by Ron Goulart
“There was even more red tape than I’d anticipated.” Hildy, clad in a one-piece neosilk flysuit, was fastening her safety gear.
“Such as?”
“Well, for one thing Secretary Strump tried to drop the price down to $250,000 because—”
“That tight-fisted bastard. Why?”
“Because as an alleged sex killer you won’t be as effective at investigating as—”
“Who says sex killers don’t make good detectives? The whole proud tradition of private investigation rests—”
“Strump also thinks you and I won’t be as good a team henceforth, because I’m going to be peeved about your being in bed with that zoftig blonde who—”
“Was she?” He punched out a fly pattern on the sleek sewdoleather dash.
“Which?”
“Blonde. I don’t remember anything about her.”
“Not even why she was in bed with you wearing nothing save a dinky pair of lace-trimmed plaz glopanties?”
While their skycar rose silently up through the bleak, grey afternoon, Jake thought. “Nope,” he said. “Funny, but I don’t even remember what she looked like when she pixed us.”
“Not us but you. Palsy Hatchbacker insisted on speaking exclusively to you, Jake.”
He shook his head. “When we get to Cleveland I can have Skullpopper—”
“Is that where we’re heading?”
“Since it’s long past two and my appointment’s at six, we—”
“It isn’t, though. Skullpopper can’t take you until tomorrow morning at ten,” explained Hildy. “Personally I think you ought to turn yourself over to a legit braindredger who—”
“Read my release papers again, love,” he said, punching out a new pattern on the controls. “I have one week to clear myself. Then it’s back to this corn-belt bedlam. Why the hell can’t he see me tonight? Did you offer him a double fee?”
“Triple. But he’s tied up completely with a Banx executive who can’t remember where he put his hand.” Hildy gazed down at the snow-spattered agridomes they were zooming over.
“Guy wants to know whether he’s been dipping into the till or patting the wrong vice-president’s wife’s behind?”
“Nope, he’s a cyborg and the main vault in his Banx branch opens only to his ten fingerprints. With the hand missing he can’t—”
“Speaking of money. You did, didn’t you, finally convince Strump to pay us the whole $500,000?”
Hildy said, “More or less. The important thing was to get you out of that awful mechanized hoosegow before they did you serious—”
“More or less?”
“Now don’t bellow and bounce, okay? I know when we formed Odd Jobs, Inc. some years back, we vowed never to compromise on fees. But …” She reached over, touched his hand. “I wanted you free fast.”
“Okay, I understand.” His smile was only partially bleak. “What are we getting?”
“$250,000 in cash,” Hildy told him, “and that’s in front. It’s already in our Banx account, I checked before teleporting out here to the Heartland.”
“And the rest in what? They’re not still trying to unload those Nixon half dollars or those Great American Men of Letters Harlan Ellison two-bit stamps that came out with the glue tasting like sour chicken noodle soup? You didn’t tell him they could pay us in—”
“Actually, Jake, we might even make more this way,” his beautiful wife said. “Remember last year when the presidents had a brainstorm about raising money so not so many old folks would have to go live in Social Security Reservations? The—”
“That’s another thing that is so nifty about working for the United States Government these days,” he said. “What other country has a pair of Siamese twins for President? Ike and Mike Zaboly. There are two names worthy of being enshrined with George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas—”
“I’d list them on the same rung with Harry Truman, Warren Harding and Ronald Reagan,” she said, folding her arms beneath her breasts. “Besides, it isn’t sporting to make fun of the handicapped.”
“Handicapped? Mike and Dee Zaboly are barely Siamese twins at all,” Jake asserted. “Attached at the elbow. Their staying together is simply an affectation.”
“I understand they only have one funny bone between them and so an operation might—”
“Aha!” he exclaimed. “I see what’s coming.”
“You gave me your word you wouldn’t bellow and scream when—”
“It is Flago!”
After a few tense seconds Hildy admitted, “Well, yes.”
“You let those identical oafs pay us off in Flago national lottery tickets.”
