Tek Kill (16 page)

Gomez knelt beside the dead man. “This is Lavinsky?”

From the threshold Marney nodded. “They weren't supposed to kill anybody.”

“
¿Qué dices?
” Slowly he stood and took a few steps toward her.

Marney inhaled slowly. “We better hightail it away from here, Gomez,” she suggested, letting her breath out in a sigh. “Then we're gonna have to find a nice, quiet spot to have us a little talk.”

JAKE ACCEPTED the plazglass of tinted simulated mineral water from the roving robot waiter in the flowered shirt. There were well over a hundred guests out on the dome-enclosed terrace, many of them watching the holographic fireworks display taking place out on the back acre of the Cardwell estate.

Huge multicolored flowers blossomed out in the clear night sky. Then the name Dorothy spread across the blackness in exploding gold-and-crimson letters.

“That's her first name,” said a voice just behind him.

“Who? Our hostess?” Turning, Jake found himself facing a tall black woman of about fifty. She was wearing a simple red sinsilk party dress and holding a plazglass of rum punch.

“No, Dorothy Sartain, the gymnast from Portugal. This wingding here tonight is in her honor. Didn't you read your invitation?”

“Not thoroughly enough, apparently.”

“You're Jake Cardigan, aren't you?”

“That I am,” he admitted. “And you are …?”

She leaned close to him. “Hazel McCay,” she said softly.

“One of the people I was hoping to encounter tonight.”

“I know. Monte mentioned you wanted to talk to me.”

“I do, yeah.”

Nodding, Hazel took his free hand and guided him over toward the edge of the enclosed terrace. A five-piece android calypso band was sitting, silent at the moment, on a low dais that was fringed by potted palms.

After they'd stopped near one of the small trees, Jake inquired, “What's your job with NewTown Pharmaceuticals?”

“I'm in Research & Development,” answered Hazel, glancing around at the growing party crowd.

“That could be helpful to my cause,” Jake told her. “Did Monte—”

“Oh, shit!” She had glanced away and was frowning at two people who were standing at the entrance to the terrace. “There's Rowland Burdon. I didn't know that that nasty son of a bitch was coming to the island. This isn't, Jake, a good time for us to talk. Come see me at my place tomorrow morning early.” She gave him her address and moved, unobtrusively but swiftly, away from him.

27

FOG was drifting in across the darkening Pacific as Molly guided her skycar through the twilight toward Dan's home.

He was saying, “I don't see that there's much we can do about Susan now. We found out, with Rex's help, that she's been committed to Dr. Stolzer's clinic again, but—”

“We can talk to her darned father—or I can,” Molly said, anger sounding in her voice. “I'll suggest that he spring her from that place right away.”

“If this Mrs. Stackpoole has as much control of things as Susan says, he won't listen to you.”

“No, he'll pay attention,” she said. “I'm going to talk to my Uncle Anthony first—he's the one almost honest lawyer in the family—and gather a lot of nice legal phrases I can toss at Mr. Grossman.”

“Might work,” Dan said.

“I'd like to hear more enthusiasm from the members of the team.”

“The problem is, Molly … well, Susan's been behaving pretty oddly lately, and I can see where her father'd think she needed some kind of help again.”

“So you feel she ought to be locked up in that quack's loony bin?”

“Nope,” said Dan. “But you've got to remember that Susan's dad has a much higher opinion of the Stolzer setup than we do.”

She punched out a landing pattern on the control dash panel and the skycar began to descend toward the misty beach. “While we were consulting with Rex/GK-30 at the academy, we should've dug some into that Mrs. Stackpoole's background. That might give us some helpful stuff to—”

“I missed two classes as it was.”

The car, scattering swirls of night fog, set down next to the condo building.

“I won't come in,” said Molly.

“You're ticked off, huh?”

Smiling, she leaned over and kissed him. “Not too much, but I want to get home and start trying to track down my Uncle Anthony. I'll probably have to contact a dozen or so low dives and bistros before running him to ground.”

“Whatever you decide to do, I'll back you up.” Dan undid his safety gear and opened his door.

