Nesseref laughed, too. “Even among us, befflem are a law unto themselves.”
Anielewicz’s mate did not speak the language of the Race nearly so well as he did, but she spoke with great intensity: “Superior female, I thank for to help Mordechai for to find us. I thank you for to help to go to Kanth, too.”
“You are welcome, Bertha Anielewicz.” Nesseref was pleased she’d recalled the name, even if she didn’t pronounce it very well. “I am glad to be a friend to your mate. Friends help friends—is that not a truth?”
“Truth,” Anielewicz’s mate agreed, along with what was surely intended to be an emphatic cough.
Nesseref had wondered what sort of food the Tosevites would serve her; Anielewicz had made it plain that following the Jewish superstition limited what he and his kinsfolk could eat. But the shuttlecraft pilot found nothing wrong with the roasted fowl that went on the table. Big Uglies ate more vegetables and less meat than the Race was in the habit of doing, but if Nesseref enjoyed more pieces of the bird and less of the tubers and stalks that went with it than did her hosts, no one seemed to find that out of the ordinary.
“Here.” Mordechai Anielewicz set a glass half full of clear liquid in front of her. “This is distilled, unflavored alcohol. I have seen members of the Race drink it and enjoy it.”
“I thank you,” Nesseref said. “Yes, I have drunk it myself.”
“We have a custom of proposing a reason for drinking before we take the first sip,” he told her. Raising his glass, he spoke in his own tongue: “L’chaim!” Then, for her benefit, he translated: “To life!”
“To life!” Nesseref echoed. Imitating the Tosevites around her, she raised her glass before sipping from it. The alcohol was potent enough to make her hiss; after it slid down her throat, she had to concentrate to make her eye turrets turn in the directions she wanted. She asked, “May I also propose a reason for drinking?”
Anielewicz made the affirmative gesture. “Please do.”
Raising her glass, the shuttlecraft pilot said, “To peace!”
“To peace!” The Tosevites echoed her this time, Anielewicz again translating. They all drank. So did she. The alcohol was strong, but it was also smooth. Before Nesseref quite noticed what she was doing, she’d emptied the glass. Anielewicz poured more into it.
Seeing everyone in the apartment having a good time and no one paying any attention to him, Pancer let out a plaintive squeak. Heinrich Anielewicz patted his own lap. The beffel jumped up into it and rubbed himself against the young Big Ugly as he might have against a member of the Race.
Maybe the alcohol had something to do with the solemnity with which Nesseref spoke: “Watching something like that makes me hope our two species really will be able to live in peace for many years to come.”
“Alevai,” Mordechai Anielewicz said in his language. As he had before, he translated for her once more: “May it be so.”
“May it be so,” Nesseref agreed, and then tried the Tosevite word: “Alevai.” Maybe it was the alcohol, but she had no trouble saying it at all.
20
Car keys clinked as Sam Yeager fished them out of his pocket. “I’ll be back in a bit,” he called to Barbara and Jonathan. “I’m going to see how the alterations for my tux look.”
“You’ll be dashing,” his wife said. Sam snorted. That wasn’t a word he’d ever thought to apply to himself. Jonathan just snickered. His tuxedo already fit fine, so he didn’t have to worry about return trips to the tailor.
Out on the street, cars slid past, their lights on. It was just a little past five-thirty, but night came early in December, even in Los Angeles. Yeager unlocked the door to his own Buick in the driveway, got inside, and fastened his seat belt. As he started the engine, he shook his head in bemusement. Back before the Lizards came, nobody’d bothered putting seat belts in cars. Nowadays, everyone took them for granted: the Race’s attitude toward minimizing risk had rubbed off on people.
He backed out of the driveway and drove south down Budlong toward Redondo Beach Boulevard, on which the formalwear place stood. Maybe he really would look dashing by the time the Japanese-American tailors were done with him. Jonathan did, sure enough. But Jonathan, of course, was a young man, and it would be his wedding day. Sam knew he needed more help to look sharp than his son did.
He’d gone only a couple of blocks—he hadn’t even got to Rosecrans yet—when he spied motion in the rearview mirror. He needed a heartbeat to realize it wasn’t motion behind the car. It was motion inside the car: somebody who’d been hiding, lying down on the back seat or maybe between the front and back seats, coming up and showing himself.
