“You don’t see him much?”
“Not a heck of a lot.”
“What about your mother?”
“My mother is dead. My father’s had, so far as I know, three wives since. It might be four, but I think he would’ve let me know if there was yet another new stepmother.”
“My mother is ... ” He let the sentence die.
“I know.”
“She’s in jail, awaiting trial.”
Nodding, Molly touched his hand.
“I haven’t visited her,” he said finally.
Molly leaned closer, lowering her voice. “I’ve been doing some extra research on my own.”
“You and Rex, you mean?”
“No, using a private computer setup I sometimes have access to.” Molly glanced at the back of their cabbie’s head. A sheet of tinted plastiglass separated them from him. “This one belongs to an old friend of my father’s who’s ... shady. But then, so is my father.”
“You dig up something more about Knerr?”
“About Roddy Pickfair,” she said. “I’m not certain what it means, but his birth records are fake.”
“How so?”
“He wasn’t born where he claimed and the orphanage he’s supposed to have been raised in actually only added his name to their back files some five years ago.”
“Have you found out anything about who he really is?”
She shook her head. “It was tough enough getting at what I did,” she said. “But I should, if I keep using my considerable investigative skills, eventually discover—”
“Be careful.”
“I always am.”
“If Pickfair is involved in this—then killing people doesn’t bother the guy.”
“I’m flattered,” she said, laughing. “You actually care about me and don’t want me to get killed.”
“I’d feel responsible,” he said.
40
PROFESSOR NISTER, SKELETAL HANDS shaking, reinserted the tubes and wires into his arms. “I didn’t expect you to find me, Herr Cardigan,” he said in a perplexed tone. “How did you manage it?”
“Your mistress has been calling you here frequently the past few days.” Jake stood facing him. “I persuaded her vidphone to divulge the list of her recent calls.”
“That’s impossible, every phone has a—”
“Jake is pretty handy at impossible technological feats,” explained Gomez, smiling. “We learned a lot of useful tricks back when we were SoCal cops.”
“Once I got in here, I worked on your central computer,” added Jake, “until it confided in me where exactly you were holed up.”
“Now here’s a man who gets things done, Gomez,” said Jenny, a faint trace of admiration sounding in her voice. “As soon as he found out that we were captives, he took swift action to—”
“Actually I had no idea Nister had grabbed you,” he told her. “I was heading here to question him, when I ran into Eva Kraft and she filled me in.”
“I have no intention, Herr Cardigan, of answering any—”
“You’re the one who arranged to have the android dupe of me constructed and delivered to Berlin, aren’t you?”
Jenny said, “He has to be, because he’s been trying to keep me from finding out who the Bonecas were really working for.”
“To keep us from finding out, chiquita,” corrected Gomez.
Leaning down, Jake inquired, “Did you hire them?”
“You, none of you, seem to realize how powerful the Tek cartel I represent is,” the professor told them. “What’s happened to you thus far is nothing compared to the vengeance that will be—”
“You’re dependent on this chair for your life,” observed Jake quietly, leaning even closer to him. “And without any of your toadies or your lazgun—hell, you’re at a definite disadvantage, Professor.” He straightened up, took a few steps back and studied the chair. “Did you hire the Bonecas?”
Nister made no reply.
Grabbing hold of a tangle of wires and tubes, Jake said, “You don’t want all these pulled out—do you?”
The professor ran his tongue over his thin grey lips. “No,” he said, his voice coming thin and whispery out of the dangling speaker. “I hired them.”
“Whose decision was it to have Beth Kittridge killed?”
“The woman had knowledge of her father’s anti-Tek system. According to our information, she was very close to having it ready to go. That would, of course, have meant the destruction of nearly all the Tek chips in the world,” Professor Nister said. “It was decided that killing her was absolutely necessary, since it will set anti-Tek research back months at the very least. That was a sound business decision.”
“Who gave the order?”
