Now there are some people out there who have the impression that Dooley's is a tough joint. Not quite true. Dooley, the mother of all barkeeps, is tough. Anyone pulling rough stuff in her joint will be skinned. In fact, there were rumors that certain favored regulars had seat covers with tatoos.
Of course, she still liked the tough joint aura. That was why she was miffed when Tinker waltzed in and ordered a wine cooler. Still, he was a regular. Most people knew him in here, which explained the gradual edging away as he sat next to me.
"Hey, Lucky. How ya doing?" he said.
"Okay. How's the inventing game?" I asked.
"Terrible. I have inventor's block. I haven't built anything in a month." I caught the soft sighs of relief from all around. Tinker was midway through his wine cooler and missed it. They were still talking about his last invention, and clearing the debris. If I ever found out who gave him that copy of "The Guns of Navarone", I'd kill him.
We began exchanging little nuggets of techno wisdom that we had picked up lately. I told him about the various new security devices I encountered repossessing cars, but I could see his heart wasn't in it. Then the door opened and Reese Dunbar stumbled in from the street. He immediately stood out from the regulars. He had the clean cut look that screamed "weekly paycheck". He was also the head of the neighborhood militia.
Tinker began to edge away nonchalantly. Reese spotted us and strode over.
"Steady, Tinker. I'm sure he forgot all about his garden wall by now."
"Ah, Lucky," Reese said. "Just the man I'm looking for. I have a business proposition for you."
"Forget it, Reese. The last time I got involved with you, you had me arrested."
He shrugged. "It wasn't just me. The whole neighborhood wanted your butt."
"Bunch of reactionary worrywarts," I muttered.
"You destroyed part of the Belt Parkway," Reese said very calmly.
"Self defense," I replied, turning back to my drink. Tinker was deriving an unholy amount of glee from our verbal knife fighting. I thought we were finished but Reese went on.
"I'm looking for someone to be neighborhood traffic warden," he said finally.
"Traffic warden? Chase kids around, making sure they stick to twice the speed limit, slow down at stop signs, only hit pedestrians from outside the neighborhood? No way. I used to think repo men were pariahs, but repo men look down on traffic wardens. Maybe you want to infect me with leprosy while you're at it!" My short tirade earned me scattered applause around the bar.
Tinker had that odd look in his eye. The one he had when he built that giant aircannon for firing bricks of plastique. I swore I'd kill the guy who gave him that cube.
"I'll take the job," he told Reese quietly. A hush fell over the bar.
Then, all hell broke loose.
Reese got out of the bar alive because he had a couple of militia twerps waiting outside. Tinker got the job because Reese was desperate -- hell, he had asked me! I got chewed out by Dooley for letting the whole thing happen and for missing the flying kick I had taken at Reese's head. Dooley made a point of telling me that if one piece of flaming debris hit her establishment, I would eat it.
Outside, Tinker muttered, "I don't understand what all the fuss is about."
"Fuss? You have displaced people's fear of global nuclear war."
"Only in this neighborhood. Say, where's your car?"
"My partner Hammer's got it. He went down south to see his girl."
"That's nice, you loaning him your clunker."
"I didn't loan it! When he gets back, he better have a great souvenir for me." I didn't mention that I had booby trapped the car. If Hammer was going to mess around with eagles, he had better learn to fly.
I followed Tinker down the street looking around wondering what sort of car he was sporting this week. At the end of the block was what appeared to be a beached cabin cruiser. Then I saw it had skirts.
"So, you got the Windmill running," I said. He grabbed my arm before I could make a break for it. Since he was a good half-foot taller than me, he held me off the ground until my feet stopped moving.
"Climb in. No friend of mine is going to walk. I can score you some wheels back at my place." He emphasized his generosity by throwing me in the gunner station.
It isn't many times we have a choice of deaths. I had been offered the chance to eat flaming debris or smear myself in one of Tinker's white elephants. Still, I never actually rode in a hovercraft before, and the gunner station was just full of interesting displays. Tinker grabbed his helmet and tossed me one. He hit the ignition and waited for the rotors to get up to speed. I listened to the roar in disbelief. A gasburner! Where did he get the gas? Maybe he made it himself? Not a good thought.
