Heller hops out and climbs down through the hole in the guardrail, "swarm[ing] down a girder" and sliding down a pillar to reach the street below. The other car, astonishingly enough, landed on its wheels and against all odds managed to drive forward only to crash into a stanchion. Heller rushes to jimmy the car doors - yes, he was carrying a jimmy, don't you? - because he's noticed gasoline leaking from the wreck, and if the fumes hit the control box of a nearby streetlight, there'll be an explosion.
Quite a deduction from someone who had to have the concept of a liquid, chemical engine explained to him, and who thought that there were horses under the hood of his automobile.
Heller pries the cab doors open with his mighty fingers and hauls the two people inside to safety before the inevitable explosion. One of them is pretty dead and missing the top of his head, so you have to wonder why Heller bothered to rescue him or how he failed the notice the partial decapitation. Also, Gris is able to surmise that the corpse is "obviously a Sicilian" despite all the blood and brains and lack of skull. Good eyes, Gris. Way to avert the "you [foreigners] all look alike to me" thing with incredible homeland-deducing vision.
The surviving occupant is none other than Torpedo Fiaccola.
Torpedo opened his eyes. He saw Heller. He recognized him.
Torpedo said, "You ain't going to kill my mother?"
Heller looked down at him. "I'll think about it."
Our hero.
Heller rifles through Torpedo's wallet, finding the five thousand dollars Heller gave him a day ago, which the man decided to carry on him rather than depositing in a bank or anything, as well as instructions to deliver "the evidence" to someone. With some questioning ("Mothers should be cherished"), Torpedo admits that he's supposed to deliver Heller's bloodstained baseball cap and a lock of hair to a certain address. Heller advises him to keep the money, get fixed up in a hospital somewhere, and then go to the North Pole "and learn to speak polar-bear. I'm not a mother killer but I sure enjoy exploding torpedoes!"
The cops arrive and question why Heller bothered to rescue anyone from the other vehicle, then decide to give the dead Sicilian a ticket for littering. This is incisive, hilarious satire of the uselessness and callousness of the police department of New York City.
Heller meets up with Mortie and goes to the street next to the assigned drop-off point. Heller had already dipped his hat in "the mess that had been the driver's head," and now he pulls out a knife that he apparently was carrying and cuts off some of his hair, then sticks it to the hat with the blood that hasn't dried yet. He has Mortie make the delivery for a bonus, and the cabbie soon returns with a package. On the way home Heller opens the box and produces a plane ticket to Buenos Aires. Mortie values it at three thousand dollars, though Heller would have to go to the airport to get it exchanged, and also declares that his protege has the makings of a top New York cabbie. Heller gives him his six hundred dollars in pay and his friend speeds off.
Bye, Mortie. I'm not sure what you brought to the plot other than an excuse for Hubbard to "satirize" New York drivers. I also don't know why Heller needed the driving lessons when he's proven to be a hot hand at that Cadillac, to say nothing of the other vehicles he's piloted. So you were an unnecessary character in an unnecessary section of the book. So long!
Heller heads home, clickety-clacking along in his cleats, and goes to his room in the Gracious Palms. He adds the box's other contents, "ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS!", to the fifty grand already in his safe. So now Heller, who is already insanely popular and famous on Voltar, is becoming rich and well-connected on Earth. His resources are power are growing, while his enemies are proving to be just as incompetent as ever. Yet somehow Hubbard is going to stretch this plot out over eight more volumes, and insist that there's some real drama over how and whether Heller can hope to succeed against all the forces arrayed against him.
Oh, and Raht and Terb send in another report to Gris, describing how Heller apparently got a job and room at the clothing store, since he hasn't come out yet. These trained Apparatus agents did not notice him exiting the building. Gris is furious, among other things.
I was getting frightened that I might have to go to America myself to handle this. And I didn't have the least idea what I could do even if I did.
Get off your ass and actively work to solve your problems rather than hoping that your brainless subordinates - who you cannot even contact - can make everything better for you? That's just crazy talk. Better stick to watching helplessly and waiting for your sex slave to arrive.
Back to Chapter Four
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