Surfing Samurai Robots

by Mel Gilden

  ‘You know, Mr Daise,’ I said, ‘I can see the family resemblance between you and your daughter.’

  ‘Is that supposed to be funny, Marlowe?’

  ‘No. Just quick.’

  Mr Daise laughed, a millstone grinding exceedingly fine. He said, ‘The body where I chose to house my intelligence is no business of yours.’

  ‘Seems a lot of things are not my business.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then I guess I’ll be going. Come on, Bill.’ I didn’t move. Neither did Bill.

  ‘Someday you’re going to say that once too often.’ Mr Daise waved his feelers in the air and tap-danced a little on his rock. Water rolled in from somewhere and then rolled back. Mr Daise said, ‘Actually, Marlowe, I wanted to congratulate you on actually finding out where all the surf-bots went. You are a much better detective than I would have guessed.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘But you found out too late. Those surf-bots are already on their way to Malibu. You can’t stop them.’

  ‘Too late? You mean Bill and I were knocked out all night?’

  ‘We have ways,’ Mr Daise said.

  I stood up, just to see if it were possible to stand up, I didn’t have brains in my head, but egg yolk. I waited a moment, and I felt better. I took a few steps, and Bill watched me as if he expected me to fall over any moment. He wasn’t alone.

  I said, ‘I guess I can stop looking for your daughter now.

  ‘How did you know that?’ Mr Daise asked sharply. Even his feelers stopped waving for a moment.

  ‘Look at the facts. It would be easy for you to find out that I had asked Lance in sales about surf-bots. Maybe he reported anybody who asked about them. It would be logical for you to ask him to do that. Then, when I was caught snooping around your building, you probably got suspicious that mine was not just idle curiosity. You’re no dummy, Mr Daise.’

  The lobster chuckled and clicked his legs in place. He would have wrung his hands if he’d had any.

  ‘So to distract me from looking into my friends’ surf-bot problem, you concocted this story about Heavenly. You know where she is, don’t you?’

  ‘No. But her whereabouts are of no particular interest to me as long as she’s all right.’

  ‘Father-of-the-year material.’

  Mr Daise clicked his claws and said angrily, ‘I’ve said everything I wanted to say to you, Marlowe. You and your little tin friend, get out.’

  ‘It’s hard to be really masterful when you’re only a lobster, isn’t it?’

  The waves splashed up behind Mr Daise while he thought that one over. At last he said, ‘Say your piece.’

  ‘All right. There are a few things I don’t understand.’

  ‘Too bad.’

  ‘Sure. Too bad for old Marlowe. But part of what I don’t understand might interest you.’ Mr Daise said nothing and I went on. ‘Why is SSR interested in the Surf-O-Rama?’

  ‘It isn’t, except insofar as we are protecting our customers, those three gorillas.’

  ‘What about Gotterdammerung?’

  ‘Who?’

  I’d made a blind shot and hit nothing. I said, ‘That’s the name of a motorcycle gang down at the beach. They seem to be connected with the gorillas.’

  ‘Connected in what way?’

  ‘I don’t know. But Gotterdammerung takes orders from them. And the gorillas know that I’m working for some surfers out in Malibu who are mighty concerned about the Surf-O-Rama. The chances are good that the gorillas heard who I was working for from Gotterdammerung.’

  The lobster took a few mincing steps back, as if he were thinking of jumping into the piece of artificial ocean behind him. Bill stood in place, kicking sand backward. He whispered, ‘Bubble memory ain’t enough, is it, Marlowe?’

  ‘Not hardly. Maybe even the right uniform isn’t enough.’ I looked out at the painted horizon and said, ‘So the gorillas are interested in winning the Surf-O-Rama. They may have encouraged Gotterdammerung to adjust my friends’ ‘bots with a sledgehammer. Or maybe Gotterdammerung got that idea on their own. It’s the kind of idea they’d have.’

  ‘Is there something here for me, Mr Marlowe, or do you just like to compete with the waves?’

