Tek Net (9 page)

Jake turned off the little machine. “That's part of the bot's recollections of one of the people who contacted Dunkirk to set up Jill's kidnapping.”

“
Dios
.” He gestured at the reader. “That doesn't make sense, Jake.”

“Nevertheless, that sure sounds like a description—going by the background file on him I looked over—of Ernst Reinman. And, Sid, he'd sure be likely to have a poster saying
Support the Starvation Center
gracing his wall.”

“
Sí
, but why in the hell would Jill's current spouse be involved in arranging her abduction?”

“Could be he was tired of her fooling around.”

“Kidnapping is a pretty drastic cure for infidelity.”

“Yeah, and besides, we already know several Tek cartels are tangled up in this.”

“Later, however, I better,” suggested Gomez, “have another chat with the distraught husband.”

From the run-down little park near the old center of the Glendale Sector you had a good view of the Hotel Santa Clara. It was a six-story structure, rising up next to a weedy lot that had once been a complex of tennis courts. Built during the revival of interest in the Spanish style in the early years of the twenty-first century, the Santa Clara had slanting red tile roofs and real wrought-iron bars guarding each and every window.

In the growing twilight Gomez and Jake were crouched behind a stand of real pepper trees. Scattered on the simulated grass were five used Tek chips.

“I don't think much of the public recreation program in this area.” Gomez kicked at a chip.

“Be best to surprise the night clerk,” said Jake. “Then we can ask him where Jill is.”

“Think she could still be inside that
pocilga?
”

“Hard to tell, Sid. The opposition probably already knows we've got Dunkirk,” said Jake. “Anyway, I'll head down the alley on the left of the place and let myself in the back way. Once I locate Marsh Glendenny, I'll let you know on the palmphone. Then you—”

“
Momentito
.” Gomez stood up. “Jill, after all, was once related to me by marriage. I'll make the initial assault.”

Jake made an okay-by-me gesture with his left hand.

Patting his shoulder holster once, Gomez slipped clear of the park, crossed the street and began strolling, as unobtrusively as possible, toward the Santa Clara.

Before he reached it an immense whomping noise sounded inside the old hotel. The whole structure began to break apart, the red tiles sliding away from each other and spinning and clattering down through the night. The wrought-iron bars flew away from the disintegrating building, turning into twists and zigzags of black. The inside of the hotel mixed with the outside as it all went cascading toward the street.

Immense clouds of black sooty smoke were rolling thickly out of the crumbling, tumbling building.

Jake couldn't see Gomez at all.

14

Johnny Trocadero said, “Well, I'll be dipped.”

Yedra Cortez asked, “That's your only comment, runt?”

Trocadero was thin and about a half-inch shy of being five feet tall. His hair, which was a glittering platinum, he wore in bangs. “You know those slurs about my stature upset me, sweetheart.”

“So fire me, shrimp.” She was five six, slender, dark and with her hair cropped to a bristly fuzz.

Chuckling, Trocadero dug out a plazpak of SpeedGum from a side pocket of his sinsilk jacket. “You're indispensable,” he told her. “At least just now.” He shook a caplet of gum into his small palm, popped it into his mouth.

The two of them were in the main dining room of the new nightspot Trocadero was about to open in the San Diego Sector. The decor here was modeled on the forests of India, and the small tables were set out amidst simulated and holographic jungle trees, vines and flowers. Exotic birds perched on high branches and called.

“If I were you, shorty, I'd kick the ass of whoever's responsible for this.” She pointed again at the holographic tiger that was slinking, belly low, across the dining room floor in front of them.

As Trocadero chewed his gum, his eyes grew brighter and his cheeks became pinker. “I only kick ass over something important, darling,” he reminded her.

“But look at this goddamn tiger—and they're all like this,” Yedra said. “It's only a foot long.”

“Darned if it isn't.”

“Well, maybe you didn't know this, but real tigers are about five, six times longer.”

