Tek Money (3 page)

He stepped onto the deck, eyes on the weapon she was holding. “Yeah, and you?”

She glanced down at the gun in her lap. “Oh, this is for my protection,” she explained. “Not to use on you.”

“Put it away anyhow.” He moved closer to her.

Sliding the lazgun into a pocket of her black jacket, she said, “I'm Janine Traynor. Peter was my stepbrother.” She brushed at her dark hair with a bony hand. “I want you to find out who killed him.”

Light suddenly blossomed around the deck floor. Dan, a stungun in his right hand, stepped out into the night. “Everything all right, Dad?”

“Sure, just having a cordial chat with this young lady.”

“Need me?”

“Not yet.”

Nodding slowly, giving Janine a sideways look, Dan slipped back inside the apartment.

“I didn't know,” mentioned Jake as he straddled a neowood chair, “that Pete had a sister.”

“Stepsister.”

“How old are you?”

“What the hell does that have to do with your finding out who murdered him?”

“Not a damn thing actually. Just curious.”

She sighed, sniffling once. “I'm twenty one, okay,” she said, touching at the pocket that held the gun. “I'm a vid actress—sometimes anyway, whenever my dimwitted agents can dig me up some work. That's part of what we have to talk over, Cardigan.”

Jake said nothing, watching her.

“What I mean is,” continued the dead man's sister, “I can't pay the kind of fee that Bascom and the Cosmos Detective Agency asks for.”

“You know, huh, who I work for?”

“Obviously, for Christ's sake. I didn't come to you just because my brother happened to die in your vicinity,” she told him. “Peter told me about you. That you were fairly honest and that he trusted you.”

“You sound as though you, maybe, don't share in that appraisal of me.”

She tilted her head to the left, studying him. Dan had left the floor lights on and the shadows beneath her eyes and cheekbones showed deep and sooty. “Not completely yet,” she admitted finally. “You look trustworthy on the outside, but inside—who can tell?”

He grinned. “Gather yourself up and go home, then.”

“No, I'll go on what my brother felt about you for now,” Janine told him. “What I want you to do—Well, I'm pretty sure you can persuade that vindictive bitch who used to be his wife to finance an investigation into Peter's death.”

“You didn't study diplomacy in school. Not a good idea to label people you're trying to get money out of as vindictive bitches.”

“C'mon, Cardigan, you know damned well Amy St. Mars is a nasty shrew.” She crossed her legs, uncrossed them, crossed them again. The knees were sharp, with too little flesh to them. “When you go to her, you obviously won't mention my true feelings or yours.”

“You're suggesting that I lie and dissemble? That would tarnish my trustworthy image, wouldn't it?”

“Look, Cardigan, there's being twenty one and then there's being twenty one,” she said slowly, angry. “The life I've led—Let's just say I'm not especially naive. I know you have to con people to get what you want. Now, please, let's get back to business.”

“I don't think, Miss Traynor, we're going to be doing any business.”

“Hey, I'm offering you a case. A goddamned job.”

“Nope, you're telling me to go try and beg a fee off Pete's widow,” he corrected. “Now, if you know as much about their relationship as you ought to, you know that Amy wouldn't pay ten bucks to keep wild dogs from pissing on his grave. She sure as hell isn't going to hire Cosmos and pay our kind of fees.”

“She's got millions.”

“People who have millions have millions, most of them, because they're extremely careful about how they spend any of those millions.” He got up from his chair, wandered over to the deck rail to look out toward the dark ocean. “That's been my experience.”

She left the slingchair and came to stand at his side. It was still warm, but she shuddered now and hugged herself. “I figured out where he died,” she said, pointing. “Right about there.”

“More or less.”

“Aren't you at all interested in what happened to him?” she asked quietly. “He was your friend.”

“He was somebody I knew a long time ago, that's all.”

She reached over and touched his arm. “I know why he was coming to talk to you.”

He turned to look at her. “Oh, so?”

