by Pam Uphoff
Eldon wandered outside with most of the cast, noting who drove what cars. The four men who might have expected to step into Frankie’s shoes (disgusting phrase, that) had diverse tastes in what they drove. Christian Kleckner gave him a finger gesture from his silver Jaguar. Havier Matheson’s red Camero drifted his direction. Havier grinned as Eldon stepped back to give him extra room. Damien Green was conservative, with a black BMW. Felipe Caesar had a bright yellow with black trim Hummer. They both glared at him as they drove past.
“I don’t think they like you.”
Eldon turned; the two cops were back. “I know they don’t like me. They seem to be the only people who might have expected to benefit from Frankie’s murder.”
The younger one eyed him. “We’ve been talking to the ex-wives. They all knew he was hard up for money, they wouldn’t kill him. They’ve all lost their child support payments. The first wife had a small life insurance policy on him, but not enough to offset the loss of monthly payments.. The others, nothing. So you are the only one who actually benefited.”
Eldon boggled a bit. Right. Emilia had said something about the exes losing all the child support. Money. Of course, a society like this, with all the jobs out of the house, a baby, a child, is a handicap to a single woman trying to work. So if the husband leaves, he still has to send money to help. Eldon looked back at his own childhood. He’d known who his father was. Everyone except the young women shunned him, as he’d fathered a number of children on various women. But between family help, a garden, hiring out during harvesting and such they hadn’t starved. And Eldon had worked and hunted from a young age . . . gone off to wizard’s school, run with the wrong gang, and found himself accused along with them of crimes of which he had no knowledge. Use the brain you were born with, if it has survived this far, and don’t get anyone pregnant. Because when the Dimension Cops track you down, you’ll have to abandon any children in this cold mechanical world. And what would they do when their magical talents sprouted?
“Yeah. I’ll have a talk with Jacob, about the scenes Frankie shot. There may be some income from that, for the kids.” Eldon frowned, and stepped hard on an impulse to give all his money away.
“Feel responsible, do you?” Hildebrandt eyed him. “What the hell made you pick Harlem Brown’s ID?”
“Brown was a nice, common, ordinary sort of name.” Oops, I really shouldn’t say things like that. Especially not to the police.
“Yeah. Right. Now, we could run you into the station just on the basis of the fake ID. Or, you could let us take your fingerprints and a cheek swab right here. We’ll check you out, and if you aren’t a wanted criminal, well, we just don’t bother with ID fraud until it involves stealing money as well.”
Eldon scowled. “What is a cheek swab? Sounds nasty.”
“We run a swab around the inside of your cheek, and analyze your DNA. Check it against the national database.”
Eldon snickered. “Oh, yeah, you’ll love those results.” Or maybe their tests are too primitive to show all the genetic engineering. If I’m lucky. Otherwise some damned scientist is going to want to put me under a microscope. He shrugged. “What the heck. Bring on the swab.”
Chapter Six
Showing off
"Eldon? You take your mares away yet?" Jack trotted up as Eldon turned toward him. The parking lot was baking hot. "They're making a documentary, 'The Making of a Legend' sort of thing. I figure we could do something at my place, Saturday, with all the horses. Show the cast all buddy-buddy and afternoon partying together."
"Sure, no problem. I haven't moved them yet, and I checked my notes, they've got another month before they foal." Mainly because I haven't let them out of their bubbles all last month. Gotta find a nice spot for them to foal.
He bought saddles for the other two, but harnessed all four to the wagon, bubbled them and drove the SUV up to the mansion. He hadn't seen the grounds before. He strolled around, checking out the big riding arena, the small stable where Jack apparently did not keep a horse full time, devoid as it was of hay or grain, not to mention manure. Then he waited until no one was looking before he produced the wagon and four horses from thin air. Jack was suitably impressed, and given driving lessons. Xtreme and Sindara's kids wanted, and received lessons, then Margo and Lily. Cameramen followed them, rode with them, and nearly got run over. Everyone got wagon rides, then Eldon unharnessed the mares, saddled them and various people got that sort of ride.
