Tek Kill (10 page)

Susan, fists clenched, remained a long time just inside the room.

The cot was wide, covered with a bright plaid plyoblanket. Next to it was a low table on which rested the familiar Tek gear. The compact Brainbox, the headset, and—five, she counted—five Tek chips.

“I stopped,” she reminded herself. “I stopped and I thought it was all over.”

But she'd been hurting so much lately.

She had to do something to stop that.

Crossing, she sat down on the cot.

In the woods outside a single bird began to sing.

Susan, hand shaking a little, picked up the headset and adjusted it to her skull.

She poked at the cockroach-sized Tek chips, sorting them. Selecting one, she inserted it in the Brainbox.

She activated the box and stretched out on the cot, closing her eyes. “I wasn't going to do this anymore,” she said.

GOMEZ LEANED an elbow on the railing of Jake's deck and studied the misty night and the black ocean. “Ah, to be young once again,” he observed with a sigh.

From his deck chair, Jake said, “You're referring to my son?”

“Sure, Dan's out on the town with the lovely Molly while you and I vegetate here and talk shop.”

“On a school night, too.”

“My own youth,” said Gomez, “seems to be receding at an increasingly alarming rate,
amigo
.”

“Hard work is the cure for that sort of thing.”

“Okay,
sí
, we'll get back to the case.” His partner turned his back on the Pacific Ocean. “I, with the
jefe
's blessing, will be embarking for Texas
mañana
early in search of the gifted and elusive Avram Moyech.”

Jake stretched up out of the chair. “Appears I'll be remaining in Greater LA and digging further into the life and times of Dwight Grossman.”

Gomez knuckled his misty mustache. “There has to be more to this
guisado
than just Tek shenanigans,” he said. “I know,
sí
, that once we persuaded the double-crossing Anson to confide in us, he explained that he'd been on the payroll of some Tek cartel underlings from the NorCal area. But my feeling is that Grossman was sent on to glory for more complex sins than annoying a Teklord.”

“Bascom's going to cover the NorCal angle himself. We can—”

“You think turning our fallen colleague over to the estimable Lieutenant Drexler will take some of the heat off the chief?”

“Need more than the confession of a bit player like Anson to convince Drexler that Bascom's not a crazed killer,” said Jake. “He doesn't think much of us, either.”

“You're wrong there,
amigo
,” corrected Gomez. “Now and then I've noticed the lieutenant gazing at me with that kind of look young boys reserve for sports heroes.”

Jake grinned. “Maybe you're right, Sid. You well could be the guy's role model, his idol.”

“Looks and brains. That's what impresses the multitude.”

“Phone call,” announced the voice of the condo computer.

“Take a message,” suggested Jake, not moving.

“I advise you to respond to this one, sir.”

Jake said, “Hold on, Sid.” He went into the living room.

The vidphone screen was blank. A thin, nervous male voice asked, “You're on a tap-proof phone, aren't you, Cardigan?”

“Yeah. Who are you?”

“This is about Hermione Earnshaw.”

Jake sat in the chair facing the screen. “Okay, let's hear it.”

“You have to come and see me.”

“Not unless I know a hell of a lot more about you and the setup.”

Silence followed. Nearly a full minute of it.

Then the phonescreen made a faint humming noise. The image of a slender black man of about forty snapped into view. He was sitting on the edge of a silver chair in front of a blank gray wall. “My name is Sam Hopkins,” he began. “You're certain your phone is tap-proof?”

“It is. And my condo isn't bugged. What do you know about her death?”

Hopkins hesitated. “I know why she was killed,” he said finally.

“Suppose you tell me now?”

“You've got to come out here. I don't want to stay on the phone that long,” he said, glancing offscreen. “I'm staying at a friend's place here in the NewTown Sector and—”

“Whoa now, that's a rough area,” cut in Jake, shaking his head. “A completely private township with its own cops and—”

“I know what Hermione and Grossman knew.”

“How'd you come by that?”

