Alan Dean Foster (7 page)

At least the alien had good command of the languagefor a Newcomer. Too many of them bordered on the non-verbal, at least in English. But then, he reminded himself, George wouldn't have made detective even with the aid of the special Federal program if he hadn't been reasonably fluent.

Sykes eyed his partner. George was more than slightly cramped by the passenger's seat. Detroit hadn't started building wheels to Newcomer dimensions. Not yet.

"Let's talk Hubley," he said without preamble.

"What do you want to know?"

"Anything and everything." Sykes nodded toward the glove compartment. "You got the file?" The Newcomer nodded. "Then read it. Talk to me, George. Skip the procedural stuff. "

Francisco opened the file and scanned the contents. "His body was discovered three days ago, in an alley off Central, near downtown."

Sykes kept his eyes on the road ahead. "With two BRI sabot slugs in the chest."

"Through the chest," Francisco gently corrected him. "Rupturing both the primary and secondary hearts."

The slugmobile skidded abruptly rightward, avoiding a Jaguar sedan that had slowed for a left-hand turn. Sykes yelled irritably out the window. "Nice signal, dickwad!"

The unexpected outburst, not to mention the peculiar commentary, threw Francisco off stride. The aberration appeared to be temporary, he decided, since his new partner was once more sitting silently behind the wheel and concentrating on his driving. Humans were prone to such inexpli-46

cable and unpredictable outbursts, but they were still startling to observe.

Very little about human behavior was predictable. At times the entire race seemed hell-bent for a collective nervous breakdown. He wondered if a response was required, assumed from Sykes's continued silence that one was not. He hefted the file and continued reading.

"He was employed at the Northwest Petroleum Refinery in Torrance and was manager of the methane facility there. " Francisco flipped the page and read on. "He was also a principal partner in a real estate venture to develop low-cost housing for Newcomers."

Sykes made a face. "Terrific. A real pillar of the community. Which tells us squat. " He rounded the next comer, ignoring the red light and chewing on his lower lip as he thought hard and fast. "Was Hubley missing anything when they found him? Had he been ripped off?"

Francisco checked a form in the back of the file. "There was no wallet.

Hubley wasn't wealthy, but he had a good job and other investments. It is reasonable to assume he would have been carrying a modest amount of cash as well as appropriate credit cards. However, when found he was still wearing a watch and two rings."

"What about them?"

"The watch was a Seiko. Nothing fancy, worth perhaps twenty bucks on the street. The rings were both gold, however, one set with'some small but good-quality diamonds. "

Sykes was smiling to himself now. "Sound familiar? Anybody who'd kill a guy for his wallet wouldn't leave stuff like that behind even if he had to slice the fingers to get at the rings. The guys at the minimart last night made a half-assed grab at the money in the till, but I don't think that's what they were there for. I think we got us a couple'a executions on our hands, George. How's that strike you?"

Francisco closed the folder quietly as he tried and failed to find a more comfortable position on the narrow bench seat. "The murder which occurred at the minimart is not our case. The Captain stated quite specifically that. . . "

An obviously pissed Sykes interrupted. "Look, you want to fit in here, right? You want to learn how to get along, be 47

like all the other detectives? How you can blend in with the group and go with the flow-at least as much as you'll ever be able to?"

"Yes. I I

Sykes relaxed a little then as he turned back to his driving. "Well, there's a thing about partners, about being somebody's partner. You won't find it in the manuals they gave you to read at the Academy, and you won't find it posted on the duty board at the station. You do for each other. And that means that other people's rules don't mean shit. It's the rules you set up between the two of you, that's all that counts. It's got to be that way because your partner is the guy who's guarding your ass on stakeout or takedown, not somebody talking rules back by the duty board. If the two of you don't have a private understanding, then you got nothing. You haven't got a partner, you've got deadweight.

- You've got to be with somebody you can count on no matter what the

'rules' say, count on every second, because one second might mean your life. You've got to be able to read each other without talking. You've got to know what your buddy's thinking so you can react without thinking.

