SLAG LIKE ME [086-5.0]

by: Barry B. Longyear

Synopsis:

The Newcomers arrived on our planet years earlier when their ship
crashed.

They did their best to meld into our society, but there are those bigots
who must hold them as inferior.  To them, the Tenctonese are called
"slag" and hated and feared.

A newspaperman goes undercover as one of the Tenctonese.  He learns a
lot during his adventure.

Pocket Books;

ISBN: 0671795147

Copyright 1994

A dira ih urvek den In honor of the truly blind

--- Ivo Lass, Saverna nas Ria The real story is the universal one of men
who destroy the souls and bodies of other men (and in the process
destroy themselves) for reasons neither really understands.  It is the
story of the persecuted, the defrauded, the feared and detested.

I could have been a Jew in Germany, a Mexican in a number of states, or
a member of any "inferior" group.  Only the details would have differed.
The story would be the same.

--- John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me ELLISON ROBB Slag Like Me THE
INVITATION As my next door neighbor would be pleased to tell you, I'm
not a very nice guy.  Habitually I do things different from the norm
simply because the norm is the norm.  I'm the only one in step; I'm the
one wearing sweats at the black tie affair; I clap at the end of the
first movement whether I like it or not.  Telling me "It just isn't
done," whatever it is, more often than not will compel me to do it.

To bring light into a dark room, for example, some folks unlock doors.

Others want to clean windows.  Still others simply choose to get used to
the darkness.  Me?  I never did like the dark.  Of course, sometimes I
can't find the key for the lock, and I don't do windows.

Accordingly, if a dirty window obscures my view, I throw a rock through
it.  When a locked door keeps things dark, I use a chain saw.  If
nothing else works, I drive a bulldozer through the wall.

"Why on earth," you might ask, "is this attitude in print throwing words
at me?" Why I'm here is real simple.  I was asked.  It went like this:

Your editor-in-chief, Martin Fell, and I were at a party in West
Hollywood a few months ago.  It was an incredibly dull affair (the same
young alcoholics slurring the same old words) and Marty and I got to
strolling down amnesia lane as he tried to set me up for a pitch (no one
invites me to a party without an ulterior motive).  Recalling the
electric impact four decades ago of John Howard Griffin's book, Black
Like Me, Martin wondered aloud if it would be possible to do a similar
expos‚ on modern human racism against the Tencts (Tenctonese, Newcomers,
or slags, depending on your view.

"What would it be like," Martin mulled, "for a human to go under cover
as a Tenct?  Blend into Newcomer society, become one of 'them'?  How do
they' really look at 'us'?  How do 'we' really treat 'them'?"

"Tell me," I said to Martin, "when you go fishing, is it really true
that you throw hand grenades into the water to concuss the fish to the
surface?" "I lack subtlety?"  he asked.

"You are as graceful as an ostrich with a greased wastebasket on each
foot attempting to carry a watermelon down a crowded up escalator."

"No interest in it at all?"  he whined.

"Incorrect.  In fact it's something I've thought about for a long time.

I've even accumulated a considerable body of research on it.  In fact, I
even went so far as to discuss my idea with a certain blabbermouth
administrative assistant of yours named Julia Winslow.  I think it's a
fascinating idea originated by a brilliant intellect of towering
proportions."

"Will you do it?"

"I'll do it, Marty, but there are three conditions."

"Oh?"  His eyebrows arched.

"Don't pop your hair plugs.  None of the conditions have anything to do
with how much I get paid."  The eyebrows lowered a notch.  "We'll talk
money later."  The eyebrows went back up.

"What are the conditions?"  he asked.

"First, I'll try it and see what it's like.  I'm no super hero.  If I
want to quit, I back out, you pay for everything, and nothing goes into
print.  Is it a deal?"

He nodded.  "Very well."

"When I said you pay for everything, it could be a high pile in exchange
for squat."

"I understand.  It's my risk, and unless we're talking over six figures,
I'm willing to take it."

"That high it shouldn't get."

"We're in agreement so far."  His eyebrows climbed a little higher.

"The second condition?"

"No personal data about me is to appear in any bios.  Not my age, sex,
sexual preference, skin coloration, hair possession, shape, or color,
eye shape, date or place of birth, diseases, previous publications,
nationality, religious afflictions, or marital status.  All the readers
will know about me is that I am human and under cover as a Tenct.  My
byline will be a pseudonym.  Agreed?"

The eyebrows plunged into a frown.  "Part of what we're paying for is
your name.  With a pseudonym, our readers won't know you at all.  And
what about your readers?  They won't be able to find you."

"You aren't paying me anything, yet."  I searched for a way to turn up a
very dim bulb.  "Look at it like this, Marty.

If the readers knew what pigeon hole to stuff me in, in a flash I'd have
half a dozen agendas I don't ascribe to tacked on my ass.  See, that's
the point.  You want me to cover human-Tenct relations and report it as
it is, correct?"

"Mmmm."

"See, there's no point in giving peeks at racism through some kind of
ethnic prism, real or imagined; the Latvian black gay midget biker's
view of the Newcomer situation.  My job is to bust windows, and the most
successful window busters are always anonymous."

"Tell it to Norman Schwarzkopf," he grumped.  Then he fixed me with a
gimlet eye and asked, "If you use a pseudonym, what will draw the
readers?"

"You know how I write, Marty.  Your readers will be trampling each other
to read my column and call me names.  After the third column appears you
can depend on a mob of torch bearing villagers surrounding the Times,
storming the walls, demanding my capture and incineration."

"This is a selling point?"

"I thought you were the one who was selling, Marty."

Grudgingly he nodded.  "Okay.  I get your point."  He looked glum for
about fifteen seconds more, then said, "I'm not tranquil about it, but
okay.  The third condition?"

"If we decide to go ahead with the series, we go all the way.  I mean
all the way.  We don't edit, cut, or slant copy to avoid offending city
hall or some big advertiser and we don't pull our punches to avoid
offending the readers.  If that crowd of lawyers the paper has on
retainer gets nervous, that's tough.

If the Times gets whittled down to only four readers and a half inch ad
for recycled condoms, I want those four readers still to be able to read
my column the way I wrote it."

He gagged on that one.  He squirmed, whined, promised, cried, cajoled,
bribed, begged, and threatened the way editors do (it's an ethnic
thing).  Finally, after making a telephone call and communing with his
other Higher Power, Martin Fell agreed.  Whatever happens, short of
death or the Times going out of business, the column Slag_Like_Me runs
as it was written, warts, split infinitives, naughty words, and all.

I was a hungry piranha and Slag_Like_Me was my very own literary dead
cow.  I was impatient to arrange my passage into Tenct society.  I had
no illusions that my experiment held a candle to Griffin's impersonation
of a Negro in the segregated south of the late fifties.

What he did took courage.  What I planned to do only took an attitude.

The laws have changed since the fifties, and most visible racists have
had to change their spots.  From the accepted respectable majority of
the past, overt "white" racists of today are considered part of the nut
fringe.  It is not fashionable.

Overt "black" racists, as well as other ethnic militants, are declining
in their acceptability, but covert racists of all stripes are where
they've always been: in the majority and in charge.

It's very simple: the ideal of the American melting pot has broken down.
Many so-called ethnic groups blended together and became "Americans."
The "Anglos" are made up of persons of English, German, Irish, French,
Basque, Spanish, Italian, and Middle East origins.  If revisionist
anthropology is to be believed, this mix includes an indigenous
population (Indians, to you) made up of Phoenician, Egyptian, and
Celtic, as well as native antecedents.  But the pot never was hot enough
to melt in the descendents of the slaves from Africa, the railroad
workers from China, and others who simply looked different.  The promise
was always there, however.  But then the pot cooled even further.  The
gravy became very lumpy, and each lump had a grievance against every
other lump.

Into this hostile hypocrisy, hundreds of thousands of real live aliens
from outer space crash in, and long before they're released from the
quarantine camps, the wonder and novelty of this first contact wears off
and "they" simply become another "them."  The magical beings from other
worlds we've dreamed about for generations turn out to be just another
lump in the pot.  And how does this particular soup smell?  I was eager
to take a sniff.

It took a couple of days before I was ready to try on my spots.  The day
began in Hollywood with a friend of mine in the business.  My friend
took about six hours and made me up with about twenty pounds of latex
and paint.  When I first looked into a mirror, a stranger looked back.
There was a bizarre feeling in my chest, and when I pulled it into the
light and looked at it, I felt my face grow warm.

I was afraid of that image in the mirror.  It wasn't an alien.  It
wasn't a Tenct.  It was me!  Yet the shape, the color, the large head,
the startling baldness, the spots, the image was on some level something
I was tuned to fear, to regard as less than clean, not okay, inferior.
It was right there in the pit of my being, this hard nut of racism.

Life is a series of self discoveries.  Once in awhile we like what we
find.  Most times, however, the discovery points to something that needs
work: cleaning, repair, or replacement.

Too often we opt not to see what we have seen.  The mental roof
continues to leak, the psychological garbage ripens, and life takes on
all of the ambiance of a summer cesspool.  If this was something that
needed to be addressed within me, then let's do it, I told myself.  I
took another look into the mirror, decided I looked terrific, and took
to the streets to try out my new appearance.  The day ended in
humiliation.

I have a knowledge of Tenctonese, as well as several other tongues.

Because of my previous work, I knew quite a bit about Tenct customs,
manners, history, and beliefs.  To me my disguise was perfect, and it
appeared to work very well among humans.

Yet, not five minutes after I began strolling down Hollywood Boulevard,
a rather striking Tenct prostitute stared at me for a moment, wrinkled
her nose, and commented to her sister of the mattress,
"Nugah.__Mea_te've_esk?"

This translates, roughly, "A pervert.  Sad isn't he?"

Nugah, however, is a new kind of pervert; so new, in fact, that the
word, nugah, came into being only within the past few years.  It refers
to a human who finds sexual gratification in impersonating a Tenct (sort
of a slagvestite).

That wrapped it up for my first try.  If I wanted to continue, it would
be necessary to get some special help to eliminate whatever it was that
marked me as human.  My overwhelming curiosity to find out just what
that thing was one of the things that caused me to continue with the
project.

I did some research and picked the brains of several close friends.

One of those friends has very special talents.  My friend agreed to help
me, not impersonate a Tenct, but to emerge as one.  She also had a few
ideas and she introduced me to those who could do the sculpting.

It took a new kind of bloodless surgery, some high tech gadgetry (close
to half a million of Marty Fell's money), and about eleven weeks of
training.  At the end of the process I emerged a different being.  The
image in the mirror no longer frightened me because it was me.  I took
that walk on Hollywood Boulevard again and passed well enough to be
roughed up by a couple of thugs and entered into Mt. Andarko's Hospital,
after a thorough examination, as a Tenct by a Tenctonese doctor.  I was
given Tenct hospital cuisine, and the crap they served was almost as bad
as the meals at Beverly Glen on West Pico.  Did you know it's possible
to make a custard out of earthworms?

It tastes sort of like curd of cream of mushroom soup.  Not bad if
you're into mortified insect flesh.

In any event, the police arrived, and then came the real beginning of my
education.

The police officer who took my statement, a human named Davenport (badge
12114), twice made references to "you slags" (no offense intended, of
course) and pointed out there wasn't much that could be done about the
muggers.  They fade into the night, long gone, evidence all shucked,
that's the way it goes.

Anyway, what'd you expect on Hollywood Boulevard at that hour?

Besides, with unemployment being what it is, broken homes, child abuse,
unsatisfactory potty training, I really should try to be more
understanding. The upshot of the whole thing was that getting mugged was
my fault and I probably shouldn't bother wasting everyone's time by
filing a report.

Strangely enough, Officer Davenport changed his mind once I told him
that the muggers were Newcomers.

Immediately he took a detailed statement and had a police artist at my
bedside within two hours.

Listen up, Goober.  I am your worst nightmare in bleeding Technicolor: a
victim who refuses to be a victim armed with a poison pen, a compulsion
to name names, and a state wide forum.  Be careful how you treat that
next rubberhead that walks into your office, your store, your squad
room, or down your street.  It might be someone whose job, and pleasure,
it is to fight back.  The only way to make the melting pot work, I am
convinced, is more heat.  That's what this column is, Goob.

Heat.

^^^

ONE It was the kind of hot that drove normally well balanced and serene
persons to look for things about which to fight.  On the sizzling
streets of L.A. that morning, however, no one needed the assistance of
the weather.  Everyone was arguing about the newest editorial column in
the Times, Slag_Like_Me, by a mysterious columnist who wrote under the
name Ellison Robb.

He was either devil or saint, enlightener or hellraiser, peace bringer
or rabble rouser, moral icon or pervert, depending on who was talking.

No one was neutral.  All those who had ever managed to hide for years
from social conflict within cocoons of denial or indifference had been
rather rudely yanked into the burning light of the discussion, thanks to
the Robb column.

They were fighting in the city council, the county board of supervisors,
in the churches, the businesses, the homes, on the streets, and in the
unit being driven by Detective Sergeant Matt Sikes.

"Matt," said his Tenctonese partner, George Francisco, "I see no reason
for you to become so defensive about this Robb character!"

"If you attack, what else am I supposed to do?  Roll over and say,
'well, George, I guess I just made a foolish error?"

Don't hold your breath waiting for that, partner."

"Damn it, Matt, I'm simply saying that Slag_Like_Me is increasing
problems for Newcomers, not lessening them.  The anger level against
Tencts is towering, thanks to the Times' sensationalistic circulation
building ploy."

"Ploy?  Ploy?"

"Yes.  Ploy.  Your hearing is excellent, every so often."

"Robb is out there risking his damned life to expose anti-Tenct racism,
George, and all you can do is to call it a ploy?"

"What?  You want gratitude?  Matt, with his column he's set back
human-Tenct relations twenty years."

"Give it a rest, George.  Twenty years ago there weren't any human-Tenct
relations."

"Exactly my point!  Do you think there are any relations now?  All
Ellison Robb is doing is increasing the problems, and we have more than
enough right now, thank you very much!"

"Increasing the problems?  He's increasing the problems?

Don't you mean calling a racist a racist?  Jesus, George, what's the
Tenct equivalent of an Uncle Tom or a Tio Taco?  Don't make waves, don't
confront racism, just grin and bear it and maybe someday it'll all just
go away."

"You don't clear up muddy water by stirring it, Matt."

"Welcome to Fantasyland, George!  What about those slaghunts, buddy?

They drive on by and just blow someone out of his socks because he's a
Newcomer.  How's that for muddy water?

What about that little boy who was gunned down on Third?  What about
that woman who died at Grace Emergency yesterday because she was Tenct
and the physician on duty decided that the Hippocratic oath didn't cover
her?  Think maybe those puddles need a little stirring?  What about
that, George?"

"Ubi Dugi."

"What?"

"Ubi Dugi," George repeated.  "The Tenct equivalent of an Uncle Tom: Ubi
Dugi."

"Aaargh!"  Sikes bellowed and pounded his fist on the steering wheel.

"That is not an argument!"  George countered.

"Then maybe this is an argument!"  Sikes punched the roof of the car and
bellowed more loudly.  When he was finished, he grabbed the steering
wheel and glared at the jammed traffic.

Punching the roof, thought Matt as he felt the ache in his knuckles.

Punching the roof is stupid.  He hadn't connected with the center of a
panel.  Instead he had hit a welded seam bent on right angles.  The
cheap upholstery covering the interior of the roof was nothing but one
thin layer of cloth.

He glanced at his knuckles and saw that they all had been scraped white.
The skin had not been broken, but they hurt like root canal with a
hangover.

Stupid.  Hitting things to express anger at a person.  Not as stupid as
hitting the person, perhaps, but stupid all the same.  But what else do
you do with anger --- rage?  The pressure of maddening frustration that
left no option save exploding at something.  As a child he had taken to
punching walls, trees, and dirt as an alternative to punching an abusive
alcoholic father or a judgemental mother flying through life on pounds
of prescription drugs.

At that Adult Children of Alcoholics meeting he had attended there had
been a man called Benny.  Benny had said something about praying for a
hero when he was a child; someone who would swoop in, punish those who
had made him suffer, and then take him away.  Matt Sikes had never
prayed for a hero.  He had never prayed for anything.  He had always
figured that a god who could allow the horror of his life to happen
would not make a very reliable repairman.  Not exactly Maytag.

There had been television and movies, however.  Heroes who came onto the
scene and did what needed to be done, laid waste to houses, buildings,
cities, entire planets, to make wrong right.  Red tape, custom, manners,
the opinions of others, the law, rules and regulations, thoughts of
personal safety, none of these could bound a Ripley, or the second
Terminator, Connagher, Quigley .  . .

He grimaced as a phrase from an old song drifted through the tangle of
his mind, "someone to watch over me."  Maybe that's what Ellison Robb
was: the Anonymous Avenger; a nameless masked knight in newsprint
seeking out evildoers and kicking ass big time.  There was plenty of ass
out there that needed kicking, too.

Matt glanced at his partner.  A big piece of that ass was in the
passenger seat.  If the victims of abuse defend and shield the abusers,
what hope can a little child have?  What chance does anyone have?

"George?"

"What?"

"Let me try this just one more time.  You can't argue with the fact that
Ellison Robb is saying some things that need to be said."

George shrugged and turned his head to look out the window.  "There are
ways and there are ways."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Francisco faced his partner.  "You don't use a cannon to kill flies."

"If dead flies is what you're after, George, a cannon'll do one hell of
a job!"

George Francisco growled out a strangled bellow and pounded on the
dashboard with his fists.  "Look at what this Robb has driven me to!"

"At least we're communicating on the same level, George!"

Francisco strained against his seat belt as he turned toward his
partner.  "Is now when you call me slag, Matt?  It's right on your
tongue!  I can see it!"

Matt heard a scream from outside the car and faced forward in time to
see that he was headed directly toward two children, a man in a suit,
and a bag lady crossing the street with the light.  He jumped on the
brake, stalled the unit, and felt his head slam into the back rest as
the car following them slammed into the unit's rear bumper.  Once more
Matt roared and punched the steering wheel.

TWO After reaching homicide, the division rather than the criminal
condition, Matt and George maintained a mutual smoldering silence as
they stormed to their desks.  Sgt. Dobbs, seated at his desk, barked
into his telephone, "Look, Kelly, I don't give a damn what you do with
the old roofing, downspouts and rain gutters!  Just get all that junk
off my lawn!  I want it done today, understand?"  He listed for a
moment, pulled the handset away from his head and stared into it as
though the machine had lied to him.  Again he shouted into the handset,
"Kelly?  You heard anything I've said?  I'm a police officer, you
understand?  Maybe your business license is something that needs a
little review --- Hello?  Hello?"  He glowered and slammed down the
handset.  "Stupid lazy ignorant son of a bitch."  Dobbs glanced up at
Sikes and Francisco, caught one look at their faces, and leaned back in
his chair.  "I see our float for national brotherhood week is going to
be late this year."

Francisco glared at him.  "Stick it up your ass, Dobbs," said George,
causing Dobbs's jaw to drop to his chest.  The most even tempered, least
profane person on Earth had just told him to stick it up his ass.

It was equivalent to Mr. Rogers grabbing his crotch and growling "Eat
me!"

When Dobbs recovered sufficiently, he pointed toward Captain Grazer's
office.  "The man wants you both about twenty minutes ago."

George glanced at his watch and raised his gaze to glare at Matt.  "I
told you that shortcut of yours would make us late."

"How was I supposed to know that truck was blocking the alley?"

"One lane wide?  In the middle of how many stores and markets?  At
morning rush hour?  How many humans does it take to screw in a light
bulb?"

Sikes turned on his heel and stormed toward Captain Grazer's office.

Dobbs looked up at George and asked, "How many?"

"What?"

"How many humans does it take to screw in a light bulb?"

"Six billion and one."  He shrugged and allowed a touch of embarrassment
to lower his voice.  "You know, one to hold the bulb and six billion to
twist the planet."  George grimaced.

"Tenctonese humor, don'tcha know."

Dobbs pointed toward Grazer's office.  "Watch your back in there,
George.  I don't know what's going on, but the cap's got a fed with
him."  He pointed toward his wrist and made a jagged motion with his
finger.  "Your old Overseer buddy?"

Francisco frowned, turned, and followed Sikes.  By the time George
finally entered the captain's office, he took up a position on the
opposite side of the room from Sikes.  Grazer, struggling through his
fourth day without a cigar, was a lump of glower behind his desk.  In a
chair facing him was a slender human male in his late fifties,
financially fashionable in muted charcoal stripes, wine colored tie and
vest.  The suit, the tie, and the vest were wrinkled and the man had a
thin brush of white whiskers on his face.  Sitting next to him was a
face that George Francisco recognized from the Maanka Dak affair the
year before.  It was Paul Iniko, the Overseer who had become an agent
for the F.B.I.

"You worked with Agent Iniko before," Grazer stated.

Nodding toward the man in the rumpled suit, the captain said, "This is
Martin Fell, editor-in-chief of the Times."  The captain glanced at
Sikes and returned his gaze to George.  "Do you two know about this
columnist, Ellison Robb?"

"Who doesn't?"  George answered, his tone quite acid.

"Some of us better than others," added Sikes, his tone equally caustic.

"You two want to knock it off," snapped Grazer.

Martin Fell shook his head and held his hand up, the palm facing Grazer.
"My own office is the same way, captain.  In fact I would venture to
guess that every office within fifty miles of here is the same way.
Ellison Robb was something of a social catalyst."

"A shitstorm at a white sale," muttered George.

"Was?"  Matt asked Fell, ignoring his partner's comment.

"You said he was something of a whatever.  What's this about?

What's happened?"

Fell nodded, his expression grave.  "Perhaps my verb tense is premature,
but he's missed his last two delivery drops."

"Delivery drops?"

"We had a prearranged series of different locations where I could go
unobserved to pick up his copy and leave messages during those periods
when he wouldn't or couldn't come into his office.  We haven't seen him
for almost two weeks and he's missed his last two drops, yesterday's and
today's.  Perhaps I'm only projecting, but he told me that if he missed
a drop, it's only because he's either dead, critically wounded, or under
restraint."

Grazer dropped an expired piece of chewing gum into his wastebasket and
said, "Possible kidnapping."  He nodded toward Iniko.  "That's why the
fed." "If he missed his drop yesterday," said Matt, "how come you waited
until he missed another before you came to us?"

Fell raised his hands and then dropped them to his lap.

"I needed to be sure.  Mick walks in constant drama.  He's given, if you
prefer, to casting things in the most theatrical way possible."

You're saying he's a showboat," stated George, "and you had to be
certain this wasn't some kind of stunt Cass pulled to get a rise out of
everybody."

"There were other reasons for my reluctance, as well."

Fell seemed to stare into space for a moment, then continued.

"I was concerned after he missed the first drop, but after the second
was missed my concern moved to panic."

George thrust his hands into his pockets and leaned his back against a
filing cabinet.  "Forgive me, Mr. Fell, but couldn't this be just
another little piece of sensationalism designed to get Cass a bit of
publicity?"

Martin Fell's face flushed bright red.  "The person we're talking about,
officer, is the same person who once called Yassir Arafat a shmuck to
his face.  He doesn't need to stage a kidnapping to create interest."
"Micky Cass?"  asked George, his eyebrow arched.  "Do you mean that
Ellison Robb is that Micky Cass?"

"Yes.  You've read some of Mick's work?"

George nodded, folded his arms and held out a hand as though the
revelation of Micky Cass's name explained everything.

Cocking his head to one side, George said, "If something has happened,
I'm not surprised.  Something was bound to.  The thing you mentioned
just underscores my point.  I mean the man went out of his way to anger
as many persons per word as possible.

The anger was mostly justified, and it was frequently entertaining, but
having Cass write about racism is like sending in Rambo to conduct
crisis control."

Paul Iniko studied George Francisco's face for a beat and then said,
"Nevertheless, he or she is entitled to the same legal protection as any
other citizen."

"He or she?"  George repeated.  Facing Fell he stated, "Micky Cass is
male."

The editor-in-chief of the Times held up his hands in an eloquent shrug.
"Probably.  Possibly.  I'm not sure."

"What do you mean, you're not sure?"  demanded Grazer.

"Didn't you hire him?"

Martin Fell lowered his hands to his lap and chuckled sadly as he shook
his head.  "I hired him and I don't know.

Not for certain.  He's probably male .  . . maybe."  He shook his head
in frustration.  "I know how this sounds, but the only other thing I
know is that Ellison Robb is novelist Micky Cass.

I don't know Micky Cass's sex."  His shoulders issued an additional tiny
shrug.  "I guess I don't know his name, either.

Micky Cass is a pseudonym, too.  At least that's what he told me."

"Or she," said George as he folded his arms across his chest.  "I know
he's had this bit in his column about refusing to identify himself, but
I've read a number of his books.  He's obviously .  . ."  George shook
his head.  "The stories were very strong."

"What do you mean 'strong' George?"  asked Sikes, his eyebrows upraised.

George frowned as he recalled the image of a square cut jaw, a gleaming
white grin coming out of a dark face.  "There were pictures on the dust
jackets of his books.  I've seen pictures of Micky Cass.  He's a man.

He looks like a man, writes like a man."  Francisco looked at Matt and
then faced Martin Fell.

"I cannot believe I just said that."  He took a deep breath and let it
escape slowly from his lungs as he sorted his thoughts.  "Mr. Fell, how
long have you known him --- her --Cass?"

"Almost fifteen years."

"You know this person for fifteen years and you don't know the person's
sex?"

Fell nodded, sadness creeping into his eyes.  "I didn't know a great
deal of unimportant detail about Mick."

"Sex isn't exactly unimportant," said Matt.

"It is at my house," muttered Grazer to no one in particular.  Noticing
that everyone was looking at him, his face flushed and he said, "Go on."

Fell shrugged and looked thoughtful.  "As far as Micky was concerned,
one's sex was only important to a physician or to someone with whom he
was sexually involved.  He wasn't sexually involved with me and I'm no
doctor.  As for everyone else, it's none of their business, as far as
Mick was concerned.  Sex, sexual identity or preference, race, name,
religion, favorite sport, hobbies, politics: nobody's business."

Grazer shook his head.  "I can't believe you knew him for all those
years and didn't know his sex."

"Not for lack of trying, captain.  Mick once told me, if I needed to
make an issue of it, the friendship would end.  Hence if I valued his
friendship more than the satisfaction of my curiosity, I'd best get onto
some other subject."

"I don't get it.  There must be a million forms he had to fill out that
asked his sex and so on."

"You're right, captain.  I have his social security number and some
other forms that list race or sex.  Where he had to fill these things
out, for sex he'd enter 'NA' for not available, or he'd simply answer
'yes."  For race he'd either enter 'human' or 'IL."" "IL?"  asked
George.

"Intelligent life," said Matt quietly.

Fell looked at Sikes and nodded.  "Yes.  Intelligent life."  He nodded
again.  "That's right.  Mick mentioned that in the cards and letters
piece."  He faced Grazer.  "What's really amusing about that 'IL' thing
was the paper wizards who would process Mick's forms.  Every time they
ran across that 'IL', all they saw was the 'I' and proceeded on the
assumption that Micky Cass was a Native American; an Indian.  He might
be, too.  God, I would've hated to have been the census taker on his
block." "What about that?"  asked Iniko.

"You mean the census?"

"Yes."

"Forget it.  Before coming here I scraped together every scrap of
information I could get on Mick, including checking with the Census
Bureau.  There is no record of Micky Cass under any name that I know
appearing in any census in U.S. history.

None of their business.  The U.S. Constitution only requires a head
count every ten years.  I imagine Mick figured that anything beyond that
was just being nosey."

"You have a home address on Cass?"  asked Matt.

"He has a place in Coldwater Canyon.  And before you ask, the property
is not in Mick's name." "In one of the columns I read," said Matt, "the
one set in Chayville, Ellison Robb told someone, the sister of the gang
leader, that he was married.  Was Cass married?"

"Yes.  He's married."

Matt raised his eyebrows and held out his hands.  "Okay, are we talking
a man or a woman?"

"A woman," said Fell.  "Tian Apehna."

"She has a Tenctonese name," stated George.

"She's Tenctonese."

"Funny how that worked out," cracked Sikes.  Matt held out his hands.

"Let's get back to her being a woman.  If Micky Cass is married to a
woman, by a process of elimination doesn't that make him a man?"

Everyone found somewhere else to look while the silence in the office
stretched into eternity and Matt Sikes's face acquired a rosy hue.

"So, what're we talking, here?  Lesbian?

Gay?"

"All kinds of irrelevant detail," said Fell, looking up at Matt.  "What
I do know about Mick was that he swung his honesty like a war club, and
that his mortal enemies were stupidity, injustice, and cruelty." "So why
do you call him 'he'?"  asked Grazer.  "You use the male pronoun."

"So did Mick.  It didn't offend him."

"Probably because he's a man," muttered George.

"You're still talking in the past tense, Mr.  Fell," said Matt.

Martin Fell's face flushed again.  "Look, detective, I'm the one who
came in here to report this."  His frown deepened.

"I suppose I'm taking Mick at his word.  He's missed two drops in a row
and something's happened."

Matt shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

"About that irrelevant detail you mentioned, Mr. Fell: sex, race,
religion, and so on.  A lot of people around the world kill and die over
those irrelevant details every day.  If we don't know those things, we
might never find out why this Micky Cass was either nabbed or killed. If
we don't know why, we're never going to find out who, and we don't even
know his real name, or even if he is a he."

"I think there are already plenty of suspects to keep you occupied,"
said Grazer.  "I'm guessing there are only about ten people in the state
that Slag_Like_Me didn't offend, and they're all doing solitary out at
China Lake Federal Pen."  He nodded toward the editor of the Times.
"Now, Mr. Fell here has agreed to turn over all of Ellison Robb's notes,
correspondence, hate mail, schedules, office and home phone logs, and so
on.

Until we know for certain that it's a kidnapping, the F.B.I. is leaving
it in L.A.P.D. hands, although every bureau resource will be made
available, including more agents on an unofficial basis should we ask
for them.  Right now, I'm organizing the task force on this case.

It'll become a federal task force once the bureau makes its
investigation official." "Task force?"  asked George.

"You have a problem with that, Francisco?"

"You're running a task force on the suspicion that something that may or
may not have been a crime might have happened to someone, we're not
really certain who?"

"It was ordered by the chief himself.  If you have any complaints I
suggest you take them to his office."  He nodded toward the F.B.I.
agent.  "I'm bringing in missing persons, the gang units, homicide,
department intelligence, and the sheriff.

While we're setting up, you and Iniko'll wade though the records, chase
down and interrogate the suspects mentioned in the column, with
particular attention to all of the police officers he mentioned.  The
last thing I want is for there to be even a hint that we're running some
kind of department cover up.

If there's some rotten blue out there, you rat him out.  You have zero
tolerance, sympathy and understanding.  Understood?" "Understood," said
George, his expression troubled.

"What about me?"  asked Matt.

"Yeah, Sikes.  About you."  Captain Grazer unwrapped another stick of
chewing gum and folded it into his mouth.

"There's an end of this investigation that's just hanging in the breeze
right now.  I'd sort of like to have you take it on."

"Hanging?  What do you mean, hanging?"

"How would you like to go under cover as a newspaper reporter?  Go
through the same procedures with the same people that this Robb went
through?  Trace his footsteps?"

"Under cover?  How would I like it?"  Sikes frowned and cocked his head
to one side.  "Let me get this straight, cap.

You want me to go through all that surgery that Robb went through, using
the same facilities, and conduct an investigation as a Tenct?"

"A human disguised as a Tenct," Grazer corrected.  "The Newcomers have
their own racial purity nuts, such as the Ahvin_ Rivak, and there might
be a Tenct or two somewhere who freaked about this Micky Cass being
married to a Tenctonese woman."

"Or," added Iniko, "someone might have taken offense at Cass
impersonating a Tenct." "Such as?"  asked Matt.

"Such as me."  Iniko's gaze shifted from Matt to George.

"And others."

George nodded.  "Yes, it offends me.  The whole experiment offends me,
but it doesn't have anything to do with racial purity."

Matt snorted out a laugh.  "So, what is it?"

"What it has to do with, Matt, is getting along."  George faced the
captain.  "There are problems, and no one knows that better than a
Tenct.  However, I never saw anyone change his opinions by having a
finger stuck in his eye.  That's all Slag_ Like_Me does: it sticks
fingers in people's eyes.  It tries to put out brush fires by throwing
gasoline into the flames."  He took a deep breath and let it escape from
his lungs, his voice quieter.  "I'm not up on any barricades waving a
flag, cap.  As with most Tencts, I'm just trying to do my job, raise a
family, and make it in this time and place.  I'm not out to change the
world."

"Micky Cass was out to change the world," said Fell to George.  "He knew
it was impossible, yet all he ever asked for was a fist and room in
which to swing.  That's what his column was to him." "Anyway," said the
captain in an attempt at regaining control of the conversation,
"disguising himself as a Tenct or being married to one might be the
'why' we're looking for, Sikes, and we might not draw out the perp
without the right kind of bait."

"Bait."  Matt gave a nervous look to George then faced the captain.

"The budget crunch is still on, right?"

"Yeah.  What's your point?"

"As I understand it, that surgery and stuff cost a heap of change."
"Close to five hundred thousand dollars," said Martin Fell,
"Nevertheless, the Times will pay for your disguise.

We're anxious to get Micky Cass back safely, and if that's not possible,
to see Micky's abductors punished."

"Anything else?"  asked the captain.

"Yeah," said Matt.  "There's something else."  He moistened his lips and
thrust his hands into his pockets.  "What about wiring me?"

"No wire.  A number of the suspects you might run into know as much
about that kind of gadgetry as we do.  They'd pick it up in a second.

If one of them is it, that might be the end of little Rico.  What you
will have is a tiny video recorder implanted in your head the same as
Cass's.  It's shielded and its emission level is very low.  We can't use
anything they can detect."

"Then how are you going to work my backup?"

"Budget safe and simple, Sikes."  Grazer began unwrapping another piece
of gum.  "There won't be any direct backup.

We'll have you under observation as much as possible, but some of the
time you'll be on your own.  Anything else?"

Matt's face flushed red.  "Yeah, I think I got something else.  This is
asking a hell of a lot, cap.  You hand over my partner to the feds and
stick me with trick or treat?  How did I draw this one?"

Grazer nodded.  "Fair question."  He popped in the fresh piece of gum
and chewed as he asked, "You know Tenctonese, right?"

"A bit," answered Matt.  "I'm told I speak with a Deck Twenty-seven
twang."  He glanced at his partner.

Captain Grazer shrugged and leaned back in his chair as he said to Matt.
"You speak a little Tenct, you know a lot about Tencts because of your
partner and, er, others."

"You mean Cathy?"

"Unh huh.  You going with a Tenct is almost as good as being married to
one for what I've got in mind.  You're perfect."

"I can't speak Tenct well enough to pass myself off as anything more
than a mute."

Grazer rubbed his chin and raised his eyebrows.  "When you come right
down to it, Matt, you job won't be to pass yourself off as a Tenct.

Your job will be to flush out whoever it is who doesn't want human's
climbing into spot suits."

Matt's eyes narrowed as he scratched at his chin.  He held up a hand and
cocked it toward Grazer.  "There's something else here, cap.

Something rotten, and the smell is pointing right at you.  It's
beginning to make my eyes water."

Grazer raised his eyebrows and shrugged again.  "Yeah, I guess you could
say there's something else.  It's not real important to the
investigation though."

"Not real important?"

The captain took the wad of chewing gum out of his mouth and tossed it
into the wastebasket.  Turning back to Sikes he said, "This Robb, or
Cass, has done just about everything possible to put the department's
feet in the fire.  Every other cop out in that squad room hates Ellison
Robb's guts.  You make some noises like you admire the guy." "He's
saying some things that need to be said."  Sikes's eyebrows went up as
understanding flooded his features.  "What you mean is, no one else'll
do it.  No one else'll go under cover as a Tenct to help Robb."

"Yeah.  That's right, Sikes.  Nobody else'll do it.  Most of them don't
give a crap about Ellison Robb.  None of them, though, want to become a
Tenct.  How about it?"

"Ellison Robb gave the department a boo boo, and now the blue frat wants
to see him dead for it?"  Matt faced George and said, "See?

Isn't this exactly what Robb was writing about?"

"Give me an answer," Grazer demanded.

"You can't order me to do something like this."

"That's right.  I can't."  He raised an eyebrow and aimed the eye
beneath it at Matt.  "But if you don't do it, it's not going to be done.
What about it?"

Martin Fell reached into a leather folder.  "The surgery is completely
reversible, sergeant."  He pulled a sheaf of papers out of the folder
and held it out toward Sikes.  "Here are copies of Mick's notes on the
surgery and training.  You're free to examine them.  I'm having the
remainder of his materials brought over, as well."

Matt took the notes, glanced through them, and looked at his partner.

George Francisco's features were crowded with terminal smirk.  Sikes
nodded toward Grazer.  "I'll give you my decision once I've seen the
notes."  Looking back at Francisco, he said, "I wouldn't be too smug if
I were you, George.  If I agree to do this, I only become a Tenct.

Compared to what you're going to be, I'm going to be way up there on the
social scale."

"What do you mean?"

Sikes smirked and polished an imaginary smudge off of his fingernail.

"I've read all of Robb's columns.  A bunch of the suspects in this case
are L.A. cops.  Maybe I'll become a Tenct.

It might not be so bad.  A lot of good people I know are Tencts.

Whatever else happens, though, you and the fed there go down as shoe
flies, which is four steps down the social scale from worm shit."

THREE

"Don't you find the concept of 'shoe fly' interesting?" asked Agent
Iniko.

George Francisco, his back leaning against the interrogation room table
in the new Franklin Avenue sub station, put aside his concerns about
Matt's assignment and snapped, "What's so interesting about it?"

"It's the ultimate absurdity of 'us' and 'them' thinking, Francisco.

The number one complaint among police officers is that no one likes
them.  Everybody hates cops.  Yet the police officers hate their own
police officers; internal affairs.  They call the I.A. officers 'shoe
flies' and make them social outcasts."

"Everyone hates authority, Iniko."

"Not everyone, certainly.  I don't."

"You've never been a slave."

Iniko laughed.  "Overseers were slaves, too."

"Slaves in charge."

"Slaves all the same, which is neither here nor there.

Most police officers haven't been slaves, yet every single one of them
hates I.A."

The door opened and a tower of constipated anger put in its head.

"Francisco and Iniko?" "Yes?"  said George.

"Aw, Jeez," said the intruder as the expression on his face soured.  He
opened the door all the way.  He was a tall uniformed officer in his
late forties, rawboned and blond, his thinning hair cut close to his
scalp.  "Leave it to I.A. to hire a couple of rubberheads."  He shrugged
his lanky frame.  "Hell, maybe it makes sense to slip slags into
Internal Affairs.  You don't lose anything important by going shoe fly.
Everybody already hates your guts." "You must be Officer Davenport,"
said George.  "I'm Sgt. Francisco from homicide, and this is Special
Agent Paul Iniko of the F.B.I. Please come in."

"Homicide?"  Davenport's scowl dissolved into a look of utter confusion.
"F.B.I.?  If you two aren't I.A., then what's up?  What do you want me
for?"

"Come on in and close the door," said Iniko.

"Should I have a lawyer?" "Do you need one?"  asked George.

"No.  I don't need any damned lawyer."  Davenport entered the room, left
the door open, and remained standing as he tossed his cap on the table.
Placing his hands on his hips, he kept both Tencts in view at the same
time.  "Okay.  What's this about?"

George closed the door and turned to face the officer.

"We're investigating the disappearance of Ellison Robb, the column ---"
"Ellison Robb?"  Davenport's face blossomed into smiles.

"Kidnapped?  Killed?  No kidding?  Something happen to that smart
mouthed son of a bitch?"  He pulled out a chair, sat in it, and clasped
his hands behind his head as he leaned back.

"Tell me more; tell me more.  You can call me Rudy."

"We're asking the questions, Rudy," said Iniko.

"I guess I'm a suspect, huh?  What happened to him, the rotten mouthed
little bastard?  Something painful and lingering, I hope."

"Why would you be a suspect, Davenport?"

"Shit."  The officer lowered his hands, and pointed at George.  "You
telling me you don't know what that bad-mouthing little bastard did to
me?"

"You mean mentioning you in his column?"

"Mention me in his column?  Oh, yeah.  That's what I mean.

Let me tell you what life for Rudy Davenport has been like since that
first Slag_Like_Me appeared in the paper.  First thing that happened was
that my captain and me were trotted into the chief's office.  The chief
of police?  Downtown?  I never thought I'd live long enough to meet the
chief of police, and there I was, right in the middle of the man's
carpet, having him ream me a brand new asshole with a post hole digger."
He leaned his elbows on the table and pointed at George.

"Maybe this is something you rubberheads just can't understand.  I got a
family; a wife, and four kids.  We only got the one income.

Because of that column, I was suspended without pay for a month and had
a turd slipped into my jacket down in personnel.  In this age of kiss
the ass of your local alien, you want to know what my chances of
promotion are?  How in the hell am I supposed to pay for my little
girl's braces?  I'm not worried about paying for my kids' college
educations.  I'm busy trying to get god damned food on the table!"

Iniko pulled out the chair opposite Davenport's and sat in it.  "You
make it sound as though it's Ellison Robb's fault that you called him a
slag and tried to slough off his complaint until you found out the perps
were Tencts."

"You believe everything you read in the papers?"

"In his column," asked George, "did Robb describe what transpired at the
hospital accurately?"

Davenport took a deep breath and let it sigh out as he slumped back in
his chair and gave a reluctant shrug.  "As far as he went."

"What was missing?"

"What he didn't write about was what an irritating little son of a bitch
he was."  The officer glanced up at Francisco.

"Look, it was the end of a long day, I had more on my plate than I
really needed, and that bastard's really got a mouth on him.

He really got under my skin."

Iniko smiled.  "What you didn't know, though, was what was under his
skin."

"Look, J. Edgar Rubberhead, I don't care what Robb was under all that
plastic.  He was a bad-mouthing little bastard and he pissed me off.

Besides, the whole thing was out at Mt.

Andarko's, the slag hospital?  The place gives me the creeps.

Nothing in it looks the same as a real hospital."

George bent over and leaned his hands on the edge of the table.

"Where've you been for the last few days, Davenport?"

"What d' you mean?"

"Your record shows you took three sick days ending yesterday."

"What about it?"

"So, where were you?"

"You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out.  I was
sick.  I was at home except when I was at the doctor's office."

"Is there anyone who can verify that?"

Davenport nodded.  "Yeah.  My wife, my kids, four hundred salesmen and
religious nuts, and the doctor."

"What was wrong?"  asked Iniko.

"Wrong?"

"Yes.  Your illness.  What was it?"

Davenport glared at Iniko for a moment then turned away.

"None of your business."

"Was it a police physician?"

"It would have to be," answered George.  "Sick day notes from outside
doctors don't count."

"They still can't give out information like that," insisted Davenport.

"Not legally, they can't."

"What's the doctor's name?

Davenport pointed a shaking finger at George.  "Look, spottop, you go
check with my lieutenant.  What I was told was that everything about me
seeing my doctor was confidential, including the doctor's name."

Iniko pressed his fingertips together and looked over them at Davenport.
"So, what are we talking about here, officer?

Addiction?  AIDS?  The clap?  Nervous breakdown?  Wife battering?

Child molesting?"

Rudy Davenport's face became like stone as he placed his hands on the
edge of the table and pushed himself to his feet.

"I got nothing more to say."  He looked from Iniko to Francisco.

"You have anything more you want to know, you speak to my lieutenant."

"There is just one more question," said Iniko.  "The muggers who
attacked Robb."

"What about them?"

"Were they ever arrested?"

A genuine shrug crossed the man's shoulders.  "I don't know.  I only
filed the report.  Chances are, unless they got heads packed with pine,
they haven't been brought in.  In this town you got to be unlucky as
hell or real dumb to get nailed for mugging; even a rubberhead.

Anything else?"

Iniko looked at Francisco.  "I don't have anything."

George faced Davenport.  "That's all.  Thank you for your cooperation."

"Go fuck yourself, slag," said Officer Davenport, "Don't get me wrong,
now.  I mean that in the nicest possible way."  He stormed out of the
room leaving the door open behind him.

Iniko glanced at Francisco as he rose to his feet.

"Well?"

"A rather disagreeable fellow."  George folded his arms across his chest
and studied the empty doorway.  "We've got the juice from the chief's
office.  You go and question Davenport's superiors and check out the
doctor.  I'll follow up on the muggers.  If they haven't been
apprehended, I'll start on the two L.A.P.D. officers Cass wrote about
who beat him up and dumped him in Chayville."

"Do you think Hong and Kent will be as hostile as brother Davenport?"

"Probably more so.  They were both fired."

Iniko stood and pushed in his chair.  "As I said: interesting concept,
shoe fly."

FOUR

Matt Sikes nibbled at the inside of his lower lip as he sat at his desk
leafing through Micky Cass's notes.  It was all there, scribbled in
Cass's free and open handwriting: steps for becoming a genuine alien
from outer space.  The columnist obviously entrusted nothing to memory.

Every note, every reference, was carefully entered and cross referenced.
Phone logs showed where, when, and with whom he talked.

He had made extensive notes and had done quite competent drawings of the
plastic surgery and modeling done with Realskin, a vat grown biofilm
used primarily for treating burn victims that looked and acted like real
skin.

By backing Realskin with the proper liquid implants, it could be made to
bleed like a Tenct when cut, providing the cut was not too deep.

Human skin could even breathe through it.

It was attached by "welding" it to the original skin, a cellular bonding
that could be dissolved by applying the proper enzyme.

The head, of course, had to be made larger, which allowed a tiny
transceiver recorder to be implanted beneath the skin.

The video feed was provided by two miniaturized cameras, one peering
through a button in his jacket or shirt, the other fixed into the jewel
of his ring.  The cameras were not wired in the usual sense.  Instead
they transmitted their signals to the recorder through the skin.

Providing all of the expensive technical gadgetry worked the way it was
supposed to, everything that had happened within Cass's sight and
hearing must have been recorded.  If all they could do was to recover
the recorder intact, some perp's cakes were on the griddle.  Matt turned
to the notes on the vo, the school where Tenctonese and humans alike
learned to see things for what they are and to accept that it is so.

The training there had been brutal, in a psychological sense.  The
brutality was necessary to overcome that thing that marked a human to a
Tenct: ego.  Matt's gaze flew over the notes as he read that Tencts and
humans both were telepathic, to a degree.  Only a rare few could
actually transmit and receive coherent thoughts, but everyone was
sending and everyone was receiving on some level.  That's why if you
stare at the back of someone's neck for a period, the owner of the neck
will feel uneasy and turn around to see who is looking at him.

To a Newcomer, a human "felt" obviously different from a Tenct.  It
wasn't a difference between the thinking mechanisms; it was a difference
between the thoughts.  Most Tencts, both Overseers and their former
charges, were oriented around a "we" identity.  Most humans were
oriented around an "I" identity.  It made for different vibes.

"The Tenct is trained from birth," wrote Cass, "to regard himself as
part of a greater machine: the Tencts.  How do I fit in?  How am I
affecting the whole?  How are the others regarding me?  Humans, if
trained at all, think in smaller units: sex, color, religion, party,
nation, region, city, neighborhood, industry, guild, army, club, gang,
family, status, our 'circle,' and the smallest unit of all: I, me, my.

Each Tenct is taught to be an indistinguishable droplet in a smooth
flowing communal stream.  When I took my walk on Hollywood Boulevard I
went and took the boulder of Micky Cass's ego, dropped it into the
water, and wondered why the Tencts saw ripples."

