destination, and went rapidly toward it. As she drew abreast of it,
it opened just a crack and an ear presented itself in the opening.
Apparently someone had been disturbed by the noise in the hall. Toffee
leaned forward and placed her mouth close to the ear.
"Helpovitch," she whispered.
There was a moment, then the ear shuddered delicately, after which
it turned red and withdrew quickly from sight. Here, Toffee realized,
was the sort of ear that responded to a firm hand. She shoved the
door open, stepped inside, and closed it behind her. Then she turned
about--and stopped short.
* * * * *
It wasn't so much the room which, large and marbled, was a gasping
matter all in itself--but the room's occupant; the ear had been
misleading for its owner was none other than You Know Who himself.
Between the Great Leader and Toffee there wasn't much to choose for
goggle-eyed surprise. Toffee, however, was the first to recover from
the encounter.
"Well," she said, "just the old villain I'm looking for!"
The Great Leader, his eyes retreating back into their sockets, set
his mustache atremble with a great sucking breath and launched into a
series of resonant sounds.
"Knock it off," Toffee commanded. "You're making a fog in here.
Besides, I can't understand a word of that juicy jazz."
"So!" the Leader exploded. "Who iss? How you got har, hah?"
"Well," Toffee murmured relievedly, "at least you can speak
English--using the language loosely, that is."
"How come you har, hey?" the Leader insisted truculently. "Why not
soldiers kill you forst?"
"They had it in mind," Toffee said, "but I just said 'helpovitch' to
them, and they dropped the whole thing."
"Vooman!" the Leader gasped. "You say soch dorty vord it is only
sooprise soldiers do not drop teeth along with thing!" He waved his
hand. "Go vay, dorty gorl! Screm!"
"For Pete's sake!" Toffee said. "What does the word mean?"
"Don't ask!" the Leader gasped, throwing up his hands. "You make me
drop whole thing, too! Go vay or I call soldiers and tall tham shoot
you all over--oop!--down!" He started toward the door. "Tarrible gorl!"
"Hold it, Cecil," Toffee said. "You touch that door and I'll pull off a
shindig that'll make you sad all over."
The Leader stopped and regarded her uncertainly. "You American vooman
spy, hah?" he demanded. "You think you smart. Vell, you be dad soon,
vhat you think, hay?"
"I think you're going to be reasonable and do what I say, hey," Toffee
answered firmly. "Either that or you're going to get the surprise of
your life."
"Who iss you anyway?"
"An avenging angel," Toffee said. "That'll do for now."
"Nonsanse!" the Leader snorted. "No soch thing angel. Anyvay, angel
vould not say dorty vords, make soldiers drop things."
"Okay," Toffee said, "so I'm no angel. You're right there, pop. But I'm
avenging, and don't you forget it."
* * * * *
A new thought crossed the seething mind of the Leader. "You know who
you talk to so mean?"
"Sure, Mac," Toffee said. "I know you."
"Than I tall you drop dad, you gotta do it, hah?"
"Huh-uh," Toffee said, shaking her head. "And let's have no more sass
about killing people. Now let's get down to brass doorpulls...."
But just at that moment the soldiers outside not only got down to
doorpulls, but pulled them: the room began to swarm.
"If I'd knew you were coming," Toffee said, "I'd have baked a snake."
Nevertheless, she retreated warily. The guards paused uncertainly
before her and started babbling among themselves.
"Now!" the Leader said triumphantly.
But Toffee pointed imperiously to the gabby guards. "What are those
birds saying about me?" she demanded. "I've got a right to know."
The Leader paused to listen, then nodded with comprehension.
"Forst man say he think you foreign spy because you look nothing like
voomans from this country. Other man say he's right because if you var
from here you vould haf thick lags like his wife who iss von big slob.
Forst man say he can say that again for his vife who iss so big slob
you gotta say it twice to describe her." The Leader paused to consider
this exchange and suddenly smote his brow. "Hey!" he exclaimed. "Now
iss clear! You deganerate product of America sant har to make men
unrastful with slobbish female population. So!"
"It's a side-line I hadn't thought of," Toffee said and smiled
engagingly at the guards. "But if you think it'll work...."
"Iss no good you viggle around and look saxy," the Leader put in
sullenly. "You gonna get shot good, you deganerate boopsy daisy." He
turned to the guards and shouted an order which had but one meaning in
any language. The men instantly formed a single rank with mechanical
precision and raised their rifles toward Toffee, albeit with a certain
gleam of reluctance in their eyes.
