Alien Blues

by Lynn Hightower

  “How about your other people—the ones who worked last night?”

  “Serve and Tend will be on duty at eight o’clock.”

  “We’ll be back,” Mel said. “Put us in your book.”

  David headed back into the dining room. The comedians were gone. The tables were shoved up against one wall. There were no chairs. Claude would be back soon, to finish the floor. David glanced at a table in the corner.

  A grey sport jacket was wadded on the top. David walked over and picked it up. There were dark chocolate stains across the sleeve. David checked the pockets—empty, except a slip of paper in the inside pocket. David opened it up, finding a mushroom drawn with a pink crayon.

  TEN

  The Elaki named Puzzle Solver had an office in the Museum of Human Behavior. David and Mel had to come in through the back door—front entrance for Elaki only—and were left waiting in front of the exhibit on eating disorders.

  Behind the red velvet ropes, a lifelike woman was posed in front of a kitchen mock-up. The woman, wearing an old-fashioned three-piece suit, stood in front of a refrigerator and held up a briefcase, fending off a giant Barbie doll dressed in a red swimsuit. A placard labeled the exhibit, but it was written in Elaki.

  Puzzle Solver slid toward them from the other end of the hall.

  “Detective Silver? Detective Burnett?”

  David nodded, feeling awkward because Elaki didn’t have hands to shake.

  “Please. We can talk in my office.”

  Mel started down the hall.

  “Wait,” David said. “What does the sign there say?”

  Puzzle bent over the exhibit. “It say, ‘Why does this woman think she is fat?’”

  “Oh.”

  They followed him down a wide corridor. The floor sloped upward. Their footsteps were silent on the thick grey carpet. David shivered. It was cold in the museum, and quiet. The hot noisy city outside seemed miles away.

  They went past a display of a tenement room. A junkie lay “dead” on the floor. The door to the apartment had been kicked in and a soldier in a Drug Enforcement Agency uniform was half in and half out of the room. The uniform was familiar. Rose had one, packed away in the back of their bedroom closet.

  Puzzle’s office had a computer terminal mounted on a high glass table. It was a late-model setup—very expensive. Along the side of the wall was a moving file of poster-sized pictures. The pictures showed street scenes, and there were people in all of them.

  “Shall I have some chairs brought in for the sitting?”

  “No, that’s okay.” David didn’t want the Elaki towering over him. “What I’m interested in, Mr. Puzzle, is your fascination for my case.”

  “Machete Man?”

  “Yes.”

  “I would not use term of fascination.”

  “No? I’ve looked into it a little. You aren’t a police adviser, Mr. Puzzle. The Elaki assigned to tag along with us, String—he really works for you, doesn’t he? And you’re an Elaki sociologist.”

  “A laiku, if please. Your term, sociologist, has some very primitive connotations for my people.”

  “Machete Man appeals to the primitive,” Mel said.

  “Mr. Puzzle, you pulled favors to get access to my case. You get reports as soon as I do—maybe sooner. You have authorization to go over crime scenes. I want an explanation.”

  “Detective Silver, you are knowledgeable officer of the law. You know Earth cities are on verge of a drug problem the likes of which have not been seen since the 1980s.”

  “It’s not that bad,” Mel said. “And it won’t be.”

  “Please, I hope not, Detective. But I think you would find the historical cycle of cocaine usage most extremely interesting.”

  “The Drug Enforcement Agency has a lot more teeth, now it’s part of the military.”

  “Indeed,” Puzzle said. “There are many of us who think the corruption problems in your military stemmed from combining military corps with drug enforcement.”

  David blushed and Mel grew quiet.

  “Mr. Puzzle,” David said. “You do me the courtesy of being frank, and I’ll show you the same consideration. One of my colleagues is missing—Detective Vernon Dyer. He was working on this case, and he’s disappeared. The last night he was seen he spent some time at an Elaki restaurant called the Ambassador. You know it?”

  “I have heard of such establishment.”

  “I want the connection,” David said. “I want to know why Elaki keep showing up in a simple case of a sexual sadist on a death spree.”