Understand?"

Francisco nodded slowly.

"Okay. See, there's nothing real complicated about it, so don't make this out to be bigger than it is. My friend and partner was murdered last night and I'm after the shitbag that did it. As my partner I'm asking you to respect me and help me find him."

The Newcomer pondered the human's words thoughtfully. Sykes tried not to watch his shifting alien expressions- Not that you could tell much of the time what one of them was really thinking anyway. Francisco would be quite within his rights to take everything Sykes had just told him straight to Warner. That would result in new partnerships for both him and Francisco, as well as Sykes's being assigned to track down some guy for nonpayment of back child support off somewhere safe like the North Valley. He'd taken a calculated risk laying it on the line with the Newcomer. Whether it paid off or not was up to Francisco.

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The Newcomer finally responded, though not as Sykes had hoped.

"And as my partner, I must ask you to respect me and my desire not to break with procedure. I realize the death of your friend has put you under a great deal of stress. Please keep in mind that as the first Newcomer to achieve the rank of detective in a human police department, much less in one as visible and important as that of the city of Los Angeles, I will be subject to constant scrutiny both by the civil authorities and by my own people. This unending attention will be difficult for me to deal with, as I am by nature more of a private than a public person. I am having troubles enough dealing with external forces without having to worry about violating procedure. The results if I should do something wrong will be much worse for me than for you."

Sykes gave him an exasperated stare, abruptly slammed on the brakes, and threw the transmission into park. Francisco banged into the dash, recovered, and quickly took note of the fact that they had halted square in the middle of traffic. Horns began blaring behind them. Drivers leaned from their windows to bombard the slugmobile with inventive invective. Sykes ignored it all.

"What is wrong?" Francisco muttered.

Sykes was very calm as he turned to face the much bigger Newcomer.

"Nothing's wrong. I just want to get something straight. I just want to make sure that we're operating on the same wavelength here. You agree that there's a good chance these two shootings are somehow related, right?"

The yelling outside was much louder now. Francisco was obviously unsettled by all the chaos they were causing. His natural, not to mention his professional, instincts told him to get the car out of the way. But Sykes was behind the wheel, not him, and Sykes continued to sit and stare expectantly. His foot went nowhere near the accelerator, his hand nowhere near the shift lever.

In spite of the confusion and the ringing in his head where he'd struck the dash, Francisco managed to concentrate on the detective's words.

"Well-yes. Quite possibly they are, given the similar 49

MO involved and the lack of an apparent interest in serious larceny. -

"Possibly. Good. Well, would you be willing to consider the theory, George, that possibly examining the evidence from one case could shed some small ray of light on the other? Does that sound unreasonable to you? Does that not violate accepted procedure?"

"Yes-no, it is not unreasonable. Although 1. .

"Great." The detective settled himself back behind the steering wheel and put a ready hand on the gear shift. "I'm sure glad that's settled, aren't you? Isn't it great that partners can talk things out and solve problems between themselves this way? That's what it's all about, George." He put the car in drive and roared away from the line of furious drivers stacked up behind them.

"I think we're really starting to click now, George. See how easy it is when you just talk to one another? Why, there's no problem too complex for a couple of partners to solve. And everybody goes on and on about how difficult it is for two guys from different social backgrounds to get along with one another. They don't have the slightest idea what they're talking about, do they?"

Unsure what to think, Francisco sat quietly. It took ten minutes before he realized they were headed in the wrong direction.

"I thought we were supposed to be going downtown to check out the murder site?"

"What for? You've seen the pictures. Forensics has been all over the place. There's nothing for us to find there. If you want to know more, check your book."

"Tben where are we going?"

"County morgue. -

Francisco eased back in his seat, reassured. "Ah. To run a check on Hubley.-

"To run a check, yeah. But not on Hubley. At least, not at first."

The Newcomer's defenses instantly went back on fun alert. "You are contemplating another violation of procedure, aren't you?"

