Malone began.
"But I've been looking for you," Mike went on. "See, I wanted to saysomething to you. Something real important."
Malone leaned forward expectantly. At last he was going to get someinformation--perhaps the information that would break the whole casewide open. He said, "Yes?"
"Well," Mike began, and stopped.
"You don't have to be afraid of me, Mike," Malone said. "Just tell mewhatever's on your mind."
"Sure," Mike said. "It's this."
He took a deep breath. Malone clenched his fists. Now it was coming.Now he would hear the all-important fact. He waited.
Mike stuck out his tongue and blew the longest, loudest, brassiest,and juiciest Bronx cheer that Malone had ever heard.
Then, almost instantly, the room was empty except for Malone himself.
Mike was gone.
There wasn't any place to hide, and there hadn't been any time to hidein. Malone looked around wildly, but he had no doubts at all.
Mike Fueyo had vanished, utterly and instantaneously. He'd gone outlike a light.
5
Thirty seconds passed.
During that time, Malone did nothing at all. He just sat there, whilea confused montage of pictures tumbled through his head. Sometimes hesaw double exposures, and sometimes a couple of pictures overlapped,but it didn't seem to make any difference, because none of thepictures meant anything anyhow.
The reason for that was obvious. He was no longer sane. He had crackedup. At a crucial moment his brain had failed him, and now people wouldhave to come in and cart him away and put him in a strait jacket. Itwas perfectly obvious to Malone that he was no longer capable ofdealing with everyday life. The blow on the head had probably takenfinal effect, and it had been more serious than the doctor hadimagined.
He had always distrusted doctors anyhow.
And now he was suffering from a delayed reaction. He wasn't living inthe real world any more. He had gone off to dreamland, where peopledisappeared when you looked at them. There was no hope for him anymore.
It was a nice theory, and it was even comforting in a way. There wasonly one thing wrong with it.
The room around him didn't look dreamlike at all. It was perfectlysolid and real, and it looked just the way it had looked before MikeFueyo had--well, Malone amended, before whatever had happened hadhappened. It was a perfectly complete little room, and it had fourchairs in it. Malone was sitting in one of the chairs and all theothers were empty.
There was absolutely nothing else in the room.
With some regret, Malone abandoned the theory that he had gone mad.This left him with no ideas at all. Because if he hadn't becomeinsane, then what _had_ happened?
After another second or two, some ideas began to filter through thedaze. Perhaps he'd just blacked out for a minute and the kid had goneout the door. That was possible, wasn't it?
Sure it was. And maybe he had just not seen the kid go. His eyes hadfailed for a second or two. That could certainly happen after a blowon the head. Malone tried to remember where the sight centers of thebrain were. Maybe whoever had hit him had disturbed them, and he'd hada sudden blackout.
Come to think of it, that made pretty good sense. He had blacked out,and Mike had just walked out the door. It had to be the door, ofcourse--the windows were out of the question, since there weren't anywindows. And six-inch-wide air-conditioner ducts do not providereasonable space for an exit, not if you happen to be a human being.
That, Malone told himself, was settled--and a good thing, too. He hadbegun to worry about it. But now he knew just what had happened, andhe felt relieved. He got up from his chair, walked over to the doorand opened it.
Lieutenant Lynch nearly fell into the room. He'd obviously had his earpressed tightly to the door and hadn't expected it to open. The othertwo cops stood behind him, just about filling the hallway with theirbroad shoulders.
"Well, well," Malone said.
Lynch recovered his balance and glared at the FBI agent. He saidnothing.
"Where is he?" Malone said.
"Where is he?" Lynch repeated, and blinked. "Where's _who_?"
Malone shook his head impatiently. "Fueyo," he said. "The kid. Wheredid he--"
Lynch's expression was the same as that on the faces of the other twocops: complete and utter bafflement. Malone stopped and stared. It wassuddenly very obvious that the lovely theory he had worked out forMike's disappearance wasn't true in the least. If Mike Fueyo had comeout the door, then these cops would know about it. But they obviouslyknew nothing at all about it.
Therefore, he hadn't come out through the door.
Malone took a deep breath.
"What are you talking about?" Lynch said. "Isn't the kid in there withyou? What's happened?"
There was only one thing to do and, straight-faced, Malone went aheadand did it. "Of course not," he snapped, trying to sound impatient andofficial. "I released him."
"You _what_?"
"Released him," Malone said. He stepped out into the hall and closedthe door of the interrogation room firmly behind him. "I got all theinformation I needed, so I let him go."
"Thanks," Lynch said bitterly. "After all, I was the one who--"
"You called him in for questioning, didn't you, Lieutenant?" Malonesaid.
