Tek Power (2 page)

Richard saw two blood-splattered white medibots performing an autopsy on the body of a dead child.

Detective Busino said, “No need to look at that.” Reaching out to the wall control pad, he shut off the screen and the noise of the surgical saw. “You okay, sir?”

Richard slapped his hand against the nearest metal wall to steady himself. “More or less,” he answered in a voice that didn't sound like his own to him. “Is there any way to turn up the heat down here?”

“No, afraid not. It's controlled from upstairs.” The cop poked again at the control pad. “Would you, please, take a look at Screen 11?”

“Which?”

“Behind you.”

He turned and saw a new image. The body of a dead woman was stretched out on a white metal table, partially covered with a thin white plyosheet. The body was battered, twisted and broken, one whole side of the face was a crusty black. All his breath seemed to sigh out of him as he realized he was staring at Eve.

Two white medibots, arms at their sides, were standing next to the table that held the sad remains of his wife.

Richard brought his other hand up to his face, covering his eyes for a moment. Then he dropped his hand and straightened up. “Are those damn gadgets going … going to cut her up?”

“No, sir, no,” Detective Busino assured him. “Now I need you to tell me positively that this is your wife.”

“Yes, that's Eve,” he said quietly. “But don't I get to see her? In the same room, I mean, so I can touch her.”

“Afraid you can't do that, not at this stage anyway,” the officer told him. “This is definitely Eve Scanlon Bascom?”

“Yes, yeah, it is—do we have to keep looking at her?”

“No, course not.” Busino turned off the screen. “Some people like to watch long as they can.”

Richard crossed to one of the three white metal chairs across the round room. “Am I allowed to sit?”

“Sure.”

“What happened to her?”

The detective put his hands in his trouser pockets and leaned against the wall. “Your wife's skycar was rerouted because—”

“She was alone in her car?”

“Yes, alone. You thought she was with someone?”

“She was having dinner with a client. I wasn't sure if—”

“Only your wife was in the vehicle,” he said. “She had been passing over Secure Zone 1 and then she was rerouted over Danger Zone 3.”

“Why? That was a—”

“Couldn't be helped. As you probably know, President Brookmeyer was visiting Manhattan tonight. And when the president of the United States is traveling over Secure Zone 1 in his skycade, all other traffic is automatically diverted elsewhere. Standard procedure.”

“What happened?”

“Just a chance thing,” he replied. “That's how life goes sometimes. While she was traveling over Danger Zone 3, a stolen skyvan smashed into her. Couple of Tekhead punks out joyriding. They died, too.”

Richard asked him, “You're certain this was an accident?”

“Absolutely.” Busino took his hands from his pockets. “Unless you have something to tell me that'll maybe change our minds.”

“No, nothing.” He stood up and discovered he was a little unsteady on his feet. “Is there a vidphone I can use?”

“Out in Corridor 3.” The detective came over and took hold of his arm. “I'll show you, sir.”

“Thanks.”

“These things happen,” he said as he helped him toward the door. “It's just chance, fate. Nothing you can do about it.”

“Maybe,” said Richard quietly, “there is something I can do.”

D
ARKNESS HAD LONG
since closed in around Captain Noah's Café. The Pacific Ocean out beyond the dome-covered dining deck was a velvety black.

“Her name is Kay Norwood,” Alicia was saying, both elbows resting on the tabletop. “A longtime friend of mine—one of the few, actually, that I have left—and an absolutely terrific corporate lawyer.”

“I've heard of her.”

“Kay's been doing a great job of helping me get my father's estate straightened out.” She laughed, shaking her head. “The affairs of Mechanix International are really screwed up, Jake. My dear departed dad was in cahoots with all sorts of scoundrels—crooks, Teklords and a wide variety of government sneaks.”

Jake asked her, “Are you going to be, do you think, controlling the operation eventually?”

“You bet your ass I am,” she assured him. “We're going to dump all the doinks and deadheads. Roger Zangerly is helping out, too. He's one of the few Mechanix execs I can halfway trust.”

