Gomez shot at the mechanical man with his stungun.
The beam from the robot’s weapon struck the editor before she had time to drop down behind her desk.
It sliced clean through her chest, cutting her body completely in two. Blood went splashing up against the viewscreens where Gomez’s images had been.
When the stunbeam touched the robot, he stiffened, rose up on tiptoe. His jaw dropped open, then clanked shut.
He let go his lazgun, swayed, thunked to his knees. He teetered, making a raspy gagging sound before falling forward. He hit the floor hard, crushing the fallen flowers beneath him.
Gomez, keeping his stungun in his hand, moved carefully to the doorway. The outer office was empty, the street beyond was sunny and quiet.
“Damn it,” he muttered.
Walking back toward Alma Zingara’s desk, he edged around and squeezed into the vidphone alcove next to it. Sitting down, he punched out the number of the Rio City Police.
There was blood splashed across the phone-screen.
Jake hadn’t bothered activating the lights in the living room of their hotel suite. He was sitting in the twilight room, looking up at the ceiling, when his partner returned.
“I hope,” said Gomez, touching the control panel and lighting up the room, “that you had a jollier afternoon than I did.”
Jake eased up out of the armchair. “We can compare notes, but I doubt it.”
“Did you spend an hour and thirty six minutes being queried by the Rio City Police?”
“Nope.”
“Bueno, then I had the worst time.”
“What were the cops asking you about?”
Sitting on the edge of the sofa, Gomez said, “First tell me about your meeting with Jean Marie.”
“It was rough seeing her so close to dying.” He shook his head. “She says some fellows in the Tek trade contacted her about three weeks back. They claim her father’s alive, hiding out somewhere in Brazil. He’d like to see her but it’s apparently dangerous for him to come out in the open.”
“What’s the hombre afraid of?”
“She doesn’t know.”
“How does Tek figure in this?”
“Could be Sparey’s doing some kind of exposé of one of the big cartels.”
“C’mon, that wouldn’t explain where he’s been all this time.”
“No, it wouldn’t. It’s much more likely that he’s working for the Tek dealers. Jean Marie, though, doesn’t have any details.”
Gomez scratched his head. “There’s a hell of a lot going on, amigo, that we don’t know anything about.”
“That’s my impression, too. Now explain why you spent the afternoon with the police.”
“Well, whilst I was inquiring of one of my local informants for news of the present whereabouts of Will Sparey, word reached me that a lady name of Alma Zingara was most eager to chat with me,” said Gomez. “The lady edits—make that edited—a liberal weekly news-sheet.”
“She’s dead?”
“As of this afternoon, sí.” Gomez went on to tell him what had happened at the editor’s office.
When he concluded, Jake said, “Too bad she didn’t get to tell you much.”
“That’s probably why they knocked her off—to keep her from passing on what she knew about Sparey.”
“You think she knew where he is?”
“She was at least aware of what he was up to during the war. I’m not sure how any of that ties in with our present quest.”
“What do the city cops think?”
“That she had a lot of enemies because of her frequent criticisms of the regime of the illustrious General Silveira.”
“Her killing has to tie in with Sparey.”
“I never got around to mentioning Sparey to them.” Gomez wandered over to the window. “What’s our next step?”
“Jean Marie gave me the name of a guy to talk to. His name is Sargento.”
Gomez made a snorting noise. “Sargento, huh?”
“Know him?”
“Heard of him,” said Gomez. “As I understand, it would take a massive public relations campaign to upgrade his image to that of weasel.”
10
THE FAT WOMAN WITH the crinkly rainbow hair lit a tobacco cigarette, coughed violently, laughed, blinked her purple-shaded eyelids several times and said, “You’re talking like a man with a paper asshole, Gomez honey.”
Gomez was perched on the edge of the fat woman’s lucite reception desk. Leaning closer to her, he said, “$500 is a handsome fee, Mrs. Cardwell.”
She looked hopefully toward Jake, who was sitting in a wicker chair across the DataDoll showroom. “Sweetheart, tell this cheapskate I can’t give valuable information away for nothing.”