"Damn. I like these funny colored critters of your." Jack was monopolizing Star. "You should leave them here until they foal. You're so casual about them it's scary."
Eldon just grinned.
Jacob stomped over and scowled at him. "I don't know anything about you. And some damned reporters want to interview you, since you're taking a famous actor's spot. A murdered actor, at that."
"Hey. No problem. I'm an illegal wizard on the run from the Dimensional Cops, landed here with no way to earn a living except pretend I'm an actor."
"Very funny. Now, what are you really going to say to him?"
"Umm, that I'm a farm boy turned used car salesman who lucked out by being in the right place at the right time to land this totally cool spot?"
"Better. But say that you are an actor, working as a used car salesman while waiting for your big break. Emphasize that you never met Frankie Delong, that you knew a friend of Jack's wife who invited you to a party, where you met me."
"Can't I admit I crashed the party?"
"Did you now?" Jacob eyed him sharply.
Jack tsked in the background.
"It looked like the best way to meet Lily again."
The director nodded slowly. "That works. Very romantic."
Eldon tried the wizard story on the reporters, got a laugh, then trotted out the party-crashing-to-meet-the-girl-again story, and how he always wanted to be a kung fu fighter in a movie. They took plenty of pictures of him with and without the horses, with and without his shirt. Jacob looked a bit pained at that, but didn’t interfere. Lily, on the other hand, turned and headed for Jack’s riding arena.
“So, Eldon, how does it feel to step into a dead man’s shoes?”
He picked up his right foot and looked at it in dismay. “No, really! I bought these new!”
That got a bit of a laugh.
Eldon shrugged. “I grew up on a farm. Death is part of life. I’m not superstitious about it. I feel sorry for his kids, losing their Dad. I’m glad he shot a few scenes of the movie and will get some income from it eventually, but I’m afraid his families are in for hard times. That’s the only thing that will haunt me.”
The reporters looked happy with that, and Jacob looked relieved as the reporters dispersed, probably each one looking for good quotes that wouldn’t be repeated on the other channels.
Eldon headed for the arena.
All four horses were being ridden.
“They all look so happy.” Lily grinned in his direction. “I don’t think you’ve been giving them enough attention.”
“Huh. They’re good strong working horses. Carting kids around for a couple of hours is a vacation for them.” Eldon raised his voice. “Hey, Snotty kid! If your reins were even Blazer wouldn’t be walking in little circles.”
The underaged movie star glared in Eldon's direction, but then looked down at his reins and let out slack in the short one. Blazer moseyed over to rub her head on Eldon. "See, Snotty? Much better control."
The kid looked exasperated. “X Treme. That’s for Xavier Treme. Extreme, see?”
Eldon snorted. “Yeah. I see. Now you need to shorten up both reins, so she can’t ignore you.”
Jacob was herded up to the fence by Jack. “See, we can use them for a few of the opening shots. Very picturesque.”
“Very large. I’ll think about it.” Jacob tossed a look over his shoulder. Two camera toting reporters were setting up to get shots of both G. and X Treme.
The pair of actors hammed it up for the cameras. Lily eased
away, to give the reporters an uncluttered view, drawing Eldon after her. He didn’t resist, and in fact managed to steer her into the taller foliage of a formal garden.
“. . . just wanted to know what was going on.” A male voice, around the corner.
A female voice answered. “It’s none of your business what I did. And I don’t want you asking around, either. I don’t want Harold to know I gave anyone a ride anywhere.”
The deeper voice murmured something. “. . . saw the dent and wondered . . . “
“No.” Female, indignant. “What dent? There’s no dent in my car. Bugger off.”
Lily’s eyes turned from Eldon to the bushes.
Eldon looked down at Lily, whispered. “Can you tell who she’s talking to?”
She slipped up to peer around the corner. Eldon was on her heels, but even with his greater height, all he spotted were backs retreating through the garden in two different directions.