"Now you gonna gat it," the Leader said.
But Toffee only smiled. "I've told you," she said, "I'm an avenging
angel. And we angels are practically indestructible."
"Ve see," the Leader snorted. "So!" He turned to the guards and barked
an order that touched off a confusion of explosion and gun smoke.
In the moment that ensued, as the smoke settled, there was a tense
silence. This was followed by a many-throated cry of alarm.
Toffee, still smiling, and completely unscathed, stepped lightly
through the screen of smoke and presented herself to the company at
large.
"What would you like for an encore?" she asked.
She did not bother, of course, to explain that she could not possibly
be destroyed as long as Marc's mind held the image of her as a live
being. She would always be just as Marc imagined her and he quite
evidently was not thinking of her as dead at the moment.
* * * * *
As she moved forward, the guards took a faltering step backwards. Then,
as a man, they turned and fled the room, slamming the door after them.
Toffee shrugged lightly, turned and gazed about. The Leader was no
longer in evidence. She paused to consider briefly, then crossed to the
large desk in the center of the room, and bent down to peer underneath.
"You may as well come out," she said. "I see you."
The Leader's head appeared apprehensively in the opening. "Go vay," he
said. "Vhy you not dad? You crazy?"
"Crawl out of there, Sam," Toffee commanded. "Loosen that tight collar
of yours and get set for a lesson in future history. You can frolic
about on the floor later."
Slowly the great man emerged and stood before her. Toffee's refusal to
die or even get decently dented had shaken him to the very foundations.
Furtively he eyed the bullet-scarred wall.
"Shame," Toffee said. "You've been naughty, Jasper. Sit down."
He did as he was told, looking as though he might burst into tears at
any moment. "Vhy you not dad lak hangnail?" he insisted. "You got an
iron gordle?"
"I simply can't be killed," Toffee said. "I just can't seem to bring
myself around to a serious frame of mind about guns and knives and that
sort of trash. Which leads me to the problem at hand. I've got a plan
for you, kiddo, and though it won't take five years, we've got to shake
a leg." She glanced at the row of buttons and the speaker on the desk.
"You know what you're going to do?"
"No," the Leader said warily. "Vhat?"
"You're going to start pressing those buttons, one at a time, from
right to left. You're going to talk to all the big shots wired to those
buttons and you're going to order the country demobilized, tonight."
"Hah?" the Leader said. "And since vhen?"
"Right now," Toffee said. "You are going to have every bomb and every
facility for making bombs blown to dust in the cool of the night. Every
piece of live ammunition in the country is going to be laid to rest.
By your order. So get busy and start having the danger areas cleared."
The Leader only stared at her in blinking disbelief.
"Voop!" he burped with deep emotion.
"And what is the meaning of that remark?" Toffee asked.
"Means you iss goofy. Means you got bats in the bonnet."
"And you're going to have ants in the pants if you don't start
pressing your moist little finger to those buttons." Toffee eyed him
humorlessly. "Are you going to start pressing or aren't you? You've had
the word."
"I'm waste no more time talking foolish with dorty, saxy dame like
you," the Leader said petulantly. He got up and started determinedly
toward the door. "I call new guards and have them carry you avay."
"I warned you," Toffee said, raising her hand tentatively. "You'll
regret it."
* * * * *
But the Leader, unintimidated, continued toward the door. He had just
reached out to open it when Toffee brought her hand down quickly over
the face of the ring. Events proceeded according to expectations.
[Illustration: As Toffee aimed the magic ring, You Know Who suddenly
sprawled across the desk with a howl of pained surprise!]
"Halpovitch!" the Leader screamed, and plumped down heavily on the
floor. "Oi!" Following the pattern of his forerunners he slapped his
hands to his bottom and hugged himself into a knot of pulsating agony.
A stream of highly charged verbiage sullied the air.
"You kick me in restricted, top secret area!" he wailed.
"Not exactly," Toffee said. "Though it's a shame. So many people have
longed to." She moved closer to her distressed victim. "Going to start
punching buttons? If you do I'll take the heat off."
"No!" the Leader gritted pettishly. "I ponch you in nose!"
"I see," Toffee said. "Suppose I call those guards back in here and let
them see you like this? In no time at all the news will get around that
the Great Leader has gone off his rocker and is snapping at his own
bottom like a beagle after ham hock. A fine laughing stock you'll make,
won't you?"
"No!" the Leader pleaded. "No! Oh, soch a pain!"