The Windmill rose gently. Tinker used the rear rotors to execute a 180 in place. Cars were stopping on Gerrittsen Avenue to watch... from a distance. As we glided down the avenue, I thought I could get to like this.
"Tinker! This is magnificent, but why a gas engine?" I said through the helmet comm.
"Well, I got one cheap. Besides, boost rockets didn't work too good on her, so I decided to go with nitrous oxide. That works great. Watch!"
The scream never made it out of my throat. And the police car we sailed over didn't think twice about trying to catch us. They knew Tinker.
Tinker's lab was in a deserted area near the water. Actually, it was on a small island in the middle of Deadhorse Bay. A narrow bridge linked the island to a dirt track you could barely spot from Gerrittsen. The road was one of many leading through the brush growing on the east side of the avenue. Tinker liked his privacy.
He was out of the hover before it had settled to the ground. Behind us the main door was noisily closing. There was a smell of ozone and octane about.
A totalled midsize gasburner rested in the middle of the floor. It was burnt and looked like King Kong had used it for a pull toy. Tinker led me past it, his only comment being, "Don't worry. Your wheels involve an entirely different principle."
We plunged past the technology gone mad exhibit into the back room. I noticed the door had several bullet holes--maybe one of his test drivers had lived. Glass crunched underfoot. The room was dark, mainly because the skylight was smashed and boarded up. In the spotlight of a single track light was a cycle.
Those who never saw one of Tinker's successes often wonder why he was allowed to live. I was looking at one answer right now. Only one problem.
"I haven't ridden a cycle in years," I said, touching the bike gently. It was a Street Raker, a heavy cycle, low to the ground, deployable weapon wings. The weapons themselves were concealed. No telling what I had here. That phrase took on a whole new meaning with Tinker. Still I rose to the bait.
Tinker did approach the job with a certain professionalism. He determined to pinpoint the areas of the greatest numbers of traffic violations and the nature of the violations. With this information, he felt he could plan an angle of attack.
Of course, that involved legwork, or in this case, cycle work. Almost all of the neighborhood streets were one way, and so narrow that cars could only park on one side. The Windmill couldn't fit, so I was elected.
Tinker was not the lightest passenger. In fact, I had to fight the cycle to keep it from doing wheelies. Every so often, he would push my head down to get a forward view. He seemed intensely interested in the sewer grates in the center of each intersection, measuring them and taking notes. He clocked the speeders going down Bartlett Court and noted the car styles. He filled every pocket of his fatigue jacket with notes and doodles. By the time we were almost run down by a sandalwood lux doing 60 the wrong way down Bartlett, he seemed to have an idea.
We adjourned to his workshop. Tinker began his master plan. It seemed to involve a lot of welding and armor plates--the metal kind. In between helping him manhandle sheets of steel, I delicately probed the concealed weapons on the cycle. Tinker was one of the few people who could make a challenging security system.
"Eureka!" Tinker strode out of the backroom naked to the waist and dripping with sweat. His beard had caught a few sparks that were still smoking. In his hands, he held a steel plate more than a yard across.
I laid aside my half-melted lock pick (I told you Tinker was good!), forgot the cycle and helped him lay the plate on the floor. The plate was about a foot thick in the middle with bevelled edges. There were neat holes about 4 inches wide drilled through the plate. It had some sort of mechanism under the plate.
"What does it do?" I asked. In answer, Tinker grabbed a monkey wrench from his bench, crouched low and sent it flying at me. I dove aside with my usual style. The wrench never got past the plate. The middle snapped up with a bang, stopping the wrench cold. He probably had some hydraulics powering it.
"Motor, power pack and motion sensor, all self-contained. I just have to reset the trigger for car-sized objects going higher than the speed limit. The bevelled edges can fasten to the asphalt with self-contained heat bores--the kind we use to shape plastic armor. Then nothing moves it until it gets a remote signal and retracts the bores." I let out a low whistle. Sometimes the man was scary.
The plan was to lay the instant barricades over the sewer grates in the middle of intersections. Hence, the holes drilled in the plates. Tinker didn't want to plug the sewers and flood Gerrittsen Beach. The only difficulties were setting the motion detectors and making enough barricades.
