The patrol car pulled up in front of St. Vincent's Hospital and one of
the cops helped Malone into the Emergency Receiving Room. He didn't
feel as bad as he had a few minutes before. The motion of the car hadn't
helped any, but his head seemed to be knitting a little, and his legs
were a little steadier. True, he didn't feel one hundred per cent
healthy, but he was beginning to think he might live, after all. And
while the doctor was bandaging his head a spirit of new life began to
fill the FBI agent.
He was no longer morose and undirected. He had a purpose in life, and
that purpose filled him with cold determination. He was going to find
the robot-operated car--or whatever it turned out to be.
The doctor, Malone noticed, was whistling "Greensleaves" under his
breath as he worked. That, he supposed, was the influence of the
bohemian folk singers of Greenwich Village. But he put the noise
resolutely out of his mind and concentrated on the red Cadillac.
It was one thing to think about a robot car, miles away, doing something
or other to somebody you'd never heard of before. That was just
theoretical, a case for solution, nothing but an ordinary job.
But when the car stepped up and bopped Malone himself on the head, it
became a personal matter. Now Malone had more than a job to contend
with. Now he was thinking about revenge.
He told himself: _No car in the world--not even a Cadillac--can get away
with beaning Kenneth J. Malone!_
Malone was not quite certain that he agreed with Burris' idea of a
self-operating car, but at least it was something to work on. A car that
could reach out, crown an investigator and then drive off humming
something innocent under its breath was certainly a unique and dangerous
machine within the meaning of the act. Of course, there were problems
attendant on this view of things; for one thing, Malone couldn't quite
see how the car could have beaned him when he was ten feet away from it.
But that was, he told himself uncomfortably, a minor point. He could
deal with it when he felt a little better.
The important thing was the car itself. Malone jerked a little under the
doctors calm hands, and swore subvocally.
"Hold still," the doctor said. "Don't go wiggling your head around that
way. Just wait quietly until the demijel sets."
Obediently, Malone froze. There was a crick in his neck, but he decided
he could stand it. "My head still hurts," he said accusingly.
"Sure it still hurts," the doctor agreed.
"But you--"
"What did you expect?" the doctor said. "Even an FBI agent isn't immune
to blackjacks, you know." He resumed his work on Malone's skull.
"Blackjacks?" Malone said. "What blackjacks?"
"The ones that hit you," the doctor said. "Or the one, anyhow."
Malone blinked. Somehow, though he could manage a fuzzy picture of a
car reaching out to hit him, the introduction of a blackjack into this
imaginative effort confused things a little. But he resolutely ignored
it.
[Illustration]
"The bruise is just the right size and shape," the doctor said. "And
that cut on your head comes from the seams on the leather casing."
"You're sure?" Malone said doubtfully. It did seem as if a car had a lot
more dangerous weapons around, without resorting to blackjacks. If it
had really wanted to damage him, why hadn't it hit him with the engine
block?
"I'm sure," the doctor said. "I've worked in Emergency in this hospital
long enough to recognize a blackjack wound."
That was a disturbing idea, in a way. It gave a new color to Malone's
reflection on Greenwich Villagers. Maybe things had changed since he'd
heard about them. Maybe the blackjack had supplanted the guitar. But
that wasn't the important thing.
The fact that it had been a blackjack that had hit him was important. It
was vital, as a matter of fact. Malone knew that perfectly well. It was
a key fact in the case he was investigating.
The only trouble was that he didn't see what, if anything, it meant.
The doctor stepped back and regarded Malone's head with something like
pride. "There," he said. "You'll be all right now."
"When?" Malone said.
"You're not badly hurt," the doctor said reprovingly. "You've got a
slight concussion, that's all."
"A concussion?"
"Sure," the doctor said. "But it isn't serious. Just take these
pills--one every two hours until they're gone--and you'll be rid of any
effects within twenty-four hours." He went to a cabinet, fiddled around
for a minute and came back with a small bottle containing six orange
pills. They looked very large and threatening.
"Fine," Malone said doubtfully.
"You'll be all right," the doctor said, giving Malone a cheerful,
confident grin. "Nothing at all to worry about." He loaded a hypojet and
blasted something through the skin of Malone's upper arm. Malone
swallowed hard. He knew perfectly well that he hadn't felt a thing, but
he couldn't quite make himself believe it.
"That'll take care of you for tonight," the doctor said. "Get some sleep
and start in on the pills when you wake up, O.K.?"
"O.K.," Malone said. It was going to make waking up something less than
a pleasure, but he wanted to get well, didn't he?
Of course he did. If that Cadillac thought it was going to beat him....
"You can stand up now," the doctor said.
"O.K.," Malone said, trying it. "Thanks, doctor. I--"
* * * * *
There was a knock at the door. The doctor jerked his head around.
"Who's that?" he said.
"Me," a bass voice said, unhelpfully.
The Emergency Room door opened a crack and a face peered in. It took
Malone a second to recognize Bill, the waffle-faced cop who had picked
him up next to the lamp post three years or so before. "Long time no
see," Malone said at random.
"What?" Bill said, and opened the door wider. He came in and closed it
behind him. "It's O.K., Doc," he said to the attendant. "I'm a cop."
"Been hurt?" the doctor said.
Bill shook his head. "Not recently," he said. "I came to see this guy."
He looked at Malone. "They told me you were still here," he said.
"Who's they?" Malone said.
"Outside," Bill said. "The attendants out there. They said you were
still getting stitched up."
"And quite right, too," Malone said solemnly.
"Oh," Bill said. "Sure." He fished in his pockets. "You dropped your
notebook, though, and I came to give it back to you." He located the
object he was hunting for and brought it out with the triumphant gesture
of a man displaying the head of a dragon he has slain. "Here," he said,
waving the book.
"Notebook?" Malone said. He stared at it. It was a small looseleaf book
bound in cheap black plastic.
"We found it in the gutter," Bill said.
Malone took a tentative step forward and managed not to fall. He stepped
back again and looked at Bill scornfully. "I wasn't even in the gutter,"
he said. "There are limits."
"Sure," Bill said. "But the notebook was, so I brought it along to you.
I thought you might need it or something." He handed it over to Malone
with a flourish.
It wasn't Malone's notebook. In the first place, he had never owned a
notebook that looked anything like that, and in the second place he
hadn't had any notebooks on him when he went for his walk. _Mine not to
question why_, Malone told himself with a shrug, and flipped the book
open.
At once he knew why the cop had mistaken it for his.
There, right on the first page, was a carefully detailed drawing of a
1972 Cadillac. It had been painstakingly colored in with a red pencil.
Malone stared at it for a second, and then went on to page two. This
page carried a list of names running down the left margin.
_Ramon O.
Mario G.
Silvo E.
Felipe A.
Alvarez la B.
Juan de los S.