Made to Kill by Adam Christopher Page B

and a checkered sports jacket. He was shaking hands with the old guy in the apron, but he didn’t look too happy. Maybe his ice cream had melted.
    “He was a great producer,” said the boy. “I mean, he made some good pictures. A few great ones too.” He shook his head. “Sad about him. It still cuts me up something fierce.”
    “Something happened?”
    “Yeah, it was big news. Accident. He fell down some stairs.”
    “Oh,” I said, and I left it at that. I wondered if I had had something to do with it, but then people can fall down stairs with or without my help.
    Then the kid’s pointed to the last photo on the row.
    “And then there’s Eva McLuckie.”
    He and I seemed to stare at that last picture quite a while. I made another clicking sound but this time it was my camera taking a snap. I think the kid heard because he turned around and this time his smile wasn’t quite so wide. He chewed slowly and thoughtfully as he studied something indefinable on the counter in front of him. He reached forward and scratched at the nothing with a thumbnail. Then he adjusted his cap and then he folded his arms again.
    I thought I knew the feeling. There was something about seeing Eva McLuckie’s face up on the wall that would do that to man and robot alike.
    “Shame about her too,” said the kid.
    I wasn’t really listening. I was too busy looking. Eva McLuckie was a real looker. Small. Might call her petite.
    The kid shook his head. “She disappeared. She was filming, oh…” The kid winced like he was watching a prize fighter take a dive. Then he clicked his fingers a few times.
    Dark hair cut into a bob that was as big as a coal scuttle at the back.
    “A movie anyway, something,” said the kid. “And she disappeared.”
    Bangs cutting a razor-straight line above her eyebrows, which were two sculpted arches above two big eyes ringed in black.
    “Zip.” The kid clicked his fingers again.
    Eva McLuckie, looking like an Egyptian princess.
    “Zip, huh?” I asked.
    The kid looked me in the optics and nodded.
    “Zip. Gone. No trace.”
    Eva McLuckie, looking a hell of a lot like the Mystery Girl who had walked into the office with a bag full of gold and an offer I couldn’t refuse.
     

 
     
     
     
9
     
     
    The other soda jerk and his girlfriends were in a deep huddle but I leaned closer to my kid anyway. Seemed my stop for a root beer float was starting to pay off.
    “What happened?” I asked
    He shrugged. “Who knows?”
    There went that line of inquiry. Maybe the kid behind the bar could sense my deflation because he said: “Apparently she went into her trailer one night and in the morning she wasn’t there. That’s what I heard, anyway. Nobody at the studio knows where she went. Someone said they were filming all the other parts and they hope she’ll turn up to finish the picture. Shame, you know.”
    “Yeah,” I said. “Big shame.”
    It was starting to feel like I knew something the world didn’t.
    “She’ll miss the party,” said the milk boy.
    “Ah,” I said. I paused. I watched Eva’s picture but she wasn’t saying much. “What party?”
    “The party . The red carpet, y’know,” said the kid, and he leaned forward until his nose was nearly touching mine. There weren’t many people who liked to get so close to a robot.
    Well, that close to a robot like me and lived to tell.
    “Everyone else will be there,” he said. “Fresco. Rico. Alaska. All of them.” He shook his head and looked at the invisible spot on the counter again. “Man, it cuts me up, it really does.”
    Of course. The big premiere. Friday night on the red carpet for Red Lucky. I still had a snap of the newspaper article from this morning on file. I brought it up and had a quick re-read.
    Red Lucky. Motion picture history, it said. A cross-studio co-production the likes of which has never been made. The article listed the principal cast and that list included Eva McLuckie. Charles David too. It also included