Hawaiian U.F.O. Aliens

by Mel Gilden

  'Sounds like a crime to me,' I said. What did I know?

  'When they get here, I'll ask the police for a professional opinion. Will you help me?'

  I said, 'Look, Busy, I don't know what I can do for you that the police can't, but I'll try.'

  'Gone-out's a dope,' she said, 'but try to keep him out of it.' She hung up without saying goodbye.

  I sat down in a chair to look at Bill. I wondered if I were still a little groggy from sleep and from my astral projection, or if I had suddenly turned stupid. I should have been going to the airport. Instead, I said, 'Can you manage to get me to the Interstate Eyeball office?'

  'Sure,' said Bill proudly. 'It's in L.A. County.'

  I ate some jam and toast just to keep my stomach from doing gymnastics, showered, dressed, and half an hour later Bill and I were eastbound on the Santa Monica Freeway. It was a nice day if you were in the mood.

  Bill had me drive up Fairfax through tangles of stop and go traffic on a street lined with small shops and restaurants. We turned right at Wilshire, and found the address I wanted was a building faced in white marble. It was short for the neighbourhood, being only ten stories tall, and had a shoe store taking up the first floor.

  Finding a place to park on the street took a better detective than me, and I had to park in the building's lot. I could have bought a pair of shoes for what parking cost me. Inside, the building was old but well-kept, with tan carpeting that still had patterns in it where somebody had run a vacuum cleaner over it. Bill and I waited for the elevator, then climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. Each floor had a small porthole in one wall that looked out on a view that must have been really something before they put in the chrome monster next door. We went in at a door that said INTERSTATE EYEBALL-CENTRE.

  It was a bright, airy office with big windows and white paint that smelled fresh. Traffic noise growled up from below as from a pit full of bears. Sound that was more static than music leaked through a common wall.

  Behind a counter dividing the room was a Teletype machine that stood in one corner chuckling softly to itself as it typed the latest news. In another corner was a small TV set with its antenna thrust out the window. Along one wall were piles of yellowing papers, probably back issues of the Eyeball. In the middle of the area behind the counter was a desk with a computer on it. Avoirdupois sat behind it, very involved with whatever was on the screen. His hands rested on the desk on either side of the machine. Black cables snaked across the floor like jungle vines.

  There was no coffee pot, no water bottle, nothing a man would need to make his office more like home. Avoirdupois was a Surfing Samurai Robot and wouldn't need them.

  'I will be with you in a moment,' Avoirdupois said without looking up.

  'Big story?' I said. 'Two-headed baby, maybe?'

  Avoirdupois' head jerked in my direction, and his eyes seemed to take a moment to focus. When he saw who it was, he smiled. It wasn't a good smile. The SSR people would have to work on it. He said, 'Very good, sir. I'm delighted to see you. Truly I am. And, if I may be so bold as to notice, this is the second time I've seen you not wearing your necklace. The first time I thought nothing of it, sir, concluding you had judged, as I had, that the Aquaricon was no place to be attracting attention to yourself. But to be without the necklace twice is too unusual to be mere coincidence. Might I venture to guess that you have had the good fortune to sell the necklace to someone not of this Earth?'

  'No such luck. I'm here on another matter.' Bill was standing as close as he could to the Teletype without being behind the counter. He was chuckling back to it.

  'Well, well, sir. Delighted to see you in any case, I'm sure.' He pushed back from the desk, and an enormous silver plug studded with hundreds of silver pins drew up under his white, vest. 'I've just been composing my report on the Aquaricon. Interesting business, sir, and no mistake. If I may ask, how did you make out with Medium Rare?'

  'We didn't get along. She thought I was too inquisitive.'

  He shrugged. 'An odd complaint for one in the business of answering questions, is it not? Well, no matter, sir. There are plenty of other fish in the sea.' He laughed in that cute way he had, like two blotters making love. 'Now, sir. How may I be of assistance?'

  'Gone-out Backson's sister had her place ransacked today.'

  Avoirdupois shook his head. 'These are terrible times we live in, make no mistake.'

  'Not interested?'

  He laughed and opened his hands wide. 'It is hardly the kind of news the Eyeball normally concerns itself with.'

