Alien Nation #6 - Passing Fancy Read online

  Asking her to read now was but a formality, still, ask he did, and she clicked on every possible cylinder, the face able to convey violent emotions the words could not, connecting to the rage and what suppressed it; and she read with such understanding, such passion, such wisdom, that he knew he was the one truly honored, that God had blessed him with the discovery, that he must’ve been a good little boy indeed; and he turned to Iris, to make sure he wasn’t crazy, and there was something odd about the expression on Iris’s face that Dallas couldn’t place, not right away, and then it occurred to him, Iris had stopped breathing! Dallas turned to face the stage again as the rounded tones of this fine young artist, this eleventh-hour savior, completed her final speech, and he was dimly aware of his voice asking her to wait outside and Buddy escorting her, pausing to raise an eyebrow at Dallas as if to say, “Holy cow!” When she was gone, out of earshot, Dallas spun to face Iris again, saw that she was finally pulling breath, clocked the tears of revelation just starting to form in her eyes and he clapped his hands on her shoulders, something no sane person should do, not to this particular woman, and shook her, vigorously, enthusiastically, which was even more preposterous, and he exulted as if to the very heavens.

  “You see?” he cried joyously. “You see?”

  In the four-week rehearsal period that followed (which would lead to the kind of opening night that sneaks in on little cat’s paws and suddenly garners the kind of reviews and attention careers are built upon), Dallas Pemberton kept a very tight lid on his new discovery, wanting the brilliant young actress to be a surprise. To the press and the public. Wanting not to tempt fate. He had long ago learned the folly of braggadocio.

  Inevitably, though, some word leaked out on the street; rehearsals were so “hot” she was a tough secret to keep. So when Dallas was cornered by anyone, he chose to demur, merely allowing that, “You’ll have to see for yourself, but . . . Yes, she is something else.”

  Never knowing how right he was.

  D A Y O N E

  C H A P T E R 1

  MATT SIKES WAS not precisely in his element, but he was doing his damndest to be a good sport about it. Given his tolerance for matters artistic, there were easier things to be.

  The theatre lobby of The Healthy Workplace was too small to contain all the bodies, so the pre-show crowd spilled out onto the sidewalk, an area of which had been cordoned off for ticket holders, a smaller area of which penned in those desperate few awaiting cancellations, looking pathetic and anxious.

  Alone among the crunch of culture mavens, Matt would have preferred being anywhere else. In a ball park, in a hamburger joint, in a gym, in his living room with his train set. Maybe especially in his living room with his train set.

  Alas for him, Cathy Frankel was on an Earth literature kick—devouring everything she could about the classics, no doubt to compensate for the lack of such material on the slave ship—and he felt he had little choice in the matter.

  But, of course, he really did have a choice. He had plenty of choice, he could “just say no,” as the popular phrase went, but Cathy was . . .

  Well, what was Cathy exactly? To him? She was hard to compartmentalize. A neighbor. And a friend. A very good friend. Good and stunningly attractive. All of which had led, in time, to her being his lover as well. (And that had taken some serious preparation, even formal study. Matt still occasionally winced at the concept. But, as he’d discovered the hard way, intimate relations with a Newcomer were not something embarked upon casually.) Yet, though Cathy lived in Matt’s building, just down the hall from his apartment, there had not yet been any serious mention of consolidation, of moving in together.

  So he wasn’t sure exactly what Cathy was. To him. He only knew that he was prepared to be monogamous for the duration; and that, in general, he was happier at the thought of spending time with her than the thought of spending time without her.

  Therefore, when she’d knocked on his door and said she had “connections”—said she could get herself, Matt, and the Franciscos into this sold-out play everyone was talking about—he’d bitten off the impulse to ask “Who?” (’cuz they sure weren’t gabbin’ about no plays in his crowd, lemme tell ya), adopted his best no-strain smile and said, “Sure. Absolutely. You bet.”

  Matt felt a hand on his shoulder.

