Alien Nation #5 - Slag Like Me

by Barry B. Longyear

  As he got closer, an acid smell tickled, then burned, the insides of his nostrils. That building was the yard’s facility for recovering the zinc from galvanized metal scrap. When he felt the back of his throat and his lungs burning, Kirk hid behind the fuselage of some scrapped fighter plane. “Damn, but this stink hole must be violating at least a hundred federal, state, county, and city regulations.”

  He thought about the possible ways he could protect himself from the fumes but could think of nothing. It was a great place for the Lee brothers to hide out. They were probably in there, wearing respirators and some sort of protective clothing. They had probably allowed a sufficient amount of the HCl fumes to escape, thereby making it impossible for anyone not wearing protective gear to approach them. Kirk backed away from the building until he could breathe again without hurting his lungs.

  The plan came into his head. It was simple but should do the trick if the Lee brothers were indeed in the building. All that was necessary was to break radio silence. If they weren’t in the structure, however, his plan would give away the entire charade. It would have been so considerate for one of the brothers to drop a wrench or otherwise give themselves away. Nothing but silence, however, came from the building.

  “I guess this is one of those decision times,” he muttered as he removed the radio from his belt and held it to his mouth. Pressing the key he said, “Commander Dobbs, this is Kirk.”

  “Dobbs here,” came the answer.

  “I have my men in position on the west side of the zinc-recovery facility. The Lees are inside the facility and it appears they’ve released some caustic fumes. We’ll need the SWATs with the special protective gear after all.”

  “I copy, Captain Kirk,” came Dobbs’s answer. “They’re coming in the Nerati Street entrance right now. Be careful not to spook the perps before we can get the SWATs into position. They’ve only got fifteen or twenty men.”

  Kirk, preparing to issue an authentic Broderick Crawford “Ten four” into his talkie, went speechless as he heard a very powerful engine come to life. It was a roar that came from the direction of the zinc-recovery facility, the sound echoing from the metal mountains.

  “That’s no Toyota,” said Kirk as a crash followed by the screams of tearing metal announced an ancient surplus half-track exploding through the metal walls of the facility. The half-track was painted a dull orange and it had been modified with an earth-moving plow mounted on the front.

  “They’re out!” Kirk yelled into his radio. “They’re driving an orange half-track toward the Gorcey Street gate.”

  “I’m on my way!” answered his partner.

  “Dobbs, that little chain and your car aren’t gonna stop ’em! Get something down here!”

  Kirk could see one of the two men, Harry Lee, tearing a mask and respirator from his face. As the man looked around, he spotted Kirk, lifted a pistol, and fired a shot at him. Kirk dived for cover, and as he hit the ground he rolled and came up bringing his own weapon to bear. Harry Lee was pointing up and was screaming at his brother. Kirk looked to the top of a mountain of military surplus crates and saw Iniko just as he jumped the twenty feet down into the half-track, a shotgun at the ready. As the former FBI agent and the suspect fell to the bed of the vehicle, they disappeared from Kirk’s view. He turned, noticed Dobbs and one of the uniformed officers in the distance running toward him, but the half-track would be long gone before they arrived.

  “What the hell,” muttered Kirk. “It worked for the FBI.” He weaved between towers of crates, streaked ahead of the half-track, quickly climbed one of the towers, and waited a moment as the vehicle approached. He could see Jimmy Lee driving the thing with one hand and trying to get a clear shot at Iniko with the other. George Francisco came running from behind a pile of crates and Jimmy Lee turned in his seat and sent three quick rounds in his direction. George dived behind another pile of crates as Kirk launched himself into the air.

  Just as Kirk jumped, intending to land on the driver, Jimmy Lee looked up at him, raised his gun, and fired. Kirk felt the slug strike the heel of his shoe, but he didn’t realize that it had entered his own flesh and blood heel until he landed on top of the hood. His leg collapsed beneath him and the top of his head landed in Jimmy Lee’s face, knocking him silly, his gun falling from his hand.

