Las Cruces was as freewheeling as any of the Borderland towns, and when Jake arrived there early in the afternoon all its many streetlights were full on, glaring, blinking, flashing and offering hundreds of bright-colored invitations and temptations. There were also dozens of huge vidscreens, animated adwalls, triop billboards and hologram teasers.
Through the dust-streaked plaswindows of the landcab he’d taken from the airport he saw a succession of hotels, cafés, cantinas, gambling joints, sports pavilions, bordellos and souvenir shops—PACO’S POKER PALACE, CRAPSHOOTERS’ CLUB DELUXE, MOVIE MUSEUM BORDELLO—SLEEP WITH ANDY REPLICAS OF YOUR FAVORITE STARS PAST & PRESENT!, ROOSTER FIGHT STADIUM, CASA DEL BINGO, MAMA LAVIDA’S NATURAL BORDELLO—LIVE HOOKERS ONLY!, WRESTLING HALL—STRONGMEN VS. ROBOTS!
“Here’s something that hasn’t changed much in four years,” he said to himself.
“Caramba!” exclaimed the robot cabbie. “We are arrive, señor.” He was copper colored and his costume consisted of just a multicolored serape and a tasseled sombrero.
The landcab rattled, gave out a few moderate explosive sounds and thunked to a stop in front of the Paloma Hotel, a narrow ten-story structure of glass, silvery metal and adobe.
Jake dropped the proper amount of pesos into the meterbox in front of him and picked up his single suitcase. “Gracias,” he said.
“Allow me, señor, to ask of you a question, por favor.”
Jake halted halfway out. “Sure.”
“Have I struck you as sufficiently picturesque, as colorful enough?”
“More than enough.”
“I’m one of the new models the company is trying out. I’d like to get the tourist reaction.”
Jake climbed all the way out of the cab. “Well, they just might want to run a few more tests. Adiós.” He made his way into the hotel and checked in.
Captain Ernest Manzano was not in uniform. A long, lean and sad-faced man of forty, he was wearing a faded blue warm-up suit. His office, in one of the underground wings of the Mexican Federal Police Building, was large and smelled faintly of damp earth. He was sitting behind his carved wood desk in a slumped position, and he didn’t become any more animated when he noticed that Jake had entered. “Tell me this, Jake,” he said. “Why waste your time over a couple of missing tourists? Down on this side of the border people are vanishing all the time. It’s easier just to let them stay that way.” Sitting in a rattan chair facing the desk, Jake said, “It’s comforting to see you’re as enthusiastic as ever, Ernie.”
“Detective work is only a job. I can never convince you of that.”
“My job right now is to find out what happened to Dr. Kittridge and his daughter.”
“I know, I know—and you’re obliged to pay me a token visit.”
“Actually, Ernie, despite what you pretend, you’re not a bad cop.”
“My one flaw is that I keep letting myself get interested in some of these cases and some of these people,” the captain admitted. “It’s a very bad habit.”
“What do you know about the Kittridges?”
Sighing, Manzano lifted himself up. Both he and the chair creaked. “You’re not the only one looking for them, Jake.”
“Winterguild is hunting—who else?”
“Winterguild.” Manzano chuckled. He drifted over to a computer terminal, slouching down into the chair that faced its stand. “I know some of Sonny Hokori’s men were trying to slip across the border into the state of Chihuahua recently. And Raoul Martinez’s goons are interested in the whereabouts of the good doctor as well.”
“Martinez still in Tek?”
“Very much so. We just closed down—closed down by blowing the damn thing sky-high—a maquiladora he had off in the wilds near here. A maquiladora is a small factory that once—”
“I know, Ernie. I can also count up to ten in Spanish.”
“Por supuesto, I forgot that you’re not a gringo,” said Manzano as he languidly touched the computer key pad.
A three-dimensional simulation formed on the screen, showing a stretch of forestland. The trees were huge, trunks thick and wide, and the topmost branches were hundreds of feet above the ground.