“What we're going to do is get Susan out of that place.”

He stood on the deck and watched the skycar rise up and then disappear into the thickening mist.

Dan then turned to the sliding door and said, “Open up, it's me.”

Nothing happened.

“Open up. Dan Cardigan.”

Still nothing.

Reaching out, he touched the door handle. It wasn't locked and he was able to slide the plastiglass panel open.

Very cautiously, Dan took a step across the dark threshold. “Lights,” he requested.

The living room remained dark.

Then he heard a faint crackling noise.

An instant later the beam of a stungun hit him in the chest.

MARNEY SPUN GRACEFULLY on her heel and fired the handgun.

The bulky man who'd come charging out of the woods brandishing a flamegun cried out in pain. Staggering, he took three unsteady steps to his right. He fell over and when he hit the simulated yellow grass, his gun hand jerked convulsively. A spurt of flame leaped from the gun barrel, appearing to scorch a wide dark line through the high, dry grass.

“Bingo!” said a voxbox built into the gun.

The fallen body shimmered and disappeared.

“Oaky doaks,” said Marney, holstering the gun. “That makes a thousand darn points for me, Gomez darlin'. Looks like I win.”

He looked back across the wide stretch of simulated countryside that made up this section of the Sweetwater Shooting Gallery. He slipped his gun into his pocket. “Nobody tailed us here,
chiquita
,” he said. “We're
seguro
for now. So let's quit pretending to be customers and have our conversation.”

Nodding, she led him over to one of the picnic tables at the edge of the field. She sat down, frowned across the neowood table at him. “Don't be mad at me.”

“About what?”

Marney drummed two fingers on the tabletop. “Well, sir,” she began, then cleared her throat. “It wasn't, see, any accident my runnin' into you back at the rodeo.”

“That possibility had already flitted across my brain. Who put you up to it?”

After she took a careful look around, she answered, “My career hasn't been flowin' along anywhere near as smooth as I let on earlier,” she admitted. “Fact is, Gomez darlin', up until quite recent I was doin' my same old strippin' and shootin' act at a succession of dumps and dives all across Texas.”

“You having money troubles again?”

“Yep,” she said forlornly. “Meanin' I owe some people too darn much money, so they got this feller name of Sam Cimarron to lean on me.”

“And he's your new agent?”

“That's him, except he's really just a goon who works for some of the Tek cartels. Anyway, Cimarron told me to come up here an' wait till you showed up.”

“They knew I was Sweetwater bound?”

“Surely did.”

“What were you supposed to do once you made contact with me?”

“He told me they weren't aimin' to do you any serious harm,” she said. “All I was obliged to do was get chummy with you again—and, yep, they did know you an' me was buddies from way back. My job was to tell Cimarron what you was up to and who all you was callin' on.”

“He didn't mention what they suspected I was doing?”

“Nope, not at all. But I figure it must sure as heck be somethin' they don't want you to be doin'.”

“And you knew I was going to show up at the Robotic Rodeo tonight?”

“Cimarron notified me of that 'bout an hour or more fore you came traipsin' in.”

“Did he mention Al Lavinsky?”

“No, he only said you was comin' and for me to get friendly with you awful fast,” she replied. “Then I was to start pumpin' you for information.”

Gomez looked out across the yellow grass. Far away, two plump women were shooting at a simulated elephant. “Ever hear of an
hombre
named Avram Moyech?”

“Nope.”

Gomez took hold of her hand. “Why'd you decide to confide in me,
chiquita?
”

“When I saw Zalinsky dead,” Marney said. “I figure that if they'd do him in, they'll more than likely kill you, too. A little lyin' an' informin' I don't mind, special if it helps
me
get out of debt. But I sure as heck don't want to see you get bumped off.”

He squeezed her hand, then let go. “Once they realize you're not working for them, they'll add your name to the shit list along with mine.”

“Can't be helped. I'm too fond of you to let them kill you, Gomez.”

