Alan Dean Foster (2 page)

Fedorchuk called out to him.

"Hey, Henry!" All the Newcomers had been assigned human names when it was found that their own varied from the difficult to the unpronounceable. They accepted their new names with the same equanimity as they had accepted their fate at being cast upon a world they had not been designed to live upon. The shipwrecked do not debate the declarations of the natives.

"How you doin' tonight?" Fedorchuk continued. "Workin' hard? Work like that can be a pain, y'know."

Expressionless but aware he was being addressed, the Newcomer named Henry turned slowly. His face was almost as human as Fedorchuk's, which was not saying much. Still, the similarities between Newcomer and human being were extraordinary, the differences slight. Slight, but disturbing. A Newcomer never looked quite right.

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Fedorchuk wasn't through. He was enjoying himself. "You got your green card, buddy? You didn't leave home without it? I wouldn't want to have to take you in."

There were other cops at the bar. Some knew Fedorchuk, others did not.

Most found their colleague's clever sally amusing. Henry simply stared expectantly back at Fedorchuk. There was no malice in his eyes, no pain in his expression. He blinked once. Then he turned to carry the heavy trays of dirty glasses back into the kitchen.

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The car was as ugly as the section of town it was patrolling. Low and squat, multiple layers of paint having long since merged into an Ur-green, it trundled along the streets of the alien part of Los Angeles unappreciated and little remarked upon. Sykes and Tuggle wouldn't have traded it for the newest, hottest freeway cruiser in the department. The slugmobile had character if not class. Since its occupants had no class either, they found it quite satisfactory.

Its guts were a dirty m6lange of parts ancient and new. Only one mechanic at the station garage dared go near it. The others were either disdainful of the arcane collection of machinery, or afraid of it. Or afraid of what detectives Sykes and Tuggle might do to them if they screwed up the precious pile of ambulatory junk. The two bore an unreasonable affection for their vehicle, even for men working in L.A., where divorce actions were known to sometimes center on custody not of children, but of the family road machines.

The slugmobile hardly ever broke down. Its profile was dangerous, but the old steel sides would turn bullets that would rip fight through the flanks of the new carbonfiber composite auto frames. It took good care of the two men who used it to cruise the dark back streets of the metropolis, and they in their turn looked after it.

The alien section of Los Angeles wasn't all that different 9

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from the rest of the great urban sprawl. A little dirtier than most areas, grimmer than many, with only the occasional unexpected touch to remind a visitor that it was populated largely by refugees from another world.

Sometimes you had to know just where to look in order to be able to tell where you were. Sykes and Tuggle had been on the street a long time and knew where to look.

Newcomers filled the oversized chairs of a grungy allnight diner. The chair backs and seats had been locally modified to accept their expansive frames.

Another Newcomer emerged from a double doorway off on their right as the slugmobile slid down the street. Tuggle noted the inscription on the window next to the doors. The old laundromat had been converted into a night school for aliens.

They passed a city park, still green despite an obvious lack of regular maintenance. City workers weren't fond of the alien end of town. Weeds had supplanted much of the original grass and had also invaded the cracks in the sidewalk, advancing on the once sacrosanct pavement itself. Despite the lateness of the hour a group of alien families had gathered to enjoy each other's company. They were engaged in an alien game of uncertain purpose and incomprehensible strategy. Sykes stared and shook his head, trying to make some sense of it and failing utterly as Tuggle pointed the slugmobile up Washington.

"Jeez, they call that organized gang-bang a game?" Tuggle pursed his lips.

On the billboard to their right, an exquisite female alien displayed yard-high white teeth while pressing a cold Pepsi to her lips. The billboard was the only piece of new construction in the immediate neighborhood.

Tuggle slowed as they approached the next intersection, the light against them. As soon as they slowed to a halt, a huge palm slammed against the window close by Sykes's head. He jerked back involuntarily, startled, then relaxed when he got a good look at the hand's owner.

The Newcomer was a derelict. Mumbling in his own sibilant language, he stood next to the car, weaving in place while fighting to stay erect. Filth and grime coated his face and worn clothing and his eyes were half-lidded and blood-11

shot. One dirty, broken-nailed fist clutched a quart carton of milk. It looked small as a pint in the massive palm.

