Out Like a Light

  IV.

  The patrol car pulled up in front of St. Vincent's Hospital and one ofthe cops helped Malone into the Emergency Receiving Room. He didn'tfeel as bad as he had a few minutes before. The motion of the car hadn'thelped any, but his head seemed to be knitting a little, and his legswere a little steadier. True, he didn't feel one hundred per centhealthy, but he was beginning to think he might live, after all. Andwhile the doctor was bandaging his head a spirit of new life began tofill the FBI agent.

  He was no longer morose and undirected. He had a purpose in life, andthat purpose filled him with cold determination. He was going to findthe robot-operated car--or whatever it turned out to be.

  The doctor, Malone noticed, was whistling "Greensleaves" under hisbreath as he worked. That, he supposed, was the influence of thebohemian folk singers of Greenwich Village. But he put the noiseresolutely out of his mind and concentrated on the red Cadillac.

  It was one thing to think about a robot car, miles away, doing somethingor other to somebody you'd never heard of before. That was justtheoretical, a case for solution, nothing but an ordinary job.

  But when the car stepped up and bopped Malone himself on the head, itbecame a personal matter. Now Malone had more than a job to contendwith. Now he was thinking about revenge.

  He told himself: _No car in the world--not even a Cadillac--can get awaywith beaning Kenneth J. Malone!_

  Malone was not quite certain that he agreed with Burris' idea of aself-operating car, but at least it was something to work on. A car thatcould reach out, crown an investigator and then drive off hummingsomething innocent under its breath was certainly a unique and dangerousmachine within the meaning of the act. Of course, there were problemsattendant on this view of things; for one thing, Malone couldn't quitesee how the car could have beaned him when he was ten feet away from it.But that was, he told himself uncomfortably, a minor point. He coulddeal with it when he felt a little better.

  The important thing was the car itself. Malone jerked a little under thedoctors calm hands, and swore subvocally.

  "Hold still," the doctor said. "Don't go wiggling your head around thatway. Just wait quietly until the demijel sets."

  Obediently, Malone froze. There was a crick in his neck, but he decidedhe could stand it. "My head still hurts," he said accusingly.

  "Sure it still hurts," the doctor agreed.

  "But you--"

  "What did you expect?" the doctor said. "Even an FBI agent isn't immuneto blackjacks, you know." He resumed his work on Malone's skull.

  "Blackjacks?" Malone said. "What blackjacks?"

  "The ones that hit you," the doctor said. "Or the one, anyhow."

  Malone blinked. Somehow, though he could manage a fuzzy picture of acar reaching out to hit him, the introduction of a blackjack into thisimaginative effort confused things a little. But he resolutely ignoredit.

  "The bruise is just the right size and shape," the doctor said. "Andthat cut on your head comes from the seams on the leather casing."

  "You're sure?" Malone said doubtfully. It did seem as if a car had a lotmore dangerous weapons around, without resorting to blackjacks. If ithad really wanted to damage him, why hadn't it hit him with the engineblock?

  "I'm sure," the doctor said. "I've worked in Emergency in this hospitallong enough to recognize a blackjack wound."

  That was a disturbing idea, in a way. It gave a new color to Malone'sreflection on Greenwich Villagers. Maybe things had changed since he'dheard about them. Maybe the blackjack had supplanted the guitar. Butthat wasn't the important thing.

  The fact that it had been a blackjack that had hit him was important. Itwas vital, as a matter of fact. Malone knew that perfectly well. It wasa key fact in the case he was investigating.

  The only trouble was that he didn't see what, if anything, it meant.

  The doctor stepped back and regarded Malone's head with something likepride. "There," he said. "You'll be all right now."

  "When?" Malone said.

  "You're not badly hurt," the doctor said reprovingly. "You've got aslight concussion, that's all."

  "A concussion?"

  "Sure," the doctor said. "But it isn't serious. Just take thesepills--one every two hours until they're gone--and you'll be rid of anyeffects within twenty-four hours." He went to a cabinet, fiddled aroundfor a minute and came back with a small bottle containing six orangepills. They looked very large and threatening.