Lily rolled her eyes. "Hollywood! Rots the morals." She slipped away down the path he thought the woman had taken.
“Drat. And off she goes, unkissed.” Eldon took the other direction, but found no one.
The party led to an impromptu change of venue for the fourth scene, with Margo riding out to find her little brother and tell him that they're being dragged off to Morocco on yet another Archeological dig.
"At least this one is by the ocean, so maybe I can work on my tan." Spoiled daughter says.
"Oh boy! Maybe there'll be a war while we're there! And Dad will let me carry a gun!"
"God forbid, you little savage."
The twins express cheerful jealousy and envy. "You'd better write us. We collect stamps, you know."
Detective Ivan Goldberg hung up the phone and glared at it in disgust. “The lab says the DNA test on Eldon was kicked back as contaminated, non-human.”
Hildebrandt looked over. “What do they mean by non-human? Good grief, if they messed up they might at least have the cojones to just say so. And anyway, we’re not needing stand-up-in-court purity. We just want to be sure he isn’t a serial rapist on the FBI’s most wanted list.” He stood up and stomped out. Ivan followed.
"Look, it was weird, so I did a quick map on my own time. See? Hundreds of little patches of unidentified DNA all over."
"These red spots?"
"Yeah."
"So . . . how come they're inside the chromosomes, instead of in their own little bacterial or equine chromosomes?"
"Well, these are obviously not human chromosomes – not equine either, they have a different number of chromosomes."
"This has the human number of chromosomes, but with unrecognizable stuff tucked in? Like genetic engineering? I mean, look at everything your test did recognize, the red's, what, one percent? Less? Those are human chromosomes."
"Well, yes, but the contamination has to be post collection, the sample's no good for any kind of stand up in court proof."
Hildebrandt sighed. "Why are we standing here talking to a lab tech? Give us everything. We'll run down a professor or three about it. I know a guy at UCLA."
"Someone has done something hideously illegal."
Hildebrandt snorted. “Don’t sound so gleeful.”
The old geneticist grinned. "I make the count twelve large inserted segments of DNA stuck on the end of six pairs of autosomal chromosomes and two small ones on the X chromosome and one on the Y chromosome. Then itty bitty changes, here and there. Twenty, that I've identified. Where is this man from? How healthy is he? How old is he?"
"He claims to be twenty-nine, looks younger. His skin is light negroid or Hispanic, or India, his hair and beard blonde. Six foot six, two hundred and thirty pounds. He has a faint accent, but speaks English as if it's his native language." Hildebrandt eyed the collection of postdocs. "So, who could have been playing around with human genes twenty to thirty years ago?"
"In 2006? We didn't even have the complete genemap. Dolly was recent. Some private lab? The Russians? The Chinese? They never did have proper controls."
"But why would the Chinese use Negroid and Caucasian genes?" Goldberg hoped he didn't look as lost as he felt.
One young man squirmed. "How about South Africa? They shut down the University of Johannesburg's whole biology department in 2019. A racist scandal was the rumor. Could they have tried something like this?"
"Smuggled a child out of the country when it all went to hell?"
"That's about the only way I can see this combination of racial traits. The African National Congress came into power in the mid-nineties. They may have decided to make a superman . . . maybe some mixed up egalitarian professor, or something . . . "
Goldberg sighed. "Well, you all look pretty happy to have decided who to blame this on. Now . . . have you ever seen anything even remotely similar?"
"Never in humans. In fact, never to this extent. Never with this much control. " The oldest sighed. “We’ve never gotten so far even in an animal.”
"Control?"
"Yes, whoever did this put the same genes in the same spots on each pair of chromosomes. They were not placed randomly. I’ll have to search the literature for hints of their technique, it was certainly never openly published."
"All right. Do you have any idea what these genes do?"
"That will take a lot of study. Lots." Nods all around. Eyes brightened.
"And we want to meet this person." The old man put in.
