Tek Money (10 page)

“
Chihuahua
,” commented Gomez.

“But the money, not all of it anyhow, didn't come from Zabicas at all, though it was all filtered through him,” Jimmy continued. “The Zabicas Cartel put up just ten million dollars. The rest of the dough …” She paused. “The rest of the dough came from the Weber Pharmaceutical Company of New Baltimore, Maryland.”

Jake said, “Who're they a front for?”

She gave an exasperated snort. “Honestly, Jake, I thought everybody knew that the OCO used the company to funnel payoff money overseas.”

Gomez sat up. “So we got the Office of Clandestine Operations in on this, too?”

Jake was thoughtful. “Why is the OCO helping a Teklord acquire a substantial supply of deadly weapons?”

“Suppose,
amigo
, that Zabicas wants those nasty gadgets for somebody else?”

“Right, yeah,” said Jake. “Spain is having a lot of trouble right now. President Garcia has been increasingly tough on the Tek cartels that operate in his country.”

“And at least two powerful rebel terrorist groups are working to topple the prez,” added Gomez. “Could our pal Zabicas be counting on the rebels, once in power, being much more cordial to the Tek trade?”

“That's got to be it.”

“A nice scenario, guys,” conceded Jimmy. “Trouble is, how the hell are you going to prove it all? Besides which, I thought you two were supposed to be solving the murder of Peter Traynor?”

Jake stood up, thrust both hands deep into his trouser pockets. “It's more than likely that Barragray of Gunsmiths, Ltd., had Pete killed, using Tek goons to help him. But I doubt we can ever put together a case that'll get to court.”

“There are, fortunately,” said Gomez, smiling, “other ways to assure that Amy St. Mars and her offspring won't be harmed.”

“Yeah, just what I've been thinking about,” said Jake. “If we can throw a spanner in the works of their whole operation—expose it and get everything out in the open—then they'd have no reason to want to silence Amy.”

“We'll have to move fast, though.”

“I know of a way to—”

“
Ai, caramba.
”

“What's wrong?”

“The easiest way to do this is to bring my old nemesis, Natalie Dent of the Newz vidnet organization, into this at some point fairly soon,” he realized. “She can help us gather facts and, when we know exactly what's going on, she'll get it onto the Newz network and tell the whole world. She'd done that for us before.”

Jake grinned. “Better get in touch with Natalie and set up a meeting for early tomorrow.”

Gomez made a pained face. “I keep trying to avoid that redheaded scourge and yet—”

“I think,” said Dan, “that you really like her, Sid. It seems to me you protest just a little too—”

“
Por favor
, don't try to tell me that I really am fond of that woman.” Groaning slightly, he made his way over to the vidphone in the corner of the room.

Jake told Jimmy, “We'll escort you home.”

“Good, that'll make me feel considerably safer.”

“I've already put a Cosmos team to watching your place in the Westwood Sector. One of them tagged you over here, I imagine.”

Her eyes widened. “You really are smarter than I thought.”

“Apparently,” he conceded.

Gomez came back from the phone. “
Muy interesante.
”

“What's interesting?”

“I couldn't get through to Nat right now, because she's overseas on an assignment and is in the field at the moment,” he said. “Seems she's covering a story in Madrid, Spain.”

16

T
HE BEDSIDE VIDPHONE
buzzed at a few minutes past four A.M. Jake, immediately awake, sat up and said, “Yeah?”

The phonescreen activated, showing him the frowning face of Detective Lieutenant Drexler of the SoCal State Police. “I want to see you, Cardigan.”

“I'm touched. How about lunch sometime next month?”

“Get off your ass and come down here to the Long Beach Sector right now,” ordered the cop.

“Is this an official summons?”

“It sure as hell is.”

“Where, specifically, are you?”

“I thought you might have guessed,” said Drexler. “It's the hideaway that Dennis Barragray had.”

“
Had?
Is he—”

“Just get the hell down here. I'm real eager to talk to you.” As soon as he gave Jake the address, the phone went blank.