Matt pushed the notes aside, put his feet on his desk, and tore the
wrapper off a Milky Way.  He paused and studied the candy bar.  For the
same reason that alcohol had no effect on Tencts, neither did sugar.

After all, sugar is alcohol's granular form.  A Newcomer who continually
stuffed candy bars into his face would stick out like an oompah band at
a rock concert.  Actually, he'd stick out like a human popping rancid
cheese cubes or tossing back a six pack of Coor's carbonated sour milk.
If Matt was to disguise himself as a Tenct, that would be the end of
candy bars for awhile.  He'd pass on the sour milk, though.  He knew
Tencts who abstained and no one appeared to be bothered by it.

He frowned as something occurred to him.  To go undercover as a
Newcomer, would he have to eat that crap?  Weasel jerky, beaver burgers,
squirrel nuggets, Roach Toasties, rotten cheese doodles?  Some of the
stuff Cathy ate was really gross.

Broccoli.  Cream of Wheat.  Lipton Tea.  Moxie.  Squash.

Mounds.  Although there was no appeal in sugar, most Tenct's loved
coconut.  Matt Sikes would just as soon suck on a dead rat as eat a
Mounds.

Looking around the squad room, Matt studied the Tenctonese officers,
staffers, and the two Tenct suspects who had been brought in on the
sweep to find the Soto St. Slag Slasher.  All of them --- cops,
custodians, clerks, and crooks --- had enough thinking in common that
most of them could recognize an impostor, unless the impostor had
plastic surgery and special mental training.

He turned his head and looked over at Dobbs.  Sgt. Dobbs was manning his
desk by himself again, his new partner, Jerry Kirk, once more having
found an excuse to be elsewhere.  Matt knew the purpose of that
perpetual "elsewhere."  It said to the fraternity, "Hey, it's not my
fault my partner's black.  I'm changing it as soon as I can.  The papers
are already in."

Matt nodded to himself.  The rule was still there: isolate the
newcomers, and the newcomers in question weren't only Tencts.  They were
"non-whites" and female officers, as well, even though the "whites" were
no longer a majority.  He remembered how he had been ostracized for
volunteering to partner up with the first Tenctonese detective in the
department.  He hadn't paid any attention to that.

Pairing up with Francisco had been his best chance to be assigned to
hunt down and kill the slag bastards who had slain his old partner,
Tugg.

Sikes frowned as he thought back to when he and Bill Tuggle had been
paired up a thousand years ago.  Tugg was blue all the way through, but
to the fraternity, he was "black."

Okay, useful in certain neighborhoods, necessary to keep the equal
opportunity pogues in line, but not to be taken into the inner circle,
not to be trusted.  Those were the days when it was still necessary for
a "white" probationer to pound the shit out of an occasional "black"
suspect or perp just to prove to his training officer and the frat at
large that he was not afraid of "them" and was, therefore, eligible to
become a part of the thin blue "us."

Matt had been paired with a "black," and they worked the job together,
ate at each other's homes, went to ball games, treated each other like
humans.  Hence, Matt Sikes was not trustworthy either.

The '92 riots, the Christopher Commission, Willie Williams, and a heavy
influx of female, Tenct, and other minority recruits notwithstanding,
the frat was still running things.  You could still hear the pause and
shift in conversation in the locker rooms when a "non-frat" officer of
any stripe entered.  Female, other-colored, other named, other
religioned, especially Tenct.  It was an issue from the past that had
never left.  Matt wondered if it ever could.

Dobb's new partner wanted to belong.  Not a terrible thing in itself.

Belonging always seemed to have an artificially high price, though.

Jerry Kirk seemed to think the price was worth it.  Matt had belonged
with Bill Tuggle.  Tugg was dead, his chest blown all over the street.

Matt now belonged with George Francisco.  George was off shoe flying
with the fed.  Matt looked again at Dobbs.  He was seated with a
uniformed officer and a gang banger.

There was a wealth of body language going on over at Dobb's desk.  The
gang banger appeared quite relaxed between Dobbs and the uniformed
officer.  Dobbs was in a serene groove, too.  The uniform, on the other
hand, looked just a little uncomfortable.

Us and them, thought Matt.  There were color divisions, occupational
divisions, and divisions by age, status, and dress over at Dobb's desk.

At that moment the division by perceived color seemed to be stronger
than that by occupation.  The uniformed officer, second generation
Irish-American, was the odd man out until another uniformed officer
arrived.  The second uniform, an umpteenth generation Afro-American,
slapped the other uniform on the back, and suddenly the bonds dissolved
and reformed along occupational lines.

In the space of half a second it went from two "blacks" against a
"white" to three "blues" against a banger; three "goods" against a
"bad."  Loyalties, manners, objectives, all changed and none of the
officers or their suspect seemed to have noticed.  They were all still
arguing about why the gang banger was where he had been when he had been
there.  Matt turned back to the notes.

"How does one crush an ego?"  Cass had written.  "Even social,
political, and ethnic groups who traditionally place nation, family, or
church before self have too much 'I' to fit in among the Tencts
undetected.  A human individual who defers to his family in a family
oriented culture does so for reasons of self interest.  The 'I' is still
uppermost.  The 'I': what does it take to submerge it?  For some humans,
though, it is already submerged --- crippled --- sufficiently that on a
level of feelings the human is indistinguishable from the Tenct.

Years ago, I had been like that myself.  It was the only way I managed
to survive."

"Your head is smoking."

Matt looked up and saw George standing before his side of the desk
looking back.  "Hi.  Where's the F.B.I.?"

"He's checking out Davenport's alibi.  Are you still coming over for
dinner this evening?"

"Sure," he said as he smacked his lips and patted his belly.  "Mmmm mmm!
Badger Wellington, parsnip chips, and snail dip."

George laughed and pointed at Cass's notes.  "Make up your mind yet?"

Matt shrugged as his face grew serious.  "I'm three-quarters of the way
there.  What've you been up to?"

Rubbing the back of his neck, George shook his head as he answered.  "I
just finished interviewing two very hostile former police officers."

"The thumpers?  Kent and Hong?"

"Yes."

Matt placed his feet on the floor and sat forward.  "I thought they were
just on suspension."

"They were.  After the Slag_Like_Me column concerning them appeared, the
chief ordered both officers put on suspension.

The investigation showed Ellison Robb's column to have been accurate and
the chief pulled both their badges.  It should be in the morning
papers."

"Ouch."

"Ouch indeed."  George sighed and nodded.  "Kent had eleven years and
Hong was three years short of his twenty.

They're both married and both have children."

"What about the Robb disappearance?  They both have alibis?"

George pulled out his chair and dropped into it, shrugging slightly as
he did so.  "They can't account for every minute of the past three days
with witnesses, but neither can I."  George closed his eyes.  "Between
those two --- Hong and Kent --- they have seven citations for bravery.

They are --- were --- two very valuable police officers."

Matt shook his head.  "What they did put them on the other side of the
line, buddy.  It's tough, I understand why they did what they did;
better than you could, in fact.  But the line is there for a reason.

It's broken, thin, and faded here and there, but without it you can't
tell the good guys from the bad guys.  When you can't see anything but
bad guys, this town has a tendency to go up in flames."

"In the words of a partner of mine, sometimes this job sucks."

"George, I take it you're not exactly ready to transfer to Internal
Affairs."

"The job would be a lot easier if the bad guys were bad all the way
through, all of the time."  George faced Matt.  "Call it a hunch or a
gut feeling, but I don't think either Davenport, Hong, or Kent had
anything to do with Micky Cass's disappearance."

Matt tossed the notes onto his desk and held out his hands.  "They have
possible opportunity and are soaking wet with motive.  Check it out,
partner.  That gut you're measuring everything against just might be
true blue."

George shrugged.  "You're right about one thing, though.

They have plenty of motive.  Too much motive.  You should've seen
Davenport when we told him something might've happened to Ellison Robb.

He did everything but clap his hands, swing from the light fixture, and
squeal with glee.  Come to think of it, he did squeal with glee.

Kent did the same thing.  When I told Mike Hong, I thought he was going
to give me a hug."

"You figure the real perp would be less free with his feelings?"

"Wouldn't you?"

"Yeah, unless I was a cop and knew it would throw you off.  Anyway, you
have to check every corner.  The front office is real touchy about
looking like it's covering up for suspect cops.  Them you have to prove
innocent."  Sikes nodded toward Interrogation Room One.  "They brought
over Micky Cass's notes and all his mail a couple hours ago.  Grazer's
already got a team sorting the letters."  Matt glanced around the room
and lowered his voice as he continued.  "There are some leads in there
pointing to an F.B.I. connection."

"Oh?"

Matt nodded.  "Some kind of link between the bureau and the Ahvin_Rivak.
You've heard of them?"

"Those Who Would Return," translated George.  "Do you know that most of
the membership of the Rivak aren't even Overseers?

It's hard to believe that there is an organization that devotes its time
and money attempting to plunge its membership back into slavery.

What connection would it have with the bureau?"

"I'm not sure it even amounts to anything, George.  It was just
something Grazer said.  The only reason I said something was so you can
watch your back."

"Watch my back?"

"Iniko.  The F.B.I. man?  Former Overseer?  Your new partner?  You
usually aren't this slow, buddy."

George frowned as he rubbed his chin.  "The F.B.I.," he muttered.  "Who
isn't a suspect?"

"I'm not," answered Matt, "but I'm not so sure about you.

You've had some rather rough things to say about our possible victim,
whoever he or she might be."

Francisco reached across the desk and pointed at the papers on Sikes's
desk.  "What about this
Be-the-first-kid-on-your-block-to-be-an-alien-space-freak kit?

Are you going to do it?"

Matt thought a second and nodded.  "I'm going to do it."

"Have you talked to Cathy about it?"

"No."  Matt's eyebrows raised.  "Why would I?  This is a police matter."

"I'd talk to Cathy about it."

"George, it doesn't have anything to do with her.  I'll still be me.

It's just going under cover."

"I'd talk to Cathy about it."

Matt's eyebrows came down.  "She doesn't consult with me about every new
research project her lab's assigned."

"I'd talk to Cathy about it."

"Okay."  Matt shrugged and folded his arms across his chest.  "I'll talk
to Cathy about it."

"Well, I see we have now achieved peace in our time," said Dobbs as he
ambled over to the pair.  The two uniformed officers were leading the
gang banger toward the stairs.  Dobbs cocked his head toward the three
and added, "It doesn't look like either Jimmy Do or the Black Rain is
going anywhere.  I guess we can count on the Soto St. Slag Slasher
getting another one tonight."

Matt saw Francisco's eyebrows drop slightly into a frown.

"What is it, George?  Did you think of something?"

Francisco looked up at Dobbs and nodded.  "Yes.  I guess I have thought
of something.  You know that case out of Newton St.  Division?"

"The Snatch?"

George nodded.  "Yes.  That's the one."  He faced Matt, his eyes black
with anger.  "Some sicko over at Newton Street has been kidnapping,
sexually molesting, and killing homeless women."

"I looked into it," said Dobbs, "and I don't think there's any
connection.  The Snatch only goes after blacks.  There's a population of
Newcomers in the same area, so if he wanted to cut 'em up, he could do
it on Newton.  Why do you think there's a connection?"

George slowly shook his head.  "I don't think there's any connection at
all."

Dobbs held out his hands.  "Then, I don't get it, George.

Why'd you bring it up?"

Matt could see that George was surface super calm, which was the warning
sign for a major eruption in the making.

"Dobbs, you know how your group dubbed the knife artist on Soto who
kills Tencts the Soto St.  Slag Slasher?"

Dobbs lowered his hands, frowned, and shrugged.  "Yeah.

What about it?"

George folded his arms and leaned back in his chair.  "I was just
wondering why they called the perp on Newton the Snatch instead of
something more catchy, such as the Newton St.  Nigger Nicker."

Matt saw Dobbs's jaw drop at the same time as he felt his own hit his
chest.  "George?"

Dobbs, his face locked between confusion and rage, held up his hand
toward Matt.  "Look, Francisco, you've been here long enough to know
what a fighting word is.  And what a fighting word that fighting word
is."

George shrugged and raised his eyebrows.  "I see my suggestion has not
been enthusiastically received.  Well, it doesn't have the same
alliterative quality that Soto St. Slag Slasher or Newton Nigger Nicker,
but I'd be perfectly willing to settle for Jigaboo Jumper or Coon
Croaker ---" Dobbs took a step forward, his fists raised, and George
stood to face him.  "It's not the same thing!"  Dobbs growled through
clenched teeth.

"It is the same thing!"  George growled back.  "And I've been here long
enough for you to know that!"

The two detectives glared at each other for a moment, then Dobbs pivoted
and stormed back to his desk as George turned and headed toward the
stairs.  Matt looked at the notes on his desk, confused because he felt
like he wanted to cry very old tears.

Matt Sikes was going to do it: go under cover as a Tenct.

He knew that.  He had just realized, though, that he had no clue as to
what he was getting into.  Whatever it was, he suspected it was much
bigger, more vicious, and a hundred times more senseless than anything
he had ever experienced before.

________________________________________________________________ ELLISON
ROBB 
Slag Like Me A POLICEMAN'S LOT

#

She isn't the villain, so let's just call her Suzie.  It was at the
newly remodeled and dedicated Bradley Elementary School on 7th Street in
L.A. I was passing by and Suzie was curled up inside the fence, crying.
She was wearing a bright yellow cotton dress that was covered with grass
stains and pale pink blots I recognized as Tenct blood.  She had a
bloody nose and a bad scrape on her elbow.  In Tenctonese I asked her,
"What's wrong?  What happened?"

She turned her head, looked up at me, and shook her head.

She didn't understand Tenctonese.  Ah, the old ways pass so quickly.  I
repeated my questions in English.  She answered, and the answer was
predictable.  She was one of sixteen Tenctonese children in the school,
and the only Tenct in her class.

Three of her schoolmates, in a step toward racial purity and to urge her
to help improve the grade point curve (Suzie is a 4.0 student), beat her
up during recess and left her there.  Again.

They do this to her on an average of three times per week.

Since they are the products of their homes, peers, and upbringings
rather than villains, let's call her classmates Biff, Rosco, and Lola.

You could tell that Suzie had been warned by her parents against talking
to strangers, and that's sound advice for children in the weirdo-sicko
capital of the world.  However, when the teachers are too busy doing
paperwork or taking their breaks, and her classmates are punching the
snot out of her, and her parents can't do anything but tell her to try
harder to "fit in," to whom is little Suzie supposed to talk?  Is it any
wonder that a kid eventually breaks down and talks to the next kind
voice he or she hears?  Do you really want to know why so many children
are missing, or why addiction, suicide and murder among preteens keeps
climbing?

There is a whole universe of ignorance, pain, suffering, and humiliation
behind those schoolhouse walls, and behind the walls of every school in
the city and across the face of the planet.  I had neither the time nor
the ability to lift up the edge on this particular scab.  Modern
cosmetic surgery notwithstanding, I am considerably past the time when I
can impersonate a sixth grader.  Moreover, just about that time an
L.A.P.D. black-and-white pulled up behind me (you remember: "To serve
and protect") and two officers got out, slipping their batons into their
belts.

Does anyone know why everyone else in the world calls them nightsticks,
cudgels, billy clubs, bludgeons, truncheons, yea even war clubs, but the
L.A.P.D. insists on calling them batons?

I suppose it's an attempt at evoking the image of a sixteen year old
twirler leading the Pimple Park Flag Corps during a high school halftime
show.  An object is not what it is; it's what we call it.

Anyway, the cops told Suzie to scat back to class, they upped me against
the fence, and while Harry ground my face into the chain link, Waldo
cuffed my hands behind me.  In a second I was in the back of the
black-and-white while Waldo climbed in next to me to explain some of the
burdens of the judicial system in the city and county of Los Angeles.

L.A. and its environs are awash with perverts, dealers, gang bangers,
killers, and scum of every stripe and description.

For every one that is arrested, the system can't even see fifteen.  Of
those who are arrested, maybe one out of eight actually goes to trial.

Of those who go to trial, maybe one out of four is actually found guilty
of something.  And of those found guilty, maybe one out of seven
actually gets to serve some time.  There's not much time to serve, in
addition, because the penalties are too light and the jails too crowded.

The officer would've had my wholehearted agreement, except for him
punctuating his allocution every clause by thrusting the end of his
baton into my gut and thwacking my underarms.  It took my entire
concentration to produce the appropriate reactions.  The thwack under
the arm is the Tenct answer to getting kicked in the groin, you see.

Curious, isn't it?  That is the only fact about Tencts that every human
seems to know.

When I had been beaten almost senseless, the unit rolled for awhile,
then the black-and-white pulled over, I was dumped out of the cruiser
into a gutter, and advised to go forth and sin no more.  Waldo reclaimed
the passenger seat, and the black-and-white drove off, carrying its pair
of blue knights forth to do battle once more with the powers of
multicolored darkness and evil.

Two members of the Nightshade, a Chayville Tenct gang, picked me out of
the gutter and took me to the home of a gang member's mother where I was
cleaned up and a doctor called.

Under normal circumstances, a member of the Nightshade would as soon
kill you or rob you as notice your existence.  Perhaps that is what
Waldo and Harry were counting on by dumping me on Eagle Street.  Tencts
killing Tencts and who cares?

Curiously enough, they couldn't have picked a better place or mode of
transportation.  By punching the poo out of me and jettisoning me in
L.A. on Nightshade turf, Waldo and Harry ("them") made me part of the
Nightshade "us."  Better credentials simply were not to be had.

I called the officers Harry and Waldo because they aren't villains,
either.  They didn't see a constitutionally protected being exercising
his right to free speech on a public right-of-way.  In the midst of
riots, murders, gang rapes, arsons, kidnappings, robberies, spouse
batterings, child molestings, and a city rotting to death from addiction
(and that's right, Goober, alcohol is a drug), Harry and Waldo simply
couldn't take the time out from all their paperwork, court appearances,
riding the streets, stake outs, union meetings, and risking their lives
to dispose of a suspected Tenct child molester by the book.

No villains.

People, that was the lesson of the '92 riots: dozens dead and there are
no villains; only victims.  And, Goober, if you buy that, I've got a
trunk full of "Daryl Gates for Mayor" bumper stickers you won't be able
to pass up.

As part of my training for this project, I spent some time learning what
I was able in a school called a rama_vo, which is Tenctonese for Garden
of Wisdom.  The vo is an association of men and women, mostly elderly,
who meet to pass on their wisdom to those who are teachable.

The Elders, both human and Tenct, have a view of the world forged by
understanding that wisdom is seeing things for what they are and
accepting that it is so.  I picked up a few things there.  Such as:

Rule #1.  Acts have consequences.

Rule #2.  Those who act are responsible for the consequences of their
acts (either that, or they should be locked up and put away in a high
security institution until such time as they are responsible).

Rule #3.  No one's tale of prestige, power, influence, legal exemption,
poverty, injury, or woe invalidates either Rule #1 or Rule #2.

Hence, despite disadvantaged upbringings, alcoholic homes, fears of the
strange and unknown, and mostly because it serves some universal sick
need to torture the odd person out, here are the names of the gang
members who beat up little Suzie almost every school day: Bradley Sixth
graders Ricky Gallegos and Anita Wicker, and seventh grader Randy Cook.

In addition, despite disadvantaged upbringings, alcoholic homes, fears
of the strange and unknown, and a really lousy slice of life's
occupational pie, here are the names of the gang members who beat me up
and dumped me in the gutter like a bag of garbage: Officer Michael Hong,
Badge 27127, and Officer Jason Kent, Badge 26871, L.A.P.D. (Notice to
lawyers: pant though you will at the possible libel litigation this
column might represent, be advised that everything described herein is
on video tape and has been thoroughly documented and witnessed.  Ta ta.)

^^^

FIVE That night Matt looked into his bathroom mirror and studied the
features one local news broadcaster had once referred to as "early
world-weary infant."  Maybe the cheeks were too chubby, the eyes too
open, the effect a little too cute.  Perhaps there were crow's feet and
a semipermanent scowl.

A little scar here and there; keepsakes of a dozen years chasing down
the bad guys while trying to stay out from under bureaucrats, pogues,
and paper wizards.  It was his face, though, and although he didn't
particularly like it, he was used to it.  He touched his brow and drew
the fingers of his right hand down the line of his chin.

What would that face look like as a Tenct?  His eyebrows went up.  "The
question is," he said to the image in the looking glass, "what will
everyone else's face look like once this face looks like a Tenct?"

That was the question.  Every gaze that touched him, whether Tenct or
human, would convey to the one doing the gazing, certain things
--certain false things --- simply because of how Matt looked.  If the
observer were human, it would be assumed that Matt Sikes was gullible,
although unfairly intelligent and physically strong.  Sexually he would
be regarded as being equipped with a dream machine and no idea how to
use it.  Of course he would also have to have a stupid, degrading
immigration name.

Dick Short.

Jay Byrd.

Cookie Baker.

Tim Barr.

Cole Frost.

Tipper Kanu.

Peter Jerkmeov.

If the observer were Tenct, however, what?

Matt frowned as he admitted to himself that he had absolutely no idea
how a Tenct would look upon another Tenct.

Fellow former slave?  The Tencts could all count on having certain
things in common.  A certain humility.  A certain camaraderie, like
soldiers who've shared combat.  Cons who've done the same bad time in
the same bad place.  A common rage.

To impersonate a Tenct would take a world of gall to keep from feeling
like the worst kind of fraud.  Matt's time paired up with George had
convinced him that, except for a few bizarre interludes, Tencts think
the same way humans think.  But even humans don't all think alike.  He
seemed insane to himself at times.  How could he judge the mental
machinery of another human, much less a Tenct?

He thought back to the scene in the squad room that afternoon between
Dobbs, the gang banger, and the uniformed cop.

Matt had an idea how "whites" generalized about "blacks," but how do
"blacks" generalize about other "blacks?"  He smiled as he realized that
even in his thoughts he placed quotes around certain racial labels
indicating that they really don't refer to anything real.  That had to
do with Buck Francisco and his experiences attending a rama_vo for the
past year.  Buck was smart; frighteningly so, to Matt.  It was as though
life was an insane game Matt had been born into and no one had been
issued a rule book.  Somehow young Buck seemed to have acquired a copy.

There was something George's son, Buck, had said that evening when Matt
was at his partner's home for dinner.  As around most dinner tables in
Southern California that night, there was a fight over Ellison Robb and
his column.  The Francisco's daughter, Emily, had been complaining
angrily about related racist incidents that had happened to her at
school, Emily's mother Susan Francisco was attempting to "understand"
them all away, and George was staunchly deploring both racism and
Ellison Robb's methods.  The youngest Francisco, Vessna, had been crying
loudly in reaction to the tension around the table, yet Buck was calmly
eating his dinner.

"Buck," said his father, attempting to enlist support for his side,
"don't you agree that Robb's childish refusal to reveal anything about
himself is at the least provocative if not inflammatory?  Not only that,
it borders on being fraudulent.

Isn't he denying what he is by keeping this information from the
readers?"

"No, Dad.  I disagree."

"What?"  The look on George's face at that moment reminded Matt of his
own father's face the day he told the brutal alcoholic he intended to
become a police officer.  Although many years later he had gone on to
join the L.A.P.D., the ten year old Matt had been cowed into silence by
his father's wrath.

Buck, however, seemed to believe that he could disagree with his parents
without betraying them or starting a world war.  Radical stuff.

Buck put down his fork, wiped his mouth with his napkin, and gathered a
thought or two.  "I disagree, Dad.  Ellison Robb isn't denying what he
is.  He's attempting to prevent what he is from being sabotaged and
submerged by what some others might choose him to be if he revealed
these things about himself."

That brought silence to the table.  George leaned back in his chair, a
frown on his face, a defensive edge in his voice.

"I'm not choosing him to be anything.  In fact I want to know who he is.
At least if he's a he.  Is that unreasonable?"

Buck smiled as he shrugged.  "I don't know what 'reasonable' or
'unreasonable' mean, Dad.  What I do know is male or female is just sex;
some plumbing and hormones along with some arbitrarily assigned roles
and assumed attitudes.

Male or female isn't who or what Ellison Robb is.  Robb doesn't want to
reveal his sex because then his column would forever after be regarded
as having either a female or male slant." "Isn't that valid?"  asked
Susan.

"I don't think Ellison Robb thinks so.  The only slant he wants his
column to be perceived as having is an Ellison Robb slant.  It's the
thing that's at the core of why he's doing what he's doing in
Slag_Like_Me."

Matt frowned as he leaned across the table.  "This is the stuff they've
been teaching you at the rama_vo?"

"All they teach at the vo, Matt, is how to see things for what they are
and accept that it is so.  It's what things are perceived as being that
Robb is shaking up."  He looked at his father.  "Some Christians, for
example, wear their emblems in full view because they wish to be
identified with that belief.

It's a uniform that says 'This is what I am,' although the real meaning
of it is 'This is what I believe,' or perhaps 'This is what I want you
to believe that I believe."  Perhaps it just means 'I belong."  It's the
same with any political, religious, or cultural uniform.  In most cases,
as with a cross, a yarmulke, a turban, colors, a swastika, long hair, a
badge, or a suit and tie, they're things with which the individual
chooses to adorn himself to identify with a particular group, idea,
obligation, or belief." "I don't get it," said Matt.  "It's not like you
can see him wearing a cross in his column."

"You could if he revealed the information," said Susan.

"Would that change how you read the column?"

"I don't think so," Matt answered.  He frowned and pondered for a
moment.  Then he nodded.  "Okay, it would if I found out he was a
shove-it-down-your-throat Jesus jammer or a Moonie."

"Or a Celinist," quipped Emily.

He thought for a long moment and then nodded slowly.

"Yeah.  Okay.  It would color how I read his words."

Buck leaned back in his chair and frowned as he searched for some
phrases.  "Matt, there are other things, things that are taken as
outside emblems, that are not generally considered matters of choice."

"Such as?"

"Well, except for the application of some fairly extreme measures, there
is little choice regarding ones species, sex, height, eye shape, skin
color, nose shape, and so on.  Yet most persons, when they see a bald
spotted head, a large pair of mammary glands, almond shaped eyes, or a
dark brown skin color, accredit to the individual reams of prefabricated
beliefs, values, intentions, capabilities, and deficiencies that may or
may not have anything whatever to do with that individual.

Remember the Latvian black gay midget bikers Robb wrote about as a
tongue-in-cheek example of a narrow agenda?  The point is that there are
many who believe that, if they are not Latvian, black, gay, midget, or a
biker, they can legitimately pass off as weird, strange, different,
slanted, or generally untrue whatever uncomfortable thing that might be
said by a Latvian black gay midget biker."

Susan nodded and faced George.  "It's true, dear.  If Ellison Robb
revealed herself to be female, many men and many women would pass off
what she said as fuzzy headed, impractical, unrealistic, rabid, or
foolish; the whacko feminist slant; PMS with a vote.  A good many of
them would, too."

"If he's a grown up," interjected Emily, "the kids wouldn't have to pay
any attention because he's petrified and from yesterday.  And if he's a
kid, none of the grown-ups would listen because they think he's stupid."
"You're a kid," said Matt.  "I don't think you're stupid.."

Emily's eyes yellowed slightly from embarrassment.  "Oh, okay.  But you
know a lot of grown-ups wouldn't pay any attention to anything a kid
says, and that's the truth."  She looked at her mother.  "How many times
have you said to me, 'You'll grow out of that,' when you don't want to
take what I feel seriously.  You say it to Dad, too.  'She's young.
She'll outgrow that."  'She's going through a phase."" She faced her
father.  "I bet if you learned that Ellison Robb is twelve or fifteen
years old, you'd be saying the same thing about him.  I think it's a way
of throwing away what he has to say without dealing with it." "I think
she's right," said Buck.

George looked from Buck to his daughter and studied her for a moment.

He closed his eyes and nodded.  "You're right, Emily.  You're absolutely
right."

In his room later that night, Matt tugged at the problem:

Who is a person?

What is an individual?

What is true courage?

George had once told Matt about the Krakor, the mythological Tenctonese
Godzilla, half devil, half dragon, the eternal monster.  Somehow, in a
past no one could remember, the legend began among slave mothers to
frighten their children away from the ship's power decks, which were
thought to be dangerous.

The Krakor walks, the beast flies, there's no stopping it if you set
foot in its forbidden land.  Someway Matt Sikes felt as though he were
entering the beast's lair.

Matt pulled his mind back to the present and frowned as he heard a key
rattling in the lock.  The sound was followed by Cathy's voice. "Matt?

I'm home."

He turned away from the mirror and stood in the bedroom's doorway.

Cathy was closing the door to the apartment, and for just a moment her
spotted baldness --- her alienness --- jarred him.  He knew a great deal
about the person beyond the physical form, or once thought he did.

But all one ever knows about another is from what the person says and
does, and everyone, Tenct and human both, can lie and trick, and from
the best of motives.  At the top of the list of noble motives was true
love, despite the truth that true love cannot survive a lie, which means
I'm in big trouble, thought Matt.  He hardly ever let anyone know how he
really felt about anything.

Cathy turned from the door and saw Matt.  Her full lips broke
immediately into a smile that immediately faded as she caught the
expression on his face.  "Are you all right?"

"Fine," Matt answered.

"Fine," she repeated.  "Does fine still stand for 'Frustrated, Insane,
Neurotic, and Emotional'?"

"What're you talking about?"

"That time you came back from that Adult Children of Alcoholics meeting.
You heard someone there say that 'fine' in response to the question 'How
are you?"  means 'Frustrated, Insane, Neurotic, and Emotional."  In
other words, 'I don't want to talk about it."" "Look, Cath, all it means
to me is that I'm doing fine; okay; marvy; hunky dory."

"Maybe you should tell your face."

Matt's face crashed into a glower.  "What're you talking about?"

She dropped her purse on the couch and crossed the living room floor.

When she was in front of Matt, she put one arm around his neck and
touched his face with her other hand.  "You look like you've just lost
your best friend."

"My best friend?"

She placed a tiny kiss on his lips and smiled.  "Tell me what's
bothering you, darling.  I can't fix it 'til I know what's broken."

He placed his hands on her waist and drew her toward him as he looked
into her eyes.  The skin of her face was very smooth and pale, her ear
folds little more than bumps on the sides of her head.  But what was
that thing that made her "feel" different to him?  What was the thing in
him that would make him "feel" different to a Tenct?  Her eyes were
captivating.

Strange eyes.  Were they a touch Asian?  Or were they just a touch
alien?

"Well, now I know," she stated.

"Know?  Know what?"

"Now I know what it feels like to be a bug under a microscope."

"Sorry, Cath.  It's this new under cover assignment.  It looks as though
something might have happened to Ellison Robb."

Cathy's eyebrows went up as her mouth fell open in shock.

"The columnist?  Slag_Like_Me?"

Matt nodded.  "That's the one, except Ellison Robb is a pseudonym.  His
name's Micky Cass.  About something happening to him, remember I just
said might.  Nothing's for sure yet.  He seems to have missed a couple
of appointments and that's all we know right now.  We're taking every
precaution, though, just in case."

She held him at arm's length and looked into his eyes.

"In case?  Just in case of what?  What does this have to do with you?

What kind of under cover assignment?"  He couldn't meet her gaze.

"This must really be good," she cracked.

Matt shrugged his shoulders slightly.  "Oh, it's good.

Grazer wants me to follow Cass's footsteps through the entire process of
becoming a Tenct in case some Tenct purist whacko out there took offense
---" "Bait," she said, her voice flat, her expression angry.

"Yeah," Matt answered, nodding his head.  "Now that you put it that way,
that's a good way to put it."  He elevated his gaze until he was looking
into her eyes.  "I don't think it's anything to worry about.

Micky Cass is famous enough to have enemies.  I'm Elmer Q. Cop Nobody
from Craphead, CA."

"For not having anything to worry about, you certainly look worried to
me."

Matt scratched the back of his neck, still unable to meet her gaze.

"Well, it's going to involve a little bit of plastic surgery."

"A little bit?"  One of Cathy's eyebrows went up.  "To turn a human into
a Tenct?  A little bit?"

"Okay.  Quite a bit.  But it's all reversible.  I'll still be the same
jerk everybody ignores and hates when the job's done."

"Then what's the problem?"

Again he found it unbearable to look into her eyes.  He focused instead
on a cobweb in the corner of the ceiling that neither of them had found
the time to remove.  "I may be that way for a number of days."

"That way?"

"Looking like a Tenct.  Here at home.  Together, you and me, in bed, in
the shower.  It's not like a Halloween costume.

I've got to wear it until the doctors take it off.  Is that going to
change things?  I mean, between us?  If I look worried, I think that's
what I'm worried about."

"Mmmm," she hummed, "kinky.  It just might change things.

Kind of like the time you wanted me to wear that lace postage stamp from
Victoria's Secret."  She grabbed him around the buttocks and squeezed.
"I don't care what they do to the rest, but they'd best keep their hands
off your cute little tush.

That's mine."

"I'm serious, Cathy.  Is me changing going to change things between us?"

For a moment a look of pity crossed Cathy's face to be replaced
immediately by one of compassion as she put her arms around his neck and
drew him close to her.  "I know you don't believe this, Matt, but you
aren't what you look like or what others think about you.  You are you."

"That's what I was afraid of," said Matt.  "So the undercover assignment
doesn't bother you?"

She pulled her head back and looked into his eyes.

"Police work bothers me, Matt."  She buried her face into his neck.

"But this isn't any worse than half a dozen other under cover jobs
you've been given.  You'll have back up, others there to help."

"Yes," he lied as he glanced up at the cobweb, his mind's eye imagining
a tiny fleck of protoplasm climbing into the Krakor's mouth.  "Someone
to watch over me."

SIX Dobbs leaned against the sink and closed his eyes.  Words, regrets,
and a curse on a planet's science that could not come up with a
practical time machine to aid the verbally impulsive to take back what
they had said.  The past is the past, however, and living in it and in
the land of "what if" is the core of the sickness.  Hence, empty the
head.  Wipe that slate; focus on the present moment.

Taking out the mental garbage.  That was always the first task of any
day, if it was to be a bearable day.  Lesson one from the cop shrink.

Detective Sergeant Richard Dobbs was still on lesson one.

Many days weren't bearable.  Dobbs could always trace the cause of the
disaster to failing to take out the head trash.  He never would've
listened to the police shrink if that's all the guy had been.  But the
therapist had once carried the tin, and so Dobbs had listened.

He looked at his half shaved image in the bathroom mirror.

His eyes were hooded, the jaw set, the face a wall built to hide himself
from the world.  "Rick," he said to himself, "your head is full of
shit."

He closed his eyes as he whispered the words the cop shrink had put on
him after his partner had been killed the year before.  "You can't
function, you can't even survive, if you live in a constant state of
rage, guilt, and shame.  The consequence of cutting yourself off from
those feelings, however, is you wind up being unfeeling and
insensitive."

He felt the heat fill his face.  He couldn't make up his mind where the
heat came from: his rage over Francisco's Newton St. Nigger Nabber or
his own guilt and embarrassment over his use of the term Soto St. Slag
Slasher.  "Both," he whispered to himself, "Both."

There was more.

It wasn't so much that using the label had angered George.

It was that Dobbs couldn't see that it would hurt him.  It had never
crossed his mind.  As he picked up his razor and scraped at his face, he
remembered something his father had told him.

It had been about the utter astonishment of some of the "white" people
in his home town of Waynesboro, Virginia to learn back in the 'Sixties
that the "coloreds" in the town objected to the term "nigger."

When he had first heard the story, little Ricky had been eight years
old.  He hadn't believed his father because he couldn't bring himself to
accept that any human could be so deadened in his feelings and
perceptions not to know how that word landed on certain ears.  As he
rinsed and dried his face he mentally whipped himself with the fact that
he had done the same thing with the Tencts.

He had never called anyone a slag, except when telling a joke to a
non-Tenctonese.  That he had done.  Like any member of the blue frat in
the locker room telling old Rastus jokes, that he had done.  Some of the
jokes were funny.

"Just like some of the nigger, Hebe, and Polack jokes are really funny,"
he muttered.  "Yeah.  How many humans does it take to screw in a light
bulb?"

What was it the cop shrink had said?  Flogging yourself never was part
of the recovery process.  That's easy for him to say.  He didn't believe
that there were certain mistakes he just couldn't make.

Slag.

The term had come easily to Rick's lips.  Too easily.

That was the mistake he couldn't make: to do to another what had been
done to him.

Slag.

Why not?  "Slag" didn't have anything to do with him.  The word "slag"
didn't touch him any more than the word "nigger" touched the "whites."

How did the name "whitey" land on certain ears?  What about Redskin?

Chink?  Spic?  He didn't really know.  Why should he develop a case of
nerves over it?  Why, indeed?

"Damned idiot," he muttered to himself as he wiped up the sink and
tossed the dirty towel into the laundry hamper and slammed shut the lid.

"What was that, Rick?"  came a sleepy voice from the bedroom.

"Nothing."

There was a pause followed by the sleepy face of Kit Dobbs appearing in
the door.  "Nothing?  You sure you don't have a fork stuck in your
garbage disposal?"

Slowly he faced his wife, his eyebrows raised.  "Say I'm tossing out my
melon mush in a noisy bucket?"

Her face grew serious.  "What's the matter, Rick?"

"Honest.  It's nothing."

"Honest?"  Her very fair skin reddened as her brown eyes grew darker.

"Honest?  Don't you let that word out of your lying mouth, baby.  You
know what the therapist said.  You keep stacking it up inside, sooner or
later it'll come out the top of your head.  Let me be honest, too.

There isn't anything that makes me happier than sending my man out the
front door with a gun full of hot loads and a heart full of murder."

"I'm not going to murder anyone."

"So, Rick, you going to tell me what it is?"

He glanced down, sighed, and folded his arms.  "It's George.  You know,
Matt Sikes's partner?"

"Sure.  I remember George.  Beaver burger raw, mushrooms and Swiss, hold
the mayo."  She grinned, "At the cookout year before last." "Yeah. Well,
I said something to him.  Something not very nice, he figured.  I didn't
think much about it --- Hell, I didn't think about it at all."

"And then George said something, and you said something more, and George
said ---" "You got the picture.  I had to get out of there before I did
kill someone."

Kit Dobbs came all of the way into the room, her delicate fingers
pushing her auburn hair back from her eyes.  She wrapped her hands
around his arm, reached up, and kissed his cheek.

"You've had fights before and gotten over them.  What is it this time?"

He turned his head and looked down into her eyes.  "Kit, am I a racist?"

Her eyebrows went up as her jaw dropped.  "A racist?

Rick, don't you think marrying me is a pretty weird thing to do for a
racist?"

He shook his head.  "I don't mean it like that.  I don't think of you
being 'white' anyway."

"Neither do I. Have you suddenly gone 'black' on me?"

Dobbs burst out with an involuntary laugh.  "I don't know, but I sure
had a black attack yesterday.  I know, because George Francisco had me
smokin'."

A tiny frown creased her forehead.  "Now, why would he do a thing like
that, Rick?"

"I guess I pushed a button of his."

"You guess?"

Dobbs pursed his lips and arched an eyebrow at her.  "Are you sure
you're not sneaking out nights to go to law school?"

"All I do is teach piano, baby.  Teach piano and love you."

"You'd make a great prosecutor."

"I still haven't forgotten my question."

Dobbs shook himself free from her grip, took his fresh shirt from the
hanger on the back of the door, and began putting it on.  "Like I said.

You'd make a great prosecutor."  He buttoned it up, turned up his
collar, and took his tie from the hanger.  "Okay.  I pushed a button.

I used the 's' word around him and he took offense."

She looked at her husband's reflection in the mirror.

"And he came back with the big 'n'?"

"Sort of.  He was trying to show me that what I was saying was basically
the same thing that he was saying."

"And?"  She turned him around and began straightening his necktie.

"And he was right: it was.  It was, and I needed to be told that.  But,
damn, I don't like it.  I don't like being told, and I especially don't
like the fact that I needed to be told."  He turned and looked down at
her.  "So, am I a racist?

Am I just as bad as those New_Republic liberals in the burbs, carrying
their equality signs on prime time and telling watermelon jokes after
hours?"

She searched his eyes for a moment, then sat on the edge of the tub.

"On a talk show once I heard a person --- she was Tenctonese --- I heard
her say that anyone who uses racial labels and believes that they're
actually talking about something is a racist."

"Racial labels?"

"The usual invectives, in addition to 'black,' 'white,' 'Asian,' 'Native
American,' and so on."

"Hell, that makes pretty near everybody a racist.

Everybody in the world."

"Almost everybody.  The show I was watching was about persons, both
human and Tenct, who reject the usual labels and refuse to use them."

"Well, what do they call us?"

She shrugged and held out her hands.  "Rick and Kit Dobbs."

"You know what I'm talking about, baby.  What do they call us?  You
know, the brothers and sisters?  African-Americans?

Blacks?  Negroes?"

Kit smiled as she stared into space for a moment.  "It was a very
interesting program.  They would take someone's definition of a racial
label, such as 'black,' and then they would search through the audience
until they found one or more exceptions, invalidating the definition.

Just for example, there was melanin.  Anyone who has melanin in their
skin is 'black."  They showed that all of the so-called 'whites' in the
audience had melanin in their skin, and some of them had more melanin
than some of the so-called 'blacks' in the audience.

There was one person in the audience who had no melanin in his skin at
all, and he was an albino who called himself 'black."" She grinned.

"They did the same thing with nose shape, hair, eyes, ancestral origins,
and everything else.  The point they were making was that none of the
labels refer to anything real.

According to current science, every American, with the exception of the
Tencts, are African-Americans."

"You can't define racism away."

"No.  Racism is very real.  It's only races that are fictions .  . .

according to the show."  She held out her hands and shrugged.  "It was
just another talk show." "What do you think about it?  What they said.
Do you believe it?"

"They were very convincing and I haven't heard anything since that
disproves what they were saying."

"Kit, if you go along with that stuff, that makes me a racist."

"It makes me a racist, too, baby.  Everybody's got a heap of head trash
to toss out, including me."  She stood up and placed her hand against
his cheek.  "That trash is some damned sticky stuff, too."

#

After breakfast, Dobb's partner, Jerry Kirk, drove over to the edge of
Monterey Park and pulled up in front of Dobb's house.  As his partner
stood on the stoop with his wife, Kirk turned his head and looked away.

"Damn!"  he swore beneath his breath.  It just didn't go.  It didn't go
at all.  Dobbs blacker than the proverbial ace, married to a white
woman.  They didn't have to do that stuff in public view --- all that
kissing and ass patting.  Why can't they at least keep it indoors?

It's wrong!  It's flat damned wrong!

He looked to his left at the house across the street from Dobbs's.

Some Chicano guy in a suit was walking from his front door across his
tiny lawn to the curb where he got into his bright red Mazda sports
coupe.  The woman at the door looked Korean.  Maybe Japanese or Chinese.
Maybe Indian or Chicano.  A lot of them looked Asian.

Sometimes it was hard to tell.

"Man, what in the hell is eating you?"

Kirk turned his head and saw Dobb's face looking at him through the
passenger-side window.  His face flushed as he looked to the front.

"Nothing.  Get in, we're late."

Dobbs pulled open the door, dropped into the passenger seat, and shut
the door.  As he pulled the seat belt across his body, he kept looking
at his new partner.  "Give, son.  If you've got a problem, I need to
know."

He started the car, put it in gear, and pulled away from the curb.

"You don't need to know anything about my personal life."

"If it affects your performance, I do.  I know we haven't hit it off
together, Kirk, but we have to work together.  When we get jammed, my
life is going to depend on you, and if you're worried about your leather
bar date dumping you ---" "I am not gay!"

"I didn't say you were.  But you better tell me what's eating your ass,
man.  If you don't, you can forget about checking out Trassler, Rantu
the makeup man, and the slaghunters because we're going straight to the
command center where I am going to have Grazer send you to the shrinker.
You got me?"

They drove in silence for a long time.  As Kirk turned the car south
onto Atlantic, he said, "Okay, Dobbs.  I'll tell you what's bothering
me, and you're not going to like it, okay?"

"Get it off your chest."

Jerry Kirk nodded in silence for a moment, and then said, "Okay.

Understand I got nothing against blacks.  I grew up around them, worked
with them in the army, and went through the academy with them.  I even
had one for a training officer when I was assigned to University
division.  I think I could've even worked with you.  We wouldn't be
taking showers together, but we could've been okay.  Understand?"

"Is it my deodorant?"

"No!  It's not your damned deodorant!  Now if we're going to be serious
about this, let's get to it.  Otherwise, let's just drop it."

"Sorry.  Go on."

Jerry Kirk moistened his lips and nodded again as if to give himself
permission to proceed.  "Okay.  I'll just say it.

It got me the first time I picked you up."

"I thought you might want to use the car.  Would you rather I picked you
up?"

"No, it's not that.  It's not picking you up.  I'm glad to do it, and
you're right, I needed the car.  Thanks."  He glanced at Dobbs, frowned,
and returned his gaze to the street ahead.

"It's --- you know --- your wife."

Dobbs's eyebrows went up.  "Kit?  What about her?"

"Not her exactly.  It's her and you.  You know what I mean?"

"No.  What do you mean?"

"I'll say it plain, okay?"

"That'd be a new wrinkle."

Kirk's eyes narrowed as he said, "It's this race mixing: blacks and
whites together.  I don't go for it.  I don't go for it at all.  It
makes me real uncomfortable."

"I can see that."

"Well, that's the problem, Dobbs.  Blacks should stay with blacks and
whites with whites.  That's just the way I see it."

"You think my wife's white?"  asked Dobbs.  "Is that what's chewing on
you?"

"Isn't she?"

Dobbs chuckled as he shook his head.  "Man, let me help you put down
that burden.  Kit isn't white."

"You could of fooled me."

"I guess she already did.  So don't worry about it.  Kit's not white."

Jerry Kirk grinned as yards of knotted tension dropped from him.  "Man,
am I ever sorry."

"No sweat."

"No, Dobbs.  I've been a real jerk this past couple of weeks.  Thinking
your wife was white.  I feel like a real jerk."

"Don't worry about it."

"I sure thought she was white.  I guess it shouldn't, but it really
bothered me.  Know what I mean?"

"Yeah.  I think I do.  The fact is, though, she's not white."  Dobbs
turned his face toward Kirk, pursed his lips, and put his elbow up on
the backrest.  "I think I can ease your mind about something else, too."

"Oh?"

"You aren't white, either."  Jerry Kirk frowned as Dobbs laughed and
slapped the dashboard with his hand.  "C'mon, pilgrim.  Let's get out to
Toon Town and see Rantu the makeup man."

SEVEN At the same time that morning, George Francisco drove in silence
as Paul Iniko sat in the passenger seat looking at the graffiti sprayed
on the fences, buildings, and houses along Whittier.  He looked up and
the sky was crowded with blacks and grays, the rare threat of rain
imminent.  Iniko turned to the open file on his lap and leafed through
the tear sheets of Slag_ Like_Me.  As he read he said, "I thought we had
taken care of these little problems last year when we worked together on
the Maanka Dak case."

George glanced to his right, then returned his gaze to the road.  "What
little problems?"

"Me being a former Overseer and you being a current asshole."

"Asshole?"

Iniko nodded and said in Tenctonese, "Tirivi."

"I know what 'asshole' means!"

"I imagine such knowledge would be difficult for you to avoid."

George shook his head and continued looking through the windshield for
the street he wanted.  "What are you talking about, Iniko?"

The F.B.I. man closed the file and faced Francisco.

"Well, George, the way my superior in the bureau puts it, 'We was in the
trenches together, boy, on the same team, fightin' the same bad guys,
bleedin' the same goddamned blood."" Iniko grinned.  "My superior, Nate
Crook, is a very colorful character."

