Car Sinister

by Robert Silverberg

  It was smothering now, though the temperature had dropped a little so my shirt didn’t cling to me in dirty, damp folds. Buses were being led through the streets; headlights died out completely within a few feet. The worst thing was that they left tracks in what looked like a damp, grayish ash that covered the street. Most of the people I bumped into—mere shadows in the night—had soaked their masks in water, trying to make them more effective. There were lights still on in the lower floors of most of the office buildings and I figured some people hadn’t tried to make it home at all; the air was probably purer among the filing cabinets than in their own apartments. Two floors up, the buildings were completely hidden in the smoky darkness.

  It took a good hour of walking before the sidewalks started to slant up and I knew I was getting out toward the foothills . . . I thanked God the business district was closer to the mountains than the ocean. My legs ached and my chest hurt and I was tired and depressed but at least I wasn’t coughing anymore.

  The buildings started to thin out and the streets finally became completely deserted. Usually the cops would pick you up if they caught you walking on the streets of Forest Hills late at night, but that night I doubted they were even around. They were probably too busy ferrying cases of cardiac arrest to St. Francis . . .

  The Sniffer was located on the top of a small, ancient building off on a side street. When I saw it I suddenly found my breath hard to catch again—a block down, the street abruptly turned into a canyon and wound up and out of sight. I glanced back at the building, just faintly visible through the grayed-down moonlight. The windows were boarded up and there was a For Rent sign on them. I walked over and flashed my light on the sign. It was old and peeling and had obviously been there for years; apparently nobody had ever wanted to rent the first floor. Ever? Maybe somebody had, I thought, but had decided to leave it boarded up. I ran my hand down the boards and suddenly paused at a knothole; I could feel heavy plate glass through it. I knelt and flashed my light at the hole and looked at a dim reflection of myself staring back. The glass had been painted black on the inside so it acted like a black marble mirror.

  I stepped back and something about the building struck me. The boarded-up windows, I thought, the huge, oversized windows . . . And the oversized, boarded-up doors. I flashed the light again at the concrete facing just above the doors. The words were there all right, blackened by time but still readable, cut into the concrete itself by order of the proud owner a handful of decades before. But you could still noodle them out: RICHARD SIEBEN LINCOLN-MERCURY.

  Jackson, I thought triumphantly. I glanced around—there was nobody else on the street—and listened. Not a sound, except for the faint murmur of traffic still moving in the city far away. A hot muggy night in the core city, I thought, but this night the parks and the fire escapes would be empty and five million people would be tossing and turning in their cramped little bedrooms; it’d be suicide to try and sleep outdoors.

  In Forest Hills it was cooler—and quieter. I glued my ear to the boards over the window and thought I could hear the faint shuffle of somebody walking around and, once, the faint clink of metal against metal. I waited a moment, then slipped down to the side door that had “Air Central” on it in neat black lettering. All Investigators had master keys and I went inside. Nobody was upstairs; the lights were out and the only sound was the soft swish of the Sniffer’s scribing pens against the paper roll. There was a stairway in the back and I walked silently down it. The door at the bottom was open and I stepped through it into a short hallway. Something, maybe the smell of the air, told me it had been used recently. I closed the door after me and stood for a second in the darkness. There was no sound from the door beyond. I tried the knob and it moved silently in my grasp.

  I cracked the door open and peered through the slit—nothing—then eased it open all the way and stepped out onto the showroom floor. There was a green-shaded light-bulb hanging from the ceiling, swaying slightly in some minor breeze so the shadows chased each other around the far comers of the room. Walled off at the end were two small offices where salesmen had probably wheeled and dealed long ago. There wasn’t much else, other than a few tools scattered around the floor in the circle of light.

  And directly in the center, of course, the car.

