by Ed Naha
Robo walked through the house of dreams and headed for the front door. A wave of sounds flooded his mind. The woman singing. The TV blaring. The little boy laughing. Coffee percolating. A phone. A kiss. A sigh.
Robo ran out the front door and found himself staring up into an angry sky. Rain began to fall in sheets. The sky rumbled. Lightning crackled. Bolts flew through space in rapid succession. Robo theorized that they were affecting his circuitry. He was beginning to hallucinate again.
A flash of lightning. The face of little Emil from the gas station. Another flash. There was Joe. Another bolt. Chan. And another. Leon. And another. Clarence Boddicker. Robo raised his arms in a cross before him, to ward off the wind and the howling banshees dancing across the sky. Suddenly, he was staring at a cross in a cemetery. He heard sobbing. He squinted at the cross. There were words on its base.
ALEX MURPHY: BELOVED HUSBAND AND FATHER, RIP.
“What do you want from me?” he whispered into the swirling rain. He heard the faint echo of distant sobbing. The woman and the boy. The ghosts.
Robo emitted a guttural noise, the sound of an animal in pain, and dashed for the car.
He sat behind the wheel and shook. And, when he was done, he shook some more.
[ 19 ]
Robert Morton, executive on the rise, let the spring storm vent its fury outside his swank apartment windows. It had rained all day but that certainly didn’t dampen his spirits. A Muzak samba played in the background as Morton boogied over to the couch in front of his chrome and glass coffee table. He glanced out at the balcony where Tawny, a delicious blond model stood, the breeze whipping her long mane into a graceful swirl.
He chuckled to himself. Life was good. No. Life was fucking great.
He sat down on the couch next to Chandra, an exotic model companion of Tawny’s, and raised the coke spoon to his nose. Sniff. Wham. Hello, world.
Chandra giggled. “There’s something about the way it sounds,” she cooed. “Vice president. It just turns me on.”
Chandra did a line of coke. Morton watched her eyes roll back slightly. Bingo.
He scooped up some coke in his spoon and sambaed onto the balcony. “Spring storm,” he said. “I love the rain. Want a toot?”
Tawny nodded, her blue eyes shimmering in the white flashes of lightning around them. “It’s one of the things I like to do.”
Morton raised the spoon to her nose. A small trickle of cocaine dribbled down onto her chest. Morton smiled. “What do you think of this,” he muttered, lowering his face and burying his tongue between her ample breasts. “Do you like this?”
Chandra’s laughter interrupted him. He turned to see the raven-haired beauty pouting. “Save some for me, Bob.”
Morton laughed and flicked his tongue. “I have plenty for you both.”
The doorbell rang. Morton glanced inside the high-tech abode. “Must be the champagne.”
Morton danced to the front door and swung it open with a flourish. The smile evaporated from his face as the barrel of a gun appeared outside.
“Inside,” the voice from the hall ordered.
Morton stumbled into the room, the gun still pointed at his face. Chandra and Tawny glided in from the balcony. The killer took note of their presence but didn’t really look in their direction. “Okay, sluts. Take a hike.”
Chandra and Tawny gathered their things and scurried toward the door. Tawny took one last look at a very petrified Morton. “Good-bye, Bobby. Call me sometime, okay?”
Morton didn’t reply. The gunman slammed the door behind him. “Back up, wonderboy.”
Morton tried to summon up every macho bit of posturing he had ever witnessed. “Whatever it is you want, you won’t get away with it. Don’t you know who I am?”
By way of response, the gunman chuckled and fired four quick rounds into Morton’s legs. The young executive went down, howling. His ruptured legs pumped blood onto the thick, white pile carpet. In spite of the pain, the horror, the terror, Morton had time to figure how expensive it would be to get the stains out of the rug. Hell. He might as well spring for a whole new carpet.
He looked up into the killer’s cold eyes. He began to whimper. “I can’t believe this is happening,” he whined.
“Believe it, golden boy,” the killer replied.
Morton began crawling around on the floor like a stuck pig. He made a large circular pass as the killer stepped over him. The killer produced a mini-TV and placed it on the coffee table. “Come here, asshole. I want you to watch something.”