  ‘I’m getting to the good part. Ultimately, the whole point of the exercise must be for the gorillas to get Whipper Will’s yoyogurt recipe, because that’s what the motorcycle maniacs say they want. Do you think maybe those gorillas want to go into business for themselves, Mr Daise?’

  Mr Daise began, ‘Look, Marlowe, I have no interest in yoyogurt—’

  ‘Not many lobsters do,’ Bill said.

  I looked down at Bill. I had the sense that Mr Daise was doing the same thing. I said, ‘You still need adjustment.’ Bill didn’t say anything but took a few steps up the beach. I said, ‘What I want to know is, what has all this got to do with Heavenly Daise?’

  ‘You figured that one out yourself. That was just to distract you.’

  ‘Sure. Whose idea was it to distract me in that way?’

  Mr Daise didn’t say anything for a moment. He didn’t move. He might as well have been on a plate surrounded by lemon wedges. Then, slowly, he said, ‘Spike’s.’

  ‘I don’t think Spike pulled the idea out of a hat.’

  ‘Why is that, Marlowe?’ Mr Daise spoke even slower, as if he had to look up each word in a dictionary before he said it.

  I sat down on the beach. I’d been standing up a long time, and the bump on the back of my head didn’t like it. The dry warm sand felt good. I said, ‘Because those gorillas aren’t just your customers. They’re looking for Heavenly. And they’ve been following me around, hoping I’ll lead them to her.’

  ‘How do you know?’ His voice was still scratchy, but it was so low it mingled with the sound of the surf, making Mr Daise’s words hard to hear.

  I said, ‘They’re nice guys. They told me.’

  ‘What do they want her for?’ Still that same low voice, almost lost in the surf.

  I said, ‘You heard about how the gorillas attacked Sylvia Woods?’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well, I have a hunch the gorillas didn’t try to kill her because she didn’t ask them over for tea. They shot at her because they thought she was Heavenly.’

  ‘Impossible.’

  ‘Heavenly and Ms Woods look a lot alike. Especially that evening, when Ms Woods’s hair was arranged like Heavenly’s. A lot of folks at Puffy Tootsweet’s party made the same mistake.’

  ‘You think those gorillas want to kill my daughter?’

  ‘I’m not sure, of course, but that’s the way to bet.’

  The artificial waves beat their heads against the artificial rocks for a long time. The light never changed. It was always high noon there on Mr Daise’s beach. Bill walked down to the water where it swirled between two rocks, and he let his feet get wet. I rocked a little, making an ass-shaped depression in the sand.

  Mr Daise spoke, and I looked up at him. He said, ‘Get them, Mr Marlowe. Stop those gorillas any way you can. I have a lot of money. And I know a lot of people downtown.’

  ‘I don’t kill people if I can help it, Mr Daise.’

  ‘The method is up to you. I just don’t want them hurting my little girl.’

  I stood up. ‘My method might include cleaning up the little problem I have with surf-bots.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter to me. I delivered the ‘bots. My obligation to the gorillas is at an end. Do whatever seems necessary.’

  The door slid open, spoiling the illusion again. I walked out with Bill behind me. We walked along the pale green hallway, our footsteps echoing against the metal walls and out an open door.

  We walked across a small lot where five little cars with enormous plastic fishtails were parked. We walked out a door at the other side of the park and instantly were surrounded by crowds of strolling people, none of them in much of a hurry.

  ‘Look at the man with the funny nose. Mummy,’ a shrill
voice said. A child in a pair of red shorts and a T-shirt with the words Mummy’s Favourite stamped on it was pointing at me.

  ‘Where the hell are we?’ I said.

  ‘Looks like the Oceaneum. A combination tourist trap and fish museum in Santa Monica.’

  ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  We hustled through the park, causing only minor disturbances. A guard stopped us at the front gate. He gave me my car keys and told me where my car was parked. Ten minutes later, Bill and I were on our way to Malibu.

  Chapter 23

  Like Father, Like Daughter

  RUSH hour was over. The air was cool as a mouth full of yoyogurt. I gripped the steering wheel, wanting to drive like a maniac, but I still didn’t have a driver’s licence, and being stopped now would take more time than I had. I concentrated on being the invisible man.

