Tek Power (7 page)

“Three fifty.”

“Four hundred.”

“A deal.”

“Part of the funding for this job came from the Nicaraguan embassy in DC,” Charla told him. “The pair of
cabrones
in the skyvan that did in the
señora
were recruited right here in Spanish Harlem.”

“Hired to commit suicide?”

Charla gave a dry, wheezy laugh. “Doublecrossed, Sidney,” he answered. “They thought they were merely going to slam her out of the skylane and then rough her up a little when she landed.” He laughed again, drier and wheezier. “What they didn't know—and this certainly teaches us how important it is to keep as well informed as possible—was that a powerful bomb had been planted in their vehicle, rigged to go off the instant they hit her skycar.”

Gomez sat up and the sofa whanged again. “The cops, surely, Charley, would have gathered up some scraps of a bomb.”

“Of course they did.”

“Were they bribed to keep quiet?”

“No, they were advised to write this up as an accident.”

“By who?”

“Somebody in DC.”

“The OCC—and anybody else?”

“That's all I have so far.”

“How about the name of the
hombre
in the Nicaraguan embassy who helped fund the caper?”

Charla shook his head. “I don't have that as yet,
mi amigo
,” he said. “For an additional fee, though, I can continue researching this whole sad affair.”

“Do that.”

“Another three hundred dollars.”

“Two hundred.”

“Two fifty.”

“Okay.” Gomez stroked his moustache. “Now—can you tell me
why
Eve Bascom was knocked off?”

“That I don't have at the moment,” he admitted. “I suspect, however, that it must have something to do with the lady's recent sojourn in Managua.”

“What about the recent demise of her chum, Arnold Maxfield, Jr., in that selfsame Nicaraguan capital?”

“So far I have nothing on that. Yet I sense there is a link.”

Gomez asked, “Anything else you can tell me?”

“Only that you're dealing with some very rough and ruthless people on this one, Sidney. Be careful,
mi amigo
.”

“I intend to.” He stood, taking $400 from an inner pocket and tossing it into the yawning folder. “I'll be in touch, Charley.”

The informant closed the folder. “
Hasta luego
.”

When Gomez emerged up on the street, the panhandling vet was no longer there. Even his crate was gone and the shops in the vicinity were all shut up. There was an uneasy silence hanging over the neighborhood.

He became aware of a rumbling, rattling sound growing in the distance. From around a corner rolled a large landvan. It was painted a brilliant red and in a large white circle on its metal side was emblazoned a large black Nazi swastika. A second landvan, painted exactly like it, came rumbling in its wake.

An amplified voice boomed out, “Looking for trouble, greaser?”

“W
HO GETS THE
soyloaf grinder?” asked the gunmetal robot waiter.

“The lady,” Jake told him.

“Done.” The waiter set down the plate. “And you must be having the nomeat meatball sandwich.”

“Exactly.”

“Enjoy.” He went rolling off across the small shadowy dining room.

“My first name is Megan, by the way,” said the redhaired Miss McDonnell in her small voice. They were sitting in a booth at the back of Munsey's Pub. There were fewer than thirty people in the booths and at the scattering of tables. Over near the bar two men in grey business suits were playing vidwall darts. “The food isn't especially good, but nobody from the office ever comes here. That makes it a fairly safe location to talk, Mr. Cardigan.”

“And you have something to talk about, Megan?”

She lowered her voice. “About the man you're looking for.”

“Do you know where I can find the guy?”

“First I need to know exactly why you're hunting for him.”

Jake said, “Has to do with Eve Bascom's death. I think maybe he's got some information about that.”

She slumped, hands dropping into her lap. “I was afraid that's what this was about,” she told him forlornly. “She's going to keep hurting him even after she's dead.”

“I know he was involved with her at one time.”

“Yes, he was.” Her voice rose, grew louder. “That whore.”

Jake rested an elbow on the tabletop. “What about you and Seagrove?”