  “It was good of you to be here,” said his partner, Detective Two George Francisco. (George’s wife Susan was several paces away, studying the display of enlarged rave reviews bolted to the wall. Cathy was up ahead in the throng somewhere, waiting in line to pick up their tickets at the box office.)

  Matt’s expression offered up a pinched smile, his voice an unconvincing grumble. “Yah. Well. Culture. You know.”

  George looked at his shoes and stifled a chuckle. “Oh, Matthew,” he chided.

  Caught, Matt grumbled in earnest. “All right, fine, so I’m here for Cathy. I admit it. Happy now?”

  “Cathy’s happy. That’s what matters.”

  The notion secretly pleased Matt, but he sidestepped it gruffly. “Women are always happy when they get to educate men. I’m sure Cathy thinks the experience’ll be good for me. She says this play by that Ibsen character is seminal or something.”

  George’s brows created a furrow on his Tenctonese forehead, he assumed his pontificator’s expression, and Matt regretted his words instantly. “Well, strictly speaking,” George corrected, “it is more the playwright than the play, as he was the progenitor of the modern well-made drama.”

  “Well made.” In dead tones, so George couldn’t miss his disinterest.

  Didn’t help.

  “Yes,” George continued, “so-called because of the way in which plot elements and themes are introduced, developed, resolved.”

  “Uh huh.” Starting to feel intimidated now.

  “However, the play is, in fact, notable as the first serious dramatic treatment of the subject of women’s rights. Although, ironically, Ibsen himself would never have claimed to be a feminist.”

  Matt rolled his eyes. “Jesus, does everybody know this play except me?”

  George shrugged apologetically. “Pretty famous drama, Matthew.”

  “Isn’t it enough I’m stupid about your culture? I have to be a boob about my culture too?”

  George pursed his lips. “You do not have to be, Matthew. It’s just that you are so good at it.” And then he grinned mischievously.

  Matt threatened to deliver a mock slap, growled in his best Moe-the-Stooge voice, “Why, you, I oughtta—”

  —and Cathy shouted, “I’ve got them!”

  Turning to see her, Matt had to admit (strictly to himself) that it was sorta kinda worth everything if only for this moment. Cathy was almost skipping back from the box office, holding the two pairs of tickets aloft like some cherished prize, the soft, small features of her delicately boned face so radiant that—the thought leapt to his brain unbidden, and it was all he could do not to give it voice, lest George misunderstand—she looked like a beautiful light bulb.

  She and Susan huddled over the tickets, cooing over the excellent location. In a trice, each had her respective man by the arm, George strolling forthrightly with Susan, Matt allowing himself to be pulled into the theatre. As they merged with the crowd, squeezing together the better to funnel past the ticket taker, George cautioned Matt, “Remember, this is a legitimate theatre, not a movie house, there is no popcorn to be had here.” Matt groped for an appropriately cutting reply, it didn’t come to him fast enough, and then they were inside.

  As they took their seats, Matt picked up on the buzz in the auditorium, the excited chatter of the patrons, the sound of program pages being riffled, and people reading tidbits from artists’ bios.

  He noted too, with apprehension, how close he was to the stage. Third row center, too close for comfort. It threatened his space.

  “Matt?” said Cathy.

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Just thinking. They’re real
ly going to be on our noses, aren’t they?”

  “I know. Isn’t it exciting?”

  The houselights started to dim.

  “No popcorn, huh?” Matt muttered to himself.

  The play began.

  She entered as hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Noras had entered before her, a flurry of excitement, atwitter with Christmas packages to present to her finicky, judgmental husband, Torvald . . . but the yearning for approval she brought with her was as palpable, as substantial, a thing as any of the gift-wrapped packages. And because of it, you wanted to hold her. Tell her everything would be all right. Protect her.

  At first, Matt had to admit that, like everyone else in that theatre, he was experiencing the thrill of discovery.

