Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 08 (7 page)

"Ah, yes, Biloxi. I had to decline to give the keynote address because I was taping a segment for X-Files in Puerto Rico. It's good to know they found a substitute at the last minute, and I'm sure your hypothesis was presented with great sincerity, if not logic. Did you hypnotize the audience into buying it?"

Cynthia intervened before Arthur could reply. "Dr. Sageman uses hypnosis only in carefully controlled situations, Dr. McMasterson. He would never engage in cheap parlor tricks. You have read Rosemary T. and the Extrinsic Paradox, haven't you?"

Hayden gave her a grave nod. "How nice to see you again, Ms. Dodder. Yes, I read Arthur's little book about Ms. Tant's abductions during her childhood. Isn't it fortunate she was able to recall them in a timely manner so the book would be available at the convention in Peoria?"

"Listen here," Arthur said, his fist drawn, "I will not stand here and listen to your -- "

"Dr. Sageman! Dr. McMasterson! Could I get a shot of the two of you before it gets too dark?" Jules Channel stepped in front of them and held up a camera.

Animosity evaporated for the moment, and the two men arranged their expressions for maximum scholarly effect. After all, each was thinking, one has one's reputation to consider, and even though Jules Channel was a skeptic at best, his work often appeared on the cover of the Weekly Examiner. Media were media.

"Could I have a shot, too?" asked a young woman. "I'm Lucy Fernclift from the Probe." The two men swiveled obligingly. After much fumbling and squeaking, Lucy managed to take several pictures. She was about to ask them for a comment when Brian appeared at her side and gently led her away.

"You say you're from the Probe?" he asked. "I'm afraid I must examine your credentials before Dr. Sageman poses for any more photographs. There are so many crackpots that we've learned to be cautious."

Lucy noticed with some irritation that the man from the Weekly Examiner was immune from suspicion, but she set down her camera and hunted through hey purse for her wallet. "I have my press card somewhere," she said. "I know I had it in the motel room before I left. Is it possible to show it to you later?"

"How long have you worked for the Probe?"

"Just a couple of weeks. After I graduated from journalism school three years ago, the only job I could find was on a little weekly paper that needed someone to sell ads. I realize the Probe isn't as highly regarded as The New York Times, but I needed a job, and the pay is -- "

"Are you married?"

"I thought you wanted to examine my press credentials. My private affairs have nothing to do with -- "

"So you're the competition," Jules said, sliding into the conversation with practiced ease. "We must get together and compare notes. I have several buddies who work for the Probe, and I've heard your new editor is something of a character."

"He's been very kind to me," said Lucy.

Jules smiled. "Is that so? Let me tell you what I heard," he said, putting his hand on her shoulder and lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper.

Brian stalked away to make sure Arthur and Hayden did not lapse into virulent exchanges that might lead to violence. They had come close on numerous occasions; some of the more heated incidents had become legendary. The panel in Pasadena was still discussed with a certain reverence. Not even Brian had been prepared when Arthur dashed the contents of the water pitcher into Hayden's face. The pitcher had been full. Arthur had been surprisingly nimble when Hayden recovered and charged like a slavering mastodon.

To his relief, Cynthia had lured Arthur away with questions about the camera position and Hayden was busy setting up his tripod. Rosemary was conversing with a woman of monstrous proportions and an expression not unlike Hayden's as the water dripped off his nose. Beyond the fence the corn rippled seductively as the moon rose over the ridge. Stars unseen in Los Angeles glittered, and the Milky Way was a gossamer swath across the sky. It was a fine night for a close encounter, Brian told himself with only the faintest sneer.

"Duck," whispered Ruby Bee over her shoulder, then tripped over the remains of a bushel basket and barely saved herself from a fall. "If Raz should look out the window, you might as well wave and holler howdy." Estelle was having her own problems with a piece of wire that was curled around her ankle like a snake. "Then stop gabbling, Mrs. Livingstone-I-Presume. I don't see why we didn't just give him a dollar like we did this morning and go stand by the fence. I may have been the one that said we could creep around to the barn, but I'd forgotten how ornery his yard is. Ouch!"

