Part 3

"Huh-uh," Toffee shook her head. "It's an idea that appeals to me. Besides, if enough of the right people get kicked in the right places ... well, what have we got to lose?"

"Also," Marc said coolly, "I don't believe I thanked you yet for wrecking my home. I take it that is a sample of your methods for establishing unity and good will?"

"Good will?" Toffee smiled. "I have other methods for that." She slid off the edge of the desk and moved purposefully toward him.

"You lay a hand on these drapes," Marc said nervously, "and I'll scream. I mean it! Julie is still here, you know."

Just then, as though to deliberately make a liar of him, the front door slammed downstairs.

"We are quite, quite alone," Toffee murmured significantly.

"Go away!" Marc said, trembling in his draperies. "Go back where you came from. Heaven knows things are bad enough already...."

"Oh, stop it," Toffee said. "We have business to attend to."

"Business?"

"Yes. As long as I've gotten myself all materialized to save the world I suppose I might just as well pitch in and get it over with. Business before pleasure, as they say. I figure I can have these world affairs you've been brooding over set ship-shape in less time than it takes a flat-chested girl to shuck on her girdle. Then I'll be free to concentrate on you without interruption."

"No!" Marc said suddenly. "I don't know why I waste my time listening to this prattle. Save the world! Indeed! I'm taking you down to the office where you can't harm anyone and leave you there till you decide to evaporate. Both the world and I have enough headaches already."

"You've dropped your drapes," Toffee observed mildly.

"Hang the drapes!" Marc said forcibly and, taking a hitch in his gaping pajamas, strode into the bathroom ... and locked the door.

* * * * *

Driving, particularly toward the center of the city, had lately become hazardous; the motorist never knew what insanity awaited him just around the next corner. At an intersection Marc stopped the car before a group of white-haired, bonneted old ladies who were gleefully engrossed in a game of croquet that had something to do with knocking your opponent's ball into an open manhole. At the sound of Marc's horn one of the aged gamesters glanced around demurely and peered at him through silver-rimmed glasses.

"Can it, you creep," she shrilled. "You wanna louse my shot?"

She might have said more except that her attention was suddenly drawn to the manhole, where the grimy head of a workman rose slowly like a soiled and rather timid moon. Lifting her skirts delicately so that only the minimum of ankle was exposed the lady minced daintily forward and belted the head a stunning blow with her mallet. Without a murmur the head retreated once more into the deeps of the city sewage system.

"Danged whelp keeps poppin' up and spoilin' our innocent fun," the old lady said sullenly. "Does it just to aggravate us." She turned to one of her companions. "Shag me the bottle, Lana."

The lady in question produced a bottle of bourbon from the folds of her skirt. "Right-o, Rita," she said. "Blood in your eye!"

Marc shook his head sadly, but Toffee, huddled beside him in one of his topcoats, saw a certain charm in the sketch.

"Personally," she said, "I like to see folks growing old disgracefully. It makes the inevitability of age more attractive. After a lifetime of perfecting sins and vices you ought to be able to take them with you at least as far as the grave."

Passing by this bit of lopsided philosophy, Marc wheeled the car onto the sidewalk and skirted the field of play.

"The whole world's gone mad," he murmured.

It was a block later, at the sight of the Empire Department Store, that Toffee instructed Marc to stop the car.

"I want to pick up a few fine feathers," she explained. "I may want to take a flier later on."

"You won't need clothes," Marc informed her. "The office is most informal these days, especially since the staff has left."

"If I'm going to languish," Toffee said, "I'm going to do it in silks and satins. Besides, if you don't stop I'll darned well cripple you with my jewelry."

Marc pulled the car to the curb without further discussion.

* * * * *

They left the car and entered the Empire, where aisles and counters stretched into the distance over gleaming floors. A dark girl with circles under her eyes lounged dreamily at a counter displaying gloves and handbags. They approached. But just as they did so a short, stocky individual in a turtle-neck sweater hurried up to the girl from the opposite direction. He stopped abruptly and stuck a revolver in the girl's face, waggling it just beneath her nose. Crossing her eyes drowsily, the girl observed the gun, then the man.

"Oh, fer Cris'sake," she murmured.

