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hip joints, to roll the unconscious intruder onto a wheeled
stretcher.
As soon as the body hit, the stretcher went rolling across the living
room and into the hallway.
Detective Busino came walking in right after the bald man left.
"That's the way it goes sometimes, one damn thing after another." He
glanced over at Gomez, who was slumped in a tin wing chair "Hi, Sid.
I met you a couple times out in Greater LA when you were still a
cop."
"Encounters, Buzz, that have remained fondly etched in my cabeza."
Tapping his temple, he came stretching up out of the chair. "I'm with
Cosmos now."
"Yeah, I know."
"Yonder is my partner, Jake Cardigan."
Busino studied Jake for a few seconds. "I heard, yeah, that you were
out of prison."
"With all charges dropped," reminded Gomez.
"Sure, but they can't give you back the four years you were on ice in
the Freezer. Life isn't usually fair." The policeman moved closer to
Jake. "Any idea, Cardigan, what's going on?"
"Too soon to tell."
"What brings you to Manhattan?"
"We're looking into Mrs. Bascom's death." "Not an accident, you
think?" "Too soon to tell."
"I'll be sure to look you up when you finally do have some thing to
tell," promised the officer. "Mr. Bascom, can you add anything?"
"They broke in. I don't know why." Richard was seated stiffly in an
armchair, still wearing his outer coat
Busino crossed to a window. "Always a lot of people coming and going,"
he observed. "Well, life goes on."
Gomez asked him, "You know either of those louts who busted in?"
"The big one is Chaz Quinlan."
"Let me guess--he's a freelance." Gomez brushed at his curly
moustache. "He'll work for just about anybody and he has a lousy
memory."
"That's Chaz," agreed Detective Busino. "The other one is Roy Scarbo.
Nastier than Chaz and somewhat smarter. He usually does odd jobs for
various Teklords in the Tristate area, but he, too, will work for just
about anybody who can meet his price."
"It's not likely," observed Jake, "that either one is going to tell us
much."
"Nope, they'll end up telling us just about nothing at all." Busino
turned to face Richard. "What did they want?"
He shook his head. "They broke in and the bald one--Scarbo? Scarbo
pointed a gun at me," he said. "Then Cardigan was here and it was
over." He rubbed his hands, slowly, together. "Do you think this has
anything to do with my wife's death?"
Busino's smile was small and brief. "I wouldn't," he said, "be at all
surprised."
Gomz, ON mS knees in a corner of Eve Bascom's bedroom, was saying,
"It's a knack you ought to cultivate, Richard."
"I haven't had much practice." He was sitting, arms hanging at his
sides, on his wife's neatly made bed.
"You'll find that being able to lie effectively to the minions of the
law is an art that will serve you well throughout life." The detective
was running a small handheld sniffer along the floor beside the bed.
"No sign of any vidcaz hidden in this part of the room either."
"So you're suggesting that Detective Busino may suspect I
wasn't telling him everything I know?"
"Even Little Red Riding Hood would've seen through you."
"You think he suspects I know why those thugs broke in here?"
"He must have an inkling that you were keeping something back, si."
"Actually, I do some lying in the course of my teaching work. I
have to lie to parents now and then, to students, even to my department
heads. You'd think, therefore, that--"
"Ah, but lying to civilians is much easier."
A frown suddenly touched Richard's forehead. He jumped up,
hurried over to a stack of cassettes they'd already sorted through.
"Wait now," he said. "Yes, wait a minute." He grabbed up a vidcaz and
held it up.
"Eh?"
"This one was made at a small Larson-Dunn dinner party we had here
about a year ago." He approached the wall player "It was a dreadful
affair that they pressured Eve into having. For some paroled swindler
who was planning to write a fax book about his colorful career."
Grunting slightly, Gomez rose to his feet and pocketed the sniffer.
"You think this is the very cassette those two pendejos were
seeking?"
"No, but I just now recalled something about this particular
gathering." He thrust the caz into the slot. "Show me--what the hell
was his name? Larry Seagrove, that's it. Yeah, show me something with
Larry Seagrove talking."
"Larry Seagrove," repeated the voxbox of the machine.
"He's on the list," muttered Gomez.
There was a brief humming, a faint clicking. Then a scene blossomed on
the wall.
Richard inhaled sharply, then closed his lips tightly together.
His wife was up there on the wall, looking very pretty, standing near a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]