Tek Kill (6 page)

When he was flat out on his back, he went swiftly elbowing across the floorboards.

“'Ere now, none of that!” One of the androids swung his lazgun around and fired.

The crackling beam ate a deep blackish rut in the neowood.

By that time Gomez was scooting under the worktable.

He popped to his feet, kicked out, and toppled the table.

The defunct android that had been reclining there hit the floor, spewing inner workings, and went rolling and rattling toward the charging butlers.

Diving to the floor again, but drawing out his stungun as he dropped, Gomez fired.

“Blimey!” exclaimed one of the androids when the beam of the stunner hit him full in his broad chest and disabled him.

He fell floorward and hit with an impressive hollow thunk.

The surviving butler tried a lazgun shot at Gomez, but only succeeded in slicing the table clean in half.

Gomez jumped upright once again and shot at the second would-be assailant.

The stunbeam went wide, hitting a plump cook android and knocking her off her perch.

Gomez's second shot did better, and the andy butler dropped his lazgun and then followed it to the floor.

Leaping over the sundered table, Gomez caught Pegler by the collar and yanked him out of the cringing crouch he had assumed. “Now,
perrito
, I'd be most grateful if you'd inform me, at no charge, who hired you to do me in?”

The shivering informant sneezed. “You really shouldn't get so close to me, Sidney, you're liable to catch my—”

“Who?”

“How's that?”

“Who arranged to have those mechanical louts assassinate me?”

Sniffling, Pegler replied, “It was, I swear, as big a surprise to me as it must have been to you when those lads came to life. I assumed they were dormant and—”

“Apparently,
tonto
, you are unfamiliar with the fabled Gomez intelligence.” The angry detective commenced shaking the other man some. “
Sí
, each and every member of the Gomez clan is nowhere near stupid enough to believe this kind of bunk.
Por favor
, before I lose the saintly patience I am exhibiting at the moment, give me the truth.” He shook the sniffling Pegler several more times.

“I swear I have absolutely no—”

“Usually,
pendejo
, I refrain from using a lazgun,” said Gomez quietly and evenly. “However, I notice that there are two handsome such weapons lying about your establishment, dropped by the
cholos
you rigged to do me in. If you wouldn't like to have your nasal passages cleaned out by a lazbeam, now's the time to confide.”

“I don't know who they were, truly.”

“Details,
por favor
.”

“There was a vidphone call about midday, but the screen stayed blank and the voice was filtered.” Pausing to sneeze, the informant continued. “I was instructed to fix a couple of my androids to throw a scare into you. In fact, Sidney, they suggested I rig four, but, being a pal of yours, I only—”

“They knew I was going to call on you, huh? But I didn't contact you in advance.”

“My impression, for what it's worth, is that they contacted anybody who has knowledge about people who are expert at sec-system modifications.”

“That's
muy
interesting, their knowing what I was going to be digging into today,” reflected Gomez, letting the ailing informant go.

“I'd be extremely careful, Sidney, if you're planning to call on any of my colleagues for further info.”

Stepping back, Gomez scrutinized the man. “Were they Tek hoods, Pegler?”

“I tell you, I don't know who they were. This voice offered me a fee—and, Sidney, he threatened to do me considerable harm if I didn't go along with it,” said Pegler. “The andies, in spite of what you might think, weren't fixed to kill you. Only to scare you off.”

“Oh,
sí
, I believe that,” he said. “Scare me off what, did they tell you that?”

Pegler shook his head and then sneezed twice more. “Whatever you're working on. That was the message.”

“I think it would be beneficial if you remained quiet and uncommunicative for the remainder of today.”

“I will, Sidney. I'll close up shop and go to the beach down at—”

“No, you'll simply take a long nap.” Pointing the stungun at him, Gomez squeezed the trigger.

UP NEAR the high, curved ceiling of the immense AdVillage reception area a huge six-foot-tall green plazbottle of Bliss Kola tilted exactly every twenty-one seconds to send a foamy stream of brownish liquid cascading down fifteen feet to splash into the wide oval fountain at the center of the mosaic tile floor. Each projected tile represented a product label, and the hundreds of them made for a bright, gaudy spread.

