Montezuma Strip (3 page)

“It’s been scanned, scraped, and probed, but nothing except the, uh, body’s been moved.” The flashman finally saw him staring
at the couch. The death frame. He wore a metallic green suit with short sleeves. The set of red lenses swathed his eyes. The
other two primaries were pushed back atop his head, bracketed by the high blond crewcut. A hearsee stuck out of his right
ear like a burrowing beetle. His green shoes were soled in teflink and he slid noiselessly across the carpet without slipping.
Lizard, Cardenas thought.

Ignoring the mute workscreen, he strolled behind the desk. A couple of holos drifted a centimeter above the replicant wood,
off to the left. He’d only been able to see them from the back. They were set to rotate every half hour. They showed a pretty
young woman, two kids. The boy and girl were also
pretty. Everyone smiled warmly. Crescent was in one of the holos. Images of a happy, content family on its way up. Soaring,
if Crescent was half as brilliant as GenDyne’s files had led Cardenas to believe.

In his mind’s eye he conjured up the coroner’s vit of the victim, the Designer sitting placidly on the couch, his body undamaged,
heart pumping steadily. The eyes staring but not seeing because everything behind them that had been Wallace Crescent had
been removed. This space for rent.

Who would do that to a man who according to every record had no enemies, had never bothered a soul, wanted nothing but to
succeed at his job and take care of his handsome family? Cardenas felt sick. Nearby Charliebo whined, gazing up at his two-legged
friend out of brown, limpid eyes.

The flashman’s lenses dropped. “Something new? I know they used to train them to sniff juice, but that was a long time ago.”

“Just a friend.” Cardenas spoke absently, still inspecting the couch. “That’s where they found him.”

The flashman flipped up his reds. His eyes were pale, weak. Spent too much time relying on the lenses, Cardenas thought. No
wonder he needed triples.

“Right there, on the middle cushion. Could’ve been sleeping except that his eyes were wide open.”

Cardenas nodded and walked over to run his fingers across the upholstery. No blood, no signs of any kind. So sayeth the Official
Inquiry. If it had been otherwise they wouldn’t have called for help. He straightened and strolled back to sit behind the
desk. Hydraulics cushioned his weight, all but silent. Crescent’s body was being kept alive in a Douglas hospital. The family
insisted on it, hoping against hope he’d return someday from wherever he’d gone to. They hadn’t listened to the police. Crescent
hadn’t
gone.
He’d been moved out forcibly. There was nothing to come back. But the family wouldn’t listen. Gradually the police stopped
bothering them.

What had happened to this stable, incisive, innovative mind?

He let his fingers slide along the top of the desk until he found what he was searching for. A center drawer snapped open.
He ignored the printouts, storage cubes, miscellania, and picked up the vorec. Small, the very latest model, a Gevic Puretone-20.
It was slim and smooth, the size of a small hot dog, no bun. TWiddling it between thumb and fingers he slowly turned in the
chair until he was facing the workscreen wall. He flicked a tiny button set in the polished metal surface. The east wall lit
with a soft light. A barely perceptible hum filled the office.

The flashman took a nervous step toward the desk. “You can’t do that.”

Cardenas spared him a sideways glance. “I have to. I have to know what he was working on when he was vacuumed.”

“I’ll need to get you clearance. You can’t open the box without clearance.”

Cardenas grinned at him. “Want to bet?”

“Wait.” The flashman was backing toward the door. “Please, just wait a moment.” He hurried out.

The sergeant hesitated, continued to play with the vorec mike. Charliebo stared eagerly at the wall. He knew what was coming.
This was something Cardenas did frequently. So far as he knew the dog enjoyed it as much as he did. It didn’t matter whether
he was rummaging through a personal box or a much larger one holding company records, it was always interesting to examine
the contents. The mike in his hand was cool to the touch, uncontaminated.

The flashman came back with someone in tow. She didn’t look pleased.

“Company policy. We need someone equally capable of interpreting data present when you go in.”
So we’re sure you don’t pocket anything on the side,
was the unspoken corollary. “Senior Designer Hypatia Spango, this is Sergeant Angel Cardenas. He’s over from Nogales to work
on…”

“I know what he’s here to work on. Why else would anyone be in Wally’s office?” She stared evenly at him.

