Alien Nation #5 - Slag Like Me

by Barry B. Longyear

  “Task force?” asked George.

  “You have a problem with that, Francisco?”

  “You’re running a task force on the suspicion that something that may or may not have been a crime might have happened to someone, we’re not really certain who?”

  “It was ordered by the chief himself. If you have any complaints, I suggest you take them to his office.” He nodded toward the FBI agent. “I’m bringing in missing persons, the gang units, homicide, department intelligence, and the sheriff. While we’re setting up, you and Iniko will wade through the records, chase down and interrogate the suspects mentioned in the column, with particular attention to all of the police officers he mentioned. The last thing I want is for there to be even a hint that we’re running some kind of department cover-up. If there’s some rotten blue out there, you rat him out. You have zero tolerance, sympathy, and understanding. Understood?”

  “Understood,” said George, his expression troubled.

  “What about me?” asked Matt.

  “Yeah, Sikes. About you.” Captain Grazer unwrapped another stick of chewing gum and folded it into his mouth. “There’s an end of this investigation that’s just hanging in the breeze right now. I’d sort of like to have you take it on.”

  “Hanging? What do you mean, hanging?”

  “How would you like to go undercover as a newspaper reporter? Go through the same procedures with the same people that this Robb went through? Trace his footsteps?”

  “Under cover? How would I like it?” Sikes frowned and cocked his head to one side. “Let me get this straight, cap. You want me to go through all that surgery that Robb went through, using the same facilities, and conduct an investigation as a Newcomer?”

  “A human disguised as a Tenct,” Grazer corrected. “The Newcomers have their own racial purity nuts, such as the Ahvin Rivak, and there might be a Tenct or two somewhere who freaked about this Micky Cass being married to a Tenctonese woman.”

  “Or,” added Iniko, “someone might have taken offense at Cass impersonating a Tenctonese.”

  “Such as?” asked Matt.

  “Such as me.” Iniko’s gaze shifted from Matt to George. “And others.”

  George nodded. “Yes, it offends me. The whole experiment offends me, but it doesn’t have anything to do with racial purity.”

  Matt snorted out a laugh. “So, what is it?”

  “What it has to do with, Matt, is getting along.” George faced the captain. “There are problems, and no one knows that better than a Newcomer. However, I never saw anyone change his opinions by having a finger stuck in his eye. That’s all ‘Slag Like Me’ does. It sticks fingers in people’s eyes. It tries to put out brush fires by throwing gasoline into the flames.” He took a deep breath and let it escape from his lungs, his voice quieter. “I’m not up on any barricades waving a flag, cap. As with most Tenctonese, I’m just trying to do my job and raise a family. I’m not out to change the world.”

  “Micky Cass was out to change the world,” said Fell to George. “He knew it was impossible, yet all he ever asked for was a fist and room in which to swing. That’s what his column was to him.”

  “Anyway,” said the captain in an attempt at regaining control of the conversation, “disguising himself as a Tenct or being married to one might be the ‘why’ we’re looking for, Sikes, and we might not draw out the perp without the right kind of bait.”

  “Bait.” Matt gave George a nervous look, then faced the captain. “The budget crunch is still on, right?”

  “Yeah. What’s your point?”

  “As I understand it, that surgery and stuff cost a heap of change.”

  “Close to five hundred thousand dollars,” said Martin Fell. “Nevertheless, the Times will pay for your disguise. We’re anxious to get Micky Cass back safely, and if that’s not possible, to see Micky’s abductors punished.”

  “Anything else?” asked the captain.

  “Yeah,” said Matt. “There’s something else.” He moistened his lips and thrust his hands into his pockets. “What about wiring me?”

  “No wire. A number of the suspects you might run into know as much about that kind of gadgetry as we do. They’d pick it up in a second. If one of them is it, that might be the end of little Rico. What you will have is a tiny video recorder implanted in your head the same as Cass’s. It’s shielded and its emission level is very low. We can’t use anything they can detect.”

  “Then how are you going to work my backup?”