"Then suppose we have a little friendly cooperation around here?"
"Hokay!" the Leader cried. "I can't stand it no longer!"
Toffee made a pass at the ring and the Leader, after a moment of
adjustment, arose.
"How you do soch rotten thing?" he asked.
"You haven't got all the secret weapons," Toffee said. "That's one your
agents missed. Now hop to it and start thumbing those discs."
Shaking his head which was heavy with disillusion, the Leader made
his way shakily to the desk. He looked at Toffee, then reached for the
first of the buttons.
"Don't double cross me," Toffee said, raising her hand. "If you do
you'll writhe in agony for the rest of your days."
"Hokay," the Leader said and pressed the button. A moment later a voice
answered distantly.
"Halpovitch!" the Leader yelled at the top of his lungs. Instantly
Toffee made the necessary gesture, and for the second time the great
man assumed the position, placing his equipment as he went. He was
moaning low in every sense of the word.
"I warned you," Toffee said. "Trickery will get you nothing but a pain
in the terminus."
"All right!" the Leader groaned. "Stop it! I poosh buttons! I poosh 'em
twice apiece! I do what you say like a liddle lamb."
Toffee manipulated the ring, and again the Leader picked himself up
from the floor. "Let's stop this horseplay," she said, "and get going."
"Horseplay!" the Leader exclaimed, advancing his finger to the buttons.
"Horses vhat play mean like you should be on the backs of postage
stamps."
* * * * *
It was nearly an hour later when the Leader released the last button
and sagged back in his chair, a broken man.
"Iss all," he said. "You have louse up averything. They all say I am
insane, but they gonna do it anyhow 'cause I tell 'em, the dumbells.
Over-regimented, they are, like a lot of stupid machines."
Toffee glanced out the window at the now-darkened square. "The
fireworks should be starting soon, if they're as efficient as you say."
She turned back to the Leader. "Is there any way to get to the top of
this pile of concrete where we'll have a better view?"
"Opp stairs, sure," the Leader said dully. "Who vants to see?"
"Come on," Toffee said. "This is going to be _worth_ seeing, all that
advanced gun powder going up in smoke."
"Hokay," the Leader agreed brokenly. "Who cares now?"
Toffee watched him carefully as he opened a drawer in the desk and slid
his hand inside. It was a moment before he extracted a large bottle of
vodka.
"For the medicinal purposes only," he explained ruefully. "And I am the
sick buckeroo of them all."
Toffee smiled. "Let's get to the top, pop," she said amiably. "Let's
tie one on."
* * * * *
Though it occurred miles away, the explosion shook even the solid
foundations of the capitol building. Toffee and the leader watched with
awe as the whole world, it seemed, suddenly screamed with white fire.
The Leader was forced to cling to Toffee for support, and Toffee clung
to the bottle strictly as a precaution.
"Beautiful," Toffee breathed as the building ceased to shudder. "It's
beautiful to see all that death and destruction destroying itself.
Makes you think of those scorpions who sting themselves in the neck
when they're mad."
And if the explosions constituted an item of beauty for Toffee, the
night was filled to overflowing with the gaudy stuff. The explosions,
near and far, continued through the night. Toffee and the despairing
Leader sat on the edge of a functional parapet and toasted each new
blast with vodka and conflicting emotions.
Below them people churned bewilderedly in the streets like a rising and
falling tide. A faint thread of dawn touched the horizon just as the
last explosion shuddered across the land.
"Iss all," the Leader mourned soddenly. "All iss gone. You haf made me
a tired old man."
"That's all you ever were," Toffee said almost kindly. "You were
foolish to try to be anything else." She patted him on the head with
groggy sympathy. "I've got a feeling I've got to be running along now.
But there's just one more thing before I go...."
"Iss all. Iss all," the Leader moaned. "Iss no more."
"No, not that. All I want to know is what does helpovitch mean?"
The old man lolled his head to one side and looked at her lopsidedly
from the corner of his eye. "Iss native slang vord meaning 'democracy.'
Iss very dorty vord."
And then, as his beautiful tormentor vanished into thin air, he toppled
from his perch on the wall and sprawled flat on his back.
The enemy, a bottle cradled protectively in his arms, had fallen....
* * * * *
Marc had fought the battle against sleep to the last ditch, and there
had tripped and fallen squarely into the waiting arms of Morpheus.
The sounds, the drone and buzz of Congress, swirled away into limbo
and mercifully died. Marc was no longer among those present at the
ridiculous investigation.
