“I actually like you, Gomez,” she said. “I’ve never met Cardigan, but I’ve heard a good deal about the man. He may be a fine detective, but eventually the fact that he’s addicted to Tek is going to affect his performance.”
“He’s not an addict. He doesn’t even use the stuff anymore.”
“How do you know?”
“He told me.”
She smiled. “You trust the guy?”
“Si, yes, I do.”
“And to your knowledge he hasn’t used Tek since he got out?”
Gomez studied the dark ocean underfoot. “Not much, no.”
Marny laughed. “Not much? What the heck does that mean? You just now told me he quit.”
“When Beth Kittridge was murdered by the Teklords—well, he did a little backsliding.”
“The odds are he’ll backslide again.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You really should read my report, at least skim the thing. The statistical charts alone ought to convince—”
“Are you Mr. Gomez?” inquired the chromeplated robot in a white sailorsuit who’d stopped beside their table.
“I am.”
“There’s a call for you, skipper.”
Rising, Gomez said to the young woman, “Excuse me for a moment, cara.”
In the vidphone alcove he found a heavyset man of about thirty five scowling at him from the phonescreen. “Do you remember me?”
“Is there a prize involved if I guess this correctly?”
“There’s another annoying thing I remember about you, Gomez. You’re too much of a wiseass.”
Gomez inquired, “How’d you know I was here, Zangerly?”
“Your poor longsuffering wife told me when I called your home,” answered Roger Zangerly. “She’s not your first wife, is she?”
“Far from it.”
“Right, I didn’t imagine any one of them lasted long with you.”
“Anything else that’s none of your damn business that you’d like to chat about?”
“You handled a case for a friend of mine about a year ago,” said Roger. “Harvey Conn, who’s Junior CEO at Botoys, Ltd. We met at that time.”
“Si, I recall the encounter with fondness,” said the detective. “You advised Conn to dump us and hire a competent agency.”
“I was wrong. Turns out you did a damn fine job for Harvey—and you people were discreet about it.”
“Ah, is one of your mistresses threatening to—”
“This is about my brother. Barry, my younger brother,” said Roger. “He’s—well, it’s a complicated situation. They found him an hour ago in the Ocean Park Sector. Somebody’s worked him over—more than one person probably. They beat the crap out of him. He’ll be okay eventually, but right now he’s in the hospital. I want someone besides the cops to work on this. A good reliable agency like Cosmos.”
“Give me some more details.”
“I’d rather you talk to my brother first, get his version of what’s going on,” said Roger. “Can you do that tomorrow?”
“Is he up to visitors?”
“No, but he can use the vidphone—so the hospital tells me.”
Gomez nodded slowly. “I’ll set it up with my boss, Walt Bascom, and we’ll talk to Barry from the Cosmos offices tomorrow. Is eleven okay?”
“Should be.”
“Until then.”
“Gomez.”
“Si?”
“I know you’ll do a damn good job,” Roger told him. “But I still don’t much like you.”
Gomez smiled. “Wait till you meet my partner.”
3
THERE WAS NO ONE else in the small chapel. Jake sat on a bench near the rear, hands folded and looking toward the rows of small copper-doored cubicles on the wall at his left.
The urn that held all that was left of Beth Kittridge rested behind one of those small metal doors. It was cubicle #27.
The simulated stained-glass windows rattled. A sharp wind was blowing through the morning cemetery outside. When the bell tower began chiming the hour often, Jake stood up, nodded in the direction of door #27 and started up the narrow aisle.
His son was probably right. Jake should quit coming out here to the Glendale Sector. For awhile he’d been able to pretend that this was a way to remain in touch with Beth. But it was growing increasingly difficult to feel that. She was dead and he had to accept the fact.
There was no place now he could go to be close to her.
He walked down the chapel steps into the grey, windy morning. The path back to the parking area led down across two grassy acres of cemetery that were thick with impressive monuments. There were angels, cherubs, obelisks rising up all around him. Each and every one no more than a holographic projection.