  “Detective Silver, if you were not so serious, I would think you were mocking. What is simple about sexual sadism?”

  “That’s beside the point, isn’t it, Mr. Puzzle? Help me out. Help me catch this man. Help me find Dyer.”

  “Your colleague Dyer is likable human. I wish I could be help to you. I am afraid I cannot. My interest in the case lies purely in most clinical, academic sense.”

  “If that were true, you could just study the files,” Mel said.

  David roamed around the office and stopped in front of the pictures. “You mind?” He didn’t wait for permission. All of them had a vaguely familiar feel, and he realized they all showed drug buys being made on the streets.

  “Mr. Puzzle, are you on the Horizon Project?”

  Puzzle turned his body toward David. “What do you know, Detective, about Project Horizon?”

  “Just rumors, Mr. Puzzle, cops hear things. Think you can cure us of our addictions?”

  “It would be a goal of worth.”

  “Make our job easier,” Mel said. “How come you bel … Elaki give a rat’s ass, anyhow?”

  “Detective Burnett, I have worked on many projects. Horizon is one. I am deeply involved in work on human eating disorders. I helped with cure for schizophrenia—and still do much work as adviser for those effecting the cures.”

  “What a great guy,” Mel said. “He—it is he, isn’t it? He’s got advice for everybody. Except us.”

  “The only advice I give you, Detective, is for to cut back on fats and oils, and eat more regularly.”

  “This from a guy eats rat? You tried the shark curry over at the Ambassador lately?”

  “Gentlemen, I cannot help you, and have work to do.”

  David headed for the door, but Mel leaned close to the Elaki.

  “I think you’re holding back on me, pal, and to my way of thinking, that makes you dirty.” Mel headed for the hall, then turned. “I got a lot of patience. I’ll get you sorted.”

  Puzzle’s office door closed behind them. Mel looked at David. “Where did you hear about this Horizon Project?”

  “On a file on his desk.” David headed down the sloping floor. “Helps to read upside down.”

  Mel grinned, his voice booming through the corridors. “You know how Elaki screw, Detective Silver? They stand in a line, boy-girl, boy-girl, passing the sperm along. Line copulation, biologists call it. Makes you want to know what they got in their pockets.”

  “Mel, would you please just shut up? At least till we get out of the building?”

  “Sure.” Mel scratched an unshaven cheek. “Makes you wonder, though, what they’d say to a rhumba.”

  ELEVEN

  It had been ages since he’d made it home before dark. David rubbed the back of his neck, trying to keep his attention on the road. He turned in the driveway and stopped. A bullfrog squatted in the center of the gravel drive and glared at him.

  David struck his head out the window. “You again?” He honked the horn. The frog made a rude noise. David drove around him.

  The sun was still bright and hot. The grass around the house needed mowing, and neither he nor Rose had gotten around to putting flowers in the beds out front.

  Still, the house looked good.

  It was small—a two-bedroom ranch house on thirteen acres of fairly useless woodland. It was a haven from the city, a good place to raise children, and a far cry from the Little Saigo tunne
ls, where David had spent seven dark miserable years.

  Rose sat out front in the porch swing, one leg tucked under her, the other dangling. She watched him stoically. David chewed his lip. He waved a hand and pulled the car around back. A familiar mud-spattered Jeep was parked next to the barn.

  Kendra and Lisa were under the ash tree, squatting on the ground, absorbed. David put the car in the barn. The black rabbit wasn’t in the cage. David frowned, taking off his jacket and tie.

  “Hi, girls.”

  Kendra looked up. “Daddy! C’mere.”

  He walked to the ash tree.

  “Watch!”

  Kendra had tied a piece of string to the leg of a gigantic, iridescent green June beetle. She threw the beetle into the air and it flew in a circle around her head.

  “See?” She held tight to the end of the string. “Better than a kite.”

  “My turn now,” Lisa said.

  “Get your own.”

  “I can’t tie the knot. Daddy!”

  David tied a piece of string to the leg of Lisa’s beetle.

  “Mommy been in the swing all day?”

