Alien Nation #6 - Passing Fancy Read online

  In an all-new ALIEN NATION™ novel, a chance encounter with a mysterious woman from his past propels Detective Matt Sikes into an investigation of a lethal Newcomer drug, and forces the woman he loves to risk her life for someone she’s never even met.

  Meanwhile, tension mounts between Sikes and his Newcomer partner, George Francisco, as each is forced to deal with the range of emotions evoked by this unusual case. As they delve deeper into the intricate maze of L.A.’s illegal drug market, Fransicso and Sikes discover that some Newcomers will do anything to assimilate into human society—even face the horrifying and deadly consequences that could destroy them all.

  “You’re under arrest,

  lady,” Matt said.

  Her eyes widened, she turned, bewildered, saw the shield first, then his face.

  And gaped.

  Recognition.

  Unmistakable.

  Matt smiled, to let her know it was all a joke.

  “Hey, Fancy. Congratulations.”

  She faltered before her voice came. “I’m—I’m sorry, you have me confused with someone else.” That said, she began pushing through the crowd with the force of a small tank. “Excuse me, excuse me,” she said, the words tinged by desperation, and then she broke free of the crowd, off and running, past Cathy who looked after her with an expression akin to sorrow. Or pity.

  Alien Nation titles

  #1: The Day of Descent

  #2: Dark Horizon

  #3: Body and Soul

  #4: The Change

  #5: Slag Like Me

  #6: Passing Fancy

  Published by POCKET BOOKS

  An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  Copyright © 1994 by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.

  ALIEN NATION is a trademark of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN: 0-671-79517-1

  First Pocket Books printing December 1994

  POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  WITH LOVE AND THANKS,

  THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO . . .

  . . . my family: William, Florence, Steven, Roxanne, Molly, and the memory of Lee . . .

  . . . the inner circle’s longtime charter members: Daniel & Laura, Greg & Agnes, Golladay & Congdon, Jeff & Janet; Patrick, Robert, Denis and Joe; Walter, Steve, and Alan B.; Kay, Ann Marie, Janie, Sarah, Stephanie, Maureen, Zina, and Melodie; of course Scott, which implies Pat—and especially Joan . . .

  . . . the wondrous new friends who have meant so much in the two years since: Wendy B., Elise, Doug, Danny, Adele, Lou, Julia (who might have inspired Fancy and, in a just world, would have played her)—and especially Luane . . .

  . . . and the memory of Bruce Peyton (You were one Christmas shy, bub. I wish you might have held the finished goods in your hands) . . .

  . . . because while it’s all well and good to keep the faith in tough times . . . it’s nicer if you don’t have to do it alone.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To Kate Loague, fellow former inmate at Citibank, for providing the spark; to Peggy Kerrigan for research and friendship, both with a smile; to friend and collaborator Skip Kennon for the lovely tune that prompted the lyric; and especially to Nancy Golladay, for block-breaking, plot pointers, wry wisdom, deft counsel, and various other benefits that she will merrily take out of my hide in lieu of (and possibly in preference to) payment.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Sometimes you write for television, not because the money is good (and the money is great) but because the medium has actually produced something of value, something that you want to be part of.

  I vigorously pursued writing for Alien Nation while it was on the air, and was rewarded for my efforts by being allowed to pitch stories to the staff of the series and their stalwart, passionate leader, Kenneth Johnson. The openness with which I was greeted is, I think, typical of the show’s unusual generosity of spirit and humanism. I am based in New York, where I do most of my writing for the musical theatre; at the time I was in no position to travel to L.A.; and Johnson & Company allowed me to pitch over the phone. I won’t say that’s an unheard of circumstance, but—the logistics and politics of television being what they are—it sure is rare.

  The staff liked the way I thought for the show, seemed to think I “got it,” in terms of format, character, and philosophical subtext, and, from a number of storylines discussed (developed in tandem with my sometime collaborator and full-time great friend, the late Bruce Peyton), one survived two pitch sessions and was set for a third. Traditionally, and according to Writers Guild regulations, if a story makes it to a third meeting, the writer has an assignment.

  A day or two before my third scheduled pitch session, I was told that the Fox Broadcasting Network had put a freeze on all outside pitches to Alien Nation. And shortly thereafter the series was canceled.

  But I was genuinely passionate about the work I’d done, terribly fond of the fictional universe I’d been allowed to borrow, so I kept my notes, and, at least in my heart, the stories survived.

  This novel is based on the one I cared about most.

  FIVE YEARS FROM TODAY;

  TWO MONTHS BEFORE DAY ONE . . .

  P R O L O G U E

  ON THE MORNING of the last day of auditions—a Friday it was, with rehearsals scheduled to begin Monday—director Dallas Pemberton was holding fast to his conviction that you didn’t have to settle for mere competence. He had learned through long experience that if you didn’t panic, that if you remained patient, there was always someone who’d walk through the door, someone who’d fulfill the vision—or, at least, make you rethink the vision in a new and exciting way.

  Never lose faith, that was the trick.

  By midafternoon he was losing faith.

  He felt his mind would be next if the producer kept chafing at him.