  'I thought you might take a more personal interest.'

  'I don't follow.'

  'Gone-out told his sister that he'd told you about her blowfish spine collection. You're the only one I've talked to lately who both knew about her collection and would be interested enough in it to want a private look.'

  He laughed as if I'd just told an off-colour story. He said, 'You are a pip, sir, make no mistake.' More seriously he said, 'But if you are accusing me of burglary, sir, I'm afraid you make the effort for nothing. I've been here all afternoon.'

  'Witnesses?'

  'If I may say so, sir, you are not the police, and I would be within my rights not to answer your questions. However, it suits me to show my good faith in that other little matter by proving my innocence in this one. If you will step around here, sir, I will show you the Eyeball Uplink Log. I have been writing and transmitting since noon.'

  'Logs can be faked.'

  'So they can, sir. So they can. But you may also speak with my neighbour down the hall,' he cocked his head at the music, 'and confirm that my equipment has been interfering with his radio reception since that time.' He folded his fingers across his stomach and looked pleased with himself.

  It was all wrong. Avoirdupois hadn't had any more to do with ransacking Busy's apartment than I had. Either that, or he had an acting attachment in that great, bloated body of his. So it was the long shot, after all. Sometimes they pay off, but you never know when.

  I said, 'Then whoever did the deed has what they want, or they don't. If they do, the affair is over as far as they're concerned. If they don't, they'll be making more trouble. I suspected you of taking the special blowfish spine from Busy's apartment. They would know you hadn't done that, but they might still think you had the spine. You might meet aliens before I do. And you might not like it.'

  'I am gratified by your concern, sir.' He learned toward me against the desk and said in a low voice, 'Tell me, sir. Who do you suspect?'

  'It's a puzzle, isn't it?'

  'Jigsaw or crossword?' Bill said. We both ignored him. Fuzzy music continued to come through the wall. Avoirdupois switched off his computer. A hum I hadn't even been aware of died, and suddenly the music was much louder and clearer. The volume went down. Almost at the same moment, the door opened, letting in Detective Cliffy and his playmate Robinson.

  Cliffy gaped at me as if I'd already offended him just by being there. Robinson was as emotional as usual. Cliffy said, 'I should have known you'd be here.'

  'You guessed, but you wanted to surprise yourself.'

  Cliffy shot a look at Avoirdupois and said, 'This guy been bothering you?'

  'Not at all, sir. Mr Marlowe and I are great friends.'

  Nastily, Cliffy said, 'Robinson and I want to be your friends, too. That's why we want you to answer a few questions.'

  'Ah,' said Avoirdupois. 'No doubt Busy Backson mentioned my name.'

  Cliffy's mouth twisted as if his lips were trying to escape. He said to me, 'You just have to go and muddy up the waters, don't you?'

  I just looked at him. Suddenly static buzzed through the room again, only this time it didn't come through the wall. It came from the TV set. Till this moment, nobody had had any interest in it. Now it was on. Horizontal lines jumped through confetti, then the picture cleared. On the screen were two people I knew. The last time I'd seen them, I hadn't quite been myself.

  Pele and Lono were sitting behind a des
k. Behind them was darkness. They could have been at a local TV station, or aboard their ship, or in a studio they'd used their superscience to put together for the occasion. They looked composed and confident, as if they were on TV all the time. Pele said, 'Greetings, people of Earth.' Her voice echoed, booming in through the windows and from the walls around us. Anybody with a radio or a TV was getting the broadcast. I wondered how the guy next door was taking it.

  Pele went on: 'Something of ours has been stolen by one of you. We want it back.' She grew angrier as she spoke. 'We want it back now. We warn you, it will bring its possessor bad luck. If you have what is ours, put an advertisement into the personals of the Interstate Eyeball. We will see it, and contact you. False advertisements will not be tolerated. If what is ours is not returned to us within a week, we will destroy Los Angeles. The Hollywood Hills will erupt in primordial fire such as has not been seen since the age of the dinosaurs. If you doubt us, speak with Harry at the Sue Veneer Novelty Company.'

  Harry would like that. The publicity would be good for business. I, on the other hand, did not like it much. Everything was out in the open now, and the clock was running.

