VII.
Thirty seconds passed. During that time, Malone did nothing at all. Hejust sat there, while a confused montage of pictures tumbled through hishead. Sometimes he saw double exposures, and sometimes a couple ofpictures overlapped, but it didn't seem to make any difference, becausenone of the pictures meant anything anyhow.
The reason for that was obvious. He was no longer sane. He had crackedup. At a crucial moment, his brain had failed him, and now people wouldhave to come in and cart him away and put him in a straitjacket. It wasperfectly obvious to Malone that he was no longer capable of dealingwith everyday life. The blow on the head had probably taken finaleffect, and it had been more serious than the doctor had imagined.
He had always distrusted doctors anyhow.
And now he was suffering from a delayed reaction. He wasn't living inthe real world any more. He had gone off to dreamland, where peopledisappeared when you looked at them. There was no hope for him.
It was a nice theory, and it was even comforting, in a way. There wasonly one thing wrong with it.
The room around him didn't look dreamlike at all. It was perfectly solidand real, and it looked just the way it had looked before Mike Fueyo had... well, Malone amended, before whatever had happened had happened. Itwas a perfectly complete little room, and it had four chairs in it.Malone was sitting in one of the chairs and all the others were empty.
There was absolutely nothing else in the room.
With some regret, Malone abandoned the theory that he had gone mad. Thisleft him with no ideas at all. Because if he hadn't become insane, thenwhat _had_ happened?
After another second or two, some ideas began to filter through thedaze. Perhaps he'd just blacked out for a minute and the kid had goneout the door. That was possible, wasn't it?
Sure it was. And maybe he had just not seen the kid go. His eyes hadfailed for a second or two. That could certainly happen, after a blow onthe head. Malone tried to remember where the sight centers of the brainwere. Maybe whoever had hit him had disturbed them, and he'd had asudden blackout.
Come to think of it, that made pretty good sense. If he had blacked out,then Mike would have seen it as he went groggy, and Mike had just walkedout the door. It had to be the door, of course--the windows were out ofthe question, since there weren't any windows. And six-inch-wideair-conditioner ducts do not provide reasonable space for an exit, notif you happen to be a human being.
That, Malone told himself, was settled--and a good thing, too. He hadbegun to worry about it. But now he knew just what had happened, and hefelt relieved. He got up from his chair, walked over to the door andopened it.
Lieutenant Lynch nearly fell into the room. He'd obviously had his earpressed tightly to the door and hadn't expected it to open. The othertwo cops stood behind him, just about filling the hallway with theirbroad shoulders.
"Well, well," Malone said.
Lynch recovered his balance and glared at the FBI agent. He saidnothing.
"Where is he?" Malone said.
"Where is he?" Lynch repeated, and blinked. "Where's _who_?"
Malone shook his head impatiently. "Fueyo," he said.
Lynch's expression was the same as that on the faces of the other twocops: complete and utter bafflement. Malone stopped and stared. It wassuddenly very obvious that the lovely theory he had worked out forMike's disappearance wasn't true in the least. If Mike Fueyo had comeout the door, then these cops would know about it. But they obviouslyknew nothing at all about it.
Therefore, he hadn't come out through the door.
Malone took a deep breath.
"What are you talking about?" Lynch said. "Isn't the kid in there withyou? What's happened?"
There was only one thing to do and, straight-faced, Malone went aheadand did it. "Of course not," he snapped, trying to sound impatient andofficial. "I released him."
"You _what_?"
"Released him," Malone said. He stepped out into the hall and closed thedoor of the interrogation room firmly behind him. "I got all theinformation I needed, so I let him go."
"Thanks," Lynch said bitterly. "After all, I was the one who--"
"You called him in for questioning, didn't you, lieutenant?" Malonesaid.
"Yes, I did, and I--"
"Well," Malone said, "I questioned him."
There was a little silence. Then Lynch asked, in a strangled voice:"What did he say?"
"Sorry," Malone said at once. "That's classified information." He pushedhis way into the corridor, trying to look as if he had fifteen otherjobs to accomplish within the next hour. Being an FBI agent was going tohelp a little, but he still had to look good in order to really carry itoff.