"No doubt."

Paul Iniko looked back at the street.  "What I'm trying to say, George,
is that a year ago we were approaching the brink of a rather substantial
friendship.  Then, nothing.  Right now you're as cold as an iceberg in
suspended animation."

"What do you want from me, Paul?  A hug?"

George was astonished as the former Overseer burst out in laughter.

When he had calmed himself, Iniko nodded and said, "A hug would be just
fine, George.  It would be just fine."

"Some other time.  I don't think I'm quite ready yet to hug an
Overseer."

"Former Overseer," Paul corrected.

"Yeah, right."

They rode in silence for a half block, then Iniko said calmly, "I talked
to my superior about you, George."

"Oh?"

"About five months ago.  I had tried since we had worked together to
stay in touch, and although I developed a curiously friendly
relationship with just about everyone else in your family, you I
couldn't reach.  When I did get you on the phone, there was always one
excuse or another why we couldn't get together."

"You know how things are." "Yes," said Paul.  "I think I do."  There was
a pause, then Paul continued.  "Nate Crook is a very wise man.  When
things bother me, I go and have a talk with him and he often has an
insight that's helped.

Do you have anyone like that, George?"

"Perhaps.  Do you remember Malcolm Bone?"

"The human hila at the East L.A. Rama_Vo?"

George nodded.  "Yes.  Sometimes I talk to him."  George frowned as he
thought.  "It's been awhile though.  What about it?"

"There was a story Nate Crook told me.  The short version began quite
awhile before our ship crashed here.  Nate was in the army stationed on
Okinawa during the Vietnam War.  He didn't do much in the war except
swing a club as an M.P., but it was the friends he made on Okinawa while
he was there that were important.  During his training in South
Carolina, you see, all the whites sat at those tables, all the blacks
sat at those other tables, and everyone else divided up pretty much the
same.

There was no law that required this segregation.  That's just what
seemed to cause the least friction.  On Okinawa, though, these lines
seemed to melt.  They were all American soldiers and the 'thems' were
the Okinawans.  He made what he thought to be some very good friends on
Okinawa.  When his military police company was brought back to South
Carolina, however, everyone was sitting at separate tables again.  When
he tried to sit with his best friend, the others at the table told him
to sit with the whites.  He sat across from his friend and waited to
hear what he had to say.  The man nodded and said, 'Go on.  Sit over
there."  It was all black and white again.  Us and them.  Nate says it
broke his heart."

"I bet this story even has a point," said George, the sarcasm suspended
from his syllables.

"Yes, George.  It has a point; a rather important one."

Iniko's voice grew very quiet.  "Back when we were working together to
take down Maanka Dak, Dr. Norcross and the MDQ, back when we were trying
to protect your family, save your partner's life, and protect each
other's asses, we weren't Overseer and slave, master and servant,
torturer and victim.  We were two cops against the bad guys.  If not
friends, I thought we had at least achieved a degree of mutual respect."

George rode in silence for a long while, the horrors of a year ago
flashing through his mind.  "It was a confusing time for me, Paul.  I
was going through riana, Matt was dying, and the craziest bastard on
earth was after me and my family.  That tattoo around your wrist didn't
seem so big against all that."

"Look at this, George."

Francisco faced Iniko and the former Overseer had his sleeve pulled up,
exposing his left wrist.  There was no sign remaining of the jagged
tattooed cuff of the Overseers.  "It's gone," remarked George.

"It took a doctor about half an hour with a special laser pen.  Then it
was a few weeks more for my body to absorb the bruises and the remains
of the dye.  I had it done eight months ago."

"Why?  Aren't you proud to be an Overseer?"

Iniko pulled his sleeve back down.  "No more proud than you are to have
been a slave.  I've said it to you before, George: neither one of us had
choices as to what we were to become back on the ship.  We do have
choices now, however." "That's our street," said George as he swung the
car right onto Marietta.  Soon after the turn, he found the address he
was looking for and pulled the car over to the curb.  He put the car in
park, shut off the engine, and looked at Iniko.  "Let me tell you a
little story, Paul.  Not long after we were released from the quarantine
camp, my children were going out to celebrate their first Halloween.  My
daughter Emily surprised me by dressing up as an Overseer, complete with
washable tattoo."

George averted his glance and grimaced.  "No.  Let me be perfectly
honest about it.  She didn't surprise me; she frightened me half to
death."  He shifted his gaze to the former Overseer.  "For just a moment
my instinctual reaction was to kill her; my own daughter."  He looked at
Iniko, his face a mask.  "The memories are too sharp, Paul; the scars
run too deep.  We can work together, as it appears we must for the time
being, but being friends is out of the question.  Can you see us going
fishing together, playing cards, our families having a picnic together?"
George frowned as a question presented itself.  "Do you even have a
family?"

"In a manner of speaking, but not the kind of family you mean."  Paul
turned to the file on his lap, a resigned expression on his face.  "So,
shall we go call upon the family of young Randy Cook and see how
Slag_Like_Me has touched their lives?"

EIGHT

"It's all bullshit," declared Gil Cook from his kitchen table, his
balding jowled countenance perched on a tank of a body clad in sweat
pants and a tee shirt sporting the stars and stripes.  The writing on
the tee shirt urged the reader to "Try and burn this one."  Old Glory
had several holes in it and appeared to have a much better chance of
rotting to pieces than being set aflame.  Randy Cook's father had a
florid face that was kept that way by frequent ingestion of Coor's Lite.
Iniko picked up an empty can and read the printing.  According to the
label each can contained a considerable number of calories less than the
same sized can of regular Coor's, and by the look of Gil Cook's gut and
the bulging bags of empty beer cans in the kitchen, Gil was saving
thousands of calories every day.

"In Southern California," cracked Mrs. Cook to Paul, "everybody's a
health nut."  Linda Cook looked to be about half her husband's age,
although the file showed her to be only a year younger.

"What're you swingin' your ass at them for?"  Gil said to his wife.

"You think a couple of slags're interested in a dried up old bitch like
you?"

"If we could get back to the subject," urged George.

"I already said it was all bullshit," said the man with the beer can.

"Randy never beat up on no little girl, I don't care what that damned
Jew said in his column."

"Jew?"

Mr. Cook nodded.  "Sure.  That name: Robb.  Short for Rabinowitz, right?
Everybody knows that, 'cept maybe a couple of slags.  Not that I got
anything against the Jews, y' unnerstand." "Of course," said Iniko.

"Yeah, right," said Mrs.  Cook.

Ignoring her, the elder Cook stabbed at the air with his finger.

"Hittin' a girl; even a slag kid.  I'd punch the shit outta Randy he do
anything like that.  He knows it, too.  What kinda kid you think I
raised?  He didn't beat up no little slag bitch.  He didn't beat up
nobody at all, 'less they asked for it."  He held his beer can up and
nodded at Francisco and Iniko.

"Don't mean no offense there, officers.  About the slag thing, I mean.

No offense, there.  I don't have no rotten milk or I'd offer you
somethin'."

"I don't care for the stuff, myself," said Paul.  Iniko placed the empty
beer can next to the sink as George pulled several photographs from the
file.

"Mr. Cook, these are prints of photographs taken by the security cameras
at the playground of your son's school."  He tossed them on the table in
front of Gil Cook.  "Do you see the two boys and the girl beating up on
a smaller Tenctonese girl?

Isn't that larger boy your son?"

Randy Cook's father leaned forward and cast a bleary gaze toward the
photos.  He shook his head and looked up at George.

"Shit, that's not Randy.  The boy don't own a shirt like that."

"Why don't you try looking at his face?"

The man shrugged.  "He's so cruddy, how can you tell?  All that hair
down in his face."

"That's Randy all right," Mrs. Cook declared.  George looked at her as
she looked up from the photo and nodded.

"Randy takes after his father."

Gil Cook renewed his purchase on his beer can and slumped back in his
chair.  "My lawyer says I shouldn't answer no questions about what
happened there.  We're takin' the paper to court, see?  Snotty-assed
damned Times.  Lie about my kid."  He shifted his weight from one hip to
the other, finished off the can in his hand, and pointed the empty at
Iniko and Francisco.

"Look, you two.  The child protective laws in this state.  The paper and
that Ellison Rabinowitz can't take a twelve year old kid and smear his
name all over the papers like that.  It ain't legal.  I got a lawyer who
says so."

"Thirteen," said Mrs.  Cook, her voice flat.

"What're you talkin' about?"  asked her husband, his face screwed up in
confusion.

"Thirteen," she repeated.  "Your son Randy is thirteen years old."

"Thirteen?"  He waved a hand, dismissing the minor point of his son's
age.  "The point is that they can't do that to my boy.  It's not legal."

"Tell him what you and that lawyer are claiming for damages," said his
wife.

"Seven million dollars.  That'll teach that hebe paper to drag my name
through the mud.  God damned rich snots.  Seven million.  They'll think
twice before they go after some other innocent sweet kid, you can bet
your ass on that."

"If I might interrupt this homage to truth, justice, and the American
way," said Iniko, "can you account for your whereabouts for the past
seventy-two hours?"

"My what?  Whereabouts?"

"Yes."

"Nobody says whereabouts anymore."

"I just did."

"You mean where I was, not whereabouts."  Gil Cook's expression of
righteous certitude collapsed into confusion.

"For seventy-two hours?"

"That's three days," offered George.

"Three days?"  repeated Cook, his expression even more confused.  "I
know how long three days is.  Sure.  I know where I was.  I guess so."

He moistened his lips and looked at his wife, an edge of panic in his
eyes.

"Gil couldn't account for the past fifteen minutes," said Mrs. Cook,
"but I can account for the past three days for him."

Her gaze moved slowly from George's face until it settled upon her
husband's form.  "Sergeant, I can tell you where Gil has been for the
past three months; the past three years.  He's either been in here, in
the living room in front of the TV, or in bed, making empty cans out of
full ones.  I think I can safely say that he hasn't left the house once
since he was released from the hospital seven months ago, except to go
to the supermarket."  Her eyes hazed over for a second, then grew clear
and hard as she said, "He was in the hospital for a drug overdose."

"Alcohol poisoning," corrected her husband.

"A drug is a drug," she answered.

Gil Cook pushed himself to his feet, went to the refrigerator, took a
fresh six pack from it, and stumbled off to the living room.  In a
moment the sounds of a beer company commercial extolling the virtues of
responsible drinking came booming from the living room television.

The mother of Randy Cook looked at Iniko and said, "Are you looking into
the lawsuit that ambulance chasing leach got my husband to file?"

"No.  We're investigating the disappearance of Ellison Robb."

Her face was stiff, and suddenly she looked very old.  "It would be a
shame if anything happened to Ellison Robb.  She's very brave.  She's
saying some really important things." "Why would you say that?"  asked
George.

"Why would I say what?"

"Why did you call Ellison Robb 'she'?  Is Ellison Robb a woman?"

"Of course."  Mrs. Cook shook her head and smiled.  "I guess I just
assumed it.  I don't know anything for certain, except Robb has a heart.
If a little girl cries, Ellison Robb feels it and does what's right,
even if it's against the law."

"Against the law?"  repeated Paul Iniko.

"Mentioning a minor's name in the paper like that is illegal.  Gil was
right about that." "Well, then," said George.  "Doesn't that mean a big
settlement for your family?"

Her eyes narrowed as they glared at George.  "My family couldn't survive
any kind of a settlement.  Right now Gil's drinking is limited by the
amount of his disability pension and whatever Randy can steal.

If Gil can buy and drink all the booze he wants, he won't last a week."

When it was time to leave, Iniko stayed behind for a moment as George
went to the car and reported in.  After Iniko came out of the house and
climbed into the passenger seat, George pulled into traffic and said, "I
was just thinking how unreasonably restrictive the laws governing
justifiable homicide are."

"Still have that asshole problem, don't you, George?"

"You want to clarify that, Overseer?"

"Gil Cook isn't a fugitive from a horror movie.  He's a very sick man.

His whole family's sick."  Surprised, George faced him.  The F.B.I. man
was looking back, his gaze steady.

"You may be right after all, George."

"Right about what?"

"The friendship thing between us."  Paul Iniko faced the street.  "It
just might be impossible."

NINE

"Tian Apehna?"  Matt Sikes looked at the sad-eyed Tenctonese woman
holding the front door of Micky Cass's Coldwater Canyon home.  The skin
of her face was smooth and very pale, the lips full and touched with
warm blush.  Her eyes were hidden by sunglasses.  She carried her
expression like a mask, allowing no entrance into or observation of her
secret heart.

That, too, was the purpose of the sunglasses.  Any Tenct answering the
door on a cloudy day only wore sunglasses to hide the color of the eyes.
Her eyes would be tinged with green, the color of pain.  Or perhaps that
was what she would have an observing detective believe.

"Sgt.  Sikes?"  She left the door open and turned to lead the way.

They entered a rustic, pine paneled living room.

Everything else about the house was the typical stucco, red tile, late
Hollywood mongrel Spanish ranch.  The living room, however, was a
jarring throwback to downeast wood stoves, and black fly infested
summers in Maine.  Tian held out her hand toward a corner of the room.

It was filled with an old wooden desk, a high backed leather office
chair and a word processor sitting amidst a litter of papers, books, and
models of everything from fighter planes to human skulls.  "Not exactly
west coast, is it?"

Matt felt his face flush.  "Sorry.  This room all of a sudden reminded
me of my grandparents' home in Maine."

"Mick never took me to Maine.  Do you miss it, sergeant?"

His eyebrows went up.  "Do I miss Maine?  Are you kidding?

Ice, mud, bugs, and more ice?  The only state with a picture of a dead
animal on its license plate?  Black flies and mosquitos that use Raid
for gargle?  Home of the pink plastic flamingo?

Acid rain toilet of America?  Principle imports: government regulations
and bureaucrats; principle exports: alcoholics and people looking for
work?"  Matt closed his mouth and shook his head.  The anger in his
words surprised him.  Because he had thought Maine and a couple of
alcoholic grandparents were behind him another feeling surprised him, as
well.  He shrugged as he nibbled at the inside of his lower lip.

"I'm sorry, Mrs.  Cass.

Yeah, sometimes I miss Maine.  I guess it's one of those lovehate
things.  Is Mr.  Cass from Maine?"

"Let's get something straight, sergeant.  First, I am not Mrs.  Cass.

My name is Tian Apehna.  Next, Micky Cass's full name is Micky Cass.

Mick allowed no titles such as Mr., Miss, Mrs., or Ms. to be attached to
his name.  And, lastly, I don't know where he came from.  He used to
live in the northeast, but there's hardly a place on the planet he
hasn't been.  He used to tell me he was from another planet, until I
made it clear to him I didn't find his humor amusing."

Matt stopped next to the desk and pushed around a couple of papers.

"What should I call you?"

"Tian would be fine."

"Okay, Tian.  I'm Matt."  He turned his head and let his gaze settle on
her eyes.  The glasses were off and her eyes were green.  She was
looking at his hand where it rested on Micky Cass's desk.  "Tian, I know
your .  . . mate, spouse, partner, or whatever ---" "Micky."

"Yes, Micky.  I know Micky has this thing about keeping certain things
secret, but it makes this investigation ten times more difficult.  For
example, is he a man?"

"Micky Cass is one hell of a man, Matt."

"Thank y ---" "She's also one hell of a woman."

Matt folded his arms across his chest, tilted his head forward, and
looked at Tian from beneath his eyebrows.  "This isn't a joke."

"Do you see me laughing?"

"Do you mind telling me, then, why Cass, his editor, and you --- all
three --- refer to Cass as 'he'?  Why not 'it' or one of those 'he or
she' or 's/he' things?"

"This is all quite meaningless."  She looked at the expression on his
face, then shrugged and sat down on the varnished pine and plaid canvas
upholstered couch.  "It's a habit one gets into, saying 'he."  Mick
referred to himself that way because, as far as he was concerned, 'it'
sounds like something from a black and white science fiction film,
constant repetitions of 'he or she' makes for very clumsy sentences, and
'shehee' sounds and looks stupid.  I wouldn't read anymore into it than
that."

Shaking his head and holding out his hands in disbelief, Matt said,
"What is so damned important about keeping this person's sex a secret?"

"It's not important," answered Tian.  "It's not important at all.

That's what's so important about it."

"You're not going to tell me?"

"No."

"Not even if it would save Micky Cass's life?"

Tears came to her eyes as she looked up at Matt.  "That's something else
where Mick's priorities are different from everyone else's.  Life isn't
as important to him as what he is."

She pointed toward Cass's desk.  "He wants you to read those words by
Micky Cass.  Not a woman's words, not a man's words, not a
hermaphrodite's words or the words of a gay, straight, atheist,
religionist."  The corners of her mouth tugged into a sad smile.  "Not
even a Latvian, black, gay, midget biker."  The tears streaked her
cheeks and she reached to the coffee table for a tissue.  "You want to
know what Mick's big regret is?"

"What?"

"Slag_Like_Me doesn't work at all unless it's written by a human under
cover as a Tenct, and so that's what he had to do.

Mick would've loved keeping his humanity a secret, too.  He doesn't want
the readers to get a 'human' view of racism.  He wants them to see the
creature itself.  He want's them to witness racism."

"Isn't this speciesism instead of racism?"

She gave a sad smile and said, "Drugs and alcohol."

"What's that?"

She glanced away.  "The difference between drugs and alcohol: it's like
changing seats on the Titanic.  It's something Mick said to me once."

She faced Matt.  "Actually, it's us-and-themism.  That's Mick's dragon:
us-and-themism."

She looked away.  "Is Mick dead?"

"I don't know."  He sat down in a wing backed chair opposite the couch.

"It's way too early to start throwing dirt on him."  He glanced at her
guiltily.  "So to speak.  Hell, we don't even know if we have a crime
yet and we already have a list of suspects that could fill the L.A.
white pages.  I just don't know."

She smiled, the sadness filling her face.  "Matt, I understand that
everyone is a suspect right now, including me."

Sikes leaned his elbows on his knees, clasped his hands, and shrugged.

"That's really somebody else's department.  I'm just here in preparation
for going under cover.  The powers that be figure somebody might've
gotten a particular kind of bent nose by Micky Cass disguising himself
as a Tenctonese, over and above everyone else whose noses were knocked
out of joint by him, that is."  He paused and looked at the woman.  She
was looking back, her gaze steady.  "But as long as I'm here, is there
some reason why you should be a suspect?"

"What a clever segue," Tian Apehna said coyly as she cocked her head to
one side.  At last she smiled warmly and nodded.  "No one has a more
profitable motive.  Mick's will leaves everything to me."

"You've seen his will?"

Her smile faded and she looked down and unconsciously smoothed a wrinkle
from her smock.  "I'm his business manager.

I collect the spoils, count the gold, hand out the favors, and keep Mick
straight with Internal Revenue."  She looked up at Matt.  "The estate
comes to just under two million dollars, not including Mick's copyrights
and future royalties.  The total could be well over five million."

"I didn't ask."

Her gaze was fixed on his eyes.  "You wouldn't've been much of a
detective if you hadn't asked.  In some circles five million is a heap
of motive." "Yeah," said Matt, nodding.  "That's a heap of motive in
just about every circle I've ever seen, experienced, or heard about."

"Don't you want to know where I've been the past few days?"

Matt slumped back in his chair, crossed his legs, and held out his arms.
"Look, Tian, other officers are handling this part of the investigation.
The only reason I'm here .  . . I don't really know why I'm here.  Maybe
I'm scared.  Maybe I wanted to find out if Micky Cass was ever scared."
He looked up at her.  "Did he have any enemies?"

"That was a damned silly question."

Matt nodded as his face grew warm.  "Yeah, I guess it was.

Stock question in detective kindergarten.  Was he scared, though?"

"He is always scared.  This world, the peoples on it, how they think,
what they do, and why they do it scares him.  His reaction to fear,
however, is to beat it to death with his words."

Matt nodded.  "Okay, I'll bite.  Where were you for the past three
days?"

"I have absolutely no alibi at all.  I was here working in my studio,
out taking rides or walks, and here sleeping at night.  I called no one,
met no one, saw no one, except for Marty Fell and a pair of very rude
police officers.  Terrible, isn't it?"

"I don't know," he answered with a slight shrug.  "I'd figure a perp
would be prepared to come across with a better story than that."

"Unless the perp knew that and said it to throw you off," Tian
responded, the hint of a smile on her lips.

"Okay, lady.  I'll bite again.  Why did the chicken cross the road?"

She laughed out loud, the outburst ending as quickly as it began.  She
took another tissue, stood, and faced a large array of windows looking
out upon the hills above.  "Matt, I'm going to tell you one of Micky
Cass's most closely guarded secrets.

Have you ever read any of the Nance Damas police routine novels?"

"Sure.  The sister in the San Francisco Police Department.

The mysteries by Damita Real.  They even made a couple of movies out of
them.  I'm reading one right now: The_Seventh_Dragon."

She wiped her nose and nodded as she continued looking at the hills.

"Mick and I have been doing the Damita Real novels for almost three
years."

"Micky Cass is Damita Real?"

She faced Matt and raised her eyebrows in a display of mock offense.

"Mick and I are Damita Real.  He once said that I was Damita, which
means little lady, and he was Real, which means real.  I plot, outline,
we both do research, and Mick writes and rewrites.  Let me ask you
something."

"Sure."

"As a police officer, what do you think of the Damas novels?"

"Looking for a testimonial?"

"Please," she urged.

Matt thought for a moment and sat back in his chair.

"Gritty," he said.  "Real.  I can smell the streets.  I know the same
cops that fictional character knows.  I've chased the same perps, been
mulched by the same paper wizards, sweated the same sweat.  In fact, I
didn't think she was fictional.  I was convinced the author was a
policewoman on the S.F.P.D. The pair of you certainly got into some
cop's head to write that stuff."

"Thank you.  Thank you very much.  Mick will take that as a very big
compliment."  She faced Matt and fixed him with her gaze, her eyes
brimming with tears.  "Matt, Micky Cass is no ivory tower word mechanic.
He gets into the middle of it, rolls up his sleeves, and gets good and
dirty.  He doesn't write about it until he knows all about it, whatever
it is.  When he says the only reasons he might miss a manuscript drop
are death, injury, or abduction, take it seriously.

He knows the territory."

Matt nodded as he got to his feet, three things gnawing at the back of
his head: two of them business; one personal.  "I guess I really
shouldn't be bothering you.  I really only have one reason for seeing
you.  It was something I wanted to ask."

"Go ahead.  The worst I can do is tell you it's none of your business."

Matt raised his eyebrows and averted his gaze.  "You just might do
that."  He looked at her eyes.  "Tian, after Micky Cass had the plastic
surgery done, you know, after he looked like a Tenct, did he spend any
time here with you at home?"

"Almost every night."

"The disguise; did it affect things?"

"Affect things?"  She burst out with a laugh.  "Affect things?  It bent
how everyone on the street saw him."

His face reddening, Matt put his hands in his pockets and shrugged.

"That's not the kind of things I meant."

"What things, then?"

"Did it affect how you saw him?  Did it affect things between Mick and
you?  How did you feel about him showing up as a Tenct?  You know:
living together, seeing each other ---" "Sex," she completed.

"Well .  . . yeah."

Tian Apehna's eyes seemed to mist over as she looked thoughtful for a
second.  She glanced up at Matt and asked, "Do you have a girl, Matt?"

"Yes."

"A Tenct girl?"

"Yeah.  Sort of."

"Do you mean she's sort of Tenct or do you mean she's sort of a girl?"

"Tian, you're getting to be a real pain in the ass."

"It comes naturally to anyone who spends a great deal of time dealing
with pricks."  Her eyebrows raised.  "Are you very much in love?"

He looked away for a moment.  "Yeah.  I am with her, anyway.  She's one
of the few good things that've ever happened to me.  I don't want to
screw it up.  I don't want this job to screw it up."

Tian's lips parted in a smile as she touched Matt's face with her hands.
"Matt, you aren't a patch of hair or a couple of ear flaps.

That's what Mick's been writing about his whole life.  You aren't a
color, or a sex, or a life style, an occupation, a background, or a
name.  You are a creature --- an entity --- unique to the universe,
worthy to exist."

"What's that got to do with things between you and Mick?"

"Not a thing.  It only concerns you and your worst enemy: you."

"That's what Cathy's been trying to tell me."  Matt thought for a moment
and then asked, "Those nights after the plastic surgery, while he was
here at home, did he have any contact with anyone besides you?"

"No.  Not at the house.  He talked to a few persons on the telephone."

"Who?"

"I'm not certain.  There was Martin Fell at the Times, that Tenct street
gang leader he wrote about in "The Color Pink,' ---" "Danny Mikubeh,"
Matt completed.

"Yes.  There were a few others.  I didn't overhear them all, but I saw
his phone logs.  The police have them."

"I know.  What else?"

"Not much, except on the last night he was here he didn't stay.  He had
been writing hard all afternoon and he took a break for a few minutes.

I remember because I took him some iced tea up on his balcony.  I spent
some time with him," she said, a catch in her voice.  "Then there was a
telephone call.

He answered it, and after talking to whoever it was for four or five
minutes, he told me he had to leave on an important matter.

Shortly after dark he left, and that was the last I ever saw or heard of
him."

"You have no idea who the call was from?"

*** She slowly shook her head.  "There was nothing on any of Mick's
phone pads, and nothing revealing about the impressions left by previous
messages.  I know.  I checked.  So did your lab trolls.  Nick had a
terrible memory, so wherever he went it was to a place he knew."

Matt turned toward the door and paused as he remembered one of the
business items that chewed at his serenity.  "Tian, there was one other
thing I wanted to ask you."

"Oh?"

"In the first 'Slag Like Me' column, Mick started it off by making a
crack about his neighbor."

"'As my next door neighbor would be pleased to tell you,'" she quoted,
"'I'm not a nice guy."" "Yeah.  That's right.  What's he mean?  Who's
the neighbor, and what's the problem?"

"The neighbor's name is Duke Jessup.  His house is just above and behind
ours.  Believe it or not, when Mick bought this house, Jessup ran a
petition campaign to drive us out of the neighborhood."

"Because you're a Tenct?"

She laughed and held out her hands in a gesture of absolute
bewilderment.  "Not that exclusively.  There are a number of Tencts in
the canyon."  She grinned sadly.  "I guess you could say it was a color
thing."

"Mick's color?"

"I'm guessing it was the color of the house.  All of the houses around
here are painted in pastels, and Mick Cass is not a pastel sort of
person.  Before we moved in, he had it painted its current color."

"When I drove up I noticed the house kind of jumped out at me.  What's
the name of the color?"

"Fire Island Red."  She nodded toward the east and continued.  "Duke
Jessup even took Mick to court over it citing protective covenants,
ordinances, and so on, but the court found in Mick's favor."

Matt held out his hands.  "Then, what's the beef?"

"When he took Mick to court, Jessup committed the big sin.

Mick hates lawyers, hates the lawyer game, as he calls litigation, and
would prefer spending the remainder of his life having root canal to
enduring a minute in court."

Matt nodded.  "I can relate.  I take it Mick retaliated in some way?"

"Some way.  A perfectly legal way, if not terribly mature."  She went to
Mick's desk, picked up a slip of paper covered in cling wrap, and held
her hand out toward a side door.

"Take a walk with me, Matt."

She led Sikes through the door onto a shaded patio that led to stairs
that climbed up toward the rear of the house.

Behind the house was a small rose garden.  Above the garden, high on the
hill overlooking its own much grander garden, was a pale pink ranch dug
into the hillside.  The side facing downhill had an enormous deck with a
panoramic view of Micky Cass's home.

"I don't get it," said Matt."

"Turn around."

Matt turned, looked at the back of Mick's house, and had to take a step
back from the sheer impact of what he saw.  It was as though Salvador
Dali, Steven King, Isaac Asimov, and Elton John tripped out on acid to
collaborate on a house painting job, calling in Cher, Piccaso, and
Charlie Manson for art direction.  Writhing bodies in hot pinks, black
flies, snakes in electric greens, a spectacular nova in eye-shattering
yellows, pinks, whites, and oranges, three neon blue dolphins killing
and feasting upon a neon red tuna, turquoise stripes, bits of mirror,
reflectors off bicycles, thousands upon thousands of rhinestones, and at
the bottom, stuck into the ground, was a row of genuine pink plastic
flamingos.  There was a bank of floodlights aimed at the display, coolly
awaiting the night's grotesque work.

"Holy shit --- Excuse me, please.  It ---" "No apologies necessary,
Matt.  When I first saw it, those were my very words."  She pointed
toward the sky.  "It continues up on the roof, as well." "Jesus," said
Matt.

"And Celine, too.  You should see it at night with the strobe lights
on."

"You're kidding."

"Come back here after sunset and see if I'm kidding.  It's still on a
timer."

Matt shook his head.  "That can't be legal."

"Oh, it's legal.  To make it illegal, the ordinance would have to
exclude Christmas lighting, as well.  When it comes to digging up
pain-in-the-ass lawyers, no one can equal Mick.  The local ordinances
weren't up to him."  She smiled.  "Also, the way it's arranged, the only
person the lights really bother is Jessup.  The sightseers are another
matter, however."  She pointed up at the Jessup house.  "Every day
there's a steady parade of rubberneckers at the turn off by Jessup's
place to get a peek down here.  Day and night.  If anyone has a relative
visiting from out of town, they'll take the visitor by Jessup's to see
the freak house."  She turned and pointed at a small balcony set into
the top floor of Micky Cass's house.  "When he was finished writing for
the day, Mick used to get a glass of apple juice and a pair of
binoculars and lounge around up there, watching and waving at the
tourists, as well as at Jessup glaring at him."

"What do you mean?"

"Sometimes, depending on the light, we could see Duke Jessup sitting in
his den up there, staring down at this house.

Staring and drinking."  She turned and faced Matt.  "Actually, before
you go back, you ought to roll by Jessup's place and take a look down
here.  It's really quite startling."

"How do you stand living in it?"

"Actually, you can't see any of this from inside or from the front or
sides of the house.  I just don't come back here."

"I take it you didn't exactly support Mick in this effort."

"Occasionally, Matt, Mick Cass thoroughly enjoys reveling in his
character flaws.  I'm not much into revenge myself."  Her eyebrows went
up.  "Speaking of revenge," she said as she handed him the slip of paper
she had taken from Micky Cass's desk.  "This was thrust beneath the
front door sometime last night."

Matt took the paper, noted the wrapping, and said "Fingerprints," as he
nodded approvingly.  He read the paper.

#

I_was_much_distressed_by_next_door_people
who_had_twin_babies_and_played_the_violin;

but_one_of_the_twins_died,_and_the_other_has
eaten_the_fiddle_---_so_all_is_peace.

#

"What is it?"

"It's a quote from Edward Lear," said Tian.

"Who?"

"The author of The_Owl_and_the_Pussycat, among other things."

Matt frowned.  "Have you called this in?" "Yes.  Your Captain Grazer
said for me to hold it for the detectives who're coming out here later
today to question me." As he handed it back to her, Matt asked, "What do
you make of it?"

She looked down at the note, her fingers trembling.  "I'm no authority,
but I'd say it's a literary killer's way of wrapping a victim's overcoat
around a dead fish and leaving it on his family's doorstep."

There were tears in her eyes as she looked up at Matt.  "Duke Jessup is
the superintendent of St. George's Academy.  His background is English
literature."

Before he left the canyon, Matt did as Tian Apehna had suggested.  He
drove his car up the hill and pulled into the turn off next to the lush
garden of the Jessup residence.

Parked there were six passenger cars and an ancient pickup truck.  The
truck sported a fading Perot bumper sticker that partly covered another
bumper sticker that began "One day ..."  leaving the resulting sentiment
to read: "One Day Perot."  The truck sported neon green mud flaps that
urged all those behind the truck to "Recycle For Tomorrow."

The cars carried plates from Nevada, Ontario, New Jersey, California
(2), and Utah.  The bumper stickers proclaimed everything politically
incorrect and unaware from four time zones.  The turistas were lined up
along the masonry wall observing the freak house below and taking
pictures to bring home to show Bud and Elmer.  Matt shouldered his way
to the wall and looked down.

After taking a glimpse down at the huge psychedelic eyeball painted on
Micky Cass's roof, Matt felt a vague kinship with the writer.  The
business with the house was the kind of twisted sweet revenge he used to
tease his idle moments with, and then forget.  It was a way of venting
frustration without actually dealing with it.  Thinking about it was one
thing, though.  Acting out such bizarre little scenarios would be
childish, perhaps sick, or even criminal.  But in this case Cass had
gone ahead and acted on his resentment.

Not very mature.  Not very smart, especially if it had prompted Duke
Jessup to react in a terminal way.  But fun all the same.  Actually,
thought Matt, if Jessup were mature, freaking up the back of Mick's
house wouldn't have worked.

Everybody knows how to stop playing ping pong: you simply put down your
paddle.  Except for Jessup's constantly quite entertaining reactions to
Mick's provocations, there would be no point in either the freak house
or Mick's afternoon gloatings on his balcony.  Of course, if Jessup
himself had been mature, he wouldn't have acted on his original
resentment and taken Cass into court.

Matt pushed away from the wall and looked to his left at the proud home
of Duke Jessup perched above its immaculate gardens like a luxury
cruiser sailing upon billows of blossoms.

Two gardeners were working among the shrubs and flower beds.

Would Jessup's brand of resentment be enough to drive him to either
murder or to kidnapping?  And then leave a note?  The gardens were
beautiful, the object of an obsessive person.  Was Jessup's gardening
mania sufficient to drive him to kill the author of the freak house
below?  Matt remembered his father.

If his dad had created such a garden, he would've killed Micky Cass in a
second.  Alcoholics tend to be doers, if what needs doing is
particularly inappropriate, immature, or incredibly sick.

Matt turned toward his car and shook off the questions.

George and his F.B.I. buddy would do the follow up on Jessup.

It was time to get on with the surgery.

TEN

"Randy, get on down here!"  shouted the construction foreman.  Dobbs and
Kirk stood in the construction litter and looked up at the spruce
skeleton of the two story dwelling, the sky growing darker.  A man in a
white hard hat came to a rough opening that would one day, economy
permitting, contain a window.  The young man eyed the trio, took his
unwrapped sandwich, dropped it in his lunch pail and turned away.

After a long moment, he exited from the not yet hung front door and
shuffled over to them.  He glanced at Dobbs, looked at Kirk for a
moment, then fixed his gaze on his foreman.

"What's up, Toby?"

"These two cops've got some questions.  Lunch break's over in twenty
minutes."  He faced Dobbs and Kirk and raised his eyebrows.  "Twenty
minutes, understand?"

"I think we can figure it out, sport," answered Kirk.

The foreman spat on the ground, walked off to his pickup, and resumed
eating his lunch.  Randy faced the two plainclothes officers and
appeared to swallow against a very dry tongue.

"Yeah?"

"This is Sgt. Dobbs and I'm Detective Kirk.  Is your name Randy
Giandra?"

"Yeah.  What about it?"

"Your crew looks a little shorthanded."

"So, good help is hard to find.  What's it to you two?"

"So," said Kirk, "you want to tell me about Frank Chadburn, Tony
Sarzana, Nick Panek, Archie Cash, and Billy Knapp?"

The suspect's gaze moved to Jerry Kirk's face.  He seemed to be hovering
somewhere between flight and resignation.  "What do you want me to tell
you about them?  People get sick, some people move on.  They don't have
to check in with me."

"Uh huh.  We know during the night out you boys had a couple of weeks
ago, you were all stoned.  Booze, pot.  Tony Sarzana was shot dead in
the Chay and fell out of the bed of Nick Panek's pickup truck."  Kirk
reached to his inside coat pocket and pulled out a small notebook.  He
didn't need to consult his notes.  It was for effect.  He flipped a few
pages, allowed his gaze to play among the scribbles for a moment, and
continued.  "See, Randy, your boy Archie Cash is still in County
Hospital getting glass cut out of his face and eyes.  They don't have
much hope he'll ever see again.  Too bad it took you people so long to
get him to a hospital.  Billy Knapp was treated at County for gunshot
wounds in his shoulder and left thigh.  He was released a week ago, and
has vanished.  No one has seen hide nor hair of either Frank Chadburn or
Nick Panek since Tony was shot dead."

The carpenter shrugged his shoulders.  "So, why ask me?"

"Randy," began Kirk, "everyone who's physically able has gone to ground.
How come you're still here smacking your thumb with a hammer?"

"I got a family to support, bills to pay.  I call it being responsible.

What do you call it?"

A wry smile came over Kirk's face.  "Stupid.  That's what I call it:
real stupid.  What're they charging you potheads and drunks with:
premedicated murder?"  (stet) "You know, cop, they've already asked me
about this.

More'n once.  Homicide officers."

"Then you already know it won't make your hair fall out."

Kirk replaced his notebook.  "So, we have a couple of questions, too."

"My lawyer told me he has to be in on any questioning.

This whole mess is going to trial in four months."

"No, no, no," answered Kirk.  "We don't want to ask about the slaghunt
you and your stupid friends were on in Chayville.

You and your pals kill and cripple a few rubberheads and what's that to
us?  What we want to know has nothing to do with that."

"What's it got to do with then?"

Kirk's eyebrows went up.  "What can you tell us about Micky Cass?"

"Micky Cass?"  Randy frowned and slowly shook his head.

"Who?"

"Micky Cass.  You had to have heard of him.  He's a very famous writer.

Up until recently he was doing a column for the Times under the name
Ellison Robb.  Any of this ringing a bell?"

"I don't get the Times.  I got a TV."

"You had to hear about his column, even on the TV.  Slag_ Like_Me?  It
was the topic on C-Span and a couple other big talk shows."

"I don't watch jabbervid.  I turn to sports mostly.  Major Dad, Rush
Limbaugh, though the guy's a little far out for me."

Kirk shook his head in disbelief.  "People in this town have been
arguing about Slag_Like_Me for months."

"I must've had other things on my mind."  The carpenter frowned. "Why?

Did he write something about me?"

"Oh, baby, did he ever write something about you; about you and all your
boozed up little buddies."

"What did he write?"

"Well, Goober, he was an eyewitness to that night when you and your crew
went and shot up The Place, killed that little boy, crippled an old man,
and then got the shit shot out of you when you went after five slags
standing on the sidewalk.  They shot back, didn't they?"

"I can't talk about it."

"Micky Cass was one of those five slags.  He gave you quite a write up
in his column."

"You didn't say this Cass was a slag.  You got a copy of that column?"

"No, I don't have a copy."

Randy Giandra shrugged and looked down as he stuck his hands in the back
pockets of his jeans.  "If he saw something, the D.A. would know more
about that than me."

"We already know what he saw.  What we want to know is what do you know
about Micky Cass's disappearance?"

"Disappearance?"  Randy Giandra pulled a hand from his back pocket and
held it out to his side.  "Man, I never heard of Micky Cass.  What in
the hell am I going to be able to tell you about someone I never heard
of?"  He sighed and held out his hands.  "Look, I know I'm in trouble.

I don't know what to do about it, and I can't help you at all."

Jerry Kirk nodded once.  "I believe you."  He looked at Dobbs and said,
"We got squat.  Anything you wanted to say?"

Rick Dobbs nodded and reached into his pocket.  He pulled out a dollar
and stuffed it into Randy Giandra's shirt pocket.

"Here."

"What's that for?" "Save the universe," said Dobbs.  "Buy a condom.
Don't reproduce."

ELEVEN

"Where's that 'Cards and Letters' column of Ellison Robb's?"  asked
Iniko.

George pushed around the papers until he found it.  "I've got it here."

He leaned across and dropped it on Matt's side of the desk where the
F.B.I. man was peering through one of several stacks of Ellison Robb's
reader mail.  The command center was quiet, a few disinterested clerks
having coffee next to quiet keyboards and blank screens.

"Thank you," said Paul.  He picked up the tear sheet and began scanning
it.

"You look as though you've discovered something," said George.

The former Overseer shrugged his shoulders.  "It's surprising how many
of Ellison Robb's readers knew he was Micky Cass, even though I see
little similarity between the column and his writing as Micky Cass."

He glanced up and pointed toward a stack of letters.  "All of those
correspondents, over three hundred of them, made some comment that made
it clear they knew who was writing the column."

"There's an even bigger stack of letters from persons who believe that
Ellison Robb is anyone from Jimmy Hoffa to an incarnation of Elvis.

What about the lead?"

Paul Iniko looked up from his reading and frowned for a moment, followed
by a grin.  "Now, isn't that odd?"

"What odd?"

"The thing you asked about."

"The lead you're working on?"

"Yes.  It just occurred to me, George, if it turns out to be nothing,
there would be no point in telling you.  If I'm right, however, I can't
tell you."

"Can't tell me?"

"I apologize for how this sounds, but I can't even tell you why I can't
tell you because telling you why I can't tell you would tell you."

"Paul, are you on some kind of medication?"

"There is a universe of possibilities, George.  However, that is not one
of them."

George Francisco steamed for a moment and then leaned forward to
emphasize his point.  "Look, if it might be important to the
investigation, I need to know.  More than that, I have a right to know."

Iniko's eyebrows went up.  "I'm sorry, George.  Look, I don't know if
it's important.  I don't even know for certain if what I suspect is
true.  It might be nothing.  Let's not make an issue out of it until I
have the facts."

George clasped his hands across his belly and leaned back in his chair.

"And once you know for certain you'll tell me?"

"If what I suspect is false."

"But it's only important if it's true, right?  You just made a point out
of telling me that there wouldn't be any point in telling me if what I
wanted you to tell me .  . ."  George waved his hands in the air as a
puzzled expression crowded his features.

Paul Iniko nodded.  "That's right."

"Hell, now I'm talking like you."  He let his hands fall to his lap.

"I don't understand.  Why can't you tell me why you can't tell me?"

George held up his hands, palms facing Iniko.

"No, wait.  I remember now.  Telling me why you can't tell me would be
telling me."

The F.B.I. man nodded.  "You've got it."

"You know, Paul, this isn't exactly the kind of thing that inspires
trust."

"It can't be helped.  Perhaps you can trust that I have a good reason."

"You're asking me to have faith in an Overseer?"

"Former Overseer."

George folded his arms across his chest and frowned.

"There's some talk, Paul, that the bureau has you in here in an attempt
at managing the investigation to keep the F.B.I."s skirts clean."

"There's talk that Elvis still stalks the streets of Las Vegas,"
responded Iniko.

"Well, some talk is more talky than other talk."

"You're gibbering, George."

"Then let me clear things up a bit.  There's some evidence to support
that the Ahvin_Rivak and the bureau have a connection."

Paul's eyebrows went up.  "You think there's a government conspiracy to
send the Tenctonese off planet and back into slavery?  In a very real
sense, we don't even know where we are.

Earth science doesn't even have the ability to manufacture the
components to communicate at supra-light speeds, and won't have the
ability within the foreseeable future.  Even if there were a conspiracy,
what would be the point?"

"I didn't say it was intelligent.  The point just might be to cover up
how stupid it is.  The last time we worked together, your job was to
help cover up the bureau's role in MDQ and the Maanka Dak business."

Paul Iniko smiled.  "I didn't do a very good job, did I?"

"Very well.  I'm aware you eventually did the right thing, Paul."

"I thought you might have forgotten.  You were a little confused, as I
recall."

"I'm not confused now, and I want to know: why is the F.B.I. in on this,
and of all the agents available, why you?"

"There's nothing to cover up this time, at least not as far as I'm
aware.  The high ups are very concerned about the disappearance of Micky
Cass and they wanted to get on it right away with everything possible.
The way my superior explained it to me, there is a very real fear in the
mayor's office and in the Attorney General's office that, if something
happened to Micky Cass, it might precipitate a disturbance in L.A. that
would make the last riot look like a marshmallow roast.

It's believed that such a disturbance could spread well outside the
limits of L.A. The director is bending the rules a bit by assigning
agents and facilities to an investigation that hasn't officially begun
yet, but that's how important Washington sees it."

"What about the connection with the Ahvin_Rivak?  Cass had several notes
in his files concerning it."

Iniko held out his hands and shrugged.  "Perhaps there is a connection.

The bureau might be conducting an investigation of the rivakah or
something or someone related to the returners.

What if, as you suspect, the director lost his mind and engaged in a
conspiracy with the Ahvin_Rivak to sell us all back into slavery, which,
of course, would include all the humans on Earth, as well.  Even so, I'm
not in the loop, as they say."

"What about Cass's notes?"

"I haven't seen those particular notes.  Nevertheless, my best guess is
that whatever connection that exists has more to do with the bureau
infiltrating the Rivak as a possible threat to national security than it
has with a desire to send everyone into slavery."

George stared at the former Overseer for a full five seconds and then
said, "You're really not going to tell me what it is you're working on,
are you?"

"That's right."  Paul held out his hands and raised his eyebrows.  "If
the information comes out some other way, fine.

It's just that I can't tell you.  Sorry."

George drummed his fingers on the armrests of his chair, took a deep
breath, and let it out.  "Okay.  For the moment, Paul, okay.  What about
Davenport's alibi?  Did you get the name of his doctor?"

Iniko nodded and looked down at the top of the desk as his eyes yellowed
in embarrassment.  "Yes.  I got the name of his doctor."

"And?"

Iniko pushed his chair back and stood.  "And Rudy Davenport was right."

"Right?  What do you mean, right?"

"I mean, he was right."

"Right about what?"

"His doctor's name is none of our business."  The F.B.I.

man turned and walked from the squad room, his hands thrust into his
trouser pockets, a frown perched upon his brow.

TWELVE

"I don't get it," said Matt Sikes hours later at Mt.

Andarko's Hospital.  He frowned at how thick and fuzzy his tongue was.

"If you're not goin' to do any cuttin', why I gotta be doped up?"

The nurse, a Tenctonese named Lisa Kerr, looked down upon Sikes with a
cold face.  She was garbed in pale yellow scrubs.

"It's really very simple, Mr.  Cross."

Cross, thought Matt.  My name is Matt Cross, big time writer.  Fulla
Dope Cross, one really mild mannered reporter for the Daily_Plan
--Times.

Part of a question with an absent answer floated before his eyes and he
noticed that Nurse Kerr was moving her lips.

Her hips.  Her lips and her hips.  She was very lovely.  Not as lovely
as Cathy, but very lovely indeed.  It was all on the outside, though.

Inside she was all business, or worse.  Angry.

Maybe bitter.  What about?

The thoughts in his head were mired in pine tar.  Nurse Kerr had a mean
streak a yard wide, inside.  Cathy was beautiful all the way through.

Did Nurse Kerr's anger take Micky Cass out of the picture?

Anger about what?

And she did have a terrific alibi.  Part of a group, vacationing in
Germany, sixteen days, never left sight of her friends for more than
seven hours at a stretch.

Seven hours.  The connections just weren't there.

Matt felt himself frown.  "You said somethin' 'bout simple, simp --simp
---" "Yes, Mr. Cross.  Simple.  I explained all of this to you in detail
before.  Don't you remember?  There won't be any cutting of your skin,
but you need to be anesthetized for two reasons.  First, the operation
will take several hours, during which time it is imperative that you do
not move.  Second, shortly after the Realskin begins bonding with your
skin, it will begin forming nerve tissue and integrating it with your
own nervous system.  Midway through the operation, therefore, when we
cut and suture the Realskin ---" "It'll hurt," he completed.

"It would be uncomfortable if you weren't anesthetized.

In fact, when the anesthetic wears off and you awaken, you'll experience
a little discomfort because the healing Realskin will be your own. Relax
and we'll be by in a few minutes to take you down to surgery."

"Discomfort," Matt muttered beneath his breath.  "Every time a doctor or
nurse says 'discomfort' you can count on whatever it is feeling like
shitting five pounds of rusty fishhooks."

