Alien Nation #5 - Slag Like Me

by Barry B. Longyear

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sometimes, depending on the light, we could see Duke Jessup sitting in his den up there, staring down at this house. Staring and drinking.” She turned and faced Matt. “Actually, before you go back, you ought to roll by Jessup’s place and take a look down here. It’s really quite startling.”

  “How do you stand living in it?”

  “Actually, you can’t see any of this from inside or from the front or sides of the house. I just don’t come back here.”

  “I take it you didn’t exactly support Mick in this effort.”

  “Occasionally, Matt, Mick Cass thoroughly enjoys reveling in his character flaws. I’m not much into revenge myself.” Her eyebrows went up. “Speaking of revenge,” she said as she handed him the slip of paper she had taken from Micky Cass’s desk. “This was thrust beneath the front door sometime last night.”

  Matt took the paper, noted the wrapping, and said “Fingerprints,” as he nodded approvingly. He read the paper.

  I was much distressed by next door people who had twin babies and played the violin; but one of the twins died, and the other has eaten the fiddle—so all is peace.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a quote from Edward Lear,” said Tian.

  “Who?”

  “The author of ‘The Owl and the Pussycat,’ among other things.”

  Matt frowned. “Have you called this in?”

  “Yes. Your Captain Grazer said for me to hold it for the detectives who’re coming out here later today to question me.”

  As he handed it back to her, Matt asked, “What do you make of it?”

  She looked down at the note, her fingers trembling. “I’m no authority, but I’d say it’s a literary killer’s way of wrapping a victim’s overcoat around a dead fish and leaving it on his family’s doorstep.” There were tears in her eyes as she looked up at Matt. “Duke Jessup is the superintendent of Saint George’s Academy. His background is English literature.”

  Before he left the canyon, Matt did as Tian Apehna had suggested. He drove his car up the hill and pulled into the turn-off next to the lush garden of the Jessup residence. Parked there were six passenger cars and an ancient pickup truck. The truck sported a fading Perot bumper sticker that partly covered another bumper sticker that began One day . . . leaving the resulting sentiment to read One Day Perot. The truck sported neon green mud flaps that urged all those behind the truck to Recycle for Tomorrow.

  The cars carried plates from Nevada, Ontario, New Jersey, California (2), and Utah. The bumper stickers proclaimed everything politically incorrect and unaware from four time zones. The turistas were lined up along the masonry wall observing the freak house below and taking pictures to bring home to show Bud and Elmer. Matt shouldered his way to the wall and looked down.

  After taking a glimpse down at the huge psychedelic eyeball painted on Micky Cass’s roof, Matt felt a vague kinship with the writer. The business with the house was the kind of twisted sweet revenge he used to tease his idle moments with, and then forget. It was a way of venting frustration without actually dealing with it. Thinking about it was one thing, though. Acting out such bizarre little scenarios would be childish, perhaps sick, or even criminal. But in this case Cass had gone ahead and acted on his resentment.

  Not very mature. Not very smart, especially if it had prompted Duke Jessup to react in a terminal way. But fun all the same. Actually, thought Matt, if Jessup were mature, freaking up the back of Mick’s house wouldn’t have worked. Everybody knows how to stop playing Ping-Pong: you simply put down your paddle. Except for Jessup’s constantly quite entertaining reactions to Mick’s provocations, there would be no point in either the freak house or Mick’s afternoon gloatings on his balcony. Of course, if Jessup himself had been mature, he wouldn’t have acted on his original resentment and taken Cass into court.

  Matt pushed away from the wall and looked to his left at the proud home of Duke Jessup perched above its immaculate gardens like a luxury cruiser sailing upon billows of blossoms. Two gardeners were working among the shrubs and flower beds. Would Jessup’s brand of resentment be enough to drive him to either murder or to kidnapping? And then leave a note? The gardens were beautiful, the object of an obsessive person. Was Jessup’s gardening mania sufficient to drive him to kill the author of the freak house below? Matt remembered his father. If his dad had created such a garden, he would’ve killed Micky Cass in a second. Alcoholics tend to be doers if what needs doing is particularly inappropriate, immature, or sick.

