"Just one more question," I said. "What the hell is this overgrown stovepipe that's threatening to squash us?"
Bobbie frowned at me. "Don't you really know?"
"I said 1 didn't. You said it was the Sorenson Catalytic Generator. What does it generate?"
She said, "Don't be silly. It generates catalysts, naturally."
"Oh, naturally!" I said. "Excuse me for asking! What kind of catalysts… Wait a minute!" I stared up at the metallic flank of the cylindrical object that bulged out over us as we sat with our backs against the side of the truck. I noted that, while the convex cap at the rear was clean, the cylinder itself had a smoked, scorched look at that end, kind of like a jet engine exhaust. Apparently it had been subjected to fairly high temperatures. I said thoughtfully, "Sorenson was interested in air pollution, wasn't he? That's how he came to be an anti-auto nut. Do you mean to tell me he discovered something…
I stopped. Bobbie didn't speak. I said irritably, "No. That's too damn science-fiction screwy."
"What is?"
"If you're trying to tell me that's a smog machine…
"Not exactly, darling," Bobbie said. "It doesn't produce smog, not directly. It just generates a finely-dispersed catalyst that will cause smog to form if the necessary pollutants are present in the atmosphere. Dr. Sorenson's theory was that both elements-catalyst and pollutants-have to be present for active, visible, dangerous smog to form. He isolated and identified the catalyst, some kind of trace element that's present in just about anything anybody's likely to burn. Then, of course, for his experiments, he had to learn how to produce it in reasonable quantities. He discovered that we really don't know how lucky we are."
"What do you mean?"
"His experiments," she said, "indicate that the reason a lot of cities haven't been affected by smog problems yet, and those that have are still inhabitable, is that there just isn't enough of the catalyst to go around. Without it, the air can absorb quite a bit of pollution without significant effect. But if you were to supply all the catalyst needed, so that all the garbage we pump into the atmosphere would react or precipitate or whatever it does…
She stopped. There was a little silence, except for the rattling of the truck, and the drumlike reverberation of the cylinder.
I said, "And that's what Mr. Soo is doing with this gadget?"
"Yes. Of course, Sorenson checked out his theory on a laboratory scale, but that's considerably different from testing it under practical conditions."
"Practical conditions," I mimicked sourly. "You mean you're going to start that thing up somewhere, windward of a suitable metropolis, and let the stuff drift in and see if the sky turns brown and people start coughing and strangling…"
My voice kind of trailed off. I looked at her quickly, and she nodded.
"Yes, Matt. We have run it. On a ship off the California coast. And, darling, in Los Angeles the sky did turn brown in places-you were there; you saw it and smelled it! And in places people did start coughing and strangling. You told me that your dope-fighting girlfriend had a recurrence of an asthma condition that hadn't bothered her for years, remember?"
"I remember," I said. "But-"
"I don't know the exact figures," Bobbie said. "Maybe the Chinaman does, by this time. But I do know, from early radio reports that, although curiously spotty and erratic, it was, on the whole, one of the worst smog attacks recorded in Los Angeles. The ambulance services were swamped with patients suffering from serious respiratory ailments and the hospitals were overloaded. Of course, we didn't run it long enough to cause a real catastrophe. It's just a pilot model. We just wanted to see if it would work, and it did."
I frowned. "I see. And having used it successfully on Los Angeles, where conditions are generally pretty favorable for a test like that, I suppose the Chinaman is now going to try his gadget on a tougher subject somewhere inland. But where?"
"I can't tell you that. As a matter of fact, I don't know. 1 didn't have anything to do with the preparations for the second test."
I said, "No, I guess that was Beverly Blame's job, and Willy's. The two of them were supposed to have made several trips east together recently, according to our late friend Jake. The question is, how far east?" Bobbie made no comment, and I changed the subject: "This ship, now. It must have met Warfel's boat well out at sea and turned over the generator-also, I suppose, a nice big batch of Chinese heroin."
"Yes. Ten kilos," Bobby said. "That was his payment for helping with his boat and truck and men. Of course, he also had to promise to arrange things so that nobody'd suspect where the drug actually came from. Besides-" She stopped abruptly.
"Besides what?"
She didn't look my way. "Besides, that phony Bernardo installation he set up as camouflage also made a good cover for getting rid of Dr. Sorenson, poor man. I suppose it was necessary, but I wish they hadn't had to do it."
I glanced at her, and shrugged. "Oh, you'll get used to it, sweetheart," I said callously. "First Tillery and his friends, then Sorenson, then me. After a while, you'll find being accessory to murder coming quite naturally to you, no sweat at all."
Bobbie spoke without looking at me. "The Chinaman promised me you wouldn't be hurt. He said… he said he owed you a small favor."
"Sure, like his life. But Willy owes me something, too, or thinks he does. And Mr. Soo needs Willy and doesn't need me, so I'm not counting too strongly on his sense of gratitude." I waited, but Bobbie didn't speak. I went on: "So they ditched the good doctor after pumping him dry. Well, that figures."
"Yes. He was saving the world, of course."
"They all are. What was his angle?"
"Isn't it obvious? He wanted his generator used-by anybody he could persuade to use it, regardless of political affiliations-in order to make people realize just how much junk was in the air already. He wanted to make the situation look so bad right now that immediate, drastic steps would be taken…
I grinned. "And of course the Chinaman pretended to be burning with enthusiasm for the same great cause, and in a sense he was. I mean, what could be nicer for the communists than having us obligingly wreck one of our own biggest industries, and throw our own transportation system into complete chaos."
She gave me a reproving glance. "You sound as if you actually approve of the automobile!"
I said, "Approve, disapprove, nuts! Actually, I get a kick out of driving a good car, but that's beside the point. But I don't see anybody building a lot of new railroads and streetcar lines, with smogless power. Until they do, we're damn well stuck with the automobile, and probably with some form of the internal combustion engine, enthusiasts like Sorenson to the contrary notwithstanding. All we can do is detoxify it a bit and pray." I grimaced. "So they got his machine going, and then they didn't need him any more, and they certainly didn't want him talking, so they killed him. How?"
"I don't know." Bobbie's voice was dull. "He was really kind of a sweet little man. I don't want to know. All I know is that he was found dead last night in the flaming wreckage of the trailer laboratory-and of course, nobody's going to be very concerned about the death of a scientist, already considered something of a radical crackpot, who blows himself up refining heroin for the Mafia. Anyway, that was the plan, and I gather it worked very well. Your lady agent and her Mexican allies were just moving in to seize the laboratory when it went up. Fortunately nobody was hurt, nobody outside the trailer, that is,"
"I see," I said. "And Warfel and his ten kilos of horse? Ten kilos! My God, that's about twenty-two pounds, worth a couple of million dollars!"
"More than that, on the current market," Bobbie said. "If you're asking whether Frankie-boy was caught with the drugs when he brought the Fleetwind into its Long Beach marina, the answer is that he hasn't landed yet. That boat isn't very fast and he had quite a ways to go. But he knows the fuzz will be waiting for him, and I think it's very unlikely they'll find a single crystal of junk anywhere on board."