Big Bang Read online

  Big Bang

  Ron Goulart

  A MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM BOOK

  Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 1

  THE RAT HE’D BEEN watching fell over.

  Jake Pace blinked, swallowed twice and made another try at getting himself oriented. He was a long, lean man of thirty-six, tanned, and handsome in a grim sort of way. Right at the moment he was sprawled, front-down, on a grey stone floor with his head near what might be the leg of an old-fashioned sofa.

  From out of the rathole in the bleak stone wall that was some seven or eight feet from him another rat, timidly, peered.

  Zzzzzzummmmmmmmm!

  A stungun hummed somewhere beyond Jake’s present range of vision.

  “Chip!” said the rat and toppled over, stiff, beside its mate.

  “That’s about enough of this particular sport,” Jake attempted to say. But only a gargly groan came out.

  “Heck now! Are you sure enough awake?” inquired a slightly tinny voice. “I was just simply stunnin’ a few rats to pass the time whiles waitin’ for you to recover some, Mr. Pack.”

  “It’s Pace,” Jake managed to mumble. Pushing hard at the chill stone floor with both hands, he raised his torso.

  “Here now, lemme help you, sir.” A rocking chair twanged, metallic feet clomped on stone.

  Then a warm metal hand slid into his armpit and tugged Jake up into a sitting position. “Thanks,” he said.

  “It’s my job after all, Mr. Pace. Got ’er right that time. Pace.” Grinning down at him was a large, ball-headed robot. He was copper-plated and decked out in a pair of spotless white bib overalls. “My name’s Shux-2036 an’ if you need any darn thing durin’ your stay with us, why you just—”

  “Where is it I’m supposed to be staying?” Immediately next to him was a soft, comfortable-looking sofa. A pretty fair imitation of an early 20th century piece. “I was at …” He paused, shook his head and had the sudden impression the sofa went sliding into the stone wall.

  The robot chuckled, then said, “ ’Scuse me for laughin’ at your discomfort, sir. Thing is, though, seein’ somebody comin’ to after bein’ stungunned is always sort of funny.”

  Noticing the stunrod cradled in the mechanism’s arm, Jake inquired, “Did you—”

  “Heck no. I ain’t allowed to hurt none of you inmates. We go strictly by robotics rules here. No, sir, I …’scuse me.”

  Zummmmmm!

  Shux had paused to use his rod on a new rat who’d emerged.

  Jake clutched at the arm of the sofa, got himself up and seated on one of its flowered cushions. “I can’t seem to recall exactly why I’m—”

  “Rats ain’t the same.”

  “Hum?”

  “As people.” The robot lowered his silvery stunrod, settled back into the rocker facing Jake. “Case you might be wonderin’ how come, after me tellin’ you I weren’t allowed to hurt folks here, I could shoot rats with impunity. Reason for that is, rats ain’t people. That’s basic robotics procedure.”

  The room was about twenty feet square, the walls of real stone. There were no doors visible in the walls, not a single window or viewhole. Besides the sofa and the rocking chair the room contained, in one corner, an unshielded toilet and some sort of low platform about twice the diameter of the privy.

  “Suppose, Shux, you get back to filling me in on where it is I find myself,” suggested Jake. “After that I’d like to make arrangements to depart from this—”

  “Doggone! You sure do got a sense of humor.” The robot slapped an overalled knee and produced a clanging sound. “You ain’t goin’ to get out of here for weeks an’ weeks.”

  “Why? Am I sick or. …”

  “This is Murderers Home,” explained Shux. “And the reason you’re here, Mr. Pace, sir, is ’cause you’re a murderer. Alleged murderer, they make us say. Now, soon’s they run all the prelim tests on you, then you’ll have a hearin’ an’—”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Jake stood up and the dizziness caught him again. He closed his eyes, sitting. “I’m Jake Pace. My wife and I run Odd Jobs, Inc. one of the top private inquiry agencies in the—”

  “Ain’t that a darn shame. Here you got a wife, pretty one I just bet, an’ yet you get to foolin’ around with floozies an’—”

  “Where is my wife?” Jake thought to ask. “Has she been notif—”

