Tek Money

by William Shatner

  “She’s a good actress and can disguise herself so—”

  “She can’t disguise her fingerprints or ret patterns, Jake. Trust me, she’s not hiding under any of those aliases.”

  Jake leaned back, as best he could, in his chair. “What about Janeiro Martinez?”

  “The best guess is that he’s holed up in the Guadarrama Mountains. But so far, that’s only a guess. Martinez, as might be expected, moves around a good deal.”

  “Okay, keep working on locating him, too.”

  Soberano said, “From what we’ve been able to find out, Jake, the Devlin Guns were delivered to Martinez. But we don’t have any idea yet where they were taken.”

  “From what I’ve dug up on this guy, Martinez is supposed to be a champion of democracy. He and his bunch are opposed to President Garcia because his administration is too harsh and restrictive.”

  “So Martinez claims.”

  “But teaming up with a Teklord like Carlos Zabicas doesn’t sound like something a liberal fighter for freedom would do.”

  “Politics often requires compromises,” reminded the detective. “Martinez will take help from just about anybody.”

  “And why is the Office of Clandestine Operations tied in? Usually they tend to support conservative and dictatorial fellows just like Garcia.”

  “It’s probable that your OCO has reasons for wanting Zabicas to be able to run his Tek cartel with less government interference,” said Soberano. “Our presidente has been getting very tough on the Tek trade of late.”

  Jake extracted himself from the chair. The chair fell over. Righting it, he said, “We’re staying at the Hotel Condor.” He moved toward the door. “Let me know soon as you get anything more.”

  33

  THE UNIFORMED POLICE officer looked from the permit in his hand to the wall clock inside his small, narrow kiosk. “How long do you plan to be in Recinto #3, Señor Gomez?”

  The detective was standing just outside the checkpoint kiosk. He had the collar of his jacket turned up, but the twilight drizzle was managing to hit at his neck anyway. “Maybe an hour.”

  “You’re a friend of Colonel Maresca?”

  “Nope, the permit to get into this section of Madrid was obtained by an associate.”

  The guard glanced again at the clock before returning the pass to Gomez. “There are a great many disreputable people living in the recintos,” he said. “It’s wise not to remain too long among them. You know how the poor can be.”

  “Spent part of my youth being poor.” Gomez turned away. “And I was noticeably disreputable myself.”

  There was a high plastiglass wall rising up a few yards from the brightlit kiosk.

  When Gomez reached the small gate in the high wall, a voxbox advised, “Pass through quickly, por favor. The entry will only be open fifteen seconds.”

  The gate snapped open, Gomez dived through the opening, the gate snapped shut.

  “Show your permit to the scanner eye to return,” said the voxbox.

  There was a deadman sprawled in the middle of the street, facedown, and arms and legs spread wide. Two small boys, raggedy and shoeless, were crouched over the corpse going through the tattered pockets. A third boy was jabbing a metal stave at a scruffy black dog who was trying to get at the body.

  Most of the buildings on this side of the wall were tumbled down and gutted. The light showing at the jagged windows came mostly from flickering candles or litelanterns. The misty air was thick with the mingled odors of cooking meat, stagnant water, urine, neowood smoke, sharp spices, damp and rot.

  The boy with the stave slipped, fell to one bare knee. The wild dog, snarling, came leaping at him.

  Gomez yanked out his stungun and fired.

  The dog yelped once, stiffened in midair, dropped, splashing water when it hit the rutted street.

  “Gracias, tonto,” said the boy, pushing upright and kicking at the stunned dog.

  “Why are you calling me stupid, lad?”

  “Stupid to show an expensive gun like that around here. Somebody’s going to hop you and swipe it.”

  Slipping the gun away, Gomez gave a negative shake of his head. “That wouldn’t be a wise thing for anyone to attempt. Adiós.”

  “Muy tonto,” observed the boy.

  In a shadowy doorway on his left a frail teenage girl sat huddled. She was wearing a battered Tek headset and there was a crooked smile on her cracked lips.

