Still, he had to find out some important things about this plant that Dolan had made: Was she legitimate, or was she a CIA dragon-lady or its Air Force equivalent. If she wasn’t legitimate, she’d be a bit smoother operator, certainly. Lieutenant Marsha Manning acted as though she had a broom up her ass at times, stick-end south. That was, when she wasn’t tripping over her shoelaces.
Like now.
“Damn,” she said. Her mug went sailing over the edge of the table, spilling coffee onto the rug. “I’m so sorry.”
“No problem,” said Scarborough. “I’ll just go get a wet rag. You burrow your way into the Department of Agriculture files, like you said you could.”
He could almost hear her teeth grinding as she swung her glasses toward the display screen and began hitting the keys. As he left, Scarborough heard the electronic bleeps of the modem, dialing numbers.
“Lieutenant Calamity Jane just flavored your rug with coffee, Mac,” said Scarborough, grabbing a fistful of Big Job paper towels from the roll.
“No shit,” said Mac through a mouthful of pickle as he put the finishing touches on their lunches. Sandwiches, of course. “Strange broad. Nice legs, though, huh?”
“No fraternization with the enemy, pal.”
Mac distributed iceberg lettuce on top of slices of Havarti cheese. “Hell, no, Scarborough. Wouldn’t think of getting in your way.”
“In my—” Frown lines angled down on Scarborough’s face. “Mac, what the hell are you implying?”
Mac winked. “Let’s just say if I wanted a hot lunch, I’d only have to put frying pans on your laps.”
“What absolute drivel! I admit the woman seems to be put together interestingly—but that doesn’t mean I want to hop into the sack with her!”
Impassively, Mac put the tops of the caraway-seed rye on the sandwiches, sliced them, and placed them on plates. “Nothing unusual about it, Ev. Suave and charming as you are, chum, and as many women who would like to butter your toast, you’ve always had to call long-distance to keep in touch with your gonads.”
For some reason, Scarborough was infuriated with Mac’s lewd suggestions. If he wasn’t his best friend, he probably would have let loose with an angry barrage and stalked from the room. True, Marsha Manning had nice eyes, and her perfume stirred something in him. But Mac was way off-track about this strong attraction business—and Manning acted as though she’d sooner drink hemlock than touch him. No, the fiction-writer’s imagination was running far off course.
“Mac, we’re delving into some serious matters here. There’s no time for male horseplay and obscene, off-the-wall remarks.”
Mac put down the knife. “Is that muffled buzzing coming from the bug that seems to have crawled up your ass? Gimme a break, young Master Scarborough! You just seemed a little agitated in the lady’s presence, and, understanding the logic of testosterone, I assumed that you wanted to drill for oil! So, am I forgiven if I admit that your tender feelings for the damsel are chaste and pe-ure?”
“Feelings? I’ve known her for about two hours, and she’s been sent here by a guy whom you claim has been pulling the wool over our eyes for twenty years! I—” He sputtered a bit, and realized he was getting red in the face. “The hell with it, MacKenzie. The fucking hell with you, too. This is serious business, and unlike one of your silly male fantasy books, there isn’t necessarily copulation in every other chapter!” Scarborough spun on his heel and stalked from the kitchen.
“Methinks thou dost protest too mucho!” MacKenzie called after him in a leering Mexican accent.
Scarborough banged through the swinging door, muttering to himself. Marsha Manning was sitting in front of her computer, engrossed in her telecommunications. He bent down and began to wipe the coffee spill. That ham-brained lummox! he thought as he blotted up the coffee. Just because his temporal lobe occupied his scrotum didn’t mean that Scarborough’s did. Everett Scarborough enjoyed women very much, but he knew that A: He’d never be in love with anyone in the way he’d loved Phyllis, and B: Dalliances with the weaker sex were strictly for fun, and very low on his list of priorities. The last thing he needed now was a stupid love affair, and besides, he wouldn’t touch this starched blue creature even if she were the deciding judge for the Nobel prize for science.
