Alien Nation #5 - Slag Like Me

by Barry B. Longyear

  Many humans, however, had a different view. Micky Cass, with his offensive column, was out carrying a banner for the slags when he died. Let the rubberheads take care of it. Curiously enough, none of the special interests had an interest. No one was really certain of Cass’s sex or orientation, so women’s and men’s groups, hetero and alternate, were silent. No one was confident of Cass’s race, so none of the ethnically militant groups had a comment. Cass’s political interests had been gathered under no label, hence none of the political parties or organizations issued a statement. No one was even certain of Cass’s citizenship, so none of the nationalistic organizations chose to go on record.

  The mayor made a vague declaration deploring all violence everywhere in the world, and the President of the United States expanded this to include the universe, both known and undiscovered. Neither mentioned the columnist by name. The Author’s Guild did hold a news conference to deplore Cass’s murder, but it was a hot news day and no one showed.

  One editorial in a Palmdale weekly observed that there was in the world not even one pro-human group, much less any pro-intelligent life groups. The ever-present problem, of course, was the standard for determining intelligent life. No one wanted a definition that excluded them. However, any working definition that didn’t exclude the bulk of humanity was generally meaningless.

  On a popular TV talk show, a teenager (female, black, Libertarian, Jamaican-American) stood to say that Micky Cass was a human being trying to do the right thing. For that reason alone his murder was an outrage. A large percentage of the audience hooted her back into her seat. After all, she had a very narrow slant on things. She was a she, she was young, she was black, she was neither Democrat nor Republican, and she had a funny accent. The test for intelligent life continued to go begging.

  Still, at the closing of the third day of the mayhem, since no one’s ox appeared to have been gored, save Micky Cass’s, tensions appeared to ease somewhat, which was mostly because TV news blinked for a moment to look at a few other things. Hence, as the new Mobil refinery in Wilmington went up in flames, lighting the skies a hundred and seventy miles out to sea, city hall, citing peace in our time, decided against asking the governor to call out the National Guard. Even as the body count reached a new U.S. riot record, the networks were momentarily drawn to a farm in Ohio where a cow gave birth to a three-headed calf named Hueydeweylouie.

  In sports New Englanders were again calling the home team the Red Sucks, and down in Homestead, Florida, a family whose home had been flattened years before by Hurricane Andrew finally received its insurance check from those friendly folks. The barrio and its flames fell through the cracks into page six.

  In Slagtown, however, those with earnest business on the street were still at it. Nightshade and its Tenctonese allies were locked in battle with a ring of fehn gangs. The LAPD was patrolling the streets with maximum force, and as long as the killing was kept down to double digits and within the Chay, no one was very alarmed. The civil war had calmed even further to occasional sniping over newly established gang borders.

  The power grid in the Chay and surrounding areas had gone down. That night Matt stood nervously in the dark on Olympic west of Rio Vista, the dull glow of flames against the sky toward the north. Two black-and-whites, sirens yelping, passed him racing east. He felt his buns tighten as the officers scanned him. He couldn’t make out the faces, but he knew what the occupants of the speeding cruisers were thinking. Just outside the Chay, a rubberhead standing alone in the dark, he had to be up to no good. The Blues were running somewhere fast and scared. Otherwise they would’ve stopped and hipped his hop.

  He knew why. In this part of town a badge was a target. Some TV commentators, several politicians, a few rap artists, and thousands of bangers thought those targets deserved to be perforated. Near the Chay a smart cop needed to treat any kind of colors as the enemy. And near the Chay, spotted baldness was the color to watch the most.

  As the police cruisers were swallowed by the dark, a nondescript gray station wagon pulled up in front of Sikes. In the distance, its lights off, a second car pulled to a stop behind the station wagon but twenty meters farther back. Matt’s fingers wrapped around the grip of the Beretta in his jacket pocket. The electric window on the passenger side of the station wagon wound down and a voice came from the darkened interior. “So, you’re the big-time reporter jock in a rubberhead suit? Hey, man? Halloween is just around the bend. You gonna get a prize?”

  “Are you Danny Mikubeh?”