  I said, ‘Loma Alta Vista Del Oro.’

  Bill tapped the side of his head and said, ‘I’ll let you know when.’

  The traffic closed up as we approached Whipper Will’s house. Enterprising merchants were selling their parking spots — normally free — for three dollars a shot and making it stick. Policemen were everywhere, directing traffic and giving tickets. Casually dressed people were setting up tables along the sidewalk. The Surf-O-Rama would be starting soon. Or it might not. Even I didn’t know, though it would all be up to me.

  I had to stop at the light in front of Whipper Will’s house. More people crossed in front of me, some of them carrying enough equipment to invade a country. One fat guy — wearing a pair of long grey trousers, sunglasses, a hat with an orange duck bill, no shirt, and no shoes — was carrying a bag full of burgers, a beach umbrella, an ice chest, a blanket, and a big radio, all by himself. He was good. Somebody had set up a T-shirt store in Whipper Will’s car park under a big dirty tent that may once have been yellow. I wondered how long that would last.

  Behind the car park Whipper Will’s house was quiet. Of course, the front usually was. Inside, anything could be happening. I wished I were in there doing whatever it was instead of out here trying to even up the Surf-O-Rama store and incidentally trying to prevent a murder. The light turned green, and at the same moment somebody behind me honked. I glided north under the careful eye of a policeman who was sitting in a car parked in a red zone.

  Traffic thinned. And soon Bill told me to turn up the hill, away from the ocean. We went up a short, narrow street with bushes crowding in on either side. The bushes had long, sharp leaves and seemed to be attacking with swords as the car pushed past them and they sprang back.

  There was a house at the dead end. ‘Short street

  for such a long street name,’ I said. The house had no number, but it had to be the one. We had not passed any others on the way up.

  The house was Southern California Spanish, with the obligatory gleaming white stucco walls and terra cotta pantiles on the roof. It was a cozy little bungalow, and not bigger than a palace out of The Arabian Nights. A bell hung in each of three tall thin arches near the top of the front wall. The house was a stack of sugar cubes designed like a fortress, just like the Daise mansion. Like father, like daughter.

  There was something wrong with the place. I could not decide what it was, so I pulled the car around in front of the house and turned off the engine. A lot of very excited birds sang in the trees that huddled in on the house, sounding like neurotic jinglebells. If you lived in that house, after a while, you would either stop hearing the noise or you’d have to go bird hunting. Bill put his hand on the door handle and looked at me.

  I didn’t say anything, but shook my head a little, as if movement cost money. Whoever lived here would know that anybody who came up Loma Alta Vista Del Oro was coming to see them. Somebody might be watching us right now, peeping around a curtain behind one of those windows that was guarded by a fantasy of black wrought iron.

  Then I saw what was wrong. It snapped at me the way an optical illusion will snap at you if you stare at it long enough. The trees were fine. The bushes down the driveway were fine. But the bushes that ran along the front of the house looked like plants from T’toom and points east. Some of them looked as if they’d been planted upside down, roots frizzing in the air. Others looked as if they were made of red wax and were half melted to show yellow cores. At least one bush looked more like a vicious animal than any plant had a right to look. Thorns long enough to resemble fangs seemed to gnash in its dragon’s mouth. All done in tasteful shades of green.

  ‘Do you see it?’ Bill said.

  I nodded slowly and said, ‘If I were their gardener, I’d want a whip and a chair.’

  I took my water pistol from the glove compartment, wondering what effect a threat of violence would have on a plant. Bill and I got out of the car but stood near it, as if it could protect us. I held the pistol at my side, hiding it from the house with my body, and walked toward the entrance. Bill stayed near me.

  The gate into the front patio was painted to match the colour of the terra cotta pantiles. It was made of wide boards set at an angle and flush with the front wall. When I took the handle, it made an interesting jiggle but did nothing helpful. I knocked on the door and waited. A fly landed on the back of my neck. I swatted at it, and it went away. A second later, it was back again. I swatted at it again and this time hit a thing like the tip of a wire, which pulled away as I caught it.

