The Complete Adventures of Toffee

by Charles F. Myers

  MARC couldn’t have said exactly how long he’d been sitting there, looking like an unhappy throwback to the stone age, but the afternoon light had already begun to fade from the sky, and the rock in his hand had become heavy. He guessed it was about an hour. Why hadn’t the man followed him? He gazed toward the darkening sea, and fished vainly for some meaning, some key, to the afternoon’s events. In them there had been surprise and danger, but over it all, there had also been the discoloring shadow of unreality. He began to wonder if it hadn’t all been just a delusion born of over-exposure to the sun. After all, during the summer months, fried brains weren’t the exclusive property of the local restaurant owner. They were anybody’s, just for the basking.

  Somewhat bolstered by this possibility, but still wary, Marc stood up and peered apprehensively over the shielding barrier of rocks. There was no sound, no movement, anywhere. Hesitantly, still crouching, but not on his hands and knees this time, he started back. In spite of a halting, stop-and-go progress, it was only a matter of five minutes before he was back on the beach proper. Just before he reached the point where he had abandoned the body of the nameless woman, he stopped again, longer this time. Finally, like a man about to plunge into a pool of iced water, he sucked in his breath and stepped resolutely around the side of the rock. Then he stopped short. The body was gone.

  When he’d recovered sufficiently from this surprise, he gazed uneasily over the top of the rock to the main part of the beach. It was utterly deserted. Outside of the still missing stone, it was just as he had first seen it that day. He shrugged and started toward the stairway. Sun-stroke or whatever, forces had obviously been at work that were hopelessly beyond his comprehension.

  He climbed the complaining stairs, crossed the deserted road, and made his way up the path to the beach house.

  For a moment, as he looked at the small, streamlined dwelling, his earlier mood of loneliness was sharply recalled to him. It was a place meant for parties and gaiety and carefree companionship. Without these things, it seemed rejected and forlorn; like a lovely, giddy girl dressed for a ball and left waiting by a heartlessly indifferent beau. He forced the feeling aside and hurried on.

  Finding the door open, just as he had left it, he stepped inside and started to close it against the growing chill of the evening. His hand started forward, then froze in mid-air. Behind him, in the dimness of the tiny reception hall, he’d heard a faint rustling sound, and swung quickly about. But not soon enough. Instantly, something cold, hard, and as decisive as a tombstone, struck him across the side of the head. The room began to spin deliriously.

  ’Round and ’round the little room traveled, until it had become nothing more than a dizzy, churning whirlpool. For a moment Marc teetered precariously on its brink, then suddenly caught in its expanding tide, lost his footing and plunged downward.

  Spiraling helplessly toward the center of the whirling, fluid cylinder, he could see that its center was dark, and he was frightened. He tried to fight the dragging current, but it was no use. Next, he was caught in that darkness, and was spinning dizzily downward, faster and faster, like a great, human pinwheel.

  Marc had lost all sense of time before his frantic journey was ended. It might have lasted a split second or an hour. He didn’t know. But when it was over, he was grateful. Landing flat on his stomach, he lay perfectly still for a time, his eyes closed. Curiously, now that he had come to rest, a strange feeling of contentment was slowly creeping over him. He didn’t know where he was, but he was glad to be there.

  TURNING slowly over, swinging his long legs before him; he opened his eyes and gazed about. At first he was blinded by a bright light that seemed to come from everywhere. A bit at a time, however, his surroundings began to swim into view. He discovered, piece-meal, that he was in an immense room; apparently some sort of filing room, for the walls, on every side, were lined to a distant ceiling with business-like filing cabinets. Against the opposite wall stood a metal ladder that was fastened at its base to a track that stretched evenly around the room. He still couldn’t discover where the light was coming from, but it was bluish and very bright.