The only way Marc had been able to go to sleep the previous night was
to take as many sleeping tablets as possible, and then a couple more.
When Congressman Bloodsop had managed finally to awaken him and to tell
him of Toffee's disappearance, it was a long while before he was able
to appraise the situation rightly; that Toffee had simply transferred
her activities to some other seat of operations, so to speak. Then,
once this had soaked into his benumbed brain, it occurred to him that
it constituted an ideal state of affairs. With the volatile redhead
out of the picture there was an even chance that he would be able to
extricate himself from the mess she had created for him and find his
way back to Julie.
To accomplish this end he had only to stay awake so that Toffee could
not put in an untimely appearance--no mean accomplishment considering
the sleeping tablets fermenting in his system. Now he contributed to
the congressional activities with a resonant snore.
"And do you persist, Mr. Pillsworth, in the absurd assertion that you
did not aid in the escape of the young woman known as Toffee? _Mr.
Pillsworth!_"
Marc stirred and opened his eyes as his name penetrated his awareness.
"Eh?" he yawned, then sat up abruptly as a current of horror flashed
up his spine. What chilled him more than the reproving tone and the
baleful eye was the realization that he had been asleep. He glanced
away from the fuming chairman and subjected the room to a wary search.
It was on the return sweep that his most awful expectations burst
abloom. Toffee, looking for all the world like an abandoned torch
singer on the corner of a piano, was sitting on the outer edge of the
podium, one hand poised rakishly on a well-curved hip. She surveyed
the assemblage with unmistakable disappointment. Throughout the room
several hot games of tick-tack-toe were summarily abandoned as grey,
greying, bald and balding heads snapped back in uncharacteristic
attitudes of attention. The members of Congress, acting sharply against
precedent, sat up and took note of the business at hand.
* * * * *
Since no one else spoke, Toffee took the initiative. "So this is a body
of men, is it?" she sneered. "I've seen better bodies on Model T's."
The Chair eyed her with a definite lack of warmth.
"My dear young woman," the Chair said, glaring coldly through his
glasses. "Just what do you think you're doing?"
"I'm here to be investigated," Toffee said, jauntily crossing her legs.
"Get out the tape measure and heave to."
Marc pressed his hands to his temples and sank lower in his seat.
"What!" the Chair said. "You're the young woman known as Toffee?"
"The same," Toffee said complacently. "The very same."
"How did you get there on the stand all of a sudden?"
"Ask me no questions," Toffee said, "and you'll reduce the lie
expectancy by at least fifty percent."
Marc's forlorn moan was lost as the Chair cleared his throat. He
flicked a pencil in Marc's direction. "Take your place over there with
your confederate, please."
"Sure," Toffee said. Abandoning her perch, she leaped lightly to the
floor and shoved off in Marc's direction, pausing on the way to pat
Congressman Bloodsop on the head. The congressman winked at her,
withdrew the pocket flask which had been affixed to his mouth and wiped
his lips genteelly on the back of his hand.
"Government," Toffee observed, settling herself happily at Marc's side,
"is much the same the world over--full of medicinal purposes."
"Why did you have to show up now?" Marc asked sourly. "They'd have
called the whole thing off in another few minutes."
"That's what I like," Toffee said, patting his hand, "a rousing welcome
from the one you left behind."
Marc withdrew his hand frigidly and resisted a yawn. "Now we're right
back in the same old soup."
Toffee scanned the Congress with a sweeping glance. "Don't tell me
you're afraid of this collection of old nincompoops?" she scoffed.
She pointed to a bemused, bald-pated individual across the way who was
engaged to the last nerve in the business of engraving a pierced heart
in the top of the table in front of him. Across from this exhibit sat a
lank citizen who was quietly strumming a guitar and chanting a ballad
which had to do with a lonesome cowboy whose horse was dead, house was
burned, well was dry, range was barren, and he himself was suffering
from pernicious anemia--which individual, nonetheless, wished to assure
his faithless sweetheart that she was not to worry for a minute that
his affairs were anything other than tickety-boo and that he would
'git' along somehow.
* * * * *
Marc observed these examples of high-minds-at-work with a wry face.
"That's just the trouble," he grieved, "they're completely irrational.
Heaven knows what they might take a fancy to do to us. Your entrance
didn't help any, you know."
"Nonsense," Toffee said. "They're just a bunch of harmless children."
"So harmless," Marc snorted, "they've danced the whole nation right
down the path to extinction."