  I caught my breath. There was no connection between it and Jack Ellis’ renovated family sedans. It crouched there on the floor, a mechanical beast that was almost alive. Sleek curving fenders that blended into a louvered hood with a chromed steel bumper curving flat around the front to give it an oddly sharklike appearance. The headlamps were set deep into the fenders, the lamp wells outlined with chrome. The hood flowed into a windshield and that into a top which sloped smoothly down in back and tucked in neatly just after the rear wheels. The wheels themselves had wire spokes that gleamed wickedly in the light, and through a side window I could make out a neat array of meters and rocker switches, and finally bucket seats covered with what I instinctively knew was genuine black leather.

  Sleek beast, powerful beast, I thought. I was unaware of walking up to it and running my hand lightly over a fender until a voice behind me said, “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  I turned like an actor in a slow-motion film. “Yeah, Dave,” I said, “it’s beautiful.” Dave Ice of Air Central. In charge of all the Sniffers.

  He must have been standing in one of the salesman’s offices; it was the only way I could have missed him. He walked up and stood on the other side of the car and ran his left hand over the hood with the same affectionate motion a woman might use in stroking her cat. In his right hand he held a small Mark II pointed directly at my chest. “How’d you figure it was me?” he asked casually.

  “I thought at first it might be Monte,” I said. “Then I figured you were the real nut about machinery.”

  His eyes were bright, too bright. “Tell me,” he asked curiously, “would you have turned in Monte?”

  “Of course,” I said simply. I didn’t add that it would have been damned difficult; that I hadn’t even been able to think about that part of it.

  “So might’ve I, so might’ve I,” he murmured. “When I was your age.”

  “For a while the money angle threw me,” I said.

  He smiled faintly. “It’s a family heirloom. My father bought it when he was young, he couldn’t bring himself to turn it in.” He cocked his head. “Could you?” I looked at him uneasily and didn’t answer and he said casually, “Go ahead, Jimmy, you were telling me how you cracked the case.”

  I flushed. “It had to be somebody who knew—who was absolutely sure—that he wasn’t going to get caught. The Sniffers are pretty efficient, it would have been impossible to prevent their detecting the car—the best thing would be to censor the data from them. And Monte and you were the only ones who could have done that.”

  Another faint smile. “You’re right.”

  “You slipped up a few nights ago,” I said.

  He shrugged. “Anybody could’ve. I was sick, I didn’t get to the office in time to doctor the record.”

  “It gave the game away,” I said. “Why only once? The Sniffer should have detected it far more often than just once.”

  He didn’t say anything and for a long moment both of us were lost in admiration of the car.

  Then finally, proudly: “It’s the real McCoy, Jim. Six cylinder in-line engine, 4.2 liters displacement, nine-to-one compression ratio, twin overhead cams and twin Zenith-Stromberg carbs . . .” He broke off. “You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”

  “No,” I confessed, “I’m afraid not.”

  “Want to see the motor?”

  I nodded and he stepped forward, waved me back with the Mark II, and opened the hood. To really appreciate it, of course, you had to have a thing for machinery. It was clean and polished and squatted there under the hood like a beautiful mechanical pet—so huge I wondered how the hood could close at all.

  And then I realized with a sho
ck that I hadn’t been reacting like I should have, that I hadn’t reacted like I should have ever since the movie at the club . . .

  “You can sit in it if you want to,” Dave said softly. “Just don’t touch anything.” His voice was soft. “Everything works on it, Jim, everything works just dandy. It’s oiled and greased and the tank is full and the battery is charged and if you wanted to, you could drive it right off the showroom floor.”

  I hesitated. “People in the neighborhood—”

  “—mind their own business,” he said. “They have a different attitude, and besides, its usually late at night and I’m out in the hills in seconds. Go ahead, get in.” Then his voice hardened into command: “Get in!”

  I stalled a second longer, then opened the door and slid into the seat. The movie was real now, I was holding the wheel and could sense the gearshift at my right and in my mind’s eye I could feel the wind and hear the scream of the motor . . .

