The Aluminum Man

by G. C. Edmondson

  “Sorry about being late with the rent,” Rudolf said. He fumbled in his pockets, then looked hopelessly at Flaherty. Neither of them had the money. Christ almighty! Rudolf thought. Tomorrow morning I can collect a thousand dollars for that metal and tonight I can’t come up with two hundred fifty. “I’m sorry about the rug too. We’ll pay for any damage.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” the rental agent said.

  “Oh?”

  “I’m not here for the rent. It is my unhappy duty to inform you that the house has been sold. The new owners wish immediate occupancy. Be out of here by tomorrow and no charges will be filed.”

  “Charges! What kind of charges?”

  The small man pursed his lips. “Malicious and wanton destruction of property.”

  “I said we’d pay for the rug.”

  “Operating a factory in a residential zone without permits,” the agent continued.

  “You knew we rented this house to grow mushrooms,” Flaherty said mildly. “Did you expect us to get a crop and move out in a month?”

  Suddenly defensive, the little man said, “I don’t own the place. I’m just following orders.”

  “So was Adolf Eichmann,” Rudolf grunted.

  “Now about lawsuits,” Flaherty said, “if we were to go to court and explain how your personal misrepresentation forced us to lose a crop… And surely, my dear sir, you know the laws on eviction as well as I and my young law student colleague.”

  The little man was in full retreat. “I’ll be back,” he said. “I’ll have to speak with the new owners.”

  “Don’t rush off,” Flaherty said. “Who are they?”

  “I can’t tell — I mean, I don’t know.”

  Flaherty smiled. “It’s all right,” he said. “I already know. Just tell them it didn’t work. We’ll take our full thirty days after we’ve been properly and legally served with a notice of eviction. And what’s probably worrying your new owners much more, you can tell them we’ll have the place spic and span. I might even say immaculate.”

  “But they don’t want —” The little man suddenly decided not to say what they didn’t want.

  “I know they don’t,” Flaherty said, still smiling. “But it’ll be no trouble at all. We’ll have the place clean, shining, and germ-free.”

  Clearly unhappy, the little man left.

  “Now what was that all about?” Rudolf asked.

  “The deep-dyed dastards!” Flaherty stormed.

  “Who bought the place?”

  “Can’t you guess?”

  “Not really.”

  Flaherty began dismantling the press. Mystified, Rudolf began helping. “‘Twas Riordan,” Flaherty finally growled in his transit-mix voice. “Him scuffin’ his embarrassed feet around! That blatherskite wouldn’t be embarrassed if you caught him robbin’ the poor box.”

  Rudolf pictured the private detective’s moment of mortification before he succumbed to Flaherty’s sneers and departed. “I don’t get it,” he said.

  Flaherty faced the Indian. “Like I said. It’s a small field. Don’t you think every geneticist knows the Flaherty?” He surveyed the rank of washing machines that lined one wall. “Worn out. Next time we see what we can do with sand and gravel equipment.”

  “Have we got enough money already?” Rudolf asked.

  “Wave a couple of thousand around and we can get anything on ninety-day credit. It isn’t like when you’re really broke.”

  “But you said somebody else’d end up in the saddle.”

  “If we borrowed money. But we won’t. We’ll buy some decrepit little sand pit that’s worked out clear to the clay bottom — providing it’s the right kind of totally useless clay. Within a week we’ll have it paid off.”

  Rudolf had a visceral feeling that it wasn’t going to be that easy. “If we’re on our way up, what are we so afraid of?”

  Flaherty grinned. “Run the pickup around back. Only thing worth taking is the big press. We’ll abandon the rest of the junk. Too small for us and useless to them.”

  “Aren’t we going to stick around and fight it out like you said?”

  “Hurry up with that truck.”

  Rudolf ran the pickup around and helped take apart the big press they’d just built. Even in pieces it was going to make quite a load. They needed a bigger truck already.

  “Have to take a day off soon and see a patent attorney, too,” Flaherty added between grunts. They struggled with the heavy I-beams and finally the press was in the back of the sagging pickup. “Anything else you want to take?” Flaherty asked.

