by Ron Goulart
“In four I won’t have time for the eyebrow business,” Jake told him.
“It’s a brilliant bit,” said Tappenzee, “but we’re in danger of running too long on this and the directors are bitching, Jake. So when you actually do it for the cameras, just flap your arms and flop over. If you could scrunch it into three seconds, boy, that would be even nicer.”
“She could jus? say she shot me offstage and we don’t have to—”
“We love your acting, Jake. Vidsat drama lost a real talent when you became an op,” said Ganpat.
“We’ve got the darn serpent ring offer and a secret message to fit in today.”
“This’ll make my death sort of trivial,” Jake explained. “Now if I had, say, a full ten seconds to expire in I—”
“Oh, gosh, don’t talk like that. Ten secs would ruin us.”
Tappenzee wiped his youthful face with a plyochief and frowned out at the brothel set. “Leroy’s taking a heck of a long time tying Lena up with her garter belt. We’re going to lose time.”
“He took way too long kissing Captain Texas, Sr., too.”
“Yeah, but that was poignant.”
“Poignant? He and that old coot completely upstaged Lena. Lots of the kids watch us just to see Lena’s tits. You know that by the mail we get. And when we gave away an authentic replica of her bra, one that also glowed in the dark, for just five dollars and three plaz Bloaties boxtops, we were flooded with orders.”
“Myself I don’t think her tits are as hot as they were four months ago,” said Tappenzee. “If they keep slipping in the Feedback Ratings, we may have to think about replacing her.”
“Why not just beef up her tits? We did that with Captain Texas’s loyal companion Belphoebe Bissel of the Sexual Investigation Bureau and the faxmail was fantast—”
“She had very popular tits to begin with. And the idea of a teen-ager with tits as large as—”
“I go on in a couple minutes.” Jake stood up.
“Die fast,” reminded Ganpat.
Jake had arrived on the island studios off the coast of Baja California this morning at a little after nine, Southern California Conservative Time. He had a letter from Bunny Thrasher explaining he was checking out security procedures on the island for Foodopoly. When it was discovered that Rance Keane couldn’t show up, Jake agreed to step in. He’d expected that would happen, since he’d bribed Keane to stay away. Acting in the highly successful kid adventure serial would put him close to Honey Chen. After the broadcast he’d see to it he had a few minutes alone with the actress. Then he’d make use of one of the several truth-getting gadgets he carried with him.
A wispy floor director nudged him. “You’re on in ten seconds, Pace,” he whispered. “Try to expire real fast this time.”
“I’ll go for the world’s record.”
“… meanwhile, boys and girls,” the unseen announcer was explaining, “Yasui Nekutai, the controversial lady secret agent, has traced one of Captain Texas’s aides to a steambath in the Pasadena Sector of Greater Los Angeles. Quickly stripping herself naked, thus revealing the body that has dazzled the crowned heads of Europe, the Eurasian beauty, a deadly cheap Japanese import lazgun held in one shapely hand, a skimpy plyotowel hiding her erotic zone, slinks into the steam room just as Agent T14 drops his pants.”
Jake had entered the steamrich set a moment before and, on cue, was dropping his trousers.
Honey Chen, playing Yasui Nekutai, entered. She was a slim girl, a pale saffron hue to her skin, and there was a sneering smile on her pretty face.
She really did, just as the announcer said, have a dazzling body. Jake studied it, getting all the way out of his trousers and reaching for a towel from the wall rack.
“Do I have the pleasure of addressing Mr. Phil Cardigan?” Honey asked.
“Why, no, my name is Reisberson,” responded Jake, delivering a rather bland line with deftness and an appealing intensity, he judged.
“Prepare to die, T14!”
Jake exclaimed, making his eyebrows rise dramatically, “How did you know who I am, you devil?”
“I know many things, fool.” She whipped the prop gun from beneath her towel.
Only it wasn’t a prop gun.
The distraction of her sleek naked body didn’t keep Jake from realizing a real lazgun had been substituted for the one used in rehearsal
Zizzzzle!
Jake dived to his right and rolled.
A swatch of wall was sliced away and came falling down through the bluish steam.
Offstage Ganpat was muttering, “You weren’t supposed to duck. The darned scene is spoiled.”