  “Budget safe and simple, Sikes.” Grazer began unwrapping another piece of gum. “There won’t be any direct backup. We’ll have you under observation as much as possible, but some of the time you’ll be on your own. Anything else?”

  Matt’s face flushed red. “Yeah, I think I got something else. This is asking a hell of a lot, cap. You hand over my partner to the feds and stick me with trick or treat? How did I draw this one?”

  Grazer nodded. “Fair question.” He popped in the fresh piece of gum and chewed as he asked, “You know some Tenctonese, right?”

  “A bit,” answered Matt. “I’m told I speak with a Deck Twenty-seven twang.” He glanced at his partner.

  Captain Grazer shrugged and leaned back in his chair as he said to Matt, “You speak a little Tenct, you know a lot about Tencts because of your partner and, er, others.”

  “You mean Cathy?”

  “Unh huh. You going with a Tenct is almost as good as being married to one for what I’ve got in mind. You’re perfect.”

  “I can’t speak Tenctonese well enough to pass myself off as anything more than a mute.”

  Grazer rubbed his chin and raised his eyebrows. “When you come right down to it, Matt, your job won’t be to pass yourself off as a Newcomer. Your job will be to flush out whoever it is who doesn’t want humans climbing into spot suits.”

  Matt’s eyes narrowed as he scratched at his chin. He held up a hand and cocked it toward Grazer. “There’s something else here, cap. Something rotten, and the smell is pointing right at you. It’s beginning to make my eyes water.”

  Grazer raised his eyebrows and shrugged again. “Yeah, I guess you could say there’s something else. It’s not real important to the investigation though.”

  “Not real important?”

  The captain took the wad of chewing gum out of his mouth and tossed it into the wastebasket. Turning back to Sikes he said, “This Robb, or Cass, has done just about everything possible to put the department’s feet in the fire. Every other cop out in that squad room hates Ellison Robb’s guts. You make some noises like you admire the guy.”

  “He’s saying some things that need to be said.” Sikes’s eyebrows went up as understanding flooded his features. “What you mean is, no one else’ll do it. No one else’ll go undercover as a Tenct to help Robb.”

  “Yeah. That’s right, Sikes. Nobody else’ll do it. Most of them don’t give a crap about Ellison Robb. None of them, though, wants to become a Tenct. How about it?”

  “Ellison Robb gave the department a boo-boo, and now the blue frat wants to see him dead for it?” Matt faced George and said, “See? Isn’t this exactly what Robb was writing about?”

  “Give me an answer,” Grazer demanded.

  “You can’t order me to do something like this.”

  “That’s right. I can’t.” He raised an eyebrow and aimed the eye beneath it at Matt. “But if you don’t do it, it’s not going to be done. What about it?”

  Martin Fell reached into a leather folder. “The surgery is completely reversible, sergeant.” He pulled a sheaf of papers out of the folder and held it out toward Sikes. “Here are copies of Mick’s notes on the surgery and training. You’re free to examine them. I’m having the remainder of his materials brought over, as well.”

  Matt took the notes, glanced through them, and looked at his partner. George Francisco’s features were crowded with terminal smirk. Sikes nodded toward Grazer. “I’ll give you my decision once I’ve seen the notes.�
� Looking back at Francisco, he said, “I wouldn’t be too smug if I were you, George. If I agree to do this, I only become a Tenctonese. Compared to what you’re going to be, I’m going to be way up there on the social scale.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Sikes smirked and polished an imaginary smudge off his fingernail “I’ve read all of Robb’s columns. A bunch of the suspects in this case are L.A. cops. Maybe I’ll become a Newcomer. It might not be so bad. A lot of good people I know are Tencts. Whatever else happens, though, you and the fed there go down as shoo-flies, which is four steps down the social scale from worm shit.”

  C H A P T E R 3

  “DON’T YOU FIND the concept of ‘shoo-fly’ interesting?” asked Agent Iniko.

  George Francisco, his back leaning against the interrogation room table in the new Franklin Avenue substation, put aside his concerns about Matt’s assignment and snapped, “What’s so interesting about it?”