  Rudolf picked up some of his personal gear and his aging TV. “Aren’t we coming back?” he asked.

  “No. Help me with the sledge hammer.”

  “The what?”

  “Smash every bit of machinery we leave.”

  “What for? It isn’t worth anything.”

  “Of course not. I want it to look like we panicked.”

  “Didn’t we?”

  “Not quite. Hop to it.”

  Rudolf began slamming at the small press they had used at first. He wondered just what the hell he was doing. Flaherty flailed mightily with a pick and punctured the washing machines they had been using for the flotation process. Finally the shambles was complete.

  “I don’t see what you gained,” Rudolf said. “Anybody can tell what the machines were. What’re we hiding?”

  “Last call. We’re making a fast exit.”

  Rudolf checked the house to see if he’d left anything. Suddenly he remembered the incubator. He got it and climbed into the pickup.

  CHAPTER 4

  Finding a worked-out gravel pit took less time than Rudolf had expected. Flaherty fought Hudson Valley traffic for an hour, then turned off on a secondary road. Within minutes they were passing through a nineteenth-century village. “Wonder how the developers missed this one?” Rudolf said.

  A mile past the village Flaherty backed the pickup into a large building and they grunted the press out.

  “How’d you know about this place?” Rudolf asked.

  “Been shopping since the first letter came.”

  “Why?”

  “If the post office finds me, can Riordan be far behind?”

  It was nearing daylight when Flaherty drove back to the village and pulled up in front of a small white house. He produced a key and they unloaded personal gear to an audience of twitching window blinds. The house was furnished. Rudolf picked up the phone and heard a dial tone.

  Late that afternoon they returned to the gravel pit. Rudolf set out sprinklers and sowed culture. There was a skiploader, conveyor belts, sand sifting machinery, and a dump truck. Six days passed in frantic work, squeezing sludge through their flaming press. Aluminum piled up.

  “When do we sell?” Rudolf asked.

  Flaherty finished locking up for the night and they got into the pickup. “You know what’ll happen when that metal hits the market?”

  “We’ll be target for tonight.”

  “How we fixed for money?”

  Rudolf grimaced.

  “Six days,” Flaherty reflected. “Damn near too long.”

  “Too long for what?”

  “Remember friend Riordan scuffin’ around like an embarrassed kid?”

  Rudolf nodded.

  “If you’d peeked out the mail slot you might’ve seen him stuffin’ his shoes in a plastic bag.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “State of the art, me bhoy. People know me and my work. Christ almighty lad, within five years somebody would’ve done it even if our slimy friend hadn’t come along.”

  “If everybody knows what we’re doing, why are we hiding?”

  “What do we have that nobody else has?”

  “They know we’re making aluminum and if Riordan’s stolen a culture—” Suddenly Rudolf stopped.

  Flaherty grinned. “By now Riordan’s shoe scrapings have died. They’ll lay that to accident. Our house’s new owners are culturing
mud trying to figure why it all dies. Truth is, I’d like to know meself how to program that self-destruct into a gene.”

  “We can’t hole up forever. We’re broke.”

  “Aye. Now this is what we might try…”

  At 3:00 a.m. Rudolf drove the groaning pickup through the village and out onto the toll road to North Bergen. He arrived at the scrap yard minutes before opening time.

  “Haven’t seen you for a while,” the weigher said.

  Rudolf agreed.

  “Still living in the same place?”

  Rudolf grunted.

  The weigher looked over his load of shiny aluminum slugs. “Where you getting all that stuff?”

  “I’ve got a busy day ahead of me.”

  They finished weighing. The dealer looked speculatively at Rudolf. “My cash hasn’t been delivered. Have to give you a check.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  “Could be quite a while.” At that moment an armored car turned the corner and entered the yard.

  “I’ll give you half in cash. Got to take care of my other customers.”

  Rudolf began loading metal back into the pickup.