Drexler told the gunmetal forensic robot, “Outside for a few minutes. Mr. Cardigan wants to view the body.”

Dennis Barragray was sprawled on his back, arms spread wide and legs twisted. Someone had used a lazgun on him, up close, and his torso had been cut nearly in two. Blood and burnt cloth covered his ruined chest.

“You knew this guy, didn't you, Cardigan?”

“Never met him. Seen his picture.”

“How come Gomez called on him yesterday?”

“Agency business.”

“C'mon, don't be an asshole.”

“You can figure it out.” Jake backed away from the body. He glanced up at the starless night sky through the domed living room ceiling.

“He was Peter Traynor's boss.”

“Exactly, lieutenant, and that's why Sid had to talk to him,” Jake said. “If you knew it was my partner who interviewed the guy, why drag me down here instead of him?”

The black cop crossed to a Lucite coffee table to pick the top sheet of paper from a small stack. “This isn't Barragray's official home,” he said. “In fact, his wife doesn't even know about it. No, this place was what they call a love nest.”

“And?”

“We've talked to some of the neighbors—Yeah, I have enough balls to wake up any and all the rich bastards who live hereabouts,” he said, passing the sheet to Jake. “Here's a comp portrait our ID bot printed up, based on the descriptions of the lady who was sharing this place with Barragray. Know her?”

The young woman in the simulated photo was Janine Traynor with blonde hair. “She looks vaguely familiar,” said Jake. “Have you identified her?”

“The name she's been using here was Jean McCrea,” answered the policeman. “But yesterday afternoon you stungunned a fellow in the Sherman Oaks Sector residence of a lady known as Janet Mavity.” From an inside pocket of his jacket, he took out a folded sheet of paper. “I happened to be going over the file on that case, since I'm awfully interested in your activities these days, Cardigan. I had this comp shot in my skycar with me.” He held up this second simulated photograph. “Except for the red hair, this is the same lady who was in residence here.”

“Say, it might be at that.”

“Who is she?”

“You've got two names, Drexler—take your pick.”

“I've sent both these pictures on to ID Central in DC. But those bastards'll take a couple of days to grind out an answer as to her true identity,” he said, putting the picture away. “Why were you interested in her?”

“Had a tip she was a friend of Traynor's.”

“Have you contacted her?”

“Not yet.” He shook his head. “Have you?”

“We think she's left the country.”

“Bound for where?”

“Spain.”

Jake studied the night sky again. “Spain. Interesting country.”

“C'mon. Save me some time and tell me who she really is.”

“I don't really know,” Jake assured him. “You think she killed Barragray?”

“Too soon to tell,” answered the lieutenant. “But she used to live here and now she doesn't. She left most of her clothes and belongings behind, but took enough to indicate she was skipping.”

“When did she leave?”

“She took off in a skyliner three and a half hours ago.”

Jake returned to the corpse. “He's been dead at least five hours.”

“Five or six.”

“So she could have killed him and still caught her flight.”

“She booked it at the last minute, from a phone at the twenty four-hour mall a mile from here.”

Jake said, “Of course, it could be she walked in and found him dead. Got scared and ran.”

“That's another possibility, sure.” He walked over to an open doorway. “Here's something else for you to look at, Cardigan.”

“Another body?”

“No, just a hole in the wall.”

There was a neat, sooty hole, about two feet in diameter, high in the cream-colored wall behind the large oval bed. “Safe, huh?”

“Used to be,” said Drexler. “The house's entire secsystem, by the way, was disabled—expertly. So blowing the safe didn't ring any bells anywhere.”

“Would Jean McCrea do that?”

“To get at the safe, sure.”

“If she was cozy with Barragray, she'd probably have known how to open it.”

“Then to make it look like an outside job.”

Jake nodded at the hole. “Any idea about the contents?”

“Go over by the bed and look at the pillow. Don't touch anything.”

Lying on the pillow was an antique $50 bill. “Twentieth-century currency, isn't it?”

