Alien Nation #5 - Slag Like Me

by Barry B. Longyear

  “I’ll say it plain, okay?”

  “That’d be a new wrinkle.”

  Kirk’s eyes narrowed as he said, “It’s this race mixing: blacks and whites together. I don’t go for it. I don’t go for it at all. It makes me real uncomfortable.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Well, that’s the problem, Dobbs. Blacks should stay with blacks and whites with whites. That’s just the way I see it.”

  “You think my wife’s white?” asked Dobbs. “Is that what’s chewing on you?”

  “Isn’t she?”

  Dobbs chuckled as he shook his head. “Man, let me help you put down that burden. Kit isn’t white.”

  “You could have fooled me.”

  “I guess she already did. So don’t worry about it. Kit’s not white.”

  Jerry Kirk grinned as yards of knotted tension dropped from him. “Man, am I ever sorry.”

  “No sweat.”

  “No, Dobbs. I’ve been a real jerk this past couple of weeks. Thinking your wife was white. I feel like a real jerk.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I sure thought she was white. I guess it shouldn’t, but it really bothered me. Know what I mean?”

  “Yeah. I think I do. The fact is, though, she’s not white.” Dobbs turned his face toward Kirk, pursed his lips, and put his elbow up on the backrest. “I think I can ease your mind about something else, too.”

  “Oh?”

  “You aren’t white, either.” Jerry Kirk frowned as Dobbs laughed and slapped the dashboard with his hand. “C’mon, pilgrim. Let’s get out to Toon Town and see Rantu, the makeup man.”

  C H A P T E R 7

  AT THE SAME time that morning, George Francisco drove in silence as Paul Iniko sat in the passenger seat looking at the graffiti sprayed on the fences, buildings, and houses along Whittier. He looked up and the sky was crowded with blacks and grays, the rare threat of rain imminent. Iniko turned to the open file on his lap and leafed through the tear sheets of “Slag Like Me.” As he read he said, “I thought we had taken care of these little problems last year when we worked together on the Maanka Dak case.”

  George glanced to his right, then returned his gaze to the road. “What little problems?”

  “Me being a former Overseer and you being a current asshole.”

  “Asshole?”

  Iniko nodded and said in Tenctonese, “Tirivi.”

  “I know what ‘asshole’ means!”

  “I imagine such knowledge would be difficult for you to avoid.”

  George shook his head and continued looking through the windshield for the street he wanted. “What are you talking about, Iniko?”

  The FBI man closed the file and faced Francisco. “Well, George, the way my superior in the bureau puts it, ‘We was in the trenches together, boy, on the same team, fightin’ the same bad guys, bleedin’ the same goddamned blood.’ ” Iniko grinned. “My superior, Nate Crook, is a very colorful character.”

  “No doubt.”

  Paul Iniko looked back at the street. “What I’m trying to say, George, is that a year ago we were approaching the brink of a rather substantial friendship. Then, nothing. Right now you’re as cold as an iceberg in suspended animation.”

  “What do you want from me, Paul? A hug?”

  George was astonished as the former Overseer burst out in laughter. When he had calmed himself, Iniko nodded and said, “A hug would be just fine, George. It would be just fine.”

  “Some other time. I don’t think I’m quite ready yet to hug an Overseer.”

  “Former Overseer,” Paul corrected.

  “Yeah, right.”

  They rode in silence for a half block, then Iniko said calmly, “I talked to my superior about you, George.”

  “Oh?”

  “About five months ago. I tried since we had worked together to stay in touch, and although I developed a curiously friendly relationship with just about everyone else in your family, you I couldn’t reach. When I did get you on the phone, there was always one excuse or another why we couldn’t get together.”

  “You know how things are.”

  “Yes,” said Paul. “I think I do.” There was a pause, then Paul continued. “Nate Crook is a very wise man. When things bother me, I go and have a talk with him and he often has an insight that’s helped. Do you have anyone like that, George?”

  “Perhaps. Do you remember Malcolm Bone?”

  “The human hila at the East L.A. Rama Vo?”

