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"Not much of a turnout."
"Most folks probably share your opinion of Winterguild."
For a moment the sad music swelled up. Down the aisle from the back marched
four black enameled robots. They were carrying a sealed combustible coffin.
When they halted at the front of the room, one of them opened the gilded door
of a lazfurnace built in the wall. The coffin was pushed into the furnace, the
door shut and bolted.
Thirty seconds later a see through urn filled with sooty ashes came popping
out of a slot just below the gilded door. The robot caught it, turned and
carried the urn in both metal hands. It slow-stepped along the aisle and out
of the room with the other three bots following behind.
The androids began to cry.
After approximately sixty seconds of that, they rose up one at a time
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and, still sniPing, filed out.
The blond drug agent left next, giving Jake a very brief nod on his way by. As
Gans passed, he slowed for a few seconds to toss a small parcel in Gomez's
lap. Then he was gone.
"Oof," remarked Gomez. "Hit me square in the crotch."
"What the hell is it?"
"Something, so Bascom informed me, that we're supposed to take back to the
agency and take a look at." Grimacing, he got to his feet.
Jake followed his partner. "So Gans is our client?"
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"Apparently so, amigo."
"Couldn't he simply have delivered this package to us at Cosmos?"
"Sure, probably," admitted Gomez. "But I figure getting you to attend
Winterguild's last rites made him feel good."
Jake grinned and slapped Gomez on the back. "Thanks a lot, pal,"
he said as they walked outside.
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The two men were enthusiastically making love atop the floating oval air bed
One was lean and black. His partner was a muscular bald man with a single
rosebud tattooed on his tanned scalp.
As they thrashed and moaned, the section of the peach-colored wall directly
beyond the hovering bed started to shimmer. Then,
quickly, it was glowing red.
The lovers became aware of what was happening. The black man,
crying out, leaped free of the oval bed. The other sat up, went bouncing
across the bed and reached toward the nightstand.
A doorway-size section of the wall turned to glowing dust and crumbled away.
Through the fresh opening stepped a plump woman, grey haired and plainly
dressed. "... no good bastard .. . Kurt Winterguild . doesn't deserve to
live..."
The naked man was struggling to get the table drawer open. "Get the hell out
of here, you old bitch!"
From her lumpy purse she took a silvery lazgun and fired haphazardly.
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The bald man yanked his own lazgun out of the drawer. But before he could
swing around and aim it at the wide-eyed and muttering woman, the beam of her
gun sliced off his right arm just below the elbow.
He screamed a continuous scream as blood came pumping out of the severed
stump.
The plump woman fired again.
This time the beam from the gun lopped off the top third of his skull.
Grimacing, muttering, the woman let her arm swing down to her side and dropped
the gun. "... son of a bitch .. ." she said.
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She started jerking convulsively, froth bubbled out over her slightly parted
lips. A sudden look of puzzlement and despair flashed across her weary face
before she fell to the blood-spattered floor. Someone started sobbing.
Then the picture faded from the big wallscreen. Gomez said, "Jesus."
"Yeah," agreed Jake.
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After a moment, Gomez slouched in his chair and continued, "Gans or
Winterguild must have liked to record their interludes in the sack. I
guess we're lucky we've got a visual ID on Winterguild's killer."
"Very efficient operation--they used a disintegrator on the bedroom wall,"
Jake said quietly.
His partner mused, "I'd guess the sweet old granny must have been what the
cops are calling a zombie."
"She's a zombie all right." Jake stared hard at the screen.
4 7 "."
he rain had ceased about an hour earlier. Fog was still rolling in from the
sea and the surface of the chrome plated guard robot at the gateway of Beth's
condo complex was misted over. "Evening," Mr.
Cardigan." It held out its right hand, palm up. "Evening. He placed his hand
flat out on the metal hand. The guard said, "Wellsir, you've passed the first
hurdle. You've sure got Jake Cardigan's fingerprints." A small panel in its
chest clicked open and a jointed silver probe came snaking out. The tip rose
up to take a look into
Jake's left eye and then his right. "Ret patterns match. You're really Jake
Cardigan."
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