Car Sinister

by Robert Silverberg

  He hunched behind his desk and drummed his fingers on the top while his face slowly turned to concrete. “But if they don’t let me announce an alert by tomorrow morning,” he said quietly, “I’ll call in the newspapers and . . .” The coughing started again and he stood up, a gnomelike little man slightly less alive with every passing day. He leaned against the windowsill while he fought the spasm. “And we think this is bad.” he choked, half to himself. “What happens when the air coming in is as dirty as the air already here? When the Chinese and the Indonesians and the Hottentots get toasters and ice-boxes and all the other goodies?”

  “Asia’s not that industrialized yet,” I said uncomfortably.

  “Isn’t it?” He turned and sagged back into his chair, hardly making a dent in the cushion. I was bleeding for the old man but I couldn’t let him know it. I said in a low voice, “You wanted to see me,” and handed him the assignment card.

  He stared at it for a moment, his mind still on the Chinese, then came out of it and croaked, “That’s right, give you something to chew on.” He pressed a button on his desk and the wall opposite faded into a map of the city and the surrounding area, from the ocean on the west to the low-lying mountains on the east. He waved at the section of the city that straggled off into the canyons of the foothills. “Internal-combustion engine—someplace back there.” His voice was stronger now, his eyes more alert. “It isn’t a donkey engine for a still or for electricity, it’s a private automobile.”

  I could feel the hairs stiffen on the back of my neck. Usually I drew minor offenses, like trash burning or secret cigarette smoking, but owning or operating a gasoline-powered automobile was a felony, one that was sometimes worth your life.

  “The Sniffer in the area confirms it,” Monte continued in a tired voice, “but can’t pinpoint it.”

  “Any other leads?”

  “No, just this one report. But—we haven’t had an internal-combustion engine in more than three years.” He paused. “Have fun with it, you’ll probably have a new boss in the morning.” That was something I didn’t even want to think about. I had my hand on the doorknob when he said quietly, “The trouble with being boss is that you have to play Caesar and his Legions all the time.”

  It was as close as he came to saying good-bye and good luck. I didn’t know what to say in return, or how to say it, and found myself staring at one of his canvases and babbling, “You sure used a helluva lot of blue.”

  “It was a fairly common color back then,” he growled. “The sky was full of it.”

  And then he started coughing again and I closed the door in a hurry; in five minutes I had gotten so I couldn’t stand the sound.

  I had to stop in at the lab to pick up some gear from my locker and ran into Dave Ice, the researcher in charge of the Sniffers. He was a chubby, middle-aged little man with small, almost feminine hands; it was a pleasure to watch him work around delicate machinery. He was our top-rated man, after Monte, and I think if there was anybody whose shoes I wanted to step into someday, it would have been

  Dave Ice’s. He knew it, liked me for it, and usually went out of his way to help.

  When I walked in he was changing a sheet of paper in one of the smoke shade detectors that hung just outside the lab windows. The sheet he was taking out looked as if it had been coated with lampblack.

  “How long an exposure?”

  He looked up, squinting over his bifocals. “Hi, Jim—a little more than four hours. It looks like it’s getting pretty fierce out there.”

  “You haven’t been out?”

  “No, Monte and I stayed here all night. We were going to call an alert at nine this morning but I guess you know what happened.”

  I opened my locker and took out half a dozen new masks and a small canister of oxygen; if you were going to be out in traffic for any great length of time, you had to go prepared. Allowable vehicles were buses, trucks, delivery vans, police electrics and the like. Not all exhaust-control devices worked very well and even the electrics gave off a few acid fumes. And if you were stalled in a tunnel, the carbon-monoxide ratings really zoomed. I hesitated at the bottom of the locker and then took out my small Mark II gyrojet and shoulder holster. It was pretty deadly stuff: no recoil and the tiny rocket pellet had twice the punch of a.45.

