Surfing Samurai Robots

by Mel Gilden

  ‘I’m staying in your house. Eating your food. I owe you something.’

  ‘Wash the dishes. It’s not so hard on the brain.’

  ‘Yuck,’ I said. Whipper Will and Captain Hook laughed. But not very hard, and not very long.

  Whipper Will said, ‘You were already stoked about detective work when you showed up. Why?’

  I sighed and said, ‘I didn’t know myself till I read the essay in The Simple Art of Murder.’

  ‘Mean streets?’

  ‘You got it. Also, I figure that I’m a good enough man for any world.’ Whipper Will didn’t remember that part of the quote, and I had to repeat it to him.

  ‘What is that?’ Captain Hook said. ‘Code?’

  ‘It’s in the book,’ Whipper Will said. ‘Right there on top of the stack.’

  Captain Hook picked up The Simple Art of Murder and held it as if it were a bomb. He turned a couple of pages and shrugged. ‘I can’t concentrate. Too cranked on beer, I guess.’ He looked at me. ‘Get those aggro dudes,’ he said, and walked outside to stare at the ocean. It kept rolling in, no matter what.

  Whipper Will said, ‘I guess we know where each other’s heads are at.’

  ‘You might know where my head is at. About you I still have nothing but questions.’

  That seemed to please him. Through his smile he said, ‘What’s next?’

  I said, ‘I’ll need a few things.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I know all the words. Fedora. Trench coat. Chrysler.’

  ‘All simple enough except maybe that last. What about a gun?’

  ‘I’ve never fired one, but I ought to have one anyway, I guess. If only for appearance’s sake.’

  Whipper Will grinned and said, ‘In the private eye biz, appearances are everything.’

  I grinned back at him. We were just a couple of cool private eye experts.

  He went into his bedroom for a moment and emerged wearing a pair of faded cloth shoes. They had probably once been blue. He was folding some green paper into the pocket of his jeans.

  ‘Is that money?’ I said.

  ‘That’s it.’ He handed me a sheet arid I studied it.

  I said, ‘It doesn’t look like the kind of thing that would cause so much trouble.’ I handed it back.

  ‘You’ll see,’ he said and led me out the front door.

  The front of the house was stucco with fake half-timbering painted a powerful blue. There were no windows on this side, and no sidewalk, just a three-car car park, currently empty. Heavy traffic boomed by on a wide street. It sounded like the ocean, but had no predictable rhythm. The sound just went on and on, never stopping for breath. I’d never seen anything like it, and I hung back from it. ‘Mean streets’ took on a whole new meaning.

  ‘Pacific Coast Highway

  ,’ Whipper Will said. ‘It’s the seam that sews the edge of the continent to the Pacific Ocean. Known to its friends as PCH.’

  ‘We can be friends if it wears a muzzle.’

  Whipper Will pulled me along the edge of PCH to a crosswalk that had a traffic light at each end. I had seen this stuff on television, but I hadn’t quite believed it. Seeing it in person was a shock.

  People of all ages, colours, and types stared at me as they walked past. A guy and a gal, a matched blond set suitable to be used as bookends, giggled after they’d passed, but nobody said a word to me. They just carried their surfboards, ‘bots, or baskets full of food.

  The light changed to green in our direction, and we strolled across the street. Considering all I’d heard about how dangerous Earthpeople were, I was amazed that a red light would really stop all that traffic. But it did, and we crossed to the other side of the street safely.

  The far side of PCH was crowded with little shops huddled together around postage-stamp car parks. We passed a couple of rent-a-bot stores, but they looked sad with their empty windows and Closed signs. Whoever had bought up surf-hots had been thorough.

  I had plenty of opportunities to buy T-shirts or pizza, though. Whipper Will walked past the stores as if they weren’t there. He stopped for a moment to study a window full of surfboards, clucked over the prices, and went on till we came to a shopping arcade.

  I suppose it was not a big place as shopping arcades go — barely large enough to use as an airfield. But it was full of noise and colour and strange smells, anything the owners could think of to pull in the suckers. I stood just inside the door looking at the levels above us. The ceiling disappeared in a cloud of colourful, plastic balloons that hung from poles. The place was crowded with people who were full of purpose — like bloodhounds on the scent.