  Matt turned toward his car and shook off the questions. George and his FBI buddy would do the follow-up on Jessup. It was time to get on with the surgery.

  C H A P T E R 1 0

  “RANDY, GET ON down here!” shouted the construction foreman. Dobbs and Kirk stood in the construction litter and looked up at the spruce skeleton of the two-story dwelling, the sky growing darker. A man in a white hard hat came to a rough opening that would one day, economy permitting, contain a window. The young man eyed the trio, took his unwrapped sandwich, dropped it in his lunch pail, and turned away. After a long moment, he exited from the not yet hung front door and shuffled over to them. He glanced at Dobbs, looked at Kirk for a moment, then fixed his gaze on his foreman.

  “What’s up, Toby?”

  “These two cops’ve got some questions. Lunch break’s over in twenty minutes.” He faced Dobbs and Kirk and raised his eyebrows. “Twenty minutes, understand?”

  “I think we can figure it out, sport,” answered Kirk.

  The foreman spat on the ground, walked off to his pickup, and resumed eating his lunch. Randy faced the two plainclothes officers and appeared to swallow against a very dry tongue.

  “Yeah?”

  “This is Sergeant Dobbs and I’m Detective Kirk. Is your name Randy Giandra?”

  “Yeah. What about it?”

  “Your crew looks a little shorthanded.”

  “So, good help is hard to find. What’s it to you two?”

  “So,” said Kirk, “you want to tell me about Frank Chadbum, Tony Sarzana, Nick Panek, Archie Cash, and Billy Knapp?”

  The suspect’s gaze moved to Jerry Kirk’s face. He seemed to be hovering somewhere between flight and resignation. “What do you want me to tell you about them? People get sick, some people move on. They don’t have to check in with me.”

  “Uh huh. We know during the night out you boys had a few weeks ago, you were all stoned. Booze, pot. Tony Sarzana was shot dead in the Chay and fell out of the bed of Nick Panek’s pickup truck.” Kirk reached to his inside coat pocket and pulled out a small notebook. He didn’t need to consult his notes. It was for effect. He flipped a few pages, allowed his gaze to play among the scribbles for a moment, and continued. “See, Randy, your boy Archie Cash is still in County Hospital getting glass cut out of his face and eyes. They don’t have much hope he’ll ever see again. Too bad it took you people so long to get him to a hospital. Billy Knapp was treated at County for gunshot wounds in his shoulder and left thigh. He was released a week ago and has vanished. No one has seen hide nor hair of either Frank Chadbum or Nick Panek since Tony was shot dead.”

  The carpenter shrugged his shoulders. “So, why ask me?”

  “Randy,” began Kirk, “everyone who’s physically able has gone to ground. How come you’re still here smacking your thumb with a hammer?”

  “I got a family to support, bills to pay. I call it being responsible. What do you call it?”

  A wry smile came over Kirk’s face. “Stupid. That’s what I call it. Real stupid. What’re they charging you potheads and drunks with—premedicated murder?”

  “You know, cop, they’ve already asked me about this. More’n once. Homicide officers.”

  “Then you already know it won’t make your hair fall out.” Kirk replaced his notebook. “So, we have a couple of questions, too.”

  “My lawyer told me he has to be in on any questioning. This whole mess is going to trial in four mo
nths.”

  “No, no, no,” answered Kirk. “We don’t want to ask about the slaghunt you and your stupid friends were on in Chayville. You and your pals kill and cripple a few rubberheads and what’s that to us? What we want to know has nothing to do with that.”

  “What’s it got to do with then?”

  Kirk’s eyebrows went up. “What can you tell us about Micky Cass?”

  “Micky Cass?” Randy frowned and slowly shook his head. “Who?”

  “Micky Cass. You had to have heard of him. He’s a very famous writer. Up until recently he was doing a column for the Times under the name Ellison Robb. Any of this ringing a bell?”

