Robot Blues (20 page)

He started to
leave, was accosted by his small friend, who grabbed hold of a handful of
unitard and jerked Raoul back. The Little One pointed out the kitchen door.

Raoul looked.

Darlene was seated
on a wicker settee in the atrium, near a group of Adonians—Raj Vu among
them—who had gathered together to exchange the latest gossip. She was listening
to their conversation and, judging by her wide-eyed and slightly shell-shocked
expression, she was eavesdropping on a lifestyle that she had probably only
previously witnessed under the rating of Triple X. She appeared amazed and
bemused but, otherwise, quite healthy.

Raoul breathed a
sigh of relief. Perhaps his party could be salvaged, after all. “How do they
intend to perpetrate the crime?”

The image of a
vial appeared in Raoul’s mind, a vial filled with a clear substance and marked
with a label. Raoul was familiar with the chemical composition.

Recovering his
composure, he sniffed, disapproving. “How gauche. How unimaginative. Putting
the poison in her champagne. Not to mention risky. What if she decides to quit
drinking? Or takes it into her head to leave? Now, if they had only consulted
with me, I could have told them fifty far more reliable ways to poison her. Ah,
yes. Pardon me. I am forgetting myself. It’s the professional in me. I do so
hate to see a job bungled.”

He continued to
keep watch over Darlene, who did not, Raoul noted, have a glass in her hand.
One bartender had set up his bar in a picturesque area near the smaller of the
two waterfalls. He was pouring champagne into a number of fluted glasses on a
silver tray.

Every so often, a
guest would come to the bar, take a glass, walk off with it. The bartender was
smiling at Darlene, who so far had not noticed him. He was obviously trying to
catch her eye.

“Cheap little
tart,” Raoul remarked, favoring the bartender with a scathing gaze. “After
going on about my triceps. He can’t be certain she will actually ingest the
poison. What is his backup plan?”

An image of a
nasty-looking weapon blew apart the other assorted bits of irrelevancies that had
drifted into Raoul’s mind. He shuddered. “What
is
that thing?”

“A scrambler,” was
the Little One’s reply, which filled Raoul’s head with hideous reds and
oranges.

“Ah, yes. I
remember our former employer, the late Snaga Ohme, had a number of those weapons
in his keeping. Rather nasty devices. As I recall, they used some sort of
random alpha wave transmitter to foul up everyone’s brain processes. However,”
Raoul added, looking puzzled, “I seem to recall from our time spent with our
former employer and from certain facts I have since picked up during our
sojourn with our present employer—referring to, of course, Xris Cyborg—that
these ‘scramblers’ were designed for crowd control and that they are not
lethal. Also that they affect everyone in the vicinity. Their range is quite
extensive.

“I do say, dear
friend,” Raoul added plaintively, “would you mind putting on your hat?”

The Little One
picked up the fedora, thrust it on his head, pulled it down low over his face.
He made a fist, smashed himself on the forehead several times.

“Ah, I see,” Raoul
said quietly. “The weapon can be altered so as to be lethal, which is what they
have done. I begin to understand their plan. If they do not manage to kill
Darlene this night, or if their plot is discovered, they will activate the
weapon and scramble the brains of everyone at my party! How ghastly!”

The Little One
made a comment.

“Well, certainly I
think they’d notice!” Raoul dabbed at two tears with the corner of a cocktail
napkin, taking care not to smudge his makeup. “And I could do without the
sarcasm. I am having trouble enough as it is.

Instead of being
heralded in the society pages as the host who gave the best party of the
season, I shall be mentioned as the one with the highest death toll!”

Raoul gave a sob,
hid his face in the napkin. The Little One gave him a punch in the thigh.

“I know,” said
Raoul, gulping down his tears. “This is no time to fall apart. I’m calm now.
Very calm. Let’s see. What can we do to stop this?”

The Little One
patted the inside breast pocket of his raincoat, where he kept his favored
weapon—a blowgun filled with poisoned darts.

“Yes, we could
kill the two bartenders—you say they’re both assassins?”

The Little One
nodded.

“But,” Raoul
continued reflectively, “we would have a difficult time explaining their deaths
to the police without revealing the truth about Darlene, destroying her cover,
and thereby exposing her to even greater danger. Not to mention the fact that
it would be most difficult for me, in the future, to hire a bartender. No,
there must be a better way.”

