by Gary K. Wolf
Cooper brought the magazine closer to his nose. “I’m good.”
The receptionist told Roger she could squeeze him in. As with so many things Toon, her statement was quite literal. A hare stylist sprayed Roger’s ears with hare stiffener then squeezed Roger’s ears straight between two huge wooden furniture clamps.
A manicurist came up to Roger. “Can I do your nails?”
“You could if I had any,” Roger told her. He extended his four fingered, nail-less yellow mitts.
“No problem,” she said. “I do your kind all the time.”
The manicurist took out a can of yellow semi-gloss enamel and a tiny paint roller. She slapped two coats on Roger’s yellow paws.
I figured I might as well take advantage of the facilities myself.
I sprung for a shampoo, rinse, blow dry, head massage, ear cleaning and trim for Mutt.
After an hour or so of nothing doing, I was beginning to wonder why Jessica had brought us here.
Then the door opened and Honey Graham walked in.
Honey stood in the doorway, framed by the glow from the outside streetlight. Put a song in her heart and a six-piece combo behind her, and she could have been the headlining act sashaying down the runway at the Ink and Paint club.
She wore a full-length fox. Her fox untangled himself from around her body and dropped to the floor. He stood up on his hind legs and shook out his fur.
“Okay if I go outside for a smoke?” her fox asked her.
“Sure,” she said, “but don’t go far. I won’t be long.”
Honey surveyed the room. She spotted Jessica under one of the hair dryers. Honey walked over and spoke to Jessica.
Their conversation became quite animated.
Jessica spoke audibly but too softly for me to hear. I couldn’t read Honey’s balloons. The wind from Jessica’s hair dryer kept blowing the letters off them. From Jessica’s motions, I could tell that she wanted Honey Graham to talk to me.
Honey walked over and sat down beside me.
Honey’s name suited her. Her perfume was honeysuckle. Her hair was the color of a honey badger. Her soft, warm breath smelled like a honeycomb. Her breasts were the size and shape of honeydews.
She had me longing for a honeymoon.
“Jessica says I can trust you. Is that true?”
“One hundred percent.”
“Men tell me that all the time, Mister Valiant, but the actual percentage winds up being closer to single digits.”
“You’re hanging around with the wrong men.”
“That’s becoming increasingly obvious to me.”
“Are we both talking about the same man here? A swine named Prosciutto?”
Honey nodded. “He beats me. He embarrasses me in public. He does unspeakable things to me in the bedroom. I’ve had all I can take of Willy. He’s not going to mistreat me anymore. I’ll help you take him down.”
“Excuse me if I don’t believe my good fortune,” I said. “Why would you help me lick your sugar daddy?”
“Because I’m not a good bad girl,” said Honey. “I’m a bad good girl.”
“I’m hazy on the difference.”
Honey reached into her purse. “This will prove my good intentions.”
She showed me Clabber’s multi-colored origami word balloon, the one that had disappeared from our hotel. She rolled the folded balloon around on her open palm. “Louie Louie stole this from you. Louie Louie gave the balloon to Willy. I’m setting things straight. I’m returning the balloon to you.”
“What does the balloon say?”
“I don’t know. Willy swears he never looked.”
I took the balloon from her.
She held on to one corner a little longer than necessary. “I’m going to get out. Dump Willy. Leave town. Before I can do that, I have to sell off a few things. Tie up a few loose ends. If Willy found out I gave you this before I’m ready to leave him for good, my life would be over.”
“You mean your party girl high life?”
She shook her head. “I mean any life. Willy finds out I did this, and I’m dead.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Look up in the sky,” said Roger pointing into the Heavens. “It’s a bird, it’s a plane.”
The rabbit had been reading way too many comic books, or he was making a really bad joke. Knowing Roger, the answer could be either…or both.
That flying object he was pointing at was Buzz Bomb, bringing me his latest report on Willy Prosciutto’s whereabouts. Buzz landed on my shoulder. “Willy’s at the Toontown Tattoon Parlor.”
