"No reason."
We sipped in silence for a couple of minutes before I decided to try her with another question.
"How long have we known each other, Alice?"
"Coupla years, maybe three – "
"So you've known me all the time I've been a private detective?" I tried to make it sound casual.
"You're a private eye this week, are you? Last week you were a hot shot journalist, and the week before that you were a bounty hunter – "
"This week I'm private detective."
"Uh-huh. What are you investigating?"
"I don't know yet."
She nodded, a sort of 'whatever you say' nod. "There were a couple of people here looking for you last night. Friends of Raoul's – " She let the sentence hang ominously, as if it should mean something.
"Oh, yeah?" I said.
I didn't think this was a good time to show my hand, particularly when I couldn't remember what any of the cards were called. "Well, if Raoul comes in himself, let me know."
She looked at me like I was licking my smallpox sores. "That's not funny, Stevie." She seemed upset.
"You're behaving like he's dead, or something," I said, watching for a reaction.
"Well, isn't he?" She asked, her eyes filling up with tears. "It was him they found, wasn't it?"
"They don't know?"
"They still haven't found his head."
"And you think it was me that killed him?" I asked.
"Everyone else seems to think so," she said.
"Do you think I killed Raoul?" I asked.
She wouldn't look at me. I took hold of her chin and turned her head to face me.
"Do you, Alice?"
"You'd better go," was all she said.
I stepped out into the street. There was a sudden blaze of headlights and a screech of tyres. I jumped behind a parked Oldsmobile as the machine guns opened fire.
"I didn't kill him!" I shouted after the car. At least, I don't think I did.
Everyone else thought I did. It wasn't safe to be out on the streets. I ducked into the first alley I came to, intending to stay out of sight until I figured out what to do next. I knew I had to find out what had really happened to Raoul – whoever Raoul was – but I didn't know how. Not yet.
"Hello, Stevie." A man stepped out of the shadows, blocking the opposite end of the alley: he looked like George Raft, only tougher.
I turned and looked back the way I'd come: a black police sedan was turning into the alley. I guess the cops thought I'd killed Raoul too.
George walked towards me: he had a revolver in his hand. "Get in the car, Stevie."
The driver of the police car leaned back over his seat and opened the rear door: the car was a 1948 Tucker, and as the rear doors opened backwards, it effectively blocked the alley. The driver was Elisha Cook, Jr. "Hello, Stevie," he said.
I got into the police car, and George got in beside me. He poked the gun in my ribs.
"Tell us where you hid Raoul's head, Stevie," George said, closing the car door.
The car moved off, nosing out of the alley.
"I didn't kill him," I said.
"If you didn't kill him," Elisha said, looking at me in the rear-view mirror. "Then he must still be alive."
He turned the car left and pulled out into a street I didn't recognise. But then, I didn't recognise any of them.
"That's right," I said, suddenly sure it was true. "Raoul is still alive."
Elisha glanced into the mirror, frowning.
"Then take us to him," George said, close to my ear.
"I don't know where he is right now," I said.
"Sure you do," Elisha said. "He's lying on an autopsy table waiting for his head to turn up."
"No, he's not. He's alive. But he's hiding. Turn left here," I said, something about the street ahead striking me as familiar. "Take the second right, then the first left after the 'phone box."
Elisha glanced questioningly at George.
"Do it," George said.
We turned left after the telephone box and found ourselves heading towards The Oasis.
"What have I done?" I whispered. I turned to George, who was smiling, only now he was Nathan.
Through the open doors of The Oasis I could hear piano music and SAM singing something about being betrayed by the one he loved.
"That's the robot singing, isn't it?" Nathan asked. He smiled.
Chapter Eighteen
"I can't believe you actually own a robot," Nathan said. We were headed back towards The Oasis, but I wasn't sure whether we were in the BMW or the Tucker.
"People change," I muttered. I suppose, given my previous anti-robot activities, Nathan had a point.