"Hand over the cash, sister," the man growled.

"Okay," the girl yawned. "Only don't rush me, see?" She reached under the counter and brought forth a bag such as money is kept in. She scratched herself delicately and dropped the bag on the counter. "I figured I'd have it ready this time," she said. "Anything else, sir?"

"Yeah," the thug snarled, brandishing the gun anew. "Now lay down on the floor and don't open your trap until I'm gone."

"Aw, that corny routine, huh?" the girl sneered.

"G'wan!"

The girl shrugged indifferently, then boosted herself away from the counter and disappeared slowly beneath its horizon. The thug departed in the direction of the street.

For a moment Marc and Toffee were left to ponder this episode in solitude, then the girl slowly reappeared, leaned her elbows on the counter. She swiveled her bored eyes in their direction apathetically.

"Yuh want something?" she drawled.

"Aren't you going to scream or something?" Toffee asked with quiet curiosity.

"Scream?" the girl asked. "What'd I want to scream for?"

"Well," Toffee said. "It may be that I'm just the excitable type, but if I'd just been robbed I'd sound off like a crash alarm."

"Oh, that," the girl murmured. "That wasn't nothing, honey. Take a look over there."

Marc and Toffee gazed in the direction she indicated--a counter laden with expensive handbags. As they looked a hand darted furtively from beneath the counter, grasped one of the bags and instantly disappeared again. A moment later the action was repeated.

"What in the...?" Marc said.

"A purse snatcher," the girl said. "He's good, too. He can clean out a whole counter in half an hour sometimes."

"Don't you care?" Toffee asked.

"I should care," the girl shrugged. "They're stealin' the store blind from end to end. What's the diff? What's the store going to do with money when it's blasted off the face of the earth?"

* * * * *

Toffee and Marc, before they had had time to digest this, were diverted by a small movement at the end of the counter. The face of the thug who had presumably just departed appeared briefly from behind a display of gloves.

"_Psst!_" it said.

"The place is infested!" Toffee said.

"Excuse me," the salesgirl said, "I'll be right back. If you see anything you like just slip it into your stocking, honey." She ambled over to the glove display. "Yeah?" she inquired.

The face was joined by a hand bearing the money bag.

"Here," he said, "I din' take nothin' outa it."

"Don't you want it?" the girl asked.

"Let's do it over again," the thug said. "Only this time give it a little somethin', will yuh? Scream and carry on a little bit so's I can get the feel of it better."

"Oh, okay," the girl said listlessly. She accepted the bag and returned to Marc and Toffee. "Whatta pest," she said. "All day all he does is hold me up, that's all, just hold me up. I get tired of it."

"Doesn't the manager mind this sort of thing?" Marc asked.

"Geez, no," the girl said. "The manager don't mind anything any more. Why should he? He'll cork off just as fast as the janitor when the bombs drop."

At this juncture the thug stepped from behind the glove display, waving his gun excitedly.

"This is a stickup!" he announced.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," the girl murmured. "What else?"

"Go on an' scream," the bandit said in a lower tone. "You said you would. You promised."

"So okay," the girl agreed. She turned to Marc and Toffee. "You see how it is--borin'." Then she threw back her head and gave vent to a shriek that echoed back from the high ceiling with all the painful discord of a trainload of jealous opera stars going through an underpass in full voice. When it was over she leaned back on the counter and stifled a yawn. "So was it okay?" she asked.

"Not bad," the bandit said admiringly. "Now hand over the dough and git down on the floor!"

"Aw, have a heart," the girl said. "I've been down on the floor so much today I'm beginning to feel like a dust mop." She nodded to Marc and Toffee. "Make them get down on the floor for a change."

The thug glanced around, then quickly away. "I couldn't!" he whispered. "They're total strangers!"

"Take the money and git," the girl said. "And don't come bringin' it back, 'cause I'm through for today. I'm bushed."

"Okay," the thug said. "Okay. You don't have to get sore about it!" Drawing himself up, he departed in a huff of indignation.

"Now," the girl said. "What was it you wanted?" But just then the hand of the purse snatcher eased up to the counter and started edging toward her. She reached out and dealt it a stinging blow. "Sometimes he takes it into his head to pinch some things that ain't purses," she explained. "A girl's got to keep an eye on the shifty little devil or she might get the shock of her life."

