Tek Net (10 page)

“I don't think she was still there, Sid.”

“Have they got the robot dogs sniffing the ruins yet?”

“Just starting.”

The two detectives were alone in this recovery compartment. The van was sitting near the small park, and police skyvans and emergency rescue vehicles were still arriving outside.

Reaching over, Gomez caught hold of his partner's arm. “Help me dismount from my slab,
amigo
” he requested. “I'm feeling a mite woozy.”

“You're supposed to recline for a while.”

“Who told you that—some run-down medibot? No gadget is—”

“This was a human intern, a young lady.”

“Oh so? Pretty, was she?”

“Moderately so.”

Gomez swung around until his legs were dangling over the table side. “Being unconscious can certainly handicap one's social life,” he observed. “Get back to your theory about where Jill is.”

“I got to thinking while you were in your trance.”

“How long was I out, by the way?”

“About ten minutes or so.”

“
Bueno
, continue.”

“I just remembered something about the Santa Clara,” Jake told him. “Back when we were both cops, that hotel was run by the SoCal Mafia.”

“Everybody knew that,
sí
. But they lost control of it years ago.”

“Yeah, but at that time the Mafia goons also ran the NecroPlex cemetery.” He pointed a thumb in a northerly direction. “NecroPlex is only about a half-mile from here—and there used to be a series of tunnels and passways linking the hotel with that complex of underground vaults and crypts.”

“
Es verdad
.” Gomez rubbed at a bandage on his temple. “I remember now. They were doing very well with traditional drugs in those days and they'd built a big underground warehouse right in the NecroPlex.”

“Drugs would be brought into the hotel and they'd cart them through those passways to their storerooms.”

“The International Drug Control Agency even raided the setup once about—what?—ten, eleven years ago.”

“It occurred to me,” said Jake, nodding, “that Jill was delivered to this particular hotel so that she could be conveyed to that old underground warehouse.”

“It would be a good place to keep somebody hidden,” admitted his partner. “Still,
amigo
, if Jill wasn't in the Santa Clara, why destroy the joint?”

“To keep Glendenny quiet, to dead-end anybody who was searching for her.”

“Excessive, though. Send all those down-and-out tenants on to glory just to silence one
hombre?
”

“People in the Tek trade aren't noted,” Jake reminded him, “for their humanitarianism.”

“I know,
sí
.” He hunched, frowning. “Probably this is simply an aftereffect of my playing a key role in a very impressive display of pyrotechnics, Jake—but I'm more pessimistic than you are.” He tapped his chest with the fingers of his right hand. “I have a feeling she was still inside and that—that she's dead.”

“If Jill's in that rubble, Sid, it'll take maybe a day to locate her,” Jake said. “I want to check out that old warehouse tonight.”

After a few seconds, Gomez said, “We'd better do that.”

“Soon as you're feeling somewhat less wobbly, we can—”

“The only place you two bastards are going,” announced Lieutenant Drexler as he joined them in the recovery compartment, “is right straight from here to headquarters.”

The gold-plated kitten took three tentative steps across the white plastiglass floor. Then it made a thin, metallic meowing noise, took one more faltering step and fell over on its left side.

The small golden body jittered on the workroom floor for several seconds. A thin wisp of grey smoke came puffing out of the dying mechanism's ear. The kitten rattled once more, was still.

“Shit,” said the long, thin man who was kneeling a few feet away. “You should've worked a hell of a lot better than that.”

Rising, his head shaking ruefully, he went to his workbench and touched three silvery hammers in turn. Choosing the smallest, he returned to where the clockwork kitten lay.

“You're a real damn disappointment to me.” He dropped to one knee and began hitting the little gold-plated kitten.

He hit again and again, with long steady strokes.

The body cracked open, spitting out gears and cogs and twists of wire. A small spill of greenish oil went sliding away from the body.

He pursued a cog that had rolled off a few feet. Catching up, he flattened it with several swift blows of the hammer.

