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.
From the one narrow viewindow you could see part of University of SoCal Campus 26, where either a riot or a rally was in progress in the Glade. “Why, in this instance, do I find myself on the shit list?” Gomez inquired. “Any hints?”
Corky narrowed her left eye and scrutinized the pale pink ceiling above her. “Somebody powerful is annoyed with you.”
“Details?”
“I hear Teklords. One Teklord actually.”
“Who?” He sat on the edge of the armchair opposite her and made a give-me-more-details motion with both yellow-gloved hands.
When Corky shook her head, her silver-blond hair flickered and danced. “I’ve got no details, Gomez. Don’t, if you want the absolute truth, want any more than I got. But it’s a very powerful gent.”
“There are any number of Tek industrialists who fit that description. Can you zero in some, Cork?”
“West Coast, probably. As close as I can get, honey.”
“Has it got to do with the Dwight Grossman kill?”
Giving the pink ceiling her attention again, the information dealer answered, “So they say.”
“How the devil was Grossman connected to the Tek trade, Corky?”
“That I have no idea about.” She lowered her husky voice. “Way I hear it, this poor sappo Grossman found out something he really wasn’t supposed to know.”
“And they want to eradicate me before I find out the same darn thing?”
“It’s not certain, sweet, that they want you completely and totally dead,” she informed him. “Might be they just mean to incapacitate you for a good while.”
Gomez stroked his clown nose. “What about the Bascom frame-up?”
“Same bunch is behind that.”
“I’m trying to find out who faked the security camera tapes,” he told her. “But my usual experts at providing that sort of information have been alerted to booby-trap, sabotage, and otherwise futz me up. Who else besides the usual gang can I get what I need from?”
Corky’s voice dropped even lower. “You might try a guy who does business as Einstein, Inc. Out in the Woodland Hills Sector of Greater LA.”
“Never heard of the hombre.”
“Neither have the Teklords. Yet,” Corky said. “You better talk to him before they get wind.”
Rising, Gomez said, “Gracias, dear lady. How much do I owe you?”
“On the house, honey,” she told him.
“¿Por que?”
“A going-away present.”
“I’m not going away.”
“But you ought to,” Corky advised as he took his leave.
J. J. BRACKEN bounced twice in his high-back black metal chair, jabbed a finger in the direction of the empty chair facing him, and laughed. A lock of his pale blond hair fell down across his smooth forehead. He brushed it back, laughed again. “It appears, appears, cousins, that my Hotseat guest for tonight, yes, tonight’s vidnet broadcast of your favorite, and mine, that’s for sure, Facin’ Bracken, is too yellow, yellow and chickenhearted, I’d say, wouldn’t you, to show up.” He clapped his hands together several times. “Or could it be, you think maybe, that the old girl came to what senses, senses, she has left and decided, as I’ve long maintained about her and the nattering nitwits who follow her, that it’s time to throw in the towel, right, the towel.”
A faint shimmering commenced in the vicinity of the other black chair.
Bouncing again, Bracken made a chuckling sound and brushed back the lock of unruly hair again. “Hush, cousins, somebody’s coming.”
Gradually, with some electrical sputtering and a few flashes of greenish light, the holographic image of a lean, gray-haired woman of seventy-five appeared in the guest chair.
