Looking up at her, Globo answered, “I was hired to kill him.”
“By whom?” she asked.
Starting to wad up his handkerchief, he said, “Keep in mind that I was paid a considerable sum.”
“Who?” asked Jake.
“Vargas.”
“Rafe Vargas.”
“That one, sí.”
Jake studied him for a few silent seconds. “Vargas is Warbride’s lover and second in command. Why’s he want me dead?”
“It’s not a military thing at all, Jake.” He wadded the handkerchief up even tighter. “Vargas is aware that you and Warbride were once ... good friends.”
“Not exactly that.”
Globo concentrated on his fat fingers as they poked and pressed at the damp handkerchief. “The man is very jealous. He doesn’t want you getting near the lady again,” he said. “Once he learned I was seeking to arrange a meeting between you and Warbride, he had me contacted.”
“Who did that?”
“A nobody, a go-between. His name I don’t even know.”
Jake rubbed at his chin. “You’re telling me that Warbride herself doesn’t even know anything about this?”
“Sí, nada.”
Jake glanced over at Beth. “What do you think?”
“He’s too scared to be lying.”
“Exactly, señorita, obviously.” He used the handkerchief again on his sweating forehead. “The truth is what I’m telling you.”
Standing, slowly, Jake crossed over to Beth. “Now we have to find another way to arrange a meeting with Warbride.”
“I can still help you with that,” offered Globo. “It would be an honor to—”
“Nope. I’ll make other arrangements.” Jake borrowed Beth’s stun gun from her, turned and used it on the fat man.
24
THE ROBOT MADAM GREETED Jake warmly. She was tall and wide with an ample chrome-plated bosom showing beneath her shimmering glogold dress. “Been one hell of a long time, Jake honey,” she boomed as she gave him another enthusiastic hug. Her plump chrome cheeks were decorated with glimmering gems, her crinkly blonde hair was made of spun gold, and she smelled strongly of a dozen different flowers. “I heard you were out of the snoozer, but I didn’t think I’d see you down here at the Arcade.”
Extricating himself, politely, from her exuberant embrace, Jake took two backward steps across the ivory-colored parlor rug. “You seem to be thriving down here, Mama Reina.”
Chuckling, she returned to her huge lucite rocking chair. “We got the most successful high-tech whorehouse this side of the border,” she told him as she resumed rocking. “But since when did you go in for andyhookers?”
“I don’t,” he replied. “I’m looking for a friend of mine who’s supposed to be here.”
“Aw now, honey, I hate to interrupt a customer.”
“He’s not a customer. This guy’s a reporter with GLA Week—Ogden Swires.”
“Him, yeah. He’s doing a story on the Arcade.” She chuckled, slapping at one chrome knee. “That faxzine is supposed to have a readership of around four million, so, an article there’ll be great publicity. You just came down from GLA, didn’t you? How many of those four million you figure are frustrated and horny?”
“Most all of them.”
“Exactly, so a story in that rag of Swires’ will boost business. Local color and nookie’s a great combination.” She ceased rocking, pushed down on the arms of her chair and shoved to a standing position. “I’ve put on a lot of weight since I knew you in GLA, honey.”
“How’s that?”
“Hell, I had to have lots of extra security gadgets built in,” explained Mama Reina. “Tourists get a lot goofier than locals. But now I’m equipped to stun them, tranquilize them and even perform a little minor surgery if need be. I can also clear a Banx card in less than thirty seconds.”
“Notice you’ve added some new rubies, too.”
Smiling, the robot madam tapped her cheek. “Yeah, the gift of an admirer. I got some swell new diamonds, too, but they don’t show when I’m wearing this dress,” she said, waddling toward the door. “Your newshound buddy’s in the Voyeur Lounge. I’ll personally escort you there, lover.”
There were one hundred and twenty large vidmonitor screens built into the milky plasglass walls of the large, oval Voyeur Lounge. Four tiers of three-foot-square screens, each with a wide, gilded catwalk for guests who wanted to stroll. At various spots along each catwalk comfortable airchairs were placed for those who wanted to enjoy an extended view of the activity on any particular screen.
