swept across the United States, brushed aside the Hawaiian
Islands, and came to rest on a large country on the soiled outskirts of
Europe. Quite plainly the country was marked: YOU KNOW WHERE.
"For heaven's sake!" Toffee exclaimed. "Why, that's...!"
"Don't!" the congressman broke in frightenedly. "Don't say that name!
It's illegal. It was the government's idea that we should ignore the
country, refuse to recognize it. It was hoped that if we just didn't
speak to it any more and acted as though we didn't know it was there,
it would go away and leave us alone. The use of the name was outlawed
five years ago. Unfortunately, it's still there so we have to call it
something."
"Very shrewd," Toffee said. "Reminds one of the tactics of sulky
children. And this You Know Who, I suppose, is the head of the
government there?"
* * * * *
The congressman reached across the desk and drew a newspaper toward
them. On the front page was the picture of an elderly man in a short
choke-collar effect. He had penetrating eyes and a drooping mustache.
"Oh," Toffee said, "you mean...!"
"You Know Who," the congressman supplied quickly.
"Of course," Toffee agreed. "Then as I see it the country is faced with
the question of whether You Know Who from You Know Where is going to
drop you know what on the USA?"
"Not whether," the congressman amended, "but when. Otherwise, you have
stated the situation in a nutshell."
"And I can't think of a better place for it either," Toffee murmured.
"Outside of a pecan pie it's the nuttiest situation I've ever heard of."
"Well," the congressman said, "there's nothing to be done about it now.
Unless, of course, your secret weapon has some bearing on the crisis.
But I doubt it. We've piled secret weapon on secret weapon and the
situation has simply worsened with each one. It's very disheartening."
"I see," Toffee reflected. "It makes a murky state of affairs. However,
if you could get people away from the idea of blowing each other up and
reduce them to the oldfashioned, intimate methods of warfare...."
"Oh, Lord!" Marc moaned aggrievedly.
"Well," the congressman sighed, "he's still in the religious cycle at
least."
At that moment the door opened at the far end of the room, and a
heavy-lidded French maid appeared in the opening and leaned exhaustedly
against the sill.
"Someone smeared a French pastry on the woodwork," Toffee commented
dryly.
"I have served the gentlemen in the hall tea for three hours," the maid
sighed, shoving her hair out of her eyes. "They are the devil himself.
They play funloving games, like children." She paused and sighed again.
"Dinner is served, I presume."
The congressman boosted himself out of his chair. "I will speak to
those funloving gorillas in person," he said. He turned to Toffee. "Are
you hungry, my dear?"
"Famished," Toffee said, and looked at Marc. "And you?"
"Yeah," Marc said dolefully. "My wife is gone, my business is ruined,
my world is about to go up in smoke--but what the heck!"
He turned a sardonic eye on the congressman. "Lead on," he said.
"Play, gypsy, play!"
* * * * *
Toffee sat down gingerly on the corner of the bed and surveyed the
congressman's best guest room with voluptuous appreciation. It was a
production in lace and rococo gilt in which the curly-cued, beflounced
bed was lost like a fireworks display in a gaudy sunset. Toffee only
regretted that such splendor, for her part, was only to be wasted.
It was not that she would not have willingly stayed the night there,
had she the choice--but she had not. Being a thought projection of
Marc's conscious mind, she would not exist in the material world when
Marc slept. She had to return to the land of his imagination until
he awoke again; then she would rematerialize wherever she chose. She
looked at the bed, imagined the roseate picture of herself amongst the
linens and laces, and sighed a sigh of regret.
She removed herself from the bed, went to the door and listened. There
were sounds; the guard was still there. The other guard would be posted
at Marc's door.
Toffee glanced at the ornamental clock on the bedstand. It was well
after midnight, and she was still in the land of reality. That meant
that Marc was still awake--and still worrying about Julie--and the
bombs.
She crossed to the bed, sat down as before, and ran her hand absently
over the lace coverlette. Something had to be done to help Marc before
he became a nerve case. It was true that she had gained the attention
of the law makers, but now it seemed that the law makers were as
irresponsible a group as one could wish for. And there might not be
much time left. Something had to be done ... something big ... and in
a hurry. If either side could be made to see the sheer idiocy of the
situation. If, for instance, You Know Where....
Suddenly Toffee stood up.
"My gosh!" she cried. "If I could only...!"
She stopped suddenly and a gasp came to her lips. Even as she did so
her very being seemed to fade a bit.
