The hairless man was standing over the body, a grin on his awful face and a gun in his hand.
“They’ve killed Dan,” she gasped, “just the way they killed my brother.”
Then she noticed the gun. “It’s a stungun,” she realized.
So Dan was unconscious, not dead.
Susan saw the hairless man bend and pick up Dan.
“They’re taking him someplace.”
The big man carried the body toward a doorway.
Susan’s body jerked, she began shaking, and the vision shut down and was gone.
She hugged herself, shivering. “Jesus, Jesus—everybody’s getting killed or hurt. Anybody who has anything to do with me.”
Susan leaped from the bed and ran to the door. She tried the knob, but of course the door was locked.
She began hitting at the metal door with both fists.
“I have to make a call. Got to warn Molly,” she cried. “Please, please.”
After several minutes a voxbox in the ceiling said, “You must calm down and return to bed, Susie.”
It was Emlyn’s voice. Or maybe it was Alyn.
“No, but this is important, Emlyn. One of my friends has been hurt and—”
“This is Alyn, dear. Get back to bed.”
“They may try to hurt Molly, too. You have to let me phone her. Please.”
“You forget, Susie, that you don’t have any phone privileges. None at all.”
“This is a goddamn emergency, you asshole!”
“If you don’t stop this at once, we’ll have to come in there and take measures to quiet you, dear.”
“Open the damned door!” She started hitting at it again.
And after a while they came in and quieted her down.
28
SAM Cimarron pointed his metal forefinger at Marney. “This isn’t much of a spot for a meeting,” he said.
“It’s got a hell of a lot of privacy,” she pointed out to the large black cyborg.
They were in one of the stables in the Robotic Rodeo complex. Twenty robot horses were lined up in neowood stalls on each side of the big structure, and actual horse odors were being pumped in by the aircirc system. The horses had been deactivated for the night and they each stood still and silent. The lights were set on dim.
Cimarron had just come in by way of the door at the far end of the building and was walking toward where Marney stood in the middle of the neowood plank floor. His metal hand flickered palely in the dim light. “You’ve made contact with the greaseball?”
“Hey now, there’s no need to call Gomez nasty—”
“Tell me what you have to report.” He grasped her wrist with his metal fingers.
“You’re the squeezingest feller I have ever—”
“Give me some information,” he urged.
Grimacing, she struggled to get free of him. “Let go of me or I’m not going to be able to talk straight.”
He loosened his grip very slightly, but kept hold of her. “I’m not especially fond of delay.”
“Okay, okay. Gomez is in Sweetwater lookin’ for some palooka named Avram Moyech.”
“That we already know.”
“How in the dickens am I supposed to know what you know when you don’t confide a darn—ow.”
“Less blather, Marney.”
She took a deep breath. “He was aimin’ to talk to Al Lavinsky, who works right here at the rodeo,” she continued, exhaling. “But something went wrong and he never got to—”
“All right. So what’s his next move?”
“I don’t know.”
Cimarron leaned closer to her. “If you want to keep in my good graces, you damn well better find out what he’s planning to do next. And you’re going to have to find out damn—”
Cimarron suddenly let go of Marney and pushed her away from him. He spun around, swinging up his metal hand.
Gomez, who’d slipped out of a nearby stall to come slowly up behind him, ducked now and made a dive at Cimarron.
The black man had a lazgun built into his middle finger. He fired it now, but the beam only went sizzling through the air where Gomez no longer was.
The detective tackled the big man around the knees, then brought a fist up into his groin.
“Yow!” Cimarron started to move his metal hand up for another shot.
But Gomez slapped a sharp-pronged metal disk against his lower left arm.
Gasping, Cimarron’s body began to tremble and jerk.
He slumped back, flat out on the floor and lay stiff with his eyes open wide and staring.
Gomez tapped the disk with his forefinger and untangled himself from the fallen man.
“Darn sakes,” commented Marney, “I didn’t think he’d hear you tiptoein’ up behind him, Gomez darlin’.”
