JAKE PUSHED THE WHITE-ENAMELED robot aside, elbowed around the black man in the five-piece bizsuit and moved toward the door of the infirmary villa. “I’m in tip-top shape,” he reiterated.
“So you say now,” said the black man. “However, there’s nothing to keep you from claiming whiplash, complete and total nervous collapse or acute ennui as a result of this alleged shooting accident.”
“I won’t.”
“You ought really to lie down,” urged the medical robot. “After all, the young lady shot at you with a deadly lazgun under the impression it was a prop that—”
“Ixnay,” said the Negro. “The SatVid Broadcasting Network isn’t admitting that Honey Chen so much as touched a real lazgun. After the tapes of the alleged incident are thoroughly studied—”
“Gentlemen,” Jake told everybody in the big white room, “it’s been a pleasure being served by you all. Now I must—”
“Jake,” said Will Ganpat, who’d been sitting, uneasy, in a glaz slingchair, “sign the releases.”
“I’m in a hurry to talk to Miss Chen,” Jake said, reaching for the door. “I allowed your mechanized medic to poke and probe me. I made a statement to your insurance man. I’d—”
“You absolutely can’t talk to Honey Chen now,” the black insurance rep told him, catching at his arm.
“That’s a point that can be debated.” Jake jerked free.
“Jake,” said Will Tappenzee, from a glaz sofa filled with slithering eels, “sign the releases, okay? Even though this was all an unfortunate accident, with a real gun getting mixed up with the fake ones, still—”
“We’re not admitting to an accident,” said the insurance man. “SVBN admits nothing until—”
“Tell you what,” offered Jake. “I’ll sign everything right away, if you’ll let me have a five-minute chat with Honey Chen. Alone. Will?” He looked from one writer to the other.
“Don’t see why not, Jake. After—”
“No,” cut in the insurance man. “Suppose he persuades that quiff to admit she—”
“Eli, we have the whole damn thing on tape,” said Tappenzee. “96,000,000 loyal viewers around the world saw it happen. So—”
“By the way, Jake,” said Ganpat, “you may have to hop back later in the week and be Agent T14 again. Since you didn’t get properly stunned this time.”
Tappenzee said, “It played pretty well, though. The Feedback indicates 76 percent of the kids were Pleased and Thrilled by her cutting a monumental chunk out of the darn wall and nearly slicing Jake into—”
“Ixnay, ixnay. We’re not admitting anything was sliced or—”
“Five minutes with Honey,” said Jake, fishing an electropen out of a pocket. “Has nothing to do with her using a so-called real gun to allegedly take a shot at me.”
“Okay by me.” Ganpat got up.
“Okay by me.” Tappenzee got up.
“Gentlemen, I don’t know if SVBN can allow—”
“We can.” Ganpat took all the release forms from the insurance man and thrust them at Jake.
“Vacation,” said Tappenzee, remembering.
“She’ll be back in time to attempt to feed Lena and Leroy to the sludge-eating bacteria in next week’s exciting episodes, though,” added Ganpat.
The three of them were in the enormous living room of Honey Chen’s private villa on the ocean-facing side of the island.
Jake was prowling, poking at piles of faxmags, kicking into sprawls of discarded lingerie. “Know where she’s going to vacation?”
“You’re not planning to chase after her? That really must’ve been an accident.”
“We have no idea how a real gun got mixed up with the props, Jake.”
“But we’re sure as heck going to investigate.”
“You bet.”
Grinning bleakly, Jake told them, “That’s a damn good impersonation of Leroy and Lena.”
“Gee, Jake, don’t go making fun of—”
“The moon,” said Jake. “Right?”
“What?”
“That’s where Honey Chen is going to spend her latest vacation from Captain Texas,” amplified Jake as he continued to prowl the room.
There was a faint growling sound coming from some other room.
He went in search of it.
“Well …” said Ganpat, following.
“Well,” said Tappenzee, following.
“She’s probably developed a sudden interest in jazz and doesn’t want to miss the Moonport Jazz Festival.” Jake side-stepped into the room that was producing the small noise.
“She’s always been deeply interested in jazz,” said Ganpat. “Look there on her bedroom wall is a triop gloposter of Lafcadio Latterly.”
“Impressive, convincing.” Genuflecting beside the floatbed, Jake nudged it aside with one shoulder.
The dispozhole under the bed hadn’t been able to digest the last few pieces of paper stuffed into it and was making a metallic gagging sound.
Carefully Jake rescued the three balls of crumpled faxpaper. He stood and smoothed them out. One was a confirm slip for a Moonshuttle flight departing this afternoon from the GLA Spaceport, one was a scrawled memo from Will Ganpat urging Honey to be “more insidious if you can,” and the final paper that had escaped destruction had a string of numbers hastily scribbled across it.
“(CT6)17*25/2*21*16*25/2/10*21*23*25/5*25*25*10*3*8*1/3*8/13*21/15*8*14*3*6/21*26*14*25* 12/7*9*9*8/13*13,” the complete message read.
“Are those clues to anything, Jake?” inquired Tappenzee.
After scanning the departed actress’s bedroom, Jake moved out into the hall. “How many codes are there on the Captain Texas decoder?”
“Gee, you really are taking an interest in the show,” said Ganpat while he and his partner trailed Jake back into the living room.
“Eight codes is the answer,” said Tappenzee. “You set the dingus for any number from one to eight and that lines up the letters and numbers in diff—”
“I’d like undiluted silence for a few minutes,” requested Jake. He dropped into a snugchair that faced the bright calm Pacific.
“Sure.” Ganpat sat, tentatively, on the edge of a swingsofa.
Tappenzee settled near him. “You going to go over the events of today in your mind to—”
“Hush,” advised Jake, digging out the decoder that had originally been among the stuff Bullet Benton had carted off from Poorman’s Harvard.
Using the decoder and his electropen, he got the message unraveled in just under five minutes.
It said, “We have H. Pace. Keeping in S.A. until after Moon. S.S.”
Jake said, “Damn.”