  Dave heard the clink of metal and without looking up asked quietly, “Trouble?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Somebody’s got a private automobile—gasoline—and I don’t suppose they’ll want to turn it in.”

  “You’re right,” he said, sounding concerned, “they won’t.” And then: “I heard something about it; if it’s the same report, it’s three days old.”

  “Monte’s got his mind on other things,” I said. I slipped the masks into my pocket and belted on the holster. “Did you know he’s still on his marching-Chinese kick?”

  Dave was concentrating on one of the Sniffer drums slowly rolling beneath its scribing pens, logging a minute-by-minute record of the hydrocarbons and the oxides of nitrogen and sulfur that were sickening the atmosphere. “I don’t blame him,” he said, absently running a hand over his glistening scalp. “They’ve started tagging chimney exhausts in Shanghai, Djakarta, and Mukden with radioactives—we should get the first results in another day or so.”

  The dragon’s breath, I thought. When it finally circled the globe it would mean earth’s air sink had lost the ability to cleanse itself and all of us would start strangling a little faster.

  I got the rest of my gear and just before I hit the door, Dave said: “Jim?” I turned. He was wiping his hands on a paper towel and frowning at me over his glasses. “Look, take care of yourself, huh, kid?”

  “Sure thing,” I said. If Monte was my professional father, then Dave was my uncle. Sometimes it was embarrassing but right then it felt good. I nodded good-bye, adjusted my mask, and left.

  Outside it seemed like dusk; trucks and buses had turned on their lights and almost all pedestrians were wearing masks. In a lot across the street some kids were playing tag and the thought suddenly struck me that nowadays most kids seemed small for their age; but I envied them . . . the air never seemed to bother kids. I watched for a moment, then started up the walk. A few doors down I passed an apartment building, half hidden in the growing darkness, that had received a “political influence” exemption a month before. Its incinerator was going full blast now, only instead of floating upward over the city the small charred bits of paper and garbage were falling straight down the front of the building like a kind of oily black snow.

  I suddenly felt I was suffocating and stepped out into the street and hailed a passing electricab. Forest Hills, the part of the city that Monte had pointed out, was wealthy and the homes were large, though not so large that some of them couldn’t be hidden away in the canyons and gullies of the foothills. If you lived on a side road or at the end of one of the canyons it might even be possible to hide a car out there and drive it only at night. And if any of your neighbors found out . . . well, the people who lived up in the relatively pure air of the highlands had a different view of things than those who lived down in the atmospheric sewage of the flats. But where would a man get a gasoline automobile in the first place?

  And did it all really matter? I thought, looking out the window of the cab at the deepening dusk and feeling depressed. Then I shook my head and leaned forward to give the driver instructions. Some places could be checked out relatively easily.

  The Carriage Museum was elegant—and crowded, considering that it was a weekday. The main hall was a vast cave of black marble housing a parade of ancient internal-combustion vehicles shining under the subdued lights; most of them were painted a lustrous black, though there was an occasional gray and burst of red and a few sparkles of old gold from polished brass headlamps and fittings.

  I felt like I was in St. Peter’s, walking on a vast sea of marble while all about me the crowds shuffled along in respectful silence. I kept my eyes to the floor, reading off the name
s on the small bronze plaques: Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, Mercer Raceabout, Isotta-Fraschini, Packard Runabout, Hispano-Suiza, Model J Duesenberg, Flying Cloud Reo, Cadillac Imperial V16, Pierce Arrow, the first of the Ford V8s, Lincoln Zephyr, Chrysler Windsor Club Coupe . . . And in small halls off to the side, the lesser breeds: Hudson Terraplane, Henry J., Willys Knight, something called a Jeepster, the Mustang, Knudsen, the 1986 Volkswagen, the last Chevrolet . . .

