It flickered by the leaded windows in the main study hall of Bunter Academy.
Leaning closer to the black young man seated next to him at the long neowood study table, Dan Cardigan whispered, “What would you do, Johnsen?”
“I’d wait, old man. I’d sit on my butt, bide my time.”
“But she’s missing.”
“You think she’s missing,” said Rob Johnsen while pretending to be gazing into his studyscreen.
“She’s gone, nobody knows where she is.”
“You’re letting the fact that you’re hot for Nancy Sands cloud your judgment, Cardigan.”
“Listen, I’ve told you about her father and the way she’s been—”
“Lots of girls have crooks for fathers.”
“Ahum.” A gray monitorbot had rolled over to their table. It shook its metallic head negatively. “Quiet, please, gentlemen.”
“What about my request?” Dan asked the mechanism.
“It’s being processed, Mr. Cardigan.”
“I asked for permission to make a call to my dad early this morning.”
“Your father is in America,” reminded the robot. “Overseas calls take time.”
“No they don’t.”
“Overseas calls from Bunter Academy take time,” modified the monitorbot. “Now, gentlemen, I must ask you to refrain from further conversation.”
As soon as the robot had returned to its place in the center of the large, beam-ceilinged hall, Dan leaned and whispered to his friend, “My father may be able to help.”
“All the way from the United States, old man?”
“He’s a detective.”
“Yes, I know, Cardigan. You’ve gone on at great bloody length about him. The chap sounds like a combination of Sherlock Holmes and Sexton Blake.”
“The thing is, I don’t know if he’ll have any time to help me on this.”
“Fathers, especially fathers who stick their offspring into citadels of learning such as this one, rarely have time even to return a call.”
“No, he had nothing to do with my coming to Bunter. That was all my mother’s idea.”
“Your mother’s in England, isn’t she?”
“Yeah, in London.”
“Then maybe you ought to contact her about this.”
“No, I can’t do that,” Dan said. “She used to ... well, she’s a friend of Nancy’s father.”
“All the better, old man.”
“No, it’s ... I can’t explain all that. But if I’m going to learn what happened to Nancy, I’ll need my father’s help,” he said. “Or I’ll just have to find her on my own.”
Johnsen gave him a pitying look. “I really don’t think, old man, that detective ability is inherited,” he said. “Simply because your father happens to—”
“Mr. Cardigan.” The robot had returned.
“Sorry, we’ll quit talking.”
“I’ve come to summon you. There’s a vidphone call.”
“Finally.” He stood up. “From Greater Los Angeles?”
“No, from Paris.”
While Gomez was in using the sonishower, Jake seated himself in the vidphone alcove in the living room. He put through a call to the dorms at the Bunter Academy in Barsetshire, England. He had to argue with three robots, an android, and someone who might’ve been human, and he had to raise his voice twice before his son finally appeared on the phonescreen.
“Hi, son. Gomez and I just got to Paris to work on a new case, and I wanted to hear how you’re doing.”
“I’m glad you called.” Dan was a lean boy of fifteen, slightly taller and darker than his father. Right now he was looking worried and upset. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Not with me. What I mean, Dad, is this has nothing to do with how I’m getting along at this stupid school.”
“I thought you told me you liked it at Bunter.”
“Nope, what I told you was that this shithole is better than the shithole I used to attend in GLA. But please just listen a minute, will you?”
“Go ahead.” Jake leaned closer to the screen.
“You remember my telling you that Nancy Sands was living near here?”
“Sure. You still seeing her?”
“Okay, I hear your disapproval in your voice,” said Dan. “I realize you think her father is a crook. But Nancy’s different.”
“Let’s hope so.”
“Dad, Nancy’s disappeared.”
“Give me some details.”
“For the past five or six days she’s been acting ... you know, strange. Women can be moody, I’m aware of that, but this was different. She’s been really depressed and very nervous. Unhappy, too.”
“About what?”
“She wouldn’t tell me, but she hinted it was something pretty awful.”
“Having to do with her father?”
“I think so, yeah.”
“He’s going to have a new arm fitted. It could be she’s simply—”
“No. She told me last week she knows that the facility here is just about the best in the world for that sort of work.”
“Okay. How long has Nancy been missing? And are you certain she really is missing?”
“She’s been gone for over a day and, yeah, I’m damn certain,” answered Dan. “Because one of those assholes came barging right into the school this morning to ask me if I knew where she was.”
“Which asshole would that be?”
“Oh—Mr. McCay,” answered his son impatiently. “He used to be a business partner of Bennett’s. Ever since she came over here to England, she’s been staying with McCay and his dumb wife in a big ugly mansion about ten miles from here.”
“Has McCay gone to the police?”
“No. They’re trying to find her first on their own.”
“Did Nancy give you any hint that she was thinking of running away?”
“Not exactly.”
“But?”
“Well, she has been talking about friends she knows in London.”
“What does McCay think?”
“That I persuaded her to run away for some reason.”
“He doesn’t suspect that she may have been kidnapped or had an accident?”
“I asked him about that and he told me they were certain she’d taken off on her own.”
“Then she probably left some sort of note.”
