Tubular Android Superheroes

by Mel Gilden

  "She is quite a dish," Whipper Will said as if he were admitting he'd killed Cock Robin. "And I was the boss man's son and we got pretty stoked on each other. But she was cranked on BMWs and Rolexes and the old white picket fence. She guzzled the right brewski and draped the fresh threads. We sizzled and slashed top-to-bottom for a while but the wipeout came hard and we were both dogged bad."

  "Raw," said Bingo, and she shook her head. She did not sound sorry.

  Not very kindly, I said, "And now she's shilling for your father."

  "A grotty scene," Whipper Will said.

  I expected Bingo to say, "Grotty," but she didn't. A sound outside the front of the house saved her the trouble. If a pride of lions had suddenly materialized on Whipper Will's front porch and some brave soul had stroked them ever so gently under their chins, they might have made a sound like this. The four of us went to see what it was.

  Parked across the front of Whipper Will's garage was the biggest, blackest car I had ever seen. Its color was the deep emptiness of outer space and you could launch aircraft from its roof. The engine stopped—stopping the lions— and a man in a chauffeur's uniform got out. He wasn't wearing a tie but a blue plastic collar that complemented his beauty. He walked back about a block and pulled open a door.

  The man who climbed out looked the way Whipper Will might look in about thirty years if he cut his hair and changed his tailor. The suit he wore was dark but not black, an indefinable color that spoke of vaults with the lights off but full of money. The suit fit him perfectly. It had fewer wrinkles than a china plate. The man walked toward us smiling.

  "Whipper, my boy," the man cried as he held out his hand.

  "Dad," Whipper Will said, and shook his hand without enthusiasm.

  "Miss Binghamton," Whipper Will's dad said, and tried to shake hands with Bingo. She wasn't having any. After a while he put his hand down, reminding me of Bill.

  Whipper Will's dad looked at us, expecting somebody to throw him a fish, but Whipper Will didn't say or do anything. He just waited, listening to the traffic go by. A boxy car that might once have been green pulled into a parking space in the lot of the liquor store across the street. Instead of getting out and going into the store the driver pulled out a newspaper and held it a little too low. Even from here I could see his eyes. Searching, curious eyes. "May I come in?" Whipper Will's dad said. "Sure, dude," Whipper Will said, and his dad winced, not liking the word dude much.

  Everybody but the chauffeur went inside. Whipper Will's father sat at one end of the couch and said, "Sit down, sit down," as if it were his house. Whipper Will sat on the arm at the other end of the couch. Bingo sat where Darken Stormy had been sitting before. I stood at the entrance to the hallway and held up the wall. Zamp was just behind me. Coldly, Whipper Will said, "Dudes, this is my dad, Iron Will. He got here so fast he must have been waiting for Darken Stormy around the corner. He probably guessed I wouldn't get stoked on her rap."

  "I know you can speak English," Mr. Will said. "I paid enough for your education."

  "Right on," Whipper Will said, and smiled.

  "Why won't you come back?" Mr. Will said.

  "It's not you. Dad. It's not even the androids. It's the whole big business whoopie. Fancy clothes, meetings, deadlines, office politics. I came to the beach to hang loose, to cruise without any of it."

  Calmly, as if explaining playground etiquette to a small child, Mr. Will said, "I don't suppose it means anything to you that SA and Will Industries need you. It took us long enough to finish developing a commercial android after you left. But the current series gets moldy and hard. It crumbles away just like bread. You can help us design one that won't go stale. I'd make it worth your while. You could have anything you wanted."

  "Really?" said Whipper Will with sudden interest.

  "Anything."

  "The one thing I want," Whipper Will said, his words suddenly growing hair and teeth, "is for you to leave me alone."

  I sympathized with Whipper Will. I had barely escaped the family business myself.

  Mr. Will said, "What do you say, Miss Binghamton? You used to be his assistant. I could make it worth your while too."

  Bingo looked away. The curtains swaying in the breeze were not as interesting as she made them.