“I'm the one who provided the information that got them both killed.”

“Give me your address,” said Jake.

SUSAN'S FATHER WAS a trim, handsome man of forty-five. He smiled, slipped an arm around her shoulders as they walked away from the tennis court at the rear of their mansion.

“I thought I'd win that one,” he said, hugging her. “Congratulations.”

“It was close, Dad,” she said, laughing.

They strolled up to the terrace and sat at one of the small tables. “What would you like to drink, princess?”

She felt, briefly, tearful. “You haven't called me that in a long while.”

“I regret that, Sue,” her father told her. “While that terrible woman was here, I simply ceased to think clearly.”

“She's gone, gone for good and all,” reminded his daughter. “Pretty soon we'll forget that Juneanne was ever here.”

“That's what I'm hoping.”

“Shall I call a butler to—”

“Who's that down by the courts?” He half rose from his chair, eyes narrowing.

Susan turned to look, then inhaled sharply. “It's them. It's them.”

A slight red-haired man and a large hairless man were walking up across the simulated green lawn. They were laughing and now, realizing they'd been spotted, they both waved.

“Are these fellows friends of yours, princess?”

“No, they're not. They … they're the ones who killed Dwight.”

He frowned at her. “So you do know something about that?” he said. “Juneanne told me you were involved, but I didn't want to believe that. Now it turns out that—”

“It was them, Dad. I tried to stop it but—”

“How could you have stopped them from killing your brother? Were you there when—”

“No, but I saw it.”

“Good God, Sue, are you going to start that psychic nonsense again?”

She made fists of her hands, saying, “This isn't going right. This isn't the Tek dream I—”

“Hiya, Susie,” said the redhead as he hopped up onto the terrace stones. “We're here to take care of your problems.”

“No, I don't want you to do a damn thing. Go away.”

The hairless man's laugh was high pitched. “You want us to kill Juneanne
and
your father, kid.”

“And you ordered two of the deluxe coffins for them,” added his partner.

“Stop it,” she cried. “I don't want this.”

The hairless man said, “You've got no idea of everything you're going to get, kid.”

Reaching out, he yanked the headset off her head.

She sat up on the cot and cried out.

He was still there. He smiled and took hold of both her arms.

17

THERE was nothing in the parlor except two metal chairs.

Sam Hopkins sat in one, Jake straddled the other.

The one-way viewindow showed a matching row of identical small, square houses outside in the foggy night. The artificial bay was downhill with thick mist drifting in across its dark waters.

“The friend who's letting me use this place just moved in,” the black man was explaining. “Hence the lack of furnishings.”

Jake said, “I don't like the NewTown Sector. I don't want to hang around any longer than I have to.”

Hopkins glanced toward the window. “I hate NewTown myself,” he acknowledged, “but if you work for NewTown Pharmaceuticals, you pretty much have to reside here.”

“That's who you work for, huh?”

“Yes, in Promotion & Publicity.” He laughed a thin, dry laugh. “Ironic, considering what I've been up to lately.”

“How'd you know to contact me, Hopkins?”

“Hermione Earnshaw mentioned your name. She was planning to contact you, I believe, but then …” He rubbed his thin fingers over the bridge of his nose a few times.

“She was a friend of yours?”

“We actually lived together for nearly six months—year before last. I should have stayed with her.” He glanced at the window again. “Let me start off by explaining, Cardigan, that I don't know as much about the situation as Grossman did. But because of what I told Hermione … well, both of them are dead.”

“So what exactly did you tell her?”

Hopkins asked, “Do you know anything about something called SinTek?”

“Not a damn thing.”

“The Burdons—that's Rowland and Rebecca Burdon, the twin tycoons who run NewTown Pharmaceuticals—the Burdons arranged nearly a year ago with both state and federal authorities to try to develop a safe electronic drug. A synthetic one that will deliver the gratifying fantasies that real Tek provides its users. But, and this was the selling point, the damn stuff isn't addictive. Not even habit-forming. Plus which, it doesn't have any of the terrible side effects that Tek does—no brain damage from prolonged addiction, no seizures or blackouts.”

