Tek Money (6 page)

The bear, who was slightly shorter than the magician, came up closer to Gomez. “I remember you now, palsy walsy,” he said accusingly. “Sure, you've been here before and you didn't buy a single toy then either.”

“That's enough, guys. Get back on your pedestals.” A large, fat woman with bright silvery hair came lumbering in from the office of the toyshop. “Hiya, Gomez, honey. Excuse these lovable little darlings.”

“Lovable ain't one of the words, I'd apply, Corky.”

“Up your nose,” muttered the bear while climbing back onto his perch.

Corky Keepnews said, “Language, language. C'mon in, honey.” She was clad in a sinsilk slaxsuit of a floral pattern similar to the one he'd recently seen on the dead man's robe.

Her toyshop office was in the Westwood Sector, up on the seventeenth level. From her one narrow viewindow you could see part of University of SoCal Campus #26, where either a riot or a rally was in progress in the glade.

“Found out anything yet?” he asked, watching Corky sink down into an immense armchair.

“Honey, am I not one of the best sources of information in the entire state?”

“I'll award you the title
after
you tell me something.” He gingerly lifted a goldenhaired babydoll off a chair and sat.

“Watch who you're grabbing, kiddo,” warned the doll in a small, piping voice.

He dropped her on the floor. “Well, Corky?”

“This, it turns out, is a seven-hundred-and-fifty-dollar job, hon.”

“What's the extra two-fifty for?”

She turned away from him, watching the sun-bright campus far below. “What the hell are you messed up with this time, sweetie?”

“You tell me. That's what this outrageous fee is for.”

“After you phoned me to tell me that poor Lorenzo had shuffled off,” began the silverhaired informant, “I commenced making some discreet inquiries for you. And it's a damn good thing I am so discreet. Otherwise, I'd be on somebody's shitlist myself.”

“This buildup is very exciting,
bonita
, yet singularly uninformative.”

“Putz,” muttered the sprawled babydoll.

Gomez rested the sole of his boot on the back of the doll. “Continue, Corky.”

“Okay, I wasn't able to find out who hired Lorenzo—rest his soul—to slip your boy Traynor that sizzler,” the fat woman told him. “However, I did find out more than enough to scare the puckey out of me.”

Gomez made an impatient noise.

Corky went on. “I do have a pretty good notion who hired the heavies to get rid of Lorenzo. The guys who did the job are local, honey, but the fee, a hefty one, came from Europe.”

“
Caramba.
” Gomez nodded. “That's an unexpected angle. Can you pin it down any, Cork? Europe, last time I dropped in, was a
big
place.”

She looked away from him. “Spain,” she said quietly.

“Ah, I see why you're uneasy.” He narrowed his left eye, watching her. “We're talking about the Zabicas Cartel, aren't we, Corky?”

“You said it, I didn't.”

“All right, so what's Carlos Zabicas's interest, way over there in Madrid, in a local like Peter Traynor?”

“Nobody's saying a damn thing about your pal Traynor,” said Corky, shifting uneasily in her big chair. “All I know is, the Spanish were the ones who hired Lorenzo done in. Could be, Gomez honey, it doesn't have anything to do with this Traynor.”

“You rarely encounter coincidences in this dodge, Cork,” he pointed out. “Lorenzo apparently slips Traynor a lethal dose of Tek. The very next day he's dispatched to glory, too. Naw, whoever had him bumped off, also is behind the Traynor knock-off. And that person is, for reasons yet to be determined, none other than Carlos Zabicas.”

“I'm thinking of taking a little vacation jaunt up to NorCal, honey,” she informed him. “Can I have my seven-fifty right now on the spot?”

“There'll be an equal amount if you get me more on what Zabicas is up to.”

She shook her head. “Nope, no,” she said, continuing to shake her head. “There are some mean and nasty Teklords in these parts, Gomez, but compared to Zabicas they're as sweet as that goldenhaired babydoll under your foot. No, I am not going to risk having him hear about me.”

Gomez said, “One thousand dollars.”

“I can't, hon, just can't. I'll be vacationing for at least the next two weeks.”

