Tek Money by William Shatner Read Free Book Online Page B

sake.”
    â€œHey, simp,” said a fuzzy teddybear, jumping off his low perch, “ignore that four-flusher. Buy me. I’m the cutest darn toy in this whole darn Wondersmith’s toyshop.”
    â€œYou do have an awfully cute lisp,” the detective admitted. “But I came to consult with your boss.”
    The bear, who was slightly shorter than the magician, came up closer to Gomez. “I remember you now, palsy walsy,” he said accusingly. “Sure, you’ve been here before and you didn’t buy a single toy then either.”
    â€œThat’s enough, guys. Get back on your pedestals.” A large, fat woman with bright silvery hair came lumbering in from the office of the toyshop. “Hiya, Gomez, honey. Excuse these lovable little darlings.”
    â€œLovable ain’t one of the words, I’d apply, Corky.”
    â€œUp your nose,” muttered the bear while climbing back onto his perch.
    Corky Keepnews said, “Language, language. C’mon in, honey.” She was clad in a sinsilk slaxsuit of a floral pattern similar to the one he’d recently seen on the dead man’s robe.
    Her toyshop office was in the Westwood Sector, up on the seventeenth level. From her one narrow viewindow you could see part of University of SoCal Campus #26, where either a riot or a rally was in progress in the glade.
    â€œFound out anything yet?” he asked, watching Corky sink down into an immense armchair.
    â€œHoney, am I not one of the best sources of information in the entire state?”
    â€œI’ll award you the title after you tell me something.” He gingerly lifted a goldenhaired babydoll off a chair and sat.
    â€œWatch who you’re grabbing, kiddo,” warned the doll in a small, piping voice.
    He dropped her on the floor. “Well, Corky?”
    â€œThis, it turns out, is a seven-hundred-and-fifty-dollar job, hon.”
    â€œWhat’s the extra two-fifty for?”
    She turned away from him, watching the sun-bright campus far below. “What the hell are you messed up with this time, sweetie?”
    â€œYou tell me. That’s what this outrageous fee is for.”
    â€œAfter you phoned me to tell me that poor Lorenzo had shuffled off,” began the silverhaired informant, “I commenced making some discreet inquiries for you. And it’s a damn good thing I am so discreet. Otherwise, I’d be on somebody’s shitlist myself.”
    â€œThis buildup is very exciting, bonita , yet singularly uninformative.”
    â€œPutz,” muttered the sprawled babydoll.
    Gomez rested the sole of his boot on the back of the doll. “Continue, Corky.”
    â€œOkay, I wasn’t able to find out who hired Lorenzo—rest his soul—to slip your boy Traynor that sizzler,” the fat woman told him. “However, I did find out more than enough to scare the puckey out of me.”
    Gomez made an impatient noise.
    Corky went on. “I do have a pretty good notion who hired the heavies to get rid of Lorenzo. The guys who did the job are local, honey, but the fee, a hefty one, came from Europe.”
    â€œ Caramba. ” Gomez nodded. “That’s an unexpected angle. Can you pin it down any, Cork? Europe, last time I dropped in, was a big place.”
    She looked away from him. “Spain,” she said quietly.
    â€œAh, I see why you’re uneasy.” He narrowed his left eye, watching her. “We’re talking about the Zabicas Cartel, aren’t we, Corky?”
    â€œYou said it, I didn’t.”
    â€œAll right, so what’s Carlos Zabicas’s interest, way over there in Madrid, in a local like Peter Traynor?”
    â€œNobody’s saying a damn thing about your pal Traynor,” said Corky, shifting uneasily in her big chair. “All I know is, the Spanish were the ones who hired Lorenzo done in. Could be, Gomez honey, it doesn’t have anything to do with this