Alien Nation #5 - Slag Like Me

by Barry B. Longyear

  “Mick never took me to Maine. Do you miss it, sergeant?”

  His eyebrows went up. “Do I miss Maine? Are you kidding? Ice, mud, bugs, and more ice? The only state with a picture of a dead animal on its license plate? Black flies and mosquitoes that use Raid for gargle? Home of the pink plastic flamingo? Acid rain toilet of America? Principal imports: government regulations and bureaucrats; principal exports: alcoholics and people looking for work?” Matt closed his mouth and shook his head. The anger in his words surprised him. Because he had thought Maine and a couple of alcoholic grandparents were behind him, another feeling surprised him, as well. He shrugged as he nibbled at the inside of his lower lip. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Cass. Yeah, sometimes I miss Maine. I guess it’s one of those love-hate things. Is Mr. Cass from Maine?”

  “Let’s get something straight, sergeant. First, I am not Mrs. Cass. My name is Tian Apehna. Next, Micky Cass’s full name is Micky Cass. Mick allowed no titles such as Mr., Miss, Mrs., or Ms. to be attached to his name. And, lastly, I don’t know where he came from. He used to live in the Northeast, but there’s hardly a place on the planet he hasn’t been. He used to tell me he was from another planet until I made it clear to him I didn’t find his humor amusing.”

  Matt stopped next to the desk and pushed around a couple of papers. “What should I call you?”

  “Tian would be fine.”

  “Okay, Tian. I’m Matt.” He turned his head and let his gaze settle on her eyes. The glasses were off and her eyes were green. She was looking at his hand where it rested on Micky Cass’s desk. “Tian, I know your . . . mate, spouse, partner, or whatever—”

  “Micky.”

  “Yes, Micky. I know Micky has this thing about keeping certain things secret, but it makes this investigation ten times more difficult. For example, is he a man?”

  “Micky Cass is one hell of a man, Matt.”

  “Thank y—”

  “She’s also one hell of a woman.”

  Matt folded his arms across his chest, tilted his head forward, and looked at Tian from beneath his eyebrows. “This isn’t a joke.”

  “Do you see me laughing?”

  “Do you mind telling me, then, why Cass, his editor, and you—all three—refer to Cass as ‘he’? Why not ‘it’ or one of those ‘he or she’ or ‘s/he’ things?”

  “This is all quite meaningless.” She looked at the expression on his face, then shrugged and sat down on the varnished pine and plaid canvas upholstered couch. “It’s a habit one gets into, saying ‘he.’ Mick referred to himself that way because, as far as he was concerned, ‘it’ sounds like something from a black and white science fiction film, constant repetitions of ‘he or she’ makes for very clumsy sentences, and ‘shehe’ sounds and looks stupid. I wouldn’t read anymore into it than that.”

  Shaking his head and holding out his hands in disbelief, Matt said, “What is so damned important about keeping this person’s sex a secret?”

  “It’s not important,” answered Tian. “It’s not important at all. That’s what’s so important about it.”

  “You’re not going to tell me?”

  “No.”

  “Not even if it would save Micky Cass’s life?”

  Tears came to her eyes as she looked up at Matt. “That’s something else where Mick’s priorities are different from everyone else’s. Life isn’t as important to him as what he is.” She pointed toward Cass’s desk. “He wants you to read those words by Micky Cass. Not a woman’s words, not a man’s words, not a hermaphrodite’s words or the words of a gay, straight, atheist, religionist.” The corners of her mouth tugged into a sad smile. “Not even a Latvian black gay midget biker.” The tears streaked her cheeks and she reached to the coffee table for a tissue. “You want to know what Mick’s big regret is?”

  “What?”

  “ ‘Slag Like Me’ doesn’t work at all unless it’s written by a human undercover as a Tenct, and so that’s what he had to do. Mick would’ve loved keeping his humanity a secret, too. He doesn’t want the readers to get a ‘human’ view of racism. He wants them to see the creature itself. He wants them to witness racism.”

  “Isn’t this speciesism instead of racism?”

  She gave a sad smile and said, “Drugs and alcohol.”

  “What’s that?”