  “Oh, surely, don’t you fret. Mr. Benton knows exact how to process a murderer so as—”

  “Whoa now.” Jake opened his eyes to stare at his mechanical guard. “Are you perhaps alluding to Bullet Benton of the Federal Police Agency? What has that goon got to—”

  “Mr. Benton apprehended you, sir,” replied Shux. “You are dang lucky you got yourself caught by a man of his caliber. He got you booked into one of the best way stations for murderers in all of America. Otherwise, they maybe would’ve tossed you into Death Row up Detroit ways or—”

  “Just why did Bullet Benton apprehend me?”

  “ ’Cause you killed that poor girl is why.” The robot leaned forward in his rocker. “Don’t you honest remember doin’ it?”

  Jake concentrated, distracted some by the sudden loud gurgling of his toilet. “I was … No, Hildy and I were in our place in Connecticut,” he said, mostly to himself. “A pixphone call came in … a client … no, somebody … somebody wanted to see me about. …” He straightened up. “What time is it?”

  “Shade past eight A.M. Omaha Heartland Time,” replied Shux. “The date, case you need that, is Tuesday, December 23. If that FPA stungun really knocked you silly, I better mention the year is 2003. Real shame you murderin’ your doxie so close to Xmas an’ not bein’—”

  “It was Sunday the 21st last time I knew,” said Jake. “Hildy stayed home and I … flew somewhere. Where, though?” He rubbed a knobby hand across his forehead. “That’s it, yeah. That’s why I’m so fuzzy.” He glared at the robot. “Somebody used a brainwipe on me.”

  Leaving the stunrod resting across his coppery lap, Shux spread his hands wide. “Don’t go lookin’ at me,” he said out of his mouth grid. “We don’t use nothin’ that rough here at Murderers Home. Like I been tryin’ to tell you, Mr. Pace, this here is one of the nicest pre-trial detention stations you could want to be dumped into. Some of ’em is really … ’scuse me.”

  Zzzzzummmmm!

  Jake knuckled his temple, “Pink and white flower,” he muttered. “Pink and white flower …”

  “You goin’ to pieces an’ babblin’, sir? ’Cause I am allowed to administer a—”

  “A carnation.” Jake snapped, not very effectively, his fingers. “Yeah, it was a carnation in someone’s lapel. It started hissing.”

  “That there ain’t standard operatin’ procedure for carnations, sir.”

  “This was an unusual carnation, Shux, old buddy,” Jake told him. “Used to deliver a mindwipe to be in gas form. It effectively erased away yesterday.”

  “Could be that there’s all for the best. That way you won’t never be haunted by the memory of the brutal and disgustin’ crime you committed, allegedly committed.”

  Jake asked, “Who did I allegedly kill?”

  “A Miss Palsy Hatc
hbacker.” Shux’s round eye holes widened. “Mind if I ask you somethin’ sorta personal, Mr. Pace? In your more intimate moments with a mistress name of Palsy Hatchbacker, what did you call her? I meant to say, both her front and her hind names ain’t much in the way of bein’ romantic. So how the—”

  “Never even heard of Palsy Hatchbacker.” Jake, slowly and cautiously, stood. This time the dizziness lasted only a few seconds. “That’s who they say I murdered, huh?”

  “With good reason, way I hear tell.” Shux was rocking slowly to and fro. “Mean to say, they done found you in bed with the poor girl. You was still holdin’ the lazgun an’ she, poor wanton creature, was dead as a dornick.”

  “Where?”

  “In bed,” repeated the robot. “Big fancy one, as it was described in the initial Federal Police Agency report. All ornate an’ made out of real brass with little frilly—”

  “I mean, in what sector of this great land of ours?”

  “Chi-2. You recollect whereat that is? It’s the Upper Class city built down under old Chicago. At least, when you stooped to folly, you done it in a posh location.”

  Jake started to pace. “I don’t remember Chi-2 either,” he said. “Nope, and neither Palsy Hatchbacker nor a brass bed.”

  “She was a soprano,” said Shux helpfully.

  “Palsy was?”