Matt closed his eyes and vaguely thought he heard the door to his room
open and close.  After a moment he though he heard it open and close
again.  Who was it?  Was it anyone?  Or was it the drugs playing tricks
on his ears.  Maybe it was Lisa Kerr coming to kill him.  Lisa Kerr.

Why didn't she change her name?

It'd perk up her whole outlook.

He tried to open his eyes but his sight was met by a mush of shapes and
a swirl of colors.

"Relax," he muttered to himself, feeling something strange in his mouth.
Big wet and fuzzy.  It was his tongue.

Relax.

Relax, hell.

To relax you have to trust, and Matt Sikes doesn't trust.

He's not stupid.  If every time you trust you get betrayed, you don't
trust.  If you don't trust, you can't relax.  If you can't relax, you
walk through life as a big knot.

"'Sides," he muttered, "I'm onna undercover investigation.

Oops!"  Mustn't let little things like that slip.  Loose ships think
slips.  Something like that.

He tried to open his eyes to check the room and his sight was greeted by
a shower of strange lights and smears.

Can't trust eyes.  Can't trust anyone.

"Matt?"

Cathy hadn't betrayed him.  Yet.

"Matt?"

And there was George, his partner.  They had argued disagreed, and
fought.  But George had never betrayed him.  If he ever would trust
anyone, it would be Cathy or George.  It certainly wouldn't be someone
with a knife and a resentment about him disguising himself as a Tenct.

"Matt?  It's George."

"George?"  He opened his eyes and squinted in an attempt at wrestling
the images before him into some sort of sense.

There was a figure in the doorway.  It moved forward, its face coming
into the light.  "George, it's you."

George Francisco took a chair, pulled it up next to the bed, and sat in
it.  "How are you doing, Matt?"

"Fine."  He giggled as he thought of something.  "Yeah, fine.

Frustrated, insane, neurotic, and emotional."  He wondered if his words
had come out the way he'd said them.  He tried to shrug and couldn't
tell whether he'd actually accomplished the gesture or simply thought
about it.  As his eyes closed, he said, "I guess what I mean, partner,
is I'm jus' plain scared.  How's the investigation going?"

"Iniko's playing I've_Got_a_Secret and I'm going over the people around
Jessup again."

"Why?"

"Oh, you don't know.  A couple of hours ago we heard from the lab.

They turned up a partial print on that Edward Lear quote.  It was
Jessup's.  The lab trolls are rounding up typewriters as we speak."

"Didn't the Boston cops give Jessup an alibi?"

"Air tight," answered George.  "But the note was on stationary Jessup
has at his home office and at the academy.  It could've been someone who
had access to the paper.  There's his wife, of course, as well as the
housekeeper, Gloria Salcines, and the gardeners, Jimmy and Harry Lee.
Those are the only regulars at home.  At the school it looks as though
the only ones with regular access to his stationary are his secretary,
Nathan Lopez, and two file clerks, Alice Yuan and Roger Stanton.

Stanton is a Tenct.  Lopez's wife gives him a shaky alibi, and neither
Yuan nor Stanton have alibis.  All three of them are a bit short in the
motive department, however."

"Wha ... What.  Sorry.  Tongue's dry.  The housekeeper and the
gardener?"

"Alibis full of holes, just like everyone else's except Jessup.  Gloria
Salcines has two sisters that come out on a regular basis to help do the
cleaning at his home.  I gather the place is a whiteout nightmare and
Mrs.  Jessup is a clean freak.

One of them, Felicia, was in the hospital having some cosmetic surgery,
and the other, Marta, can only account for a few hours during the three
days.  Again, short of motives.  The gardener, Jimmy Lee, is covered
pretty solidly by his different customers, but there are gaps.  His
brother, Harry, works part time for his brother and part time for the
Sierra Environmental Center.

Harry Lee's time is full of gaps, but right now both he and his brother
look short of motive, too."

"The only one with a motive couldn't've done it, huh?

Maybe Jessup's airtight alibi has a leak, partner.  What about the feds
an' the Ahvin_Rivak?  Anything?"

"Cass's notes have a lot of suspicions and a couple of threads.  What
we've checked out so far doesn't seem to be going anywhere.  All we have
is motive.  The Ahvin_Rivak would rather not have peace and light
brought to human-Tenct relations.  I gather they figure it slows down
the eventual exodus back into slavery.  They have over eighteen hundred
local members, so take your pick."

"The connection to the F.B.I.?"

"I don't know.  Paul isn't speaking to me.  Not about this."

"A mess, George.  Gotta feeling we're gonna be too late."

He was silent for a long moment, then Matt frowned as images floated
before his eyes.  "I'm scared, George.  Did I ever tell you, angry
people make me scared?  They do.  I fight 'em, but they make me scared.

Scare me.  Gonna see some angry people as a Tenct.  Lots of angry
people."

"You'll do fine, Matt.  We'll have you covered."

"Mmm."  It seemed very dark.  Matt realized his eyes were closed.  He
didn't have the strength to open them.  He felt George's gentle fingers
take his hand and hold it.  He went limp and swam himself to sleep.

________________________________________________________________ ELLISON
ROBB SLAG LIKE ME THOSE CARDS AND LETTERS

# You know how you feel when a problem you think has been taken care of
long ago turns out still to be a problem?  It's like the resurgence of
TB in this country a few years ago.  TB was like the plague, something
from the past, no longer a problem.  Then, oops!  Here it is again.

The same thing happened with polio.

The same thing is happening with my mail right now.

Those of you who read my previous columns might recall that the issue
that caused this series to come into being was anti-Newcomer sentiment;
human racism; slagging.  It is an important subject, and if I were a
reader, I could think of upwards of a million questions I could ask and
suggestions I could make.

Physically, how was the transformation from human to Tenct made?

Describe the surgical process.  What was the thing that marked you as a
human on your first abortive attempt at impersonating a Tenct?  What was
the process of change like?

How does it feel knowing what that look is in some human's eyes?

And, what about private business?  Housing?  The gangs?  What about the
rest of the United States?  Are there any Tencts in Canada?  Why?  If
not, why not?  When are the political parties going to push for Tenct
candidates (what if the best "man" for the job isn't a "man" but a
Tenct?)?

There are countless interesting issues readers might have raised, but
questions and suggestions regarding the investigation of human-Tenct
relationships represent less than two percent of the mail received thus
far.  The rest of the mail, frankly, makes me cringe.

#

"Because of your obvious African-American bias against the police
department, the rest of this so-called

'investigation' must be suspect.  There are very real problems with the
Tenctonese and how they are treated, but using this forum to grind the
traditional anti-police ax carried by the black community does a
disservice, not only to the police and to the Te ncts, but to
African-Americans."

"It's all too clear your Latino rage against the police department .  .
."

"You white Jew liberals, in your attempt to put down Arabs and promote
gun control .  . ."

". . . white ultra-libertarians who never had to do an honest day's work
.  . ."

". . . sexual deviates attempting to force your perverted values onto
innocent children .  . ."

". . . whacko conservatives who want to do away with welfare and a
woman's right to .  . ."

"It was very clever to have a Slag write a column pretending to be a
human pretending to be a Rubberhead, but simply the way you use words
gives you away."

"As an Asian-American myself, I see in your good natured attempt at
enlightenment nothing but the encouragement of discord.  Although police
reforms are certainly in order, having Vietnamese ancestry does not give
you a special cross to carry .  . ."

". . . and you damned Indians can't even figure out what to call
yourselves.  American Indians?  Amarinds?

Native Americans?  American aborigines?  Hell, we can't figure it out,
so let's go after the cops!"

#

And those, dear reader, were a few of the more educated responses.  I
will spare you the venom of the rest, including a rather rabid
representation of Latvian-Americans who were offended by my unfortunate
example of a narrow agenda.  They all assure me that Latvia has not a
single native black gay midget biker within its borders (I assume they
are all married).

Here are the very discouraging statistical results on my "race" thus
far:

#

Ellison Robb is a:

Hebe 14.1

Whitey 16.8

Blacky 26.3

Tenctonese 06.1

Taconese 19.7

Gookese 08.0

Redskin 01.3

Other 04.2

Unspecified 03.5

#

"Other" includes Arab, Italian, Irish, Iranian, and a substantial
portion who is convinced that I am from New Jersey(?).  Out of a total
of 26,588 responses there were 8,612 threats to life, limb, and property
toward me, my family, the publisher, and staff of the Times,
particularly against Martin Fell, who invited me to do the column (have
a great vacation in Uzbekistan, Marty).

Interestingly enough, 922 correspondents confessed to believing that I
am a retired, fired, or otherwise exed police officer; 612 accused me of
being homophobic; 1,104 accused me of being gay (including lesbian);
2,238 claimed I was female; and 2,322 accused me of being male (one
correspondent, who claimed to know me, confessed to knowing as well that
I am a hermaphrodite).  I'll spare you the breakdown on my political
affiliations, except to assure you that communism, socialism, fascism,
capitalism, and cannibalism appear to be alive and well at the Times.

This is what it must be like to run for political office.

You want to talk about America's self-image, business prosperity,
putting people to work, crime, drugs, education, environment, health,
and human rights, but all anyone seems to be able to focus on is: "When
he went on that college panty raid back in '72, did he, or did he not,
put on the panties?"  (We only want to know where he's coming from).

People, you_don't_get_it!

Neither this issue (human-Tenctonese relations) nor this column can be
seen through the filter of a black agenda, a white agenda, a
pro-cop/anti-cop agenda, gay/straight, G.O.P./Demo, or any other kind of
agenda.

"But how can we tell where the man is coming from?"

(Which assumes that I am male).

A thing, a person, an event is what it is, and only what it is, itself.

I report to you what I find through the perspective of one individual: a
being on this planet called, for the purposes of this column, Ellison
Robb.

"Yeah, but who in the hell is Ellison Robb?  That's just a name
(Yes!_Yes!  It is just a name!) How can we know how to look at his or
her (or its) views if we don't know his (her or its) sex, political,
national, or ethnic background?"

The answer is to look_at_the_view,_not_at_the_viewer.  Too simple for
you, Goober?

Very well.  I suppose a confession is necessary.  Ellison Robb belongs
to a minuscule racial minority known as Intelligent Life.  He has both a
masculine side and a feminine side, and he has the organs suitable to
exercising the appropriate side's inclinations at any particular moment.
In other words, dear reader, the ax in my hand is neither black, white,
male, female, gay, straight, pro-cop, or anti-choice.

The only ax in my hand is this column and an overwhelming desire to have
people do the right thing.

What's the right thing?

There is a probably misguided piece of me that honestly believes that if
you readers see the wrong thing and its effects clearly enough, the
right thing will become unmistakably clear.  Moreover, after such a
view, the desire to do the right thing will become overwhelming.

Perhaps it is just a fantasy of mine.  It is for this reason alone,
however, that I write.

Two more items of business:

First, among the countless bags of confused letters sent to the Times,
came a request from a person who did sign his name, but whose name I
will not print for reasons soon to become obvious.  His letter didn't
have anything much to do with the subject matter of this column, but
neither did most of the others.  He wrote:

#

"In your first column you said you studied the Tencts and know a lot
about them.  I know they were slaves and were controlled by strong
addictive drugs before they crashed here, and I also know a lot of them
dont do drugs anymore.  How do they stay away fr om the stuff?  I want
to.  More than anything, I want to stay away from it.  I can't and it's
killing me.  Worse than that, it's killing everyone I love.  How do the
Tencts stay clean?"

#

I don't know how every Tenct stays away from drugs.  I suspect most of
them aren't addicts.  In any event, a very wise anonymous person once
said: "When you've had enough, find a telephone book, look up the number
for Narcotics Anonymous, call the number, drag your ass to a meeting,
and ask for help."

They probably won't be able to tell you how Tencts stay clean, but they
can help you to figure out how to get and stay clean yourself.

Finally, there was a big brown envelope from a person who works in the
personnel department of a rather large and powerful institution.

Inside the envelope were hiring stats, revealing memos, cover up orders
from on high, and a rope trail leading all of the way to Washington,
D.C. that could stretch some very prominent necks.  After meeting with
my correspondent, we've estimated that it will take a week or so to set
up my infiltration of the outfit.  It should be very interesting.

Meanwhile, there are intriguing doings down in the barrio.  Stay tuned.

THIRTEEN As he and Paul Iniko stood and waited, George Francisco looked
around the incredibly white living room in the Jessup home.  The walls,
furniture, rugs, trim, lamps, shelves, even the covers of the books on
the shelves were white.  The color was not a muted orchid, eggshell, nor
off white.  It was white white, operating room white, snowflakes soaked
in Clorox for three weeks white.  George glanced at Paul and the former
Overseer was looking down at the rug.

"What do you think?"

Paul raised his eyebrows.  "I've never before felt quite so impure.  Do
you think we ought to come back after we get our heads buffed?"

"I don't understand why we're here at all.  We have Ramos's report.

Jessup has an air tight alibi.  He was at that convention of English
teachers, then he and some of his friends were in custody for setting
the hotel on fire.  The Boston P.D. have confirmed it.  According to
them, Jessup was locked up and in no shape to do anything but scream and
vomit for most of the time."  George held out a hand.  "His wife and
children, the housekeeper, and the gardener have the rest of the time
covered."

"There are some things upon which I need to satisfy myself," said Paul.

"Things?"

"A hunch."

They were interrupted by the owner of the house, school superintendent
Duke Jessup, entering the room.  He was in his middle fifties, balding,
wearing grey balloon slacks and a ripped red and yellow rugby shirt.

He hadn't shaved for a few days and he looked as uncomfortable in the
center of all that whiteness as Iniko and Francisco.  He glanced
nervously at the two Tencts and put his hands into his trouser pockets.

"My wife said you wanted to talk to me."

"Yes," answered Paul.  "Thank you for seeing us."

"You're here about the Cass thing, I imagine."

"The Cass thing?"  George repeated.

"Yes," Jessup answered with no change in expression.

"He's missing, I hate his guts, two plus two equals five, and here are
the police back for the second act.  The cops have been here already,
you know."

"We have Lt. Ramos's report and your statement, Dr. Jessup," said Paul.
"I'm Agent Iniko of the F.B.I. This is Sgt. Francisco with L.A.P.D.
homocide.  We're both working on the Cass investigation.

There were just a few things we wanted to clear up.  According to what
you told Lt. Ramos ---" "Could we go to another room?"  asked Jessup.

He removed a hand from its pocket and gestured toward the door.  "We
might be more comfortable."

"Certainly," answered Paul.

Jessup turned and led the way through an equally white hall lined on one
side with windows that looked out over the gardens.  Potted plants had
been strategically placed on the balcony outside to block the view of
Micky Cass's house.  As Duke Jessup walked, he remarked, "Lois is rather
compulsive about cleanliness." "It is some rather striking decorating,"
said George.

"You think that's white?  Wait until you get a load of the bathrooms.

I don't mean to sound crude," said Jessup as he glanced back, "but I
sometimes wonder where in this house one can take a guilt free dump."

He smiled without humor.

"Actually, I did mean to sound crude."  At the end of the hallway was a
closed door.  Jessup opened it and held out his hand.  "We can talk in
here."

The room was a combination den and office paneled in honey colored woods
and furnished with worn leather upholstered chairs and rough hardwood
tables.  The windows from the hallway continued along the curve of the
room's western wall overlooking the gardens.  There was the stale smell
of whisky in the air.

George stood at the window wall and looked down.  There were no
strategically placed plants.  Cass's eyesore virtually served as the
centerpiece of Jessup's garden.  At the far end of the garden, however,
near the wall separating the Jessup property from Micky Cass's rose
garden, the gardener and a helper were pulling three evergreen trees
from the back of a metal scrap filled pickup.  The trees were already
over a dozen feet tall and the burlap wrapped root balls were extremely
heavy.  The holes next to the wall had already been dug.  It would take
four or five years, guessed George, but eventually the trees would spare
the Jessups the sight of Micky Cass's nightmare.

George turned and saw that hanging on the opposite wall were numerous
plaques, trophies, and awards.  He stepped over to them and noted that
Duke Jessup had received several teaching, literary, and appreciation
plaques.  The trophies and awards were all for competition target
shooting, for both rifle and pistol.  George noted a glass enclosed
display cabinet at the end of the room designed to hold perhaps a dozen
assorted rifles and pistols.  The cabinet was empty.

"You may sit there."  Jessup held his hand out toward two modular
chairs.  As George and Paul seated themselves, Jessup sat down in a
third chair facing them and the window wall, with an unobstructed view
of Cass's house.  As they talked, he stared at the eyeball painted on
the roof below.

"Very well, Sgt.  Francisco, Agent Iniko, what can I do for you?"

George looked at Paul Iniko, and the former Overseer stared at Jessup
with an unblinking gaze.  At last Iniko said, "Tell me what life is like
for you, Duke."

Duke Jessup's eyebrows shot up as his eyes grew ever wider.  "Life?"

George frowned at Iniko as Jessup's eyebrows dropped into a threatened
scowl.  "What in the devil are you ---" Jessup shook his head.  "I don't
see what business it is of yours what life is like for me.  I've given
your Lt.  Ramos all the facts to which the police are entitled.

How the elements of my world plan are meshing is no one's affair but my
own."

George studied the superintendent.  Jessup's face was red, his hands
shaking.  He repeatedly moistened his lips with his tongue, yet sweat
beaded on his forehead.  He looked terribly unhealthy, even for a human.

"Dr. Jessup," said Paul, "I assure you that my interest is not one of
idle curiosity.  Despite your alibi, you are still a suspect.  Now, if
you did participate in the abduction of Micky Cass, you have several
very good reasons for refusing to answer my question.  If you are
innocent, you have nothing to lose by answering my question save my
company and the company of Sgt. Francisco here.  As soon as my question
has been answered to my satisfaction, you see, we will leave."

"I didn't kidnap anyone."

"In which case, you may as well answer my question."

Jessup glanced at George, took a deep breath and let escape a sigh of
exasperation.  "Sure," he said to Iniko as he looked down at Cass's
house.  "Why not?  You want to know what my life is like?"

"Yes."

His eyes narrowed as his lower lip trembled.  In a voice that was barely
audible, he said, "My life is excrement."

"Because of Micky Cass?"  offered George.

Jessup moved his gaze from Cass's house to George's face.

"Cass?"

"Yes.  You said your life was excrement.  Is that so because of Micky
Cass?"

Duke Jessup looked back at Cass's house and George watched in
astonishment as tears streaked down Jessup's cheeks.  After a moment the
man wiped the tears away with the backs of his hands and answered as
though the tears had never existed.  "Cass has contributed a small part
to the project."  He nodded toward the window.  "The one place of peace
and beauty in my life, the one remaining piece of sanity, my garden,
Micky Cass fouled with what he did with his damned house."  He looked at
Paul.  "But that was only one last turd on a very tall shitpile."

"What do you mean by that?"

"What do I mean, the F.B.I. man wants to know."  He snorted out a bitter
laugh and shook his head.  "Well, thanks to the notoriety following my
return from Boston, I've been asked to resign as superintendent of St.
George's.  Is that enough?"

"What about your family?"  pressed Iniko.

Jessup looked at the F.B.I. agent and seemed to slump inwardly.  It was
as though Iniko already knew all the answers, making it impossible for
Jessup to either shade or evade them.

"I'm losing my family, Agent Iniko.  Is that what you wanted me to say?

My wife and I haven't slept together for over two years.  Last month she
filed for divorce and for the custody of my two children, both of whom
hate my guts.  All the money I have in the world is tied up in this
house and I'm going to get killed in the settlement.  My every waking
moment is spent staring at the underside of Hell.  Now, is that enough?"

"Not quite," answered Paul without emotion.  "Do you hold Cass
responsible for your family troubles?"

Jessup glanced down at the hardwood floor, then let his gaze slowly rise
until he was again looking through the window wall at Micky Cass's
house.  "No.  I can't say that.  Cass moved in less than a year ago.

Lois has been threatening to leave me since before I even knew that
anyone called Micky Cass existed."

"So what is responsible?"  asked Paul.

"Responsible?  Responsible for what?"

"For your troubles, Duke."

The use of Jessup's given name seemed to make his neck twitch
involuntarily.  "How in blazes would I know what's responsible?  Air
pollution?  The hole in the ozone layer?

Defective karma?"

"Do you think you might have a problem with alcohol?"

A look of such incredible loathing leaped upon Jessup's face, it
startled George sufficiently to cause him to reach involuntarily for his
weapon.  His hand moved no more than an inch, but George knew where his
hand was headed when he brought it to a halt.  He knew that Jessup had
frightened him.

"No," answered Jessup.  "I do not have a problem with alcohol.  The
thing in Boston was an unfortunate, but quite isolated, incident.  I do
not have a problem with alcohol."

"You're certain of that?"

"I think I'm honest enough with myself to know whether or not I'm a
drunk."

Paul nodded as he rested his elbows on his chair's armrests and clasped
his hands together.  "At an earlier English teacher's convention, in
'Eighty-nine, according to your records, you were charged with driving
while intoxicated by the police in Minneapolis.  Do you remember that,
Duke?" "I don't understand," said Jessup, his voice constricted by
anger.  "Am I being charged with some kind of drunk driving thing?"  He
looked somewhere between rage and terror, as though the rage might not
be justified, and that if the truth of that escaped into the light, he
would die.

"No," answered Paul as he stood.  "I simply needed to satisfy myself on
a point, and you have done that admirably.

Thank you for your cooperation." "I have a question," said George as he
to got to his feet.

"I noticed the shooting trophies."  He nodded toward the display case.

"Where are the guns?"

"Gone.  I don't own guns anymore."

"You sold them?"

"Some I sold.  Some I gave away.  They're all registered and they've all
had ballistic tests in accordance with the new law, so it doesn't matter
whether I sold them, gave them away, or tossed them in the Franklin
Canyon Reservoir.  They're gone.

Why don't you two do the same."

Later, in the car driving down Beverly toward Wilshire, George took a
moment to glance at the F.B.I. man.  Iniko had his arms folded across
his chest and he was staring straight ahead from beneath a severe frown.
"Why didn't we press him about the guns?"  asked George.

"Guns?  Oh."  Iniko shrugged and looked through the passenger window at
the passing scenery.  "No one's been shot, George.  We don't need a gun
until then."

` "Paul, Jessup obviously worships guns.  Did you see all of those
shooting trophies?  He loves guns and appears to be an expert in using
them.  In addition he gives every evidence of being an alcoholic in full
flower, with all of the denial, anger, violence, and impaired judgement
that implies.

Therefore, doesn't the absence of guns in his house strike you as just
the least bit convenient?"

"Not really.  For Duke Jessup guns are out right now.  For the time
being he has another god; a god that makes having guns in the house an
immensely terrifying matter."

"I don't understand.  What's so terrifying about having guns in the
house?" "What you said yourself about him being a late stage addict."
Iniko faced George and asked, "If you were obsessed with constant
thoughts of suicide, murder, or both, would you keep a gun in the
house?"

"How do you know that Jessup is obsessed with thoughts of suicide or
murder?"

"If I could explain that, I'd have to be a great deal more intelligent
than I am."

George frowned.  "Do you mean this is another thing you can't tell me?"

"Just let it go, George.  It's not important."

"Not important?"  George waved a hand at Iniko and divided his attention
between the traffic and the being in the passenger seat.

"You're telling me that Duke Jessup being constantly obsessed with
thoughts of murder is unimportant?"

"That's right."

"I would think Jessup being plagued with thoughts of murder would make
him our number one suspect."

Iniko shook his head and returned to looking out of the window on his
side.  "Curious as it may seem, George, it pretty much eliminates him.

Duke Jessup is not our man."

FOURTEEN Matt's face felt like a stretched drum head, tight and
incredibly dry.

It was brittle, too, as though his skin would shatter if he smiled,
turned his head, or wrinkled his forehead.

It was the Realskin he was feeling, rather than his own.  His own skin,
covered and desensitized by the artificial skin, had moved the sensation
of touch to the surface layer.  To Matt's sense of touch, if not his
mind, the sculpted Realskin was now his real skin.

Over the days since his operation, he had looked into his room's
bathroom mirror several times, but his head and face, to protect the
Realskin from infection, were completely bandaged making him look like
the invisible man trying to be visible.

The one difference he could see were the eyes.

The emotionally sensitive gel contacts were functioning, if not well.

His eyes were pale green, reflecting a degree of pain, except that he
did not feel any pain.  Nevertheless, the gel had remained green for so
long that Matt had almost forgotten how the world looked without a green
tinge.  There were other things to do, however, while the Realskin
healed, the cellular bonding continued, and the swelling went down.
Those other things were the province of the rama_vo and Ivo Lass.

"Rape and incest victims, concentration camp survivors, and former
slaves all have something in common," she stated.

Matt shifted uncomfortably in the easy chair in his room and looked
through his bandages at the Hila from the South Gate Rama_Vo.  She was
Tenctonese and one of the few who looked ancient.  She was well over the
median Tenct life expectancy of 140 years and her name was Ivo Lass. She
sat in the opposite easy chair looking quite relaxed.  Every other Tenct
Matt knew spoke English with some variation of an American accent.  Ivo
Lass talked like Margaret Thatcher.

She was the one who had helped Micky Cass to "emerge" as a Tenct.

Although she was a suspect, Matt could not stay completely detached from
what the woman was saying.  She seemed to know everything about life,
living, and about Matt Cross.  He suspected that she knew, as well, that
Matt Cross wasn't Matt Cross.  He didn't think she knew he was a police
officer, but she could add two and two.  She knew where he hurt, how he
handled it, and why he handled it the way he did.  He hadn't told her
any of this; she just seemed to know.

"What do they have in common, Matt?"  she asked.

Matt mentally shrugged.  Physical shrugs pulled painfully on the new
skin of his neck.  For the same reason he had learned not to purse his
lips, grimace, frown, or engage in body language with his eyebrows.

"Anger?"  he guessed.

"Yes, Matt.  Anger."  She pointed a thin, graceful finger at him.  "But
the anger is not allowed to be felt, you see?  The anger happens in a
context where it is considered wrong, immoral, dangerous, even suicidal.
Because of it, the anger is warped and hidden.  It becomes twisted,
corrupted.  It's turned into shame."

"Shame?"

"Yes.  You know about shame, don't you?"

"Shame?"

She raised an eyebrow.  "There seems to be a terrible echo in here."

"I heard you.  I just can't think of anything to be ashamed of."  He
shrugged beneath the force of her constant gaze and winced as the
healing Realskin on his neck pulled painfully.

"Okay, there were a few things I did back when ---" Matt stopped himself
from revealing his past as a patrolman.

"Well, I did a few things in the past I'm not real proud of.  When I was
a kid and later.  Is that what you mean?"

She leaned back in her chair, narrowed her eyes, and allowed her gaze to
bore into him.  "The shame to which I have reference has nothing to do
with something you did.  It has to do with what you are."

"Ashamed of what I am?"

"There's that echo again."

Matt writhed uncomfortably on his chair as he avoided eye contact with
the woman.  He noticed that his hands were clasped together, and that
the Realskin across his knuckles was very, very white.  He folded his
arms across his chest.  "I'm not sure what you mean."

"How you do feel, Matt?"

"Feel?"

"More echoes?"

"Feel?"  Matt spat again.  "I'll tell you how I feel!  I feel pissed
off!"

"Pissed off isn't a feeling, Matt.  It's a vulgarism used to avoid
admitting to a feeling."

"Well, then, how about frosted?  Salty?  Madder'n hell?

How about shitting razor blades?"

The old woman didn't bat an eye, but then Matt was in a mood sufficient
to make him wonder if Tencts could bat their eyes.  "Shitting razor
blades is close, Matt, but try again," she instructed.

"Okay," said Matt, his voice rough.  "Angry.  How about angry?"

Ivo Lass smiled with only the left corner of her mouth.

"That was better, Matt, but your anger is a mask, too.  It hides what
you feel.  Don't look for any sarcasms to throw at me, boy.

Right now.  Tell me how you feel."

Humans sweat and Tencts don't.  Matt wondered in passing how the
surgeons had handled that problem because he knew he was sweating
beneath the Hila's grilling.  The old woman was missing out on a great
career as a police interrogator.

The word was there, right on the tip of his tongue.  He felt his tongue
reach for his upper front teeth.  "Threatened," he answered flatly.

"Threatened.  Frightened.  Scared."

"Ah," she said, her eyebrows raised as though they were two hairless
flags of victory.  "And what are you frightened of, Matthew?"

He frowned in confusion as tears welled in his eyes and the green tinge
of the world grew a shade darker.  His breathing came hard.  "I'm afraid
.  . ."

He tried to shut out the Hila's image.  Ivo Lass was not his mother or
his father; she was not a figure of authority.

She was just another being.  It would be much easier to say it if she
wasn't there, however, because that was what he was afraid of: other
beings.  Afraid of their judgements.  Afraid of their rejections.  He
felt tears dribble down his cheeks.  "I'm afraid to let you know what I
really feel."  He allowed his gaze to fall on the old woman.  "I'm
afraid to let you know who I am."

Ivo Lass averted her eyes and looked through the room's window at the
hazy sky.  "Matt, before we continue, I need to know something.  Is
Micky Cass in some sort of danger?"

It had come flying out of left field and it took Matt a moment to piece
together the implications.  "What makes you think that?"

An amused expression touched her lips as her eyes crinkled at the
corners.  "Slag_Like_Me has failed to appear for weeks.

You are a police officer pretending to be a reporter, apparently tracing
Robb's footsteps in disguising himself as a Tenct.  I take it I'm even a
suspect?"

"What makes you think I'm a cop?"

Her eyebrows went up again.  "The same way I know that Robb's columns
have failed to appear.  I read newspapers.  I watch television.  You and
your partner have appeared in both several times, Detective Sikes."

Matt held his hands to the bandages covering his face.

"But you can't see me."

"I can hear your voice."  Her expression grew serious.

"What about Cass?"

"Unofficially, he's missing."

"And unofficially you're investigating?"

"Yes."

She nodded slowly, her gaze again on the window.  "Matt, I want to do
everything I can to help you.  During the time Micky Cass and I were
together for his training, I came to admire him a great deal."

Matt drummed his fingers on the armrests of his chair as he weighed Ivo
Lass's value as a suspect versus her value as an ally.  It didn't really
matter, he concluded.  If she wasn't connected with Cass's
disappearance, her help would be indispensable.  If she was responsible,
nothing would prove it more quickly than having her betray him.  It
would be sort of like looking for a gas leak with a lit match.

"I can use all of the help I can get.  About the training?"

"Yes?"

"Cass wrote that it took eleven weeks.  If it takes me that long, Micky
Cass's trail will be long dead and gone before I get to it.  Is there
any way to speed it up?"

"There's no need."

"No need?"

"That's correct."

"What about the eleven weeks?  He must've had something that needed
fixing.  What did Micky Cass have that I don't?"

"Self esteem."

Through sheer force of will, Matt restrained himself from echoing her
statement.  Since that statement was all that filled his mind at that
moment, however, he was left somewhat speechless.  At last he said, "I
don't understand."

She nodded her approval at his response.  "Very good, Matt.  Now, what
don't you understand?"

"Who's making echoes now?"  Ivo Lass laughed, but Matt persisted.  "You
said that Micky Cass had self esteem and I don't."

"You don't and neither do most Tencts or other kinds of slaves.  It's
his positive feelings about himself that revealed him as a human in his
first attempt at passing as a Newcomer."

"You're saying I don't have positive feelings about myself?  And what
about my partner?  He's a Tenct and sometimes he can be insufferable
with how confident and self assured he is."

"I've never met your partner, but perhaps he does the same thing you do:
he pretends."

"Pretends?"  Matt held up his hands.  "Sorry."  He lowered his hands as
anger attempted to cover up his feeling of being threatened.  "I don't
see how you can know any of this."

"It's very simple, really.  In your case, I can feel it.

In the case of your partner, he's Tenctonese.  A slave --- any kind of
slave --- has to conform to survive.  Whatever the prevailing mood,
attitude, desire, the slave must instantly adapt if he is to survive.

He must become an emotional --- even political --- chameleon.

Particularly if one is born into it, there is little or no struggle
involved.  Everyone around you thinks and acts that way, and you do as
you were shown."

"Who are you talking about now?  Me or my partner?"

"Both, actually."

"We were both slaves?  Is that what you're saying?"

Ivo Lass nodded.  "I don't think I have to explain your partner's past
do I?  You're satisfied that he was once a slave?"

"Yeah.  Sure.  What I don't get is you saying that I was once a slave.

You sure you don't have your human history a little confused?"

The Hila leaned forward in her chair, rested her elbows on her knees,
and looked deep into Matt's eyes.  "What was your childhood like, Matt?"

"My child --- sorry."  Ignoring the pain of the new skin on his neck, he
shook his head.  "I guess like everybody else's.

School, peanut butter, baseball, girls."

"Did you like school?"

"No.  I hated it."  He shook his head slowly.  "I didn't get very good
grades.  Not much in the way of friends."

"What about baseball?  Did you like baseball?"

Matt frowned.  "Yeah.  I liked it.  Some.  I played it because my father
was a fan and I wanted to impress him."  He gave a tiny shrug as he
pulled his mind back from the past.  "He only ever showed up to a couple
of games."  He held up a hand, "And before you ask, the peanut butter
seemed to be the only thing I ever got to eat at home.  There was never
any food in the house, and I bought my own bread and peanut butter and
stashed it."

"The girls?"

"One or two dates.  They were disasters.  I was the kind of kid fathers
don't want their daughters to date."

"It's interesting, Matt, the parallels between slavery and certain
dysfunctional family systems.  Liot Mrysvi, the Tenct family therapist,
published an incredibly interesting study on it titled
The_Invisible_Tattoo."

"I've seen it in the stores.  I never read it."

"What was it in your family, Matt?  Gambling, incest, eating disorders,
physical abuse, drug addiction ---" "What?"  Matt almost came to his
feet, then dropped back into his chair.  It was frightening how the Hila
could see into his heart, his past.  When George had gone though riana,
the Tenctonese male menopause, he had gotten a little smarter.

It showed as an almost two percent gain in his intelligence quotient.

Tenct women had a similar experience, Cathy had informed him, and Ivo
Lass was over a century and a half old.

When she was born, slavery in the United States was still a going
concern.  She must've been through riana a dozen times.

But, thought Matt, how smart can you get before your head explodes?

"What was your childhood home like, Matt?"

He looked down at his hands, remembering the Adult Children of
Alcoholics meeting he had attended.  He never could understand how those
people could talk about this stuff like it wasn't something swimming in
shame.  The image of his father drunk, his mother wiped on prescription
drugs, the countless times he bit his tongue, closed his eyes, covered
his ears.  The back of his father's hand, the long silences, the longer
arguments.  Moments after the one time he had opened his mouth and
wished his father dead, he watched in horror as some thug shot him down.
Matt moistened his lips, glanced at the Hila, and said quietly.
"Alcohol.  Drugs.  Some physical abuse."  He looked down at her hands.
"A lot of physical abuse."

"And you survived," said Ivo Lass.  "How you survived, however, had
certain effects.  One of those effects was to crush your self esteem.

It is quite similar to what happens to any slave."

"I was not a slave!"

Ivo Lass looked into Matt's eyes, her expression something of steel
wrapped with compassion.  "Were you forced to do things against what you
knew was right?"

Matt thought for a moment, then shrugged.  There had been only a couple
of hundred thousand times.  Being the man of the family at the age of
five because the man of the family was passed out and the woman of the
family was locked in her bedroom talking to people who had died twenty
years ago.  Lying to friends at school because of the endless shame.

So many things.

"Yes.  There were some things.  Lots of things.  That's how it was in my
family."

"Were you punished no matter what you did?"

Matt's mouth suddenly went dry.  The stupid scene with the bike when he
was eight flooded into his mind.  He had left his bike in front of the
house.  His mother, citing everything from what the neighbors might
think to a world filled with potential thieves, beat him with a wire
chair leg for leaving the bike in front of the house.  He looked at his
knuckles, remembering the blood there from the wire cutting his fingers
as he tried to protect himself.  Once she was exhausted and went to pop
a few more Valium, young Matt put the bike away in the garage.  His
mother beat him again for that.  It seemed she had wanted his father to
see what an irresponsible slug his son was, and the bike in front of the
house was valuable evidence that Matt had fouled.  He had been beaten
again when he asked his mother if he should put the bike back in front
of the house .  . . .

"Okay.  So what?"

"Matt," continued the Hila, "were you denied because those in authority
were serving an even greater authority?"

Frowning, Matt held out his hands, grateful to be angry instead of
rocketing down that well of self-pity.  "What in the hell does that
mean?"

"Think."

"Think?"

Ivo Lass nodded and pointed between Matt's eyes.  "With your head."

Matt raised his eyebrows and folded his arms.  "Getting just a touch
testy, aren't we?"

"Answer the question."

The question: had he ever been denied because those in authority were
serving an even greater authority?  He stared into a dark corner of the
room.  He had certainly been denied.

There had been no childhood.  No real friends; he couldn't afford them
-- the shame, the lies, the endless embarrassments.

All of the things he had never had because there was never enough money.
Matt's bike had been purchased with money he had earned cutting grass,
raking lawns, shoveling endless mountains of garbage.

When his father had stumbled in late the night of the great bike
episode, he had not been beaten again.  Instead he had watched as his
father took out his rage on the bicycle, reducing it to scrap in a
matter of minutes.  The mother and father that were never available for
him except for guilt trips and beatings, and then not even for that.

And what higher authorities were his mom and dad serving?  Mom
worshipped at the feet of Prince Valium.  Dad's god was the great deity
Al Cahol and his consort Mary Jane.  He felt his eyes grow moist as he
nodded.

"Matt, were you free to change your nightmare?  Were you free to leave?"

He slowly shook his head.  "No."

"Then, you were a slave."  As she raised her brows and smiled, Ivo Lass
seemed to stop herself with an effort.  "I am not your enemy, Matt.  It
is not even my province to treat you against your will."

"What the hell were you doing, then?  Ambush counseling?"

"I was answering your question about the training.  You don't have the
same obstacle to overcome as Micky Cass.  You don't have the same self
esteem."

Matt took a deep breath and let it out in a rush of frustration.

"You're telling me that Tencts can tell a human with too much self
esteem."

She burst out with a laugh and shook her head.  "No, Matt.

Tell me something."

"If I can."

"When I first came into the room, when you first saw me, how did you
feel?"

Matt knew that if he repeated the word "feel" as a question, he'd just
be stalling for time.  Not only would he be stalling for time, it would
be an obvious stall.  How had he felt?  He thought back and nodded
slightly.  "I guess I felt a little like what I feel a lot like right
now."

"Which is what?"

"Threatened."  His eyebrows crouched into a frown.  "Maybe a little
envy.  Maybe a lot of envy."

"Matt, that's how that prostitute felt when she caught sight of Micky
Cass in his disguise.  Tencts have come to associate the feelings with
humans, but they are the same feelings felt by every emotional cripple
next to someone who is healthy."

"Come again?"

"I don't need to prove anything to you, Matt.  I don't need you or your
good opinion of me.  I don't need to justify to you, or to anyone else,
my existence.  There is absolutely nothing within me that makes me
either need or want your approval.  That makes me very scary to someone
who feels like he constantly needs to prove his worth to others."

"I don't feel that way."

"Then why tell me?"

"Tell you?"  asked Matt, completely forgetting his little speech habit.

"You asked."  Matt paused as he thought on the past few moments.

"Didn't you?"

"No, I didn't."  Ivo Lass stood up and walked to the window.  Her eyes
studied the cityscape outside as she said, "There is an easy test of
your need to justify yourself to others, Matt.  I will tell you what it
is, and ask you to make no response.  After all, I am not in a contest
with you.  I will tell you what it is and you may do what you will with
your conclusions.  Do you understand?"

"Okay."  For some reason Matt felt more threatened than he had
experienced before.

"Very well.  Matt, do you have a boy friend or a girl friend?" "Girl,"
he said, realizing as he did so that his response involved
disassociating himself from a particular life-style because Ivo Lass
might judge it somehow.  Already he was up to his ears attempting to
prove something to the old alien.  "Yes," he said.  "I have a friend."

"Intimate friend?"

"Yes."

"Now, this is the question the answer to which I want you to only think
about, not express.  Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"When you're relaxing --- watching baseball on television, say --- and
your intimate friend walks into the room from doing dishes or balancing
her checkbook, or from whatever unknown activity, how do you feel?"

The feeling?  It had only happened five hundred times.

Matt's eyebrows went up in recognition of the Hila's point.

When Cathy came in when he was goofing off, that's how he felt: like he
was goofing off; he felt guilty.

There was that stupid joke he'd heard after mass as a kid.

In the Vatican, the pontiff's secretary comes running in and screams,
"Your holiness, He's out there!  He's out there and He's going to be in
here in a few minutes!"  The pope asks, "Who are you talking about,
father?  Who's out there?"  The secretary pulls at his hair and wails,
"It's Jesus, your holiness!  The son of God!  He's out there and He'll
be in here in just a minute!  What'll we do?  What'll we do?"  The pope
frowns, picks up some papers, and says, "Look busy."

That was how it was when someone, anyone, interrupted him while he was
taking a break or relaxing.  He felt guilty; like he should "look busy."

Then he did feel as though he constantly had to prove himself to
everyone; to justify his existence.  He turned in his chair and faced
the Hila.  "I have one question, Ivo Lass.  If slaves have no self
esteem, and that's how Tencts identify Tencts, how come it's just the
opposite with us?"

"How you look at things, Matt, including yourself, is something that can
be changed.  Many --- most --- Tencts are still slaves in their minds.
I've done the necessary work and am no longer a slave in mine.

What you are to your own mind is something you can change, although you
don't want to change it right away.  After all, it's an important part
of your disguise.

When you are ready to change it, though, there are all kinds of help
available.  Micky Cass is a good example.  He, too, came from an
addictive home --- drugs, gambling, food addiction, and so on.  He had
become so healthy, however, it took eleven weeks of training to make him
sick enough in his view of himself to impersonate a Tenct."

Matt stood up, his hands at his sides, a strange feeling of panic and
longing in his heart.  "Will I be seeing you again?"

She turned from the window, her eyebrows up again.  "I'm a suspect,
aren't I?  We'll be seeing each other again."

FIFTEEN It was not long after Sikes's session with the Hila that the
F.B.I."s unofficial investigation became officially official.  The
pulley of time strained against the belt of reality, the great shaft
creaked on its rusty bearings, and the necessary prerequisites popped up
in their respective pigeon holes.  The unofficial bureau assistance
became an official F.B.I. investigation, and in a rare display of
cooperation with local authorities, the bureau continued to operate
through the Robb investigation command center in the L.A.P.D., making it
the core of the federal task force.  In other words, nothing changed
except Captain Grazer became second in command under Special Agent
Stillson Landry.

Landry was a human with an overly polished manner who only insisted upon
two things: (1) he and Captain Grazer were co-commanders of the joint
task force, and (2) Stillson Landry was in charge.  It was an accounting
thing to enable some F.B.I.

number cruncher in Washington to defend his organization before some
congressional committee bent on saving thirty-five cents worth of paper
clips while stuffing billions into personal pork barrels.

There was one other change that occurred by making the investigation
official.  It then became part of the public record.  George expected
any moment to see Amanda Reckonwith, the self-proclaimed queen of the
Slagtown news beat, come bursting through the door and start sticking
her damned microphone in everyone's faces.  That also meant increased
pressure from the chief's office.  The task force was a truck with a
powerful engine, a heavy foot on the pedal, and no gas.

In the task force's command center, as Landry put on a primo performance
of "Stuff Everybody Already Knows," George Francisco watched Captain
Grazer twiddle his thumbs while the police officers and agents assigned
to the task force doodled on note pads, whispered among themselves,
stared blankly out of the windows, or in at least two cases, dozed.  One
officer, Burke from crisis control, was playing a hand held video game.

Why not?  thought George.  Some writer with more poison in his pen than
sense in his head trashes the police department, throws gasoline on the
coals of anti-Tenct racism, and jumps into the middle of a crowd of
killers just to make a big publicity splash, then vanishes and expects
the aforesaid mentioned police officers to pull his cookies out of the
fire?

As far as George was concerned, the only interest he had in the
investigation was twofold.  First, Matt was going under cover in a
bizarre masquerade and might be killed for his efforts.

Second, what was it that Paul Iniko had found that was so secret he
wouldn't --- couldn't --- share it with his fellow investigator?

George pulled out his own note pad and leafed to the previous day's
notes.  He and Iniko had been up in Coldwater Canyon at Duke Jessup's
house overlooking Micky Cass's big eye.

Jessup hadn't appeared particularly distraught at the possibility of
Cass's kidnapping, but he appeared to be solidly covered with alibi
plate.  From the time Cass had last made an appearance until the two
days before Martin Fell came into Grazer's office to raise the alarm,
Jessup had been at a national English teacher's convention in Boston,
accompanied by his wife, Rachel, and the chairperson of St. George
Academy's department of English, Randolph Trassler.

The next thirty-six hours were covered by the Boston P.D. who had
arrested Jessup, along with several other academic merrymakers, for
making a public disturbance and damaging hotel property.  The remaining
time had been filled in and testified to by Mrs. Jessup, the two Jessup
children, the Jessup's housekeeper, Gloria Salcines, and the head
gardener from Coldwater Nurseries, Jimmy Lee.

He turned to another page.  There was an incredibly ripe odor coming off
of former police officer Michael Hong's alibi.

George went back two pages for his notes on the second Mike Hong
interview.  After everything had been plotted out, the corroborated
times filled in, and every benefit of the doubt given, there were still
forty hours of former officer Michael Hong's time unaccounted for.  A
very critical forty hours, too.

They began shortly before Cass missed his first copy drop and went for a
day and half after that.  Michael Hong's answer?

"A fired cop doesn't have to account for his time, shoe fly.  Maybe I
did kill the bastard and just don't remember."  He had shaken his head
and said with a cruel smile, "Naw.  I wouldn't've forgotten killing him.
Not him, I wouldn't."

George flipped his notebook closed and placed it in his coat's inside
breast pocket.  When they had returned to the car, Iniko had only
commented, "Well, forty hours isn't so hard to lose."  Terribly
understanding for one who had been reared his entire life to be a
watcher, an Overseer investigator.

After seeing Hong, while they had been at Jessup's, Paul Iniko had made
a telephone call the content of which he refused to share with George.

He then told George to take the car, he called a cab, and left.  No
explanations; no excuses.

Iniko couldn't do that.  It was insulting, stupid, senseless.  What in
the hell was so goddamned secret the F.B.I.

man couldn't share it with a lowly detective sergeant who was on the
same investigation?  Perhaps now, with the F.B.I. officially running the
task force, Paul Iniko's games would end.  Perhaps they'd simply grow
worse.

George looked around the room again, caught Grazer's eye, and made a
gesture toward the door with his head.  The captain nodded
sympathetically and George stood and turned around.

Dobbs was at the door, leaning against it, his arms folded across his
chest.  He nodded at George and cocked his head toward the hallway.

Once they had left the assembly and Dobbs had closed the door behind
them, Dobbs called out, "Hey, George."

Francisco walked the length of the hallway and pushed through the doors
into the squad bay.  Once he was at his desk, he dropped into his chair,
picked up his telephone, and began punching in a number.  Dobbs pushed
down on the button, breaking the connection.  "What are you doing,
Dobbs?"

"George, we have to talk."

"I can't think of a single thing to say to you and I can't thing of
anything I want to hear from you."

Dobbs took his finger off the button and sat on the edge of George's
desk.  "You know, Francisco, you are one hard dude to apologize to."
"Apologize?"  said George suspiciously.  "What do you have to apologize
for?"

