“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.
5
Some 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,”