  The other visitors to the museum were all middle-aged or older; the look on their faces was something I had never seen before—something that was not quite love and not quite lust. It flowed across their features like ripples of water whenever they brushed a fender or stopped at a hood that had been opened so they could stare at the engine, all neatly chromed or painted. They were like my father, I thought. They had owned cars when they were young, before Turn-In Day and the same date a year later when even most private steam and electrics were banned because of congestion. For a moment I wondered what it had been like to own one, then canceled the thought. The old man had tried to tell me often enough, before I had stormed out of the house for good, shouting how could he love the damned things so much when he was coughing his lungs out . . .

  The main hall was nothing but bad memories. I left it and looked up the office of the curator. His secretary was on a coffee break, so I rapped sharply and entered without waiting for an answer. On the door it had said “C. Pearson,” who turned out to be a thin, overdressed type, all regal nose and pencil moustache, in his mid-forties. “Air Central.” I said politely, flashing my wallet ID at him.

  He wasn’t impressed. “May I?” I gave it to him and he reached for the phone. When he hung up he didn’t bother apologizing for the double check, which I figured made us even. “I have nothing to do with the heating system or the air-conditioning,” he said easily, “but if you’ll wait a minute I’ll—”

  “I only want information,” I said.

  He made a small tent of his hands and stared at me over his fingertips. He looked bored. “Oh?”

  I sat down and he leaned toward me briefly, then thought better of it and settled back in his chair. “How easy would it be,” I asked casually, “to steal one of your displays?”

  His moustache quivered slightly. “It wouldn’t be easy at all—they’re bolted down, there’s no gasoline in their tanks, and the batteries are dummies.”

  “Then none ever have been?”

  A flicker of annoyance. “No, of course not.”

  I flashed my best hat-in-hand smile and stood up. “Well, I guess that’s it, then, I won’t trouble you any further.” But before I turned away I said, “I’m really not much on automobiles but I’m curious. How did the museum get started?”

  He warmed up a little. “On Turn-In Day a number of museums like this one were started up all over the country. Some by former dealers, some just by automobile lovers. A number of models were donated for public display and . . .”

  When he had finished I said casually, “Donating a vehicle to a museum must have been a great ploy for hiding private ownership.”

  “Certainly the people in your bureau would be aware of how strict the government was,” he said sharply.

  “A lot of people must have tried to hide their vehicles,” I persisted.

  Dryly. “It would have been difficult . . . like trying to hide an elephant in a playpen.”

  But still, a number would have tried, I thought. They might even have stockpiled drums of fuel and some spare parts. In the city, of course, it would have been next to impossible. But in remote sections of the country, in the mountain regions out west or in the hills of the Ozarks or in the forests of northern Michigan or Minnesota or in the badlands of the Dakotas . . . A few would have succeeded, certainly, and perhaps late at night a few weed-grown stretches of highway would have been briefly lit by the headlights of automobiles flashing past with muffled exhausts, tires singing against the pavement . . .

  I sat back down. “Are there many automobile fans around?”

  “I suppose so, if attendance records here are any indication.”

  “Then a smart man with a place in the country and a few automobiles could make quite a bit of money renting them out, couldn’t he?”

  He permitted himself a slight smile. “It would be risky. I really don’t think anybody would try it. And from everything I’ve read, I rather think the passion was for actual ownership—I doubt that rental would satisfy that.”

  I thought about it for a moment while Pearson fidgeted with a letter opener and then, of course, I had it. “All those people who were fond of automobiles, there used to be clubs of them, right?”

  His eyes lidded over and it grew very quiet in his office. But it was too late and he knew it. “I believe so,” he said after a long pause, his voice tight, “but . . .”