  I caused less commotion than I thought I would. People who noticed me at all looked away immediately. Maybe they really thought I had a birth defect and didn’t want to seem impolite. Still, nobody likes to feel like a geek. I found myself wanting somebody to take a good look at me just once. It never happened.

  Whipper Will grabbed me by the arm and pulled me across the tile floor to a place called For Men Only.

  ‘Cute,’ I said.

  ‘That’s the stock-in-trade around here,’ he said.

  Inside was rack after rack of clothes like the ones the men in the newspaper photographs wore — long cloth tubes in muted colours. ‘I guess the name of the store doesn’t mean much,’ I said, nodding in the direction of one of the many women pawing through the merchandise.

  ‘Not much,’ Whipper Will agreed.

  A fat man with a small moustache and worried eyes hurried up to us. He nodded in my direction but spoke to Whipper Will. Maybe he thought I was Will’s pet.

  Will told him what I needed. The salesman wet his lips and ran them under his teeth while he pulled a threadbare tape measure from a pocket. He measured me quickly and sighed when he backed off. ‘This way, please.’

  We followed the salesman across the big room to a rack of suits under a sign that said Young Men and Boys. He rummaged along the rack until he found what he was looking for. It was a brown suit and it fit pretty well considering it was made for an Earthman.

  Whipper Will used his cash to buy it and a long brown coat and a fedora. When I had them all on at once, I looked like the guy on the cover of The Simple Art of Murder except for my nose, which was still several sizes too big for a human’s, and a cigarette, which I did not have. But I looked like a detective now. If looking like a detective was all it took to be a detective, I’d be all right.

  Chapter 5

  Fake Detective

  I WANTED to buy some shoes to go with my outfit. Gum shoes. Whipper Will smiled when I said that, but he didn’t object. In the arcade’s shoe store, Step On It, the salesman morosely studied my feet while he rubbed his chin and grunted.

  ‘Sandals?’ he said hopefully.

  ‘Gum shoes.’

  ‘Hmm.’ He crossed the shoe store and talked to a big guy who had spent all the time since Whipper Will and I had come in drumming his fingers on the cash register. The two fat salesmen watched me while they gestured to each other and spoke in guttural whispers. At last they came to a decision.

  Looking as proud as if he’d just figured out how to charge people for using gravity, the guy marched back and told me that what I needed was an orthopaedic shoe store.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  He glanced back at his friend and, suddenly looking as uncomfortable as a worm at a bird convention, said, ‘Well, you have unusual feet.’

  ‘Unusual,’ Whipper Will said without expression.

  The salesman glanced at him, tried on a smile, but it didn’t fit and it slid off.

  ‘Is there an orthopaedic shoe store in the arcade?’ I said.

  ‘No.’ Having a ready answer seemed to relieve him. He was back on top of things again.

  Whipper Will and I walked back to the house. The new jacket and shirt were tight under my arms, but the pants were a little loose despite how far over I had pulled the belt. I found a pair of shoes at last — the largest pa
ir they’d had in a sporting goods store. The salesman had continued to shake his head even as he took Whipper Will’s money.

  I probably didn’t look any stranger than I had in the clothing I had arrived in. And I was considerably less strange than some of the people we passed walking along PCH. I swaggered a little as I walked, caught myself, and tried to slouch as I imagined Philip Marlowe might, tired after a long, fruitless day of investigating.

  ‘What will you do with that stuff?’ Whipper Will said as he tapped the brown paper bundle I carried under one arm.

  ‘Keep it. When I go back to, er, Bay City, I’ll need my old clothes.’

  ‘You’re going back?’

  ‘I didn’t come all this way not to go back.’

  ‘I guess that makes sense.’

  ‘It’s deep. Deeper than the deep blue sea.’

  Whipper Will got me safely across Pacific Coast Highway

  again, and he jingled some keys to let us into the house. Things had livened up a little since we’d gone. Everybody was in the living room sitting in front of the television, engrossed in some kind of moving drawing of a muscular guy destroying a building with light that shot from his fingers. I watched for a few minutes and decided I’d rather spend time inside a bass drum than keep watching.