  There was something hard pressing against the side of my head. I froze. Dave was holding the pistol just behind my ear and in the side mirror I could see his finger tense on the trigger and pull back a millimeter. Dear God . . .

  He relaxed. “You’ll have to get out,” he said apologetically. “It would be appropriate, but a mess just the same.”

  I got out. My legs were shaking and I had to lean against the car. “It’s a risky thing to own a car,” I chattered. “Feeling runs pretty high against cars . . .”

  He nodded. “It’s too bad.”

  “You worked for Air Central for years,” I said. “How could you do it, and own this, too?”

  “You’re thinking about the air,” he said carefully. “But Jim”—his voice was patient—“machines don’t foul the air, men do. They foul the air, the lakes, and the land itself. And there’s no way to stop it.” I started to protest and he held up a hand. “Oh sure, there’s always a time when you care—like you do now. But time . . . you know, time wears you down, it really does, no matter how eager you are. You devote your life to a cause and then you find yourself suddenly growing fat and bald and you discover nobody gives a damn about your cause. They’re paying you your cushy salary to buy off their own consciences. So long as there’s a buck to be made, things won’t change much. It’s enough to drive you—” He broke off. “You don’t really think that anybody gives a damn about anybody else, do you?” He stood there looking faintly amused, a pudgy little man whom I should’ve been able to take with one arm tied behind my back. But he was ten times as dangerous as Ellis had ever imagined himself to be. “Only suckers care, Jim. I . . .”

  I dropped to the floor then, rolling fast to hit the shadows beyond the circle of light. His Mark II sprayed sparks and something burned past my shirt collar and squealed along the concrete floor. I sprawled flat and jerked my own pistol out. The first shot went low and there was the sharp sound of scored metal and I cursed briefly to myself—I must have brushed the car. Then there was silence and I scrabbled further back into the darkness. I wanted to pot the light but the bulb was still swaying back and forth and chances were I’d miss and waste the shot. Then there was the sound of running and I jumped to my feet and saw Dave heading for the door I had come in by. He seemed oddly defenseless—he was chubby and slow and knock-kneed and ran like a woman.

  “Dave!” I screamed. “Dave! STOP!”

  It was an accident, there was no way to help it. I aimed low and to the side, to knock him off his feet, and at the same time he decided to do what I had done and sprawl flat in the shadows. If he had stayed on his feet, the small rocket would have brushed him at knee level. As it was, it smashed his chest.

  He crumpled and I ran up and caught him before he could hit the door. He twisted slightly in my arms so he was staring at the car as he died. I broke into tears. I couldn’t help that, either. I would remember the things Dave had done for me long after I had forgotten that one night he had tried to kill me. A threat to kill is unreal—actual blood and shredded flesh has its own reality.

  I let him down gently and walked slowly over to the phone in the corner. Monte should still be in his office, I thought. I dialed and said, “The Director, please,” and waited for the voice-actuated relay to connect me. “Monte, Jim Morrison here. Pm over at—” I paused. “Pm sorry, I thought it was Monte—” And then I shut up and let the voice at the other end of the line tell me that Monte had died with the window open and the night air filling his lungs with urban vomit. “I’m sorry,” I said faintly, “Pm sorry, Pm very sorry,” but the voice went on and I suddenly realized that I was listening to a recording and that there was nobody in the office at all. Then, as the voice continued, I knew why.

  I let the receiver fall to the floor and the record started in again, as if expecting condolences from the concrete.

  I should call the cops, I thought. I should—

  But I didn’t. Instead, I called Wanda. It would take an hour or more for her to collect the foodstuffs in the apartment and to catch an electricab but we could be out of the city before morning came.

  And that was pretty funny because morning was never coming. The recording had said dryly that the tagged radioactive chimney exhausts had arrived, that the dragon’s breath had circled the globe and the winds blowing in were as dirty as the air already over the city. Oh, it wouldn’t happy right away, but it wouldn’t be very long, either . . .