  “You have something we want, cabrón.”

  Planted on the sidewalk a few yards ahead of Gomez was a large, broad young man in the remnants of a plaid overcoat. An electroknife rested in his left hand, whirring loudly.

  “We?”

  Someone coughed in the alley next to the lout in the overcoat. “My amigos and me.”

  Gomez narrowed one eye, glanced up at the rainy darkening sky overhead and then back at the lout. “What you want to do, cachorrito, is pretend you never tried to stop my progress,” he advised. “Slink back into the alley and forget the whole incident. Otherwise, come mañana you’ll—” Gomez’s stungun was suddenly in his hand and firing.

  The beam hit the large youth square in the chest. He roared, took one thumping step ahead before dropping down onto his knees and falling face forward onto the dirty wet paving.

  Gomez spun around, fired again. “Not light-footed enough,” he mentioned to the thin hairless youth who’d been sneaking up on him armed with a neowood club.

  While that assailant was falling toward a wide scummy puddle, Gomez sprinted out to the middle of the street.

  Gun in his hand, watchful, he continued on his way. He watched the alley as he passed it.

  There was another dry cough, but no one emerged to confront him.

  Gomez moved on toward his destination.

  Jake’s skycab landed in the darkening twilight. A light, misty rain was falling straight down through the increasing dusk.

  “There is the house you want, señor,” announced the robot cabbie. “The one with the spires.”

  “Impressive.” Jake eased free of the cab.

  He was on the outskirts of Madrid, and the large Victorian-style mansion covered nearly an acre of wooded land. The house had been enhanced with holographic projections, and you could see the rain falling down through the spires and turrets to hit on the core of the mansion below. Two of the projected stained-glass windows were on the fritz and they flickered, going from bright reds, blues and greens to shades of fuzzy grey.

  Jake hurried up the flagstone pathway that cut through the decorative lawn to the oaken front door.

  “State your business, por favor.”

  Standing on the lawn near the wide neowood porch was a cast-iron elk. It had been fitted with a voxbox and a vidcam.

  Grinning, Jake faced the metal animal. “Jake Cardigan. I have an appointment with Mr. Mockridge.”

  “Which Mr. Mockridge?”

  “How many do I have to choose from?”

  “No levity, please.”

  “Denis Mockridge.”

  “Yes, you’re expected, Señor Harrigan.”

  “Cardigan.”

  “Go on inside and wait in the parlor.”

  Jake climbed the thirteen steps to the front door. Creaking, the door swung open inward.

  There was a long shadowy hallway beyond the doorway. And to his right a dimlit room that looked to be the parlor.

  Jake went into the parlor. It was furnished in the style of the nineteenth century, with fat armchairs, two bentwood rockers, heavy clawfoot tables, landscape paintings of rustic scenes, vases filled with dried flowers.

  From somewhere on another floor of the mansion began the sound of a harmonium being played. A deep voice started singing, “By and by, I’m going to see the king …”

  “I’m afraid, Cardigan, old chap, that you’re hearing my brother.” A small, lean man with silky white hair was standing just inside the parlor. “He’s become, don’t you know, something of a religious fanatic.”

>   “You’re Denis Mockridge?”

  “Righto. Forgive me for not introducing myself sooner, old man.” Mockridge came further into the parlor, holding out his hand. “So you’re a chum of dear little Jimmy Bristol, eh what?”

  “She suggested I talk with you.” Jake shook hands with Mockridge.

  “By and by I’m going to see the king …”

  The white-haired man nodded at the door and it slid shut. “You must be aware of how younger brothers can sometimes be. Do sit down, old chap.”

  “You British?”

  “Not at all, my boy. It’s an affectation. Too strong, do you think?”

  “Somewhat, yeah.” Jake settled into one of the armchairs.

  Smiling, Mockridge sat opposite him in one of the rockers. “That’s the trouble with camouflage, don’t you know; one tends to spread it on too thick at times.”

