"She's giving birth," said Edna. "She's having a litter. They're looking for her pouch."
Dr. Beaver flushed a darker brown, and his tail began to slap at the floor tiles. "The infant is giving birth to more infants?"
Edna nodded. "It must be a mutation."
"What shall we do with them?" Nurse Peahen asked querulously. "They seem to be viable."
"I give up!" said Dr. Beaver. He snapped off his gloves, hurled them to the floor, and marched out of the room. Dr. Grayclam looked at the nurses. The nurses looked at him.
"Who's going to finish the procedure?" asked Nurse Peahen.
"Hell," said Dr. Grayclam. "I'll do it. Anyone can do this stuff. It's just sewing."
At this point the voice of Miss Zebra made an announcement through a wall speaker. "Urgent phone call for Nurse Pinkbunny. Extension seventeen." Miss Zebra ran the hospital switchboard.
"I'll be right back," said Edna. She took off her gloves and walked slowly down a pale green corridor to a wall phone. It would be Teddy of course. Edna wondered what his idea of an emergency would turn out to be. Perhaps he'd run out of beer. She lifted the receiver.
"Teddy, why are you calling me at work? We've talked about this. I'll be home when I'm home. Have you been listening to the radio? The whole city is on monster alert. People are filling up the subway shelters. Just pull yourself together, Teddy. It's a dangerous world out here, and you aren't the only one in it."
Edna hung up. She felt calm and confident. Confident primarily that Teddy would beat the crap out of her tonight. Of course he would. As the night followed the day.
"Are you okay?" asked Nurse's Aide Sunflower, stopping in the corridor with her arms full of laundry.
"I'll live," said Edna.
T.B. struggled up the stairs of the Cookiemilk Avenue subway station. He had to fight his way through a steady stream of stuffies bound for the monster shelters. T.B. wasn't concerned about giant monsters. He was worried about getting the briefcase back to Vince before he passed out. When he emerged onto street level, Vince's bar was in sight, right up the block. He slid north, leaving a trail of red ribbons behind him on the sidewalk.
T.B. mopped his warty lavender head with his handkerchief and dried off the suckers of three or four of his arms. He hobbled past a pawn shop, a record store, and a bakery. There were signs in the windows. closed for monster attack.
The bar was occupied by its normal clientele, a coven of sleazy mammals smoking cigarettes and guzzling dangerous rot-gut. Jerry Sloth and Ernie Koala were drinking whiskey sours at the bar. Rico the Mongoose and Yvette the Mink sat in a booth at a table crowded with ashtrays, dentures, empty shot glasses, and elbows. A couple of out-of-work elk were playing eight ball in the side room.
T.B. climbed onto a stool and leaned on the bar. Theresa the Sock Monkey approached him. "What's your poison, T.B.?"
"Not now, Monkey Face. I'm just resting my legs."
"You got a lot of legs to rest, T.B."
"I gotta talk to Vince."
"Back room. You know the way." He knew it well.
T.B. slid to the rear of the bar and limped up a hallway past a cigarette machine and the door to the lavatory. Harry the Mule stopped him for a frisk. Harry was Little Vince's personal bodyguard. He took T.B.'s Derringer but never touched the briefcase.
Vince's poker game was cranking along as usual, and as usual Vince wasn't playing. He was sitting at a circular table off to one side, going over some ledgers with his accountant Pokie the Stork. Sitting at a third table by herself and nursing a gin gimlet was Vince's bimbo, a doll that everybody called Ladybug for some reason. (She wasn't a ladybug, she was a doll.)
Ladybug was an eyeful. Her hair was fire-engine red, a bottle job but classy. She wore a sinuous ice blue evening gown, and her fishnet stockings stretched all the way down to a pair of stiletto heels.
No one in the room seemed overjoyed to see T.B. "You got the stuff from the Chinks?" said Vince. It wasn't really a question. Vince didn't ask people questions.
"No," said T.B. "There's a problem this week."
"What problem?"
"Mr. Cho wouldn't tell me. He sent me back here with your money. Said the money was no good, and I'm no good. Maybe he thinks it's counterfeit. I couldn't get a straight story out of him."
Vince scowled. "They didn't give you the stuff?" he snarled through his sharp little teeth.
"No, Sir." T.B. set the briefcase on the table next to the ledger. Deja vu. At least the stork wasn't working an abacus.
Vince stroked his whiskers and smiled at T.B. This was something he'd never done before, and T.B. didn't enjoy the experience. "I don't want the money either," said Vince. "Take it with you when you go." The room fell silent. The poker game ground to a halt.
"It's not my money, Vince."
"It is now. I'm giving it to you. Hold onto it. Take a vacation." Vince was serious. What the hell was going on? And when the hell was someone going to let T.B. in on the gag?
"But Vince, it's your money. You want me to take it to the bank or something?"
"No, jerk-off. I want your ugly face out of my bar. And don't bring it back. Take a hike."
T.B. was pleading now, wringing his tentacles distractedly. Sweat was trickling down his face and matting his plush. "Don't be like that, Vince. I'm not a bad guy. I don't mess with your money. I don't even nibble around the edges like some I could mention. It's your money. I'll just leave it here." T.B. started for the door.
Vince pulled a big black pistol from his coat. It wasn't the kind that shoots caps. The guys at the poker table sat up very straight. "Take the briefcase with you," said Vince.
"You're gonna shoot me if I leave it here? Well, I don't like getting shot, Vince. I've already been shot at once today. Maybe you know something about that."
"You're fired," said Vince. "Consider the briefcase your severance pay."
That raised a chuckle from the wise guys. Little Vince should be on the radio. He was a regular panic, this ocelot.
T.B. suckered one arm to the briefcase, snatched his gun from Harry the Mule, and limped down the hall. As he slid past the lavatory, he could hear the wise guys laughing at his expense. Deja vu all over again. He sat down at the bar. Theresa nudged his arm. "Want a drink, Sailor?"
"No, Monkey Face. Gotta run. Which isn't easy with eight legs." The stupid gag bought him a smile. "Hey Theresa, can I leave something behind the bar?" Keep it light, T.B. Like an afterthought. Carton of eggs, quart of milk, a carton of Luckies, and leave the briefcase behind the bar.
Theresa gave him a look like a sock monkey who'd just been bitten by a snake. T.B. was a grifter and betrayed people as a matter of course, but he seldom came face to face with a look like this one. It was rapidly reducing him to a grease spot on the bar-room floor. "No, T.B, you can't," was all she said
He dragged the case off the bar. He was poison. He was wrong. He hit the street and slithered north. He knew a good greasy spoon about two blocks up the way at Cookiemilk and Pompom.
At the beanery, which was called Eat Here as far as anyone knew, T.B. took a corner booth at the back. The only other customer was a caveman in a leopard skin reading a racing form. He'd parked his club beside the coat tree. The waitress was a green plush dragon with buck teeth. She dropped a laminated menu to the table. T.B. ignored it. "Chili and a cup of mud, black."
"Wit' cheese?"
"Sure, with cheese. Cheese for the cheesy." She turned around without writing on her pad. A pro.
While T.B. nursed his coffee and waited for his chili, the beanery filled up a little. The caveman was joined by a pair of yellow sharks and a very familiar little sea bass. T.B. pegged the bass as one of the abacus pushers from the opium den. It was fairly obvious that the bass had T.B. pegged too.