  George nodded. “Yes. Sometimes I talk to him.” George frowned as he thought. “It’s been awhile though. What about it?”

  “There was a story Nate Crook told me. The short version began quite awhile before our ship crashed here. Nate was in the army stationed on Okinawa during the Vietnam War. He didn’t do much in the war except swing a club as an MP, but it was the friends he made on Okinawa while he was there that were important. During his training in South Carolina, you see, all the whites sat at those tables, all the blacks sat at those other tables, and everyone else divided up pretty much the same. There was no law that required this segregation. That’s just what seemed to cause the least friction. On Okinawa, though, these lines seemed to melt. They were all American soldiers and the ‘thems’ were the Okinawans. He made what he thought to be some very good friends on Okinawa. When his military police company was brought back to South Carolina, however, everyone was sitting at separate tables again. When he tried to sit with his best friend, the others at the table told him to sit with the whites. He sat across from his friend and waited to hear what he had to say. The man nodded and said, ‘Go on. Sit over there.’ It was all black and white again. Us and them. Nate says it broke his heart.”

  “I bet this story even has a point,” said George, the sarcasm suspended from his syllables.

  “Yes, George. It has a point, a rather important one.” Iniko’s voice grew very quiet. “Back when we were working together to take down Maanka Dak, Dr. Norcross and the MDQ, back when we were trying to protect your family, save your partner’s life, and protect each other’s asses, we weren’t Overseer and slave, master and servant, torturer and victim. We were two cops against the bad guys. If not friends, I thought we had at least achieved a degree of mutual respect.”

  George rode in silence for a long while, the horrors of a year ago flashing through his mind. “It was a confusing time for me, Paul. I was going through riana, Matt was dying, and the craziest bastard on earth was after me and my family. That tattoo around your wrist didn’t seem so big against all that.”

  “Look at this, George.”

  Francisco faced Iniko and the former Overseer had his sleeve pulled up, exposing his left wrist. There was no sign remaining of the jagged tattooed cuff of the Overseers. “It’s gone,” remarked George.

  “It took a doctor about half an hour with a special laser pen. Then it was a few weeks more for my body to absorb the bruises and the remains of the dye. I had it done eight months ago.”

  “Why? Aren’t you proud to be an Overseer?”

  Iniko pulled his sleeve back down. “No more proud than you are to have been a slave. I’ve said it to you before, George, neither one of us had choices as to what we were to become back on the ship. We do have choices now, however.”

  “That’s our street,” said George as he swung the car right onto Marietta. Soon after the turn, he found the address he was looking for and pulled the car over to the curb. He put the car in park, shut off the engine, and looked at Iniko. “Let me tell you a little story, Paul. Not long after we were released from the quarantine camp, my children were going out to celebrate their first Halloween. My daughter Emily surprised me by dressing up as an Overseer, complete with washable tattoo.” George averted his glance and grimaced. “No. Let me be perfectly honest about it. She didn’t surprise me; she frightened me half to death.” He shifted his gaze to the former Overseer. “For just a moment my instinctual reaction was to kill her, my own daughter.” He look
ed at Iniko, his face a mask. “The memories are too sharp, Paul; the scars run too deep. We can work together, as it appears we must for the time being, but being friends is out of the question. Can you see us going fishing together, playing cards, our families having a picnic together?” George frowned as a question presented itself. “Do you even have a family?”

  “In a manner of speaking, but not the kind of family you mean.” Paul turned to the file on his lap, a resigned expression on his face. “So, shall we go call upon the family of young Randy Cook and see how ‘Slag Like Me’ has touched their lives?”

  C H A P T E R 8

  “IT’S ALL BULLSHIT,” declared Gil Cook from his kitchen table, his balding jowled countenance perched on a tank of a body clad in sweatpants and a T-shirt sporting the stars and stripes. The writing on the T-shirt urged the reader to “Try and burn this one.” Old Glory had several holes in it and appeared to have a much better chance of rotting to pieces than being set aflame. Randy Cook’s father had a florid face that was kept that way by frequent ingestion of Coors Lite. Iniko picked up an empty can and read the printing. According to the label, each can contained a considerable number of calories less than the same size can of regular Coors, and by the look of Gil Cook’s gut and the bulging bags of empty beer cans in the kitchen, Gil was saving thousands of calories every day.

