Alien Nation #5 - Slag Like Me

by Barry B. Longyear

  “There are some things upon which I need to satisfy myself,” said Paul.

  “Things?”

  “A hunch.”

  They were interrupted by the owner of the house, school superintendent Duke Jessup, entering the room. He was in his middle fifties, balding, wearing gray balloon slacks and a ripped red and yellow rugby shirt. He hadn’t shaved for a few days and he looked as uncomfortable in the center of all that whiteness as Iniko and Francisco. He glanced nervously at the two Tencts and put his hands into his trouser pockets. “My wife said you wanted to talk to me.”

  “Yes,” answered Paul. “Thank you for seeing us.”

  “You’re here about the Cass thing, I imagine.”

  “The Cass thing?” George repeated.

  “Yes,” Jessup answered with no change in expression. “He’s missing, I hate his guts, two plus two equals five, and here are the police back for the second act. The cops have been here already, you know.”

  “We have Lieutenant Ramos’s report and your statement, Dr. Jessup,” said Paul. “I’m Agent Iniko of the FBI. This is Sergeant Francisco with LAPD homicide. We’re both working on the Cass investigation. There were just a few things we wanted to clear up. According to what you told Lieutenant Ramos—”

  “Could we go to another room?” asked Jessup. He removed a hand from its pocket and gestured toward the door. “We might be more comfortable.”

  “Certainly,” answered Paul.

  Jessup turned and led the way through an equally white hall lined on one side with windows that looked out over the gardens. Potted plants had been strategically placed on the balcony outside to block the view of Micky Cass’s house. As Duke Jessup walked, he remarked, “Lois is rather compulsive about cleanliness.”

  “It is some rather striking decorating,” said George.

  “You think that’s white? Wait until you get a load of the bathrooms. I don’t mean to sound crude,” said Jessup as he glanced back, “but I sometimes wonder where in this house one can take a guilt-free dump.” He smiled without humor. “Actually, I did mean to sound crude.” At the end of the hallway was a closed door. Jessup opened it and held out his hand. “We can talk in here.”

  The room was a combination den and office paneled in honey-colored woods and furnished with worn leather upholstered chairs and rough hardwood tables. The windows from the hallway continued along the curve of the room’s western wall overlooking the gardens. There was the stale smell of whiskey in the air.

  George stood at the window wall and looked down. There were no strategically placed plants. Cass’s eyesore virtually served as the centerpiece of Jessup’s garden. At the far end of the garden, however, near the wall separating the Jessup property from Micky Cass’s rose garden, the gardener and a helper were pulling three evergreen trees from the back of a metal-scrap-filled pickup. The trees were already over a dozen feet tall and the burlap-wrapped root balls were extremely heavy. The holes next to the wall had already been dug. It would take four or five years, guessed George, but eventually the trees would spare the Jessups the sight of Micky Cass’s nightmare.

  George turned and saw that hanging on the opposite wall were numerous plaques, trophies, and awards. He stepped over to them and noted that Duke Jessup had received several teaching, literary, and appreciation plaques. The trophies and awards were all for competition target shooting, for both rifle and pistol. George noted a glass-enclosed display cabinet at the end of the room designed to hold perhaps a dozen assorted rifles and pistols. The cabinet was empty.

  “You may sit there.” Jessup held his hand out toward two modular chairs. As George and Paul seated themselves, Jessup sat down in a third chair facing them and the window wall, with an unobstructed view of Cass’s house. As they talked, he stared at the eyeball painted on the roof below.

  “Very well, Sergeant Francisco, Agent Iniko, what can I do for you?”

  George looked at Paul Iniko, and the former Overseer stared at Jessup with an unblinking gaze. At last Iniko said, “Tell me what life is like for you, Duke.”

  Duke Jessup’s eyebrows shot up as his eyes grew ever wider. “Life?”

  George frowned at Iniko as Jessup’s eyebrows dropped into a threatened scowl. “What in the devil are you—” Jessup shook his head. “I don’t see what business it is of yours what life is like for me. I’ve given your Lieutenant Ramos all the facts to which the police are entitled. How the elements of my world plan are meshing is no one’s affair but my own.”