“And what about Barry Zangerly?”

“We aren't,” she said, spreading her fingers wide and studying them, “living together anymore.”

Jake said nothing.

“But I'm not going back to my old promiscuous ways,” she added. “I'm living alone—without even a servobot to help out—at my father's Palisades Sector home.”

“Big place to inhabit alone.”

“You've been there, haven't you?”

“Once—briefly.”

“That's right, you were lured there and—”

“Lured is too polite a word to describe it,” he put in. “I was out-and-out dumb and let myself get conned. I almost got trounced as a result.”

“My fault that was.”

He grinned. “Nope, entirely mine.”

“Well, you'd been hired to find me.” She leaned back in her chair. “Hired by Barry actually. I feel badly about abandoning him. But I really think it's important to be by myself for a while.”

“Thanks for letting me intrude on your solitude tonight.”

“You're one of the exceptions.” Alicia blinked, sitting up. “Oh, you were teasing me, weren't you? Am I starting to sound self-important and soulful?”

“Just a mite.”

“I'll quit,” she promised. “Tell me what you're working on now—if it's not confidential.”

“At the moment I'm between cases.”

Resting her elbows on the table again, Alicia said, “I've been thinking I'd like to see you now and then. In a strictly friendship sort of way.”

“I'm pretty much practicing the solitary life myself these days,” he told her. “As far as any sort of social life goes.”

She said, “I suppose I'm making too much of the fact that you saved my life.”

“That was part of my job,” he said. “What you have to understand, Alicia, is that any one of a dozen other Cosmos Detective Agency operatives could've—”

“Excessive modesty doesn't fit you very well.” She gave a shake of her head. “I'm not a schoolgirl and this isn't a crush. I like
you
—Jake Cardigan. If we'd met at a party or a brawl, I'd still think of you as an exceptional person.”

“An exceptional person who's nearly twice your age.”

She laughed. “Is that what's bothering you? You don't want to get involved with a kid?”

Jake studied the black starless sky up above the restaurant deck. “It's simpler than that,” he answered finally. “I don't want to get involved with anybody, age has very little to—”

“Excuse me,
amigo
, for intruding on what sounds like it's bound to develop into a very touching spiel—and how might you be, Miss Bower.” Gomez had come striding out onto the deck. He bowed toward the young woman. “We've never met,
señorita
, but no doubt you've heard of me. Sid Gomez, Jake's partner and well-known ace detective in my own right.”

Eyeing him, Jake inquired, “You just happen to be passing by, too?” He indicated the third chair with a tilt of his thumb.

Gomez was a dark curlyhaired man, about ten years younger than his partner. He remained standing. “When I checked with Dan at your residence, he informed me you'd reported in that you were cavorting here.”

“So what's happening?”

“Walt Bascom, our esteemed
jefe
, wants to see us immediately if not sooner. He awaits at the Cosmos Detective Agency building.”

“I'll have to go, Alicia.” He pushed back from the table. “We'll escort you to your skycar.”

“Thanks, I'd feel safer if you did.” Standing, she held out her hand to Gomez. “Nice to meet you. I've heard a good deal about you.”

He bent, kissed her hand. “
Sí
, I'm a legend in my own time.”

Jake stood. “Must be an important case Bascom has for us.”

As the three of them crossed the deck, Gomez said, “I don't know exactly what's going on, since the chief hasn't as yet provided any details. I have the feeling, though, that there's something special about this one.”

3

J
AKE NODDED AT
the figure that had materialized atop the hologram projection stage. “That's your son, isn't it?”

“One of them,” answered Bascom. “Richard, the youngest.” The agency head was sitting, somewhat stiffly, behind his large desk. “Lives in New York.” His desktop was uncharacteristically uncluttered. “He works for the TriState EdSystem as a Lit professor.” All the windows in the big tower office had been blanked and nothing of the night streets of this part of the Malibu Sector showed. “Until tonight he was married.”

