Gomez rubbed at his moustache with his thumb knuckle. “As to Shel’s current whereabouts?”
“Nothing on that, not yet. However, I can make a pretty good guess for you. And I’ll toss that in for free.”
“Go ahead, cara.”
“If Sheldon was involved in the knocking off of the Jaspers coot, he’ll want to do some hiding out for awhile,” she said. “Most folks don’t know this, but his mom, who’s a con artist of long standing, has been operating a beauty spa up in the New Hollywood satellite. She calls herself Madame Sonja at the moment.”
“New Hollywood’s that combo movie-making colony and tourist trap, isn’t it?”
“The same. Madame Sonja’s been bilking the rubes up there for the past three months.”
“Maybe,” speculated Gomez, “I ought to call on the dear lady.”
The slim blonde woman stepped onto the path from behind a transplanted palm tree. She was wearing a dark pullover and dark slax, carrying a stungun in her left hand. “Good thing I happened to be passing by, Jake.” She smiled faintly.
“Evening, Bev.” He rubbed at the spot on his arm where the toppled robot had been gripping him. “I didn’t notice your tailing me.”
“Because I’m good at it,” replied Bev Kendricks as she approached.
“Picked me up at the Salkin Hospital, huh?”
“I was there and happened to notice you sneaking out,” said the blonde private investigator. “I got curious and decided to follow you for awhile.”
“So your agency is the one that’s been hired by Bower and Mechanix to look for his daughter?”
“That’s me.” Kneeling beside the thug she’d stunned, she commenced frisking him. “Any notion who these boys are?”
“Hired goons. You don’t know them?”
“Not even an ID packet on him.” She stood up and back. “Seems likely, don’t you think, that they’re probably the same ones who roughed up your client last night? They’re new to me, though, and I have no idea who hired them.”
Jake jerked a thumb in the direction of the mansion. “Bower’s not really up there, is he?”
“No, nobody’s here. Bower was moved to his Bel Air mansion from Salkin this afternoon.”
“Does that mean he’s doing better?”
“I don’t know what it means,” she admitted, bending to search the other unconscious thug. “I only learned about the move when I dropped in at the hospital.”
“Have you actually talked to Bower?”
“Only on the phone and briefly. I was supposed to meet with him face to face at the hospital today.”
“No ID?” Jake nudged the man in the side with his foot.
“Not a thing on him either.” Rising up, Bev brushed her hands together twice. “We better turn these hooligans over to the local police. And then....”
“Then what?”
“Does Cosmos object to your having conversations with rival agencies?”
“No, not at all. Especially if those agencies are run by former police coworkers of mine who are dear old friends.”
“We were never close,” said Bev, “but I was a friend of yours back then.”
“So you didn’t cheer when I got sent up to do time in the Freezer?”
Taking a step back, she looked him up and down. “You didn’t used to indulge in selfpity.”
“Let’s go somewhere and have our talk,” he suggested.
12
POP’S FLYIN FOUNTAIN WAS perched atop a hill in the Beverly Glen Sector. The landing area covered nearly an acre, and the restaurant itself was a large plastiglass dome trimmed with neon tubing that sat at the center of the white-paved field. The silver-plated, light-trimmed carhop robots moved from the building to the surrounding circles of cars on jetskates.
Jake and Bev were sitting in her car near the edge of the field.
Stirring her second cup of nearcaf, Bev said, “My agency is a whole lot smaller than Cosmos, but we’re just as efficient. I’m going to win this one.”
“Is that what you wanted to talk about? A contest between our detective agencies?”
“It isn’t a contest, Jake, that’s what I’m trying to get across to you.” She sipped at her nearcaf. “I’ve got a substantial headstart on this Bower case. You and Gomez are never going to catch up.”
Jake grinned. “I guess we better return Barry Zangerly’s fee and head for the showers.”
“Well, that isn’t too bad an idea. I know you probably won’t quit—but I still wanted to warn you not to be disappointed when I wrap this up before you guys can even get going.”