Then, taking a slow breath in and out, he rose up again. “Going to have to do a hell of a lot better on the next one.”

“Holocall,” announced a voice that seemed to come out of the air.

“Who is it?”

“Yedra Cortez.”

“That shrike.” He frowned. “Okay, put her through.”

A circular panel in the workroom floor slid aside and a holographic stage rose up into view.

After pausing to grind one booted foot into the remains of the kitten, the long, thin man sat himself down in a straight-back metal chair facing the platform. “Good evening, Yedra.”

“I'm getting closer to finding out where you're actually located, Austin,” said the life-size image of the dark, crew-cut young woman. “All of this bullshit about not letting us know where—”

“What'd your boss think of the—”

“Johnny Trocadero isn't my goddamned
boss
,” she told him. “We're
partners
.”

“What'd your partner think of the explosion at the Santa Clara?” asked Austin Quadrill.

“He thought that you did exactly what we paid you to do,” she answered. “The shrimp isn't planning on sending you a bonus.”

Quadrill smiled at the projected Yedra. “I got the device in there undetected and it went off exactly on time,” he said, smile widening and then vanishing. “Are we going ahead with the major project?”

“Yeah. That's why I'm bothering to contact you, Austin.”

He crossed his legs, examined the sole of his boot. After plucking a tiny silver spring free of the sole, he said, “Do you have a date or a place?”

“We just found out that Marriner and his crew will be meeting with Anzelmo and some of his people next Tuesday.”

“I can have a device ready and planted by then,” he assured her. “I would though, Yedra, like to know where this camp meeting is going to occur. You can't tell me?”

“We don't know yet,” she said, brushing one flat hand over her close-cropped black hair. “What you have to do is stand by.”

Another quick smile. “Exactly what I have been doing,” he said. “If they're, for instance, meeting on Anzelmo's home ground—someplace in England, say—I have to factor travel time into my calculations.”

“We expect to know by tomorrow.”

“I'll talk to you then.” He stood up. “Goodbye.”

Her image went popping into nothing. The holograph stage sank and the floor covered it over again.

16

The black young woman, legs spread wide and hands on hips, said, “Halt about there, loot.”

Drexler had been in the act of escorting Jake and Gomez along the night street to a police skyvan, when she came striding up to block his progress. “Out of the way, shyster,” he told her.

“
Buenas noches
, Georgia,” greeted Gomez.

“You ought to get your ass over to the nearest church of your preferred denomination, Gomez,” suggested Georgia Petway, “and thank the Lord that the Cosmos Detective Agency has an attorney like me on retainer.” Turning her head slightly, she glared at Jake. “And you, Cardigan, when the hell are you intending to grow up?”

“You seem,” observed Jake, grinning at her, “to be annoyed at something.”

Lieutenant Drexler said, “These two probably do need a lecture, Georgia, but right now I intend to drag them off to the—”

“Nope, wrong,” the black attorney told him.

The cop dropped his hands to his sides, clenching his fists. “You've pulled some strings, haven't you?”

“Damned right,” she answered, smiling. “Pulled strings, greased palms, cajoled, harangued and threatened to send a large flock of chickens home to roost.” From a pocket in her skirt she took out a wad of faxmemos. “You're obliged to turn both these loons free exactly now, loot.”

The police officer, after making an unhappy noise, grabbed the official forms from her hand. Skimming them, he nodded. “So you've even got something on Judge Boyd, huh?”

“I even got something on you, dear heart. Can we say goodnight now?”

Drexler's fingers closed on the documents, wadding them into a crinkled ball. “Okay, but there's something I want to ask them first.”

“According to those papers,” said Georgia, “you don't have the right to so much as—”

“It's okay,” cut in Jake. “We don't want to spoil our reputation for cooperation by running off and leaving Drexler perplexed.”

“
Sí
, go ahead and make your inquiry.”

“You shouldn't be giving in to him over—”

Drexler said, “You guys know who Professor Jeffrey Monkwood is, don't you?”

Jake answered, “Sure, he's a friend of Jill Bernardino.”