“And what happened tonight,
jefe?
” Gomez was sitting on the edge of the holostage with part of Richard Bascom's left foot superimposed on his backside.

Bascom, whose grey suit was considerably rumpled, reached out to the control panel again. “His wife was killed.” The figure of a slender darkhaired woman of about thirty replaced the image of the detective agency head's son. “Eve was her name.”

Standing up and away from the platform, Gomez asked, “Didn't she work for some public relations outfit?”

“Yeah, for Larson-Dunn.” Bascom touched the controls again and Eve vanished. “Their Manhattan office.”

Jake was straddling a straightback metal chair. “A very shifty outfit,” he commented, “and not one known for its probity.”

“Both Larson and Dunn are corrupt, moneygrubbing swine,” said Bascom. “Their organization's been involved in numerous shady deals both domestic and foreign.”

Gomez had roamed over to one of the high wide blanked windows. He tapped absently on the plastiglass with his forefinger. “How would you rate Eve's honesty and integrity?”

“Not very highly.”

Jake said, “Did your son share your opinion?”

“Nope, not at all.”

“Ever discuss it with—”

“Only once. That was three years or so ago. Right before he went and married her,” said Bascom. “I'd already heard a little something about the lady, and that public relations gang she was working for. LarsonDunn has its headquarters office in Washington, DC, and I've had a few run-ins with them. They tend to represent scoundrels in the business, political and criminal areas—crooked tycoons, Teklords, bloodstained dictators and the like.”

“You know for a fact that Eve herself was crooked?”

“Hell, she'd have to be to sign up with that bunch in the first place,” answered the chief. “And, although I never told Richard about this, I had the lady checked out.”

“Remind me in future incarnations,” said Gomez, “not to have a gumshoe for a relative.”

“How much of what you found out about her did you pass along to your son?”

“Not a hell of a lot, Jake. Richard and I—well, we haven't been all that close for a long time,” admitted Bascom. “So I only hinted that maybe he ought to wait, look into her background a little more.”

“I bet that didn't work too well.”

“He told me to go screw myself and hung up. We didn't talk to each other again for nearly a year.”

Jake asked, “Have you kept checking up on her?”

Bascom sighed. “Yep, I have every so often,” he said slowly. “In addition to dealing with a slew of extremely fragrant clients here and abroad, Eve has been—Eve was not particularly faithful to my son.”

“How much so?”

“Oh, she wasn't exactly promiscuous, but she carried on several affairs after she married my son.”

“
Muy mal
,” commented Gomez as he settled into an armchair.

The image of a blond, overweight man of forty materialized on the stage. “This lad was the most recent of her lovers. Arnold Maxfield, Jr.”

“Son of the communications mogul,” said Jake.

Gomez sat up. “Didn't Junior get knocked off in some sort of accident down Nicaragua way only last week?”

“Might be it wasn't an accident,” said Bascom. “I'm sorry I didn't put fulltime operatives on Eve soon as I heard about Maxfield's death.”

“Was she with him down there,
jefe?
”

“Supposedly Eve was in Managua on Larson-Dunn business for nearly two weeks. He was down there at the same time and the day after she headed for home, Maxfield was killed during a riot at an air soccer match,” he told them. “She and Junior saw a lot of each other, day
and
night.”

Jake rubbed his knuckles across his cheek. “How was she killed and where?”

“Back in New York City—at roughly eleven PM tonight—when a runaway skyvan slammed into her skycar.”

“Two fatal accidents in a week,” observed Gomez, “make for a nice coincidence.”

“At midnight, before he even knew anything had happened, Richard got a call,” continued the chief. “The caller was a man and he kept the screen blanked. He told my son, in what sounds to me like a nasty way, that no matter what anybody tried to tell him, his wife had been murdered.”

“Be interesting,” said Jake, “to find out what that guy knows.”

“I've already had an op with your Manhattan affiliate trying to track down the call.” Bascom shook his head. “Made from a booth in a skybus station.”

“You want us to head back to New York?”