“He says she didn’t.”
“He could be lying.”
“Yeah, assholes do that,” said Dan. “Dad, could you come over here and help find her?”
“No, we just arrived in Paris. I’m going to have to work here for a few days at least.”
“But something may’ve happened to Nancy. Even if she did run away, it—”
“I’ll contact a detective agency in London, Dan, one that’s affiliated with Cosmos,” his father promised. “They’ll put an operative or two right on this. Okay?”
“Sure, I guess. But it would be a lot better if you could help out yourself.”
“These ops are good, and they know England better than I do. Do you have a picture of her?”
“Lots of them.”
“I’ll tell them to get some from you.”
“Should I go to the cops myself just to be on the safe side?”
Jake shook his head. “Wait on that,” he advised.
“It’s just that, you know, I want to be doing something.”
“Get a detailed account of everything you know about her disappearance ready. One of the detectives will be contacting you and that’ll help.”
“I want to do more than that,” said his son. “What’s the earliest you can come over here?”
“Probably two or three days from now. But if there’s an emergency, I can come right over.”
“This is an emergency.”
“I know you feel it is, Dan, but I don’t think my boss would agree,” Jake told him. “There’s still a possibility, too, that she’ll come h
ome on her own. Runaways, it’s been my experience, do that pretty often.”
“No, I don’t think Nancy will.”
“Why not?”
“You didn’t see her these past few days, the way she was acting, the way she looked.”
“All right, hold on and I’ll see you soon as I can.” He gave Dan the number of the hotel. “Call me if anything new happens.”
“I still wish you could. Okay, ’bye, Dad.”
“Goodbye, Dan.”
When Gomez, dressed in a new suit, came back into the living room a few minutes later, Jake was still sitting in the phone alcove, a thoughtful expression on his face.
5
THE CHROME-PLATED ROBOT ROSE up out of his wrought-iron chair at the foot of the bright-lit gangway. Bowing smoothly, he reached up with his gleaming left hand and tipped his black beret to them. “Gentlemen?” he said cordially. His metallic right hand, which had swung up to waist level, had a lazgun built into the forefinger and a stungun in the thumb.
Gomez stepped closer, nodding at the large ivory-white houseboat that was anchored in the night Seine. “This would be the residence of Mrs. Bouchon, would it not?”
“Perhaps,” replied the wide robot, right forefinger casually pointing at the detective’s midsection.
“We’re from the Cosmos Agency.” Jake moved up to the foot of the gangway, putting himself between the guard and his partner. “We have an appointment with Mrs. Bouchon.”
Smoothing his beret back in place on his slick, chromed head, the robot inquired, “You perhaps have identification, gentlemen?”
Gomez fished his ID packet from the pocket of his sky-blue suit. “That’s a handsome boat Mrs. Bouchon dwells on,” he observed as he passed over his identification.
“Oui,” agreed the robot. A small rectangular panel in his chest opened and he held the ID to the gap. Lights flashed within, new whirs and hums were audible. “All in order.”
After Jake had gone through a similar ritual, the guardbot stepped aside, tipped his black beret once again, and directed them to climb the gangway to the houseboat.
The boat was ornately decorated, thick with intricate neowood trim and looking more like a nineteenth-century villa than a twenty-second-century houseboat. There were hundreds of tiny glowing beads of white light worked into the trim on all three decks.
“Reminds me of the cake we served at my second wedding,” remarked Gomez as they stepped aboard.
“It is quite gaudy, I know.” A slim blonde woman of about thirty-five stepped out of a nearby cabin. “Joseph’s tastes tended in that direction. I’m Madeleine Bouchon.” She held out her hand.
“Jake Cardigan.” He shook hands. “My partner, Sid Gomez.”
When Gomez took her hand, he clicked his heels, bent, and kissed the knuckles. “A pleasure, ma’am.”
Smiling, the widow invited, “Join me in the conservatory,” and led them along the highly polished deck into a large, glass-walled room. “One can see quite a way along the Quai Henri IV from here. If one is so inclined.”
“Nice view.” Gomez sat in a delicate wooden chair.
Jake sat opposite their client. “You don’t think your husband was killed by the Unknown Soldier,” he said.
“Ah ... right to business.”
Jake continued, “We’ve talked to the Paris police since we got here, and to someone in the IDCA office.”
“Yes, and I’m sure they all told you that Joseph, coming home intoxicated from an Xmas party, was stalked and killed by that lunatic. Yes?”
Nodding, Gomez said, “They see it as fitting the pattern, Mrs. Bouchon.”
“Do you feel then that this isn’t worth looking into further?”
“No, we’re here to investigate,” Jake told her. “Supposing you start by telling us why it is you don’t agree with everybody else?”
Madeleine Bouchon left the sofa she’d been occupying, crossed to a glasswall, and stared out into the night. “Is it the boat that unsettles you, Mr. Cardigan?”
Jake frowned. “Boat’s fine. Lovely.”
“Family money bought it. Joseph’s family. I just live here.” She turned to face him. “You may have the idea that I’m the usual spoiled rich bitch. But I’m not.”