Tuggle glanced speculatively in his partner's direction. Sykes returned a look of disgust, shook his head negatively, then rolled down the window on the alien's side.

"Can't you see this is a cop car, buddy? Look, we ain't in the mood tonight. So take a hike, okay?"

As soon as he finished he caught a full whiff of the derelict's breath.

Wincing, he rolled up the window as Tuggle pulled away. In the enclosed atmosphere of the slugmobile the smell was slow to dissipate.

Tuggle's eyes took in the rearview. "He's standing in the middle of the street, waving his arms."

Sykes didn't bother to look back. The disgust was still clear on his face, his nose still wrinkled against the odor. "No traffic and it's late. He'll move in a minute or two and find himself an alley somewhere." Digging into his pocket, he found a plastic container of breath mints and popped a couple into his mouth. Tuggle refused the offer of one and the container vanished anew.

"Why's it have to be sour milk that these guys get wasted on? What the hell's wrong with Jack Daniels, or Thunderbird, for crissakcs?"

Tuggle shrugged, his favorite gesture. He was a lot less flamboyant than his partner, and consciously so. "Beats me. Beats some of the eggheads, too, from what I've read about it. The Newcomers' physiology is full of curves, some of lem physical, some of 'em chemical. You got to admit one thing: it's a cheap drunk."

"Yeah." Sykes stared out the window, studying lights and lonely streets.

"Slagtown. Wonder what this part of L.A. used to be called before the Newcomers moved in?"

"Don't ask me. I ain't no history buff."

Tuggle turned the slugmobile up Broadway, now home to all-night liquor stores and cheap parlor entertainments. The theaters were nearly all closed down, there as yet being no films directed specifically at the Newcomer communities. Hollywood was still working that one out. But a couple of places played the usual, struggling to draw enough Newcomer patrons to stay in business. No comedies. Human

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comedy was incomprehensible to all but the most sophisticated aliens. The majority preferred action-adventure stories and, oddly enough, love stories.

Alien housewives were regular watchers of the morning TV soaps.

Newcomer hookers paraded near the theaters and restaurants, plying their trade. Not all Newcomer habits were incomprehensible. The women were elegant and impossibly tall, Sykes mused. He spoke as he stared.

"Wonder if their plumbing's the same?"

"It is." Tuggle spoke in his usual monotone, without taking his eyes off the road. Sykes eyed him curiously.

As he was preparing to ask the inevitable next question a long, lowrider station wagon pulled up alongside the slugmobile, grumbling through its chopped 427 Chevy engine. It peeled off fast at the next intersection, but for all his bravado the driver was careful to remain well within the posted speed limit. He was giving the cop car the vehicular finger, but masking it with caution. Tuggle cruised on, past alien eateries and specialty shops.

Slow night, Sykes thought. Just the usual Slagtown depression hanging like steady rain over the storefronts and dark apartment buildings. Even the bums and thugs moved slowly, tiredly here. He made a quick search of the dash, locating his cup of coffee amidst the rubble of two weeks' worth of collected embalmed fast food by the steamed circle it made against the windshield. Tuggle was chewing on his lower lip as if trying to decide whether or not to say something. Sykes knew his partner would get around to whatever it was eventually. You didn't ride with a man for nine years without getting to know him pretty well.

It wasn't what Sykes expected to hear, however, when Tuggle finally spoke up. Nor was it a subject he wished to discuss.

"So, you gonna go, or you not gonna go?" his partner asked him tersely.

Sykes considered a response as he watched Tuggle expertly scoop up and begin noshing on a triangle of limp, lukewarm pizza. It was a delicate balancing act: driving, eating, and somehow simultaneously managing not to decorate his suit with cheese drippings or tomato sauce. Sykes couldn't have

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done it. No matter how hard he tried he always ended up wearing full evidence of his previous days' meals on his pants and shirt. Tuggle never said a word. He didn't have to. The looks he gave his partner's attire after such assaults were eloquent enough.

"How can I go?" he replied, trying to make it sound offhand and inevitable that he not go.

