NATALIE DENT, ARMS FOLDED, knees pressed tight together, was glowering across her train compartment at Gomez. “Several years ago, when I was somewhat more innocent and naive than at present,” she was saying to the curly-haired detective, “I, being, as I say, naive and innocent, brought home a stray mutt. He was a pathetic, sickly creature and the look in his dim, watery little eyes was very much like the sappy expression you assume whenever you’re trying to wheedle and cajole some outrageous favor out of me or—”
“Halt the flow of autobiography for a sec, princesa.” He was using her vidphone.
The reporter’s nose wrinkled. “The moral of this particular anecdote is—”
“Hush up, por favor.”
A gleaming, ballheaded robot had reappeared on the phonescreen. “I’m sorry, sir,” it told him, “but Mr. Cardigan is not in his room here at the Crystal Palace Hotel. Nor has he left any message for a Mr. Pollino.”
“Okay, gracias.”
“Your name isn’t Pollino,” mentioned Natalie.
“It’s simply one of the code names that Jake and I use when—”
“Little-boy stuff,” observed Natalie, unfolding her arms, scratching the tip of her faintly freckled nose, and refolding her arms.
“Have I told you, florita, how much I appreciate your allowing me to enjoy the sanctuary of your quarters whilst we wend our underwater way to London?”
“Sanctuary, at least as it’s most frequently defined in most of the civilized sections of the globe, rarely includes phone privileges,” she pointed out. “On top of which, Gomez, you ate most of my breakfast.”
“That’s what teamwork is all about, Nat,” he informed her. “Sharing.”
“You mean the way you shared your information on what Dr. Danenberg was up to?”
“But you did, as I well knew you would, get on the doctor’s trail. And fate, which seems to be looking after us, did indeed bring us together once more.” He held up his hand in a stop-now gesture. “A couple more quick calls, chiquita, and I should have all sorts of new info to share with you.”
“He messed on my thermorug, too, causing the darn thing to short-circuit,” she said. “Then he bit my ankle.”
“Whom are we discussing?”
“That stray puppy I was telling you about, Gomez, the one I foolishly took in out of a rainstorm,” she answered. “He looked, especially around the eyes, a great deal like you.”
“Well, the misguided attribution of human qualities to the lower animals can screw you up.” He punched out another number on her vidphone.
The screen remained dark, but a raspy voice said, “London’s fashionable Hotel Marryat. Yeah?”
“Mrs. Humphry Ward, if you please.”
“Who’s calling?”
“Tell her Sid.”
Natalie unfolded her arms and crossed her legs. “That’s a dippy name—Mrs. Humphry Ward.”
“An alias.”
“Gomez, my love, how the bloody hell are you?” inquired a throaty woman’s voice. The screen was still blank.
“Muy bien, Mrs. W. And you?”
“Can’t complain, Sid. How may I be of assistance?”
Gomez nodded at the screen. “A Dr. Hilda Danenberg is, as we speak, en route to your fair city,” he explained. “See if you can find out what she’s planning to do over the next day or so. The lady’s linked with a few Tek cartels, I believe, and with the Excalibur Movement.”
“Those loons.”
“I’ll contact you after I arrive in London.”
“You’re coming here, too, my love?”
“I am, sí.”
“We’ll have to hoist a few.”
“If time permits, bonita. We’re paying the usual fee, by the way. Adiós.”
“He ate my canary, too,” said Natalie.
“Stray dogs will do that,” said Gomez, making another call.
London was slightly warmer than Paris. Gomez was able to turn his thermocoat down a notch and that kept it from smoldering.
Alone now, though obligated to join Natalie for tea that afternoon, he was roaming the city. His concern was growing since he hadn’t been able as yet to find any trace of Jake.
Gomez had just called on Arthur Bairnhouse at the Hewitt Inquiry Agency and was experiencing mixed feelings. The operative he’d arranged for when he’d phoned from the tubetrain had picked up Dr. Danenberg’s trail at the London station and followed her to the flat she was using near Regent’s Park. It was gratifying to know where she was at the moment, but he was also anxious to locate his partner.