“We're friends,” she said. “Before he got embroiled with her, we were closer.”

“He wasn't still seeing her, was he?”

“Not, no, in the way he used to, not since she took to fooling around with young Maxfield,” answered Megan. “But she still took advantage of him, had him running errands, doing favors. I know she's dead, but she was a dreadful bitch.”

“Any idea who killed her?”

“The vidnews said it was an accident … but it wasn't, was it?”

“Don't think so.”

“Then he could be in danger, too.”

“He must think he is if he's gone into hiding.”

“You—and your detective agency—you're in a position to see that nothing bad happens to him.”

“We can protect him, yeah,” he assured her. “Unless he's directly tied in to her murder.”

“No, he's an innocent bystander. Well, innocent in the sense that he had nothing to do with her death.”

Jake asked, “Where's he hiding?”

“When …” She began very quietly to cry. “Whenever he's in trouble, he turns to me.”

“I can help him get out of it,” he said. “Tell me where he is.”

“Connecticut.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “In a town called Southport.” She gave him an address. “It's a waterside house that belongs to my uncle.”

“Is Seagrove there alone?”

“Yes, entirely. My uncle's out in NorCal on an extended business trip.”

“Can you contact Seagrove?”

She nodded.

“Okay, then call him—make sure you use a tapproof phone—and let him know I'll be out there this afternoon to talk with him,” Jake instructed. “After I see him, I'll arrange to have him stashed someplace safe until this mess gets resolved.”

“This mess, as you call it,” she said, “may never get entirely resolved, Mr. Cardigan. It is, I suspect, an
enormous
mess.”

“Meaning?”

“That's all I can say.”

T
HE PRESIDENT OF
the United States was pacing his large private office several levels below the White House. A tall, slender black man in his middle fifties, he was keeping his eyes on the small holostage in the corner. “I've been thinking, Tony, that, probably, I don't have to do this at all.”

The figure projected on the stage wore an offwhite medical jacket. “I wish, Mr. President, you'd address me as Anthony. The name Tony has never—”

“All right, Anthony. What I'm trying to get at, Doctor, is that I don't, I'm just about convinced, have to go through with—”

“It's absolutely essential that you do something, and very soon,” interrupted Dr. Marchitelli. “Now, we've been over all this in previous interviews. Everything has been agreed on, the whole operational plan is in place. You'll be checking into the clinic in a very few days now.”

“Yes, but I owe it to the American people to remain on the job.”

“You can't do anything like a competent job while you're addicted.”

“Addiction is a strong word, Tony, a very strong word,” said President Brookmeyer. “Mild habituation is more the—”

“You're completely
hooked
on Tek. All the tests confirm that, as does your previous testimony to me,” the doctor told him, impatience sounding in his voice. “When you finish your stay with us, you'll be able to avoid Tek.”

“I had a long chat with Vice President McCracklin last evening, Doctor, and he agrees that perhaps we went overboard in—”

“I talked to him less than an hour ago. He agrees that you must come down here, Mr. President.”

“He must have changed his mind again.”

“Getting you into the facility secretly is, as you're already aware, a very tricky business,” reminded Dr. Marchitelli. “As of now everything is set for your coming. If we abort the operation now, it might well cause leaks to the media and make it impossible for you to come sometime later.”

“Yes, yes, I'm aware of that,” conceded the president. “It's the secret, sneaky you might call it, nature of all this that upsets me, Tony—Anthony. I believe the American people would be greatly disappointed were they to learn I did something like this.”

“They'll be more upset if they find out for certain that the rumors about your flirting with Tek are all true,” the doctor said evenly from the pedestal. “You have to get rid of your addiction and you have to do it right away.”

Brookmeyer sighed. “My wife agrees with you,” he said quietly. “Very well, I'll go ahead with this.”

“It's for the best,” said the image of the doctor.

