Ron Goulart - Suicide, Inc

“If you hadn’t sidetracked me with all this Gloomy Gus chitchat I’d have long since-”

“Fill me in.”

Whistler floated back a few feet farther away from him. “Before I fill you in on the excellent team we’ve put together,” he said, “I want you to make a little vow.”

“Vow?”

“That you won’t swear and yell and berate me in case…I merely say in case you notice…in case they don’t meet with your complete approval.”

“What sort of dimwitted louts have you saddled me-”

“Hear me out with a minimum of complaining and cursing, please. This is, after all, something of a rush situation and-”

“Okay, okay,” said Smith. “I won’t bitch and moan. It’s a promise. Go on.”

He was very nearly able to keep his promise.

Someone whacked on the door of Smith’s cabin, hard, several times.

He eased up out of his chair, touched the door switch. The door coughed, jiggled, slid open.

Deac Constiner stood on the threshold. “Your frapping corridor’s full of sand.”

“Two hours ago it was soapy water.”

The Trinidad Law Bureau agent’s frown deepened. “I was a little harsh with you in the saloon,” he said. “Implied you were a bigger halfwit than you probably are.”

“Come on in,” invited Smith. “An apology from you is an event.”

Shaking yellow sand off his neohyde boots, the small lawman entered. “What’d you do with the damn bug I had planted in here?”

While they both glanced down at the small circular hole in the carpeting, Smith replied, “Got rid of it.”

“Do you realize those things cost five hundred trubux apiece?”

“When we get to Zegundo, I’ll show you a place you can buy them for two hundred.”

Constiner sat, uninvited, on the edge of the bunk. “Did you find any other bugs in here?”

“Should I have?”

“Let’s put our cards on the table,” said Constiner. “We’re both interested in the same case. See? I’m being frank with you.”

“After you realized I was on to you.”

The lawman said, “You used to be a pretty fair operative. At least you weren’t as much of a stumblebum as most of the lunks in the Territorial cops. I know you went blooey over a dame, but hell, that can happen to any of us.”

“Not to you.”

“I’m an exception,” admitted Constiner.

“What exactly,” inquired Smith, settling into a chair, “is this case we’re both working on?”

Constiner gave a dry chuckle. “You tell me, Smith.”

“I’m looking for some people.”

“Me, too.”

“Why?”

“Same reason you are.”

“To get them,” asked Smith, “to attend the Horizon Kids’ reunion?”

New lines joined the large selection on Constiner’s leathery forehead. “Is that really what you think you’re doing?”

“It is what I’m doing.”

“Here I just get through telling you that maybe you’re not a dimwit and you act like a dimwit,” the TLB man complained. “Use your damn noggin. Who ran Horizon House?”

“Westerland.”

“And what was he the head of? The freewheeling government research agency known as the Miracle Office.”

“Then all this maybe has something to do with an invention of his?”

Constiner folded his hands over his knee. “What do you think?”

“Is Westerland really dead?”

“Sure, he’s dead. You know that as well as…hold it. Do you have information to the contrary?”

Smith grinned. “Nope.”

“They never found his body after that nukeboat explosion,” said Constiner.

Smith asked, “Who else is interested in this?”

“Could be most anybody.”

“Can you narrow that some?”

“No.

“Who tried to poison you?”

“Could be most anybody.”

Smith nodded. “I appreciate your taking me into your confidence this way, Deac,” he said. “I learn all sorts of stuff.”

Leaving the bunk, Constiner said, “We’ll be arriving on Zegundo in a few minutes. No doubt I’ll be running into you again.”

“No doubt,” agreed Smith.

Smith didn’t feel as though he’d come home. Walking along the stretch of orange beach that fronted the cottage the Whistler Agency had rented for him, he didn’t feel this was a homecoming. He was back on the planet Zegundo, back in Selva Territory, yet he didn’t feel much of anything.

“Correction,” he said aloud, looking out across the clear blue of the sea.

When he thought about Jennifer Westerland and the fact that she was probably in the territory’s capital city right now, not more than forty miles from him, he did feel as…hell, that had nothing to do with the business at hand.

Far out in the hazy morning a scatter of bright yellow birds were gliding low over the quiet water.

“And her name’s Jennifer Arloff now,” he reminded himself. “Has been for-”

An incredible grating noise started up behind him.

Spinning, drawing the stungun he wore openly in his belt holster, Smith found himself facing the childsized servobot who came with the cottage. “The music, Bosco.” Smith let his gun slide back to rest.

“How’s that, tuan?” The silvery little robot cupped his metal hand to his plaz-trimmed earhole.

Smith reached out, tapped the portable radiobox that was magnetically attached to the mechanism’s tank-shaped torso and was blaring out some kind of godawful sound that might just be music. “Turn it off.”

“Ah, forgive me, bwana.” Bosco bowed, took a back-step, clicked off the radio. “It is merely that I’ve been designed to be not only efficient, loyal and trustworthy but also hep.”

“Hep?”

“I dig the jive, sahib,” amplified Bosco. “I’m a killerdiller.”

Something occurred to Smith. “Could that caterwauling have been a group called the Sophisticates?”

“You’re pretty hep yourself, gate. It was indeed, the solid goods,” replied Bosco. “Their latest hit platter, entitled He’s A Boogie Woogie Lycanthrope From-”

“Tell me the true purpose of your visit.”

“Ah, enough pop culture chitchat, yes. You are perfectly right to remind me of my mission, marse,” said the pintsized robot. “We’re being encroached on, I fear.”

“Explain,” requested Smith, gazing up at the glaz, plaz and neowood beach cottage a hundred yards away.

“A large, one might almost dub it flashy, landcar has rolled up in front of our domicile, sire,” he said. “Two relatively unsavory gentlemen are disembarking and before I give them the customary bum’s rush, I thought I’d best consult with you as to-”

“One is a big dark guy with a sleazy moustache, looks like he’s suffering from terminal horniness?” asked Smith. “The other’s a diminutive green gent you wouldn’t trust even with your everyday silverware?”

Bosco’s little metal hands made a bonging sound when he clapped them together in appreciation. “You are most astute and hep, tuan,” he exclaimed. “For you have deduced exactly what these two squatters look like without even-”

“I’m afraid,” cut in Smith as he started for the cottage, “they’re the guests I’ve been expecting.”

“Ah, sad,” said Bosco. “That’s a pisser, bwana.”

The morning sunlight came slanting into the parlor and caused Cruz’ right arm to glisten. It was an impressive arm, made of stainless impervium and packed with gadgets and weaponry. With his real left hand the large dark man was stroking his handsome black moustache and watching Smith from his wicker sling-chair. “Does self-pity come under new business or old?” Cruz inquired.