Gomez accidentally stepped down on the doll when he got up. “
Bueno
, Corky,” he said. “For now—”

“Watch where you park the gunboats,” complained the doll.

“Sorry,
chiquita.
” He fished $750 in Banx chits out of an inside jacket pocket. “Contact me if you have a change of mind.”

She grabbed the money. “That won't happen,” she assured him.

10

F
ROM OUT OF
the voxbox on the skycar dash came Gomez's voice. “Hey,
amigo
,” he said, “I know that vehicle of yours isn't flying around up there all by itself. Answer me,
por favor.
”

Jake tapped the
talk
key. “Okay, invade my privacy.”

On the phonescreen Gomez raised an eyebrow. “Why are you sulking?”

“I'll explain later, Sid. Found out anything?”

Nodding, Gomez answered, “The order to wipe out Peter Traynor originated over in sunny Spain.”

“From somewhere in Madrid or environs?”

“Exactly. Oh, and they knocked off Lorenzo Printz early this morning over in the sunny Venice Sector,” added his partner. “He was the
hombre
who provided the rigged Tek chip.”

Jake's skycar began to drop down for a landing at the parking area on the outskirts of the Palm Springs Sector. It was midday now, hot and bright.

Jake asked, “Why would the Zabicas Cartel care about Pete?”

“When I put that very question to my source of information, she started packing her bags and implied she didn't want to pursue that particular line of inquiry any further.”

“Can this be as simple as illicit weapons being smuggled from Gunsmiths to Zabicas?”

“My feeling,
amigo
, is that it's a lot more complicated than that,” said Gomez. “But Carlos Zabicas and his henchmen are tangled up in something nasty that probably has to do with an engine of destruction like this fabled Devlin Gun.”

“We'll have to find out a hell of a lot more about that gun, too.”

“I intend to inquire about it when I call on Señor Barragray out at the Gunsmiths offices this afternoon.”

The skycar glided groundward, settled to a landing in an empty slot in the parking area, rocking very slightly. “Looks like I'm in the Palm Springs Sector, Sid,” said Jake. “I've got an appointment with Dillinger. You have anything else to pass along?”

“
Nada
right now,” said Sid. “You don't want to share the cause of your gloom with me?”

“Later maybe.”

“Okay, keep in touch,” said Gomez. “Oh, and Lieutenant Drexler sends his warmest personal regards.
Adiós.
”

Dillinger lived in an old orange trailer on the edge of town. The patch of sandy, weedy ground immediately in front of his place was cluttered with ugly, prickly cactus stuck in squat, gaudy ceramic pots and stunted little elves and gnomes made of earth-colored clay. Dillinger himself, an android, was sitting out in a faded canvas chair just to the left of the doorway. He was thin, looked like a thirty five year old. He had a thin, snide smile, a seedy old-fashioned straw hat tilted at a cocky angle on his head and yellow hightop shoes. His suit was a dusty white and it glowed in the hot desert sunlight. He was drinking beer out of a chilled old-fashioned brown glass bottle.

“Hi, chump,” he greeted Jake as he approached the run-down trailer.

“You can actually guzzle that stuff, huh?”

“You bet, pal. I'm an electronics marvel. I can even piss.” He smiled thinly. “So what can I do you for?”

“Someone who can build an andy as good as you, ought to be building something better than—”

“No preaching on the premises, jocko. Besides, hey, it ain't none of your beeswax.” He took another swig of cold beer, smiled his smug smile up at his visitor. “What's your pleasure, chum?”

“Unfortunately, Dillinger, you're the best man in this particular trade or otherwise I'd—”

“Not
man
, jerk. Don't go anthropomorphizing me, pliz.”

“Okay, I want to trace some transactions.”

“That'll be five hundred smackers in front, sheik.” He held out his dirty left hand, palm up.

“Afterwards.”

“Nuts to you.”

Jake dug out $250 in Banx chits. “Half now.”

“Three hundred dollars.”

“Two-fifty tops or I go to your nearest rival.”

“Geeze, what a tightwad you are.” Dillinger sighed out a beery breath. “And, hey, I know the size of the fees those lamebrain clients fork over to your detective agency.”