As he passed the knight in armor that was commemorating the memory of someone named Hurford E. Stone, he noticed it was flickering. The lifesize figure almost faded away, then snapped back into seeming solidity.
A gust of wind came rushing uphill, grabbing up several of the plastiblossoms from the base of the knight’s pedestal.
A few hundred yards downhill from him a priest stood praying beside a grave that was watched over by a huge projection of a praying, widewinged angel. The priest wore a black robe and cowl and had on black gloves. He was fingering a dangling string of glittering metallic rosary beads.
Another strong gust of wind swept through the cemetery, catching at the skirt of the priest’s robe and lifting it. Beneath the robe was a bright chromeplated leg.
Frowning, Jake slowed his pace. “Maybe that guy’s just got a metal leg,” he said to himself. “But maybe he’s a robot pretending to be a priest.”
Casually, Jake reached inside his jacket and rested his palm on the butt of his holstered stungun.
Just then, all the monuments vanished. Someone had clicked off the projection system and Jake was now standing in the middle of an immense blank field of grass with the dubious priest.
Jake dived to the ground, stretching out flat.
As he settled into the wet grass, the robot yanked out a lazgun and fired.
The sizzling beam sliced a rut across a stretch of ground less than five feet from Jake’s left side.
He rolled away from the smoking line that had been etched in the ground. Tugging his gun all the way out, he flipped over onto his chest. He aimed and fired at the robot.
Black robe flapping, the robot was zigzagging downhill. Jake’s initial shot didn’t connect.
Spinning, the robot swung his lazgun around to make another try for Jake.
Jake fired again. This time the stunbeam hit. The robot straightened up, right arm swinging wildly up and the lazgun firing up into the grey morning.
The wind flapped his skirt up again, revealing both silvery legs. Then, after swaying twice, the legs folded up and the mechanism fell over.
Jake remained crouched down. “There’s still the gent who shut off the tombstones to worry about,” he reminded himself.
Up above him an approaching skycar sounded. It was dropping down for a landing.
Rolling to his left, he looked up.
“Relax, amigo. Rescue is at hand.” Gomez’s voice came out of the speaker in the belly of the descending car.
It settled down on a patch of hallowed ground a few feet away.
Running over to the car, Jake hopped into the cabin. “Scoot over to the main chapel, Sid. That’s where the controls for the monuments are and—”
“Too late, Jake. I noted two goons come rushing out of there and into a skycar as I was setting down,” his partner told him. “No doubt they’re the ones who shut down this conspicuous display of mourning. They’re long gone in the direction of the placid Pacific.”
Jake lowered himself into the passenger seat. “How’d you know I was here?”
“You’re here about this time each and every morning,” answered Gomez. “A fact that others besides myself are obviously aware of.”
“Yeah
, looks like.”
“We’ve got a meeting with Bascom in a little over a half hour.”
“New case?”
“Si, and hopefully one that’ll give you something else to think about.”
“I wonder if that’s why this happened,” said Jake. “Did somebody want me to miss the meeting?”
Walt Bascom was a modest-sized man in his middle fifties. The suit he was wearing had, like almost all of his business wardrobe, a rumpled, slept-in look. He was perched on the edge of his cluttered desk at the center of his large, cluttered office in Tower 2 of the Cosmos Detective Agency. Out of the viewindows showed the other towers of this part of the Laguna Sector. Skycars, skycabs and airtrams whizzed by out in the grey morning.
Absently tapping his fingers on the saxophone that was sprawled across the scatters of memos, files and faxcopies collected on his desk, the agency chief said, “Before we have the interview with our client, gents, I want to pass on some useful background stuff.”
Gomez was slouched low in a comfortable chair, feet up on a databox. “Stuff concerning Barry Zangerly?”