  “Hello,” a voice said softly above him, and Marc, glancing up, thought it sounded vaguely familiar. He was right. Perched on the uppermost rung of the ladder, and dangling a pair of scandalously perfect legs, sat Toffee. Clothed, as always before, only in a scrap of transparent, emerald colored material, her figure was being shockingly frank about its own perfection. It seemed almost conceited in its exciting loveliness. She smiled roguishly and her green eyes sparkled through the distance. There was a quick flash of red hair as she swung about and started down the ladder.

  “You would come just when I’m busiest,” she scolded happily, swinging easily from step to step. “I should have known it. When could I ever expect any consideration from the likes of you?”

  Rather than enter into preposterous argument with his own senses, Marc admitted that she was actually there, before him. He knew by now that he would have to sooner or later, anyway. “Busy?” he asked with as matter-offact a voice as he could manage. “Busy with what?”

  “Your files, of course,” Toffee replied lightly, jumping with kittenish softness to the floor, disdainful of the last three steps. “This is the end of the year for you, mentally.”

  “What files?”

  “Didn’t you see the sign when you came in?”

  “The way I came in,” Marc replied sourly, “I didn’t see anything.”

  “Oh, of course not,” Toffee agreed. “Just looking down that way and seeing you here all of a sudden, I forgot for a moment that you were from outside. Well, just so you’ll know, this is the Miscellaneous Information chamber of your mind. You’ve never been here before. You’ve only seen the valley of your mind.” She smiled demurely. “I guess you’re just naturally drawn to wherever I happen to be. But I do wish you’d seen the sign. It’s an idea I got from outside, in your world. It’s all lit up with mental impulses . . . just like neon. It’s really beautiful.”

  Marc winced. That his mind might someday become a mental replica of Broadway was the most repulsive idea he’d had to face in weeks. Toffee would be setting up a chain of “Grey Matter” hot dog stands next. “Miscellaneous Information?” he asked, uncertainly.

  “Yes,” Toffee said, with the professional air of a paid guide giving a fifty cent tour. “In a year’s time, you pick up more odd facts and figures than you think. If they were left lying around, your mind would look like a city dump. So at the end of every fiscal year, it’s my job to gather them all together and file them alphabetically under topic headings. Then, it’s always here when you need it, unless it’s too out of date. See what I mean?”

  Marc nodded slowly. “I guess so,” he said, and his voice was laden with uncertainty. “But don’t you think it’s a little creepy?”

  “Nonsense!” Toffee cried, dismissing the idea. Then her smile suddenly faded and her eyes became hard. “And while we’re on the subject,” she said menacingly, “there’s something I’d like to ask you.”

  “What’s that?”

  TURNING to a small table nearby, she picked up a stiff white card, and flipped it angrily under his nose. “Just you tell me,” she demanded hotly, “How you happened to pick up the bust measurements of the entire Gaities chorus!”

  Marc’s expression was one of utter stupification for a moment, then it relaxed. “Oh, that!” he exclaimed with false heartiness.

  “Yes, that!” Toffee echoed ruthlessly, placing one hand on a smooth hip.

  “That’s easy to explain,” Marc went on quickly. “It all had to do with the advertising agency. We handled some ads for the Gaities.”

  “Ads?” Toffee sneered. “You mean they advertise things like that!”

  “Well, no. Not exactly. It was really the show that we advertised.”

  “What a show it must be!” Toffee exclaimed sarcastically. “That Miss Flare La Greer must be a fair sensation every time she sets foot o
n a runway. With measurements like that, I wonder that there’s any room left for the rest of them.”

  “Don’t be vulgar,” Marc put in without hope.

  “If you ask me,” Toffee said icily, “it’s that La Greer moll that’s being vulgar. She was born vulgar.” Then her smile suddenly appeared as unexpectedly as a sunburst in the middle of a rain storm. “But if it’s the way you say,” she cooed, “I guess I’ll just have to forgive you. Now let’s say hello properly.” She stretched her arms out toward Marc, and made quick, beckoning motions with her hands.

  Marc was instantly on his feet. Of all the censorable things in the world, experience had taught him that Toffee’s interpretation of a proper greeting would probably head the list. “Get away from me!” he yelped, backing into a filing case. “Stay mad! Hate me! Don’t start that old stuff, or I’ll . . .”