Jake dropped the money on the android's hand. “There's a guy named Wes Flanders who—”

“
Was
a guy, past tense. Flanders, so I hear, has been pushing up daisies for some weeks now, pal.”

“You knew him?”

Dillinger smiled. “I have an interest in the financial world, chum. I keep up with the vital statistics.”

“You have any idea what he was up to?”

“He was up to no good.” Dillinger laughed, winking up at Jake. “Wait out here while I pop into the villa and grab a lapper.”

Jake watched a grey lizard, who was perched atop an elf, bask in the hot sun.

Dillinger returned swinging a greasy old-fashioned laptop computer. “This is an authentic antique—except for the snazzy modifications I built into her.”

“You didn't do the work.”

“Well, my creator, then,” admitted the android. He settled into the faded canvas chair and spread the computer across his knees. “We have what the doubledomes refer to as a symbiotic relationship, however. So it's okay, get me, for me to take credit.”

“I'd be interested in meeting the other half of your team.”

Dillinger laughed a dry, nasty laugh. “Sure, next time it snows down in Hell, I'll give you a jingle, pal.”

“Let's get back to Flanders.” Jake dragged an old tin oil drum away from the side of the trailer and sat on it, watching the android.

“I got to nosing around in his affairs a few weeks back, when I heard he'd been bumped off,” explained Dillinger, running his fingers over the keypad. “Let's return to him once again. Okay, are you paying attention? Flanders, who was a minor league player when it came to tracking financial data, was trying to trace some kale that came from Spain to Portugal to the Barbados to Manhattan and ended up here in good old SoCal.”

“How much money are we talking about?”

“Twenty five million dollars.”

“An impressive sum.”

“Drop in the bucket to most of the ginks involved, but interesting nevertheless.”

“Where'd it start—in Madrid?”

“That's what Flanders thought—but that's because he didn't get a chance to trace it any further back before they gunned him down in the street,” said the android, chuckling. “Plus which, he was sort of a dope and maybe he never would've tumbled onto the truth. But they didn't take any chances.”

“Okay, so where did the money originate?”

“We'll get to that in a minute, pal. First, though, let me explain where it ended up.”

“Somewhere in the vicinity of a Gunsmiths exec.”

“Not exactly,” said Dillinger with a thin smile. “I traced the sly investigations that Wes Flanders thought he was making—and, believe you me, the guy left a trail a mile wide—and he had the same hunch as you about this dough. Actually, though, pal, the whole wad ended up in the Gunsmiths, Ltd., Employees Scholarship Fund.”

“Twenty five million is a big sum to hide in a scholarship fund. You sure, Dillinger?”

Reaching up with his dingy left hand, the android tilted his old straw hat to an even jauntier angle. “You know, don't you, how come I can ferret out the sort of financial dope that I do, Cardigan? It's because I got access to a lot of good cheat codes. The little formulas that the smart boys who design these so-called foolproof systems build in so they can sneak a gander whenever they feel like it. Don't ask me how I come by this stuff, because that's, like the feller says, a trade secret.” He rested his fingers on the keypad. “I can get anything that Banx knows and I can sneak into about eighty percent of all the other financial facilities in the entire—”

“Impressive, but I'm already a loyal customer, Dillinger,” Jake reminded him. “No need to sell me.”

“I enjoy bragging, though, it's part of my nature,” said the android. “The point of the narrative is, pal, that when I tell you the kale was dumped in that scholarship fund account, you can take it as gospel.”

“And who can draw on that particular account?”

“Three gents—Cullen Brozlin, the prez of Gunsmiths, Dennis Barragray, the veep, and Vincent Temmerson, the treasurer of the Technical Employees Union.”

“And nobody else can touch the money?”

Dillinger shrugged. “Not directly, but who can say who one of those three is likely to pass it on to.”

“All three of them don't have to be in on a withdrawal?”

“Naw, any one of them can take out whatever he wants.”

“Is the twenty five million still there?”

“Was the last time I looked.”

Jake said, “All right, Dillinger, now let's get back to the other end. You implied that the money didn't originate with the Zabicas Cartel over in Madrid?”

Dillinger had been working on the keys as Jake talked. He glanced up now, frowning. “What do you know?”