"You know.  The Slag Slasher thing.  You're right.  It is the same.

I'm sorry."

George shrugged, frowned, held out his hands, and said, "I'm sorry, too,
for what I said."

"Okay, forget it.  It just makes us even."

George shook his head.  "Not really.  I must take a greater measure of
the fault.  I knew what I was doing.  You didn't know any better."

Dobb's face grew considerably darker.  He closed his eyes for a second,
and then took a deep breath as he mentally entered a ten count.  As he
let the breath escape, he opened his eyes and asked, "What about Matt?

How's he doing?"

"The bandages were supposed to come off this morning.  I tried to call
him before the meeting in there, but they were right in the middle of it
and couldn't be interrupted."  He pointed at the telephone.  I was about
to try again."

"In a minute.  There's something I wanted you to see first."  Dobbs
walked to his desk, picked up a thick file, and returned, placing the
file in front of George.

"What's this?"

Dobbs looked around the squad bay, virtually deserted save for himself,
George, a records clerk, and the eternal custodian, Albert.  Both the
records clerk and Albert were on the other side of the large room
oblivious of anything except the work before them.  Dobbs bent over and
said in a hushed voice.  "You know that column Robb wrote where he
talked about some big and powerful institution he was about to
investigate and expose?"

"Yes.  What about it?"

Dobbs tapped the file's jacket.  "This is what he was after."

"What is it?"

"Would you believe the F.B. of cotton pickin' I.?"

George's eyebrows jumped up in surprise, then slumped into a frown.

"Iniko."

"Yeah, ol' massa Iniko.  He was part of an F.B.I. cover up before with
the MDQ business.  It looks like he's still holding down the same old
slot."

"He has been acting quite suspicious."  George looked up at Dobbs.

"Where'd you get this file?"

"Don't ask.  Let's just say someone in the command center is real
concerned about Matt and that no one really seems to be on the Robb
case, despite all this cover-our-asses shit with the task force and the
bureau."

George's frown grew deeper.  "You mean the investigation is all a sham."

Dobbs stood, placed his hands on his hips and glowered at George's desk
top as he bit at the inner skin of his lower lip.

"The F.B.I. end of it sure seems to be.  Maybe our end of it, too."  He
looked up at Francisco.  "You ever play poker, George?"

"Yes.  A few times."

"You ever been in a game where everybody in it disliked the new player?"

George shook his head.  "No.  The games in which I participated seemed
rather friendly, unless I won several hands in a row.  Then the
irritation level went up rather abruptly.

But that happened whoever won several in a row.  It wasn't directed at
any individual."

"Friendly games."  Dobbs folded his arms across his chest and leveled
his gaze at George.  "Back when I was in the Navy, stationed in the
middle of nowhere with nothing to do, a bunch of us used to play a lot
of poker.  Some days you'd win, some days you'd lose.  We all knew each
other and it was a way to kill time and throw money away.  One time when
the usual crew was settling down to play a game, this new guy comes
along and asks if he can sit in.  I didn't like him.  I could tell by
the looks on my buddies' faces that they didn't like him, either.

It was just a feeling.  There were only six of us, however, and seven is
better for poker.  Besides, none of us had what it took to tell the guy
to get lost and cause a lot of bad feelings."

"Anything to avoid a confrontation," said George.

"Yeah."

"I can relate to that.  Back on the ship that was the story of my life.

Go on."

"It's not complicated.  The guy sat in and within an hour he was cleaned
and pressed.  He wasn't a bad player, either.

It's just that everybody disliked him.  There was always someone who
hung in and called every bluff.  If he opened at all, no one called."

"In other words, you didn't allow him to play.  You only avoided calling
it that."

Dobbs nodded.  "You've got it.  That's what I figure the task force is
doing to Micky Cass with this investigation.  It's nothing official.  I
don't even think it's conscious.  He threw a turd on the bureau, made
the cops look bad.  Cops cover cops, Micky Cass is the enemy, and that's
how that tune is played.  I don't think there's anyone that was in that
room who's serious about this investigation except you, Grazer, and me."

"You?"

"Yeah, me.  And you know why that is?"

"Not because of Micky Cass," said George.  "It's because Matt's going to
be out there with his neck on the chopping block."

"That's part of it."  Dobbs smiled and scratched his chin.

"With me, I think I want to find Cass, also."

"You?"

"Yesterday I hit a couple of used book stores until I found that old
paperback of Griffin's, Black_Like_Me.  I never read it before.  It was
a gutsy thing Griffin did, George.  It was before I was born, but I
could taste the fear, the shame, the unfairness of it all.  Maybe for
the first time I got a hint at what my parents had to endure every day
for most of their lives."  Dobbs nodded.  "What Micky Cass is doing is
gutsy, too.

Important.  More important even than cops taking care of cops.

It's doing the right thing."  He reached down and tapped the jacket of
the file.  "Watch your ass, George.  There's some big names in there."

Francisco drummed his fingers on the file for a moment, then looked
around the squad room.  "Where's Kirk?"

"Over at D.M.V. trying to hunt down Archie Panek's four-by-four."

"How did you two make out with Goober and friends?"

Dobbs shook his head.  "Kirk thinks he's hot on the trail, but I don't
think these guys are insane enough sober to do anything, and they sure
as hell don't seem to be able to handle anything drunk."

Francisco nodded, leaned forward, and opened the folder.

"Thank you for this."  He looked up at Dobbs.  "But you never said why
you and your poker buddies disliked the new fellow who wanted to sit in
on the game."

A streak of guilt flashed across the detective's face, followed by a sad
smile.  "He was white."  He smiled sadly at the use of the term.

"White.  Anyway, that's where our heads were at back then.  Now that I
think about it, he was kind of gutsy, too."

SIXTEEN He stood naked, his eyes shut tightly.

Ivo Lass had said, "When you first behold yourself as a Tenct, know all
your feelings and know as well why you feel as you do."

"Tall order," muttered Matt Sikes as he opened his eyes.

He looked into the full length mirror attached to the closet door in his
hospital room at Mt.  Andarko's.  He looked, but he didn't look.

He studied the reflection in the glass of a mark high on the wall behind
him, he examined a flaw in the mirror where a flake of silvering had
fallen away, and he scrutinized a scratch in the glass near the bottom
of the mirror as though determining the extent of the scratch, its
origins, and the motivations of He Who What Done The Scratchin' somehow
contained the key to the secrets of the universe.

"I am jerking around," Matt muttered.

Each surreptitious peek at himself with his peripheral vision startled
him.  It was as though a stranger were in the room and Matt Sikes was
curiously absent.  "Sort of an in body, out of body experience," he
joked, attempting to laugh himself out of how he felt.

He moved his gaze until it was centered on the eyes in his reflection.

The special mood sensitive contacts had turned green.  Still the pain.

Emotional pain.  Old stuff never expressed.  As the Hila had taught him,
he closed his eyes and focused on the swirls and flashes produced by the
pressure of the fluid in his eyes on his optic nerves.  After a moment
there was a brightness, and he dove into it, allowing it to fill him,
surround him, calm him.

He opened his eyes again and the green was gone --- for the moment.

The causes of the pain were still with him.  Old tapes.  Emotional
baggage.  All of life's garbage that he had never taken out.

There was a strange smell in his nostrils.  It was something of rot; an
old fishy stench that left him as soon as it arrived.  The green was
back in his eyes.  It was like a fuel gauge for pain, and right then
Matt was registering a full tank.

Again close the eyes.

Again the light, letting it flow around him, remaining suspended in it,
listening for wordless peace.  He felt his skin tingle and then grow
warm.  The muscles in the back of his neck and shoulders relaxed, and he
opened his eyes again.  Once more the green was gone.

The eyebrows, too, were gone.  He touched them with the fingers of his
right hand.  They had been shaved, treated with a hair growth retardant,
and covered with a thin film of Realskin.

He could feel it and it was his skin now.  His nose, his cheeks, his
head .  . . his_head.

He stared at the spotted baldness facing him and allowed feelings of
shock to fill him.  He had imagined it a hundred times.  Seeing it,
however, placed him on a new plane of reality.  This was no disguise.

This was him.

Moving his fingers across the top of his spots, Matt felt for the tiny
video recorder that had been implanted beneath his new skin.  He
examined very carefully the area where it was supposed to have been
implanted, but could not detect it.  He lowered his arm and looked down
the length of his reflected body.  Looking at the front of his left
thigh, he smacked it with his open hand and watched where his fingers
had struck.  No redness appeared, only a pale anemic pink.  He looked
into the image's eyes again.  He was not a human disguised as a Tenct.

He was a Tenct with some rather eccentric memories of being a human.

There was a knock at the door and he felt some small portion of his head
warp as he reached for his robe.  Everything he could intellectualize
told him that he needed no robe.

Everything that was the body of Matt Sikes was covered with Realskin.

Everything he felt, however, said he was raw naked, and the nakedness
was of a more extreme degree than he had ever felt before.  As he tied
the sash to his bathrobe, he called to the door, "Yeah?"

"Matt?"

The door opened a crack and Cathy Frankel poked in her head and looked.

When her gaze located Matt standing before the mirror, she went
speechless.  Matt turned slowly and looked at her.  "Well?"

She entered the room, closed the door behind her, and leaned her back
against it.  She studied his face his head, the portion of his neck and
chest visible through the open top of the robe, and his hands.

"Well?"  he repeated.  "What is it?  Am I a freak?  An obvious nugah?

Spit it out."

"No, darling," she said quickly as she pushed away from the door and
walked to his side.  When she stopped she did not touch him.  Instead,
she examined his face very closely.

"Celine's mercy, Matt, but you are absolutely beautiful."

"Beautiful?"  he repeated, catching his echo as he did so.

"What is it, Matt?"

"Nothing.  I'm trying to shake the question marks out of my talk.  It
isn't easy."  He pointed at his own face.

"Wouldn't handsome be a better word?"

She frowned, touched a finger to her cheek, and cocked her head as she
studied his face.  "No.  Not handsome.  You are beautiful.  I love your
skin.  How do you get it that way?"

Matt snorted out a bitter laugh.  "How?  I buy it by the goddamn square
yard.  How in the hell would I know?  I just got the stuff."  He pointed
again at himself.  "Well, what about it?

I'm serious."

She nodded slowly.  "From what I can see, Matt, it looks excellent.

Even your hands."

Matt looked up at her.  "They didn't just cover my hands."

Her eyebrows went up.  "Everything?"

For a moment he felt the skin beneath the skin blushing.

"Yeah.  Everything."

"May I see?"  she said, maneuvering to stand in front of him, very
close.  Her long, delicate fingers parted his robe and reached around
his waist until her hands came to rest upon the small of his back.

"How does this feel, Matt?"

"It feels."

She looked into his eyes and asked, "Did you say everything?"

"Yeah."

"How do you know it works?"

Matt raised his eyebrows and smiled wickedly.  "Oh, they brought in a
Tenct sex therapist and she put me through the usual rehabilitation
exercises: Space man on top, alien on a bone, Cool Whip and waders ---"
She pushed away from him.  "I don't think that's very funny."

He pulled her back and held her closely.  "It works.  If you need proof,
keep feeling me up and you'll be getting a rude nudge real soon."

"Now?"  she asked, a smile of her own tugging at the corners of her
mouth.

"I think we'd better go home, first.  You know how loud us Tencts get
when we're getting it on."

"Seriously, Matt.  Can you go home now?"

"My time's my own until tonight.  That's when Matthew Cross, alien boy
journalist, goes under cover in Chayville and hangs with the bangers."

A worried look crossed her face.  "Matt, what about the training?"

"I'm trained.  Just as long as I don't have to give a speech, I'm
debah."

"How can you be so certain?  It took Ellison Robb eleven weeks."

"Do you get any weird vibes off of me?"

"No."  She frowned and looked thoughtful for a moment.

"That's strange.  I never did."  Looking into his eyes, she repeated, "I
never did.  Why?"

Matt shrugged and glanced down.  "As far as my mentor, Ivo Lass, is
concerned, there are all kinds of slaves in the universe.  I was just
lucky enough to be one of them."

The room's telephone rang and Matt disengaged one of his hands from
Cathy's waist, reached out, and picked up the handset.  As he placed it
against his earfold he was again startled at how natural it seemed.

"Yes?"

"Matt?"  answered George.

"Yeah?  What's up?"

"We just got the word.  It's Micky Cass.  They think they've found his
remains."

Matt felt something within him turn dark and brittle.

"Cass," Matt repeated, his new skin tingling.

"It was in a dry lake bed east of Barstow.  According to the officers
who found the body, there's hardly anything left.

He was mostly dissolved in a bath of some kind of acid.  Judging from
the condition of the head in relation to the deterioration of the rest
of the body, Cass's head was left out of the bath at first."  George's
voice broke.  "He was alive when he was placed in that bath, Matt.  He
was alive and awake."

________________________________________________________________ ELLISON
ROBB SLAG LIKE ME IF LOOKS COULD KILL

# In Black_Like_Me, Griffin wrote about "the hate stare," a look he
would receive from "whites" as he walked southern streets in the late
'fifties masquerading as a "Negro."  The stare was more than a look of
disapproval.  Rather, it was an exhibition of such extreme abhorrence it
was virtually an attempt to kill with one's eyes.

Looks such as that are not the thin yields of idle choice, preference,
or the mere habits absorbed through a regional upbringing.  The roots
run much deeper.  The person who aims "the hate stare" at someone is
looking at an entity that threatens not only existence, but one's reason
for being.  Thief of job, home, neighborhood, and nation; defiler of
humanity and all that is good; God-killer.  The impact of "the hate
stare" is quite shattering.  The first one that was fired at me was in
Santa Monica walking along Ocean Park Boulevard.

There are few Tencts in Santa Monica, and I suppose there is some weight
to the argument that "we" can't be everywhere.

There are still less than a million Newcomers on earth, and since two
out of three are mired between L.A. and East L.A., it spreads the rest
fairly thin.  Nevertheless, there are only a few in Santa Monica, which
is why I chose to stroll its streets.

I wanted to look at the faces, make eye contact with my fellow beings,
and see if I could attract "the hate stare."

I began my odyssey on The Promenade, turned up Pico, and made my way
down Lincoln, turning onto Ocean Park pleasantly surprised that I had
not run into a single shattering look.

Mostly what I found was indifference: indifference to me, to everyone
else, to the street, to the city, to reality at large.

I had the feeling that I could have sprouted tentacles and grown fangs
and began snatching little boys and girls off the street and devoured
them and no one would have noticed, with the possible exception of the
little boys and girls.  Perhaps self absorption is the mark of our age.

There were a few frowns aimed at me, and although some were disapproving
frowns, the majority were the "strange to see one of them in this
neighborhood" looks.  There were also a few of the upraised eyebrow
variation of the "what's that?"  look.

The disapproving looks were generally the same sentiment coupled with a
"something might be wrong" streak.  These were the same faces, looks,
and frowns that every human gets on city streets.

I was looking forward to writing a column about tolerance in Santa
Monica.

Then I saw it coming from a woman waiting at a bus stop.

The hate stare.

She was in her late forties, dressed in slacks, blouse, and sweater.

She carried a tote bag containing her shopping scalps of the day.  Her
face was set with narrowed eyes, black with raw, rabid loathing.

I was literally knocked back a step.  Perhaps those who believe in
perceptible auras emanating from living beings are right on the money,
because I could feel a physical pressure that smacked my face and
reached right into my soul, compelling me to feel worthless and evil
about myself.  To be honest, it frightened me to such a degree I was
ready to tell Marty Fell to stick it.  I wanted to pack in the project
and go home.  I had never before wanted to hide my face in shame, and
the feeling bubbled over until it outraged me.

I walked over to the woman, faced her, and asked, "Was there something
you wanted to say to me?"

"No.  There's nothing I want to say to you."  The look in her eyes, if
anything, was more intense.

"Did I do something to you?  Cause you some kind of injury?"

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other.  "I didn't do
anything to you.  You got no right to question me."

"I never did anything to you," I insisted.  "Why do you hate me?"

For the next ten seconds I watched her face erupt in such extreme
hatred, tears came to her eyes.  All of a sudden I no longer feared her
or felt ashamed.  Her hatred was a cancer that ate at her heart, mind,
and soul.  I felt sorry for her and it must have showed in my face.

That ripped it.  She could not bear to have a Tenct pity her.

There was a Tenct man waiting at the bus stop and he gave me such a
disapproving look, it visually smacked my knuckles.

"Don't cause trouble," said the look.  "What's the matter with you?

Blend, go along, look down.  Do not protest, confront, insist.  No slave
ever survived through confrontation.  Are you crazy?"

Perhaps I was crazy.  The injustice of that look seemed to drive me
toward a dangerous edge.  Nevertheless, the bus arrived, both the woman
and the man got on the bus, the doors closed, and they roared off in a
cloud of environmentally approved fumes.  There was a coffee shop across
the street, and I decided to get a cup of tea and either scribble some
notes or call Marty Fell and tell him to roll up the Sunday Times and
pound it up his ass.

As I was waiting for the light to change, a boy of about seven or eight
stepped off the curb and into the path of an oncoming Oldsmobile.

Instinctively, I grabbed the back of the kid's electric green tank top
and jerked him back to the curb.

The whole thing took about a quarter of a second.

Before looking to see what had snatched him out of the street, the boy
saw the near miss with the car.  Hence, when he looked at me, his face
was frightened and words of gratitude were on his lips.  "Thanks.

Thanks a lot, mister.  I didn't see any ---" Despite the fact that I had
already released my hold on the boy, a man, presumably the boy's father,
clasped the lad to himself as though to shield him from my touch.  I
looked into the man's face and beheld something that struck me quite
speechless.  It was "the hate stare" with the man's lips writhing in a
grotesque attempt at saying "thank you" that never quite made it to an
audible level.

I nodded and turned away, grateful that my surgical disguise prevented
the flush in my face from being visible.  I was ready for that cup of
tea.  The light changed and I lifted my foot to step off the curb when I
felt a heavy hand on my shoulder.  I turned and it was the boy's father.
His face was literally warring through a succession of conflicting
emotions and there was a five dollar bill in his hand.

"Here," he said, shaking the bill in the air.  "Take it." "It's okay," I
said, turned away, and tried once more to catch the light.

He pulled me back and shook the money in my face.  "Here!

Take it!  I want you to take this."  He nodded.  "For my boy."

"It's okay," I repeated.  "I was glad to do it."

He did not release my shoulder.  "Take the money."

It was standing before me, a thing I had read about but had never before
seen: a sociological Sasquatch.  He could not be beholden to a Tenct and
still find life livable.  He would've found his son's death by
Oldsmobile easier to handle.  I pulled my shoulder free and said "Forget
it" as I stepped into the traffic, now that the light was against me.
Again the hand dropped on my shoulder.  "Look, I want to pay you for my
son."

I stepped back on the curb, and I can only imagine the expression on my
face as I said, "You think five dollars is enough?"  Then his pain and
mine did this little dance.

"What .  . . what do you mean, enough?"

I looked at the boy.  "What do you weigh, kid?  How much?"

The kid didn't want to play so I turned back to his father.

"Say, sixty-five, seventy-five pounds?"

"So what?"

"That's only seven, eight cents a pound.  Hell, man, I have to pay at
least a buck ninety a pound for ground chuck.

Your kid ought to be worth at least that much, and that doesn't even
include sentimental attachment.  Round it off, say, and you give me a
hundred dollars."

"What?  I'm not giving you any hundred dollars."

"Then, let's forget about it, okay?"  The light changed again and I
turned to cross the street.  Again the hand dropped on my shoulder.

"Look.  You take the five dollars!  I'm not going home owing a favor to
a damned slag!"

"I'm not taking your money, Goober.  So what're you going to do?  Throw
your kid back out in the street?"

For a split second I almost thought he was going to do it, proving this
particular point seemed that important to him.

Instead, he crumpled up the five dollars and threw it on the sidewalk.

Perhaps fifteen or twenty persons walked by before a druggie snatched it
up.  It just goes to show how bad inflation has gotten.  Just before I
entered the coffee shop on the other side of the street, I glanced back
in time to see the man smacking his son's backside for being rescued by
a rubberhead.

There's no point in naming any names here.  Who could inflict more pain
on that man than he inflicts on himself?  What would be the point?  It
takes a teachable person to learn from pain more than the fact that it
hurts.

SEVENTEEN It made Matt think of the Miadi gang execution three years
before.  Old man Miadi's two ambitious sons attempted to dissolve their
father in acid.  The Miadi boys, however, hadn't gotten their gold stars
in chemistry, and there was a lot left of Daddy.  The two sons hadn't
been any better at lawyers than they'd been at chemistry and were
currently housed along lethal row at the new facility at Tujunga.  To
get them there, however, Matt had needed to see the father's remains.
The images of the corpse had never left the shadows of his memory.

The air in the autopsy theater felt corrupt enough to stain anything it
touched.  Matt's lungs felt raw.  The lump on the slab had been barely
recognizable as a primate, much less a human.  The lower extremities
were completely missing, while from the empty frame of the remaining
ribs hung the tail of the few remaining vertebrae, rounded and pitted by
the action of the acid.  On the shoulders, neck, and skull the epidermis
and a considerable portion of the underlying muscle tissue had been
eaten away, leaving the skull looking like an incompetent anatomy
student's cadaver at semester's end.  Although the teeth could be seen
amid the white foam that had bubbled through the gaps in the cheek
muscles, the tissue of the lips and nose was mostly intact.  The acrid,
rusty smell of blood and acid hung in Matt's nostrils long after they
had left the horror behind, making the air in the staff lounge seem
close and filthy.

They all stood, no one really feeling comfortable with sitting down or
touching anything.  George Francisco kept staring at Matt, fascinated
still at the transformation in his partner's appearance, especially
since he had found no opportunity to comment upon it.

The assistant pathologist, Arthur Rivers, looked ill, his face edged
with Newcomer gray.  Chief Pathologist Kim Nishida pushed her glasses up
and perched them on top of her head revealing almond eyes capped with a
frown.  "The body was fed feet first into a bathtub filled with
concentrated hydrochloric acid.  Enough of the scalp was eaten away to
expose the miniature video recorder, which is missing.  The remaining
Realskin tissue around the mouth and nose indicates the use of some sort
of mask, perhaps a respirator, that protected somewhat that portion of
the lower face ---" "Why?"  asked George.

"Why the mask?"

"Yes."

Dr. Nishida thought for a moment and looked at Matt.  "The fumes from
that amount and concentration of acid would kill a human after a moment
or two, if he breathed them in.  If the object was to cause the deceased
the maximum amount of pain, as the evidence would suggest, there would
have to be some way for him to breathe.  A respirator of some kind would
be a possible explanation."

"Sweet Celine," muttered George.

"Wouldn't there be something left of the respirator?  Some parts?" asked
Matt.

"It looks as though the mask was removed before the head and upper body
were dropped into the bath.  We're fortunate that the porcelain coating
on the tub was shattered in one place allowing the acid to eat through
the metal and drain out.  If the mask had been thrown in, the medical
examiner would've found something.  Whoever did this took the mask."
"The site was cleaned up, as well," said George.  "No prints, no
tracks."

Matt closed his eyes and swallowed.  The stench in the autopsy bay had
been a twisting rope of repugnance: the lung searing stink of acid, the
heavy smell of blood; and .  . . there was something else.  "Kim, what
in the hell was that sickly sweet lemon peppermint rot stink in there?

I thought it was going to make me puke."

"Maalox.  It was in the corpse's mouth.  The officers on the scene
poured it in to protect what was left of the teeth.

One of the cops had an acid stomach.  The other one had some high school
chemistry.  Lucky she did, too."

"And that thing in there is what's left of Micky Cass?"

Nishida nodded.  "We've had his dental records on file since he was
reported missing.  Everything that's left matches.

I'm satisfied it's Micky Cass."

"Except that Micky Cass was a pseudonym," interrupted George.

"Let me put it this way, then, George: I'm satisfied that the teeth in
that thing in there are the same as those appearing in the x-rays
provided by Micky Cass's dentist.  The blood type is the same and the
lips and nose are covered with the remains of a Realskin surface, which
coincides with the operation he had to disguise himself as a Tenct."

She glanced at Matt.

A sad giggle escaped from Matt's lips.  "I'm sorry," he said as he held
out a hand.  "It just now we'll never find out if Cass was male or
female." "It depends on your definition," said Nishida.  "Cass's blood
shows that either he's female or perhaps undergoing hormone therapy in
preparation for a sex change operation.

Perhaps he was a hermaphrodite.  There are many degrees of in between.

However, if I had to bet the barn on it, from the bone structure I'd say
he came into the world male.  Maybe.

Probably.  Possibly.  I've seen plenty of exceptions cross my table.

Male.  Maybe." "Hell, anybody can flip a coin," said Matt.  He shook his
head and tried to get his mind to focus.  "There's something flapping
loose here.  This stuff, concentrated hydrochloric acid.  I remember it
from chem class.  HCl.  Mrs. Yates, our chem teacher, used to treat that
little bottle like it was nitro.  To fill up a bathtub would take a hell
of a lot.  It would also take some pretty specialized equipment to get
it there in the center of that dry lake and then put it into the tub. In
other words, somebody went to one hell of a lot of trouble to kill Micky
Cass in this particular way.  Why?"

He looked at George and his partner was looking at the assistant
pathologist.  Dr. Rivers allowed his gaze to fall upon Matt.  "If you
took a Tenctonese and dipped him into salt ---" "Salt water," completed
Matt.  "I saw it happen once.  It acts just like a very corrosive acid.

You're saying someone wanted to give Micky Cass the full Newcomer
experience?"

"I can see the Ahvin_Rivak or some other purist fanatic group doing
something like this," said Dr. Rivers.  "You were right about something
else, sergeant."

"What?"

"It took whoever did this a considerable amount of trouble to do it in
the middle of that dry lake."

"What's your point?"

The pathologist looked toward George.  "Whoever did this knew how to
handle HCl.  What I don't know is why they'd perform this act in a place
where it was bound to be discovered and done in such a fashion that they
made certain there would be enough left behind to make an
identification."

"Are you saying that it was intentional?"

"I'm saying it's very likely," answered Rivers.  "The medical examiner's
report as well as the investigating officer's report suggest that the
portion of the tub where the acid ate through, the porcelain was
shattered by a small caliber bullet.

Pieces of the slug and bits of porcelain were found on the ground near
the point where the acid drained from the tub.  The shot was enough to
knock the porcelain coating off both sides of the impact point without
puncturing the metal.  Once the acid ate through the metal, the tub
drained.  If it's not deliberate, it's a fortuitous circumstance
indeed."

To Matt it was very clear why the perps had done what they had done and
in that particular manner.  It wouldn't be much of an object lesson if
no one ever knew about it.  It was a message to anyone who might dare to
follow in Micky Cass's footsteps.

EIGHTEEN Outside in the parking lot Matt leaned against his car, his
arms folded, his head down.  George stood facing him.  "I'm sorry,
Matt."

"Sorry?  What about?"

"Micky Cass.  I know how much he meant to you.  I'm sorry we didn't find
him in time."

"In time," Matt repeated, his voice low and menacing.  "I wonder if he
even had any kind of chance.  I can already hear the cops and the Tencts
cheering."

"Not all the police officers are cheering, Matt.  Dobbs is working hard
to help, and so is the captain.  So am I. Murder is still murder, Matt.

Not all of the Tencts are cheering."

"Sorry."  Matt looked off into the distance and fought to keep the tears
from his eyes.  With an effort he returned his gaze to George.

"A good person --- a very brave person --- is in there, dead, eaten
away, unrecognizable, tortured to death.

The really sad thing is that the very ones he fought for and died for
will probably be relieved at his death.  No more probes into police
racism and brutality, no more Tencts embarrassed by Ellison Robb rubbing
Goober's nose in the racist mess, no more corporations or government
agencies scrambling to cover up the stink in their personnel
departments.  Rubberhead Robb is dead; everybody is off the hook.  And
when nobody really wants to find the killer, nobody is going to find the
killer.  Isn't that how it goes, George?"

"I want to find the killer, Matt."

Sikes glanced around suggestively.  "That's more than we can say for the
feds.  Where's Iniko?"

"Paul doesn't confide in me.  He's off investigating something he can't
talk about."

"Can't talk about?  What in the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Unknown."

"What's Grazer doing about it?"

"There's not much he can do, Matt.  He's got no real authority over the
federal personnel in the task force."

"What if we turn up a big red arrow pointing right at the F.B.I.?  What
about then?"

George frowned.  "Dobbs said the same thing.  He gave me some stuff to
look at, and there are some big names in the bureau that Cass could've
gotten pretty dirty if he'd published only half the stuff he's got on
them."

"Chase it down, George.  Somebody's hands are bloody as hell, and it
could be the bureau."

"Do you really think that's possible?"

"Right now I wouldn't be surprised to find out the F.B.I.

director and L.A."s chief of police personally paired up to lower Cass
feet first into that acid."

George looked sympathetically at Matt and raised his eyebrows.  "At
least you won't have to go through with that absurdly dangerous
undercover assignment.  Too bad, really.  You look much more
distinguished this way.  You can help me chase down the F.B.I. leads
Dobbs turned up."  He studied Matt's face.

It was as unmoving as a granite cliff.  "You're not going under cover."

"My man, I have to track down a certain banger down in the Chay.  It
might be the bureau, and then again it might be the Nightshade or
someone else he ran into down there, like Goober and the slaghunters."

"You're trying to see Danny Mikubeh?"

"That's what I said."

"That's absurd.  Matt, once the news of this gets out, the Chay is going
to erupt in flames.  There's no need to take the risk."

"George, you know that Edward Lear quote that was left at Micky Cass's
home?"

"What about it?"

"You know how we figured it might've come from Jessup, the next door
neighbor?"

"Yes.  His professional background is in English literature."

Matt's eyes narrowed.  "You'll never guess who else has a background in
English lit."

George frowned, then raised his eyebrows?  "Not Danny Mikubeh."

"Yes, Danny Mikubeh.  It was right there in Cass's notes.

Mikubeh's under another name at Pepperdine in his third year of
journalism.  How about that?"

"That is interesting."

"I'll say it's interesting, partner.  I can't wait to get together with
him and have a heart to heart to heart to heart about owls, pussy-cats,
and things that go kill in the night."

"Still, there's no need to go right now, Matt.  We can wait for things
to at least calm down a little."

"We don't have any time.  There's something suffocating out there,
partner, and if we don't get to it fast, what little of it that's left
is going to flat out die.  Back when I was young and stupid I used to
call it 'justice."" Matt turned and opened the door of his car.  He
climbed into the driver's seat and pulled the door shut behind him.

"There is no time, George.  No time at all."  He started up the car.

"Matt, I have a very bad feeling about how the city is going to react to
the news of Cass's death.  Have you checked in with Landry or Captain
Grazer today?"

"Nope.  I haven't checked in and I haven't been home.  I don't intend
going home.  I am officially under cover right now, and you haven't seen
me."

"What about your backup?"

"Screw the backup.  The way the task force is dragging its feet on this
thing, we'll see the Cubs take the series before we catch Cass's
killer."

"Matt, it was dangerous enough before.  Without backup it's suicide."

"You're right about one thing, George.  This city is going to come
unglued once news of this hits the street.  Shit, fire, storm, death,
and destruction.  In the middle of that all the rules get holes in them.
Their rules and our rules.  When the rules rip I have to be there."

"Why?  For what purpose?"

"To see it.  To pick up what falls out."

Matt pulled away and drove the car out of the lot.  As his car pulled
into traffic, a young adult human male on the crosswalk raised his fist,
shook it and bellowed, "Fuckin' slag!"

George watched the car become swallowed by the traffic.

"Take care of yourself, partner," George whispered.  "Stay low."

NINETEEN The news of Ellison Robb's execution hit the streets and flamed
its way around the globe at the same time as the news that the author of
"Slag Like Me" was political satirist, columnist, and best selling
author Micky Cass.  The news also came with video of prominent L.A.
politicians and police officials placing their profound indifference to
Cass's death on the record in addition to startling full color images of
Cass's acid ravaged corpse.  The combination pulled the plug on an ocean
of devastating frustration and rage.  Protest demonstrations in the
large cities of the United states were mirrored by spectacles in London,
Dublin, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Tokyo, and even Beijing.  In Detroit, New
York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Miami, and L.A., however, the
demonstrations immediately turned violent.

Most network and cable commentators were rather confused by the whole
thing.  None of the cities paralyzed by demonstrations or going up in
flames, barring Los Angeles, had significant Tenct populations.  Most of
them, in fact, had no Tencts at all.  The Rolodex experts hypothesized
about violence on television, the alienation of self, the dichotomy of
poverty and plenty, making it easier to hire the unemployed v.

protecting union jobs and pay scales, the dregs of the "me" generation,
and the Second Amendment to the Constitution.  No one seemed to be able
to grasp the obvious: a great wrong had been committed; an archaic spark
of justice had been quenched.

It awakened a much neglected sense of what's right felt by a great
number of persons both human and Tenctonese.

The Tencts usually didn't participate in demonstrations.

Former Overseers and slaves alike knew how to keep their places and keep
their feelings to themselves.  Before they had come to Earth, sense and
safety for a Tenct had always been along the path of compliance.  For
most of them, nothing had changed with the coming of freedom.  There
were, of course, exceptions.

There were the young Tenct gang bangers down in the Chay.  There were
the other kinds of criminals, as well; robbers, muggers, second story
artists, serial killers, and a complete spectrum of addicts and dealers.
Together they were the evidence that the usual Tenct compliance was a
survival mechanism, not a genetically mandated program.

With the death of Micky Cass, the generally expected Tenct acceptance
evaporated in smoke, flames, and gunfire.  In offices, super markets,
assembly lines, and street corners the usual smug comments, rubberhead
jokes, insults, and brush offs were no longer ignored.  Instead they
drew retaliation times ten.  At the command center, a rebellion of a
more subdued nature was taking place.  Most of the personnel had been
pulled for duty at riot control central, leaving the desks, phones,
computers, and piles of documents unattended.  A lone Tenct investigator
sat in a cone of light, frowning at a few scraps of newspaper on the
desk in front of him.

"Iniko, where in blazes have you been?"

Paul Iniko looked up from his desk and saw the enormous scowl of Captain
Grazer looking back at him.  "Is there a problem, captain?"

"A problem?"  Grazer stabbed at the air with his finger.

"A problem?  The G-man want's to know if there's a problem!

Micky Cass is dead, the headlines are a foot tall, Landry and your field
office have the chief crawling up my ass, the damned city is coming
unglued, we're looking at a goddamned war down in the Chay, Sikes is off
on a one jerk crusade, I team you up with Francisco and the last time
Francisco laid eyes on you goddamned Santa Anna had the goddamned lease
on the goddamned Alamo!

Would you call that a problem?"

Iniko looked down at his hands, his expression troubled.

"I apologize, captain."

"Apologize?"  Grazer sat on the edge of Iniko's desk and raised his
thick dark eyebrows.  "Apologize?  I'm sorry, captain, and everything's
all right again?  Listen to me, buddy: Stillson Landry is smokin'!

Your boss, Nate Crook, is putting out a contract on you.  Man, you
haven't even checked in with your own field office!  What in the hell is
going on?"

"Perhaps, captain, it's a two-jerk crusade."

"This isn't funny, and you're not a privileged character.

You don't have any special ass to swing around here, pal.  Your own boss
is even more pissed off at you than I am.  You want to tell me what's
going on before they throw a net over you and drag you off to El Segundo
for the stupids cure?"

The former Overseer leaned back in his chair, his gaze still fixed to
the top of his desk.  "Captain, I think I know something about Micky
Cass.  If what I think is true, it's something he didn't intend anyone
to know.  It might, however, give me a clue to who did this."

The captain waited a moment and then said, "Well?  What is it?"

"I'm sorry, captain.  I can't tell anyone without breaking a
confidence."

Grazer held out his hands.  "So, break a confidence!  Feel crappy, see a
counselor, eat some weasel jerky, and see me in the morning!  This isn't
the world's biggest problem, Agent Iniko.  Spill!  Start talking!"

"This is not the kind of confidence I can break, captain.

I suspect what would be lost far outweighs what would be gained.

This is why I couldn't tell George about it." "About it?  About what?
You haven't said anything, yet!"

Iniko looked up at Grazer, his face impassive.  "I'm not going to,
either."

"Are you sure you want to work it this way, Paul?"  A look of concern
came over Grazer's face.  "Buddy, unless you can get back on the team,
the bureau is going to yank your tail feathers.  Landry burned off my
ear not more than an hour ago.

If you don't pick up that phone and square things with him, it'll be
badge and gun time and you with a hand full of want ads looking for a
slot on Pico bucketing fried chicken."

"Everyone has to do what they have to do."

Grazer studied the former Overseer for a long time.  He lowered his
voice and said, "You know Cass's notes on the F.B.I.?"

"I haven't seen them."

"They point a pretty big finger at a bureau cover up of an official
no-Tenct hiring policy."

"What are you driving at captain?"

"Well?  What about it?"

"It's possible.  As you know, the bureau has covered up things before."

"That's right.  I also remember you were part of that cover up."

"For a while."

Grazer scratched the back of his neck.  "Would getting rid of you be
part of a new cover up?"

Iniko looked up at the captain and allowed his gaze to settle upon
Grazer's eyes.  "Confidentially, captain, I doubt it.  If I had to make
a guess as to why Stillson Landry and Nate Crook are upset with me, I
would venture to say it's because I haven't been following orders very
well --- at all."

"His or mine?"

"No one's."

The captain sighed and rubbed his chin.  "Look, Paul, can't you even
give me a hint about what you've been doing?

Give me a little something I can use to square things with Landry and
the chief."

"Instead, captain, let me ask you something."

Grazer sighed and folded his arms across his chest.

"Yeah.  Okay."

Iniko leaned forward and rested his elbows on the edge of the desk.

"Everyone has something that is most important to him.  What's most
important to you?"

"Most important to me?"  The captain thought for a moment and repeated,
"Most important."  He nodded once and looked down at Iniko.  "My
daughter.  That's what's most important to me.

Why?"

"Captain, if the only way you could do your job by the book was to place
your daughter's life in jeopardy, would you do it?"

"What kind of a question is that?  How would it endanger my daughter's
life?"

"For the sake of argument, captain.  If the only way you could do your
job by the book was to place your daughter's life in danger, would you
do it?"

Grazer stood up, grimaced, and placed his hands upon his hips.  "Why do
I feel just a little sandbagged?  You already got from me what's most
important, so you already know the answer to your question."

"Yes, I do."

"So what's most important to you, Paul?"

"Serenity, captain."

Grazer snorted out a laugh and raised his eyebrows.  "I don't suppose
you'd care to get a little more specific."

"If I could do that, Captain Grazer, we wouldn't be having this
conversation."

The police captain averted his glance.  "Look, Landry told me to get you
to call in or to collect your ID and gun.  If you aren't here I can't
collect anything.  Understand?"

Iniko leaned back in his chair, took his ID case from his pocket, opened
it, and glanced at the card that had once symbolized a high degree of
acceptance in a world that wanted no aliens and wanted alien Overseers
even less.  He placed his ID on the desk, took the gun from his belt,
and placed it on top of the leather case.  "Thank you, captain.  It
looks as though I have to do what I have to do without these."

Grazer picked up Iniko's gun and ID and looked at them as he said,
"Officially, Iniko, you no longer have any authority regarding this
investigation.  Officially, you're to stay away from it."  He looked at
Iniko and held out his hand.  "Off the record, good luck and stay in
touch."

The former Overseer stood, shook the captain's hand, and said, "I'll
call in if I learn anything I can tell you."  Iniko released the
captain's hand, closed the file on his desk, and walked from the command
center, Captain Grazer still looking down at the former agent's gun.

"Cap?"  came a voice from the doorway.  Grazer turned and looked to see
Dobbs and Kirk leaning through the doorway into the room.  Sergeant
Dobbs was wiggling two fingers in a walking motion, his eyebrows raised.

Grazer nodded and said, "George is in position out front.

Give him the signal and tell him to be careful."

"Right."

"And, Dobbs, Kirk."

"Yeah?"  they both answered.

"You two be careful.  I'm not really sure who our friends are in this.

Watch your back."

"Will do, cap."

As the pair left, Grazer returned his gaze to Iniko's ID and gun.  "You
watch your back, too, you stiff necked bastard."

________________________________________________________________ ELLISON
ROBB S L A G L I K E M E THE COLOR PINK

# "Pink" in Tenctonese is "tjai" (pronounced and spelled "chay" in the
Tenct barrio).  Pink is the Tenctonese color of death.  This isn't the
pastel pink of a rose or tomato soup made with milk.

Tenct death is hot pink; ski slope pink; the neon stuff that makes
dayglow look subdued.  You can find the color on most of the Tenct gang
jackets anywhere within Chayville, the area east of the Golden State
Freeway to Lorena bounded roughly north and south by Brooklyn and
Whittier.  In this one and a third square mile area there are fifteen
main gangs, eight of them Tenct.

This is the armpit of what Goober calls "Slagtown."  It probably
wouldn't be very smart to take a drive down there to check out the
fashion statements, however.  If you're Tenctonese, you may be mistaken
for a cop, a member of a rival Tenct gang, or someone from out of the
neighborhood with significant potential as a victim.  If you are not
Tenct, it would be radical chumphood to show your face in the Chay.

Too many Tencts in the area have been maimed and shot dead in drive by
slaghunts by Afro, Hispanic, Anglo, and Asian gang members, and by
Goober and his buddies on their regular Saturday night exercise of their
right to be alcoholic handgun owners.  Between the Tencts and the drive
by shooters they racked up more than three hundred reported murders in
the Chay last year.  That's better than half the city total.

Danny Mikubeh, hivek of the Nightshade, had been told about my column,
Slag_Like_Me.  He read the pieces and then extended an invitation to me
to come down to the Chay and run awhile with the Shade, if I wanted a
real look at how the fehn treats Tencts.  Fehn means "hair," and that's
what humans are called in the Chay.  Hair, fur, fuzz, lint, they're all
names for humans.  To designate ethnic groups among humans, those in the
Chay use the usual abuses.

Personally I believe Danny wanted me to return to Shade turf in order to
punish me in some manner.  My maiming or death as a human in Chayville
would make a traditional Nightshade statement, of course, but Danny
Mikubeh is less complicated than that.  When officers Hong and Kent
dumped me at his feet on Eagle Street the week before, my disguise had
fooled him.  The leader of the Chay's biggest gang does not easily
forgive such breaches of etiquette.

Still, I accepted, walked in all alone, and stood up to Danny like a
person who had a right to be there.  There was a piece of Danny that
admired my demeanor, and before that wore off, the disguise took over.

After an hour together, Danny was talking about "debah" and "us,"
referring to Tencts, and "them" and the "fehn," referring to humans.

He talked about his youth on the slave ship, the terror of the crash,
the hopes and dreams of his family as they looked out upon the vistas of
earth and the staggering prospect of freedom.

And then there was the welcome:

"Yes, we're so teddibly opposed to slavery, and we're so teddibly
pleased you're free, and now go like a good rubberhead and be free
someplace else."  And then, "Mira, we know what it's like, man, to be
oppressed, you know?  And bueno, you free now.

So go do your libertad anyplace but here, comprende?"  And "Ah so.

Hajimemashite_dozo_yoroshiku.  Happy you no longer slave.

Not so happy you here.  Sayonara."

Danny, when he "talks fehn" and does "the welcome," is hilarious.  His
face becomes plastic and his body liquid as he takes on outrageous
accents and becomes the grotesque ethnic stereotypes in which the backs
of multicolored hands have caused him to believe.  It was easy to
imagine him doing stand up comedy in some really insensitive club.

Danny Mikubeh is a natural performer, but I don't think you'll ever get
a chance to catch his act.  He'll never live that long.

There's only one thing upon which the fehn gangs on the borders of the
Chay turf agree: Danny Mikubeh must die.  Danny and his friends formed
Nightshade three years ago on Breed Street, and then proceeded to fight,
run, bludgeon, and kill the fehn gangs out of the area, bringing
Chayville into existence.

He initiated the treaties between most of the Tenct gangs, and keeps the
relative peace within the Chay with a heavy fist.  Any gang on the
borders of the Chay who ventures to cross the line will find Danny
Mikubeh on its case.

We walked the streets of the Chay, Danny's bodyguards on point, trailing
behind, and gathered around he and his inner circle of lieutenants.  I
saw the way the people on the street looked at Danny and his gang.  In a
few cases it was stone faced fear, but for the majority it was respect
ranging from the grudging acceptance of a necessary evil to unabashed
worship.  I even saw how they looked at me.

Ellison Robb took a moment and basked in the fantasy of one permitted to
walk with the hivek, or leader, of the Shade.  I got a little taste of
what it was like to own the street.  It felt good; empowering.

My surgical disguise, I should add, besides making me appear Tenctonese,
also made me look as though I was in my mid twenties.  The image, to
Danny Mikubeh, was more powerful in the short run than the reality that
I was fehn.  To Danny I became a new friend, one of the Chay, a great
addition to the leader's entourage and world plan, up until he
introduced me to his sister.  Her eyes went wide, hearts went all
pitty-pat, there was a suggestive hum, and a self-satisfied look on
Danny's face that would have rivaled any matchmaker's.  That
self-satisfied look suddenly vanished to be instantly replaced by the
grotesque expression of one who suddenly realizes one has placed one's
foot in a bucket full of rattlesnakes.

He screamed his sister back indoors, ordered two of his lieutenants to
drag me along, and stormed up the street to a storefront that served as
Shade headquarters where I found him sitting behind a table, his eyes
wild with anger and confusion.

Upon Danny's signal, the two aides vanished into the woodwork.

The comfortably furnished room was hung with gang jackets torn from the
backs of defeated Shade adversaries.  There had been no attempt at
hiding the brown patches of dried blood that stained most of the
jackets.  They were Shade scalps.

"You really aren't Tenct," he stated in Tenctonese.

"No, I'm not," I replied in kind.

"Man, that disguise is good," he said in English.  "Your accent is right
off the ship.  You move Tenct.  You feel debah.

It really messes me."

"Thank you."

He shook his head.  "You look and feel debah, but you're all hair.

Just another lint ball."

"Not just another lint ball, Danny.  I'm a unique lint ball."

"How much did all that plastic cost?"

"The paper paid for the surgery and training.  It cost about half a
million."

I expected an outraged protest concerning the price of the plastic
surgery, but Danny simply sat there, thinking.  While he was thinking,
it occurred to me that half a mill to the hivek of the Shade was chump
change.  They run protection inside the Chay, which amounts to millions
by itself.  Add to that the tributes from the other Tenct gangs, and the
cut Nightshade gets from every burglary, mugging, bet, drug deal, and
trick in the Chay, and it soon becomes obvious that Nightshade is one of
the state's major corporations.

"You suppose they could make me up like a human?"  he asked.

"I don't know.  Probably."

"Why would I want to, man?"

"Maybe to see what it's like; to look through someone else's eyes; walk
in their shoes."

Danny's quick gaze fixed on me.  "Is that what you're doing, man?  Are
you taking a stroll in slag sneakers?"

"Something like that."

He snorted out a laugh and leaned back in his chair.

"Yeah.  Maybe you are.  You got your spots on for only a couple of hours
and the cops hammer the shit out of you."  Again he laughed.

"But maybe you aren't.  You're trying, but see, the Blues sometime thump
the fehn sickies it catches hanging around outside the schools, not just
the Tencts.  You didn't get lumpy because you're Tenct, my man; you got
it because you had your dick out."

"I did not!"