  George studied the superintendent. Jessup’s face was red, his hands shaking. He repeatedly moistened his lips with his tongue, yet sweat beaded on his forehead. He looked terribly unhealthy, even for a human.

  “Dr. Jessup,” said Paul, “I assure you that my interest is not one of idle curiosity. Despite your alibi, you are still a suspect. Now, if you did participate in the abduction of Micky Cass, you have several very good reasons for refusing to answer my question. If you are innocent, you have nothing to lose by answering my question save my company and the company of Sergeant Francisco here. As soon as my question has been answered to my satisfaction, you see, we will leave.”

  “I didn’t kidnap anyone.”

  “In which case, you may as well answer my question.”

  Jessup glanced at George, took a deep breath, and let escape a sigh of exasperation. “Sure,” he said to Iniko as he looked down at Cass’s house. “Why not? You want to know what my life is like?”

  “Yes.”

  His eyes narrowed as his lower lip trembled. In a voice that was barely audible, he said, “My life is excrement.”

  “Because of Micky Cass?” offered George.

  Jessup moved his gaze from Cass’s house to George’s face. “Cass?”

  “Yes. You said your life was excrement. Is that so because of Micky Cass?”

  Duke Jessup looked back at Cass’s house, and George watched in astonishment as tears streaked down Jessup’s cheeks. After a moment the man wiped the tears away with the backs of his hands and answered as though the tears had never existed. “Cass has contributed a small part to the project.” He nodded toward the window. “The one place of peace and beauty in my life, the one remaining piece of sanity, my garden, Micky Cass fouled with what he did with his damned house.” He looked at Paul. “But that was only one last turd on a very tall shit pile.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “What do I mean, the FBI man wants to know.” He snorted out a bitter laugh and shook his head. “Well, thanks to the notoriety following my return from Boston, I’ve been asked to resign as superintendent of Saint George’s. Is that enough?”

  “What about your family?” pressed Iniko.

  Jessup looked at the FBI agent and seemed to slump inwardly. It was as though Iniko already knew all the answers, making it impossible for Jessup to either shade or evade them. “I’m losing my family, Agent Iniko. Is that what you wanted me to say? My wife and I haven’t slept together for over two years. Last month she filed for divorce and for the custody of my two children, both of whom hate my guts. All the money I have in the world is tied up in this house, and I’m going to get killed in the settlement. My every waking moment is spent staring at the underside of hell. Now, is that enough?”

  “Not quite,” answered Paul without emotion. “Do you hold Cass responsible for your family troubles?”

  Jessup glanced down at the hardwood floor, then let his gaze slowly rise until he was again looking through the window wall at Micky Cass’s house. “No. I can’t say that. Cass moved in less than a year ago. Lois has been threatening to leave me since before I even knew that anyone called Micky Cass existed.”

  “So what is responsible?” asked Paul.

  “Responsible? Responsible for what?”

  “For your troubles, Duke.”

  The use of Jessup’s given name seemed to make his neck twitch involuntarily. “How in blazes would I know what’s responsible? Air pollution? The hole in the ozone layer? D
efective karma?”

  “Do you think you might have a problem with alcohol?”

  A look of such incredible loathing leaped upon Jessup’s face, it startled George sufficiently to cause him to reach involuntarily for his weapon. His hand moved no more than an inch, but George knew where his hand was headed when he brought it to a halt. He knew that Jessup had frightened him.

  “No,” answered Jessup. “I do not have a problem with alcohol. The thing in Boston was an unfortunate, but quite isolated, incident. I do not have a problem with alcohol.”

  “You’re certain of that?”

  “I think I’m honest enough with myself to know whether or not I’m a drunk.”

  Paul nodded as he rested his elbows on his chair’s armrests and clasped his hands together. “At an earlier English teachers’ convention, in ’89 according to your records, you were charged with driving while intoxicated by the police in Minneapolis. Do you remember that, Duke?”