  “It’s the ultimate absurdity of ‘us’ and ‘them’ thinking, Francisco. The number one complaint among police officers is that no one likes them. Everybody hates cops. Yet the police officers hate their own police officers, internal affairs. They call the IA officers shoo-flies and make them social outcasts.”

  “Everyone hates authority, Iniko.”

  “Not everyone, certainly. I don’t.”

  “You’ve never been a slave.”

  Iniko laughed. “Overseers were slaves, too.”

  “Slaves in charge.”

  “Slaves all the same, which is neither here nor there. Most police officers haven’t been slaves, yet every single one of them hates IA.”

  The door opened and a tower of constipated anger put in its head. “Francisco and Iniko?”

  “Yes?” said George.

  “Aw, Jeez,” said the intruder as the expression on his face soured. He opened the door all the way. He was a tall uniformed officer in his late forties, raw-boned and blond, his thinning hair cut close to his scalp. “Leave it to IA to hire a couple of rubberheads.” He shrugged his lanky frame. “Hell, maybe it makes sense to slip slags into Internal Affairs. You don’t lose anything important by going shoo-fly. Everybody already hates your guts.”

  “You must be Officer Davenport,” said George. “I’m Sergeant Francisco from homicide, and this is Special Agent Paul Iniko of the FBI. Please come in.”

  “Homicide?” Davenport’s scowl dissolved into a look of utter confusion. “FBI? If you two aren’t IA, then what’s up? What do you want me for?”

  “Come on in and close the door,” said Iniko.

  “Should I have a lawyer?”

  “Do you need one?” asked George.

  “No. I don’t need any damned lawyer.” Davenport entered the room, left the door open, and remained standing as he tossed his cap on the table. Placing his hands on his hips, he kept both Tencts in view at the same time. “Okay. What’s this about?”

  George closed the door and turned to face the officer. “We’re investigating the disappearance of Ellison Robb, the column—”

  “Ellison Robb?” Davenport’s face blossomed into smiles. “Kidnapped? Killed? No kidding? Something happen to that smart-mouthed son of a bitch?” He pulled out a chair, sat in it, and clasped his hands behind his head as he leaned back. “Tell me more; tell me more. You can call me Rudy.”

  “We’re asking the questions, Rudy,” said Iniko.

  “I guess I’m a suspect, huh? What happened to him, the rotten-mouthed little bastard? Something painful and lingering, I hope.”

  “Why would you be a suspect, Davenport?”

  “Shit.” The officer lowered his hands, and pointed at George. “You telling me you don’t know what that bad-mouthing little bastard did to me?”

  “You mean mentioning you in his column?”

  “Mention me in his column? Oh, yeah. That’s what I mean. Let me tell you what life for Rudy Davenport has been like since that first ‘Slag Like Me’ appeared in the paper. First thing that happened was that my captain and me were trotted into the chief’s office. The chief of police? Downtown? I never thought I’d live long enough to meet the chief of police, and there I was, right in the middle of the man’s carpet, having him ream me a brand new asshole with a post hole digger.” He leaned his elbows on the table and pointed at George, “Maybe this is something you rubberheads just can’t understand. I got a family—a wife and four kids. We only got the one income. Because of that column, I was suspended without pay for a month and had a turd slipped into my jacket down in personnel. In this age of kiss the ass of your local alien, you want to know what my chances of promotion are? How in the hell am I supposed to pay for my little girl’s braces? I’m not worried about paying for my kids’ college education. I’m busy trying to get goddamned food on the table!”

  Iniko pulled out the chair opposite Davenport’s and sat in it. “You make it sound as though it’s Ellison Robb’s fault that you called him a slag and tried to slough off his complaint until you found out the perps were Tencts.”

  “You believe everything you read in the papers?”

  “In his column,” asked George, “did Robb describe what transpired at the hospital accurately?”

  Davenport took a deep breath and let it sigh out as he slumped back in his chair and gave a reluctant shrug. “As far as he went.”