Me and my posse headed off for what I expected would be our final encounter with the nefarious Mister Willy Prosciutto.
The Toontown Tattoon Parlor sat smack at the intersection of The Low Road and The High Road.
I had called Chief Hanker and asked him to meet us here.
No sooner did we get there than Chief Hanker pulled into the Parlor’s lot and parked his black and white beside us.
“I’m gonna blow the Clabber Clown murder wide open,” I told Chief Hanker as he got out of his car. “I got the goods, and they’re good goods indeed. I got everything I need to throw a pig in the pen.
“I don’t trust you, Valiant,” said the Chief. “Guys like you are only out for two things—a fast buck and an easy buck.”
“Then I’m bucking the system. Cause I’m gonna hand you Clabber’s killer on a platter free. Gratis. I’m not making a dime.”
That wasn’t quite true. I was getting paid. Twice in fact. Once by Cooper and again by Clabber Clown. Still I felt compelled to defend my honor, illusionary though my righteousness might be.
“I’ll tell you one thing for sure,” said Chief Hanker in a balloon the size and heft of the jailhouse rocks prisoners spend years pulverizing to powder in the name of rehabilitation. “I’m hauling somebody to the pokey today. Either the murderer or you.”
“What could you arrest me for?”
“Wasting a police officer’s valuable time,” he said.
We went inside the Tattoon Parlor.
The tattoos were all living, two-dimensional Toons, an assortment of eagles, snakes, roses and dancing girls. You picked the tattoo you wanted. For a fee, the one you chose would coat adhere to your arm, your chest, your back, your leg, for however long you wanted.
The sign over the front desk advertised a special on hula dancers. You could get a wiggly one on a lei-away plan. Several of the small, grass skirted cuties hung around the lobby, waiting for a patron to take them out for a night on the town, or, more correctly, for a night on the bicep or forearm.
“Where can I find Willy Prosciutto?” I asked the cracked skull manning the front desk
The skull flapped his jaw but nothing except a few loose teeth came out.
A little Cupid pointed one of his arrows towards the back.
Me and my entourage found Willy Prosciutto in a small room getting a new tattoo adhered to his porky body.
I figured Willy would go for a bold, rebellious, pithy saying. Maybe Death Before Dishonor. A couple of those—nice-looking ones I thought—had been sitting around in easy chairs out front waiting to be chosen.
Willy P surprised me by going old school sentimental.
MOM spelled out across a heart was settling onto Willy P’s flabby upper ham hock.
The Tattoo had to contort up, down, up, down, to conform to Willy P’s mushy folds and fatty ridges.
“Not you again,” Willy P groused. “I thought I told you to leave me alone. What are you doing here?”
“I’m accusing you of killing Clabber Clown to gain control of Toonie Island.”
“That’s a pretty serious charge,” he said. “You got proof?”
“The proof,” Roger procla
imed before I could answer, “is in the pudding. Except in this case where it’s on Clabber Clown’s balloon.”
Roger grabbed the folded balloon out of my hand.
“You can see. Hasn’t been opened,” said Roger. Leaving the balloon folded had been my idea. I didn’t want anybody accusing us of manufacturing evidence. “What’s in here will prove beyond a doubt who killed Clabber Clown.”
“Wait, wait,” said Sands. “I wanna come in real close for the final denouement.”
Roger waited for Sands to get into position. With grandiose motions, Roger unfolded Clabber’s balloon. Roger held the unfolded balloon out so that Prosciutto and Chief Hanker could read the words.
Willy Prosciutto and Chief Hanker stared at the balloon wide-eyed.
Willy Prosciutto and Chief Hanker stared at one another.
They stared at the balloon again.
A cluster of Toon Tattoos crowded in behind Willy P and Chief Hanker, reading the balloon over the two men’s shoulders.
The gaggle giggled.