The black GLA reporter was up on the second level, walking slowly along and muttering into the recorder-mike in his hand. Something like thirty customers were enjoying the screens on the four tiers.
“Hey, Chop Suey,” shouted Mama Reina at a Chinese tourist who was aiming his camera at a row of viewscreens. “You were supposed to check your goddamn camera. No pictures allowed in here—so hand it over pronto.”
“I wasn’t informed of this,” he replied, leaning out over the golden railing on the third level. “Being an accredited sociologist and not some perverse thrill-seeker, I intend to employ my camera until—”
“Nuts.” The big robot swung up her right arm and aimed a chrome forefinger at his chest.
A thin, crackling beam of greenish light shot out of the tip of the metal finger, hitting the Chinese square in the forehead. He gasped, teetered for about nine seconds and then came falling down toward the floor.
Mama Reina scooted swiftly over, caught the unconscious customer before he smacked the silvery carpeting, dumped him on the nearest sofa. Smiling at Jake, she tromped on the fallen camera with her spiked heel. “No pictures, you dinks,” she announced to the rest of the voyeurs.
They returned to their viewing.
Giving the robot madam a nod of thanks, Jake climbed up to the second tier.
“On Screen 42 there’s an overweight, pudgy man of nearly fifty enjoying freefall sex with two silver-plated nymphet androids,” Swires was dictating into his recorder. “Screen 43 shows us a fat, middle-aged lady being tied to a painbed by a naked male android wearing a sombrero.” He glanced over at the approaching Jake. “About breakfast.”
“It’s okay, you were tired.” Jake grinned. “No need to apologize, Og, for falling asleep in the middle of the meal.”
“I wasn’t tired.” He clicked off the recorder, let his hand swing down to his side. “I make it a point to get sufficient sleep, even when I’m covering a war.”
“Whatever your reasons for passing out, Miss Kittridge wasn’t offended. So let’s simply forget it.”
Swires eyed him. “I’ve done some checking since you ditched me, Jake.” He slumped into one of the white airchairs. “You’re working for Bascom’s Cosmos outfit these days. You’re supposed to be finding the missing Professor Kittridge and his daughter. Seems you’ve already located Beth Kittridge, so why the hell are you hanging around Cuidado?”
“There’s still her dad to locate.”
“Did she hypnotize me?”
“Nope, and she didn’t drug you either. Neither did I. You really, simply—dozed off.”
“There’s something odd going on. I can sense it.”
“I hear you’ve been cleared to cross over into Chihuahua to interview Warbride.”
“How’d you find that out? I only just—”
“I want to see her, too. But my initial contact fell through.”
Swires was distracted by one of the voyeur screens. “Romancing somebody in a vat full of mud doesn’t appeal to me. But then neither does the idea of watching somebody romancing somebody in a vat of mud. For that matter, I don’t see the fun in romancing somebody in a vat full of mud and knowing that somebody’s watching me over a video monitor. I tell you, Jake, if I didn’t need this story, I’d pack my gear and go back to my hotel to wash my—”
“You’re due to take off in the morning for the Warbride interview. I’d like
to come along.”
The reporter frowned at him. “How come, Jake? You’re supposed to be a former gentleman friend of the lady’s. You ought to be able to drop in on her anytime you want.”
“I have to see her right now. There isn’t time to wait for a message to get to Warbride and back.”
“What about the Kittridge girl?” Swires narrowed one eye. “Is she coming along, too?”
“She is, yeah, if that’s okay with you.”
“And I can interview her?”
“Sure,” promised Jake, “but not until after we find her father.”
“Maybe you’ll ditch me again and I won’t get a damn thing.”
“You’ll get a story, Og. But not yet.”
Swires watched another of the screens for a few seconds. “I never found fat women that attractive. And two fat naked andies don’t do anything for me.”
