The Hibited Man

Chapter III.

When the check finally arrived Otterburn looked at it closely, then called, "Waiter, come here! What's this charge? I thought you had a big sign out front, 'No Cover Charge. ' How about it?"

The waiter looked."Oh, sir, that's the minimum liquor charge."

"What's that? I haven't seen anything about it on your menu."

The waiter turned the menu over and pointed to a line of three-point type, barely visible. By holding the menu up to the light and straining his eyes, Otterburn made out the words Minimum liquor charge, $5. 00 per person.

Otterburn said, "Lucy, run along and meet me in front of the ticket-agency. Know where Bergen's is? Same block as the theater but on the corner of Fifteenth."

"But why, Tom?"

"Because I'm going to make a disturbance. I told you I wouldn't let these gyp-artists clip me. So if you don't want to get caught in a riot be on your way. No argument now!"

Then, turning back to the waiter, he roared, "You mean you expect me to read that line of flyspecks? To heck with' you! I'll pay for the one cocktail apiece the young lady and I had and for our dinners and that's all."

"Shall I getta the manager, sir?"

"Yes, bring on your manager! Here's what I owe you, and not another cent do you get. Get out of my way!"

Finding his path blocked by a couple of very large waiters, and hearing the headwaiter cry, "Get that guy!" Otterburn seized the corner of the tablecloth that covered the table at which sat the four noisy fat red-faced men. They were noisy no longer, however, since like all the other customers they were watching Thomas Otterburn.

He pulled the tablecloth, which came off the table with a frightful crash of plates and glasses, and threw it over the heads of the burly waiters.

Waiters rushed at him from all points of the compass. Although Otterburn kicked a couple of tables over to block their path, a couple did get close enough to throw punches and kicks, which however merely bounced off his force-screen.

"Gyp me, eh?" he yelled."I'll show you crooks. Come on, why don't you hit me?" He pushed a large waiter, who had been vainly trying to punch his face, so that the man fell backwards, carrying a couple more tables with him.

As Otterburn dodged about the throng of waiters trying to get at him and customers trying to get away, the air became filled with plates, glasses and a chair or two flying at him. All bounced off.

As he heard a waiter yell: "E un' diavolo!" he plunged through the door of the men's washroom. Seeing the window open, he climbed out, dropped to the ground and walked the length of the alley to the street.

A waiter was leading a policeman into the Troc. Otterburn shrank back into the shadow until they had passed out of sight. Then he took stock of himself.

The Troc still had his hat but perhaps he had better not try to reclaim it just yet. It wasn't much of a hat anyhow. He must buy one of those snappy black-felt numbers, like the hats priests wore, to wear with his tux.

Said tux had several spots made by water, liquor and food that had not come at him so fast as to be deflected off by the field, and his knees were dusty from the climb through the window. He dusted his knees and worked on the spots for some seconds with his handkerchief.

Then, considering himself presentable enough for practical purposes, he stepped out of his alley and melted into the throng just as the policeman stuck his head out the window of the men's washroom to see what had become of il diavolo.

Since Otterburn's watch told him that he had plenty of time yet he strolled slowly toward Bergen's, ogling the crowds as they passed. He had always been puzzled by stories of men accosted or picked up by girls on the street, since nothing of the sort had ever happened to him.

The reason, he now realized, was simply that he had never made a practice of ogling but instead had always walked with a quick and businesslike step, his eyes glued dutifully to the pavement in front of him.

Now he was surprised to observe how many of the girls were walking slowly and unaccompanied and how they returned his stare with an expression that seemed on the verge of breaking into a welcoming smile if he would only encourage them. He must look into this matter some time when he didn't have Lucy on his hands. Speaking of whom—

Lucy was not in front of Bergen's. Otterburn picked up his tickets and waited outside the speculator's for five minutes, becoming more and more impatient. She must have stood him up, though he couldn't imagine why. It wasn't as if he'd done anything offensive or out of the ordinary. Oh well, there were just as good fish in the sea and he couldn't fool around all evening.

He started down the street towards the theater, scanning the crowd for another pickup. There didn't seem to be so many now that he was actually looking for them. However, two doors short of the theater he spotted a girl standing still in the doorway—a tall bleached-blonde, good-looking despite a beaky nose, heavy makeup and a distinctly used look.

"Good evening, miss," he said politely, showing his tickets."I beg your pardon but my girl just stood me up. Would you like to go to the show next door with me?"

"Why—" she hesitated, giving him a calculating eye."Sure, I don't mind. My boy-friend has let me down too. My name's M'rie; what's yours?"

By the time they reached their seats Otterburn was telling the girl whatever came into his head. He rattled on, "Got a date after the show? No? Fine. We'll come up to my place. Heck of a dump but it's home to me.