“I’ll alert Sid.”
“How is he, by the way?”
“He was okay when I saw him this morning. After he hears you’re going to trounce us, though, he may break down and sob.”
“I like Gomez.”
“Almost all women do, he has universal appeal.” Jake tapped his forefinger against the side of his cup. “Where’s Alicia Bower?”
Bev laughed. “That’s one piece of information I’m not going to share.”
“Do you know?”
“I have a pretty fair idea.”
“You don’t think she’s dead?”
“No, not at all.”
“Or that she’s been abducted?”
“I’ve been on this a few days longer than you. I know a lot more about her background and character.”
“Is Myra Ettinger your main source of facts?”
“She’s one of them, obviously. Since, because of Bower’s illness, she’s the person who actually hired me.”
“Is her version of Alicia’s character backed up by what you’ve dug up so far?”
“Pretty much so, Jake.” Bev drank some more of the nearcaf. “Alicia is a disturbed young woman. She has a long history of mental problems—and this wouldn’t be the first time she’s disappeared. Almost always with a man.”
“Do you have proof that’s what she’s done this time?”
Bev looked out into the night. “That I can’t discuss.”
“Okay, let’s say she simply decided to spend a few days with somebody. Why did that trio of goons rough up Barry?”
“To discourage him from looking for her, bothering her.”
“And who hired them?”
“It could be the man she’s with, who doesn’t want his romantic idyll busted in on by a disgruntled suitor,” suggested the private investigator. “Alicia herself might have sent them to keep Barry from annoying her.”
Jake grinned again. “Has she hired thugs before?”
“Not exactly, though she is supposed to have a nasty side.”
“After trying to scare Barry off—then she sent the same gang to work me over, huh? Not wanting me to interrupt her romance either.”
“That sounds perfectly plausible to me, Jake.”
“Has anyone threatened you or tried to hurt you?”
Her forehead wrinkled. “Not yet, but that doesn’t mean—”
“You’ve been working on this a hell of a lot longer than we have, but nobody seems upset by your activities,” he told her.
“Even before I knew myself that I was going to work on this mess, somebody came after me.”
“What are you talking about?”
He told her about the robot priest at the Glendale Sector cemetery. He concluded, “Tonight, to lure me into walking into this latest trap, they used either the real Bower or a simulacrum.”
“Owen Bower would never be a party to any—”
“Okay, then it was an android dupe or a very convincing hologram,” he said. “The point, Bev, is that none of this sounds to me like something a lovecrazed runaway is likely to do.”
“Why not? Alicia has a great deal of money of her own, so financing it wouldn’t be very difficult for her. And she’s often run off with older men, richer older men.”
“Do you have any evidence that she tapped her Banx accounts since she vanished?”
“That’s something else
I’m not sharing.”
“Actually, you’re not sharing much of anything,” he said. “Frankly, Bev, I think you’re being conned on this one.”
“Why would my own client want to lead me astray?” she asked.
He said, “That’s one of the things I’m going to find out.”
Dan was in the living room with a laptop bookreader when Jake got home.
“No date tonight?” he asked his son.
“Homework. How about you?”
Grinning, Jake sat on the arm of the low sofa. “Mostly business,” he answered as he tugged off one of his boots. “Though I did run into Bev Kendricks.”
Dan clicked off the reader. “I told you that you ought to look her up.”
“She looked me up actually.”
“Hey, that’s even better. It shows that she’s interested in—”
“It shows, Daniel, that she happens to be working on the same case that Sid and I are working on.”
“You haven’t told me about this new one yet.”
After getting his other boot pulled off, Jake settled down on the sofa. He filled Dan in on the Alicia Bower disappearance and what had happened to him today.