"But--"
"Thanks for your co-operation, lieutenant," Malone said. "You've allbeen very helpful." He smiled at them in what he hoped was a superiormanner. "So long," he said, and started walking.
"Wait!" Lynch said. He flung open the door of the interrogation room.There was no doubt that it was empty. "Wait! Malone!"
Malone turned slowly, trying to look calm and in control of thesituation. "Yes?" he said.
Lynch looked at him with puzzled, pleading eyes. "Malone, _how_ did yourelease him? We were right here. He didn't come through the door. Thereisn't any other exit. So how did you get him out?"
There was only one answer to that, and Malone gave it with a quiet,assured air. "I'm terribly sorry, lieutenant," he said, "but that'sclassified information, too." He gave the cops a little wave and walkedslowly down the corridor. When he reached the stairs he began to speedup, and he was out of the precinct station and into a taxicab before anyof the cops could have realized what had happened.
He took a deep breath, feeling as if it were the first he'd had inseveral days. "Breathe air," he told himself. "It's _good_ for you." Notthat New York had any real air in it. It was mostly carbon fumes and thelike. But it was the nearest thing to air that Malone could find at themoment, and he determined to go right on breathing it until somethingbetter and cleaner showed up.
But that wasn't important now. As the cab tooled along down Broadwaytoward Sixty-ninth Street, Malone closed his eyes and began going overthe whole thing in his mind.
Mike Fueyo had vanished.
Of that, Malone told himself, there was no shadow of doubt. No probable,possible shadow of doubt.
No possible doubt--as a matter of fact--whatever.
Dismissing the Grand Inquisitor with a negligent wave of his hand, heconcentrated on the main question. It was a good question. Malone couldhave sat and looked at it admiringly for a long time.
As a matter of fact, that was all he could think of to do, as the cabturned up Seventieth Street and headed east. He certainly didn't haveany answers for it.
But it was a lovely question:
_Where does that leave Kenneth J. Malone?_
And, possibly even more important:
_Where was Miguel Fueyo?_
It was obvious that he'd vanished on purpose. And it hadn't just beensomething he'd recently discovered. He had known all along that he couldpull the trick; if he hadn't known that, he wouldn't have done what hehad done beforehand. No seventeen-year-old boy, no matter what he was,would give the FBI the raspberry unless he were pretty sure he could getaway with it.
Malone remembered the raspberry and winced slightly. The cab drivercalled back: "Anything wrong, buddy?"
"Everything," Malone said. "But don't worry about it."
The cab driver shrugged and turned back to the wheel. Malone went backto Mike Fueyo.
The kid could make himself vanish at will.
Invisibility?
Malone thought about that for a while. The fact that it was impossibledidn't decide him against it. Everything was impossible; that much wasclear. But he didn't think Mike Fueyo had just become invisible. No.There had been the sense of a presence actually leaving the room. IfMike had become invisible and stayed, Malone was sure he wouldn't havefelt the boy leave.
Mike had not just
become invisible. (And what do I mean, "just"? Maloneasked himself unhappily.) He had gone--elsewhere.
This brought him back full circle to his original question: where wasthe boy now? But he ignored it for a minute or two as another, even moredifficult query presented itself.
Never mind where, Malone told himself. _How?_
Something was bothering him. Malone realized that it had been botheringhim for a long time. At last he managed to locate it and hold it up tothe light for inspection.
Dr. O'Connor, the psionics expert at Westinghouse, had mentionedsomething during Malone's last conversation with him. Dr. O'Connor,who'd invented a telepathy detector, had been discussing further reachesin his field.
"After all," he'd said, "if thoughts can bridge any distance whatever,regardless of other barriers, there is no reason why matter could not dolikewise."
"How do you know?" Malone had asked him, "it doesn't. Or, anyhow, ithasn't so far."
"There's no way to be sure of that." Dr. O'Connor had said sternly."After all, we have no reports of it--but that means little. Our searchhas only begun."
"Oh," Malone said. "Sure."
"Matter, controlled by thought, might bridge distances instantaneously,"Dr. O'Connor had said.
And he'd referred to something, some word....
