Ron Goulart - Suicide, Inc

“Place is supposed to be fortified, according to Rocky Jordan.”

“Well, okay.” Shrugging one shoulder, Cruz went back to the driveseat. “Good luck.”

Nodding once, Smith dropped down to the broken ground beneath the newsvan.

Smith raised a swirl of dust when he hit. Since he only had about three feet of clearance under the van, he had to belly along over the rubble.

When he reached the nose of the vehicle, he took a cautious look out from under.

Some three hundred yards to the left two dozen commandos were strung out, firing at the Oasis casino. Their kilrifles sizzled and crackled in the desert air.

Part of the front wall of the plaz and glaz casino suddenly came exploding out. Besides thousands of glittering shards, hundreds of playing cards fluttered and scattered across the rutted courtyard.

Smith turned his attention on his destination. The trapdoor entrance he wanted was just on the other side of the rear wall of what had been the cocktail lounge’s storeroom. The fighting made Smith’s task easier in one sense-he wouldn’t have to break into the place. All he had to do was jump over the remainder of the wall, which was less than four feet high.

He waited, watching and listening. Then he eased out into the open and rose to a crouch. The two opposing factions, intent on wiping each other out, didn’t notice him.

Smith sprinted. He vaulted the brix wall, landing with one booted foot in a tumbled crate of shattered sparkling water flasks. He slipped and slid into a fallen servobot.

“…name your poison,” gurgled the sprawled mechanism.

Rubbing at his knee, which had bonked against the robot’s elbow, Smith edged over to the spot where the hidden door was supposed to be. The freezer that had masked it was splintered in half, its contents, fruitballs and rainbow ices, melting into a colorful slush on the floor.

“Here we are.” Spotting the handle, Smith cleared aside debris and rainbow slurp and took hold of it.

He yanked, hard, and the trapdoor came silently open. A curving ramp led down to the hidden level below.

Smith stepped onto it and descended. When he closed the door behind him, all the furor of the battle died away.

The six-armed green guard held five pistols, all aimed at Smith. With his sixth hand he was wiping at his tearful eyes with a plyochief. “Come no farther, pal,” he advised.

Recognizing the green man, Smith said, “How long’ve you been working here, Sadsack?”

Lowering his plyochief and shifting his grip on his three kilguns, one lazgun and one stungun, Sadsack Swingle eyed him. “Jared Smith…what brings you to this cesspool of iniquity?”

“Paying a call on an old school chum.”

“Fine day you picked,” said Swingle in his mournful voice. “Bands of crazed zealots clashing up above our very heads. This once proud resort complex a smoldering ruin and the pollen count the highest it’s been in weeks. You maybe don’t think there’s much pollen in the desert, but the damn winds across the-”

“Looking for Oscar Ruiz.”

“That sourpuss.” Swingle shook his head. “You know what really gets my grout is a guy who’s all the time complaining. Granted living down here is about three steps worse than residing in a sewer, but even so there’s no reason to-”

“Ruiz is still around?”

“Where could the poor sap go? They’d hunt him like a snerg if he ever fled the sanctuary of-”

“Where cant find him?”

Gesturing with the hand that held the stungun, Swingle said, “Down that corridor on the left. Geeze, they’ve got a lousy aircirc system in that one. Instead of filtering out gunk, it sucks in pollen, spores-”

“You given up your career?”

“I had to,” answered the green guard. “When you knew me during your law enforcement days I was struggling to be a successful shoplifter. You’d figure a guy with six arms’d be a natural for that line of work, but I was always the most obvious suspect. I tried to work as a blackjack dealer for Rocky Jordan for a spell, but the customers were always getting the idea I had a card up my sleeve. Basically, it’s a mean old world to-”

“I’ll drop in on Ruiz.”

“He’ll squawk. That guy can complain about company or-”

“He won’t mind seeing an old friend.” Grinning, Smith headed along the corridor with the defective aircirc system.

Smith said, “There’s not much upstairs anymore.”

Oscar Ruiz said, “So? This setup is self-contained. Two hundred people can live down here indefinitely.”

He was a middlesized humanoid of thirty, moderately overweight.

“Consider, then, this aspect of your situation.” Smith, arms folded, leaned against a yellow wall of the underground suite’s living room. “If I found you, others will.”

“Hooey,” commented Ruiz from his plaz rocker. “You’re better at this sort of thing than most, Jared. It’s one of your few real talents, hunting hapless people.”

“Guys with a hundred thousand trubux don’t qualify as hapless.”

“Listen, you think it’s fun being a fugitive? Or cheap? If I didn’t have my religious faith to sustain-”

“Oscar, it isn’t just your chagrined former bosses who’re concerned over your present whereabouts,” Smith said. “I was hired by people who are interested in you for entirely different reasons.”

“So you claim. I’ve heard, though, that you’ve been on the skids since Jenny came to her senses and ditched you.” Ruiz was ticking slowly back and forth. “For all I know, you’ve reached such a low peak in your seedy career that you’d even hire out to those bastards at the casin-”

“We weren’t especially close at Horizon House, but-”

“You were a loner, didn’t make many friends. Except for Jenny, and I was pretty sure you only played up to her so her father, Doctor Westerland, would give you extra little-”

“Oscar, I have to get you out of here quick.” Smith moved closer to him. “Before my mode of transportation gets blown up. Gather up your loot and we’ll depart.”

“No, I’m not interested in decamping. You haven’t even really explained why I should risk-”

“Okay, there’s one group that wants to get you, find out what you know and then kill you,” said Smith evenly. “The Trinidad Law Bureau wants you, too, but I’m not sure if they just mean to detain you or maybe knock you off. Myself, I was hired to bring you back to Horizon House.”

“Horizon House? Why the hell would anybody want-”

“Our client claims it’s for a reunion, but-”

“Jared, you must be goofy. You think I’d risk my neck, not to mention my hard-earned-”

“I didn’t say our client was being completely honest. The truth is you know part of an important secret.”

Ruiz blinked. “This doesn’t make any-”

“I don’t know what the secret is,” Smith told him, “and neither do you. It was planted in your sconce, by way of electrohypnosis, by Westerland. Ten Horizon Kids were used.”

Slowly Ruiz got to his feet. “What’s this client of yours willing to pay me for my part of whatever the hell this is?”

“That you’ll have to negotiate.”

“You weren’t supposed to tell me this part of it, were you, Jared? They’re going to be-”

“I’m telling you so you’ll realize how important it is to get your ass out of here.” Impatience was showing in Smith’s voice. “The other lads who want you are much less cordial than I am. When they caught up with Hal Larzon they gathered in his piece of the secret, then killed him.”

“Hal? But he and I were pretty close at Horizon House. Not big buddies, but we got along well and. he’s dead?”