Watching them, Jake bent over the beggar. “Can you get up?”
The Brazil vet gave Jake a thin, sly smile. “Sure, Cardigan.” He jumped to his feet.
The two others were already scurrying clear of the alley.
The beggar thrust a note into Jake’s hand, ducked around him, and went running off.
The note said—“The beggar could have been a kamikaze. Go home to GLA.”
8
THE ROBOT DOORMAN AT the narrow five-story Hotel Algiers had broken down sometime ago and fallen to the sidewalk. No one had bothered to pick him up or had attempted to repair him. Rusted, gutted, scrawled over with rude messages in several tongues, he lay on his back just to the left of the lobby entrance.
A cold, harsh rain had started to fall about a half hour earlier and it was hitting the carcass of the doorman, making loud pinging noises. The cracked paving was slick and black.
Gomez’s skycab came sputtering down through the rainswept night, dodging between the multilevel pedramps that skirted the hotel and the other rundown buildings in this forlorn section of Paris.
Hopping clear of the jittery cab as soon as it touched down, Gomez ran into the Algiers, skirting the fallen doorman.
“Madre,” he commented as the foul odors that had collected in the small circular lobby assailed his respiratory system. The scent of unwashed flesh predominated, but the detective also noted spoiled food, urine, dead rodents, strong antiseptics, and dying flowers.
The clerk, a fat black cyborg, was slumped over the simulated-marble desk. His copper right arm dangled over the edge.
Narrowing his eyes, Gomez studied him. “Ah, he’s breathing,” he determined after a watchful ten seconds.
Finding his way to the stairway, he began his ascent. The elevator looked as though it wasn’t to be trusted.
New odors hit him as he climbed toward the third floor, where Eddie Anguille had his room. Smokable drugs, vomit, something vile that he couldn’t identify.
On the second floor landing of the venerable hotel Gomez nearly tripped over a discarded metal foot and ankle. “Careless,” he mentioned, continuing upward.
The thin neowood door of room 383 had a triop photo of a naked woman pasted on it. Someone, long ago, had drawn shaky red circles around each of her breasts.
“Paris is still an art center, I see.” Shrugging, Gomez tapped on the door just to the right of the naked woman’s knee.
There was no discernible response.
He tapped once more.
Then he heard a faint rasping voice. “Who is it?”
“Gomez. Limehouse sent me.”
“Who?”
“I’m Gomez. The gent who sent me is Limehouse.”
“Minute.”
Three minutes later someone scratched at the other side of the door. Another minute passed, the door creaked open.
“C’min, Gomez. I’m sick.”
Gomez went in sideways, careful to avoid contact with Anguille, who stood swaying in the opening. He was small, not more than five foot four, and a grayish white color. He was wearing a soiled blue and white striped shirt, a pair of baggy shorts, and one sock.
On the little lame bedside table next to his gray unmade cot sat the evidence of a recent Tek session. There was a Brainbox, the roachlike Tek chips, and the electrodes to hook up the box to your skull.
“You’ve added Tek to your long line of vices, huh?”
Anguille started to reply, but began coughing instead. “Shit, Gomez, I’m not that stupid,” he was able to say eventually. “Naw, that crap belongs to my girlfriend.”
“And she’s where?”
“Out.”
“Sit down somewhere,” suggested Gomez. “We’ll talk business.”
“You don’t like me, never have.”
“True, but you have some information I may need. Or so you told Limehouse.”
Anguille’s left leg suddenly went out on him. He slumped, listed to the left, staggered back, and dropped into a seated position on the rumpled cot. The room’s only window was in the wall just behind the bed. It was missing a pane and the wet night wind was worrying at the splotched plyotowel that served as a curtain. Shivering, Anguille asked, “Do you happen to see my fricking pants around here anywhere?”
Gomez glanced around the dim room. “That might be them lurking under the chair.”
“Yeah, that’s them. Could you—I really am sick—could you fetch them for me?” asked the informant. “I don’t like to sit around with my butt hanging out when I have company.”