“We underestimated the acuity of his hearing, sí.” Gomez squatted beside Cimarron. “What I attached to you, Sam, is a trudisk. I’m sure you and the pendejos you work with are familiar with them.”
“You’re … a … bastard,” said Cimarron in a droning voice.
“Es verdad,” Gomez agreed. “But right now the disk sees to it that you have to answer each and every one of my queries with an absolutely truthful response.”
“Yes,” agreed the drugged Cimarron.
“Where’s Avram Moyech?”
After a few seconds, Cimarron blurted, “Tekelodeon.”
“That’s what?”
“Big Tek den,” supplied Marney.
Nodding, Gomez asked the drug-controlled man, “Where exactly is Moyech within that joint?”
“In one of the suites in the Exec Wing.”
“Which suite?”
“12A.”
“Is he guarded?”
“Two human guards. One on the hall, one in the suite with him.”
“Any passwords I can use?”
Cimarron answered, “Say ‘sibben elf’ to the guardbot at the corridor entrance.”
“What are the guards’ names?”
“Outside man is Leon and—”
“Trouble coming!” Marney gestured toward the doorway.
Gomez jumped to his feet and turned. “¡Chihuahua!”
A tall, lean man with a lazgun in his left hand was coming into the stable. “What the hell’d you do to Sam?”
“Dios, we did nothing,” said Gomez. “This poor hombre has suffered some kind of seizure.”
As the man came running toward them, Marney slipped away and into a stall.
“We were having a polite chitchat,” explained Gomez as he casually moved his hand closer to his shoulder holster, “when Señor Cimarron just fell over.”
The new arrival stopped beside his fallen colleague.
“How come his eyes are wide open?”
“Must be a symptom of what ails him.”
“And I suppose that trudisk you stuck on his arm has nothing to do with—”
“Out of the way, Gomez!” shouted Marney.
There was a slapping sound, followed by a loud snorting.
A huge black stallion came charging out of the stall Marney had ducked into.
Gomez hit the floor, rolled several times, and sat up with his stungun in hand.
The lean man wasn’t as fast. The robot horse hit him directly, knocked him to the floor, and then trampled him under his hooves as he went galloping by.
Gomez leaped to his feet, aimed his stungun, and shot the thin man.
He sprinted closer and used the stungun on Cimarron.
Marney popped free of the stall. She poked at the small silver control box she was holding in her hand.
At the other end of the stable, the robot stallion whinnied twice, reared up on his hind legs. He settled down, ceased to function, and was once again silent and unmoving.
“Gracias.” Gomez caught Marney’s hand. “Soon as we store these chingados, we’ll pay a call on Avram. We’ll have a few hours before these two return from slumberland.”
“Soon as they do,�
�� observed Marney ruefully, “they’re going to want us dead.”
29
THE robot doorman was chrome plated. He wore a multicolored flowered shirt, white trousers, yellow sandals, and a gun belt holding twin stunguns. He dropped his silvery right hand to one of the guns as Jake came striding into the apartment complex lobby out of the hot, sun-bright morning.
“Your business, sir?” he inquired in his deep, slightly echoing voice.
“I’d like to see Hazel McCay,” Jake told the bot.
He hadn’t intended to come here, but the NewTown Pharmaceuticals R&D exec had failed to show up for their dawn meeting.
Closing his metal fingers around the sinivory handle of the stungun, the doorman asked, “What was that name again, sir?”
“Hazel McCay. She lives in 135.”
The robot produced a jumpy humming noise in his broad chest. After a few seconds, he told Jake, “You’re mistaken, sir.”
“You mean that isn’t the apartment number?”
The robot shook his silvery head. “There is no such person residing here.”
“This is the Tropicana Villa building, isn’t it?”
“It is, sir.”
“Then she lives here.”
“There is no Hazel McCay living here. There never has been.” The doorman lifted his stungun halfway out of its holster. “I believe you’ve made a mistake.”