He smiled. “I appreciate your attitude,” he told her. “
Bueno
. We've got to con this Cimarron gent, find out where Avram Moyech is holed up. After I've gleaned a few facts from Moyech, you and I will slip, unobtrusively as possible, out of Texas.”

“Cimarron more than likely knows where this Avram fellow is,” she said.

“I'd bet on that,
cara
.”

“Then you have to get together with Cimarron and find out what he knows.”

“An admirable plan,” Gomez observed. “Can you help me get it going?”

“Darn sakes,” Marney said, laughing, “that'll be easy.”

SUSAN WAS SITTING, listlessly, on the bed in her room at the Stolzer establishment. For a while she'd watch, hands folded in her lap, the pale yellow wall opposite. For a while she'd watch the one-way plastiglass ceiling. The night sky overhead was overcast and starless.

Then her eyesight started to blur, her pulse quickened. Pain started blossoming inside her skull and the young woman brought her hands up, pressing her fingertips against her temples. She bent forward, swallowing hard and then murmuring, “I don't want to see anything—nothing—no more.”

But another vision hit her. And inside her head she saw Dan Cardigan.

He was lying, sprawled facedown, on the floor of an apartment.

“That's his place,” she said, knowing that for certain although she'd never been there.

The hairless man was standing over the body, a grin on his awful face and a gun in his hand.

“They've killed Dan,” she gasped, “just the way they killed my brother.”

Then she noticed the gun. “It's a stungun,” she realized.

So Dan was unconscious, not dead.

Susan saw the hairless man bend and pick up Dan.

“They're taking him someplace.”

The big man carried the body toward a doorway.

Susan's body jerked, she began shaking, and the vision shut down and was gone.

She hugged herself, shivering. “Jesus, Jesus—everybody's getting killed or hurt. Anybody who has anything to do with me.”

Susan leaped from the bed and ran to the door. She tried the knob, but of course the door was locked.

She began hitting at the metal door with both fists.

“I have to make a call. Got to warn Molly,” she cried. “Please, please.”

After several minutes a voxbox in the ceiling said, “You must calm down and return to bed, Susie.”

It was Emlyn's voice. Or maybe it was Alyn.

“No, but this is important, Emlyn. One of my friends has been hurt and—”

“This is Alyn, dear. Get back to bed.”

“They may try to hurt Molly, too. You have to let me phone her. Please.”

“You forget, Susie, that you don't have any phone privileges. None at all.”

“This is a goddamn emergency, you asshole!”

“If you don't stop this at once, we'll have to come in there and take measures to quiet you, dear.”

“Open the damned door!” She started hitting at it again.

And after a while they came in and quieted her down.

28

SAM Cimarron pointed his metal forefinger at Marney. “This isn't much of a spot for a meeting,” he said.

“It's got a hell of a lot of privacy,” she pointed out to the large black cyborg.

They were in one of the stables in the Robotic Rodeo complex. Twenty robot horses were lined up in neowood stalls on each side of the big structure, and actual horse odors were being pumped in by the aircirc system. The horses had been deactivated for the night and they each stood still and silent. The lights were set on dim.

Cimarron had just come in by way of the door at the far end of the building and was walking toward where Marney stood in the middle of the neowood plank floor. His metal hand flickered palely in the dim light. “You've made contact with the greaseball?”

“Hey now, there's no need to call Gomez nasty—”

“Tell me what you have to report.” He grasped her wrist with his metal fingers.

“You're the squeezingest feller I have ever—”

“Give me some information,” he urged.

Grimacing, she struggled to get free of him. “Let go of me or I'm not going to be able to talk straight.”

He loosened his grip very slightly, but kept hold of her. “I'm not especially fond of delay.”

“Okay, okay. Gomez is in Sweetwater lookin' for some palooka named Avram Moyech.”

“That we already know.”

“How in the dickens am I supposed to know what you know when you don't confide a darn—
ow
.”

“Less blather, Marney.”

She took a deep breath. “He was aimin' to talk to Al Lavinsky, who works right here at the rodeo,” she continued, exhaling. “But something went wrong and he never got to—”