"Yes, I did, and I--"
"Well," Malone said, "I questioned him."
There was a little silence. Then Lynch asked, in a strangled voice,"What did he say?"
"Sorry," Malone said at once. "That's classified information." Hepushed his way into the corridor, trying to look as if he had fifteenother jobs to accomplish within the next hour. Being an FBI agent wasgoing to help a little, but he still had to look good in order tocarry it off.
"But--"
"Thanks for your co-operation, Lieutenant," Malone said. "You've allbeen very helpful." He smiled at them in what he hoped was a superiormanner. "So long," he said, and started walking.
"Wait!" Lynch said. He flung open the door of the interrogation room.There was no doubt that it was empty. "Wait! Malone!"
Malone turned slowly, trying to look calm and in control of thesituation. "Yes?" he said.
Lynch looked at him with puzzled, pleading eyes. "Malone, _how_ didyou release him? We were right here. He didn't come through the door.There isn't any other exit. So how did you get him out?"
There was only one answer to that, and Malone gave it with a quiet,assured air. "I'm terribly sorry, Lieutenant," he said, "but that'sclassified information, too." He gave the cops a little wave andwalked slowly down the corridor. When he reached the stairs he beganto speed up and he was out of the precinct station and into a taxicabbefore any of the cops could have realized what had happened.
He took a deep breath, feeling as if it were the first he'd had inseveral days. "Breathe air," he told himself. "It's _good_ for you."Not that New York had any real air in it. It was mostly carbon fumesand the like. But it was the nearest thing to air that Malone couldfind at the moment, and he determined to go right on breathing ituntil something better and cleaner showed up.
But that wasn't important now. As the cab tooled along down Broadwaytoward 69th Street, Malone closed his eyes and began going over thewhole thing in his mind.
Mike Fueyo had vanished.
Of that, Malone told himself, there was no shadow of doubt. Noprobable, possible shadow of doubt.
No possible doubt (as a matter of fact) whatever.
Dismissing the Grand Inquisitor with a negligent wave of his hand, heconcentrated on the main question. It was a good question. Malonecould have sat and pondered it admiringly for a long time.
As a matter of fact, that was all he could think of to do, as the cabturned up 70th Street and headed east. He certainly didn't have anyanswers for it.
But it was a lovely question:
_Where does that leave Kenneth J. Malone?_
And, possibly even more important: _Where was Miguel Fueyo?_
It w
as obvious that he'd vanished on purpose. And it hadn't just beensomething he'd recently discovered. He had known all along that hecould pull the trick; if he hadn't known that, he wouldn't have donewhat he had done beforehand. No seventeen-year-old boy, no matter whathe was, would give the FBI the raspberry unless he was pretty sure hecould get away with it.
Malone remembered the raspberry and winced slightly. The cab drivercalled back, "Anything wrong, buddy?"
"Everything," Malone said. "But don't worry about it."
The cab driver shrugged and turned back to the wheel. Malone went backto Mike Fueyo.
The kid could make himself vanish at will.
Invisibility?
Malone thought about that for a while. The fact that it was impossibledidn't decide him against it. Everything was impossible; that much wasclear. But he didn't think Mike Fueyo had just become invisible. No.There had been the sense of presence actually leaving the room. IfMike had become invisible and stayed, Malone was sure he wouldn't havefelt the boy leave.
Mike had not just become invisible. (_And what do I mean, "just"?_Malone asked himself unhappily.) He had gone--elsewhere.
This brought him back full circle to his original question. Where wasthe boy now? But he ignored it for a minute or two as another, evenmore difficult query presented itself.
_Never mind where_, Malone told himself. _How?_
Something was bothering him. Malone realized that it had beenbothering him for a long time. At last he managed to locate it andhold it up to the light for inspection.
Dr. O'Connor, the psionics expert at Westinghouse, had mentionedsomething during Malone's last conversation with him. Dr. O'Connor,who'd invented a telepathy detector, had been discussing furtherreaches in his field.
"After all," he'd said, "if thoughts can bridge any distance whatever,regardless of other barriers, there is no reason why matter could notdo likewise."
"But it doesn't," Malone had said. "Or at least it hasn't so far."
"There's no way to be sure of that," Dr. O'Connor had said sternly."After all, we have no reports of it--but that means little. Oursearch has only begun."
"Oh," Malone had said. "Sure."
"Matter, controlled by thought, might bridge distancesinstantaneously," Dr. O'Connor had said.
And he'd referred to something, some word...