“They have an awful lot of them left over, Jake, since the initial public response hasn’t been as—”
“I’ll tell you what my initial response is. Ike and Mike Zaboly, along with Secretary of Security Strump and his entire staff can stuff those Flago ducats up—”
“That’ll take you one heck of a long time, since there are 250,000 of the damn things.”
“Holy moses, Hildy. Hasn’t any of my savvy rubbed off on you?” he said, bouncing on his skycar seat. “When we do work for the government, any government, we get cash money. No stamps or bonds or lottery tickets or free passes on the space shuttle or—”
“Well, screw you, Jake Pace.” She was angry. “Next time you commit a brutal sex crime I’ll let you rot.”
“Rot? Rotting I could handle,” he said. “But when you are convicted of a sex crime in this part of the country they rehabilitate you. Rehabilitation in the Heartland means being taken out of the sexual competition permanently. Not only that, they also fix you so you don’t even think about ladies or gents or whatever the opposite sex may be for you. They even fix your brain so you start having doubts about the theory of evolution.”
Hildy patted his hand. “I wouldn’t want you not to be able to think about Darwin once in a while,” she said. “You have so little fun in life as it is. If it weren’t for going to bed with blonde sopranos behind my back every so often you’d—”
“Ho! I see it all now. You really believe what that Piltdown Man of the Federal Police Agency believes. You think I—”
“The Piltdown Man wasn’t a true primitive, he was a fake.”
“So’s Bullet Benton. The point is, Hildy, you truly believe I did fool around with that unfortunate girl.”
“You were in bed with her, Jake. Bullet showed me pictures of the whole shabby scene and I—”
“What pictures?”
“Police vidcam footage. That was the second or third time I pixed the bastard, after one of our Odd Jobs, Inc. stringers in Chi-2 called to alert me to the fact you’d been … been discovered in a compromising position.”
Jake asked, “Did you copy ’em?”
“Of course, sure.” Hildy leaned, pushed a button on her side of the dash.
A small panel slid aside, revealing a tray-size viewscreen.
“Bullet only showed me about sixty seconds of what they got.” She touched a crimson button.
There on the screen was Jake, naked, spreadeagled on a brass bed. He did have something of a smirk on his face. Sprawled next to him was a dead girl. Blonde, in her middle twenties, the fringed bed cover touching her only from the knees down.
“Jesus,” said Jake, grimacing.
Hildy touched another button. The picture froze, the girl’s naked body came closer. “Kilgun used at close range.”
“How long had she been dead when they found us?”
“Roughly an hour.”
“How’d the FPA know where to look?” He was hunching forward, studying the dead girl’s face.
“Palsy Hatchbacker was supposed to go to dinner with some of the Girl Commandos after the final show,” said his wife. “An Xmas party for the top singers in the bunch. When she didn’t show, a couple of them came back to search for her. They’re the ones who found you two down in the prop room and screamed for the Feds.”
&nbs
p; “And Bullet Benton just happened to be in Chicago?”
“I’m looking into that.”
“Let me see the full picture again, but keep it frozen.”
She complied. “You don’t remember any of this?”
“Not a damn … there it is!” He tapped the screen, grinning.
On a patch of yellow floor between two of the prop beds, a fourposter and a double bunk, lay a crumpled flower.
“Does that mean something?” Hildy arranged for a closeup of the pink and white flower.
Jake scratched at his temple. “That’s a real carnation, not made of plaz,” he said. “But a hole’s been drilled through its center. Yep, the mindwipe gas was sprayed on me through that blossom.”
“Who was wearing it at the time?”
His thoughtful frown deepened. “It’s a smaller carnation than you usually see on lapels.”
“Looks to be a Chiisai carnation, a genetic mutant developed in Tokyo-3 at the turn of the century. Some ladies wear them in their hair, others use ’em to decorate their—”
“Nope, I’m near certain it was worn on a lapel. Who would wear such a dinky flower?”
“A dinky person.”
“A midget …” Jake shook his head, exasperated. “Damn, I get a fleeting memory of a diminutive little guy, but I can’t hold onto the picture.”
