The Year's Best SF 11 # 1993

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

  DeSpain put the cards in carefully, then turned the key. He listened for dogs before he opened the door. “Do you know he’s hired a lawyer?”

  “We need to know more about Turk and his relationships to the other aliens before we do anything.”

  “He must know what he’s doing is illegal, so why don’t you bust him?” DeSpain looked around the entranceway and saw nothing alien about it—chrome chandelier, flocked white wallpaper, terrazzo tile.

  “This way’s the living room,” Allen said.

  They went to the left through an archway. The men sat down on suede chairs, leaving the couch to Orris. She took off one shoe and dragged her nylon-covered toes through the deep pile. DeSpain knew she could feel if the carpet was wool or synthetic, even through her stockings.

  “I think he thought I’d go home after we finished talking,” Allen said. “So he locked me out. But he knows what I’m doing.”

  Orris said, “Maybe he has our house bugged? And he didn’t want you to meet us.”

  “Orris,” DeSpain said, thinking she’d gone a bit paranoid with that.

  “He could easily,” Allen said.

  “And you letting him bug U.S. citizens?”

  “We’re trying to see what’s going on. We…” The man stopped talking as if realizing that the alien could be listening in now.

  A wheeled robot turtle came in and triangulated each of them with its servomotor neck. Allen said, “If you remember anything after it sprays us, call State.”

  DeSpain had only a vague recollection of it later. He and Orris were driving home when the radio programs told them that five hours had elapsed.

  Orris looked at her watch and said, “Mother will be furious.”

  4

  The Game of the Name

  I hate it when I can’t remember, DeSpain thought as he shaved himself in the morning. Vague images of a wheeled turtle named Henry Allen floated through his mind. He decided he’d gotten drunk with a human cohort of the alien’s. Nothing had been resolved. The alien never came back.

  Orris watched him from the bathroom door. She looked haggard without the polish makeup gave her.

  “I’m going to see Hugous at The Door 18. He’s buying from the alien.”

  “Dennis, I think our memories were tampered with. Maybe you should let this one alone.”

  “Orris, maybe that alien is just checking out the territory before whole bunches of alien bootleggers come in.”

  “And maybe his kind is going to push us out of the business. You’ve got other investments.”

  “Orris, now you want me to quit.” DeSpain wondered if Marie would have dared him on and decided that she would have. He finished shaving and combed his hair, then put on a suit to show respect to Hugous.

  Orris didn’t volunteer to come this time. She found the Volvo keys for him and looked down and to the side as she dangled the keys out to him on her straight-out arm and index finger, as rigid as an admonishing statue.

  Be that way, DeSpain thought. Her mother had yelled at them when they picked up Steve, tucking him in the backseat of the Volvo still half asleep.

  * * *

  Hugous was out on a tractor plowing corn land behind The Door 18. DeSpain wondered how, even with income from The Door, the man could afford a balloon-tired air-conditioned cab item like the yellow machine now folding the ends of its giant harrows and turning in the field. The harrows unfolded and the steel spikes bounced against the clay, then impaled the clods.

  DeSpain went through the hanging open old hotel door and sat down at the bar, watching the dust motes in the sun coming in through the back window. He figured this’d get some communication from Hugous faster than going out to the field and yelling through the machine noise.

  A small camera over the bar swiveled. DeSpain crouched, uneasy. Turtles with mobile steel necks. He reached over the bar and brought out a bottle and glass. Let’s see what the alien’s making, he thought. He poured a taste in a glass and drank.

  Scuffed leather … call the State Department and ask for Henry Allen … motorcycles … stalled engines.

  Damn stuff is drugged. And I was drugged with something the opposite earlier. We didn’t get blind drunk.

  Hugous came in with just the sweat he’d built up walking away from the air-conditioned tractor cab. He said, “DeSpain. You go on now after you pay me for my liquor.”

  DeSpain had never heard the man sound so full of menace. He had to call the State Department, ask for Henry Allen before this alien’s man did something worse to his memory. “How much I owe you?”