"It was a stroke of genius, Raoul using your robot," Nathan said. "I would never have guessed. I suppose the old man knew that."
When we touched down in the street outside The Oasis, a Network IX truck was just pulling away from the kerb, and Kareem was helping the last of the evening's patrons into waiting taxis: I felt like I'd been away for days.
Kareem let us into the restaurant and locked the door behind us: he didn't see Nathan's gun until we were inside.
"What is this?" He asked. "Nathan?"
"We've come for Raoul Zacharias' muscle fibre design data," I said carefully. "Raoul hid it inside my robot, SAM, before he was attacked."
"I don't understand," Kareem said.
"Nathan is working for Talos Industries," I said. "They're paying him to steal the muscle fibre design."
"Is this true, Nathan?" Kareem asked.
"I am working for Talos Industries," Nathan admitted. "But they aren't paying me to steal the data." He turned towards me. "I'm sorry, I thought you knew: we already have the design. We downloaded everything from Raoul's computer's months ago, and have had a data-link syphoning off his latest work ever since. We have everything."
"Then why this? Why the attack on Raoul?" Kareem asked.
"They're just trying to make sure that no one else gets to use the design," I said. "They wanted Raoul dead, and all evidence of his work destroyed, then they could pass off his work as their own invention, and no one could prove otherwise. Unfortunately for them, Raoul refused to die, and he hid a copy of his data in SAM so I could use it to challenge Talos if anything did happen to him."
"But why would you betray your friends?" Kareem asked.
Nathan shrugged. "People change," he said. "Maybe I just grew tired of waiting for the old man to make my new arm. Raoul was a dreamer, without corporate backing he would never have got his prosthetics project off the ground."
"Raoul always did what he thought was right," I said. "He would have done anything to help you. Your arm would have been the first prosthetic he built."
"That's very touching," Nathan said. He put down the gun and pulled off his sweatshirt: he was wearing a Talos Industries tee-shirt, a less-than-subtle indication of his new allegiance. He spread his arms wide, palms forward. "What do you think?"
I had to admit, he was looking good: he'd obviously been working out, built up some pretty impressive muscles, and he now had quite a healthy tan. But the least obvious change was the most telling: his left and right arms were identical, looking for all the world like they were both flesh and blood. He flexed his arm muscles and wiggled his fingers. When he grinned, there was a glimpse of the old Nathan, the kid I'd known, but it was quickly gone.
"If you like the arm," Nathan said. "You'll love the whole robot." He snapped his prosthetic fingers.
A superhuman figure moved out of the shadows of the kitchen doorway and crossed the restaurant. The robot stood a little over seven feet tall, a stainless steel and carbon fibre skeleton moved by blood-red muscle clusters created from Raoul's fibre. It was something from a Gothic science fiction nightmare, a flayed man-machine. Its blank eyes reflected an oily blueish light. Terrible, but somehow beautiful.
"What do you think of our prototype?" Nathan asked.
"It is a monster!" Karee
m hissed.
"This is Jack the Wrecker?" I said. "You sent this out to destroy all the robots that Raoul had repaired recently, because you thought he had hidden back-up copies of his data inside one of them."
"If we'd known about your robot," Nathan said. "We wouldn't have wasted our time. But how could we have known about your change of heart? Stevie Houston: robot lover."
"What happened to you?" I asked.
"I grew up," Nathan said.
"I hope the arm was worth the price," I said. "You sold your soul to a company."
Nathan shook his head. "You still don't understand, do you?" He said. "You're an outsider because you wanted to be: you had a choice. The companies didn't want me, I had nothing to offer them. Until now."
"You bought your way into Talos Industries," I said.
"One of the benefits of the free market," Nathan said. He turned to the robot. "Retrieve the data store from the piano player."
Nathan put his arm around my shoulders and led me towards the stage; I didn't know whether it was his real arm or the prosthetic, it felt warm through my shirt.