“Is this the Selva Grande where the skycruiser went down?” Jake went over to stand behind the captain and look down at the screen.
Manzano touched a few more keys. “This is where the Kittridges allegedly crashed. You’ll notice that the spot is conveniently close to one of the main roadways cutting through the forest. And not far from this ...
A ranger station appeared on the computer screen. It consisted of a spacious adobe and red-tile ranchhouse and a metal-fretted tower of several hundred feet.
“Still no word from this place?”
“Nothing from either station since your querida Warbride took over.”
“Sweetheart isn’t the word I’d use to describe—”
“Nor I actually, but I’m striving to maintain my polite public-relations persona, Jake. So I stay clear of words like puta.”
“How strong is she?”
“You mean would it be better to wait until the state falls again into federal hands?”
“Yeah. I’m curious as to how long you think she’ll hold on to control.”
“Quite a while.” Manzano raised his left hand almost shoulder high and fluttered it. “The Mexican government is not in great shape just now. They won’t be able to come up with troops or funds to combat her—and your own government is holding off on commiting any kind of support. Chihuahua is going to be run by Warbride for a time, and the lady may even branch out. She’s popular and she’s smart. So, Jake, if you want to visit the woods—you’ve got to do it with her blessing.”
“Do you think Warbride’s directly involved with whatever happened to the Kittridges?”
The captain leaned back in his chair. “I don’t think anything could’ve happened to them over there without her knowing about it.”
“Even an accident?”
“An arranged accident, sí.”
“Where do you think they were heading?”
“Probably to see a gringo named Bennett Sands. You know of him, don’t you?”
Jake laughed. “C’mon, Ernie. You know my wife used to work for Sands.”
“Naturalmente—it slipped my mind for a moment. Dr. Kittridge and his daughter have visited Sands several times over the past year. He owns a villa and plantation at the far border of Chihuahua.”
“Is he tied up with what happened?”
“Most people consider him to be an honest and honorable hombre.”
“And you?”
He fluttered his hand again. “I have no proof to the contrary.”
“But?”
“I’ve met Sands twice.” He rubbed his palm across his midsection. “Instinct, which won’t hold up in court, tells me he’s somebody I ought not to trust.”
“That was my impression, but Kate liked him and trusted him.”
“You’re no longer married, I hear?”
“Apparently I got a divorce during my stay in the Freezer. She’s living down in Mexico now, in Quintana Roo.”
“So I heard.”
“Have you heard about Dan, about my son?”
“Nothing, no.”
“I’d like to see him while I’m across the border. Soon as I run down Dr. Kittridge and—”
A faint hooting sound commenced, and then a panel in the far wall slid open. There was a vidphone alcove behind it.
“That’s my tapfree phone. Excuse me.” Captain Manzano got up gradually and went over to the phone. “Sí?”
Walt Bascom of the Cosmos Detective Agency appeared on the screen, dressed in a different rumpled suit. “Ernie, how are you? Good. You look great. Is Jake there?”
“He is. And I’m glad we’ve had a chance to have this conversation, Walt.”
Taking the captain’s place in the alcove, Jake said, “Something important?”
“Dr. Danenberg seems to have resurfaced. She want
s to talk to you.”
“Where is she? Up in GLA?”
“Down there, specifically in the town of Casas Grandes. That’s about one hundred fifty miles south of you, isn’t it?”
“About. How do I contact—”
“Tonight at eight she says she’ll be in Señor Blue’s Café. Can you make that?”
“Sure, but is this going to be the doctor or another sim?”
Bascom shrugged. “Go find out, Jake,” he said and hung up.
There was yet another pungent and unpleasant odor in Jake’s fifth-floor hotel room when he returned to it late in the afternoon. Halting a few steps beyond the threshold, he dropped his cardkey into his jacket pocket.
Things in the living room appeared to be even more disorderly than when he’d left.
Jake was reaching for the lazgun in his waistband when the door of the bathroom came whipping open.
A large, wide, Mexican cyborg charged out at him. In place of a right hand he had a whirring electric knife.