“She probably doesn’t live anywhere now,” murmured Jake.
“How’s that, sir?”
“I was agreeing that I’ve made a mistake.” Jake took a few steps backward.
“Have a pleasant morning, sir.”
“Such is my intention.” Jake backed to the plastiglass doors, keeping an eye on the doorman’s guns.
As Jake stepped out onto the morning walkway a dark shadow fell across him from above. He dived against the apartment complex front facade, yanked out his stungun, and stared upward.
A cream-colored skycar was drifting down to make a curbside landing.
Jake remained where he was, slightly crouched, gun out.
The car landed, bounced slightly. The driveside door swung open wide. “You’re awfully touchy, Jake,” said Kacey Bascom, smiling out at him.
Slipping the stungun away, he approached the skycar. “Welcome to San Peligro, a tropical paradise for those who manage to stay alive.”
“I’m ticked off at you,” Bascom’s daughter told him. “You went sneaking out of Greater LA without so much as—”
“Darn.” He snapped his fingers and shook his head. “I had intended to inform you about my itinerary and it completely slipped my mind. How’d you locate—”
“I’m a pretty good detective myself,” she said. “As I have to keep reminding you. We are supposed to be working together on this business.”
Jake rested a hand on the door and leaned forward. “Matter of fact, I could use a little help.”
“If you’re looking for a way to get inside the NewTown Pharmaceuticals setup unnoticed and undetected,” Kacey told him, “I think I can arrange something.”
FROM THE VIDPHONE SCREEN, Rex/GK-30 said, “Relax, kiddo. We’ll locate the lad.”
Molly said, “Something’s really wrong.”
“Take it easy and fill me in.”
She was in the living room of the Cardigan condo and it was a few minutes beyond eight A.M. The morning outside was an overcast pale blue. “I came by to pick him up,” she told the academy bot. “There’s nobody here and the secsystem is down.”
“Hold on a sec,” requested Rex. His image was gone from the screen for nearly ten seconds. “We’re dealing with some tricky folks, Moll. I just checked out the security computer that handles that building. It doesn’t know there’s anything wrong there. They used some kind of pretty sophisticated bypass disabler.”
“Who?”
“I’ll try to find out, but it’s going to take me a while.”
“I left Dan off here last night—and I guess I was a little nasty to him.” Molly’s fingers twisted around each other and she rubbed one thumb across the other. “Between then and now somebody grabbed him.”
“Listen, if they were going to kill Dan, they’d have done it and left him there,” the coppery robot pointed out. “That means he was snatched and taken—”
“But where’d they take him?”
“We’ll find out,” Rex/GK-30 assured her. “Meantime, you’d best call the cops and—”
“Not yet, no. I want to contact Jake Cardigan first.”
“For a SoCal police officer to be,” said the bot, “you don’t seem to have a great deal of faith in—”
“Most of the SoCal cops don’t think highly of Jake. Especially Lieutenant Drexler, who’s working on the Bascom—”
“Jake’s on the island of San Peligro, down in the sun-drenched Caribbean,” cut in Rex. “I just got that by tapping one of the Cosmos Detective Agency computers. Going to require more time to get you a specific vidphone number and address. You might as well come to school while—”
“No, there’s somebody else I have to see,” she told the robot. “And you’re going to help me with that, too.”
“Do my best,” promised Rex.
THE DARK-HAIRED REBECCA BURDON sat on the terrace of her rented San Peligro villa looking out at the early-morning Atlantic. Far out over the sea a half dozen skyboats were circling and swooping like giant gulls.
A voxbox concealed amid a border of holographic palm trees said, “A Mr. Jean-Paul Berdanier to see you, mum.”
She rose up from the high-back neowicker chair, saying, “Send him out here.” Turning, she faced the plastiglass doorway.
A moment later it slid silently open and a tall, thin black man in a pale yellow suit stepped out into the bright sunlight. “So very good to see you again, Rebecca dear.”
