Anonymous Rex (30 page)

I want to keep on with my search, to comb the carpet for fiber samples. I want to grab a spare bag of flour from Dan’s kitchen and pat down the walls for fingerprints. I want to isolate those bloodstains on the front porch and scan through the DNA evidence. I want a clue, any clue, but there’s no time. No time.

What I need is to find this all-important information that drew me back to Los Angeles in the first place, but an exhaustive search of the house turns up nothing interesting except for a drawer full of porn magazines like
Stegolicious
and
Double Diplodod Dames
, strictly softcore all the way. Didn’t know Dan went in for anything other than other Brontosaurs, but I’m the last dino in the world who should be moralizing right now.

Still, I can’t find the photocopies Dan told me about, and there’s no doubt in my mind that they are of the utmost importance, both to the Evolution Club case and everything else that’s been going down the last few days. He did mention something about another set, though—the originals—and though I don’t relish the thought of what I’ll have to do in order to get my hands on those, I don’t have much of a choice.

I return to the living room to place my call to the dino emergency line, a special branch of 911 manned solely by our kind for situations such as these. It’s different from the ambulance line and cleanup crew line, but serves a similar function: bringing the proper authorities along at the proper time.

“What’s your emergency?” asks the apathetic operator.

“There’s an officer down,” I say. “Very down.” I give Dan’s address, decline to tell the operator my name, and hang up quickly.

Back to the den, where I say my good-byes to my friend. They are short, succinct, and a moment after they leave my mouth I’ve forgotten what they were. It’s better that way. If I hang out any longer, wait for the cops to show up, they’ll haul me downtown and stick me in some cell with an overblown, overfed T-Rex who’ll try to question me until my ears bleed. I don’t have time for that. I’ve got a Council meeting to crash.

H
arold Johnson is the current Brontosaur representative of the Council, and I know from the official Council calendar they forgot to take back when they kicked me off the board that any emergency meetings held during the autumn months are supposed to be held in his spacious wood-paneled basement. I cringe at the thought of another session with those bombastic buffoons, but it’s my only chance if I want to get a look at those papers. That’s assuming I can even get in to the meeting. I do have one plan in mind, and it might work as long as Harold hasn’t changed from his usual anal, beastly self in the last nine months.

Traffic is light, and I make my way up the 405 with considerable speed. There are two velocities in Los Angeles: Rush Hour Halt and Warp Factor Nine. Due to the constant gridlock on our highways between the hours of seven and ten in the mornings and three to seven in the evenings, any chance we Angelenos have to duplicate Chuck Yeager’s sound-barrier experiments during the less crowded moments are duly taken. Fifty-five is a joke, sixty a gas, sixty-five the actual minimum, seventy gaining respectability, and seventy-five the reality. Currently, I’m running about ninety. I’ve been trucking along these highways well over eighty-five miles an hour for all my automotive life—at least, when my car can handle it—and I’ve never once gotten a ticket.

Until now. Those lights flashing in my rearview mirror are not Christmas decorations, and that siren is not an air-raid drill. I pull over to the side of the road, stopping as quickly as possible.

What is the proper procedure here? I don’t want to reach into my glove compartment to extract my registration—scurrying around and grabbing things is bound to make the officer nervous, and a nervous man with a gun in his hand is someone I’m not interested in meeting. Opening the door is probably a no-no as well, so I raise my arms above my head and spread my fingers wide. I probably look like a moose.

I watch in my side-view mirror as the officer, a portly gentleman in his midforties with a handlebar mustache—straight out of Central Casting—strolls cautiously up to my vehicle. He uses the butt of his nightstick to rap on my window, and I hurriedly roll it down, returning my hand to the air a moment later.

“You can put your hands down,” he drawls. I follow orders. Saliva stretches between the officer’s lips, a silvery strand glistening in the sunlight. It takes considerable effort to force my gaze away.

“Speeding, wasn’t I?” No point in denying it.

“Ayup.”

