23

The now human Roger studied his hands in a mirror. He stuck his twidlers into his mouth and pulled the loose flesh sideways to its natural limit. He crossed his eyes and bracked his tongue, begetting the ugliest face this side of a mud hen with mumps. The sight nearly scared him to death. “Eddie, what’s wrong with me? My best funny face isn’t funny anymore. It’s downright doubly disgusting.”

“Maybe the mirror’s set to the wrong station.”

He jacked up his brows to the level of a pedant’s pomposity. “What a ridiculous assertion.”

“It’s a joke, numb knuckles.”

That rocked him harder than the recoil from a misfired blunderbuss. “A joke? Honest?”

“As I live and breathe.”

“You made a joke, and I didn’t get it.” Roger’s knees collapsed. He grabbed my arm to stay erect. “Oh, no. It can’t be so! Eddie, I’ve lost my sense of humor.”

“Buck up. Maybe it’s only taking a breather. Building up strength. Like hair does when you lop it. Plenty of mugs shave their scalps in summertime to thicken their thatch for fall.”

“One problem. I know of cases where it never grew back.” Roger umbrellaed his laced fingers over his noggin to protect himself from the pieces of his crumbling world. “What would I do if I had to spend the rest of my life hairless?”

“There are worse things than being a cue ball.”

“I don’t mean baldness literally.” His raspy voice rose to a pitch midway between tenor and terror. “It was a metaphor. I’m talking about my sense of humor.”

“There’s worse than being serious, too.”

“Name one.”

Before I could, the doorbell interrupted me.

Gable stood on the threshold. I hardly recognized him. He’d combed his hair by sticking it under a ceiling fan. Dark blue stubble bandannaed his jaw. His trousers and shirt harbored more rumples than stiltskin. “You’re here,” he said. The whiskey in his voice could keep a booze cruise afloat for a week. Where are the flash bulbers when I need them? The Telltale prints one snapshot of Gable in this condition, it ushers in a national fashion trend suiting yours truly to a positive tee.

“Congrats. Your detective skills are improving.”

“Not really. This was my last resort.” He staggered inside with the lathered, stiff-legged gait of a war horse hobbling through the curtain stanza of the Light Brigade’s farewell poem. “I already tried your place, mine, Roger’s, and every gin mill in between.”

Roger had already killed my mood. Gable now killed my wine. He glugged it straight out of the bottle, belching when he hit bottom. “I’m sorry, Eddie,” he said. “I lost Potts again. Detective work is tougher than I supposed.”

Roger stood next to him, pantomiming his moves.

Gable shoved the rabbit away by levering out his elbow. “Ease off the monkey see, monkey do routine, sport. It’s not funny.”

“It’s not funny?” Roger opened his arms to God or whomever else lived in the apartment above. “Mercy me,” he wailed. “I’m not funny!”

“Who is this idiot?” asked Gable.

“Clark Gable, meet Roger Rab…Rabs. Roger Rabs. A passing acquaintance of mine.”

Roger’s hands formed a U and framed his face. “We’ve got a common vocation, Clark. I’m in the movies, too.”

Gable unpacked a cigarette from a monogrammed gold case. He tapped it on his thumbnail while he contemplated the rabbit skeptically.

“Honest Injun!” Roger tallied his most recent roles on his fingers. “A Harey Escape; Beach Blanket Bunny; Grab It, Rabbit; Somethin’s Cookin’.” He stopped at four, discombobulated by his newly sprouted fifth digit.

“I saw them.” Gable put match to tobacco dogface style, his palms cupping the flame to shield the glow. “I don’t remember you.”

“He was in the booth,” I said. “He’s a projectionist. Show business, get it? Rog’s idea of a joke.”

“Pretty lame, sport,” said Gable.

“Rog isn’t known for his wit.”

“I am so.” Roger popped to attention and saluted. “Scout’s honor. I’m a fetchingly funny fellow.”

“Right, Rog.” I winked at Gable. “No argument. You’re a barrel of monkeyshines.” I nudged him toward the kitchen. “We’d drink to it if given a beer.”

He shuffled away, fanning the empty air behind him to disperse the baleful black bubbles which usually shagged him whenever he grew depressed. Another plus to being human. Henceforth when he wore his heart on his sleeve, nobody expected to see a literal translation.

“Your friend needs a month in the country.” Gable whirligigged his finger next to his temple.

“Cut him a yard of slack. He’s a recent arrival.”