  “But the government ordered them disbanded,” I said coldly. “Air Control regulations thirty-nine and forty, sections three through seven, ‘concerning the dissolution of all organizations which in whole or in part, intentionally or unintentionally, oppose clean air’ ” I knew the regulations by heart. “But there still are clubs, aren’t there? Unregistered clubs? Clubs with secret membership files?” A light sheen of perspiration had started to gather on his forehead. “You would probably make a very good membership secretary, Pearson. You’re in the perfect spot for recruiting new members—”

  He made a motion behind his desk and I dove over it and pinned his arms behind his back. A small address book had fallen to the floor and I scooped it up. Pearson looked as if he might faint. I ran my hands over his chest and under his arms and then let him go. He leaned against the desk, gasping for air.

  “I’ll have to take you in,” I said.

  A little color was returning to his cheeks and he nervously smoothed down his damp black hair. His voice was on the squeaky side. “What for? You have some interesting theories, but . . .”

  “My theories will keep for court,” I said shortly. “You’re under arrest for smoking—section eleven thirty point five of the health and safety code.” I grabbed his right hand and spread the fingers so the tell-tale stains showed. “You almost offered me a cigarette when I came in, then caught yourself. I would guess that ordinarily you’re pretty relaxed and sociable, you probably smoke a lot—and you’re generous with your tobacco. Bottom right hand drawer for the stash, right?” I jerked it open and they were there, all right. “One cigarette’s a misdemeanor, a carton’s a felony, Pearson. We can accuse you of dealing and make it stick.” I smiled grimly. “But we’re perfectly willing to trade, of course.”

  I put in calls to the police and Air Central and sat down to wait for the cops to show. They’d sweat Pearson for all the information he had but I couldn’t wait around a couple of hours. The word would spread that Pearson was being held, and Pearson himself would probably start remembering various lawyers and civil rights that he had momentarily forgotten. My only real windfall had been the address book . . .

  I thumbed through it curiously, wondering exactly how I could use it. The names were scattered all over the city, and there were a lot of them. I could weed it down to those in the area where the Sniffer had picked up the automobile, but that would take time and nobody was going to admit that he had a contraband vehicle hidden away anyway. The idea of paying a visit to the club I was certain must exist kept recurring to me and finally I decided to pick a name, twist Pearson’s arm for anything he might know about him, then arrange to meet at the club and work out from there.

  Later, when I was leaving the museum, I stopped for a moment just inside the door to readjust my mask. While I was doing it the janitor showed up with a roll of weather-stripping and started attaching it to the edge of the doorway where what looked like thin black smoke was seeping in from the outside. I was suddenly afraid to go back out there . . .

  The wind was whistling past my ears and a curve was coming up. I feathered the throttle, downshifted, and the needle on the tach started to drop. T
he wheel seemed to have a life of its own and twitched slightly to the right. I rode high on the outside of the track, the leafy limbs of trees that lined the asphalt dancing just outside my field of vision. The rear started to come around in a skid and I touched the throttle again and then the wheel twitched back to center and I was away. My eyes were riveted on Number Nine, just in front of me. It was the last lap and if I could catch him there would be nothing between me and the checkered flag . . .

  I felt relaxed and supremely confident, one with the throbbing power of the car. I red-lined it and through my dirt-streaked goggles I could see I was crawling up on the red splash that was Number Nine and next I was breathing the fumes from his twin exhausts. I took him on the final curve and suddenly I was alone in the world of the straightaway with the countryside peeling away on both sides of me, placid cows and ancient barns flowing past and then the rails lined with people. I couldn’t hear their shouting above the scream of my car. Then I was flashing under banners stretched across the track and thundering toward the finish. There was the smell of burning rubber and spent oil and my own perspiration, the heat from the sun, the shimmering asphalt, and out of the comer of my eye a blur of grandstands and cars and a flag swooping down . . .

  And then it was over and the house lights had come up and I was hunched over a toy wheel in front of me, gripping it with both hands, the sweat pouring down my face and my stomach burning because I could still smell exhaust fumes and I wanted desperately to put on my face mask. It had been far more real than I had thought it would be—the curved screen gave the illusion of depth and each chair had been set up like a driver’s seat. They had even pumped in odors . . .