  Hugous’s chest rumbled something too nasty to be a chuckle. “About five hundred dollars from all the time you cheat me,” he said, “but five dollars will cover what you just drank.”

  DeSpain pulled out a twenty and looked up at the camera. It nodded at him, but then he saw the remote controller in the black man’s fist. Hugous nodded, too.

  Why doesn’t someone stop the alien? What the alien could do to a man’s memory was a national security threat. He wasn’t just a business rival; he had tricks beyond human nature. DeSpain went to a public phone at a country store out Route 57 near Philpott and used his phone credit card to call the State Department. “I’m looking for a man named Henry Allen,” he said to the first human-sounding interactive voice that picked up after the touch-tone connection messages had played.

  Another voice, male, replied, “Henry Allen is on vacation.”

  “I saw him in Franklin County.” DeSpain wondered if the alien sent out a bug from The Door 18 to follow him, but continued, “He was observing the alien.”

  “My information is that he’s on vacation. Could you leave a number where he can call you back?”

  DeSpain left the number of the motel he co-owned with a third cousin down near the Henry County line, a man who often took messages for him. Then he said, “Look, the alien is selling drugs disguised in bootleg liquor. I think you ought to look into it. He has another drug that destroys more than short-term memory.”

  “Alcohol does that,” the man said.

  “It isn’t alcohol,” DeSpain said. “I seriously advise someone to look into it. Someone else. Henry’s too cozy with the alien.”

  “Mr. DeSpain, our voice-print records show that you served a month of a two-year suspended sentence for liquor distribution when you were nineteen. And your driver’s license was suspended. What are you trying to pull?”

  “Okay, okay, I used to sell liquor. The alien is doing it now and he’s mixed drugs in it. Memory-flash drugs.”

  “Mr. DeSpain, I advise you to mind your own business.”

  I am, DeSpain thought. “Henry asked me to call him at the State Department if I got any memories back. I’m doing precisely that now.”

  “Henry Allen is on vacation.”

  DeSpain hung up and wondered if Henry Allen would be reprimanded for speaking to a felon. Then he wondered if that bitch Marie knew enough biochemistry to make an antidote to the alien’s drugs.

  He thought about calling her, remembered how nasty Marie’s mother was. Instead, he called up the Virginia Alcohol Beverage Control Board—this is how people at the stills went from being independent to employees of distributors in the first place.

  “ABC,” the voice answered.

  “I’d like to report a still.” DeSpain hoped the ABC office didn’t have a voice analyzer. “The alien who’s living below Ferrum.”

  “You want to give a name?”

  “No.”

  “Sounds dubious to me. Why should this alien be making liquor?”

  “Send one of your people to The Door 18 on Route 666 in Patrick County.” DeSpain heard a helicopter flying over, toward the phone booth. He hung up the phone. The helicopter swung around overhead. He pulled out his Beretta and wished he’d thought to bring a gas mask. The gun felt hot in his hand. DeSpain hoped he wasn’t being bombarded with microwaves.

  The phone rang. Should I shoot or answer it?

  He picked up t
he phone and breathed into it, just to let whoever know someone was listening. “DeSpain? This is Henry Allen.”

  “Are you in the helicopter?”

  “I can hear it. I’m sorry, DeSpain.”

  DeSpain stepped outside, checked the helicopter’s belly for police insignia, and raised his gun, fired, missed the gas tanks. The helicopter swung out of range and hovered.

  Allen yelled into the phone. DeSpain went to pick up the receiver and said, “Fortunately, the helicopter didn’t seem to have an effective drug delivery system on board. So what can you do for me?”

  “I need help evaluating the situation.”

  “Your alien’s drugging the liquor supplies. Is that your helicopter out there? State Department? CIA?”

  “Go in the grocery and wait.”

  DeSpain wondered if the clerks had called the deputies already, but crouched down and ran to the store. A young man behind the cash register had a twelve-gauge pointing at DeSpain’s belly. DeSpain smiled and tried to put his automatic up. Outside, the helicopter had grappled his car’s front bumper and was half dragging, half lifting it away.

  “Dennis DeSpain, who are you messing with these days?” the man with the twelve-gauge said.