  “Or you’ll what?” Toffee asked wickedly, sliding her slender arms smoothly around his neck.

  It may have been Toffee’s kiss that started the room spinning. Marc didn’t know, and somehow, try as he would, he couldn’t seem to make himself care. At any rate, it was spinning, and gaining speed at every turn. In a moment, it was whirling like a thing possessed, and Marc could feel himself being lifted easily upward. He opened his eyes and looked out with dismay. It was as though they had been caught in the very center of a gigantic tornado. Caught, just as he had been in the whirlpool only a moment before.

  “Wow!” Toffee cried gleefully, her arms clasped tenaciously about his neck. “What a kiss!”

  MARC groaned and rolled over. Then, lest it fall off, he clutched his head in his hands, and sat up. Instantly, he experienced a feeling that was like having several gross of heavy-duty ice picks driven into the base of the skull, just behind the left ear. He groaned again and tried to guess where he might be, but his mind, still in a state of churning confusion, would not be prodded into an answer. It was as limp and uninterested as an old, worn glove. He was surrounded by a brooding, unbroken darkness, and for a moment thoughts of coffins and coal bins chased each other unrelentingly over his tired brain. Then, experimentally, he reached a cautious hand into the blackness, and then quickly shrank back.

  The touch of soft, cool flesh was not precisely what he had expected. Neither was he expecting the slap that was soundly administered across the bridge of his nose only a split second later.

  “And don’t tell me you were just looking for a match, either!” an irate feminine voice rasped. “I’ll teach you to come pawing around me!”

  “Toffee!”

  “Marc!”

  Immediately, two slender arms were about his neck, and Toffee was contritely saying, “I’m sorry Marc. I didn’t know it was you. It didn’t feel like you.”

  “How should you know how I feel?” Marc asked annoyedly, trying to disentangle himself from her insistent embrace. “Do you always have to say a thing so it sounds lecherous? Where did you come from, anyway?”

  “I’ve materialized from your mind again,” Toffee replied gaily, happy at the achievement. “You submerged into your subconscious and dreamed me up a moment ago, so naturally I just dropped everything and returned to consciousness with you. What kind of a mess have you gotten into this time?”

  “Mess?”

  “Yes. There must be something wrong or you wouldn’t have been around bothering me. You never do come around,” she added fretfully, “unless something’s gone wrong.” She patted his hand. “It’s because you’re such a low type, I guess.”

  “Holy smoke!” Marc cried, suddenly remembering the day’s odd adventures. “You’re right. Things are plenty wrong. I was ambushed!”

  “Oh, no!” Toffee cried. “How terrible! You’re so young!”

  “I was hit over the head,” Marc added flatly. “Oh,” Toffee breathed with relief. “Where are we?”

  Marc had already gotten to his feet and was fumbling along the wall. “I’m on vacation,” he said through a dark distance. “We’re at the beach house.”

  “Where’s Julie?” Toffee asked with a tinge of apprehension, remembering that Julie, on other occasions, hadn’t been precisely cordial.

  “She’s visiting her mother at the farm,” Marc replied shortly. “She read an article about separate vacations.”

  “Craziest thing I ever heard,” Toffee pronounced bluntly. “What are you doing, sanding that wall?”

  “I’m looking for the light switch,” Marc explained. “It’s right by the stairway closet as I remember.”

  HIS hand, running out of wall, began fishing absently about in a narrow open space. “I think I’ve found the closet,” he called reassuringly. Then, strangely, he was aware that the space had begun to widen, almost automatically it seemed. He guessed that the door was swinging open of its own volition, and attributed the phenomenon to faulty construction. He made a mental note to check the door in the morning. But what happened a second later could hardly have been explained by structural discrepancies. With truly alarming ferocity, two unidentified arms were flung about his waist, and caught off guard, he was carried crashingly to the floor. The darkness became alive with the sounds of conflict.