  “About the money.”

  “I happen to be, as dear Jimmy informed you, the largest dealer in antique American paper currency in Spain—in all of Europe for that matter.”

  “Has anybody offered you a large quantity of late?”

  Mockridge rocked back and forth once. “What say I save us a lot of bother, old man, and state at the offset that I believe I purchased the lot of twentieth-century United States currency you’re interested in two days ago in this very parlor,” he said. “Jimmy and I are real chums—talknet chums. We share financial insights of one sort and another and I respect her greatly. She assures me you’re a chap worth helping out.”

  From an inner pocket Jake took a simulated photo of Janine Kanter. “She the one?”

  The rocking chair creaked when the money dealer leaned to take the picture. He brought it up close to his eyes, then moved it out to arm’s length. “She had short-cropped silver hair during our negotiations; otherwise, old chap, it’s the same lass.”

  “What name was she using?”

  “Jillian Kearny.”

  “Do you still have the currency here?”

  Mockridge shook his head. “No, it’s already been split up and sold to several of my customers. I tend to move very swiftly in matters of this sort.”

  Jake asked, “Can you give me a rough idea of what you paid her and in what form?”

  Mockridge steepled his fingers under his chin, gazing beyond Jake toward a stained-glass window that had begun to flicker. “The collection the young woman offered me is worth about three million dollars in American money,” he answered. “I was able to realize considerably more than that in selling it, which is a knack I have. The young woman took somewhat less than the true value. It was paid in cash chits, drawn on a New York bank.”

  “Where was she staying?”

  Mockridge shook his head. “She contacted me originally from Greater Los Angeles, three weeks ago, and mentioned—”

  “Three weeks? That was long before—”

  “Before the unfortunate Mr. Barragray met his end.”

  “You knew it was his collection.”

  “I was one of the dealers who helped him put the collection together.”

  Jake frowned. “Then she must have known he was going to be killed.”

  “Not necessarily, old chap,” said Mockridge. “She called me initially to inquire if I’d be willing to purchase the collection on short notice. Well, since I do most of my transactions on short notice, I assured the lass that I would be. It was my impression that she expected the money eventually to be hers.”

  “Barragray was going to give it to her?”

  “She was giong to come into possession in some way or other,” Mockridge replied. “I often don’t probe too deeply into these things, old man.”

  Jake asked, “Where was she staying in Madrid?”

  “I don’t know that. She called me and we set up an appointment for an hour later.”

  “Any idea where she is?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  Jake left the chair. “I imagine you have a tap-proof phone.”

  “Several, old chap.” He gestured toward a heavy realwood cabinet in the corner. “You’ll find one in there.”

  “I’d like to call Jimmy,” said Jake. “I need one more favor from her.”

  Mockridge stood and moved to the doorway. “Give her my heartfelt best wishes, old boy.”

  The door opened and he stepped out into the hall.

  “By and by, I’m going to see the king …”

  34

  GOMEZ, ALMOST TO his destination, was passing the ruins of a cafe when his trouser pocket made a small chirping sound. He stepped under what was left of a metal awning, grabbed out his palmphone. “What?”

  A pack of skinny cats was fighting over something that had died in the tumble-down remains of the cafe, yowling and sputtering.

  “So attending a cat fight was more important than keeping your appointment. I hestitate to call it a date, since that would connote some pleasant social aspect to what is actually—”

  “Cara,” said Gomez to the tiny image of Natalie Dent that was eyeing him reproachfully from the phonescreen, “I’ve been delayed in the line of duty. I’m going to be a trifle late for our meeting.”

  “Trifle late? Is an hour and fifteen minutes your notion of a trifle?”

  “Nat, this is not an ideal location for a spat,” cut in the detective. “However, you have my word that I’ll seek you out at your posh hostelry as soon as—”

  “You’ll seek in vain, Gomez,” the Newz reporter told him. “I’m moving on in less than an hour. Which is, if you stop and reflect on the matter in that peanut brain of yours, ironic in that you stood me up and now I’m, more or less, doing the same to you.”