  Nodding his ball of a head, the robot replied, “That’s how come she was in Chi-2 at all anyways.”

  “To sing?”

  “That’s whereat they caught you, Mr. Pace, at the Chi-2 Underground Operadrome. Did you know what the cheapest seat for that particular concert was goin’ for? $306. Imagine shellin’ out three hundred an’ six smackers just to hear the Girl Commandos sing patriotic songs an’ do empty-headed skits pertainin’ to—”

  “I thought you told me they found me in bed.”

  “In one of the corridors under the stage they got a bunch of property rooms,” explained the robot guard. “You was in the one designated Prop Room 24C. That’s whereat they keep all the prop beds. Got somethin’ like seventy-four of ’em stored in 24C.”

  “Then I could hardly have helped being in bed.” Jake halted, leaned against his cell wall.

  Shux chuckled. “ ’Spose not, now you mention it.”

  “What exactly was I doing when Bullet Benton grabbed me?”

  “Sleepin’, with a most contented smirk on your puss.”

  “And he stungunned me before I even woke up?”

  “That there’s standard operatin’ procedure for dealin’ with crazed sex killers.”

  “Standard for Benton in dealing with anybody.” Jake folded his arms. “The Girl Commandoes I’ve heard of. They’ve been touring the country with this patriotic review of theirs, raising money for the Veterans of the Brazil Wars Relief Fund.”

  “You ought to have heard tell of ’em, seein’ as how you was havin’ a torrid affair with their lead soprano.”

  “Nope, I didn’t know her at all. I’ve got no idea why I—”

  “Well, I do, you helpless dupe!”

  Jake pivoted. “Hildy!”

  A slender and lovely auburn-haired woman had materialized on the platform next to the toilet. She was dressed in a two-piece suit of shimmering neosilk and Jake could see parts of the grey cell wall through the slightly out of focus projection of her body.

  “This isn’t much of a cell they’ve stuck you in.”

  “You ought to see where I’d be if Bullet Benton hadn’t put in a good word.”

  “That bastard,” observed Hildy, tossing her hair. “I had to hustle three Supreme Court lawbots out of bed to get the papers needed to force him to tell me where you were. That’s why it took so damn long to arrange this tri-op call to—”

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Pace, ma’am,” put in Shux as he left his rocker. “Would you like me to close the toilet seat before you an’ your spouse continue talkin’? See, we’re goin’ through a sort of transition, fixin’ up the cells an’ all the work ain’t quite—”

  “Who’s he?” asked Jake’s wife.

  “Something between my guard and my nurse,” Jake answered. “What about springing me from this joint?”

  “We’re working on it, Pilgrim and I.”

  “Who?”

  “John J. Pilgrim; he’s an attorney.”

  “What about Odd Jobs, Inc.’s regular attorneys?”

  Hildy frowned. “Most reputable attorneys won’t touch your case,” she informed him. “Since John J. Pilgrim works with Lost Cause, and they have to touch some of the—”

  “Lost Cause? That’s who’s going to try to get me out from behind prison bars?”

  “We don’t have bars here,” said Shux. “Not since the last—”

  “He often speaks metaphorically,” said Hildy.

  “Oh, that’s okay then. I ain’t programed to appreciate that fancy stuff.”

  “Pilgrim’s a damn good lawyer, Jake, and I hear he’s pretty much got his drinking under control,” said Hildy. “And with me outside gathering evidence, we’ll have you out of this dump by Xmas.”

  “Fat chance,” laughed Shux. “Oh, dang! ’Scuse me for buttin’ in, Mrs. P.”

  Jake was easing closer to the tri-op platform. He could hear the faint sizzling his wife’s image made, even above the frequent burbling of the toilet. “Listen, Hildy, somebody slipped me a brainwipe.”

  “Seems too subtle for Bullet Benton to have done, doesn’t it? A clout on the skonce is more his style. Any idea who else might have done it?”

  “None whatever.”

  “Then you can’t remember yesterday at all?”

  “Not a single …” He hesitated.

  “Jake, what is it?”

  “ ‘… they’re our favorite floaties …’ ” he all at once sang. “What the devil is that from?”