  After a while, Captain Hook noticed us. He stood up and turned off the television. No one protested. They were all looking at me and my new clothes. ‘Who paid for the threads?’ Thumper said, as if he already knew an answer he did not like.

  ‘We did,’ said Captain Hook.

  Whipper Will nodded.

  I said, ‘Think of it as a retainer.’

  ‘You can find the dudes who trashed our stuff?’

  ‘I can look. I’ll find them if they’re findable.’

  The room was silent. Across the sand, the ocean whispered secrets to the shore.

  ‘No guarantees, huh?’

  ‘Not a one. I can’t read the future any better than you can. I can only try my best.’

  ‘Shit,’Captain Hook said and turned on the television again. Seconds later, the room was full of loud music and the spectacle of this drawing of a muscular guy throwing a drawing of a rock that was bigger than he was. Evidently, the discussion was over.

  Whipper Will took me into his bedroom and shut the door. The smell in the room reminded me again how different humans and Toomlers really were. He opened a drawer and from under a pile of fruit-coloured clothes, he took something that he held up for me. It was long and black and had a handle. Beyond that, it had no more meaning than what I’d seen on the television.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a pistol.’ He handed it to me. It seemed very light and not very sturdy. On the side it said, OK SILL NOVELTY COMPANY, HONG KONG in raised letters. ‘If this thing shoots bullets then I’m Orson Welles.’

  ‘It doesn’t shoot bullets. It shoots water.’

  ‘A water pistol? Who’s that supposed to scare, the petunias?’

  ‘Ever fired a real gun?’

  ‘Well, no.’

  ‘Then you’re safer with this one. Besides, it looks like a real pistol and it does shoot water. That could buy you a little time if you ever need it.’

  I hefted the water pistol. It might be better than nothing at all, but just barely. It wouldn’t make me cocky. That was a good thing, anyway. I said, ‘Why do you keep it hidden?’

  ‘It’s mine. I’ve had it since I was a kid. I don’t want anybody borrowing it. Things get broken.’

  ‘I might break it.’

  ‘You might. But you’re a gnarly guy, and you might not. Besides, it’s for a good cause.’

  He took me into the bathroom and showed me how to fill the pistol with water. When it was full it felt more substantial, as if it might be worth something in a pinch.

  Whipper Will went off to make a batch of yoyogurt while I walked into the backyard and had some target practice. After a while, Whipper Will came out to watch. I fired at a white, velvety blossom that had never hurt anybody. It bent back when the spurt of water hit it, then swayed, throwing around droplets. Whipper Will said, ‘You’re a cool dude, Zoot.’

  ‘Sure. Fastest drip in the west. If flowers are behind this mess, we’re all set.’

  A salty wind blew through the garden, making the plants wave at me. I hoped they weren’t waving byebye. I took a snootful of the crisp ‘Bu air and, big as my snoot was, there was still some left over. Whipper Will knelt, pulled a weed, and rolled it into a ball between his hands. He put the weed into his pocket.

  I said, ‘There’s just one more thing.’

  He looked at me as if waiting for me to hatch.

  ‘I’ll need a car.’

  ‘Right on.’ He walked across the yard. Having nothing better to do, I followed him. He led me into the garage and walked around the line of sorry surf-bots. They were still lying on the cement floor, cold and lonely. I don’t think anybody had touched them since they’d been discovered. Beyond the ‘bots, Whipper Will pulled a big sheet off a form I hadn’t noticed before back in a dim corner of the garage. Under the sheet was an automobile.

  It was long and white, and it had fins. Someone had polished it recently. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

  To my unanswered question, Whipper Will said, ‘A 1960 Chevrolet Belvedere. In more or less mint condition.’

  ‘I was hoping for a Chrysler, like Marlowe drives.’

  ‘Would you know a Chrysler if you saw one?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then you might as well drive this.’

  ‘Terrific. Fake gun. Fake car.’

  ‘For a fake detective.’

