Swell. The Fighting Fish were after him now. And knew exactly what was in the case. But why was Vince cooperating? Some kind of secret payoff? But why did T.B. have to die? What was Vince's angle? There had to be an angle. Things didn't just happen at random.
A stingray came in the door, jingling the bell. He sat down and studied the menu. It wasn't Mr. Cho, but so what? Asian faces didn't eat here. Certainly not four at the same time. These guys had ambush stamped on their foreheads. What was T.B. supposed to do? Make a run for it? Draw his sidearm and mow them all down like in the cowboy movies?
T.B. sipped his coffee. A dagger whistled past his head and embedded its point in the wall plaster behind him. T.B. whipped his eyes back to the fish. All of them were smiling at him, but he couldn't tell who'd thrown the knife. Damn, these Chinks had fast fins. T.B. would probably get the wire-around-the-neck trick performed on him before he made the door.
Screw it. T.B. gulped the last of his coffee, slapped down a quarter, and scuttled for the door. He ran into the street and kept running, legs windmilling. The bell on the beanery door jangled behind him, and the rip in his side throbbed like a jellyfish in a bottle of Clorox. But hey! No one was coming after him. T.B. kept running anyway, for as long as he could manage. Then he leaned against a lamppost on Comforter Boulevard, wheezing like an out-of-tune engine on a frosty morning.
What were the Fighting Fish playing at? Some kind of warning? Weren't bullets warning enough? He was caught in the middle of something, but what? The middle of what? It hardly mattered. T.B. had to blow Plush City fast and stay away until this whole mess blew over.
There were places he could disappear to. There was Puppetropolis. There was Lawn County where the tin toys lived. There was Ark where toys carved from wood went when they died. T.B. could buy a train ticket and ride. The money in the case made it simple. A bandage, a train ticket, maybe a change of clothes, and he'd be living it up in Candy Land on Vince's play money. He wouldn't go back to his rattrap apartment though. That would be a sucker move after two slugs and a dagger in one afternoon.
Should he head for the train station? Maybe not. Get this rip mended first. T.B. buttoned his overcoat and moved on.
He thought of his girlfriend, Doris the Doll. Assuming she was his girlfriend after the blow-up last week. Maybe he should scout her hotel, see if she was home. Even if she wasn't, he could jimmy the lock and hide out for a couple of hours, pull himself together. But she'd probably be home. The daylight was still fading, and Doris was the kind of working girl who worked by dark of night.
Yeah, Doris's place was probably safe. If a giant monster didn't step on it.
Turtle and Snake cut north on Nursery, heading for the under-structure of Scissors Bridge. They figured their lookout fort on the bridge was the perfect vantage point for watching monsters wreck the place. Silk River made a cozy loop that encircled the whole west side, and from the middle of the bridge you could see half the city. You could look south and see Bastingstitch Bridge and the dockyards or look north and see Cutieface Bridge and the sewage plant. You could look west across the river and see Mildew Swamp or look east and see the lights of the Argyle Pleat Building.
Snake loved to see the lights of the city shimmer on the river water. Sometimes she rode the Velveteen Street bus for hours after dark, back and forth, just to look out her window while the bus crossed Scissors Bridge. At night the city was beautiful, because you couldn't really see it. You could make it something better in your mind. Then the sun sequin came up, newly polished by the Washerwoman, and its cold steely light made everything ugly again.
Turtle grabbed Snake by the neck. "Hide!" he whispered. "Beanbags!" The street ahead of them was blocked by a loitering gaggle of beanbags. The beanbags were the sumo wrestlers of the west-side gang scene. What they lacked in detail and personality, they made up for in sheer bulk.
A corduroy beanbag spotted the reptile kids and started jeering at them. "Hey, look at this. Here's a little fag that plays with girls. You like little girls, turtle? Maybe you are a little girl. You wanna bend over and find out?"
"Hey, Slobbo, would you fuck a snake?"
"I might fuck a dead snake, haw haw haw."
"Hey, Blobbo, what would you do with a snake?"
"I'd cut her head off and fuck her in the neck, haw haw haw."
"Is that how you treat a little girl?"
"She ain't a little girl," Turtle called back, trying to sound defiant from behind a rain barrel.
The beanbags laughed and started to throw rocks. Turtle and Snake beat a hasty retreat. Their escape was facilitated by the passage of a flock of panic-stricken citizens with their red flannel mouths wide open and their arms in the air.
Turtle and Snake ducked into the doorway of a hardware shop and lay low. "Are you okay?" asked Turtle.
"I guess so," said Snake. "Nothing ripped."
"We can circle the block, cut north again on Porcelain."
"Yeah."
Turtle tied his tennis shoes, which were already tied. "You ain't really a girl, are you? My mother said you was a tomboy."
Snake frowned. "It's a little hard to tell with snakes, but. Yeah, Turtle. I'm a girl. A tomboy is a girl that acts like a boy."
"Uh," said Turtle. He couldn't quite wrap his tiny fabric brain around the concept. He took refuge in the familiar. "If I had a sulfuric acid cannon, I would dissolve those bastards."
"Yeah," said Snake. Then they heard the crash of giant monsters colliding with nearby buildings.
"We're missing the best part!" wailed Turtle.
They bolted south toward Silkfront Road. Turtle ran as fast as his plump little green plush legs would carry him, and Snake slithered loyally behind him.
The cat led the dog on a broken-field chase through the industrial district's steel foundries and chemical plants. As the monsters approached the city limit, the yellow plaid monster squads poured from their yellow plaid armory in their yellow plaid flatbeds with the swivel-action dart cannons.
The cat charged up the middle of Textile Street, three stories tall. Ahead of her swarmed a crush of shoving shouting stuffies, all trying like mad to get out of her way. They succeeded only in compacting each other into a solid mass. The cat stumbled through the screaming puddle of flesh, mashing flat no small number of them. The emergency rooms would be full tonight.
A monster squadsman fired his dart cannon at the cat. Unfortunately the rubber suction cup didn't stick, and the dart bounced off. The cat licked her side, looked around in confusion, and took her revenge on a florist's delivery truck. She rammed the truck through some plate glass into a penny arcade and crushed seven school children, whose pitiful burst bodies took weeks to heal. The cat was so distracted with pedestrians and trucks that she didn't hear the dog coming at her.
He pounced on her back, and instantly all hell broke loose. The two monsters seemed to levitate within an orange-and-purple tornado of slashing claws, snapping jaws, and flying bits of gingham and calico skin. They ricocheted off buildings like a madly spinning pool ball. Bricks flew like shrapnel, maiming the stuffies who cowered indoors. A movie marquee broke the back of a balding rag doll. Falling shards of glass cut dozens of unfortunates to ribbons. (And that can take months to heal.)
The cat looked west up Textile and saw the wide cardboard facade of the Piecework Commerce Center. She made a sudden dash for the underpass where the street passed under the building, four lanes wide. She squeezed herself into the tunnel and out the other side, squashing the toy cars with the bad luck to be in her way. Several motorists suffered unscheduled amputations.