Tuggle wasn't having any of it. "How can you not go? Don't give me your excuses. Put on your wash-and-wear suit and your clip-on tie, have your landlady tie your shoes for you, and show up at the church. Simple. Even for somebody like you." He paused a moment, focusing his attention on the row of illuminated storefronts sliding past on their right. "Me and Carol are going."

That got Sykes's attention. "What?"

"Hey, look, you got no cause to say anything. We've known Kristin since she was conceived in that cabin up at Big Bear." He sat a little straighter behind the wheel and tried to lighten the mood. "Remember that night? You and Edie banged the wall so hard, me and Carol were picking plaster out of our hair for a week. I knew we should have insisted on taking the upstairs. But naw, we had to go and be generous, let you guys have the king bed. Some vacation that was. No sleep."

"Edie and me didn't sleep much ourselves, but then you already had that figured out. " Sykes's newly won smile faded rapidly. "Goddamnit, Tug, I want to see Kristin get married too, okay? More than I want just about anything else. But I ... I I

Tuggle finished it for him. "But you're bummed out because your ex and her husband are paying for the whole thing."

Sykes started to argue, changed his mind. Tuggle knew when his partner was lying and would be too polite to point it out. That took any fun out of trying.

"Shit, if Kristin had to get married where I could afford it, we'd be holding the reception at Buddy Burgers. So what could I say? Kristin's marrying money. Can't say that I blame her. We sure as hell never had any of the stuff."

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" Look at it as Kristin's money. She'd want you to be there, buddy.

"I want to be there as much as she wants me to be there, but try and see it my way, Tuggle. Father of the bride, the poor relation. Everybody on the other side giving me those damn pitying looks rich folks reserve for the rest of us who'll never own one of their colored credit cards. I got too much pride left for that, Tug. It's about all I do have left."

"Screw your pride. You should go."

"Yeah, I know, I know. What're you, my goddamn fairy godmother?"

"That's me. Wanna see my wand?"

"What's to. . . " Sykes broke off abruptly. Only half his brain had been concentrating on the seemingly insurmountable problem of whether or not to attend the wedding of his only daughter.

The other half-the other half continued functioning on standard detective op. Something he saw triggered the automatic alarm inside his head. It also had the virtue of taking the rest of his brain off his pissed-off mood. He nodded out the window.

"Uh-oh. Check it out."

Tuggle turned responsively, squinting. "Check what out? All I see is dark."

"Up ahead. By the comer right, two o'clock."

Tuggle slowed the slugmobile, straining to see whatever it was that had aroused his partner's attention. Sykes's night vision was better than his. Rumor at the station had it that Sykes was some kind of nocturnal throwback, that he actually saw better at night than during the day.

Both aliens wore long coats, and it wasn't that cold outside. Nor were they slouching along like a couple of drunken perverts. Perverts didn't work in pairs. Other kinds of vennin did.

The coats were different. One was black vinyl, the other a heavy black or dark blue that didn't look water repellent. Raincoat, as Tuggle immediately dubbed him in his mind, flaunted a zip-up dark shirt tight at the neck and fancy

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shoes. The other alien was partially hidden by his companion's bulk.

The two entered a small minimart that occupied the comer of the block, Raincoat looking back to check the street before following his buddy inside.

"Does that look at all suspicious to you?" Sykes murmured thoughtfully.

Tuggle affected an air of mock innocence. "Now whatever would give you that idea?"

He found an empty slot between parked cars and eased the slugmobile into the gap. Sykes had his revolver out and was checking the chambers as his partner cut engine and lights.

Automatically finding the right controls on the radio, Tuggle flipped to the proper channel without taking his eyes off the street. "This is One Henry Seven. We've got a possible two-eleven in progress at Porter's minimart, comer of Court and Alvarado. Requesting backup."

Sykes was starting out the door. "Let's do it, partner."

His friend's hand came down on his shoulder. "Easy, cowboy. One of these days you're gonna get your head blown off pursuing justice a little too closely."

Sykes stopped half in, half out the door, grinned back at Tuggle. "I like to keep close enough to see her backside. That's what they told us at the Academy. 'Never lose sight of Justice.' "