  Chapter 24

  A Pineapple With My Name On It

  CLIFFY was on the phone to headquarters when Bill and I left. I didn't envy Avoirdupois the afternoon he was about to have, but there was nothing I could do for him. Even doing something for Captain Hook seemed unlikely. Saving Los Angeles seemed out of the question.

  I could go home to T'toom, and nobody would know the difference. I tried to make that a paying proposition, but I couldn't shake the feeling saving Los Angeles was my business, just like trouble. Maybe it's because Los Angeles was where Philip Marlowe did all his best work. It was his monument, a little gaudy and lacking refinement, but he wouldn't mind; the carnival atmosphere would only give him an opportunity to exercise his patter.

  We got down to the Belvedere and drove south, toward Los Angeles International Airport. The sun shone as brightly as before, and the traffic had clotted no more than usual. The few people walking had worried expressions, and they kept looking toward the Hollywood Hills. But maybe they always looked worried. Maybe the rest of it was my imagination.

  Bill, also curious about the Hollywood Hills, kept looking at them out the back window of the car. I was too busy driving to do anything but drive. I was confident that if the Hollywood Hills exploded, Bill would not keep the fact to himself.

  On La Cienega Boulevard

  I said, 'Let's have some radio. See if the mayor has announced yet that he doesn't like threats.' I leaned forward to turn the knob when Bill said, 'Listen to this, Boss.'

  Bill opened his mouth, and classical music came out of it. The effect was eerie, like finding out that under certain conditions rain and corn flakes are the same thing. The music was nice, but it wasn't what I wanted at the moment. I said, 'News.' Bill rolled his eyes up into his head until a man's voice spoke from Bill's mouth. Bill's eyes came back. The effect was still eerie.

  A man with a voice like polished ebony was talking about the threat Pele and Lono had made. He began to interview somebody with a wisp of a voice who was speaking over a telephone. The guy with the wispy voice was Doctor Somebody or Other from Pasadena Tech. an expert on the local geology. He spoke earnestly, as if he were trying to convince himself as well as the listeners: 'The Hollywood Hills are actually part of the Santa Monica Mountains. They are in no way volcanic, but are the result of a subduction, or wrinkling, of the surface of the earth.'

  The interviewing voice said, 'So the chances of anyone forcing the Hollywood Hills into volcanic activity are slim.'

  'Absolutely. Once upon a time, there was volcanic activity in the Los Angeles area. But since the creation of the San Andreas Fault, there has been none. That is, there has been no volcanic activity near Los Angeles in the past fifteen million years. That's a long time. Even for a geologist.' He favoured his audience with a wispy laugh.

  'So, in your opinion, the two were just bluffing.'

  'That's my opinion. There is no way for anyone to do what they have threatened.'

  'Thank you, Doctor.'

  Another voice came on and told me how this had been a special report, and that the mayor would be along in a moment with a statement. I told Bill I'd heard enough. He closed his yap, and the voice went away.

  I hoped that doctor was happy with his small mind. He was one of those guys who thought that if he couldn't do something, then nobody could. Harry at the Sue Veneer Novelty Company might have some news for him. So might Captain Hook.

  We were driving through bare, rolling hills dotted with oil pumps—big mechanical insects nodding at the ground. Behind us, there was a boom, as if somebody had struck a muffled bass drum once. The boom echoed from the hills, making it sound important.

  'Wow,' Bill said.

  I guessed what the excitement was, but I wanted to make sure, so I pulled over and stopped. There was a lot of room on the shoulder along that stretch of road, and a lot of other cars were pulling over, too.

  I cracked my door, and took in the smell of petroleum and of water that had stood in one place too long. I looked back the way I'd come, and saw smoke drifting upwards without a care from the Hollywood Hills to hang over it like a wreath. There was another boom, and sparks flashed up through the smoke, and went out as they rose. A few people screamed, and others swore. That doctor from Pasadena Tech. would have a lot of explaining to do. Film at eleven. Me? I got back into my car and drove south.

  The airport was not as crowded with departing citizens as I would have expected after Pele's gentle reminder. Maybe they didn't have their tickets yet. I found the Sandwich Airlines terminal, and parked where nobody would tow my car as long as I kept feeding quarters to the meter. Bill did his meter trick, and gave me two hours of grace. I walked through the concrete structure, and took a big, slow-moving elevator to the bottom. A plane thundered over, shrieking as it tore the air to shreds.