“You always were fastidious, Eddie.” Gingerly, Gomez plucked the ragged pair of pants from under the lopsided chair and tossed them to Anguille. “Now tell me about that minute of conversation you passed on to Limehouse.”
“He tell you my price?”
Nodding, Gomez dragged over the chair the trousers had been under. He was about to sit when he noticed a thick spill of something green and sticky on the seat. Pushing the chair aside, he said, “We’ll discuss price after I find out if you have anything beyond what I heard and saw.”
“I got more, sure.” He was breathing with difficulty as he attempted to tug on his pants while sitting on the cot.
Gomez looked away. “Very fuzzy bit of video. You claim the two gents conversing are with the Paris Police Bureau.”
“They are, trust me. That piece you saw came from a much larger sequence,” said Anguille, still struggling with his pants. “A colleague of mine made it for a different purpose altogether.”
“For all I know,” Gomez pointed out, “those two lads were also colleagues of yours pretending to be cops.”
Wheezing some, Anguille finally got the pants all the way on. “No, it’s a real police conversation, between two high-place officials,” he swore. “And, what’s important to you, Gomez, is that they’re talking about the other letter from the Unknown Soldier.”
“Not the note that was stuck to Bouchon’s remains?”
“No, no, a different letter entirely. One that was sent directly to the cops.”
“The Unknown Soldier never does that, Eddie. It’s not his method.”
“Well, he sure as hell did it this time. Once I happened to hear about what was said on this vidfilm—since I already knew why you were in town—I realized I was onto something,” explained Anguille, breathing shallowly. “I made a special effort, Gomez, and busted my ass for you. I got hold of a copy of the very letter.”
“And that’s what you’re selling?”
When he nodded, Anguille set himself to coughing again. “Right you are, for $1500.”
“Why don’t I just trot over to the police as an accredited operative and ask to see the damn letter? Be cheaper.”
“The reason you can’t do that, Gomez, is because they won’t admit that they have such a letter. You heard them talking about covering it up.”
“What’s bothering me,” said Gomez, “beside the godawful smell of this room, is what I know about your past activities. You’re not, Eddie, the most trustworthy gent in Paris.”
“Look, you can have it for $1000,” offered the ailing informant. “I happen to be in need of quick cash. And, shit, I laid out $500 for the damn letter myself.”
Nodding, Gomez told him, “Okay, it’s a deal.” From his jacket pocket he took out the $1000 in Banx notes that he’d slipped in there earlier. “Where’s the letter?”
Anguille lifted his backside off the bed. “In my pants. That’s why I was so anxious over them.” He reached into a hip pocket and came out with a folded sheet of faxpaper. “You hand me the money and I’ll—holy shit!”
He stood up completely, staring at something behind Gomez.
Spinning around, Gomez was just in time to see the door of the little room begin to crumble away to dust.
Jake stepped out of the Parisian night and into the Grand Illusion bordello, from the rainy pedramp into the sultry simulated formal garden. Paths of spotless white gravel crisscrossed what appeared to be
acres of well-cropped bright green grass. There were rows of rosebushes in full scarlet flower, great topiary hedges carved into the shapes of crouching panthers, roaring lions, and running wolves. There was a tall fountain up at the center of the holographic garden, topped with a lifesize statue of a naked young woman pouring deep blue water from an urn. The steamy scent of hothouse flowers was thick in the air.
Sitting in a white metal chair in a pink arbor near the fountain was a black young woman dressed in a delicate nineteenth-century gown. On the white metal table beside her rested a portable vidphone.
The gravel crunched underfoot as Jake made his way over to her.
“Evening,” he said when he reached the arbor.