“And you’re giving me a ticket, aren’t you?”

“Ayup.”

Naturally, I should argue it. Stick up for myself, for my reckless driving habits. Almost too late, I realize that this isn’t even my automobile—I’ve taken the liberty of stealing Dan’s Ford Explorer, as he no longer has a use for it, and I no longer have any personal transportation—and I’m gonna have my hands full trying to explain why I’m driving a car that belongs to a recently murdered police officer.

Things would be easier if this cop were a dino—his lack of scent tells me he’s human through and through—as I could explain about the urgent, urgent Council meeting and be done with it.

But as it is, he’s looking at me strangely, head cocked to one side, the movement reminiscent of Suarez and the tow truck driver. “You’re a Raptor, ain’t ya? Don’t meet many of you fellas on the job.”

Without thought, without wondering how this human could have possibly learned of our existence, my instinct kicks in—saliva floods my mouth as I prepare to rip out his throat. One of the very first things a young dino learns is that security leaks must be patched up,
and quickly. Any human who in any way suspects our presence must be dealt with accordingly, which usually means a death sentence, swift and sure.

I glance up and down the freeway—the cars are coming nonstop, and there is no visual protection along the shoulder. Even if I were able to take him down, I’d be spotted in a moment. Need to find a safe place, a hidden location where I can take care of business and—

“Raptor saved my life over in ’Nam,” the cop says proudly. “Best damn sonofabitch I ever did meet.” He extends his hand through the car window. “Don Tuttle, Triceratop. Good to meetcha.” Stunned, I shake it.

“You … you’re a dino?” I ask. My spit dries up as my salivary glands go on a coffee break.

“Sure am,” says the cop. Then, noting my surprise, he slaps himself on the forehead and says, “Man—you thought … the scent, right?” I nod. “That happens all the time. I know I should make a habit of pointing it out, but …”

Officer Tuttle turns his back to me, crouches down to window level, and pulls aside the wisps of hair adorning his guise. Working the camouflaged buttons with practiced dexterity, he flips the skin off his shoulders and displays for me the ranger green hide that covers the back of his head. A long, deep scar runs the length of his neck, stretching from ear to ear like a fleshy necklace, with two jagged triangles heading up either end.

“Bullet,” he says. “Only time I ever been shot at, but I guess once is all it takes. Went in one side, straight out the other.”

“Ouch.”

“Nah, I didn’t feel a thing. Took out a bundle of nerves on its way through.” He covers his natural hide with the polysuit and snaps the covering back in place. “Also wrecked the hell outta my scent glands. Couple of dino docs over at County figured it was better to remove ’em than screw around tryin’ to put ’em back in place.

“For a while I got these scent cushions, attached to a battery. Worked like potpourri simmer pots, you know them things? My wife has them all over. Doctors had some Diplodod pharmacist brew ’em up for me, says he does it pretty regular, but my wife said they smelled like old nickels. I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about—old nickels? But I knew what she meant. They just didn’t
smell … right, you know? Better to go on without ’em, deal with it as it comes.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell him, not knowing the proper condolences for loss of pheromone production. I wonder if there’s a Hallmark card.

“No big deal,” he says nonchalantly. “Only thing is, I gotta watch myself for dinos thinking I ain’t what I ain’t, you know?”

“Sure, sure.” And now that we’re on a more familiar basis… “Officer—Don—Officer Don, about my speed, I’m very sorry that—”

“Forget about it,” he says, ripping the ticket into shreds. The newly formed confetti sinks into the ground, but I doubt he’ll slap himself with a littering fine any time soon.

“Thank you,” I say, grasping his paw and pumping it gratefully. “I was in such a hurry for the Council meeting that I—”

“You say Council meeting?”

“In the Valley. I’m late.”

“How late?”

“'bout a day. Give or take a minute.”

“Well, hell!” he hollers. “We got to get you an escort!”