I watched numbly as the Ripper tore SAM apart. By the time he was done, SAM looked like he'd been massaged with a baseball bat, and his guts had been pulled out and spread around him. I had to blink back tears.
"Not so long ago, you'd have been happy to see that happen," Nathan said, moving away from me to survey his monster's handiwork.
"Yeah, well, I grew up," I muttered.
"It's a painful experience, isn't it?" Nathan said.
Kareem put his arm around me in a fatherly gesture. "I'm sorry, Stevie," he said, and slipped Nathan's gun into my hand: he'd picked it up off the table as we moved towards the stage.
I raised the gun and fired. The explosive charge took Nathan's arm off to the shoulder.
The robot moved forward quickly, wrenching the gun from my hand, almost taking my index finger with it.
Nathan was shocked, angry, but fought to remain cool. "I'm glad you remembered which was the fake one," he said. He took the gun from the robot.
"I didn't." I watched the whisps of smoke rising from his stump.
"Is this it, the bad guys win? It isn't supposed to end like this," Kareem said.
"This isn't the movies," Nathan said.
"This isn't the end," I said for the benefit of our audience.
"Admit defeat," Nathan said. "It's over."
"We'll see," I said. "Did you get all that?" I asked over Nathan's shoulder.
Milo Bryce stepped out of the shadows on the stairs and nodded. Two remote cameras bobbed towards him, they'd been filming our little confrontation from different angles. "We had a little problem with the light levels to begin with, but the outside unit managed to clean that up as it was broadcast: I got a live feed to one of the Network IX trucks, they were still in the neighbourhood. They're running it as an exclusive now; it'll be syndicated early tomorrow morning."
"The bad guys didn't win?" Kareem asked.
"Nobody won," I said. I was staring at SAM's mangled remains.
"Do you think Talos Industries will let a little bad publicity stop them?" Nathan sneered. "I think you're overestimating the influence of the media."
"We'll see," I said.
"I'm glad you were here to capture this on film," Nathan said to Milo Bryce. "This is a key moment in the history of robotics. And Stevie was right, this isn't the end: it's only the beginning. Come on, I want the two of you to be there to witness the moment when I hand Raoul's data over to the Chairman of Talos Industries, I want you to record that moment too."
Nathan was waving a gun at us, so we could hardly refuse. We bid goodnight to Kareem, who'd witnessed enough historic moments for one night, and went out to the waiting Talos Industries car which had, presumably, delivered Jack the Robot Killer earlier.
The car touched down on the roof of Talos Tower, where we were met by a heavily armed escort and a smartly suited flunky, who told us proudly that he was to "deliver us directly to the Chairman's office." Milo Bryce's remote cameras were taking all of it in and relaying it to another Network IX truck which was parked in the street below.
"Chairman Anstrom," Nathan said as we entered the office. "I have the final – " His voice trailed off as the 'chairman' turned to face us.
The man's face was thin and pale, sort of pointed, and his hair was beginning to recede. He looked how you'd imagine a young Sherlock Holmes to look. He was younger than I'd expect someone of his position to look. "I'm afraid Chairman Anstrom is no longer with the company, he left us rather suddenly." He gestured towards a broken window, and the curtains beside it billowed almost on cue. It was thirty stories to the ground below.
Nathan looked from the window to the man.
"I am Jonathan Riordan," the man said. "I shall be caretaker-manager here until this unfortunate business is concluded. I am employed by Schroeder-Youngmay, we are Talos Industries' parent company, and are taking over the running of the company while certain... irregularities are investigated."
"I don't understand," Nathan said.
"Mr. Bryce's news report brought to our attention some very worrying information about ex-Chairman Anstrom's activities," Riordan said.