“Well,” said Lieutenant Drexler, “about an hour ago a police skycar that was patrolling one of the canyons spotted a young lady wandering, buff naked, along one of those twisty roads. She'd been roughed up and wasn't completely coherent—but she told them she'd been with Monkwood up at her parents' joint when somebody broke in and carried the guy off.” He paused, eyeing them. “You know anything about that?”

Gomez said, “We've been looking for the professor, too, lieutenant. Apparently somebody else found the
hombre
first.”

“Why would they want him?”

“Same reason,” said Jake, “that they want Jill Bernardino.”

“Then suppose you tell me how Monkwood's abduction and this explosion here tonight tie together with—”

“Whoa, cease,” warned Georgia. “My clients aren't going to talk to you any longer, Drexler.”

“I need to—”

“You need to read over those crumpled-up orders I delivered to you.” Stepping between the partners, she grabbed an arm of each and started walking them away.

The police lieutenant made another angry noise, but said nothing to stop them.

Anzelmo came shuffling into the paneled meeting room with a flat plyowrapped parcel under his arm. The elderly Teklord was wearing an overcoat, a neofur hat with shaggy earflaps and a red nearwool scarf around his neck. “Why the hell don't they heat this place?”

Five other people appeared to be sitting around an ornately carved realwood conference table at the room's center. From the row of high, narrow windows you could see foggy central London, although the room was actually elsewhere.

Halting on his slow way to the chair at the table's head, Anzelmo veered and walked over to where a lean, dark man was seated at midtable. “Maurice, I've been promising you one of my goddamn paintings for—”

“Anzelmo, old friend,” said Maurice Pettifaux, “your venerable eyes aren't serving you too well.”

“What the hell are you babbling about?” He took a few more steps forward and held the parcel out to the French Teklord.

“I'm in Paris,” he explained. “This is a holoprojection you're trying to make a gift to.”

From further down the table a plump young man with curly blond hair said, “You been promising me a picture.” He held out a chubby right hand and made a give-me motion with his beringed fingers. “Is it one of your landscapes?”

“That's all I paint, Tony.”

“So give it to me and you can send Maury another one.” Anthony Maori's fat fingers continued to beckon.

“Go ahead,” said Pettifaux. “Tony is a devoted admirer of your artistic works.”

“Tony is a habitual ass-kisser.” Anzelmo hesitated a few seconds, then tossed the parcel in the plump young man's direction.

“Thanks.” Macri sprang free of his chair and caught the painting just before it hit the real hardwood floor.

Anzelmo took off his fur hat and slapped it down on the table as he settled into his chair. “Okay, my eyes aren't so good anymore,” he told the five figures at the table. “Let's see some hands—how many of you bastards are really here?”

Macri interrupted his unwrapping of the painting and held up his hand. A very pale and gaunt man also raised his hand.

Hunched slightly forward, eyes squinting, Anzelmo said, “So only Roger Giford and Tony Macri are really in the room. Maurice and Alex Forman and Mrs. Dooley are projections, huh?” He shook his head and his wispy white hair fluttered. “You'd think—with something this important in the works—you bozos could get your butts over here to England and—”

“Before you start one of your rants,” cut in Mrs. Dooley, a large, wide redheaded lady, “answer us a few questions, pet.”

“We got an agenda to follow and—”

“Better answer her,” suggested Pettifaux, seeming to lean back in his chair. “We've talked this over before you showed up.”

“How come,” asked Mrs. Dooley, “we still don't have any idea where that Bernardino woman is?”

Anzelmo frowned in the direction of her projection, which was a little fuzzy around the edges. “We do know where she is,” he said. “Found out a couple hours ago. Some of my people should be closing in on her just about now.”

“And,” asked Pettifaux, “what about this Professor Monkwood—I understand he's eluded you as well?”

“We've taken care of the professor,” Anzelmo assured them.

“This is marvelous,” said Macri, who'd gotten the painting unwrapped. “Just look at all these wonderful sheep.”