  “Cut it out, Toffee!” Marc yelled, struggling wildly to free himself, and getting hopelessly entangled. “Try to restrain yourself! This is no time for playing games!”

  “I’m perfectly restrained,” Toffee called back suspiciously. “And who’s playing games . . . and what kind of games? I’m just waiting for the lights.”

  “Then who’s this on top of me?” Marc wailed, cagily fighting his way into a position that left him completely impotent against his unseen attacker.

  “Why don’t you ask him?” Toffee suggested helpfully through a jumble of scuffling, gasping sounds. “I’m sure I don’t know.” Swiftly, she started in search of the illusive light switch herself.

  “I don’t think he’s interested in formal introductions,” Marc wheezed with what sounded like a dying gasp. “Hurry and get those lights on before he kills me. He’s strangling me!”

  As though in instant answer to his command, the room suddenly blazed with light, and Marc, seeing his assailant, almost nose to nose, turned deathly pale. His eyes snapped lightly shut, and turning his head to one side, his lips began to move feverishly, although his voice seemed to have deserted him. On his chest, face down, and in an immodest state of disorder, lay the lifeless figure of the woman on the beach.

  Toffee gazed wrathfully on this grotesque display, and the usual hand moved threateningly to the usual hip. “Well, you might at least have the decency to stop whispering to her!” she hissed contemptuously. “The lights are on, you know! I can see you! I’m not blind!” She paused for a moment, and seeing no change in the distressing tableau, went on. “Tell that shameless wench to get up and get out of here! You never miss a chance do you? The minute the lights go out, you’ve got to be frisking about on the carpet!”

  With a tremendous effort, Marc partly opened one eye and looked pleadingly up at her. He managed to force out a few wretched words, “She’s . . . she’s not a . . . a shameless wench,” he whispered half-hysterically. “She’s . . . she’s a . . . a . . . a body!”

  “I can see that for myself!” Toffee retorted hotly. “And not such a hot one, either, if you ask me. Now, tell her to gather up her flabby old body and drag it out that door, before I practice violence on it. Don’t just lie there staring up at me like a wall-eyed clam!”

  “But . . . but she can’t!”

  “Sodden drunk, eh?”

  “No. She ... she’s a dead body.” Marc’s voice suddenly broke through its bonds and came back with unexpected force. “She’s been shot!” he roared. “Get her off me before I lose my mind!”

  The angry fire of suspicion flickered one last time in Toffee’s eyes, then went out. She leaned down for a better look at the smothering figure. “How sinister!” she breathed.

  “Don’t waste time on adjectives!” Marc entreated. “Just get the horrible thing off me!”<
br />
  TOFFEE forced a slender hand to the woman’s shoulder, and with an incongruously dainty gesture rolled it from the distraught Marc. “It makes my spine fairly tingle,” she said.

  “What do you think it’s done to mine?” Marc asked reproachfully, getting to his feet and rubbing the injured section.

  Toffee continued to stare at the discarded body. “I do think you could have shown better taste in your choice of victims,” she mused. “It couldn’t have been a crime of passion, or passion isn’t everything I’ve heard it is.” Having satisfied herself on this point, she turned brightly to Marc. “Why did you shoot her?” she asked with honest curiosity.

  “I didn’t shoot her,” Marc denied stoutly. “I only saw it done down on the beach.”

  “Then what’s that gun doing here?” Toffee asked, pointing to the corner.

  Marc forced himself to pick up the revolver. It looked like the one he’d seen on the beach. Obviously, whoever had hit him, hadn’t meant to kill him. It would have been so much easier to have shot him. “Someone’s trying to frame me,” he said, as though trying to explain this fact to himself.

  “I don’t blame them,” was Toffee’s prompt reply. “You’re quite a picture in those yellow trunks. They set your sunburn off like a keg of dynamite.”

  “But what am I going to do with that body?” Marc asked, ignoring the irrelevant criticism. “If it’s found here, they’ll lock me up forever.”