by Gary K. Wolf
Mutt, the little scamp, had taken to riding along with me in my sport coat’s side pocket. He hopped out. He scampered over to garbage mountain. Mutt unerringly picked Louie Louie’s BANG balloon gingerly off the top of the new deposit. He ran back to me, the BANG balloon in his mouth, his tail wagging.
I patted Mutt on the head. “For a mangy mongrel, you ain’t half bad.”
I shook the BANG balloon free of trash and gave it a gander.
“That it?” asked Cooper.
“Judging by the rest of the trash—” I saw Bruce’s shark bones. “—that’d be my guess. We’ll know for sure after we compare this balloon to the BANG balloon in Sands’s photo.”
Roger came out of the pile with another armload of garbage. “This is tons of fun. I could stay here forever!”
Ma Belle was Toontown’s most loquacious telephone booth. Ma used her abnormally large ears to listen in on every Toontown conversation.
Hiya, Ma,” I said to her. “How they ringing?”
“Long and loud,” she answered. “Sometimes shrill and tinny. Haven’t seen you in a while, Eddie. What brings you around?”
To put Ma in context, you gotta understand that there’s only one telephone number in Toontown. Toontown Ought Zero Cipher Null Blank Naught Goose Egg. That turns the whole town into one big party line.
Ma listened in on every conversation. She knew everybody’s business.
“I’m looking for information.”
“I got plenty of that.” She lifted her snaky handset off its hook and pointed the handset at a pile of word balloons on the floor of her booth. “I hear everything, and I save what’s interesting.”
“Hear anything about Clabber Clown?”
“Funny you should mention that. I been hearing lots lately.”
“You wanna share?”
“Please deposit thirty five cents for five minutes.”
Her rates had gone up. Used to be a dime. I didn’t have any change. “You got any coins?” I asked Cooper.
He reached into his pocket. He pulled out a thick wad of bills, no silver. He shook his head.
“Sands, gimme thirty five cents.”
Sands was back to being beltless. He had to bend over and reach way down to ankle level to get into his pocket.
Roger, with his third grade sense of humor, couldn’t resist. He put up a balloon reading “I see insects, I see bees. I see Barney’s knocky knees.”
I fed the coins into Ma Belle.
They clanked into her box.
“The police got a report that Clabber Clown had been murdered. It came from…” she waved her handset in my direction. “…you. Chief Hanker never followed up. Within the past twenty-four hours Clabber Clown has been spotted at a hundred places in Toontown. Chief Hanker has been spreading the word around that there’s a movie production company in town playing practical jokes, trying to make the police look bad. He’s not a happy cop.”
She put up a word balloon with a single wavy line, what passes in Toontown for a dial tone. “Your money’s run out, your time’s up. No need to put in more cause that’s all I know.”
“Chief Hanker wouldn’t do that,” said Roger. “He’s the Chief of Police. He’s sworn to uphold the law and bring lawbreakers to justice. He wouldn’t go accusing the accuser of being a lawbreaker himself.”
“One way to find out,” I said. “Call him. Tell him we want our picture back.”
“I’m gonna do just that,’ said Roger. “I’m gonna call him and get our picture back.”
I had a hunch how that conversation would go. I didn’t want to be involved, and wind up inside Hanker’s doghouse wearing a choke chain.
None of us had any more change. Ma Belle let us make the call on credit. She figured what we said would be good for gossip.
The desk sergeant put Roger straight through to Chief Hanker.
“Hi, Chief,” said Roger. “This is Roger Rabbit.”
“You got some nerve, rabbit,” said Chief Hanker. “Sending me off on a wild goose chase.”
Roger put his hand over the mouthpiece. “I didn’t send him off chasing gooses.”
“A figure of speech,” I said.
“Go figure,” said Roger. He took his hand off the mouthpiece. “I wanna come by and get my picture back.”
“Impossible. I burned that phony picture to ashes,” said Chief Hanker. “Which is exactly what I’ll do to you, you miserable little coney, if I ever catch you tricking me again.”