“From where?”

“State of confusion.”

Little Jo came out of her bedroom wearing a head scarf, sneakers, baggy slacks, and a plaid work shirt. Add smoked goggles, a welding torch, a half-inch steel plate, and she could replace Rosie the Riveter on a battlewagon assembly line. “Hi, Clark.” She crawled into my lap and curled up like a bad cat or a good book. “You look like death warmed over.”

“I feel even worse.” He flopped onto the sofa and stretched out.

Roger returned with a Blue Label long neck in each hand, and a third balanced precariously on his forehead. He endeavored to pry them open with his nostril. Needless to say, he failed gruesomely. Same song, second and third verses, when he tried his teeth and his inner ear.

I snatched them away before he maimed himself, and popped them the normal way.

“What happened to Roger?” asked Gable. “Did he escape from Potts with the goods?”

“A clean getaway,” I told him.

“At least the day hasn’t been a total washout.” Gable closed his eyes.

Roger leaned over the back of the sofa. “Haven’t we met before?” he asked impishly.

“No,” mumbled Gable from two inches this side of Dreamland.

“I seem to recall us rinsing our skivvies together.”

Gable’s eyes snapped wide. He grabbed the rabbit by the front of his trench coat. “I’ll tell you once and once only, buddy boy,” he growled. “I’m straight as string.”

“No, silly. At the Laundromat. Across the highway from Dyke’s.” Roger broke into song. “Ninety-six boxes of soap on the wall, ninety-six boxes of soap, if one of those boxes should happen to fall, ninety-five boxes of soap on the wall.”

Gable gave the rabbit a closer look. “Roger?”

Roger flashed Gable a peek at his overalls and toasted him with a swallow of suds. “Hare’s looking at you, Clark.”

Gable pinched the rabbit’s cheek. “Astounding.” He tugged Roger’s crop of red hair. “I’ve never seen a better makeup job. I’d swear you were human.”

Roger flashed him the thumbs-up sign, proof positive of human genus. “You’d be right.”

“What… How…” An actor lost for words. Mark the date. It’ll never happen again.

“Roger glugged a potion called Toon Tonic,” I explained. “It changes them into us. Also works the other way, for any fool eager to make the trip.”

I explained how Pepper Potts, Kirk Enigman, Tom Tom LeTuit, and probably Roger’s unscrupulous cousin Dodger had been partners in a scheme to manufacture and sell Toon Tonic. Potts won sole control of the business by ash-canning his three associates. “Potts is one dangerous snake. He’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants.”

“Whew,” said Little Jo.

“Double whew,” said Gable.

“That goes triple for me,” said Roger. “Whew, whew, and whew again.”

“Where is the formula now?” asked Gable.

“Tucked away.” In my coat pocket alongside Selznick’s Dragoon. I tried and rejected Potts’s hiding place. Safe as a bank vault, great for the silhouette, but murder on the inner seam.

“My compliments, Eddie,” said Gable. “You appear to have solved the case.”

If you didn’t count a few minor, unanswered questions. Like who muffed Baby Herman? Did Jessica really dish her own dirt to the Toontown Telltale, and if so, why? What happened to my brother Freddy? How does Heddy fit into this mess? And my two biggies. What’s the secret of life? And, does the light go off when you shut the icebox door?

Morning kicked a hole in the window and lobbed in a shaft of daylight. “Time for me to hit the road. I have to see a dog about a bigger dog.”

“I’m coming with you,” said Roger.

“Pass,” said Gable. “I’m going home. I’ve decided I’m functionally ill-suited to this line of work.”

“I’ll stay here, Eddie,” said Little Jo. She bussed me on the earlobe. “And keep your home fires burning.”

Outside Little Jo’s building Roger, Gable, and I encountered a beat cop, a brick-solid, red-faced shillelagh of a man twirling a four-pound billy club the way a kid elevators a yoyo. “You three,” he barked the instant he spotted us. “Hold it right there.”

He slid his billy into its sheath. His steel-cleated boots sparked on the concrete sidewalk as he walked in our direction. His gun hand rested on the mahogany butt of a long-barreled Police Special.

A half dozen ribbons for bravery underscored a name tag identifying him as Officer Meany. I hoped Roger decided to go along quietly. This wasn’t a fight any man smaller than a steam shovel was likely to win.

“You who I think you are?” asked Officer Meany.