  “Hey, man! Look at the spots on you. Ain’t you worried about taking a dip in some joker’s HCl Jacuzzi? That’s the acid test, you know.”

  “You’re not going to believe this, banger, but I don’t think you’re funny.”

  A face appeared in the window. It was a very young face with fresh scars on the left cheek and above the left eye. There was not a hint of humor in his expression. “N’ak hivek Mikubeh. Zirak nas tiruda Krakor.” With effort, Matt pieced together what Danny had said. “I’m leader Mikubeh. Get in and ride the beast.”

  “This car isn’t that bad,” answered Matt.

  “You know about the Krakor, then?”

  “I know what the word means. What’d you mean by it?”

  Danny Mikubeh turned his head and nodded at the street. “I was talking about the night, reporter Matt Cross. I was talking about the night.” He gestured with his head. “Get in.”

  “I didn’t think you were going to show.” Sikes climbed into the passenger seat and closed the door. Danny picked up the mike from the dash, keyed it, and said, “Let’s go.” He pulled away from the curb and followed the same direction taken by the black-and-whites. Matt turned in his seat and looked through the rear window. The second car was following at a distance of twenty meters, its lights still off.

  “I know I said I’d take you up to Eagle Street,” said Danny as he hung up the microphone, “but that’s off for right now. I got to get back to the flames. If you want to come along, you’re welcome.”

  “What do you mean ‘flames’?”

  “Where it’s going up, man. Haven’t you checked it out? There’s a war going on in the Chay.”

  Matt caught himself about to say “Don’t sweat it.” He shook his head and said, “I don’t care about Eagle Street. I got other things to do.”

  “Are you going to answer my question?”

  “Your question? Which one?” A building engulfed in flames could be seen in the distance. It was too far away to tell if the fire department had arrived.

  “You really a reporter come all the way down here to bring the light and truth to the great hairy public all the way out there?”

  Matt turned his head and studied the young Tenct behind the wheel. There were all kinds of gambles. In a strange way, Micky Cass had trusted, even admired, the hivek of the Shade. The reporter cover no longer fit. Matt shrugged and looked at the street as Danny turned the car up Soto. “As far as I’m concerned, Danny, the Tenct and fehn bangers can blow the hell out of each other. It’s less work for me. I’m down here for only one reason. I’m after the bastards who killed Micky Cass.”

  “You a Clark Kent? A reporter?”

  Matt allowed a pause to fill the moment. “I’m a police officer.” The leader of the Nightshade stood on the brakes and broadslid the station wagon into a complete stop.

  “Cop? Man, I thought there was a bad smell in here. Is that your name, cop? Matt Cross?”

  Matt allowed the breath he had been holding to sigh from his lungs. “My name’s Sikes. Matt Sikes. I’m a homicide detective.”

  “Sikes.” Danny’s eyebrows went up. “Matthew Sikes? The fehn cop that teamed up with that Ubi Dugi, Sam Francisco?”

  “George Francisco. He changed his name to George, and unless you want to mix it up right here with me, banger, I’d stop calling my partner names like Ubi Dugi.”

  The gang leader looked at Matt for a moment, then aimed his attention toward the street as he turned the whee
l and pressed the accelerator, once again heading the car north toward the Chay. “Man, you are either one badass cop or the biggest asshole I’ve ever seen. What in the hell do you expect out of putting on spots and walking the Chay by yourself? You figure the bangers’re all gonna be impressed and bend over ’cause you swingin’ that big macho stick?”

  “Why do you talk like that, Danny?”

  “Talk like what?”

  “Like a bad cross between Cheech Marin and Huntz Hall?”

  “Who’re they?”

  “It’s not important. What I don’t understand is the way you talk. Micky Cass’s notes say you have three years of college. Pepperdine, right? Journalism?”

  Matt was gratified to see Danny Mikubeh’s jaw drop. “There’s no way he could know that.”

  “Because you went out of the Chay? Because you used a different name? Mikubeh means black, and you want to know how hard it was for Cass to track down a Tenct named Dan Black? Two phone calls, and that was because he misdialed the first time.”

  “So, cop, I’ve been to college. So what?”