Straight on, Cardenas noted. No flinching, no deference,
certainly no worry. She was at least fifteen years younger than he. Handsome, not pretty. Black hair permed in tight ringlets
that fell to her shoulders. Black eyes, too, but oddly pale skin. Body voluptuous beneath the white corporate jumpsuit. Mature.
He wondered how much of her was held up by polymers and how much by herself. She was taller than he but it would’ve been unusual
if she wasn’t. Everybody was taller than he was. She wore a reducer cap over her right eye. When she saw him looking at it
she removed it and dropped it into a pocket. Three chevrons on each sleeve of the jumpsuit. The woman carried some weight
and not just in her pants.

Well, they wouldn’t set a post-grad scanner to keep watch on him.

Reluctantly she advanced until she was standing on the other side of the desk. Then she noticed the gray-black lump near his
feet. “Nice dog.”

“That’s Charliebo. He’s nicer than most people.”

“Look, I didn’t want to do this but they insisted Optop. I don’t want to like you either, but you’ve got a dog, so I guess
I’m stuck there, too.” She extended a hand across the desktop. Her grip was firm and full, not the half-dance tentativeness
favored by most women. Her nails were cut short and clean, no polish, none of the rainbow insets currently in fashion. Soft
but efficient. Working hands.

“You from around here?” He meant the Strip.

She shook her head tersely. The ringlets jangled silently. If they’d been made of metal there would have been music. “Iowa.
Des Moines. It’s a long story.”

“Aren’t they all,
verdad
?” He sat up straight and looked past her. “You can go now.”

The flashman licked his lips as he fiddled with his lenses. They dehumanized him, if it was possible to dehumanize a flashman
further. “I should stay.”

Spango turned. “Waft.”

He did.

She sat down without being asked, pulling one of the chairs up to the other side of the desk.

“How long you been with GenDyne?” he asked her.

“Is this being recorded?”

He tapped his breast pocket.
“Everything’s
being recorded.”

She sighed. “All my life. Univ in Des Moines, then three years graduate work. Vegas School of Design. Then GenDyne. Five promotions
and two husbands along the way. Kept the promotions, lost the husbands.” A shrug. “That’s life. All of mine, anyway.”

“And how long’s that?”

A slightly wicked smile. “I’m not sure that information’s pertinent to your investigation here, Federale.”

It was his turn to grin. “Alright. Pax. How long did you know Crescent?”

“Ten years. All of it off and on. You know Designers. We spend most of our time inside the Box. Wally was friendly enough,
knew everybody and they knew him. Except I don’t guess anybody really
knew
him. His wife, Karen, a real quiet sweet gal. They made all the company picnics, reward trips, all the expected functions
they were both there. Wally played high goal on the division socball team.”

“Ever notice anything that would make you think he was an abuser?”

She shook her head. “As far as I knew he was clean as the box room. Of course, you never know what anybody does in private.”

“No, you don’t. How good was he?”

“As a Designer? The best. Wally knew how to use imagination
and
logic. He had a flair most of us don’t, no matter how long we work at it. Talent, you know? I don’t know what else to call
it. He knew the inside of the box the way most of us know our own bodies.

“GenDyne knew it, too. The rest of us had to beg for a raise or an extra day off. All Crescent had to do was sneeze and he’d
have the whole marketing department cleaning his shoes with their tongues. Are you familiar with the GS Capacitate?” Cardenas
nodded. “That was Crescent’s baby. Sensitized
microbio circuit. Plug one into your screen, feed it, and it automatically replicates existing storage until you turn off
the power. Gallium arsenide proteins are a lot cheaper in bulk than predesigned slabs. Revolutionized peripheral information
storage.”

Cardenas was impressed. “Crescent came up with that?” She nodded. “So obviously money wasn’t a problem for him.”

Spango leaned back in her chair. For a big woman she had small feet, he mused. “He wasn’t independently wealthy but he made
more than you or I’ll ever see.”

“Maybe he was onto something new. Something potentially as big as the GS.”

“If so he was keeping it to himself. We couldn’t find anything revolutionary in his section of the box. Of course, Crescent
was a genius. The rest of us are just plodders. It could still be in there, tucked away where nobody but Wally himself could
find it.”

“Isn’t that kind of unusual?”

