Good King Sauerkraut (15 page)

She was there. “Oh, King—I tried to reach you all day yesterday! Are you all right?”

“Well, yes, I guess so. I was mugged.”

She gave a little cry and ordered him to return to Pittsburgh immediately.

It took some doing, but he managed to convince her that his mugging had no connection with Dennis's accident—he stressed the word
accident
. They exchanged expressions of anguish over Dennis's death, heartfelt on both sides. Gale had learned what had happened from a local news reporter who'd shown up at Keystone Robotics seeking “reactions” from those who knew him. Gale had not been especially fond of Dennis, but she was shocked by both the suddenness of his death and the means of it. Now she was clearly more worried about what King was going through, a misplaced concern he did nothing to dispel.

Gale had never met Gregory Dillard, but his death both disturbed and frightened her. “Two fatal accidents at the same time? Doesn't that strike you as odd?” she asked.

“It strikes me as very odd. But that's what happened, Gale.” He asked her to look in Dennis's office for the list of credit card numbers and notify the appropriate people that King's cards had been stolen.

She said she'd take care of it. “Oh, I almost forgot. A woman named Shawna Wallace called here asking for a King Sarsowitch—that's the way she pronounced it. She said you'd given her your card but you forgot to tell her your New York phone number.”

King had to think a moment before he remembered who she was. Ah, yes—Shawna of the elegant height and the vampire-bite tattoo. So her last name was Wallace, and she wanted his New York phone number. “Did you give it to her?”

“No, but I took down hers in case you wanted to call her back. Got a pencil?”

“Yes,” he lied. “Go ahead.” King barely listened as Gale read off the number. He'd liked Shawna, but he had no intention of calling her. Because Shawna could tell anyone who was interested, such as the police, that one King Sarcowicz was healthy and unmugged at a time he was supposed to be lying helpless in Central Park.

“Want to read that back?” Gale asked.

“No, I got it. But speaking of phone numbers, do
you
have a pencil?” He told her his new number and the address of the building where he was now staying. “Gale, try not to worry. We'll come through this, you'll see. Just hold the fort until I get back.”

She said she would and they both hung up. King still had his hand on the receiver when the phone rang. It was Rae Borchard, saying she'd set up a dental appointment for King and a limousine would pick him up and wait to bring him back. She made it quite clear that he was not to go wandering about the streets.

King meekly followed instructions. It was so unncessary, all these precautions, but he could hardly say so. He kept the appointment; the dentist inserted an appliance to hold his two wobbly teeth immobile until the damaged bone that held them had time to regenerate. King returned to the apartment to find Warren Osterman waiting for him, sitting regally in the middle of one of the living room's two white sofas. Mimi was out on a balcony that opened off the living room, enjoying the sun.

“Howya feeling, King?” the older man wanted to know. “Up to tackling a problem? You look like hell.”

The bruise on King's face had turned a bilious greenish-yellow overnight. That morning he'd taken off the gauze bandage, which was starting to get dirty, and replaced it with a couple of Band-Aids. “I'm feeling a lot better today,” he said truthfully. “My head's stopped hurting—that was the worst thing. What's the problem that needs tackling?”

“The Defense Department. I sold the four of you as a team, and now they're wondering who's going to take Dennis's and Gregory's places. Wait a minute,” he said as King started to protest, “I know you think you and Mimi can handle it, and maybe you can. But we don't have the final say. It's weird, but these two murders convinced the boys in Defense that your team had to have something special going for it if a competitor's out to get you. But they want the team back at full strength.”

“Easier said than done.”

“I know. How do you replace Dennis Cox?” Osterman took a deep breath. “Believe it or not, I'd come to like Dennis. Gregory Dillard I could take or leave alone, but Dennis I liked. And I think he was coming around to my way of thinking—about the merger, I mean.”

King frowned, not following. “What merger is that?”

Osterman stared at him. “The merger of MechoTech and Keystone, of course,” he said patiently.

King stared back. “I never heard anything about any merger.”