_Teleportation._
That was it. Malone sat back. All you had to do, he reflected, was tothink yourself somewhere else, and--_bing!_--you were there. If Malonehad been able to do it, it would not only save him a lot of time andtrouble, but also such things as cab fare and train fare and ... oh, alot of different things.
But he couldn't. And Dr. O'Connor hadn't found anyone else who could,either. As far as Malone knew, nobody could teleport.
Except Mike Fueyo.
The cab stopped in front of FBI Headquarters. "You some kind of secretagent?" the cabbie said.
"Of course not," Malone said pleasantly. "I'm a foreign spy."
"Oh," the cabbie said. "Sure." He took his money with a somewhat puzzledair, while Malone crossed the sidewalk and went into the building.
* * * * *
Everyone was active. Malone pushed his way through arguing knots of menuntil he reached the small office which he and Boyd had been assigned.He had already decided not to tell Boyd about the disappearing boy. Thatwould only confuse him--and matters were confused enough as they stood.Malone had no proof; he had only his word and the word of a few baffledpolicemen, all of whom were probably thoroughly confused by now.
Boyd had a job to do, and Malone had decided to let him go on doing it.That, as a matter of fact, was what he was doing when Malone entered theroom.
He was sitting at his desk, talking on the telephone. Malone couldn'tsee the face on the screen, but Boyd was scowling at it fiercely."Sure," he said. "So some guy makes a fuss. That's what you're for."
"But he wants to sue the city," a voice said tinnily. "Or somebody."
"Let him sue," Boyd said. "We've got authority. Just get that car."
"Look," the voice said. "I--"
"I don't care how," Boyd snapped. "Get it. Then hand it over to thepickup-squad and say: 'Mr. Malone wants this car--immediately.' They'llknow what to do. Got that?"
"Sure, Mr. Boyd," the voice said. "But I don't--"
"Never mind," Boyd said. "Go ahead and get the job done. The UnitedStates of America is depending on you." With one last scowl, he hung upand swung around to face Malone. "You gave me a great job," he said. "Ireally love it, you know that?"
"It's got to be done," Malone said in a noncommittal voice. "How's itgoing so far?"
Boyd closed his eyes for a second. "Twenty-three red 1972 Cadillacs todate--which isn't bad, I suppose," he said. "And six calls like the oneyou just heard. All from agents with problems. What am I supposed to dowhen a guy catches a couple necking in a 1972 red Cadillac?"
"At this time of day?" Malone said.
"New York," Boyd said, and shrugged. "Things are funny here."
Malone nodded. "What did you do about them?" he said.
"Told the agent to take the car and give 'em a pass to a movie," Boydsaid.
"Good," Malone said. "Keep that sort of thing in the dark where itbelongs." For some reason, this reminded him of Dorothy. He still had toget tickets for a show. But that could wait. "How about the assemblyline?" he said.
"Disassembly," Boyd said. "Leibowitz has started it going. He borrowedthe use of a big auto repair shop over in Jersey City, and they'll bedoing a faster job than we thought." He paused. "But it's been awonderful day," he said. "One to remember as long as I live. Possiblyeven until tomorrow. And how have you been doing?"
"Well," Malone said, "I'm not absolutely sure yet."
"That's a nice, helpful answer," Boyd said. "In the best traditions ofthe FBI."
"I can't help it," Malone said. "It's true."
"Well, what have you been doing?" Boyd said. "Drinking? Living it upwhile I sit here and talk to people about Cadillacs?"
"Not exactly," Malone said. "I've been ... well, doing more or less whatBurris told me to do. Nosing around. Keeping my eyes open."
* * * * *
The phone chimed. Boyd flipped up the mike and eyed the screenbalefully. "Federal Bureau of Investigation," he said crisply. "Who areyou?"
A voice on the other end said: "What?" before the image on the screencleared.
"Oh," a voice said. It was a very calm, quiet voice. "Hello, Boyd."
The image cleared. Boyd was facing the picture of a man in his middlethirties, a brown-haired man with large, gentle brown eyes and anexpression that somehow managed to look both sad and confident. "Hello,Dr. Leibowitz," Boyd said.
"Is Mr. Malone in?" Leibowitz said. "I really wanted to talk to him."
"Sure," Boyd said. "Just a second."
