Car Sinister

by Robert Silverberg

  Tuesday morning I got in early and called Smith to find out about the check for Hamilton. Smith says, “I’m coming down to see you. I have been thinking about that $10,000.” Knowing Smith the way he thinks about ten dollars, let alone ten thousand, I knew trouble was brewing.

  I was right. Smith comes in about ten o’clock. A few minutes later Hamilton shows up. Today he’s wearing a fringed leather vest over nothing and blue bell-bottom slacks. “Good morning, sirs,” he says. “Right on time. Your streets are free of useless wrecks. Any time one is deposited now, the police can get it right away to the junkyard. No more backlog. Do you have my money ready?”

  Smith is sitting behind my desk. He purses his lips, he whistles, he makes a steeple with his fingers. “Now, young man, I have a check for $5,000. I suggest that since you had an easier job than you expected, that $5,000 represents a pretty good week’s pay. Or rather, since you worked only five days, that would come out to $1,000 a day. Not bad. Not bad.” He offers the check to Hamilton.

  Hamilton’s eyes flashed fire but his voice is quiet. “Sir, we made an agreement that the sum would be $10,000. I need the money, as I explained, for my communes.”

  “Tush!” says Smith. “An oral contract is worthless in this state. And as for communes, if you went into court and said you wanted the money for them, you’d be thrown out. Communes are anti-social, against public policy—” Hamilton interrupted him. “Sir, I have lived up to my part of the bargain. Now live up to yours. Give me my $10,000.”

  “Yours, indeed!” Smith wasn’t used to being spoken to in that fashion. “Here’s $5,000. Take it or leave it!”

  “You’ll be sorry,” said Hamilton very, very softly but his face was like a thundercloud. He walked out.

  I tried to persuade Smith to give Hamilton the full amount, but Smith was on his high horse. “What’s he going to do? Bring back the old cars?” he asked. What can you do with a pig-headed fellow like that?

  I kept the $5,000 check in my desk for a week in case Hamilton changed his mind and came back for it. He didn’t, which I thought at the time was stretching principle a little too far. Half a loaf, you know, is the way I figure.

  All this happened in May. The second week of June we had a rainy spell that lasted right through Sunday evening. Ordinarily the weather makes no difference to me. I’m working anyway, rain or shine. But this coming Wednesday was going to be a big day for New Falls. One of the astronauts was a native son and the city was planning a welcome home parade for him, so naturally I was looking for fair weather. Sunday night I listened to the weather report; it said the rain was gone and by the morning the streets would be dry. That was fine with me; it would give the Association time to put up the decorations we had planned.

  Right after the news Smith phoned me. “Good thing the rain’s over. I’m arranging for fancy fireworks at the end of the parade,” he said. We talked a little while, just chit-chat about the preparations and then he said, “By the way, Hamilton’s been around. I bet tomorrow he’ll come for his money. Send him to me.”

  “Where’s he been?”

  “I don’t know. I was talking to Police Chief Serlat a little while ago. He says some of the squad cars have reported Hamilton’s truck riding up and down the avenues sort of aimlessly. He’ll be around in the morning for the money, I’m sure. His truck’s giving out. The cops reported water was practically pouring out of it while he was driving.”

  Hamilton’s riding wasn’t aimless. We found that out next morning. As usual I switched on the local radio station during breakfast. “Traffic control warns of extensive tie-ups on Routes twenty-one and twenty-three leading into New Falls, as a result of multiple accidents on several main streets. An unusual number of accidents have been reported throughout the city, and motorists are advised not to use South Avenue, High Street, and Madison Street because of the condition of the road. The weather bureau at the airport says that with the current temperature of sixty-four degrees, ice cannot be forming on the streets in spite of the statement of Traffic Inspector Mones. We give you now our helicopter view of the situation . . .”