Danny held out his hands.  "Smooth down, man.  Just a figure of speech."
He let his hands drop into his lap.  "It's like this: a couple of bad
looks on Ocean Park don't make you Tenct.  Getting the shit kicked out
of you by a couple of cops don't make you debah.  Not in this town.  You
haven't walked my street; not yet."

"I'm here now," I answered.  "What do you suggest?"

He raised his eyebrows at me.  Danny Mikubeh never made a suggestion in
his life.  He gives orders.  Danny grinned.  The grin faded slowly as he
pondered something.  Danny looked out of a window facing the street as
his eyes narrowed.  "I got something."  His grin became quite wicked.
"Yeah.  I got a suggestion."

"I'm listening."

"I think I'll take you on a stroll tonight down on The Place."  He
nodded.  "Yeah, we'll go and pull those rubberhead rubbers over your
bunions and see how they fit.  If you live through it, you ought to get
something to write about.  Maybe you can do a book on the complete Tenct
experience: Slagging_on_ Five_Dollars_a_Day."

He took me home to his mother's house for dinner.  There was nothing
strange about the food; no weasel jerky or roach croutons on the salad.

He didn't reveal my secret to his family, and his sister Varina kept
coming on until I let it drop that I was married.  Mrs. Mikubeh was a
very good hostess and cook, although very quiet.  She seemed to make a
practice out of not questioning her son about anything out of fear of
the answers.

Her husband as well as Danny's Binnaum had been shot and killed the year
before by a Korean gang during an East Eighth St.  slaghunt.

Immediately afterward, some of the unidentified Chay rode onto White
Dragon turf, captured the shooters, and executed them by suspending
them, one at a time, between the back bumpers of two pickup trucks: the
left leg and right wrist over the chest tied to one bumper and the right
leg and left wrist behind the back tied to the other bumper.

When the cars are driven in opposite directions the suspension
arrangement and length of the ropes causes the upper body to wrench
about, breaking the back, just before limbs begin being ripped off.

They call this "doing the twist."

It's amazing how much of this horror one can listen to and not vomit.

It's even more amazing how many of these horrors never make the news,
they're so commonplace.  But it's just bangers killing bangers.  Not
really newsworthy.  There are times when I wonder why the riots in this
city are so far apart.

While dinner progressed, Danny's bodyguards stood watch on the house and
at both ends of the street.  Beyond the street was a network of eyes and
ears that covered the Chay.  Twice while we ate I heard shots.

Both times one of the Shade came in, whispered to Danny, then went back
out.  Both times Danny faced the table and said, "It's taken care of."

Watching Danny hold court at his mother's dinner table while, at the
same time, controlling the eyes, ears, scams, and forces of the Shade,
made me think of Mario Puzo's The_ Godfather, and how every time a group
is crushed by being set apart, cheated, humiliated, and subjected to
brutality, a certain kind of defender is wrung from the ethnic pulp.

Vito Corleone was a fictional representation of the original "Moustache
Petes" that rose among exploited Italian immigrants.

They are not heroes, for they add to the exploitation and abuse.

They are, however, grass roots community leaders.

Talk about your worst nightmare.  Among all of the gangs, fehn and
Tenct, there are close to two thousand Danny Mikubehs in the L.A. area.

Despite the public spin put on for the media, there is no desire among
the police or the city or county administrations to end the warfare
between the gangs.  This is for a very good reason: if the gangs should
ever make peace and join together, they would become an army of some ten
divisions manned by hate-filled, tough, experienced fighters who think
they have nothing to lose.  There is no danger of the gangs getting
together, however, so long as the "us" and "them" mentality governs what
we call ourselves, and hence who we will be to ourselves.

Danny took me for a stroll on Third Place.  Danny and I walked together
up front while Iron Roc, Sticker, Slice, and Tank were strung out
behind, foregoing Danny's usual careful security.  No one was wearing
the pink.  Instead they dressed down; civilian clothes.  Just six
unattached Tenct youths on the town looking for a little lethal
excitement.  We were fishing.

What I didn't know at the time was that we were the bait.

"The Place," as it's called by all of the gangs, is the southern border
of the Indiana and Lorena streets triangle on the western limit of East
L.A. "The Angle" lies between Nightshade turf on the west, the White
Dragon and the X south of Lanfranco, and the Choya east of Indiana.

Above the apex of the Angle, north of the Evergreen Cemetery on Bernal,
is the southern outpost of the Jets (I am not kidding, and yes they took
their name from the musical.  Although they are exceptional killers,
they can't dance very well.  Anglos, you know.)

There is a sixth gang allegedly contesting the area: the Blue Crew; the
L.A.P.D. It is only alleged, however.  There was no evidence of their
existence on The Place that night.  Third Place is where all of the
surrounding gangs come to socialize with each other, push the edges of
tolerance, and settle a few old scores without resorting to formally
declared warfare.

"Here you can roam in some rubberhead Reeboks, Robb man."

Danny nodded his head toward the street where the colors, strangely
enough, weren't at each other's throats.  A group of five Choya,
flashing their bright green, were holding up a wall outside a liquor
store actually laughing with and talking to three Jets, who wore black
with orange blazes on their backs.

Each of the Jets wore one black sock and one orange sock (when you're a
Jet you're a Jet all the way ...).

A closer look, however, showed Choya and Jet lookouts between buildings
and on rooftops keeping a close watch on the social scene in front of
the liquor store.  An even closer look revealed sentinels for the X, the
Dragon, and the Shade.  There were platoons of reaction raiders waiting
in the wings for the signal to launch.

A wrong word, a rude gesture, a suspicious move.  None of these were on
The Place.  Everyone was very polite, except to the few Tencts who were
on the street.  All of the fehn gangs had become an "us" by making the
Tencts the "them." "Now, check this," said Danny.  "Before the crash,
the newcomers were the Koreans, Viets, and Bozzies.  The day they let
the Tencts out of the quarantine camps, though, the White Dragon, the
Deltas, and the Splits organized to keep us down and out.  Suddenly they
were the natives and we were the invasion."

His train of thought was interrupted by something he saw.

Suddenly he raised his hand and pointed.  "Scan the man, Stan.

I thought we'd have to hang half the night, but here they are."

At Turd & Turd (where Third Place and Third Street intersect) a big red
Dodge 4x4, it's roof rowed with headlights, came roaring onto The Place.
There were three fehn in the cab and four more in the bed.  The one in
the passenger seat and the four in the bed of the truck all had weapons.
They weren't carrying colors and were ethnically diverse.

Red and yellow, black and white, they are assholes in his sight.  My
god, Goober, it was you and your alcoholic buddies after a hard day at
the plant out on a slaghunt.

There must be a new name for this emotion that exploded inside me; this
incredible compound of rage and terror.  I could see them all: Choya,
White Dragon, Jets, and X; Hispan, Asian, Anglo, and Afro, and they were
all watching.  No one was running and hiding, save the Tencts: the
homeless, the meek, the dispossessed, the addicted, and the Nightshade.

Targets all.

No one was the least little bit concerned about being shot, except for
the Tencts.  Whitey and the Latinos were hanging together, the blacks
and the Koreans, all of them watching rubberhead catch it.  They weren't
the ones I was the most angry at, however.  I was ripped at the Shade.
Danny Mikubeh had made me a goddamned duck in his personal shooting
gallery for some kind of bizarre object lesson.  This was his mosey in
another man's moccasins bit.

I turned to run west toward Nightshade turf but Danny stopped me with a
muscular arm.  "C'mon, man.  It's time to climb on the monster and ride.
You want to see through Tenct eyes?  This is it, man.  In
Technifuckingcolor."

Danny and his soldiers simply stood there, waiting, as the truck full of
yahooing jerkoffs fired shots at anyone without hair, street lights,
store windows, and the halt and lame (Joke: hey, man, what's that pink
stuff stuck in your tire treads?

Bubble gum?  No.  Slow slags).

I saw a Tenct woman hit in the leg and a Tenct child struck in the
chest.  It wasn't just Goober and his buddies that were cheering, but
all of the fehn on the street.  "Get him, get him, get him!"  yelled an
X as the truck bore down on a Tenct male on crutches.  He was missing a
leg.  Two shots hit him.

One in his remaining leg and one in his back.  His crutches went flying
as he sprawled face down on the filthy concrete.  A cheer went up from
the fehn.

"Wait for it," Danny urged his companions.  "Wait for it," he repeated.

We were the only Tencts left on the street.

Everyone else had either fled or was down and bleeding.  The red Dodge
wheeled about and one of the fehn leaned on the top of the cab and fired
two shots over the cab.  The first shot went through the window of the
store front behind us.  Tank took the second one through his left
shoulder.  He looked like a mosquito had nipped him.  Tank didn't let
his gaze stray from the truck for a second.

"Now," Danny said calmly.

I saw him reach into his jacket and pull out a rather large automatic
pistol.  I turned my head and saw Tank pull a revolver from his belt
while Slice, Iron Roc, and Sticker reached for their weapons.  They all
opened up on the truck at the same time.  The windshield exploded, the
man sitting in the middle caught a face full of shattered glass, the
shooter leaning on the top of the cab was knocked back into the bed, and
the truck jammed hard right and proved for all time that you really can
drive on flat tires.  One of the four in the back raised a rifle to make
a parting shot, and caught at least two rounds in the gut.  He tumbled
out of the bed, landed head first on the pavement, and crumpled into a
still lump.  In a second the truck was gone, the street empty.

Feelings.

Victory, nausea, outrage, terror, guilt, exhilaration, hate.  I had
become a Tenct racist, instantly an anti-fehn, complicated somewhat by
still being a fehn myself.  The moment called for something, but I
didn't know what.  Goober and his friends went off to hospitals, rehabs,
and other repair and burial facilities, as did the wounded on the
street, all except for the lump that fell from the back of the Dodge and
the little Tenct boy who caught one of Goober's shots through his chest.

They both stayed until the coroner showed up.  Danny and his friends
went back to the Chay, and Ellison Robb went home to a place that once
seemed part of a moderately understandable universe.

At home I couldn't sleep.  I couldn't relax.  The monster that had
always been under my bed was now out in the open, and what to do about
it?  The aimless claptrap about jobs programs, money for schools,
community groups, education, police training, and all of the
Jesus-jamming everybody love one another bullshit flying from countless
pulpits made me choke; want to cry; hide my face in shame.

I don't have answers to anything.  Gang violence, racism, the hole in
the ozone layer, nothing.  I'm beginning to suspect that no one has any
answers.  Hell.  My job is to walk in those rubberhead rubbers and tell
you about it.  That's all.  My job is to find the questions.  Someone
else will have to find the answers.

Incidentally, the official police report on the Third Place shootout
listed the dead Tenct boy and Goober's dead buddy both as victims of a
gang drive by shooting.  There were "some" reports of other shootings in
the neighborhood that night, and no suspects.  It got six seconds on one
nightly news broadcast and nothing on the rest.  My own newspaper gave
it two and a half column inches on page seven, which also included
eleven other shootings which resulted in three other deaths in the
barrio that night.

Bangers killing bangers, sez Blue.  Tough.  And that's where the cops
plan to leave it.  Maybe that's where everybody thinks it's going to be
left, but scan this, Goober:

I have what is called a photographic memory.  I can draw every face I
saw that night in detail from memory.  I remember the make, model, year,
and licence number of the truck.  I even remember who shot which victim.
I have at my disposal the resources of one of the great newspapers of
the world.  Some of those wounds you and your alcoholic friends received
that night had to be treated, and doctors and hospitals keep records.

Your dead buddy has a name, a place he worked, a home, family, friends,
people who know where he was that night, and with whom.

It may take a little time, Goob, but I'll track you down.

Once you're nailed I can't say it will accomplish anything.  The Tencts
will still be down, the Chay will still be in there killing and dieing,
and the next crowd of Goobers will be frying out their brain cells and
going down to Turd & Turd to smoke the slags.  It will make me feel
better, though.

TWENTY The author of Slag_Like_Me was dead.  As an automatic reaction
the city used the writer's murder to once again try to kill itself.  As
Matt Sikes walked the city, trying to arrange a meeting with Danny
Mikubeh, stores were looted and burned, people were killed, and those
old enough to have been through it all before wept.  A meeting was
arranged, and as Matt waited, there was a light drizzle as the fog
rolled in on the Chay, making the streets slick, but not clean, leaving
the smell of wet ashes on the night air.  The moisture was not enough to
keep itinerant looters, eager TV reporters, and opportunistic clergy
persons indoors, although it did lower the temperature of the violence
somewhat.

Perhaps the damp allowed a few to reflect on why they were doing what
they were doing.  After all, pondered many Tencts, Micky Cass was fehn.

Avenging his death was a human matter.

Many humans, however, had a different view.  Micky Cass, with his
offensive column, was out carrying a banner for the slags when he died.

Let the rubberheads take care of it.

Curiously enough, none of the special interests had an interest.

No one was really certain of Cass's sex or orientation, so women's and
men's groups, hetro and alternate, were silent.  No one was confident of
Cass's race, so none of the ethnically militant groups had a comment.
Cass's political interests had been gathered under no label, hence none
of the political parties or organizations issued a statement.  No one
was even certain of Cass's citizenship, so none of the nationalistic
organizations chose to go on record.

The mayor made a vague declaration deploring all violence everywhere in
the world, and the President of the United States expanded this to
include the universe, both known and undiscovered.  Neither mentioned
the columnist by name.  The Author's Guild did hold a news conference to
deplore Cass's murder, but it was a hot news day and no one showed.

One editorial in a Palmdale weekly observed that there was in the world
not even one pro-human group, much less any pro-intelligent life groups.
The ever present problem, of course, was the standard for determining
intelligent life.  No one wanted a definition that excluded them.
However, any working definition that didn't exclude the bulk of humanity
was generally meaningless.

On a popular TV talk show, a teenager (female, black, Libertarian,
Jamaican-American) stood to say that Micky Cass was a human being trying
to do the right thing.  For that reason alone his murder was an outrage.
A large percentage of the audience hooted her back into her seat.  After
all, she had a very narrow slant on things.  She was a she, she was
young, she was black, she was neither Democrat or Republican, and she
had a funny accent.  The test for intelligent life continued to go
begging.

Still, at the closing of the third day of the mayhem, since no one's ox
appeared to have been gored, save Micky Cass's, tensions appeared to
ease somewhat, which was mostly because TV news blinked for a moment to
look at a few other things.  Hence, as the new Mobile refinery in
Wilmington went up in flames, lighting the skies a hundred and seventy
miles out to sea, city hall, citing peace in our time, decided against
asking the governor to call out the National Guard.  Even as the body
count reached a new U.S. riot record, the networks were momentarily
drawn to a farm in Ohio where a cow gave birth to a three headed calf
named Hueydeweylouie.

In sports New Englanders were again calling the home team the Red Sucks,
and down in Homestead, Florida a family whose home had been flattened
years before by Hurricane Andrew finally received its insurance check
from those friendly folks.  The barrio and its flames fell through the
cracks into page six.

In Slagtown, however, those with earnest business on the street were
still at it.  Nightshade and its Tenct allies were locked in battle with
a ring of fehn gangs, the L.A.P.D. was patrolling the streets with
maximum force, and as long as the killing was kept down to double digits
and within the Chay, no one was very alarmed.  The civil war had calmed
even further to occasional sniping over newly established gang borders.

The power grid in the Chay and surrounding areas had gone down.  That
night Matt stood nervously in the dark on Olympic west of Rio Vista, the
dull glow of flames against the sky toward the north.  Two
black-and-whites, sirens yelping, passed him racing east.  He felt his
buns tighten as the officers scanned him.  He couldn't make out the
faces, but he knew what the occupants of the speeding cruisers were
thinking.  Just outside the Chay, a rubberhead standing alone in the
dark, he had to be up to no good.  The Blues were running somewhere fast
and scared.  Otherwise they would've stopped and and hipped his hop.

He knew why.  In this part of town a badge was a target.

Some TV commentators, several politicians, a few rap artists, and
thousands of bangers thought those targets deserved to be perforated.

Near the Chay a smart cop needed to treat any kind of colors as the
enemy.  And near the Chay that spotted baldness was the color to watch
the most.

As the police cruisers were swallowed by the dark, a nondescript gray
station wagon pulled up in front of Sikes.  In the distance, its lights
off, a second car pulled to a stop behind the station wagon but twenty
meters further back.

Matt's fingers wrapped around the grip of the Beretta in his jacket
pocket.  The electric window on the passenger side of the station wagon
wound down and a voice came from the darkened interior.  "So, you're the
big time reporter jock in a rubberhead suit?  Hey, man?  Halloween is
just around the bend.

You gonna get a prize?"

"Are you Danny Mikubeh?"

"Hey, man!  Look at the spots on you.  Ain't you worried about taking a
dip in some joker's HCl Jacuzzi?  That's the acid test, you know."

"You're not going to believe this, banger, but I don't think you're
funny."

A face appeared in the window.  It was a very young face with fresh
scars on the left cheek and above the left eye.

There was not a hint of humor in his expression.  "N'ak_hivek_
Mikubeh.__Zirak_nas_tiruda_krakor."_ With effort, Matt pieced together
what Danny had said.  "I'm leader Mikubeh.  Get in and ride the beast."

"This car isn't that bad," answered Matt.

"You know about the krakor, then?"

"I know what the word means.  What'd you mean by it?"

Danny Mikubeh turned his head and nodded at the street.

"I was talking about the night, reporter Matt Cross.  I was talking
about the night."  He gestured with his head.  "Get in."

"I didn't think you were going to show."  Sikes climbed into the
passenger seat and closed the door.  Danny picked up the mike from the
dash, keyed it, and said, "Let's go."  He pulled away from the curb and
followed the same direction taken by the black-and-whites.  Matt turned
in his seat and looked through the rear window.  The second car was
following at a distance of twenty meters, its lights still off.

"I know I said I'd take you up to Eagle street," said Danny as he hung
up the microphone, "but that's off for right now.  I got to get back to
the flames.  If you want to come along, you're welcome."

"What do you mean, flames?"

"Where it's going up, man.  Haven't you checked it out?

There's a war going on in the Chay."

Matt caught himself about to say "Don't sweat it."  He shook his head
and said, "I don't care about Eagle Street.  I got other things to do."

"Are you going to answer my question?"

"Your question?  Which one?"  A building engulfed in flames could be
seen in the distance.  It was too far away to tell if the fire
department had arrived.

"You really a reporter come all the way down here to bring the light and
truth to the great hairy public all the way out there?"

Matt turned his head and studied the young Tenct behind the wheel.

There were all kinds of gambles.  In a strange way, Micky Cass had
trusted, even admired, the hivek of the Shade.

The reporter cover no longer fit.  Matt shrugged and looked at the
street as Danny turned the car up Soto.  "As far as I'm concerned,
Danny, the Tenct and fehn bangers can blow the hell out of each other.

It's less work for me.  I'm down here for only one reason.  I'm after
the bastards who killed Micky Cass."

"You a Clark Kent?  A reporter?"

Matt allowed a pause to fill the moment.  "I'm a police officer."  The
leader of the Nightshade stood on the brakes and broadslid the station
wagon into a complete stop.

"Cop?  Man, I thought there was a bad smell in here.  Is that your name,
cop?  Matt Cross?"

Matt allowed the breath he had been holding to sigh from his lungs.

"My name's Sikes.  Matt Sikes.  I'm a homicide detective."

"Sikes."  Danny's eyebrows went up.  "Matthew Sikes?  The fehn cop that
teamed up with that Ubi Dugi, Sam Francisco?"

"George Francisco.  He changed his name to George, and unless you want
to mix it up right here with me, banger, I'd stop calling my partner
names like Ubi Dugi."

The gang leader looked at Matt for a moment, then aimed his attention
toward the street as he turned the wheel and pressed the accelerator,
once again heading the car north toward the Chay.  "Man, you are either
one badassed cop or the biggest asshole I've ever seen.  What in the
hell do you expect out of putting on spots and walking the Chay by
yourself?  You figure the bangers're all gonna be impressed and bend
over 'cause you swingin' that big macho stick?"

"Why do you talk like that, Danny?"

"Talk like what?"

"Like a bad cross between Cheech Marin and Huntz Hall?"

"Who're they?"

"It's not important.  What does puzzle me is the way you talk.  Micky
Cass's notes say you have three years of college.

Pepperdine, right?  Journalism?"

Matt was gratified to see Danny Mikubeh's jaw drop.

"There's no way he could know that."

"Because you went out of the Chay?  Because you used a different name?

Mikubeh means black, and you want to know how hard it was for Cass to
track down a Tenct named Dan Black?  Two phone calls, and that was
because he misdialed the first time."

"So, cop, I've been to college.  So what?"

"Have you ever heard of Edward Lear?"

"Lear?"  Danny Mikubeh frowned and pursed his lips.

"Yeah.  Poetry.  He wrote some children's stuff."

"You don't sound like you like it much."

"No kidding.  The_Owl_and_the_Pussy-cat?__The_Courtship_of_
the_Yonghy-Bonghy- whatever the hell it was?  I'm down on the block,
cop, watching guns, drugs, racism, poverty, cops, and indifference turn
little kids --- Tenct and fehn both --- into corpses, cripples, bums,
killers, and junkies.  You think I give a rat-fuck about an owl and a
pussy-cat in some beautiful pea-green boat?  What I care about is coming
down on the Jets, the X, and the Dragon hard enough that they never ever
think about crossing Lorena Street again.  What's Edward Lear got to do
with Micky Cass?"

"Somebody left a quote of Lear's on Cass's doorstep shortly after he
disappeared.  The sense of it was good riddance."

"And so, I'm a suspect because I can read?"

"Maybe.  Cass also gave your Goober hunt on Third Place a pretty big
write up.  Maybe you didn't want your adventures reported in
Slag_Like_Me."

"Ellison Robb makes me a hero and I toss him in the acid?

That doesn't make much sense."

"Did it make sense to go down to The Place and hang yourself out as bait
for the slaghunters?"

"He made me a hero, man."

"Hero?"

"Yeah.  Don't you ever read the letters to the editor, Sikes?  Man, when
you read what the readers wrote in about the "Pink" column about me and
the shootout, I could probably run for mayor right now and win."

"Right now, so could goddamn Saddam."

"Sikes, you know I was even offered a movie deal?"

"What're they going to call it?  New_Jerk_City?

"I don't know, man, but it was for enough bread even to impress me.  It
wouldn't make any sense to dissolve my relationship with Robb, so to
speak."

"You're a real comic, Danny.  I bet you have a great dead baby juggling
routine."

"Cop, if you want to show a fehn what being Tenct in L.A. is all about,
it makes sense to walk The Place.  There's nothing like sitting in the
center ring of a target to clear away the fog and sharpen one's senses."

"I wonder what that line would sound like in front of a judge and jury."

Danny Mikubeh laughed and shook his head as the car crossed East Eighth
and approached the first of the series of underpasses leading beneath
the Pomona and Santa Ana freeways.

"Cop, did it ever flash on you that I got about the tightest alibi in
L.A.?  Look out the back window."  Matt turned his head and saw the dark
car following them, its lights still out.

"Your boys?"

"That's right.  I don't go anywhere without Iron Roc, Sticker, and
Slice.  They can account for my whereabouts just about twenty-four hours
every day.  In addition to them, there's the almost constant
surveillance of half a dozen snitches, undercover cops, and blue fuzz
technoweenies.  Where in the hell did I come up with the time to kill
this Micky Cass and trot his body out to Barstow unobserved?  And the
acid thing.  I wouldn't even know where to begin getting that stuff."

"Danny, gang bosses haven't changed since the days of Atilla the Hun.

You give orders.  What you don't know or don't have, you buy."

Danny Mikubeh nodded.  "Yeah, cop.  So all you need now are a couple of
witnesses who saw and heard me hand out the contract to Guido and Dr.
Strangelove.  It'd probably help to come up with a motive, too.  Why'd I
do it?"

"Do bangers need a reason for killing?"

"I do."

Danny glanced at Matt then returned his gaze to the street, twisting the
wheel to avoid the burned out hulk of a police van.  "You know why I'm
here, cop?  You know why we're riding around together right now?

There's a war on, the cops and every hairball pack of jackals in the
Chay is for crushing the Tenct gangs, and here I am giving the grand
tour to someone who told me he was a reporter following up on the Cass
killing.

He turns out to be a cop, though, and a rather stupid one at that."

"Stupid."

"Yeah, stupid.  You think I like being in the middle of a damned war
twenty-four hours a day?  Ellison Robb --- this Micky Cass --- was
working to end that.  You must've read his column on the slaghunt."

"Yeah?"

"Don't you get it?  He set himself up, cop!  I got your number, Goober?

I can draw your face from memory?  I'm comin' to get you and your
alcoholic buddies, Goob?  What kind of a damned road map do you need,
cop?"

"We've been through all of Micky Cass's files.  There's nothing in there
about that night on The Place except for a couple of drafts of his
column.  No names, no numbers, no drawings."

"No kidding, cop.  Look, that fehn in the rubberhead suit was so damned
scared he wouldn't've recognized his own mother behind the wheel of that
truck.  He didn't get any license number and he didn't memorize any
faces.  Those are tough things to do when the lead's flying and you're
trying to find a hole to pull in after you."

"What about his photographic memory?"

Danny grinned.  "He was lucky if he could remember his current pseudonym
from one minute to the next.  Sikes, Micky Cass did the same thing with
his column that we all did that night on The Place.  He set himself up
as a target.  I'll bet you your killer is one or more fehn called
Goober."

"You got anything better than a guess that the perp was one of those
slaghunters?"

"Let me ask you something.  There was a body that fell out of that
truck.  The body had a name.  He lived someplace.  Maybe he had a
family; a job.  We know he hung out with some stellar citizens.

What've the few and blue done about tracking down his playmates?"

"That's not my end of the investigation."

Danny laughed as he shook his head in disgust.  "Shit, cop, it's not
anybody's end of the investigation.  A body drops in Slagtown, and,
well, that's the way it goes.  It was just a couple of working stiffs
cutting out the props.  Boys will be boys.  They were just shooting up a
few rubberheads.  You don't want to ruin a man's life over a thing like
that."

"You finished, Danny?"

"Not near as finished as your so-called investigation, cop."

"Look, banger, every lead will be followed just as soon as the damned
city stops burning down."

"Right.  What do you got that says I did it, cop?"

Sikes raised his eyebrows and smiled.  "A guess."  He pointed toward the
street ahead.  "Where're you headed?"

"Fourth near Saratoga.  A meeting with Rina Vatu."

"Hivek of Wolfsbane?  Don't they have fehn members, as well as Tencts?

I thought Wolfsbane and Nightshade were big time enemies?"

"When you got a choice between making peace with Wolfsbane or getting
eaten alive by the fehn, you get tight with the Wolf."

"Fourth and Saratoga?  That's deep inside your territory, isn't it?

"It was last night.  Right now it's on the edge of White Dragon turf.

If the Dragon keeps going, it'll run over us in a couple of days."

There was a crackle of static and Danny picked up the mike.  "What?"

The crackle came back.  "Police officers coming up from behind.

Danny glared at Matt.  "Yours?"

"No.  Nobody knows where I am except for you."  He frowned for a moment
as he thought about George.  His partner knew he was going, but he
didn't know where he was going to meet Danny.

"No.  Nobody knows."

"Get out your ID, hair ball.  If they don't know you're a cop, cop, then
you're in big trouble."

"Nobody's in trouble, Danny.  Just tell Iron Roc and his boys to do what
the officers tell them."

"Hey, man, you never heard of Rodney's Rule?  Don't get out of the car.

Even if it's on fire, don't get out of the car."

Sikes looked through the rear window and saw the blue flashes of the
black-and-whites against the night.  Danny keyed his mike and called to
his lieutenant.  "Roc, can you see how many watchers are on you?"

"At least two cars," came the answer.  "Five thumpers in the one right
behind us.  I don't know about the other.  Want us to split off?"

"As soon as we hit Seventh, hang right and head for --" "No!"  Matt
interrupted.  "If they run for it, they will be in for it!  Tell 'em
---" "Man, if the cops get hold of me right now, the best I can expect
is to spend the next couple of days lost in the system hopping stations!
I can't take the time!  I got a war to run!"

He keyed the mike again.  "At Seventh, go right to Marietta then start
working your way up to Inez.  Lose the cops at the school then meet me
at the Breed Street Station."

Iron Roc's mike clicked.  "Run free, hivek.  Your signal, Danny."

They roared out from beneath the Santa Ana Freeway into a thick, oily
cloud of smoke from several burning cars.  Past the cars, Danny opened
up and both cars were doing ninety by the time they reached the
intersection of Soto and Seventh.  "I hope you got your seatbelt on,
cop."  Danny keyed his mike and said, "Now!"

Both Danny and Iron Roc climbed on their brakes forcing the officers
driving the black-and-whites to swerve around them to avoid a collision.
The police cruisers spun out as they lurched up Soto while Iron Roc
headed east on Seventh and Danny swung left and went west toward Breed.
As Danny's foot fell on the accelerator, Sikes was pushed back in his
seat and the black-and-whites left far behind.

"Are you an idiot!"  screamed Sikes.  "You take off like that and
there's a whole different set of rules they go by!

This is a riot situation!  They can open up on you now with automatic
weapons if they feel like it!"

Danny shook his head as he swerved the car around a school bus that had
been rolled onto its side.  "I can't believe you never did a beat down
here, Sikes.  You were hanging too loose back there on Olympic to've
done your probies in Hollywood.

Maybe it was before the Tencts crashed in the desert, but you've been
down here before.  You know the score."

"It's not like that anymore!"  Sikes insisted.  "We have new rules,
better training.  Hell, almost half the cops are women and Tencts now!"

"What're you, Sikes?  Some kind of sexist?  You never had the shit
clubbed out of you by a police woman?  Get with the decade, debah!"

Up ahead were a row of flashing blue lights.  "Ahead, Danny!  Slow
down!"

"Shit!"  muttered the leader of the Shade.  Danny braked, spun the
wheel, and reversed direction.  He jammed his foot on the accelerator
and the tires smoked and squealed as the car sped back toward Soto.

More blue lights came at them from out of the smoke ahead: a police
assault vehicle and two cruisers.

Sikes pulled his gun from his pocket and aimed it at Danny Mikubeh's
head.  "Stop this car!  Now!"

"Man, you ---" "Now!"  Sikes repeated, touching the muzzle against
Danny's head.  "Slow down and stop!  Put this heap in park and turn off
the ignition.  Open the door, get out of the car slowly, raise your
hands, clasp your fingers behind your head, and stand still.  When an
officer tells you to do something, don't give him any shit.  Just do it.
Just do it and no one'll get hurt."

The car slowed to a stop and Danny killed the engine and put the car in
park.  He raised his eyebrows and smiled at Sikes.  "And now the lesson
begins."

As Danny opened the door and stepped out of the car, Sikes began putting
his gun back into his pocket.  Before that could happen, however, the
door on his side was yanked open, a baton came down on his wrist, and a
rough hand grabbed his collar and yanked him from the car.

"Down!  Down!  Down, rubberhead!  Eat asphalt!"

As his knees hit the street, Matt looked up at the woman and bellowed,
"F' crissakes, you assholes!  We're ---" He felt a baton strike his
back, and he realized that he was rising from the pavement.  As long as
he was rising, he wasn't in strict compliance with the police
instruction, hence a legitimate target for a baton rally.  Matt fell to
the asphalt and tried to remain still as batons struck his back and legs
and then stopped.

"I got the piece," said a voice.

"Ridin' armed with Danny Mikubeh, rubberhead?  Tch, tch tch," said a
second voice.

"I'm on the job, asshole," said Matt, reaching toward his hip pocket for
his ID.  Again a baton came down on his wrist, a foot stepped on his
head, grinding his face into the surface of the street.  A hard blow
stuck his left kidney and the tears came to his eyes as, for just an
instant, he looked beneath the car to see four cops on the other side
bringing their batons down repeatedly on the writhing shape of Danny
Mikubeh.

There was a grotesque ballet that Matt seemed to witness from a place
elsewhere.  As the Tenct suspect struggled to his feet and tried to
defend himself, five officers, one Tenct male, one human male, and three
human females, swung their batons with regulation strokes, attempting to
beat the suspect into submission.

One of the officers fell and all of them turned and drew their weapons
as a hail of gunfire came from the shadows.  Matt saw his Beretta fall
to the pavement as the officer who had been holding it grabbed his face
and fell against the car.  Matt reached out, took the weapon and
replaced it in his pocket just as a baton was brought down on the back
of his head.  The universe exploded and went very soft and dark.

TWENTY-ONE The smell of burnt rubber lingered in the air even in West
Hollywood where only a few cars had been overturned and set ablaze.
Sporadic gunfire signaled a few nervous shop owners and residents
blowing neighbors and pedestrians out of their sox or mistakenly
wounding or executing partners, employees, spouses, offspring, or house
pets.  One reformed N.R.A. member, after being fired upon three times by
nervous neighbors, went down to Melrose and torched a sporting goods
store that was making a killing doing a cash and carry trade and to hell
with the waiting period.  Still, there were a few havens within the
firestorm, even if their starting times had been delayed.  Late that
night there were words being read:

"... There are no strings attached to N.A. We are not affiliated with
any other organizations, we have no leaders, no initiation fees or dues,
no pledges to sign, no promises to make to anyone.  We are not connected
with any political, religious, or law enforcement groups, and are under
no surveillance at any time.  Anyone may join us regardless of age,
race, sexual identity, species, creed, religion or lack of religion...."

As he listened to the opening reading, Paul Iniko stood leaning with his
back against the white painted brick wall at the rear of the church
basement, his eyes looking at the human and Tenct men, women, and
children at the meeting.  On an assortment of chairs and on the floor,
they were sitting, four and five deep, in a huge circle.  Many of the
faces he knew.

Some of them, however, were at the Narcotics Anonymous meeting for the
first time; afraid they wouldn't be accepted; afraid they would be
accepted.

Paul's thoughts were still on the fire outside and the things he had
read in the Slag_Like_Me column.  The hints --the magic words --- had
been in Micky Cass's writings.  At least he thought they had been there.
How much was design; how much was coincidence?  How much was just plain
wishful thinking?  Had he thrown his career away over a guess; a
misunderstanding?

Operating a slaver hadn't been a complicated matter.

Neither Overseers nor slaves had been trained in subtlety nor double
meanings.  Puns came hard to Tencts.  Yet there had been time enough
among humans to see the things that had been hidden before by lack of
experience and understanding.  There were now Tencts who laughed or
groaned at puns, who could see hidden meanings.

Paul was certain he was right.  He raised his eyebrows as the next
recovering addict in the room read "How It Works," including the twelfth
of the Twelve Steps; the step containing the clause that might have been
used to lure Micky Cass to his death: "... we tried to carry this
message to addicts ...."

Paul was certain, but too often his past certitude had been the signal
that he was dead wrong about something.  Luis had pointed that out to
him more than once.

Paul scanned the circle of faces once more, looking for that familiar
countenance.  Luis Ar‚valo, retired California Highway Patrol cop and
recovering addict, was not in the room and repeated examinations of the
occupants would not conjure him.  Another opportunity to develop some
patience.  What a difficult thing for some to learn: patience.  That
familiar pang of guilt skittered across Paul's guts.  He hadn't been
completely honest with Luis in the past.  That honesty might be the
price to get the information he needed from his friend.

Paul's hand fell upon the empty holster on his belt.

There had been something so very special to have been accepted in the
F.B.I. Even when he had been paraded around as the bureau's token Tenct.
Even when the bureau had attempted to use him in its illegal cover up of
the MDQ affair.  Even so, the bureau had been his cause to make Earth
his home, his thread to make a meaning for himself.  To every particle
of that which he seemed to know, he needed to be in the F.B.I. And now
what?

Now that he was out, what would he do?  Look for that slot wearing a
peppermint striped paper hat bucketing deep-fried squirrel nuggets at
Bucky McBeaver's?

Two faces came in from the church's kitchen carrying cups of coffee.

Paul checked them out but neither of them were Luis Ar‚valo.  He looked
again at the circle.  The small meeting room was crowded with over sixty
recovering addicts from the surrounding West Hollywood community.

Iniko knew this particular meeting well.  Its usual weekly discussion
gatherings were considerably smaller, perhaps two dozen on a normal
night.

This was a special night, however.  Elaine, Annie O., and Bad John were
celebrating anniversaries.  Sometimes Luis skipped the Tuesday meeting,
but he never missed a sponsee's anniversary night, and Luis was Bad
John's sponsor.  He had to be here.

Paul checked his watch, wondering if the riots were continuing to cool
down.  It was a little after ten.  Paul let his arm hang at his side as
he shifted his weight from one leg to the other and leaned back against
the wall.

According to the messages George Francisco had left for him, Matt Sikes
had gone down to Chayville to follow up on a multitude of leads.  The
write up in Cass's "The Color Pink" column had named a few names.

There were the heavy hints in the column pointing toward "Goober" and
his buddies, as well.  The Chay was up in flames, but Sikes had gone
anyway.  No backup at all.  Nada.  Sikes had much of the same brand of
courage as Micky Cass, even if he were not quite as flamboyant.  Paul's
first impression was that it was foolish courage.  Childish.

Tenct survival had always been along with the flow.  There was the order
of things, and survival demanded one's obedience to the order, even when
it was clearly in error.  He frowned as he amended his thought.

It was not so much obedience to the order; it was the apparent obedience
to the order.  So many times the slaves had bent every effort to appear
in conformance with authority, while exercising little violations:
stealing a little extra food, stealing a little extra time, failing to
see someone else who was breaking a rule.  Even the watchers would go
around a rule and cover it up with an obscure reference or a cryptic
entry on a computer report when the rules made progress on an
investigation impossible.  Sometimes there were even more serious
violations.  Slaves had sometimes killed Overseers.

Watchers had sometimes ignored it because the victims themselves were
murderers by a different standard of justice: the justice of the hearts.

Taking risks and going against authority were heady matters.  It had
been frightening enough for Paul to cause him to trust Luis Ar‚valo
enough to tell the human that he, Paul Iniko, was addicted to zhabbies,
also called zabs by humans, the synthetic street version of the
substance used by the Overseers as part of the slave control system on
the ship.

It seemed like yesterday.  In the ship, long before the crash, a few of
the Overseers decided to bend one of the rules.

Their eyes blinded to the sole purpose of the drug, they experimented
with it on themselves because it felt good.  They would be careful.

They weren't like the slaves.  They were too smart to become addicted.

Long before they became exposed to the concept of partying, the
Overseers partied.  The drug did what it was designed to do, and more
slaves were created.

The combination of the crash, the destruction of the zhabrokah, and a
new career in the F.B.I. had temporarily kept Paul clean.  But then zabs
hit the street.  Paul had run into the imitation zhabrokah at a friend's
house at a time when he was feeling in need of a lift.  He touched the
blue liquid to his tongue and trembled as his slave chains were hammered
back into place.  It had been a brief, hideous, plummet through shame,
despair, and suicidal depression.  The nightmare ended only when a
former bust of his, a human named Federico G., brought him to his first
N.A. meeting the year before.  It was strange how the powers of the
universe worked.  Paul had gone to question Federico regarding his
possible involvement in a crack lab, and he had stayed behind to learn.
The former dealer had saved his life.

The reading of the traditions finished with the reminder that anonymity
was the foundation of the program; that without it, the millions
recovering now through Twelve Step programs would die.  Paul knew beyond
a doubt that he never would have entered the program without his
membership in N.A. being kept from his superiors.

A huge human, swarthy and black bearded, stood and began talking.  It
was Bad John.  He related the chronology of his addiction from when he
was sipping wine as a Methodist minister in Brookline down to when he
was dealing crack off the back of a motorcycle in Boston's combat zone
to earn enough to feed the dragon.  Between using, dealing, and
stealing, Bad John was trapped in the squirrel cage chasing after his
high, and trying to outrun his monsters: the law, his creditors, and
withdrawal.

Bad John talked about going to L.A. on a geographical cure, getting
arrested for assault, and attending his first Narcotics Anonymous
meeting in jail.  He talked of how getting straight had been a rebirth
for him, a chance at a new life.

Iniko felt himself nodding as he glanced to his right.

Holding up a piece of the wall next to Paul was a slender young human
male of about twenty.  His hands were in his jacket pockets and his legs
were crossed at the Reeboks in a studied pose of indifference.

Although his face remained as still as cast iron, the fear in the young
man's dark brown eyes betrayed him.  Bad John finished his story and
left the podium as the recovering addicts applauded.  Iniko held out his
hand to the young man.  "Hi.  I'm Paul."

In response the young man glowered for an instant, then looked flustered
as he tried to pull his hand free from his pocket.

"Yeah, man.  Hi.  I'm Spence."

"First meeting?"

Spence gave a nervous grin as they shook hands.  "I must have a neon
sign on my head.  I just got out of rehab yesterday.

My aftercare counselor told me to come here."

Iniko gave the young man's hand another shake.  "Welcome to the club.

This is a good group and we need you."

The young human grinned widely.  "Thanks.  Thanks a lot.

Paul was it?"

"Yes."

Spence's voice became a whisper as the next speaker took the podium.

"I thought drugs was supposed to be a black problem.  Aren't there an
awful lot of white dudes in here?

Asians?  Tencts?  Women?  Look at all the kids.  Thirteen, fifteen years
old.  That one kid looks like he can't be more'n ten."

"He's eight," answered Paul.  "It's a very democratic disease."  As Paul
turned his head he noticed a familiar face making its way from the door
at the rear of the room toward the kitchen where the group kept it's
coffee urn.  Luis had shown after all.

Paul squeezed Spence's shoulder and whispered, "I have to see somebody.

Keep coming back."

Spence grinned and Paul waved good-bye as he began threading his way
through the addicts toward the kitchen.  As he did so he received waves,
pats on his back, a handshake here and there.  He knew most of the faces
there, which was a piece of the guilt he carried.  He knew them, but
almost no one knew him, except through a rather convoluted indirection.
That was one of the things he needed to change.

When he reached the kitchen, he entered the white painted room and
closed the door, reducing the sounds of the meeting to a dull mumble.

In front of the coffee urn was Luis Ar‚valo, a toffee colored paunchy
man in his late fifties wearing tan slacks and a red windbreaker.  His
upper lip was crowded with a massive salt-and-pepper moustache.

"Luis?"

The man at the coffee urn looked up.  "Damn, is that you, Paul?"  His
face broke into a huge grin as he put down his coffee cup.  "Paul, man,
where in the hell have you been for the past month?"  He met Iniko in
the center of the room and gave him a bear hug.  "You go out to do some
more research?"

"No.  Nothing like that.  It was just business that took me out of
town."  There it was again: the automatic half-truth.

Luis held Iniko out at arm's length.  "Why didn't you call me?  I was
worried about you.  Hell, I even missed you."

Iniko shrugged and looked down, not quite able to look Luis in the eyes.
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about.

You mind if we talk here for a couple of minutes?"

"No.  Let's go over by the sinks away from the door."  On his way past
the coffee urn, Luis picked up his cup.  "You set?"

"Nothing for me."

When they were at the end of the kitchen the farthest from the door,
Luis leaned against the edge of a sink and sipped at his coffee.

"Okay.  I've got nothing but time and ears.  Let me have it."

Paul shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned his back against the
counter adjoining the sink.  "I'm at something of a loss, Luis.  It's
not that I don't know where to begin; I don't even know if I should
begin."

"It's up to you, man, but it's like they say: you're only as sick as
your secrets."

Iniko lost control of a giggle.  "If you only knew how sick that makes
me."  When the giggle had finished running its course, he looked up and
asked, "I need to know something about anonymity, Luis."

"Shoot."

"Whatever I say right here, whatever I tell you, is confidential?"

"Yeah.  That's right.  What you hear here, who you see here, stays here.
Or as a group in Philly says: 'You speaka my name, I breaka you face.""
"What if there was something that I'd done where I had broken the law?
If I told you about it, is that confidential?"

Luis took another sip of his coffee, swallowed, and nodded.

"You've heard people share at meetings, man.  A lot of that stuff could
get them into big trouble if it was carried outside.  Our business is
recovery.  Squaring yourself with the law is your business.  That's why
the cops in the program leave their tin outside the meeting."

"I have to be certain."

Luis held out his hands.  "All I can do is give you my word that
whatever you tell me goes no further."  He placed his coffee cup on the
counter and folded his arms.  "Paul, without anonymity the Twelve Step
programs like A.A., O.A., and Narcotics Anonymous would collapse
overnight.  To recover we have to get our issues out so they can be
dealt with.  To do that we have to be able to count on not finding our
stories in the headlines or on a police blotter the next morning.  If
you've broken the law, that's between you, your conscience, and the law.
Between you and me we have to have trust.  Now, what is it?"

Iniko thought for a long moment and then began.  "Only part of it's
about me."  He pulled up his sleeve and then smiled as he remembered he
no longer had the tattoo.

"Had it removed, huh?"

Paul's eyebrows went up.  "You knew?"

"I guessed.  Hell, man, out of all the Tenct brothers and sisters in
there, you're the only one who never shared anything about before the
crash."

"And it doesn't change anything?"

"I'm still here."

Paul nodded and raised his eyebrows.  "There's just one other thing I
didn't tell anyone.  Up until a little while ago, I was with the F.B.I.

I was an agent."

"Well, the way you always showed wearing a suit and tie, you were either
a fed or a lawyer, and you're way too nice to be a lawyer."

Luis grinned.  "Don't go hide your face in shame over it, Paul.  We got
all kinds of cops in the program; everything from guards at the mall to
Interpol.  They leave their badges outside the door, though."  Luis
Ar‚valo paused for a moment, then frowned.  "Back up a sec.  You said up
until a little while ago."

"Yes.  I'm out."

"What happened?" "I was asked to turn in my ID and weapon earlier this
evening."

Luis sipped at his coffee and nodded.  "Okay.  I'm listening."

"You know the Slag_Like_Me column?"

"We're burning down the damned city over it, aren't we?"

"I was part of the task force assigned to the investigation of Micky
Cass's disappearance.  I ran into a bind; something where if I followed
procedure I might have to break the anonymity of someone in the program.
That's part of it."

"And?"

"From what Micky Cass wrote in his column, and in some other pieces
under different names, I thought I saw the program.  The magic words."

"Easy does it?  First things first?  One goddamned day at a time?"

Paul nodded.  "I thought Cass might be in the program.  That would
provide a possible explanation for how he was abducted.

Luis, he got a phone call right before he left his home.  Micky Cass
kept meticulous phone records, yet he kept no record of that last call
before he left the house." "A Twelfth Step call, maybe?"  said Luis.

"That's what I think.  Another recovering addict calls for help.

Because of anonymity he wouldn't keep any record of a Twelfth Step call,
and he'd go, if he could, wouldn't he?"

Luis shrugged.  "If the caller was in the program, and if it was a
Twelfth Step call."  He raised his eyebrows.  "That's it?"

"I know it sounds flimsy.  I've been looking into it, trying to find out
for certain, but I couldn't tell my superiors without breaking Cass's
anonymity."

"He's dead, Paul.  Even the program Nazis don't worry about anonymity
once someone's dead."

"There was still my own anonymity to consider, too.  Once the bureau
found out that I'm a recovering addict, that would be the end of my
career.  The bureau isn't terribly enlightened about the disease."

"I'll give you that much," said Luis.

Paul folded his arms across his chest and continued.  "There were two
other considerations, as well.  First, if the task force had decided to
investigate my suspicions, there would've been agents and police
officers hanging from the rafters at every meeting."

"From what I hear, most of 'em could use a meeting."

Paul folded his arms across his chest.  "Don't you think it would've put
a bit of a cramp in our claim that we're under no surveillance at any
time?"

"I was just kidding.  What was the second consideration?"

"You know how Cass kept his sex, race, religion and so on secret?"

