Unwise Child

by Randall Garrett

  3

  Sergeant Cowder looked the room over and took a drag from his cigarette."Well, that's that. Now--what happened?" He looked from Mike the Angelto Harry MacDougal and back again. Both of them appeared to be thinking.

  "All right," he said quietly, "let me guess, then."

  Old Harry waved a hand. "Oh no, Sergeant; 'twon't be necessary. I thinkMr. Gabriel was just waiting for me to start, because he wasn't herewhen the two rapscallions came in, and I was just tryin' to figure outwhere to begin. We're not bein' unco-operative. Let's see now--" Hegazed at the ceiling as though trying to collect his thoughts. He knewperfectly well that the police sergeant was recording everything hesaid.

  The sergeant sighed. "Look, Harry, you're not on trial. I know perfectlywell that you've got this place bugged to a fare-thee-well. So doesevery shop operator on Radio Row. If you didn't, the JD gangs would havecleaned you all out long ago."

  Harry kept looking at the ceiling, and Mike the Angel smiled quietly athis fingernails.

  The detective sergeant sighed again. "Sure, we'd like to have some ofthe gadgets that you and the other operators on the Row have worked out,Harry. But I'm in no position to take 'em away from you. Besides, wehave some stuff that you'd like to have, too, so that makes us prettymuch even. If we started confiscating illegal equipment from you, theJD's would swoop in here, take your legitimate equipment, bug it up, andthey'd be driving us all nuts within a week. So long as you don't useillegal equipment illegally, the department will leave you alone."

  Old Harry grinned. "Well, now, that's very nice of you, Sergeant. But Idon't have anything illegal--no robotics stuff or anything like that.Oh, I'll admit I've a couple of eyes here and there to watch my shop,but eyes aren't illegal."

  The detective glanced around the room with a practiced eye and thenlooked blandly back at the little Scotsman. Harry MacDougal was lying,and the sergeant knew it. And Harry knew the sergeant knew it.

  Sergeant Cowder sighed for a third time and looked at the Scot. "Okay.So what happened?"

  Harry's face became serious. "They came in about six-thirty. First Iknew of it, one of the kids--the boy--stepped out of that closet overthere and put a vibroblade at my back. I'd come back here to get a smallresistor, and all of a sudden there he was."

  Mike the Angel frowned, but he didn't say anything.

  "None of your equipment registered anything?" asked the detective.

  "Not a thing, Sergeant," said Harry. "They've got something new, allright. The kid must ha' come in through the back door, there. And I'dha' been willin' to bet ma life that no human bein' could ha' walked inhere without ma knowin' it before he got within ten feet o' that door.Look."

  He got up, walked over to the back door, and opened it. It opened intowhat looked at first to be a totally dark room. Then the sergeant sawthat there was a dead-black wall a few feet from the open door.

  "That's a light trap," said Harry. "Same as they have in photographicdarkrooms. To get from this door to the outer door that leads into thealley, you got to turn two corners and walk about thirty feet. Even I,masel', couldn't walk through it without settin' off half a dozenalarms. Any kind of light would set off the bugs; so would the heatradiation from the human body."

  "How about the front?" Sergeant Cowder asked. "Anyone could get in fromthe front."

  Harry's grin became grim. "Not unless I go with 'em. And not even thenif I don't want 'em to."

  "It was kind of you to let us in," said the detective mildly.

  "A pleasure," said Harry. "But I wish I knew how that kid got in."

  "Well, he did--somehow," Cowder said. "What happened after he came outof the closet?"

  "He made me let the girl in. They were goin' to open up the rearcompletely and take my stuff out that way. They'd ha' done it, too, ifMr. Gabriel hadn't come along."

  Detective Sergeant Cowder looked at Mike the Angel. "About what time wasthat, Mr. Gabriel?"

  "About six thirty-five," Mike told him. "The kids probably hadn't beenhere more than a few minutes."

  Harry MacDougal nodded in silent corroboration.

  "Then what happened?" asked the detective.

  Mike told him a carefully edited version of what had occurred, leavingout the existence of the little gadget he was carrying in his pocket.The sergeant listened patiently and unbelievingly through the wholerecital. Mike the Angel grinned to himself; he knew what part of thestory seemed queer to the cop.

  He was right. Cowder said: "Now, wait a minute. What caused thosevibroblades to burn up that way?"

  "Must have been faulty," Mike the Angel said innocently.

  "Both of them?" Sergeant Cowder asked skeptically. "At the same time?"

  "Oh no. Thirty seconds apart, I'd guess."

  "Very interesting. Very." He started to say something else, but auniformed officer stuck his head in through the doorway that led to thefront of the shop.

  "We combed the whole area, Sergeant. Not a soul around. But from thelooks of the alley, there must have been a small truck parked in therenot too long ago."

