Jake sat. “You’re Monte Folkestone?”
“You don’t suspect I have a twin, dear boy?”
“Not bloody likely,” observed the seated robot.
“Did Sparky introduce himself?” inquired Folkestone.
“Nope. But it—”
“That’s Sparky,” he said, indicating the standing green bot, “and this is Buddy. Identical twins.”
“Very whimsical.” Jake rested both elbows on the table. “Walt Bascom contacted you.”
“That he did, dear chap.” Folkestone reached over to tap Buddy’s emerald chest. “Has the promised fee arrived?”
“See for yourself, gov.” The left side of the robot’s chest snapped open to reveal a compscreen.
Nodding, giving a pleased little laugh, Folkestone said, “Yes, Bascom, the old dear, placed $750 in my Banx account early this morn, just, I imagine, as rosy-fingered dawn was tripping across the—”
“For that sum,” cut in Jake, “you’re obliged to arrange certain things, Folkestone.”
“Do call me Monte, Jake,” suggested the plump man. “Since I’m managing your social life while you reside on this blighted island, we must strive to give the impression that we’re the closest and dearest of chums, don’t you think?”
“Sure, Monte. Now what have you—”
“Go have an intimate chat with our esteemed chef, Sparky, and warn him, in the severest terms, not to make the same mistake with my fish today that he made yesterday,” the plump man instructed the standing bot.
“Right you are, gov.’” The robot hurried away.
Folkestone put his hand on Jake’s arm and lowered his voice. “Although I am extremely reluctant to admit it, dear boy, I earn a goodly part of my income by arranging social entrée to those who yearn to rise in San Peligro society, such as it is.” He took his hand away and stroked his bluish beard. “For you, since you were described as being most eager—the good Lord only knows why—to meet some of the topmost executives at the local NewTown works, I’ve arranged several introductions and invitations.”
“I’m particularly interested in encountering any of them who might be in the need of some extra money, Monte.”
“I’ve already been so informed, dear fellow,” said Folkestone. “Tonight you’ll be attending a gala party at the mansion of Mrs. Cardwell—a very important local dowager, albeit a certified pain in the bottom. At this soirée, Jake my boy, be sure to strike up acquaintances with Hazel McCay and Theo Kleiner. Both are relatively high up in the NewTown pecking order and both, more’s the pity, haven’t the faintest notion of how to live anywhere close to within their means.” From the breast pocket of his flowered suit coat, he fetched a fat realpaper envelope. “An invitation to tonight’s festivity you’ll find within—along with a list of the other social delights I’ve set up for you, Jake old man.”
Jake accepted the envelope and stood up. “Much obliged, Monte.”
“Though it isn’t included in the price,” Folkestone told him, “you can join me for lunch.”
“I’ll pass. My social life is too rich and full already.” Grinning, he left the plump man and the green robot.
26
THE air in the long plazwalled corridor smelled convincingly of horses and cattle. Ahead of Gomez, three androids dressed in authentic nineteenth-century cowboy garb were ambling along. One carried a neoleather saddle on his shoulder, while the other carried a lariat in his left hand.
As they neared a door marked ROBOTIC RODEO/MECHANICAL PERSONNEL, the three Stetsoned andies slowed. They stopped, let the seceye scan them, and then entered as soon as the metallic door slid open for them.
Gomez, whistling softly, continued on his way.
A door on his right—ROBOTIC RODEO/HUMAN PERFORMERS—whispered open.
“Well, for darn sakes, if this ain’t a coincidence an’ a half!” exclaimed the blond young woman who’d emerged and was now smiling at him.
Smiling back, the detective said, “Marney! What causes our paths to cross, bonita?”
“It must be, I reckon, fate.” Pistol Packin’ Marney put both arms around him, gave him an enthusiastic hug, and then kissed him. “Well, sir, that an’ my brand-new agent. He booked me to do my act at this here Robotic Rodeo pavillion in the heart of Sweetwater.”
“Which act, chiquita?”
“Oh, just the trick shootin’,” she replied. I quit sheddin’ my clothes ages ago.”