  “In southern California,” cracked Mrs. Cook to Paul, “everybody’s a health nut.” Linda Cook looked to be about half her husband’s age, although the file showed her to be only a year younger.

  “What’re you swingin’ your ass at them for?” Gil said to his wife, “You think a couple of slags’re interested in a dried-up old bitch like you?”

  “If we could get back to the subject,” urged George.

  “I already said it was all bullshit,” said the man with the beer can. “Randy never beat up on no little girl. I don’t care what that damned Jew said in his column.”

  “Jew?”

  Mr. Cook nodded. “Sure. That name—Robb. Short for Rabinowitz, right? Everybody knows that, ’cept maybe a couple of slags. Not that I got anything against the Jews, y’unnerstand.”

  “Of course,” said Iniko.

  “Yeah, right,” said Mrs. Cook.

  Ignoring her, the elder Cook stabbed at the air with his finger. “Hittin’ a girl, even a slag kid. I’d punch the shit outta Randy he do anything like that. He knows it, too. What kinda kid you think I raised? He didn’t beat up no little slag bitch. He didn’t beat up nobody at all, ’less they asked for it.” He held his beer can up and nodded at Francisco and Iniko. “Don’t mean no offense there, officers. About the slag thing, I mean. No offense, there. I don’t have no rotten milk or I’d offer you somethin’.”

  “I don’t care for the stuff, myself,” said Paul. Iniko placed the empty beer can next to the sink as George pulled several photographs from the file.

  “Mr. Cook, these are prints of photographs taken by the security cameras at the playground of your son’s school.” He tossed them on the table in front of Gil Cook. “Do you see the two boys and the girl beating up on a smaller Tenctonese girl? Isn’t that larger boy your son?”

  Randy Cook’s father leaned forward and cast a bleary gaze toward the photos. He shook his head and looked up at George. “Shit, that’s not Randy. The boy don’t own a shirt like that.”

  “Why don’t you try looking at his face?”

  The man shrugged. “He’s so cruddy, how can you tell? All that hair down in his face.”

  “That’s Randy all right,” Mrs. Cook declared. George looked at her as she looked up from the photo and nodded. “Randy takes after his father.”

  Gil Cook renewed his purchase on his beer can and slumped back in his chair. “My lawyer says I shouldn’t answer no questions about what happened there. We’re takin’ the paper to court, see? Snotty-assed damned Times. Lie about my kid.” He shifted his weight from one hip to the other, finished off the can in his hand, and pointed the empty at Iniko and Francisco. “Look, you two. The child protective laws in this state. The paper and that Ellison Rabinowitz can’t take a twelve-year-old kid and smear his name all over the papers like that. It ain’t legal. I got a lawyer who says so.”

  “Thirteen,” said Mrs. Cook, her voice flat.

  “What’re you talkin’ about?” asked her husband, his face screwed up in confusion.

  “Thirteen,” she repeated. “Your son Randy is thirteen years old.”

  “Thirteen?” He waved a hand, dismissing the minor point of his son’s age. “The point is that they can’t do that to my boy. It’s not legal.”

  “Tell him what you and that lawyer are claiming for damages,” said his wife.

  “Seven million dollars. That’ll teach that Hebe paper to drag my name through the mud. Goddamned rich snots. Seven million. They’ll think twice before they go after some other innocent sweet kid, you can bet your ass on that.”

  “If I might interrupt this homage to truth, justice, and the American way,” said Iniko, “can you account for your whereabouts for the past seventy-two hours?”

  “My what? Whereabouts?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nobody says whereabouts anymore.”

  “I just did.”

  “You mean where I was, not whereabouts.” Gil Cook’s expression of righteous certitude collapsed into confusion. “For seventy-two hours?”

  “That’s three days,” offered George.

  “Three days?” repeated Cook, his expression even more confused. “I know how long three days is. Sure. I know where I was. I guess so.” He moistened his lips and looked at his wife, an edge of panic in his eyes.

