Get Smart 1 - Get Smart! (7 page)

Max shook his head. “The car will be safer. There’s not a cab in the city that has a cannon under its left front headlight.”

So they walked on.

“Look, Fred,” Max said, “I sympathize with you. But if we let you go free—as you euphemistically put it—you wouldn’t be free for ten seconds. The FLAG agents would sweep down on you, carry you off, and turn you over to the Bad Guys. When we lock you up in that cell, I want you to know that we’re doing it for your own good. Believe me, I know those Bad Guys. They’d haul you off and lock you up in a cell somewhere. What kind of life would that be for a fun-loving robot?”

“Why can’t I just be
me!”
Fred groaned.

“Because you have a duty to Mankind!” Max said. “Why do you think Blossom created you?” To Blossom, he said, “Tell Fred why you created him.”

“I’m a single girl,” Blossom explained to Fred. “Actually, I had Rock Hudson in mind.”

“The
other
reason!” Max snapped.

“Oh. Well, you see, I bought this set for my nephew for his birthday, and I wanted to see—”

“Never mind!” Max broke in. To Fred, he said, “I’ll tell you why she created you. Because . . . because . . .” He scowled. “Because she’s a butterfingers, that’s why!” he finally said disgustedly.

“Rorff!” Fang barked.

Max whipped around. “Where? Where?”

“Rorff!”

Max peered back along the street in the direction from which they had come. He squinted, then said, “You’re right, Fang! Good boy!”

“What is it?” Blossom said fearfully.

“Fang has the eyes of an eagle,” Max said.

“But what is it?”

Max pointed. “See that little delicatessen back there . . . we passed it only a moment ago.”

“Yes . . . yes . . .”

“See that man standing there leaning against the window?”

“Yes . . .”

“And just to the right of him, see that sign?”

“Yes, yes, yes . . . what is it?”

“It says they’re having a sale on liverwurst,” Max said. “Liverwurst is Fang’s favorite.” He patted Fang’s head. “As soon as this case is closed, we’ll drop back and pick up a pound or two,” he said.

Blossom stared at Max. Then she stared at Fang. Then she turned and walked on ahead alone.

“It’s the pressure of living in constant danger,” Max explained to Fred. “It’s beginning to tell on her. Some people just aren’t cut out for it.”

When Max, Fred and Fang finally reached Max’s automobile, Blossom was in the front seat, on the glove compartment side, peering icily straight ahead.

“Relax,” Max said to her as he and the others got into the car. “Ten minutes from now this will all be a distant memory. At least, that’s the way it is with me. The second a case ends, I forget all about it. I remember in the summer of ’61—”

“Drive!” Blossom growled.

Max switched on the ignition. There was a sound like a backfire.

“Oops!” Max said. He got out and looked at the car that was parked behind his. Then, returning and getting behind the wheel again, he said, “I’ve always claimed these new models didn’t have enough ventilation in front, anyway. The guy who owns that Buick will probably thank me for it.”

He started the engine and turned the car out into traffic.

They had gone no more than a block when Blossom suddenly turned in the seat and looked out the rear window. “That car back there!” she said. “It’s trying to overtake us. It’s darting in and out of traffic!”

Max consulted his rear-view mirror. “You’re jumping to a conclusion,” he said. “That looks like normal New York driving to me.”

There was the zing of a bullet. The rear-view mirror shattered.

“Is
that
normal!” Blossom shrieked, ducking down, hiding below the seat.

“Nooooooo,” Max said reflectively, “I wouldn’t say that it’s entirely normal. But . . . sometimes there are extenuating circumstances. Let’s wait it out and see what happens.”

Another bullet whined by the car.

“Do something!” Blossom cried.

“The one thing I’m
not
going to do is assume the obvious,” Max said. “The traffic is heavy . . . it’s easy to lose your sense of perspective in heavy traffic. That may be the explanation.”

The car drew up alongside. A bullet whizzed in the front window, which was open, and missed Max’s eyebrows by less than a quarter of an inch.

“Hmmmm,” he mused, “in this instance, the obvious seems to be correct. Well . . . live and learn.”

Max stepped hard on the accelerator and the car shot forward.

He glanced back. The pursuing automobile was right behind him! Bullets filled the air!

“Fortunately,” Max said, “I’m prepared for such a situation.” Calmly, he turned his attention to the car’s control panel. “Now, let’s see . . . which is the button for that smoke screen? It was here when I left the garage this morning . . .”