  “I don’t understand,” said Jessup, his voice constricted by anger. “Am I being charged with some kind of drunk-driving thing?” He looked somewhere between rage and terror, as though the rage might not be justified, and that if the truth of that escaped into the light, he would die.

  “No,” answered Paul as he stood. “I simply needed to satisfy myself on a point, and you have done that admirably. Thank you for your cooperation.”

  “I have a question,” said George as he got to his feet. “I noticed the shooting trophies.” He nodded toward the display case. “Where are the guns?”

  “Gone. I don’t own guns anymore.”

  “You sold them?”

  “Some I sold. Some I gave away. They’re all registered and they’ve all had ballistic tests in accordance with the new law, so it doesn’t matter whether I sold them, gave them away, or tossed them in the Franklin Canyon Reservoir. They’re gone. Why don’t you two do the same.”

  Later, in the car driving down Beverly toward Wilshire, George took a moment to glance at the FBI man. Iniko had his arms folded across his chest and he was staring straight ahead from beneath a severe frown. “Why didn’t we press him about the guns?” asked George.

  “Guns? Oh.” Iniko shrugged and looked through the passenger window at the passing scenery. “No one’s been shot, George. We don’t need a gun until then.”

  “Paul, Jessup obviously worships guns. Did you see all of those shooting trophies? He loves guns and appears to be an expert in using them. In addition he gives every evidence of being an alcoholic in full flower, with all of the denial, anger, violence, and impaired judgment that implies. Therefore, doesn’t the absence of guns in his house strike you as just the least bit convenient?”

  “Not really. For Duke Jessup guns are out right now. For the time being he has another god, a god that makes having guns in the house an immensely terrifying matter.”

  “I don’t understand. What’s so terrifying about having guns in the house?”

  “What you said yourself about him being a late-stage addict.” Iniko faced George and asked, “If you were obsessed with constant thoughts of suicide, murder, or both, would you keep a gun in the house?”

  “How do you know that Jessup is obsessed with thoughts of suicide or murder?”

  “If I could explain that, I’d have to be a great deal more intelligent than I am.”

  George frowned. “Do you mean this is another thing you can’t tell me?”

  “Just let it go, George. It’s not important.”

  “Not important?” George waved a hand at Iniko and divided his attention between the traffic and the being in the passenger seat. “You’re telling me that Duke Jessup being constantly obsessed with thoughts of murder is unimportant?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I would think Jessup being plagued with thoughts of murder would make him our number one suspect.”

  Iniko shook his head and returned to looking out of the window on his side. “Curious as it may seem, George, it pretty much eliminates him. Duke Jessup is not our man.”

  C H A P T E R 1 4

  MATT’S FACE FELT like a stretched drumhead, tight and incredibly dry. It was brittle, too, as though, his skin would shatter if he smiled, turned his head, or wrinkled his forehead. It was the Realskin he was feeling, rather than his own. His own skin, covered and desensitized by the artificial skin, had moved the sensation of touch to the surface layer. To Matt’s sense of touch, if not his mind, the sculpted Realskin was now his real skin.

  Over the days since his operation, he had looked into his room’s bathroom mirror several times, but his head and face, to protect the Realskin from infection, were completely bandaged making him look like the invisible man trying to be visible. The one difference he could see was the eyes.

  The emotionally sensitive gel contacts were functioning, if not well. His eyes were pale green, reflecting a degree of pain, except that he did not feel any pain. Nevertheless, the gel had remained green for so long that Matt had almost forgotten how the world looked without a green tinge. There were other things to do, however, while the Realskin healed, the cellular bonding continued, and the swelling went down. Those other things were the province of the rama vo and Ivo Lass.

  “Rape and incest victims, concentration camp survivors, and former slaves all have something in common,” she stated.

  Matt shifted uncomfortably in the easy chair in his room and looked through his bandages at the Hila from the South Gate Rama Vo, She was Tenctonese and one of the few who looked ancient. She was well over the median Tenct life expectancy of 140 years and her name was Ivo Lass. She sat in the opposite easy chair looking quite relaxed. Every other Tenctonese Matt knew spoke English with some variation of an American accent. Ivo Lass talked like Margaret Thatcher.