"Just make some dummy plates, Tinker. No one will know whether the barricade they face is working or not. It'll keep them honest," I said. He had no choice for the time being.
Then there was setting the motion sensors. I got to help with that too and find out just how good the cycle's brakes were. The hard way.
I picked myself up from the mass of sand bags, and began brushing sand from my armor. Tinker hurried over and pulled the cycle out of the bags. I had set them in front of the instant barricade as a precaution.
"You have anything to say for yourself?" I asked. After two days of fine-tuning, test runs and dodging Dunbar, I was not in a good mood.
"Yeah. That's enough testing. You don't want to hurt the bike." I was about to instruct Tinker to do something up a rope, but I decided to be patient. The child in me wanted to see what happened when some other poor jerk hit that barricade. I figured that would justify my suffering.
We got the neighborhood militia to help us deploy the plates. It was three days since Tinker took the job. Dunbar was understandably anxious, thinking the job might be too much for Tinker. Now he thought Tinker might be too much for the job. He supervised from a distance while we deployed the barricades: three working and ten fake. If it worked we'd build more. It started raining while we were setting the things up so we found out Tinker's water ducts passed water just fine.
Then all we could do was wait for someone to speed.
It didn't take too long. It was Barney Hickle in a Messenger compact. He was young, energetic with no fear for his own hide. Of course, his own hide healed itself. Messenger grills cost $300, last I heard. The first night the local "auto-lescents" learned a costly lesson, four smashed grills and a wrecked rear end. We were amazed that the one kid managed to break thirty in reverse.
Overall, the project was a success.
Tinker wasn't dealing well with his success. He sat in his little used office watching the security cameras. Every kid in the neighborhood with an off-road vehicle was driving around his little island in protest. They had taken a few shots at the workshop's outer walls early on. When they discovered it made for spectacular ricochets and little else, they stopped. Then, they adopted more insidious weapons. A dozen sound systems were blaring disco rhythms.
"I've had it!" Tinker screamed. He sprang up and reached for the bazooka he kept handy. "No one should have to listen to fours hour of 'Disco Duck'! The cops laughed when I phoned in the complaint. The neighborhood militia doesn't want to get involved, mainly because it's their rotten kids. Well, I'm going to defend my property--and good taste in music!"
It wasn't his first outburst. As he opened a bolt hole in the wall and inserted the bazooka, I switched the explosive shell he chose for one of his own paint shells. After all, we did have to live in the neighborhood. I loaded the bazooka, turned the ventilators on high and dove behind a stack of plasticore tires.
When the ringing in my ears stopped, Tinker was still at the hole. The bazooka fell from his hands as he doubled laughing. He looked like a stork having a fit. I peered through the hole. The kids were pulling out with all speed. In the lead was a van with a sickly Day-glo green paint job. I figured the paint round just erased about $200 worth of mural art.
"You are a genius. This more than doubles our effectiveness," Tinker said.
I don't know if I really doubled Tinker's effectiveness. I do know I finally found a use for Tinker's paint mines. He had invented them last year and was heart-broken when no one could find a use for them. We rigged them to motion sensors on a delay fuse. Between the mines and the barricades, which were never in the same intersection two nights in a row, the youth of the neighborhood seemed to be slowing down.
We were placing our last barricades a week later when I noticed the car. It was low slung and painted a stealthy black. It seemed to be watching us. I couldn't make out any obvious weapons. The barricade had just finished bonding to the pavement.
"Uh, Tinker?"
The car's lights snapped on and they were blood red. Tinker was checking the barricade sensor. What did he need, a soundtrack? The car started accelerating towards us with a stealth-muffled hum. I grabbed Tinker, forcing him on to the bike. With a roar, the Street Raker shot forward.
"What are you doing?"
"Prolonging the career of a promising inventor and a pain in the butt." I glanced at the combat display on my helmet visor. No scanners were targeting us yet. The display indicated the barricade rising. In less than two seconds the car was breaking the speed limit.
I gunned the bike down the cramped street, spared enough time for one backwards glance. I shouldn't have because something was after me. Our dark pursuer had smashed right through the instant barricade. It was still gaining on us.
"Make the next left!" Tinker shouted. Tires squealed as we leaned into the turn. Then I realized what intersection we were heading for. I braked hard, trying not to think of the ram car behind us. We seemed to just roll through the intersection.