  She glanced away. “The difference between drugs and alcohol—it’s like changing seats on the Titanic. It’s something Mick said to me once.” She faced Matt. “Actually, it’s us-and-themism. That’s Mick’s dragon, us-and-themism.” She looked away. “Is Mick dead?”

  “I don’t know.” He sat down in a wing-backed chair opposite the couch. “It’s way too early to start throwing dirt on him.” He glanced at her guiltily. “So to speak. Hell, we don’t even know if we have a crime yet, and we already have a list of suspects that could fill the L.A. white pages. I just don’t know.”

  She smiled, the sadness filling her face. “Matt, I understand that everyone is a suspect right now, including me.”

  Sikes leaned his elbows on his knees, clasped his hands, and shrugged. “That’s really somebody else’s department. I’m just here in preparation for going undercover. The powers that be figure somebody might’ve gotten a particular kind of bent nose by Micky Cass disguising himself as a Tenctonese, over and above everyone else whose noses were knocked out of joint by him, that is.” He paused and looked at the woman. She was looking back, her gaze steady. “But as long as I’m here, is there some reason why you should be a suspect?”

  “What a clever segue,” Tian Apehna said coyly as she cocked her head to one side. At last she smiled warmly and nodded. “No one has a more profitable motive. Mick’s will leaves everything to me.”

  “You’ve seen his will?”

  Her smile faded and she looked down and unconsciously smoothed a wrinkle from her smock. “I’m his business manager. I collect the spoils, count the gold, hand out the favors, and keep Mick straight with Internal Revenue.” She looked up at Matt. “The estate comes to just under two million dollars, not including Mick’s copyrights and future royalties. The total could be well over five million.”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  Her gaze was fixed on his eyes. “You wouldn’t have been much of a detective if you hadn’t asked. In some circles five million is a heap of motive.”

  “Yeah,” said Matt, nodding. “That’s a heap of motive in just about every circle I’ve ever seen, experienced, or heard about.”

  “Don’t you want to know where I’ve been the past few days?”

  Matt slumped back in his chair, crossed his legs, and held out his arms. “Look, Tian, other officers are handling this part of the investigation. The only reason I’m here . . . I don’t really know why I’m here. Maybe I’m scared. Maybe I wanted to find out if Micky Cass was ever scared.” He looked up at her. “Did he have any enemies?”

  “That was a damned silly question.”

  Matt nodded as his face grew warm. “Yeah, I guess it was. Stock question in detective kindergarten. Was he scared, though?”

  “He is always scared. This world, the peoples on it, how they think, what they do, and why they do it scares him. His reaction to fear, however, is to beat it to death with his words.”

  Matt nodded. “Okay, I’ll bite. Where were you for the past three days?”

  “I have absolutely no alibi at all. I was here working in my studio, out taking rides or walks, and here sleeping at night. I called no one, met no one, saw no one, except for Marty Fell and a pair of very rude police officers. Terrible, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered with a slight shrug. “I’d figure a perp would be prepared to come across with a better story than that.”

  “Unless the perp knew that and said it to throw you off,” Tian responded, the hint of a smile on her lips.

  “Okay, lady. I’ll bite again. Why did the chicken cross the road?”

  She laughed out loud, the outburst ending as quickly as it began. She
took another tissue, stood, and faced a large array of windows looking out upon the hills above. “Matt, I’m going to tell you one of Micky Cass’s most closely guarded secrets. Have you ever read any of the Nance Damas police routine novels?”

  “Sure. The sister in the San Francisco Police Department. The mysteries by Damita Real. They even made a couple of movies out of them. I’m reading one right now, The Seventh Dragon.”

  She wiped her nose and nodded as she continued looking at the hills. “Mick and I have been doing the Damita Real novels for almost three years.”

  “Micky Cass is Damita Real?”

  She faced Matt and raised her eyebrows in a display of mock offense. “Mick and I are Damita Real. He once said that I was Damita, which means little lady, and he was Real, which means real. I plot, outline, we both do research, and Mick writes and rewrites. Let me ask you something.”

  “Sure.”

  “As a police officer, what do you think of the Damas novels?”

  “Looking for a testimonial?”

  “Please,” she urged.