Goldberg nodded. "I'll send him this way when our police investigation is over. Whether he'll come or not is anyone's guess."
He checked his messages as he slid into the car. “Contaminated or merely weird, Brown's DNA was found nowhere in Delong's house nor on the body. His fingerprints are not in any database.”
Goldberg raised an eyebrow. "Yeah. We can't arrest him for being non-human. And the ID counterfeiting is nothing more than a thousand Mexicans buy every day."
"Well, it's better than average. Maybe we should find out how he got social security to revive that number. I thought that was difficult."
"So despite his being weird, and operating under a stolen ID . . . "
"And being the one who benefited from Delong's death." Hildebrant added.
Goldberg nodded. "We have no basis to consider him a suspect. As far as I can tell, he fell out of nowhere and landed in money."
"Or landed in trouble. Delong had a career, but never saved any money, there's no inheritance for the ex-wives and children to fight over. So the exes are going to be pissed over the loss of income. If another actor killed him hoping to step into his shoes, someone is going to be pissed at Mr. Brown from Nowhere, who stole his role."
“Heh.” Goldberg started the car, and backed out of the University’s parking slot.
Hildebrandt shifted. "I hate weird stuff. I checked out a third person accident report. Nissan and Suburban. The Nissan's license plate says it's Lily Bryant's. The SUV plate doesn't trace. Report was the SUV skidded across the highway, bumped the Nisan, they both pulled over. The caller didn't think anyone was injured, and no one called in any sort of request for assistance. By the time a black and white cruised the area, they were gone. That's the first time Eldon comes into this at all."
"And Eldon's good at fixing bumpers. Maybe we need to be doing DNA swabs on Mercedes bumpers, instead of looking for dents."
"I almost wish we hadn't been able to eliminate all four exes. And the only kid old enough to be a suspect was on a school trip to DC. So we're back to the damned actors. And actresses. If he had an affair, would one of them kill to save her marriage?"
"Or out of jealousy. Ugg. Well, the other actors. G. Gordon Lamar and Jack Level have better roles. Phillip Magnum is too white, and he's got a good role anyway. That leaves us with the martial arts extras. Christian Kleckner, Havier Mathieson, Damien Green, and Felipe Caesar. Kris Randolph too, although I think his role is about on par with Delong's." Goldberg took the ramp up to the highway.
"Right. Those five for coveting the role. How about Ja
ck Level, if Delong was making passes at his wife?"
"Do actors care?" The freeway was already slow, another hour and it would be stop and go for the next thirty miles.
"At the time. Sorry if that sounds cynical, but what stars haven't got a track record of divorces behind them?"
"It looks like a nice day to drive to the beach. Let's just chat with our suspects and the people they work with."
Chapter Seven
On the Beach
Monday found everyone on the beach standing beside lots of (very recently) half-buried of fake ruins, filming a scene with Eldon in his snazzy suit talking to the professors.
His speech is all about his people's desire to recover the “Sign of the Power, the key to the understanding to our culture, so that we may make sense of the old instructions. So that we can finally return to our heritage. We welcome your assistance, your expertise. We do not limit your explorations. But we require that we know about everything. No secrets. We will know our past, regain our Sign."
Then, in the mind-bending way of movies, they shot the opening scene of the movie, with a slick and clean Jack finding the ruins, abstracting a mudbrick with a double triangle in it, then having to run away from patrolling soldiers. And up on the hills, watching both soldiers and Jack, the scantily clad and heavily armed Bojador Tribe. The chief has a tattoo/cititrice of the same symbol on his chest. "It has begun." He slicks his braided and beaded hair back from his face. In theory, his face will fade to Frankie's, with a bit of CGI, in the scene in Paris with the Old American Professor explaining to the local chief and the Moroccan Security people (Kris Randolph) the importance of this site.
Then as the sun dropped, they flipped back to Eldon talking to the professors as he changes into native clothing. The sun sets and the colors change through the scene. Eldon wondered if it was quite as much of a metamorphosis as Prentice imagined.