  DeSpain remembered the man now: as a teenager, he’d driven liquor to Roanoke for DeSpain when his daddy was in jail. DeSpain finally got his automatic back in its holster. “Jack, sorry, Jack. I don’t know who’s out there, but it’s not ABC or local law.”

  “Aliens abducted a couple from around here,” one of the other men in the store said. “They used a helicopter just like that.” The machine he pointed to had finally wenched DeSpain’s Volvo under its belly and was flying away.

  DeSpain wondered if all the hillbilly paranoia about aliens was accurate, a real war was going on while most Americans watched television. The helicopter came back and landed outside the phone booth. The alien, wearing body armor and a helmet, got out and spoke into the phone.

  “Son of a bitch,” DeSpain said. “I’m going to call the fucking State Department back and tell them they lied.”

  One of the guys said, “Government always lies. DeSpain, you especially ought to know that.”

  The alien moved slowly toward the store. Half the guys in the store pulled out boot knives or handguns. A Yankee woman began screaming when the man next to her pulled an Uzi out of his attaché case. DeSpain nodded to the man with the Uzi, Jones, a competitor who occasionally tried to set up shop around the 122 bridge. Jones said to the woman, who’d shut it down to gasping, “You go outside and make peace, you think guns so bad.”

  The woman was going toward the door when the phone rang. The store manager swung his twelve-gauge around across his shoulder and answered the phone, “Kirtland General Store.” He handed the phone to DeSpain and said, “Guy named Allen.”

  DeSpain said into the phone, “The son of a bitch stole my car, he tinkered with my memory, he’s coming in now.”

  Allen said, “Tell him he needs to talk to Droymaruse.”

  DeSpain said, “Tell him to talk to Droymaruse? Who the fuck is Droymaruse, and what the fuck good will that do?”

  “It’s another one of his people,” Allen said.

  At the same time, the woman said, “I’ll give him the message.” She was pretty brave for a pacifist, DeSpain thought as she went to the door, opened it, and said, “You need to talk to Droymaruse.”

  The alien stopped and turned around. DeSpain asked Allen, “What the fuck was that all about?”

  “Droymaruse claims he doesn’t know what he’s doing, either.”

  The helicopter blades began turning. DeSpain wondered whether he could drive his car away, if he dared. He said to the world at large, “I need a beer.”

  Allen’s voice from the receiver seemed remote. He seemed to be saying, “I’ll come pick you up.” DeSpain wondered if they’d all been drugged anyway. He couldn’t remember feeling this buzzed since the night the ABC and state drug people snagged his car. Almost like the helicopter had done today, but it had been a big road hook adapted from gear used to land planes on carriers. Popped up out of the highway and bang-go. They’d torn his car to large metal shreds looking for cocaine even after they found the liquor.

  “Here’s your beer. We won’t charge you for the army,” the manager said. He fitted his shotgun back under the counter, then took DeSpain’s money. “You’ve got to drink it off premises,” he said when DeSpain popped the top.

  “Oh, give me a fucking break,” DeSpain said. The other customers stared him down, so DeSpain decided to go out front anyway. He wrapped the can in a brown paper bag and walked through the parking lot to the weeds near a power line, drained the can in two breaths.

  Allen came up on his stupid motorcycle. “I don’t think your car is drivable. Can you ride on the back of this?”

  DeSpain decided to chance it. “But let me drive,” he said, aware of his competition watching from inside.

  “You have to wear the helmet, then. I don’t have a spare.” Allen handed the helmet to DeSpain, who grunted as he forced the thing on. Allen’s braincase was a tad too little.

  DeSpain gunned the engine and felt Allen’s fingers tighten around his waist, then tap—be careful with my machine. Sumbitch pantywaist cookie pusher, DeSpain thought, twisting his wrist and stomping on the pedals to get the Honda moving. He headed up toward Franklin County waiting for a helicopter to pounce, but made it home okay.

  Orris and Steve came out when they heard the unfamiliar machine. DeSpain wanted to curse them out for not being more careful, but instead introduced Henry Allen: “Mr. Allen is with the State Department. He’s helping figure out the alien.”

