Suicide, Inc

CHAPTER 18

“I’m sorry, but I guess I better tell you this right off, Mr. Cruz,” said Jazz, watching the rainy misty afternoon their skycar was whizzing through. “Since we two will be alone together for a spell.”

Cruz was in the driveseat of their aircraft. “You can confide anything you like in me.” He reached out to bestow a friendly pat on her nearest knee.

“Yikes!” Jazz swung her leg out of the way and Cruz ended up slapping the plaz trim of the passenger seat with his metallic fingers. “That’s what I was leading up to. The fact that I’m averse to physical contact of any kind.”

“That’s sad.”

“Well, it’s just something you have to learn to live with, as my family physician used to say.”

“He didn’t touch you either?”

“Oh, him I didn’t mind, because he was a robot. It’s really only flesh and blood contact that gives me the willies.”

“How fortunate for you, then, Jazz, that you ran into me.” Smiling, Cruz held up his metal right hand. “You won’t be able to tell my deft and delicate touch from that of your trusted medico robot.”

She frowned. “I don’t know about that, Mr. Cruz. You see, the rest of you is all too human.”

“Here, allow me to stroke your cheek and you’ll note that-”

“Calamity! You’d best not. I might start screaming and howling, which would distract you from piloting our skycar.”

“True.” Cruz smiled and dropped his hand. “Duty comes first.”

“Are you terribly mad with me? I suppose on most of your adventures and escapades you indulge in all sorts of physical excesses.” She folded her hands in her lap. “I do want you to know, Mr. Cruz, that it’s not you yourself I find loathsome and disgusting but rather the idea of being touched by you. I wouldn’t like that even if you were twice as attractive as you are.”

“That puts my mind at ease.”

“Besides, even if I enjoyed being pawed and mauled, that’s not what I’m here for, is it? No, I’m along to help you establish contact with Professor Winiarsky so you can persuade him to come away with you to the safety of the robot museum.”

“You are certain he’s at this Jungleland Park we’re fast approaching?”

“Unless he’s been abducted,” answered Jazz with a nod. “I have to apologize for being dense, Mr. Cruz, but I don’t think I’ve got all the opposing forces sorted out yet. I’m not clear on who’s trying to kill Winiarsky and who just wants to kidnap him. Fact is, I don’t even know for sure why they-”

“Even we aren’t completely certain about everything.”

“But as a newswoman I ought to be able to unravel-”

“Jazz, this isn’t something you’re going to be able to report for your network. I explained the sit-”

“I know, this is strictly off the record.”

“Exactly.”

Sighing, she smiled over at him. “It was nice, don’t you think, of the Trinidad Wallview News people to give me a leave? Especially after they thought for a while I’d been abducted by rebel forces and that Mr. Merloo was lost in combat and not just dumped in that dry canal next to-”

“They sound like exemplary employees. Now, hold on while I set us down.”

She looked out at the swirling mist. “Are we at Jungleland already?”

“We are.” Cruz punched out a landing pattern on the control dash.

“It’s awfully difficult to tell their artificial jungle from the real jungle surrounding it.”

“One good reason, no doubt, why the park has never exactly thrived.”

Their skycar landed smoothly on a mossy landing area to the right of the high sewdowood entry gates to Jungleland Park. There were no other vehicles to be seen on the rainswept field.

Jazz was staring out the window. “I wonder if these five men running toward us are friendly,” she said. “Those animal skins they’re wearing and those clubs and knives they’re brandishing make you doubt it, don’t they?”

Saint brushed at his nose with his plyochief. “A most fragrant neighborhood, eh?”

He and Smith were walking along a foggy sidestreet in the Poverty Hollow sector of Metro North, the capital city of this particular Zegundo Territory. The buildings were low, huddled close together, made of brix and glaz. They were grey, dingy, bleaklooking. The derelicts, drunks, mewts, welfs and zanies who shuffled, drifted and staggered by in the yellowish fog all looked moderately familiar to Smith. He realized he might well have been down and out in this very ghetto, although he had no clear recollection of it.