_Teleportation._
That was it. Malone sat back. All you had to do, he reflected, was tothink yourself somewhere else, and--bing!--you were there. If Malonehad been able to do it, it would not only have saved him a lot of timeand trouble, but also such things as cab fare and train fare and ...oh, a lot of different things.
But he couldn't. And Dr. O'Connor hadn't found anyone else who could,either. As far as Malone knew, nobody could teleport.
Except Mike Fueyo.
The cab stopped in front of FBI headquarters. "You some kind of secretagent?" the cabbie said. "Like on 3-D?"
"Of course not," Malone said pleasantly. "I'm a foreign spy."
"Oh," the cabbie said. "Sure." He took his money with a somewhatpuzzled air, while Malone crossed the sidewalk and went into thebuilding.
Everyone was active. Malone pushed his way through arguing knots ofmen until he reached the small office which he and Boyd had beenassigned. He had already decided not to tell Boyd about thedisappearing boy. That would only confuse him, and matters wereconfused enough as they stood. Malone had no proof; he had only hisword and the word of a few baffled policemen, all of whom wereprobably thoroughly confused by now.
Boyd had a job to do, and Malone had decided to let him go on doingit. That, as a matter of fact, was what he was doing when Maloneentered the room.
He was sitting at his desk, talking on the telephone. Malone couldn'tsee the face on the screen, but Boyd was scowling at it fiercely."Sure," he said. "So some guy makes a fuss. That's what you're therefor."
"But he wants to sue the city," a voice said tinnily. "Or somebody,anyhow."
"Let him sue," Boyd said. "We've got authority. Just get that car."
"Look," the voice said. "I--"
"I don't care now," Boyd snapped. "Get it. Then hand it over to thepickup squad and say, 'Mr. Malone wants this car immediately.' They'llknow what to do. Got that?"
"Sure, Mr. Boyd," the voice said. "But I don't--"
"Never mind," Boyd said. "Go ahead and get the job done. The UnitedStates of America is depending on you." With one last scowl, he hungup and swung around to face Malone. "You gave me a great job," hesaid. "I really love it, you know that?"
"It's got to be done," Malone said in a noncommittal voice. "How's itgoing so far?"
Boyd closed his eyes for a second. "Twenty-three red 1972 Cadillacs todate--which isn't bad, I suppose," he said. "And six calls like theone you just heard. All from agents with problems. What _am_ Isupposed to do when a guy catches a couple necking in a 1972 redCadillac?"
"At this time of day?" Malone said.
"New York," Boyd said, and shrugged. "Things are funny here."
Malone nodded. "What did you do about them?" he said.
"Told the agent to take the car and give 'em a pass to a movie," Boydsaid.
"Good," Malone said. "Keep that sort of thing in the dark where itbelongs." For some reason, this reminded him of Dorothy. He still hadto get tickets for a show. But that could wait. "How about theassembly line?" he said.
"Disassembly," Boyd said. "Leibowitz has started it going. He borrowedthe use of a big auto repair shop out in Jersey City, and they'll bedoing a faster job than we thought." He paused. "But it's been awonderful day," he said. "One to remember as long as I live. Possiblyeven until tomorrow. And how have you been doing?"
"Well," Malone said, "I'm not absolutely sure yet."
"That's a nice helpful answer," Boyd said. "In the best traditions ofthe FBI."
"I can't help it," Malone said. "It's true."
"Well, what the hell have you been doing?" Boyd said. "Drinking?Helling around? Living it up while I sit here and talk to people aboutCadillacs?"
"Not exactly," Malone said. "I've been--well, doing more or less whatBurris told me to do. Nosing around. Keeping my eyes open. I think--"
The phone chimed. Boyd flipped up the mike and eyed the screenbalefully. "Federal Bureau of Investigation," he said crisply. "Whothe hell are you?"
A voice on the other end said, "What?" before the image on the screencleared.
"Federal Bureau of Investigation," Boyd said in a perfectly innocentvoice. "Boyd speaking."
"Oh," a voice said. It was a very calm, quiet voice. "Hello, Boyd."
The image cleared. Boyd was facing the picture of a man in his middlethirties, a brown-haired man with large, gentle brown eyes and anexpression that somehow managed to look both sad and confident."Hello, Dr. Leibowitz," Boyd said.
"Is Mr. Malone in?" Leibowitz said. "I really wanted to talk to him."
"Sure," Boyd said. "Just a second."
He motioned to Malone, who came around and sat at Boyd's desk as Boydgot up. He nodded to Leibowitz, and the electronics engineer noddedback.
"How's everything coming, Dr. Leibowitz?" Malone said.
