Tubular Android Superheroes

by Mel Gilden

  One half of the double front doors opened and Davenport stepped out to watch us. He was a little taller than the average human and was almost the same fancy shade of brown as the car. He wore fawn gray pants and a soft, white shirt that was open at the throat. Around his forehead was the samurai headband that meant he was not just any robot but a high-end Surfing Samurai Robot. Bill seemed to be in awe of him. He took no notice of Bill whatsoever.

  He bowed ever so slightly from the waist and intoned, "It's good to see you again, Mr. Marlowe."

  "The same way it's good to see a plumber when you're up to your ankles in water?"

  Davenport tried to be amused by that, but his designers hadn't quite gotten the cynical smile just right. Bill's laughter was gaudy, but it sounded a lot more natural. Davenport said, "Of course," and showed me into the mansion.

  The foyer was two stories high and made from wood that looked as if it had come from very old, very fine violins. There were the same fanciful tapestries, the same spectacular rose windows, the same stiff chairs that encouraged you to think you were better off standing.

  Davenport left me in the library. Three walls were bookshelves. The fourth was tall windows that let in a lot of very quiet, yellow light. A leather couch stood halfway across the room and facing the desk. But maybe it wasn't a library at all. Maybe the room was just some new kind of stable. The flat, thick reek of the animal was not quite strong enough to knock off my hat. The animal itself stood behind the desk and it was the size of a horse, but with a hump like the Paramount Pictures mountain. Its fur was an unfortunate shade of brown, much like the color of the carpet in the hallway outside Irv Doewanit's office. A big plastic tray of grass sat on the desk. The animal chewed without hurry while it studied me with its empty brown eyes, two big globs of not-very-clean motor oil. It was a camel—I'd seen them in Foreign Legion movies. It was even wearing a Foreign Legion cap, a handkerchief draped from the cap down the back of its head. I looked around wondering if I was in the wrong room.

  "Yikes!" Bill shouted, and walked toward the camel. "Pretty horsie," he said. "Pretty horsie."

  In a voice as thick and flat as the smell it gave off, the camel said, "We'll have to upgrade our software if your bot thinks I'm a horse."

  As far as I knew, camels didn't talk. Of course, lobsters don't talk either. I put my hands into my trench-coat pockets and said, "Good morning, Mr. Daise."

  "You took your time getting here."

  I smiled. Mr. Daise would reach his point eventually.

  Mr. Daise said, "Sit down."

  I kept standing. I said, "I guess after a while being a lobster loses its charm."

  Mr. Daise swallowed, and a large lump moved down his throat. He tore off more grass and said around it, "My enemies are everywhere. I would not be so foolish as to believe that they are stupid. Eventually they would discover my ruse. It was necessary for me to change disguises."

  I said, "You certainly have a talent for it. Bill, get away from there. Sit down."

  Bill had been plucking at the grass in the tray with one hand. Now he came back to sit on the leather couch. While Mr. Daise continued to chew, I said, "Why are you having Iron Will followed?"

  "Is somebody following him? What makes you think it's me?"

  "Trouble is my business."

  Mr. Daise spit into a large golden jug that rang like a gong when it was hit. He said, "I tried to contact you. But you were obviously not available. You can't expect me to wait on a thing like this." "I don't expect anything from you, Mr. Daise. You are a constant surprise to me. You have a good chance to surprise me again by telling me why you called." Mr. Daise stopped chewing for a moment. He swallowed and said, "Irv Doewanit is a good boy, but he lacks experience. That's why I need you."

  I nodded, promising nothing.

  "I'm not afraid of competition," said the camel who was Mr. Daise. "I thrive on it. I'd stack SSR robots against anybody's in a fair test." He rhapsodized on that theme for a while, bursting with fire and passion—if fire and passion is a quality camels can have. "And so," he went on, "I am more than a little offended when somebody like Iron Will puts out products like those cheeseball androids and those cardboard cars." He didn't need me to nod, but I did anyway.

  "They are garbage, pure and simple. The androids crumble to dust in a few weeks and if you're in a traffic accident in one of those Melt-O-Mobiles you don't even have time to say goodbye."

  "Why are they so popular?"