  “What was missing?”

  “What he didn’t write about was what an irritating little son of a bitch he was.” The officer glanced up at Francisco. “Look, it was the end of a long day, I had more on my plate than I really needed, and that bastard’s really got a mouth on him. He really got under my skin.”

  Iniko smiled. “What you didn’t know, though, was what was under his skin.”

  “Look, J. Edgar Rubberhead, I don’t care what Robb was under all that plastic. He was a bad-mouthing little bastard and he pissed me off. Besides, the whole thing was out at Mount Andarko’s, the slag hospital? The place gives me the creeps. Nothing in it looks the same as a real hospital.”

  George bent over and leaned his hands on the edge of the table. “Where’ve you been for the last few days, Davenport?”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Your record shows you took three sick days ending yesterday.”

  “What about it?”

  “So, where were you?”

  “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out. I was sick. I was at home except when I was at the doctor’s office.”

  “Is there anyone who can verify that?”

  Davenport nodded. “Yeah. My wife, my kids, four hundred salesmen and religious nuts, and the doctor.”

  “What was wrong?” asked Iniko.

  “Wrong?”

  “Yes. Your illness. What was it?”

  Davenport glared at Iniko for a moment then turned away. “None of your business.”

  “Was it a police physician?”

  “It would have to be,” answered George. “Sick day notes from outside doctors don’t count.”

  “They still can’t give out information like that,” insisted Davenport. “Not legally, they can’t.”

  “What’s the doctor’s name?

  Davenport pointed a shaking finger at George, “Look, spottop, you go check with my lieutenant. What I was told was that everything about me seeing my doctor was confidential, including the doctor’s name.”

  Iniko pressed his fingertips together and looked over them at Davenport. “So, what are we talking about here, officer? Addiction? AIDS? The clap? Nervous breakdown? Wife battering? Child molesting?”

  Rudy Davenport’s face became like stone as he placed his hands on the edge of the fable and pushed himself to his feet. “I got nothing more to say,” He looked from Iniko to Francisco. “You have anything more you want to know, you speak to my lieutenant.”

  “There is just one more question,” said Iniko. “The muggers who attacked Robb.”

  “What about them?”

  “Were they eve
r arrested?”

  A genuine shrug crossed the man’s shoulders. “I don’t know. I only filed the report. Chances are, unless they got heads packed with pine, they haven’t been brought in. In this town you got to be unlucky as hell or real dumb to get nailed for mugging, even a rubberhead. Anything else?”

  Iniko looked at Francisco. “I don’t have anything.”

  George faced Davenport. “That’s all. Thank you for your cooperation.”

  “Go fuck yourself, slag,” said Officer Davenport, “Don’t get me wrong, now. I mean that in the nicest possible way.” He stormed out of the room leaving the door open behind him.

  Iniko glanced at Francisco as he rose to his feet. “Well?”

  “A rather disagreeable fellow.” George folded his arms across his chest and studied the empty doorway. “We’ve got the juice from the chief’s office. You go and question Davenport’s superiors and check out the doctor. I’ll follow up on the muggers. If they haven’t been apprehended, I’ll start on the two LAPD officers Cass wrote about who beat him up and dumped him in Chayville.”

  “Do you think Hong and Kent will be as hostile as brother Davenport?”

  “Probably more so. They were both fired.”

  Iniko stood and pushed in his chair. “As I said, interesting concept, shoo-fly.”

  C H A P T E R 4

  MATT SIKES NIBBLED at the inside of his lower lip as he sat at his desk leafing through Micky Cass’s notes. It was all there, scribbled in Cass’s free and open handwriting: steps for becoming a genuine alien from outer space. The columnist obviously entrusted nothing to memory. Every note, every reference, was carefully entered and cross-referenced. Phone logs showed where, when, and with whom he talked. He had made extensive notes and had done quite competent drawings of the plastic surgery and modeling done with Realskin, a vat-grown biofilm that looked and acted like real skin used primarily for treating burn victims.