CHAPTER 15
SCREWBALL SMITH’S PORTLAND FACILITY consisted of eleven ranch style houses ringing a parklike area and covered with an immense plaz dome. There were sheltered landing and parking fields beyond his three-acre spread. A heavy rain was falling as Hildy brought her emerald-studded skyvan down through the grey morning. It made pinging noises on the platinum roof.
Hildy was wearing a two-piece seethru slitdress and her hair was the same exact shade as her glittering platinum-surfaced skyvan. When she slid free of the landed vehicle, long handsome legs first, a two-foot-high robot came wheeling over to her.
“Merry Xmas!” the tank-shaped mechanism chirped. “Welcome to Screwball Smith’s. He’s so crazy he can’t be undersold. My name is Tiny Tim.”
“How apt,” said Hildy in a sultry voice that went with her hair. “I’m Bobbi Q and I need just absolutely oodles of home computer hardware and software to give as last minute gifts to my oodles of well-placed friends around the globe.”
“Bobbi Q. Bobbi Q,” Tiny Tim was chattering. “Oh! You’re the Bobbi Q, famous celebrity and telepsetter.”
“That’s me, Tiny. Now can you guide me to a salesperson?”
“My memory bank doesn’t include much bio on you, Bobbi Q,” admitted the little greeter ’bot, extending a metal hand and taking hold of Hildy’s lovely bare arm. He led her off the landing lot and inside the main dome. “What is it exactly that you do?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s what you’re famous for?”
“That and my incredible looks.”
Tiny Tim’s eye slots tilted and scanned her. “You are stunning.”
“I certainly am.” She squatted down beside him, bringing him to a halt. “Listen, Tiny. Since I intend to spend in the neighborhood of oodles and oodles of dollars, do you think I could get Screwball Smith himself to wait on me?”
“He rarely awakens before noon.”
“Even for a famous person with oodles of money?”
“How much is an oodle?”
“Oh, let’s say a million dollars at the very least.”
He scanned her again. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “Meanwhile, what sort of home computer stuff do you want to inspect first?”
She stretched up, walked over beneath a decorative oak tree and glanced around at the eleven house-showrooms. “I’m going to need oodles of everything. I really was dippy, leaving all this to the very last minute.”
“You certainly aren’t dippy,” Tiny Tim assured her. “How about some computer games for your elite friends? Over in House 6 we’ve got every one known to man. And at prices so low, low, low you’ll think Screwball Smith is giving them away! We’ve got the latest version of Inquisitors & Witches, and of Rippers & Rapists and—”
“I want to stock up for my more serious pals first,” Hildy told the little robot. “How about leading me to the business-oriented gadgets first?”
“That’ll be House 4, right along this primrose pathway here.” His little wheels snickered on the white realgravel of the path.
On many of the other paths customers were being guided by little robots similar to hers. Near a decorative birdbath a dark-haired boy of eleven suddenly pulled away from his distraught parents and threw himself into a patch of clover.
“I don’t want just Rippers & Rapists! I want the Pruss
ian Sodomists Cartridge, too! That’s the one everybody else has!”
“But, Rosco,” pleaded his mother, “we already bought you the Mongolian White Slavers Cartridge and the Romanian Transvestites Cartridge and—”
“Cheapskates! Poor mouthers! Just because the Prussian Sodomists Cartridge costs a measly $460 you’re denying it to me! Your love is damn fragile, that’s all I can say!”
Rosco’s portly father took hold of one of his kicking legs. “How’d you like a Kick In The Slats Cartridge? Or maybe a Smack In The Choppers Cartridge or—”
“Gillis, don’t,” said his wife.
“Ah, youth,” sighed Tiny Tim as he escorted Hildy up onto a brick porch. “Always yearning for the unattainable.”
“I can’t imagine why they just don’t give the little fellow the extra $460.” Hildy followed her robot into House 4.
The living room was crowded with various model computer terminals. The one nearest the doorway lit up when Hildy passed. “Hi, honey,” it called out of its voxbox. “Looking for some surefire dope on the market? Or how about something good in the next race at the Jersey Dog Track? Want to toss Banx tokens or pitch—”
“This is our Tout Model,” said Tiny Tim. “A bit vulgar for your friends, I’d imagine.”
