Tek Kill Read online

  “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.

  When he was flat out on his back, he went swiftly elbowing across the floorboards.

  “’Ere now, none of that!” One of the androids swung his lazgun around and fired.

  The crackling beam ate a deep blackish rut in the neowood.

  By that time Gomez was scooting under the worktable.

  He popped to his feet, kicked out, and toppled the table.

  The defunct android that had been reclining there hit the floor, spewing inner workings, and went rolling and rattling toward the charging butlers.

  Diving to the floor again, but drawing out his stungun as he dropped, Gomez fired.

  “Blimey!” exclaimed one of the androids when the beam of the stunner hit him full in his broad chest and disabled him.

  He fell floorward and hit with an impressive hollow thunk.

  The surviving butler tried a lazgun shot at Gomez, but only succeeded in slicing the table clean in half.

  Gomez jumped upright once again and shot at the second would-be assailant.

  The stunbeam went wide, hitting a plump cook android and knocking her off her perch.

  Gomez’s second shot did better, and the andy butler dropped his lazgun and then followed it to the floor.

  Leaping over the sundered table, Gomez caught Pegler by the collar and yanked him out of the cringing crouch he had assumed. “Now, perrito, I’d be most grateful if you’d inform me, at no charge, who hired you to do me in?”

  The shivering informant sneezed. “You really shouldn’t get so close to me, Sidney, you’re liable to catch my—”

  “Who?”

  “How’s that?”

  “Who arranged to have those mechanical louts assassinate me?”

  Sniffling, Pegler replied, “It was, I swear, as big a surprise to me as it must have been to you when those lads came to life. I assumed they were dormant and—”

  “Apparently, tonto, you are unfamiliar with the fabled Gomez intelligence.” The angry detective commenced shaking the other man some. “Sí, each and every member of the Gomez clan is nowhere near stupid enough to believe this kind of bunk. Por favor, before I lose the saintly patience I am exhibiting at the moment, give me the truth.” He shook the sniffling Pegler several more times.

  “I swear I have absolutely no—”

  “Usually, pendejo, I refrain from using a lazgun,” said Gomez quietly and evenly. “However, I notice that there are two handsome such weapons lying about your establishment, dropped by the cholos you rigged to do me in. If you wouldn’t like to have your nasal passages cleaned out by a lazbeam, now’s the time to confide.”

  “I don’t know who they were, truly.”

&nb
sp; “Details, por favor.”

  “There was a vidphone call about midday, but the screen stayed blank and the voice was filtered.” Pausing to sneeze, the informant continued. “I was instructed to fix a couple of my androids to throw a scare into you. In fact, Sidney, they suggested I rig four, but, being a pal of yours, I only—”

  “They knew I was going to call on you, huh? But I didn’t contact you in advance.”

  “My impression, for what it’s worth, is that they contacted anybody who has knowledge about people who are expert at sec-system modifications.”

  “That’s muy interesting, their knowing what I was going to be digging into today,” reflected Gomez, letting the ailing informant go.

  “I’d be extremely careful, Sidney, if you’re planning to call on any of my colleagues for further info.”

  Stepping back, Gomez scrutinized the man. “Were they Tek hoods, Pegler?”

  “I tell you, I don’t know who they were. This voice offered me a fee—and, Sidney, he threatened to do me considerable harm if I didn’t go along with it,” said Pegler. “The andies, in spite of what you might think, weren’t fixed to kill you. Only to scare you off.”

  “Oh, sí, I believe that,” he said. “Scare me off what, did they tell you that?”

  Pegler shook his head and then sneezed twice more. “Whatever you’re working on. That was the message.”

  “I think it would be beneficial if you remained quiet and uncommunicative for the remainder of today.”

  “I will, Sidney. I’ll close up shop and go to the beach down at—”

  “No, you’ll simply take a long nap.” Pointing the stungun at him, Gomez squeezed the trigger.

  UP NEAR the high, curved ceiling of the immense AdVillage reception area a huge six-foot-tall green plazbottle of Bliss Kola tilted exactly every twenty-one seconds to send a foamy stream of brownish liquid cascading down fifteen feet to splash into the wide oval fountain at the center of the mosaic tile floor. Each projected tile represented a product label, and the hundreds of them made for a bright, gaudy spread.

  Jake was sitting in one of the seven Lucite chairs in the row to the left of the boomerang-shaped reception desk. The six others sharing the bank of seats were all clad in medical garb, doctor smocks and nurse uniforms.