  Matt thought for a moment and sat back in his chair. “Gritty,” he said. “Real. I can smell the streets. I know the same cops that fictional character knows. I’ve chased the same perps, been mulched by the same paper wizards, sweated the same sweat. In fact, I didn’t think she was fictional. I was convinced the author was a policewoman on the SFPD. The pair of you certainly got into some cop’s head to write that stuff.”

  “Thank you. Thank you very much. Mick will take that as a very big compliment.” She faced Matt and fixed him with her gaze, her eyes brimming with tears. “Matt, Micky Cass is no ivory-tower word mechanic. He gets into the middle of it, rolls up his sleeves, and gets good and dirty. He doesn’t write about it until he knows all about it, whatever it is. When he says the only reasons he might miss a manuscript drop are death, injury, or abduction, take it seriously. He knows the territory.”

  Matt nodded as he got to his feet, three things gnawing at the back of his head, two of them business, one personal. “I guess I shouldn’t be bothering you. I really only have one reason for seeing you. It was something I wanted to ask.”

  “Go ahead. The worst I can do is tell you it’s none of your business.”

  Matt raised his eyebrows and averted his gaze. “You just might do that.” He looked at her eyes. “Tian, after Micky Cass had the plastic surgery done, you know, after he looked like a Tenct, did he spend any time here with you at home?”

  “Almost every night.”

  “The disguise—did it affect things?”

  “Affect things?” She burst out with a laugh. “Affect things? It bent how everyone on the street saw him.”

  His face reddening, Matt put his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “That’s not the kind of things I meant.”

  “What things, then?”

  “Did it affect how you saw him? Did it affect things between Mick and you? How did you feel about him showing up as a Tenctonese? You know—living together, seeing each other—”

  “Sex,” she completed.

  “Well . . . yeah.”

  Tian Apehna’s eyes seemed to mist over as she looked thoughtful for a second. She glanced up at Matt and asked, “Do you have a girl, Matt?”

  “Yes.”

  “A Tenctonese girl?”

  “Yeah. Sort of.”

  “Do you mean she’s sort of Tenct or do you mean she’s sort of a girl?”

  “Tian, you’re getting to be a real pain in the ass.”

  “It comes naturally to anyone who spends a great deal of time dealing with pricks.” Her eyebrows raised. “Are you very much in love?”

  He looked away for a moment. “Yeah. I am with her, anyway. She’s one of the few good things that’ve ever happened to me. I don’t want to screw it up. I don’t want this job to screw it up.”

  Tian’s lips parted in a smile as she touched Matt’s face with her hands. “Matt, you aren’t a patch of hair or a couple of ear flaps. That’s what Mick’s been writing about his whole life. You aren’t a color, or a sex, or a life-style, an occupation, a background, or a name. You are a creature—an entity—unique to the universe, worthy to exist.”

  “What’s that got to do with things between you and Mick?”

  “Not a thing. It only concerns you and your worst enemy, you.”

  “That’s what Cathy’s been trying to tell me.” Matt thought for a moment and then asked, “Those nights after the plastic surgery, while he was here at home, did he have any contact with anyone besides you?”

  “No. Not at the house. He talked to a few persons on the telephone.”

  “Who?”

  “I’m not certain. There was Martin Fell at the Times, that Tenct street gang leader he wrote about in ‘The Color Pink,’—”

  “Danny Mikubeh,” Matt completed.

  “Yes. There were a few others. I didn’t overhear them all, but I saw his phone logs. The police have them.”

  “I know. What else?”

  “Not much, except on the last night he was here he didn’t stay. He had been writing hard all afternoon and he took a break for a few minutes. I remember because I took him some iced tea up on his balcony. I spent some time with him,” she said, a catch in her voice. “Then there was a telephone call. He answered it, and after talking to whoever it was for four or five minutes, he told me he had to leave on an important matter. Shortly after dark he left, and that was the last I ever saw or heard of him.”

  “You have no idea who the call was from?”

  She slowly shook her head. “There was nothing on any of Mick’s phone pads and nothing revealing about the impressions left by previous messages. I know. I checked. So did your lab trolls. Nick had a terrible memory, so wherever he went, it was to a place he knew.”

  Matt turned toward the door and paused as he remembered one of the business items that chewed at his serenity. “Tian, there was one other thing I wanted to ask you.”

