Tek Net (3 page)

“Not actually, no. She'd simply say, ‘I saw the professor again last night,' or, ‘I think it's time to drop the artist.'”

“Are those actual designations—there really was a professor and an artist?”

Illsworth gave a jiggling affirmative nod. “Yes, but I believe she did jettison the artist, whoever the devil he is, over three weeks ago,” he piped. “The professor, she was still seeing on the sly.”

“You don't know which of these guys has a possible Tek link?”

“No, I don't,” he said apologetically. “With most of the research I do, while it's not always orthodox and strictly kosher, I try not to do anything that'll annoy active crooks and criminals. However, if Jill continues missing—well, I intend to do some very intrusive digging.”

“You come up with anything, contact me at the Cosmos Detective Agency,” requested Jake.

“I will,” promised the fat man. “You don't, do you, suspect that the poor dear might already be dead?”

“That's just one,” answered Jake, “of several unpleasant possibilities.”

4

The huge litesign that floated above the bright-lit pastel blue dome-restaurant proclaimed:
The Kafeteria Welcomes the Friends of the Starvation Center!

Gomez went striding up the wide, slanting pastel pink ramp to the high arched entryway of the huge Altadena Sector restaurant.

Just inside the large crowded lobby a beautiful blonde young woman in a skin-tone sinsilk gown beckoned to him. “Where the bloody hell do you think you're going, Pancho?” she inquired in a throaty voice.

“Beg pardon?”

“You're not on the guest list for this fund-raising dinner,” she informed him.

“That's absolutely true,
chiquita
. Nevertheless, I—”

“Please, don't toss any of those awful Mex expressions at me.”

He gave her a very quick bow. “Forgive me,” he said. “Now would you fill me in as to just what your official capacity is at this shindig?”

“It's none of your goddamn business, Pancho,” she told him. “Take flight now before I summon a couple of husky white men to toss you out on your Latino keester.”

Gomez smiled at her. “My friends and associates now and then chide me for being too thin-skinned and sensitive,” he said. “But, so help me, I think I sense some sort of ethnic undertones in our otherwise delightful conversation.”

The blonde's nose wrinkled. “If there's one thing I dislike more than a Latino, it's a wiseass Latino.”

“I thought it was the mission of the Starvation Center to feed the downtrodden—no matter what their nationality.”

“Are you kidding? We limit ourselves to the passable races.”

“Well, let's get on to the business at hand,” he suggested. “I was informed at his residence that Ernst Reinman was here this evening.”

“He's the keynote speaker, dumbbell.”

“I have to talk to him.”

“So you can hit him for the loan of a few pesos?”

“So I can discuss his wife with him.”

The blonde took a step back from him. “Don't tell me you're another one of dear Jill's sackmates?”

“Go tell Reinman his wife appears to have been abducted,” said Gomez evenly. “I'm an operative with the Cosmos Detective Agency.”

“Oh, Lord,” she gasped. “You're not just saying this because you think I was rude to you?”

“
Señora
, I don't care a fig for what you think of me or the land of my ancestors,” he explained. “But I'm interested in finding Jill Bernardino. It may help if I talk to her husband.”

She reached out, tentatively and cautiously, to pat the detective on the arm. “You stay right here,” she instructed. “I'll go get Ernst.”

The kitchen staff consisted entirely of robots, at least ten of them, white-painted and wearing high white chef's caps. The big white room was thick with steam and the smells of cooking.

In a corridor just outside the open doorway Gomez and Ernst Reinman stood facing each other. “So,” the detective was saying, “do you have any idea what—”

“Why did she call you and not me?” Reinman was a tall, heavyset man in his late fifties. He had a sad, weary face and was suffering from some sort of respiratory problem. “I am, after all, Jill's husband and you'd expect she'd turn to me when she's in trouble.”

“She probably picked me because I'm a private investigator and she was about to have trouble with some dangerous criminal types.”

“You're Gomez!” It sounded like an accusation.

“As I already mentioned when I introduced myself.”