Raoul was thinking
this over when the Little One suddenly began jumping up and down.

“Now
what?”
Raoul demanded in despair.

The Little One
pointed frantically into the atrium. Darlene was on her feet, approaching the
bar. Either the bartender’s smile had won her over or she was thirsty.

Raoul and the
Little One exchanged glances. A plan flashed between them. The Little One didn’t
appear to like it. He shook his head vigorously.

“My friend,” said
Raoul gently, “we have no choice. If Darlene does not die this night, everyone
will die this night. You know what I need. You know what you must do.”

The Little One
shook his head morosely, but then gave the fedora a nod and, after grabbing
Raoul’s hand and squeezing it tight, the Little One dashed off. He ran from the
kitchen into the atrium, pushing and shoving his way through a jungle of plants
and legs. He hurtled past Darlene, wringing his small hands, and headed for the
living room.

Raoul turned to an
ornate wooden rack that occupied one corner of the kitchen counter and was
marked
spices
. He selected a vial
from among the extensive collection and, after taking a brief moment to ensure
this was the vial he wanted, he slid it up the sleeve of his black unitard.

Moving swiftly but
unobtrusively, Raoul left the kitchen, walked through the crowd, dodging those
who wanted to engage him in conversation—or any other acts—with a charming
smile, a kiss for the air, a wave of his hand. On his face, the vacuous, vague,
and euphoric look of the Loti. His eyes, hidden beneath blue-shadowed lids,
glittered clear, keen, focused. Their gaze was fixed on the bartender’s hands,
never left them.

Darlene started to
reach for one of the glasses of champagne on the silver tray. The bartender
intercepted her. Raoul couldn’t hear their conversation over the music of the
orchestra, but he could guess what the bartender was saying. “The wine’s been
sitting there too long, ma’am. It’s far too warm. I’ll pour you a chilled
glass.”

Raoul watched
closely the man’s every move.

Darlene was not
watching the bartender. She had no fear. She was completely unsuspecting.
Swaying slightly on her feet in time to the music, she leaned her hands on the
bar, looked back at Raj Vu and his friends. The bartender said something to
her, reached one hand under the bar. Darlene glanced at him over her shoulder,
laughed appreciatively, looked away.

For an instant,
both the bartender’s hands disappeared beneath the bar. He brought forth a
fluted crystal glass seconds later.

“The clean glasses
are on the table
behind
him,” Raoul murmured. “That’s it, of course. He
put the poison into that glass while he had it under the bar.”

The bartender was
pouring champagne into the glass. Raoul observed the glass closely, but could
not see any other substance in the glass itself. Not unusual, he reflected. The
poison, according to the Little One, was a derivative of a lilylike plant which
grew on Adonia and, though it had a formal, scientific name, was more commonly
known as the Good-bye Kiss. The poison was said to have a faint and not
unpleasant taste, as of camellias, and produced death by causing every cell in
the body to view all other cells as the enemy and immediately launch an attack.
The body, essentially, rejected itself.

The poison came in
many forms, including clear liquid, and a single small drop was enough to start
the cellular chain reaction, enough to kill.

Lifting a glass of
champagne from the hand of Raj Vu—ignoring that gentleman’s indignant
protest—Raoul glided forward. He deftly fingered the vial that he had
positioned up his sleeve. Removing the cork, he passed his hand over the
champagne glass, shook out a fine white powder into the glass. He deposited the
vial in a nearby orchid plant, continued on.

The champagne
poured, bubbled, and sparkled. The bartender handed the glass to Darlene, with
some comment that made her laugh again. She took the glass, turned away, was
bringing the glass to her lips.

“My dear!” Raoul
called out. “A toast!”

Darlene was
right-handed. She was holding the glass in her right hand and, at Raoul’s call,
she lowered the glass from her lips.

Raoul’s mincing
footsteps carried him to her side. He observed, as he approached, the bartender
frown. The bartender put down the champagne bottle. He was keeping both hands
free. The weapon, the scrambler, was probably located underneath the bar.