Chapter Nine
I was stuck with Sands, Cooper, and the rabbit. I didn’t need Miss Ethyl. She was nothing but one more annoyance. From now on, I would handle the driving myself.
Sands’s Henry J handled surprisingly well as I drove back to the hotel via The Highway to Heaven.
We passed by Holy Woods, a grove of sky high sequoia trees, and site of Toontown’s three churches: Church of the Early Morning Saints, open at 6 a.m.; Church of the Mid-Afternoon Saints; open at 4 p.m., and Church of the Latter Day Saints, open sooner or latter.
All three had signboards in front advertising a special on Etoonal Life.
A few years back, I had spent a lot of time in Holy Woods. Part of a big embezzlement case. I brought down Holy Smokes, a wispy evangelist who supported his extravagant lifestyle by pilfering his congregation’s coffers. Woods was currently breaking big rocks into little rocks at Sing Song, a prison that knows how to hold a Toon.
“I can’t believe the police won’t help us,” said Roger. “We show them a picture of a murder, and they ignore us.”
“Clabber was right,” I said. “Toontown cops are as crooked as a snaggle’s tooth.”
“I’m stumped,” said Roger. “What do we do now? We’ve reached the end of our rope, the end of our road, the end of our resources.”
“Can’t you ever just one time say what you want to say in a simple declarative sentence? Do you always have to amplify everything?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Roger. “I’m clueless, without a clue, have no clue, less clued.”
As soon as this case was over, I was gonna celebrate by treating myself to a fried rabbit dinner with all the trimmings.
“When we get back to the hotel, I’m gonna look inside Clabber’s balloon.”
Roger’s eyes widened to the circumference of Delft serving platters. “You can’t do that,” he said. “We promised Clabber we wouldn’t open his balloon.”
“Naw, we didn’t. Remember what he said?”
Roger hinged open the top of his pointy head and flipped through his memory card file of word balloons. Eventually he found Clabber’s last words. He plucked them out and read them aloud, producing a word balloon identical to the one he held. “‘You hang on to this balloon. If something happens to me, you use what’s in there to set things right.’”
A light bulb went on above the rabbit’s head. This time the bulb stayed on. “Something did happen to him. Let’s open and read the balloon.”
Another light bulb flashed on indicating the rabbit had an idea about his previous idea. I’ve seen Toons put up half a dozen of these. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
I gave Roger a taste of his own why-say-it-once-when-you-can-say-it-three-different-ways rhetoric. “Because you’re thick as a brick? Dense as a fence? Sappy as a nappy?”
“Right!” said Roger, proving my point.
At least I think he proved my point.
Like Roger’s light bulbs illuminating other light bulbs, I lost track of what went where.
I opened the dresser drawer where I had stashed Clabber’s balloon.
The balloon was gone.
Mutt hopped inside the empty drawer. He spun around in a couple of tight circles, settled in and went to sleep. I pulled a pillow off my
bed and threw it in with him, but the pillow landed on top of him. I reached in and switched their positions: Mutt on top, pillow on the bottom.
Wouldn’t want the little guy to accidentally suffocate.
I returned my attention to my comrades.
Sands gazed up at the ceiling and whistled a current pop ditty softly under his breath How Much Is That Doggy In The Window?
Cooper studied the room service menu. “Hot dog,” he said.
Roger smiled broadly. “Awww, Eddie. You got a soft spot for the little guy.”
“I got no soft spot. I hate dogs and anything related to dogs. I’m only keeping the little flea basket because, because…” I didn’t have a good reason. “Just because. Anybody got a problem with that?”
“Nope,” said Cooper.
“Whatever you say,” said Sands.
“Awww, Eddie,” said Roger. “That’s sooooo sweet.”
“We got a big problem, gents,” I told my cohorts. “Clabber’s balloon has gone missing.”
I pointed to Sands. “Check the negative you used to make the photo of Clabber’s murder.”
Sands went to his room. He came back a few moments later, shaking his head. “That’s gone, too.”