“There was a vote, a unanimous vote by the directors of our cartel.”
“I want all their names.”
“I can’t give—”
“Sure, you can.” Jake tightened his grip on the tubes and wires. One of them popped free of the gaunt man’s arm and thick yellowish fluid started dribbling out of it and splashing on the floor.
“All right, yes.” Seven names came rattling out of the speaker.
“I’ve got them.” Jenny was holding a tiny voxrecorder in her hand.
“Was anyone else involved in the decision to kill Beth?”
Nister’s eyes lowered and he watched the yellow liquid slowly dripping. “I can not give—”
“Anyone else?” Jake let go of the tubes and wires to take hold of the front of his tunic. He pulled him halfway up out of his chair. “Was anyone else involved?”
Nister’s face turned a paler grey and he started making harsh gagging sounds deep in his throat.
“C’mon! I want an answer!”
Gomez caught Jake’s arm. “Easy, amigo,” he warned. “The guy’s speaker got detached.” He reconnected it.
“Pickfair,” gasped Nister. “Roddy Pickfair. He made the suggestion to us initially. And he masterminded other things.”
“What other things?” Jake let go of him.
Professor Nister fell back into the chair, pulling out another tube. He slumped, saying, “The things that happened to you in Brazil.”
Jenny asked him, “How did you know when Beth Kittridge and the others would be arriving at the court?”
“We were informed.”
“Who?”
“The man’s name is Maxwell Junger.”
Gomez said, “Head of the IDCA office here in colorful old Vienna.”
“Yes, darn it.”
Jake was watching Nister’s face. “I loved Beth Kittridge,” he told him in a jagged voice. “And you voted to kill her. Not just to kill her, but to destroy her body by—”
“Surely, Herr Cardigan, to a man of your long experience in the real world, our methods shouldn’t be that shocking.”
“You bastard!” Jake thrust his stungun into his belt and took hold of the tubes and wires with both hands. “In the real world I think you ought to die!”
“Jake!” Gomez caught his arm again.
“Please,” begged the professor out of the dangling speaker. “I had no choice. If the death vote hadn’t been unanimous, then I myself ... ”
Jake took an enormous breath in, held it for a full half minute and then let it go sighing harshly out. His fingers went wide and he dropped all the wires and tubing. “Hell,” he said, turning away, “let somebody else kill you.”
41
ALL THE ROBOT WAITERS, all two dozen of them, were goldplated. They circulated, gracefully, through the crowds at the edges of the vast ebony dance floor. The eighteen-piece orchestra, a mix of human and android musicians, sat on a sparkling silver platform that floated fifteen feet above the hundreds of dancers. At the far end of the Main Ballroom of the GLA Civic Plaza rose a 30-foot-high holographic projection of an injured soldier in the uniform of the UN Brazil Wars forces.
“That was mineral water, sir?” a sleek golden servobot was inquiring of Dan.
<
br /> “Two.” He and Molly were standing very close together on the righthand side of the dance floor, surrounded by dozens of handsome, fashionable elbows and backs.
A compartment in the waiter’s gold chest slid open and he withdrew a plazglass from it. Holding it under his right forefinger, he filled it with sparkling mineral water. He handed the glass to Dan, who handed it to Molly, and filled a second one. “There’s no tipping allowed,” reminded the waiter as he shut his chest and moved on.
“I wasn’t planning any.”
Molly touched her glass to his. “Cheers. Do you see any of them?”
“Not yet.”
“This is going to be difficult—even for someone as astute as me.”
“What we’d better do is slowly circle—wait. Look.”
“Where?”
“Those tables across the floor, at the one nearest the viewindow.”
“Right, that’s definitely China Vargas and Roddy Pickfair sitting there.”
Dan said, “I think if we move over to the hologram stage, we can hide in the shadows behind it and not be noticed. Then I’ll aim the soundrod and—”
“Hey, there’s Knerr. He’s joining them.” She took hold of Dan’s arm and started leading him along the edge of the dance floor toward the giant projection of the wounded soldier some hundred yards away. “Excuse us. Sorry. Pardon me.”