  I could see where the conversation was going. Bingo and Whipper and his father could circle each other like that all afternoon. They were starting in on each other again when I walked back down the hallway and went out the front door. I suggested Zamp speak with the chauffeur. While Zamp went over to look in the limousine's window, I went across the street to look in a window of my own. I walked past the liquor store and then came back across the lot. While I did that, a very groovy teenage dude and dudette approached a Melt-O-Mobile machine that stood just outside the liquor store's front door. As if he were buying diamonds for her but doing nothing at all compared to what he could do if he put his mind to it, the dude shoved a few bills into the machine. It groaned and something as tall as the slit and as wide as a hand grew slowly from it. When it was outside the machine, the thick sheet suddenly snapped open and became a Melt-O-Mobile that bounced a little as it settled on the blacktop. The two groovy types got into it and the dude drove them away.

  Even knowing that Melt-O-Mobiles would not be very popular if they stranded a person wherever he or she went, actually seeing a dispenser perform was a surprise. It was the difference between hearing about an elephant and seeing one. I almost got run over while I stood there being astonished. But a loud honk from a guy in a passing Datsun snapped me out of my daze. From behind I approached the green car that had followed the Will limousine, watching the guy's face in the side mirror, which meant that he could see me. His eyes flickered but otherwise he didn't move. He didn't even turn the page of his newspaper.

  I stood next to his open window and said, "He'll be inside for a while. He and his son are having a little party."

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "No. That's why you're sitting over here not reading yesterday's paper." I looked in at him. I was the right height to do it without bending. He must have been tall because the black brush of his hair tickled the ceiling of the car. He had the wide-open face of an extra in a Gino and Darlene flick, with a polka-dot bow tie stationed below it. His dark blue suit was tasteful enough to be rented. I had seen him before.

  He said, "So far, sitting in a car is not a crime."

  "We almost met at Kilroy's. You were another one of the detectives who'd been invited to help the Hawaiian UFO Aliens solve their problem."

  Very slowly, he turned his head to look at me. He smiled in a way that managed not to mean anything and said, "You may be a pro, but you're not from around here."

  "Bay City," I said.

  He laughed and caught it before it escaped. He stuck his hand out through the window and said, "Irv Doewanit."

  "Zoot Marlowe," I said, and shook his hand.

  "Marlowe, eh?" He liked it a lot. I took a chance and said, "You following Mr. Will?" "If you're half the pro you pretend to be you know I can't tell you that." "I know," I said. "I just wanted to make sure that you know. We should talk."

  "I can't talk—" "Not about your client or your job. Just talk. One gumshoe to another."

  "Shop talk. It's been a while."

  "You have your own shop?"

  "In a manner of speaking."

  He gave me a Hollywood address up on Ivar and we agreed to meet that evening. I ran back across PCH feeling noble as a statue in a park but more lively. Doewanit was a real detective.

  We would talk. Oh yes, we would.

  When I got to Whipper's house a Melt-O-Mobile was pulling up. The driver got out, and I could see by the blue plastic collar that it was an android. Superhero Android. He went to the front door and knocked. He glanced at me when I walked up but said nothing. We waited for the answer together.

  Bingo opened the door. She looked tired. Behind her, Whipper and his father were shouting
at each other. They stopped when Bingo and the android and I walked into the living room. Mr. Will smiled and said, "At last. Get your friends together, Whipper. We're going for a ride."

  "Where?" said Whipper as if he didn't much care.

  "Nowhere special. I just want to show off the Melt-O-Mobile."

  Whipper said something about Melt-O-Mobiles that was rude and anatomically impossible. Mr. Will began to burn. Personally, I was getting tired of watching them push each other off their soapboxes. I said, "A ride couldn't hurt. And the dudes would get cranked on it."

  I watched Whipper calculating what was in it for him, for his friends, for his father. His father just smiled as he rubbed his hands together. Not very happy, but fortified with steel plate, Whipper said, "Groovy."

  Mr. Will and his android took Thumper and Flopsie and Mopsie for a ride. While they were gone. Bingo and Whipper stood in front of the the front door swaying as they hugged. The smell that made people believe stuff hung in the air like a bad idea. The surfers whooped at androids and sang snatches of songs they'd learned from Gino and Darlene.