“Peter and I haven't been especially close lately,” Janine began. “I mean, he didn't think too much of some of the acting jobs I had to take—and he was annoyed because I kept after him to get himself, quick, into some kind of Tek rehab program.” She lowered her head, sniffling again. “He was a bright man, a good person before he got all tangled up with that stuff.”

“Get back to what Pete was so anxious to talk to me about.”

“I'm coming to that,” she said. “I want you to understand that I don't know as much as I should because we didn't see each other as often these past few weeks.”

“Okay, go on.”

“What I do know is that Peter was very upset about something that was going on at Gunsmiths, Ltd. He was working for them, you know.”

“Yeah. Were weapons being stolen from there?”

“Did he tell you that tonight?”

“He didn't tell me a damn thing. He was dead and done for long before I got home.”

“Maybe he told your son?”

“No, that was just a guess, Janine. Based on what you've been telling me.”

“All right, I think he was worried about some sort of particularly dangerous weapon,” she said, leaning an elbow on the rail and watching the surf glide in across the dark sand. “He hinted, without coming out directly, that a dangerous weapon was being smuggled out of Gunsmiths. Probably from their San Andreas Arsenal warehouse.”

“What's kept there?”

“From what my brother told me, that's where they stockpile stuff. And where they're supposed to mothball supplies of weapons that have been outlawed or put on hold because of UN rulings and such.”

“He give you any specifics?” Jake took hold of her thin arm and guided her back toward the chair.

Shaking her head, she sat again. “All I know is that he was very scared,” she said. “He suspected someone in the company—an important someone—was letting something important be taken out of the warehouse.”

“You know anybody named Denton or Dennis?”

She patted the gun in her pocket again. “That might be Dennis Barragray,” she answered. “He's one of the vice presidents at Gunsmiths, and a good friend of my brother's. Where'd you hear about him?”

Straddling the neowood chair, Jake asked her, “What about Wes Flanders?”

“I never heard of him. Is he somebody who worked at Gunsmiths, Ltd., with Peter?”

“Nope.”

“Can we get back, then, to why I came to see you, Cardigan?” She folded her thin hands together. “Will you, please, take the case? It's important, not just to me, to find out who did this to my brother—and exactly why.”

Jake said, “I work for the Cosmos agency, not myself, Janine. Walt Bascom isn't noted for sentimentality or generosity. If you want to hit Amy St. Mars on your own and persuade her to finance this—that's fine. Otherwise, this is all we have to talk about.”

“That's a shitty attitude.” Janine stood up, thrust her hands deep into her jacket pockets. “Don't you give a damn what happened to him?”

“I'm sorry he's dead,” he replied. “But I never do charity work. On top of which, it's one hell of a long time since I risked my ass for a cause.”

“But I thought you believed in what you did.”

“I'm a professional. I don't need faith.” He nodded toward the night beach. “Where'd you park your skycar?”

“I took a skycab.”

“I'll take you home.”

“Don't strain your generosity.”

“You want a lift or don't you?”

“Okay, all right. I'll accept the offer.” She moved, slowly, across the deck. Turning, she looked, forlornly, back toward him. “I'm awfully disappointed.”

“Happens a lot when you're young.”

5

T
HE MORNING WAS
clear, pale blue and chilly. Jake was on the homeward lap of his daily run along the Malibu Sector beach. Out on the deck of an ivory white beach house two goldplated robots were setting out a large breakfast table and four chairs. One of the bots waved to Jake.

“Morning, Ralph,” called Jake, returning the wave.

“Got time for a cup of nearcaf?” inquired the glittering mechanism.

“Not today.”

Farther along Jake encountered a plump silver-haired young woman in a scarlet beach robe. She was squatting at the edge of the sea. “Darn, heck,” she muttered as she poked a pudgy finger into the wet sand, probing for something.

“Problem, Jane?” Jake slowed and halted.

“Yeah, darn it,” she answered, not looking up. “I lost my mood patch again.”

“Shouldn't go swimming with that still on your arm.” He crouched beside her.

