“The Flauta Restaurant up ahead has a good rating in Shedenhelm’s Travel Guide,” she said, nodding at the sidewalk café coming up on their right. “Three stars.”
“You’ve been here before?”
“No, but I have several guidebooks in my memory banks.”
Allowing himself to grin, Jake took her arm and guided her to a table. “Do you ... Shall I order you breakfast?”
Beth smiled. “I don’t require food, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said, sitting opposite him. “But I can take in food if necessary to back up the illusion that I’m human. Right now I’ll just have a cup of coffee, for appearances’ sake.”
There were exactly a dozen small, round, white tables arranged on the red-tile paving in front of the Flauta. Only three of the others were occupied so far, each by a tourist couple.
A menu appeared on the small screen at Jake’s place. “Language, por favor?” inquired an unseen voxbox.
“Make it English,” replied Jake.
The original menu vanished, replaced by one in English. “You may give your orders directly to me,” instructed the voxbox.
“Gracias.”
“De nada.”
Beth rested an elbow on the table. “We can make do with one room, by the way, Jake. Since I don’t require sleep, it—”
“Two.”
“It’s not a question of propriety, is it?”
“Nope, it’s a question of my liking to be by myself now and then.”
“All right. I suppose it will look better, too,” she said. “What about your contact here in Cuidado? Will he get in touch with you or—”
“We’ll have to do some scouting around. The main thing is not to attract too much attention while we’re here.”
“I can see—”
“It is! It’s Jake Cardigan, none other.” A tall, lean black man of about thirty-five was hurrying over to their table, smiling broadly. “And—my God! It’s Beth Kittridge. Jake, old man, you’ve found the missing Kittridge girl. Damn—what a news story this is going to make!”
20
THE BLACK MAN SEATED himself, uninvited, at the third chair at their table. Smiling, first at Beth, then at Jake, he removed a small recorder-mike from the inner breast pocket of his pale yellow jacket. Placing it in the exact middle of the tabletop, he activated it and said, “We’ve met before, Miss Kittridge. That was, if you don’t quite recall, when I interviewed your father two years ago at a reception at SoCal Tech. I’m Ogden Swires, with GLA Week, the leading faxzine on the West Coast. I’d—”
“Before we start the interview,” suggested Jake, reaching over to click off the recorder, “how about a little polite social discourse, Og?”
“Jake, hey, you’re interfering with my pursuit of a big story.”
“For instance, what the hell are you doing in Cuidado? It’s not part of Greater Los Angeles.”
The reporter moved his hand toward his recorder-mike, noticed Jake’s face and withdrew it. “I came down to do a story on Warbride, since our readers are avidly interested in what goes on across the border,” he replied. “I’ve been sitting on my toke for three days, old man, waiting for one of her public relations people to get back to me.”
“Public relations?” Jake laughed. “Sounds like she’s upgraded her operations quite a lot.”
Turning, slowly, to Beth, Swires inquired, “Is your father alive?”
Beth answered, “I haven’t as yet agreed to an interview, Mr. Swires.”
“GLA Week has a guaranteed circulation of four million, Miss Kittridge. You really shouldn’t ignore that sort of coverage or—”
“Were you hunting for us?” Jake asked him. “Is that how our paths happened to cross this morning?”
The reporter shook his head. “Old man, I had no idea you were in Mexico at all, nor was I aware that Miss Kittridge had been located.” He started to inch his left hand toward the small recorder. “But, as you well know, I really do seem to have a knack for nosing out news.”
“That’s interesting.” Jake grinned at him. “Miss Kittridge and I were just now discussing her knacks.”
“Listen, Jake, there are at least a dozen other newspeople in town, trying to insinuate themselves across the border into Chihuahua one way or another,” Swires told him. “Amongst them, old man, are a couple from GLA who aren’t anywhere near as sympathetic toward you as I am. You remember how I covered your trial, don’t you? I was on your side.”
