His eyes grew round with terror. “No! No, Barney! You wouldn’t let them!”
“Moe is a nice gu — a nice robot, Nicky; but he’s made you a few enemies, you know. Remember when he walked up in the dark and tapped Mrs. Berril on the shoulder? She turned and slugged him, and had to have three stitches taken in her hand. And remember the day he went into the school by mistake. Eleven cases of hysterics in the third grade alone. No, Nicky. I think they could do it to you, and I think a lot of people would be darn’ well pleased over it.”
“But... but... but—”
“Exactly. The real murderer has to be found, or you’ll go on a trip, Nicky. I’m your friend, or I wouldn’t be telling you all this.”
Dinner was an unhappy meal. Nicky kept sighing, and he didn’t eat much. I could swear that Moe kept giving him worried looks. Moe slipped up when he lit my cigar. He tried to hold the lighted match under my chin. Nicky was very embarrassed about the whole thing. “Just a minor adjustment,” he said. “Something came loose, I guess.”
When I was ready to go, Nicky said: “What would you do if you were me, Barney?”
“If I were you? Why, I think I’d darn’ we’ll try to find out who killed Big George. That seems a lot better than sitting around.”
“I wouldn’t know where to start, Barney.”
“Start where the cops start. Only be a little smarter than the cops.”
He walked me to the door. Moe, with his “SOCIAL” box back on, said: “Good night, Barney.”
“Good night, Moe. So long, Nicky.”
“Wait a minute, Barney,” Nicky said, “before you go. What does a good detective do?”
“So you’ve decided to take my advice? Good! A good detective is very observant. He has good eyes, and he sees everything and remembers everything. He tries to find the motive for a killing, and then he finds the opportunity. With everything sewed up, he puts the finger on the criminal.”
“Good night, Barney,” Nicky said.
As I went down the narrow stairs, I could hear him talking to Moe. I heard the deeper tone of Moe’s answer.
I went back to the shop and hammered out an item that editorialized between the lines, because I like Nicky, and I did not like to think of Moe rusting in a corner while Nicky was tucked into the county vacation spot.
As I had expected, they hauled Nicky down for more questioning, and he had no alibi, and Big George was extremely dead. Big George had endeared himself by passing out little favors from time to time, and the majority of the people of Udella were unhappy to see the source of the little presents stopped so suddenly, and they were more than a bit annoyed with Nicky Lugan and began to scream for his scalp.
The inquest practically turned into a mob scene when Al McGee, who worked for Big George, and was consequently out of a job, jumped up and yelled out: “My pal was killed by Lugan and that big tin monster!” It was an unfriendly way to refer to Moe.
Naturally the widow, Julie Loke, was in tears, a wet little ball of handkerchief clamped in her mitt and mascara making dark streaks down her cheeks. Big George was sufficiently popular in Udella so that nobody ever made mention of the fact that on a week-end in Philly, Big George had found Julie third from the left in the front row, which is where they generally put the lookers, and contrary to tradition, he had married her.
It is rumored that she sometimes pines for the third-from-the-left spot, particularly as they were about to put her in a stripper spot, and maybe her practicing the routine was what hooked Georgie.
The verdict was by “person or persons unknown,” and I found out later that a couple of the jury, thinking hard of Moe, wanted to have it by “person or persons or thing unknown,” thinking of Moe.
The police worked hard on it; and the D.A., solicitous of his imminent campaign for re-appointment, stood behind the police and kept jabbing them to dig up some decent evidence. Poor Nicky wore a deep track from his rooms over the garage to the police station and back. But the rest of the time, nobody saw him.
Once I went up and knocked at his door, and Moe told me to go away. I didn’t argue. There is something about Moe that you don’t want to argue with.
One night Duffy, on the Canal Street beat, came back to Headquarters, where I was consistently schneidering Archy Wandell, and mentioned that Nicky and Moe were at the tavern around the corner from the garage, and had been there for some time.
Archy paid me, and I went to the tavern. Sure enough, they were in one of the back booths. As I walked by the bar, Al McGee, still unemployed, said: “Barney, my lad, I caution you about going back there. That Lugan is criminally insane and should be put away some place where he can’t go around killing nice people with gimmicks.”
“They are my friends,” I said with dignity.
Al sneered, and turned back to the bar.
I have never seen Nicky so loosified. The black box on the back of Moe’s neck said, “PARTY.” A bottle of Scotch and a tin of machine oil stood on the table. Evidently they were drinking jolt for jolt. Nicky, yelled for a glass for me, and then poured a drink all around. Moe hiccuped eleven times. I wondered about his bearings, and I looked under the table at Moe’s big canvas shoes that cover his metal, articulated toes, and saw that they were soaked with oil.
“So you are drowning your sorrows?” I said to Nicky.
You could have hooked his grin around his ears. “Celebratin’,” he said.
“About what? About being in a jam you can’t get out of?”
“About getting a way out, palsy. About being brightest guy in Udella. Have ’nother.”
The next drink did for Nicky. From then on, he couldn’t wrap his lips around the words with enough precision so I could understand them.
Anyway, when a man has somebody to take care of him, I guess he can drink a little. At the stroke of one, Moe pushed me out of the way. I ended up in a sitting position about eleven feet away. Moe stood up, picked up Nicky and put him gently over a broad metal shoulder. In the other hand he took the bottle and the tin.
I walked back to the garage beside him. All the way back Moe sang “Sweet Adeline” in a basso profundo imitation of Nicky’s voice.
Not knowing why Nicky should be celebrating, I got back to the garage bright and early the next morning-ten o’clock. When I knocked, Nicky yelled for me to come in. He was back in his workshop, and Moe was stretched out on a massive bench. He was unplugged. The two storage batteries used for his outside jaunts, the ones that go in the cabinet built into his chest, were at one side, so I knew that Moe was immobilized.
Nicky was pale, but he was whistling between his teeth. He was doing something to Moe’s eyes — fastening on a new sort of lens that made Moe look as though his eyes were out on stalks.
“Are you busy today, Barney?” Nicky asked.
“Why?”
“Stay with Moe and me, will you? There ought to be a story in it.”
I went into the other room and phoned Kopal. He said I should stick with Nicky and Moe, particularly as it was arranged that Nicky should be committed late in the afternoon when the right head doctor arrived from the county asylum. I decided I had better not tell Nicky.
When I walked back in, Nicky had the cabinet open in the front of Moe’s chest. He lifted in the two six-volt storage batteries and screwed down the terminals. Moe made a small grunting sound and sat up.
Nicky trotted over to another bench, came back with one of those familiar little black boxes. “This is brand new!” he said happily.
On the side of it was neatly printed in white block letters — “DETECITON.”
“This... this extroverted metallic personality is going to find out who rubbed out Big George?”