“I have something quite important I want to talk to you about, Jean-Paul.” She indicated one of the chairs.
Berdanier seated himself and, carefully, crossed his legs. “You seem distraught and unhappy, dear.”
Sitting in the neowicker chair facing his, she said, “Can we talk off the record?”
“Of course, Rebecca,” he assured her. “I’m not here in my capacity as Caribbean director of the International Drug Control Agency. I am—and, please, don’t ever doubt it—your friend and admirer.” He studied her pale face for a few seconds. “Does this have to do with your brother? I know you and he don’t always—”
“It does have to do with Rowland.”
“A shame you two can’t—”
“You know about the SinTek project that NewTown Pharmaceuticals is involved with?”
He chuckled. “I’d better know about it,” he replied. “The IDCA is very much interested in a safe electronic drug that has the potential of weaning Tekheads off the real stuff. Is there some snag in the project, dear?”
“No, NewTown will have the testing samples of SinTek ready in two months. Exactly as promised.”
“That’s very gratifying,” said the thin black man. “What then is worrying you?”
Shoulders slightly hunched, she leaned forward in her chair. “SinTek is just a cover.”
“A cover, dear?”
“Rowland is in cahoots with a TekLord back in California. Zack Excoffon.”
Berdanier straightened in his chair. “That can’t be true.”
“It is, though. Rowland agreed—for a very handsome amount of money—to set up a Tek-manufacturing plant for the man,” she continued. “It will turn out a very high-grade Tek. Real Tek, not a harmless imitation. And because of the quantity being manufactured, the NewTown Tek will be a lot cheaper to make. Which will mean greater profits for everybody.”
Slowly, the drug agent stood. “You’re telling me that you and your brother are producing illegal drugs?”
“Yes,” she replied. “I have to tell someone. I want this all to stop.”
He looked out toward the sea, deep lines forming across his forehead. �
�It’s going on right here on the island, isn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s right,” said Rebecca. “The fact that we’re going to be turning out SinTek at this facility will serve as a cover, Rowland figures. Nobody will question the supplies and equipment being brought in. It will look, so he hopes, like everything is being used for the synthetic Tek.”
Sitting down again, Berdanier leaned back and sighed. “You’ve put me—this little conversation of ours has put me, dear, in a very uncomfortable position.”
“I know, but I need advice. I need help,” she said. “And it isn’t only illicit Tek that’s involved.”
He took her hand. “I’ll help you as much as I can, dear.”
Very quietly she told him, “They’re killing people.”
He let go her hand, got up, stared down at her. “What do you mean?’
“Anyone who might cause them trouble, expose what they’re up to,” she said. “Rowland and Excoffon have already had several people killed. There was a man in SoCal—his name was Rothman or Grossman, something like that. He was killed because he found out something about what the SinTek project was really all about.”
The IDCA agent said, “His name was Dwight Grossman. But Walt Bascom, the head of the Cosmos Detective Agency, is being charged with that death.”
“No, they framed Bascom. Excoffon felt it would be clever to get rid of him along with Grossman.”
Berdanier moved a few feet away from her. “What do you want me to do, dear?”
“I suppose I’m just about as guilty as my brother. I knew what was going on and I haven’t done a damned thing about it.”
“You’re doing something now.”
Rebecca said, “Truth to tell, Jean-Paul, I guess I don’t particularly care about myself. I want all this Tek business to stop. If you want to have your IDCA raid the facility here, I can provide you with floor plans, show you the location of the concealed Tek lab and—”
“That won’t be necessary, sis.” Rowland Burdon came walking across the terrace, smiling at his sister.
Rebecca got up. She said, “Jean-Paul, you can arrest him right now. I’ll supply you with—”
“Not likely, dear.” Berdanier smiled apologetically.
Rowland told the IDCA man, “You can take off now, J-P. Thanks for alerting me. I’ve been hunting all over the island for Becky.”
Tek Kill Page 13