Bullets splattered against the car!

“Dooooooooo Somethiiiiiiing!” Blossom pleaded.

“Can I help it if I’ve misplaced my smoke screen button? It could happen to anybody. Let’s see . . . I had the car washed . . . could it be that . . . ah, ah . . . here it is!”

“Push it! Push it!”

“It isn’t the type button you push,” Max said. “It’s a pull button.”

“Then
pulllllllit!

“You really ought to come up here and watch this,” Max said. “It’s something to see. I’ll pull this button, a jet of thick, black smoke will shoot out the exhaust pipe, and the car behind us will be completely enveloped.”

“Don’t talk!” Blossom begged.
“Show me!”

“Well, all right . . . if you want to miss a good show.”

Grimly—but not without a flicker of smug expectation in his eye—Max pulled the button.

From the rear of the car came an explosion. “That’s it!” Max cried exultantly.

It was.

A thick cover of black smoke began to enclose and then—through the open window—infiltrate Max’s car.

“It’s coming in here!” Blossom screamed.

Max tried to scatter the smoke from in front of his eyes. “There appears to be a malfunction,” he said. “The smoke is supposed to go backwards, not forward. Apparently the wind is in the wrong direction.”

The fog inside the car thickened. Blossom began coughing. Fang began howling.

“Stop the car!” Blossom wailed.

“That might not be a bad idea—since the street seems to have disappeared,” Max said.

He jammed on the brakes. The car screeched to a halt.

“All out—women and dogs first!” Max cried.

The car doors flew open. Max, Blossom and Fang ran from the car—then stopped at the edge of the cloud of smoke that completely obscured it.

“No harm done,” Max said confidently. “The smoke will settle in a few minutes, then we can get back into the car and go on.”

“Fred!” Blossom said. “He’s still in there!”

“Fang will get him!” Max said. “Go to it, boy!”

Fang dashed off—in the opposite direction. He holed up in a doorway.

“All right for you!” Max called after him. “It will be a hot day in January before you get any liverwurst out of me—sale or no sale.” To Blossom, he said. “Don’t worry! I’ll get Fred out of there!”

Max ran to the car. He disappeared into the cloud of smoke.

“Hurry!” Blossom wept.

From the denseness of the smoke came Max’s voice. “I’ve got him! I’m coming out!”

Max reappeared. He staggered from the smoke, carrying an armload of mechanism. Wires hung from it. A lever dangled loose.

“Oh, Fred, Fred!” Blossom sobbed. “What happened to you?”

“Looks like he tangled with the wrong end of my lower left front headlight,” Max commented.

Fang came crawling back. “Rorff!” he barked.

Max peered more closely at the mangled mechanism he was holding. “By George, you’re right,” he said to Fang.

“What did he say?” Blossom wept.

“He pointed out that this isn’t Fred,” Max said. “It’s my radar gear. I grabbed the first thing that felt like Fred, and, apparently, I made a slight error.”

“But where’s Fred?”

They turned toward the car. The smoke had lifted. The car was empty.

“Offhand, I would say that Fred has done it again,” Max said. “He’s skipped.”

Blossom began to sob again. “Oh, Fred, Fred, poor Fred, all alone in the cold, cruel world!”

“I don’t think that’s exactly right—about being alone,” Max said. “My guess is that he’s got a whole carload of FLAG agents on his tail.”

“We’ve got to do something!”

“I’ll go along with that,” Max said. “We’ve got to find him again. Which, once more, brings up the question: Where could a computer go to hide?”

“Rorff!”

“That’s a definite possibility,” Max nodded.

“What did he say?”

“He said that since Fred is looking for freedom of the spirit and this is manifested in a near-psychotic compulsion to go without shaving, he has probably headed for Greenwich Village. And, I’m inclined to go along with that. Despite his obviously superior mentality, Fred has struck me as somewhat of a kook. I think he’d be right at home in the Village. Also, there’s the factor that he could mingle with the natives without drawing any undue notice to himself.”

“A robot?”

“You miss the point,” Max said. “The point is, nobody in the Village ever shaves. Not even the females.”

Blossom headed for the car. “Let’s go!”

“You took the words right out of my mouth,” Max said, following.

Fang bounded after him.

