Ron Goulart - Suicide, Inc

Smith was slouched alone on the tin sofa. “Do I look that glum?”

“We’re none of us,” put in the green-complected Jack Saint, “in tophole form, old boy, or we wouldn’t be employed by the Whistler blokes.”

“You’re running this operation and I get the impression you might want a somewhat less disreputable crew,” Cruz said to Smith. “If so, air your feelings. Next Saint and I can do some wailing, complaining about harsh fate and the like, and then we’ll get down to business.”

Smith grinned. “When I first heard who the Whistler folks had stuck me with,” he admitted, “I was nonplussed. No, make that ticked off. But then…well, I read over your dossiers a few more times and-”

“One hopes they’re not still using that beastly photograph of me taken when I wore my hair parted in the middle.” Saint bounced once in his glazbottom rocker.

“They are,” said Smith. “Anyway, I decided that both of you are well qualified for this job. Cruz, you know the wilds of this planet, and you’re a first-rate tracker and guide. You do tend to-”

“I get distracted,” admitted Cruz. “Pretty ladies are as lodestones, deflecting me from the path to true virtue.” He shrugged. “I’m going to make a supreme effort to reform, at least for the duration of this excursion.”

“Saint, you’re an excellent telek.”

“I’m a corker,” he acknowledged, rubbing his green palms together.

Smith opened the pale blue folder that rested on the plaz coffee table in front of him. “Myself, I haven’t been in such terrific shape for the past year or so,” he said. “I’d like to assure you that I’ve reformed, but I can’t guarantee it. We’ll all just have to put up with each other and hope for the best.”

Cruz tugged at the tip of his moustache with his metal fingers. “Once I courted and wooed a substantially structured lady whose husband was vice president of a banking satellite orbiting Murdstone’s second moon,” he said, glancing over at the oval stained glass window nearest him. “She thought that openly talking about money was just about the filthiest thing you could do. Often were the times I excited her by whispering, ‘One thousand trubux down,’ and ‘Seventy five trubux an hour,’ in her pudgy pink ear. The point of this amorous recollection is that I have never shared that view. Whistler offered me ten thousand trubux for this, half in front. How about you gents?”

“The same, old man.”

“I’m getting twenty thousand,” Smith told them. “Since you’re the boss,” decided Cruz, “that’s okay.”

Resting an elbow on the rocker arm, Saint leaned toward him. “I acquired an impressive ruby necklace from a plumpish banker’s wife on Murdstone some three years since,” he confided. “Might it be, do you think, the same lady?”

“This lady’s name was-”

“Let’s commence,” cut in Smith, picking up a sheet of faxpape from the open folder. “The agency’s already given you a general idea of what we’re supposed to accomplish.”

“Find a bunch of strayed tots,” said Saint. “Sounds deuced simple, I must say.”

“What they may not’ve told you is that at least one of our client’s own security people has been killed while working on this simple task.”

Saint sat up, his rocker wiggling. “One doesn’t expect class reunions to be fraught with such violence.”

“This is more than a reunion,” said Smith. “Now, maybe the Whistler Agency doesn’t know much more than they told us, and maybe they do. What I know is that the Trinidad Law Bureau, which is the interplanetary police force for all three of the planets in this system, has a man working on this same job.”

Cruz asked, “Who?”

“Deac Constiner.”

“Heartless bloke,” murmured Saint.

“He’s good, though,” said Cruz. “TLB doesn’t stick ops like him on a simple job.”

“There’s also somebody else interested in me, in Constiner and probably in the missing Horizon Kids,” said Smith. He filled them in on what had happened aboard the spaceliner.

“We ought to ask for extra hazard pay,” suggested Cruz, when he’d finished.

“There’ll be a bonus if we bring this off.”

Saint said, “Why is everyone so dashed interested in these particular kiddies?”

“Horizon House was the home of Doctor Noah Westerland,” answered Smith. “He ran a research facility for the triplanet government. Most people called it the Miracle Office.”

“Ah, good old MO,” said Saint, scratching at his curly red hair. “They’re the jolly chaps who invented the dustgun, the braintap machine, Kilgas #3 and sundry other droll weapons and knickknacks.”

“Doctor Westerland is deceased,” said Cruz. “But it’s possible these missing Horizon House alums are privy to one of his dark secrets, huh?”

“That’s sure as hell the impression I get from Constiner.”

Cruz sucked in his cheek. “Therefore, comrades, our mission becomes a shade more challenging,” he said. “We have to find the lost HH gang and we ought to learn why they’re really wanted.”

“I’d like to begin this way,” said Smith. “Saint, with your telek abilities and your knack for ingratiating yourself into people’s confidence-”

“It’s plain and simple charm, old man, not a knack,” corrected the compact green man. “Can’t help it, don’t you know, I am just naturally appealing to one and all.”

“Use your charm to get a look at the Triplan, Ltd. files relating to this business,” Smith told him. “They’re our clients and I’m assuming they must know the real reason for this hunt.”

“Headquarters near here, I do believe, in the territorial capital?”

“Yep.” Smith turned to Cruz. “I’ve got a list of the five missing people. I knew them all, so-”

“That’s right, you’re also a grad of that establishment.”

“I am, yeah. Point is, I’ve gone over the field reports of the Triplan security people.” He picked up a sheaf of yellow faxpape. “In at least one case I think they missed following up a lead, simply because they didn’t know as much as I do about these five. Cruz and I will start tracking while Saint-”

“Begging your pardon, gate.” Bosco came toddling into the bright parlor. “I hate to crash your jam session, cats, yet there is an important call on the pixphone for the sahib.”

Smith asked, “Who?”

“From Triplan, Ltd., tuan,” explained the little servobot. “The lady must speak with you at once.”

“Lady?”

“Her name is Jennifer Arloff and she mentioned that she is an old friend of yours.”

She held out her hand, smiling quietly. “I lied to your robot,” Jennifer said. “I wasn’t calling from Triplan. And I lied to you, too, Jared. This isn’t an official client and agency meeting.”

Smith shook her hand. “Maybe it isn’t a good idea to-”

“But this is about the case. Can we walk for a while?”

He’d come to one of the marinas in the capital to meet her, a long curving stretch of low glaz and neowood buildings along the edge of the sea. There was a restaurant nearby where they had met fairly often. A long time ago.

“We can walk,” he said.

A faint midday breeze was drifting in across the bright ocean.

“You look,” she said, “fit and well.”

“You look sad.”

“Imagination.”

“Probably.”

“You’re all right, happy and all?”

“Laughing from dawn to dusk.”

“There are still times when I miss you, Jared.”

“Not too many.”

She said, “If you meet my husband, don’t mention I called you or talked to you like this.”

“Whistler operatives are discreet.”