William Johnston - Max Smart Loses Control

“Max. . I understand.”

“Unless it’s the leader’s day off and he’s gone fishing,” Max said. “In that case, the fact he needs is whether or not the fish are hungry enough to bite on bread crusts. But if he had the bread crusts, he wouldn’t need the facts. All he’d have to do-”

“Max! I know! I know!”

“Hymie,” Max scolded, “if you’re going to be a leader, you’ll have to learn to control your temper. Your followers won’t respect you if you blow up like that over nothing. A leader is always cool, calm and collected. Remember that.”

“I will, Max.”

“All right, now-where was I? Oh, yes-I’d just congratulated you.”

“Max. . somehow, I think I must have missed that part,” Hymie said.

“You’re not paying attention, Hymie. I congratulated you for saving the day-temporarily, at least.”

“I did?” Hymie said, puzzled. “What did I do, Max?”

“Do? You didn’t do anything. But, fortunately, that was enough. Just being there was all that was required. You threw a monkey wrench into Means’ and Ways’ plan. They’ve lost control over Number One. And it’s all because you were there.”

“Max, I didn’t do a thing,” Hymie said.

“You didn’t have to. All you had to do was walk into that laboratory. The instant Number One saw you, the flame was rekindled, Hymie. You heard that poetry, didn’t you? Number One is in love!”

“Not with me, Max,” Hymie said. “The last time I saw Number One, she told me to take a walk.”

“She meant she wanted you to take her for a walk, Hymie. A lovers stroll-haven’t you ever heard of that?”

“That’s not what she meant, Max. She told me where to go.”

“Oh? Where did she tell you to walk to, Hymie?”

“Off the end of a pier.”

“Well, in the meantime, she’s thought it over, and she’s sorry. She realizes now what a catch you are, Hymie. You’re dependable. And, besides, you’ve gone up in the world. You’re in charge of a case. That makes you an executive. Face it, Hymie-she loves you.”

“Max, it’s very hard to believe. She said some pretty nasty things to me.”

“But, you told me yourself that she’s fickle. Now, she’s just fickling the other way.”

“I know it sounds-”

Wayne Ways and Melvin Means had suddenly appeared at the cell door.

“What’d you do to that computer!” Ways said angrily, shaking a fist at Max.

“Still acting up, is she?” Max smiled.

“Poetry! That’s all we can get out of her!” Means said. “Want to hear the latest? It goes:

How do I love thee?

Let me count the ways:

One, Two, Three, Four,

Five, Six, Seven-

“Sounds like a computer, all right,” Max nodded. “But if you think you’re going to get me to do anything about it, you’re like a fisherman without a worm.”

“We’ll torture you!” Ways threatened.

“A fat lot of good that will do,” Max said smugly. “The reason Number One is acting up is because she’s in love with Hymie. They were once steadies, you know. Unfortunately, there was a little misunderstanding, and they broke up. Hymie was hurt, of course. He thought she was just using him as a convenience until Mr. Right came along. And Number One thought Hymie ought to be the one to apologize, even though she’d started the whole thing by telling him to go jump off a pier. But then, today, when they saw each other again, they realized what a great mistake the parting had been.”

“Thanks,” Means said. “That’s what we wanted to know-what was causing all that love poetry. Now that we know, we can cure it. We’ll just feed her anti-love information. Before long, she’ll hate everybody-even her ex-robotfriend.”

Ways and Means departed.

“Well, Hymie,” Max said disgustedly, “you booted it again.”

“What did I do, Max?”

“You had a clear responsibility to shut me up, Hymie, and you muffed it. How you got to be an executive, I’ll never know.”

Again, Max motioned to Hymie, and they withdrew to a corner of the cell.

“We have to get out of here,” Max said, whispering. “Now-how do we do it?”

“I don’t know, Max.”

“Hymie, I figured out the problem. It’s your duty, as the leader, to come up with the solution. Do I have to do it all myself?”

“Do you have a suggestion, Max?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. First, I think we ought to overpower the guard.”

“But we’ll still be locked in the cell, Max.”

“Mmmmmm. . you’re right. All right, first, we have to escape from the cell. . then, we have to overpower the guard. How’s that?”

“Fine, Max. How do we escape?”

“Wouldn’t you like to do the thinking from here on out, Hymie? It’s your turn, you know.”

“It’s too bad we didn’t pick up some escape devices from Research and Development before we left,” Hymie said.

“Yes. Good old R amp; D is always- Wait a minute! I may have some left over from my last case,” Max said, digging a hand into his pocket. He brought out a small metal spoon.

“What’s that?” Hymie asked.

“It’s a small metal spoon,” Max replied.

“I mean what is it really?”

“Really, it’s a small metal spoon,” Max replied. “I don’t know what it’s doing in my pocket-it belongs in my sandbox.”

“Could we use it in some way, Max?”

“Well. . if the guard is a sand-boxer himself, and he doesn’t have a small metal spoon, I suppose we could try bribing him.”

Hymie shook his head. “I don’t think so, Max.”

“If we could get him to take us to the machine shop, we could make it into a key,” Max suggested.

“I doubt it, Max.”

“Hold the spoon,” Max said. “I’ll see what else I can find.”

He dug into his pocket again. This time, he came up with a metal item about the size of an aspirin tablet. “This will do it,” he said. “This is used for underwater demolition. This one little explosive will blow up a body of water the size of Lake Ontario. My last case was at the bottom of the Pacific. The mission was to destroy a KAOS secret underwater nuclear power installation.”

“Did you do it, Max?”

“Would I still have the explosive if I’d done it?”

“What happened?”

“It’s dark at the bottom of the Pacific,” Max replied. “I couldn’t find the explosive. At the time, I had a slight headache-from thinking about carrying around an explosive the size of an aspirin tablet that could blow up a body of water the size of Lake Ontario-and so, I was also carrying some aspirin tablets. Well, as it happened, the explosive got mixed up with the aspirin tablets. And, my light wouldn’t work-”

“What was the matter with it, Max?”

“How do I know? I used up a whole box of matches, trying to strike a light. Defective workmanship, I suppose.”

“Maybe it was because you were at the bottom of the Pacific,” Hymie suggested.

“Hymie, above or below sea level, matches should still work. Anyway,” he said, “that was another case. It’s just lucky I didn’t use this explosive to blow up that nuclear power installation. If I had, I wouldn’t have it with me now. And this explosive, Hymie, is going to get us out of here.”

“It probably would, Max,” Hymie said. “But I think we’d regret it.”

“Oh? How so?”

“Max, if it’s powerful enough to blow up a body of water the size of Lake Ontario, what do you suppose it will do to this cell-and everybody in it?”

“That’s a very good point, Hymie. We better crawl under that bunk, so we won’t get hurt.”

“That won’t help, Max. Think about it.”

Max thought about it, then put the explosive back into his pocket. “I guess we’re stuck with the spoon,” he said.