15
FEELING SOMEWHAT LIKE A matador, Jake pivoted and flattened back against the wall.
The charging cyborg, knifehand buzzing loudly, galloped on by and stopped himself just short of careening out into the corridor through the still open hotel-room doorway.
As the big man started to turn, Jake lunged. He dealt him three sharp blows to the kidneys.
“Mierda!” grunted the cyborg, staggering forward, coming close to dropping to his knees.
Jake booted him in the backside.
The cyborg went tumbling into the corridor and landed flat-out on the orange, yellow and red carpeting.
Jake dived toward him.
The man made a growling, muttering noise and lashed out with the blade.
Dodging, Jake kicked out with his booted foot.
The hard toe of the boot struck the cyborg just below the elbow. He cried out in pain and his arm, the knife still flickering at its end, fell limp to his side.
Catching hold of the metal base of the knife, Jake used the man’s arm as a lever to snap it away from him. He watched the assailant go staggering away, dancing backward until he slammed into a wall. Then Jake realized the knife and its base had broken completely free of the man’s arm.
Blood splashed, along with broken twists of wire and twisted nuts and bolts.
Jake pointed the knife at the man, who was crouched on the floor. “I don’t like surprises,” he said in Spanish, easing closer. “Now tell me who sent you.”
“Screw you,” muttered the big man, “and your mother.”
“You’re going to need a doctor. The sooner you answer my—”
Suddenly the man jerked upward, butting Jake hard in the stomach.
Jake went stumbling back, sideswiping the wall and then dropping to one knee on the worn carpeting of the hallway.
The big man scrambled to his feet, started running. He hit the fifth-floor fire-exit doorway, lopsidedly, with one shoulder. The door bumped open and he headed downstairs.
On one knee Jake was gasping in air. “Let him sucker me,” he said, “damn it.”
By the time he was upright and able to breathe regularly it was too late to chase the assailant.
Back in his room he checked to make certain no bugs, explosives or other trinkets had been planted. Then he repacked his suitcase, tossing in the knifehand wrapped in a Paloma Hotel towel. He phoned the desk and arranged to check out. He left no forwarding address.
It was raining in Casas Grandes. A hard, warm rain that fell straight down through the night. Dodging puddles and potholes, Jake jogged along the curving back street that led to Señor Blue’s Café. About a thousand feet up above, a plasbottomed tourist skybus was drifting slowly over.
“Now I’ll be part of everybody’s vacation memories,” reflected Jake, glancing briefly up and getting smacked in the face with the heavy night rain.
Just short of the main entrance to the narrow, neon-trimmed café, he ducked into a thin, quirky alley. At its end was a blue-painted metal door. Turning up his collar again, Jake rapped three longs and two shorts.
“Quién es?” inquired a voxbox.
“It’s Jake, P.J.”
“Quién?”
“Jake Cardigan, damn it!”
“The voice sounds somewhat like yours.”
After another thirty seconds the door opened inward. Jake followed it into a shadowy adobe brick corridor. “Wasn’t the secret knock we arranged enough?” he asked.
“I’m being cautious, Juanito.”At the end of the corridor appeared a small, slim man in a gray suit. “You implied during our recent phone conversation that your rendezvous in my establishment this evening was of an especially secret nature and therefore—”
“Okay, I appreciate the concern, P.J.”
P. J. Ramirez was dark, balding and about fifty. He narrowed his left eye, scanning Jake as he approached. “You look very much like my old friend Jake Cardigan.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Con permiso.” The small man reached up to tap Jake on the forehead. “No, you don’t sound like an android simulacrum.” He tapped Jake’s skull once again. “You don’t have that distinctive android echo.”
Grinning, Jake said, “Has Dr. Danenberg arrived, P.J.?”
“But moments ago.” He escorted Jake into his office. “Mira.”
A wall of the office was of seethru one-way plastiglass. It showed the main dining area of the small restaurant.