The two men realized the truth at the same time. Osterman laughed. “That sly son of a bitch—he never told you, did he? Ha! I had no idea. Well, to put it simply, I want Keystone to be part of the MechoTech family, and I think Dennis did too. He was playing the game, holding out for the best terms he could get.”

“And when you two reached agreement, he'd present it to me as a
fait accompli
, is that it?”

“I suppose so. You usually followed his recommendations on financial matters, didn't you?”

“Yeah. That's what I did.”
Dammit
. King was thunderstruck. A merger with MechoTech? Dennis had known King wouldn't go for it; that's why he'd put off telling him. “Warren, I can't deal with this now.”

“I don't expect you to. I'll send another copy of the proposal around in a few weeks—we'll talk about it then. You know, Dennis must have been planning to tell you this weekend. He couldn't count on my not mentioning the merger to you. It would all have been straightened out in a few days.”

Never speak ill of the dead?
King walked over to the glass doors that opened on to the balcony and looked out at Mimi. She'd taken some papers and a legal pad out with her, but now she just lay back in her chair with her eyes closed. Dennis Cox wouldn't have minded seeing their company's individuality swallowed up by the MechoTech giant if it meant a chance for him to get ahead. Perhaps he saw himself as Warren Osterman's eventual successor? His partner had never cared shit about Keystone; all he'd cared about was Dennis Cox.

“King, you've got to get a replacement,” Warren Osterman was saying from behind him. “Not only for the project but for your company as well. You need a money man, a manager. Mimi's in pretty good shape—she's got three other partners she can draw on. But you …?”

“I know, I know.”

“Don't wait too long, King.” Something in Osterman's tone made King look a question at him. “The first time I talked to Mimi after Dennis and Gregory were killed,” the older man said, “she was quick to point out that all the work Dennis would have done on the project was now going to fall on your shoulders. And she made no bones about saying you couldn't handle it. She wants me to make her project leader.”

Jesus. Stab-in-the-back time. But King had to admire her chutzpah, even while resenting it. “She doesn't miss a bet, does she? What did you tell her?”

“I told her her request was premature. King, I want
you
running this project, not Mimi or any other software designer. But she has a point. You need somebody like Dennis to take care of the organizational details for you.”

King went back and sat down on the sofa beside him. “I may have someone.”

Osterman's eyebrows went up. “That's great. Who—”

“Not yet. I'm going to have to do some fast talking and it may take a few days. But I'm not going to try to run the project by myself, I promise you. Let me talk to my first choice, and if that doesn't work out … well, then I'll get somebody else.”

A faint smile appeared on Osterman's face. “You seem very sure of yourself.”

“It's a solvable problem, Warren. We're not going to lose the contract, take my word for it.”

Osterman studied him a minute and then said, “All right! You get a replacement for Dennis, Mimi calls in one of her other partners, and we proceed as planned. In the meantime, the two of you stay put. We don't want 'em getting another shot at you.”

King laughed shortly, irritated anew by all the unnecessary precautions. “Warren, this morning a whole platoon of cleaning people invaded this apartment. Couldn't the guy with the vacuum cleaner or the lady with the Glass-Plus have been paid to do a little extra job? Do you know for a fact that
none
of those people can be gotten to? And they're not the only ones who were here. Rae Borchard's secretary stopped by … and don't forget the limo driver who took me to get my teeth fixed—what about him? Then I walk into the office of a dentist I never heard of before and I'm surrounded by a fleet of assistants, not to mention a couple of other patients waiting their turn. That's over twenty people who could have had ‘another shot' at me today if they'd wanted to.”

Osterman was suddenly looking his age. “My god.”

“And what about Mimi, right now?” King pressed on. “Out there on that balcony, exposed like that? Somebody with a high-powered rifle in another building could pick her off easy as pie. We can't guard against everything, Warren. There's just no point trying.”