That heartbeat’s hesitation was at least half a heartbeat too long. By the time Sam took one hand off the wheel and started to go for his .45, he felt something hard and cold and metallic pressed to the back of his head. “Don’t even think about it, Yeager,” his uninvited guest told him. “Don’t even start to think about it. I know you’re heeled. Keep both hands where I can see ’em and pull on over to the side of the road if you want to keep breathing even a little longer.”
Numbly, Sam obeyed. He’d known this day might come. He’d known it ever since he gave Straha the information he’d uncovered. He’d known it before then, as a matter of fact. But he’d been extra careful since that day. This once, he hadn’t been careful enough. One mistake, that’s all you get.
“Attaboy,” his passenger said when he parked the car by the curb. “Now—tell me where it’s at, so I can pull your teeth. Don’t get cute with me, either. I’d sooner ice you someplace where it’s quieter than this, but I’ll do it right here if I’ve got to.”
“Right hip,” Yeager said dully. Smooth and deft, the man in the back seat half stood, reached forward, slid his hand under the safety belt, and plucked out the pistol. I was stupid twice, Sam thought. I couldn’t have got it very fast there myself. Right now, though, that didn’t look as if it would matter.
“Okay,” said the man with the pistol—with two pistols now. “Get moving. Go down to Redondo Beach and turn right.”
I was going to do that anyhow, Yeager thought as he pulled back into traffic. In an idiot sort of way, it was funny. Or maybe his brain was just spinning round and round without going anywhere, like a hamster’s exercise wheel.
The light at the corner of Budlong and Rosecrans turned red. Sam hit the brake. As he did, one small light went on in his head. “You’re Straha’s driver!” he blurted. Gordon, that was the fellow’s name.
“Not any more, I’m not,” Gordon answered. “That’s your fault, and you’re going to pay for it. President Warren’s dead. That’s your fault.” The light turned green. Yeager drove south, not knowing what else to do. Straha’s driver—no, his ex-driver now—continued, “Indianapolis went up in smoke. That’s your fault. And a hell of a lot of good men lost their posts. That’s your fault, too. If I could kill you four or five times, I would, but once’ll have to do.”
“What about all those Lizards?” Sam asked. The light at Compton Boulevard was green. He wished it were red. That would have given him a few extra seconds. “They never had a chance.”
“Fuck ’em.” Gordon’s voice was flat and cold. “And fuck you, buddy.”
“Thanks a lot,” Yeager said as he stopped for the red light at Redondo Beach Boulevard. “Fuck you, too, and the horse you rode in on.”
Straha’s driver laughed. “Yeah, you can cuss me. You’ll be just as dead either which way. Now go on down to Western. Turn left there and keep on driving till I tell you to stop.”
Sam waited till the way was clear, then turned onto Redondo Beach. He had a pretty good idea where Gordon would have him go. Western ran all the way down to the Palos Verdes peninsula, where there were plenty of wide open spaces without any houses close by. Kids drove down to P.V. to find privacy to park; he wouldn’t have been surprised if Jonathan and Karen had done that a time or two, or maybe more than a time or two. Palos Verdes offered privacy for murder, too.
Coming up was Normandie. The next big street after it was Western. Yeager swung into the left lane as he drove west on Redondo Beach. He was nearing the light at Redondo Beach and Normandie when it went from green to yellow to red. Cars on Normandie started going through the intersection.
Sam slowed as if he were going to stop at the light, then stamped on the gas for all he was worth. Gordon only had time for the beginning of a startled squawk before the Buick broadsided a Chevy station wagon.
It had been a good many years since Sam’s last traffic accident. He’d never caused—he’d never imagined causing—one on purpose. As they always did in pileups, things happened very fast and seemed to happen very slowly. Collision. Noise—incredible racket of smashing glass and crumpling metal. Yeager jerked forward. His seat belt caught him before he could spear himself on the steering wheel or go headfirst through the windshield.