“I wasn't swimming. Just doing my exercises.” Jane kept on searching. “If I don't find the darn thing—it's my last one until I can get the prescription refilled—I'm going to swing from manic to depressed all day. I'll probably punch my halfwit boss at the Ponics Farmers' Market and then—”

“Here it is.” Jake spotted the tiny silvery circle near his right foot. He picked it up carefully, blew off the sand and returned it to the anxious young woman.

“Great, thanks.” Chuckling, she stood, rolled up her sleeve and slapped the mood-controlling disc in place on her upper arm. “By the way, who was that who got slaughtered in front of your digs last night, Jake?”

“Somebody I used to know.”

“What in the devil killed the poor doof?”

Jake said, “Soon as the police tell me, I'll let you know.” He resumed running.

Dan, dressed in his SoCal Police Academy uniform, was sitting out on the deck with a glass of citrisub in his hand. Molly Fine, also in uniform, was occupying the slingchair that the dead man's sister had used last night. Molly was slim and dark, a year older than Jake's son.

“Good morning, Jake. It's impressive how you can run such a distance and not get all red in the face the way my Uncle Stan does after about fifty feet.” She stood up, smiling at him. “I'm collecting your wayward son and giving him free transport to school this morning.”

“I noticed your skycar parked there next to mine, Molly, and figured as much.”

“See?” said Dan, setting his glass on the deck beside his chair. “I told you Dad was still an ace detective despite his advanced age. Give him just a little clue like a lemon yellow skycar and he—”

“Respect for your elders is something they ought to be teaching at the academy.” Jake leaned an elbow on the rail.

Molly said, “Now—about the Gunsmiths outfit.”

He glanced over at his son. “Been telling her all about—”

“I wheedled the information out of him,” the young woman explained. “I'm pretty good at interrogation. I get better grades in that area than Dan, though maybe that isn't saying much.”

“One of her uncles is—”

“Uncle Jerry,” took up Molly. “He used to do legal work for Gunsmiths. Uncle Jerry's the one with the diminished capacity for integrity.”

“Molly thinks she knows something about what's stored at the San Andreas Arsenal.”

Nodding, she asked Jake, “Ever hear of Garret Devlin?”

“Technical whiz, no moral sense to speak of, killed in a skytram crash in New Phoenix three years ago.”

“That's him, right. Devlin, according to what my disreputable attorney uncle once told me, was a specialist in creating all sorts of nasty weapons,” she said. “Weapons that were so nasty, in fact, most of them were outlawed before ever getting used in combat.”

“And that's part of what's being stored in the warehouse?”

“Yeah, along with a lot of other deadly stuff,” said Molly. “If some of Devlin's gadgets have been hijacked or smuggled out of there—well, havoc, destruction and worse may be in the offing, Jake.”

He said, “Dan probably didn't mention that I have no connection, official or otherwise, with this whole business. I'm making a serious effort to forget all about Peter Traynor, his employers and his stepsister.”

“Gomez,” observed Dan, nodding skyward.

The detective's skycar was drifting down through the brightening morning. It settled smoothly to a landing next to Molly's vehicle. Gomez, wearing a jacket the color of a tropical sunrise, emerged. “Get out of your sports togs and into your work duds,” he advised. “
Buenas dias
, Molly. You're looking even lovelier than when we last met.”

“That was only four nights ago, Gomez,” she said as he came bounding onto the deck. “At the Twentieth Century Jazz Android Orchestra concert over in the Hollywood Sector.”

The curlyhaired detective took her hand, bent and kissed it. “It must be that your charm is increasing at an alarming rate,
chiquita.
”

“Trust him,” said Dan. “He's an expert on female charm.”

“I know, I've read his dossier.” She retrieved her hand. “Five wives.”

Gomez frowned at his partner. “Have I, truly, been married five times?”

“I quit counting after three. Why am I supposed to change clothes?”

“Bascom, our beloved
jefe
, wants to see us both
muy pronto
,” he explained. “He vidphoned me to swing by and gather you up. We have a meeting with an important client in about thirty minutes or so.”

“What sort of a case?”

“You'll be pleased to hear,” answered his partner with a smile, “that we're being hired to investigate the murder of the late Peter Traynor.”