Tek Kill (5 page)

“Quite often,” agreed the detective.

“And what angle are you supposed to be working on?”

“The Grossman family so far. His father, his sister, and Juneanne Stackpoole, the current lady in the old boy's life.”

“Do they know anything?”

“They don't seem to,” said Anson. “But…”

“But what, asshole?”

“I'm still looking into something concerning the sister, Susan Grossman.”

“She's a Tekhead, isn't she?”

“Used to be. She took a cure.”

The voxbox laughed. “There's no cure.”

“Cardigan's cured, too.”

“Naw, they all come back. But get on about this sister of Grossman's.”

“She made a couple of calls last night,” Anson went on. “The first one to her brother at about a half hour after your people—”

“She couldn't have known a damn thing.”

“Maybe, probably,” Anson said. “Her second call was to a girl named Molly Fine.”

“Who the hell is she?”

“Well, it happens I knew the answer to that without looking it up,” said Anson. “Molly Fine attends the SoCal Police Academy and her steady beau is a boy named Dan Cardigan.”

“Christ, Cardigan's kid.”

“Cardigan's only kid, right.”

“But Grossman's sister can't know a damn thing,” insisted the voice.

“Can't she?”

After a few seconds: “Find out what she does know, Anson. And check up on this Molly Fine. I don't like her being chummy with Cardigan's boy.”

Anson said, “That's going to involve extra money.”

“Bullshit, we're already paying you a hefty—”

“I may have to get close to Jake Cardigan,” pointed out the operative. “That wasn't part of our original deal.”

“$5,000 on top of what you're already getting.”

“Has to be $10,000.”

“We can't go higher than $5,000.”

Anson said, “I'll settle for that. For now anyway.”

There was a whirring, and a yellow chit came easing out of a thin slot in the voxbox. “Congratulations. You just won five thousand bucks at roulette. Take this upstairs and cash it in.”

GOMEZ CEASED WHISTLING.

The immense warehouse he'd stepped into out of the afternoon was chill and musty. The beams of thin sunlight slanting down across it were spotted with flecks of drifting black dust. Lined up in the gloom were rows of immobile androids. Those standing stiffly on the right-hand side of the Pasadena Sector storehouse were butler androids; those on the left, maids and cooks.

The curly-haired detective moved deeper into the murky interior. “
Buenos días
,” he said loudly.

At the far end of the warehouse was a rickety worktable. A partially dismantled butler lay outstretched atop the table and a thin pale man in a gray smock was hunched over it and tinkering. “Don't get too close, Sidney,” he warned in a hoarse voice. “This may be contagious.”

“Another malady, Pegler?”

Pegler sneezed twice. Then once again. “I'm pretty near certain of the cause,” he said, sniffling. “It's a conspiracy and I've got the suspects narrowed down to two or possibly three of my former wives.”

“What is it you think you're suffering from?”

“It's called a cold.” He sniffled again, dabbing at his nose with a plyochief.

“Nobody gets colds anymore.” Gomez eased closer. “Not since the vaccine came into use thirty years ago. Don't you get your shots every—”

“This is bacteriological warfare stuff.” Pegler set aside the electric screwdriver he was using on the android butler's interior workings.

“Your wives are practicing biological warfare?”

“They, most of them, get very upset when I leave them. Some of the more vindictive ones have cooked up this scheme. I'm near certain.” He sneezed again.

“Are you,” inquired Gomez, “well enough to do some business?”

Pegler blew his nose. “If it weren't for my sideline as a first-rate informant, Sidney, I'd waste away. Nobody wants to rent butlers anymore. Especially not these upper-crust traditional British models.” He tapped the andy he was working on, then gestured at the rows of maids. “We still get a few calls for the French maids, but mostly from people who want them for immoral purposes.”

Gomez nodded sympathetically, then said, “If I wanted to tamper with a security tape, fake something so effectively that it would fool not only the law but
hombres
with laminated diplomas from the crackerjack forensic institutions of—”

“I can't help you, Sidney.” Pegler held up his right hand in a stop-right-there gesture.