“Yes, but I only just now realized that you're
that
Gomez.” Reinman paused to take a wheezing breath. “You were married to my wife.”

“A long time ago,” he acknowledged. “The point is, I think she's been kidnapped and if you have any idea as to who might have—”

“She's told me a lot about you, how you ruined the marriage with your philandering,” said Jill's husband. “No, you're not an especially moral man, Gomez.”

“I'm a rascal,” he conceded. “Now let's get back to who would want to carry her off.”

“Where'd you say this happened?”

“At the old Hollywood Starwalk Park in the Hollywood Sector of GLA. Did your wife tell you who she was planning to meet there?”

Shaking his head, breathing shallowly, Reinman answered, “I thought she was going to a class in ceramics at the University of California/Venice Sector Campus tonight. I have no idea why she would have visited that run-down old park.”

“She thought she was going to meet someone with important information on the movie script she was doing on Sonny Hokori.”

“That's not like her,” said her husband. “Jill's always been open and honest with me—that's one of the best things about our marriage.”

Gomez turned away, watching a robot dice vegetables. “She didn't talk about the project with you? Say anything about this new source of background material?”

Reinman coughed, shaking his head again. “What do the police think about all this, Gomez?”

“We haven't contacted them yet,” he told the husband. “I was hoping to find out a little more about what exactly Jill's tangled up with before—”

“Are you insane, man?” cut in the angry Reinman. “The SoCal State cops are the ones who can find my wife. You quit playing detective, damn you—this is far too important for that.” He backed to the wall, braced himself against it with one hand, concentrated on his breathing for a moment. “Yes, she told me about your partner, too. Cardigan, isn't it? A convicted Tekhead—a man who tried to get my wife to try that rotten stuff back when she was married to you.”

Gomez persisted. “Have there been any unusual calls the past few days?”

“Nothing like that, no,” Reinman replied. “Well, there were a couple of somewhat odd messages from a small bald man who claimed to be a scriptwriter, too. He struck me as—No, I'm not going to play detective with you, Gomez, damn you!”

“By the time the cops—”

“I've got to phone them right now.” Pushing free of the wall, Reinman walked rapidly away from Gomez. “I imagine the law will be very much interested in talking to you, my friend.”

Gomez shook his head. “Maybe I ought to take a brushup course in interrogation,” he said, and took his leave.

5

A silver landcycle came rushing along the Santa Monica Sector beach bike path. It burst out of the thick midnight fog, shimmied to a stop a few feet from the decorative palm tree Jake was waiting beneath.

A lean young Chinese hopped off the passenger seat. “Thanks, Nanette,” he said as the cycle and its driver went chuffing swiftly away into the heavy mist. He smoothed the long overcoat he was wearing, then smiled over at Jake. “Glad we're doing some business again, chum.”

Jake said, “Once I heard you were back in SoCal, Timecheck, I immediately put you at the top of my list of trusted paid informants.”

The Chinese left the path, pausing on the sand. He rolled up the right sleeve of his overcoat, revealing a silver-plated arm that had fifteen clock faces embedded in it. “Sorry I'm two minutes and seventeen seconds late, Jake,” the informant apologized. “My ladyfriend dawdled over her nearcaf. She's a great-looking woman, don't you think?”

“Stunning. What have you found out for me?”

The lean young man was scowling at his cyborg arm. Bringing it up close to his face, he rubbed away some of the night mist with his flesh hand. “Damn, Paris time is off eleven point five seconds again. Hell.”

“Jill Bernardino,” reminded Jake.

Reluctantly, Timecheck rolled the sleeve down over all the watches and joined Jake beneath the tree. “She's in considerable trouble.”

“I already know that.”

The two of them began to walk along the sand. “What you don't know, however, is that a consortium of very powerful European-based Tek cartels ordered her to be grabbed.”

“Right, I didn't know that. Which Teklords are we talking about?”

“Those details I haven't found out yet,” admitted Timecheck. He suddenly halted, frowned, scowled, rolled up his sleeve. “Yeah, just as I suspected. My Tokyo timepiece has stopped ticking.” He tapped the dial with the tip of his finger.