Ruby Bee grabbed Estelle's wrist and hauled her around the corner of the shack. They picked their way through more debris and finally slipped into the barn, where the rankness was enough to make them gag. Once their eyes had adjusted to the diminished light, they found convenient knotholes and assessed the scene.

"Who's that white-skinned man?" Estelle said softly. "He looks like one of those Albanians."

"The word is 'albino,' and he ain't one. He's a male secretary."

"I've never heard of such a thing."

Ruby Bee moved a ladder aside and tried a bigger knothole. "Well, now you have. He works for Dr. Sageman, who's written a bunch of books about flying saucers and how the aliens kidnap unsuspecting folks and perform unnatural acts on them. His name's Brian, and he said he'd get me an autographed copy of one of the books." She allowed Estelle a little time to be impressed, then added, "See that woman talking to Dahlia? Dr. Sageman has written at least three books about her experiences being poked and probed by little gray men."

"She looks fine to me."

"Of course she does, Estelle. It happened a long time ago, and she'd forgotten all about it. Dr. Sageman had to hypnotize her so she could remember."

"How did he know to hypnotize her?"

Ruby Bee was trying to come up with a caustic reply when the barn door opened with a faint squeak. She pulled Estelle behind a bale of hay, then peered over the top of it. She recognized Lucy Fernclift from her slight stature, but whoever else was there was shielded by the door.

After some murmuring back and forth, Lucy said, "All I can give you is a thousand dollars."

"We'll be here for several days," said a low male voice.

"It's too risky to talk now. We can continue the negotiations back at that fleabag motel."

The barn door squeaked once more. Ruby Bee and Estelle looked at each other, then resumed their earlier positions. The phrase "fleabag motel" wasn't sitting real well with one of 'em.

"'Yes, we'll gather at the river, the beautiful, the beautiful ri ... ver,'" Brother Verber sang as he slithered and slid along the bank of Boone Creek. He was sorry he'd ever bought the boots, much less put them on and left his shoes in the rectory. They were so caked with mud that each step was requiring something of a minor miracle. He'd dropped his flashlight so many times he'd lost count. The pith helmet was about as useless as a one-horned cow, but it made him feel like he was on a safari in some foreign country where the jungle was filled with tigers and godless cannibals. If he hadn't been so sure that the Good Lord had blessed the mission, he'd have been a mite crumpy about what was turning into an exhausting ordeal.

The Good Lord hadn't been picky about which way to go, and upstream had seemed easier on account of the pastures alongside the creek. Brother Verber knew he wasn't gonna chance upon any fornication in those stretches, but he also knew he'd appreciate an occasional respite from the mud and mossy rocks and the alarmin' possibility that he might step on a water moccasin. He mouthed a prayer of gratitude to the Good Lord for throwing in some free moonlight.

After a time he sat down on a handy stump, blotted his face and neck, and took the flask of sacramental wine from his pocket. He was disappointed when the last mouthful trickled down his throat, and he spent awhile wondering if he should fill the flask with creek water and hope for something of a major miracle.

It didn't seem likely, he decided with a morose sigh. The thing to do was ... why, it was to get back to business and follow the creek to the north end of town. He could scramble up to the road by the Esso station, secure in knowing he'd saved young souls from eternal damnation (for the night anyhow), and walk over to Raz Buchanon's shack to purchase a Jar of sacramental moonshine. After all, some of the ol' boys called it kill-devil, and that was the exact reason Brother Verber had been put on this earth. It was an amazing coincidence.

He brushed off the seat of his pants, replaced the flask in his pocket, and turned on the flashlight. He couldn't quite recollect the second line of the hymn, so he hummed the tune as he set off with a renewed spirit.