He heard a soft sigh from above him. A gentle feminine sound of satisfaction. He looked up from his work, and found himself staring at the gradual part of her thighs, the soft length of pale curved skin slinking up to shadowy, frilly pink undergarments, a soft mound of mystery breathing a subtle perfume from beneath the crisp skirt.
“Yo!” a deep male bellow came from behind him. “Grub’s on, partners!”
The cry startled him so much that he jerked up, striking his head on the bottom of the table. Pain drove through his skull like a spike.
“Oh ho!” said Mac, putting the tray of sandwiches down onto the table. “Caught you peeking up the lady’s dress, Scarborough! “
“That’s ridiculous!” said Marsha Manning. “How could you say such a thing? Dr. Scarborough was cleaning up the mess that I made on your rug, Captain MacKenzie!”
Scarborough got to his feet, rubbing his head sorrowfully, saying nothing.
Mac just laughed it all off. “Well, whatever. Dig in folks, before the mustard burns the mortadella!”
“Can it wait for a minute,” said Marsha with barely suppressed excitement as she returned her attention to the monitor. “I’m onto something here.”
“Sure,” said Mac, picking up half of his sandwich and inserting it into his mouth. “Whatcha got there, sweet stuff?”
Scarborough slumped into a chair and grabbed a cold Watney’s Red Barrel from the tray. He contemplated dumping it directly on his scalp, but opted instead on the alimentary path to the source of his pain.
“You did ask me for the Department of Agriculture files, didn’t you? Specifically, government-subsidized or -owned land in the state of Iowa?”
Scarborough nodded. “That’s correct.”
“And you gave me an address in Johnson County. Well, it fits—the government has owned that land since 1953. Now, you also mentioned a certain Charles Higsdon, who worked on the farm from 1966 to 1972—looks like he’s bought his own farm in South Dakota. I’ve got the address here, if you want it. Even the phone number.” She beamed at them and took off her glasses. “How’s that for fast work, huh?” she said, pointing to the screen.
Scarborough and MacKenzie exchanged surprised looks.
“Wonderful,” said Scarborough. “That’s very good, Marsh—l mean, Lieutenant Manning.” He stepped beside her and looked down at the screen. Sure enough, there was the information, in bright orange letters. “My, you do have access, don’t you?” He’d totally forgotten the pain in his skull.
“You needn’t patronize me, Doctor. I have bouts of clumsiness, true, but I’m a competent career officer of the U.S. Air Force!”
Mac took a swallow of his beer and grinned. “So tell me, kiddo. Who’s working that farm now?”
She clicked a few buttons and hit the Return control, staring intently at the screen. “I’m afraid there’s no information on that, Captain MacKenzie.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Mac, with a self-satisfied smile.
“Wait a minute. Something else is coming up. My. goodness, it appears that that area had some significant work done to it in the mid-seventies. The nature of the work doesn’t show here—but it was contracted by the Air Force! Here it is—we’ve got a stated reading of ‘Experimental Agricultural Lab’ here—present status, moribund.” She looked at them both inquiringly. “Well, is that the kind of information you wanted?”
The smile left Mac’s face. Scarborough put his beer down onto the table, and began to pull their host back to the kitchen. “Pardon me, Lieutenant. We’ve got a private discussion to deal with here. In the meantime, could you access the Air Force construction files for the exact information on what was done in the seventies?”
“Surely,” said the woman, who returned to her pecking.
Out of her earshot, Scarborough said, “Well, what do you know? We didn’t have to make that trip out to Johnson County after all, and we didn’t have to bribe that newspaper for information. We could have just called the Air Force.”
“I don’t understand,” said Mac, getting another beer from the fridge.
“Well then, let me spell it out for you. Your conspiracy theory goes up in smoke! If the government cared about who knew that that farm was owned by the government, why would they send Manning out to place the info right in our faces?”
“Snafu? Wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe they didn’t know the information was there.”
“Come on, Mac. Face up to it! There’s no conspiracy! It’s just a trail of dead herrings We’re reading too much into far too little!”
Mac considered this a moment, swishing a mouthful of beer thoughtfully. “Okay, okay. That’s a possibility. But as long as we’re here, as long as we’ve got Manning and her modem, let’s get all the information we can. If for no other reason than for you to use the wild goose chase as comic relief for your next book, huh? And anyway, we should call up that Higsdon guy and find out why the hell we got the wrong stuff in our reports.”