  “I don’t get the Times. I got a TV.”

  “You had to hear about his column, even on the TV. ‘Slag Like Me’? It was the topic on C-Span and a couple other big talk shows.”

  “I don’t watch jabbervid. I turn to sports mostly. ‘Major Dad,’ Rush Limbaugh, though the guy’s a little far out for me.”

  Kirk shook his head in disbelief. “People in this town have been arguing about ‘Slag Like Me’ for months.”

  “I must’ve had other things on my mind.” The carpenter frowned. “Why? Did he write something about me?”

  “Oh, baby, did he ever write something about you; about you and all your boozed-up little buddies.”

  “What did he write?”

  “Well, Goober, he was an eyewitness to that night when you and your crew went and shot up The Place, killed that little boy, crippled an old man, and then got the shit shot out of you when you went after five slags standing on the sidewalk. They shot back, didn’t they?”

  “I can’t talk about it.”

  “Micky Cass was one of those five slags. He gave you quite a write-up in his column.”

  “You didn’t say this Cass was a slag. You got a copy of that column?”

  “No, I don’t have a copy.”

  Randy Giandra shrugged and looked down as he stuck his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. “If he saw something, the DA would know more about that than me.”

  “We already know what he saw. What we want to know is what do you know about Micky Cass’s disappearance?”

  “Disappearance?” Randy Giandra pulled a hand from his back pocket and held it out to his side. “Man, I never heard of Micky Cass. What in the hell am I going to be able to tell you about someone I never heard of?” He sighed and held out his hands. “Look, I know I’m in trouble. I don’t know what to do about it, and I can’t help you at all.”

  Jerry Kirk nodded once. “I believe you.” He looked at Dobbs and said, “We got squat. Anything you wanted to say?”

  Rick Dobbs nodded and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a dollar and stuffed it into Randy Giandra’s shirt pocket. “Here.”

  “What’s that for?”

  “Save the universe,” said Dobbs. “Buy a condom. Don’t reproduce.”

  C H A P T E R 1 1

  “WHERE’S THAT ‘CARDS and Letters’ column of Ellison Robb’s?” asked Iniko.

  George pushed around the papers until he found it. “I’ve got it here.” He leaned across and dropped it on Matt’s side of the desk where the FBI man was peering through one of several stacks of Ellison Robb’s reader mail. The command center was quiet, a few disinterested clerks having coffee next to quiet keyboards and blank screens.

  “Thank you,” said Paul. He picked up the tear sheet and began scanning it.

  “You look as though you’ve discovered something,” said George.

  The former Overseer shrugged his shoulders. “It’s surprising how many of Ellison Robb’s readers knew he was Micky Cass, even though I see little similarity between the column and his writing as Micky Cass.” He glanced up and pointed toward a stack of letters. “All of those correspondents, over three hundred of them, made some comment that made it clear they knew who was writing the column.”

  “There’s an even bigger stack of letters from persons who believe that Ellison Robb is anyone from Jimmy Hoffa to an incarnation of Elvis. What about the lead?”

  Paul Iniko looked up from his reading and frowned for a moment, followed by a grin. “Now, isn’t that odd?”

  “What odd?”

  “The thing you asked about.”

  “The lead you’re working on?”

  “Yes. It just occurred to me, George, if it turns out to be nothing, there would be no point in telling you. If I’m right, however, I can’t tell you.”

  “Can’t tell me?”

  “I apologize for how this sounds, but I can’t even tell you why I can’t tell you because telling you why I can’t tell you would tell you.”

  “Paul, are you on some kind of medication?”

  “There is a universe of possibilities, George. However, that is not one of them.”

  George Francisco steamed for a moment and then leaned forward to emphasize his point. “Look, if it might be important to the investigation, I need to know. More than that, I have a right to know.”

  Iniko’s eyebrows went up. “I’m sorry, George. Look, I don’t know if it’s important. I don’t even know for certain if what I suspect is true. It might be nothing. Let’s not make an issue out of it until I have the facts.”