  “Oh?”

  “In the first ‘Slag Like Me’ column, Mick started it off by making a crack about his neighbor.”

  “ ‘As my next-door neighbor would be pleased to tell you,’ ” she quoted, “ ‘I’m not a nice guy.’ ”

  “Yeah. That’s right. What’s he mean? Who’s the neighbor, and what’s the problem?”

  “The neighbor’s name is Duke Jessup. His house is just above and behind ours. Believe it or not, when Mick bought this house, Jessup ran a petition campaign to drive us out of the neighborhood.”

  “Because you’re a Newcomer?”

  She laughed and held out her hands in a gesture of absolute bewilderment. “Not that exclusively. There are a number of Tenctonese in the canyon.” She grinned sadly. “I guess you could say it was a color thing.”

  “Mick’s color?”

  “I’m guessing it was the color of the house. All of the houses around here are painted in pastels, and Mick Cass is not a pastel sort of person. Before we moved in, he had it painted its current color.”

  “When I drove up I noticed the house kind of jumped out at me. What’s the name of the color?”

  “Fire Island Red.” She nodded toward the east and continued. “Duke Jessup even took Mick to court over it citing protective covenants, ordinances, and so on, but the court found in Mick’s favor.”

  Matt held out his hands. “Then, what’s the beef?”

  “When he took Mick to court, Jessup committed the big sin. Mick hates lawyers, hates the lawyer game, as he calls litigation, and would prefer spending the remainder of his life having root canal to enduring a minute in court.”

  Matt nodded. “I can relate. I take it Mick retaliated in some way?”

  “Some way. A perfectly legal way, if not terribly mature.” She went to Mick’s desk, picked up a slip of paper covered in cling wrap, and held her hand out toward a side door. “Take a walk with me, Matt.”

  She led Sikes through the door onto a shaded patio that led to stairs that climbed u
p toward the rear of the house. Behind the house was a small rose garden. Above the garden, high on the hill overlooking its own much grander garden, was a pale pink ranch dug into the hillside. The side facing downhill had an enormous deck with a panoramic view of Micky Cass’s home. “I don’t get it,” said Matt.

  “Turn around.”

  Matt turned, looked at the back of Mick’s house, and had to take a step back from the sheer impact of what he saw. It was as though Salvador Dali, Stephen King, Isaac Asimov, and Elton John tripped out on acid to collaborate on a house-painting job, calling in Cher, Picasso, and Charlie Manson for art direction. Writhing bodies in hot pinks, black flies, snakes in electric greens, a spectacular nova in eye-shattering yellows, pinks, whites, and oranges, three neon blue dolphins killing and feasting upon a neon red tuna, turquoise stripes, bits of mirror, reflectors off bicycles, thousands upon thousands of rhinestones, and at the bottom, stuck into the ground, was a row of genuine pink plastic flamingos. There was a bank of floodlights aimed at the display, coolly awaiting the night’s grotesque work.

  “Holy shit—Excuse me, please. It—”

  “No apologies necessary, Matt. When I first saw it, those were my very words.” She pointed toward the sky. “It continues up on the roof, as well.”

  “Jesus,” said Matt.

  “And Celine, too. You should see it at night with the strobe lights on.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Come back here after sunset and see if I’m kidding. It’s still on a timer.”

  Matt shook his head. “That can’t be legal.”

  “Oh, it’s legal. To make it illegal, the ordinance would have to exclude Christmas lighting, as well. When it comes to digging up pain-in-the-ass lawyers, no one can equal Mick. The local ordinances weren’t up to him.” She smiled. “Also, the way it’s arranged, the only person the lights really bother is Jessup. The sightseers are another matter, however.” She pointed up at the Jessup house. “Every day there’s a steady parade of rubberneckers at the turn-off by Jessup’s place to get a peek down here. Day and night. If anyone has a relative visiting from out of town, they’ll take the visitor by Jessup’s to see the freak house.” She turned and pointed at a small balcony set into the top floor of Micky Cass’s house. “When he was finished writing for the day, Mick used to get a glass of apple juice and a pair of binoculars and lounge around up there, watching and waving at the tourists, as well as at Jessup glaring at him.”