“I was aware of that, darling.” He smiled as the miniature tiger disappeared into the shadows beyond a far row of tables. “We'll have them enlarged to the proper size long before we open next week.”

“You've already told those peckers to fix them twice.”

“They will,” he assured her.

“There's also something wrong with the holographic hippos over in the Africa Grill,” Yedra told him. “They ought to be fatter.”

“We're going to adjust them too.” He shook another caplet of SpeedGum into his hand.

“What'd the doctor tell you about gobbling so much of that crap, dink?”

“He works for me, I don't work for him.” Trocadero chewed for a moment and then stared up at the ceiling. “You got to admit all those simulated stars up there look terrific.”

“There's two Big Dippers.” Yedra didn't bother to glance upward. “I'll tell you another thing that …” There was a very faint humming sound, which seemed to originate inside her head. “Hold on, shrimp, I'm getting an s-mail message.”

Shuddering once, the diminutive Teklord helped himself to more gum. “That would give me the absolute creeps,” he commented. “Having a damned phone implanted inside my conk.”

“It's not a phone, it's a tiny little mail chip.”

He bounced a few times on the balls of his tiny feet. “So what's coming in?”

She made a hush-a-minute motion with her hand. Then she smiled. “The Hotel Santa Clara ceased to exist exactly five and a half minutes ago,” she reported.

“I'll be dipped,” commented the Teklord. “Austin Quadrill is as good as he claims then.” He nodded a few satisfied nods. “Bodes well for what we have in mind for next week.”

“I wish you'd stop using words like ‘bodes.'”

“Was Marshall Glendenny in the joint when it went up?”

“He was,” she replied. “But what's even better news—it's just about certain that a Cosmos op was killed by the explosion.”

Trocadero stopped chewing. “Jake Cardigan?”

“The other one. That
lambioso
, Gomez.”

Trocadero shrugged his narrow little shoulders. “That's okay,” he said, bright eyes going wider. “We'll get him next time.”

The wide curved one-way bedroom window afforded a view of the twisting mountain road far below and the shadowy woodlands. Everything out in the night was tinted a pale silvery blue.

“You're really not paying anything like enough attention to me, professor,” complained the naked young woman who was sitting on the edge of the big oval bed and slowly swinging one leg back and forth.

Jeffrey Monkwood said, without turning away from the window, “You don't have to address me as professor all the time, Annalee.”

Annalee Tarkington shrugged her bare shoulders. “It's exciting to do it, though, professor,” she explained. “Sleeping with one of my professors has been my goal ever since I transferred to UC/Venice.”

“I'm flattered.”

“You should be, I turned down two other profs.”

“Fine,” he said, still watching the dark distant road.

“You're here more for the hideaway aspects of my parents' number three home than you are for the screwing, obviously,” she told him.

“Not many landcars come up this far.”

“Very few people come up to this mountaintop enclave by any means of transportation, professor,” Annalee said, stretching out on her back on the wide bed and locking her arms behind her blonde head. “My parents, for example, haven't spent a night here in over three years.”

“Are you certain your security system is still functioning properly?”

She brought her knees up. “My parents are even more paranoid than you are,” she answered. “This is an extremely secure spot, trust me. Didn't you pay attention to all I had to go through to get us inside?”

He took a few steps away from the window. “I'd better get dressed,” he said, still staring out into the night. “I have to make a vidphone call.” Frowning, he hurried back to the window, pressed his palm against it and looked out and up. “Skycar flying over.”

“They do that now and then.”

“Okay, it's okay. The skycar is going on by.”

She sat up, watching him. “Was this little anticlimactic tussle we just went through about it for the sex stuff tonight, professor?”

“Damn it, Annalee, I've got other things on my mind tonight.”

“You ought to be worrying more about what a poor performance you gave.”

He strode to the bed, took hold of her bare shoulders, shook her. “There are people out there in Greater LA somewhere looking for me—no,
hunting
for me,” he said, voice loud. “They may want to kill me.”

“Don't yell,” she said.

