The Impossibles | Page 8

off."
"Right," Burris said.
"But on the West Side Highway, he did see a driver," Malone said. He
thought for a minute. "Hell, it could happen. They took off so fast he
could have been confused, or something."
"There's another explanation," Burris said.
"Sure," Malone said cheerfully. "We're all crazy. The whole world is
crazy."
"Not that one," Burris said. "I'll tell you when I finish with this thing
about the car itself. There isn't much description of whoever or
whatever was driving that car on the West Side Highway, by the way.
In case you were thinking of asking."
Malone, who hadn't been thinking of asking anything, tried to look
clever. Burris regarded him owlishly for a second, and then went on:
"The car was hitting it up at about a hundred and ten by this time, and
accelerating all the time. But the souped-up squad car was coming on
fast, too, and it was quite a chase. Luckily, there weren't many cars on
the road. Somebody could have been killed, Malone."
"Like the driver of the Cadillac," Malone ventured.
Burris looked pained. "Not exactly," he said. "Because the car hit the
125th Street exit like a bomb. It swerved right, just as though it were
going to take the exit and head off somewhere, but it was going much
too fast by that time. There just wasn't any way to maneuver. The
Cadillac hit the embankment, flipped over the edge, and smashed. It
caught fire almost at once. Of course the prowl car braked fast and

went down the exit after it. But there wasn't anything to do."
"That's what I said," Malone said. "The driver of the Cadillac was
killed. In a fire like that--"
"Don't jump to conclusions, Malone," Burris said. "Wait. When the
prowl car boys got to the scene, there was no sign of anybody in the car.
Nobody at all."
"In the heat of those flames--" Malone began.
"Not enough heat, and not enough time," Burris said. "A human body
couldn't have been destroyed in just a few minutes, not that completely.
Some of the car's metal was melted, sure; but there would have been
traces of anybody who'd been in the car. Nice, big, easily seen traces.
And there weren't any. No corpse, no remains, no nothing."
Malone let that stew in his mind for a few seconds. "But the cops
said--"
"Whatever the cops said," Burris snapped, "there was nobody at all in
that Cadillac when it went off the embankment."
"Now, wait a minute," Malone said. "Here's a car with a driver who
appears and disappears practically at will. Sometimes he's there and
sometimes he's not there."
"Ah," Burris said. "That's why I have another explanation."
Malone shifted his feet. Maybe there was another explanation. But, he
told himself, it would have to be a good one.
"Nobody expects a car to drive itself down a highway," Burris said.
"That's right," Malone said. "That's why it's all impossible."
"So," Burris said, "it would be a natural hallucination--or illusion,
anyhow--for somebody to imagine he did see a driver when there
wasn't any."

"Okay," Malone said. "There wasn't any driver. So the car couldn't have
gone anywhere. So the New York police force is lying to us. It's a good
explanation, but it--"
"They aren't lying," Burris said. "Why should they? I'm thinking of
something else." He stopped, his eyes bright as he leaned across the
desk toward Malone.
"Do I get three guesses?" Malone said.
Burris ignored him. "Frankly," he said, "I've got a hunch that the whole
thing was done with remote control. Somewhere in that car was a very
cleverly concealed device that was capable of running the Cadillac
from a distance."
It did sound plausible, Malone thought. "Did the prowl car boys find
any traces of it when they examined the wreckage?" he said.
"Not a thing," Burris said. "But, after all, it could have been melted.
The fire did destroy a lot of the Cadillac, and there's just no telling. But
I'd give long odds that there must have been some kind of robot device
in that car. It's the only answer, isn't it?"
"I suppose so," Malone said.
"Malone," Burns said, his voice filled with Devotion To One's Country
In The Face of Great Obstacles, "Malone, I want you to find that
device!"
"In the wreck?" Malone said.
Burris sighed and leaned back. "No," he said. "Of course not. Not in the
wreck. But the other red Cadillacs--some of them, anyhow--ought to
have--"
"What red Cadillacs?" Malone said.
"The other ones that have been stolen. From Connecticut, mostly. One
from New Jersey, out near Passaic."

"Have any of the others been moving around without drivers?" Malone
said.
"Well," Burris said, "there's been no report of it. But who can