Gordon wasn’t wearing a seat belt. Sam had counted on that. Straha’s driver hadn’t been sitting directly behind him. He’d been more in the middle of the back seat. At the impact, he too was hurled forward, half over the top of the front seat. The pistol flew out of his hand. Sam had counted on that, too—he’d hoped for it, anyway. With the reflexes that had let him play a pretty fair left field once upon a time, he snatched it up from the floorboard and hit Gordon in the head with it, as hard as he could. Then he got back his own .45 from Gordon’s belt.
All that happened as quickly as he could do it. He hadn’t had time to think about it. He couldn’t remember thinking anything since deciding to run the light at Normandie, any more than he’d done any thinking while chasing down a long fly ball in the alley in left-center. Thinking was for afterwards.
Afterwards, however much against the odds, seemed to have arrived. Time returned to its normal flow. Sam suddenly noticed blaring horns and squealing brakes as other drivers somehow missed adding to the accident.
The first thing that ran through his mind was, It wasn’t an accident. I meant to do it. The next thought made a lot more sense: I’d better get the hell out of here before the car catches on fire.
When he tried to open the door, it wouldn’t. He twisted in his seat and kicked at it. At the same time, somebody outside yanked at it for all he was worth. It did open then, with a scream of tortured metal.
“You son of a bitch!” roared the man outside, a stocky, swarthy fellow whose ancestors had come from Mexico if he hadn’t. “You stupid motherfucking son of a bitch! You trying to get me killed? You trying to get yourself killed?”
He must have been driving the other car. Sam was proud he’d managed such a brilliant deduction. “No, I was trying to keep from getting killed,” he answered—literal truth. He realized he sounded mushy. There on top of the dashboard, quite undamaged, sat his upper plate. He reached out with his left hand and stuffed it into his mouth.
“Man, I oughta beat the living shit outta you, and—” The man standing in the intersection suddenly noticed the pistol in Yeager’s right hand. His eyes went enormously wide. He stopped roaring and started backing away.
That let Sam get out of the car. One look at the stove-in front end told him he’d never drive the Buick again. He shrugged. He’d have the chance to drive some other car one day. Almost as an afterthought, he dragged Gordon out of the wreckage. Gordon’s head thumped on the asphalt, but Sam wasn’t about to lose any sleep over that.
A couple of other cars had stopped. Their drivers jumped out to lend a hand. But nobody seemed eager to come very close to Yeager, not with one pistol in his hand and another on his belt. “Don’t do nothin’ crazy, mister,” a tall, skinny blond guy said.
“I don’t intend to,” Yeager said—he’d already been crazy enough to last a lifetime, and to prolong one. “I’m just waiting for the cops to get here.”
He didn’t have to wait long. Siren howling, red lights flashing, a squad car raced up Normandie and stopped in the intersection, which was already a lot more crowded than it needed to be. Two of Gardena’s finest got out and looked things over. “Okay,” said one of them, a burly fellow with black hair and very blue eyes. “What the hell happened here?”
As far as Sam could see, that was pretty obvious. He sighed with relief for a different reason, though—he’d met the policeman before. “Hello, Clyde,” he said. “How are you tonight?”
The Mexican man who’d been driving the station wagon let out a wail of anguish. His car was wrecked—and it was totaled, bent into an L—and the guy who’d rammed him knew the cop by his first name?
Clyde needed a couple of seconds to pull Sam out of his mental card file, but he did. “Lieutenant Colonel Yeager!” he exclaimed. “What the hell happened here?” This time, he asked it in an altogether different tone of voice.
Briefly, as if making an oral report, Yeager told him what had happened. “Yeah, and that’s all a bunch of bullshit, too,” Gordon said from the street. Sam jumped. He hadn’t noticed Straha’s driver coming to. Gordon went on, “This guy kidnapped me, dragged me off the street. He was babbling about ransom money.”
Sam handed Clyde both pistols. “You’ll probably find both our prints on both of them. You want to know where I was going when I left home, call my wife and son. You can check with the formalwear place, too—it’s right down the street here.”
“Whaddaya think?” the other cop asked Clyde.
“Yeager here, he’s had some nasty stuff happen to him that nobody ever got a handle on—nobody this side of the FBI, anyhow,” Clyde said slowly. “You ask me, this looks like more of the same.” He bent down and put handcuffs on Gordon. “You’re under arrest. Suspicion of kidnapping.” Then he pointed at Sam. “But you’re coming down to the station, too, till we find out whose story checks out better.”