  “Have you ever heard of Edward Lear?”

  “Lear?” Danny Mikubeh frowned and pursed his lips. “Yeah. Poetry. He wrote some children’s stuff.”

  “You don’t sound like you like it much.”

  “No kidding. ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’? ‘The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy—’ whatever the hell it was? I’m down on the block, cop, watching guns, drugs, racism, poverty, cops, and indifference turn little kids—Tenct and fehn both—into corpses, cripples, bums, killers, and junkies. You think I give a rat-fuck about an owl and a pussycat in some beautiful pea-green boat? What I care about is coming down on the Jets, the X, and the Dragon hard enough that they never ever think about crossing Lorena Street again. What’s Edward Lear got to do with Micky Cass?”

  “Somebody left a quote of Lear’s on Cass’s doorstep shortly after he disappeared. The sense of it was good riddance.”

  “And so, I’m a suspect because I can read?”

  “Maybe. Cass also gave your Goober hunt on Third Place a pretty big write-up. Maybe you didn’t want your adventures reported in ‘Slag Like Me.’ ”

  “Ellison Robb makes me a hero and I toss him in the acid? That doesn’t make much sense.”

  “Did it make sense to go down to The Place and hang yourself out as bait for the slaghunters?”

  “He made me a hero, man.”

  “Hero?”

  “Yeah. Don’t you ever read the letters to the editor, Sikes? Man, when you read what the readers wrote in about the “Pink” column about me and the shootout, I could probably run for mayor right now and win.”

  “Right now, so could goddamn Saddam.”

  “Sikes, you know I was even offered a movie deal?”

  “What are they going to call it? New Jerk City?”

  “I don’t know, man, but it was for enough bread even to impress me. It wouldn’t make any sense to dissolve my relationship with Robb, so to speak.”

  “You’re a real comic, Danny. I bet you have a great dead baby juggling routine.”

  “Cop, if you want to show a fehn what being Tenct in L.A. is all about, it makes sense to walk The Place. There’s nothing like sitting in the center ring of a target to clear away the fog and sharpen one’s senses.”

  “I wonder what that line would sound like in front of a judge and jury.”

  Danny Mikubeh laughed and shook his head as the car crossed East Eighth and approached the first of the series of underpasses leading beneath the Pomona and Santa Ana freeways. “Cop, did it ever flash on you that I got about the tightest alibi in L.A.? Look out the back window.” Matt turned his head and saw the dark car following them, its lights still out.

  “Your boys?”

  “That’s right. I don’t go anywhere without Iron Roc, Sticker, and Slice. They can account for my whereabouts just about twenty-four hours every day. In addition to them, there’s the almost constant surveillance of half a dozen snitches, undercover cops, and blue fuzz technoweenies. Where in the hell did I come up with the time to kill this Micky Cass and trot his body out to Barstow unobserved? And the acid thing. I wouldn’t even know where to begin getting that stuff.”

  “Danny, gang bosses haven’t changed since the days of Attila the Hun. You give orders. What you don’t know or don’t have, you take or buy.”

  Danny Mikubeh nodded. “Yeah, cop. So all you need now are a couple of witnesses who saw and heard me hand out the contract to Guido and Dr. Strangelove. It’d probably help to come up with a motive, too. Why’d I do it?”

  “Do bangers need a reason for killing?”

  “I do.”

  Danny glanced at Matt then returned his gaze to the street, twisting the wheel to avoid the burned-out hulk of a police van. “You know why I’m here, cop? You know why we’re riding around together right now? There’s a war on, the cops and every hair ball pack of jackals in the Chay is for crushing the Tenct gangs, and here I am giving the grand tour to someone who told me he was a reporter following up on the Cass killing. He turns out to be a cop, though, and a rather stupid one at that.”

  “Stupid.”

  “Yeah, stupid. You think I like being in the middle of a damned war twenty-four hours a day? Ellison Robb—this Micky Cass—was working to end that. You must’ve read his column on the slaghunt.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t you get it? He set himself up, cop! I got your number, Goober? I can draw your face from memory? I’m comin’ to get you and your alcoholic buddies, Goob? What kind of a damned road map do you need, cop?”