He was performing for the cameras, of course, trying to give the impression that he was being entirely honest, that things had gone too far for smoke screens to be used to make things better. Their PR machine was currently being hauled out of bed and set to work in its pajamas to try and limit the damage Milo Bryce's report from The Oasis had done. Nathan was probably right, if they could have ridden out the storm of bad publicity, they would have done: the potential profits from the stolen muscle fibre design would have made the short-term losses worthwhile. But investors tend not to take a long-term view, and Talos Industries' stock had almost certainly plummeted on the Eastern markets within an hour of the report being broadcast, and sales of Talos-branded consumables was probably falling too. The bean counters would be throwing dicky fits.
There was a knock at the door and two uniformed and armed police officers appeared, looking mean and dangerous. I was quite startled when one of them winked at me: it was Beth Civardi.
"The police are here to place you under arrest," Riordan said to Nathan. "Please don't attempt to resist them, or they will kill you."
Nathan was disarmed – no pun intended – and led away.
"Now, can I get either of you gentlemen some tea?" Riordan asked. Milo and I shook our heads.
"We're not here for a tea party," I said.
"No." Riordan sighed. "You must understand that Talos Industries is only a small part of Schroeder-Youngmay's business interests, and as such operates with a fair degree of autonomy; we did not keep as close an eye on the activities of its Chairman as perhaps we ought. You understand what I am saying?"
"You're saying that you deny all knowledge and all responsibility, and blame everything on the recently, and conveniently deceased Talos chairman," Bryce said.
Riordan winced, his future with Schroeder-Youngmay depended on how well he handled this current interview. He was probably not flavour of the month anyway, given that he'd landed this assignment. "Crudely but concisely put. Of course, as soon as we did become aware of Anstrom's activities, we took swift action to deal with the situation."
"As soon as news of Talos Industries' theft of Raoul Zacharias' artificial muscle fibre was broadcast, you panicked and began a damage-limitation exercise to appease the shareholders," Bryce said. He was pretty adept at translating corporatese.
Riordan again looked uncomfortable. "We shall, of course, be returning all of the data which was obtained through inappropriate processes, and will also be seeking to make appropriate recompense for any damage caused.
"In all likelihood, I shall be overseeing the end of Talos Industries' robotics programme, and quite possibly the liquidation of the company as a whole."
I wondered what Riordan had done to deserve such a wonderful career opportunity.
"Mechanical robots won't be entirely superseded by machines based on the new muscle fibre for some time yet, and we shall continue to manufacture them, but not under the Talos brand name," Riordan said: it sounded like he was quoting from one of the press releases his company was currently producing at a rate of knots:
Schroeder-Youngmay freely admits that grave miscalculations were made by the former Chairman of Talos Industries, Mr. Scapegoat. It is our intention to carry out a full and objective inquiry, after which we shall seek to make amends for any wrongs which have been perpetrated in the name of the company. In the meantime, we shall be co-operating fully with the police investigation into the activities of the individuals responsible.
Throughout the day, 'Public Relations Executives' would valiantly avoid questions which used words like fraud and theft and attempted murder, using such stock phrases as 'it would be inappropriate for us to comment on such accusations while a criminal investigation is underway.' The media would be wanting blood, and Schroeder-Youngmay was going to have to feed Talos Industries to the sharks, in a carefully orchestrated feeding frenzy, of course.
"What will happen to Nathan?" I asked.
The question seemed to surprise Riordan: he was obviously too used to thinking in terms of 'the company' to give much thought to the fate of individuals. "It will be up to the authorities to determine his fate when they have completed their investigation," he said. Basically, he had no idea.
There was a sudden dull boom which shook the building. Alarms sounded somewhere below us, and then the 'phone rang on Riordan's desk.
"Riordan," he said. The colour drained from his face as he listened, and he dropped into his chair. He hung up the 'phone without speaking again.
Milo Bryce was at the window peering down, and had one of his remote cameras out there recording the scene. The other bobbed in front of Riordan.
"There has been an explosion in the street below," Riordan said. "The police car which was carrying Nathan Rhodes and the two police officers has been destroyed. There was only one survivor, who is badly injured."
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