  She was the one who had helped Micky Cass to “emerge” as a Tenct. Although she was a suspect, Matt could not stay completely detached from what the woman was saying. She seemed to know everything about life, living, and about Matt Cross. He suspected that she knew, as well, that Matt Cross wasn’t Matt Cross. He didn’t think she knew he was a police officer, but she could add two and two. She knew where he hurt, how he handled it, and why he handled it the way he did. He hadn’t told her any of this; she just seemed to know.

  “What do they have in common, Matt?” she asked.

  Matt mentally shrugged. Physical shrugs pulled painfully on the new skin of his neck. For the same reason he had learned not to purse his lips, grimace, frown, or engage in body language with his eyebrows. “Anger?” he guessed.

  “Yes, Matt. Anger.” She pointed a thin, graceful finger at him. “But the anger is not allowed to be felt, you see? The anger happens in a context where it is considered wrong, immoral, dangerous, even suicidal. Because of it, the anger is warped and hidden. It becomes twisted, corrupted. It’s turned into shame.”

  “Shame?”

  “Yes. You know about shame, don’t you?”

  “Shame?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “There seems to be a terrible echo in here.”

  “I heard you. I just can’t think of anything to be ashamed of.” He shrugged beneath the force of her constant gaze and winced as the healing Realskin on his neck pulled painfully. “Okay, there were a few things I did back when—” Matt stopped himself from revealing his past as a patrolman. “Well, I did a few things in the past I’m not real proud of. When I was a kid and later. Is that what you mean?”

  She leaned back in her chair, narrowed her eyes, and allowed her gaze to bore into him. “The shame to which I have reference has nothing to do with something you did. It has to do with what you are.”

  “Ashamed of what I am?”

  “There’s that echo again.”

  Matt writhed uncomfortably on his chair as he avoided eye contact with the woman. He noticed that his hands were clasped together and that the Realskin across his knuckles was very, very white. He folded his arms across his chest. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

 
“How you do feel, Matt?”

  “Feel?”

  “More echoes?”

  “Feel?” Matt spat again. “I’ll tell you how I feel! I feel pissed off!”

  “Pissed off isn’t a feeling, Matt. It’s a vulgarism used to avoid admitting to a feeling.”

  “Well, then, how about frosted? Salty? Madder’n hell? How about shitting razor blades?”

  The old woman didn’t bat an eye, but then Matt was in a mood sufficient to make him wonder if Newcomers could bat their eyes. “Shitting razor blades is close, Matt, but try again.” she instructed.

  “Okay,” said Matt, his voice rough. “Angry. How about angry?”

  Ivo Lass smiled with only the left corner of her mouth. “That was better, Matt, but your anger is a mask, too. It hides what you feel. Don’t look for any sarcasms to throw at me, boy. Right now. Tell me how you feel.”

  Humans sweat and Tencts don’t. Matt wondered in passing how the surgeons had handled that problem because he knew he was sweating beneath the Hila’s grilling. The old woman was missing out on a great career as a police interrogator.

  The word was there, right on the tip of his tongue. He felt his tongue reach for his upper front teeth. “Threatened,” he answered flatly. “Threatened. Frightened. Scared.”

  “Ah,” she said, her eyebrows raised as though they were two hairless flags of victory. “And what are you frightened of, Matthew?”

  He frowned in confusion as tears welled in his eyes and the green tinge of the world grew a shade darker. His breathing came hard. “I’m afraid . . .”

  He tried to shut out the Hila’s image. Ivo Lass was not his mother or his father, she was not a figure of authority. She was just another being. It would be much easier to say it if she wasn’t there, however, because that was what he was afraid of—other beings. Afraid of their judgments. Afraid of their rejections. He felt tears dribble down his cheeks. “I’m afraid to let you know what I really feel.” He allowed his gaze to fall on the old woman. “I’m afraid to let you know who I am.”