  ‘Yeah. Who’s going to drive it?’

  He’d been blowing away dust motes that may or may not have been there. Now he looked over at me and said, ‘Cowabunga! I forgot. Get in.’

  Drive the car? Durf, I didn’t even know how to open the door.

  Whipper Will opened the garage door, then got into the car next to me. He was behind the wheel. We sat with our backs to Pacific Coast Highway

  , still snarling as traffic rushed past. The sun was high and the world was bright.

  I put the water pistol into the glove compartment and, with a flourish, Whipper Will took keys from a pocket, inserted them into a slot on the dashboard — so that’s what a dashboard was! — and started the engine. It growled like a healthy lion, then settled down and hummed.

  He looked over his shoulder as he carefully backed out. He let a red light stop traffic for him, and he backed into the street so fast, we bounced. A moment later I was trying to keep from clawing my way into the back seat. The Chevrolet Belvedere zipped right along, not slowing much as it swooped into spaces in front of slower cars.

  ‘Chill out,’ Whipper Will said. Nothing bothered him. He had one hand on the wheel, and the other rested on the window ledge. Iron Man Will. ‘I’ve never gone this fast.’ ‘No? Bay City’s a lot closer than I thought.’ ‘Yeah. Never this fast this close to the ground.’ ‘If you’re going to live on Earth, you’d better get used to it.’ We drove for what seemed like hours. Eventually, I calmed down enough to notice what kind of country we were moving through. On one side was the beach and then the ocean. On the other side were cliffs that rose higher than I could see out the front window of the car. Sometimes they were just bare cliffs, worn by wind and water into long artistic furrows. At their feet, between scrub brush and broken glass, were shopping arcades and little shops selling fried chicken and pizza. There were surf-bot stores too, but they didn’t seem to be doing much business.

  Whipper Will made a left turn — a beautiful manoeuvre that I did not yet care to try — and drove inland along a twisting highway with one lane in either direction. He pulled onto a narrow road among the hills and came at last to a big sign that said, IGNAZIO’S FINE ITALIAN FOOD.

  Beyond the sign, which itself was not in good shape, was a building that no one had thought much about for a long time. It was a dump covered
with peeling paint that might have once been a gaudy red. Twisted, half-dead plants stood along the wall like old soldiers who needed their pensions. Every window I could see was either broken or boarded up. But between the sign and the dump was an empty car park.

  Whipper Will stopped the car in the middle of the cracked asphalt of the park. We sat for a moment listening to birds tell each other all about it. The air was full of spicy smells. They came from the hills around us, not from the dead restaurant. Then Will said, ‘OK. Your turn.’ He came around to my side and got in. He pushed me over until I was under the wheel.

  I wasn’t as tall as he was by a long shot. but I managed to reach the pedals and look out the windshield at the same time. When I started the engine, it squealed as if I’d stepped on its toe.

  ‘You gotta let go of the starter after it starts the car.

  I glared at Whipper Will but tried again. This time, the engine started smoothly, as it had for him. I put the car into gear. The car leaned forward, but I had my foot on the brake and we didn’t go anywhere. I took my foot off the brake, and I was driving.

  The wheel seemed to have a mind of its own, but I wrestled with it and didn’t quite hit a suicidal tree that stepped in front of the car.

  ‘It’s easier to drive a spaceship,’ I said. ‘Computers do most of the work for you.’

  ‘Sissy stuff,’ Whipper Will said.

  I just grunted.

  Whipper Will spent most of the afternoon teaching me to drive. It wasn’t really hard to do once you figured out how to make your feet and your hands do six different things all at once. I drove in big circles and in figure-eights. I backed into imaginary parking spaces, in the process not destroying more than a small fleet of imaginary parked cars. After a while, it was even fun.

  When our little valley of automotive excellence was in shadow, and just the tops of the hills caught the gold of the setting sun, Whipper Will asked the big question. He asked me if I wanted to drive us back to the house. I didn’t, but I said I did.

  ‘You seem very relaxed about all this,’ I said.

  ‘I’m a very cool dude. Besides, appearances can be deceiving. Move ‘em out.’