The Stickmen

by Edward Lee

  “You diabolical bitch…”

  “I had to get our techs in here every couple of months to break the passwords on your computers, but that takes time, so every once in a while—”

  Garrett realized the obvious. “You’d blow the whistle on me to the cops, get me put in jail for a few nights so your boys could come in here and copy all my files.”

  “Um-hmm. You’re too trusting, Harlan, either that or your brain takes a lot of vacations. But you were a terrific case assignment—I’ll get promoted for this.”

  “Congratulations, baby,” Garrett uttered, “on a job well done.” This was just too embarrassing. “Answer me one question. Did you ever love me at all, even just a little?”

  “No. But you are right about one thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You do possess pre-eminent skills as a lover.”

  “Thanks. I’ll put that on my resume.”

  Jessica appraised him like an exotic trophy. “I’ve got to take the arm and go now, Harlan, but I’ve got to tie you up first. So let’s do this the easy way, okay. Turn around, get on your knees, and put your hands behind your back.”

  “Gee, you never wanted to do kinky stuff before,” Garrett remarked.

  “Let’s get this over with.” With her other hand, she pulled a coil of rope from her back pocket. “Turn around.”

  Garrett paused. “I don’t guess you’d look if I told you your shoe was untied, huh?”

  Jessica was wearing sandals. “Come on, Harlan. Give it up.”

  “How about this: your fly is down.”

  She frowned. “I’d except something more original than those, Harlan.”

  “All right,” he said, “how about this? A tactical cop with a sound-suppressed submachine gun has just rappelled down the side of my apartment and …I guess he’s about to come through the window.”

  A split-second later, the lights snapped off.

  Then the room seemed to explode in a rain of broken glass. Garrett ducked; he couldn’t see very much, just bulky quick-moving shape pounding in different directions across the floor. Narrow flashlight beams darted back and forth. A raid? Garrett could only guess. He hunched down, stepping backward toward the corner of the room.

  “Down! On the floor!,” a male voice barked.

  “Don’t move!” ordered another.

  But Garrett knew they weren’t talking to him.

  Seconds later, the lights came back on, and what Garrett saw astonished him. Three cops in black riot gear were securing the room. They looked like robots in their kevlar vest, black helmets, and ballistic visors. Jessica had already been disarmed and was being hauled up off the floor and cuffed by one of the cops. Garrett stood up from the corner, wearily noticing that all of his windows had been busted in.

  A second cop turned in silence, his submachine gun poked at Garrett.

  “Don’t shoot me. I’m only a writer.”

  The cop ignored the comment, then raised a walkie-talkie to his lips. “Alpha Unit, this is Extraction Team One. The perimeter is clear.”

  “Roger, Extraction Team One,” a voice crackled back. “Commence standard SOP debark order.”

  Garrett wasn’t sure, but the voice on the other end of the walkie-talkie sounded vaguely familiar.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” he asked.

  The cop ignored him again, as a third member of the team brought Lynn—untied and ungagged now—from out of the kitchen. Was she being arrested too?

  “Who are these guys?” he asked her.

  “Our guys, Harlan.”

  Garrett stared at her. The whole thing had already started to stink—now it was stinking worse. Lynn extracted a tiny thread from an edge of her tube top: a reversed-bias diode microphone.

  “You diabolical bitch!” he said for the second time that night.

  “Business is business,” she replied, making no apologies. “It’s my job, Harlan.”

  The front door clicked open, and in walked—

  “I should’ve known,” Garrett griped.

  Myers, in his neat suit, surveyed the room and glanced at Jessica. “Well, that was easy,” he said.

  “You sure took your sweet time,” Lynn complained.

  “We had to wait for her to get to the middle of the room to establish an optimum entry position.” Myers flicked a hand at the cop who had Jessica. “Get her out of here.”

  “Yes, sir.” Then Jessica was lugged out of the room. The other two cops were—

  “Hey!” Garrett yelled. “Stop that!”

  —disconnecting Garrett’s computer.

  “Myers! Tell them to stop!”

  “Get that crap out of here,” Myers ordered the other two men. One carried the computer out of the apartment; the other followed with the old briefcase full of Swenson’s files.

  Garrett glared at Myers. “You motherf—”

  “Good job on foiling that convenience store robbery the other day,” Myers interrupted. “Too bad you’re not real FBI. They could use a man like you.” Then he spiked the phony ID wallet off the desk and put it in his pocket.

  This just keeps getting better and better, Garrett thought in useless rage. “Do I at least get an explanation?”

  “Not much to explain at this point,” Myers replied.

  “Gee, and at first I thought you sent in your team just to save my ass.”

  “Given the circumstances, Garrett, your ass is very expendable, but we’re happy to have been able to save it anyway.”