“Roger, put up a picture balloon showing what you saw in The Roamin’ Baths.”
The balloon came out large enough, the size of a home movie screen, but blurry, like his mind’s eye needed a new pair of glasses. Maybe Roger was upset, or distracted. Maybe he was unfocused, not thinking clearly.
“It’s Clabber,” said Roger. “I’d recognize that big red nose and those red circle cheeks and those Dumbo-sized ears anywhere.”
He was thinking fine, showing me exactly what he’d seen. A clown walking through a thick haze of steam.
“That what you saw?” I asked Cooper.
“Sure is.”
“Both of you take another look. Closer this time.”
The two of them circled around Roger’s picture balloon, examining the image from every angle.
“You can’t ever see his face,” I pointed out to them. “He’s real clever. He always keeps his face hidden.”
“Humm, yeah,” said Cooper.
“You’re right, Eddie,” said Roger. “You can’t see his face!”
That’s an imposter,” I said. “Somebody who wants us to believe he’s Clabber.”
“This is confusing,” said Roger.
“That’s why we call this a mystery.”
“Good thing you’re the world’s best mystery solver,” said Roger in a balloon the shape of a magnifying glass.
I couldn’t resist the pun. “We’ll see.”
We drove behind the Toontown Trolley all the way out to Old Mac Donald’s Funny Farm, the last stop on the Trolley’s Punch Line.
The Funny Farm grew and cultivated jokes. The Farm’s jokes came on pre-uttered balloons and sold for a nickel apiece, five for a dollar. Those economics didn’t add up, but this was Toontown where almost nothing made sense.
Roger had devoted a couple of pages to The Funny Farm in his Gossipy Guide. He gave us a rundown on our way out.
“Once upon a time, Old Mac Donald starred in black and white cartoons, always playing a farmer,” said Roger. “Perfect type casting since he really was a farmer. His straight man wasn’t a man at all. He was a cow.”
Roger showed us a picture of Old Mac Donald and his straight cow. They were onstage in a vaudeville show, playing bumpkin music on a washboard and a saw, while tap dancing. One look at that ridiculous act, and I will never again question why vaudeville died.
“When Old Mac retired from acting, the studio gave him the bossy as a present. They told him to take her back to his farm. Turn her into steaks or burgers.”
Roger flipped a page in his book. He showed us a picture of Old Mac and the cow both sitting in rocking chairs on the porch of Old Mac’s farm. “Old Mac kept the moo juicer. He refused to butcher her,” said Roger. “He said he wouldn’t feel right pulling the final curtain on a fellow actor.”
We arrived at the Funny Farm.
I saw rows and rows of word balloons popping out of the ground, each containing a fresh joke.
“I come here a lot to pick my material,” said Roger.
So did half the comedians in Hollywood, judging from the harvesters. I saw Laurel and Hardy, the Three Stooges, Abbott and Costello, Martin and Lewis, and a newcomer named Milton Berle walking the fields, shaking the bushes.
We had come here because Old Mac employed Tweeter, Catman’s adopted nephew, as a general handybird.
Roger didn’t have to pull out his Guidebook and explain to me how Tweeter fit into Toontown lore.
I knew.
Once upon a time, Tweeter flew combat missions with Captain Eddie Ricketyback’s American Patrol. Tweeter shot down a whole flock of German Vultures to became World War I’s youngest ace. The press dubbed him the Beaked Battler and the Winged Warrior.
When he mustered out of the Army Air Corps, Tweeter went to work with his uncle Catman fighting crime.
Tweeter had a high-flying career. He swooped in on scores of scourges and dive bombed multitudes of miscreants.
The strain of all those double chandelles eventually sheared a few blades off his propeller. He lost his bearings.
Catman removed Tweeter from the front line flight line. Catman’s buddy, Old Mac, put Tweeter out to pasture.