“Molly Fine! How great.” A handsome young man was standing directly in their path. “I had no idea you’d—”
“Nice running into you, Len. Right now, though, I really—”
“Nope, I insist on one dance immediately.”
“Maybe later.”
“I’ll follow you around, dog your every footstep, Moll, until—”
“Okay, all right. One.” She let go of Dan. “You go ahead. I’ll pacify this nuisance and join you.”
Dan waited until the handsome young man had taken Molly out into the dancing crowd and then continued on his way.
In less than five minutes he was crouching behind the platform, hidden in the deep shadows. He could see the table where China, Knerr and Pickfair were seated. Carefully he aimed his soundrod, stuck the tiny earphone in place and activated the recorder.
“ ... something can be arranged,” Knerr was saying.
Pickfair laughed. “Something unpleasant,” he suggested. “You know, the thing that absolutely annoys the very hell out of me is people who think that they’re smarter than I.” He was a pudgy young man with curly brown hair, about nineteen at most, and wearing a too tight tuxsuit.
China took a sip of her drink. “You tend to get awfully nasty when you’re annoyed.”
“I’m nasty at the best of times, dear heart.” Smiling, he shifted in his chair and looked directly at the distant spot where Dan was crouched. “You may as well come join us, Danny boy,” he said. “We already have Molly.”
Gomez, limping slightly, walked over to the window of their hotel suite. A new day was commencing and Vienna was beginning to fill with pale sunlight. “Did you believe the prof?” he asked.
“He impressed, me as being sincere, yeah.” Jake was sitting, slouched, in an armchair. Weariness showed in his face. “Soon as we finish up the official rigamarole with the local police, I want to head back to Greater LA and look up this Roddy Pickfair.”
Turning his back on the morning, Gomez said, “Our assignment, far as Cosmos is concerned, was to find out who was behind the assassinations in Berlin and if any US gov agencies were tied in. We’ve got Nister, who helped arrange the details of the killings, and eventually we’ll have his Tek cartel cronies. We also have the name of the IDCA agent who—”
“It isn’t over for me, Sid,” said Jake quietly. “Not until I run down everyone who had anything to do with Beth’s death.”
“Jenny Keaton is planning to remain here in Vienna to see that all the local miscreants get rounded up and brought to justice,” reminded his partner. “We can go home to GLA, sí, but why don’t we just take a rest and—”
“I didn’t kill Nister last night.” Jake rose up out of the chair. “I’m not an uncontrollable madman. If Pickfair is guilty of anything, I won’t slaughter him or—”
“You came damn close to doing in Nister, amigo.” Gomez held his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “Damn close. I know what you’re feeling, but it would be safer to declare this case closed.”
“All I intend to do is find out if Pickfair is tied in or not. You don’t have to help,” Jake told him. “But I’m not stopping. If Bascom wants me to take a leave while I continue to—”
“Jake, momentito,” cut in his friend. “I’ll keep working with you on this mess. But, por favor, you have got to stop acting so much like a vigilante. To me you seem to be getting damn close to the edge.”
“Maybe I should’ve reserved a room there at the Berggasse Foundation, huh?” Jake’s voice was getting near being a shout. “I’ve got this problem, doctor. Ever since they blew up Beth, I don’t know, I’ve been upset. Then, after they killed her, they tried to make me believe she was still alive. Why’d they do that? Oh, because it amused the bastards to play a god damn game with—”
“I know what they did. I know what it means to you,” said Gomez carefully. “But I don’t want to see you turn into somebody who uses a tragedy as an excuse to—”
“Sid, I didn’t kill Nister, remember? I wanted to—yeah, I admit that I truly did—but I got control of myself. Even if you hadn’t been there, I don’t think I would have gone ahead with it.”
