Alien Nation #8 - Cross of Blood

by K. W. Jeter

  “I was talking to the social worker who’s been assigned her case.” He tried to keep his voice casual, low-key. “Poor kid doesn’t have any family. So it’s going to be pretty much foster homes for her. Unless somebody . . . you know . . .” His throat tightened a notch. “Puts in to adopt her . . .”

  Cathy moved away from him, sitting upright on the couch. She turned and gazed straight into his eyes, until he knew, without any more words having to be said.

  “Okay . . .” Sikes rubbed his sweating palms against his trousers. “I’ll go down and make an appointment with the social worker tomorrow. For both of us . . .”

  This time, it was her turn to kiss him on the brow. He closed his eyes, still trying to catch his breath.

  He saw him coming down the station’s hallway. And Albert smiled and waved. “Captain Grazer—hi!”

  The captain’s stride slowed, a wary expression forming on his face. “What’re you doing here, Albert?” He had stopped right next to him; he reached out and fingered the lapel of Albert’s suit. “I thought Precognosis had let you go . . .”

  “Oh, yeah. I’m not with them anymore.” He still felt a little embarrassed talking about it, about how badly he had screwed things up for those people. Besides, he didn’t have to explain that to Grazer. The captain knew all about what had happened. “I’ve got my own company now.”

  “What?” Grazer stared at him in amazement. “You? You’re kidding.” He glanced around at the detectives and uniformed officers milling through the police station, then pushed open the door of his office. “Maybe you’d better come in here and tell me about it.”

  Albert sat in the chair in front of Grazer’s desk, swivelling a little from side to side and feeling good. Things really had worked out for the best, after all.

  “So what is it you’re doing these days?” Grazer sat forward, leaning across his desk with his fingertips pressed together. “You still doing the market prediction stuff?”

  “Naw . . .” He shook his head. The necktie he wore snugged his collar close against his throat. His wife May had him put on a tie every morning, except on the weekends, telling him that he was a businessman now and he had to look the part. “I didn’t want to do that any more. Plus . . . you know . . . it wasn’t real likely anybody would listen to me anymore. Not after what happened with your tapes and books and stuff—”

  “Please.” Grazer winced. “Don’t remind me.”

  “So at first I thought maybe I could just come back here, to my old job, and sweep the floors and clean up like I used to. But I found out that while I was gone, the police department had switched over to contracting their building maintenance to outside janitorial services. So I didn’t know what I was going to do.” A smile came across Albert’s face. “Then May said, why couldn’t I do that? She meant, why couldn’t I have a janitorial service company? ’Cause after all, it’s what I know best, isn’t it? So we took our savings and we sold that big house we had when I was working for Precognosis and we bought just a little one—it’s real nice, though—and we took all the money and bought what we needed, a couple of vans and all the cleaning equipment. And I hired some people! Can you believe it?” He shook his head, still amazed at it himself. “So May keeps the books and does all the paperwork, and I do the supervising and put the bids together for the jobs we go after. And you know what? I just won this one! I won the janitorial contract for this station—isn’t that funny?”

  “You’re right . . .” Grazer sat back in his chair, looking slightly stunned. “It’s hilarious.”

  “I’m glad you feel that way,” said Albert. “It means I’ll still be coming in and out—you know, taking care of things—and I’ll be able to see you and all the rest of my friends here at the station. And sometimes one of my employees might call in sick and I won’t be able to get a replacement for him right away, so I’ll just have to roll up my sleeves and pitch in with a mop and bucket myself—it’ll be just like old times!”

  “Sure will.” Grazer nodded slowly, as though deep in thought. “Listen, Albert, there’s something I gotta tell you. All that business with those books and tapes of mine—I really owe you an apology for dragging you into that mess. Plus—and this is the important part—I think I finally learned my lesson from that. I was spending more time on that GIT stuff than I was running this station. I was really letting things slide here for a while. Though funny enough, it kinda worked out the right way, at least regarding George Francisco. His resignation from the department was sitting on my desk the whole time, and I never even looked at it, let alone did anything about it. So as far as the LAPD was concerned, he never really quit at all—we just knocked off some of his accumulated vacation days, and that was it.” Grazer looked straight across the desk and into Albert’s eyes. “Anyway, what I’m trying to tell you is that I’ve restructured my priorities, so to speak; I’m just going to take care of police business from now on. So it means a lot to me that you’re going to be on the ball here, and that this is going to be the cleanest goddamn station in the department. You got me?”

  They shook hands, standing beside the desk. “My crew will be out here first thing tomorrow.” Albert tilted his head toward the office door. “Those hallway floor are going to take a lot of work. They’re filthy.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s your business. Do what you have to.” Grazer clapped him on the shoulder. “Too bad you had to give up that car those guys at Precognosis bought you. That was one snazzy piece.”

  “Oh, I didn’t get rid of the car . . .”

  “You didn’t?”

  Albert shook his head. “May and I decided to keep it. ’Cause it was all paid for and everything. Plus she thought I needed to—what’d she say?—I needed to project a prosperous image. For my business.” He pointed to the window. “It’s parked right out there.”

  He watched as the captain drew back the shades and looked outside. The jewel-like red gleam of the car, brilliant under the L.A. sun, seemed to radiate onto Grazer’s face.

  “What a pretty machine.” Grazer’s voice was a murmur of admiration and deep, heart-felt longing. “What a pretty machine . . .”