"Oh, no!" she cried. Then slowly she became more completely
materialized again; Marc had yawned. She ran to the door and threw it
open. Instantly the guard, a youngish ape in a dark suit, appeared
before her.
"Yes, miss?"
"I've got to see Mr. Pillsworth!" Toffee cried. "He's going to sleep
and he mustn't! Not yet." She started forward, but the guard stood firm.
"Sorry, miss," he said. "You're not permitted to see Mr. Pillsworth
tonight."
"But I must!" Toffee cried. "He has to stay awake until...!"
"I'm sorry, miss," the guard said, then looked at Toffee more closely.
"Aren't you feeling well, Miss? You look a trifle pale around the
gills."
"And what's worse," Toffee said, "I _feel_ pale too."
"Well," the guard said helpfully, "I saw an advertisement once about
a lady who recommended a vegetable compound very highly. Of course I
couldn't be positive but I believe the lady's name was Sylvia Pinkham,
or something of the sort. She was a very kind looking old lady...."
* * * * *
"Look," Toffee put in distractedly, "could I go to the study if you
came with me? It's terribly important."
"Well," the guard reckoned, "all right. But don't you think you ought
to lie down. This lady ... Sylvia ... seemed to think that other ladies
should lie down...."
"Blast Sylvia Pinkham," Toffee said. "And blast her compound, too. Come
on. Hurry!"
Together they hastened down the stairs. On the first floor the guard
led the way to the study and switched on the lights. He watched Toffee
with concern as she swept past him into the room.
"My, miss," he said. "You're looking paler every minute. You'll soon be
nothing more than a ghost the way you're going."
Heedless, Toffee ran to the desk. There she reached for the globe and
turned it with a hurried hand. The guard joined her curiously.
"Let's see," Toffee mused. "We're here. You Know Where is there. If you
concentrated in a straight line in that direction...."
"Miss," the guard said softly. "I'm sure Miss Sylvia Pinkham wouldn't
like it at all...."
"And I wouldn't like Miss Sylvia Pinkham at all," Toffee said shortly.
She turned back to the globe. "This must be the capital of You Know
Where, this heavy black dot over here. It is, isn't it?"
"Yes, Miss. But if you're thinking of going there, they won't let you
in, you know. There's the Brass Curtain."
"I thought it was iron," Toffee said.
"It used to be. But after a few dealings with those people everyone
decided it must be brass."
Without comment Toffee snatched up the newspaper and studied the
picture of You Know Who as though she were committing the unlovely
features to memory. Finally she set it aside and turned to the guard.
"There now," she said. "I think I've got everything fairly straight in
mind. There's just one thing. Mr. Pillsworth is going to sleep now.
Don't let him sleep too long--just a little while, then wake him up."
"Are you certain he'll want to...?" the guard began.
"Don't forget," Toffee said positively. "It's a matter of life and
death."
"Well, okay," the guard agreed. "I'll tell him you said...!"
Then, with a gasp, the poor man's voice descended down his throat with
the gritty rattle of a parcel of bones dumped into a disposal. As he
watched, shaken to the very roots of his soul, the girl by the desk
gradually faded into thin air....
* * * * *
Dusk had come to a distant land.
Toffee stood in the formidable square and looked with disfavor on the
great concrete pilings that brooded over the clear area in the center
and isolated it from the waning light of day. Functional architecture,
with frippery--cold, grey and starkly oppressive. Very functional, like
a straight jacket, and just as pleasant to look at.
There were hardly any signs of human life. A couple of men, so grey and
so gross that they seemed only a part of the buildings around them,
lumbered down the steps of the largest and most formidable of the
structures, stopped to look at Toffee curiously, then passed on. Toffee
shrugged and turned toward the building from which they had just come.
The best way to obtain information, after all, was to ask someone for
it. And if those men had just come from the building, life must exist
inside the place in spite of appearances.
She had no more than set foot on the steps of the place, however, than
life suddenly descended upon her in a rush; two grey-uniformed guards,
seemingly patterned very closely on the physical and spiritual makeup
of the gorilla, clumped down the steps toward her with bayonets fixed.
One of them barked something that, to Toffee, had no specific meaning.
The bayonets, pointing in the vicinity of her mid-section, spoke with
great eloquence. Toffee felt keenly that the moment called for a
disarming smile.
"Don't be silly, boys," she said with arch modulation. "There's no
occasion for manly demonstrations."