Leibowitz shrugged meaningfully. "All right," he said. "I called youto tell you about that, by the way. We've managed to cut the per-cartime down somewhat."
"That's wonderful," Malone said.
"It's now down to about four hours per car, and that means we may beable to do even better than running one off the line every fifteenminutes. At the moment, fifteen minutes is about standard, though,with sixteen cars in the line."
"Sure," Malone said. "But anything you can do to speed it up--"
"I understand," Leibowitz said. "Of course I'll do anything that I canfor you. I have got a small preliminary report, by the way."
"Yes?"
"The first car has just been run off the assembly line," Leibowitzsaid. "And I'm afraid, Mr. Malone, that there's nothing odd about itat all."
"Well," Malone said, "we can't expect to
hit the jackpot with ourfirst try."
"Certainly not," Leibowitz said. "But the second should be off soon.And then the rest. I'm keeping my eye on every one, of course."
"Fine," Malone said, and meant it. Leibowitz was the kind of man whoinspired instant and complete trust. Malone was perfectly sure he'd dothe job he had started to do. Then an idea struck him. "Has the firstcar been reassembled yet?" he asked.
"Of course," Leibowitz said. "We took that step into account in ourtiming. What would you like done with it--and with the other ones, asthey come off?"
"Unless you can find something odd about a car, just return it to itsowner," Malone said. "Or pass the problem on to the squad men; they'lltake care of it." He paused. "If you do find something odd--"
"I'll call you at once, of course," Leibowitz said.
"Good," Malone said. "Incidentally, I did want to ask you something. Idon't want you to think I'm doubting your work, or anything like that.Believe me."
"I'm sure you're not," Leibowitz said.
"But," Malone said, "why does it take so long? I'd think it would befairly easy to spot a robotic or a semi-robotic brain capable ofcontrolling a car."
"It might have been, once," Leibowitz said. "But these days theproblems are rather special. Oh, I don't mean we can't do it--we canand we will. But with subminiaturization, Mr. Malone, and semipsioniccircuits, a pretty good brain can be hidden beneath a coat of paint."
For no reason at all, Malone suddenly thought of Dorothy again. "Acoat of paint?" he said in a disturbed tone.
"Certainly," Leibowitz said, and smiled at him. It was a warm smilethat had little or nothing to do with the problem they were talkingabout. But Malone liked it. It made him feel as if Leibowitz likedhim, and approved of him. He grinned back.
"But a coat of paint isn't very much," Malone said.
"It doesn't have to be very much," Leibowitz said. "Not these days.I've often told Emily--that's my wife, Mr. Malone--that I could hide aTV circuit under her lipstick. Not that there would be any use in it;but the techniques are there. Mr. Malone. And if your conjecture iscorrect, someone is using them."
"Oh," Malone said. "Sure. But you _can_ find the circuits, if they'rethere?"
Leibowitz nodded slowly. "We can, Mr. Malone," he said. "They betraythemselves. A microcircuit need not be more than a few microns thick,you see--as far as the conductors and insulators are concerned, at anyrate. But the regulators-transistors and such--have to be as big as apinhead."
"Enormous, huh?" Malone said.
"Well," Leibowitz said, and chuckled, "quite large enough to locatewithout trouble, at any rate. They're very hard to conceal. And theleads from the brain to the power controls are even easier tofind--comparatively speaking, of course."
"Of course," Malone said.
"All the brain does, you see," Leibowitz said, "is control themechanism that steers the car. But it takes real power to steer--agreat deal more than it does to compute the steering."
"I see," Malone, who didn't, said desperately. "In other words, unlesssomething radically new has been developed, you can find thecircuits."
"Right," Leibowitz said, grinning. "It would have to be something verynew indeed, Mr. Malone. We're up on most of the latest developmentshere; we've got to be. But I don't want you giving me the credit forthis."
"No?" Malone said.
"Oh, no," Leibowitz said. "All I do is work out the generalapplication to theory, as far as actual detection is concerned. It'smy partner, Mr. Hardin, who takes care of all the engineeringdetails."
Malone said, "Well, so long as one of you--"
"Sal's a real crackerjack," Leibowitz said enthusiastically. "He hadan intuitive feel about these things. It's really amazing to watch himgo to work."
"It must be," Malone said politely.
"Oh, it really is," Leibowitz said. "And it's because of Sal that Ican make the guarantee I do make: that if there are any unusualcircuits in those cars, we can find them."
"Thanks," Malone said. "I'm sure you'll do the job. And we need thatinformation. Don't bother to send along a detailed report, though,unless you find something out of the ordinary."