“If things turn out as I expect,” said Jake, “you’re going to get a damn good story out of this.”
“When I knew you up in GLA a few years ago, you were pretty honest,” said Swires. “I could trust you.”
“You still can.”
“Okay, be at my hotel in the morning at seven sharp, you and the young lady,” he said, rising. “But, Jake, if at any point along the way I find myself dozing off unexpectedly for even a minute, the deal’s off.”
Beth wasn’t in her room when Jake returned to the inn.
Standing in the open doorway between their rooms, he called her name.
After a moment the sliding door in his room opened.
He spun, reaching for the lazgun at his waist.
“Only me,” said the dark-haired young woman as she stepped in out of the early morning.
Jake relaxed, letting go of the gun butt. “I was concerned about you.”
Smiling, she sat on the edge of his bed. “I was only outside,” she said. “I like to do that when I’m by myself. Sit out in the open and just think about things. I’ve done that ever since I was a kid. When we used to visit my uncle’s chateau on the moon, I’d—”
“Be better if you kept out of sight when I’m not around.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, I’m not trying to sound like your official guardian.” He sat in the vinyl armchair. “But we do seem to have several different groups who’d like to do one or both of us in.”
“Do you think Rafe Vargas is really jealous of you?”
“Meaning he might have a less romantic reason for trying to get me killed?”
Beth nodded. “Not that you aren’t a formidable rival, Jake. But, yes,” she said. “It might be that Vargas, despite his closeness to your old friend Warbride, is linked up with someone else.”
“Such as Sonny Hokori or one of the other Tek kingpins.”
“Yes, or possibly even Bennett Sands,” she said. “I have a vague impression that I heard him discuss Vargas with my father once.”
Linking his fingers, Jake rested his chin on them. “Let’s keep that in mind when we meet Vargas.”
“You’ve arranged a way to get us across to Warbride?”
“Yeah, but I had to promise Ogden Swires an exclusive interview with you.”
Her eyes widened. “We’re going with him?”
“He got his okay to cross into Chihuahua. Seems to me it’s a fairly safe way of getting to Warbride. I don’t trust any of my contacts hereabouts.”
“But you trust Swires?”
“A lot more than I trust people like Globo.”
“I’ll be evasive as possible,” she said. “Does he know I put him to sleep?”
“He suspects, but I tried to divert him from that notion.”
“Where’d you find him?”
Jake stood, stretching. “Around town.”
“Where specifically?”
He turned to look out into the three A.M. darkness. “The Arcade, doing a story.”
After a few seconds she asked, “When’s the last time you were in Cuidado?”
“Something like seven years ago.”
“Did you ever travel here with your father?”
“I never traveled anywhere with my father.”
“I thought you lived with him in Mexico.”
“When he was stationed in Mexico City, back when I was in my late teens, we shared a house,” Jake said, still not looking at her. “We didn’t socialize much.”
“How old were you when your mother died?”
“I forget,” he said. “Around sixteen or seventeen.”
“Were you all living together then?”
“Nope, she was in GLA—he was stationed in Central America someplace—I was going to school up at a place called the Sky Academy.”
“That’s supposed to be a very good school.”
“Very good for troublesome boys.”
“Were you?”
“He thought so.”
“And your mother?”
“She was sick by that time and didn’t get to vote.”
“Still, going to school in an orbiting colony like the Sky Academy must’ve been fun.”
“Almost as much fun as the Freezer.” He turned and faced her. “We have to meet Swires at seven in the morning. You don’t need sleep, but I do.”
She left the bed, standing straight. “Yes, I keep forgetting. Sorry. Shall I wake you around six?”
“No need, thanks. Good night.”
Passing him on the way to her doorway, she paused and kissed him on the cheek. “Good night.”
25
THE LANDVAN DROVE ITSELF. A small black guidebox had been attached to the dash control-panel, and that took care of driving the battered vehicle through the hot, dry countryside.
