AS THE FIRST HUSKY hoodlum stepped through the opening where the hotel room door once had been, Gomez tossed the sticky chair across the room at him. Then, ducking low, he spun and dashed toward the cot. While jamming his Banx notes back into his pocket with one hand, he snatched the sheet of folded paper out of Anguille’s knobby hand.
The first hood, propelled by the legs of the chair nudging him hard in the chest, stumbled backwards into the second hood, who was still in the shadowy corridor outside.
Gomez continued in motion, walking right across the unmade bed. He yanked aside the plyotowel that served as a curtain, went climbing through the paneless window. As he’d noticed when approaching the Algiers by skycab, there was a pedramp running close to the third-floor windows and about six feet below them.
He jumped free of the room, hitting the rainslick ramp on his side. He skidded, rolled a few feet, came to a stop. He sat up and very rapidly tucked the copy of the Unknown Soldier letter away. Yanking out his stungun, he scrambled to his feet and glanced back up at the window.
“Gomez.” Anguille was framed there in the light, trying to climb over the sill. “Help me.”
“Stand aside so I can get off a shot.”
The informant screamed then. The whole front of him, from neck to waist, seemed to explode out into the night. Fragments of flesh, bone, cloth came spurting all across the darkness.
Gomez started running away from there.
One of the two intruding hoods must have shot Anguille from behind with a needlegun, sending dozens of jagged darts into him.
As Gomez jogged along, concentrating on putting distance between himself and the Hotel Algiers, he noticed something up ahead on the rainy ramp.
Two more hoodlums, remarkably similar to those he’d left behind in Anguille’s room, were standing there. Side by side, wide-legged, about a hundred yards away.
Halting, he took a quick look back over his shoulder. “Chihuahua!”
Another pair of goons was standing about two hundred yards to his rear.
This ramp was nearly three stories up from the street. So going over the railing and dropping down to ground level was especially impractical. Although he might be able to shinny down some of the fretwork.
“Shinnying while dodging four marksmen ain’t going to be easy,” he reminded himself.
The big louts up ahead, smiling, were leisurely drawing lazguns from inside their dark jackets.
He didn’t bother to check behind him, since he was certain the other pair would be performing similar actions.
Gomez was about to try talking to them in a diplomatic fashion when he became aware of a sound growing up at his right.
He risked a glance.
A large skyvan was moving in close to the pedramp and seemed to be intending to land directly in front of him.
As the van lifted over the railing and started to set down, a stuncannon mounted atop its forward cabin swung around. A beam of orangeish light came sizzling out, hitting the two goons at his rear in turn. Each yowled, stiffened, and fell.
The words newz, inc were emblazoned large on the side of the skycar, which was now hovering on the ramp between him and the two remaining hoods.
Gomez had a sudden suspicion as to who must be in the skyvan.
But when the door to the front compartment popped invitingly open, he didn’t hesitate. He ran, zigzagging to make himself less of a target for anybody back at the hotel. He jumped right into the compartment.
This was better than getting shot.
Somewhat better anyway.
Madame Nana was long, lean, and dressed in tight black trousers and a black neoleather jacket. Her black hair was worn in a severe crew cut, she had a circular black patch over her left eye, and she was puffing on a thin, shriveled black cigar. “Hi, Jake,” she said from behind her seethrough glass desk.
Her office simulated a sunlit forest clearing, and the big desk and the three glass chairs seemed to be sitting on grass and pine needles.
Jake stopped at the edge of the clearing to study the slim madam. “You’ve changed your name again, Lulu,” he said finally.
“For business reasons.”
“When I knew you in Greater LA six years ago, you were Madam Blueberry,” he said. “And five years before that, down in Mexico, you called yourself—”
“No need to go back that far in time,” she said. “Especially since everyone hereabouts thinks I’m thirty-one years old.” She took a puff on the cigar, then exhaled a swirl of smoke. “Sit down, Jake.”
He remained on his feet. “Though it’s always a pleasure, I have to admit I dropped in on business.”
“Please sit down. We’re old friends and there’s always time for pleasantries.”
“My arresting you a few times for running illegal whorehouses in GLA doesn’t exactly make us old buddies, Lulu.” He lowered himself into a glass chair, watching her.
“Whenever you broke into one of my places because of some license trouble, you were always a gentleman.”
He grinned. “That’s not what you called me at the time.”
“There’s plenty of time for business. Tell me all about yourself.” She leaned back in her chair and contemplated him. “I was sorry when I heard you got sent up to the Freezer for a fifteen-year stretch.”
“I’m interested in one of your customers,” cut in Jake. “Guy named Zack Rolfe.”
“A friend and client, though a shade perverse in his tastes.”
“I want to talk to him when he’s through. Could you arrange an encounter?”
“That won’t be a problem—and your timing is perfect, Jake,” Madame Nana told him. “Zack likes to have a bit of supper first. Right now he’s up in one of our private dining rooms with Felice, Paulette, and Rosco. I’ll have one of my people take you there soon as we finish talking over old times.”
Jake stood. “I’m about done.”
“You haven’t even told me how your old pal’s doing.” She inhaled and exhaled smoke. “That horny Mexican—what was his name?”
“Gomez. And he’s in crackerjack shape,” said Jake. “Where’s this dining room?”
“Gomez—yes. I should have remembered that. So do you ever run into Gomez these days?”
Putting both hands on the back of the glass chair, he leaned slightly toward her. “C’mon, Lulu. If I know you, you’re already aware that Gomez and I work for the Cosmos Detective Agency and that we’re in Paris on a case.”
She flicked ashes off into the simulated grass. “You’re thinking of me as I was during my Madam Blueberry days,” she said. “These days, Jake, I concentrate on my business and take practically no interest in the outside world and its affairs.”
“I’ll pass your best wishes on to Gomez. How about that escort?”
Smiling, Madame Nana touched a panel at the edge of her desk. Chimes sounded off in the forest. “I’ll have Marcel guide you up to the dining room. Sit down and rest until he arrives.”
“How long is it going to take the guy to get here?”
“Not long. Five minutes.”
It took nearly ten.
And another ten for the chrome-plated robot to lead Jake along dim-lit corridors and up gently curving ramps to the dining area high up in the Grand Illusion.
“Your friend Monsieur Rolfe is in Dining Room #13.” Marcel stopped, bowed, pointed toward a wide pink door. “A discreet tap before entering is usually in order.”
Jake was raising his hand to knock when a young woman screamed on the other side of the door.