  “Dallas,” came the whiskey-voiced rumble of Iris McGreevey, “I’d like you to take another look at that Callaway girl. I believe she can be worked with and she does come highly recommended.”

  Dallas, a small, wiry man of fifty, closed his eyes, craned his skinny neck back, opened his eyes, stared at the ceiling of the theatre. Nice job of renovation, he thought. Felt like a theatre but hadn’t lost the comforting feel of the synagogue it used to be.

  “Highly recommended,” Iris pushed.

  Just at this moment Dallas was finding it ironic that Iris had chosen to call her new theatre The Healthy Workplace. It was to be the home of a new rep company, intended, eventually, to be a prestigious retreat for young L.A.-based actors—a place to keep their theatre muscles in tune and, just as importantly, a place to escape from the madness of Hollywood. But it wouldn’t make an enormous weekly “nut”; (the theatre sat only 299, what in New York would be called a mid-size house); it was located in an out-of-the-way part of the city (so with a small publicity budget, it would depend almost exclusively on reviews for audiences to know it was there, much less care); and as a new outfit with no reputation as yet, it had to depend on finding gifted unknowns. Pay for any cast member was bargain-basement scale. Favored nations: big role, small role, all the same; barely enough to keep you in Big Macs and rent.

  “Dallas?”

  Dallas closed his eyes again, leaned forward, forearms on the back of a chair in the next row, chin upon an arm.

  “
I’m certain she comes highly recommended, Iris. But I can’t have her as Nora in A Doll’s House just because she’s an attractive trouper.”

  “Oh, she’s more than that. She’s very skilled.”

  Dallas scratched his mop of prematurely gray hair, faced Iris. Her whiskey voice was deceptive; she was a sober, square-jawed woman in her late fifties. You’d describe her, because of her bearing, as handsome. He wondered if even in her youth she was ever something other than handsome. Say, for example, pretty . . . ? He had no idea if she was married. Or had ever been. She wore no ring, and she was not the kind of lady you got personal with.

  “I know, Iris,” he said, “but as I warned you at the top, it’s not a question of skill, it’s a question of persona. The audience has to believe in the depth of Nora’s dilemma. And since so much of what she feels is kept under the surface, we require an actress who’s lived a little, who can communicate that kind of repression and still let us know she’s a roiling cauldron. Your Miss Callaway is far too lightweight for that.”

  “I thought she read those angry passages quite well.”

  “Any good actress can work herself into a state of agitation. But this isn’t a play about anger. It’s a play about rage. There’s a difference.”

  Iris, the managing producer of the theatre, was an independently wealthy woman who’d used her contacts to raise the money needed to run this operation, and who, Dallas suspected, had finally primed the pump mostly with her own money. Like a lot of patrons in the grand tradition, she was a fervent theatregoer and a passionate believer in the art, but ultimately, for all her sophistication, still an amateur. She’d never actually worked at the process from within. She’d only observed. An honest lady, if bull-in-a-china-shop blunt, and not remotely stupid—but Dallas found he had to guide her through everything like a child.

  It was wearying.

  And there were abstract intellectual concepts that eluded her no matter how well explained. Dallas had told her at the beginning: A Doll’s House was a classic, but it had not aged well and needed total verisimilitude to succeed. Plus, it would be the flagship production of a fledgling company—this in a town so suffused with movie deals that it actually viewed theatre (and classic theatre at that) as uncool. The production had to get attention and press, but it had to be the right kind of attention and the right kind of press. It was a long shot if done well. Therefore, if the actress in the role of Nora was laughable—or, perhaps worse, simply nondescript—the entire enterprise would lose its momentum. With no chance of recovery.

  He’d seen it happen before.

  He’d also tried debating large issues of artistic sense with money people before, and it was a losing proposition. So he responded to Iris only in simple, declarative sentences and monosyllabic words wherever possible. But he kept his tone respectful. In the end she was still the boss, and despite his significant East Coast track record, he could still be fired.

  Getting fired. He’d done that before too.

  “All right,” Iris was saying, “Claudia Callaway is too ‘lightweight,’ as you put it, to communicate ‘rage,’ whatever that means.”

  Whatever that means. Her inability to “get it” combined with the barely veiled condescension echoed dully in Dallas’s mind. Oy, he thought.

  “But I want you to tell me,” Iris continued, “who have we seen who was better?”

  “No one, which is why I urge you again to let me call Danielle Burstein in New York. She’s holding off another offer as a personal favor to me, waiting for the word. It’s no shame to have a ringer do the central role in a first production. In fact, guest stars in rep companies are something of a tradi—”

  “No! This is for the young men and women in the area! I want them to feel they have a home here.”

  Dallas lifted his eyebrows, raised his hands, as if to say, Have it your way, and gestured at the stage. “Then we keep auditioning. If we haven’t found anyone by the end of the day, I’ll give serious consideration to Miss Callaway, Fair enough?”

  Iris allowed herself a curt, almost military, nod.

  Dallas called up to the stage manager. “Buddy, who’s next?”