  I didn’t wait for the rest. I hopped into my car and made for downtown. I never got there. I couldn’t. Ardsley Terrace, where I live, runs into North Avenue. The intersection was blocked by cars inching along and trying to make their way around a couple that had collided. While I watched I saw another car suddenly spin around in a skid. The street looked slick, like after a rain, but all the wetness on the sidewalks was gone.

  I went home and called police headquarters. I got the deputy chief. “Mr. Cooperman,” he says, “it’s unbelievable. The streets are so slippery cars can’t get traction. It’s like driving on smooth ice. Those of our squad cars that weren’t out are having snow tires and skid chains put on.” Only the main streets were affected, he said. High Street, Madison Street, North and South Avenues, Central Avenue, and Columbus Avenue. But that was enough. You can imagine the jam-up. And the skidding accidents. And the lost tempers that led to more accidents. You know what happens to traffic in a city in a sudden snowstorm. This was worse because nobody was prepared in June for such slippery streets.

  I stayed glued to the radio all day. As the sun rose higher and higher, conditions got worse. The shining slick seemed to toughen. The county sent out sanding trucks, which would have been fine if they could have made headway, but they were blocked by cars abandoned every which way in the streets. It was a mess, believe me.

  I’ve got to give Smith credit. He was the one put two and two together. He figured Hamilton was the cause of the trouble and would possibly make more. He called me excitedly for Hamilton’s address, which I didn’t have. So he had the radio and TV stations put out an emergency call for him, “Full check awaiting you. Please call at once.”

  No answer. The special crews worked all night trying to clear the streets and by Tuesday afternoon at least one lane was open on every main avenue. We had to call off the Wednesday parade because the police and sanitation departments calculated it would take at least another five days to bring the streets back to normal.

  We found out what caused the trouble. The city chemist explained it. “Some sort of silicone substance was sprayed on the wet streets. The wetness from the rain helped it spread. It formed a fine film like glass, very tenacious.” Of course, that was Hamilton’s doing.

  For that $10,000 we didn’t give him, the city and the county had to lay out ten times that amount for scrubbing down the streets with detergents, for towing away cars, and for emergency hospital care for victims of accidents, fortunately none of them too serious. Plus what the insurance companies had to pay out. To say nothing of the lost business for the whole week with men unable to get to work and nobody able to go shopping. Hamilton got even, all right. Even Smith had to admit he’d made a mistake.

  There’s a moral to this story. Two morals. One—always live up to your bargain. And two—never make a contract with an idealist who puts principle above cash. There’s no telling what a lunatic like that will do.

  AUTO-da-FÉ

  By Roger Zelazny

  This is quite simply one of the finest stories ever written on one of the oldest themes in science fiction: man vs. machine. Let’s face it, folks. It may be us or them.

  Still do I remember the hot sun upon the sands of the Plaza del Autos, the cries of the soft-drink hawkers, the tiers of humanity stacked across from me on the sunny side of the arena, sunglasses like cavities in their gleaming faces.

  Still do I remember the smells and the colors: the reds and the blues and the yellows, the ever-present tang of petroleum fumes upon the air.

  Still do I remember that day, that day with its sun in the middle of the sky and the sign of Aries, burning in the blooming of the year. I recall the mincing steps of the pumpers, heads thrown back, arms waving, the white dazzles of their teeth framed with smiling lips, cloths like colorful tails protruding from the rear pockets of their coveralls; and the horns—I remember the blare of
a thousand horns over the loudspeakers, on and off, off and on, over and over, and again, and then one shimmering, final note, sustained, to break the ear and the heart with its infinite power, its pathos.

  Then there was silence.

  I see it now as I did on that day so long ago . . .

  He entered the arena, and the cry that went up shook blue heaven upon its pillars of white marble.

  “¡Viva! ¡El mechador! ¡Viva! ¡El mechador!”

  I remember his face, dark and sad and wise.

  Long of jaw and nose was he, and his laughter was as the roaring of the wind, and his movements were as the music of the theramin and the drum. His coveralls were blue and silk and tight and stitched with thread of gold and broidered all about with black braid. His jacket was beaded and there were flashing scales upon his breast, his shoulders, his back.