“What about me?” cried the man who’d been driving the station wagon.
Nobody paid any attention to him. “Sure, I’ll come,” Sam said. “But please do call my wife, will you, and let her know I’m okay.”
“We’ll take care of it,” the second cop said. He went back to the police car and spoke into the radio. Then he walked back toward the accident. “Tow truck’s on the way. Another car, too, so we can get both these guys to the station.”
“Okay, good,” Clyde answered. “Like I said, we’ll sort it out there.” He hauled Gordon to his feet.
“I want my lawyer,” Gordon said sullenly.
Whoever his lawyer was, he’d be good. Sam was sure of that. But, as he walked toward the squad car, he didn’t worry about it. He didn’t worry about anything. By the odds, he should have been dead, and he was still breathing. Measured against that, nothing else mattered.
Jonathan Yeager fiddled with his tie in front of the mirror in the church’s waiting room. He’d practiced tying a bow tie under a wing collar ever since he’d got the tux, but he still wasn’t real good at it. One side of the bow definitely looked bigger than the other. “I don’t think I’ll ever get it right, Dad,” he said in something close to despair.
His father clapped him on the shoulder and advised, “Don’t worry about it. Nobody’s going to care much, as long as you’re there and Karen’s there and the minister’s there. And you probably won’t have to worry about it again till you’re marrying off your own kid—and nobody’ll pay much attention to you then, believe me.”
“Okay.” Jonathan was willing—more than willing, eager—to let himself be convinced. He glanced at his father. Sam Yeager’s tie was straight. The bulge under the left shoulder of his tuxedo jacket hardly showed at all. Jonathan shook his head. “I wonder when the last wedding was where the father of the groom carried a pistol.”
“Don’t know,” his father said. “Usually it’s the father of the bride, and he’s carrying a shotgun.”
“Dad!” Jonathan said reproachfully. His father grinned, altogether unrepentant. Jonathan shook his head. He and Karen had been careful every single time—no need for Mr. Culpepper to go out and buy shotgun shells. Even so, he changed the subjec
t: “Will you and Mom be okay watching Mickey and Donald while Karen and I are off on our honeymoon?”
“We’ll manage,” his dad replied. “If we really start going crazy, we can call one of the Army’s other Lizard-psych boys, like the fellow who’s babysitting them today. But I don’t expect we’ll need to. They’re getting big enough to be easier than they were even a few months ago.”
Somebody knocked on the door. “You fellows decent in there?” Jonathan’s mother asked.
“No,” his father answered. “Come on in anyway.”
The door opened. Jonathan’s mother came in. “Karen looks lovely,” she said. “She’s wearing the dress her mother got married in, you know. I think that’s so romantic.”
Jonathan hadn’t seen Karen yet. He wouldn’t, not till she came down the aisle. Not everybody followed that old custom these days, but her folks approved of it. Since they were footing the bill, he could hardly argue with them. His father asked, “Everything okay out front, hon?”
“Everything looks fine,” his mother said. “And nobody’s come in who hasn’t been vouched for by somebody. No strangers at the feast.”
“There’d better not be.” Just for a moment, his father’s right hand started to slide toward the shoulder holster. Then he checked the motion. He went on, “The judge refused to let Gordon out on bail yesterday. He was the biggest worry.”
“I hope he stays there till he rots,” Jonathan’s mother said.
“Yeah.” That was Jonathan. He added an emphatic cough. His father had told him some of what went on the night the Buick met its end. He had the feeling his dad hadn’t told him everything, not by a long shot.
“Well, now that you mention it, so do I,” Sam Yeager said.
Another knock on the door. The minister said, “About time to get ready, there.”
“We are, Reverend Fleischer,” Jonathan said. His heart thumped. He was ready for the ceremony, sure enough. Was he ready to be married? He wasn’t so sure about that. He wondered if anybody was ready to be married before the fact. His mother and father had made it work, and so had Karen’s parents. If they could manage it, he supposed Karen and he could, too. He turned to his mother and father. “Shall we do it?”
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