  "Why is anything popular? It's new. It's developed a cult following for who knows what reason. And then ..." Mr. Daise said, his eyebrows up. He almost managed to make his camel face look cynical. Or maybe I just imagined it. "And then, there's the matter of the credulity gas."

  I nodded again.

  "You know about it?"

  "I've seen it work. Mr. Will says it's something new in the smog."

  Mr. Daise made a long camel bray. Several books withered and fell to the floor. Or maybe I was just imagining things again. "The smog," he said sarcastically. "If you believe that, you're not half the detective I want to hire. As a matter of fact I know it's not the smog. I have an operative researching it already."

  "Then you don't need me."

  "Don't get huffy. My operative is Caria DeWilde. She's an SSR I donated for the public good. She's in charge of a consumer protection agency called DeWilde's Bunch."

  "Very good."

  "Yes. Only so far, her research into the credulity gas has turned up nothing. Nothing new in the smog. The androids don't give off anything to speak of. The gas the Melt-O-Mobiles give off when they dissipate seems harmless, at least as far as the laboratory animals are concerned." He lowered his head and whispered, "Personally, I think Heavenly has something to do with it."

  "Why?"

  "I haven't heard from her for a while. Maybe she's working for Will. He would pay her a lot of money to develop something like this. Besides, a credulity gas is her kind of trick. Anything to stick it to her old man. She has the education and the talent. That's one of the things I want you to check." "She won't talk to you, I suppose." "Not in words you'd hear at a tea party." "I can talk to her right now. What's her number?"

  Mr. Daise considered that. I'd never before seen a camel with a furrowed brow. He told me her number and I dialed it on the phone on the desk. The number rang for a while, and then a man answered. I asked for Heavenly Daise. When I told him who was calling he was silent long enough to have a slow careful thought, and then he asked me to wait. "Hello?" Heavenly Daise said. Her voice sounded just the way I remembered it: warm, polished, and hard as diamond. She was a slim woman with mounds of red ringlets for hair. The last time I'd seen her was in this very room. She'd looked a little tired, having spent most of a long night in a police station fielding questions she didn't want to answer. "This is Zoot Marlowe." "So Slamma-Jamma said. What do you want?" She didn't sound glad to hear from me.

  Slamma-Jamma was the big golden robot Heavenly lived with. I still didn't know whether the two of them were into unnatural acts or were just friends.

  "I wondered how you and Iron Will were getting along."

  "What makes you think we're getting along at all?"

  "You're one of the best research biologists around. I understand you're not working for your father. Will Industries would be a logical place for you to go."

  She laughed and said, "You're cute when you're working on a case, Marlowe."

  "You left out that I'm as subtle as a wrecking ball."

  "I guess I did at that. I don't know why I'm telling you this, Marlowe. Maybe for old time's sake. The truth is, I'm not half the android designer Iron's son Whipper is. Talk to him. Talk to both of them. Now that I think of it, talk to anybody but me."

  "You're doing what at the moment?"

  "I don't see that's any of your business. And that goes double for my father. If you happen to see him you can tell him I said so." The phone clicked loudly, and I listened to the static for a moment while I wondered what
this conversation had to do with my life.

  When I hung up Mr. Daise said, "What did she say?"

  "It's none of your business. It's none of my business. And just in case anybody should ask, it's none of their business either."

  "Is she working for Will?"

  "She says not."

  "Do you believe her?"

  "Do you know of any reason for her to lie?"

  "She doesn't need a reason."

  "Look, Mr. Daise. Say she's working for Mr. Will. So what? You can't control her actions. You even need help talking to her on the phone." Mr. Daise chewed for a while and then said,

  "All right." He was quiet for a long time. I could actually hear him chewing. The smell in the room did not improve with age. I said, "Is that it? One phone call?"

  "No. I want you to follow Mr. Will. See where he goes, what he does, who he talks to."

  "Industrial espionage is a little out of my line."

  "I'll make it worth your while."

  I smiled and said, "Maybe you're right, Mr. Daise. Maybe I'm not half the detective you think I am." I turned and strolled toward the door. "I know you, Marlowe. You'll end up working on this for free. Just because you don't like Iron Will any more than I do. I'll tell Caria DeWilde to expect you."