We found Tweeter sitting alone out in an old joke field. He was no longer the proud warbird featured on Air Corps recruiting posters. His arthritic wings stooped off his saggy shoulders. What few of his feathers that hadn’t molted away had lost their fluff. Corns covered his once mighty talons. His formerly jauntily jutting beak curled around and into itself like an ingrown nail.
Tweeter had constructed a birds nest out of old jokes that had fallen flat. The nest held a large ceramic egg. Tweeter sat on top of the egg.
Roger knew the bird from a USO show he, Jessica, and Tweeter had done together back in the day. He made the introductions. “Tweeter,” said Roger, “remember me? Roger Rabbit?”
“Rabbit, you say? Roger Rabbit?” Tweeter’s eyesight was more iffy-iffy than twenty-twenty. He touched his cataract-covered black eyeball to the tip of Roger’s nose. “Sure, I remember you. You’re the lucky bunny married to that hot-bodied red-headed chickadee. That woman’s got bigger breasts than a brace of turkeys.” Tweeter’s balloon had a hanging appendage which at first I took for a wattle. On closer inspection I saw this wattle wasn’t the kind to wattle under a birdy beak. This wattle would waddle between a pair of juicy thighs.
“Okie dokie,” said Roger, in a balloon that fell to Earth faster than a shattered image. “I’d like you to meet some friends of mine. This is Eddie Valiant, Mister Barney Sands, and Gary Cooper.”
Cooper gave the bird’s wingtip the gentle, respectful shake you’d bestow on the King of England.
“Big fan,” said Cooper. In his first major starring role, the movie Wings, Cooper played a character based on Tweeter.
“Likewise,” said Tweeter. He bowed his head and scratched his claw in the dirt, the canary version of saying “Aw, shucks!” and kicking a cow clod. “I’m honored to meet you face to face. Or maybe I mean face to beak. I don’t know what I mean.”
“Still flying?” asked Cooper.
“Naw, not so much anymore. The old guidance system broke down. When I go airborne, I have to tailgate other birds to keep from getting lost. That maneuver has a nasty tendency to backfire. Embarrassing for a flyer with my war record to crash to the sidewalk because I followed a sparrow into a department store window.”
Tweeter stood up. He rotated his egg a quarter turn and sat back down on top.
“What’s with the egg?” I asked Roger, speaking ou
t of the side of my mouth.
Roger responded with a little balloon. He caught and cupped the balloon in his hands, then opened his fingers a smidgen. By bending over and squinting, I was able to read what he said. “Tweeter’s gone a tad senile. He’s regressed to childhood. He’s playing with dolls.”
“That’s an egg.”
“Well, sure. He’s a bird!”
I got peeved by the normal idiocy of Toontown. I wasn’t anxious to interrogate a batty bird. Roger, on the other hand, could talk stupid with the best of them.
“Roger, you ask the questions this round.”
Roger snapped to as straight a posture of attention as a loose-limbed rabbit could. “You bet. Don’t worry. I won’t let you down.” Roger reached out his arms to Tweeter. “Can I hold your baby?”
“Sure.”
I discovered one thing I had in common with a Toon. Tweeter treated his doll the same way my father treated his real live son.
With careless disdain.
Tweeter stood and picked up his egg. He tossed Roger the egg the same way he would have thrown him a football.
Taken by surprise, Roger fumble-fingered the egg a little bit before making the catch. He cuddled the egg to his chest and caressed the egg’s larger end. “Beautiful child. Boy or girl!”
“Too early to tell. I’ll know for sure next week. I’m having my egg candled.”
“We talked to your uncle Catman,” said Roger.
“Who?” asked Tweeter.
“Catman. You know. You and him used to be crime fighters together.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Tweeter. “Uncle Catman. He tried to eat me once, you know.”
I always suspected that might be the way Catman pounced. Older man, younger boy. You had to wonder.
Turned out the real story didn’t play quite that way.
“He got high on catnip one night. Tried to eat me for dinner like some common bird he caught out in the front yard. What kind of way is that for a crimefighter to treat his partner? How is the old tomcat? He used to come see me a lot. He hardly comes around at all anymore.”