Morton crawled toward the coffee table while the hitman snorted some coke and lit a cigarette, very casually. Humbled and in pain, Morton knelt before the gunman. “I’ll give you anything. Anything you want. Please don’t kill me . . .”
The killer pointed his gun at the tiny TV. “Show’s starting.”
Morton gaped at the Sony Watchman TV as Dick Jones’s face appeared on the tiny screen. “Hello again, Bobby boy.” Jones smiled. “Dick Jones here in a custom made broadcast designed just for you. How about that? A young executive with a TV show dedicated to him. Feeling important?
“Hey, I bet you’re on your knees right now. Probably begging for your life. Pretty pathetic, eh?”
Jones chuckled. “I bet you don’t feel so cocky now, do you, Bobby?”
Morton continued to gaze at the screen. Jones was crazy. He had to be. His legs began to shake. So what else was new? He watched, dumbfounded, as his Siamese cat wandered over to the gunman, rubbing itself against the hitman’s legs. The gunman reached down and scratched the cat’s ears. The cat purred. Morton was repelled. Traitor. Not only had he been gunned down by a goon but now his cat was in heat for the guy.
Jones continued to talk cheerfully. “You know what the real tragedy is here, don’t you, Bob? We could have been friends. Teammates. The Batman and Robin of OCP. But you didn’t want to go through proper channels. You went over my head. Gosh, that hurt, Bobby.”
The killer reached into his flak jacket and produced a hand grenade. He placed it on the coffee table with a resounding “clink.”
Morton stared at the grenade and began to chant a mantra of sheer terror. “No,” he muttered. “No, no, no, no, no . . .”
“But life goes on,” Jones said philosophically. “It’s an old story. The fight for love and glory, right, Bobby? It helps if you think of it as a game. A big game. Every game has a winner and a loser. Tonight, Bob, you lose.”
The killer put out his cigarette, stood, and, bending over the table, pulled the pin out of the grenade. Morton began to crawl frantically toward the coffee table. The killer laughed softly and delivered a quick and violent kick into the small of Morton’s back. Morton screeched and went tumbling away from the table.
Clarence Boddicker laughed and kicked Morton a second time. “For good measure,” he said evenly.
He walked toward the door. Morton pulled himself up and, once again, moved for the table. Boddicker didn’t care. There was no way this guy would survive. Boddicker stepped into the hallway. He hesitated for a moment.
“Pusspusspuss,” he whispered.
Morton’s Siamese cat trotted out of the apartment and into the corridor. “Good kitty,” Boddicker said.
He glanced inside before slamming the door. Morton was extending a shaky hand toward the grenade. Boddicker reached down and picked up the cat. “Let’s you and me get something to eat,” he whispered.
The cat purred.
Boddicker strolled toward the fire exit stairs, humming “This Could Be the Start of Something Big.”
He stepped into the stairwell. Behind him, an apartment door flew off its hinges as a powerful fist of fire, smoke, and debris slammed through the corridor.
[ 20 ]
A fine drizzle fell on the streets of Old Detroit. The street-lamps reflecting off the shiny macadam made the area seem almost clean and bright. Robo sat silently in the TurboCruiser. He stared at the pimps, the hookers, and the drug dealers slithering through the tend
erloin district.
He hadn’t checked into the precinct all day. He figured, at this point, he didn’t have to. If Roosevelt and Tyler were going to rein him in they would have already attempted it by now. He was their special project, wasn’t he? He rationalized that to try to yank him in off the streets would be a bad public relations move. A good idea gone bad at OCP.
He raised his steel hand and made a fist. The input strip on his knuckles popped out. He inserted the strip into the Cruiser’s portable crime computer access port and concentrated. He fed the computer the names of Leon Klingensmith, Joe Nelson, Chan Oland, and Clarence Boddicker. The computer whirred and produced several print-outs of their rap sheets as well as three new eight by ten photos.
Robo took the photos and hit the streets. He collared a few pimps and a few hookers, showing them the photos. Always, the answer was the same. “Ain’t seen them, man.”
“No way.”
“Uh-uh. They’re complete strangers to yours truly.”