"I can't ask you to see my etchings because I only own one and that's not very good but I'll show it to you if you insist. We might stop at the liquor store on the way and get a bottle of anti-freeze. Make a real night of it."

"Why Mister Otterburg," she said coyly, "I only just know you."

"It occurs to me," he said as they sat down, "that I don't even know whether this show's any good. I haven't been reading the reviews. Say, that gives me an idea! I won't be gypped twice in one evening—three times, if you count my girl's running out on me. You wait here a minute. I'll be right back."

Five minutes later, as the music started he returned with a large paper bag. He gave M'rie a peek inside. It was full of tomatoes."Now," he said, "the show had better be good."

Alas, Crinolina was not good—at least not according to Thomas Otterburn's hypercritical taste. During the first act he commented on the low quality of the performance so audibly that people shushed him. It began to dawn upon him that if it had been a better show he probably couldn't have obtained such good seats on short notice.

During the second act a heroine in crinoline and a hero in the garb of a pre-Civil-War South'n gentleman engaged in an endless love-duet that went round and round without getting anywhere. When the hero finally kissed the heroine's dainty hand, and then placed a tall beaver hat on his yellow curls, Otterburn stood up.

He cried, "It stinks!" and let fly with a tomato.

The first missile splashed against the backdrop. The second carried away the hero's top-hat and the third disappeared into the folds of the heroine's vast skirts.

The aria died as if beheaded. Shouts resounded through the house. Feeling a hand snatch at him from behind, Otterburn turned quickly to face a man in the audience who had risen to grapple with him, and let him have a tomato in the face.

M'rie cowered away from him as if he were an inhuman monster. He stepped out into the aisle and threw his two remaining tomatoes at the ushers pounding down it towards him, then ran.

His flight took him to the orchestra in three long steps. He had some vague idea of leaping to the stage and escaping out the wings. Now, however, he saw a small door at one side of the orchestra-pit, below the level of the footlights. Into this he bolted and slammed it shut behind him.

Inside the door steps led down and to the left. He found himself in a big room below the stage, a room full of ropes and pieces of scenery. There was machinery for moving the stage itself and things whose names he did not even know.

Off to the-left, where the scenery was piled thickest, there seemed to be a space cleared for a workroom.

He ran that way. No exit—only a middle-aged man touching up a piece of stage-scenery with green paint. Apparently he was in that undiscovered country called backstage though he had always thought of it as being literally in back of the stage and not underneath.

The man, looking at him mildly as he approached, said, "What goes on, mister?"

Steps resounded on the stairs Otterburn had just descended and he saw a couple of ushers sprinting towards him. For some reason the painter's equipment fascinated him—what fun couldn't he have with a can of that lovely green paint? He snatched up the large can the painter was using, wrenched the 4-1/2 -inch paint-brush out of the astonished man's hand—and then started running again.

He dropped the paint-brush into the can so as to have a free hand, toppled a couple of pieces of scenery in the path of his pursuers and came out the other end of the workroom, back in the large room again.

To the other side of the stairs by which he had come down he saw a passage and ran for it.

The passage went straight on for a short distance. Then there was a little flight of steps leading up to another door and the passage did a square turn to the right. At the sight of something moving in front of him, Otterburn started so hard he spilled paint before realizing that the moving thing was his reflection in a huge full-length mirror beside a double door.

He ran on down the passage to the right to where it did another turn, to the left this time, and ended with a door marked Green Room. No admittance except to theater personnel.

As he took in this message the door flew open and a couple more ushers boiled out.

They checked as they saw him facing them, giving him time to turn and flee back the way he had come.

But when he got back to the big mirror and the double door, here came the other two ushers who had followed him the way he had come. There seemed to be no way to go except through the double door.

Therefore he wrenched it open and plunged in.

He found himself in a large room full of lockers, mirrors, long dressing-tables and a score or more of girls in all stages of nudity, some sitting at the tables and working on their makeup while others struggled into and out of articles of costume.

As soon as his entrance became obvious the girls set up a chorus of screams.

Some held garments in front of them while others simply yelled at him. Knuckles pounded the door.

It took Otterburn a few seconds to decide on his next course of action while fragments of stories he had read and movies he had seen floated through his head. Deciding that terror tactics were in order, he twisted his face into a horrid grimace and raced about the room, screaming at the top of his lungs and slapping wildly with his dripping brush at every patch of bare skin he saw—which under the circumstances included a great deal.

The shrieks of the girls rose to a. deafening crescendo. A few threw bottles and jars of cosmetics at him, which he heeded not at all. By showing his teeth and foaming a bit he soon had the entire mob rushing out the double door, bowling over the ushers standing there or else carrying them along in the torrent. Otterburn, counting on just that, followed them closely out of the room.