“Who’s vulgar, you little twit?”
Hildy smiled sweetly down on the machine. “My Uncle Buford just might like this. How much?”
“Oh, you really don’t want such a rowdy mech—”
“$17,000 baby,” said the Tout. “For you, I might even come down to $15,500. How’s about it?”
Hildy touched a finger to her lovely chin. “Seems to me that at the Psychotic Sean Computer Warehouse in Hyannis Port they have one like this for $14,000.”
“Bullshit,” said the Tout. “Nobody undersells Screwball Smith. Those jerkoffs in Hyannis are peddling a cheap Taiwan-2 imitation of me. It doesn’t have half my functions, and less than a third of my wisecracks. For example, run your fingers over my display screen.”
Hildy complied. “My! What is that?”
“Stubble. Gives you that tough guy feel. You won’t get that on any Chink model.”
Hildy knelt next to her little robot guide, the slit skirt exposing a length of lovely tan thigh. “TT, you promised to see if you could round up Screwball himself for me. Could you try, darling?”
“Yes, though I hate leaving you with this lunkhead.”
“Aw, go piddle up a—”
“I’d really appreciate it.” She planted a kiss on Tiny Tim’s ball of a head.
“Very well, wait right here. The Pompous Banker Model over in the far corner is a much better buy.” Giving her hand a pat, he went rolling out of the showroom.
“What a chump,” observed the Tout. “Gay as a three dollar Banx chit, too.”
“He’s cute,” said Hildy. “But, of course, so are you.”
“Bet your ass I am. Let me, sister, demonstrate a few more of my—”
“Can you find out all sorts of things? I mean things that … you know, I might not be supposed to know.”
“You’re talking about shady stuff, huh? Deals that ain’t exactly kosher?” His voice lowered. “I ain’t supposed to do it, but just between you and me and the bedpan, sister, there ain’t a damn thing I can’t dig out of someplace for you.”
She clapped her hands. “That’s absolutely marvelous,” Hildy said. “Just as a sample of what you can do … could you get me a look, say, at Screwball Smith’s records?”
“A lead-pipe cinch, babe. Although they might get—”
“Oh, if you can’t do it, that’s okay. Even the model at Psychotic Sean’s couldn’t do some of the—”
“Shit, I can dig rings around that gook piece of junk. Try me.”
Hildy narrowed one eye. “Suppose, simply to demonstrate what you claim to be able to do, you show me Screwball’s travel itinerary for the past four months or so. Could you really do anything that difficult?”
“Are you kidding? That ain’t tough, that’s as easy as falling off a daisy wheel,” the Tout assured her. “You want a printout, too, babe?”
“Might as well go first cabin.”
“I can give it to you in twelve-point circus bold type, ten-point Busino extra thin, twelve-point—”
“Your choice. Something tasteful, though.”
“Right you are.” The terminal began producing a low humming. “This’ll be a piece of … bonk!”
The mechanism went completely dead.
“No need to ask him, Mrs. Pace. I’ll be happy to tell you where I’ve been.”
Hildy turned and saw a freckled young man standing in the doorway.
He wore a two-piece yellow and scarlet glowsuit and a motorized polkadot bow tie. In his right hand he held a stungun.
CHAPTER 16
JAKE PUSHED THE WHITE-ENAMELED robot aside, elbowed around the black man in the five-piece bizsuit and moved toward the door of the infirmary villa. “I’m in tip-top shape,” he reiterated.
“So you say now,” said the black man. “However, there’s nothing to keep you from claiming whiplash, complete and total nervous collapse or acute ennui as a result of this alleged shooting accident.”
“I won’t.”
“You ought really to lie down,” urged the medical robot. “After all, the young lady shot at you with a deadly lazgun under the impression it was a prop that—”
“Ixnay,” said the Negro. “The SatVid Broadcasting Network isn’t admitting that Honey Chen so much as touched a real lazgun. After the tapes of the alleged incident are thoroughly studied—”
“Gentlemen,” Jake told everybody in the big white room, “it’s been a pleasure being served by you all. Now I must—”
“Jake,” said Will Ganpat, who’d been sitting, uneasy, in a glaz slingchair, “sign the releases.”