Very gradually, he moved his hands away from her. “We've had a small romance going this semester, Annalee,” he said in a voice touched with impatience and annoyance. “When I suddenly needed a place to hide out for a time, I thought of you. You were helpful enough to bring me here and I appreciate that a good deal.” He paused, moving back from the bed. “But the sex was your idea.”

“It obviously wasn't yours.”

Very quickly, even though he paused twice to look out through the one-way plastiglass, Monkwood dressed. “You told me that your father had a tap proof phone in his den here,” he said to the young woman, who still hadn't bothered to put her clothes back on. “Is it working?”

“Everything works, professor, my parents see to that.”

“I have to try to contact somebody.”

She gestured, unenthusiastically, toward the door.

The only illumination in the large domed living room came from thin litestrips along the floor. Monkwood hurried through the room and into the den.

“Lights,” he said as he crossed the threshold.

The smaller room remained dark.

“Lights,” he repeated, making his way to the vidphone on the desk.

Nothing happened.

“The house only recognizes my parents' voices and mine.” Annalee was leaning, still naked, in the doorway. “Lights, please.”

Three floating globes up near the ceiling blossomed.

She smiled. “See?”

“Thanks,” he said, dropping down into the desk chair. He ran his tongue over his upper lip twice, rubbed his hands together, flexed his shoulders. “It would be better if you didn't listen in on this.”

“You really are in trouble, aren't you? This isn't just some performance to cover up how disappointing you are in—”

“Go away, Annalee. Please.”

She scratched her right buttock, shrugged. “I'll wait in the bedroom.” A skeptical smile touched her pretty young face as she turned away.

He waited a full minute or more before punching out the number.

A pudgy Japanese appeared on the phonescreen, smiling cordially. “You've reached the residence of Ernest Shiboo,” he said. “How may I help you?”

“Is your phone tap-proof, Ernest?”

“Of course, Professor Monkwood.”

“Listen. They've grabbed Jill—you probably already know that. I'm not sure who did the job, but it must have something to do with what Marriner and the overseas Tek cartels are planning.”

“Mr. Shiboo is away just now, but I will convey this message to him,” said the smiling Japanese. “Is there anything else?”

Monkwood stiffened, pulling back from the screen. “What the hell are you—”

“I'm the answering android,” said the replica of Shiboo. “Apparently you mistook me for my employer. Employer and creator, I might add. Shiboo's andies are handcrafted, you know, and noted for—”

“Skip the commercial,” cut in the angry professor. “Where the hell is Shiboo, the real Shiboo?”

“He's away at the moment. However, any message—”

“Away where? I have to talk to the man.”

The android kept on smiling. “Actually, Mr. Shiboo is on vacation.”

“Where'd he go?”

Shaking his head, the android said, “I don't know the location, I only know he won't be back in the Greater Los Angeles area for—”

“What about his companion—Herky?”

“Oh, I imagine he's on vacation, too. He and Mr. Shiboo are inseparable, you know.”

“Christ,” muttered Monkwood. “They've probably got him already.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing, never mind.”

“I'll tell Mr. Shiboo you phoned—the moment he checks in with me,” promised the simulacrum. “Where can he reach you, Professor Monkwood?”

Monkwood hung up, left the chair, headed into the dim-lit living room. “I'm okay, I'm all right,” he told himself in a whisper that didn't convey conviction. “They don't know where I am.”

From the bedroom Annalee all at once screamed.

15

Gomez was stretched out on a narrow white table.

Jake eyed him. “So how do you feel?”

“Like
mierda
,” spoke his partner.

Gomez' clothes were ragged, smudged with dirt and soot. There were several plaskin bandages on his battered face, and his moustache was singed.

“That's a good sign.”

Gomez looked up at the low ceiling of the parked medvan. “That was some explosion,
amigo
. It hit me like …
Chihuahua!
” He sat up on the exam table, just now remembering something. “Jill was in that goddamned hotel. Have they found her, Jake?”