"Oh, that," Toffee said, smiling secretively. "I wouldn't worry about
that. I wouldn't waste the time."
"Oh, you wouldn't, wouldn't you?" Marc said annoyedly. "Well, let me
remind you, Miss Cotton Brain, that you're subject to the laws of
extinction just as much as the rest of us. When I die you go with me,
you know, and after the way you've messed up my final hours I will
consider it a pleasure to perish just to get even with you. I will
laugh as the bombs come crashing down on my roof."
"You're doing me a terrible injustice," Toffee said.
At this point their conversation was abruptly concluded by a heavy
rapping from the Chair.
"The Chair addresses the young woman known as Toffee."
"If I'm known as Toffee," Toffee snapped, "then call me Toffee. Stop
making me sound like some loose-moraled hussy slinging her hips around
in a Klondike saloon."
"Just remain seated," the Chair said severely, "and speak into the
microphone on the table. There are some questions for you to answer
before we proceed."
Toffee eyed the Chair with raised eyebrows. "Okay," she said. "Shoot."
She turned to Marc. "Stop nudging me."
"First of all," the Chair said. "Please make a statement of your
political affiliations."
"Political affiliations?" Toffee said, completely bewildered. "If you
mean have I ever had anything to do with politicians, I haven't. I
might as well say that I think all politicians are a bunch of bums."
She turned again to Marc. "Are you ill, dear? Why are you making that
awful choking noise?"
Marc repeated the awful choking noise, and the Chair rattled for
attention. The Chair also glowered through its glasses.
"What the committee wants to know is which political philosophy do you
embrace?"
"None of them," Toffee said. "I wouldn't touch any of them with a
pole, much less clasp them to my bosom as you suggest. Aren't you
getting a little lewd with all this talk about embracing?"
"Let's put it another way," the Chair said with strained patience. "Of
which nation are you a citizen?"
"Why, none of them, of course," Toffee said. "Not that they wouldn't
have me, you understand...."
* * * * *
Precisely at this point a door behind the Chair burst open, and a
small, musty individual in shirt sleeves hurled himself into the room.
"It's come!" he piped. "It's come!"
"Has someone been praying for rain?" Toffee asked innocently.
The Chair rattled frenziedly. "Just what is it that's important enough
to justify this outburst?"
"The news!" the little man jibbered. "I was working down in the
Intelligence Department just now...."
"I wondered where they keep all the intelligence around here," Toffee
said. "I didn't know they had a department for it."
"Shut up, can't you?" Marc hissed. "You've made enough enemies already
to last us out a lifetime."
"You Know Where!" the little man screeched. "You Know Where!"
A murmur of apprehension moved through the room.
"They've attacked?" the Chair asked quickly. "Has the attack begun?
Speak up, man!" Then without waiting for a reply, he turned to the
gathering at large. "I will now lead you all in prayer."
"No!" the little man cried. "No, no!"
"You don't want us to pray, you nasty little atheist?"
"No!" the little man cried. "Yes! I don't care! But there isn't any
attack! There isn't going to be one! You Know Where was demobilized
last night. It's a positive miracle! Our agents report rumors about a
religious revival going on there. Everyone is talking about an angel
with red hair who appeared to the Leader and...."
Marc turned sharply to Toffee with the look of a man who has just been
stung by a bee.
"You...!"
"Uh-huh," Toffee said. "We had quite a romp last night, the Leader and
I." She spoke through a pandemonium of cheering, crashing bottles and
mad guitar music.
"Oh, bury me not on the lone prar-ee!" the lanky Congressman chortled
besottedly. "Where the coyotes howl 'cause there's no whisk-ee!"
The Chair added to the din in behalf of a moment of silence and
received just a moment.
"Let's knock off for the day," a voice yelled, "and get drunk!"
"We did that yesterday," the Chair said. "We have to think of
appearances once in a while, you know. Besides, this new development
puts a whole new face on things. It calls for action."
"What about me?" Toffee yelled. "I insist on being investigated."
"Please be quiet, young woman," the Chair said. "You're no longer
needed here."
"Thank heavens!" Marc sighed. "Come on, let's leave."
"Certainly not," Toffee said. "I have other business to take care of."
"Oh, no!" Marc cried, and slumped exhaustedly into his chair. "I'm too
tired for any more!"
"We must realize," the Chair was saying, "that an opportunity has
been placed in our hands. The enemy is helpless. _Now is the time to
strike!_"
* * * * *
There was a pause while this sank in, and then the cheering and
rough-housing began again with greater vigor.