Jake was sitting in one of the seven Lucite chairs in the row to the left of the boomerang-shaped reception desk. The six others sharing the bank of seats were all clad in medical garb, doctor smocks and nurse uniforms.

The portly gray-haired man next to Jake leaned and mentioned, “You should have dressed for the part.”

“Hmm?”

“The casting android for the StanCo Pharmaceuticals account likes auditioning actors to show a bit of initiative and imagination,” continued the man in the white coat. “Another friendly tip—you're a mite too weather-beaten to do a convincing physician.”

“Think so?” asked Jake.

“I see you in tobaccosub spots, maybe booze and brainstim. That kind of muscular stuff,” said the actor. “I don't know your work. What are your credits?”

Jake grinned. “Actually I'm not here to audition for anything,” he said. “I'm waiting to see an agency art director.”

“Not an actor, eh?”

“Nope.”

“Odd, very odd. Because you have that mixture of cockiness and desperation that characterizes our profession.”

“That could be because—”

“Mr. Cardigan?” said the voxbox embedded in the reception desk.

He stood up. “Yeah.”

“Door G, please. That will lead you to the Persuasion, Ltd., wing of AdVillage.”

Jake bowed toward the portly would-be physician, gave the desk a lazy salute, and headed for the designated doorway, striding across the multicolored imitation tiles.

MARGO LARIAR WAS an extremely blond woman in her middle thirties. Her attention was divided between Jake, whom she'd nodded onto a polka dot couch, and the six large compscreens on the wall facing her.

“Which color scheme up there makes you feel less anxious?” Dwight Grossman's former wife asked.

“I don't feel anxious.”

“Well, hell, play along, Cardigan,” she urged. “Assume you are, which, Jesus, most every other living soul in Greater LA is. Which of those rough-intrusion ads would soothe you?”

“When intrusion ads pop onto my vidwall or my compscreen, I merely get ticked off. There's not a one of them would soothe me,” he answered. “Now, about the—”

“How about the one that's all blues?” Margo touched the keyboard that sat on her small white desk. “Or is this better now? You'll notice that I've subdued the shades of blue and added a—”

“You'll notice I'm standing over you, looking notably unsoothed.”

She turned to face him. “Oh, I'm sorry as can be. I tend to get all tangled up in my work and ignore the—excuse me.” Her fingers went flickering over the keyboard again. “But there. Doesn't that number-five layout have increased appeal now with more yellow in it?” She nodded to herself. “Where was I? Oh, yes, how can I help you, Cardigan?”

He nodded at her desk. “Suppose you switch to the sofa and I sit here?”

“Well, I feel uneasy when I'm not in my familiar—”

“Maybe you can use some—what the hell is it called?” He looked over at the rough ad layouts on the wall. “Yeah, some Kalmz.”

“Oh, hell, I'd never take that swill.” Slowly, a bit reluctantly, she left her desk to move to the polka dot couch.

Jake began, “First off, I don't believe Walt Bascom killed your husband. So can—”

“
Former
husband,
erstwhile
spouse,” she quickly corrected. “I'm Margo Lariar now.”

“And you felt well rid of the guy?”

Margo smiled, nodding. “Dwight was an extremely unsatisfactory man. He was violent, possessive, fastidious beyond belief. And he loved to do those dreadful company reports of his, to burrow into all sorts of places he shouldn't even have been, to bribe information out of—”

“We'll get to those reports,” cut in Jake. “I take it you left him?”

“You bet your ass I did, yessir.” She swung her right hand rapidly through the air. “Fast as I could.”

“Did he harass you after that?”

“Absolutely. Vidphone calls—some pleading, most of them threatening. He'd attempt to break in to my place, he'd confront me in public places,” said the former Mrs. Grossman. “Finally I put the law on Dwight and he subsided. A great many bullies are chickenshit underneath. Have you noticed?”

Jake said, “He was doing all those tricks with Kay Norwood.”

“And others, believe me.”

“At the same time?”