“Really a midget?”
“Yeah. No. Not exactly.”
Hildy asked, “Want to see the whole tape again?”
“Later on, when we get home to Connecticut,” he said. “Did you bring a copy of the Hatchbacker girl’s call?”
“Sure.” She depressed two more buttons.
The dead girl was alive again, smiling fetchingly out at them. She was wearing a seethru plaz tunic of military cut. “… I absolutely have to talk to Mister Pace,” she was saying. “It’s not that I don’t absolutely trust and respect you, Mrs. Pace, but …” Palsy hesitated, glanced back over her shoulder.
“Hold it,” said Jake. “She’s in her dressing room, isn’t she?”
“Yes, the top Girl Commandos get private dressing rooms with pixphone alcoves.”
“Somebody opened the door in her dressing room while she was asking you for me.”
Hildy brought a blowup of the narrowly open door to the dash screen. “Bit fuzzy and lacking in definition.”
“Funny place for a foot.” His forefinger ticked at the screen. “See it? Dangling there about … what? … three feet from the floor.”
After fiddling with buttons and dials, Hildy said, “Best I can do, Jake. All we can see is that brown shoe and a tiny bit of checkered trouser leg. Small shoe, could be somebody was holding your midget up.”
“Yep, doubt it’s a babe in arms. Fellow with a foot that little might go in for dwarf carnations,” he muttered. “It could be …” He snapped his fingers.
Hildy smiled hopefully. “You’ve remembered something else?”
“Nope,” he admitted. “Thought maybe some enthusiastic finger-snapping would job my noggin.”
“At least we know someone was listening in on Palsy’s call.”
“Two someones. The little gent and whoever was toting him.”
“Shall I roll the rest of this?”
Jake shook his head. “Let’s save it until we’re home,” he decided, leaning back. “Right now you better pix Secretary Strump and suggest he rush teleport us everything he’s got on the Big Bang killings.”
“Already did that,” she said. “Stuff’ll be waiting at home.”
Jake watched her pretty profile for a moment. “Damned if you aren’t nearly as efficient as I am.” He leaned, kissed her.
“At the very least,” she agreed a few seconds later, giving him an affectionate punch in the ribs.
CHAPTER 3
LET’S, BEFORE WE PROCEED any farther, fill ourselves in on what the Big Bang Murders are. You probably heard something about them via SatNews or on your vidwall. Could be you even read about them in your homeslot faxpaper, unless you live in a sector where the printed and faxed word is overseen by the Nonviolent Majority.
At any rate, the first death occurred six weeks and a day ago in the newest South American country, Brasil-Dos. On a calm, sultry November afternoon Generalissimo Francisco Feminino blew up. Along with him went his nearly new palace, his entire staff, his second wife as well as his latest mistress and all the foliage and wild life that had covered a collar of land exactly twenty feet wide all around the palace. When the Policia Segreda’s demolition experts let out the news that they could find absolutely no trace of what it was that had caused the despot to explode, DC assumed the bomb experts were simply too inept to sift the debris properly.
Five days later, however, Sir Fergus O’Breen, Prime Minister of Free Ireland, as well as his stately home in Downpatrick and a goodly batch of his associates and relations, were blown to smithereens. The following Tuesday General Mjomba Bata Mzinga, a strongman ruler of Black Africa—22, exploded along with his landcar and bodyguards, while en route to the opening festivities of the Kool Nobac Cigarets International Boogie Woogie Festival. By the second week in December five internationally prominent business tycoons, including Otto Zeppelin, inventor of the fantastically popular digital cuckoo clock, had also exploded, taking their mansions, chalets, wives, lovers and trusted staff members with them into oblivion.
In not one of these cases has a single investigator, not even crackerjack agents from five of the United States’ top intelligence and espionage agencies, been able to find even a trace of a clue as to what is causing the explosions. The assassin, or group of assassins, seem able to destroy the intended targets completely without harming anything beyond the environs of the target area. Considerable unease has spread through the civilized world, fear has touched both throne rooms and boardrooms. The media, in places where it is not curtailed or controlled, has long since taken to calling these inexplicable deeds the Big Bang Murders.