“Good evening, sir,” she said, smiling pleasantly. “My name is Onita and I’m your receptionist for tonight here at the world-famous Grand Illusion. Before we proceed with satisfying your every sexual need, I am obliged by French law to inform you that, while I am a living, breathing human being, none of the hookers whom you’ll encounter during your enjoyable stay here are real. Some are state-of-the-art androids, while others are simulated directly in your brain, using completely legal brainstim techniques. While we insist on a simple, painless robophysical exam for each and every customer, we accept no legal or moral responsibility for any subsequent physical or mental mishap that may befall you during or after you’ve indulged your passions at our establishment. If you have heard and thoroughly comprehended all this, please signify by saying yes.”
“Yeah. But what I actually—”
“The next matter to settle, sir, is how you intend to pay for your evening’s pleasures,” continued the young woman. “While we prefer Banx notes in advance, we do honor WurldKard, DisneyCharge, and—”
“Onita, I’m not a customer.”
“If you’re suffering from financial difficulties, sir, our friendly Loan Department stands ready to—”
“What I mean is, I really came here to talk to Madame Nana.”
“She never sees any—”
The vidphone chimed discreetly.
“Excuse me, sir.” She turned the phone so Jake couldn’t see the screen. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Is that Jake Cardigan?” inquired a slightly harsh female voice.
“Are you?” asked Onita, looking up at him.
He nodded. “I am, yep.”
“I thought so,” said the phone. “Send him right up to my suite, honey.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Hanging up, she smiled more brightly at him. “Madame Nana wishes to see you, sir. Are you a celebrity?”
“A nonentity really. Where do I find her?”
Onita pointed. “Go along this path until you come to the tiger hedge. Turn right on that path and when you come to the arch of wild flowers, stop and wait. An escort will come for you. You sure you’re not someone I might have heard of?”
Jake grinned. “That seems unlikely,” he told her. “But then I don’t know what sort of people you hang out with in your off hours.”
He started on his way.
9
AS THE FIRST HUSKY hoodlum stepped through the opening where the hotel room door once had been, Gomez tossed the sticky chair across the room at him. Then, ducking low, he spun and dashed toward the cot. While jamming his Banx notes back into his pocket with one hand, he snatched the sheet of folded paper out of Anguille’s knobby hand.
The first hood, propelled by the legs of the chair nudging him hard in the chest, stumbled backwards into the second hood, who was still in the shadowy corridor outside.
Gomez continued in motion, walking right across the unmade bed. He yanked aside the plyotowel that served as a curtain, went climbing through the paneless window. As he’d noticed when approaching the Algiers by skycab, there was a pedramp running close to the third-floor windows and about six feet below them.
He jumped free of the room, hitting the rainslick ramp on his side. He skidded, rolled a few feet, came to a stop. He sat up and very rapidly tucked the copy of the Unknown Soldier letter away. Yanking out his stungun, he scrambled to his feet and glanced back up at the window.
“Gomez.” Anguille was framed there in the light, trying to climb over the sill. “Help me.”
“Stand aside so I can get off a shot.”
The informant screamed then. The whole front of him, from neck to waist, seemed to explode out into the night. Fragments of flesh, bone, cloth came spurting all across the darkness.
Gomez started running away from there.
One of the two intruding hoods must have shot Anguille from behind with a needlegun, sending dozens of jagged darts into him.
As Gomez jogged along, concentrating on putting distance between himself and the Hotel Algiers, he noticed something up ahead on the rainy ramp.
Two more hoodlums, remarkably similar to those he’d left behind in Anguille’s room, were standing there. Side by side, wide-legged, about a hundred yards away.
Halting, he took a quick look back over his shoulder. “Chihuahua!”
Another pair of goons was standing about two hundred yards to his rear.
This ramp was nearly three stories up from the street. So going over the railing and dropping down to ground level was especially impractical. Although he might be able to shinny down some of the fretwork.
“Shinnying while dodging four marksmen ain’t going to be easy,” he reminded himself.
The big louts up ahead, smiling, were leisurely drawing lazguns from inside their dark jackets.
He didn’t bother to check behind him, since he was certain the other pair would be performing similar actions.