Robo walked down the street, an angry, half-charred Titan. Walking by an alleyway, he spotted a teenage gang stripping a car. He knew it was a stolen vehicle. It didn’t much bother him. He pulled his gun from its holster and pointed it at the punks.
“Freeze,” he commanded, his voice booming through the alley.
The kids spun and recognized Robo right away. “Let’s split,” one pimply-faced kid whispered.
“Are you kidding?” the other replied. “That’s the RoboCop. He’ll split you in two.”
“Damn,” the first one replied as Robo marched into the alley. He stared at the gang members hard. They dropped the auto parts. “Up against the wall, hands above your head, legs spread.”
The kids did as they were told. Robo surveyed the car. “I assume this isn’t part of auto shop homework,” he commented.
The kids shook their heads no.
“Fine,” Robo said. “I think we understand each other. I’m not here to bust you for trafficking in stolen goods. I’m here for some information. Have any of you seen any of these guys?”
He walked by each of the frightened gang members, flashing the three eight by tens. The first nine gang members blurted “nosir” even before their eyes could make contact with the photos. The tenth member, however, hesitated before shaking his head back and forth.
Robo placed a powerful knee against the boy’s spine. The boy slid to the ground. “I ain’t seen any of them. Really.”
Robo noticed that the boy’s eyes had seemed to linger on the photo of Chan. “You haven’t, eh?” he asked.
He flashed the photo of Chan again. “You’re positive?”
“Yeah. I’m pretty positive all right. They’re all strangers.”
Robo picked the boy up by his collar and held him high above his head. The boy wriggled helplessly in the steel hand. “Lemme go, man. You’re depriving me of my rights.”
Robo slammed the boy against the wall and held him fast. “I can deprive you of a lot more.” He shrugged.
“I don’t know the dude.”
“Now, why don’t I believe you,” Robo said. “You’ll notice that my hands are made of steel.”
He carried the boy above his head to the derelict car. Placing the three photos on the car’s hood, he took his free hand and slammed it into the hood of the car. His fist pierced the car’s metal frame as if it were made of cardboard. He then carried the boy back to the wall and, once again, pinned him against the brick surface.
“Imagine what a hand like this can do to someone’s neck,” he whispered.
The boy shook his head. “Oh yeah. I remember that dude. His name is Chan. Chan Oland.”
Robo smiled. “You wouldn’t know where I could find him, would you?”
Not only did the boy remember where Chan was located, but he proved positively scholarly on every nefarious hobby Chan was into at the moment . . . including cop killing.
Robo thanked the boy, grabbed the photos, and headed back toward the TurboCruiser. Before leaving the alleyway, he turned to the frightened gang members. “Don’t worry,” he reassured them. “This is our little secret.”
Chan Oland sat smoking a joint in the rock shop. He was posted as guard but he knew there’d be no trouble. None of the cops in the neighborhood knew about the place and the locals were too scared to tip them off.
The joint used to be a supermarket. Now it was the biggest drug processing lab in the city. The floor-to-ceiling windows had been painted out and an ingeniously crafted pharmaceutical assembly line now stretched across the area where, once, dozens of market aisles had been. A half-dozen workers wearing protective masks worked under the piss-yellow fluorescent lights; grinding, sifting, and bottling cocaine. Chan glanced outside the front entranceway. The street was empty.
He nodded at the shotgun-toting guards marching on the catwalks high above him. His nod was the all-clear sign. No problem.
He inhaled deeply, getting a noseful of the loose coke dust.
Clarence Boddicker walked by with Sal Luccione, the operator of the establishment. Sal was flanked by two bodyguards of the neo-simian persuasion. Clarence was trailed by Leon and Joe. Sal and Clarence were in the middle of a disagreement. Chan didn’t pay too much attention to the verbal sparring. Sal was a weasel. Clarence could eat him for breakfast if he wanted to. Sal was one of those sleazeballs who dressed the part. Pants too short. White socks. Pencil-thin mustache. Forehead always sweaty. It was hard to tell when the guy was upset or happy. He blinked a lot.
“I don’t give a shit what you wanna pay, Clarence,” Sal was sputtering. “I set the price in this town.”