“Bueno. That’s a step up the ladder of success.”
“A whole lot of steps, Gomez darlin’.” Marney stepped back and surveyed him. “I kind of like that cute little potbelly you’re developin’. Makes you look even more like a fuzzy teddy bear.”
“I have never,” he corrected, “remotely resembled a teddy bear or any other sort of stuffed toy. The cut of my jacket gives the illusion that I have a slight paunch.”
“What in the heck brings you to Texas?”
“Business. In fact, cara, I’d best be moving on. I have to meet somebody in the bowels of this establishment in just—”
“You still with the Cosmos Detective Agency?”
A nearby door, labeled ROBOTIC RODEO/NATIVE AMERICAN ANDROIDS, came sliding open on the left, and two mechanical men in authentic Indian outfits stepped into the corridor.
Gomez waited until they’d moved several yards away before continuing the conversation. “I am, sí. And now—”
“Heck almighty, why don’t I tag along?” she suggested. “I don’t go on for near to two hours yet. I’ll stick with you an’ then we can grab a bite to—”
“This is a somewhat confidential matter, Marney.”
“Darn sakes, Gomez, don’t you trust me?” She assumed a hurt and surprised look. “Back in Greater Los Angeles, when you were still a SoCal cop, I helped you out on more than one occasion. Never once did you doubt that I—”
“Okay, all right. You can come along,” he conceded. “But you’ll have to wait outside while I talk to this hombre.”
“I don’t mind coolin’ my heels.”
When Gomez resumed moving along, she took hold of his arm.
He asked, “How long have you had this agent?”
“Oh, not awful long.”
A moment later they reached the door marked ROBOTIC RODEO/SIMULATION CONTROL. Gomez halted, faced the seceye, and held up the fake pass Zodiac O’Rian had sent him a short while ago.
The door produced a faint rattling buzz, then slid aside to admit him and the young woman.
“Are you sure now, callin’ on Al Lavinsky?” Marney asked.
“Sí, but don’t ask me any questions concerning—”
“He’s very fond of pinchin’ the personnel on the fanny,” she mentioned. “But after I gave him a demonstration of my shootin’ abilities, he lost all interest in my particular backside.”
“Guns are a powerful deterrent,” observed Gomez. “In fact, it—momentito!” He stopped and held out his arm to block her way.
The door to Simulation Control was open, and pale yellowish light was spilling out onto the ramp.
“Wait here, cara.” Gomez, sliding out his stungun, eased nearer to the open doorway.
A silver-plated robot sat at a control panel chair, tilted far to the right. The top of his silver skull wasn’t there, and a thin spiral of sooty smoke was rising up from within.
Tumbled down on the floor in a twisted sprawl was a fat balding man.
They’d used a lazgun on him and there wasn’t much left of his upper back.
Gomez knelt beside the dead man. “This is Lavinsky?”
From the threshold Marney nodded. “They weren’t supposed to kill anybody.”
“¿Qué dices?” Slowly he stood and took a few steps toward her.
Marney inhaled slowly. “We better hightail it away from here, Gomez,” she suggested, letting her breath out in a sigh. “Then we’re gonna have to find a nice, quiet spot to have us a little talk.”
JAKE ACCEPTED the plazglass of tinted simula
ted mineral water from the roving robot waiter in the flowered shirt. There were well over a hundred guests out on the dome-enclosed terrace, many of them watching the holographic fireworks display taking place out on the back acre of the Cardwell estate.
Huge multicolored flowers blossomed out in the clear night sky. Then the name Dorothy spread across the blackness in exploding gold-and-crimson letters.
“That’s her first name,” said a voice just behind him.
“Who? Our hostess?” Turning, Jake found himself facing a tall black woman of about fifty. She was wearing a simple red sinsilk party dress and holding a plazglass of rum punch.
“No, Dorothy Sartain, the gymnast from Portugal. This wingding here tonight is in her honor. Didn’t you read your invitation?”
“Not thoroughly enough, apparently.”
“You’re Jake Cardigan, aren’t you?”