  Iniko had Harry Lee face down on the bed of the track. He looked up and, just as Kirk made eye contact with Paul Iniko, he heard the half-track snap through the chain and begin its climb over the top of his and Dobbs’s unit. Francisco climbed into the cab, reached between the dash and the steering wheel, and turned the key, killing the engine. Jimmy Lee awakened, shook his head, and made a grab for his weapon.

  Kirk pointed his gun over the steering wheel at the side of Jimmy Lee’s head and said, “When you straighten up, Jimmy, that better be a tube of Preparation H in your hand, because, whatever it is, it’s gonna get shoved straight up your ass.”

  Jimmy Lee froze and did not move until Iniko finished cuffing Harry and had picked up Jimmy’s gun. Francisco tossed Iniko his cuffs and the former FBI agent stood Jimmy Lee up and cuffed him as Kirk sang the Miranda blues to the two gardeners. “You are under arrest. Before any questioning you must understand your rights. You have the right to remain silent . . .”

  “Forget that,” said Iniko, his voice deadly calm. He took Jimmy Lee’s pistol from his belt and held it at the back of the man’s head. As the hammer was pulled back, Jimmy’s eyes went wide.

  “You can’t do this!” he whispered. “You’re a cop!”

  “No. I’m just another civilian.”

  Jimmy Lee was as rigid as ice. George frowned at Iniko. The former Overseer had always seemed utterly devoid of emotion. “Don’t do it, Paul. Don’t throw everything away over this piece of slime.”

  Iniko shoved the barrel of the weapon between the cords of Jimmy’s neck and said, “It’s happening, Jimmy. Right now, here, to you. Everything you did to Micky Cass, everything you did to this city.”

  “Stop him!” shouted Harry from the bed of the half-track. “Stop him! The slag’s crazy!”

  Kirk raised his eyebrows. “Oh, that was shrewd, Harry. Astute. Why don’t you call his binnaum a name, while you’re at it?”

  “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean nothin’!”

  “Please!” begged Jimmy. “He didn’t mean nothin’!”

  “Kirk!” came Dobbs’s voice. Jerry Kirk turned his head and looked down at the ground. Dobbs was looking up at him.

  “Hi, partner.”

  “You know you’re bleeding all over the remains of our car?”

  “I’ll discuss it later.” He looked over at George. “Hey, Francisco. Maybe you should say a little something more to your buddy.”

  George pulled himself between the seats and into the bed of the vehicle. “Paul? What do you think you’re doing?”

  The former Overseer was silent for a long moment, a tear making its way down his cheek. “Well, George, I’m trying to think of a good reason for not turning the heads of the Lee brothers into applesauce. I’m not having much success.”

  “Pulping them isn’t going to bring back Micky Cass.”

  “No.”

  “It won’t change how they lured him out—the Twelfth-Step call.”

  “That’s right,” said Jimmy. “Look, man, Cass was just another junkie. I don’t get what everybody’s freaked about! He was just another junkie!”

  George placed a gentle hand upon Jimmy Lee’s left shoulder. “Stuff a sock in it, asshole.” He shifted his gaze to Paul Iniko. “That’s what’s really getting you, isn’t it?”

  “It’s a great many things, George. A great many things.” As his hand began shaking he brought the muzzle of the gun up, lowered the hammer, and handed the weapon to Francisco. “But I am not to judge, am I?”

  C H A P T E R 3 0

  FRANCISCO. This is the third interrogation of suspect Jimmy Lee in the investigation of the death of Micky Cass. Present are Sergeant Richard D
obbs, Detective Jerry Kirk, and myself, Sergeant George Francisco. This is being recorded. Do you remember your rights, Jimmy?

  J. LEE. Yeah.

  FRANCISCO. Then let’s get started, shall we?

  J. LEE. Sure. Look, I know I got nothin’ comin’ to me, Sergeant, but I want to do what I can. Who could’ve known that the city’d come unglued. All those people dead. All those trees and buildings burned. We didn’t want nothin’ like that. You got to believe that. All we wanted was that damned bastard dead.

  DOBBS. We’ve pretty much covered what you did and how you did it yesterday. What we want to talk about today is why you did it.

  J. LEE. You’re kidding.

  DOBBS. Look into my eye, Jimmy. Do I look like I’m kidding?