  The weigher dithered and flapped, balancing profit against the displeasure he would incur by letting Rudolf get away. “Nobody turns loose that kind of money without knowing where this metal comes from,” he warned. “If it’s hot I’m stuck.”

  Rudolf continued loading.

  “All right, all right!” The weigher counted out eighteen hundred dollars.

  Rudolf shook his head. “This is five nines metal.”

  “What?”

  “Ninety-nine point nine hundred ninety-nine percent pure. I can take it straight to the labs.”

  “How much do you want?”

  “Double.”

  Rudolf had the metal back in the pickup before the other man resolved a three-cornered dispute between conscience, common sense, and a bargain. “Look,” he said, “I’ll phone the bank and have the cash waiting for you.”

  “Nobody stops payment on small bills,” Rudolf said.

  “You want thirty-six hundred dollars and me to take all the risks. I’ll give you three thousand.”

  “All right.”

  The weigher counted out eighteen hundred dollars from his cash drawer. He opened the bag from the armored car and counted out the rest in new twenties.

  Rudolf was pocketing the money when he suddenly stopped. “I’ve got a thing about clean money,” he said. “Give me all new bills without any funny little marks on them.”

  Wordlessly, the weigher exchanged them. Rudolf signed the receipt and drove off the scales, planning ways to make that sonofabitch wish he hadn’t screwed this poor Indian out of six hundred dollars. From the mirror he saw the weigher frantically dialing.

  It was too much. Rudolf slammed the pickup into reverse and tore rubber. He burst into the office while the weigher was still on the phone. “Who you calling in such a hurry?” he asked.

  “Look, I don’t want any trouble I — please, HELP!”

  Rudolf saw the handbill in front of the phone: $250 REWARD If anyone offers to sell (there was a picture of one of their slugs). Call this number immediately.

  It was a New York number.

  Rudolf took the phone from the scrap dealer’s nerveless hand. “I don’t have my scalping knife,” he said icily. “But when the police get here you’ll wish I’d settled for your hair.”

  “Who you think I’m calling?”

  “Who do you think you’re calling?”

  The scrap dealer realized he was not going to die immediately. He wiped his face and” thought a moment. “You’re right,” he said. “Nobody said ‘police.’”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “I — I described you and your truck.”

  “You just loused up six months worth of investigation.” Rudolf picked up the phone and dialed a long distance number. “Lt. Flaherty?”

  “Now who the hell?”

  “This scrap dealer in North Bergen got his neck in the noose. You’ll have to send a few men to make sure they don’t kill him.”

  “Rudolf, is that you? What’s going on?”

  “Right, Lieutenant. He blew the whole thing wide open. Sure you wouldn’t rather take him in?”

  “Are you in trouble, dear boy?”

  “Yes, it could get hairy but you’re right. Can’t take the poor man away from his business. Better get those men over here quick though. The organization’s got a head start.”

  “Rudolf, is somebody listenin’ in?”

  “Right, Lieutenant. I’ll call you later.”

  The scrap dealer was a quivering wreck when Rudolf left.

  A half hour later Rudolf had sold the pickup back where he bought it for another whopping loss. His bulging pockets were attracting stares. In a service station rest room he stuffed bills into envelopes addressed to Mr. Raymond, to Mr. Fuller, and to “occupant” at their white clapboard house. He emerged from the rest room and mailed an envelope. Two blocks down the street he mailed another.

  The flyer with the picture of their funny metal had a New York number. Rudolf wondered who they were and if they had a local man on the job already. He had read enough spy and die novels to absorb the rudiments of front tailing, back tailing, all the elaborate shuffle and relay systems. The only thing he couldn’t figure out was if anyone was actually following him.

  Then suddenly he noticed a miniskirted blonde ahead of him. Some girl he’d glimpsed five blocks ago? Surely there wouldn’t be two longhaired blondes exposing great grabbable areas of thigh in the same pale coral pantyhose… But wasn’t a tail supposed to be inconspicuous? Depended on what kind of tail, Rudolf guessed.