  Garrett stroked his chin, thinking, then looked to Lynn. “Jessica said that you were setting me up.”

  Lynn sighed. “Come on, Harlan. You gotta be realistic about this. We had a pretty good idea what her move would be, so I made a counter-move, that’s all.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Myers went into the kitchen and returned a moment later. “We’re talking about this.” He held up the plastic bag which contained the alien forearm.

  “Oh, so now you’re gonna steal my alien arm!”

  “Really, Garrett. Try to look at it from our perspective.”

  “I can’t look at it from your perspective because I’m not a law-breaking truth-concealing crypto-fascist Big Brother storm trooper like you!”

  “Harlan, open your eyes,” Lynn said. “Even Jessica was right about that part. The thing in that bag can never be released to the public conscience. You know that.”

  Myers again: “The ramifications would be incalculable. It would change the very mechanics of human ideology. It would change our governmental structures, our legislative process, our economy, our morality. It would ravage every belief system in the world.”

  Garrett sputtered and lit a cigarette. “You bastards. You’re taking my arm.”

  “And life will go on just as it should,” Myers continued. “The world goes on turning, we go on doing our thing, and you go on writing your crackpot conspiracy articles that mainstream America will never believe.”

  “Because you Big Brother sons of bitches keep concealing the proof by which they’d have no choice but to believe!”

  “Precisely.” Myers grinned. “And on that note, I think we’ll make our exit.”

  Lynn cast a sheepish glance at Garrett. “‘Bye, Harlan. Take care of yourself.”

  Bitch, Garrett thought as she and Myers headed for the door. The apartment lay in shambles, the forearm confiscated. Nothing left…But then he remembered: Wait a minute! They forgot to take the—

  “Oops. We can’t be forgetting this, can we?” Myers came back into the living room and picked the glove up off the desk.

  Garrett nearly keeled over. “First you take my arm, and now you’re taking my glove!”

  “’Fraid so.” Myers looked at the glove excitedly. “The Sciences Branch will love this.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet they will,” Garrett grumbled. He looked one last time at his ex-wife. “Can I call you sometime?”

  “Nope,” Lynn said. “But have a good life
, Harlan.”

  Myers slapped him on the back. “And if you ever grow a brain and decide to give up writing this conspiracy bunk, let me know. I have a job for you.”

  Garrett perked up. “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah, I need a new yard boy. I’ll pay ya six an hour.”

  Myers and Lynn both laughed as they left the apartment.

  Garrett trudged to the kitchen and turned off the stove. The t-bones were close to charcoal now, the mashed potatoes cement. Fuck. He meandered back to his work room, sat down at his ravaged, computerless desk. He lit another cigarette and dejectedly spewed smoke out the broken window.

  I’m ruined, came the simple thought like a pulse-beat in his head.

  No one would believe the Nellis story any more than they’d believe the others. No real proof. This was the first time he’d every had it—the ultimate dream of any UFO writer—but now it was gone as if it had never existed.

  Add to that his computer was stolen and his apartment trashed.

  It felt as though he’d have to start his entire professional life over again. Could tings get any worse?

  An unconscious glance at the desk showed him the day’s mail; he picked up the stack and wilted when he noted the return address of the top letter.

  Office of the Judge Advocate General

  Legal Proceedings,

  Washington, D.C., 20012

  “Oh, gimme a break!” he bellowed allowed. “What, now I’m being fined by the goddamn military?”

  Guess I’ll have to move to Mexico, he thought.

  Could things get any worse? It was certainly looking like that. He tore open the letter and read:

  Dear Mr. Harlan Garrett:

  The JAG office of the Washington Military District has just processed the Last Will and Testament of the late General Norton T. Swenson. As the General had no legal heirs and no surviving relative, his Will remains uncontested and names you as the sole beneficiary of his estate.

  Please call the above number at your earliest convenience. The estimated worth of the General’s estate include $2,500,000 in property and real estate and approximately $6,000,000 in cash, bonds, and other liquid assets.

  Garrett collapsed.

  Yes, he would have to start his life over again, but this looked like a pretty good start.

  — | — | —

  Edward Lee has had more than 40 books published in the horror and suspense field, including CITY INFERNAL, THE GOLEM, and BLACK TRAIN. His movie, HEADER was released on DVD by Synapse Films, in June, 2009. Recent releases include the stories, “You Are My Everything” and “The Cyesologniac,” the Lovecraftian novella “Trolley No. 1852,” and the hardcore novel HAUNTER OF THE THRESHOLD. Currently, Lee is working on HEADER 3. Lee lives on Florida’s St. Pete Beach. Visit him online at:

  http://www.edwardleeonline.com