  I put my hand on the doorknob and turned to look at him, or at what he was at the moment. I said, "You may be right at that." Bill and I left the library. Davenport appeared from somewhere and handed me a piece of paper as he let us out the door.

  Bill and I stood on the front step for a moment. I don't know what Bill was doing but I was enjoying the fresh smell of the bright morning. The big brown car was still there, still making my Belvedere look like something you'd get from a cereal box.

  Mr. Daise hadn't hired me after all. Officially, I was still without a case, but I didn't feel idle. I felt that I was being sucked down into a pit that would take plenty of work to climb out of. And there was no guarantee I would make it. I opened the paper. On it was Caria DeWilde's address. Not knowing why, I put it into my pocket.

  "Home." I said to Bill.

  "Right, Boss," he said.

  The drive to Malibu was long but pleasant. Not more than three or four bright boys in small foreign cars tried to cut me off. Only one truck hugged my tail, trying to make me drive faster on a road just crowded enough that driving faster was not possible. After breathing the gamy air in Mr. Daise's library, Los Angeles air actually seemed clean.

  I pulled into the garage, and when I cut the motor I heard the sounds of insurrection. People were shouting and bouncing off walls. Big animals growled. I hurried across the garden and into the house with Bill behind me. When I got to the living room I stopped, startled. Bill cried, "Cowabunga!"'

  I'm good, but even I'm not used to walking into the blades of a food processor.

  Chapter 7

  Anecdotal Evidence

  BILL would have joined the fray if I hadn't grabbed him ever so gently by the neck.

  It was a scene out of an old silent comedy— if you didn't mind taking your comedy with a teaspoon of menace. Zamp and the surfers were jumping over furniture trying to stay out of the way of mustard yellow cats the size of tigers, but each one having a pair of long teeth like daggers—useful for opening cans or other victims. Around the necks of the cats were blue plastic collars. The saber-toothed cats seemed to be herding my relative and friends into the arms of tall, good-looking androids. In the excitement I couldn't tell how many androids or android cats there were, but it was more than I could handle with both hands. Or even with both hands and a gun. Which, at the moment, I did not have.

  Not even a squirt gun.

  "Help!" Zamp cried.

  The androids noticed me then and a couple of them closed in. Rougher than he had to, one of them pushed Bill aside. Bill squawked, "Boss!" but he seemed to be out of harm's way for the moment, so I told him to stay where he was. I backed along the hallway. Without a whip and a chair, what could I do?

  The front door was only a few feet away. I wondered if I could get it open before the androids rushed me. Somebody at the back of my brain was trying to tell me something important that just yesterday had not seemed very important at all. I couldn't hear what he was saying. If all these people would stop shouting and running around I could hear and—

  Then I remembered. "Bill," I cried, "those are androids. Give 'em the old whoop."

  "Right, Boss. Whooping is my business." He whooped as he had the day before while he'd polished surf-bots with the surfers. The noise got everybody's attention right away, but the androids tried to ignore it. Mine kept after me. The noise of frenzied collecting continued in the living room. Then Zamp and the others caught on and they began to whoop too. The androids and android cats didn't look any more bothered, so I said to Bill, "Louder."

  "Volume coming up." He punched big holes in the air with his whoops, causing the androids to stop and shake their heads, while the cats howled with a noise like the tearing of tin sheets. They looked a little more interested in getting away from Bill and a little less interested in rounding up folks.

  "Louder," I said.

  Bill just nodded. He was giving me a headache, but I didn't stop him. The androids and android cats hurried out the back door. The surfers ran after them shaking their mighty fists. I grabbed Bill and ran back to my car. I opened the garage door, and seconds later a big SA truck went by with three androids in the front seat. It rolled south on PCH, making good time. Bill and I rolled after the truck.

  Bill was still whooping and he seemed to enjoy it. I tapped him on the shoulder and gave him the cut-throat signal. He gave it back to me. Between whoops I cried, "Stop!" and Bill sort of ran down. At last, he squeaked to a stop.