  “Jingle for a breakfast food commercial. Why?”

  Wrinkles formed across his tan forehead. Finally he answered, “Don’t know exactly. When you asked me if I remembered anything from my last twenty-four hours or so, that fragment of jingle popped into my head.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I left our place in the skycar, I woke up in this famous bastille. In between, nothing,” he said to the image of his lovely wife. “Why was I in Chi-2?”

  “The girl who pixphoned said she had important information.”

  “About what?”

  “The Big Bang Murders.”

  Jake took a step backward. “Somebody named Palsy Hatchbacker was going to tell me something new about a case that’s been stumping government agents and police officers all over the world for weeks?”

  “So she promised,” replied Hildy. “Myself, I thought it was a scam. But you insisted on whizzing out there in one of our skycars. When you saw her in that seethru plaz Girl Commando uniform, there was no diverting you, Jake. Then, too, she mentioned they might let you sit in on piano when they did their Tribute To Jazz medley midway in—”

  “Forget my alleged vanity for the nonce,” her husband urged. “Consider this instead. The girl was knocked off. The logical conclusion is she knew something.”

  Hildy asked, “Did she pass on any information to you before she was murdered?”

  He shrugged forlornly. “At the moment I don’t know.”

  “What’s in your head can be got out. A few sessions with a skilled braindredge medic and his crew can fish out what you did yesterday, every darn bit of it. Why did you pick that room full of beds, by the way?”

  “Maybe because it sounded more comfortable than one full of swords and pistols. You don’t think I had any—”

  “No, I trust you.”

  “Well, I’ll be doggone.” Shux was located once again in his rocker, stunrod across his knees. “That there’s either love or stupidity, an’ mighty impressive either way.”

  “Your robot is sweet,” remarked Hildy. “Okay, now, Jake, the next thing we have to arrange is—”

  “I can’t wait for a gang of med
ics to go through all it takes to give me back my last day,” he told her. “We’ll have to use Skullpopper Smith.”

  “That psi in Cleveland Ruins?” Hildy shook her head, auburn hair swirling. “He’s loony, Jake. When he uses that quirky skill of his to untangle knots in people’s brains, the results can be dangerous or even—”

  “Nonetheless, Skullpopper can do the job in a couple hours,” reminded Jake. “Pixphone him and set up an appointment for six tonight.”

  “ ’Scuse me, sir,” put in Shux. “But you can only have projected visits from your kin an’ your lawyer. It don’t sound like this here Mr. Smith is neither.”

  Ignoring him, Jake said to Hildy, “When Secretary of Security Strump pixed from DC last week he hinted he’d like Odd Jobs, Inc. to take a crack at the Big Bang thing.”

  “Fairly broad hint. He openly offered us $500,000.”

  “Damn it,” said Jake slowly. “That’s a hell of a low fee for fiddling with something that’s stumped every government intelligence agency.”

  “Not only stumped,” said Hildy. “It’s caused the demise of six agents. Three of them from Strump’s own Internal/External Security Office.”

  Jake turned his back on his lovely wife’s image, locked his hands behind his rump. “The job is worth a million bucks, at least.”

  “Didn’t know there was so much money to be made in detective work,” said the robot.

  “We specialize in difficult and unusual cases,” Hildy said to Shux. “Cases normal agencies won’t go near, cases even our government has given up on. We have a knack for that sort of thing.”

  “Okay, we’ll do it for $500,000.” Jake faced the projection platform. “Pix Strump and tell him.”

  “How exactly are you going to investigate anything while incarcerated in Omaha?” inquired his wife.

  “That’s part of the deal with the Secretary of Security,” Jake said. “Strump gets us for the bargain price of $500,000 only if he gets me clear of here by no later than noon today, Omaha Heartland Time.”

  Hildy smiled. “He just might be able to swing it.”

  “Of course he will,” Jake assured her.

  CHAPTER 2

  JAKE DUCKED INTO THE cabin of the maroon skycar, frowning. “Two sixteen in the afternoon you get me out,” he remarked as he settled into the driveseat.