  J. LEE. No, I mean you really don’t get it?

  FRANCISCO. Get it?

  J. LEE. Man, I mean for months Harry and me are out there bustin’ our humps making Mr. Jessup’s garden into a showplace, and there that Micky Cass was in his ugly house, just sitting there. Sitting there in full view.

  DOBBS. And?

  J. LEE. And what?

  DOBBS. You’re telling us you and Harry killed Micky Cass just because you could see him?

  J. LEE. No. No, that’d be crazy. Nobody kills everybody he sees. It’s just that we could see him, you know, on his balcony.

  KIRK. I don’t get it, Jimmy. It was because he was on his balcony? He flip you the bird or something? What was it? I don’t even think you’re bent enough to kill someone just for sitting on a balcony.

  J. LEE. I don’t believe this. You really don’t get it at all.

  FRANCISCO. Enlighten us.

  J. LEE. It wasn’t just him or him sitting on his balcony. That’d be silly. You’d have to be really sick to pull something like that.

  DOBBS. Go on.

  J. LEE. It was his wife.

  FRANCISCO. Tian Apehna? This is because he was married to a Newcomer? You hate Newcomers so much you’d do that?

  J. LEE. No. Look, I even got a Newcomer girlfriend myself. I got nothin’ against Tencts. See, it wasn’t him and it wasn’t her. It was him and her together.

  KIRK. I’m still lost, Jimmy.

  J. LEE. Maybe I’m the one who doesn’t get it. Is this some legal thing you cops’re doin’? Tryin’ to draw me out so no one can accuse you of stickin’ words in my mouth?

  DOBBS. No tricks, Jimmy. You and your brother have already confessed to premeditated murder. That pretty much wraps it up for the DA. You and Harry have a date with a bucket of cyanide pellets.

  FRANCISCO. We’re just trying to understand.

  J. LEE. Jesus. I’m really going to have to spell it out for you. Okay. I didn’t want to say it right out because of him.

  KIRK. Who?

  J. LEE. Him. Sergeant Dobbs. You know.

  DOBBS. No, we don’t know.

  J. LEE. Okay, I’ll say it flat out! Micky Cass was black and his wife was white! Is that clear enough for you? That nigger’d be up there on his balcony slobbering his thick lips all over her and laughin’ at us at the same time! Damned right we nailed him, and I’d do it again.

  PAUSE: 32 seconds

  DOBBS. What ever made you think Micky Cass was black?

  J. LEE. All you had to do was look at him. He’s got some white in him like they all do, but he was black all right. He even said so in his column, talking about doing the right thing and shit like that. Hell, he was almost as dark as you, sergeant.

  KIRK. Jimmy, Micky Cass’s wife isn’t white. She’s Tenctonese.

  J. LEE. I’m not into word games, Detective. I saw her, she’s white, and that’s that.

  KIRK. Jesus Christ, Jimmy! Can’t you get it through your thick skull? She can’t be white! She’s not even human!

  J. LEE. What’s the matter with you? I’ve got eyes in my head. They’re white. They’re all white. For God’s sake, don’t you have eyes in your heads? Any of you. It’s as plain as the nose on your face. Can’t you see?

  KIRK. You sorry bastard. You sick, sorry, dumb son of a bitch.

  C H A P T E R 3 1

  THINGS WERE GOING back to normal in the city. The murders, burnings, and lootings had decreased to pre-riot levels, the wind from city hall came hot and meaningless, and there was just a chance that the Dodgers might make it into the playoffs. The news was still chewing over the quotes from the Lee brothers’ interview as to why they had done what they had done, and a subsequent survey showed that almost half of the citizens of Los Angeles considered Tencts to be “white.” This, of course, induced a veritable olympiad of academic verbal masturbation on the subject of “whiteness.” Down in the Chay and everywhere else in the city, however, “us” still hated “them,” and “them” still hated “us.” As the queen of the Slagtown news beat, Amanda Reckonwith, put it, “The preparations for the next L.A. riot are well under way.”