There was a sputtered, incoherent exchange between the two,
interspersed with moments of silence which allowed them time to stare
in open-mouthed wonderment at the lightly-swathed redhead before them.
Toffee listened to this for what seemed the proper social interval,
then started determinedly forward. The bayonets, however, thrust a
little closer, took all the verve and sweep out of the gesture.
"Now, kids," Toffee said, "I don't want to have to get rough with
you." And so saying she reached out, delicately parted the bayonets,
and passed between them. Their owners, obviously unused to this
open flaunting of the sword, turned to stare after her in petrified
astonishment. After a stunned silence, there ensued a growl-and-spit
interchange of thought on the matter.
Though Toffee had no way of knowing it, one aborigine inquired of the
other if they were eye to eye in the opinion that they were seeing
things. The other replied in the affirmative, adding that if it were
not illegal to entertain such notions, he might venture that they had
just been bypassed by an angel from heaven. Of course, since everyone
knew that heaven and angels did not exist, the notion was silly.
"Nothing descends from heaven but bombs," his companion observed with
native starkness. "The Great Leader has said it is so."
"Then it is so, and we are only the victims of a delusion."
Shrugging their massive shoulders they returned to their posts and
hoped for the best.
* * * * *
Inside the building Toffee found herself confronted by a wide foyer
from which innumerable corridors stretched away in all directions.
Guards of a similar stamp to those who had accosted her on the steps
literally infested the place, two to the corridor. They seemed so
much a part of the sombre decor, however, that Toffee did not notice
them at once. She had proceeded nearly to the center of the room
before, overtaken by a certain feeling of uneasiness, she stopped and
reconnoitered.
As she glanced around, the walls began to bristle with bayonets. She
appraised this nasty state of affairs with concern and decided to adopt
the policy of the congressman and his colleagues. A song on her lips,
if not in her heart, she fixed her eyes straight ahead on the center
corridor and resumed nonchalantly in that direction--perhaps if she
pretended that these bayoneted orangoutangs were beneath her notice
they might go away and leave her alone. They didn't appear to be the
friendly, informative type anyway.
For one brief moment it seemed that the ruse, by dint of sheer
boldness, was going to work. Toffee was almost to the corridor when one
of the benumbed guards suddenly began to vocalize in an overwrought
fashion. In a voice that slammed against the vaulted ceiling like
a trumpet blast he shouted something that sounded loosely like,
"Gamnovitch!" His tone did not convey the feeling of warm welcome.
Toffee, sizing the situation up as the sort that only comes to a head
with delay, bolted.
She darted into the corridor and kept going at a pace that utilized her
lovely legs to the utmost. A noisy clatter from the rear, however, told
her that she was not in the sprint just for exercise. She renewed her
efforts. Then suddenly stopped.
It wasn't so much that the corridor terminated in a huge doorway only
a few yards ahead--though that was bad news enough--the real thing was
that before the door there stood not two but four enormous guards,
supplied like the others with those ugly weapons. The guards and Toffee
caught sight of each other simultaneously, but the really filthy part
of it was that the surprise element in the incident shoved the guards
into action while it only held Toffee motionless.
* * * * *
Toffee needed no one to tell her she was about to be surrounded.
"I _would_ have to get into this place," she sighed. "It must be
a barracks for guards." She watched with resignation as the bulky
bayoneters formed a prickly circle around her. She chose the most
likely-looking of her captors and smiled enchantingly into his sub-ugly
face. But the favored one only reciprocated with a small jabbing
gesture which was enthusiastically picked up and elaborated upon by
his companions. Toffee was the first to realize that the situation was
climbing toward that state which is often described as 'serious.'
"Look out, you lumbering oafs," she said hotly. "You could play hell
with a lady's dainties with that sort of thing."
She considered her ring and the hoard of armed brutes around her; there
were too many of them to deal with effectively. The situation called
for help, and Toffee took her cue from the situation; though she didn't
know the language she was willing to kick it around a bit.
"Helpovitch!" she yelled at the top of her lungs. "Helpovitch!"
The result that followed was as instantaneous as it was unexpected. No
sooner had Toffee's voice split the air of the hallway than the guards
froze where they were and stared at her in a transfix of horror. Toffee
hadn't the faintest notion of what she had said but she was awfully
glad to have said it.
Experimentally she made a movement; the guards remained still. She
stepped out of the circle, and one of the guards made a small movement
of protest.
"Helpovitch, you rat," Toffee said. "You heard me."
The guard remained motionless.