“Okay, Mac. I’m going to have to hang around in the middle of the country anyway. I should go down and check on Diane. But you’ve got till next Tuesday, and that’s all. Then I’m gone!”
“Fair enough,” said MacKenzie. “You know, Ev, there’s still the matter of those files—and why the wrong address was in the Blue Book version.”
“Have you ever heard the word snafu, Mac—how about mistake? History is riddled with them, and God alone knows how much erroneous information is on file.”
“Well, I should warn you, I’m still not convinced. Manning could be a ruse—maybe they know we’ve got that information, and they’re just trying to belittle us by letting her dig it up!”
Scarborough shook his head. “I give up, Mac. There’s always got to be something for you, doesn’t there!”
Mac feigned a “who me?” expression.
“Mac, it’s just a—oh, to hell with you. I’m going back to see what else the lieutenant’s got on her computer.”
“Maybe she’s got time for some other kind of interfacing later, eh, Ev? Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink.”
Angry again, Scarborough ignored him and went back to speak with Marsha Manning.
Chapter 26
Timothy Reilly met Jake Camden at the Eight Ball Saloon at nine-thirty, exactly on time. There, the graduate student told the reporter what little he could, while they drank mugs of cold Milwaukee beer.
“They’re going to meet here again at Hoover Dam, this week, huh? Makes sense,” said Camden, knocking back a shot of Old Grandad and then licking his lips.
“Why’s that?”
“Power source. UFOs seem to like to hang around power sources.”
“Well, whatever. All I know is that we’ve got to fly to Nevada. Diane’s keen on going.” He shook his head. “I wish I could remember. It kind of troubles me that I don’t. I mean, between you and me, Diane’s got an incredible imagination, and sometimes it gets the better of her.”
“You’re telling me that you doubt you were on a UFO?”
“Look, I know what I saw—but I don’t know exactly what happened afterwards, and I’ll tell you, Mister, between you and me, I love Diane dearly, but I wouldn’t exactly take total stock in what she has to say. I mean, this damn business could have come out of an article she read recently. That’s what happens with her. She free-associates, you know what I mean.”
Camden nodded, looking stone cold sober. He hit the bar with the flat of his hand. “Damn! And I thought this was for certain. I thought maybe there was some grain of truth.” He turned to Reilly, a kind of strange fervor in his eye. “Look, Tim. You’ve been straight with me, and you’ve trusted me. I don’t know why, but I appreciate it. I gotta tell you, what I want most now, more than money or anything, is to be a good journalist. I want to break an important story. I want some kind of legitimacy!”
Reilly backtracked a bit. “Well, you don’t know what will pop up here, do you?”
“Where is Diane, anyway?” Camden said, declining an offer of another beer from the waitress.
“Tonight’s her yoga class. She says she really needs it to relax after all that’s happened—and all that’s going to happen. But you better leave her be, Jake. If she had her way, you’d be out of this.”
“Even with the alliance with her father...?”
“I guess she just doesn’t trust you. You don’t exactly inspire trust, I suppose, working for whom you do, acting like you do. Not amongst the educated, anyway.”
“And what about you, Tim m’boy.”
Tim grinned. “Hell, I’m Irish. I can see past the blarney. Camden, you got something that haunts you. And I believe you when you say you’re looking for legitimacy. My old man was a stringer for a newspaper in Boston in his early days, and even after he did well in business, the lust for print never left him. He even eventually bought a paper, but that didn’t quite satisfy him. He sometimes gets that crazed glint in his eyes that I see in yours.”
Camden nodded and reached into his pocket. He pulled out lint. “Hey, Tim, you got enough blarney in you to stand me for these drinks?”
Tim raised an eyebrow. “I guess so, Jake. But this is going to be the last round. I think I’m going to go dry until I see this whole thing through. You’ll be there, won’t you—I mean, the dam.”
Camden slapped Reilly’s back. “With bells on me toes, Tim. Thanks for the info. This story is going to save my life.” He knocked back the rest of his beer and winked at his new friend and spoke in a soft whisper. “And just maybe what’s left of my soul.”
