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the small panel that covered the alarm system controls. In a little
less than six minutes he had shut down the whole setup that protected
the villa where Sheldon Gates was hiding out.
Pocketing the kit, Gomez eased through the simulated hedge and
approached the blank yellow wall of the villa.
As he'd anticipated, the opaque plastiglass door marked see,-vice Eq'rR
didn't make any warning noises when he jobbed the lock mechanism.
Slowly and carefully he shoved the door open. The air circ system was
pumping a mixture strongly tinged with the scent of wild flowers into
the long blank corridor that Gomez stepped into.
He stopped still, stood listening.
"... an International Drug Control Agency spokesman re ports a
successful raid on a Tek chip processing plant in the Tri State complex
earlier today .. ." A deep, slick voice was intoning the news in a
nearby room.
Going by the floor plan he'd memorized, the newscast was coming from
the lower recroom.
And it seemed likely that the fugitive Shel was in there now, filling
himself in on the events of the day.
Gomez remained where he was, bringing his stun gun out into the open
once again.
"... the President today signed into law the final Brazil War veterans
benefits package..."
Nodding, the detective started along the hallway.
He walked silently to the door of the lower recroom. Reaching out with
his free hand, he took hold of the handle.
He shoved the panel open and ducked across the threshold, gun ready.
"Greetings from the folks back home, Shel," he said, pointing his stun
gun at the blond, sun brown fugitive.
Sheldon Gates had been sprawled in an armchair, watching the vidwall.
He was some five feet from the detective.
"Yowl" he exclaimed. Then, somewhat to Gomez's surprise, Gates leaped
from his chair, came charging straight at him and butted him hard in
the stomach with his closecropped head.
^ C[LL OF wind was blowing in across the dark Pacific. The real wood
sign dangling from the slanting shingle roof of the Oceanfront People's
Clinic was rattling and creaking.
On the cracked sidewalk near the doorway a neon-trimmed robot was
hawking soy dogs and lentil burgers "You are what you eat," he
croaked, his body flashing crimson, golden, then sea blue.
Skirting him, Dan and Molly entered the clinic.
In the reception room a motherly robot in a flowered apron was sitting
in a rocker, embroidering a hand towel. "My gracious, you two lambs
are all splattered with blood." The robot jumped to her feet.
"Whatever on earth has--"
"It's not our blood," explained Dan. "A friend of ours was beaten
up."
"We just came from dropping him at the Emergency Wing,"
added Molly.
"I think maybe Dr. Moreno can help us," said Dan.
"Well, now, I just bet he can. You poor things wait right here while I
fetch the--"
"What's the row about, Moms?" Dr. Harry Moreno came lumbering into
the room, a mug of steaming herb tea clutched in his hand.
"Dr. Moreno?" said Dan, stepping toward him. "I'm Dan
Cardigan and this is Molly Fine. My father is Jake Cardigan and he's
an operative with the Cosmos Detective--"
"Yeah, I've heard of him. Matter of fact, I was chatting with his
partner, Sid Gomez, only--"
"I know. My dad told me quite a lot about this case they're working
on."
"Does this mess you seem to be in have something to do with
Alicia Bower, too?"
"We think so," answered Molly. "And maybe with Jimalla
Keefer."
"Jim? How does she--"
"Here's what's been going on," said Dan and told the bearded therapist
why he and Molly had come to the Venice Sector and some of what had
happened to Norm Porter.
Molly added, "Norm told us that those goons wanted to know where they
could find Jimalla. And they didn't want him or anybody else to talk
to her before they found her."
"Damn, sounds like Jim's in trouble again." Moreno scratched at his
grey-tinged beard.
"I was hoping, since you know her pretty well, that you might have some
idea where Jimalla'd be likely to hide out,"
said Dan hopefully. "It's important to find her before those guys
do."
Nodding, Moreno set the mug down on the recePtion desk. "I know a
couple of places we can look," he told them.
"YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE bopped me so hard," complained Gates, who was back
sprawled in his chair and rubbing at the side of his head. "I was
simply manifesting what's known as the Trapped Rat Syndrome. That
involves unreasoning panic and an irrational attempt at flight even
though the odds are--"
"What say we get down to specifics, lest you next experience the well
known Boot in the Ass Syndrome?" Gomez, stun gun in hand, was perched
on the arm of the bright orange plastiglass sofa.
Gates rubbed at his head again, wincing. "The brain, you know, is a
delicate--"
"I'm deeply interested in your brain," the detective assured him.
"Especially in what it can recall about the events leading up to your
rather hasty departure from Greater LA." "I didn't kill Ford Jaspers."
"Oh, so?"
Shifting in his chair, Gates said, "You're looking at me as though you
don't accept my innocence, Sid. That's because, unfortunately, I tend
to give off an aura of culpability even when I'm perfectly--"
"So who did knock off the old ham?"
Gates glanced up at the ceiling. "Despite my career, I have a very
difficult time snitching on others," he confided. "It goes back, I
believe, to an incident in my childhood when my dear mom, through no
fault of her own--"
"Who did it, Shel?"
"Well," said Gates quietly, "it was Myra Ettinger."
"The acting CEO of Mechanix International--how did that come about?"
Gates took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds. Sighing out
air, he said, "Let me backtrack a bit so that--"
"Not all the way to your childhood again, por favor."
"No, this is about why I joined Dr. Moreno's therapy group,"
he explained. "You know, it's sad that I didn't get into something
like that long ago. I got some real insights into my own tangled--"
"Somebody hired you to sit in, didn't they?"
"Right, yes. That was Myra. She knew.." well, it shames me some to
admit this, Sid, but I have a reputation as an undercover operative
and--"
"A spy and a sneak."
"A harsh term, yet apt. Anyway, Myra approached me and arranged for me
to get into the same sessions that Alicia Bower was attending."
"And why was that?"
"They wanted to know what was troubling her, what she was talking about
in front of the others." He rubbed at his head yet again. "They were
afraid she was going to remember something."
"Who's they?"
"Well, it's Myra for certain and a fellow I saw a couple times named
Bernard Zangerly. I'm not sure, but I firmly believe it's also her [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