Gomez was about to try talking to them in a diplomatic fashion when he became aware of a sound growing up at his right.
He risked a glance.
A large skyvan was moving in close to the pedramp and seemed to be intending to land directly in front of him.
As the van lifted over the railing and started to set down, a stuncannon mounted atop its forward cabin swung around. A beam of orangeish light came sizzling out, hitting the two goons at his rear in turn. Each yowled, stiffened, and fell.
The words newz, inc were emblazoned large on the side of the skycar, which was now hovering on the ramp between him and the two remaining hoods.
Gomez had a sudden suspicion as to who must be in the skyvan.
But when the door to the front compartment popped invitingly open, he didn’t hesitate. He ran, zigzagging to make himself less of a target for anybody back at the hotel. He jumped right into the compartment.
This was better than getting shot.
Somewhat better anyway.
Madame Nana was long, lean, and dressed in tight black trousers and a black neoleather jacket. Her black hair was worn in a severe crew cut, she had a circular black patch over her left eye, and she was puffing on a thin, shriveled black cigar. “Hi, Jake,” she said from behind her seethrough glass desk.
Her office simulated a sunlit forest clearing, and the big desk and the three glass chairs seemed to be sitting on grass and pine needles.
Jake stopped at the edge of the clearing to study the slim madam. “You’ve changed your name again, Lulu,” he said finally.
“For business reasons.”
“When I knew you in Greater LA six years ago, you were Madam Blueberry,” he said. “And five years before that, down in Mexico, you called yourself—”
“No need to go back that far in time,” she said. “Especially since everyone hereabouts thinks I’m thirty-one years old.” She took a puff on the cigar, then exhaled a swirl of smoke. “Sit down, Jake.”
He remained on his feet. “Though it’s always a pleasure, I have to admit I dropped in on business.”
“Please sit down. We’re old friends and there’s always time for pleasantries.”
“My arresting you a few times for running illegal whorehouses in GLA doesn’t exactly make us old buddies, Lulu.” He lowered himself into a glass chair, watching her.
“Whenever
you broke into one of my places because of some license trouble, you were always a gentleman.”
He grinned. “That’s not what you called me at the time.”
“There’s plenty of time for business. Tell me all about yourself.” She leaned back in her chair and contemplated him. “I was sorry when I heard you got sent up to the Freezer for a fifteen-year stretch.”
“I’m interested in one of your customers,” cut in Jake. “Guy named Zack Rolfe.”
“A friend and client, though a shade perverse in his tastes.”
“I want to talk to him when he’s through. Could you arrange an encounter?”
“That won’t be a problem—and your timing is perfect, Jake,” Madame Nana told him. “Zack likes to have a bit of supper first. Right now he’s up in one of our private dining rooms with Felice, Paulette, and Rosco. I’ll have one of my people take you there soon as we finish talking over old times.”
Jake stood. “I’m about done.”
“You haven’t even told me how your old pal’s doing.” She inhaled and exhaled smoke. “That horny Mexican—what was his name?”
“Gomez. And he’s in crackerjack shape,” said Jake. “Where’s this dining room?”
“Gomez—yes. I should have remembered that. So do you ever run into Gomez these days?”
Putting both hands on the back of the glass chair, he leaned slightly toward her. “C’mon, Lulu. If I know you, you’re already aware that Gomez and I work for the Cosmos Detective Agency and that we’re in Paris on a case.”
She flicked ashes off into the simulated grass. “You’re thinking of me as I was during my Madam Blueberry days,” she said. “These days, Jake, I concentrate on my business and take practically no interest in the outside world and its affairs.”
“I’ll pass your best wishes on to Gomez. How about that escort?”
Smiling, Madame Nana touched a panel at the edge of her desk. Chimes sounded off in the forest. “I’ll have Marcel guide you up to the dining room. Sit down and rest until he arrives.”
“How long is it going to take the guy to get here?”
“Not long. Five minutes.”
It took nearly ten.
TekLab Page 5