  "Fine," Malone said doubtfully.

  "You'll be all right," the doctor said, giving Malone a cheerful,confident grin. "Nothing at all to worry about." He loaded a hypojet andblasted something through the skin of Malone's upper arm. Maloneswallowed hard. He knew perfectly well that he hadn't felt a thing, buthe couldn't quite make himself believe it.

  "That'll take care of you for tonight," the doctor said. "Get some sleepand start in on the pills when you wake up, O.K.?"

  "O.K.," Malone said. It was going to make waking up something less thana pleasure, but he wanted to get well, didn't he?

  Of course he did. If that Cadillac thought it was going to beat him....

  "You can stand up now," the doctor said.

  "O.K.," Malone said, trying it. "Thanks, doctor. I--"

  * * * * *

  There was a knock at the door. The doctor jerked his head around.

  "Who's that?" he said.

  "Me," a bass voice said, unhelpfully.

  The Emergency Room door opened a crack and a face peered in. It tookMalone a second to recognize Bill, the waffle-faced cop who had pickedhim up next to the lamp post three years or so before. "Long time nosee," Malone said at random.

  "What?" Bill said, and opened the door wider. He came in and closed itbehind him. "It's O.K., Doc," he said to the attendant. "I'm a cop."

  "Been hurt?" the doctor said.

  Bill shook his head. "Not recently," he said. "I came to see this guy."He looked at Malone. "They told me you were still here," he said.

  "Who's they?" Malone said.

  "Outside," Bill said. "The attendants out there. They said you werestill getting stitched up."

  "And quite right, too," Malone said solemnly.

  "Oh," Bill said. "Sure." He fished in his pockets. "You dropped yournotebook, though, and I came to give it back to you." He located theobject he was hunting for and brought it out with the triumphant gestureof a man displaying the head of a dragon he has slain. "Here," he said,waving the book.

  "Notebook?" Malone said. He stared at it. It was a small looseleaf bookbound in cheap black plastic.

  "We found it in the gutter," Bill said.

  Malone took a tentative step forward and managed not to fall. He steppedback again and looked at Bill scornfully. "I wasn't even in the gutter,"he said. "There are limits."

  "Sure," Bill said. "But the notebook was, so I brought it along to you.I thought you might need it or something." He handed it over to Malonewith a flourish.

  It wasn't Malone's notebook. In the first place, he had never owned anotebook that looked anything like that, and in the second place hehadn't had any notebooks on him when he went for his walk. _Mine not toquestion why_, Malone told himself with a shrug, and flipped the bookopen.

  At once he knew why the cop had mistaken it for his.

  There, right on the first page, was a carefully detailed drawing of a1972 Cadillac. It had been painstakingly colored in with a red pencil.

  Malone stared at it for a second, and then went on to page two. Thispage carried a list of names running down the left margin.

  _Ramon O.

  Mario G.

  Silvo E.

  Felipe A.

  Alvarez la B.

  Juan de los S.

  Ray del E._

  That made sense, of a kind. It was a list of names. Whose names theywere, Malone didn't know; but at least he could see the list andunderstand it. What puzzled him were the decorations.

  Following each name w
as a queer-looking squiggle. Each was slightlydifferent, and each bore some resemblance to a stick-figure, ageometrical figure or just a childish scrawl. The whole parade remindedMalone of pictures he had seen of Egyptian hieroglyphics.

  But the names didn't look Egyptian, and, anyhow, nobody usedhieroglyphics any more--did they?

  Malone found himself thinking: _Now what does that mean?_ He lookedacross at the facing page.

  It contained a set of figures, all marked off in dollars and cents andall added up neatly. One of the additions ended with the eye-popping sumof $52,710.09, and Malone found that the sum made him slightly nervous.This was high-powered figuring.

  * * * * *

  On to page three, he told himself. Drawings again, both on that page andon the one facing it. Malone recognized an outboard motor, astore-front, a suit of clothing hanging neatly on a hanger, a motorscooter, a shotgun and an IBM Electrotyper. Whoever had done the workwas a reasonably accurate artist, if untrained; the various items wereeasily recognizable and Malone could see a great deal of detail.

