"Can you describe the perpetrator?"
"The what?"
"The guy who attacked your friend."
"Oh, yeah. He was a robot or something. Made
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of metal. About six feet tall. His name was Gordon."
The officer put down his pencil. "Ah, Mr. Gonzalez. Can you tell me what this—person—used to assault your partner with?"
"You bet I can. I'll never forget it as long as I live. First he swung Lew around in the air by his feet. Then he held up his hand and broke Lew's neck. Then he skinned him—"
"Skinned?"
"Yeah, skinned!" Gonzalez shouted. "I been saying he got skinned ever since I come in here."
"Well, what did he skin him with, if I'm not being too nosy—a Bowie knife?"
"No, man." Gonzalez exhaled a puff of air. "His thumb. He skinned him with his thumb." He demonstrated in the air, whistling as his thumb tore through an imaginary cadaver.
The police officer was tapping the eraser end of his pencil on the desk blotter. "And just what does a six-foot-tall metal man say when he's skinning somebody in the Garbage of the Stars?"
Gonzalez thought for a moment. Then he remembered in a rush of clarity. "Hello is all right!" he yelled.
"That's it," the officer said. "Get this nut out of here."
"You got to believe me," Gonzalez cried. "Just send somebody to check it out. The robot might still be there doing the job on Verbanic. You can catch him."
The officer inhaled deeply.
"Podebensky and Needham are up around
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there now," another policeman said. "They could drive by."
The officer squinted at Gonzalez. "All right. But this better be on the level, or I'm going to turn you and every one of your relatives over to the immigration authorities. Understand?"
Gonzalez nodded his assent.
"Sit over there." The officer poked his pencil toward a row of folding metal chairs along one wall. Gonzalez sat down as the dispatcher called the report into a roving police car.
"Some law officers," Gonzalez muttered.
The report from the car came in after a few minutes. Amid the squawks of the radio, Gonzalez could make it out from where he sat.
"There's a body here, all right," the voice over the radio said. "Worst damn thing I ever seen. Better get the coroner over fast. And an ambulance for Needham. He passed out."
The officer at the desk looked over to Gonzalez, his face deadly serious. "Read him his rights," the policeman said quietly.
The police, ambulance, and reporters left the Hollywood Disposal Service grounds just as the first rays of dawn appeared over the hills. When all trace of them was gone, a figure emerged from the belly of the abandoned garbage truck and a new man, complete with uniform and a name tag identifying him as Lewis J. Verbanic, walked into the sunlight.
Mr. Gordons didn't know where he was, but on his person was a clue as to who could help him
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find out. It was on the sole of his foot—the message:
PERSONAL PROPERTY OF DR. FRANCES PAYTON-HOLMES, UCLA
On the highway he saw a sign bearing the same last four letters.
UCLA
NEXT EXIT
He would find her. His creator was gone, but whoever developed the software he had incorporated into his mechanism at the dump knew science. Just the flood of new information pouring into his memory banks told him that.
His components were operative. He had the skin he needed to look human. NoV he only required one other item, something so elusive and ephemeral that most humans didn't even possess it. For this, he would need a new creator. He would find Dr. Frances Payton-Holmes.
He needed her.
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CHAPTER FOUR
"Have you ever heard of Dr. Frances Payton-Holmes?" Smith asked.
"No," said Remo.
"Yes," said Chiun.
"Yes?" said Remo.
"Yes?" said Smith.
"Yes," said Chiun. "He was the companion of a detective named Shylock Watson. I read about this recently. They were very famous. They had somebody good writing about them."
Smith cleared his throat. "Yes," he said. "Well, this is a different Dr. Holmes. Frances Payton-Holmes is a woman, an astrophysicist."
Chiun said, "I do not like women doctors."
"She is a doctor of astrophysics," Smith said.