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"Who, me?" Sykes looked offended. "I'm just following up on the obvious lines of investigation in our case, like I told you. Relax, enjoy the ride."

Francisco tried, but found he could do neither. Sykes whistled merrily as they cruised through the traffic on the Hollywood Freeway. The whistling did nothing to improve his new partner's mood of unease.

The morgue didn't bother Sykes. He'd paid the massive, old, small-windowed structure too many late-night visits, seen too much of its guts as well as those of its transitory inhabitants. Only the echoes occasionally bothered him. Buildings like the county morgue always seemed full of echoes. Your footsteps always had company. Most of the time that didn't matter, but if you were strolling the hallways late at night you had a tendency to hear extra echoes. There was never anything behind you when you looked, but that didn't keep the toughest cops from sneaking the occasional peek just to make sure.

It was obvious from the start that the visit wasn't troubling to his new partner, and why should it be? Ninety-eight percent of the building's occupants held no more interest for him than would a standard text on mammalian physiology. He might be curious, but he wouldn't be queasy.

Winter was Deputy Medical Examiner, and he owed Sykes a couple of favors.

Not that the request the detective put to him was out of the ordinary. It was the timing that made things slightly awkward. But Winter proved obliging enough. As he led the two nocturnal visitors down the corridor he read from the file case he was carrying.

"What's with all the interest in this stuff? I didn't know you were on this one too, Sykes."

"Relates to another murder, like I said. Associational," Sykes informed him casually.

"Yeah, well, you know I've already been all over this material with Fedorchuk and Alterez this morning. Why can't you just talk to them?"

"Because Fedorchuk's a blob and Alterez can't talk worth shit. What's it to you? Come on, Winter. You got

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nothin' better to do, cushy county night job like this one. You oughta thank us.for coming by on a slow day. Keep you from getting bored. You can't keep reading those bondage mags all day long. -

The Deputy Examiner eyed him sharply. "Who says I read that stuff?"

Sykes grinned. "I'm a detective, remember? I get paid to find things out.

Hey, don't look like that. I could care less. But some of the bluenoses on the promotion board might find that kind of easy reading a little funny for a guy in your position. -

"Some of those old farts would find anything 'funny,"' Winter replied morosely. "You threatening me, Sykes?"

"With something as petty as that? Gimme some credit, Jack. If I wanted to threaten you, I'd mention the time that stripper who'd OD'd on crack was brought in for autopsy and you . . . -

"Jesus, keep your goddamn voice down!" Winter was looking around nervously as they pushed through a double swinging door.

The room they entered was filled with metal tables, gurneys, instruments, sterilizers. Some of the platforms were occupied with sheeted lumps.

Others gleamed naked beneath the fluorescents like chrome on a new Italian car. Winter continued talking as he led his visitors through the maze of tables.

"Anyway, according to the sheet, the guy you nailed outside on the night of the holdup . .

"The human."

"Yeah, the getaway driver." Winter checked his file quickly. "He was one Martin Helder. White male, twentyseven. Let's see. . .- The Examiner flipped a page. "Wrap sheet shows one armed robbery conviction, a couple for sale of a controlled substance. He also beat a number of raps back East. -

"Whereabouts?"

"Jersey City, Passaic. That was a couple years back. Then he decided to pick up and move to sunny Southern Cal and carry on his preoccupation with bad habits in our

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backyard. Forfeited a grand and a half bail. Small-timer. Oh yeah, and he was wired on coke when you stopped his clock. If you're looking for somebody with credentials, our man Heider ain't your boy."

"Where's the other one?"

"Over here."

Winter paused by a table supporting a covered body. The concealed mass was by far the largest in the room. He unceremoniously yanked the sheet aside to reveal the pale, hairless body of a Newcomer. Sykes recognized the corpse instantly: Raincoat. His sheer bulk was impressive. But not as impressive, he reminded himself, as the one in the overcoat who'd gotten away.

Francisco studied the cadaver with professional detachment. "Have you identified this one?"