"Where could we find the manager of the store?" Marc asked. "I think if we talked to him directly...."

* * * * *

Just then from across the store came the fearsome sound of steel jaws closing with a vicious snap, this accompanied by the clatter of chains and a blood-chilling shriek of pain.

"That's the manager now," the girl said unconcernedly. "I guess Dolly's got him trapped again. I'd know his scream anywhere."

"Trapped?" Toffee asked.

"Yeah. Over in the sport's department. Last week she got him in a lion snare, but I guess she's back to her bear traps this week. They cripple him up so he can't get away so fast."

"This Dolly," Toffee said. "She bears the manager ill will?"

"Oh, no," the girl said. "She's crazy about him. She's been after him for years and never got anywhere at all. I guess she figures time's runnin' out."

"And this sport's department," Toffee asked. "They have a department just for sports? I mean, is this manager considered a sport?"

"He's game," the girl said. "Let's put it that way. The sports department is where they sell equipment."

"At least this Dolly suits the locale to the action," Toffee said.

Just then the atmosphere was rent with another bellow of agony.

"Come on," Marc said. "The poor devil needs help."

"Be careful," the girl called after them as they started away. "He's mean when he's cornered. Snarls and spits like a mad badger. And that Dolly, she's been mean all her life."

Marc and Toffee hurried to the sports section and stopped at the entrance with a gasp of dismay. At the far end of the department a camping display was being utilized for a scene of mad action.

A young man of immaculate and personable countenance, one foot held fast between the jaws of a mammoth bear trap, was energetically distorting his features and making loud sounds of dissatisfaction.

The cause of his predicament, a large, athletic, sharp-featured female, wearing tortoise shell glasses and tennis shorts, stalked him from behind a teepee. She was carrying a baseball bat, and a mad light glittered in her eyes. It would have been apparent to even a retarded child with a disturbed psyche that the young man's chances were slim.

As Toffee and Marc watched, the young lady with the glasses leered evilly from around the edge of the teepee and flourished her bat in a few practice swipes.

"Ho-ha!" she cried with primitive triumph. "So I've got you at last, you stinker!" She paused to cackle fiendishly to herself. "You won't get away this time. I'm going to pound that thick coco of yours so hard you won't wake up for centuries. And when you wake up--you know what?"

* * * * *

The young man, who had ceased to snarl at the beginning of this overwrought recital, looked around apprehensively. "No," he said. "What?"

"You are going to find yourself married, wed, hitched, spliced, mated, united, espoused, wived, coupled, joined and made one with me. You are going to be mine in twenty-three languages, in fifteen churches, ten civil ceremonies and a couple of uncivil ones I just thought up myself. How do you like them apples, Mr. Smart-stuff?"

"No!" the young man yelped, reaching for the jaws of the trap. "No! Never!"

"Let go of that trap!" the girl yelled. "I'll lop your ears off just for the sheer hell of it!"

"We'd better lend a hand here," Marc said. "She'll kill him with love."

"I can't help admiring her frank, forthright manner," Toffee said. "And you can't deny that her intentions are almost too honorable. But I can see where a man might consider her undainty, especially the choosy kind." Marc started forward, but she reached out a hand and drew him back. "I'll take care of this," she said. She raised her hand and faced the ring in the direction of the infuriated Amazon.

"Hurry up!" Marc said. "Shoot the current to her before she mashes him to a pulp!"

Toffee carefully surveyed the scene of primitive love run amok. The assault on the hapless manager, no longer merely imminent, was developing rapidly into a crashing reality. The love-crazed Dolly had risen to her toes and hunched forward to gain the maximum devastation from the blow.

"Hurry!" Marc said, and Toffee drew her hand down sharply over the face of the ring. The results in addition to being instantaneous were staggeringly bizarre.

The stalking murderess abandoned her batting stance with a cry and straightened up throwing her hands over her head. The bat, gaining its freedom all of a rush sailed high in the air and fell to the floor with a crash. Dolly, as suddenly as she had righted herself, fell into a tormented crouch and hugged her bottom with both arms in a fair fit of devotion to the awful thing. Her glittering eyes seemed to spin wildly in their sockets, and she clenched her teeth in a manner suggesting that she had bitten into a high voltage socket and was prepared to blow a whole bin full of fuses.