“Try to learn exactly which cartels are involved.”

“An extra five hundred dollars that'll cost, chum.”

“An extra three hundred.”

“I'm starting to think I'm going to have to take the arm in for an overhaul.” He rolled down his sleeve and they started walking again. “Being as we're old buddies, Jake, and have done business in various odd corners of this giddy globe, I'll find out—probably at great personal risk to myself—just which Teklords are behind this caper, for a mere three hundred and fifty.”

Jake nodded acceptance of the fee. “Who snatched her from the park?”

“I'm tracing that now. You'll get the news soon as it comes in,” answered the informant. “When you're dealing with Tek cartels, you have to be extra sly and sneaky.”

“Got anything on where they took her or what they intend to do with her?”

“That's another thing that remains to be found out, buddy.”

After a few silent seconds Jake asked, “When several powerful Tek organizations get together it means something unusual is going on. So what's afoot, Timecheck?”

“You don't want to know.”

“Meaning?”

“I haven't anything specific,” said Timecheck. “But I'm getting hints that there's a very big deal under way.”

“And Jill Bernardino found out about it?”

“That would be my conclusion, sure.”

The fog was getting even thicker, closing in tighter around them as they walked.

Jake said, “What about her personal life?”

Timecheck chuckled, blowing on his metal fingers. “She's a very restless lady,” he observed. “The artist you heard she was fooling with isn't exactly an artist. But I'm near certain it has to be a fellow named Ogden Vargas who builds robot puppets that he uses in making vidwall commercials.”

“And her professor friend?”

“Easy, he's with UC/Venice. Jeffrey Monkwood. Thirty-five, overweight by twenty-some pounds, teaches in the Advanced Communications Department. Our Jill's been keeping company with him for the past three and a half months. Her husband has been led to believe she's studying ceramics, which is a new name for shacking up.”

“You've got addresses on these guys?”

“Hey, Jake, this is Timecheck you're dealing with here,” he reminded. “I'm a full-service stool pigeon. All the data is already reposing in both your home computer and your skycar infofile.”

“Anything else to pass along?”

Timecheck said, “Only other thing I can pass along is some useful advice, which is yours absolutely free,” he said. “Whatever you do—don't do a damn thing that'll annoy these Teklords.”

“I already figured that out on my own,” Jake told him.

The pretty blonde android waitress at the AllNite Neptune Café had been delivered only yesterday and she still had that new-appliance scent clinging to her. “What'll you have, gents?” she inquired of Jake and Gomez.

“Just a cup of nearcaf,
chiquita
,” the curly-haired detective responded.

“The New England tofu chowder is awfully good tonight—oops, I mean this morning,” she said, laughing. “It's almost two a.m. already. And you, sir?”

Jake said, “Nearcaf for now.”

“Oaky doak. My name's Patsy and if you think of anything else, just give a yell.” Smiling, she went walking away from their booth.

The little restaurant was narrow and sat close to the beach in the Malibu Sector. It was less than a half-mile from the condo Jake shared with his son.

“I miss the old waitress.” Gomez sighed and scratched at his moustache.

“You mean that rattletrap robot?”

“Suzanne was her name. She worked here for years and was noted for her adoration of me.”

“Most waitresses, mechanical and otherwise, are fond of you.”

“
Sí, es verdad
,” agreed his partner. “They junked Suzanne. She's on a scrap heap someplace.”

“Everything ends up on a scrap heap eventually.”

Gomez said, “Well, enough philosophizing,
amigo
. From what you've been telling me and what I've been telling you about our quest for the truth—we don't have a single damn useful clue as to where the hell Jill might be.”

“Right, so it's time to report her disappearance to the SoCal cops.”

“Her husband has probably already taken care of that, but even so—Oh,
gracias
, Patsy.”

The pretty android was setting down their mugs of nearcaf. “Anybody like a soy-abalone sandwich to go with this?”