The vidphone rang.
“I’ll answer.” Gomez crossed to the alcove. “Then afterwards we can resume hollering at each other, amigo.”
It was Bascom, even more rumpled than usual. “Is Jake around?”
“Something wrong, jefe?”
“Well, something is very much futzed up. Can I—”
“What is it, Walt?” Jake sat down in front of the phonescreen.
“I thought I’d better let you know this,” said the head of the Cosmos Detective Agency. “May not be serious, yet—”
“Is it Dan? Has something happened to him?”
“The op who was watching him—it was McCay on this particular shift—was found unconscious, stungunned, in some decorative shrubs behind the GLA Civic Plaza an hour ago.
“And Dan?”
Bascom’s shoulders rose and fell. “No trace of him,” he answered.
42
GOMEZ SNAPPED HIS SUITCASE shut, took a final slow look around the living room of the suite. “Lately, amigo, I seem to be continually taking my leave of hotel rooms,” he said. “And if I’m not doing that, then I’m acting as a target for stungun practice.”
“You were also bitten by a robot dog,” reminded Jake. “That was a little out of the ordinary and proves you’re not in a complete rut.”
The door buzzed.
Walking toward it, Gomez observed, “This is probably some stray hound come to take a nip out of me.” He opened the door wide. “Worse.”
“Mornings are not your best time,” said Jenny Keaton as she came striding into the room.
“I appreciate your dropping by to inform me of that fact.”
“Something’s come up.”
Gomez backed out of her way. “Such as?”
“You’re going to have to postpone your departure,” the blonde agent informed them. “That’s what I came over to—”
“We’re leaving for Greater LA in just over an hour,” said Jake. “My son is—”
“A special Internal Security investigator is due in Vienna late this afternoon.” She stopped beside Gomez’s lone suitcase and tapped at it with her boot toe. “My agency insists that you two stand by to make in-person statements to Agent Reisberson.”
“That won’t be possible,” Jake told her.
“That wouldn’t be Walter Truett Reisberson, would it?” Gomez gradually eased around until he was standing behind Jenny. “One of my dearest chums in nursery school was named—”
>
“No, this is Olaf Reisberson.”
“It doesn’t matter what the hell his name is,” said Jake, angry. “Sid and I are—”
“You can’t refuse a request such as this,” she said to Jake, a frown deepening on her forehead.
Very quietly Gomez drew out his stungun. Pointing it at her back, he fired.
As Jenny started to fall over, he caught her. “Get the bedroom door, por favor, Jake.”
“I think this is a federal offense.” Jake yanked the door open.
“Which? Putting a government agent to bed?”
“Shooting one.”
“Really? You think there might be a rule against such behavior?”
“Well, you know how fussy they can get in Washington.”
Gomez, gently, placed Jenny flat out on his bed. “Hasta la vista,” he muttered. Returning to the living room, he sat down at the vidphone. “Desk, please.”
“Ja, Herr Gomez?” said the polite silvery robot who materialized on the screen.
“There’s been a slight change of plans,” he told the hotel clerk. “I won’t be checking out until nine this evening.”
“I fear, in that case, we’ll be forced to bill you for another full—”
“Perfectly fair. Just charge it to the Cosmos Detective Agency, as usual,” said Gomez, smiling cordially. “Ah, and since I’ll be taking a nap, don’t disturb me.”
“As you wish, Herr Gomez.”
“But promptly at eight this evening, send up a bellbot to my bedroom to awaken me.”
“You wish him to come right in?”
“Exactly, because I’m an extremely heavy sleeper. Have the robot march right in and give a holler.”
“Very good, mein herr. And what of Herr Cardigan? Will he be staying on and napping or—”
“He’ll be checking out as planned.” Gomez ended the call and gathered up his suitcase. “Let’s slip unobtrusively out the back way, keeping our eyes out for any stray US government agents who might be hanging around.”
“Good idea.”
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