The car bore down on us. As it reached the intersection, moving much faster than us, it triggered the paint mines we had just set up. A cloud of Day-glo green enveloped the pursuer, smearing its windshield. It stopped with a shriek of brakes as I turned down another side street.
It was obvious that the traffic situation had just escalated.
For the fourth time, Tinker checked the Street Raker's computer log. He ran the visual scan of the ram car on his computer screen growling every time he came to the part where it turned his barricade into confetti. Dunbar had just called to announce his militia had found our other barricades in similar shape--or lack thereof.
"I think it is time I bring out that vintage New Jersey armor plate," he finally said. I wasn't sure if the plate came from the state or the battleship and sure wan't going to ask. Anyway, he was running through another pile of notes. I noticed one that said something about biphase carbon plating and shook my head sadly.
I started to offer some words of encouragement, but the phone rang. It was Tinker's mom. Yes, he would be over for dinner tonight. Yes, he would remember to buy dessert. I looked over some of his notes idly. Then he hung up the phone, muttering about cheesecake and depleted uranium plating.
"Tinker? Maybe you're taking the wrong approach." He raised his eyebrows. "Maybe instead of reinforcing a barricade to stop a ram car, you could make them redirect it." I had him thinking. He grabbed a scrap of paper with scrawled equations. He stood in complete concentration, then he kissed me on top of my head.
"Hey!"
"Again you're a genius. I can redesign the hydraulics so the plate is held at a thirty degree angle to the ground. With a little bracing it should take 7000 pounds driving over it. I'll need to make the barricade wider of course..." He was off.
"Wait," I interrupted. "Explain to Q1meQ0 why I'm a genius!"
"Sure. Ram car charges barricade. Barricade rises at angle in front of ram car. Ram car becomes low-flying aircraft." He mimicked a bird in flight with his hands for emphasis.
We had our phantom ram car by the control wires now!
"All we need is some bait." Tinker said smiling.
"Tinker, I quit!" It was the fourth time I had said that in ten minutes. He chuckled over my helmet comm.
"Hey, I'm giving you the cycle for doing this."
"I decided I don't like the cycle anymore."
"I threw in a twenty percent share in my instant barricade."
"Maybe you should invent instant common sense, plenty of use for that... uh, oh..." Red headlights were coming down Bartlett. They turned the night fog crimson. I gave the Street Raker a pat on the flywheel for luck. Then I gunned it.
"Heads up," Tinker said. Easy for him to say sitting in the Windmill on the avenue. I was pulling maximum juicce out of the cycle and according to my helmet display the rammer was still gaining. They probably had a nuclear pile under the hood. At least they didn't seem to have any room for weapons.
Barely four car lengths separated us when I approached the barricade. I swerved the bike around it. It was too wide for the ram car to avoid. I heard the hiss and clang as it snapped into position. I heard the frantic squeal of brakes voiding their warranty. Then the ram car vanished from my 360 helmet display.
I looked over my shoulder and saw the car arcing into the night air like a salmon swimming upstream. It looked like it was going to belly flop all over me. It was only instinct that made me hit the brakes. The car's wheels left tracks on my helmet as it sailed overhead, spinning majestically, and slamming into the pavement ahead of me. It landed wheels up, trailing sparks before skidding to a halt. I was almost on top of it when I stopped.
The driver began climbing out. I was amazed that he was still alive, let alone moving. I levelled my Alamo Streetsweeper at him, ready for anything. I wasn't ready for laughter.
"What's so funny?" I asked angrily. My young pursuer got control for a moment. Tears streaked his eyes as he removed his helmet.
"It's my uncle's car," he replied.
The next day was a fairly busy one for Tinker. He towed the ram car wreck in front of the dirt road to his bridge. Sort of a trophy. He was rather perturbed when the local youth hung him in effigy down the street but took it in stride. There were no incidents of speeding that day. Reese Dunbar actually paid Tinker--in cash.
I had just opened the weapons pod on the cycle, which revealed a light laser, when there was a firm knock on the door. I stopped what I was doing and opened the door.
There was a lean middle-aged man standing there. He wore his body armor like a second skin. He was the kind of old guy that young guys didn't mess with.