“ ‘Jake Cardigan isn’t as big a scoundrel as he’s being painted,’ was one of your lines that’s stuck in my mind.”
“Christ, I was practically doing PR for you,” insisted Swires. “That wasn’t easy, believe me, considering who owns GLA Week and who they’re friendly with.”
Jake caught his arm. “What do you mean? I thought the Reisberson family controlled your faxzine.”
Swires nodded and pulled, cautiously, free. “They do, but they’re especially close to Bennett Sands—who also does a great deal of advertising with us.”
“And?”
“He put a lot of pressure on them back then, Jake. He charged that I was being much too favorable to you, insisted he was dead certain you were deeply involved in Tek running.”
“I didn’t know that. You should’ve told me.”
“Hell, by the time I found out for certain you were ... He glanced toward Beth, then up into the brightening morning sky. “You were unreachable.”
“I know where Jake’s been.” Beth brushed at her dark hair with her right hand.
“I wasn’t sure.” He smiled at her. “I’m a very polite and discreet interviewer, never going into offensive or unsettling topics. At least, I can be in cases such as yours, Miss Kittridge. May I ask you a few simple questions now?”
Beth rested a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t see why not,” she said. “Since you’re a good friend of Jake’s, you’re probably the most logical reporter for me to ... Mr. Swires, is something wrong?”
Approximately three seconds after she’d touched him, the reporter slumped in his chair. Then, starting to snore politely, he went tipping forward until his head was resting on the table.
Jake nodded at the plump couple at the nearest occupied table, who had interrupted their breakfast to stare. “We warned him about drinking so early in the day,” he said.
Beth stood. “We’d better just leave him to sleep it off.”
“Yes, that’s an excellent idea.” Jake got up, too.
“Are you ready to order?” asked the voxbox.
“Plenty of black coffee for our friend,” said Beth, taking hold of Jake’s hand.
Tucking her legs under her, Beth settled into the vinyl armchair near Jake’s bed. “I don’t think that’s what you feel at all,” she was saying.
They had ground-floor rooms in the small town-edge inn Jake had decided to come to. Out beyond his one-way plasglass sliding doors was a patio that was nearly overgrown with bright flowering bushes.
Jake was pacing from the open doorway of Beth’s adjoining room to the sliding doors. “Nearly noon,” he remarked, halting to gaze out into the sunbright patio.
“We’re not discussing your contact or why he’s late getting back to you,” she reminded. “I was asking why you get so damn uneasy whenever I mention your wife or Bennett Sands.”
“I’m not clear what you’re getting at, Beth. And since it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with—”
“Sure, it does. You just found out that Sands took an active part in getting you convicted.”
“Nope, all I found out is that Swires was trying to con me into letting him interview you.”
“He wasn’t lying.”
“Do you have a built-in gadget to detect lying, too?”
“It’s only an assumption.”
“I’ve spent most of my life questioning people.” Turning his back to the sunlight, he frowned down at her.
“Well, then, you ought to be able to tell he wasn’t making up a s
tory to put you in a good mood.”
“Okay, let’s suppose Sands did want to get me sent up to the Freezer. What has that got to do with Kate?”
“You’re the one who seems to think it has something to do with her.”
“She was working for Sands at the time. That’s all.”
“And you’ve been wondering why she never told you what he was up to.”
“Sands may not have been up to anything.”
“You trusted her.”
“Of course, sure.” Jake went to the bed and sat on its edge. “There’s no need to talk about this any further.”
“Didn’t you and Gomez talk about it at the time?”
“Not much, no.”
“What did he think of Kate?”
“His opinions don’t match mine, but we’ve never much agreed about women. Or clothes. You ought to see some of the—”
“All I’m trying to get at is this,” she cut in. “It may turn out that Kate is involved with what’s going on right now. If you’re still feeling sentimental about her, that could screw us up. I want to find my father and we can’t afford to—”
“He’s not your father, he’s Beth’s father.” He was on his feet, jabbing a forefinger in the air. “You’re nothing more than a goddamn machine. Quit, just quit trying to tell me that my wife was sleeping with Sands or that she helped set me up.”