  The android driving the truck was good, probably because his superpower was driving in traffic. His truck was three or four times the size of my Chevy, but he drove it as if it were a Porsche. Using some fancy patterns of acceleration and near-stopping, he wove in and out of traffic holes that looked to be too small for a skateboard. I got farther and farther behind, and eventually I was cut off the trail by a red light and some very emphatic cross-traffic.

  Using more care than I had on the way out, I drove back to Whipper's house. There was no mystery for me here. Unless those surfers had suddenly become prime hostage material, it was obvious that Mr. Will was behind the attempted abduction. Just making good his threat. Good old reliable Mr. Will.

  Still, as far as the police would be concerned I had no evidence. Anybody could order an android to kidnap somebody. Those saber-toothed cats were a nice feature, but I couldn't make them mean anything. Of course, if I'd caught the truck I might have had something for the police to chew on. But I would have had to pitch it against Mr. Will's money and his influence and his friends downtown. I might as well have thrown flowers at a tank.

  When I got back to the house the surfers and Zamp were in the living room discussing their brave stand. Thumper told me I was an aggro dude and everybody else agreed.

  Bingo stood near Whipper, looking as angry as a festering sore. Whipper spoke into the phone, his voice quivering with emotion but otherwise under control: "Of course I'm cranked. What did you, like, expect? That was grotty. Dad. I mean, I'm really dogged, dissed, and drilled." He listened. "Ha!" Whipper said. Then, "Don't try to snake me. I'll never come back to Will Industries. You can jam on it." He hung up in Mr. Will's face hard enough to make the bell ring on this end.

  Whipper stood there with his hand on the receiver. To nobody in particular he said, "Dad says he didn't do it. He sounds top-to-bottom, and it doesn't seem like his kind of gig, but who else would throw down a raw rap like this?"

  "He did it," Bingo said quietly, a volcano clearing its throat to remind you it was still there. "You can bet on it."

  Whipper noticed me and said, "Swift thinking, Holmes."

  "I didn't catch them."

  "What if you had?" Bingo said.

  She was right, of course. Could I p
ull them over and make them wait for the police? Could I chain the androids together and put muzzles on the cats? I had just chased them to have something to do. Whipper said, "They'll be back. You working on a case, dude?" I thought about Mr. Daise and the androids and the gas. I said, "Not as such."

  Without much trouble Whipper hired me as bodyguard for the whole surfing set, Grampa Zamp included. No money was mentioned, but I was still getting room and board, and now Zamp was too.

  When that was settled, I said to Whipper, "I'm going to see Caria DeWilde. Want to come?"

  "Huh? The consumer protection dudette? Why?"

  "Knighten Daise says she's researching credulity gas. He thinks it has something to do with androids. You're my android expert."

  When I mentioned androids he got a little cagey. "I thought you didn't have a case."

  "I'm supposed to be protecting you from whoever ordered the attack on the house. Just for simplicity's sake and to keep it in the family, let's say it was your father. When he was here he seemed a little upset that the gas didn't work on you or on the other surfers. And if the gas is connected with androids some way it would be convenient. Wouldn't it?"

  "Right on," Bingo said, and nodded.

  Whipper tried to smile. "And a connection like that would please Knighten Daise too."

  "Probably. But what pleases Mr. Daise is not my largest concern."

  Whipper was convinced. While he and I got ready to go, I told Bill to stay behind. "If you see androids again, whoop it up like you did before."

  "Right, Boss." Bill began to whoop. I gave him the cut-off sign. He did it back again, but this time he stopped whooping.

  As Whipper and I were walking out the door the phone rang. Bingo answered, not her usual warm self, I thought. Evidently it wasn't Mr. Will, because instead of gnawing on the receiver and spitting out the pieces, she handed it to Whipper. He mumbled and nodded into the phone for a while, and then we left. In the car I handed him Caria DeWilde's address. He grunted and told me it was in the valley, not very far out.

  We went north through the hills to pick up the Ventura Freeway. The brush and scrub gave the air the sweet dusty fragrance that only California hills have. We went around a hairpin and Whipper said, "On the blower was Mr. Enyart of the aggro new Malibu Tenants Association. Night after next they're meeting to talk about Max Toodemax."