  When the Melt-O-Mobile came back Thumper leapt from it and cried, "That android is one aggro dude! He drives like the gnarly kahuna himself! Bitchen dude. Bitchen dude." He shook his head in wonder.

  "Driving well in traffic is his superpower," Mr. Will said as he helped Flopsie and Mopsie from the car. They were charmed at the attention, and each did her best to act like the Queen of England. Mr. Will called, "Next!"

  Whipper refused to go and Bingo wouldn't even discuss it. I looked at Whipper. No point working at making him an enemy. He nodded. I rode out with Bill, Mr. Will, the android, and the rest of the surfers. The ride was pretty much what you'd expect to have in a cardboard car. We bumped along feeling every crack in the street. The air and traffic noise were so loud I felt as if I were riding on a skateboard. But the android was as good a driver as Thumper had said. He weaved in and out between cars with all the effort of Rubinstein playing a Mozart sonata. I'd seen guys sweat more at stoplights. While we made the rounds I saw more people vend themselves Melt-O-Mobiles. I didn't gawk the way I had the first time, but watching didn't bore me either. We got back, and Mr. Will did his big finish.

  After the driving android got into the limousine Mr. Will reached into the Melt-O-Mobile and pushed a button on the dash that started the roof of the car fizzing. While the car ate itself the bad smell grew stronger. As casually as a striking rattlesnake, Mr. Will said, "You know, Whipper, you'd enjoy working for me again."

  Whipper and Bingo looked at him as if he were crazy. I knew he wasn't crazy. I watched him as if he were doing card tricks.

  "Don't you think?" Mr. Will said. "One of us is thinking," Whipper said, "and it isn't you." Mr. Will frowned. While he did that, a tall blond woman wearing cutoff jeans and a red halter top swayed by. Captain Hook, always handy with the ladies, shouted at her, "I'm good for you, baby!" and made a kissing noise.

  The blonde looked a little confused, but instead of continuing her one-woman parade she swayed over to Captain Hook and said, "You're good for me, baby." She wrapped her hands around his neck.

  The other surfers howled, "Ahh-roooh!" and even Captain Hook looked surprised. But he said, "Come on in. We'll down a brewski and rap." Holding her hand, Captain Hook towed her inside as if she were a boat made of glass.

  I said, "Interesting, isn't it?"

  "What?" Mr. Will said.

  "Cars start evaporating and people will believe anything."

  "What are you implying?"

  "Nothing much," I said. "But a sort of 'credulity' gas must be good for business."

  "I don't know what your business is, Mr. Marlowe, but I suspect you're not a chemist. If this 'credulity' gas is in the air it must be something new in the smog. Besides"—he looked sideways at Whipper—"not everybody seems to believe everything." That bothered him, and he thought about it.

  Whipper thought about it too. It was amazing how much he and his father looked alike when they both had their faces twisted up like that.

  Bingo said, "It doesn't matter. Whipper isn't going back to work for you."

  "Is that so?" Mr. Will said, his voice taking on an edge sharp enough to remove flesh. "I'm not making threats, but sometimes coincidences happen. You do something bad to me— it just could be that something bad will happen to your no-account friends." Whipper said, "It just could be you're full of shit."

  Mr. Will didn't wait for his chauffeur to let him back into the limousine. He got in and slammed the door harder than he had to. The lions began to purr again and the limousine swung out into the street as if there were no traffic to watch for. Whipper laughed and shook his head. "Oh, Dad. I can't take him anywhere."

  "That sounded like a threat to me," I said as I watched Irv Doewanit pull into traffic and follow the limousine.

  "Dad's tough, and he's a little ruthless in business, but he wouldn't actually hurt anybody." Whipper and Bingo and the surfers went back into the house. I took a lot of time staring at the place where I'd last seen Doewanit's green car and the limousine. Zamp said, "You think Whipper's wrong about his dad?" "It would be safer to think so." Bill said, "I can think so for you." "You do that," I said. "Though I have the feeling I won't need the help."