"Of course, Mr. Malone," Leibowitz said. "I wouldn't have bothered youexcept for the production speed-up here."
"I understand," Malone said. "It's perfectly all right. I'll behearing from you, then?"
"Certainly, Mr. Malone," Leibowitz said.
Malone cut the circuit at once and started to turn away, but he nevergot the chance. It started to chime again at once.
"Federal Bureau of Investigation," Malone said as he flipped up thereceiver. He wanted badly to copy Boyd's salutation, but he found thathe just didn't have the gall to do it, and said sadly instead, "Malonespeaking."
There was no immediate answer from the other party. Instead, thescreen slowly cleared, showing Malone the picture of a woman herecognized instantly.
It was Juanita Fueyo, Mike's mother.
Malone stared at her. It seemed to him as if a couple of hours passedwhile he tried to find his voice. Of course, she'd looked up the FBInumber in the phone book, and found him that way. But she was aboutthe last person on earth from whom he'd expected a call.
"Oh, Mr. Malone," she said, "thank you so much. You got my Mike backfrom the police."
Malone gulped. "I did?" he said. "Well, I--"
"But, Mr. Malone, you must help me again. Because now my Mike says hemust not stay at home! He is leaving, he is leaving right away!"
"Leaving?" Malone said.
He thought of a thousand things to do. He could send a squad of men toarrest Mike. And Mike could disappear while they were trying to gethold of him. He could go down himself--and be greeted, if he knew MikeFueyo, with another giant economy-size raspberry. He could try toplead with Mike on the phone.
And what good would that do?
So, instead, he just sat and stared while Mrs. Fueyo went right on.
"He says he will send me money, but money is nothing compared to myown boy, my own Mike. He says he must go away, Mr. Malone, but I knowyou can stop him. I know it!"
"Sure," Malone said. "But I--"
"Oh, I knew that you would," Mrs. Fueyo shrieked. She almost camethrough the screen at him. "You are a great man, Mr. Malone. I willsay many prayers for you. Every day I will pray for you in all yourwork. I will never stop praying for you because you help me." Hervoice and face changed abruptly. "Excuse me now," she said. "I must goback to work."
"Well," Malone said, "if I--"
Then she turned back and beamed at him again. "Oh, thank you, Mr.Malone. Thank you with the thanks of a mother. Bring my boy back tome."
And the image faded and died.
Boyd tapped Malone on the shoulder. "I didn't know you were involvedin an advice column for the lovelorn," he said.
"I'm not," Malone said sourly.
Boyd sighed. "I'll bite," he said. "Who was that?"
Malone thought of several possible answers and finally chose one."That," he said, "was my mother-in-law. She worries about me everytime I go out on a job with you."
"Very funny," Boyd said. "I am screaming with laughter."
"Just get back to work, Tommy-boy," Malone said, "and leave everythingto me."
He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. Lighting acigarette--and wishing he were alone in his own room, so that he couldsmoke a cigar and not have to worry about looking dashing andalert--Malone strolled out of the office with a final wave to Boyd. Hewas thinking about Mike Fueyo, and he stopped his chain of reasoningjust long enough to look in at the office of the Agent-in-Charge, andask him to pry loose two tickets for _The Hot Seat_ for that night.
"My God," the agent said. He was a tall thin man who looked as if hesuffered from chronic stomach trouble. "You must be crazy. Are theyall like that in Washington?"
"No," Malone said cheerfully. "Some of them are pretty normal. There'sthis one man--Napoleon, we call him--who keeps insisting that heshould have won the battle of Waterloo.
But otherwise he's perfectlyfine."
He flicked his cigarette in the air and left, grinning. Five stepsaway the grin disappeared and a frown took its place.
6
He walked along 69th Street to Park Avenue without noticing where hewas going. Luckily, the streets weren't really crowded, and Maloneonly had to apologize twice, once for stepping on a man's toe and oncefor absently toeing a woman's dog. When he reached the corner heheaded downtown, humming _Kathleen Mavourneen_ under his breath andtrying to figure out his next move.
He needed more than one move. He needed a whole series of moves. Thiswas not the usual kind of case. Burris had called it a vacation and,in one way, Malone supposed, Burris was perfectly right. For oncethere was no question about who had committed the crimes. It wasobvious by now that Mike Fueyo and his Silent Spooks had been stealingthe Cadillacs.
It was even obvious that Mike--or someone with Mike's talent--hadbopped him on the head, and taken the red Cadillac he had beenexamining. And the same gang probably accounted for the SergeantJukovsky affair, too.
Or at least it was reasonable to assume that they did, Malone thought.He could see how it
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