“Liz Vertillion worked in this area up until the time she dropped from sight two months back,” Smith said.

A frail bedraggled little girl with three hands held them all out. “Give us a coin.”

Saint obliged. “Get yourself some food, child.”

“None of your frapping business what I does with it, greenie.”

“A pity the blooming universe is so awry,” observed Saint as they turned a corner. “No possible way to put things right, eh? Thoughts like that are what drive one into a life of nefarious deeds.”

“A true scoundrel wouldn’t have given that kid money.”

“Perhaps, old man, I’m only conning you with seemingly decent behavior.”

Smith nodded. “There’s the mission where Liz was working.”

“Deuced inspiring name. Last Faint Hope Mission,” said Saint. “Conveniently located twixt the Skullpop Saloon and the Lower Depths Diner.”

As they moved by the swinging doors of a saloon, a three-eyed blue mewt looked Out.

“Bless me! It’s old Smith,” he chuckled. “Ain’t seen you in a grout’s age, pal.”

Smith paused, studied the mewt. “Hi, Trio. How’ve you been?”

“Can’t complain. All your drinking buddies miss you, though.” He narrowed all three eyes. “You’ve took a rise in the world. And you’re buddying with a real swell. You happy?”

“Happier.” Smith waved and moved on.

Saint said, “One hadn’t realized how low you’d sunk.”

“I don’t even exactly remember coming back to this planet,” admitted Smith. “I wandered around quite a bit for a while.”

“’Twould be ironic if you’d once been plucked out of the gutter by the now missing Lieutenant Liz Vertillion of the Salvation Squad.”

“Think that would’ve stuck in my memory.” Smith reached out to push open the narrow neowood door of the narrow brixfront mission building.

They entered into a low, beam-ceilinged dining room. Only about half of the ten long bare tables were in use.

A rusty cyborg huddled at the farthest table came rattling to his feet. “Smitty,” he hailed in a thin, rough-edged voice. “It’s been a spell.”

The gaunt man’s name came back to Smith. It was Scrapyard Slim. “Good to see you again, Slim.”

“You’re looking good, Smitty. Like you picked youself up.”

“Had a little help.” Smith, trailed by Saint, crossed the steamy room. “Is Lieutenant Zucco around?”

Slim pointed with his pitted chrome left hand. “Back in the kitchen you’ll find him,” he said. “The soup-maker’s on the fritz again.”

“Thanks.” They went through the doorless doorway.

“Ah, the memories of thousands of past kettles of soup linger,” said Saint, touching his plyochief to his round nose.

Squatting in front of a robotstove, a spanner in one furry hand, was a thin catman in a one-piece nightblue Salvation Squad unisuit. “Smith, isn’t it? We’ve missed you these past months. You appear, however, to have been eating well;”

“Lieutenant, we’re looking for Liz Vertillion.”

Rising gradually up, Zucco said, “Several people have been seeking her.” He touched a wide bandage on his fuzzy forehead. “One of them was rather persistent in his inquiries.”

“I don’t remember much about my last stay on Zegundo,” Smith told him, “and I have no idea what you think of me. But I’m trying to find Liz before somebody kills her.”

Lieutenant Zucco said, “You may be too late, Jared.”

“Hell, she isn’t dead?”

“I truly fear she may be,” the catman answered. “Just before she disappeared two months since, she’d antagonized Boss Nast.”

“Who might he be?” asked Saint. “The bloke who looks after all the crime and graft hereabouts?”

“That’s he. Liz was concerned about some garment sweatshops he owns and…I fear she may have been too outspoken in her criticism.”

Smith asked, “Did you tell the other inquirers this?”

“I did not, no. And none of them bothered to use truth drugs or devices on me, being satisfied that violence would provide all the information I contained.”

“These chaps may well have found out about Boss Nast elsewhere,” mentioned Saint, who was squinting into the kettle that held the soup of the evening.

“Nevertheless,” said Smith. “we’ll look the gent up.”

“He’s dangerous,” cautioned the Salvation Squad lieutenant.

“At this point,” said Smith, “so am I.”