“
¿Qué pasa?
I haven't even outlined my inquiry and you—”

“This is the Bascom business.” Pegler sneezed twice more. “No, not safe.”

“Whoa now. Has somebody warned you to stay away from this?”

“You better try somebody else,” advised the frail man in a whisper. “But me, I can't—oh, shit!” Eyes going wide, he was looking behind and beyond the detective.

Gomez turned and saw two large butlers, each carrying a lazgun, striding in his direction.

9

THE large, pale man sitting on the green metal park bench had absolutely no hair, not so much as an eyebrow. He was, with big dead-white hands folded in his lap, watching a tiny robot canary that was perched on a branch of a simulated oak nearby. A thin smile touched his colorless lips.

Jake was moving along a wide path that led through the holographic park to the cluster of cottages that housed Thelwell Brokerage Services.

“Excuse me, sir,” said the hairless man in a high-pitched voice as Jake neared the bench.

Jake slowed. “Yeah?”

“What might your business be?”

Jake stopped. “Might that be any of your damned business?”

Smiling another small smile, the big man rose up. He was a few inches taller than Jake. “As a matter of fact, sir, it is,” he replied in his piping voice. “I handle security for Thelwell, and any and all unauthorized visitors to the facility have to—”

“I got authorization over the phone couple hours ago.” Jake started to move on.

He put a hand on Jake's arm. “You're not on my list, sir.”

“That doesn't actually upset me all that much. Now, let go of—”

“I'm really afraid I have to see your identification, sir, or I'll be forced to—
oof!
”

Jake's left fist had delivered two swift and hard punches to the hairless man's midsection.

The man wobbled, began to sink. But he still tried to tug a weapon out of his shoulder holster.

Jake hopped back, booting him in the chin.

Sighing a high-pitched sigh, the big man sprawled out on the simulated moss.

Crouching, Jake eased out the gun the security man had been reaching for. “A lazgun,” he reflected, sliding it into his jacket pocket. “These folks are damn serious about security.”

Leaving the unconscious man sprawled where he'd dropped, Jake continued along the path to the cottage complex.

The Reception cottage, like the dozen others, was designed to look as though it were made of stucco and timbers. The windows were imitation stained glass and the sharply slanting roof appeared to be of bright yellow straw.

In the cozy parlor Jake told the pretty blond android at the desk, “You better go take a look at your security lout. He seems to have swooned.”

“Beg pardon?” The mechanical young woman pushed back from her desk.

“Big lunk with a scarcity of hair,” amplified Jake, pointing at the doorway with his thumb. “Passed out up the garden path there.”

Puzzled, the blond andy shook her head. “All our security is electronic,” she said. “We don't have any actual guards, human or robotic.”

Spinning on his heel, Jake ran out of the cozy cottage and back along the woodland path.

But when he reached the spot where he'd had his dispute, the hairless man was not there.

“I'VE ALWAYS HAD a great deal of respect for the Cosmos outfit,” announced Edmond Flenniker, a short, chunky man in his middle thirties. “I'm sorry you got roughed up while visiting us here at Thelwell, but I assure you I have no idea who that hooligan was or—Maggie, what did I say about this sandwich?”

“Something rude and lowbrow as I recall,” replied the black woman sitting in one of the chairs facing the Thelwell Brokerage Services president's wide, silvery desk.

Flenniker grabbed a plazplate up off the desk and pointed an accusing finger at the sandwich resting upon it. “Is this curried soyloaf, Maggie darling?”

“Sure looks like it to me. Smells like it, too.”

“What's your opinion, Cardigan?” He thrust the plate toward Jake, who was in a rubberoid chair just to the left of the glistening desk.

“Fits the description.”

“It's curried lentil loaf if it's anything. I have a highly overpaid executive secretary, Maggie darling, so that when I send out for a curried soyloaf sandwich on Siberian plowboy black bread, that is what is brought back to—mother of God, this isn't even Siberian plowboy black bread.” When he slapped the plate back on the desktop, the sandwich hopped twice. “Maggie, what am I to do with you?”