Bracken hunched, watching the newly materialized projection. “It appears, cousins, that she didn’t do the smart thing and visit a suicide clinic,” he said. “No, she decided to brazen it out and actually face me on my, popular, as you well know, my popular Facin’ Bracken broadcast for tonight. Well, this is going to be, if the old darling can survive the heat, an interesting little—”
“Let me point out, Mr. Bracken,” said the image of his guest, “that my delay in arriving was caused entirely by the clumsy and inept technicians you sent to my home to—”
“Quit whining, dear,” interrupted the host. “Let me introduce you, will you? Cousins, this is none other than the notorious oldster, Dr. Audrey Eisenberg, right, Eisenberg, a, I believe, Jewish name, but that doesn’t bother us, cousins, does it? Dr. Eisenberg, who’s not a medical doctor, not even one of these quacks who believes in keeping doddering wrecks alive once they’ve ceased to have any value to us in normal society, she’s not a medical person but only a doctor of philosophy. We all are philosophers, aren’t we, cousins? You don’t need a lot of high-blown schooling for that, high-blown and expensive. Most of you know, cousins, that the doctor here, the nice Jewish doctor, believes that we ought to let oldsters just go on living, year after year, and drain our coffers, instead of climbing into their coffins as they ought or—”
“As I suspected, Mr. Bracken, you intend to indulge in one of your usual windy harangues and not allow me to—”
“Let’s start with the Bible, Doc,” he said. “Apparently you don’t agree that three score and ten years is all we ought to have. You, as I think you’re saying in your various lectures to fellow oldsters …”
Up in the engineer’s booth, Kacey Bascom was sitting and watching her boss. She looked up from the copy of his notes for tonight’s broadcast and made a signal to him. It was a small gesture that meant she thought he was being too rough too soon with the elderly guest. “Pull back a bit,” she mouthed.
Bracken caught her warning, but gave a quick negative shake of his head.
Both the technicians sharing the booth with the young woman were robots. The chrome-plated one said to her, “What’s his stand on old robots?”
“This is a serious issue, Jocko, not something to kid about,” Kacey responded. “The number of useless oldsters in SoCal is increasing at an alarming rate and unless something—”
“Too bad they don’t have scrap yards for people,” said Jocko, returning his attention to the control panel.
“I’m here to cooperate and work side by side,” said a voice behind her.
Kacey turned in time to see the rear door easing shut. Jake was in the small room with her and the robots. “How the hell did you get up here? The studio has security people on every entrance to keep out fanatics and people who might have a grudge against J.J.”
“Apparently I don’t look like a fanatic.” Jake came over to take the empty chair next to hers. “They let me right on in.”
“No, no one without authorization and proper ID is allowed on this level of the facility, Jake.”
“Most of the security people I encountered were flat on their ass and unconscious,” he explained. “So nobody asked for any identification. If I’m someplace I’m not supposed to be, why, I’ll—”
“What did you do, use bullying private-cop tricks
to force your way—”
“There’s something you may be able to help me on, Kacey.”
She glanced down at J. J. Bracken, who was pointing at Dr. Eisenberg and saying, “But if you people all died at seventy, think of the savings it would mean to …”
Kacey asked Jake, “This is about my father?”
“It’s not about my plans for eliminating old age from SoCal,” he answered. “Can we talk somewhere?”
Kacey frowned, then gave Bracken another signal. “Jocko, I’m going out for a bit.”
“Sure, gather rosebuds while you may,” the robot advised.
“I wonder who built all that sort of poetic nonsense into you.”
“Nobody. I do a lot of reading on my own.”
Taking Jake’s arm, she led him toward the doorway. “We’ll use the staff exit so not too many security people will notice you.”
Jake grinned. “Most of them will be snoozing for a while yet,” he said.
12
GOMEZ thrust a booted foot out and prevented the proprietor of Einstein, Inc., from shutting the door. “Momentito,” he requested, shouldering the plastiglass door and forcing the small, balding man back inside the narrow shop. “I’m interested in conversing with you, señor.”
“I’m closing,” said the small man as he backed away from the intruder. “In fact, I’m closing down for an indefinite period. I’m going on an extended leave.” He bumped into one of the two large suitcases sitting on the floor and started to fall.
Catching him and uprighting him, Gomez said, “Corky Keep-news suggested that you—”
“Oh, Lord. I’m too late.”
Three of the small, neat shop’s walls had wide shelves that contained what was labeled as either ANTIQUE SOFTWARE or VINTAGE COMPUTERS.
“I’m with the Cosmos Detective Agency,” explained Gomez as he placed the nervous man in a straight-backed chair.
“So you say.”
“You’re the owner here?”
“Probably.”
“Why do you call the business Einstein, Inc.?”
“Because I’m Einstein. Milton Einstein.” Leaving the chair, he made a grab for one of his suitcases. “You’ll excuse me, but I’m on my way to … well, let’s just say elsewhere.”
Tek Kill Page 5