  Buddy, a young apprentice, had been waiting onstage in dutiful silence. This was his get-ready signal to call and read with the next actress. He consulted his clipboard.

  “A Miss Pauline Emperild.”

  “As in the Perils of Pauline? Are you serious? What the hell kind of stage name is that?”

  “No kind. She’s Tenctonese.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  The Tenctonese. Newcomers, they were called. The beings from another world. Originally bred to be slaves and supervised by sadistic Overseers—who were creatures of the exact same species, with but a wrist marking and an attitude to distinguish them from their “inferiors.” A quarter million of these beings had arrived in a ship—an actual, honest-to-God spaceship—that had crash-landed in the Mojave desert half a decade ago. Granted a boon of sudden, and sometimes disorienting, freedom, they had adopted the language and customs of modern American society with alarming rapidity, though their assimilation was by no means always total, complete, or graceful. And they were an everyday sight out here in L.A.

  There was still a relatively low concentration of Newcomers on the East Coast, however, and Dallas, New York-based for the better part of his life, had forgotten momentarily about the joke names that had frequently been inflicted upon the poor creatures by an insensitive California-based bureaucracy. Skip Tracer. Serge Suit. Ann Arbor. Not that New York would have been much kinder. Though the jokes might’ve been subtler.

  “A Newcomer Nora,” Dallas mused. “Bring her on.”

  Pauline Emperild was ushered onstage and introductions were made by Buddy. She was poised and attractive, and when she began to read the indicated passages from the script, some of the tension in Dallas’s face drained away. Her voice was well-modulated, her delivery assured, her intelligence unquestionable. She wasn’t great, but there was potential . . .

  And as she finished reading, and Dallas thanked her, and she was escorted out, the thought continued . . .

  . . . there was potential if only it weren’t for the smooth, bald head . . . the spots in lieu of hair forming a design as unique to her as a fingerprint, which narrowed and continued down the small of her back . . . the merest suggestion of small ears, gentle swells around the kind of apertures you’d find on a lizard’s head.

  “I don’t think I can get around the appearance,” Dallas said, finally, thoughtfully. “Shame.”

  Meaning it. Altogether unfair for the young artist to be penalized by an accident of birth . . . but art could equal life for unfairness, since the one reflected the other anyway. So that was that. If Miss Emperild had been an ethnic type—even black—it would have been a stretch, but, perhaps, workable. At least a black woman would be the right species. You might conceivably seduce an audience into suspending its disbelief just enough to accept the notion that a woman of color had a place in the Sweden of 1879 . . . at the very least, to make the leap of faith on the basis of pure humanism.

  But Miss Emperild wasn’t human.

  She’d be an anomaly in the play’s setting, a glaring anachronism, a constant reminder that a play was in progress—fighting the goal, which was to make the audience forget the artifice. If the illusion was shot, there’d be little else that mattered.

  He turned to Iris.

  She looked as if she wanted to say something.

  “If you disagree, persuade me,” he said gently.

  “I do believe in nontraditional casting,” she ventured, somewhat lamely. “But . . .”

  But. One syllable. Confirmation enough.

  “Buddy,” Dallas called up, “how many left?”

  “Just one,” came the answer.

  “That ‘serious consideration’ you promised to give the Callaway girl seems to be in order,” Iris nudged.

  “Maybe so, but let’s go through the motions and at least preten
d to give this last girl a fair shake.”

  “Certainly, certainly,” she replied, and Dallas felt as if he were being humored.

  Buddy announced the actress’s name, but it didn’t register in the wake of the young lady’s entrance . . . for instantly, the air in the room changed. There was a something, a what, a frisson, and Dallas tried in vain to analyze it. The face was compact, almost girlish, but it suggested a dark beauty that came from within (precisely what you’d dream for in a Nora), and more, there was—he didn’t know how else to phrase it—an agony behind the beauty, or perhaps just a depth of soul, because this girl brought a quality with her that you couldn’t teach, couldn’t buy, couldn’t even (God help him) direct, though you might be lucky enough to subtly guide it; it was just goddamn there.

  He felt his heart pounding. Heard it.

  And so far, she hadn’t said a word.

  Dallas prayed now, prayed with all his might that when she did speak, the poise and allure would be matched by the voice, that when she opened her mouth, she wouldn’t issue forth a screech or a whine or a twang or a rumble or a whisper or a bellow or a limit he couldn’t defeat, that she wouldn’t dash his fondest wish and bweak his widdwe heart in twain.

  Buddy was making introductions. Dallas missed the name again, but he heard his own and remembered to follow through with the amenities as Buddy said, “. . . our guest director, and this is Iris McGreevey, producer,” at which Iris nodded, smiled.

  Dallas, finding his voice somehow, said, “Hi, how are you?”

  And the vision said, “I’m honored to meet you both, thank you so much for seeing me,” and oh, yes, the voice was like honey, sweetness itself. Also richly inflected, capable of all sorts of complexity—yet, paradoxically, simple, direct. And, in the manner of truly great speaking voices, even musical. Ten words she’d uttered, that was all, but Dallas knew. Now he knew. Sometimes it happened that way.