  The thrill faded quickly, though, and was quickly, unnervingly, supplanted by a stronger emotion. Like many a star—and though she wasn’t a star yet, she was clearly on the come—Fran Delaney had a strong, welcome personality that would wear well with familiarity. At first, Matt chalked up his reaction to the spontaneous comfort he felt watching her, even slight infatuation, and a subsequent, entirely natural, sense of déjà vu. But his reaction persisted. It persisted so strongly that he discounted déjà vu and went to the next logical question—where have I seen her before? On television? The movies? No, couldn’t be, she was supposed to be some kind of “find,” previously altogether unknown, knocking around in obscurity until this, her first break . . .

  And that left one possibility.

  I’ve more than seen her. I know her.

  But from where? Dammit where?

  The familiarity was not so comfortable now. Now it assailed him, irritated him, like a word on the tip of the tongue, like a crucial thought inexplicably lost, like that where-the-hell-did-I-misplace-my-car-keys? kind of feeling. He had lost touch with a part of himself—the machinery. And he was a cop for God’s sake, an officer of the—

  Click. Into cop mode.

  Did I meet her in my capacity as a cop?

  Perpetrator? Suspect? Vic, maybe? Put her in different clothes, his mind commanded, and his imagination complied, running through possibilities. Give her a different hair style, came command number two, and in his mind’s eye he took the full-bodied, shoulder-length, enticing brown hair and brutally cut it, cut it, first to a shag, then to a pageboy, no, no, still not it, then to a crewcut, then to . . .

  Nothing. Then to nothing.

  And now he had it. Thought he had it, heart pounding, because if he had it, it was too fantastic. His program had slipped off his thighs to the floor, where it was too dark to root around for it, so he rudely plucked Cathy’s, whispering a cursory “sorry” and flipped through the pages, flipped, flipped, flipped to the cast list, and there it was.

  Nora Helmer ............. FRAN DELANEY

  The name was too close, like a bad alias. And, of course, it was, a bad alias for an even worse name, but it was the name by which he had known her, and now that he had the name to go with the face—

  —he had the memory.

  And it played in the back of his mind, every bit as live and real as the play in front of him.

  She had the gun aimed between his eyes and her hysteria was bone-chilling.

  “Stay away! Just stay the hell away from me and stay away from the bedroom!”

  Matt Sikes, newly turned detective, his best copside manner at work, had his arms out straight, palms down, pushing gently at the air, trying to calm her.

  “Ms. Delancey . . . we just want to see are your children all right, that’s all. After that . . . we can talk. It’s all negotiable.”

  “Sure. Right. Placate the dumb slag. I put this gun down and negotiation’s over.”

  “Not if nobody’s hurt.”

  “You don’t touch my children!” The words lashed out as sharply and suddenly as a slap, causing Matt’s partner, Bill Tuggle, to cock his department-issue revolver.

  “Tug, no!” Matt implored the muscular black man, and Tuggle’s eyes shifted uneasily in his direction.

  “Matt, you sure?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m sure, put it down.”

  “Down!?”

  “Down! On the floor!”

  “Matt . . .”

  “Just do it.”

  Releasing a deep, apprehensive breath through his nose, Tuggle shifted his wrist to hold the gun flat, parallel with the floor and slowly, reluctantly, bent at the knees, down, down—

  Matt never took his eyes off the woman, but he heard the sound of metal clicking against tile, sensed Tuggle rising again, knew the gun was down, and said, “There. Negotiations have just opened.” His words measured, soothing, like honey. “What do you say?”

  The gun never moved, but her gaze seemed to go elsewhere, mere degrees elsewhere, it could snap focus back to him at any time, and her voice became something distant, abstracted.

  “My children are in Celine’s cradle, watched over by Andarko. Nothing can hurt them now.”

  Matt struggled to keep his anger down. This was a twist he hadn’t expected. Celine and Andarko were the female and male Tenctonese gods. Saying her children were with them was like an Earthwoman saying her children were with Jesus. Gone home to the Lord. Freed of their mortal coil. Oh, man . . .

  Matt said nothing. Getting his bearings.

  Just as abstractedly, the Delancey woman asked, “Don’t you want to know if I sent them there?”

  “Let’s jump over ‘if,’ ” Matt chanced, voice husky and low. “What’ll help is ‘why?’ . . .”