The pink-faced Bairnhouse had told him about Jake’s intention to venture into the gangzone of London in search of Dan and of Nancy Sands. Bairnhouse hadn’t heard from Jake since then and had no notion where he might be.
Whistling absently, Gomez crossed Piccadilly Circus, turned onto a quirky lane, and entered the Phantom Ship Pub.
The place was dark and dank and smelled of the seashore at low tide. A few bundled-up customers sat, mostly singly, at the rickety tables. The bartender was a huge black man wearing a candy-striped tunic, a sailor cap, and a large glittering golden earring. There was a jeweler’s loupe stuck in his left eye, and he was tinkering with something green and feathery that was spread out on the ebony counter in front of him.
“Know anything about electronics, mate?” he inquired as Gomez crossed the dim room.
“Very little.”
“It’s this arfing parrot, do you see?”
Gomez leaned an elbow on the bar. “What’s the trouble?”
“Well now, he’s a robot bird.”
“I deduced that, soon as I got a glimpse of his circuit board.”
“He won’t curse.”
“What good’s a parrot who isn’t foulmouthed?”
“Exactly, mate. You’ve hit the basic problem square on the noggin, you have.” The big bartender poked at the mechanical bird’s innards with a tiny silver screwdriver. “I mean to say, he sits on his ruddy perch all day, don’t he now, and recites moony love poetry and sentimental drivel. Once in a great while, if I swats him a good one, he’ll give out with a halfhearted ‘My goodness’ or a ‘Dear me.’ ”
“That’s not what’s required,” agreed Gomez sympathetically. “Now then, I’m supposed to meet Mrs. Humphry Ward in your estimable bistro.”
“Aye, she’s over in a booth. That one yonder there with its curtain discreetly drawn.” He pointed with a beefy forefinger that had several tiny green feathers adhering to it. “What about me bird, do you think?”
“Turn him in on a new one,” advised Gomez. “Or learn to accept him as he is, but don’t tinker.”
Mrs. Humphry Ward was an ample woman, blonde at the moment and about forty. She smiled up at Gomez as he entered and raised her mug of foamy beer in salute. “Here’s to good times, Sid.”
He sat opposite, resting both elbows on the slightly slanting tabletop. “Tell me about Dr. Danenberg.”
Mrs. Humphry Ward pointed at the ceiling with a puffy thumb. “The dear lady is going to be traveling to the Caribbean Colony,” she said. “That’s one of those satellite resorts for the highfaluting and them as pretends they are. She’s set to depart at four-twelve this very afternoon. Traveling, she is, under the name of Alice M. Dobson.”
“Bueno,” he commented. “What goes on up there?”
“The usual foolishness,” replied his informant. “They’ve got hotels, casinos, fake palm trees. Also, so I hear, that balmy Excalibur bunch has its secret headquarters up there somewhere.” She held up a forefinger. “That bloke who calls himself King Arthur II, along with his missus, is also a resident of the Colony. But they live openly, nothing clandestine or furtive about them two, in a villa on one of the simulated islands.”
“Any Tek activities thereabouts?”
“Well, the British Teklords own a big piece of the place,” she replied. “I don’t know if they’re in cahoots with those Excalibur loons or not.”
Gomez nodded slowly. “I’ve been having trouble tracking down my partner,” he told her. “Have you heard anything about him?”
She asked, “Do you know a newsman named Denis Gilford?”
“Nope. What’s he have to do with—”
“Gilford’s a first-class pain in the bum who works as a reporter for the London FaxTimes,” she said. “I hear tell he contacted your pal Jake Cardigan at least twice and made something of a bloody nuisance of himself. And now he’s been asking a lot of questions about Jake.”
“Sounds like somebody I ought to chat with.”
“I’ll provide you with a list of the dives and dumps where Gilford hangs out,” she offered. “No extra charge, Sid, seeing as how we’re such dear pals from way back.”