Roger hung his head and prudently extended his hands for the cuffs. “One and the same, Officer.”

“Not you, nitwit. Him.” He pointed at Gable.

“Aren’t you Clark Gable?”

Gable flashed his pearly whites. “Guilty as charged, Officer.”

“My wife drags me to every one of your pictures.” Officer Meany hauled out his ticket book and handed it to the star. “How’s about signing an autograph to her?”

“My pleasure,” said Gable. “What’s her name?”

“Timothy.” The cop flushed when he said it. “And don’t write nothing gushy. She’s a hard-nosed, two-fisted, can-do kind of broad.”

“Right.” Gable inscribed his name and added a small self caricature.

“What about me?” Roger asked the cop.

“What about you?” Officer Meany tucked his ticket book into his large rear pocket.

“Don’t you want my autograph?”

“Not particularly.”

“But I’m…Ooooof!”

I elbowed him hard in the cowcatcher. It slowed his chugging but didn’t knock him off the track.

“I’m Roger Rabbit!” He did a slipshod buck-and-wing.

The cop gave him a long, slow onceover. “And I’m Fearless Fosdick.”

“Hi, Fearless.” Roger pumped the cop’s hand. “P-p-p-pleased to make your acquaintance. Jumpin’ jiminy. Your jaw’s rounder than I recall. You’re taller, heavier, fairer, lighter haired, and younger, too. Have you been sick?”

“I’ll be dipped.” The cop reached under his hard brim and scratched his scalp. “That’s the best take on Roger Rabbit I ever heard. How long you been working on that?”

“All my life.”

“Keep it up, fellah.” Officer Meany strolled away. “You nearly got it perfect.”

We dropped Gable at home.

Roger and I went to my place to select the former rabbit a less conspicuous wardrobe.

He browsed my closet and emerged decked out in a suit I’d worn once, a conservatively cut, dark blue, double-breasted banker’s special I bought for Heddy’s wedding. Heddy steered me towards it. She wanted me to fit in with Ferd’s family. Fat chance. I would have blended better wearing Dad’s old clown outfit. I was the only one in attendance whose carnation didn’t squirt water.

I plucked that selfsame withered flower out of Roger’s buttonhole and tucked it into my wallet.

When we left, Roger lugged along the leather briefcase I keep to disguise myself as a nine-to-fiver. “For carrying briefs,” he told me when I asked him why. He opened it and showed me. He’d filled it with my underwear. Another axiom validated. You can take the man out of the rabbit, but not the rabbit out of the man.

We drove to Malibu Beach.

I walked to the water alone.

I bought Selznick’s second Dragoon a one-way, first-class accommodation on board the biggest rock I could lift and throw.

The Mug Shot saloon offers no atmosphere, no food, no live entertainment, no dance floor, no Happy Hour, no mixed drinks, no draft beer, and no clean glasses. What keeps it in business? It’s a hop, skip, and a coffee break away from the Toontown Police Station.

Even this early in the morning, the place was filled to standing room. Assuming the typical ratio, I figured two out of three for cops, though I recognized only one.

I made introductions. “Ferd Flatfoot, Roger Rabs.”

Roger propped his foot on the bar’s dented, tarnished brass rail and extended his hand. “Eddie tells me you’re a minion of the law. Here’s a riddle you might find amusing. What are old pennies made of?”

Ferd turned his back on the rabbit and signaled the barkeep.

“Dirty copper!”

I’d guessed wrong when I estimated two thirds of the patrons enforced the law. A quick show of hands, those reaching for guns to blast Roger to kingdom come, indicated nearer ninety-five percent.

“What a rib tickler,” said Roger. His proffered shake hung empty. Rather than waste a reach, he scooped his mitt full of peanuts and tossed them toward his mouth. He scored a perfect zero. The goobers ricocheted off his nose, his chin, and every piece of face in between. Undaunted by failure, he grabbed for more.

Ferd slid the bowl down the unvarnished, splintery pine bar. “I can’t shuffle that fumpadumping woman from pillar to post much longer, Eddie. She’s screaming bloody murder. Sooner or later, Bascomb’s gonna hear her. Then my fat hits my friggetytooting fan.”

A group of long-term residents cancelled their lease on a booth, and we moved in.

“You got ‘til the end of my shift tonight. After that, all Hell and Louise Wrightliter both break loose.”