  That, of course, was fine. Only it made no more sense than the rest ofthe notebook.

  Malone riffled through a few more pages, trying to make sense of thecontents. One page seemed to be a shopping list, with nothing morerevealing on it than _bread, bacon, eggs (1/2 doz.), peaches (frz.),cigs., & ltr., fluid_.

  There was another list, farther on. This one said: _Hist. 2, Eng. 4,Math. 3, Span. 2. What for Elec.?_

  That cast the first glow of light. Whoever owned the notebook was astudent. Or a teacher, Malone thought; then, looking back at thehandwriting, he decided that the owner of the notebook had to be in highschool, certainly no farther along.

  He went on flipping pages. One of them said, in large black capitals:=_HE'S BLUFFING!_=

  A note passed in class? There was not any way of making sure.

  Malone thought about the hypothetical student for a minute. Thensomething in the riffling pages caught his eye.

  There were two names on the page he'd stopped at.

  The first was: _Lt. Peter Lynch, NYPD._ It was followed by two littlesquiggles.

  The second was: _Mr. Kenneth J. Malone, FBI._

  There were no squiggles after his own name, and Malone felt oddlythankful for that, without knowing exactly why. But what did the namesmean? And who had--

  "Uh ... Mr. Malone--" Bill said tentatively. "That _is_ your notebook,isn't it?"

  "Oh," Malone said. He looked up at the cop and put on his mostingratiating smile. "Sure," he said. "It's mine. Sure it is. Justchecking to see if I'd lost any pages. Not good. Losing pages out of anotebook. Never. Have to check, you know. Procedure. Very secret."

  "Sure," Bill said uncertainly.

  Malone took a deep breath. "Thought I'd lost the notebook," he said. "Iappreciate your returning it."

  "Oh," Bill said, "that's O.K., Mr. Malone. Glad to do it."

  "You don't know what this means to me," Malone said truthfully.

  "No trouble at all," Bill said. "Any time." He gave Malone a big smileand turned back to the door. "But I got to get back to my beat," hesaid. "Listen, I'll see you. And if I can be any help--"

  "Sure," Malone said. "I'll let you know. And thanks again."

  "Welcome," Bill said, and opened the door. He strode out with the air ofa man who has just been decorated with the Silver Star, the Purple Heartand the Congressional Medal of Honor.

  Malone tried a few more steps and discovered that he could walk withoutfalling down. He thanked the doctor again.

  "Perfectly all right," the doctor said. "Nothing to it. Why, you oughtto see some of the cases we get here. There was a guy here the othernight with both his legs all mashed up by a--"

  "I'll bet," Malone said hurriedly. "Well, I've got to be on my way. Justsend the bill to FBI Headquarters on Sixty-ninth Street." He closed thedoor on the doctor's enthusiastic: "Yes, _sir_!" and went on down thehallway and out into the street. At Seventh Avenue and Greenwich Avenuehe flagged a cab.

  What a place to be, Malone thought as the cab drove away. Where but inGreenwich Village did avenues intersect each other without so much as aby-your-leave?

  "Statler-Hilton Hotel," he said, giving the whole thing up as a bad job.He put his hat on his head and adjusted it painfully to the properangle.

  And that, he thought, made another little problem. The car had not onlyhit him on the head; it had removed his hat before doing so, and thenreplaced it. It had only fallen off when he'd started to get up againstthe lamp post.

  _A nice quiet vacation_, Malone thought bitterly.

  He fumed in silence all the way to the hotel, through the lobby, up inthe elevator and to the door of his room. Then he remembered thenotebook.

  That was important evidence. He decided to tell Boyd about it rightaway.

  He went into the bathroom and tapped gently on the door to Boyd'sconnecting room. The door swung open.

  Boyd, apparently, was still out painting the town--Malone considered theword _red_ and dropped the whole phrase with a sigh. At any rate, hispartner was nowhere in the room. He went back into his own room, closedthe door and got wearily ready for bed.