  Kendra gave him a look. “Since this afternoon. After we found the package on the porch.”

  “Can we have a jar, Daddy?” Lisa said. “We’re training these beetles. We’re going to keep ’em.”

  “Later, kiddo. Where’s the munchkin?”

  “In the house.”

  David went through the back door into the kitchen. There were bowls on the cabinet from breakfast, and lunch dishes on the table. A box of cereal was overturned on the floor, but nothing had spilled. David picked it up. Empty.

  “Daddy!” Mattie ran into the kitchen, followed by Dead Meat.

  David picked his daughter up, and tried not to stumble over the dog that wound her way in and out of his legs.

  “Daddy? Do spidos have tails?”

  “Spidos? Spiders?”

  Mattie nodded.

  “No tails.”

  “Whew!” Mattie wiggled out of his arms and ran down the hall to her room. Dead Meat barked and ran after her.

  David passed through the living room, picking his way over sofa cushions, broken crayons, and video cartridges. A loaf of bread was open on the rocking chair, several slices scattered on the floor. David closed the package and turned off the television. He heard the porch swing creak as Rose shifted her weight.

  Mattie ran back into the kitchen.

  “Daddy!”

  “In here, munchkin.”

  “Daddy, the wabbit died. It went asleep las night and din get up this morning.” Tears streaked down Mattie’s plump, babyish cheeks. “Mommy said it was too sick.”

  David gathered Mattie up and rocked her. “Sorry, baby.”

  “Just like po’ Benny.”

  “Yeah. Benny was a sweetheart. But you have a dog here. And this dog needs a new name.”

  Mattie scooted out of his lap.

  “Where you going, munchkin?”

  “Ask the dog what he wants for a name.” She ran down the hall.

  David went out front. He sat beside Rose, his weight bringing the wood swing to a halt.

  “Hi, honey. I’m home.”

  Rose smiled absently.

  “Saw the Jeep out back. Where’s Haas?”

  “Doing an errand for me.”

  “What kind of errand?”

  Rose was quiet.

  “Mattie told me about the rabbit,” David said. “She took it bad?”

  “Pretty bad.”

  “The other two?”

  Rose shrugged. “Hard to tell.”

  The silence grew awkward.

  “Mel called,” Rose said.

  “Oh?”

  “Not coming to dinner after all.”

  “How come? We were going to work.”

  Rose shrugged. “Kendra told him I’d been in the swing all day. He said he’d come sometime when I wasn’t so depressing to be around.”

  “Sometimes your brother is a jerk.”

  Rose shrugged.

  At least, David thought, when she’s down I can follow her conversation. What there was of it.

  “Sorry about the rabbit,” he said. “I’ll go fix supper. Got anything in mind?”

  Rose shook her head. “Why don’t you do the packages?”

  “Home cooked is best. I assume Haas is staying? Anything sound good?”

  “Nope.”

  David got up, started in the door, then stopped, hand on the latch. “Rose? What was the package you got today? The girls said somebody delivered a package.”

  The swing stopped. David turned and looked at his wife. Her eyes filled with tears. He felt a chill on the back of his neck.

  “What was it, Rose?”

  “Video. Taken at a lab. I’m not sure which one, it’s been bugging me all day. But I know I’ve been there. I think it was this last job.”

  “What was on the tape?”

  “It was a nasty little thing, David. A lab tech, woman, I don’t think she knew she was being filmed. She was slamming a rabbit into a table—it wouldn’t be still. I’d bet she broke its back.”

  David swallowed.

  “It brought back … you know, I never told you this …”

  “Mom!” Kendra appeared at the door. Her face was flushed with heat, and she pushed hair out of her eyes. “We’re hungry.”

  “There are Oreos in the pantry,” David said.

  Lisa crowded in the doorway beside Kendra. “Mom won’t let us.”

  “Go ahead,” David said. “Eat them. Watch your TVs. Go.”

  The girls disappeared.

  David sat back down on the swing. His palms were wet. He wiped them on his pants.

  “What were you going to say, Rose?”

  “Have you never wondered why I left the DEA?” Rose asked. She took his hand, running a finger up and down his thumb.