Luis nodded.  "So his stuff wouldn't be looked at as some group's slant
on racism."  He nodded again.  "Yeah, I see it.

The recovering junky's view of human-Tenct relations."

"Exactly.  If he was in the program and it became public knowledge,
everything he's tried to do would become compromised."

"So, what can I do, Paul?"

"You know a lot of those in the program in this area.  Was there a Micky
C.?"

"I thought the feds pulled your ticket."

"That's right.  I'm just a private citizen tying to piece together an
answer or two."

"Yeah, right."  Luis nodded, frowned, shook his head, and nodded again.

"Man, you sure know how to put a strain on the Traditions.  Okay, you're
not a cop, you're in the program, and Micky Cass is dead.  There was a
Micky C. I've known him from meetings for years.  In the last few months
I ran into him a few times at meetings over in Westwood and Beverly
Hills.  Now, what do you expect to do with that information?

Hang around meetings in the area and grill the addicts for anyone who
might've had some contact with Mick?"

"I'm asking you."

Luis went to take another sip of his coffee but found his cup empty.

He turned and headed back to the coffee urn.  "Damn, son."  He poured
himself another cup and came back to the sink and leaned against it, his
face troubled.  "Paul, I got a boy in that meeting out there tonight,
his first time since he got out of rehab.  My youngest son.

"Is his name Spence?"

Luis nodded.  "Yeah.  That's what he calls himself.  Did you meet him?"

"Yes.  He looks scared."

"He's scared, all right.  He finally heard the angel feathers and
decided to duck in out of the shitstorm for a bit and see what getting
clean can do for his world plan.  He bought his first shit in the school
yard when he was eight and in a year was dealing in the same place to
feed his dragon.  He's had another twelve years on the streets since
then, and you don't keep up those three hundred dollar a day payments
bagging groceries.  Know what I mean?"

"Yes."

"Paul, I think we might safely assume that he has some old issues with
the law to get squared away --- possibly any and every thing from
mugging and B&E to murder.  Now, me, I'd like to see this boy keep
coming back, wouldn't you?"

"Of course."

Luis nodded.  "It's more than him being my son.  It's the same with any
of them out there, including the cops in the program.  I'd rather have
them trying to stay clean than killing to stay high.  Besides, if they
want out of the nightmare they deserve the chance to recover and to
square themselves with the people they've hurt."  He glanced up at Paul.
"You want to guess at how long my boy'll stick around if you start
asking cop questions?  Or even if he hears about you asking questions of
other addicts, here or anywhere else within a hundred miles by using the
program or its meetings?  Hell, buddy, you'd clear out the halls
everywhere they hear about it.  That's one hell of a lot of death,
destruction and mayhem to cause just to chase down one lead that may
turn out to be nothing.  Anonymity's bigger than you or me or Micky
Cass, murder or even that riot out there."

"It's not like attorney client confidentiality or other privileged
information.  It has no legal status."

Luis nodded.  "True.  Without it, though, millions of us are dead."

Paul Iniko rubbed his eyes and let his hand fall to his side.  "So, if
it was a bogus Twelfth Step call that suckered him out, Luis, how do I
turn up the perp?  There's still a killer out there, it was one of our
brothers he tortured to death, it's triggered the bloodiest riot in
L.A."s history, and I want him.

He's got a lot to answer for."

The retired highway patrolman lifted the hand not occupied with the
coffee cup and scratched the back of his neck.  "Okay, man, let me
think.  Jesus, you get into more shit."  He frowned and talked as the
thoughts came together.  "Mick had some time in the program,
understand?"

"I'm not certain."

"Time.  I mean, he was here when I came in eleven years ago.

The guy knew what was going on; the ropes; the drill.  What I'm trying
to say is that he knew better than to go on a Twelfth Step call by
himself.  He would've gotten hold of another N.A. to go with him.  Did
he make a call himself after the one he got?"

"According to his wife, there was just the one call, then he left.  He
didn't try to get in touch with anyone else .  . . ."

Paul's eyebrows went up.  "But what if someone called him to ask him to
assist on a Twelfth Step call?  Would he have gone?"

Luis scowled as he nodded.  "Like a hooked salmon."  He placed his
coffee cup on the edge of the sink and thrust his hands into his trouser
pockets.  "Son of a bitch!"  He shook his head and looked at Paul.
"Don't even think about cruising the meetings to try and track down the
perp."

"How else am I supposed to track him down?" "I don't know.  But, like I
said, keeping the people in this program anonymous and free from
surveillance is more important than who killed Micky Cass.  If I have to
dog your heels twenty-four hours a day and rat you out in front of every
meeting you show up at, I'll do it."

"What do you suggest?  I'm looking for someone in the program, right?"

The big man frowned, looked at a blank spot in space, and slowly began
shaking his head.  "No."  He shook his head again.

"No.  I don't think so."  He pulled a hand from a pocket and pointed at
Paul.  "Look, in a fellowship made up out of addicts of all kinds,
you're going to run into an asshole or two.  I'm not saying it's
impossible.  It's just not very likely.  If you hang around the program
long enough, you get better.  Whoever pulled this stunt, using the
program to kill someone, is one sick and sorry bastard.  I don't figure
Mick would go out Twelve stepping with someone he hadn't even met
before, unless there was something very unusual about the call."  He
looked up at Paul.

"Where's his car?"

"At home in his garage.  He didn't take it."

"Did his wife see him get into a cab or a car?"

"No.  She didn't see anything.  We checked all the cab records and no
one picked up a fare anywhere near his house that night."  Paul folded
his arms across his chest.  "So, what do I do?"

Luis held out his hands to his sides, palms toward the ceiling.  "So, I
don't know, man.  I'm guessing you're looking for someone who isn't in
the program, but knows enough about it to know about Twelfth Step calls.
He also had to be able to get Mick's unlisted number.  Maybe the perp's
an early drop out; just hung around long enough to pick up a few
telephone numbers and a bit of the routine.  Maybe it's a friend or
relative of some blabbermouth in the program, or the perp might've gone
to a few open meetings with a friend or relative to keep him company.

Take your list of suspects and start shaking the tree for a druggie."

"You think the perp is an addict?"

"Not necessarily, Paul.  But, whoever it is, he's had some kind of
contact with the program or with someone who's in the program.  Nobody
shows up in N.A. by accident or out of a desire to be sociable.

Usually it's someone in a dead heat with the nightmare.  Find the
chemical, buddy, and I'm betting you'll be on the trail leading to the
killer.  You run across any addicts yet?"

"Three of them.  The father of one of the children Cass mentioned in his
'Policeman's Lot' piece, Cass's next door neighbor, and the cop from the
first column."

"The one called Davenport?"

"Yes.  Davenport's alibi was a doctor and his lieutenant supplied the
doctor's name.  He's a psychiatrist who specializes in treating
alcoholics by substituting an addiction to prescription drugs."

Luis shook his head.  "Diagnosis: acute Valium deficiency.

I take it this Davenport isn't exactly familiar with the program."

"You're right.  His alibi isn't exactly seamless, but dissolving someone
in acid for getting a department reprimand would be a bit of an over
reaction even for Davenport."

"What about the other two?"

"Both of them are into alcohol, at least.  Maybe other drugs, as well."

"Alibis?"

"They both have excellent alibis and neither one has even a clue about
recovery or the program --- any program."  Paul held out his hands.

"So?"

"So, keep looking.  Your junky is out there, Paul, not in here.  If he
was in here, the city wouldn't be in flames."

# When he and Luis left the kitchen and returned to the meeting, Elaine
G. was sharing her story.  Good girl, sexually abused as a child,
addicted to food, moved onto diet pills, and the entire range of over
the counter and medically prescribed relaxants, tranquilizers,
antidepressants, and sleeping pills.

Her addiction had cost her a family, a home, several jobs, considerable
physical and mental damage, and left her screaming out her guts locked
up in a psycho ward where they introduced her to a whole new series of
drugs, to which she promptly fell in love.  Then a sister of hers who
was in N.A. dragged her to her first meeting putting her at the bottom
of her long climb back to sanity.  Throughout it all she had not done a
single illegal drug.  To thunderous applause, she picked up her two-year
key tag that night.

Annie O., a Tenctonese addicted to zabs, shared how her immigration joke
name, Ann O'Nymity, had eventually led her through her nightmare to the
doors of N.A. The name designed to shame and degrade her had saved her
life.  Annie picked up her one year tag that night.  As she did so, Paul
felt the one year tag in his own pocket.  It represented a million
battles, and just as many victories.  Later, the young man named Spence
picked up his white beginner's welcome tag.

As they stood and formed the traditional closing circle, their arms
around each other's waists and shoulders, one of the addicts read out
the reminder of anonymity, followed by a moment of silence for the still
suffering addicts outside the halls of N.A. While Bad John read "Just
For Today," Paul looked across the circle to see George Francisco
serving as an extremely uncomfortable part of an otherwise serene group
hug.  As the addicts said the Serenity Prayer, George mouthed the words
to Paul, "We have to talk."

TWENTY-TWO

"You okay man?  Baffa,_pim_vot_niyim?  Hey, debah, we gotta get moving!"

An all-encompassing numbness; a mental syrup that stood between
awareness and the raw edges of unbelievable pain.  Not all of reality
was menacing, however.  There was light.

Sunlight?  Morning?

Maybe it was some of that out of body near death stuff they talk about
on Oprah.

He squinted his eyes open just a crack and looked.  The light.  It was a
building on fire.  Several buildings on fire.

Green flames.

Green.  Green?

Green_is_pain.

And pain is pain whether or not it is felt.  He remembered being taught
that.  He couldn't remember who taught it to him.

There was a line form a song, "It's_not_easy_being_green_._._."

"No goddamn shit," he whispered, the effort sending pains through his
eyes.

Motion.

Something was moving.  He looked and saw wreaths of oily black smoke
against the flames.  The sky was blotted out; filled with a hairless
head.

A man.

Tenct.

Greenish face looking down at him.

Tenct, chunky, scarred, bleeding that pinkish green blood.

Flames going up; smoke coming down.  The face began spinning.

"Nya_ve!__Nya_ve!"

"I'm awake," he heard himself say in response, although he wasn't quite
certain what it was that he had been commanded to do.  The effort of
talking brought on pain.  Different pain.

Pain that could be felt.  His jaw hurt; his neck; the right side of his
head; his back and legs, arms and wrists --- everything.

His head felt as though it had been crushed.  Sharp pains from his sides
and back.  His organs felt as though they were on fire.  The comforting
dark, the anesthetic syrup of unconsciousness, remained just beyond his
reach.  He heard himself moan as he once more opened his eyes and
watched again the spinning face.

"What is it?"  he whispered.

"Man, we got to move!  The Dragons and the Jets caved in and the Blue'll
be here in a couple of minutes!  The Shade can't hold 'em.

Without Danny and the Roc we're nothin'!  Man, we got to move!"

There were footsteps and another voice.  "Breaker, who's that?"

"Danny picked him up late last night.  He was in the car when the Blue
stopped it.  The cops did a thump on him, Hooks."

The one called Hooks squatted down and looked into his face.

Hooks's face and spotted scalp were blackened with soot.  In his hands
he held a Micro Uzi 9mm.  "Looks like a bit of hardball on him."

"Hardball, hell.  Looks like the whole damned world series took place on
his face." "Who is he?"  asked Hooks as he stood upright.  "I don't know
him."

He felt hands moving over his body.  "Hey, he's got a piece.

Look at that.  Nice one too."  Breaker went back to the search.

"Let me see."  There was a moment, then Hooks said, "A Beretta.  What
about some ID?"

"Nothing.  If he had a wallet, it's gone."

"What's that chain?"

He felt something tap his chest.  "Hey, Hooks.  Look at this, man.

It's a press pass.  He's got a press pass."

"What station?"

"Not TV.  This guy's with the papers.  He's from the Times, you know,
like that Ellison Robb."

"He got a name?"

"Cross.  His name's Matt Cross.  I remember Danny saying something about
this guy."

This guy.

Matt Cross, he thought.  This guy.  My name's Matt Cross.

There was something right about it --- something terribly wrong about
it, too.

Right; wrong.

There was too much pain in his head to allow thought.

Matt Cross.

Who?

Issues for another time.

"Another nugah?"  asked Hooks.

"I don't know, man.  He sure looks debah to me.  If he's fehn, plastic
man did one hell of a job on him."

"Get him up.  We got to get off the street."

"No," mumbled the one called Matt Cross.  He felt them try and lift his
arms.  "No.  Don't.  Please.  I hurt.  Hurt too much.  Can't move."

Hooks squatted down.  He was clad in a ripped Shade jacket, the neon
pink muted by the ashes of the Chay.  "Matt?  Hey, Matt Cross?  Earth to
Matt.  Earth to Matt."

"What?"

"Man, I don't know if you're debah or fehn, but right now you're beat
up, bald, spotted, and sittin' in the middle of a pile of dead Blues."

"Cops?  Dead cops?"  A strange terror streaked through his chest.

Beyond the face of Hooks, in the street, were a number of bodies.

There were Tencts.  Bangers and bums from the looks of them.  And humans
in blue riot gear.  Two, three of them women.

By the wreck of a smashed and burned gray station wagon were two more
Tencts.  One wearing blue, the other was Danny Mikubeh.

"Dead?"

"Man, when the Blue gets here, they're gonna waste the slags and put the
pieces together ma¤ana.  You got me, debah?"

The second Tenct held up the Beretta in front of his face.

"Maybe some of those cops got dead with this?  Hey, man?"

"No.  No."

"If the Blue gets here before you're gone, Matty boyo, the next thing
you're going to mira is snoozo grande.  You got to move!  Now! Wakaru?

Xianzai!"

The mix of street English, Tenct, Spanish, Japanese, and Chinese made
Matt's head reel.  He looked down at the blue plastic press ID suspended
from his neck by a thin chain.  The photo of a young Tenct male was on
the front with the name Matt Cross appearing beneath.

Matt Cross.

Tenct.

There was something inside, working its way through the physical pain.

A feeling.  A sense that he had found the lead role in a horror flick;
his worst nightmare coming true while all he could do was witness his
own helplessness.

There was a line facing him: Freddy, Jason, Michael, the Alien, Charlie
Manson, and the Thing.  He looked at his own team, the L.A. Victims, and
saw an endless chorus of scantily clad screaming girls, spilling eyes,
intestines, and gallons of blood onto the Astroturf.

"Man," said a weirded out voice, "What in the fuck is the matter with
you?"

"I think I've seen too many movies."

Godzilla was calling the signals, "Tora,_Tora,_Tora!"

Yamamoto snapped the ball to Genda, and Matt's team was Larry, Moe, and
Curly playing patty cake, patty cake, all fall down.

There were flame illuminated figures squirming in the shadows of his
mind.  The Blues bringing down their batons.

Beneath the car, the look in Danny Mikubeh's eyes as the four officers
brought their sticks down on Danny's struggling form.

Danny's look was calm.  It said something, the look did.

What did it say?  I told you so?

I told you so.

"Danny.  What about Danny?"  he heard himself ask as the world kept
spinning faster and faster.

"He's dead," stated Hooks, his voice breaking.

"The others?  What about the others?  Following us.  Iron Roc?

Sticker?"

"They tried to nab Iron Roc and his boys over on Inez.  The word is they
all died in the pile up.  Burned to death."

Maybe the look from Danny hadn't been an I told you so.

Maybe he had just been dead.  Then, thought Matt, that was the ultimate
I told you so.

"Forget the honor roll, debah," interrupted Hooks.  "There are way too
many blue bodies out here and nowhere near enough slags to blame.

Nya_ve!  We got to become scarce!  Come on, Matt Cross.  If it hurts too
much, just pass the hell out."

He felt rough hands beneath his arms, lifting him up, away from the
street, away from the blood, away from the flames and smoke.  He looked
at the reflection in the remains of a store front window and saw a
battered Tenct being lifted by two other battered Tencts.  As he fought
to stay awake, he struggled to remember his name.  There was something
wrong.  Something terribly wrong somewhere.  He just couldn't put his
finger on what or where.

Matt Cross.

He fell through the floor of hell into the darkness beneath repeating
the name Matt Cross, panic in his heart because he couldn't remember who
he was, where he was, nor even why.

TWENTY-THREE George decided to try one last time.  "Let me put it all
together, Paul.  You think Micky Cass was a recovering drug addict?"

Paul Iniko, sitting in the car's passenger seat, looked over at George
Francisco as George turned the car onto Wilshire.

"That's your deduction."

"I can't come up with any other answer to explain your behavior.  Why
else would you be at that meeting?"

Paul shrugged and smiled.  "It might be because I'm a recovering drug
addict myself."

"Are you?"

"N'ak_debah," he answered.  "All Tencts are brothers and sisters of the
chemistryhood."

"Even Overseers?"

Paul nodded.  "Zhabrokah is no respecter of occupational status."

"Are you a member?"

"It's really none of your business."

"Then what about Micky Cass?"

"I think I've already answered that."

"You can't tell me you think Micky Cass was a recovering drug addict
because of some damned N.A. club rule?"

"You're an intelligent fellow, George.  How many times are you going to
pick at this before you figure out I can't answer you?"

"I don't get it.  If Cass was in N.A., some people in N.A.

must know.  I didn't see anyone in there wearing a mask."

"You're right, George.  If Cass was in N.A. some people in N.A. must
know."

"Well?"

Paul smiled and faced forward.  "Well, what?"

"For Celine's sake, Paul!  It's more frustrating talking to you than it
is trying to get two coherent thoughts in a row out of Matt!"  He held
out a hand and shook it in time to his words.

"If those people in N.A. know, you can tell me."

"Are you a member, George?"

"No!"

"Then I don't choose to talk about it.  If that's all, you can drop me
off here and I'll get a cab."

"Wait.  Wait just a second.  What do I have to do to become a member of
N.A.?  Develop a drug problem?"

"No, George.  The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop
using."

"Using?  Using what?"

Paul sighed and said, "Whatever your substance or behavior is, George.

Mood altering substances, which includes old milk."

"Very well, I have such a desire.  I'm in.  Do I take a pledge or sign
something?"

Paul faced George and studied his face.  "No pledges, nothing to sign,
and nothing to joke around with, either."

"Can you do that, Paul?  Can you refuse me membership?"

"No.  But membership doesn't entitle you to everything I know."  He
placed his left arm up on the back rest.  "Look, George, there's no rule
protecting the anonymity of the dead, but there are still those who are
alive.  I've had it itemized for me rather clearly that badges running
around the meetings grilling the addicts would cost more lives than any
answers would be worth."

"What's your point?"

"George, if you agree in advance to do this with me and my way, we can
compare notes.  Otherwise, let me out."

Frowning, George began slowing down the car until it barely crawled.

He glanced at Paul, returned his gaze to the smoking skyline and pressed
down on the accelerator.  "Very well.  Your way."

"Turn around and head for Coldwater Canyon."

"Why?"

"We're looking for someone with a chemical problem, George, either a
user or someone who knows a user.  Someone who hates Micky Cass and
knows enough about him and N.A. to use the program to kill him.  Also,
it's probably someone he knows."

"What about Duke Jessup?"  asked George as he turned the car.

"No.  He hasn't a clue about either recovery or a twelve step program.

We're looking for someone we don't know.  Or, perhaps, we're looking for
someone we don't know well enough."

"What about the F.B.I.?  The bureau can find out about anything they
want, including N.A."

Paul rubbed his chin and faced George.  "I don't think so.

I'm not an expert in government conspiracies, but I have learned enough
about cover ups to know that the preferred method of eliminating a
person is a quiet disappearance and a fading memory.  An acid ravaged
corpse displayed nightly on all networks in prime time triggering off a
city wide holocaust strikes me as just a shade too stupid even for
government work." George hesitated a moment, then said, "Maybe someone
else working with the bureau.  It's not like the bureau hasn't been
associated with disreputable parties before."

"The mob?  The cartel?  Forget it, George.  Now you're talking real
professionals.  We're after amateurs."

"What about the Ahvin_Rivak?"

"On their own, perhaps.  I can't see anyone in the bureau foolish enough
to cooperate with the Ahvin_Rivak on something like this.  It's not that
they're too squeamish; they're just not that stupid.  To hook the bureau
to it, you have to explain the acid bath and the remains that were left
on purpose.  Who?  Why?

Toward what possible end?  To see how many incriminating witnesses and
pieces of damning evidence that can be left behind?"

There was a pause, then George's call signal came across the net.  He
reached forward, grabbed the mike, and answered the call.  There was
another interval, then Captain Grazer's voice came on.

"Francisco,_you_find_Iniko_yet?"

"Yes, captain.  He's with me right now."

"Where's_Dobbs?"

"He's following us," said Paul.

George paused for a beat and said into the mike, "He's following us."

"I'm_following_them,_cap," came Dobbs's voice over the net,
"and_if_I_drive_much_faster_to_keep_up_I'll_have_to_give_myself_ a_
ticket."

George looked at his speed and raised his eyebrows.  He had been doing
almost eighty-five.  He slowed down to fifty and spoke into the mike.

"What is it, captain?"

"Understand_something,_all_of_you:_we've_got_men_on_this_
already,_so_don't_go_ballistic_on_me.__It's_Matt_Sikes.__There_
were_a_couple_of_shootings_in_the_Chay_tonight.__Shootings,_hell.__
They_were_battles.__On_Seventh_west_of_Soto_nine_officers_were_
either_killed_or_wounded_along_with_five_civilians_dead.__They_
found_Danny_Mikubeh's_body.__Sikes_wasn't_one_of_the_casualties_
we_found,_but_he'd_been_there.__We_found_his_ID_on_the_street.__
Like_I_said,_we_got_a_team_working_on_it,_so_don't_freak.__I_just_
wanted_to_keep_you_posted.__Francisco,_where_are_you_headed_now?"

Francisco felt paralyzed as his hearts jumped at the news.

His hands gripped the steering wheel as he fought the desire to turn
about and drive into the ruins of the Chay.  "Sometimes doing nothing is
the hardest thing to do," said Paul.

"Say_again,_Francisco?__George?__Where_are_you_headed?"  asked Grazer.

"Toward Coldwater Canyon," answered George glancing at Paul.

"We were chasing down a lead."

"Okay.__Keep_chasing_and_don't_let_that_civilian_in_your_car_
get_into_any_trouble."

George glanced at Paul.  "I'll take care of him, cap.  Keep us posted on
the effort to find Matt."

"Will_do.__Do_you_still_need_Dobbs?"

"No," answered George.  "We ... I can handle the lead."

"Okay,_cut_Dobbs_loose.__I_want_him_in_on_tracking_down_ Sikes."

"Got_it," Dobb's voice crackled.  "Stay_low,_George."

George signed off and hung up the mike.  As he stared at the darkness of
the night, he glanced at the rear view mirror and saw Dobbs's car do a
'U' turn and streak east.

There was a sight there and it made George sick.  There was a rosy sky
in the east, and it was too early for sunrise.  "Paul, with all the
death and destruction happening right now, I almost feel silly trying to
hunt down one lone murderer.  It's like trying to stop and arrest
someone for speeding in the middle of the Indianapolis Five Hundred."

"Even Micky Cass knew the answer to that, George.  He said, 'You do the
right thing.  Even if it doesn't change a damned thing.  Even if the
only point in doing the right thing is to have done the right thing, you
do it ---'" "'--- so you can say to the souls in Hell, "I did the right
thing.  What's your excuse?"" You read that note he scribbled on the
outside of the gang banger file."

"Yes."

They rode in silence for a moment, then George asked, "Was Micky Cass a
hero or an asshole?"

Paul sat silently for a beat, and then said, "Yes."

TWENTY-FOUR

"Viot_ati,_debah."

Matt felt something shove between his fingers.  A piece of paper.  It
felt as though his back and head had been crushed; the pain of his
headache was beyond description.  He could feel he was sitting.  Nausea
hovered closely and he loathed the idea of puking in his own lap.

Opening his eyes slightly, Matt frowned at the mush of images: a row of
faces, some bleeding, others frowning or in pain.

Humans.

Tencts.

Bright lights.

Figures passing quickly.

Others standing, sitting, waiting.  Some on the floor, others in
wheelchairs.  With great care Matt turned his head and noted that he was
seated in a chair, the edges of the wooden armrests cutting into his
arms.  He added together what he could and realized in was in a hospital
emergency waiting room.

A Tenct female wearing jeans and an embroidered buff cotton poncho
turned and walked toward him.  In her hands she had a sheaf of papers
all cherry red.  There was a death pink strip of cloth tied about her
head, and for some reason Matt couldn't identify, she reminded him of
his mother.  Perhaps it was the look of cold, bitter anger in her eyes.

Mother?

Mom?

He frowned as he continued staring at the woman.  Matt couldn't remember
his mother.  His frown grew deeper.  Neither could he remember himself.
The pain from his head and body thundered into every particle of his
awareness.  He closed his eyes against it.

Trauma.

Bop on the head amnesia.  He'd heard about that before.

How?

A doctor?

Nurse?

Watch a lot of television?

Matt.  He knew his name was Matt.

No.

Someone had told him his name was Matt.  Someone very tough-looking,
very scared.  Bleeding.  Tenctonese.

Breaker?

Breaker and Hooks.

What had happened to them?  They were the only persons in the world that
Matt knew; that is if his name really was Matt.

He opened his eyes and saw that his chin was resting upon his chest.

"Must've passed out," he muttered to himself.  He looked down and saw
the blue plastic press pass hanging from his neck.  Vaguely he
remembered the two young Tencts, gang bangers, members of Nightshade,
picking him out of the carnage on Seventh Street.  They must have taken
him to a hospital.

What hospital?

In what city?

What had happened on Seventh Street?  Why did everything smell as though
it were on fire?

"Are you a reporter?"

It had been a voice.  A close voice.  He knew it had been directed at
him because of the piece of blue plastic hung about his neck.  He looked
up and watched as the room spun about the Tenct woman in the poncho. She
was looking down at him; at his press pass, actually.

"I'm pretty confused," he croaked at last.  "My head."

"You're looking mighty lumpy, debah.  Matt, is it?  Matt Cross?" Matt
Cross.  He knew that's what it said on the piece of blue plastic.

His heart, however, didn't know the name.

Heart?

Hearts?  Something was wrong.  Something was wrong, but he couldn't find
a clear track upon which to run the investigation.

Whatever it was, it would have to wait.

"Your name is Matt Cross, right?"  she repeated.

"Yes.  Matt Cross."

"I don't get it.  Did you change it?"

"Get what?  Change what?"

"I don't get the joke.  What's the joke in the name Matt Cross?"

"Joke?

"You know, like Claude Balls and I.P. Daily."

Claude Balls.  Some issues were simply too complex to unravel upon
demand.  What was the joke in Matt Cross?  Was it true, someone had once
asked, that if the Tencts had crashed into ancient Rome, they would've
been named things like Chromus Domus or Dickus Maximus?

Jokes.

"There isn't any joke," he answered.  "Can't think of a joke, anyway.

That's just my name: Matt Cross."

"You'd think they'd name you Woody Cross, Chris Cross, or H.

Cross Buns, at least.  Maybe Matt Finish or Matt Ress."

"I'm just deprived.  What's your name?"

"Li Sinritu."

"Lighten up, Li Sinritu."  He frowned as he said, "That's a Tenct name."

"Very good.  You're throbbing on all lobes, you are."

"What?"

"Nothing.  The immigration officials named me Rosy Scenario.

Did you read the flyer?"

"Flyer?"  There was something wrong with asking questions; answering
questions with questions.  Matt felt terribly afraid, but he couldn't
remember why.

"The flyer in your hands."  The woman pointed at the sheet of red paper.
He squinted and read the headline:

#

SANJA_AHVIN_RIVAK!

SALAS,_TANARAH,_NAS_MIRIDAH!

# "I can't make it out."

Li Sinritu pointed at the words.  "'Join Those Who Would Return.

Peace, safety, and dignity'" Matt looked up at the woman, wincing at the
pain in his neck.  "Are you one of these nuts?  One of these idiots who
wants to go back into slavery?"

"I'm a member of the Ahvin_Rivak."

He waved at an empty chair facing him.  "Sit down, Li.

Please.  Hurts too much looking up at you."  As she sat down he held out
the piece of paper, the fog in his head clearing not at all.

"You're the bunch that wants to contact the Stallahraj, the creators of
the Tencts, right?"

"We're urging the development of the technology."

"Even though it means going back to being slaves?  Maybe making humans
slaves, too.  I don't understand that."

Li Sinritu studied Matt for a moment then stated flatly, "You're not
Tenct."

"What?"

"You're a human made up like that other Times reporter; that Ellison
Robb --- Micky Cass, the one who was murdered."

Matt looked down at his hands as the room beyond continued spinning.  I
don't know, he thought to himself.  Hell, every time I think I have a
scrap of information, it turns out to be wrong.

Now I don't even know what species I belong to.

There were sounds.  Li Sinritu was talking.

". . . ship's computer records.  I've seen them.  Since my family line
was made part of the ship's production unit, one hundred and nineteen
males and females were born, wed, had children, lived productive lives,
and died peacefully."

"It sounds really fulfilling."

"You want fulfillment, Matt Cross?  In the few years we've been on
Earth, half the adults in my immediate family have been refused work and
the other half have been forced into demeaning and degrading occupations
that make labor for the Stallahraj slave masters seem most satisfying."

"Lawyers, are they?"  At the stony expression on the woman's face, Matt
glanced down.  "Sorry."

"I'll fill you in on a bit of reality, human.  Compared to the ship, my
family now lives in hell, eleven are chained by the nightmare of illegal
addictions, three have been victims of murder, and five of them have
committed suicide.  There are worse things than being slaves, nugah.  If
you want to know more, come to a meeting."  She stood and walked off,
handing out flyers to other Tencts in the waiting room.

"Come to a meeting," Matt repeated.  An electric tingle skittered across
the back of his head.

Come to a meeting.  Keep coming back.  That's what they told him all
those months ago.

Matt.  Keep coming back Matt.

Matt Sikes.

Sgt. Matt Sikes, L.A.P.D. He closed his eyes as it all flooded back:
Cass, the endless operations, Danny Mikubeh, the city on fire, the
beatings and the massacre on Seventh Street.

All of the dead cops.

All of the dead bangers.

How it had felt to have a foot grind his face into the street.

The rage.

The look on Danny's face.

Matt coughed, a streak of pain fired through Matt's left side, and he
heard himself cry out.  He didn't know what was worse: the physical pain
from his beating or the pain in his heart knowing he had gotten it from
his fellow officers --- that those officers were now either dead or
wounded --- that the city was burning down.  Again.

"Shut up!"

He squinted his eyes open.  No one appeared to be looking at him.

"What?"

"I said shut up!"  The voice came from behind.  Matt turned around,
crying out again from the pain.  There was a human wearing a white lab
coat.  He was young with a great shock of black hair above large
dark-rimmed glassed.  He had a clipboard in his shaking hands and his
face was bright red.  "You fucking slags burn down and loot the god
damned city then come in here and whine about getting a little bump on
the head.  Look, I'll treat you crybabies because that's the law, but
I'll be fucked if I'll listen to you rubberheaded bastards piss and moan
all night just because you got what you asked for!  So, shut the hell
up!  Just shut the hell up!"

The waiting room was tomb silent, both human and Tenct patients shocked
into silence.  The healer paused, turned on his heel, and stormed back
through the emergency room doors.  As a dreadful sadness overtook Matt,
he used the chair's armrests and pushed himself to his feet.  For a
moment he felt the blood drain from his head.  The moment passed and he
slowly limped from between the rows of waiting patients.

At the glass doors leading to the parking lot, Matt stared with
unbelieving eyes at the skyline in the first light of morning.  Columns
of black smoke reached into the sky, reminding Matt of Saddam's spiteful
farewell when his forces retreated from Kuwait leaving behind hundreds
of burning oil wells.  The columns of smoke rising from the city,
however, weren't from oil wells.

Instead they were from cars, busses, trucks, homes, businesses, schools,
government buildings.  How many of those dark pillars, he wondered,
marked more dead.  Before he had gotten into Danny Mikubeh's car, the
riot attributed death toll had still been under one hundred.

Where was it now?

The Tenct girl had mentioned something about a meeting.

Matt frowned as it brought something back.  The memory brought another
thing back and it caused him to blush.  The blush was for stupidity, or
was it a disease, he asked himself silently.

Either way, how much of the flames and deaths out there were the
responsibility of Matt Sikes?

"Who are you?"  He turned and looked at the speaker.  It was the
Ahvin_Rivak worker, Li Sinritu.  "Are you a reporter?"

"No."

"What's your name?"

"Matt.  Matt Sikes."  He looked back at the burning city, the memory of
the faces of those in riot gear bringing down their batons on him
--women, men, human, Tenct.  Brothers and sisters.

The Blue.

"I'm a police officer.  Homicide."  Matt closed his eyes as he felt
himself blush again.  It wasn't just the mistake he had made, nor even
its consequences.  It was why he had made it.

He turned his head and looked at the Tenct female.  "Li, I have a
headache that could digest rhino snot, my side is on fire, I can hardly
walk, and I think I know who killed Micky Cass."

"So?"

He squinted as he looked at her.  "That's what I was working on."  He
gave a bitter laugh.  "Yeah, that's what I was working on when my
brother officers dragged me out of the car, killed Danny Mikubeh, and
beat the shit out of me."

"Danny Mikubeh, hivek of Nightshade?"

"That's the guy.  You know him?"

"I read about him.  In Cass's column, Slag_Like_Me.  The cops killed
him?"

"Yes.  The cops killed him."  The images, the entire bloody ballet,
flashed before Matt's eyes.  "He was beaten to death.

Yes.  The cops killed him."

Li Sinritu pointed at Matt's face.  "Cops did that to you, too?"

"That's right."

"Too bad you don't have it on video tape.  You could be another Rodney
King, go on the talk shows, sell a book, help start another damned
riot."

Matt reached his hand up and gingerly touched his scalp with his
fingers.  The skin was smooth and unbroken.  He looked at the button on
his jacket and jewel on his ring.  Both micro cameras were still there
and still undamaged.  "I just might have it on video tape."  He felt his
inner face blanch as he said it.

"You're looking very weird, Officer Sikes."

"The whole massacre on Seventh Street," he said, "the police dragging me
and Danny Mikubeh from the car, the beatings, Danny being beaten to
death, the Nightshade wasting the cops.  All of it.  It's on tape."

He winced at the pains in his back and closed his eyes against the
throbbing in his head.  "Is there a telephone around here?  I have to
call in.  Where in the hell is here, anyway?  I don't recognize this
place."

"All the lines are down, cop.  I just tried calling home a minute ago.

Phone lines, power lines, the works.  The hospital's power comes from a
generator.  Do they have generators and radios at the police stations?"

"Sure.  Why?"

"Well, I imagine if you flashed your badge and got pushy enough you
could force the hospital to let you use their radio communications
system even though they'll probably have to let a few lives slip through
their fingers while you chat with your buddies down at the blue sty."

Matt reached to his back pocket.  "My badge.  It's gone."

He patted the outside of his left jacket pocket.  "I still have my gun."
Frowning, he looked up at Li.  "The two bangers who pulled me in out of
the street, they left me my gun."

Li rolled her eyes in disgust.  "They're not all thieves and killers."

Sikes held up a hand.  "Oh, these two were both: thieves and killers.

First rate, too.  Now that I think about it, though, they were both
carrying better artillery than this.  They probably didn't want to weigh
themselves down with inferior firepower.  God, one of them had a Micro
Uzi.  But I still don't have any ID."

"And in the middle of a riot, cop, with the bodies stacking up and every
available resource stretched way beyond limits," said Li, "what would
you do if a beat up Tenct without ID staggers up to you, claims to be a
cop, and demands to use the radio on police business?"

"I guess I'm not going to try the radio.  Where is this?

What hospital?"

"Lafayette Emergency Center."

"Yeah," he nodded, immediately regretting the gesture.

"Lafayette.  The new one on Wilshire.  Near the park."  He looked at the
young woman's face, moistened his lips, and took a grip on a wall
railing to keep from swooning.  "Tell me, Li Sinritu, do you have a
car?"

"Why?  You going to commandeer it?"

"No.  I couldn't even drive.  I'm going to be damned lucky to make it to
the parking area without passing out.  I'd like you to give me a ride."

"Why should I help you, cop?  You just got a small taste of what the
police have been doing to my people ever since we arrived on this love
forsaken planet.  I'm certainly not taking you to any damned police
station."

Matt, still holding onto the railing, leaned against it and sighed.

"Maybe.  Maybe you're right.  This place --- L.A. --looks like hell
right now.  Looks like it, smells like it, feels like it --- it is hell;
wall-to-wall shit."

"You're not much of salesman."

"Yeah.  I really ought to take a night course."  He closed his eyes
against the pain, waited for a wave of nausea to pass, then opened them
again.  The woman with the flyers was still there.  "There are a billion
things wrong with this city, Li, but I think maybe I can straighten out
one of the tiny ones --- take care of one detail, if you'll help me.  I
think I know who killed Micky Cass.  Something you said triggered it.  I
think I know who, but I don't know why.  If I'm right, though, someone
else might be in danger.  I don't want to go to a police station.  I
want to warn that person."

"What do I care about who killed Micky Cass?  The Ahvin_ Rivak denounced
Slag_Like_Me when it first came out."

Matt thought for a moment as a wave of nausea came and left.

"Look, Li, let's say everything goes just the way you want.  The
government throws the deficit reduction program out the window and gets
behind your effort to go back to slavery with unlimited funding and
technical assistance.  The entire technological might of the world is
dedicated to reinventing and assembling the communications equipment
that will bring the Stallahraj hotfooting it to Earth.  Let's say they
don't enslave the human race, and let's say slavery is just the way you
remember it when you were a punk little kid.  You want to guess how many
decades it's going to take, just to make the components for the
communications?  And while you're waiting, right here on Earth is where
you'll be.  How do you want to spend the next thirty or fifty years?

In the middle of a war with each side trying to out stupid the others?"

"I take it back, Sikes.  You're better at selling than I thought."

"Will you give me a ride?  I'm asking.  Maybe we can even stop a riot."

She looked around at the waiting room to see the cherry red flyers she'd
handed out.  They'd been left on seats, on the floor, balled up and
tossed into trash cans.  No one seemed particularly interested in the
Ahvin_Rivak.  "I guess I've done all I can here."  She faced Sikes and
asked, "If I give you a ride and the cops try to stop us, I'm not going
to stop.  You understand me?"

"Yeah."

"I'll drive right through the bastards and risk pulling bloody badges
and blue fuzz out of my grill before I pull over for any cops in this
town.  Are we clear about that?"

Matt looked into her eyes for a long time, then nodded.

"We're clear about that.  No stopping."

"Okay.  Where do you want to go?"

He held up his arm.  "Crutch me out to your car, kid, then you can drive
me to Coldwater Canyon and sell me the Ahvin_Rivak on the way."

Her eyebrows went up.  "Do you think I have a chance?"

"Maybe.  After today, a little vacation below decks pulling an oar looks
pretty good."

TWENTY-FIVE Gone.

It was all gone.  Just an oily stench left in the air.

What did it smell like?  Kerosene?  Lighter fluid?  Gasoline?

That's right.  They were still trying to get the refinery fire under
control between sniper shots.

What the hell.

Sitting in the dark of his den, Duke Jessup looked with dull eyes at the
black and gray towers of smoke rising above the city toward the south
and east, the break of day filtering through layers of dusty haze.  He
finished his whiskey, placed the empty tumbler on the corner of the end
table, and listened uncaring as it tipped off the edge and fell to the
carpet.  It was silent in the room, save for the sounds of distant
sirens, the squeak of someone with worn brakes parking in the turn off
outside.  Duke shook his head in disgust.

The city burning down, armies of looters and killers roaming the
streets, still the turistas.  Hell, the riot was a better draw than the
Universal Studios tour and Rat Town combined.  With real bodies, too.

Danger, adventure.  Check out the amazing special effects.  Tickets for
the week, only twenty billion dollars, including free identification of
your remains.

Duke wondered if he should check the locks on the doors and windows and
put on the alarm.  There really wasn't any point, he concluded.  The
alarm required a working telephone system and the phones had been an on
and off thing for days.  It didn't matter.  There wasn't anything in the
house he cared about, including himself.  Margaret would be getting
everything in any event.  Screw her, wherever she was.  Screw her and
the lawyer she rode in on.

That's right, he reminded himself.  She's gone.

Liberation day.  He looked around and sniffed at the air.  It was time
to do something about that filthy gasoline smell.

He reached to his shirt pocket, took out a cheroot, and lit it up,
allowing himself an especial wallow in carcinogenic luxury.  As he
puffed and pulled the sweet smoke deep into his lungs, he thought again
about locking up.  No point, really.  He had locked up the day before
and hadn't gone out at all.  At least he couldn't recall going out.  So
everything should still be locked up, he reasoned.

Besides, none of the rioting or looting was taking place anywhere near
the canyon.  Didn't matter anyway.  It was all gone.

Out there; the city.  It was gone.

In the distance the sky was a reproach.  The screams, the dead, the
flames, the never ending smoke.  The city, all of those lives, the
school, the marriage, the money, the home, the children, the life.  All
gone.

Somewhere along the line he had lost Duke Jessup, too.

Micky Cass gone, as well.

Too much to think about.

He picked up the remote and pressed a button.  The dim red lights on his
entertainment center stereo went on.  After a pause the melancholy
cadence of Siegfried's funeral music filled the darkness.  He had played
the Wagner piece many times, each time berating himself for the low
production values of his wallow in self-pity, yet wanting to hear it one
more time.

The music.

There was something in it that pulled at him.  The piece began in
sadness, but it moved to uplifting hope, even a possibility of victory.

Out of death comes life, the end is the prelude to new beginnings, there
really is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Then it perishes.  The hope is fantasy, the victory illusion, the light
the open door to the eternity of the underworld.  Damnation.  In the end
it is the end.  Death.  That mournful cadence.

A squeal came from the sound system, making him sit up straight.  The
squeal ground to a growl and then silence.  Duke Jessup eased himself
back into his chair and muttered a quiet, "Shit!"

He knew what the noise meant.  He'd heard it before.  As he sat there
the tape deck was eating his Wagner cassette alive.

He should have cleaned the roller and capstan some time ago.  It had
been, however, too much bother.

"Ah, hell," he muttered.  He took a deep breath, sighed, and shrugged.

"It was an old tape anyway."

Fourteen, fifteen years old.  Used to be important to him.

That was a long time ago, though.  A lot of things used to be important,
a long time ago.

He looked down at the roof of Cass's house.  It was still dark.  The
Newcomer girl Cass had for a wife, Tian Apehna, had failed to turn on
the strobe lights ever since Cass's death had been reported.  She was
alone in her house; Duke was alone in his.  She probably missed Micky
Cass.  Jessup frowned as a truth worked its way through the haze.  He
missed Micky Cass, as well.

He barked out a laugh as he surprised himself with his realization: he
missed Micky Cass.

No, he corrected himself.  He missed hating Micky Cass.

With Cass in the world, Duke Jessup was a cause, a warrior, a man with a
mission.  Without the irritating bastard, Duke Jessup was nothing but
another bitter old drunk waiting for another lonely death.

"Ah me," he said to no one in particular.  "Who would've thought it
would come to this."

Something below crossed his line of vision, hazy though it was.  A gray
sedan pulled up next to Cass's house and Duke watched as the two Tencts
who had questioned him the previous week climbed out of the car and
disappeared around the front.

There was a third person at the back of the house doing something in
Tian Apehna's rose garden.

Duke turned and reached to the table for his glass, and found it
missing.  When he remembered it falling to the floor, he decided against
looking for it and flopped back in his chair, wondering if he ought to
turn on the air conditioning.  It wasn't very warm, but the stench from
outside seemed to make the air seem very close.

He reached out, picked up the beautifully puckered bottle of Haig &
Haig, and took a long swallow.  As the liquid drug burned its way down
to his gut, he rested the bottle on his belly, placed his head back
against the chair, and closed his eyes.

Murdered.

Micky Cass murdered.

The media and the police didn't know who, they didn't know why, but
there was a hint about how.  There had been a telephone call, not logged
as usual, then he wandered out into the night without his car and was
not seen again until his remains were discovered in that dry lake bed,
eaten away by acid.  "Once we have our who," an F.B.I.

spokesman had said with great confidence, "we'll have our why." "And,"
said Duke, "once we have perpetual motion, we'll be able to tell you how
it works."

What a bunch of bullshit, he thought.  What a god damned fraud.

Investigation, hell.

He opened his eyes and looked through the window.

Look at all that smoke, he thought.  It's not just me.

Everybody thinks it's bullshit.  They're burning down the city just to
say it's bullshit.

Not important, anyway.

Micky Cass is dead, dead, dead.

A shame, really.  Cass could write after a fashion.  The fashion's
in-your-face, purposefully offensive, but never dull.

When Cass was murdered, a light was put out making the universe a little
darker.  It had been a bright light.  It hurt the eyes, burned the skin,
blistered the mind.  Even those who hated Cass and everything for which
he stood suspected that it had been a necessary light.

"What a bitch," Duke muttered.

It was indeed a bitch.  There were many things about Cass that he
admired.  There were the things for which Cass fought, how he fought for
them, his passion, his hatred.  Duke shared many of the same sentiments.

Duke shook his head as an old pain streaked through his soul.  God, he
regretted taking Micky Cass to court over the stupid color of his stupid
house.  What a friend Micky would've made.  Sharp mind, vicious sense of
humor, the guts to act out on his revenges.  What a loss.

Duke shook his head slowly as he realized that he missed the nightly
light show; the sight of that huge neon eyeball flashing at him out of
the night.  In a perverse way, it had been a compliment.  That someone
of Cass's literary stature would spend the time, money, and effort, not
to mention the look of his house, just to piss off Duke Jessup.  That
was a compliment.

A dim memory made its way through the haze.

A moment.

There had been another moment.  It had been not long after Cass had
painted the eyeball on his roof and had installed the strobe lights.

Duke allowed the feelings to wash over him.

Anger.

Rage.

It seemed like a hundred years ago.  He had stormed down the slope and
shouted at Cass over the white painted brick wall that surrounded his
property.  When Duke finished ranting, Cass frowned for a moment.  The
way Duke remembered it, Micky Cass even looked as though he felt a shade
guilty.

In any event, the writer took out a note pad, and wrote something down.

He then tore out the page, reached across the wall, and handed it to
Jessup.  The slip contained Cass's name and his unlisted telephone
number.

Cass had said, "Jessup, despite the overwhelming evidence, and no matter
how hard you try to convince me, I cannot believe you're an absolute
asshole.  You might be in trouble with a chemical."

"Don't be insulting!"  Duke had growled.

Micky Cass had shrugged.  "If you don't have a problem with booze or
some other drug, then you are in really big trouble because that means
you are an asshole and there's nothing anyone can do about that.  If you
do have a chemical problem, though, that we can do something about.

Take a look at it.  If there ever comes a time when you run out of
answers and want to do something about it, give me a call.  I know a few
people and we can sort it out."  Then he went back in his house.

Those were the last words Cass had ever said to Duke.

At the time he had passed off the offer as a presumptuous invasion of
his private life.  However, the fact was right there, staring Jessup in
the face.  "He wanted to help me.  He tried to help me."

Duke looked down at the amber liquid in the bottle perched on his belly.
Oh, yes, there was a chemical in his life and it had him by the short
hairs.  But there wasn't any point in trying to help Duke Jessup.

He was way beyond anything like help.

But what Cass had done had been a nice gesture.  An exceptionally nice
gesture, considering everything that had transpired between them.  It
had been such a nice thing to do, Duke couldn't allow himself to trust
it.