  “Gil couldn’t account for the past fifteen minutes,” said Mrs. Cook, “but I can account for the past three days for him.” Her gaze moved slowly from George’s face until it settled upon her husband’s form. “Sergeant, I can tell you where Gil has been for the past three months, the past three years. He’s either been in here, in the living room in front of the TV, or in bed, making empty cans out of full ones. I think I can safely say that he hasn’t left the house once since he was released from the hospital seven months ago, except to go to the supermarket.” Her eyes hazed over for a second, then grew clear and hard as she said, “He was in the hospital for a drug overdose.”

  “Alcohol poisoning,” corrected her husband.

  “A drug is a drug,” she answered.

  Gil Cook pushed himself to his feet, went to the refrigerator, took a fresh six-pack from it, and stumbled off to the living room. In a moment the sounds of a beer company commercial extolling the virtues of responsible drinking came booming from the living room television.

  The mother of Randy Cook looked at Iniko and said, “Are you looking into the lawsuit that ambulance-chasing leech got my husband to file?”

  “No. We’re investigating the disappearance of Ellison Robb.”

  Her face was stiff, and suddenly she looked very old. “It would be a shame if anything happened to Ellison Robb. She’s very brave. She’s saying some really important things.”

  “Why would you say that?” asked George.

  “Why would I say what?”

  “Why did you call Ellison Robb she? Is Ellison Robb a woman?”

  “Of course.” Mrs. Cook shook her head and smiled. “I guess I just assumed it. I don’t know anything for certain, except Robb has a heart. If a little girl cries, Ellison Robb feels it and does what’s right, even if it’s against the law.”

  “Against the law?” repeated Paul Iniko.

  “Mentioning a minor’s name in the paper like that is illegal. Gil was right about that.”

  “Well, then,” said George. “Doesn’t that mean a big settlement for your family?”

  Her eyes narrowed as they glared at George. “My family couldn’t survive any kind of a settlement. Right now Gil’s drinking is limited by the amount of his disability pension and whatever Randy can steal. If Gil can buy and drink all the booze he wants, he won’t
last a week.”

  When it was time to leave, Iniko stayed behind for a moment as George went to the car and reported in. After Iniko came out of the house and climbed into the passenger seat, George pulled into traffic and said, “I was just thinking how unreasonably restrictive the laws governing justifiable homicide are.”

  “Still have that asshole problem, don’t you, George?”

  “You want to clarify that, Overseer?”

  “Gil Cook isn’t a fugitive from a horror movie. He’s a very sick man. His whole family’s sick.” Surprised, George faced him. The FBI man was looking back, his gaze steady. “You may be right after all, George.”

  “Right about what?”

  “The friendship thing between us.” Paul Iniko faced the street. “It just might be impossible.”

  C H A P T E R 9

  “TIAN APEHNA?” Matt Sikes looked at the sad-eyed Tenctonese woman holding the front door of Micky Cass’s Coldwater Canyon home. The skin of her face was smooth and very pale, the lips full and touched with warm blush. Her eyes were hidden by sunglasses. She carried her expression like a mask, allowing no entrance into or observation of her secret heart. That, too, was the purpose of the sunglasses. Any Tenctonese answering the door on a cloudy day only wore sunglasses to hide the color of the eyes. Her eyes would be tinged with green, the color of pain. Or perhaps that was what she would have an observing detective believe.

  “Sergeant Sikes?” She left the door open and turned to lead the way. They entered a rustic, pine-paneled living room. Everything else about the house was the typical stucco, red tile, late Hollywood mongrel Spanish ranch. The living room, however, was a jarring throwback to downeast wood stoves and black-fly infested summers in Maine. Tian held out her hand toward a corner of the room. It was filled with an old wooden desk, a high-backed leather office chair and a word processor sitting amidst a litter of papers, books, and models of everything from fighter planes to human skulls. “Not exactly West Coast, is it?”

  Matt felt his face flush. “Sorry. This room all of a sudden reminded me of my grandparents’ house in Maine.”