When they had gone, the whiz kid drywashed his hands, smiled at everyone and said, «Now it begins.»
Reardon winced again. The Desk Sergeant, Loyo, rattled pencils, tapped them even, dumped them into an empty jelly jar on the blotter desk. Everyone else looked away. The FBI man smiled.
From outside the precinct house the sounds of the city seemed to grow louder in the awkward silence. In all that noise no one even imagined he could hear the sound of the robot.
Polchik was trying the locks on the burglarproof gates of the shops lining Amsterdam between 82nd and 83rd. The robot was following him, doing the same thing. Polchik was getting burned up. He turned up 83rd and entered the alley behind the shops, retracing his steps back toward 82nd. The robot followed him.
Polchik didn’t like being followed. It made him feel uneasy. Damned piece of junk! he thought. He rips one of them gates off the hinges, there’ll be hell to pay down at the precinct.
Polchik rattled a gate. He moved on. The robot followed. (Like a little kid, Polchik thought.) The robot grabbed the gate and clanged it back and forth. Polchik spun on him. «Listen, dammit, stop makin’ all that racket! Y’wanna wake everybody? You know what time it is?»
«1:37 A.M.,» the robot replied, in Reardon’s voice.
Polchik looked heavenward.
Shaking his head he moved on. The robot stopped. «Officer Polchik.»
Mike Polchik turned, exasperated. What now?
«I detect a short circuit in this alarm system,» the robot said. He was standing directly under the Morse-Dictograph Security panel. «If it is not repaired, it will cancel the fail-safe circuits.»
«I’ll call it in,» Polchik said, pulling the pin-mike on its spring-return wire from his callbox. He was about to thumb on the wristband callbox, when the robot extruded an articulated arm from its chest. «I am equipped to repair the unit without assistance,» the robot said, and a light-beam began to pulse at the end of the now-goosenecked arm.
«Leave it alone!»
«A simple 155-0 system,» the robot said. «Fixed temperature unit with heat detectors, only barely exceeding NFPA standard 74 and NFPA 72-A requirements.» The arm snaked up to the panel and followed the break line around the outside.
«Don’t screw with it! It’ll set it—»
The panel accordion-folded back. Polchik’s mouth fell open. «Oh my God,» he mumbled.
The robot’s extruded arm worked inside for a long moment, then withdrew. «It is fully operable now.» The panel folded back into place.
Polchik let the pin-mike slip from his fingers and it zzzzz’d back into the wristband. He walked away down the alley, looking haunted.
Down at the corner, the Amsterdam Inn’s lights shone weakly, reflecting dully in the street oil slick. Polchik paused at the mouth of the alley and pulled out the pin-mike again. He thumbed the callbox on his wrist, feeling the heavy shadow of the robot behind him.
«Polchik,» he said into the mike.
«Okay, Mike?» crackled the reply. «How’s yer partner doing?»
Glancing over his shoulder, Polchik saw the robot standing impassively, gooseneck arm vanished; ten feet behind him. Respectfully. «Don’t call it my partner.»
Laughter on the other end of the line. «What’s’a’matter, Mike? ’Fraid of him?»
«Ahhh … cut the clownin’. Everything quiet here, Eighty-two and Amsterdam.»
«Okay. Oh, hey, Mike, remember … if it starts to rain, get yer partner under an awning before he starts t’rust!»
He was still laughing like a jackass as Polchik let the spring-wire zzzzz back into the callbox.
«Hey, Mike! What you got there?»
Polchik looked toward the corner. It was Rico, the bartender from the Amsterdam Inn.
«It’s a robot,» Polchik said. He kept his voice very flat. He was in no mood for further ribbing.
«Real he is, yeah? No kidding?» Rico’s face always looked to Polchik like a brass artichoke, ready to be peeled. But he was friendly enough. And cooperative. It was a dunky neighborhood and Polchik had found Rico useful more than once. «What’s he supposed to do, eh?»
«He’s supposed to be a cop.» Glum.
Rico shook his vegetable head. «What they gonna do next? Robots. So what happens t’you, Mike? They make you a detective?»
«Sure. And the week after that they make me Captain.»
Rico looked uncertain, didn’t know whether he should laugh or sympathize. Finally, he said, «Hey, I got a bottle for ya,» feeling it would serve, whatever his reaction should properly have been. «Betcha your wife likes it … from Poland, imported stuff. Got grass or weeds or some kinda stuff in it. S’possed to be really sensational.»
For just a second, peripherally seen, Polchik thought the robot had stirred.
«Escuchar! I’ll get it for you.»
He disappeared inside the bar before Polchik could stop him. The robot did move. It trembled …?
Rico came out with a paper bag, its neck twisted close around what was obviously a bottle of liquor.
«I’ll have to pick it up tomorrow,» Polchik said. «I don’t have the car tonight.»
«I’ll keep it for you. If I’m on relief when you come by, ask Maldonado.»
The robot was definitely humming. Polchik could hear it. (The sort of sound an electric watch makes.) It suddenly moved, closing the distance, ten feet between them, till it passed Polchik, swiveled to face Rico—who stumbled backward halfway to the entrance to the Amsterdam Inn—then swiveled back to face Polchik.
«Visual and audial data indicate a one-to-one extrapolation of same would result in a conclusion that a gratuity has been offered to you, Officer Polchik. Further, logic indicates that you intend to accept said gratuity. Such behavior is a programmed infraction of the law. It is—»
«Shut up!»
Rico stood very close to the door, wide-eyed.
«I’ll see you tomorrow night,» Polchik said to him.
«Officer Polchik,» the robot went on as though there had been no interruption, «it is clear if you intend to accept a gratuity, you will be breaking the law and liable to arrest and prosecution under Law Officer Statutes number—»
«I said shuddup, dammit!» Polchik said, louder. «I don’t even know what the hell you’re talkin’ about, but I said shuddup, and that’s an order!»
«Yes, sir,» the robot replied instantly. «However, my data tapes will record this conversation in its entirety and it will be transcribed into a written report at the conclusion of our patrol.»
«What?» Polchik felt gears gnashing inside his head, thought of gears, thought of the robot, rejected gears and thought about Captain Summit. Then he thought about gears again … crushing him.
Rico’s voice intruded, sounding scared. «What’s he saying? What’s that about a report?»
«Now wait a minute, Brillo,» Polchik said, walking up to the robot. «Nothin’s happened here you can write a report on.»
The robot’s voice—Reardon’s voice, Polchik thought irritatedly—was very firm. «Logic indicates a high probability that a gratuity has been accepted in the past, and another will be accepted in the future.»
Polchik felt chili peppers in his gut. Hooking his thumbs in his belt—a pose he automatically assumed when he was trying to avert trouble—he deliberately toned down his voice. «Listen, Brillo, you forget the whole thing, you understand. You just forget it.»
«Am I to understand you desire my tapes to be erased?»
«Yeah, that’s right. Erase it.»