  I turned suddenly and saw that I was gripping a slim, muscular tendril growing from that vicious-looking plant. The tendril writhed in my hand, and I let go of it. It left a green smear that smelled strongly of freshly cut grass.

  The tendril immediately reared back and then launched itself at me. Never in my life have I jumped faster. It was not fast enough. Like a big spring, the tendril coiled itself around me, binding my arms to my sides. I cried out, and Bill tried to pull the tendril loose, but a second tendril snaked out and slapped Bill sharply on the hands. As if he’d been touching a hot stove, Bill leaped back. The tendril was already building a cocoon around me with a network of spidery runners. The plant was absolutely silent and absolutely insistent about wrapping me up.

  A tall, golden robot stepped from among the bushes. He looked like the robot in the photograph Mr Daise had shown me. If Heavenly Daise lived here, he probably was the same one. He was grinning horribly. In a hard but pleasant voice he said, ‘Don’t worry. It likes you.’

  ‘Can’t we just be friends?’ I said.

  Bill tried, ‘Hey!’ but without much conviction, as the golden robot gently pushed him out of the way. The big robot took my water pistol; then he casually went through my pockets until he found my wallet. I stood there at attention. The coils were not tight, but awfully alert. If I moved they tightened instantly and stayed tight as long as I struggled.

  The golden robot rooted through my wallet while he clicked his tongue. He looked up with surprise and said, ‘There’s nothing in here but a few bucks in cash.’

  I said, ‘Of course. I’m a private detective.’

  ‘Is that supposed to make sense?’

  ‘Sense or not, that’s what I am. Zoot Marlowe. Trouble is my business. This is Bill, my ‘bot.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘To see Heavenly Daise.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  I laughed. It was not a polite laugh, but I wasn’t feeling polite at the moment.

  ‘If she were here, why would you want to see her?’

  ‘I could tell you her father sent me, but that wouldn’t quite be true. He doesn’t care where she is.’

  The robot said, ‘That sounds like Mr Daise.’

  ‘Yeah. But there are three gorillas who very definitely do care where she is.’

  The robot stopped smiling. His mouth was a line drawn by a ruler. He tickled along the length of one of the coils. The tendril shuddered and began to loosen. I wriggled out of the coil as the tendril pulled back into the plant. Big thick leaves closed over the teeth, making the plant look no more harmful than a cabbage.r />
  The robot did something with the door handle that I could not see, and the door swung inward. The big golden robot invited me and Bill inside.

  As I passed in front of him, I said, ‘You ought to prune that landscaping before it hurts somebody.’

  In a long dim corridor, light pressed itself through a thick green awning that was lowered across the archways that opened along one side. The awning made the light green. Walking through the corridor was like walking along the bottom of the ocean. As we walked, I rubbed the palm of my hand on my shirt.

  The house’s front door was a slab of some blond wood with a peeper eye in the centre of it. The robot let us in and led us across a red tile floor to a doorway. It was under a wide carpeted stairway, which led up to the second floor past a single window filled with yellow pebbled glass.

  We went down some very narrow and worn wooden stairs to another door, this one like a bank vault.

  ‘Paranoia seems to run in the family,’ I said.

  ‘The Daises have a lot to be paranoid about,’ the robot said. He twirled a combination lock. The door chimed. The catch opened with a click, and the door swung aside as if by magic.

  We all went through to a big warm room that smelled of chlorine. A wide twin-door refrigerator stood against the wall near a heavy wooden cabinet carved with a lot of baroque dust catchers. Between them was a long table. A glass case ran down its length with some very clean glass jars standing in ranks inside. Everything gleamed back and forth at itself in a self-satisfied way. The entire wall opposite was bank after bank of dials, switches and meters. Lights blinked. Back in the corner of the room were a brown couch and two matching easy chairs, as if someone had decided the place needed a homey touch and had broken off a piece of the living room and set it down here.

  Heavenly Daise stood behind a square lab bench that had a smooth grey stone top. Before her were a computer screen and keyboard. She finished typing as we walked in.