“Sounds like another miracle of science and technology,” commented Jake. “How far along are they?”

After checking the window again, Hopkins answered, “Lord knows if they'll ever have a product to sell. The point is that SinTek is only a cover-up. NewTown has built a special Design & Research facility out of state, but it's devoted to more than perfecting a safe synthetic substitute for Tek.”

Jake hunched his shoulders, frowning. “C'mon, you're saying they're manufacturing the real stuff on the side?”

“That's it, exactly,” said Hopkins. “Anyone inspecting the setup sees SinTek only, but in the underground sections of the place they're turning out street-quality Tek.”

“The Tek cartels don't take kindly to amateurs going into competition with them.”

Hopkins told him, “I'm fairly certain Rowland Burdon got one of the big NorCal Tek cartels to go into partnership on this whole damn project.”

“Which one?”

“That I haven't learned.”

“But Dwight Grossman found out, huh?”

“That's what Hermione told me,” he said. “I knew she and Grossman were preparing a series of reports on the big SoCal drug companies. I told Hermione what I knew and what I suspected. After she passed that along to him, Grossman obviously did considerable investigating on his own.”

“Was he planning to put all he learned into his report for Thelwell?”

Shaking his head, Hopkins said, “I suspect that Grossman, who wasn't an especially nice guy—”

“So I've heard.”

“I think he was contemplating trying to collect a substantial fee to keep quiet.”

“That wasn't too bright of him.”

Hopkins lowered his voice. “Listen, I don't think anyone's on to me yet at NewTown Pharmaceuticals,” he said. “But if things start to go bad, can you—Christ!”

The door of the parlor suddenly came flying into the room.

Three men, all in the uniform of the NewTown Private Police Force, charged in in the wake of the fallen door.

“This is an illegal meeting, convened to conspire to commit criminal acts,” announced the highest-ranking intruder, a lean sergeant. “You both are being arrested, under the NewTown penal code section that—”

“Hold it, folks.” Jake was on his feet. “Do you make-believe cops have a warrant for breaking into this—”

“Looks like this guy is resisting arrest,” said the lean sergeant to one of the other officers.

“Without a doubt, sir.” He swung the stungun in his hand three inches to the left and shot Jake.

THE AMPLE BLOND ANDROID in the black bathing suit said, “It's never too early to think about dying.”

“Very true,” agreed Dan.

He and Molly were in one of the coffin showrooms of the Eternity Depot.

“Now, these three models here, including the one that plays favorite hymns around the clock,” continued the android salesperson, “you can buy on easy installments that even school kids such as yourselves can afford.”

“Actually, in point of fact,” said Molly, “we came here to see the Second Assistant Manager.”

“Really?” The blonde scratched her backside and looked disappointed. “Nice clean-cut kids such as yourselves, and you want to indulge in … Well, that's none of my darned business, now, is it? No, not at all. ‘Pamela, you just work here, kid. Keep in mind that you're nothing more than an android, a collection of nuts and bolts without a soul or—'”

“How do we find him?” asked Molly impatiently.

“Level 2, Door 5.” She rubbed her believable hands together dismissively and turned away from them.

As they headed up to the next level of the vast store, Dan said, “Did you see any of the coffins that you really liked?”

“Saw one I might pop you into if you don't cease trying to be the Gomez of your generation.”

“Sid's a very clever guy and—”

“For them as cherishes clever guys. Me, I like your type better.”

When they located Door 5, Molly said, “I hope the ritual Susan told me about a while ago still prevails.”

She tapped the door twice, waited, then tapped once more.

Creaking and scraping, the door moved open.

“Newcomers,” said the overhead voxbox. “Lovebirds, no doubt.”

Molly took hold of Dan's hand and smiled up at the speaker in the ceiling. “We'd like to share a crib, sir.”

“That'll be $300, kiddies.”

Dan said, “$300 just to—”