  “Where are you heading in such a rush, chiquita?”

  Natalie frowned. “I’ve been getting the feeling that you’re not sharing information with me anymore. So I see no reason to continue cooperating with you.”

  “Soon as I dig up anything, Natalie, I’ll send it along to you, no matter where you are,” he vowed. “Right at the moment I’m en route to see a lady known as Sister Feliz, who does good works among the poor and also manages to be a nifty source of information on the Spanish underworld. Where can I send the insights I’m going to gain?”

  After a few seconds Natalie replied, “I’m heading for Santa Francesca, it’s a resort town in the mountains about forty miles from here.”

  “Is Janeiro Martinez there?”

  The rain was finding its way through the holes in the awning and hitting at him.

  Natalie said, “If your investigations take you to that region, Gomez, look me up at the Encantadora Inn.” She gave him a smile of a very short duration and was gone from the screen.

  Gomez pocketed the phone. The cats had ceased their contest and grown silent. In fact, a stillness seemed to have spread all across the rainy side street he was on. Slowly, he resumed walking.

  Then from behind him he heard the sound of running.

  He pivoted around, reaching for his stungun.

  There was a slim girl of fifteen coming toward him along the narrow rutted sidewalk, clad in faded trousers and a ragged pullover, her long dark hair tied back with a circle of silvery wire.

  “Hurry, get off the street, señor,” she warned, breathing hard, as she neared him.

  “Any particular reason?”

  She caught his arm, urging him to run. “Another raid. Los Cazadores are here.”

  “Cazadores—hunters?” He started to jog beside the darkhaired girl. “What are they hunting?”

  “Us,” she answered.

  Three of the stone walls of the small church still stood and one of them held part of a large stained-glass window showing the Annunciation. The altar had long ago collapsed, but a large crucifix still hung from a wall and the night rain was drenching the figure of Christ.

  “Down this way.” The girl, a wheeze sounding in her narrow chest, was pulling him along the side aisle of the ruined church.

  Rats, disturbed by their advent, went scurryi
ng away, skittering over the rubble and under the rotting pews.

  “Explain in more detail why we’re running, cara.”

  “It’s a Cazadores raid. Haven’t you ever heard of them?”

  “I’m a turista.”

  They reached the doorway in the wall and she urged him to follow her down a shadowy stone staircase. “The Hunters haven’t raided this recinto for nearly a month. It was overdue.”

  “Who are these hunters?”

  The girl slipped a small literod from beneath her pullover, clicked it on and illuminated the twisted stone staircase they were descending. “They come from outside the recintos,” she explained. “They believe, as do many in Madrid, that there are too many poor people.”

  “But this isn’t a charitable organization, huh?”

  “They have a simple solution for poverty, señor. They thin out the number of poor people.”

  “Deus—by killing them?”

  They were deep below the ground now in what had once been a large crypt. The smell of damp earth, ancient dust and animal droppings was strong all around.

  “Sí, killing us is their sport.”

  There were several stone coffins down here. They’d long since been broken into, and yellowed bones and tatters of shrouds and vestments were strewn on the cracked stone floor.

  Huddling in a corner, touched now by the thin beam of the girl’s literod, were three ragged children. A jawless skull lay at their feet.

  “Pobrecitos,” the girl said to the children. “You should be safe here.” She crossed to a long stone slab that had once held a coffin and seated herself atop it, inviting Gomez to join her with a gesture of her free hand.

  He perched beside her, noting that he was sitting atop a memorial to an eighteenth-century bishop. “Chiquita, doesn’t the government do anything to stop these huntsmen?”

  She laughed, the wheeze rattling in her chest. “It’s no secret that they encourage them,” she told him. “We think they would like to see us all dead and gone. Oh, President Garcia made a speech denouncing Los Cazadores last month. Our mayor appointed a committee to look into the appalling outbreak of lawless slaughter. What will result? Nada, not a damned thing.”