Engineman - Eric Brown [198]
Over the next few days I neglected my duties for Gassner and followed Kennedy. It was my intention to blackmail him; his superiors at Wringsby-Saunders would not be amused that one of their top executives was dealing in death...
Then something happened to make me change my mind. There was a better way of extracting what I wanted from Kennedy, one that did away with the risk to myself.
It came to me as I watched him arrive home one evening and meet his daughter in the drive. It was one of the few occasions when he was unshielded, and I learned that the only pure and unsullied emotion in Kennedy's head was the love he had for his daughter, Becky.
While Kennedy was unshielded I slipped him the sly, subliminal suggestion than Gassner's Investigative Agency was the best in town, specialising in murders, kidnappings, missing persons... The first place he'd think of when he found his daughter gone would be Gassner's.
I turned my attention to Becky and checked her movements. She had her own bodyguard who escorted her everywhere. Well, almost everywhere. He was a big, ugly bastard, but I wasn't going to let him stand in my way at this stage of the game.
I decided the best place to strike would be in the gym she used every Tuesday morning. I joined up for the classes and obeyed all the instructions like a good girl, despite the protests from my drug-wrecked body. I arrived early Tuesday morning and watched Becky at her callisthenics while her minder did the same, only with more interest in how she filled her leotard in all the erogenous-zones-to-be.
I was right behind them when they left the free-fall chamber. I'd taken the precaution of putting the chute out of action and barring the communicating doors. We were quite alone.
I hit the bodyguard with the neural-incapacitator and he dropped like a sack of wet sand. Then I did the same to Becky before she got a look at me. While the guy was still jerking his beef on the floor I dragged Becky along the corridor and into the service chute.
I'd prepared myself for this part of the operation all week. I'd told myself over and over that this was not murder, that before the three days had elapsed little Becky would be patched up and resurrected and as good as new. If not better. Inside a fortnight she'd be back working out at the gym, her death a thing of the past. Even so, as I pulled the trigger of the pistol I had to close my eyes and think of Joe... Then I photographed the corpse and concealed it behind a sliding panel. I'd done my homework and checked. The next chute inspection was due in a week.
I left the gym and mailed the developed print to the Kennedys. Then I made for the Supernova and drank acid shorts to help me forget.
Hours later, the call from Gassner came through.
I cross town and head for the Union towerpile. "Bangladesh!" the cackle greets me. Old Pete the Beggar grins toothless along the sidewalk. I slip him ten and he lays 'gum on me. I'm high by the time I hit the foyer.
Spider Lo has done his stuff. He sits with Kennedy in the ground floor bar, done out in the deco of a bigship. I hoist myself onto a highstool, businesslike.
Kennedy gives me the inscrutable look through his silvered shades, but the empty glasses at his elbow belie his cool. "I'd like to know what's going on?" he asks me. "This... this gentleman apprehended me outside and claimed to be working with you on the case. I hope you've found my daughter-"
"Do you have the crystals?" I ask.
Kennedy hesitates, then lifts a valise onto the table. He opens it to reveal two sparkling crystals burning within the leatherette gloom. The substance locked inside them glints like powdered diamond. I take the valise.
"The Gassner Agency has been taken over," I tell Kennedy now. "As such, it no longer exists. Mr Lo here represents the Massingberd Agency. You will pay his Agency upon