"I'm Captain Parks. I have business with a Mr. Tinker," he said. Not the sort of person who would wait reading a magazine. I buzzed Tinker's office.
"Yo, Tink? Geddout here!" I turned back to our guest. "Can I get you a drink, Captain?" He refused politely. Tinker came out of the office, still dropping notes.
"Tinker? I'm Captain Parks, US Army, Retired." He said it like it was all part of his name. Tinker nodded, gestured to a chair. The captain stood. I had an itchy feeling.
"My nephew was driving the ram car you have out front. It is, in fact, my vehicle." No samll talking this guy.
"What do you want here, Capt. Parks?"
"Satisfaction. I make a very good living as a freelance troubleshooter. Something like this hurts my reputation. It hurts my income, too. I am afraid that I must make some kind of showing with you."
Parks? Retired Army? It clicked! This man wasn't good, he was the standard good was measured against. Parks had waxed a whole BLUD chapter in the Bronx last week. The only reason he didn't have his own TV show was he preferred dealing with mercs to network execs. He had a reputation for straight one on one fights, and winning.
Tinker wouldn't have a chance against him in a straight duel. That gave me an idea.
"Tinker doesn't have a car. He has a hovercraft. You can't duel a hovercraft. It isn't done." Capt. Parks gave me a fatherly look.
"I'll be here tomorrow in an APC. A hovercraft will make a fair opponent. Now then, Tinker, I said I have to make some showing. However, there are mitigating circumstances: a stupid nephew, a man trying to do his job. I have to be here tomorrow. You don't. Don't be here tomorrow and, say, six more tomorrows. I'll be going out of town in a week. What do you say?"
Tinker looked thoughtful a moment. Then shook his head sadly. "I have a busy day tomorrow. You'll be able to find me here all day. In fact, all week. Do we have anything else to discuss?"
"I guess not, son. I'll be going." The Captain turned to leave.
"Would you like your car back, Captain?" Tinker asked.
The Captain turned around, smiling faintly. "Tomorrow," he said before leaving.
"Are you out of your mind?" I yelled. "He'll be coming back for you with a small tank tomorrow. Who are you to take on Captain Parks?"
"I'm the traffic warden," Tinker answered simply.
Dawn broke cold and cloudy. We were at the end of Gerrittsen, near the pier, where fog was crawling in from the bay. Over on the right, patches of fog hung over the backlots, speckling the weeds and grass with dew. The houses on the left were all quiet. Many sported new protective shutters over their windows. There wasn't a car on the avenue except for the battered ram car marking Tinker's access road. No sign of militia support.
Tinker was on the deck of his hovercraft surveying the avenue. He wore a white scarf against the damp air. Suddenly, he peered into the distance, and jumped down.
"There he is," he said simply. I could see a high booklike shape about a half-mile down. The word had gotten around. No one else would be using the avenue. I put on my helmet and activated its display. The fog was thick enough to make visual locks difficult. As I powered up the bike, Tinker turned to me. We shook hands then. Words would have just gotten in the way.
Tinker jumped into the driver's seat. With a roar the hovercraft began to rise. I backpedaled my bike out of the dust the hover kicked up. Then I walked the bike off to the side. It wasn't as if a bike would last long against an APC. He refused my offer of filling his gunner position. I stood there feeling like a coward. I was discovering how much I hated that feeling.
The Windmill began gliding down the street smoothly. It was a complete contrast to the clanking monster closing on it. Tinker began accelerating. The carrier was already doing fifty by my readout.
The Captain began firing his main weapon, a 20mm. Pieces of the Windmill's armor began flying off. Any car would be skidding over its own debris. Naturally, it didn't bother Tinker. With a roar, he triggered the nitrous, executed a hard right bend and shot over the pavement, into the sanctuary of the backlots. I had a last glimpse of the hovercraft's tail as she shot over the grassy ridge parallel to the avenue.
It was only a temporary solution. The Captain didn't have a clear shot at Tinker, but he could negotiate the backlots easily in the carrier. Tinker might run back to his workshop, but I doubted its walls could withstand an autocannon for long.
