Polchik was sitting at a scarred desk in the squad room, laboriously typing out his report on a weary IBM Selectric afflicted with grand mal. Across the room Reardon poked at the now-inert metal bulk of Brillo, using some sort of power tool with a teardrop-shaped lamp on top of it. The Mayor’s whiz kid definitely looked sandbagged. He don’t go without sleep very often, Polchik thought with grim satisfaction.
The door to Captain Summit’s office opened, and the Captain, looking oceanic and faraway, waved him in.
«Here it comes,» Polchik whispered to himself.
Summit let Polchik pass him in the doorway. He closed the door and indicated the worn plastic chair in front of the desk. Polchik sat down. «I’m not done typin’ the beat report yet, Capt’n.»
Summit ignored the comment. He moved over to the desk, picked up a yellow printout flimsy, and stood silently for a moment in front of Polchik, considering it.
«Accident report out of the 86th precinct uptown. Six kids in a Ford Electric convertible went out of control, smashed down a pedestrian and totaled against the bridge abutment. Three dead, three critical—not expected to live. Fifteen minutes after you let them go.»
Dust.
Dried out.
Ashes.
Gray. Final.
Polchik couldn’t think. Tired. Confused. Sick. Six kids. Now they were kids, just kids, nothing else made out of old bad memories.
«One of the girls went through the windshield, D.O.A. Driver got the steering column punched out through his back. Another girl with a snapped neck. Another girl—»
He couldn’t hear him. He was somewhere else, faraway. Kids. Laughing, smartmouth kids having a good time. Benjy would be that age some day. The carpets were all wet.
«Mike!»
He didn’t hear.
«Mike! Polchik!»
He looked up. There was a stranger standing in front of him holding a yellow flimsy.
«Well, don’t just sit there, Polchik. You had them! Why’d you let them go?»
«The … lizard …»
«That’s right, that’s what five of them were using. Three beakers of it in the car. And a dead cat on the floor and all the makings wrapped in foam-bead bags. You’d have had to be blind to miss it all!»
«The robot …»
Summit turned away with disgust, slamming the report onto the desk top. He thumbed the call-button. When Desk Sergeant Loyo came in, he said, «Take him upstairs and give him a breather of straightener, let him lie down for half an hour, then bring him back to me.»
Loyo got Polchik under the arms and took him out.
Then the Captain turned off the office lights and sat silently in his desk chair, watching the night die just beyond the filthy windows.
«Feel better?»
«Yeah; thank you, Capt’n. I’m fine.»
«You’re back with me all the way? You understand what I’m saying?»
«Yeah, sure, I’m just fine, sir. It was just … those kids … I felt.»
«So why’d you let them go? I’ve got no time to baby you, Polchik. You’re five years a cop and I’ve got all the brass in town outside that door waiting. So get right.»
«I’m right, Capt’n. I let them go because the robot took the stuff the girl was carrying, and he dumped it in his thing there, and told me it was nosedrops.»
«Not good enough, Mike.»
«What can I say besides that?»
«Well, dammit Officer Polchik, you damned well better say something besides that. You know they run that stuff right into the skull, you’ve been a cop long enough to see it, to hear it the way they talk! Why’d you let them custer you?»
«What was I going to run them in for? Carrying nosedrops? With that motherin’ robot reciting civil rights chapter-an’-verse at me every step of the way? Okay, so I tell the robot to go screw off, and I bust ’em and bring ’em in. In an hour they’re out again and I’ve got a false arrest lug dropped on me. Even if it ain’t nosedrops. And they can use the robot’s goddam tapes to hang me up by the thumbs!»
Summit dropped back into his chair, sack weight. His face was a burned-out building. «So we’ve got three, maybe six kids dead. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.» He shook his head.
Polchik wanted to make him feel better. But how did you do that? «Listen, Capt’n, you know I would of had those kids in here so fast it’d’of made their heads swim … if I’d’ve been on my own. That damned robot … well, it just didn’t work out. Capt’n, listen, I’m not trying to alibi, it was godawful out there, but you were a beat cop … you know a cop ain’t a set of rules and a pile of wires. Guys like me just can’t work with things like that Brillo. It won’t work, Capt’n. A guy’s gotta be free to use his judgment, to feel like he’s worth something’, not just a piece of sh—»
Summit’s head came up sharply. «Judgment?!» He looked as though he wanted to vomit. «What kind of judgment are you showing with that Rico over at the Amsterdam Inn? And all of it on the tapes, sound, pictures, everything?»
«Oh. That.»
«Yes, that. You’re damned lucky I insisted those tapes get held strictly private, for the use of the Force only. I had to invoke privileged data. Do you have any idea how many strings that puts on me, on this office now, with the Chief, with the Commissioner, with the goddam Mayor? Do you have any idea, Polchik?»
«No, sir. I’m sorry.» Chagrin.
«Sorry doesn’t buy it, goddammit! I don’t want you taking any juice from anywhere. No bottles, no gifts, no nothing, not from anybody. Have you got that?»
«Yessir.»
Wearily, Summit persisted. «It’s tough enough to do a job here without having special graft investigations and the D.A.’s squad sniffing all over the precinct. Jesus, Polchik, do you have any idea …!» He stopped, looked levelly at the patrolman and said, «One more time and you’re out on your ass. Not set down, not reprimanded, not docked—out. All the way out. Kapish?»
Polchik nodded; his back was broken.
«I’ve got to set it right.»
«What, sir?»
«You, that’s what.»
Polchik waited. A pendulum was swinging.
«I’ll have to think about it. But if it hadn’t been for the five good years you’ve given me here, Polchik … well, you’ll be getting punishment, but I don’t know just what yet.»
«Uh, what’s gonna happen with the robot?»
Summit got to his feet slowly; mooring a dirigible. «Come on outside and you’ll see.»
Polchik followed him to the door, where the Captain paused. He looked closely into Polchik’s face and said, «Tonight has been an education, Mike.»
There was no answer to that one.
They went into the front desk room. Reardon still had his head stuck into Brillo’s open torso cavity, and the whiz kid was standing tiptoed behind him, peering over the engineer’s shoulder. As they entered the ready room, Reardon straightened and clicked off the lamp on the power tool. He watched Summit and Polchik as they walked over to Chief Santorini. Summit murmured to the Chief for a moment, then Santorini nodded and said, «We’ll talk tomorrow, then.»
He started toward the front door, stopped and said, «Good night, gentlemen. It’s been a long night. I’ll be in touch with your offices tomorrow.» He didn’t wait for acknowledgment; he simply went.
Reardon turned around to face Summit. He was waiting for words. Even the whiz kid was starting to come alive again. The silent FBI man rose from the bench (as far as Polchik could tell, he hadn’t changed position all the time they’d been gone on patrol) and walked toward the group.
Reardon said, «Well …» His voice trailed off.
The pendulum was swinging.
«Gentlemen,» said the Captain, «I’ve advised Chief Santorini I’ll be writing out a full report to be sent downtown. My recommendations will more than likely decide whether or not these robots will be added to our Force.»