Tek Money by William Shatner Read Free Book Online

up.”
    â€œEven so.” He leaned forward in his chair. “If you’re going to dig into the links between Flanders and Traynor, I’ll concentrate on some of the other aspects of this mess. Then later we can compare—”
    The door to Beth’s private office came hissing open and a large, wide man of thirty five or so came barging in. His face was flushed with anger, both big fists were clutched. “What the hell is this bastard doing here? Damn it now, Bev, you can’t—”
    â€œWhat I can or can’t do is no business of yours, Jabb,” she said evenly. “If you want to see me, wait until—”
    â€œWhat I have to talk about,” said Jabb Marx, pointing angrily at Jake, “is this asshole here. It’s bad enough you see him socially, for Christ sake, but now you’re sharing confidential agency files with him.”
    â€œHow do you know I’m sharing anything with him?”
    â€œIt’s obvious that’s why he’s here—to pump you about the Wes Flanders case.”
    Jake had risen to his feet. “Marx,” he said quietly, “get out of here now.”
    â€œYou just keep the hell quiet, Cardigan,” the detective shouted at him. “I tell you something, asshole—you got one good woman killed so far in your career, but I’m damned if I’m going to let the same thing happen to Bev.”
    Jake didn’t say anything. He was just all at once next to Marx. He hit him, hard, in the midsection.
    Marx gasped, doubled, tried to swing at Jake.
    Jake kicked him, his booted foot connecting with his ribs.
    Marx jerked back, clutching at his side, groaning.
    Jake moved in, hitting him again and again in the face with each fist in turn.
    His face bloody, his jacket and shirt splotched with red, Marx dropped to his knees.
    Jake kicked him again, in the chest this time.
    â€œJake!” cried Bev.
    The woman may have cried out before, but Jake hadn’t been hearing anything for a while there.
    â€œJake.” She ran over to him, caught him by an arm and pulled him back. “That’s enough—more than enough.”
    Jake shook himself, as though he’d just stepped out of the chill ocean. “Sorry,” he managed to croak. His voice was raw, raspy.
    Pushing him aside, she knelt next to the unconscious operative. “His nose is broken, lord knows what else is wrong.” She reached up and flipped a switch on the voxbox on her desk. “Emmy Lou, get the medibots up here—quick!”
    â€œHe was right,” Jake said, his voice still not his own. “It’s my fault that Beth died.”
    She stood up, spun and glared at him. “I don’t give a good goddamn who’s right and who’s wrong,” she said, angry. “You don’t have the right to do things like this.”
    â€œMaybe not.” He shook his head once, left to right, before walking out of there.
    Detective Lieutenant Drexler said, “Too, late, Gomez.”
    â€œSo I notice.” He walked over to where the large, fat corpse was sprawled in front of the entrance to one of the Tek parlor cribs. “ Sí , this is the proprietor, Lorenzo Printz, sure enough.”
    â€œThe boss himself.”
    â€œI note they used a lazgun on the cabrón. ” There was a large sooty hole in the back of the sinsilk floral robe that was twisted around the huge puffy dead man. “Rather than a sizzler.”
    â€œLorenzo, like most Tek joint operators, never touched the stuff.” The black cop was sitting on the edge of a wooden chair. “How’d you find your way here, by the way?”
    â€œCame in to buy a bunch of holo roses for my sweet old grandmother on her graduation from robotics night school,” Gomez told him. “Much to my surprise, I found that somebody had used a stunner on the handsome clerk. Curious, I—”
    â€œC’mon, don’t make me treat you