The carrier shouldered the wrecked ram car out of its way and crawled up the dirt access road. It kicked up some of the debris the Windmill left. I knew I had to be there for this fight. I hit the juice and shot forward. That carrier moved much faster than I thought. I had a better look at it now, the autocannon looking incredibly long in the undersized turret, the firing ports, the rusty tracks, the caked mud everywhere. I tore after it but was still on the avenue as it reached the top of the knoll Tinker had shot over.
Recoilless shells hammered at the carrier's sloped front, uselessly. A lot of fire and noise. That was all. The monster swung its cannon around, fired a short burst and descended the reverse slope.
The Street Raker had reached the dirt road. I bounced up it, fighting for control of the bike, its gyros screaming. Hopping over the carrier's tracks, I climbed the hill.
The carrier began firing as I reached the top. Tinker seemed to have lost his mind. He had hit the nitrous again, and was using his superior speed to run circles around his foe -- literally. The Captain had stopped moving, knowing he'd never catch the Windmill off-road. He wasn't even trying to rotate his turret. He just sat there as Tinker spiralled inward to point-blank range.
The Windmill was unleashing a hail of recoilless rifle fire at the APC, none of it having any effect. Then I saw the open port on the Windmill's back, saw just what Tinker was doing. He was laying a minefield around his opponent and trying to keep him too busy to notice.
The Captain fired his autocannon at the passing hovercraft. This time the shells cut through the hover's right side skirt. Tinker began to limp away. The carrier began to edge towards the mines scattered around it, carefully probing. The autocannon blazed and mines flew.
Great, he'd just shoot his way through the mines.
Suddenly, something on the carrier exploded. Sticky flaming gel flowed over its lower hull. The brush around it immediately went up. A napalm mine! Tinker had gotten a napalm mine to the carrier somehow. Suddenly, the carrier didn't have the time to blast its way through the minefield. It crunched right through. The other mines were napalm, too.
They began going up, surrounding the metal vehicle in a field of fire that sent up oily, black clouds. Some of the napalm splattered over the APC's engine grating. Captain Parks didn't have long to get out before his steel nightmare went up. Even a normal weed fire could be plenty hot for a metal vehicle. Park's vehicle was splashed with napalm and getting hotter. And the fire was on the outside with no way to put it out.
A hatch popped open. Park's was out and running through the flames. I hit the juice and rode down to him, getting as close to the heat as I could stand. He was smoking but unhurt as he jumped onto the bike. Fire suits are wonderful.
"Punch it, kid. Lulu has incendiary ammo," he yelled in my ear. I turned the bike around and gunned it again. I wanted to be far away when Lulu breathed her last.
Lulu's last breath nearly deafened me. Its force lifted the back end of the cycle around. The back armor held, barely, but we slewed around and spun out along the ground. I felt something snap in my right leg. Things went kind of hazy. When I refocused Tinker and the Captain were pulling the bike off me. The Windmill was nearby, still hovering gamely.
"So, kid, how'd you get close enough to Lulu to plant a mine on her?" Parks said as he lent a hand.
"I rigged electromagnets on some mines and dropped them on the dirt road. You must have picked up quite a few." Parks looked thoughtfully at the burning wreck of his carrier.
"My loving nephew might have shown up for the duel," he said angrily. He looked down at me.
"I guess the duel is over, Captain?" I asked weakly.
He smiled ruefully. "Yes, I figure my life is worth more than an APC. Besides, I just borrowed it."
I howled as Tinker touched my leg gingerly. Then I blacked out again.
There isn't a lot more to tell; I'll be brief because the cast on my leg is itching like hell. I got the bike from Tinker as promised. Once I'm up and around, I have to find out just what weapon it mounts. The bum changed it again and put an even better concealment system on it.
Tinker is in the process of negotiating a five figure deal with DefendTek for his instant barricades, now known as "Tinker's Dam". I can't envy his success, especially since he's cutting me in for a twenty percent share.
I guess I don't have to repossess cars anymore. Just as well, I got a letter from my partner, Hammer. Apparently, he and his girl tied the knot down south and are going to raise a bunch of little Hammerheads. I gave them my old clunker as a wedding gift. It was the least I could do since his wife was the one to find my paint bomb booby trap under the front seat.
Must have made for an interesting honeymoon.
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