"You had their baby?" gasped Dahlia, her chins quivering in astonishment. She had to grab the fence post to steady herself as the words slowly filtered into her head. "I read something jest this past week about an alien baby, but I don't recall the details. What did it look like? Was it all green and covered with scales?"

Rosemary Tant shook her head sorrowfully. "I never saw the little thing."

"You dint"

"No, it was taken from me. I was so young, a mere girl of sixteen, but I felt an enormous emptiness that tormented me for more than forty years. Only with the help of Arthur -- Dr. Sageman, that is -- was I able to allow the memories to surface and come to grips with them."

Dahlia's eyes were getting wider than the moon, and her voice was hardly more than a croak. "When Malta May Buchanon had a baby, the social worker woman took it away on account of Malta May insisting it was Elvis's love child when ever'body knew it was her pa's. Did the social worker woman take away your baby, too?"

"At least I should have been allowed to see it. I never even knew I was pregnant."

"You dint?"

"It must have been the sixth or seventh time they'd abducted me that I was implanted with their sperm. It was horrible, lying there paralyzed on a cold metal table, watching them as they brandished their vile instruments. I wanted to scream, but they always did something that left me unable to speak. Oh, how they chirped among themselves as they forced apart my legs and -- "

"Excuse me, Rosemary," said an unfamiliar man. "If you don't object, Arthur would like to put you in a light trance to determine if you have any unconscious premonitions of a manifestation."

"Of course, Brian." Rosemary gave Dahlia a watery smile as she went over to the group by the fence.

Dahlia was standing there, as confounded as she'd ever been, when another stranger, this time a woman, came up to her and said, "Are you an abductee?"

"A what?"

"An abductee," the woman repeated carefully. "I've read about Rosemary Tant's experiences, and when I saw her talking to you so intently, I wondered if you were also a patient of Dr. Sageman."

"Are you asking me if I was kidnapped by aliens and raped in their flying saucer?" Dahlia said, her face wrinkling up like a pitted prune as she tried to follow along. "Me?"

"I can understand if you prefer not to talk about it. I'm Lucy Fernclift, a reporter from the Probe. Should you change your mind , I'd like to interview you. My editor wants some humaninterest stories to run in the same issue with the story about the crop circles."

"You're a reporter, and you want to write a story about me and put it in the Probe?"

Lucy was beginning to regret she'd approached this bovine creature, but she needed to conduct interviews or at least schedule them. "I'm staying at the Flamingo Motel for a few days. Think it over and give me a call if you're interested. We can pay two hundred dollars for the story and another fifty if you allow us to take photographs."

Dahlia was still working on the arithmetic when a boom rocked the valley. The next second the reporter was grabbing at her camera and the folks by the fence were going wild.

Most of what was babbled involved the proximity of the flying saucer and the possibility that they were all going to die right then and there in Raz Buchanon's yard. The McIlhaneys were hightailing it around the corner of the shack. Mrs. Jim Bob was hot on their heels, her navy raincoat flapping like a cape. Elsie McMay was hanging on to Eula Lemoy's arm, and both of them were shrieking about heart attacks and ambulances.

"Over there!" barked Arthur Sageman, pointing at the field as Brian snapped photographs. "Beyond the crop circles!"

Dahlia went over to the fence and squinted in the direction he was pointing. Way back in the brush was a beam of light that was bobbling every which way. She was about to say it looked like a flashlight when a bearded man shoved her aside and started clicking his camera like there was no tomorrow. About the time she got her balance, the woman from the Probe liked to knock her down from one side and the man with the curly hair from the other.

Deciding it might be wise to move away from the fence, Dahlia began a retreat and bumped square into Ruby Bee and Estelle. She expected them to chew her out, but they went on around her and started pointing at the light and jabbering like jaybirds.

"I see a figure!" shouted somebody.

"With a saucer-shaped head!" shouted somebody else.

"Shimmering white skin!"

"Did anyone see the craft land?"