S
OME THIRTY
minutes later, after a zigzagging drive at breakneck speeds through midtown Manhattan, they arrived in the Village.

“Keep your eyes peeled for some sign of Fred,” Max said as they cruised along Eighth Street.

“Gee, there are a lot of them who don’t shave,” Blossom said, observing the natives.

“Let’s limit it to those who don’t shave but who don’t have a beard either,” Max said.

“Rorff!”

“I know that fellow doesn’t have a beard,” Max replied. “But that’s because he’s a policeman.”

“Rorff!”

“Yes . . . that’s an idea.”

Max pulled up to a policeman, who was standing in the middle of the intersection, directing traffic. “Excuse me, officer,” he said. “We’re looking for a computer—who masquerades as a robot—and who has revolving eyes and a lever at his side. I wonder if perhaps you’ve seen him?”

The policeman leaned down and put his head in the car window. “Where’s the camera?” he said, glancing about the car interior.

“Officer, you don’t understand. This isn’t Candid Camera. We’re on the trail of a robot. The fate of the entire civilized world hangs in the balance. Now, have you seen anyone answering to that description?”

The officer waved gayly. “Hi, Mom!”

“Officer, believe me, this
isn’t
Candid Camera!”

“What night’ll it be on?” the policeman asked.

Max sighed. “Never mind,” he said. “We’ll just keep looking.”

As they pulled away, the officer called after them. “What night? You didn’t tell me what night!”

“Exhibitionist!” Max grumbled.

“Max, we’ll never find him just driving around,” Blossom said. “I think we ought to—” She interrupted herself—then pointed. “Look! That car! The long, black car parked over there! Isn’t that the car that was following us, shooting at us!”

“It looks like it, all right,” Max said. “There’s somebody in the back seat. I’ll cruise by it, and you look in. It may be Fred. They may be holding him captive!”

Max drove slowly by the other car.

“It’s Boris!” Blossom cried.

“Boris? Boris from Zinzinotti, Alleybama?”

“Yes . . . it’s him!”

“Good old Boris!” Max said warmly. “Boris to the rescue again. I’ll bet he saw that car shooting at us and followed it. He’s probably waiting there for the culprits to come back so he can make a citizen’s arrest.”

“Then, on the other hand,” Blossom said, “maybe he was in the car when it was shooting at us. Maybe he was doing the shooting.”

“Nonsense! Boris? After all he’s done for us? I think that’s a nasty thing to even think!” He turned the car toward the curb. “I’ll park and we’ll go back there and assist him when he makes the arrest!”

“I hope we’re not making a mistake,” Blossom fretted.

“Max Smart doesn’t make mistakes,” Max said. “If I didn’t know what I was doing every second, I wouldn’t last five minutes in this business.”

They parked and left the car and hurried toward the limousine in which they had seen Boris. When they reached the car, Boris was still there.

Max opened the rear door and climbed into the back seat, followed by Fang and then Blossom.

“Boris! Friend!” Max said.

Boris peered at him, then opened the door on his side, got out, slammed the door, and walked away. At the same instant. Blossom slammed the door closed on the other side.

“Darn! He didn’t see us!” Max said. “I’ll call him back!”

He tried to open the car door that Boris had slammed. It would not open.

“Okay, back out—through the other door,” Max said. “This one is locked from the outside.”

Blossom tried her door. It, too, was locked. “We’re trapped!” she said.

“Impossible. Roll down your window.”

She tried. It wouldn’t roll.

Max’s window would not roll down either. And neither would the front windows.

Max rapped on the glass. “Boris! Come back!”

“He isn’t paying any attention.”

“He can’t hear us, obviously,” Max said.

“Look—he’s going into that coffee house!”

“Taking a coffee break while he waits for the culprits to return,” Max said. “Clever.”

“Max!” Blossom said. “Toot the horn. That will attract attention and somebody will let us out!”

“It so happens, I was just going to do that,” Max said.

He leaned over the front seat and pressed the horn button.

Silence.

“The horn doesn’t work,” Max reported. “Those FLAG agents are in real trouble now. There’s an ordinance against driving a car without a working horn.” He sank back into the rear seat. “This is a pretty limousine of fish,” he muttered.

“What are we going to do?” Blossom whimpered.

“Rorff!”

Max looked at Fang thoughtfully, then said, “It might work.” To Blossom, he said, “Give me your lipstick,”