  Nobody had given a damn, I thought; not here nor any other place. Dave had been right, dead right. They had finally turned it all into a sewer and the last of those who cared had coughed his lungs out trying for a breath of fresh air that had never come, too weak to close a window.

  I walked back to the car sitting in the circle of light and ran a finger down the scored fender where the small rocket had scraped the paint. Dave would never have forgiven me, I thought. Then I opened the door and got in and settled slowly back into the seat. I fondled the shift and ran my eyes over the instrument panel, the speedometer and the tach and the fuel and the oil gauges and the small j clock . . . The keys dangled from the button at the end of the hand brake. It was a beautiful piece of machinery, I thought again. I had never really loved a piece of machinery . . . until now.

  I ran my hands around the wheel, then located the starter switch on the steering column. I jabbed in the key and closed my eyes and listened to the scream of the motor and felt its power shake the car and wash over me and thunder through the room. The movie at the club had been my only lesson, but in its own way it had been thorough and it would be enough. I switched off the motor and waited.

  When Wanda got there we would take off for the high ground. For the mountains and the pines and that last clear lake and that final glimpse of blue sky before it all turned brown and we gave up in final surrender to this climate of which we’re so obviously proud . . .

  ALONG THE SCENIC ROUTE

  By Harlan Ellison

  Each year an unknown but apparently substantial number of human beings commit suicide on the highway by driving their cars into something. Often, they take others with them. And each year tens of thousands of men and women find an outlet for their frustrations and aggressions behind the wheel. There used to be an effective travel-safety commercial that showed a “normal” person changing into a dangerous animal in his car, and we all know people whose personalities change for the worse when they turn the key in the ignition.

  Here, Harlan Ellison, in the pyrotechnic style for which he is justly famous, carries this tendency to its logical and terrifying conclusion.

  The blood-red Mercury with the twin-mounted 7.6 mm Spandaus cut George off as he was shifting lanes. The Merc cut out sharply, three cars behind George, and the driver decked it. The boom of his gas-turbine engine got through George’s baffling system without difficulty, like a fist in the ear. The Merc sprayed JP-4 gook and water in a wide fan from its jet nozzle and cut back in, a matter of inches in front of George’s Chevy Piranha.

  George slapped the selector control on the dash, lighting you S
TUPID BASTARD, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING and I hope you crash and burn, you son of a bitch. Jessica moaned softly with uncontrolled fear, but George could not hear her; he was screaming obscenities.

  George kicked it into Overplunge and depressed the selector button extending the rotating buzzsaws. Dallas razors, they were called, in the repair shoppes. But the crimson Merc pulled away, doing an easy 115.

  “I’ll get you, you beaver-sucker!” he howled.

  The Piranha jumped and surged forward. But the Merc was already two dozen car-lengths down the Freeway. Adrenaline pumped through George’s system. Beside him, Jessica put a hand on his arm. “Oh, forget it, George; it’s just some young snot,” she said. Always conciliatory.

  “Machismo,” he murmured, and hunched over the wheel. Jessica looked toward heaven, wishing a bolt of lightning had come from that location many months past, striking Dr. Yasimir directly in his Freud, long before George could have picked up psychiatric justifications for his awful temper.

  “Get me Collision Control!” George snarled at her. Jessica shrugged, as if to say here we go again, and dialed CC on the peek. The smiling face of the Freeway Sector Control Operator blurred green and yellow, then came into sharp focus. “Your request, sir?”

  “Clearance for duel, Highway 101, northbound.”

  “Your license number, sir?”

  “XUPD 88321,” George said. He was scanning the Freeway, keeping the blood-red Mercury in sight, obstinately refusing to stud on the tracking sights.

  “Your proposed opponent, sir?”

  “Red Mercury GT. ’88 model.”

  “License, sir.”

  “Just a second.” George pressed the stud for the instant replay and the past ten miles rolled back on the movieola. He ran it forward again till he caught the instant the Merc had passed him, stopped the film, and got the number. “MFCS 90909.”