Slowly she stood. “I wasn’t going to be that direct about it.” Beth moved to the doorway that linked their rooms. She went into hers, but left the door open.
The call didn’t come until nearly dusk.
Jake was pacing again when the vidphone in the narrow alcove across from his bed buzzed. Dropping into the plazchair, he flipped the respond switch. “Yeah?”
A fat, smiling man in a pale blue suit appeared on the small image screen. “Perdóname for taking so long, Jake,” he began, pausing to wipe at his perspiring forehead with a cloth handkerchief. “These are complex and troubled times, and to arrange even the simplest of meetings requires—”
“Have you set up a meeting, Globo?”
“Sí, of course. My skills have, if anything, ripened since last we met, Señor Jake.”
“Who do I see?”
Globo wiped his forehead again, glancing offscreen. “He calls himself Sombra.”
“C’mon—the Shadow?”
“Many of these revolutionists have a melodramatic streak,” explained Jake’s local contact man. “It would be best not to chide this one about his romantic illusions.”
“Don’t intend to,” he assured the fat man. “How close to Warbride is he?”
“Sombra has arranged several previous meetings with her. He’s the only trustworthy liaison in Cuidado,” answered Globo. “He’s the one who set up the Time/Life faxzine interview two months ago.”
“Missed that one. Where and when do I talk to the guy?”
“Siete, seven tonight. Do you know how to get to the Toro Plaza?”
“Sure, saw it coming in.”
“You meet him in the Matador Pavilion.”
“Why get together where there are going to be people around to—”
“The Plaza, since it featured only robot bulls and matadors, did not thrive,” explained his informant. “It has been defunct and deserted since last May. Tonight you’ll find Gate B unlocked.”
“Okay, thanks for arranging this.”
“You pay my fee, I do my job. All routine, Jake,” said the sweating fat man. “One other thing—Sombra specifies that you meet him entirely alone.”
“I wasn’t planning to guide a gaggle of turistas there.”
“It’s your reporter friends he’s concerned about.”
“I don’t have any reporter friends.”
“And police friends?”
“None hereabouts.”
“Then all is muy bien, is it not? Adiós.” The screen went blank.
“This doesn’t sound quite right,” commented Beth from the connecting doorway.
“Why?”
“Meeting place is too isolated.”
“I’ve had lots of meetings in isolated spots over the years.” He left the chair. “Don’t fret while I’m away.”
“You’re going alone?”
“As specified,” he replied. “Fact is, I’d better leave right about now. I want to get there in time to look around some.”
She came into the room. “Be careful.”
“Always am,” he said, clearing his throat. “Beth, I think I’d better apologize for ... for what I said to you this afternoon.”
“For calling me an android? That’s okay, I am an android,” she said. “It’s probably a good idea to remind me of that every so often, so I don’t get delusions of humanity.”
“The problem is—well, there are still some things I’m not exactly ready to talk about.”
“Yes, I understand.” She moved in front of him, then leaned up and kissed him on the cheek, putting both arms around him. “Good luck.”
He moved back from her after a few seconds, saying, “Thanks.”
She smiled, asking, “First time you’ve been kissed by a machine?”
“I guess it is,” he admitted, turning away.
21
THE BIG TOURIST LANDBUS rolled smoothly and comfortably through the bright, glowing center of the town’s nightlife section. The thousands of lights glaring and flashing outside turned the off-white interior of the bus into a multicolored quilt.
Jake was sitting alone in a seat near the front of the only partially filled vehicle. He was confident he looked enough like a tourist to get fairly close to the Toro Plaza unnoticed.
Two seats ahead of him a thin redheaded young man was aiming his handheld botcamera out the window. “Terrific, terrific,” he observed, chuckling. “The contrast will make a nifty social com—”
“Why in the heck do you want another picture of a raggedy man with no legs?” asked the thin blonde young woman beside him.