  “You said it was corrupt, and dangerous for a straight soldier. You said you got sick of it.”

  “True. I also … I had a partner I worked with. Manolo Deloso. We worked together a long time. He saved my ass … I saved his. You know how it is when you work close like that. Like you and Mel.”

  “I understand.”

  “We were trying to set up a dealer. Guy had ties to the Colombians, the IRA—he was very bad. Then Deloso disappeared. And somebody dropped a video into my food box. I was in town then. I had delivery.”

  “Here?”

  “No. Miami.”

  “What was on the tape? Deloso?”

  Rose nodded. “The things they did to him … defy the imagination.”

  Mattie burst through the door. “Lisa and Kendra are eating cookies!”

  “You can have some too,” Rose said.

  Mattie went back in the house.

  David heard footsteps on the gravel drive. Haas came around the side of the house and up on the porch.

  He was a big man, broad-shouldered—blue eyes and pale blond hair. He had a strong jaw and an animal grace that made David uneasy. Guys built like that, he had always told himself, were invariably stupid.

  Haas wore loose khaki shorts and a white cotton shirt, sleeves rolled up over tan, muscular arms.

  “Hello, David.”

  “Haas.” He found the slight German accent grating, mainly because Haas always smiled when asked about it, and swore he was born in the U.S.A.

  “Rose, I saw nothing you didn’t spot already. And I have buried the rabbit—in back of the barn, by Benny.”

  “Thanks.”

  David frowned. “Mattie said the rabbit died in its sleep.”

  Haas raised his eyebrows and looked at Rose. She shrugged.

  “The rabbit was strangled,” Haas said.

  Rose folded her arms. “Somebody broke into the barn last night and killed it.”

  David looked from Rose to Haas. “Somebody want to explain what’s going on?”

  “We really don’t know,” Rose said. She looked at Haas. “Stay for dinner.
”

  Haas glanced at David. “I think not. I have a horse ready to foal, anyway. I like to be around.”

  He shook David’s hand, apologized for the dirt that rubbed from his palms to David’s, and headed around the house to his Jeep.

  David listened till the engine started and gravel spurted from under the tires. Haas waved as he drove the Jeep down the driveway.

  “David,” Rose said. “Get dinner together, okay? I need to walk. We’ll talk tonight, after the girls are in bed. Try not to worry. I’ll take care of things.”

  David went in the house to clean up the kitchen.

  TWELVE

  David sat on the couch under a pile of little girls—all of them in cotton nightgowns, their hair damp from their baths. He read from a tattered storybook in a voice that sounded deep and froglike. Kendra sat at his feet, reading a book of her own, half an ear on the story he read. Lisa snuggled under his arm and Mattie leaned against his side, eyes half-closed, thumb in her mouth.

  In the kitchen, the dishwasher groaned rhythmically. The air was pungent with the dinner smell of wine, garlic, and chicken. He heard a cabinet slam. Rose was doing the dishes—a good sign.

  While dinner cooked, he had straightened the living room and made up the beds—he hated tucking the girls into beds that hadn’t been made. He felt better with the house in order. Things were beginning to return to normal.

  He closed the book.

  “’Nother one,” Mattie said.

  “Nope. Bed. Mommy? Watch Mattie brush her teeth.”

  “On my way.”

  “Kiss me good night, girls. I’ll tuck you in later.”

  The phone rang. David heard Rose’s voice from the kitchen. She sounded chirpy all of a sudden.

  “David?” Rose said. “Ruthie’s on the line.”

  David made a slit throat motion and Rose glared at him.

  “Ruthie? Can I have him call you back? He doesn’t seem to be in the house. Probably poking around in the barn. Yeah, I think the girls would love to. I could drive them up …”

  David shook his head vigorously.

  “… but let me check first and make sure David doesn’t have any plans. You know how it is with a cop in the family—we do everything on the spur of the moment, if we do it at all. What? That’s good of Howard, but I don’t think David would enjoy that kind of work. Yes, I’ll tell him. Bye, Ruth.”