  His lips curled into the smile of a man who has known much glory and has hold upon the power that will bring him into more.

  He moved, turning in a circle, not shielding his eyes against the sun.

  He was above the sun. He was Manolo Stillete Dos Muertos, the mightiest mechador the world had ever seen, black boots upon his feet, pistons in his thighs, fingers with the discretion of micrometers, halo of dark locks about his head and the angel of death in his right arm, there, in the center of the grease-stained circle of truth.

  He waved, and a cry went up once more.

  “¡Manolo! ¡Manolo! ¡Dos Muertos! ¡Dos Muertos!”

  After two years’ absence from the ring, he had chosen this, the anniversary of his death and retirement, to return—for there was gasoline and methyl in his blood and his heart was a burnished pump ringed ’bout with desire and courage. He had died twice within the ring, and twice had the medics restored him. After his second death, he had retired, and some said that it was because he had known fear. This could not be true.

  He waved his hand and his name rolled back upon him.

  The horns sounded once more: three long blasts.

  Then again there was silence, and a pumper wearing red and yellow brought him the cape, removed his jacket.

  The tinfoil backing of the cape flashed in the sun as Dos Muertos swirled it.

  Then there came the final, beeping notes.

  The big door rolled upward and back into the wall.

  He draped his cape over his arm and faced the gateway.

  The light above was red and from within the darkness there came the sound of an engine.

  The light turned yellow, then green, and there was the sound of cautiously engaged gears.

  The car moved slowly into the ring, paused, crept forward, paused again.

  It was a red Pontiac, its hood stripped away, its engine like a nest of snakes, coiling and engendering behind the circular shimmer of its invisible fan. The wings of its aerial spun round and round, then fixed upon Manolo and his cape.

  He had chosen a heavy one for his first, slow on turning, to give him a chance to limber up.

  The drums of its brain, which had never before recorded a man, were spinning.

  Then the consciousness of its kind swept over it, and it moved forward.

  Manolo swirled his cape and kicked its fender as it roared past.

  The door of the great garage closed.

  When it reached the opposite side of the ring the car stopped, parked.

  Cries of disgust, booing and hissing arose from the crowd.

  Still the Pontiac remained parked.

  Two pumpers, bearing buckets, emerged from behind the fence and threw mud upon its windshield.

  It roared then and pursued the nearest, banging into the fence. Then it turned suddenly, sighted Dos Muertos, and charged.

  His verdnica transformed him into a statue with a skirt of silver. The enthusiasm of the crowd was mighty.

  It turned and charged once more, and I wondered at Manolo’s skill, for it would seem that his buttons had scraped cherry paint from the side panels.

  Then it paused, spun its wheels, ran in a circle about the ring.

  The crowd roared as it moved past him and recircled.

  Then it stopped again, perhaps fifty feet away.

  Manolo turned his back upon it and waved to the crowd.

  —Again, the cheering and the calling of his name.

  He gestured to someone behind the fence.

  A pumper emerged and bore to him, upon a velvet cushion, his chrome-plated monkey wrench.

  He turned then again to the Pontiac and strode toward it.

  It stood there shivering and he knocked off its radiator cap.

  A jet of steaming water shot into the air and the crowd bellowed. Then he struck the front of the radiator and banged upon each fender.

  He turned his back upon it again and stood there.

  When he heard the engagement of the gears he turned once more, and with one clean pass it was by him, but not before he had banged twice upon the trunk with his wrench.

  It moved to the other end of the ring and parked.

  Manolo raised his hand to the pumper behind the fence.

  The man with the cushion emerged and bore to him the long-handled screwdriver and the short cape. He took the monkey wrench away with him, as well as the long cape.

  Another silence came over the Plaza del Autos.

  The Pontiac, as if sensing all this, turned once more and blew its horn twice. Then it charged.