A horned, tailed, pitchfork-toting Satan rang out, “Hell’s bells!”
A patch-eyed pirate took one look, stomped his peg leg and said, “Shiver me timbers.”
A rattlesnake coiled around a six-shooter hissed “Ssssssson of a gun!”
A five-masted warship sailed over and fired off a salvo. “You’re sunk.”
Cooper took a peek. “Bad news.”
“Do your duty, chief,” said Roger. “Arrest Willy Prosciutto.”
“Maybe you oughta read that balloon first,” countered Willy P.
“My p-p-p-pleasure.”
Roger turned the balloon around and read aloud. “‘If I’m dead when you read this, and I’m expecting I am or else you wouldn’t be reading this in the first place, I want you to know that Roger Rabbit killed me.’ The balloon is signed at the bottom Clabber Clown.”
I grabbed the balloon out of the rabbit’s hands.
Roger had read the balloon exactly right. That was what the balloon said.
So Honey Graham was not a good bad girl or a bad good girl. She was a bad bad girl, plain and simple. I should have recognized her mendacity and seen this coming. Once again, Eddie Valiant got fooled by loose morals hidden underneath a tight sweater.
“Jumpin’ jibbers,” Roger proclaimed. “I got trouble now!”
I sat with Roger in the Police Station interrogation room. Or rather—I sat while he paced the floor.
His word balloons came out gibberish. That happens to Toons when they’re nervous or worried or upset. Their inner thought processes get scrambled. Every balloon comes out resembling babble written by a kitten tap dancing on the keys of a Smith-Corona.
The interrogation room’s walls were painted drab gray, making this probably the least colorful place in Toontown, with a metal table and two straight-backed metal chairs.
I had been in enough rooms like this one to know that the mirror on the wall wasn’t there so I could check my makeup. The glass was one-way. Whoever was on the other side could watch us without us seeing them.
The only light came from a single five hundred watt bulb. The bulb burned red and hot, like the kind of warming light a restaurant uses to keep food warm.
That bulb, plus the fact the cops had the thermostat turned up to blast furnace level, had Roger and me both sweating buckets. Every time Roger moved, he threw off enough flop sweat to enliven the Dead Sea.
Roger eventually started producing balloons that made sense. Or at least as much sense as a rabbit is capable of making.
“What do I do, Eddie? I didn’t kill Clabber Clown.”
“Relax,” I told him. “Except for that word balloon, they got nothing.”
Although, honestly, that balloon might be plenty.
The police had matched up the lettering style on that balloon with other balloons Clabber had uttered. The styles matched perfectly. A prosecuting attorney would have no problem convincing a jury that Clabber Clown had produced that incriminating statement.
“They’re gonna grill me, Eddie. I know they are. Grilled rabbit is not my dish.”
Chief Hanker came in. “Get out, Valiant. I wanna be alone with the perp.”
“You mean the accused perp. Even in Toontown, you’re innocent until proven guilty.”
“Yeah, and even in Toontown, a smartass like you has got all his teeth until I tell a few of my boys to relieve you of a few.”
I took that as my cue to leave.
I went next door, and watched the proceedings through the one-way mirror.
“I suspect you killed Clabber Clown in a jealous fit of rage,” said Chief Hanker. “I’m betting maybe because he was getting more movie work than you were.”
Chief Hanker’s words rolled across the scarred hardwood floor and nipped at Roger’s ankles. Roger kept them from biting his foot off by trapping them under a wastebasket. Even then, I could hear the frightening statements snapping their vicious teeth.
“That’s not true,” Roger told Chief Hanker. “Actors only kill each other with innuendo.”
Roger’s interrogation dragged on for an hour.
Finally, Chief Hanker got physical. He rolled up a copy of The Toontown Telltale and started wacking Roger good.
No rabbit can take that kind of punishment for long.
Roger broke like a cracked pot. “Stop it, stop it, I’ll confess.”