He motioned to Malone, who came around and sat at Boyd's desk as Boydgot up. He nodded to Leibowitz, and the electronics engineer noddedback.
"How's everything coming, Dr. Leibowitz?" Malone said.
Leibowitz shrugged meaningfully. "All right," he said. "I called you totell you about that, by the way. We've managed to cut the per-car timedown somewhat."
"That's wonderful," Malone said.
"It's now down to about four hours per car--and that means we may beable to do even better than running one off the line every fifteenminutes. At the moment, fifteen minutes is about standard, though, withsixteen cars in the line."
"Sure," Malone said. "But anything you can do to speed it up--"
"I understand," Leibowitz said. "Of course, I'll do anything that I canfor you. I have got a small preliminary report, by the way."
"Yes?"
"The first car has just been turned off the assembly line," Leibowitzsaid. "And I'm afraid, Mr. Malone, that there's nothing odd about it atall."
"Well," Malone said, "we can't expect to hit the jackpot with our firsttry."
"Certainly not," Leibowitz said. "But the second should be off soon. Andthen the rest. I'm keeping my eye on every one, of course."
"Fine," Malone said, and meant it. Leibowitz was the kind of man whoinspired instant, and complete trust. Malone was perfectly sure he'd dothe job he had started to do. Then an idea struck him. "Has the firstcar been reassembled yet?" he asked.
"Of course," Leibowitz said. "We took that step into account in ourtiming. What would you like done with it--and with the other ones, asthey come off?"
"Unless you can find something odd about a car, just return it to itsowner," Malone said. "Or pass the problem on to the squad men--they'lltake care of it." He paused. "If you do find something odd--"
"I'll call you at once, of course," Leibowitz said.
"Good," Malone said. "Incidentally, I did want to ask you something. Idon't want you to think I'm doubting your work, or anything like that.Believe me."
"I'm sure you're not," Leibowitz said.
"But," Malone said, "why does it take so long? I'd think it
would befairly easy to spot a robotic or a semirobotic brain capable ofcontrolling a car."
"It might have been, once." Leibowitz said. "But these days the problemsare rather special. Oh, I don't mean we can't do it--we can and we will.But with subminiaturization, Mr. Malone, and semipsionic circuits, apretty good brain can be hidden beneath a coat of paint."
For no reason at all, Malone suddenly thought of Dorothy again. "A coatof paint?" he said in a disturbed tone.
"Certainly," Leibowitz said, and smiled at him. It was a warm smile thathad little or nothing to do with the problem they were talking about.But Malone liked it. It made him feel as if Leibowitz liked him, andapproved of him. He grinned back.
"But a coat of paint isn't very much," Malone said.
"It doesn't have to be very much," Leibowitz said. "Not these days. I'veoften told Emily--that's my wife, Mr. Malone--that I could hide a TVcircuit under her lipstick. Not that there would be any use in it--butthe techniques are there, Mr. Malone. And if your conjecture is correct,someone is using them."
"Oh," Malone said. "Sure. But you _can_ find the circuits, if they'rethere?"
Leibowitz nodded slowly. "We can, Mr. Malone," he said. "They betraythemselves. A microcircuit need not be more than a few microns thick,you see--as far as the conductors and insulators are concerned, at anyrate. But the regulators--transistors and such--have to be as big as apinhead."
"Enormous, huh?" Malone said.
"Well," Leibowitz said, and chuckled, "quite large enough to locatewithout trouble, at any rate. They're very hard to conceal. And theleads from the brain to the power controls are even easier tofind--comparatively speaking, of course."
"Of course," Malone said.
"All the brain does, you see," Leibowitz said, "is control the mechanismthat steers the car. But it takes real power to steer--a great deal morethan it does to compute the steering."
"I see," Malone, who didn't, said desperately. "In other words, unlesssomething radically new has been developed, you can find the circuits."
"Right," Leibowitz said, grinning. "It would have to be something verynew indeed, Mr. Malone. We're up on most of the latest developmentshere; we've got to be. But I don't want the credit for this."
"No?" Malone said.
"Oh, no," Leibowitz said. "All I do is work out the general applicationto theory, as far as actual detection is concerned. It's my partner, Mr.Hardin, who takes care of all the engineering details."