“Concerning what this case is all about,” answered Bascom. “After you called last night, Sidney, I did some digging into—”
“You do have a home, don’t you, chief?” inquired Gomez.
“A palatial one, as you well know.”
“It’s just that you’re never there, even in the small wee hours. When I called late last night, you were still here.”
“Actually, it’s the only place I can practice my sax in peace.”
Jake was straddling a straight metal chair, facing the agency head’s desk. “So you already have an idea as to why Barry was beaten up?”
Grunting, Bascom stretched out his arm to punch a control pad on the far side of his desk. “Take a gander at Platform 3.”
Over near where Gomez was slumped, one of the hologram platforms came to life. The image, full size, of a young woman appeared there. She was slim, auburnhaired and in her late twenties.
Jake asked, “That’s Alicia Bower, isn’t it?”
“None other,” replied Bascom. “She’s the only child of the widowed Owen L. Bower.”
“Head man of Mechanix International.” Easing to his feet, Gomez began, slowly, circling the image of Alicia Bower. “They’re the largest producer of robots, androids and servomechs in the world. She must be a mighty wealthy señorita.”
“Four days ago she disappeared.” Bascom touched a key and the image was gone. “Word hasn’t as yet leaked out to the media. Her father is in the hospital and she was supposedly en route to pay him a daughterly visit the day she vanished. She never reached there.”
“Kidnapping?” asked Jake.
“The police don’t think so,” said Bascom, shaking his head. “Nor do Bower’s security people.”
“Por que?” Gomez was sitting once more. “Kidnapping sounds like a pretty logical assumption.”
“Not, they claim, in light of the lass’s prior record,” explained the agency head. “She’s got a history of mental problems, for one thing, plus a tendency toward promiscuity.” He shrugged with his left shoulder only. “The police theory is that she simply ran off with some lad and is shacked up at an as yet unknown locale. The folks at Mechanix International apparently agree.”
Jake said, “But Barry doesn’t agree.”
“He’s been living with Alicia for a year or so. His brother, Roger, and his pop, Bernard Zangerly, both hold down important jobs at Mechanix; Roger it was who introduced her to his sibling.”
“Does her father approve?”
“Not so you’d notice, Jake.”
“What about Barry’s dad?”
“He’s enthusiastic about the match. Probably because he’s hoping his offspring’ll marry the Mechanix heiress and make his position that much more secure.”
Gomez said, “So you’re implying, jefe, that what befell Barry is linked to the vanishing of Alicia.”
Bascom spread his hands wide. “You lads will do the implying. I have merely been filling you in on some background facts in the case,” he said. “It could turn out that he was roughed up by some disgruntled SoCal Tech students, who were unhappy about the grades he gave them.”
His desk buzzed.
Leaning back, Bascom shifted a stack of infodiscs to get at a keypad beneath it. “Yep?”
“A Mr. Zangerly’s out here to see you.”
“I thought he was stretched out on a bed of pain over in the Burbank Sector.”
“This is Mr. Roger Zangerly.”
Bascom frowned, first at Jake and then at Gomez.
Jake shrugged.
Gomez raised his eyebrows.
Sighing, Bascom said, “Okay, send him on in.”
“I decided I’d better sit in on this,” announced Roger as he came striding into the office. “Hello, Gomez.”
Pointing with a thumb, Gomez said, “This is my partner, Jake Cardigan.”
Roger shook hands with Jake, brow wrinkling. “Have I heard of you?”
“Only you can answer that.”
Bascom suggested, “Sit in that blue chair, Mr. Zangerly. Keep in mind, however, that if your brother doesn’t want you sitting in, you’ll have to scram.”
“It’s not a question of his wanting me,” said Roger, settling into the chair. “It’s a question of his needing me.”
4
UP ON THE VIDWALL BARRY Zangerly was saying, “God damn it, you have the completely wrong idea about her.”