“Fire me and pay me that huge severance bonus,” suggested Maggie Sleet, crossing her legs.

Hunkering down in his chair, the Thelwell president said, “There are no avocado chips, either.”

“You already ate them.”

“When did I do that?”

“Recently.”

“Didn't I ask you to get a double order of chips?”

“Nope.”

Flenniker sat silent for a while and concentrated on breathing in and out. Eventually he spoke. “I don't want to let these little staff problems interfere with my helping you out, Cardigan. What is it you want to know about poor Dwight Grossman? Maggie, didn't I also request a papaya fruitzer?”

“In the cup there.” She pointed.

Grabbing up the indicated cup, he sniffed at it. “Mango or I'm a goof.”

“Man said it was papaya.”

“No use sending you back, Maggie darling, he'd only hoodwink you again.” He took a very tentative sip. “Yike, it's gone rancid to boot.”

Jake said, “Do you have any ideas about why someone would want to kill Grossman?”

“Someone, you mean, besides your insanely jealous and vindictive boss?”

“Walt Bascom didn't kill him.”

“Ah, I like to see company loyalty. Maggie here would send me up the river in a trice.”

“Half a trice,” she corrected.

Flenniker grew thoughtful, wrinkles furrowed his brow. “Dwight was, far as I could tell, a rather bland guy. Very efficient, cooperative, but no fireball,” he said finally. “He wasn't sensationally popular here at Thelwell, but nobody disliked him. He got along well with the rest of the gang.”

“Yet he was threatening Kay Norwood, harassing her quite a bit.”

“A side of his character I wasn't at all aware of.”

“Talk to his wife,” suggested Maggie, uncrossing her legs.

“I'm planning to. But what's your reason for suggesting it?”

“He gave her a very rough time after she left him, same kind of tricks I hear he used on the lawyer lady.”

“Is this office gossip of any use to you, Cardigan?”

“At this point, anything may be useful.”

The Thelwell executive said, “We've been preparing a series of reports on half a dozen pharmaceutical outfits in the Greater LA area, to help our clients make their investment decisions. Dwight was handling those.”

“Did he report anything unusual to you? Mention having trouble with any of these companies?”

Flenniker shook his head. “Far as I know, he hadn't turned up anything unusual enough to mention.”

“Can I see copies of those reports?”

Glancing at Maggie, the president asked, “Do we have them on file?”

“He hadn't turned anything in as yet.”

Jake asked, “Did Grossman work by himself?”

“Yes, he was pretty much a loner,” answered Flenniker.

“What about Hermione?” put in Maggie, crossing her legs again.

“Oh, I don't think she had very much to do with—”

“Who is she?” Jake asked them.

“Hermione Earnshaw,” Maggie told him. “She was Grossman's assistant until last week.”

“What is she now?”

“Gone,” said Maggie.

“She left the firm,” said Flenniker.

“Going where?”

“Personnel can tell you. Although I don't think she'll be any help.”

“Going to be fun trying to find her,” added Maggie.

Jake eyed her. “Meaning?”

“Hermione left her condo in the Riverside Sector. Nobody knows where she is now.”

“Oh, I'm certain there are plenty of her friends who know where she's gotten to,” said Flenniker. “Now, Maggie darling, if you're through gossiping, you might get Cardigan that list of companies poor Dwight was investigating.”

Maggie stood up. “I'd find Hermione,” she advised as she left the office.

10

“WE want to persuade you, Gomez, old chap,” explained one of the approaching large android butlers, brandishing his ebony lazgun.

“Dissuade you actually, old thing,” added the other lumbering andy.

Gomez glanced back at Pegler and muttered, “Betrayed.”

Cringing behind his worktable, the frail informant sneezed and said, “I'm a mere bystander, Sidney.”

“I suspect,
cabrón
, that you …” Gomez gave a sudden gasp. He took a wobbly step to his left, two wobbly steps to his right.

“No rum behavior, old bean,” warned one of the butlers as he came clunking closer.

“I fear it's … it's …
¡Dios!
One of my spells.” Unexpectedly, Gomez dropped suddenly to the floor.