  * * * * *

  Dawn came, and then daylight, and then a lot more daylight. It wasstreaming in through the windows with careless abandon, filling the roomwith a lot of bright sunshine and the muggy heat of the city. From thestreet below, the cheerful noises of traffic and pedestrians floated upand filled Malone's ears.

  He turned over in bed, and tried to go back to sleep.

  But sleep wouldn't come. After a long time he gave up, and swung himselfover the edge of the bed. Standing up was a delicate job, but he managedit, feeling rather proud of himself in a dim, semiconscious sort of way.

  He went into the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and then opened theconnecting door to Boyd's room softly.

  Boyd was home. He lay in a great tangle of bedclothes, snoring hideouslyand making little motions with his hands and arms like a beached whale.Malone padded over to him and dug him fiercely in the ribs.

  "Come on," he said. "Wake up, Tommy-boy."

  Boyd's eyes did not open. In a voice as hollow as a zombie's, he said:"My head. Hurts."

  "Can't feel any worse than mine," Malone said cheerily. This, hereflected, was not quite true. Considering everything it had beenthrough recently, his head felt remarkably like its old, carefree self."You'll feel better once you're awake."

  "No, I won't," Boyd said simply. He jammed his head under a pillow andbegan to snore again. It was an awesome sound, like a man strangling todeath in chicken-fat. Malone sighed and poked at random among thebedclothes.

  Boyd swore distantly, and Malone poked him again.

  "The sun is up," Malone said, "and all the little pedestrians arechirping. It is time to rise."

  Boyd said: "Gah," and withdrew his head from the pillow. Gently, as ifhe were afraid he were going to fall apart, he rose to a sittingposition. When he had arrived at it, he opened his eyes.

  "Now," Malone said, "isn't that better?"

  Boyd closed his eyes again. "No," he said.

  "Come on," Malone said. "We've got to be up and moving."

  "I'm up," Boyd said. His eyes flickered open. "But I can't move," headded. "We had quite a time last night."

  "We?" Malone said.

  "Me, and a couple of girls, and another guy. Just people I met." Boydstarted to stand up and thought better of it. "Just having a good time,that's all."

  Malone thought of reading his partner a lecture on the Evils of Drink,and decided against it. Boyd might remember it, and use it against himsome time. Then he realized what had to be done. He went back into hisown room, dialed for room service, and ordered a couple of pots ofstrong black coffee.

  By the time a good deal of that was awash in Boyd's intestinal system,he was almost capable of rational, connected conversation. He filledhimself to the eyebrows with aspirins and other remedies, and actua
llysucceeded in getting dressed. He seemed quite proud of this feat.

  "O.K.," Malone said. "Now we have to go downstairs."

  "You mean outside?" Boyd said. "Into all that noise?" He winced.

  "Bite the bullet," Malone said cheerfully. "Keep a stiff upper lip."

  "Nonsense," Boyd said, hunting for his coat with a doleful air. "Haveyou ever seen anybody with a loose upper lip?"

  Malone, busy with his own coat, didn't bother with a reply. He managedsomehow to get Boyd downstairs and bundled into a cab. They headed forSixty-ninth Street.

  * * * * *

  There, he made several phone calls. The first, of course, was to Burrisin Washington. After that he got the New York Police Commissioner on thewire and, finding that he needed still more authority, he called theMayor and then, by long-distance to Albany, the Governor.

  But by noon he had everything straightened out. He had a plan fullyworked out in his mind, and he had the authority to go ahead with it.Now, he could make his final call.

  "They're completely trustworthy," Burris had told him. "Not only that,but they have a clearance for this kind of special work--we've neededthem before."

  "Good," Malone said.

  "Not only that," Burris told him. "They're good men. Maybe among thebest in their field."

  So Malone made his last call, to the firm of Leibowitz & Hardin,Electronic Engineers.

  Then he beckoned to Boyd.

  "I don't see what I've been sitting around here for, all this time," hispartner complained. "I could have been home sleeping until you neededme. And--"

  "I need you now," Malone said. "I want you to take over part of thisplan."

  Boyd nodded sourly. "Oh, all right," he said.