“I see what you’re thinking. Not only isn’t it unusual, it’s standard policy. The company understands and accepts it. I do
it myself. Hey, if you don’t protect your ideas from your good
compadre
next door, next thing you know he’s accessed your storage and is presenting your hard-won innovation to the Board. How do
you prove you thought of it first? It’s tough to ident an idea.”

“So there’s serious competition even within a division. You sure he wasn’t planning to sell to somebody else?”

“Outside GenDyne? How the hell would I know that? How would anybody? Is that what you think?”

“Right now I’m thinking of everything. You say he had plenty of money. But he wasn’t independent. Maybe some other outfit
was willing to set him up for life. Maybe he wanted something GenDyne couldn’t or wouldn’t get for him. Something nobody else
knew about. Let’s say that was the case only at the last moment he backed out. Got nervous, changed his mind, I don’t know.
The people he was dealing
with got angry. They argued, they sent someone in after him, they vacuumed him to get what they wanted. No such thing as selective
vacuuming, of course. Not yet. Not that the type another corporation would send to do something like that would care. Why
leave a witnessing consciousness around to make noise afterward?”

“You make a good case but I think it’s all idletime. You didn’t know Wally Crescent. Subside dealings weren’t his style.”

“People are full of surprises.” He twirled the vorec. “Time to start digging.”

She turned to face the wallscreen. “GenDyne Security’s already combed his storage. Nothing but what you’d expect. You won’t
find anything, either.”

“Maybe not, but I’ve got to start someplace. You want to give me the access or you want to make me work?”

Those deep black eyes studied him. “Maybe I’ll get you to work some other time. You’ve already got the access.”

He smiled. “What makes you think that?”

“Security wouldn’t have asked you to look around without giving it to you. Without access there wouldn’t be anything for you
to look at. And if I knew it, then I’d be a suspect, wouldn’t I?”

“You’re a suspect already. Everyone in this building’s a suspect.”

She sniffed. “Can I stay and watch?”

He shrugged. “This kind of examination can get pretty dull. Looking for useful concepts to swipe?”

“If there was anything readily extractable in there worth stealing, Security’s done it already.”

He nodded and turned to face the blank wall, raising the voice recognition mike to his lips. “Coordinate Hapsburg Hollenzolleren
Mermaid.”

The wall seemed to disappear. He was looking across the carpet down an infinite rectangular tunnel. Within the tunnel tiny
flecks of light and color swarmed like protozoa in pond water. As he stared, the flecks began to coalesce to form a
simple holographic square, neatly lettered on all six sides. A musical female voice, the synthesized duplicate of a reconstructed
nineteenth-century singer known as the Swedish Nightingale, spoke from concealed speakers.

“Welcome to the GenDyne box, Mermaid storage and files. You are not Wallace Crescent.”

“Federales Security Special Forces Bomo Bomo Six.” Cardenas withdrew a plastic card from a shirt pocket and slipped it into
a receptacle in the side of the desk.

“Welcome, Sergeant Cardenas. Security clearance processed. Mermaid awaits.”

Cardenas frowned. “That was too easy.”

“Not if Crescent had nothing to hide. I told you company Security’s already run this. Mermaid let them go anywhere they wanted
to. If Wally’d been hiding something, they would’ve found a block.”

“Maybe not, if this guy was as clever as you say. What better way to hide something than to let everybody look around for
it?”

“You mean like hide it in plain sight? You can’t do that in a box. If Crescent had tucked something into a seam, Security
would’ve smelled it out even if they couldn’t crack it. Besides, Crescent didn’t design for Security. He was strictly heavy-duty
industrial.”

“How do you know what Crescent was and wasn’t into?”

She had no reply for that.

He started in. He was methodical, efficient, experienced, able to skip whole blocks of information without so much as a surface
scan. He pumped the vorec up to three times normal speed. It impressed Spango, though that wasn’t his intention. That was
just the way he worked. Within GenDyne itself nobody except the vorec Designers worked even double speed.

Sometimes he switched to printout when he wanted to be sure of something, reading the words as they formed in the void created
by the screen, but most of the time he stuck with the faster vorec. Much of the time he kept his eyes closed as the Mermaid
storage spoke to him. He did it because it helped
his concentration. He was used to analyzing without being able to see. What he couldn’t detect with his eyes shut was Hypatia
watching him.