“You will?” said Chief Hanker.
“I will,” said Roger.
“You’ll confess to Clabber Clown’s murder?” asked the Chief.
“No, not that. I didn’t do that. I’ll confess that I can’t take any more wacking. If you don’t stop, I’ll throw up all over your nice clean floor.”
Chief Hanker left the interrogation room.
He joined me in the observation room.
“Get out of here, Valiant.”
“What about the rabbit?” I asked.
“He’s gonna spend the night as a guest of the city.”
“You got no hard evidence,” I said. “You can’t hold him.”
“This is my town, my rules,” said Chief Hanker. “I can do whatever I want. I want him to stay with us for a while. See how he does after a night in the slammer.”
I watched as a burly deputy slapped handcuffs on the hapless rabbit and dragged him off to jail.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Cooper, Sands, and I drove to the Toontown Zoo. Buzz Bomb, my all-purpose surveillance squirrel, told me I would find Ring Wordhollow there.
We spotted Wordhollow running to and fro around the Zoo in crazy patterns.
Wordhollow was nabbing the drifting word balloons produced by the caged Toon animals.
The animals’ word balloons were as fast, wild-mannered, crafty, and reluctant to be trapped as the animals that had uttered them. The balloons banked, dove, rolled, and climbed through the air, moving faster than any balloons I had ever seen.
Wordhollow carried out his pursuit with amazing quickness and agility. He caught a whole lot more of the free floaters than I would have. Must be that healthy, aesthetic lifestyle he led. Maybe I ought to try living the way Wordhollow lived. Eat right, quit smoking, swear off women, lay off the booze, Might improve both my health and my outlook.
Right.
Wordhollow snared the animals’ drifters in a butterfly net and stuffed them into the same large yellow burlap sacks used by road workers who picked up highway trash.
I told Sands and Cooper to stay put. I ran after Wordhollow. I needed a whole lot more steps than I ought to have needed in order to catch him. Which raised that nasty clean living issue again.
Right.
“Hey, perfessor. Can I have a moment of your time, and a bit of your valuable expertise?
” I was breathing so hard from the exertion of catching up to old guy that I could barely draw in sufficient air to suck a ciggie to life.
“Sure, Eddie.”Always happy to help a friend,” said Wordhollow, no more winded from his exertions than if he’d been taking a leisurely stroll through a park. He pointed at my cigarette. “You know those will kill you.”
I gave him my standard philosophy of life. “We all gotta die of something.”
I picked up a discarded word balloon, rolled it into a stick, and gave it a toss. Mutt went running after.
“Didn’t expect to find you still working,” I said. “After your big win at the track, I figured you might retire.”
“Maybe someday, but not now. I’m sinking my winnings into a sure-fire real estate investment. Guaranteed to quadruple my money.”
“Got room in that deal for one more?”
“Afraid not, Eddie. This one’s open to only a very few insiders.”
Mutt came back. I tossed his balloon stick again.
“Too bad. Guess I’ll have to keep detecting for a while.”
After collecting Sands and Cooper, we grabbed a table for four in the zoo’s outdoor snack bar. A waitress came by to take our order. She was a young duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed Toon platypus.
Another of Toontown’s incongruities. Shouldn’t a platypus be inside one of the cages at the Zoo instead of outside waiting tables at the Zoo’s snack bar?
On second thought, I could understand why this particular platypus was outside, not in.
No way would anybody pay money to view this particular animal specimen unless she was on display in a carnival freak show.
Multiple colors rainbow-streaked her head and belly fur. She had shaved the words “What are you staring at?” into her furry back. A large gold hoop pierced her bill. The hoop’s twin pierced her tail. She had outlined her peepers with coal black eye shadow giving her the pummeled look of somebody who moonlighted as a punching bag. She had edged her big lips the same shade of black. I couldn’t tell if she was sporting silver rings on every toe or had the world’s crustiest case of athletes’ foot.