Jake grinned. “Myself, I wouldn’t pay more than $400 for Sargento’s present location.”
Mrs. Cardwell paused to cough violently. “A couple of skinflints, that’s what I’m locked in combat with,” she complained, rolling her eyes and exhaling smoke.
Dropping free of her desk, Gomez strolled over to the nearest display pedestal. It held a deactivated android, a lovely blonde young woman, deeply tanned and entirely naked. “According to your DataDoll catalogue, I could enjoy a night on the town with this one for only $300.”
“That’s our loss leader this week. The other bimbos cost $1000 and up.”
“Still, Mrs. Cardwell, feasting our eyes on Sargento isn’t worth $200 more than an evening with a lovely andy.”
“You’re drawing a false parallel, honey. Boffing one of these bimbos isn’t the same as getting information that’s vital to the success of your current investigation.” The fat woman, after coughing violently, nodded in Jake’s direction. “Selling information is my sideline. It has different standards, and different fees, than the mechanized escort service. Tell Gomez that, Cardigan.”
Jake got up. “We better go see your next contact, Sid.”
Gomez was slowly circling a pedestal that held a black teenage girl in pink pajamas. “$550 is my final offer.”
Mrs. Cardwell took a slow thoughtful drag of her bootleg cigarette, then sighed out smoke. “You’re meaner than a jaguar with the pip,” she told him sourly. “But, okay.” Hunching forward, she ran pudgy beringed fingers over her desk keyboard.
From out the printer that sat between two of the naked female androids ticked a sheet of yellow paper.
Gomez took it. “So Sargento’s at the Casa Florenza boarding house over on Guanabara Bay?”
“That’s what I wrote, isn’t it? Now slip me the dough.”
Folding the paper away into his trouser pocket, Gomez returned to her desk. “Here you have $200, Mrs. Cardwell. If Sargento is indeed where you say, the remainder will—”
“Wait now, honey. The paltry $550 fee is simply for providing you with an address, not for a guarantee that that rodent is still—”
“We’ll see you anon,” promised Gomez.
He and Jake headed out into the night.
Jake, since he stepped clear of the skycar first, encountered the man with the lazgun first.
The man was big, wide and bearded and he gripped the black weapon in his gloved left hand. He was standing in front of the high, thick hedge that separated the rutted lot from the ramshackle Casa Florenza boarding house. Nearby was a scraggly palm tree.
“Boa noite, senhor,” he said quietly. “Climb back into your car, se faz favor, and fly away.”
“Oh, sure, certainly,” said Jake, grinning amiably. “We sure don’t want to upset you or get in your way.” He turned back toward the skycar.
Then he suddenly dropped to the ground, rolled rapidly to his left and tugged out his stungun.
He twisted, sat up and fired at the big man before he could get his lazgun aimed.
The beam of Jake’s stungun hit the man in the belly. He went hopping back, arms flapping, until he collided with the trunk of the tree. His gun fell to the ground and he followed it.
Gomez, wh
o’d drawn his own stungun, was looking carefully around. “Any idea what’s afoot, amigo?”
Kneeling, Jake picked up the unconscious man’s lazgun. “Possibly somebody doesn’t want us to call on Sargento.”
There was a warm wind drifting in across the dark waters of the bay. The high hedge and the fronds of the palm tree rattled quietly.
Jake moved closer to his partner. “We’d better approach the boarding house with—”
“Okay, Sargento, you miserable weasel,” boomed an unseen amplified voice from out in front of the place. “We know you’re cowering in there!”
“Have we chanced upon a police raid?” wondered Gomez.
Jake poked the fallen gunman with his boot. “This lunk is no cop.”
“We’ll give you five minutes to come out, Sargento. With Aunt Amalia’s money.”
Gomez observed, “Sounds like some past crime of Sargento’s has caught up with him.”
“This is Manuel Betancourt,” continued the amplified voice. “I’m stationed by the front porch, thoroughly armed. My brother Jose is watching the back way and Jaime is standing guard over in the landing lot. Five minutes and then we come in and teach you a lesson.”