  Elsewhere, George Francisco entered the solarium on the ninth floor of Mt. Andarko’s Hospital and paused as he looked around. Beyond the potted palms at the far end of the totally glassed-in room, facing toward the east, Matt Sikes, in pajamas and bathrobe, sat in a wheelchair looking at the still-smoldering ruins of his city. George could see the ugly purplish yellow bruises on the back of Matt’s neck. The doctor had said that, besides the bruising, Matt had had four broken ribs, one of which had punctured a lung, a three-inch-long depression in his skull putting pressure on the brain, and a damaged kidney that would probably take a long time to heal completely. The doctors were convinced that if Matt hadn’t been covered with Realskin and his own skin cushioned by the underlying layer of imitation Tenct blood, he probably would have died from the beating.

  George walked over and came to a stop on Matt’s left. “The fires are almost out,” he said.

  Matt glanced up at George and returned his gaze to the city. “I was just thinking they’ll probably never go out. They’ll smolder awhile. Five years. Ten. Then they’ll erupt again. How are you doing, George?”

  “The question, Matt, is how are you doing? The captain’s anxious to have you back.”

  A slight smile touched Matt’s lips as he closed his eyes and shook his head. “I’ll be back, George, just as soon as I can get a few things squared away.”

  “I don’t understand. The doctor said—”

  “It’s not like that. Not my health. At least, not my physical health. That’ll get better.”

  “Matt, there’s all kinds of counseling available to help you through whatever trauma you suffered from that beating.”

  Matt Sikes frowned and looked up at his former partner. “I’m not talking about the Seventh Street Massacre. I have a sickness, George. A sickness of the mind that makes me useless to the department, to this city, and to myself. I’m a racist, George—”

  “Matt—”

  Sikes looked up at Francisco. “I’m every bit as much a racist as the Lee brothers or the officers who beat Danny Mikubeh to death.”

  “Matt, mistaking the Lee brothers for Chinese—”

  “You mean assuming they were.”

  “Even so, it’s only a mistake. Maybe it’s even a very revealing mistake, but it’s not something by which you should judge your entire life.”

  Matt winced as he shrugged his shoulders and looked again at the city. “Last night I talked to Kirk on the phone. Did he tell you they tracked down the Edward Lear quote?”

  George nodded. “Yes. An old calendar Harry Lee picked out of the trash at the junkyard. A negative saying for every day of the year.”

  “Us and them,” said Matt. “We see a quote we can’t place and right away assume that anyone who would use it must have some kind of specialized background.”

  “That was a mistake we all made.”

  “I can only speak for myself. I’ve been talking to Ivo Lass again. She’s entered me in a vo, and I’m going to learn how to change how I see things. Then maybe we’ll see.”

  “Partner, there are millions of men, women, and children out there who ar
e making the same mistakes every day, and most of them on purpose. It doesn’t make them right; that’s just the way it is. You can’t change other people.”

  “I can change myself, George, and that’s all I’m trying to do.” The corner of his mouth pulled back into a wicked smile. “And once I know what I’m talking about, maybe the department will decide to send all the cops to a special vo.”

  “Not even in your dreams, Matt. The department would never—” George frowned as he teased something out of his memory. “The videotape. The implant. What have you done with it?”

  “It’s been copied and put together with eyewitness testimony and the records of all of the officers, supervisors, and policymakers involved. Kirk and Dobbs helped me put it together. Two reporters, that broadcaster, Amanda Reckonwith, a few of the boys down in the Chay, and a beautiful lady named Tian Apehna. We’ve put together a regular dog and pony show.”

  “If the media got their hands on that, it could destroy the department.”

  Matt nodded. “Or redeem it. And we have enough media types in on it to make certain it makes a prime time splash. In any event, it’ll at least cost one hell of a lot of jobs. That is, unless the chief and the mayor can see their way clear to putting in the programs I want.”

  “Blackmail?”

  “I believe the spin doctors call it leverage.” Matt looked up at his partner. “It’s time for things to change, George. We—the department, the city—we can’t afford any more of this ‘us’ and ‘them’ feeding frenzy.” He reached up and placed his hand on Francisco’s arm. “I’m coming back, partner, but right now I have to do this.”

  “I think I understand.” George studied Matt for a moment and saw that beneath the scars and bruises his partner was right with himself. “I have to go to work.”