  “Glad to meet you. I’m Orris DeSpain and this is our son, Steve. Would you like to come in?”

  “Your husband and I need to talk. Thanks.”

  “Tea or coffee?” Orris asked. “I’ve got fruit compote or a cheesecake.”

  “Coffee, that’s enough,” Allen said.

  Orris nodded and went to the kitchen. The men sat down, DeSpain and Henry on the couch. DeSpain looked at his son and said, “You know you’re not supposed to go outside if you don’t recognize the car.”

  “Sorry,” Steve said.

  “We’re going to be in the basement talking after we have our coffee.”

  “Is this man investigating you? Kids at school say you’re a bootlegger.”

  Allen’s lip on one side went back, so fast that if DeSpain wasn’t looking at him, he would have missed the expression. Allen said, “We’re asking your daddy’s advice on how to deal with someone who’s making drugged liquor.”

  Damn, DeSpain thought, you have the dialect almost right, Mr. Diplomatic Corps, except that I never wanted my son to know where half the money comes from. Steve looked at his father and sighed like a little old man. He said, “It’s okay, Daddy, the teacher says liquor-making should be legal, without taxes.”

  DeSpain said, “Steve, we’re not talking about me. Why don’t you go find your mother?”

  “But, Daddy, we’ve been talking about this in school.”

  “Go. I’ll tell you about moonshine later.”

  Steve went out, his feet dragging his sock toes under.

  Allen said, “I thought a moonshine area would be more rugged.”

  “Never could grow corn on a 45-degree slope,” DeSpain said. “Also, how you going to get enough sugar in? In the old days, we used about a ton a week. Took trains to deliver.”

  “Now there’s not much market for moonshine, I suppose,” Allen said, “other than the blind pigs.”

  “As long the price doubles from federal tax, you gonna have a market for it,” DeSpain said. “But I’ve personally gotten out of it.”

  Allen looked like he was going to contradict DeSpain, but instead asked, “Do you know the alien has a lawyer on retainer? Lilly Nelson.”

  DeSpain said, “She’d never take human liquor makers as clients unless they were black and she thought they were innocent
.”

  Orris brought in the coffee. Steve, with a little smile on his face, carried in the cups and saucers. Mr. Allen stood, but DeSpain didn’t. Orris served them quietly and then said to Steve, “Let’s leave the men alone, sweetheart. Dennis, he was in the hall, listening.”

  “Daddy’s talking to a federal man.”

  Allen said, “I’m not here to bust moonshiners. I’m here to find out what the alien is doing and why.”

  “Steve, the alien wrecked my memory Wednesday and then tried to attack me today. He isn’t one of us just because he makes liquor.”

  Orris was smiling as if thinking since when does a new liquor distributor not have to hack a place for himself? She said, “Steve, now, or we can’t go swimming before the pool closes.”

  “Oh, goody, a bribe. I want to know what’s going on.”

  DeSpain said, “Don’t act like such a jerk in front of company.”

  “Okay, but we can swim all night at my uncle’s.”

  Orris said, “Those people are a bit rough.”

  Allen said, “Look, if you don’t listen to your parents, I’m going to have to swat you.”

  “Daddy won’t let you.”

  “Come on, Steve, go with your mother, now. Orris, call back before you leave, okay?”

  After Orris and Steve had left, Allen said, “Droymaruse will keep Turkemaw busy for a few hours. I don’t believe they’re all tourists, but that’s what they claim. Somebody’s got to be crew. At least, Droymaruse.”

  DeSpain needed to check his bulletin boards. Pending deals from Roanoke to the Urals needed his attention soon. His real business could slump while the government used him to fight the alien. Maybe he could make a deal with the alien himself. Lilly Nelson did. Sentimentality for minorities quite overcame her prejudice against distillers. DeSpain said, “Since Reagan, the feds have been out of the still-busting business. Why are you here?”

  “We’ve got information enough to say the business continues, which did surprise me when I was assigned to Turkemaw, but we’re more concerned that his people get a good impression of us.”