"_Yeeeee-ow!_" she yelled in shrill tones.

* * * * *

The captive manager, having devined from the tone of Dolly's voice that the skull-splitting project had run into a snag, opened his eyes and glanced around hopefully. One peek, however, and his expression underwent a change, so that he looked for all the world like a young man who would have preferred immeasurably having his skull crushed to being confronted in this awful way with a crouching, teeth-gritting female who beyond any question of a doubt was preparing to spring upon him and rend him limb from limb with her bare fangs. He shuddered visibly and looked away. His lips quivered over prayers for an easy deliverance of his immortal soul. Toffee and Marc hurried forward to reassure him.

Once the young man was released, he mopped his brow, glanced around with a sigh, and instantly spotted the fact that there remained something in the situation to be explained.

"What's the matter with her?" he asked of his erstwhile captor. "Why is she all hunkered down like that?"

"Either she's a hard loser," Toffee murmured, "or she needs more roughage. It's hard to say at a glance." She made a quick surreptitious pass at her ring, and the girl in question fell back limply on the false grass before the teepee.

"Who prodded me with a riveting machine?" she asked belligerently.

"I wish I had," the manager said, rubbing his ankle. He looked at the trap. "Damn thing's got a nasty bite. I tell you if I were a bear I'd be very careful around those things."

"You can't blame a girl if she's got ingenuity," Dolly said sullenly. "I almost got you, too, you slippery devil."

"You're fired," the manager said loftily.

"Oh, yeah?" Dolly said. "I don't quit, see? I haven't even tried guns, knives, hand grenades, bayonets, hand-to-hand combat and mousetraps yet. I'm starting in on light side-arms tomorrow."

"Look," Marc said to the manager. "The young lady would like something to wear. We're in a hurry. I've got to get back home...."

"Fine," the manager said. "I was on my way to the fashion salon when this morbid little affair befell me. I'm to meet Congressman Bloodsop there, too; he wanted to sit and look at the models. Come along."

And the three of them left, leaving the luckless Dolly thoughtfully testing the blade of a machete with the tips of her fingers.

"You see?" Toffee said to Marc. "You see how easily differences can be settled under the proper guidance?"

* * * * *

The salon, it turned out, was on the fifth floor of the Empire. On the way the manager paused briefly in the silver department to confer with a small, detached looking lady called Miss Winters.

"Things going well?" he asked.

"Oh, divinely!" Miss Winters twittered. "Just like magic. They're simply cleaning out the department."

"Bolting the meat and picking the bones, eh?" the manager beamed. "Stealing everything in sight, are they?"

"Oh, just!" Miss Winters nodded. "To give them encouragement, every so often I close my eyes and feign deep concentration. Every time I open my eyes the place looks just a little more like a desert wasteland."

"Just blinking away the merchandise, so to speak?"

"How cleverly you put it, Mr. Baker! You always were the one with the well-turned phrase, though." She colored prettily at her own boldness. "How would you like to hear that we've lost better than twenty thousand dollars just since opening this morning?"

"Splendid!" Mr. Baker said. "Splendid! Just keep up the good work, Miss Winters, and we'll be out of business in no time at all." As he turned away he smiled broadly at Marc and Toffee. "The sooner we unload all this junk the sooner we can close up and await the end with composure. As a matter of fact the advertising department has devised a little slogan: Steal at the Empire Before you Roast in Hellfire! Clever, eh?"

"Frightfully," Toffee said, "in the strictest sense of the word."

"Good grief," Marc said. "They're so used to the idea of dying, they're getting flip about it."

"Maybe it's all for the best," Toffee said. "At least their last days will be pleasant."

* * * * *

In the grey coolness of the fashion salon, Toffee, Marc and Mr. Baker, the manager, sank into low, comfortable chairs and accepted the services of a dark, aloof young lady who brought them drinks in tall, cool glasses. An orchestra played muted background music as from a misted distance. All in all the salon was a den of pleasant relaxation.