“This may be the sort of lesson,” said Gomez, “that will leave Sargento incapable of telling us much.”
“Go around front and distract Manuel,” suggested Jake. “I’ll handle Jose and then we’ll get Sargento out of here.”
Gomez put his gun away and slipped unobtrusively through a break in the thick hedge.
Jake, holstering his stungun, walked across the lot and pushed through the hedge. He emerged about fifty yards from the rear of the rickety 3-story boarding house.
Crouched near the back entrance, intently watching the house and illuminated by the lightball that was floating over the doorway, was another large, moustached man. He had a lazrifle cradled against his broad chest.
Jake walked up to within ten feet of him. “Excuse me.”
The man spun, pointing his rifle at Jake.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” apologized Jake. “But I noticed there’s a fellow—looks something like you—sprawled out in the lot over there.”
“My brother Jaime?”
“Don’t know who he is, but he’s out cold. If he is your brother, you probably ought to go take a look,” said Jake, easing closer. “He’s covered with blood.”
“Blood?”
“My guess would be that somebody knifed him.”
“Damn it. Sargento must’ve slipped by us.” Lowering the rifle, he started running for the hedge.
Jake waited until the man was just beyond him, then yanked out his stungun and shot him.
After Jose fell over, Jake scooped up the lazrifle and tossed it in the direction of the shaggy brush.
After listening for a few seconds, he went cautiously into the boarding house.
Halfway along the dimlit first floor hall a lean woman in a floppy green robe popped out of a doorway to confront him. “If this doesn’t stop I’m going to call the police,” she warned.
“It’s been my experience, ma’am, that people who live in establishments like this rarely do that.”
“I happen to own this building. I’m no less than Florenza.”
“All the more reason to avoid trouble with the law,” he pointed out. “Which room is Sargento in?”
“I don’t know if I should tell you, senhor.”
“I’m not here to trounce him,” he said. “I want to get him away from the people who do.”
“Will you take him far away from my boarding house?”
“Miles,” promised Jake.
“He’s in 3C.”
The front door popped open at the other end of the hallway.
Gomez entered. “Is all well?”
“Yeah,” answered Jake. “Let’s go up and rescue Sargento.”
11
“I’M SAFE HERE,” SAID SARGENTO, who was huddled in the corner of the restaurant booth. “I can trust the staff.”
“The staff of Colonel Kilgore’s Tea Shoppe #463,” noted Gomez, “consists of one tacky robot in a greasy polka dot apron.”
“But I can trust Edna,” said the small leathery man. “She won’t sell me out like those bastards at the boarding house.”
Jake asked him, “Where’s Will Sparey?”
Lifting his wraparound dark glasses and squinting at Jake, Sargento said, “We don’t need to rush.”
“I want to find out as much as we can before the next wave of irate citizens descends on you.”
“Oh, those rotten Betancourts are an exception,” Sargento assured him. “I’m well liked around Rio. You can ask anybody.”
“The two dozen people I have asked,” put in Gomez, “all rank you as a topseeded lowlife.”
“What do they know? Besides, that’s not a sufficient sampling.”
“Will Sparey,” repeated Jake.
Removing his dark glasses, the small man asked, “What do you know about his alleged disappearance years ago, Cardigan?”
“Not much. The story at the time was that a band of guerrillas in a wild part of Mato Grosso killed him.”
“That’s all that was. A story.” Setting his glasses aside, Sargento fished a vial of clear liquid from the breast pocket of his plaid jacket. “Eyedrops.”
While Sargento was lubricating his eyes, Gomez suggested, “Suppose you tell us what really happened.”
“That’s exactly what I intend to do, Gomez. Edna, a pot of mint tea and the usual trimmings. Put it on this gent’s bill. That’s all right by you, isn’t it, Cardigan?”
“Yeah,” said Jake. “Now tell us something.”