The other man rubbed his forehead with a clenched fist. “I must be slowing down. I didn't think of any of that.” He levered himself up off the sofa with difficulty, like an old man. He went to the balcony and told Mimi to come inside. As soon as she understood why, she hurried back in, looking frightened and stammering out a thank-you. “Thank King,” Osterman said. “He thought of it.”

She threw King a surprised but grateful look and sank down in a chair some distance from the balcony doors. King had meant to use Mimi as an example of how impossible it was to be on guard all the time; but if the other two chose to interpret it as concern for Mimi's safety, he wasn't going to argue. Osterman said he'd be in touch later and left.

The minute he was gone, King called Gale Fredericks and told her to catch the next plane to New York.

King and Mimi were hard at work making out a list of design priorities when Sergeant Ivan Malecki paid them a visit. King was annoyed; he didn't like being interrupted when the work was going well, and he didn't like the way Malecki so obviously appreciated Mimi's good looks. There were a time and a place for everything; he expected the police to be more professional. “Anything new, Sergeant?” he asked testily.

Sergeant Malecki reluctantly dragged his attention from Mimi to concentrate on the matter at hand. “I brought some pictures for you to look at,” he said, plopping a thick mailing envelope down on a table in the office. “See if any of the guys who attacked you are in there.”

King remembered. “Oh, that's right—Officer, uh, Jones wanted me to look at mug shots. I forgot all about it. Sergeant Malecki, the guys who attacked me were just roughneck kids. They didn't have anything to do with what happened to Dennis and Gregory.”

“Some of the kids we got files on would kill their grandmothers for a twenty-dollar bill. I couldn't bring all the pictures we got, but those are the ones we think most likely. Take a look.”

King opened the envelope and about forty photos spilled out, four-by-five glossies. He stacked them up neatly and started looking. Sergeant Malecki took advantage of the time to carry on a low-tone conversation with Mimi.

Right away King spotted the leader of the gang of teen-aged muggers who'd got him. He could even hear the young hoodlum's voice in his head as he stared at the kid's image. He quickly tossed the picture aside with the other rejects. Toward the end of the stack he found one that he felt fairly sure was another member of the gang. He finished the rest and said, “I'm sorry, Sergeant. It wasn't any of these kids.”

“You sure? You did that awfully fast. Take another look.”

“A lot of these kids are black or Hispanic. I told Officer Jones the muggers were white.”

“Yeah, well, there's always a chance you're not remembering right. Look at the pictures again. Take your time.”

So King went through the motions of looking at them all again, studying each photo carefully … and obviously. This time when he said no, Sergeant Malecki took his word for it.

“Thass too bad,” the sergeant said. “My partner and I were sure at least one of 'em would be in there.”

King barely remembered Malecki's partner. “Uh, Sergeant Lurch?”

“Larch. Tell me something. This project you're both working on—who's paying for it?”

Mimi answered him. “Well, DARPA funds the initial research, but once the Army approves the working model—”

“Hold it. DARPA?”

“Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,” Mimi explained. “It's a branch of the Defense Department that searches for new weapons technology. They fund research on everything from talking computers to exploding postage stamps—anything that might provide an edge in the arms race. Our job here is to put together a practical electromagnetic gun platform for field combat.”

“Lotta bucks involved?”

“A lot.”

Sergeant Malecki nodded. “Who would get the project if you two pulled out?”

Mimi shook her head. “There's no waiting list, Sergeant. DARPA would have to start all over, from scratch.”

The sergeant gathered up the pictures and put them back in the envelope. “Well, somebody thinks they've got a crack at it. Mr. Sarcowicz, you told my partner you left the apartment Thursday around nine or ten. It had to be closer to nine. The way we figure it, you must have walked out only minutes before the killer got there. Did you see anybody? In the hallway, on the elevator?”

“I didn't see anyone at all,” King said. “The hall and the elevator were both empty.” He'd run down the stairs instead of using the elevator, as a matter of fact, but he didn't want to have to think up a credible reason for that. “How can you be sure I left at nine instead of ten?”