Jake reflected for about a half minute, then grinned. “Could be it is the boat,” he said. “Excuse my churlishness.”
“Let me explain that I was never deeply in love with my late husband,” she said, returning to the sofa. “Yet I don’t wish his murder to be covered up, for whatever reasons.”
“Let’s go over the things that bother you,” Jake suggested.
“Would either of you care for a drink?”
Jake shook his head. Gomez said, “An ale maybe?”
Madeleine said, “Maurice?”
A small, tank-shaped headless robot rolled into the room. “Oui?”
“An ale for Mr. Gomez.”
“Oui.” The robot rolled over to where Gomez was sitting. Its drumlike chest popped open and it reached a mug off a shelf within. Holding its forefinger over the glass, it poured out foamy ale. “Voilà!”
“Gracias.”
Jake waited until the wheeled robot had left them. “Okay, let’s talk.”
“For one thing, as I mentioned to Mr. Bascom, there was a witness who said she saw my husband staggering along the Boulevard Vincent Auriol a short time before his death,” Madeleine said. “Joseph never drank, not at all, and he obviously never used drugs of any kind.”
“The police suggest he’d been at a party.”
“That’s merely a supposition. There were, admittedly, several Xmas gatherings that evening that he might have gone to. Parties given by colleagues and friends. There’s no evidence, however, that my husband attended a single one.”
Gomez, after sipping his ale, inquired, “Where were you that night?”
“Home, here on the boat. As I already told your agency chief.”
“You did, sí.”
Jake asked, “You think that witness is lying?”
“Perhaps. I think it more likely that Joseph was staggering, but that he’d been drugged somehow.”
Gomez said, “You also told Bascom you thought your husband was going to be visiting a colleague that night.”
“Joseph had been paying several visits over the past two or three weeks to a man who worked with him at the International Drug Control Agency office here in Paris,” she said. “His name’s Zack Rolfe.”
Nodding, Jake said, “But Rolfe, from what we’ve been able to find out, says your husband didn’t visit him that night. Or any of the other nights.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that. Zack now claims that my husband has been having an affair with a young woman in the agency.”
“Yeah, but Rolfe doesn’t know who she is.”
“Yes, exactly. Zack’s story is that he was only doing my husband a favor by letting him pretend he was with him on all those nights. And obviously everyone seems to believe Zack.”
“Did you ever try to phone your husband at Rolfe’s?” asked Jake.
“No, because I never had any reason to. And Joseph didn’t especially like to be interrupted during a business meeting, not unless it was a very serious emergency.”
Jake said, “Rolfe’s lying?”
“Obviously, yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did you feel about Rolfe before this?”
“Joseph seemed to like him, and trust him.” She shrugged gracefully. “To me Zack isn’t the sort of man who causes strong feelings either for or against him.”
“Perfect agency type,” commented Gomez.
“My husband had been worried about something,” said the widow. “For about the same length of time, I believe, that he’d been calling on Zack evenings. But, since Joseph had a strict rule never to discuss IDCA business with me, I have no notion what it was that was upsetting him so.”
“And he didn’t mention being worried
about anything outside the agency?” Gomez finished his ale and set the glass on the floor.
“No,” she replied, shaking her head. “He didn’t tell me, if that’s what you have in mind, that he was fearful the sins he’d committed during the Brazil Wars were about to catch up with him.”
“Were there sins, ma’am?”
“No, there weren’t,” Madeleine replied. “At least I don’t believe so. Joseph never discussed his days as ambassador to Brazil with me. All of that took place before we were married, you understand.”
“If your husband had been seeing a woman,” asked Jake, “would you have known?”
“Joseph wasn’t interested in affairs of that sort, Mr. Cardigan,” she assured him, smiling. “The work he was doing at the agency was what excited him.”
“And, recently anyway, that was also what worried him.”
“Yes. Whatever it was, it somehow ties in with the real reason why Joseph was killed.”
“The police and his fellow IDCA agents don’t agree,” Gomez reminded her.
“And that,” said the widow quietly, “may be another part of the puzzle.”
6
GOMEZ, AFTER HE AND Jake had separated to pursue different sources of information, strolled for a while along the brightly lit boulevards of nighttime Paris. He walked by a dozen or more sidewalk cafés, most of them operated by the Dutch conglom Bistros, Inc., and through three small hologram parks. When twenty minutes or so had passed and the curly-haired detective was completely certain that no one was tailing him, he made his way to the Boulevard Voltaire.
He paused beside a sidewalk stand where a chunky woman in her fifties was peddling plazflowers. Sniffing at a bunch of simulated yellow roses, Gomez studied the story-high illuminated archway across the street.
“You planning to buy those goddamn blooms, monsieur? Or are you just going to snuff all the smell out of them?”
“Ah, Marie, and here I thought you’d never forget me.”
“Mon dieu! Gomez.” Chuckling deeply, the heavyset vendor bestowed an enthusiastic hug on him. “You’re in Paris.”
“So I’ve been led to believe. How are you faring?”
“Better than you, judging from your appearance.” Marie shook her head sadly as she scrutinized him. “Since I saw you two years ago, you’ve gotten paler and thinner. And you reek of cheap booze.”
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