When he finished, his son said, “You know, Molly knows somebody who’s going to that Oceanfront People’s Clinic. I bet we could—”
“Homework,” cut in Jake. “You concentrate on that. You and Molly are, I admit, crackerjack investigators, but you’re not to—”
“Dad, in one day ... He held up a forefinger. “In one single damn day they tried to kill you twice. I don’t like the idea of some unknown hoods trying—”
“I’m not especially fond of the notion myself. But I don’t want you getting tangled up in this,” Jake warned. “And possibly that second attack was only going to be a beating and not a murder attempt.”
“Oh, okay, great. Then I’ll quit worrying about that one.” He tossed the reader on the floor. “Have they identified those three?”
“Not yet, but we’ll know by morning,” answered his father. “They’ll just turn out to be heavies for hire.”
“I agree with you about Bev Kendricks’s view of things. She’s either letting them sidetrack her or ... well, you know her better than I do. Could she be lying to you, trying to put you on the wrong trail?”
Standing, Jake walked barefoot over to the balcony window. “She was an honest cop,” he said, looking out into the night. “That was some years ago.”
“Then you suspect she—”
“It doesn’t matter what she’s up to, Dan. Gomez and I will keep working on this our way.”
“Seems to me that you’re dealing with a group here, some sort of organization.” Getting up, he went over to stand near his father. “They can hire thugs, robots, androids. They knew you were going to be assigned to this case just about from the minute Barry Zangerly’s brother talked to Gomez last night.”
“Yep, I’ve thought about that.”
Dan put his hand on his father’s shoulder. “Are you going to the cemetery again tomorrow?”
“Not tomorrow.”
It was long after midnight when Jake’s bedside vidphone buzzed. He sat up, wide awake. “Yeah?”
The screen showed him a painting of a bowl of red flowers. “It’s me, Jake—Rozko—coming to you direct from the Info Center at Cosmos,” said the voice of the computer. “I hope I didn’t wake you out of a sound sleep.”
“Not a sound one, nope. What’s happening?”
Rozko replied, “Oh, I had a little time on my hands and—yeah, yeah, I know Doc Olan is going over the security system tapes I swiped from the hospital—but I decided to take a more leisurely gander myself.”
“Found out something, huh?”
A cartoon drawing of a smiling mouth flashed onto the phonescreen. “Not about whether the tapes have been futzed with,” said the computer. “That’s Olan’s department. I did, however, notice something interesting. Give a looksee.”
A shot of the main lobby of the Salkin Private Hospital appeared. More than twenty figures were moving about—visitors, doctors, nursebots.
“I’ll freeze it,” said Rozko, “and zero in on the galoot over by the upramp. I almost didn’t notice him and then his red hair caught my eye.”
The redhaired man was short, not more than five six, broad-shouldered and about forty. He was wearing a pale-blue medical jacket.
Jake sat up in bed and leaned closer to the screen. “That’s Sam Trinity.”
“Exactly what I exclaimed when first he came into my ken,” said Rozko. “Next I asked myself why Sam Trinity would be playing doctor at 2 P.M. on the very afternoon Alicia Bower allegedly never arrived at this selfsame medical facility.”
Frownlines deepened across Jake’s forehead. “Sam used to be a field agent for the Office of Clandestine Operations, based back in DC,” he said. “That was four years ago, before I went up to the Freezer.”
“He’s still with them. These days Sam is OCO’s top West Coast troubleshooter. A very valuable gent in the view of many tricky Washington types.”
“How the hell does he tie in?” Jake shook his head. “Is there much footage with Sam visible in it?”
“Just this one snippet. All in all, Sammy is only on screen for a tad less than three minutes, Jake.”
“Unfreeze it, roll back to the first frame he’s in and let me see it all.”
“You got it.”
The redheaded Sam Trinity came out of an office door marked hospital staff only and into the large, oval lobby. He went walking briskly across the plastifloor and over to the upramp labeled Level 5. The ramp carried him up and out of the picture.
“Want to scan it again?”
“Nope,” said Jake. “Level 5 is where they had Owen Bower. You sure there’s nothing showing Sam up on that level?”