“I thought you told me business was thriving,” mentioned Jake, moving close to the spywall.
“Naturally on a rainy night it slacks off a little, Jake.”
There were ten tables and five booths in Señor Blue’s Café, plus a small wooden stage. There were seven customers to be seen, and a chrome-plated, guitar-playing robot perched on a stool on the stage.
“What do you think of my new guitar player?”
“Get rid of the sombrero.”
“It adds color for the turistas.”
“At least get rid of the tassels.” Sitting alone in the middle booth against the café wall was Dr. Danenberg. Or at least someone who greatly resembled her. “She come in alone?”
“Sí, and nobody followed her in here.” Ramirez strolled over to his large silver desk. He flipped a switch and a screen mounted on the desk came to life to give a view of the rain-swept street out in front of the place. “There is no one lurking outside either.”
Looking from the screen back to Dr. Danenberg, Jake asked, “Anybody inside paying special attention to her?”
“Nadie—not a soul.”
Jake stood watching. Dr. Danenberg was, carefully, studying the few other patrons of the café. She put her voxwatch to her ear, glanced at the main entryway.
Ramirez asked, “Jake, how was—how was your time in the Freezer?”
“Sorry, P.J., I slept through it. So there’s nothing much to tell.”
“Be serious. Was it painful, terrifying, anguishing?”
“It wasn’t anything.” He turned away from the wall, taking a paper-wrapped package from under his jacket. “One further favor.” Dropping the package on the silver desk, he unwrapped it. “The gent who used to wear this tried to do me in this afternoon.”
Ramirez bent to look at the knifehand, then quickly straightened. “Dios! That belongs, I am most nearly certain, to Frankie Torres.”
“Who does Torres belong to?”
After backing a few steps farther away from the desk, the café proprietor answered, “Torres is a free-lance, Jake. A very nasty man whom one can hire for odd jobs ranging from debt collecting to murder. He usually hangs out in the Borderland.”
“Any idea who might have hired him to slow me down?”
“None,” said Ramirez, “but I can—in my usual discreet way—try to find out. This happened in Las Cruces?”
“Just before I took my leave of the Paloma.”
“Jake, you oughtn’t to stay at places like that. It’s beneath you.”
“The agency booked it,” he said. “Find out, too, how Torres knew I was in town.”
“Sí.” Ramirez’s forehead added wrinkles. “This is a serious business you’re involved in.”
“I was commencing to suspect that myself. I’ll go out and meet the doctor. Gracias for your help.”
“De nada.” He whipped a plyochief out of his trouser pocket. “Before you go meet a lady, wipe that mud off your jacket.”
“Can you guarantee that?” Dr. Danenberg was leaning forward on her seat, plump elbows resting on the booth table, stubby fingers intertwined to produce a lump of clutched fists.
“I can’t guarantee anything—but I can make arrangements to get you taken safely out of Casas Grandes. After that we just hope.”
“Your stay in that penal colony seems to have sapped some of your confidence and ... why are you staring at me so intently?”
“Could be because I want to make sure I’m not talking to a sim,” he said. “Don’t let it distract you, doctor.”
“I explained why I sent the android dupe, Cardigan.” Her fingers unlocked, formed a new pattern. “I was—I still am afraid I’m a target for assassins. Obviously, as was proved at the Boardwalk, my fears are well founded.”
“If you’d shared those fears in advance instead of sending a decoy, my partner—”
“I didn’t come here to make apologies.”
“Okay. Who sent the kamikaze?”
Her stubby fingers parted, she put one hand at each side of the green table. “I suspect several people.”
“For instance?”
“Do you know Sonny Hokori?”
“We’re old buddies. Do you?”
“Only by reputation. We were aware that he was greatly interested in our researches.”
“Anyone else?”
“Several Tek lords, since they all apparently believe I am still actively engaged in anti-Tek research,” she said. “And also, though I hesitate to accuse ... Her head bowed and the rest of the sentence was lost in a mumble.
“Didn’t catch that.”
TekWar Page 9