  “Help . . . ?”

  “All negotiable. Like I said.” A beat. Eyes frozen on her, he gestured almost imperceptibly with his chin toward one of the kitchen chairs. “Mind if I sit?” Hoping to get in close. Get in, get under. Grab the gun. That was permissible, if you could manage it. All the while talking like a friend.

  “Sure.” Small, remote.

  He moved the chair out from under the table with his fingertips, hardly scraping the scuffed tile beneath, lowered himself into it but was dismayed to find that she was ready for him, moving the gun inwards, crooking her elbows, maintaining her potential target.

  “Talk to me,” he entreated.

  “Right. ‘Why.’ I think you wanted to know why. I believe you said it would help.”

  “Couldn’t hurt.” Wondering if the old vaudeville response would elicit a slight smile; wondering if she’d even get it, if her slag sense of humor extended to Earth idioms.

  “Because they were becoming aliens to me! Because I couldn’t see them anymore for all of Earth’s corruption. The slave ship was awful, but at least we had our place, knew who we were, knew what Andarko and Celine expected us to be. Here we know nothing. Nothing. And no one wants to teach us. It’s worse than the ship. On the ship we were at least slaves. Here we’re non-people. No culture. No purpose.”

  “And your children . . . ?”

  “. . . they were growing ears . . .”

  Oh, God, thought Sikes. “Ears,” he repeated.

  “Hair, too, I think. I couldn’t see them anymore.”

  Tuggle spoke quietly from behind. “They were assimilating.”

  It was as if she didn’t hear. Not that it mattered. The comment had been for Sikes, who took in its import.

  “Neither Celine nor Andarko would want them in that state,” the Delancey woman said. “I had to keep them . . . from being damned.”

  “Ms. Delancey—”

  “My name is Zho’pah. And in saving my children, I have damned myself.”

  So casually and smoothly she might have been lifting a spoon, the Newcomer lifted the gun to the underside of her chin, it happened in a blink, once again leaving Matt totally unprepared.

  “Don’t,” he croaked, and then, regaining slightly fuller use of his vocal chords, added, “Don’t. Wait.”

  She pressed the barrel deep into the soft flesh beneath her jaw.

  “Now you talk to me . . . Why?”

  The voice no longer abstracted. Purposeful as h
ell now.

  “Uhh . . . Because . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Because . . . the gods . . . will forgive you.”

  For a moment she stopped breathing. Then with the hopefulness of a child . . . “You think?” The gun lowering but still pointed at its target. Matt aware of the pink ring it left in her flesh.

  “Oh, yeah,” he assured her. “Absolutely.”

  The tension drained out of her body.

  Matt relaxed.

  Tuggle relaxed.

  “Nice to know,” she breathed.

  Then she pulled the trigger.

  The hammer hit the chamber with a soft click. And that was all. But the sound, because of what it represented, was just as profound as a gunshot. More devastating still, though, were her next words.

  “That’s it. I’m dead.”

  Matt slapped the table, rocketed up, knocking his chair back. “Goddammit, that’s not fair!”

  She was utterly unperturbed, maddeningly unimpressed. “You had the case histories to study. I was right on point.”

  “Aw, bullshit, you were makin’ up the rules as you went along!”

  Bill Tuggle’s hand fell on Matt’s shoulder. “Easy, Matt,” his partner said, but easy was not in Matt’s repertoire, not right at this moment, and he shrugged the hand off in favor of drilling the Newcomer woman more viciously still.

  “Pleased with yourself? Put on a nice little performance, did you?”

  And now Delancey was on her feet as well, just as pluperfectly pissed as Matt, drilling back with full force. “You arrogant kakstu, don’t you blame me because you didn’t do your homework—!”

  “—I don’t need to be told what my homework is by some, some—”

  “—some what, some what—”

  “—just never you mind what—”

  “—‘slag broad,’ is that what you were going to say?—”

  “—if the spots fit, lady—”

  And now a new voice spoke out, hands clapping for silence: “All right, children, that’s it! Break it up, or no more sour milk and graham crackers!”