  Cowder nodded. "Makes sense. Those JD's wouldn't have tried this unlessthey intended to take everything they could put their hands on, and theycertainly couldn't have put all this in their pockets." He rubbed onebig finger over the tip of his nose. "Okay, Barton, that's all. Takethose two kids to the hospital and book 'em in the detention ward. Iwant to talk to them when they wake up."

  The cop nodded and left.

  Sergeant Cowder looked back at Harry. "Your alarm to the precinctstation went off at six thirty-six. I figure that whoever was on theoutside, in that truck, knew something had gone wrong as soon as thefight started in here. He--or they--shut off whatever they were using tosuppress the alarm system and took off before we got here. They suremust have moved fast."

  "Must have," agreed Harry. "Is there anything else, Sergeant?"

  Cowder shook his head. "Not right now. I'll get in touch with you later,if I need you."

  Harry and Mike the Angel followed him through the front of the shop tothe front door. At the door, Cowder turned.

  "Well, good night. Thanks for your assistance, Mr. Gabriel. I wish someof our cops had had your luck."

  "How so?" asked Mike the Angel.

  "If more vibroblades would blow up at opportune moments, we'd have fewerbutchered policemen."

  Mike the Angel shook his head. "Not really. If their vibros startedburning out every time they came near a cop, the JD's would just startusing something else. You can't win in this game."

  Cowder nodded glumly. "It's a losing proposition any way you look atit.... Well, good night again." He stepped out, and Old Harry closed andlocked the door behind him.

  Mike the Angel said: "Come on, Harry; I want to find something." Hebegan walking back down the long, narrow shop toward the rear again.Harry followed, looking mystified.

  Mike the Angel stopped, sniffing. "Smell that?"

  Harry sniffed. "Aye. Burnt insulation. So?"

  "You know which one of these bins is nearest to your main control cable.Start looking. See if you find anything queer."

  Old Harry walked over to a nearby bin, pulled it open, and lookedinside. He closed it, pulled open another. He found the gadget on thethird try. It was a plastic case, six by six by eight, and it stillsmelled of hot insulation, although the case itself was barely warm.

  "What is it?" Harry asked in wonder.

  "It's the gizmo that turned your equipment off. When I passed by it, myown gadget must have blown it. I knew the police couldn't have made ithere between the time of the fight and the time they showed up. Theymust have had at least an extra minute. Besides, I didn't think anyonecould build an instrument that would blank out everything at long range.It had to be something near your main cable. I think you'll find ametallic oscillator in there. Analyze it. Might be useful."

  Harry turned the box over in his hands. "Probably has a timer in it tostart it.... Well.... That helps."

  "What do you mean?"

&
nbsp; "I've got a pretty good idea who put it here. Older kid. Nineteen--maybetwenty. Seemed like a nice lad, too. Didn't take him for a JD. Can'ttrust anyone these days. Thanks, Mike. If I find anything new in here,I'll let you know."

  "Do that," said Mike the Angel. "And, as a personal favor, I'll show youhow to build my own super-duper, extra-special, anti-vibroblade defenseunit."

  Old Harry grinned, crinkling up his wizened face in a mass of finewrinkles. "You'd better think up a shorter name than that for it,laddie; I could probably build one in less time than it takes you to sayit."

  "Want to bet?"

  "I'll bet you twenty I can do it in twenty-four hours."

  "Twenty it is, Harry. I'll sell you mine this time tomorrow for twentybucks."

  Harry shook his head. "I'll trade you mine for yours, plus twenty." Thenhis eyes twinkled. "And speaking of money, didn't you come down here tobuy something?"

  Mike the Angel laughed. "You're not going to like it. I came down to geta dozen plastic-core resistors."

  "What size?"

  Mike told him, and Old Harry went over to the proper bin, pulled themout, all properly boxed, and handed them to him.

  "That'll be four dollars," he said.

  Mike the Angel paid up with a smile. "You don't happen to have ahundred-thousand-unit microcryotron stack, do you?"

  "Ain't s'posed to," said Harry MacDougal. "If I did, I wouldn't sell itto you. But, as a matter of cold fact, I do happen to have one. Use itfor a paperweight. I'll give it to you for nothing, because it don'twork, anyhow."

  "Maybe I can fix it," said Mike the Angel, "as long as you're giving itto me. How come it doesn't work?"

  "Just a second, laddie," said Harry. He scuttled to the rear of the shopand came back with a ready-wrapped package measuring five by five byfour. He handed it to Mike the Angel and said: "It's a present. Thanksfor helping me out of a tight spot."

  Mike said something deprecative of his own efforts and took the package.If it were in working order it would have been worth close to threehundred dollars--more than that on the black market. If it was broken,though, it was no good to Mike. A microcryotron unit is almostimpossible to fix if it breaks down. But Mike took it because he didn'twant to hurt Old Harry's feelings by refusing a present.

  "Thanks, Harry," he said. "Happen to know why it doesn't work?"

  Harry's face crinkled again in his all-over smile. "Sure, Mike. It ain'tplugged in."