  “We’ve been through all of Micky Cass’s files. There’s nothing in there about that night on The Place except for a couple of drafts of his column. No names, no numbers, no drawings.”

  “No kidding, cop. Look, that fehn in the rubberhead suit was so damned scared he wouldn’t’ve recognized his own mother behind the wheel of that truck. He didn’t get any license number and he didn’t memorize any faces. Those are tough things to do when the lead’s flying and you’re trying to find a hole to pull in after you.”

  “What about his photographic memory?”

  Danny grinned. “He was lucky if he could remember his current pseudonym from one minute to the next. Sikes, Micky Cass did the same thing with his column that we all did that night on The Place. He set himself up as a target. I’ll bet you your killer is one or more fehn called Goober.”

  “You got anything better than a guess that the perp was one of those slaghunters?”

  “Let me ask you something. There was a body that fell out of that truck. The body had a name. He lived someplace. Maybe he had a family, a job. We know he hung out with some stellar citizens. What’ve the few and blue done about tracking down his playmates?”

  “That’s not my end of the investigation.”

  Danny laughed as he shook his head in disgust. “Shit, cop, it’s not anybody’s end of the investigation. A body drops in Slagtown, and, well, that’s the way it goes. It was just a couple of working stiffs cutting out the props. Boys will be boys. They were just shooting up a few rubberheads. You don’t want to ruin a man’s life over a thing like that.”

  “You finished, Danny?”

  “Not near as finished as your so-called investigation, cop.”

  “Look, banger, every lead will be followed just as soon as the damned city stops burning down.”

  “Right. What do you got that says I did it, cop?”

  Sikes raised his eyebrows and smiled. “A guess.” He pointed toward the street ahead. “Where’re you headed?”

  “Fourth near Saratoga. A meeting with Rina Vatu.”

  “Hivek of Wolfsbane? Don’t they have fehn members as well as Tencts? I thought Wolfsbane and Nightshade were big-time enemies?”

  “When you got a choice between making peace with Wolfsbane or getting eaten alive by the fehn, you get tight with the Wolf.”

  “Fourth and Saratoga? That’s deep i
nside your territory, isn’t it?”

  “It was last night. Right now it’s on the edge of White Dragon turf. If the Dragon keeps going, it’ll run over us in a couple of days.”

  There was a crackle of static and Danny picked up the mike. “What?”

  The crackle came back. “Police officers coming up from behind.”

  Danny glared at Matt. “Yours?”

  “No. Nobody knows where I am except for you.” He frowned for a moment as he thought about George. His partner knew he was going, but he didn’t know where he was going to meet Danny. “No. Nobody knows.”

  “Get out your ID, hair ball. If they don’t know you’re a cop, cop, then you’re in big trouble.”

  “Nobody’s in trouble, Danny. Just tell Iron Roc and his boys to do what the officers tell them.”

  “Hey, man, you never heard of Rodney’s Rule? Don’t get out of the car. Even if it’s on fire, don’t get out of the car.”

  Sikes looked through the rear window and saw the blue flashes of the black-and-whites against the night. Danny keyed his mike and called to his lieutenant. “Roc, can you see how many watchers are on you?”

  “At least two cars,” came the answer. “Five thumpers in the one right behind us. I don’t know about the other. Want us to split off?”

  “As soon as we hit Seventh, hang right and head for—”

  “No!” Matt interrupted. “If they run for it, they will be in for it! Tell ’em—”

  “Man, if the cops get hold of me right now, the best I can expect is to spend the next couple of days lost in the system hopping stations! I can’t take the time! I got a war to run!” He keyed the mike again. “At Seventh, go right to Marietta then start working your way up to Inez. Lose the cops at the school then meet me at the Breed Street Station.”

  Iron Roc’s mike clicked. “Run free, hivek. Your signal, Danny.”

  They roared out from beneath the Santa Ana Freeway into a thick, oily cloud of smoke from several burning cars. Past the cars, Danny opened up and both cars were doing ninety by the time they reached the intersection of Soto and Seventh. “I hope you got your seat belt on, cop.” Danny keyed his mike and said, “Now!”