“The air in Rio really bothers my eyes.” He slipped the vial away. “Sparey wasn’t killed by anyone. He’s still alive.” From a side pocket he drew an electrocomb and flicked it on. “You see, while he was covering the last war, he met some people.” Sargento began working on his hair with the humming comb.
“What people?”
“Chief among them was ... Ah, thank you, Edna.”
The robot waitress had lurched over to their booth and slammed a tray down in front of Sargento. “You’re looking quite dapper tonight, Sarge,” she observed in a rusty voice.
“You really think so? Does my hair look okay to you?”
“It looks right lovely.”
“You see, Edna, I had an encounter earlier in the evening with some fellows who mussed me up.”
“It doesn’t show. You look absolutely—”
“That’ll be all,” Gomez told her.
“Very well, sir, I’m sure.”
“Wait a minute, Edna. I want your opinion of my eyes.”
“Soulful.”
“They’ve been awfully bloodshot of late.”
“Oh, they’re bloodshot, Sarge, but that doesn’t prevent them from still being very soulful. Not a bit, no,” said the robot waitress. “Oh, and I’m sorry about the ruddy dust on the plum cake. It’s the last blinking slice and, wouldn’t you know, I went and dropped it a few times back in the blooming pantry.”
“Don’t worry, Edna.”
Jake urged, “Get back to Sparey.”
Sargento applied the electrocomb to the greying hair at his left temple. “I’ve found that personal appearance is all important in this world. That and taking the time to be cordial to—”
“Apparently your good grooming didn’t impress the Betancourts.” Gomez reached across the table and took hold of the man’s arm. “Concentrate on informing us about Sparey, Sarge.”
“A little background is called for, Gomez. Which is what I’ve been attempting to provide you.” He extricated his arm. “Sparey, you see, went to work for the biggest Tek cartel in these parts. It was run back then by a gentleman named Antonio Bulcão.” He shut off his comb. “Sparey, so I’ve been told, had a lot of debts.” He glanced over at Jake for confirmation.
Jake nodded. “He liked to gamble.”
“That’s why he went
to work for Bulcão, using many of the contacts he had here in Brazil,” said the small man. “He kept getting increasingly involved in the Tek trade, may even have helped kill a few of the cartel’s rivals. Finally, so I’ve been told, he decided it would be much safer if the world thought he’d passed on.”
“Why didn’t he let his daughter know what he was going to do?”
“He thought it would be best if she really thought he was dead and gone. Sparey did, however, set up a trust fund for her, which was administered anonymously,” continued Sargento. “He didn’t anticipate, obviously, that the kid could get hooked on Tek herself or that she’d come down here to look for traces of him.”
“She’s been on Tek for years,” mentioned Gomez. “How come Sparey is just now getting around to wanting to see her?”
“Hard to say. Maybe it’s because he heard she was about to croak.” He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “All I know for certain is that Sparey wants to quit the Tek trade, but is afraid that Bulcão’s people won’t let him. So he got word to Jean Marie and instructed her to contact Cardigan for him. See, Cardigan, he trusts you.” Sargento pressed his palm against the side of the teapot. “He wants somebody to come get him and escort him safely to Rio. Then he plans to talk to the International Drug Control Agency, exchange what he knows for protection. He wants to see his daughter before she dies, too.”
“She thinks the guys who contacted her are with the Bulcão outfit,” said Jake. “How does that work?”
“No, they used to be, but not now. They’re friends of Sparey, though, and they took a risk for him. Contacted Jean Marie, filled me in, then took off for elsewhere.”
“This is just talk,” Jake said. “So far.”
The small man reached inside his plaid coat, producing a three dimensional photo. He handed it across. “Is that him?”
The picture showed a heavyset black man, nearly bald, standing uneasily in a sunfilled jungle clearing.
Jake studied it for a moment. “It looks like Will.”
“You’ll notice he’s no longer the thin youthful fellow he was back when he was a reporter. That indicates this is a recent pic.”
Passing the picture to his partner, Jake said, “A photo can be faked.”
Tek Vengeance Page 4