  "Here's what I want," Malone said. "Every red 1972 Cadillac in the areais to be picked up for inspection. I don't care why--make up a reason. Ageneral traffic check. Anything you please. You can work that end of itout with the Commissioner; he knows about it and he's willing to goalong."

  "Great," Boyd said. "Do you have any idea how many cars there are in acity this size?"

  "Well, we don't want all of them," Malone said. "Only red 1972Cadillacs."

  "It's still a lot," Boyd said.

  "If there were only three," Malone said, "we wouldn't have anyproblems."

  "And wouldn't that be nice?" Boyd said.

  "Sure," Malone said, "but it isn't true. Anyhow: I want every one ofthose cars checked for any oddity, no matter how small. If there's aninch-long scratch on one fender, I want to know about it. If you've gotto take the cars apart, then do that."

  "Me?" Boyd said. "All by myself?"

  "No," Malone said. "Use your head. There'll be a team working with you.Let me explain it. Every nut, every bolt, every inch of those cars hasto be examined thoroughly--got it?"

  "I've got it," Boyd said, "but I don't like it. After all, Malone--"

  Malone ignored him. "The Governor of New York promised hisco-operation," he said, "and he said he'd get in touch with theGovernors of New Jersey and Connecticut and get co-operation from thatangle. So we'll have state and local police working with us."

  "That's a help," Boyd said. "We'll make such a happy team of workmen.Singing as we pull the cars apart through the long day and night and ...listen, Malone, when do you want reports on this?"

  "Yesterday," Malone said.

  Boyd's eyebrows raised, then lowered. "Great," he said dully.

  "I don't care how you get the cars," Malone said. "If you've got to,condemn 'em. But get every last one of them. And bring them over toLeibowitz & Hardin for a complete checkup. I'll give you the address."

  "Thanks," Boyd said.

  "Not at all," Malone said. "Glad to be of help. And don't worry; I'llhave other work to do." He paused, and then went on: "I talked to Dr.Isaac Leibowitz, he's the head of the firm out there--and he says...."

  "Wait a minute," Boyd said.

  "What?"

  "You mean I don't have to take the cars apart myself? You mean thisLeibowitz & Hardin, or whatever it is, will do it for me?"

  "Of course," Malone said wearily. "You re not an auto technician or anelectronics man. You're an agent of the FBI."

  "I was beginning to wonder," Boyd said. "After all."

  "Anyhow," Malone said doggedly, "I talked to Leibowitz, and he says hecan give a car a complete check in about six hours, normally."

  "Six hours?" Boyd stared. "That's going to take forever," he said.

  "Well, he can set up a kind of assembly-line process and turn out a carevery fifteen minutes. Any better?"

  Boyd nodded.

  "Good," Malone said. "There can't be so many 1972 red Cadillacs in thearea that we can't get through them all at that speed." He thought aminute and then added: "By the way, you might check with the Cadillacdealers around town, and find out just how many there are, sold topeople living in the area."

  "And while I'm doing all that," Boyd said, "what are you going to bedoing?"

  Malone looked at him and sighed. "I'll worry about that," he said. "Justget started."

  "Suppose Leibowitz can't find anything?" Boyd said.

  "If Leibowitz can't find it, it's not there," Malone said. "He can findelectronic devices anywhere in any car made, he says--even if they'reprinted circuits hidden under the paint job."

  "Pretty good," Boyd said. "But suppose he doesn't?"

  "Then they aren't there," Malone said, "and we'll have to think ofsomething else." He considered that. It sounded fine. Only he wished heknew what else there was to think of.

  Well, that was just pessimism. Leibowitz would find something, and thecase would be over, and he could go back to Washington and rest. InAugust he was going to have his vacation, anyway, and August wasn't veryfar away.

  Malone put a smile carefully on his face and told Boyd: "Get going." Heslammed his hat on his head.

  Wincing, he took it off and replaced it gently. The bottle of pills wasstill in his pocket, but he wasn't due for another one just yet.

  He had time to go over to the precinct station in the West Eightiesfirst.

  He headed outside to get another taxi.