Clarence removed his sunglasses and smiled at the sniveling coke baron. “Listen, Salvador. Maybe you haven’t heard. I’m the guy in Old Detroit. You want space in my marketplace? You’re going to have to give me a volume discount.”
Sal wasn’t interested in Clarence’s view of economics. “Lemme put things in perspective here, Boddicker. You killed a buncha cops. Fine. Everybody has to let off steam once inna while. Word on the street has it that you got big connections downtown. That’s fine, too. A guy gotta have friends.
“But here’s your big weakness, pal. You got no friends here. In fact, you got a lot of enemies. You make people nervous. A lot of folks would love to see a guy like me put you outta business.”
Clarence smiled at the weasel, the smile a superior nun flashes at a snotty first-grade student. “I run the sales organization in Old Detroit, Salvador.”
“People call me Sal.”
“I call you a dumb wop son of a bitch,” Clarence said evenly. “I can keep the streets dry long enough to put you back in the olive oil business.”
Sal’s face turned crimson. He faced one of his King Kong-sized companions. “Frankie!” he screamed. “Blow this cocksucker’s head off.”
Frankie nodded and drew a .357 Magnum from his pocket. Chan slipped from behind an assembly line, shotgun cocked. He slid the barrel under Sal’s chin. Frankie froze. All the workers imitated Frankie, staring at the confrontation in the making. Chan grinned at Frankie. Frankie gawked at Sal. Sal stared wide-eyed at the shotgun pressing against his Adam’s apple.
Clarence patted Sal gently on the cheek. “Sal, baby. The Tigers are playing tonight and I never miss a game. Do you think we could interface on this? Reach a solution in, let’s say, five minutes?”
Sal gulped. “Sure, Clarence. I think we can get together on a reasonable price.”
Chan held the shotgun firmly on Sal’s neck. His back was to the entranceway. He didn’t notice the two massive steel doors flexing inward. With a tremendous clang, the doors burst in, torn from their hinges. The mobsters and their goons spun around as one as Robo trained his A-9 on them. “Hello, boys,” he said.
Chan pivoted, training his shotgun on the intruder. Frankie leveled his Magnum. All the workers in the factory scrambled for their heavy assortment of automatic weaponry, ranging from Uzis to Heckler and Koch HK 92s, guns strong enough to blow the side
off a moving auto at a hundred yards. On the catwalk, the two guards cocked their guns and aimed downward.
Robo didn’t flinch. “Come quietly or there’ll be trouble.”
The mobsters glanced at each other, bewildered. Robo zeroed in on their positions, flipping his body into Combat Mode. He scanned the interior of the factory. The printout 15 TARGETS . . . 9 SHOTS [FULL] superimposed itself over the scene in Robo’s eyes.
The thugs regained their composure. Leon was the first to act. He raised his shotgun.
“Fuck you, bucket head,” he offered, firing a round at Robo.
Leon’s shot signaled a release of dozens of rounds. Every fool with a gun opened fire on RoboCop. Clarence hit the ground, rolling under a table as the wild firing continued. Robo stood his ground. Bullets and buckshot glanced harmlessly off his armor. He raised a mighty forearm to deflect a .357 shot aimed at his face. All the while, he calmly fired his A-9 into the crowd, picking off one after another of the rock house workers.
Chan bellowed, pumping his shotgun at the cop. Robo tilted his head and smiled. He squeezed the trigger of the A-9, sending a well-aimed bullet into Chan’s forehead. The top of the thug’s skull blew away as he tumbled, spewing blood and bits of semi-solid matter into the lap of a screaming Sal.
Leon ran for cover. Frankie gritted his teeth and fired his Magnum fiercely. One of Robo’s bullets slammed into Frankie’s teeth, shattering them and exiting through the back of his head. Sal’s other bodyguard took a slug in the arm. Yelping, he dropped his weapon and ran for cover, trotting directly into the path of a volley of bullets fired by the factory workers behind him.
Joe, glancing at the body of Chan, grabbed his .45 and fired six shots at Robo, holding the gun in two-handed combat style. Robo smirked and sent a bullet slamming into Joe’s right hand. Joe screamed as two of his fingers blew to pieces. The force of the impact sent his .45 sailing off into space.