The Exploding Detective (9 page)

“Shut-up. Both of
you just shut-up. Besides, you forget the name of my operation. Operation
Overkill. It’s important that I have not just enough, not even more than
enough, but too much more than enough. Anything less would not be overkill. See
the semantics and grammar that are involved?”

“Yeah, of course,
but…”

“I’ve been
studying super villains of the past. The biggest mistake all of them made was
having just enough of a force to take over the world, but no more. They didn’t
want to appear gauche, I guess. So what happens? Something goes wrong at
substation C, or they lose a handful of men who were supposed to be guarding
something important, or one guy doesn’t show up for work at the volcano, and
their whole operation falls apart. All of a sudden they don’t have enough to
take over the world. And all because they played it too fine.”

“Stupid
bastards.”

“Super villains
historically underestimate the world. A world will fight back. You’ve got to
make allowances for that.”

“And you have.”

“Yes. That’s why
Operation Overkill can’t fail. My opponents simply have too much to overcome.
It doesn’t matter how many of my men are grabbed from behind by secret agents
and dragged into the bushes. I could have a thousand of my men tied up behind
those bushes on the day of the big attack, and I’d still have thousands more
than I needed. Overkill is the only way to succeed when it comes to world
domination. And Overkill is my name.”

“Beautiful.”

We walked past a
large machine that had a big red handle. “What’s that thing?” I asked.

“Doomsday
Machine.”

“Ah.”

“That’s in case
things don’t work out exactly as I’ve planned. It can destroy the entire
universe.”

I raised my hand.

“No way to test
it, of course,” he said, “but I’m confident it will work as it’s designed to.”

I put down my
hand.

“I don’t want to
seem like a poor sport,” he added, “but if I can’t rule the universe, I don’t
want there to be one. Does that make me sound like I’m a poor sport?”

“Not at all.
Quite the reverse. Anybody who says you’re a poor sport has it backwards.”

“I’m relieved to
hear you say that. Now, you asked earlier where I got my patterns for Napoleon
and Lincoln and so on. Follow me and I’ll show you the most amazing part of my
operation.”

He led me to a
large door. Before he opened it he asked: “When we were having dinner, did you
notice one of my servants – General Custer, I think it was - come in carrying a
tray of hot dogs and suddenly start spinning in a circle against a weird stripy
background, finally disappearing with a pop?”

“Yeah. One of those
hot dogs was supposed to be for me.”

“Do you remember
asking me where that bastard went with the hot dogs?”

“Vividly.”

He opened the
door. “The answer is in here.”

We walked in.
Overkill stood proudly next to a huge water-nozzle-shaped tunnel.

“What you are
looking at is a doorway to the future. Or the past.”

“What about the
present?”

“No, that’s all
these other doors. Did you ever see a television show called The Time Nozzle?”

“I think so.
Something about two handsome scientists traveling through time with a bad
script, wasn’t it?”

He nodded. “It
was a cheap knockoff of The Time Tunnel. It wasn’t very popular and got
cancelled after 14 episodes.”

“I saw a
fantastic episode of Wagon Train once that…”

He interrupted
me, impatiently. “After it was cancelled, all of the props from the show were
put into storage on the studio lot and forgotten. Then last year they were
rediscovered and put up for auction. I had no interest in the smaller props,
but I outbid several other super villains for The Time Nozzle itself.”

I started telling
him about some collectible TV memorabilia I used to have - a Roy Rogers
lunchbox and a Lassie paw - but he wasn’t interested.

“What viewers in
the 1960’s didn’t realize,” he went on, “was that a lot of what they were
seeing was real. Studios didn’t skimp when it came to production values in
those days. Whenever possible they used the real thing, not a mock up. Disney
hired the real Zorro, for example, for the show’s pilot episode. But it turned
out the old fellow had trouble memorizing lines. Couldn’t even remember where
he lived. They dumped him out in the Valley somewhere and got a younger guy for
the series. And I have it on the highest authority – a stuntman told me this –
that there was a real Twilight Zone. Rod Serling found it next to his house. He
didn’t have to write any scripts at all. Just grabbed actors and threw them in,
then turned on the cameras. The show wrote itself. Everyone thought those old
TV shows were just fantastic entertainment, but they were more than that. They
were up to 10% real.”

