Marc and Toffee swung quickly out of the courtroom and started down the corridor. They were not entirely certain that they were officially allowed this break from the smothering embrace of the law, but since it was a love that was totally unrequited they felt perfectly justified in nipping it off as cleanly and quickly as possible. Besides, neither was in a mood to ask questions.
Marc frowned deeply. The future, in view of past events, was not reassuring. He wondered what night it was that he had lain awake and felt a happy anticipation at strange and wonderful things about to happen. It didn't seem possible that it could have been only night before last; it must have been years and years ago in view of all that had happened. Certainly, in a most disturbing way, the strange and wonderful things had come to pass, but the feeling of happy anticipation had been shot to hell in its very beginnings.
How could things possibly have gotten themselves into so incomprehensible a snarl in just the space of a few short hours? Only a day and a night had passed and now, here he was with a divorce, an irresponsible redhead, a criminal record and several volumes of unfavorable publicity on his hands. And to top it all off, though he was subject to the laws of gravity at the moment, he had taken to floating about in the air like a demented balloon. Also, he had the forbidding feeling that he might revert to a condition of buoyancy at any given moment.
Marc sighed heavily and cursed the day he conceived the idea of the basement laboratory. If there was any small comfort remaining to him at all it came only from a patently comfortless cliche: things couldn't possibly get any worse. He didn't see the courtroom door swing mysteriously open behind him, waver for a moment, then swing shut again.
Neither did Marc see the horrible Blemish twins following behind him and Toffee in the corridor shadows. His attention, instead, had been drawn to the two men in double-breasted suits who were shoving their way toward him through the crowd. Though Marc was certain that the two, regardless of what their business might be, could be the bearers of only bad tidings, he hadn't the will left in him to try to avoid them. One more worry, added to the multitude he already had, would hardly be noticed. Taking Toffee's hand, he stopped and waited resignedly for the two to catch up to them.
"Mr. Pillsworth?" the first man nodded.
"Could there be any doubt?" Toffee said dully.
The man glanced at Toffee, startled a little at her costume, then returned his gaze firmly and resolutely to Marc.
"We are with the Federal Government," he said. He nodded toward the courtroom from which Marc and Toffee had just departed. "I'm sorry we didn't get here sooner; we could have saved you all that trouble."
"Now it's the Feds," Toffee murmured. "More cops ... more courtrooms ... more judges ... more questions ... wurra, wurra."