Malone said: "Well, so long as one of you--"
"Sal's a real crackerjack," Leibowitz said enthusiastically. "He has anintuitive feel about these things. It's really amazing to watch him goto work."
"It must be," Malone said politely.
"Oh, it really is," Leibowitz said. "And it's because of Sal that I canmake the guarantee I do make: that if there are any unusual circuits inthose cars, we can find them."
"Thanks," Malone said. "I'm sure you'll do the job. And we need thatinformation. Don't bother to send along a detailed report, though,unless you find something out of the ordinary."
"Of course, Mr. Malone," Leibowitz said. "I wouldn't have bothered youexcept for the production speed-up here."
"I understand," Malone said. "It's perfectly all right. I'll be hearingfrom you, then?"
"Certainly, Mr. Malone," Leibowitz said.
* * * * *
Malone cut the circuit at once and started to turn away, but he nevergot the chance. It started to chime again at once.
"Federal Bureau of Investigation," Malone said as he flipped up thereceiver. He wanted badly to copy Boyd's salutation, but he found thathe just didn't have the gall to do it, and said sadly instead: "Malonespeaking."
There was no immediate answer from the other party. Instead, the screenslowly cleared, showing Malone the picture of a woman he recognizedinstantly.
It was Juanita Fueyo--Mike's mother.
Malone stared at her. It seemed to him as if a couple of hours passedwhile he tried to find his voice. Of course, she'd looked up the FBInumber in the phone book, and found him that way. But she was about thelast person on Earth from whom he'd expected a call.
"Oh, Mr. Malone," she said, "thank you so much! You got my Mike backfrom the police!"
Malone gulped. "I did?" he said. "Well, I--"
"But Mr. Malone--you must help me again! Because now my Mike says hemust not stay at home! He is leaving, he is leaving right away!"
"Leaving?" Malone said.
He thought of a thousand things to do. He could send a squad of men toarrest Mike. And Mike could disappear while they were trying to get holdof him. He could go down himself--and be greeted, if he knew Mike Fueyo,with another giant economy-size raspberry. He could try to plead withMike on the phone.
And what good would that do?
So, instead, he just sat and stared while Mrs. Fueyo went right on.
"He says he will send me money, but money is nothing compared to my ownboy, my own Mike. He says he must go away, Mr. Malone--but I know youcan stop him! I know it!"
"Sure," Malone said. "But I--"
"Oh, I knew that you would!" Mrs. Fueyo shrieked. She almost camethrough the screen at him. "You are a great man, Mr. Malone! I will saymany prayers for you! I will never stop from praying for you because youhelp me!" Her voice and face changed abruptly. "Excuse me now," shesaid. "I must go back to work."
"Well," Malone said, "if I--"
Then she turned back and beamed at him again. "Oh, thank you, Mr.Malone! Thank you with the thanks of a mother! Bring my boy back to me!"
And the image faded and died.
Boyd tapped Malone on the shoulder. "I didn't know you were involved inan advice column for the lovelorn," he said.
"I'm not," Malone said sourly.
Boyd sighed. "I'll bite," he said. "Who was that?"
Malone thought of several possible answers and finally chose one."That," he said, "was my mother-in-law. She worries about me every timeI go out on a job with you."
"Very funny," Boyd said. "I am screaming with laughter."
"Just get back to work, Tommy-boy," Malone said, "and leave everythingto me."
He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. Lighting acigarette--and wishing he were alone in his own room, so that he couldsmoke a cigar and not have to worry about looking dashing andalert--Malone strolled out of the office with a final wave to Boyd. Hewas thinking about Mike Fueyo, and he stopped his chain of reasoningjust long enough to look in at the office of the Agent-in-Charge and askhim to pry loose two tickets for "The Hot Seat" that night.
The agent, a tall, thin man, who looked as if he suffered from chronicstomach trouble, said, "You must be crazy. Are they all like that inWashington?"
"No," Malone said cheerfully. "Some of them are pretty normal. There'sthis one man--Napoleon, we call him--who keeps insisting that he shouldhave won the battle of Waterloo. But otherwise he's perfectly fine."
He flicked his cigarette in the air and left, grinning. Five steps awaythe grin disappeared and a frown took its place.