Our plain-featured, stoop-shouldered, mussy-haired, flatfooted waitress worked as hard as Tillie the Toiler. You have to in a bar serving liquor to cops. We ordered two slugs apiece to spare Tillie a second trip.

“I need another extension.”

“No dice, Eddie. You’ve collected what you’re owed. Read my balloon.” It displayed a parcel of words the Brits never envisioned when they invented English.

“You’re forgetting about Heddy.”

“Who’s Heddy, Eddie?” asked Roger. “Your steady?”

“I thought we agreed,” said Ferd. “You bring her into it, you sink in a wink.”

“You whiff in a jif. Spin it in a minute. Sour in an hour. Crash in a flash. You’re lice in a trice.”

I smacked Roger hard in the ribs. “Hush.”

“In a rush!”

I gave him a dime and a shove toward the jukebox.

I motioned Ferd closer. I didn’t want my sorry story noised around a crowd with a sworn duty to eradicate crime. “Heddy’s in bona fide Dutch involving a dastardly brew called Toon Tonic. It changes humans into Toons and vice versa. I know for certain Freddy swigged a dose. I got reason to believe Heddy did the same. To snare the formula, and the big money that comes with it, she bagged and dusted Baby Herman.”

Ferd’s response ascended out of him slowly, like once-burned bread rising from a twice-shy toaster. “Peeeeeeeeee-you. I ain’t biting, Eddie. Not again. That’s the biggest fooping fairy tale I heard since Cinderella.”

“I admit I’m lacking proof. But the facts line up like a row of dominoes with Heddy the first to topple. I want to keep her clean, but that’s gonna be easier said than done. She’s messed in a big, ugly way.”

Roger and my ten-cent piece returned together. “What kind of establishment stocks twenty-five different versions of the Marine Corps Hymn?” He slid into the booth.

“Heddy never leaves home.” Ferd tossed back his first and second shooters and mine for good measure. Tillie would earn her tips today. “The woman cooks, cleans, tends to the kids. When’s she have time for mischief?”

“Lois Lane thought the same about Clark Kent.”

Ferd’s cogitations resembled a basic arithmetic primer. No matter how he rearranged the numbers, two plus two kept adding up to four. “I’ll stall Bascomb,” said Ferd, “provided you reciprocate.”

“How so?”

He pulled out a Wanted poster advertising Roger Rabbit’s particulars. “Turn in the rabbit. For as much as Bulldog wants you, he wants Roger Rabbit more.”

“Let me make sure I understand you right. If I hand the bunny to Bascomb, I save my beloved sister and get myself off the hook in one fell swoop?” I looked at Roger. “What do you think, compadre? Would you snap at a deal like that?”

Roger clutched his shot glass so hard I feared for exploding shards. “I’d have to give the matter a great deal of thought. Speculate, cogitate, meditate, ruminate, contemplate. Weigh the respective pros, the disrespective cons, the whys, the wherefores…”

“I’d do it in a whisker.” I addressed Ferd. “You want Roger Rabbit, he’s yours.” I slid out of the booth. “As soon as I find the slippery cuspidor.” I grabbed Roger by the arm and hustled him out.

Roger slouched in the front seat twiddling the car radio. He bypassed the chuckleheads—Baby Snooks, Groucho Marx, Lum and Abner, The Great Gildersleeve—in favor of hillbilly music about busted wranglers, jilted lovers, out-of-gas truck drivers, and similar washouts knotted together by a common thread of off-key misery.

“Relax, bunkie. I won’t roll you out of the frying pan to save my own bacon.”

“I know, Eddie. You’re my friend, my chum, my pal, my crony, my sidekick.” Roger hung the upper half of his body out of the moving car and pressed his face against the window of the bus chugging along parallel to us in the next lane. The strap hanger on the receiving end of Roger’s attention responded by smacking the glass with a rolled-up newspaper. Roger hauled himself back inside. “See there? That’s my problem.”

“You’re a world-renowned movie star, but everybody takes you for an ordinary Joe?”

“Merciful Mergatroyd, no! That’s not it. Next to rhubarb, humble’s my favorite pie. I can live with obscurity.” We stopped at an intersection. He made a face at a kid entering the crosswalk. The kid started to bawl. The kid’s mother shook her fist at us. “I’ve lost the ability to make people laugh.”

I punched the accelerator and sped away before the angry mother took down our license number. “You’re fighting a losing battle, amigo. Humans regard buffoonery as a social disease. If it shows up in your blood, you’re not funny. You’re sick.”