“You don’t get the point, Marcella.”
“I guess I sure don’t, Rudy.”
“See, that guy out there happens to be a vet. You can tell by his tattered Mexican Army uniform,” explained Rudy. “Most likely he was disabled during the recent fighting over in Chihuahua. Now we find him begging in the midst of all this glitter, and that makes a nifty social com—”
“He could have legs if he wanted to,” the young woman pointed out. “I heard on the vidnews in the hotel room just yesterday that they do that for every veteran. If you lose a limb in the service of your country, they—”
“Maybe the poor bastard’s making his own kind of social comment. By refusing to let—”
“Showing off, wallowing in self-pity. And if you think for a minute, Rudy, that when we get back home to Binghamton you’re going to inflict endless pictures of raggedy bums on our friends, you are sadly—”
“Shut up, Marcella, and let me shoot this before we pass out of range.”
“The lady’s right, sir,” said the voxbox of the camera. “You’ve taken more than enough disgusting photographs since arriving in Cuidado. How about instead snapping that jolly street musician coming up—the roly-poly guitar player with the tassels on his sombrero?”
“Shit,” commented Rudy, dropping the camera to his lap.
“We’ll be halting for a leg-stretch and a snack at the next corner, folks,” announced the robot driver. He was big and chrome-plated, wearing a sombrero.
Jake was scanning the bright-lit twilight street. The town had changed quite a lot since he’d been here three—make it seven—years ago. Looming up large on the right was a multileveled building of white glass and dark metal that was new to him. Inscribed large across its façade in flash-letters was THE ARCADE. Below that, in letters only a foot high, appeared—HOME OF THE BEST IN TECHNO-SEX! YOU WANT IT, WE GOT IT!
“Subtle,” murmured Jake.
The bus swung into a purple-tinted parking lot next to a peach-colored restaurant and sighed gent
ly.
“This is it, folks,” announced the sombreroed robot. “We’re stopping at the Hometown, USA, Café. They serve only the finest Sands BioFoods, cooked American Style. We’ll be halting our tour for exactly twenty-two minutes.”
As soon as the doors wooshed open, Jake was the first to disembark.
He was leaving the tour here. The Toro Plaza lay six blocks to the south and no sensible bus went anywhere near it.
The dusk was smeared with black smoke. It came swirling out of alley cookfires, went scrawling up across the fading day.
Jake had walked beyond the protection of the lights. This block was dark, most of its buildings ruined.
Propped in the doorway of a gutted apartment complex was the body of a gaunt old woman wearing the shreds of a dark overcoat. Five fat carrion crows were hopping about on her slumped corpse, pecking at her. Farther along, the body of a dead dog lay sprawled in the mouth of a sooty alley. Scrawled in glopaint on the crumbling plasbrick wall of a long defunct servo repair shop were the words
BEWARE THE MAX!
Just beneath the inscription a one-legged man in a faded Mexican Army uniform sat on a crate. He glanced up at Jake with minimal interest.
Jake fished into his pocket for a coin. “What’s the Max?”
The one-legged man said, “I’m not a fucking beggar, señor. Keep your money.”
“Sorry.” Jake let the coin fall back.
“The Max,” said the one-legged man, “is a nickname for Las Máquinas.”
“And who’re they?”
The one-legged man made a dry, rasping sound that might have been a laugh. “Perhaps you’ll find that out tonight.”
“Gives me something to look forward to.” He continued on his way toward the Toro Plaza, which was still three long blocks from here.
Suddenly, overhead a white skyambulance went roaring by, belly-lights flashing red, siren hooting. In the doorway of a burned-out bodega a four-year-old boy in a ten-year-old boy’s trousers stood silently bouncing a ball. His eyes didn’t seem to see Jake at all.
Halfway up the next block, light showed in a few of the ground-floor windows of a ramshackle apartment house. Just before Jake reached there the door came flapping open.
TekWar Page 12