  Chapter 4

  Nuts From Hollywood

  ZAMP and Bill and I were still standing outside Whipper's house when Captain Hook's blonde stormed out of the place. She didn't stop to speak to us, but her angry face told us enough. A moment later. Captain Hook came to the door with a red handprint on one cheek. He cried, "Tisha!" but the blonde was long gone and her sonic boom with her.

  "I been snaked!" Captain Hook said.

  "I guess that was her problem too," I said, and went into the house with my entourage. Zamp asked me what the time was. When I told him he got excited and jabbered that Darken Stormy's radio program would be on any minute. He took the card from the pocket of his Hawaiian shirt and asked me to dial the number for him.

  "Ask Whipper to teach you how to read," I said as I dialed. "Except for being thrown out of his house and avoiding his father, I don't think he's very busy."

  Zamp sat down with the phone and he spoke to somebody who passed him on to somebody else. At last he put his hand over the receiver and said, "I'm on hold. Darken will be with me in a moment." "Congratulations." The TV had a radio in it and I switched it on.

  I tuned away from the oldies station it habitually played and, after crossing through static and garbage, heard Darken Stormy say, "... a surprise guest. A mysterious gentleman known to me only as Grampa Zamp. He'll be telling us a little about himself. Stay tuned." A commercial started. It suggested in ways that were not very subtle that some hospital in Orange County could help me lose weight while eating everything on the menu and never leaving the couch. I guess if you need to lose weight, that's the way to do it.

  Darken Stormy came back and introduced Grampa Zamp again, and then she was interviewing him. He answered into the telephone and five seconds later his voice came from the radio. When Zamp seemed confused by the way things were going, Darken told him the show was on a five-second tape delay and suggested he turn down his radio. He gestured at me frantically and I swung closed the door between kitchen, where Zamp was, and the living room, where the radio was. By that time the show had attracted Captain Hook and the other surfers. "Yes," Zamp said, "I'm a noted futurist from a planet called T'toom." I looked at the kitchen door, shocked as if ... well, shocked as if Zamp had admitted he was from another planet. Whipper and Bingo looked at me with their eyebrows up. They'd suspected for a long time that my story about being from Bay City was just a story. Anybody with half a brain would, if they cared. Most people didn't care or were afraid to get involved in something that might be too big or too unpleasant for them. After all, Orson Welles hadn't been the last person to suggest that invading the Earth was a good idea.

  The other surfers laughed and poked each other in the ribs as Zamp spoke about abo
trees and sap and household ooze and slaberingeo spines. Sunday supplement stuff on T'toom, but it would be hot news on Earth if anybody believed you. Evidently, most of the surfers thought Zamp's rap was a joke. Darken Stormy was treating it that way too. Zamp telling the truth to Darken Stormy and to her audience was no more dangerous than my telling the truth to a crystal-bending swami like Goneout Backson.

  I relaxed, and instead of listening to Grampa Zamp I thought about androids and Melt-O-Mobiles and credulity gas. They just drifted through my mind with no more weight or importance than clouds. I didn't know enough about anything. Besides, none of this was my business yet, though it probably would be if Mr. Daise hired me. He said he had android trouble.

  I had trouble too, but it had nothing to do with androids. A certain guy who owned a certain house was about to eject certain occupants onto PCH like spent bullets. I worked the problem over in my head with a sap and a rubber hose and with bamboo shoots under the fingernails. What Max Toodemax was pulling wasn't nice, but as far as I could tell it was legal. As legal as selling painless weight-loss plans to people whose exercise of choice was thumbing the remote control on their TV.

  Cheering and applause yanked me back from the land where half-bright detectives go to think. The kitchen door was open and Zamp's nose was quivering happily. He said, "For being on her show today, Darken is sending me two free tickets to the upcoming Will Industries Trade Show." "Groovy," Whipper said without inflection.

  "You'll go with me, won't you Zoot?"

  "Sure. Me and whose army?" "You won't need an army," Whipper said, and laughed. "I guess you're right. Your dad doesn't want me or Zamp." Whipper was angry at me. It was buried, but not very deep. He really did like his father.