“No, it’s you who has a totally naive notion about who and what this woman really is.” Roger was on his feet, fists clenched at his side, shouting at the image of his bedridden brother.
“Alicia is not sleeping with anybody else. She’s in some kind of serious—”
“You’re the only one who believes that. Because you’re simply too damn stubborn to—”
“What you need is some air.” Jake had come up beside the angry Roger. He took hold of his arm. “Right away.”
Shaking free, he snarled at Jake. “Get your damn hands off me,” he warned. “I intend to remain right here until this whole—”
“You can walk out,” explained Jake amiably, “or I can carry you out over my shoulder.”
“It’s not very damn likely, friend, that I’ll let you carry me out of here.”
“You’ll be unconscious by then.”
“Are you threatening me?”
Jake grinned. “Matter of fact, I am.” He nodded in the direction of the door. “You’re disrupting the proceedings.”
“But I have a perfect right to—”
“Mr. Zangerly,” cut in Bascom, “it probably would be a nifty idea if you stepped outside for a spell.”
Roger sucked in a deep breath, held it for several seconds before he exhaled. “All right, okay.” Spinning on his heel, he went tromping out of the tower office.
“Thanks,” said the bandaged Barry. “Roger and I don’t agree on this, which you may’ve noticed.”
Gomez asked him, “What do you think really happened to Alicia Bower?”
“I’m not sure, but it certainly isn’t what Roger and her father’s people think,” he said. “Let me explain some of what’s been going on. Alicia did suffer a breakdown of some kind about fifteen months ago. Rog is right about that, except—”
“What sort of breakdown?” asked Bascom.
“I don’t have all the details. That happened before I really knew her—and Alicia’s never wanted to talk about it that much.” He shifted slightly in his wide hospital bed. “She was working at Mechanix then, in the Advertising Division. She had a collapse of some kind, and her father arranged to have her sent to the Mentor Foundation Psych Centre. That’s back in the Kansas Region of Farmland.”
“And muy expensive,” observed Gomez.
“Did she collapse at the Mechanix headquarters?” asked Jake.
“No, at home.”
“How long,” inquired the agency head, “was she
in Kansas?”
“Just five weeks. She came back cured, although one or two of her friends have told me that she seemed somewhat subdued to them after that.” Barry shifted his position again. “Alicia and I have been living together for the past ten months. About two months ago she decided that she wanted to get into some sort of therapy situation.”
“Why?” asked Jake.
“She was feeling depressed and, once in awhile, things that seemingly had nothing to do with her would upset Alicia deeply.”
“Such as?”
“One night, for instance, we were watching the news,” continued Barry. “There was a report about the accidental death of a South American politician. Alicia went pale, hugged herself, started shaking uncontrollably. That lasted for several minutes.”
“She knew the guy?”
“No, she didn’t. She’d never heard of him and couldn’t explain why she’d become so upset.”
Gomez asked, “Who was this unfortunate Latino?”
Barry thought for a few seconds, the fingers of his right hand rubbing at the bandages on his head. “His name was Antonio Corte, a member of the opposition party in Brazil,” he said. “It was about that same time that Alicia started having quite a few bad dreams.”
“What were the dreams about?”
“She could never remember them once she was awake,” he replied. “Anyway, without consulting her father or anyone else, she started working with a therapy group down in the Venice Sector of Greater LA. It’s a lowcost sort of operation she’d heard about, run by Dr. Harry Moreno.”
“Did Moreno’s group help her?”
Shaking his bandaged head, Barry answered, “Not at all, in my opinion. I think it made things worse, but Alicia kept insisting she—”
“Worse how?” asked Jake.
“The nightmares, for one thing, grew much more severe. She’d wake up once or twice a night. Sometimes she’d scream and then, starting about two weeks ago, she started crying out a name. Tin Lizzie.”
Gomez narrowed his left eye. “Nickname for an automobile that flourished way back in the twentieth century.”
Tek Secret Page 2