Dancing up on
Darlene’s left side, Raoul raised his arm, slid it around Darlene’s shoulders,
turned her so that her back was to the bar. Raoul’s white feather cape blocked
the bartender’s view. As he turned Darlene, incorporating the move into an
elegant waltz step, Raoul slipped his right hand over her right hand, lifted
the glass from her fingers. He shoved his glass, which he was holding in his
left hand, into her right hand. Giving her a dazzling smile, he lowered his
arm, stepped back away from her, providing the bartender with an unobstructed
view.

Raoul touched the
glass to his lips, but did not drink He noted the lipstick—his own special
Rogue Red color—on the rim. He then plucked the first glass from Darlene’s
hand, gave her the original glass back, and then—before she could take a sip—he
cried, “Switch glasses. Whatever your neighbor’s drinking, you drink!”

Darlene’s neighbor
was Raj Vu, who was ingesting some sort of syrupy red concoction adorned with a
bunch of fruit on a stick. Noticing this, Darlene grimaced. “I’ll stick to
champagne,” she said and, once again, raised her glass.

Raoul leaned over
and, under cover of the music, said, “An Adonian party game, my dear. Don’t be
a stick-in-the-quagmire.”

Before she could
protest, Raoul removed the champagne glass from Darlene’s hand and gave it to
Raj Vu, who—most obligingly—handed the fruit drink to Darlene.

Just as Raj Vu was
starting to drink, Raoul snatched the glass from the hand of his rival. Handing
Darlene the champagne glass that he’d been holding, Raoul took the fruit drink
away from her, handed it to back Raj Vu, and, lifting the glass of champagne to
his own lips, Raoul drank it down.

“Can I drink this
now?” Darlene asked, amused. “You’re not going to take it away from me again,
are you?”

“Drink up, my
dear,” said Raoul complacently. He raised his empty glass. “To your health.”

Darlene raised her
champagne glass in return, toasted Raoul and the highly annoyed Raj Vu, who
pronounced it a “stupid game” and tossed his red concoction into a fish pond.
Darlene took two swallows of her champagne.

Raoul stole a
glance at the bartender. Obviously confused by all the shifting of glasses, the
man was watching them closely. He might have been extremely suspicious and
figured his plot had been discovered, had not Darlene ended up with a champagne
glass. As it was, he would wait to see the consequences.

Those should not
be long in coming.

Darlene was about
to take another swallow when the expression on her face altered. Her features
contorted, her eyes widened. Sweat broke out on her forehead and lips.

“I ...” she began
faintly. “I don’t ...”

The glass fell
from her nerveless hand, smashed at her feet. She made a choking, retching
sound and suddenly slumped to the floor. She lay there, unconscious, amid the
spilled wine and broken glass.’

Raoul promptly
screamed. Raj Vu turned. He and the rest of the guests in the atrium looked
over to see what had happened. The bartender poured someone a whiskey.

Raoul, hands
fluttering, bent over Darlene. “She looks ghastly!” he cried.

“It’s the dress,”
said one woman, standing nearby. “She should never wear that color.”

“I don’t mean
that!” Raoul returned indignantly. “I mean that she appears to be very ill.
Someone call a doctor!”

“I’m a doctor,”
Raj Vu announced.

“You would be,”
Raoul muttered.

Taking care to
keep his designer jeans out of the spilled wine, Raj Vu crouched down beside
Darlene. He lifted her wrist in his hand, held it a moment. A crowd had
gathered. They awaited the verdict in breathless anticipation.

“This woman’s
dead,” Raj Vu pronounced.

She did look
extremely dead.

Raoul had a moment’s
misgiving. Perhaps he’d truly gotten the glasses mixed up. Then he felt a
sudden tingling in all his nerve ends, a jabbing pain in his head. He relaxed.

Despite the pain,
he had the sublime satisfaction of hearing a guest remark, “I say, Raj Vu, no
one ever died at one of
your
parties!”

And though the
pain was now intense and he was having difficulty breathing, Raoul smiled.

What is food to
one, is to others bitter poison.

Lucretius,
De Rerum Natura

Raoul held a vial
under Darlene’s nose. She breathed deeply, choked, coughed. Her eyelids
fluttered, opened. She stared at him bleary-eyed.