10

T
HE FIRST
A
XIS
Brotherhood van shuddered to a stop in front of the Café Francisca. A side door, which carried a large swastika painted on it, rattled open and young men in black neoleather uniforms came doubletiming out onto the street. Each wore a crimson helmet with a double eagle engraved on it in silver and each carried a long black stunrod.

Gomez had by this time withdrawn to the other side of the street and was heading away from the arriving Axis Brotherhood raiders.

Now a large, thick young man jumped down from the driveset. “Hey, greaser! I'm not through talking to you,” he shouted after Gomez. Across his broad, blackclad chest he held a lazrifle.

Ignoring him, Gomez increased his pace.

The second crimson van had rattled to a stop behind the first. From out of it a dozen more uniformed youths were pouring. Instead of stunrods, they carried bullhorns and leaflets.

The husky young man who was interested in the departing Gomez doubled back, snatching a bullhorn from one of the other uniformed youths. “There goes an ethnik who's defying us,” he announced over the bullhorn. “Let's teach him!”

Gomez spun around, yanked out his stungun and fired.

The sizzling beam slapped the young man with the bullhorn smack in the chest. He gave an awking yell that was amplified and went echoing up and down the narrow street. Then he took three wobbly steps to his right and fell over in the gutter.

Gomez concentrated on running.

“Get the spick!” someone shouted.

“Stop that greaser!”

“Doesn't sound,” Gomez told himself as he sped along, “like a time for peaceful negotiations.”

“Bring him down!”

“Stun the bastard!”

“Lazgun him!”

Running ever faster, Gomez went skidding around the corner.

As he passed the doorway of a fortune-telling shop, the door snapped suddenly open and blocked his progress. A huge metal arm came snaking out, a hand grabbed his arm and yanked him inside.

L
ARRY
S
EAGROVE, SNIFFLING,
pointed at the sprawled butler with a right hand that quivered slightly. “Sure, you can do something, can't you, Cardigan?” He grabbed his right hand with his left and pressed it to his chest.

“What happened to him?”

They were standing in the middle of the large living room of the Southport home where Seagrove was hiding out. All the windows had been blanked and the vidwall was dark. Stretched out, facedown, in the middle of the brightlit room was a darksuited android.

“He fell over,” explained Seagrove, letting go his right hand so he could wipe at his nose. “He hit his damn head.” He walked over toward an unseeing window. “It's an expensive andy, one of the topline Mechanix International models. I couldn't afford one myself. But Megan's damned uncle, he'll piss and moan about it. He'll blame me.”

Jake poked the fallen android with his boot toe. “What'd you hit him with?”

“I didn't touch him, didn't lay a hand on him,” he insisted, sniffling. “Jesus, Cardigan, whose side are you on here? I'm helping you out, remember? You've no right to go accusing me of busting up the old bastard's servos.”

“Somebody took a blunt instrument to the butler's skull,” said Jake evenly. “He didn't get that bunged up just falling. You have an argument with him?”

“No, not exactly. But, hell, Cardigan, he was a snotty son of a bitch. You know, they build them that way. Program the bastards to act like you weren't worth shit. I have permission, afterall, to stay here.”

“You can have a repair squad come look at him after we take care of our business.”

“Why the hell should I do that? I don't want to get stuck with the bill for the work, which is why I was hoping you could give me a hand patching him up.” Seagrove sniffled. “Here in Connecticut they think you're a millionaire if you live in Southport. A repair bill that would cost five thousand dollars in Manhattan will run you fifteen thousand around here. Besides, he's a servo, which means he was supposed to serve me and not go around insulting me all the damn time. The way I—”

“We can settle the butler matter later, Seagrove.” Stepping over the battered android, Jake approached the man. “Before I get you moved to a safer hideaway, I—”

“This place was safe,” he said. “If Megan hadn't shot off her mouth to you, nobody would know where I was.”

“Maybe.”

“What do you mean?”

“Figure it out,” suggested Jake. “I found you. Others can.”

“Others—what others, for Christ sake?”

“The others who killed Eve. The others who broke in on her husband, looking for the vidcaz.”