Over fifteen agents worldwide, and that figure includes several top men from various United States agencies, have met their deaths while investigating the Big Bang assassinations. Interestingly enough, none of the agents was killed by an explosion.
CHAPTER 4
RAUCOUS HONKYTONK PIANO, SLIGHTLY off key, came clattering across the twilight grounds of their secured estate in the Redding Ridge Sector.
“Is my sound system on the fritz?” Jake popped out of the freshly landed skycar and started jogging across the docking strip toward their sprawling glaz and neowood home. A gentle snow was flickering down, dabbing at the plaz dome that sheltered the landing area.
“Hold on,” suggested his wife as she caught up with him and tugged at his sleeve. “It’s probably only Pilgrim.”
Jake slowed, left eye narrowing. “That drunken shyster broke through our security setup and is whomping on my antique upright?”
“I gave him a temporary electrokey,” explained Hildy. “At the time I wasn’t certain I could get you clear of the pokey, so—”
“He’s got a lousy left hand.” Jake used his own electrokey to open the ground level door. “Sounds like a landtruck trying to molest an elephant.”
“For a lawyer, he’s not all that bad,” she remarked, following her husband up the ramp to the living room area.
“Oh, I ain’t the gene splicer or the gene splicer’s son,” a wine-blurred voice was singing loudly just above them. “But I can get into your jeans before the gene splicer comes!”
Jake reached their living room first. Hands on narrow hips, he stood on the threshold scowling.
A small red-haired man of forty-eight, his perspiring face rich with bright splotchy freckles, was energetically attacking the keyboard of Jake’s white upright piano. Tilted at a rakish angle on his shaggy head was a derby borrowed from Jake’s large collection of vintage headgear. “Oh, I ain’t the microbiologist or the microbiologist’s son,” bawled John J. Pilgrim. “But I can slip you a nice little thing till the microbiologist comes.” Play
ing with only his right hand for a few bars, the speckled attorney fished a plaz bottle of wine out of a pocket of his rumpled green blazer.
“Unk.” Jake shuddered. “I never thought I’d see anyone guzzling Chateau Discount Wine under my roof.”
“Oh, I ain’t the cosmonaut or the cosmonaut’s son … have you considered pleading insanity, Pace?”
“Hildy’s the one for a plea like that. Hiring you is ample proof of total goofiness and—”
“Actually,” said the sozzled little lawyer, “I don’t think they’ll ever bring you to trial. Too bad in a way, because I’m at my best in a courtroom setting.”
“I thought barrooms were more—”
“Listen here, Pace, how’d you like a sock in the kisser?” Pilgrim jumped up off the piano bench, stepped on a discarded bowler hat and fell flat on his face upon the buff thermocarpet.
“You nitwit, you nearly crushed my authenticated Fats Waller derby.” Jake sprinted across the wide room, ignored the sprawled attorney and scooped up the caved-in hat.
“Fear not,” said Pilgrim as he erected himself, in swaying stages, up from the floor. “I happen to be wearing the Waller.”
“No, you dimwit, that’s the authenticated Willie The Lion Smith hat. Didn’t you look at the nameplates when you swiped—”
“Swipe is a nasty word, Pace. Don’t go slandering my good name or—”
“Your name’s about as good as—”
“Fellas,” cautioned Hildy, stepping gracefully between them. “We’re all on the same side, remember?”
Jake snorted. “What side is that?”
“Well, we all fight for truth and justice along—”
“I’m also a champion of the underdog,” Pilgrim took a gurgling sip of his wine.
“Chateau Discount Muscatel With Dr. Pepper Added?” Jake had read the gaudy label, then turned his back on his wife and the weaving Pilgrim.
“The muscatel with Dr. Brown’s Cola added has a somewhat more delicate bouquet,” said John J. Pilgrim. “Yet for my sensitive palate this particular vintage is—”