  There were dark spots upon the sand from where its radiator had leaked water. Its exhaust arose like a ghost behind it. It bore down upon him at a terrible speed.

  Dos Muertos raised the cape before him and rested the blade of the screwdriver upon his left forearm.

  When it seemed he would surely be run down, his hand shot forward, so fast the eye could barely follow it, and he stepped to the side as the engine began to cough.

  Still the Pontiac continued on with a deadly momentum, turned sharply without braking, rolled over, slid into the fence, and began to burn. Its engine coughed and died.

  The Plaza shook with the cheering. They awarded Dos Muertos both headlights and the tailpipe. He held them high and moved in slow promenade about the perimeter of the ring. The horns sounded. A lady threw him a plastic flower and he sent for a pumper to bear her the tailpipe and to ask her to dine with him. The crowd cheered more loudly, for he was known to be a great layer of women, and it was not such an unusual thing in the days of my youth as it is now.

  The next was a blue Chevrolet, and he played with it as a child plays with a kitten, tormenting it into striking, then stopping it forever. He received both headlights. The sky had clouded over by then and there was a tentative mumbling of thunder.

  The third was a black Jaguar XKE, which calls for the highest skill possible and makes for a very brief moment of truth. There was blood as well as gasoline upon the sand before he dispatched it, for its side mirror extended further than one would think, and there was a red furrow across his rib cage before he had done with it. But he tore out its ignition system with such grace and artistry that the crowd boiled over into the ring, and the guards were called forth to beat them with clubs and herd them with cattle prods back into their seats.

  Surely, after all of this, none could say that Dos Muertos had ever known fear.

  A cool breeze arose, and I bought a soft drink and waited for the last.

  His final car sped forth while the light was still yellow. It was a mustard-colored Ford convertible. As it went past him the first time, it blew its horn and turned on its windshield wipers. Everyone cheered, for they could see it had spirit.

  Then it came to a dead halt, shifted into reverse, and backed toward him at about forty miles an hour.

  He got out of the way, sacrificing grace to expediency, and it braked sharply, shifted into low gear, and sped forward again.

  He waved the cape and it was torn from his hands. If he had not thrown himself over backward, he would have been struck.

  Then someone cried: “It’s out of alignment!”


  But he got to hi§ feet, recovered his cape, and faced it once more.

  They still tell of those five passes that followed. Never has there been such a flirting with bumper and grill! Never in all of the Earth has there been such an encounter between mechador and machine! The convertible roared like ten centuries of streamlined death, and the spirit of St. Detroit sat in its driver’s seat, grinning, while Dos Muertos faced it with his tinfoil cape, cowed it and called for his wrench. It nursed its overheated engine and rolled its windows up and down, up and down, clearing its muffler the while with lavatory noises and much black smoke.

  By then it was raining, softly, gently, and the thunder still came about us. I finished my soft drink.

  Dos Muertos had never used his monkey wrench on the engine before, only upon the body. But this time he threw it. Some experts say he was aiming at the distributor; others say he was trying to break its fuel pump.

  The crowd booed him.

  Something gooey was dripping from the Ford onto the sand. The red streak brightened on Manolo’s stomach. The rain came down.

  He did not look at the crowd. He did not take his eyes from the car. He held out his right hand, palm upward, and waited.

  A panting pumper placed the screwdriver in his hand and ran back toward the fence.

  Manolo moved to the side and waited.

  It leaped at him and he struck.

  There was more booing.

  He had missed the kill.

  No one left, though. The Ford swept around him in a tight circle, smoke now emerging from its engine. Manolo rubbed his arm and picked up the screwdriver and cape he had dropped. There was more booing as he did so.

  By the time the car was upon him, flames were leaping forth from its engine.

  Now some say that he struck and missed again, going off balance. Others say that he began to strike, grew afraid and drew back. Still others say that, perhaps for an instant, he knew a fatal pity for his spirited adversary, and that this had stayed his hand. I say that the smoke was too thick for any of them to say for certain what had happened.