Tim Reilly tilted his way up the garden apartment stairs, fumbling at his collection of keys for the strip of metal that would unlock his apartment. He felt more than a little lightheaded from the alcohol he’d consumed with Camden. Drunk was what they called it now, in the dry late-eighties, though it was not a state that Reilly was unfamiliar with, so he’d navigated his way home reasonably well. Maybe just one more beer, and a hit off the bong as well, and that would be it. He’d hit the hay and then keep his promise. No more cold ones until this business was laid to rest.
Tim Reilly was basically a solid sort, who just dreaded the idea of growing up and taking on responsibility. This was why he had lingered in college, avoiding the completion of his Master’s Degree like the plague—but he had a very hard time of it, since his curiosity concerning his studies often got the best of him, and he had gotten so absorbed and fascinated that he aced the courses despite his best efforts to stall himself. Thus, a Master’s Degree hovered over his head now, along with its attendant responsibility. He knew he wouldn’t like that—back to Boston, to take his place in his father’s mega-headed business ventures and face the Big Bad World.
Actually, he thought as the keys jingled against the metal door of the apartment and he was vaguely aware of the beer fumes that surrounded him like an olfactory shroud, what he wanted was to stay near Diane. He never realized how much he loved her until all this insane business started. Amidst strangeness and uncertainty, one clung to comforting emotions—and the one that loomed strong and vital now was his feeling for Diane Scarborough. Life with her had never been boring, certainly, with her enthusiasms and constant monologues and self-dramatizations. But he’d never before known any woman who’d owned such a heady combination of intelligence, beauty, sexiness—and such a unique character. Not that Tim Reilly was short on individuality—he was fiercely individualistic, a fiery combination of Irish and American qualities. But Diane Scarborough kept him on his toes. There of course was the possibility that he had become so obsessed with her that he even shared her delusions—and that was okay with Timothy Reilly, just as long as he could share her bed and her life as well.
The apartment sme
lled of old marijuana smoke and funky strains of incense and Hercules’s cat box. And something else ... A strange uneasiness invaded Tim, rippling along his spine like a wet feather. He turned on the lights and looked around. Nothing seemed wrong. But then again, the place was usually such a disheveled jumble of this and that—from Tim’s antique train-collection to the piles of playing cards and Tarot cards Diane had brought over, along with the various musical instruments that Tim diddled on, it was difficult to say if anything had been tampered with. Certainly nothing seemed stolen—the 25-inch Mitsubishi color TV draped with a couple of Diane’s bras was still sitting on the orange crates which housed part of Tim’s record and CD collection. And the stereo was in place, and the computer stocked with papers Tim was working on now. No, he thought, it must be my imagination.
What wasn’t imaginary, though, was the pressure he felt in his bladder. He went to the toilet to relieve himself.
While he was inside, he thought he heard a door opening and closing—but then, in an apartment house consisting of sixteen units, sound carried, and creaking doors were not unusual.
When he was finished and the apartment reverberated with the sounds of the flushing toilet, he went to the icebox and had a look. One more beer, yes—well, there were a number of varieties available, but as long as there was only one he was going to allow himself, it might as well be that invitingly large Foster’s. Tim grinned to himself as he pulled the can out, wiped some of the condensation off the metal, and popped the top. “G’day, mate,” he said, toasting his choice. “Here’s a good movie for you! Crocodile Dundee meets the Flying Saucers.”
He took a pull of cold brew and instantly felt a lot better about everything. Now all he needed was to stuff and fire up the old bong. Maybe turn on the stereo, strap on some headphones, and listen to some speed-metal like Motorhead or Metallica. Metal was a private vice, unshared by Diane. Their musical tastes generally dovetailed nicely, from a predilection for baroque to an appreciation for electronic pop. But once in a while, Tim felt the need for some head-banging, some juiced up hormonal power chords rumbling through his synapses. Metal did the trick, even though he had to suffer the slings and arrows of Diane’s outrageous cracks on the musical form.
The UFO Conspiracy Trilogy Page 30