  George clasped his hands across his belly and leaned back in his chair. “And once you know for certain you’ll tell me?”

  “If what I suspect is false.”

  “But it’s only important if it’s true, right? You just made a point out of telling me that there wouldn’t be any point in telling me if what I wanted you to tell me . . .” George waved his hands in the air as a puzzled expression crowded his features.

  Paul Iniko nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Hell, now I’m talking like you.” He let his hands fall to his lap. “I don’t understand. Why can’t you tell me why you can’t tell me?” George held up his hands, palms facing Iniko. “No, wait. I remember now. Telling me why you can’t tell me would be telling me.”

  The FBI man nodded. “You’ve got it.”

  “You know, Paul, this isn’t exactly the kind of thing that inspires trust.”

  “It can’t be helped. Perhaps you can trust that I have a good reason.”

  “You’re asking me to have faith in an Overseer?”

  “Former Overseer.”

  George folded his arms across his chest and frowned. “There’s some talk, Paul, that the bureau has you in here in an attempt at managing the investigation to keep the FBI’s skirts clean.”

  “There’s talk that Elvis still stalks the streets of Las Vegas,” responded Iniko.

  “Well, some talk is more talky than other talk.”

  “You’re gibbering, George.”

  “Then let me clear things up a bit. There’s some evidence to support that the Ahvin Rivak and the bureau have a connection.”

  Paul’s eyebrows went up. “You think there’s a government conspiracy to send the Tenctonese off planet and back into slavery? In a very real sense, we don’t even know where we are. Earth science doesn’t even have the ability to manufacture the components to communicate at supra-light speeds and won’t have the ability within the foreseeable future. Even if there were a conspiracy, what would be the point?”

  “I didn’t say it was intelligent. The point just might be to cover up how stupid it is. The last time we worked together, your job was to help cover up the bureau’s role in MDQ and the Maanka Dak business.”

  Paul iniko smiled. “I didn’t do a very good job, did I?”

  “Very well. I’m aware you eventually did the right thing, Paul.”

  “I thought you might have forgotten. You were a little confused, as I recall.”

  “I’m not confused now, and I want to know why the FBI is in on this, and of all the agents available, why you?”

  “There’s nothing to cover up this time, at least not as far as I’m aware. The high-ups are very concerned about the disappearance of Micky Cass and they wanted to get on it right away with every
thing possible. The way my superior explained it to me, there is a very real fear in the mayor’s office and in the attorney general’s office that if something happened to Micky Cass, it might precipitate a disturbance in L.A. that would make the last riot look like a marshmallow roast. It’s believed that such a disturbance could spread well outside the limits of L.A. The director is bending the rules a bit by assigning agents and facilities to an investigation that hasn’t officially begun yet, but that’s how important Washington sees it.”

  “What about the connection with the Ahvin Rivak? Cass had several notes in his files concerning it.”

  Iniko held out his hands and shrugged. “Perhaps there is a connection. The bureau might be conducting an investigation of the rivakah or something or someone related to the returners. What if, as you suspect, the director lost his mind and engaged in a conspiracy with the Ahvin Rivak to sell us all back into slavery, which, of course, would include all the humans on earth, as well. Even so, I’m not in the loop, as they say.”

  “What about Cass’s notes?”

  “I haven’t seen those particular notes. Nevertheless, my best guess is that whatever connection that exists has more to do with the bureau infiltrating the Rivak as a possible threat to national security than it has with a desire to send everyone into slavery.”

  George stared at the former Overseer for a full five seconds and then said, “You’re really not going to tell me what it is you’re working on, are you?”

  “That’s right.” Paul held out his hands and raised his eyebrows. “If the information comes out some other way, fine. It’s just that I can’t tell you. Sorry.”

  George drummed his fingers on the armrests of his chair, took a deep breath, and let it out. “Okay. For the moment, Paul, okay. What about Davenport’s alibi? Did you get the name of his doctor?”