  The Sandwich Airlines terminal was too bright to be friendly and too big to be intimate, but it contained a carefully calculated artificial air of excitement that would be good for business. The decor was similar to what it was at Kilroy's, but on a much larger scale. A necklace hanging from the ceiling and made of big plastic butterflies turned lazily in the air conditioning. A picture of a woman who, but for the shiny black hair, looked a lot like Pele, held up a sign that said: HAWAII'S ORIGINAL AIRLINE WITH THE ORIGINAL NAME.

  People with suitcases were lined up to buy tickets and get their seating assignments. The men and women behind the counter looked the way clerks always looked when they're worked too hard by the public. I wouldn't get answers out of them.

  I walked past the counter and into a crowded open area with a magazine stand on one side and coffee shop on the other. Nothing leaped out at me. I said, 'Bill, I need to find somebody who knows dirt about this airline, and won't be afraid to talk about it.'

  'Follow me, Boss,' Bill said brightly, and waddled down a wide corridor. I followed him into another room, this one with a row of big wheels down one side.

  'What's this?' I said.

  'Baggage carousels. Luggage comes through the hole in the wall and falls onto the circular conveyor. People gather round and pick up their suitcases and stuff.'

  There were no people in the room. I said, 'We're going to talk to a baggage carousel?'

  'No way,' Bill said, shocked at my suggestion, and toddled over to one of several robots that was mostly luggage cart. The robot part was nearly new, and wore a Surfing Samurai Robot rag around his head. His face was wide and pleasant, but not overly bright. The luggage cart part was banged-up and blotchy green, and looked as if it had been dropped out of an airplane. Maybe more than.

  As we approached, the cart smiled and said, 'Afternoon, folks. Help you with your bags?'

  'No bags,' I said.

  The cart said, 'Thank you, sir,' and the lights went off behind his eyes.

  'Watch my dust. Bos
s,' Bill said. He looked up at the cart's face and said, 'We got bags.'

  The cart's eyes lit up again and the smile came back. He said, 'Afternoon, folks. Help you with your bags?'

  Out of the corner of my mouth, I said, 'This isn't going to work.'

  To the cart, Bill said, 'How are the old hetrodynes hanging, dude?'

  'OK, I guess.'

  'What happened to your cart?'

  'This is a loaner. Mine's in the shop.'

  'Tough,' Bill said, meaning it. I watched, fascinated.

  The cart said, 'Afternoon, folks. Help you wi—?'

  I cut in, saying, 'Our bags came in three days ago on the Sandwich Airlines flight from Hawaii.'

  'Which flight was that, sir?'

  I didn't know the flight number. I said, 'It was the only one that day that landed in fog.'

  His face didn't curl up. I don't think he was built for it, but his lip twitched. He was thinking, or whatever robots did instead. 'I remember. A long time ago.'

  'A little short on memory,' Bill whispered to me.

  'Sure,' I said. 'Three days. A long time ago.'

  The cart said, 'Bad luck.'

  Hoping I wasn't going too fast for him, I took a chance by saying. 'Bad luck with the luggage.'

  'Yeah, I heard. Bad luck. Was supposed to come to LAX. It went to Rio de Janeiro. It went to Rome. It went to Bangkok.'

  'What happened to it?'

  'They found it. It just flew in from Bangkok.'

  'And boy, are its arms tired,' Bill said, and yocked.

  'Huh?' the cart said.

  Ignoring Bill's joke, I said, 'I want my luggage.'

  'Yes, sir. It'll be just a moment.'

  Bill asked after the cart's components again, and the two robots seemed to be getting along pretty well, when one of the baggage carousels began to turn. A couple of black and white checked suitcases came through the hole, slid down a ramp, and began to go around the carousel. They stopped in front of me. The baggage tags were business cards that said BORIS OT—OT'S POTS. They gave a Century City address and phone number.

  I reached for the bags. The cart grabbed my wrist—not hard, just so I couldn't move it any more than if my hand had been buried in stone. The cart said, 'I'll need to see some identification, sir.'