  He turned two corners in illogical directions and there she was again. Sonofabitch! She saw him and started walking faster. Rudolf decided to follow and see what happened. The blonde was heel and toeing it now, flashing her crotch with every step.

  Striding behind her in his pigeon-toed Indian trot, Rudolf realized he looked more like a temporarily unhorsed member of a raiding party than an habitue of the cocktail circuit. How long since his last haircut? How long since his last presentable outfit had been impregnated with muck? He had nearly caught up with the girl when she stepped into an intersection. The signal was not working but a cop in the middle raised his hand, stopping Rudolf dead while the blonde walked across.

  She stopped to talk with the cop. The cop shrugged and shook his head. The girl gestured angrily. They rapped for another moment then she walked on. The cop shifted stance to let another handful of pedestrians across. “You there, hold it!” he said to Rudolf.

  “Yeah?”

  “That girl says you’re following her.”

  “What girl?”

  The cop pointed at the micromini’d blonde with the long straight hair, now a half block up the street.

  “Nice scalp,” Rudolf mused. “Tell you who she was?”

  “No.”

  “She tell you who I am?”

  Again the cop admitted his ignorance.

  “My name is Lo. Also known as the Poor Indian. My hobbies are libel law, the legal aspects of harassment, and writing angry letters to police commissioners. Do you wish to arrest me or to cease and desist from hampering me in the pursuit of my private and lawful business?”

  “I hope you catch her,” the cop growled. “You’re made for each other.”

  A block further Rudolf encountered a used car lot. Still wondering if the blonde would show again, he ducked into the rear of the lot and pretended to be interested in a car.

  “Well now, could I interest you in a fine automobile?”

  Rudolf thought a moment. With the pickup gone he and Flaherty needed something to get to the gravel pit. “How much?” he asked.

  “That little beauty is a real steal at only a hundred ninety-five dollars.”

  Rudolf’s hand was moving toward his pocket when he realized it wouldn’t look right. “Let’s hear it run.” />
  After a short drive Rudolf and the salesman agreed that a hundred forty cash was somewhat more of a steal. Twenty minutes later Mr. Redman had a receipt and bill of sale. He stopped at an Esso for gas, oil, and a map, then headed west, ninety degrees off a true course home.

  After an hour’s hacking through New Jersey Rudolf was sure he wasn’t being followed. He stopped to consult the map. And heard a helicopter!

  He diddled the outside mirror, trying to look without getting looked at. Before he could twist the rusting bracket, the chopper was visible through the windshield. It continued westward, plupping along a straight line. When it had disappeared he got out and inspected the top of his car.

  It was an ordinary blue Fordor. Circling back to the turnpike he belatedly discovered it had a working radio. He tried for music and caught the tail end of a news shot: “Worsening tensions as today’s emphasis shifts from hijackings to territorial encroachment. Alaskan fishermen applied to Congress for Letters of Marque to arm their boats and fight their own war against Russian trawlers who foul nets and ruin the fishing grounds.

  “Meanwhile mysterious flashes and detonations accompanied by massive fish kills make their way slowly down the Hudson. Mystified ecologists detect no poison. Despite reports of a submarine in the Hudson, Navy officials remain silent.”

  For some moments Rudolf had been afflicted with an undefined nervousness. Suddenly it focused in his rear-view mirror as he realized that beige Plymouth had been hanging in there longer than was statistically necessary. Rudolf booted his clunker. It puffed smoke and moved out. The beige Plymouth peeled off a couple of lanes westward.

  Paying the toll, Rudolf killed the engine. “Flooded,” he said. “It has to sit a few minutes.”

  The toll collector signaled, and a pickup with a foot-wide wooden bumper pushed him to the edge of the thru-way. Rudolf waited for the beige Plymouth to quit stalling and drive on. After a minute and a half it did. He waited ten more minutes before starting. The next time he looked in the mirror the Plymouth was there again.

  Rudolf considered using the blonde’s gambit at the next toll booth. But she had been attractive and female. An unshorn Indian in need of a bath might not make out so well.