“Now hol’ still, Cly. Theah! Now how ’bout one with you puffin’ the see-gah with Penny?”
“Robin.” Marian cocked her head. “What’s that noise Ah heah? Sounds like gunfiah.”
“Prob’ly jes’ some of the local folks shootin’ up the foahclosuah signs.”
“Nope.” Penny had taken up a cautious position alongside one of the bedroom windows and was peering out. “It’s the law.”
“The law!” Marian sounded panicky.
“They headin’ foah the porch. We’d best get downstaihs an’ discourage them,” Penny advised.
The four of them stampeded down the staircase. Penny, Cly and Robin took up positions at the living room windows to guard the approaches to the house. Marian distributed guns and ammunition and then stationed herself where she could cover the back door if the attackers tried circling to the rear.
A steady hail of shotgun pellets bounced against all four walls of the house. “They’s a local posse.” Robin made the identification for the others. After that they were too busy returning the fire with tommy gun and pistols for conversation. It kept up for a long time before there was a slight lull.
It was during the lull that the little girl appeared at the top of the staircase. “Auntie Cly,” she whined, “why’d yew steal the money from out of mah piggy bank las’ time yew was heah?”
“Jes’ keepin’ mah hand in, chile,” Cly told her.
A voice from outside sounded over Cly’s words. “Y’all in theah!” the voice called. “ ’Foah we waste any moah lead, are y’all who we think yew are?”
Indignant at the doubt expressed, Cly stepped to the window. “We’ah Penny an’ Cly!” she shouted back proudly. “We rob piggy banks!” She sprayed the landscape with the tommy gun.
The gunfire resumed. Then-—“Mommy”—during another lull-—“Mommy, when am Ah gonna git mah money back from Auntie Cly?”
“What yew doin’ on those staihs, chile? Yew wanna git youah haid blowed off? Go on back in the bedroom with youah brothahs and sistahs.” Vexed, Marian pumped a few slugs out the window. It sparked a return volley from outside.
“They won’t let me watch mah progam, Mommy. They’s watchin’ theah program an’ when Ah tried to switch the channel, Prettyboy done hit me.”
“Yew tell Prettyboy Ah said!” Marian slapped her pistol and pumped the trigger.
“All right, Mommy. Ah’ll tell him. But he’ll only hit me again.” The child vanished into one of the rooms at the top of the stairs.
“Ah declaih!” Marian shook her head. “That Prettyboy’s jes’ gettin’ impossible! It’s all that TV he watches. Theah’s altogethah too much violence on TV. lt’s not good foah the children. They shouldn’t ’low all that violence on TV.”
“Duck youah haid, foah it gets blowed off,” Cly cautioned as the wall behind Marian was peppered with shots.
“Seein’ so much violence on the TV makes the children mean an’ ornry, ’stead of peaceable,” Marian continued. “Ain’t that right, Robin?”
“Reckon so, honey. Would yew be so kind as to pass the ammunition.”
“An praise the Lawd whilst youah at it,” Penny added. “This heah’s gettin’ pretty hot.”
“Ah thank it’s time we was moseyin’ along,” Cly suggested. “Le’s pile into the car out theah in the gay-rage an’ make a break foah it.”
Penny and Cly suited their action to Cly’s words. They made for the car parked in the garage attached to the house and climbed into the front seat. Cly took the wheel while Penny leveled the chopper, ready to blast their way out.
“Send us a postcard naow,” Marian called as Robin rolled up the door of the garage. They stood hand-in-hand waving after Penny and Cly as the car shot down the driveway in a hail of lead.
The posse chased them from the driveway and down the road, stooping to fire, shaking their fists. But after a while they had to stop, muttering their rage as the car vanished beyond a curve in the road.
“Shook ’em,” Penny announced. “What naow?”
“Best thang ’d be to get out of the country. Damn!” Cly slapped her forehead. “Yew know what damfool thang Ah done, Penny? Ah went and left that money Ah Stole ba¢k theah with Robin and Marian.”
“Yew know somethin’, Cly? Sometimes-—somet1mes, youah pretty damn inept!” Penny glowered. “Stop youah snivelin’! Question is, what do we do?”
“Ah know!” Cly perked up. “We’ll go an’ get that money yew stole from Fullah. Wheah’d yew stash it, honey?”
“Ah thawt Ah gave it to yew.”
“What yew mean? Yew nevah!” Cly was indignant.
“Yew said youahself Ah stole it foah yew.”
“Ah jes’ meant the thirty dollahs petty cash Ah took that yew juggled the books foah. Ah didn’t neveh mean that ten thousand yew heisted. Ah nevah saw none of that.”
Penny looked at Cly closely. There could be no doubt about it. She was telling the truth. Penny realized then that Cly wasn’t the villainess behind Pemiington P. Potter’s theft and suicide. But if Cly wasn’t responsible, then who was? And where was the stolen money?
The questions were driven from Penny’s mind by a sudden turn of events. A curve in the road led Penny and Cly smack into a police ambush.
The roadway was blocked and some twenty policemen opened fire on the hapless pair from behind the blockade. An equal number started shooting from either side of the road. Cly tried to turn the car around, but it was too late. The cops had closed in and now there was a hail of bullets coming from that direction as well. Skidding to a halt, Cly picked up her gun and she and Penny shot it out with the lawmen.
“We bettah break foah the woods,” Penny suggested after a few moments under the heavy fire. When there was no answer, Penny turned to Cly. The young blonde’s body was riddled with bullets. It looked like a Swiss cheese that had been attacked by a flock of curd-eating moths. She was dead.
Eyes horrified and streaming with tears, Penny gazed at Cly’s lifeless body. With head thrown back, Penny howled Cly’s epitaph. “Police brutality!” Penny shrieked. “Police brutality!” And Penny ran for the shelter of the trees through a hailstorm of bullets, still screaming: “Police brutality!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Oh, Sting, where is thy Death?
The answer lay in a hail of lead so thick that it was transformed into the deadliest of insecticides. The barrage following Penny into the woods decimated the local branch of South Jersey mosquito-dom almost to the point of genocide. The frantically milling ’skeeters rose in a cloud so thick that Penny was hidden from the marksmen behind it. But the buzzers fell by the hundreds, sacrificed to the fugitive’s safety.
The sacrifice was not in vain. As cops and insects fought it out, Penny plunged deeply into the marshlands and was lost to the ambushers. The trouble was that after an hour or so went by, Penny was just plain lost.
Botanically, Penny was a bigot. All trees looked alike. One fern looked just like another. Weeds mushroomed common and identity-less, and mushrooms had no personality even if they were toadstools. Disorientation had turned the marshland into a fern maze and there were no longer even the sounds of gnat and gun to point a direction back to civilization.
Penny perched, stumped, on a tree stump and thought confused thoughts. The confusion was more than just geographical. It was situational and inner-directed as well. From every angle, Penny was in one hell of a fix.
Firstly there was the matter of female brain and male body still working out the terms of coexistence. Secondly there was the matter of theft and suicide to be reconciled-—revenged? atoned?—-Penny Wasn’t sure which. Thirdly there were the problems of being infamous now, and on the lam; how to lose oneself to the world and find oneself for oneself. And last, but still the primary objective of the moment, there was the matter of finding one’s way out of the swamp—and hopefully—out of the State of New Jersey altogether (New Jersey being a mental state as well, and a locale to be avoided by the discriminating on both counts).