The aircirc system functioned only intermittently, and the plasglass windows refused to open. By midday the interior of the van was too warm and the scents of the previous cargoes and passengers had grown thicker.
“All around us stretch sad scenes of devastation ... Swires, seated in the driveseat, was dictating into his recorder-mike. “This village we’re passing through now, wherein some of the fiercest fighting in all of the Chihuahua rebellion took place but scant weeks ago, is like the gutted skeleton of lost hopes. Many of its humble cottages and shops are blackened, fallen-down ruins. Its hollow-eyed denizens wander like forlorn sleepwalkers, and circling in the glaring sky like lost punctuation marks are the ebony scavenger birds who await a chance to descend and—”
“You used that phrase before,” mentioned Jake, who was slouched in the passenger seat closest to the right side-window.
“Twice, in fact,” added Beth, who sat beside him with her long legs tucked under her.
“Have I?” The GLA Week reporter clicked off his recorder-mike. “That happens to me sometimes when I get too emotionally involved with my subject.”
“How did you get involved?” asked Jake. “We’ve been rolling through Chihuahua locked up tight inside this van. Haven’t stopped, haven’t talked to anybody.”
“I’m a sensitive observer. When I see what the civil war has done to this area, it touches me. I don’t have to get out and roll around in the muck.”
The van swerved to avoid a dead horse in the wide, dusty roadway that cut through the center of the town. Then, rattling and chuffing, it turned onto a side road.
Beth asked, “What time did you say we’re supposed to reach our first rendezvous spot?”
“The fellow who delivered this robot van to me told me that’d be around one P.M.,” Swires told her.
“Then we ought to be just about there.”
Jake said, “We look to be heading for the back country.”
There were no more houses now, only dry yellow fields on each side of the narrow, twisting road. Scattered across a burned-out stretch of land were the remains of three big gray combat robots. Arms, legs, torsos, heads, blackened and twisted.
The van slowed, swung sharply to the left and hopped off the road. It went bumping over a ditch and into a flat, yellow field.
The engine turned itself off and, after producing a few final pings, the vehicle grew silent.
“Apparently,” said Beth, stretching her legs out in front of her, “we’ve arrived.”
The air a hundred feet directly in front of them started to shimmer. Slowly, with occasional jerks, a building began to take shape. It was a large, sprawling hacienda with seemingly thick adobe walls and slanting red-tile roofs. Lush shrubbery sprouted up in front of the hologram house, and a wide red brick path appeared, leading to its polished oaken door.
“Impressive,” observed Swires.
“So’s this,” said Jake, nodding to his right.
Five dark men in tan uniforms that were trimmed with scarlet were standing close to Jake’s side of the halted landvan. Four of them held lazrifles pointed at the passengers.
“Less flippancy in your answers, if you don’t mind.” The captain took one precise step forward and slapped Beth hard across the face.
“Damn you.” Jake started to lunge at him.
“It’s okay, Jake.” She caught his arm, holding him back. “Easy now.”
He subsided, but the deepened lines remained across his forehead.
The man who’d hit Beth was small and thin, about fifty. His left eye was circled with scar tissue and frozen in a perpetual wink. He’d introduced himself as Captain Aguilar. “Let me explain what’s going on,” he told them. “We have good reason to believe that an attempt is going to be made on our leader’s life. These would-be assassins of Warbride are supposedly going to be posing as foreign journalists.”
“I’m certainly not an assassin,” insisted Swires. “You’ve checked every damn item in my ID packet. Hey, you even confirmed my ret patterns with that unsanitary retina-scanner your sergeant lugs around in his knapsack.”
“Quite possibly you are who you claim to be, Señor Swires,” acknowledged the captain. “This outspoken young woman, however, has absolutely no identification at all.”
“I was involved in a crash,” she said. “Everything was lost.”
“You claim to be Beth Kittridge?”
“I am Beth Kittridge.”
The captain shook his head. “That seems to me very unlikely.”
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