“Oh, no, Dwight was a one-woman psycho. Poor Kay Norwood was simply the latest target for his unrequited passion. Jesus, what a schmuck he was—rest his soul.”

Jake said, “You're suggesting there might be a whole batch of women who didn't have much love for him?”

“Seven or eight at least that dear Dwight plagued, yes.”

“Can you provide a list?”

“A partial one probably. I didn't keep up with his activities, but I heard things now and then.”

“Grossman was doing research on several SoCal pharmaceutical outfits,” continued Jake, straddling her desk chair. “One of them happened to be StanCo. Does your agency handle that account?”

She pointed at the far wall. “No, that's Alch & Associates, one of our neighbors here in AdVillage.”

“While he was doing these reports, did he contact you for any—”

“Dwight couldn't contact me for any reason,” she put in. “I never allowed him to communicate with me in any way,” replied Margo, her attention partially straying to the rough layouts on the wall. “Although I did hear something about this pharmaceutical project of his just recently.”

“What?”

“Only that—and this came from a friend of a friend after they heard he'd been killed—only that Dwight had seemed extremely uneasy the last days before he died. I have no idea of the reason.”

“Who was the source of this news?”

She shook her head. “I'll have to see if she wants to be part of your investigation, Cardigan.”

“Okay,” he said. “Do you know Hermione Earnshaw?”

“Not as well as dear departed Dwight did,” she replied, laughing. “Hermione was his loyal assistant at Thelwell and, I'm fairly certain, frequent bedmate. In spite of their political differences, they remained extremely chummy and Dwight never apparently threatened her. That was because, if you want my opinion, little skinny Hermione did a hell of a lot of the work that Dwight took the credit for.”

“She seems to have dropped from sight.”

“Maybe she joined a convent and went into mourning.”

Jake said, “Tell me about their political differences.”

“Hermione's very—excessively, make that—conservative,” Margo answered. “She's a very active member of that nutcake group J. J. Bracken supports so enthusiastically. The Pure California Coalition. Christ, what a state this is.” She started to get up, reconsidered and sat, then hopped to her feet. “I really have to get back to work. But, I swear to God, I'll send you that list of the other unfortunate ladies whose lives were blighted by Dwight since we split up.”

Jake studied the six compscreens again before heading for the way out. “I'd go with the blue,” he advised.

11

GOMEZ adjusted his big red nose and went, huge yellow shoes flapping, hurrying into the seventeenth level of a Westwood Sector building. Just across the threshold, he set down a sample case that had BUFFOON ELECTRONIC TOYS, INC. emblazoned on its bright green side.

“Pipe the getup on this dodo,” commented a little golden-haired doll that rested on a low ivory pedestal.

“A rube from Hicksville if ever I saw one,” added a large robot rag doll who was slumped in a little plaz rocking chair.

A two-foot-high mechanical cowboy whipped off his Stetson. “Don't let them impolite bimbos a-rile ya, pardner,” he drawled. “What kin I do ya fer?”

“Is the lady of the house in?” Gomez scratched at his frizzy purple wig.

The golden-haired blond doll suggested, “Why don't you take a hike, Zeke?”

“Yeah,” seconded the rag doll, thumbing her nose in a floppy manner, “hit the road, bozo.”

“Little dears, for shame.” A fat silver-haired woman in a flowered tent dress had come jiggling out of the back office of the toy shop. “Is this any way to treat a respected customer?”

“This doink's not a paying customer, Corky,” said the rag doll disdainfully. “He's just a schlep of a salesman.”

Clearing his throat, Gomez said, “
Chiquita
, I have to communicate with you,
muy pronto
. For the usual fee, be it understood.”

Blinking, Corky Keepnews took a jiggling step back. “Holy crow, is that you, Gomez honey?”

“
Sí
, but cleverly disguised so as not to tip off the opposition.”

“Wow, it's not especially safe for you to be seen in the open.”

“Hence the mummery,
bonita.
” He went flat-footing after her into her office.

Bidding the door to shut, Corky seated herself in an ample armchair. “I can't chat with you for more than five minutes, hon,” she warned him.