Girls of all types and unparalleled beauty paraded constantly in the latest words from the fashion centers of the world. Some of the fashion designers, Toffee concluded approvingly, were given to very brief and suggestive words. She also noted--again with approval--that most of those in attendance were males.

"They come here to make dates with the models," the manager explained. "But then the models come here to make dates with the men, so it's all right. I see Congressman Bloodsop hasn't arrived yet."

Toffee leaned forward interestedly. "The congressman?" she said. "Tell me, is this Congressman Bloodsop a man of influence? Does he have connections in high places?"

Marc interrupted the answer. "Pick out some clothes and let's leave," he said impatiently. "I have to get home and start looking for Julie."

"That can wait," Toffee said airily. She turned back to Mr. Baker with a smile. "You were saying...?"

"The congressman has the best of connections," he said. "He's only been in office six months and he's already bilked the nation of millions."

"I see," Toffee said thoughtfully. "And if you were me and were picking out a dress that would interest Congressman Bloodsop what kind would you choose?"

"Something unobtrusive," the manager said. "Nothing to obscure the view."

"I see," Toffee said. "The old gaffer has an eye out?"

"Both eyes. And so far out you could tick them off with a match."

"Something of a rounder, eh?"

"Everything of a rounder."

"Sounds almost too easy," Toffee mused.

"Here, now," Marc broke in. "What are you up to?"

"Nothing," Toffee said with great innocence. "A girl likes to make a good impression on persons of importance." She pointed to the model across the room who was displaying, besides quite a lot of epidermis, a dress made of a vaporish material which had been cut with an extremely frugal hand--almost grudging. "That dress--could I have that one?"

"Oh, that's a dinger, isn't it?" the manager said approvingly. "You might say it was practically made for Congressman Bloodsop." He brought the model over with a nod of the head.

"Madam wishes to see the dress?" the girl asked.

"Madam wishes to see the dress on madam," Toffee said. "The sooner the better."

"You got guts, honey," the model said. "And you'll need them, too, to keep this thing up."

* * * * *

The two of them adjourned to the dressing rooms and Toffee returned a moment later, the very picture of the most recent thing in scandalous _chic_. She joined Marc and Mr. Baker and took her place between them.

"How do you like it?" she asked Marc.

"You'd be more modest in a plastic shower curtain," Marc said. He boosted himself forward. "Come on."

"I want to meet the congressman," Toffee said. And even as she spoke a portly gentleman with a ruddy face and almost theatrically white hair appeared in the entry and started forward. "And I think I'm about to."

At the manager's limp wave, Congressman Orvil Bloodsop, the accomplished absconder of public funds, presented himself before the company. His eyes, true to forecast, registered a lively appreciation at the sight of Toffee. He nodded perfunctorily to Marc.

"These are some people I met in sporting goods," the manager said. "I haven't the least idea what their names are--or if they have any at all. They can tell you, if they think it's wise."

"What's in a name?" the congressman said with hackneyed gallantry. He got himself a chair and wedged it deftly between Toffee's and the manager's. "It's the ... uh ... heart that counts, eh?" He settled himself with a snort. "I don't believe I've ever seen you around before, dear. Where are you from?"

Toffee lowered her lashes with artful mystery. "A long way away," she said huskily.

"Stop that," Marc said. "Stop sounding like a movie vamp with a bad cold and come on."

"I have things to discuss with the congressman, haven't I, Congressman Bloodsop?"

"Why, of course, dear," the congressman said, leering at the things he hoped she referred to.

"What things?" Marc asked crudely.

"You'll see," Toffee said. "Enjoy the passing scenery." She turned back to Congressman Bloodsop. "I hear you've got some wonderful connections."

"Some of the best, dear."

"In Washington?"

"Straight up to the President," Orvil Bloodsop boasted. "All the way up."

"The President?" Toffee said. "Who's that?"

* * * * *

The congressman looked at her twice to make sure she wasn't joking. "Why the President is Lemons Flemm," he said. "You know that. But perhaps you remember Lemons when he was a television comedian. That's how Lemons got elected, you know.

"During campaign time Lemons' sponsor refused to give up his air time for the candidates speeches. As a result everyone was trying to watch Lemons and the candidates at the same time, and they got confused. When they counted the votes, Lemons was elected.