“That I am,” he admitted. “And you are …?”
She leaned close to him. “Hazel McCay,” she said softly.
“One of the people I was hoping to encounter tonight.”
“I know. Monte mentioned you wanted to talk to me.”
“I do, yeah.”
Nodding, Hazel took his free hand and guided him over toward the edge of the enclosed terrace. A five-piece android calypso band was sitting, silent at the moment, on a low dais that was fringed by potted palms.
After they’d stopped near one of the small trees, Jake inquired, “What’s your job with NewTown Pharmaceuticals?”
“I’m in Research & Development,” answered Hazel, glancing around at the growing party crowd.
“That could be helpful to my cause,” Jake told her. “Did Monte—”
“Oh, shit!” She had glanced away and was frowning at two people who were standing at the entrance to the terrace. “There’s Rowland Burdon. I didn’t know that that nasty son of a bitch was coming to the island. This isn’t, Jake, a good time for us to talk. Come see me at my place tomorrow morning early.” She gave him her address and moved, unobtrusively but swiftly, away from him.
27
FOG was drifting in across the darkening Pacific as Molly guided her skycar through the twilight toward Dan’s home.
He was saying, “I don’t see that there’s much we can do about Susan now. We found out, with Rex’s help, that she’s been committed to Dr. Stolzer’s clinic again, but—”
“We can talk to her darned father—or I can,” Molly said, anger sounding in her voice. “I’ll suggest that he spring her from that place right away.”
“If this Mrs. Stackpoole has as much control of things as Susan says, he won’t listen to you.”
“No, he’ll pay attention,” she said. “I’m going to talk to my Uncle Anthony first—he’s the one almost honest lawyer in the family—and gather a lot of nice legal phrases I can toss at Mr. Grossman.”
“Might work,” Dan said.
“I’d like to hear more enthusiasm from the members of the team.”
“The problem is, Molly … well, Susan’s been behaving pretty oddly lately, and I can see where her father’d think she needed some kind of help again.”
“So you feel she ought to be locked up in that quack’s loony bin?”
“Nope,” said Dan. “But you’ve got to remember that Susan’s dad has a much higher opinion of the Stolzer setup than we do.”
She punched out a landing pattern on the control dash panel and the skycar began to descend toward the misty beach. “While we were consulting with Rex/GK-30 at the academy, we should’ve dug some into that Mrs. Stackpoole’s background. That might give us some helpful stuff to—”
“I missed two classes as it was.”
The car, scattering swirls of night fog, set down next to the condo building.
“I won’t come in,” said Molly.
“You’re ticked off, huh?”
Smiling, she leaned over and kissed him. “Not too much, but I want to get home and start trying to track down my Uncle Anthony. I’ll probably have to contact a dozen or so low dives and bistros before running him to ground.”
“Whatever you decide to do, I’ll back you up.” Dan undid his safety gear and opened his door.
“What we’re going to do is get Susan out of that place.”
He stood on the deck and watched the skycar rise up and then disappear into the thickening mist.
Dan then turned to the sliding door and said, “Open up, it’s me.”
Nothing happened.
“Open up. Dan Cardigan.”
Still nothing.
Reaching out, he touched the door handle. It wasn’t locked and he was able to slide the plastiglass panel open.
Very cautiously, Dan took a step across the dark threshold. “Lights,” he requested.
The living room remained dark.
Then he heard a faint crackling noise.
An instant later the beam of a stungun hit him in the chest.
MARNEY SPUN GRACEFULLY on her heel and fired the handgun.
The bulky man who’d come charging out of the woods brandishing a flamegun cried out in pain. Staggering, he took three unsteady steps to his right. He fell over and when he hit the simulated yellow grass, his gun hand jerked convulsively. A spurt of flame leaped from the gun barrel, appearing to scorch a wide dark line through the high, dry grass.
“Bingo!” said a voxbox built into the gun.
The fallen body shimmered and disappeared.
“Oaky doaks,” said Marney, holstering the gun. “That makes a thousand darn points for me, Gomez darlin’. Looks like I win.”