“Nada, as Gomez would say. I’ve finetoothed all the stuff I snatched from the hospital.”
“What has the OCO got to do with this?” Jake rubbed his thumb slowly across his cheek. “Is there any way I can find out what Sam’s current assignment is?”
“I’ve already tried that. The OCO’s assignment roster has proved, thus far, impossible to access.”
“Is he still here in Greater LA?”
Another smile flashed on the screen. “I had a bit more luck there,” the computer informed him. “I was able to find out when Sam left our area—and where he went.”
“So tell me.”
“Samuel Trinity departed Greater LA the morning after Alicia Bower vanished,” answered Rozko. “He flew out on a special US Military Forces skyvan. The van took off from a Maximum Security Section of the GLA Skyport.”
“Bound for where?”
“His destination was Farmland, the Topeka Complex of Kansas.”
Jake said slowly, “Which is where the Mentor Foundation Psych Centre happens to be located.”
“Significant, do you think?”
“Significant enough to inspire me with the urge to travel,” said Jake.
13
BASCOM WALKED DIRECTLY FROM his desk to the nearest projection platform. “Did you notice I’ve been tidying up my surroundings?”
“You cleared a narrow path amidst the clutter,” observed Gomez, who was slouched in an armchair. “You’re a long way from tidy, jefe.”
“But it is a positive step,” added Jake.
“Took me darn near two hours.” The chief of the detective agency turned on the holographic projector. “The identification of the goons who tried to stomp Jake came in about an hour ago, around 9 A.M.” A large, widechested man appeared, life size. “You’re seeing the ID footage of Leonard Rodney, last known address the Topanga Sector. He has a long, colorful record as a strong-arm man, sometime extortionist. He tells the law he has no idea at all who hired him to attack you, Jake; It was all arranged by way of blanked vidphones.”
Jake asked, “Does he admit also working over our client?”
“No, but Barry tentatively identif
ied all three of these yahoos as the bunch that attacked him at the Arcade.”
“Barry’s identification won’t hold up,” said Gomez. “He’s too fuzzy.”
“I’m not fuzzy,” reminded Jake. “We can still try to put them away for assaulting me.”
“Next on stage we have Henry Weiner, age thirty six, formerly of Berkeley in NorCal.” An image of the other lout had replaced that of the first. “He, too, is a mercenary lunk and hasn’t the faintest notion who hired him.” Next the coppery robot, stripped of his overcoat, took his place on the platform. “This is Alex/ 762-AT. Manufactured by Mechanix International and sold, to the tune of 400,000 copies to date, for security and guard duty. Our particular Alex has been privately modified to convert him into a slugger. He belongs to Weiner, and somebody, Hank claims not to know who, erased all the robot’s memories relating to any time prior to the evening Jake bumped into them.”
Gomez inquired, “Did Weiner do the actual modifying and enhancing of the bot?”
“He claims he did.”
“Then he’s also capable of giving Alex amnesia.” Gomez sank lower into his chair. “Of course, so is just about anyone employed by Mechanix.”
“You trying to tie Bower’s outfit into this?”
“They’re already tied in,” he. said. “For one thing, they hired Sheldon Gates to do some dirty work for them.”
Jake requested, “Fill me in on this Gates.”
His partner obliged. Finishing up with, “That’s why I want to make a jaunt to the New Hollywood satellite.”
“Do that, yes,” agreed the chief. “But keep expenses down.”
“I’ll fast the whole time I’m up there.”
Bascom walked directly back to his desk. He picked up a sheaf of pale-blue pages. “Doc Olan has turned in his report on the hospital security tapes.”
“Were they fiddled with?” asked Jake.
Nodding, Bascom said, “Doc thinks so. It was an extremely slick job, but it’s his opinion that about eleven minutes of footage has been snipped from various tapes. That stuff was then deftly replaced with simulated material.”
“Of course, that still doesn’t prove,” said Jake, standing up, “that Alicia ever reached the hospital.”
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