“Wait, are you
trying to tell me that The Time Nozzle actually worked?”

“Works,” he
corrected me. “Present tense. When the show was originally filmed, the actors
felt they couldn’t get ‘into’ their parts if the machine didn’t actually work.”
He snorted derisively. “As if it mattered whether they were ‘into’ their parts
or not. Just say the damn lines.”

“I hate actors
too.”

“So handymen at
the studio worked on it until they made it operational to a certain extent. It
never worked perfectly, but the show’s writers incorporated its flaws into
their storylines. It was really a remarkable achievement. The epitome of prop
technology. Now I’ve got it, and I’ve been using it to bring famous people back
from the past so I can blueprint them and make copies.”

“Why make copies?
If you have Napoleon here, why not just keep him here to run your army in
person? That’s what I would do with my Napoleon.”

“I tried that,
but The Time Nozzle kept dragging the originals back to their own time, or sending
them to the Alamo or the deck of the Titanic or something. Didn’t you see the
series, Burly?”

“Oh, yeah. That’s
right.”

“Just about every
famous person in history ended up on the deck of the Titanic, thanks to this
machine. That’s why the damn thing sank. Too many famous people on it.”

“Now we know the
rest of the story.”

“Yeah. So,
anyway, while I have them here, I make copies. Sometimes they’re still around
after I no longer need them. That’s why you saw Sitting Bull dusting the
furniture in the living room and Al Capone out on the lawn shooting weeds. But
the machine will reverse itself eventually and they’ll pop back to their own
time. The sooner that happens the better as far as I’m concerned. The originals
get tiresome after awhile. They all think they’re big-shots and want to run the
island, not clean toilets. I’ve got the original Lincoln locked in the Purple
Room over there. I hated to do it. I’ve always enjoyed our conversations. That
guy is almost as unprincipled as I am. But he won’t learn to mind his own
business. He keeps trying to free my army. Don’t touch that.”

“I just wanted to
see how it worked. Can we bring back the dinosaurs? Or does it have to be a
famous dinosaur?”

Overkill thought
about this. “It would be easier if he was famous. But I don’t want anybody
messing around with the controls right now. I’m close to finalizing a deal with
a company in the year 2265 to ship an army of future fighters here. A half
million of them. They are the ultimate mechanical men. They have built-in guns,
knives, torpedoes, lasers, everything. Like walking Swiss army knives. They’re
self-maintaining, and can eat anything. So once you start them up, they can
fight forever. They’ll be the backbone of my army. The elite fighting core.
Once they’re here, I’ll be ready to take over the world.”

“What’s the hold
up?”

“Medical
insurance and contributions to pension funds for the fighters that I don’t
particularly want to pay.”

“Damn unions.”

“Yeah. But we’ll
work it out. Well, you’ve seen it all now. What do you think?”

I didn’t
hesitate. “I think there’s only one thing you need that you don’t have.”

“What’s that?”

“A Flying
Detective.”

He stared at me,
first with astonishment, then with suspicion.

“You want to join
my organization? You want to help me take over the world?”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

“I’d like to be
on the winning side for once. And I don’t see how you can lose.”

He wasn’t sure he
believed me at first. He thought it might be a trick. One of the pictures he
had of me on the wall – the one of me trying to remember whether I had eaten
yet or not – made me look pretty damned tricky. But it wasn’t a trick. Nobody
was going to stop this guy, as near as I could tell. If he was going to be
number one man in the world, I wouldn’t mind being number two.

It took a lot to convince
him I was on the level. I had to take several different lie detector tests, say
“Yes, really” after he had said “Really?” and sign an affidavit in the presence
of a notary public, but he finally believed me. I think it was the affidavit
that did it. You can’t lie on those things. Those things are notarized. Once he
was convinced, he pumped my hand enthusiastically.