So it is that fifteen minutes later I arrive at Harold Johnson’s rambling ranch house in Burbank, accompanied by three squad cars and two motorcycle units. It’s a powerful feeling taking the streets by storm, sirens blaring, lights blazing, and I can understand how that adrenaline rush might lead to unsavory circumstances. I’m ready to crack heads right now, and there isn’t a bona fide criminal in sight.

I thank the officers, dinos all, and bid them farewell as I maneuver my way across the cobblestone path leading to the Johnsons’ front door. The welcome mat must have a pressure-sensitive plate beneath it, for long before my hand makes it to the doorbell I find myself standing across from the jittery Mrs. Johnson, all five foot four and 250 pounds squished down deep inside a guise constructed to handle no more than one eighty, tops. She needs a new guise, and soon—one more banana split, and the current one will burst under the strain. Her hands tremble in alarm, and she shoots worried glances about the yard, the street, her foyer.

“Go away,” she pleads. “Harold won’t like this one bit.”

I say, “He doesn’t have to like it. Just tell him I’m here.”

She looks behind her, toward the door leading down to the basement. Even from here, I can make out the shouting and the incessant rumble of roars. “Please,” she begs. “He gets so mad at me.”

I put a hand on Mrs. Johnson’s shoulder, the flesh beneath the fragile polysuit crying to be let out. “There’s no reason for him to get mad at you—”

“But he does. He does. You know his temper—”

“Oh, I know it. But I want you to go down there and have him come up for me.”

Another glance at the door, as if it’s the wood itself she’s frightened of. “Why don’t you just go down? I’m sure they’d all like to see you.”

“If I go down there unannounced, I’ll be attacked faster than you can say trauma center, and then you’ll have a dead Raptor on your hands. Now is that what you want, Mrs. Johnson?”

Slowly, gingerly, she turns and walks toward the basement door like an inmate walking that final mile. Mrs. Johnson disappears into the basement. I wait in the open doorway.

A crash, a scream, a contingent of bone-chilling growls. The plains of the Serengeti have been transported into the Johnsons’ basement. As I stare about the foyer, soaking in the suburban lack of charm, the wooden door flies open, slams into the wall, and cracks into two pieces, falling off its hinges and onto the linoleum.

“Harold, I know what you’re thinking—” I start, even before I see his hulking frame huddled in the open doorway, “and you have to give me a chance.” He’s out of guise, tail poised to strike, his massive body pulsating with anger, with hatred.

No human words that I have ever heard are coming out of this Brontosaur as he prepares to charge at me, head tucked into those powerful shoulders, arms clenched tightly by his sides. Steam should be pouring out of his nostrils. Behind him, I can see Mrs. Johnson scurry out of the basement and into the kitchen like a cockroach when the lights are turned on.

“Wait—wait—I have full right to be here,” I announce.

“You—have—no—right.”

“I’m a Council member.”

“You—were—rectified.” I don’t like the way he’s enunciating each word—he’s never been one for stunning verbal intercourse, but the menace in his voice is palpable.

“Yes, yes, I was rectified, I saw the papers, we all know that. You kicked me off the Council, fine.”

“Then leave—before I shove your tail down—your—throat.”

Here’s where I bring out my hidden ace. “But I never signed the papers.”

“So what if you didn’t?” he asks, and now I’ve got him speaking without pauses.

“Check the rules,” I say. “If I didn’t sign the papers in the presence of at least one other Council member, then it’s not official.”

“Bullcrap it’s not official. We kicked Gingrich out three years ago—you were there—and he didn’t sign squat.”

“Then technically he’s still in. No one enforces it anymore, but it’s there since time immemorial. Go ahead, I’ll wait.”

And I do just that as Harold, a stickler for the rules if I’ve ever known one, retreats back into the basement to scrutinize some arcane rule I hope I didn’t pull out of my ass. Ten minutes later, I hear his heavy footsteps clomping up the stairs. Heavy, slow—defeated.

“Come on down,” he mutters, barely even sticking his head out of the stairway.