“I’m in a hurry to talk to Miss Chen,” Jake said, reaching for the door. “I allowed your mechanized medic to poke and probe me. I made a statement to your insurance man. I’d—”
“You absolutely can’t talk to Honey Chen now,” the black insurance rep told him, catching at his arm.
“That’s a point that can be debated.” Jake jerked free.
“Jake,” said Will Tappenzee, from a glaz sofa filled with slithering eels, “sign the releases, okay? Even though this was all an unfortunate accident, with a real gun getting mixed up with the fake ones, still—”
“We’re not admitting to an accident,” said the insurance man. “SVBN admits nothing until—”
“Tell you what,” offered Jake. “I’ll sign everything right away, if you’ll let me have a five-minute chat with Honey Chen. Alone. Will?” He looked from one writer to the other.
“Don’t see why not, Jake. After—”
“No,” cut in the insurance man. “Suppose he persuades that quiff to admit she—”
“Eli, we have the whole damn thing on tape,” said Tappenzee. “96,000,000 loyal viewers around the world saw it happen. So—”
“By the way, Jake,” said Ganpat, “you may have to hop back later in the week and be Agent T14 again. Since you didn’t get properly stunned this time.”
Tappenzee said, “It played pretty well, though. The Feedback indicates 76 percent of the kids were Pleased and Thrilled by her cutting a monumental chunk out of the darn wall and nearly slicing Jake into—”
“Ixnay, ixnay. We’re not admitting anything was sliced or—”
“Five minutes with Honey,” said Jake, fishing an electropen out of a pocket. “Has nothing to do with her using a so-called real gun to allegedly take a shot at me.”
“Okay by me.” Ganpat got up.
“Okay by me.” Tappenzee got up.
“Gentlemen, I don’t know if SVBN can allow—”
“We can.” Ganpat took all the release forms from the insurance man and thrust them at Jake.
“Vacation,” said Tappenzee, remembering.
“She’ll be back in time to attempt to fe
ed Lena and Leroy to the sludge-eating bacteria in next week’s exciting episodes, though,” added Ganpat.
The three of them were in the enormous living room of Honey Chen’s private villa on the ocean-facing side of the island.
Jake was prowling, poking at piles of faxmags, kicking into sprawls of discarded lingerie. “Know where she’s going to vacation?”
“You’re not planning to chase after her? That really must’ve been an accident.”
“We have no idea how a real gun got mixed up with the props, Jake.”
“But we’re sure as heck going to investigate.”
“You bet.”
Grinning bleakly, Jake told them, “That’s a damn good impersonation of Leroy and Lena.”
“Gee, Jake, don’t go making fun of—”
“The moon,” said Jake. “Right?”
“What?”
“That’s where Honey Chen is going to spend her latest vacation from Captain Texas,” amplified Jake as he continued to prowl the room.
There was a faint growling sound coming from some other room.
He went in search of it.
“Well …” said Ganpat, following.
“Well,” said Tappenzee, following.
“She’s probably developed a sudden interest in jazz and doesn’t want to miss the Moonport Jazz Festival.” Jake side-stepped into the room that was producing the small noise.
“She’s always been deeply interested in jazz,” said Ganpat. “Look there on her bedroom wall is a triop gloposter of Lafcadio Latterly.”
“Impressive, convincing.” Genuflecting beside the floatbed, Jake nudged it aside with one shoulder.
The dispozhole under the bed hadn’t been able to digest the last few pieces of paper stuffed into it and was making a metallic gagging sound.
Carefully Jake rescued the three balls of crumpled faxpaper. He stood and smoothed them out. One was a confirm slip for a Moonshuttle flight departing this afternoon from the GLA Spaceport, one was a scrawled memo from Will Ganpat urging Honey to be “more insidious if you can,” and the final paper that had escaped destruction had a string of numbers hastily scribbled across it.
“(CT6)17*25/2*21*16*25/2/10*21*23*25/5*25*25*10*3*8*1/3*8/13*21/15*8*14*3*6/21*26*14*25* 12/7*9*9*8/13*13,” the complete message read.