He looked back across the wide stretch of simulated countryside that made up this section of the Sweetwater Shooting Gallery. He slipped his gun into his pocket. “Nobody tailed us here, chiquita,” he said. “We’re seguro for now. So let’s quit pretending to be customers and have our conversation.”
Nodding, she led him over to one of the picnic tables at the edge of the field. She sat down, frowned across the neowood table at him. “Don’t be mad at me.”
“About what?”
Marney drummed two fingers on the tabletop. “Well, sir,” she began, then cleared her throat. “It wasn’t, see, any accident my runnin’ into you back at the rodeo.”
“That possibility had already flitted across my brain. Who put you up to it?”
After she took a careful look around, she answered, “My career hasn’t been flowin’ along anywhere near as smooth as I let on earlier,” she admitted. “Fact is, Gomez darlin’, up until quite recent I was doin’ my same old strippin’ and shootin’ act at a succession of dumps and dives all across Texas.”
“You having money troubles again?”
“Yep,” she said forlornly. “Meanin’ I owe some people too darn much money, so they got this feller name of Sam Cimarron to lean on me.”
“And he’s your new agent?”
“That’s him, except he’s really just a goon who works for some of the Tek cartels. Anyway, Cimarron told me to come up here an’ wait till you showed up.”
“They knew I was Sweetwater bound?”
“Surely did.”
“What were you supposed to do once you made contact with me?”
“He told me they weren’t aimin’ to do you any serious harm,” she said. “All I was obliged to do was get chummy with you again—and, yep, they did know you an’ me was buddies from way back. My job was to tell Cimarron what you was up to and who all you was callin’ on.”
“He didn’t mention what they suspected I was doing?”
“Nope, not at all. But I figure it must sure as heck be somethin’ they don’t want you to be doin’.”
“And you knew I was going to show up at the Robotic Rodeo tonight?”
“Cimarron notified me of that ’bout an hour or more fore you came traipsin’ in.”
“Did he mention Al Lavinsky?”
“No, he only said you was comin’ and for me to get friendly with you awful fast,” she replied. “Then I w
as to start pumpin’ you for information.”
Gomez looked out across the yellow grass. Far away, two plump women were shooting at a simulated elephant. “Ever hear of an hombre named Avram Moyech?”
“Nope.”
Gomez took hold of her hand. “Why’d you decide to confide in me, chiquita?”
“When I saw Zalinsky dead,” Marney said. “I figure that if they’d do him in, they’ll more than likely kill you, too. A little lyin’ an’ informin’ I don’t mind, special if it helps me get out of debt. But I sure as heck don’t want to see you get bumped off.”
He squeezed her hand, then let go. “Once they realize you’re not working for them, they’ll add your name to the shit list along with mine.”
“Can’t be helped. I’m too fond of you to let them kill you, Gomez.”
He smiled. “I appreciate your attitude,” he told her. “Bueno. We’ve got to con this Cimarron gent, find out where Avram Moyech is holed up. After I’ve gleaned a few facts from Moyech, you and I will slip, unobtrusively as possible, out of Texas.”
“Cimarron more than likely knows where this Avram fellow is,” she said.
“I’d bet on that, cara.”
“Then you have to get together with Cimarron and find out what he knows.”
“An admirable plan,” Gomez observed. “Can you help me get it going?”
“Darn sakes,” Marney said, laughing, “that’ll be easy.”
SUSAN WAS SITTING, listlessly, on the bed in her room at the Stolzer establishment. For a while she’d watch, hands folded in her lap, the pale yellow wall opposite. For a while she’d watch the one-way plastiglass ceiling. The night sky overhead was overcast and starless.
Then her eyesight started to blur, her pulse quickened. Pain started blossoming inside her skull and the young woman brought her hands up, pressing her fingertips against her temples. She bent forward, swallowing hard and then murmuring, “I don’t want to see anything—nothing—no more.”
But another vision hit her. And inside her head she saw Dan Cardigan.
He was lying, sprawled facedown, on the floor of an apartment.
“That’s his place,” she said, knowing that for certain although she’d never been there.
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