“Nineteen-fifties. Worth about seventy-five dollars in the present collector market.”

“You figure Barragray had a safe full of that kind of cash?”

“It's an assumption I'm considering. And that would give the absent Jean McCrea a nice motive for gunning the poor bastard,” replied the lieutenant. “Do you know anything about a cache of old money?”

“Not a damn thing.”

Drexler eyed him. “You sure you never talked to this woman—under any of her names?”

“I didn't, no,” lied Jake again.

17

G
OMEZ SAID
, “
A
I
.
” He leaned back in the pilot seat of his skycar, which was taking him through the bright clear morning. He closed his eyes, clenched his fists and groaned. Then, getting his emotions under control, he glowered at the dash panel vidphone. “
Sí
, okay. For the good of the agency, I'll accept the call.”

“What sort of pagan orgy were you involved in last night, Gomez, or, which I predicted, you recall, a long time ago, is your reckless lifestyle finally catching up with you? Well, no matter, let's get down to business and start—Did you, if you don't mind my pausing to inquire, have that many wrinkles under your bleary eyes the last time we met?”

“They appeared shortly after our last encounter, Nat.”

The slender redhaired reporter, Natalie Dent, nodded. “I understand, and I'm not at all flattered, since I'm aware, having been entangled with you, in a purely workaday sense, several times in the past, alas, that you've been trying to contact me numerous times over here in Spain and I'm assuming, knowing you all too well, that you're hatching some duplicitous scheme that involves hoodwinking me in order to ensure its ultimate success.”

“Twice. I phoned you merely twice.”

“I have an important dinner date, strictly business, with a highplaced government official here in Madrid, Gomez. He'll be calling for me in ten minutes, unless, like a great many of the people over here, he's late,” the Newz reporter told him. “So, if you can cut out your usual circumlocutions and attempts to lead me up the garden path, and get right to the nubbin of what you're trying to con me into doing for you, I'd, really and truly, appreciate it.” Lowering her voice, she added, “I'm using a tap-proof phone and I assume, dimwitted as you are, that you have the sense to use one, too.”

“Yes,
cara
,” he assured her. “Here's what I want to chat about. Jake and I are working on a case that—”

“If you're going to go on at great length about the Peter Traynor murder, spare yourself, and me, the trouble. I already know all about that.”

“
Bueno.
Now, then,
cara
, we may well want to expose certain of our upcoming findings to the public,” he said. “You've been helpful in that area in the past and it's benefited your alleged career as well as—”

“You've grown, if you'll pardon my pointing this out, since I'm doing it in an absolutely constructive manner, even more longwinded, Gomez. I wonder, and maybe you'll want to see your physician, if your already understaffed brain isn't getting even more feeble as a result of your growing older and—”

“Suppose, Nat, that in a few days we pass along some information about this case? Can you see to it that—”

“What aspect exactly are you going on about? Does this have to do with the supply of outlaw Devlin Guns that was delivered to Janeiro Martinez's rebels? I already know quite a lot about that.”

“
Momentito
,” he requested. “You know for certain that the guns went to Martinez and not one of the other rebel groups in Spain?”

She smiled. “Of course, didn't you?”

“We must, Natalie, compare notes on this whole setup and then—”

“That sounds just wonderful, Gomez, since, as disrespectful and sneaky as you are, and even though you're even seedier than in former times, I do, at my innermost core, have a certain amount of grudging affection for you. And I'd be an ungrateful wretch, if anybody uses that expression anymore, which I seriously doubt, if I didn't feel a certain gratitude to you for helping me get the scoop up there on the New Hollywood satellite, which enabled me to reassume my rightful position in the media world as one of the top investigative reporters going,” she said. “Anytime you're in Madrid, why, I'd love to get together. Perhaps, if you pick up the tab, we can even have lunch. I have to go now.”

Gomez scowled at the blank screen. “
Caramba
,” he said as the skycar set him down on the Cosmos agency rooftop.

Bascom said, “I'm glad you mentioned Spain, fellas.”