“This is fine!
Outstanding news! Now nothing can stop us! What a team we’ll make! The two most
formidable men in the world fighting side by side! You can use your regular
costume, of course, though I think you should have ‘Overkill’s Flying
Detective’ printed on your cape.”

“Fine.”

“And you should
have a better weapon than that .38 you usually carry. Have a look over there in
that pile. See if you can find something you like better.”

I went over to a
pile of strange looking weapons and rummaged around, finally picking out a
particularly deadly looking little number, then walked back to Overkill.

“I guess I’ll
take this one. What is it?”

“That’s a machine
knife. The Pokemaster 5000. You can stab 1500 guys a minute with that. And
because it’s a knife and not a gun, you never run out of ammunition. No
reloading. You could have single-handedly won World War II with one of those.”

“I would have gotten
my name in the papers if I’d done that.”

He nodded. “In
capital letters.”

I tripped on the
carpet and landed on Overkill, somehow accidentally turning on the Pokemaster
as I fell. His lifeless and incredibly poked body collapsed onto an alarm and
set it off. I was stunned, but not as stunned as Overkill was, judging by the
look on what was left of his face.

As more alarms
started going off around the fortress, each one setting off the next, I noticed
I was still stabbing Overkill in the chest. This panicked me and I tried to
turn the machine off, but only managed to turn it up so it was going faster.
Pieces of flesh were flying all over the room. I finally got it turned off.
Then I checked his pulse, which had rolled under the couch. He was dead all right.
He was more than dead. I had made mincemeat out of him. If I were a clever man,
I would say I had “overkilled” him.

I was pretty
upset. I’d just wasted a lot of time buttering up this guy. Time I wasn’t going
to get back. Plus, now I was out of a very plush, probably very high paying,
job. I didn’t know how much the number two man in the world got paid, but I
imagined it was something pretty good. The loss of that big paycheck hurt.

I checked in his
pockets and took his wallet, his keys, and a few other odds and ends that
caught my fancy. I know readers may look askance at this, but I figured since
I’d killed the guy, robbing him wouldn’t make it much worse. I’m pretty sure he
would have wanted me to rob him after I killed him anyway.

There
were alarms going off all over the fortress, and running feet approaching the
room, so I figured I’d better get out of there fast before anyone saw what I’d
done. Pausing only to steal a few more things from Overkill’s body, including a
shiny black ring I’d been admiring during dinner, I stood up to go. It was too
late. I had stolen one thing too many.

The door opened
and a couple of dozen armed guards came in and stood staring at me. Finally one
of them spoke.

“Orders, sir?”

“Who, me?”

“Yes. Do you have
any orders?”

“Uh… yeah. Wait
here.”

“Yes, New
Master.”

I
carefully edged past them and ran down the stairs.

When I got out of
the fortress, I had just sense enough to realize I should move as calmly as
possible, and try not to arouse any more suspicion than I usually do. So I
stopped running and looking over my shoulder and whimpering “oh God oh God oh
God,” and forced myself to slow down to a frightened saunter, whistling a
frightened song.

I made my way
past a group of creatures who were working on the lawn. As I passed them, I
gave them the thumbs up. They, somewhat confusedly, returned the thumbs up.

There was a small
launch at the dock that seemed ready to go, so I stepped aboard. The captain of
the craft, who was a dead ringer for Captain Queeg, except for the big key in
his back, approached me, frowning.

I tried to act as
businesslike as possible. I was here on business. I wasn’t escaping. “Overkill
told me to take the boat into town for,” I said. “He wanted me to get.”

The captain
didn’t seem to mind that my sentences were incomplete, or that I was sweating
like an escaped pig. He just saluted smartly and gave orders to cast off.

On the way to the
mainland I kept looking behind us to see if we were being followed. I did this
so often, the crewmen started doing it too. But there was no sign of pursuit.
Relieved, I took a look around the boat to see if there was anything to eat. I
don’t know about you, but running for my life after I’ve killed somebody makes
me hungry. I felt like I could kill and eat a horse. I found some strawberries
in the pantry and ate them. I don’t think anyone ever missed them.