He frowned as he tried to remember what he had done with the slip of
paper Micky had given him.  The day Cass had given it to him, it had
been a confusing day.  Of course, every day was a confusing day.

Arguments, fights, a world of problems simply too baffling to
comprehend, much less solve.

Micky Cass and his eyeball had been, that day, one turd on the heap too
many.  Duke had been almost blind with rage as he stormed down through
his garden.  Micky Cass, his nut brown tan, and his Foster Grants; that
eternal smirk on his face.

Duke hated smirkers.  They were dishonest put down artists attempting to
build self esteem upon the rubble of other persons' feelings, hopes, and
dreams.

But Micky Cass had wanted to help.

Dead.  The police, the F.B.I., no one had a clue who had killed Cass.

Maybe the gang members down in the Chay.  Maybe some nut group like the
Ahvin_Rivak.  Maybe even the F.B.I.

itself.  Maybe the cops did it or the man in the moon.

Absentmindedly Duke slapped at his chest and thighs in an idle gesture
attempting to check his pockets for the note.

Hell, it'd been months ago.

He paused, frowned, and sat up as he remembered what he had done with
the note.  He had thrown it on the ground.  A chill went up his spine
and made his skin tingle.  He sent the thought away several times,
physically shaking his head to deny it legitimacy.  Each time, however,
it came back.

"Oh, God," he said.  There was a two, and another two.  He took them
apart and put them together a hundred times, and each time the result
was a gargantuan four towering above the horizon.

"I know who killed him," whispered Duke.  "Micky Cass; I know who killed
him."

The smell in his nose caused him to remove the cigar from his mouth and
look at it.  The coal burned softly in the dark.

He sniffed again, and the smell was not tobacco.  There was a flicker of
yellow against the ceiling.  Shadows of smoke cutting the light from
outside.  He struggled to his feet and stumbled over to the window.

Below, in the patio against the house, a fire was burning.  The whole
base of the wall was burning.

"What in the .  . ."

He turned, went to his desk and picked up the telephone.

Fear made its way though his haze as he realized he couldn't get a dial
tone.  Dropping the phone, he rushed back to the window and was startled
back as a rush of flames roared by his face.

He clamped the cigar between his teeth and opened the hall door.  The
window wall facing Cass's house was a sheet of flame, the double glazed
glass cracking from the heat.  Duke ran to the other end of the hall and
stepped into his wife's immaculately appointed vestibule, all of that
pure white now reflecting red and orange from the flames at all the
windows.

"Why should the looters have all the fun," he muttered as he dropped his
cheroot in the center of that chaste floor covering and ground it out
with his foot.  He turned, went to the stairs to the lower level, and
stepped back as he saw flames burst in through the glass doors below.  A
blast of heat like the breath of Hell came up the stairs.  He turned,
and looked through the flames that were shattering the glass at the
front window.  Two very familiar persons were running toward the
turnout.

"Looters, hell!"  he shouted.

Suddenly all things made sense.  One more small fire on the edge of a
holocaust would hardly be noticed.  The fire department was already
overwhelmed.  The grass had been dampened by the rain so there was no
threat of the hills themselves going up.  It was just one house.  The
fire fighters were trying to put out entire city blocks.  By the time
they could find time for Duke's house, there'd be nothing left but the
chimney, some cold ashes, and Duke Jessup's fillings.  It made
absolutely perfect sense.

No route of escape was left.  The pair who had set the fire knew the
house, probably better than Duke knew it.  They wouldn't have left any
way out.  They'd know, too, how Mrs. Jessup had refused to have anything
in the house as crude, red and garish as a fire extinguisher.

Jessup looked at the stairs going up.  There wouldn't be any jumping
from an upstairs window.  The murderers knew him very well; knew Duke's
morbid fear of heights.  He backed away from the stairs until his back
was against the outside wall.  As his hands touched the plastered
surface, they jerked back from the heat.  He turned and saw the white
paint blister from the surface.  A crack appeared at the top of the wall
allowing a single tongue of flame to lick at the ceiling.

The smoke coming up the stairs became thick and dark, forcing Duke to
his hands and knees.  It was hot.  So hot.  He tried to moisten his lips
as another wave of heat washed over him.  Sparks rained out of the
smoke, igniting the rug.

Margaret had been had, he thought.  She had paid for fireproof and had
got squat.  It was too hot to keep his eyes open; too hot to breathe.

He didn't feel it as he fell over and landed on his side, praying only
to be unconscious before the flames reached him.

TWENTY-SIX There was a large dog named Spike.  Spike was taking
Sylvester's head and was smacking it with an anvil.

Blam!_Blam!_Blam!_Blam!_Blam!

Sylvester knew a secret.  He knew he really wasn't a puddy tat.  Deep
inside, beneath the teeth, claws, and fur, beyond the thufferin'
thuccotash, he knew he was really Tweety Bird.

Blam!_Blam!_Blam!_Blam!_Blam!

Spike really shouldn't be hitting him because it was always Spike and
Tweety against the puddy tat.  "Hell," said Tweety.  "I guess I never
looked at it through the puddy tat's eyes."

Blam!_Blam!_Blam!_Blam!_Blam!

"Jesus Christ, Spike!  Let up!"

"What was that?"

Headache.

The universe throbbing.

The roar of an ancient four cylinder engine.

Matt opened his eyes and noticed that his head was banging against
something.  He pulled his head away from it and saw that it was a piece
of glass.  A window.  Homes were passing by.  A pooch peeing on a palm
tree.

He turned his head and saw a young Tenctonese girl driving him
somewhere.  Li Sinritu.  Her minivan.  Coldwater Canyon.

She glanced at him for a moment then returned her gaze to the road.

"Are you all right, cop?  I couldn't hear what you said."

"It's nothing.  A dream."

"It sounded scary.  Are you sure I shouldn't take you back to the
hospital?"

Matt grimaced and nodded his head gently.  "It was scary.

Have you ever been a canary inside a cat being beat over the head by a
bulldog swinging an anvil?"

"My nightmares are more about being trapped in close dark places." "Are
you kidding me?"  asked Matt.

"No.  I hate being confined in small places."

"Isn't that what you and the Ahvin_Rivak want to go back to?  Flying
among the stars packed into a sardine can with no windows?  Kid, the
slaves were jammed on that ship ankle to jowl."

"Don't you lecture me on the ship, fehn.  I was there; you weren't."

"On the ship?  What do you remember?  Just how old were you, Li .  . ."

At the sound of her name leaving his mouth, Matt felt himself blush once
more.  He turned away and rubbed his eyes.

"What's the matter, cop?  I thought you wanted to fight."

"At this point I couldn't arm wrestle the Pillsbury doughboy."

"Then what is it?  It was something about my name, right?"

Matt held a palm to his forehead and said, "Look, it was nothing about
your name.  It is the name Lee, though.  I did a stupid thing; made
myself the wrong kind of blind."

"I do that all the time.  Mistakes are just mistakes."

Matt let a bitter laugh escape his lips.  "Yeah.  But in my case the
mistake might've let a couple of killers escape.  It might even get a
few more people killed."

"Sikes!"

"What?"

"Look up there, Sikes!  Past that hill on the left.  A fire.  I'm not
riding into any damned riot."

"There's no rioting going on in the canyon."  He leaned forward and felt
a chill as he recognized the area.  "Quick!

As soon as you get around that hill, take the next left."

As the van wheeled around the hill, Li Sinritu made the turn, bringing
Cass's house into full view.  Above it on the hillside, Duke Jessup's
house was surrounded by flame, the stench of gasoline heavy in the air.

"Look!"  commanded Matt as he pointed at the car parked next to Cass's
house.  "That's my partner's car.  Pull up next to it and run in.  Tell
George to call in the fire.  Leave me the keys!  I'm taking the van up
up to see if I can get Jessup out of there!"

"How do you know anyone's in there?"

"I'll tell you what I know, Li.  That fire's got no point unless it
kills Jessup!  Debate's over!  Get going!"

Up at the turn off, Matt saw a familiar pickup truck making smoke as it
raced away from the Jessup house.  "Go on!"  shouted Matt.

Li pulled up in front of Micky Cass's house, put the van in park, and
ran into the house.  Matt moaned as he slid over, put the van in gear,
and squealed the tires as he turned left past Cass's house and climbed
it up toward the Jessup place.

The pickup truck raced away in the opposite direction.  Electric green
mud flaps, "One Day Perot" bumper sticker, and all.  Take that Perot
sticker off and the sticker below would be the number one slogan of
every twelve step program from A.A. to Z.A.: One Day At A Time.  The
truck even had a load of scrap metal in it.

It was either let Jessup fry or go after the Lee brothers.

"Hell, I couldn't do anything even if I could catch 'em."

The downhill side of Jessup's house was a sheet of flames, as was the
east side.  As he pulled the van around the turn and came abreast of the
front, Matt saw that there was no way in or out of the burning building.

Perhaps it was already too late.

Maybe not.

Even though he knew he wasn't thinking very clearly, Matt knew there was
only one way to find out for sure if Jessup was still alive.  He stood
on the brakes, backed up across the street and into the driveway of the
house facing Jessup's.  As a wave of light-headedness passed, he said
out loud, "I wouldn't be doing this except that if Jessup dies in there
it'll be my fault."  He nodded once and remarked, "Just so we're clear
on that."

He put the van in low gear, floored the accelerator, and aimed the van
at the huge picture window beyond the flames.  The wall of yellowish
orange heat came closer and closer, the front wheels struck the curb and
bounced up.  As the front of the van struck the wall and plunged through
it, Matt's head was thrown forward, his head striking the steering
wheel.  He lifted his head as the world spun and noted that he had
stopped in a hot dark place of pearl gray before his eyes closed and he
took the boat to La La Land, saying "I thought everyone had airbags in
their cars."

#

._._._a_baton_came_down_on_his_wrist,_a_foot_stepped_on_
his_head,_grinding_his_face_into_the_surface_of_the_street.__A_
hard_blow_stuck_his_left_kidney_and_the_tears_came_to_his_eyes_
as,_for_just_an_instant,_he_looked_beneath_the_car_to_see_four_
cops_on_the_other_side_bringing_their_batons_down_repeatedly_on_
the_writhing_shape_of_Danny_Mikubeh._._._.
._._._a_grotesque_ballet_._._._As_the_Tenct_suspect_
struggled_to_his_feet_and_tried_to_defend_himself,_five_
officers,_one_Tenct_male,_one_human_male,_and_three_human_
females,_swung_their_batons_with_regulation_strokes,_attempting_
to_beat_the_suspect_into_submission.

One_of_the_officers_fell_and_all_of_them_turned_and_drew_
their_weapons_as_a_hail_of_gunfire_came_from_the_shadows_._._.

#

"Are you okay?  Hey!  Are you okay?  Wake up!"

Smoke, gasoline, and the smell of whiskey.  Matt struggled his eyes open
and saw a grotesque mask staring back at him.  A puffy face surrounded
by scorched straggly hair, eyebrows singed off, two soot black tracks on
the face's upper lip led into its nose.

"Jessup?"

"Yes.  I'm Duke Jessup.  You saved my life, friend."

"Saved your life?"

"Man, if you hadn't run that truck through the wall, I'd be a two
hundred pound Pop Tart.  Who are you?"

Matt pushed himself up on his elbows and looked around Jessup at the
fire.  They were on the lawn across the street from the remains of the
Jessup residence.  Matt could see the marks his heels had made when
Jessup dragged him from the fire.

A "whump" sound from inside the fire followed by a belching black cloud
spelled the end of the van's gas tank.  A gray car blocked off his view.
As it squealed to a stop, George, Paul, and Li Sinritu leapt out leaving
the doors open.

"Mr. Jessup," said Matt, "Thanks for dragging me out of there.  I guess
I really messed up the carpet.  I hear your wife is quite a decorator."

Jessup chuckled and sat on the grass.  "Don't worry about it.  The rug
already had a burn in it."  He held out his hand to Matt and they were
both coughing, laughing, and shaking hands as the trio stopped next to
them.

"Matt, are you all right?"  asked George.

Paul pointed west.  "Did you see who it was?"

"What about my van?"  asked Li.

Matt blinked and looked at George.  "I'll live."

Duke Jessup said, "It was Jimmy and Harry Lee.  My gardeners."

George pointed down the hill.  "The walls and shrubs around Cass's house
are soaked with gasoline.  Matt, you must've interrupted them before
they could touch it off."

"What was it?"  Paul asked Jessup.  "You wanted gardenias and they
wanted nasturtiums?"

Duke shook his head and looked up at the former F.B.I.

agent.  "I don't know.  Actually, maybe I do know.  I think I can
connect them to Micky Cass.  I know how they got his unlisted number.

Jimmy Lee knew that Micky was in N.A."

"How?"

Jessup looked down with a troubled gaze.  "Because I told him."

"Okay."

"On top of that, a couple of years ago Harry and Jimmy both went to a
few meetings.  Harry was ordered to go to some meetings after his drunk
driving episode."  Duke looked down at his hands.  They were black, the
backs of his hands blistered and bleeding.  "Jimmy and Harry must've
lured Micky out of the house by telling him I was asking for help.

Micky said something to me about my problem a few weeks ago."

George frowned.  "After all the grief between you two, he'd come if you
asked for help?"

Duke nodded.  "I think so."  He looked up at Paul and asked, "I'm
certain of it."

"I believe he would," answered Paul.

"I'll call it in," said George.  He turned and walked back to his car.

"They have a police band scanner in their truck," said Jessup.  "It's on
all the time."

George nodded.  "I'll keep it in mind."  He continued toward his car.

"What about my minivan?"  Li Sinritu demanded.  "Where is it?"

Matt noticed he had something clutched in his right hand.

He opened his fingers and looked.  In the center of his palm were the
keys to the van.  He held them out, shrugged, and smiled.  "Sorry, Li."

"Sorry?  Sorry?"

He pointed toward the fire.  She turned her head and looked.  She caught
a glimpse of the van past the flames just before it plunged through the
floor of the structure into minihell.

TWENTY-SEVEN Mt.  Andarko's Hospital.  The Tenctonese physician's
assistant deposited the syringe in the hazardous medical waste container
mounted on the wall and turned to face those standing around Matt's bed.

"He'll be going down to surgery in about twenty minutes and he needs to
relax, so start saying good-bye and making your way out of here."  When
he left he closed the door behind him.

Matt lifted his hand and pointed at George.  "When they recover that VCR
in my head, George, I want you to make sure that tape doesn't get lost.
I haven't figured out yet what to do with it.  Until I do, don't turn it
over to anyone.

Understand?"

George sat in a chair next to the bed while Dobbs and Kirk stood at the
foot of the bed looking down at Matt.  "I'll take care of it, Matt."
"The all points is out," said Dobbs, "and the roadblocks have sealed the
city for the past three days.  Nobody's leaving town without running a
roadblock.  We've got every place in the city either one of the Lee
brothers has ever been seen staked out.  Sooner or later, we'll get
'em."

Kirk shook his head.  "Don't bet on it.  Things're supposed to be so
quiet the roadblocks might be lifted day after tomorrow."

"What?"  Dobbs shook his head and folded his arms.  "Man, I do not
believe this.  There's a war going on out there, and they think it'll
just go away by saying it's over?"

"It was all there right in front of me," said Matt as he fought against
the anesthetic.  "From that time I visited Tian Apehna and saw their
truck at the turn off, I had it all.  I just wouldn't let myself see it:
the bumper sticker, the mud flaps, the metal in the bed of the truck."

"I understand where the bumper sticker fits in, but what about the mud
flaps?"  asked George.

"Recycle for tomorrow," said Matt.  "It's the slogan for that shithole,
the Sierra Environmental Center.  We see the billboard every morning."

"That's where Harry Lee works," said Kirk.  "So what?"

"And what does the scrap metal have to do with it?"  asked Dobbs.

"Galvanized iron and steel."

"What about it?"

"Dobbs, they recover zinc from galvanized iron and steel at that fifty
acre junk yard, the Sierra Environmental Center."

Dobbs held out his hands.  "And so?"

"Hydrochloric acid," answered George.  "It's done with baths of
hydrochloric acid.  You knew that, Matt?"

As his head swam, Matt shrugged and held up his hands.

"Hell, yes.  It's the only thing about hydrochloric acid I remembered
from high school chemistry.  That and you don't want to use it for
gargle.  I knew that since I was sixteen, yet I couldn't see it."

Matt lifted his head and looked at the fuzzy images of his fellow
detectives.  "You know, I never thought of myself as a racist."  The
room was spinning and he placed his head back on the pillow.  "Jesus H.

Christ.  I heard about two gardeners named Lee and assumed they were
Chinese-Americans."

"When I questioned them," said George, "I knew they weren't Chinese.

They're from Maryland."

"I only glanced over your report," said Matt.  "I'd already eliminated
them in my mind."

"They aren't Chinese?"  asked Dobbs, his eyebrows raised in surprise.

"They're about as Chinese as Spike Lee and Robert E. Lee."

Matt rocked his head back and forth.  "I made myself blind.

Figured they were Chinese-American gardeners, hence very law abiding and
incapable of doing what was done to Cass, and no motive at all.  I never
even looked at 'em past that.  Sorry.

So stupid.  So blind.  So sorry.  Hell."  He swallowed and attempted to
shake his head.  "I still don't know why they did it."

In the ensuing silence, Matt slipped into unconsciousness, still cursing
the wrong kind of blindness.  After a minute, Kirk turned to his partner
and said, "Dobbs?"

"What?"

"You know that junk yard?"

"What about it?"

Kirk folded his arms and bit at the inside of his lower lip.  He thought
for a moment, nodded once, and said, "I've been there a few times
getting parts for my car.  There must be twenty thousand abandoned heaps
in the place.  It'd make a great spot to lay low until the roadblocks
are pulled."  He raised his eyebrows at his partner.

"How about it?"

"Grazer already has it staked out."

"What'd Grazer do?  Peel off one or two bodies?  The city's still on
fire and shooting the hell out of itself.  A couple of blues catching
zees at the front gate aren't going to be able to cover that yard.

That's fifty acres of scrap metal jungle in there and a fence with more
holes in it than your head."

Dobbs pursed his lips.  "Think we ought to take a run out to the Sierra
Environmental Center and see if we can find a couple of bushings to
shaft?"

"Just my thought."

"Remember the police scanners," George reminded.  "Use a security
channel."

"Good thinking," said Dobbs.

"Iniko and I'll follow along in a bit."

Kirk faced the door and he and Dobbs left the room as Matt fought his
way up from his drugged sleep.  "Geor ---" he mumbled.  "Geor ---" "What
is it, Matt?"

"I know.  I know why the Lees did it.  Ohmigod.  His picture on the
book.  Tian.  The balcony, George.  They were on the balcony."

"Why, Matt?  Why did they do it?"  He shook Matt's arm.

"Matt?"  His partner was in absolute elsewhere.

The physician's assistant entered the room, walked over to Matt, and
said to George, "You have to go now.  You can wait in the visitor's
lounge if you want, but he won't be able to see anyone until much later,
possibly tomorrow." George grimaced, got to his feet, and said, "No,
thank you.  I have to see a man about a bath.  Did you see my
companion?"

"Mr.  Iniko?"

"Yes."

"He just came down from the ninth floor.  I believe he's at the nurse's
station."

"About the tape unit and the pictures of Matt, do everything exactly by
the book.  Two reliable witnesses, property bags sealed and tagged, the
works.  No mistakes."

"I understand, sergeant.  The photographer is standing by and we'll take
care of everything."

George took one last look at Matt, turned and left the room.

TWENTY-EIGHT Nerati Avenue, north of the most devastated area of the
Chay.

Detective Jerry Kirk stood back and watched as Rick Dobbs talked to the
two uniforms in the black and white.  The overweight officer in the
shotgun seat dribbled donut crumbs onto his tie and cocked his head
toward the main gate of the Sierra Environmental Center.  On the stylish
sign flanked by rhododendrons, beneath the business name, was the
slogan: "Recycle For Tomorrow."  The place looked like a junk yard and
smelled vaguely like sauerkraut.

"Nobody's gone in or out for two days," the officer said to Dobbs.

"The bangers're trashin' the whole city.  I guess that's why the
bottom's fallen out of the junk market."  The officer chuckled at his
joke.  His partner behind the steering wheel yawned, shook his head,
covered his eyes with his cap's visor, and shuffled his ample ass into a
more comfortable position.

"Enjoying the riot?"  Dobbs asked the pair, the hostility radiating from
his face.

Kirk turned away as he felt it again, this embarrassment, this need to
explain to the uniforms that being hooked up with Dobbs hadn't been his
choice.

Rasher, the fat cop with the donut crumbs, narrowed his eyes and
squinted up at Dobbs.  "As riots go, it's okay.  The coffee's hot.  The
pastries could be a bit better, though." "Next riot," said his partner,
"Pizza Hut's promised to deliver."

Dobbs turned, poked Kirk in the shoulder, and stormed back to their car.
"God damned blue frat lazy assed bastards!  A god damned herd of
dinosaurs farting through tubas could be camping out in there and they
wouldn't know it.  Ninety-five percent of the whole damned department
ought to be run in for obstruction and as goddamned accessories!"

"Take it easy," said Kirk.  "They're not bad cops.  It's been a rough
bunch of days, and Cass's murder is just one out of a hundred or more
this week.  You know how it is."

"How it is?"  Dobbs stopped dead, faced his partner, and jabbed him in
the chest.  "How it is?  No, partner.  I don't know how it is.  Why
don't you tell me how it is."

Kirk held up his hands.  "Look, Dobbs, you got that face on and there's
no point in talking to you when you're like this.

You're upset right now, and ---" "Upset?  Upset?  Is that some kind of
word substitution for rip shit pissed angry?  Man, I am a shitstorm shot
from guns!  I am not upset!"

Kirk's face flushed red.  "I guess what I meant to say was, those two
cops're on our side, Dobbs."

"And just what in the hell is our_side concerned with that we recruited
two canned compulsive overeaters to deal with it?

A movement to wipe out the donut?"

Kirk felt the anger rising in his chest.  "Dobbs, You ever think that
maybe you're just a little too sensitive?"

"Too sensitive?"

"Yeah.  Too sensitive.  Half of you people walk around just looking for
something to take offense at!"

"You people?  You people?"

"Oh, shit," answered Kirk sarcastically.  "I did a Perot.

How politically incorrect can I get?"

Dobb's grabbed his partner's arm, swung him around, and pointed a
shaking hand south toward the black clouds on the skyline.  "Look there!
There!  And there!  You see it?"

"Yeah, I see it," Kirk answered, pulling his arm free.

"The world's had its face rubbed in it for a week."

"You got a clue, partner?  You have any idea what's happening out
there?"

"Of course I do."

"Yeah, right.  You go ask Matt what's going on now that some cop ground
his face into a filthy street and stuck a rib through his lung."  Dobbs
lifted his arm and stabbed a finger toward the south.  "That isn't just
a bunch of homeboys taking advantage of an opportunity to upgrade their
entertainment centers looting the local Radio Shack.  That's a lot of
pissed off people who're so goddamned outraged they just don't give a
shit anymore --- not about the law, not about what's right, not about
what makes sense, not about anything.  Unless we want to spend the rest
of our miserable lives watching them burn down this damned city again
and again until no one wants to rebuild, somebody had better start
getting sensitive, Kirk.  It's one of those decision times, partner.

Somebody had better start getting sensitive real quick!"

Kirk, to his great relief, saw a gray car that he recognized approaching
them from the direction of Huntz Street.

He pointed and nodded.  "Francisco and the F.B.I."

Dobbs turned and wrestled down his anger as George's car pulled up
beside them.  Francisco and Iniko got out and walked over.  George
studied both Kirk's and Dobbs's faces.  "Are you two all right?"

"We're goddamned terrific," answered Dobbs.

Iniko pointed his thumb back toward the black and white.

"Didn't you call for more help?"

"Yes."

"Well, is that all the task force could spare to put on this place?

Are there more units inside and on the other gates?"

"Let me be the first to welcome you back from Disneyland, Iniko."

Dobbs pointed back over his shoulder with his thumb.

"Nobody inside, two uniforms out front in full view zoning out on sugar.
On Huntz and Gorcey there're two other chain locked gates the Lees
could've gotten a truck through if Harry has a key.  If they they went
in on foot, there're a dozen ways they could've gotten through the
fence.  To contain this place properly we'd need at least thirty
bodies."

"On top of that," Kirk joined in, "that yard is fifty acres of nooks and
crannies: junk cars, old appliances, military surplus, shipping
containers, old box cars, heaps of scrap, sorting sheds, warehouses ---"
"So," said George, "we're shorthanded."

Dobbs thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and glowered at the
ground.  "Man, George, I'm back in that poker game again and the blue
frat is dealing Micky Cass out."

"Jessup said they have a police band scanner in their truck,"
interrupted Iniko.

"So?"  said Kirk.

"If I was in the Lee brothers' shoes, and if I had a scanner, I'd keep
that scanner very, very close right about now.

I'd want to know where the police thought I was, and what they were
planning on doing about it.  I'd also want to listen to find out when
the roadblocks get pulled so we can make good our escape.  That's what
I'd do."

Jerry Kirk thought for a moment and looked at Dobbs.

"They're keeping the truck with them."

"So, if they're there, they either went in on Huntz or Gorcey.  That
truck's probably all they got for wheels, too.  If we plug up the gates
and go in, maybe we'll have 'em.  We'll at least put 'em on foot."

"Not with the size of that place," answered Kirk.  "They could hide out
in the trunk of some old wreck for days."  He frowned and pursed his
lips.

"What is it?"  asked Dobbs.

"Partner, what if we got in there without being noticed, first, and then
put on some radio traffic that sounded like three divisions of cops
descending on the yard?  Think they might rabbit?"

"Like Roger on Jessica."  Dobbs nodded slowly.  "Well done, Kirk.

Sometimes you_people aren't a complete disgrace to the department."

"I don't know, Dobbs.  If I look real hard at that, it just might be a
compliment."

"Fie, fie, my boy.  It's only your weeks at the master's knee beginning
to pay off."  He looked across the street from the junk yard.  "Over
there in the liquor store.  If the phone lines are still open, I'll call
it in to Grazer and get the okay.  Then Kirk'll take our unit and plug
the gate on Gorcey and go in from that direction.  I'll get the donut
debs on the front to plug that gate, play along with their radio, and
come in from that direction."  He looked at Iniko.  "Can you take
George's car, plug the gate on Huntz, and work the mike while George and
I go in on foot?"

"If the Lee brothers are in the habit of listening to police calls,
they'll be able to pick out someone unfamiliar with the codes and slang.
If whoever drives is going to need to do that One-Adam-Twelve stuff over
the net, George should do it.

I'm not familiar with the vernacular."  He smiled at Dobbs.  "If you
could let me carry your shotgun for you, however, I could accompany you
into the yard while George works the radio from the gate on Huntz
Street."

"Of course you'd be sure not to get involved or expose yourself to any
risk or danger, civilian that you are."

"Naturally."

Dobbs looked at Francisco.  "That's it, then, George.  As soon as I talk
to the sugar twins over there and arrange everything with Grazer, you
and Kirk take your units, plug those gates, and move in.  Then we'll see
if we can get the Lee brothers to tell us why in the hell they killed
Micky Cass."

TWENTY-NINE Within fifteen minutes of Dobbs's call to Grazer, enough
trash had been put on the net to convince a pine post that the entire
weight of the L.A.P.D. was about to land on the junk yard.  At the
little used Gorcey Street entrance on the opposite side of the yard from
the main gate on Nerati, Jerry Kirk hung up the mike and stepped out of
the car, leaving the door open.

He walked around the front of the car and checked the lock on the chain
across the gate.  The combination of the car and the heavy chain made a
formidable obstacle.  No one was going to drive any pickup through there
any time soon.  He looked around until he found a sliver of metal.  He
tried it in the padlock and jammed it in the keyhole.

Taking a rock, he smashed the metal into the keyhole making it
impossible to open the lock with anything less than a pair of bolt
cutters.

He tossed the rock to the ground and stooped beneath the chain.  As he
straightened up on the other side, he entered the yard.  On his left was
the concrete bed of a weigh station, the missing glass in the windows of
the tiny operator's shack shattered out years before.  On his right was
a mountain range of military surplus items: stacks of crates, bins and
piles of ducts, cables, wheels, tank parts, electrical components, and
the flotsam from almost a century of military misspending.

Crooked paths and roads separated the piles, making the yard a giant
maze.

Straight ahead past a dirt crossroads was a two story structure with a
conveyer belt to its left leading from it's squat tower to a peak of
shredded galvanized metal.  Behind the shredded metal was a block long
wall of galvanized scrap.  The yard was closed, nothing moving that Kirk
could see save the uniformed officer who was quietly advancing toward
the center of the yard from the main entrance.  Kirk looked around but
couldn't see either Iniko, Francisco, or Dobbs.  More important, there
was no sign of Jimmy or Harry Lee.  The uniformed officer waved at him
and Kirk nodded back Squatting down, Kirk allowed his gaze to explore
everything he could see from right to left and back again.  He listened
as his eyes searched.  The only sounds were the eternal sirens marking
the city under destruction to the south.

Inside the yard there was nothing.  The strategy wasn't working.

His gaze moved again to the rust colored building with its squat tower.

It was easily the tallest structure within the yard.  From there, he
thought, the view might be more revealing.

Since they had all agreed to maintain radio silence until the quarry was
spotted, he left the handy talkie attached to his belt.  Instead he
withdrew his weapon and ran toward the structure, taking what cover he
could on the way.

As he got closer, an acid smell tickled, then burned, the insides of his
nostrils.  That building was the yard's facility for recovering the zinc
from galvanized metal scrap.  When he felt the back of his throat and
his lungs burning, Kirk hid behind the fuselage of some scrapped fighter
plane.  "Damn, but this stink hole must be violating at least a hundred
Federal, state, county, and city regulations."

He thought about the possible ways he could protect himself from the
fumes, but could think of nothing.  It was a great place for the Lee
brothers to hide out.  They were probably in there, wearing respirators
and some sort of protective clothing.  They had probably allowed a
sufficient amount of the HCl fumes to escape, thereby making it
impossible for anyone not wearing protective gear to approach them.

Kirk backed away from the building until he could again breathe without
hurting his lungs.

The plan came into his head.  It was simple, but should do the trick, if
the Lee brothers were indeed in the building.  All that was necessary
was to break radio silence.  If they weren't in the structure, however,
his plan would give away the entire charade.  It would've been so
considerate for one of the brothers to drop a wrench or otherwise give
themselves away.

Nothing but silence, however, came from the building.

"I guess this is one of those decision times," he muttered as he removed
the radio from his belt and held it to his mouth.

Pressing the key he said, "Commander Dobbs, this is Kirk."

"Dobbs here," came the answer.

"I have my men in position on the west side of the zinc recovery
facility.  The Lees are inside the facility and it appears they've
released some caustic fumes.  We'll need the SWATs with the special
protective gear after all."

"I copy, Captain Kirk," came Dobbs's answer.  "They're coming in the
Nerati Street entrance right now.  Be careful not to spook the perps
before we can get the SWATs into position.

They've only got fifteen or twenty men."

Kirk, preparing to issue an authentic Broderick Crawford "Ten four" into
his talkie, went speechless as he heard a very powerful engine come to
life.  It was a roar that came from the direction of the zinc recovery
facility, the sound echoing from the metal mountains.

"That's no Toyota," said Kirk as a crash followed by the screams of
tearing metal announced an ancient surplus half-track exploding through
the metal walls of the facility.  The half-track was painted a dull
orange and it had been modified with an earth moving plow mounted on the
front.

"They're out!"  Kirk yelled into his radio, "They're driving an orange
half-track toward the Gorcey Street gate."

"I'm on my way!"  answered his partner.

"Dobbs, that little chain and your car aren't gonna stop 'em!  Get
something down here!"

Kirk could see one of the two men, Harry Lee, tearing a mask and
respirator from his face.  As the man looked around, he spotted Kirk,
lifted a pistol and fired a shot at him.  Kirk dived for cover and as he
hit the ground he rolled and came up bringing his own weapon to bear.
Harry Lee was pointing up and was screaming at his brother.

Kirk looked to the top of a mountain of military surplus crates and saw
Iniko just as he jumped the twenty feet down into the half-track, a
shotgun at the ready.  As the former F.B.I. agent and the suspect fell
to the bed of the vehicle, they disappeared from Kirk's view.  He
turned, noticed Dobbs and one of the uniformed officers in the distance
running toward him, but the half-track would be long gone before they
arrived.

"What the hell," muttered Kirk.  "It worked for the F.B.I."  He weaved
between towers of crates, streaked ahead of the half-track, quickly
climbed one of the towers and waited a moment as the vehicle approached.
He could see Jimmy Lee driving the thing with one hand and trying to get
a clear shot at Iniko with the other.  George Francisco came running
from behind a pile of crates and Jimmy Lee turned in his seat and sent
three quick rounds in his direction.  George dived behind another pile
of crates just as Kirk launched himself into the air.

Just as Kirk jumped, intending to land on the driver, Jimmy Lee looked
up at him, raised his gun, and fired.  Kirk felt the slug strike the
heel of his shoe, but he didn't realize that it had entered his own
flesh and blood heel until he landed on top of the hood.  His leg
collapsed beneath him and the top of his head landed in Jimmy Lee's
face, knocking him silly, his gun falling from his hand.

Iniko had Harry Lee face down on the bed of the track.  He looked up
and, just as Kirk made eye contact with Paul Iniko, he heard the
half-track snap through the chain and begin its climb over the top of
his and Dobbs's unit.  Francisco climbed into the cab, reached between
the dash and the steering wheel, and turned the key, killing the engine.
Jimmy Lee awakened, shook his head, and made a grab for his weapon.

Kirk pulled his gun, pointed it over the steering wheel at the side of
Jimmy Lee's head and said, "When you straighten up, Jimmy, that better
be a tube of Preparation H in your hand, because, whatever it is, it's
gonna get shoved straight up your ass."

Jimmy Lee froze and did not move until Iniko finished cuffing Harry and
had picked up Jimmy's gun.  Francisco tossed Iniko his cuffs and the
former F.B.I. agent stood Jimmy Lee up and cuffed him as Kirk sang the
Miranda Blues to the two gardeners.  "You are under arrest.  Before any
questioning you must understand your rights.  You have the right to
remain silent .  . ." "Forget that," said Iniko, his voice deadly calm.
He took Jimmy Lee's pistol from his belt and held it at the back of the
man's head.  As the hammer was pulled back, Jimmy's eyes went wide.

"You can't do this!"  he whispered.  "You're a cop!"

"No.  I'm just another civilian."

Jimmy Lee was as rigid as ice.  George frowned at Iniko.

The Tenct had always seemed utterly devoid of emotion.  "Don't do it,
Paul.  Don't throw everything away over this piece of slime."

Iniko shoved the barrel of the weapon between the cords of Jimmy's neck
and said, "It's happening, Jimmy.  Right now; here; to you.  Everything
you did to Micky Cass; everything you did to this city."

"Stop him!"  shouted Harry from the bed of the half-track.

"Stop him!  The slag's crazy!"

Kirk raised his eyebrows.  "Oh, that was shrewd, Harry.

Astute.  Why don't you call his binnaum a name, while you're at it?"

"I'm sorry!  I didn't mean nothin'!"

"Please!"  begged Jimmy.  "He didn't mean nothin'!"

"Kirk!"  came Dobbs's voice.  Jerry Kirk turned his head and looked down
at the ground.  Dobbs was looking up at him.

"Hi, partner."

"You know you're bleeding all over the remains of our car?"

"I'll discuss it later."  He looked over at George.  "Hey, Francisco.

Maybe you should say a little something more to your buddy."

George pulled himself between the seats and into the bed of the vehicle.
"Paul?  What do you think you're doing?"

The former Overseer was silent for a long moment, a tear making its way
down his cheek.  "Well, George, I'm trying to think of a good reason for
not turning the heads of the Lee brothers into applesauce.  I'm not
having much success."

"Pulping them isn't going to bring back Micky Cass."

"No."

"It won't change how they lured him out: the Twelve Step call." "That's
right," said Jimmy.  "Look, man, Cass was just another junky.

I don't get what everybody's freaked about!  He was just another junky!"

George placed a gentle hand upon Jimmy Lee's left shoulder.  "Stuff a
sock in it, asshole."  He shifted his gaze to Paul Iniko.  "That's
what's really getting you, isn't it?"

"It's a great many things, George.  A great many things."

As his hand began shaking he brought the muzzle of the gun up, lowered
the hammer, and handed the weapon to Francisco.  "But I am not to judge,
am I?"

THIRTY FRANCISCO.  This is the third interrogation of suspect Jimmy Lee
in the investigation of the death of Micky Cass.

Present are Sgt. Richard Dobbs, Det.  Jerry Kirk, and myself, Sgt.
George Francisco.  This is being recorded.  Do you remember your rights,
Jimmy?"

J. LEE.  Yeah.

FRANCISCO.  Then let's get started, shall we?

J. LEE.  Sure.  Look, I know I got nothin' comin' to me, Sergeant, but I
want to do what I can.  Who could of known that the city'd come unglued.
All those people dead.  All those trees and buildings burned.

We didn't want nothin' like that.

You got to believe that.  All we wanted was that damned bastard dead.

DOBBS.  We've pretty much covered what you did and how you did it
yesterday.  What we want to talk about today is why you did it.

J. LEE.  You're kidding.

DOBBS.  Look into my eye, Jimmy.  Do I look like I'm kidding?"

J. LEE.  No, I mean you really don't get it?"

FRANCISCO.  Get it?

J. Lee.  Man, I mean for months Harry and me are out there bustin' our
humps making Mr. Jessup's garden into a showplace, and there that Micky
Cass was in his ugly house, just sitting there.  Sitting there in full
view.

DOBBS.  And?

J. LEE.  And what?

DOBBS.  You're telling us you and Harry killed Micky Cass just because
you could see him?

J. LEE.  No.  No, that'd be crazy.  Nobody kills everybody he sees.

It's just that we could see him, you know, on his balcony.

KIRK.  I don't get it, Jimmy.  It was because he was on his balcony?

He flip you the bird or something?  What was it?

I don't even think you're bent enough to kill someone just for sitting
on a balcony.

J. LEE.  I don't believe this.  You really don't get it at all.

FRANCISCO.  Enlighten us.

J. LEE.  It wasn't just him or him sitting on his balcony.

That's be silly.  You'd have to be really sick to pull something like
that.

DOBBS.  Go on.

J. LEE.  It was his wife.

FRANCISCO.  Tian Apehna?  This is because he was married to a Newcomer?

You hate Newcomers so much you'd do that?

J. LEE.  No.  Look, I even got a Tenct girlfriend myself.

I got nothin' against Tencts.  See, it wasn't him and it wasn't her.

It was him and her together.

KIRK.  I'm still lost, Jimmy.

J. LEE.  Maybe I'm the one who doesn't get it.  Is this some legal thing
you cops're doin'?  Tryin' to draw me out so no one can accuse you of
stickin' words in my mouth?

DOBBS.  No tricks, Jimmy.  You and your brother have already confessed
to premeditated murder.  That pretty much wraps it up for the D.A. You
and Harry have a date with a bucket of cyanide pellets.

FRANCISCO.  We're just trying to understand."

J. LEE.  Jesus.  I'm really going to have to spell it out for you.

Okay.  I didn't want to say it right out because of him.

KIRK.  Who?

J. LEE.  Him.  Sgt.  Dobbs.  You know.

DOBBS.  No, we don't know.

J. LEE.  Okay, I'll say it flat out!  Micky Cass was black and his wife
was white!  Is that clear enough for you?  That nigger'd be up there on
his balcony slobbering his thick lips all over her and laughin' at us at
the same time!  Damned right we nailed him, and I'd do it again.

[PAUSE: 32 seconds]

DOBBS.  What ever made you think Micky Cass was black?

J. LEE.  All you had to do was look at him.  He's got some white in him
like they all do, but he was black all right.  He even said so in his
column, talking about doing the right thing and shit like that.  Hell,
he was almost as dark as you, sergeant.

KIRK.  Jimmy, Micky Cass's wife isn't white.  She's Tenctonese.

J. LEE.  I'm not into word games, detective.  I saw her, she's white,
and that's that.

KIRK.  Jesus Christ, Jimmy!  Can't you get it through your thick skull?

She can't be white!  She's not even human!"

J. LEE.  What's the matter with you?  I've got eyes in my head.

They're white.  They're all white.  For god's sake, don't you have eyes
in your heads?  Any of you.  It's as plain as the nose on your face.

Can't you see?

KIRK.  You sorry bastard.  You sick, sorry, dumb son of a bitch.

THIRTY-ONE Things were going back to normal in the city.  The murders,
burnings, and lootings had decreased to pre-riot levels, the wind from
City Hall came hot and meaningless, and there was just a chance that the
Dodgers might make it into the playoffs.  The news was still chewing
over the quotes from the Lee brothers' interview as to why they had done
what they had done, and a subsequent survey showed that almost half of
the citizens of Los Angeles considered Tencts to be "white."  This, of
course, induced a veritable olympiad of academic verbal masturbation on
the subject of "whiteness."  Down in the Chay, and everywhere else in
the city, however, "us" still hated "them," and "them" still hated "us."
As the queen of the Slagtown news beat, Amanda Reckonwith, put it, "The
preparations for the next L.A. riot are well under way."

Elsewhere, George Francisco entered the solarium on the ninth floor of
Mt.  Andarko's Hospital and paused as he looked around.  Beyond the
potted palms at the far end of the totally glassed in room, facing
toward the east, Matt Sikes, in pajamas and bathrobe, sat in a
wheelchair looking at the still smoldering ruins of his city.  George
could see the ugly purplish yellow bruises on the back of Matt's neck.

The doctor had said that, besides the bruising, Matt had had four broken
ribs, one of which had punctured a lung, a three inch long depression in
his skull putting pressure on the brain, and a damaged kidney that would
probably take a long time to heal completely.  The doctors were
convinced that if Matt hadn't been covered with Realskin and his own
skin cushioned by the underlying layer of imitation Tenct blood, he most
probably would have died from the beating.

George walked over and came to a stop on Matt's left.

"The fires are almost out," he said.

Matt glanced up at George and returned his gaze to the city.  "I was
just thinking they'll probably never go out.

They'll smolder awhile.  Five years.  Ten.  Then they'll erupt again.

How're you doing, George?"

"The question, Matt, is how are you doing?  The captain's anxious to
have you back."

A slight smile touched Matt's lips as he closed his eyes and shook his
head.  "I'll be back, George, just as soon as I can get a few things
squared away."

"I don't understand.  The doctor said ---" "It's not like that.  Not my
health.  At least, not my physical health.  That'll get better."

"Matt, there's all kinds of counseling available to help you through
whatever trauma you suffered from that beating."

Matt Sikes frowned and looked up at his former partner.

"I'm not talking about the 7th Street Massacre.  I have a sickness,
George.  A sickness of the mind that makes me useless to the department,
to this city, and to myself.  I'm a racist, George ---" "Matt ---" Sikes
looked up at Francisco.  "I'm every bit as much a racist as the Lee
brothers or the officers who beat Danny Mikubeh to death."

"Matt, mistaking the Lee brothers for Chinese ---" "You mean assuming
they were."

"Even so, it's only a mistake.  Maybe it's even a very revealing
mistake, but it's not something by which you should judge your entire
life."

Matt winced as he shrugged his shoulders and looked again at the city.

"Last night I talked to Kirk on the phone.  Did he tell you they tracked
down the Edward Lear quote?"

George nodded.  "Yes.  An old calendar Harry Lee picked out of the trash
at the junk yard.  A negative saying for every day of the year."

"Us and them," said Matt.  "We see a quote we can't place and right away
assume that anyone who would use it must have some kind of specialized
background."

"That was a mistake we all made."

"I can only speak for myself.  I've been talking to Ivo Lass again.

She's entered me in a vo and I'm going to learn how to change how I see
things.  Then maybe we'll see."

"Partner, there are millions of men, women, and children out there
who're making the same mistakes every day, and most of them on purpose.

It doesn't make them right; that's just the way it is.  You can't change
other people."

"I can change myself, George, and that's all I'm trying to do."  The
corner of his mouth pulled back into a wicked smile.

"And once I know what I'm talking about, maybe the department will
decide to send all the cops to a special vo."

"Not even in your dreams, Matt.  The department would never ---" George
frowned as he teased something out of his memory.  "The video tape.

The implant.  What have you done with it?"

"It's been copied and put together with eyewitness testimony and the
records of all of the officers, supervisors, and policy makers involved.
Kirk and Dobbs helped me put it together.  Two reporters, that
broadcaster, Amanda Reckonwith, a few of the boys down in the Chay, and
a beautiful lady named Tian Apehna.  We've put together a regular dog
and pony show."

"If the media got its hands on that, it could destroy the department."

Matt nodded.  "Or redeem it.  And we have enough media types in on it to
make certain it makes a prime time splash.  In any event, it'll at least
cost one hell of a lot of jobs.  That is, unless the chief and the mayor
can see their way clear to putting in the programs I want."

"Blackmail?"

"I believe thye spin doctors call it leverage."  Matt looked up at his
partner.  "It's time for things to change, George.  We --- the
department, the city --- we can't afford any more of this 'us' and
'them' feeding frenzy."  He reached up and placed his hand on
Francisco's arm.  "I'm coming back, partner, but right now I have to do
this."

"I think I understand."  George studied Matt for a moment and saw that
beneath the scars and bruises his partner was right with himself.  "I
have to go to work."

"Thanks for dropping by, partner."

George left the solarium asking himself if Matt was simply risking it
all for nothing.  What if the entire police department went through a
vo, learned that worth comes from within, not from artificial group
classifications.  What if the entire city went through a vo?  The entire
country?  It would still be a small drop in a very big ocean of racist
insanity where people saw things that were never there and couldn't see
things that had stood before them since the slime coughed up its first
bit of life thousands of light years away in a now vacant part of the
universe.  All one can ever change is oneself.

He punched the button for the elevator and waited for a car.  There was
a loud laugh that came to him from one of the hallways, and he turned
his head.  A voice.  A very familiar voice.  He walked toward it, turned
down a hallway, and listened outside Room 913.  There was a conversation
going on.  He stood square in the doorway and saw Duke Jessup in bed.
His hands were bandaged but his face was sallow and beaded with
perspiration.  Even so he was laughing.  Seated in a chair beside him,
also laughing, was Paul Iniko.

"Paul?  What're you doing here?  Or is that another thing you can't tell
me?" Iniko faced the doorway and said, "Hi, George."

"I thought you were going up for your hearing today to get reinstated."

"It can keep.  I had something to do, first."

"And?"

"He's here for me, sergeant," said Jessup.  He wiped the perspiration
from his upper lip and held out his wet fingers.

"Going through detox.  I've got a problem with a drug called alcohol.

Paul has been kind enough to .  . ."  Duke held out his hand and looked
at Iniko.  "Is it okay?"

"Sure.  He already knows."

"Well, Paul has been sharing his experience with me, helping me to ride
this thing out."  There was a hard cover book on his bed with a blue
dust jacket emblazoned with the circle enclosed diamond of Narcotics
Anonymous.

George frowned and nodded.  "I'm sorry for interrupting.

I'm glad to see you're getting better, Mr.  Jessup.  Good luck."

"Thanks, sergeant."

George backed out of the room and took a few steps toward the elevator,
his face still in a frown.  He paused in the center of the hallway and
the frown grew deeper.  George Francisco had his own way to look at the
universe and the beings within it.  Part of that way was that he was
owed by the class of Overseers.  He was owed his youth, decades of
freedom, and endless sufferings for the fear he had lived in since his
birth.

He also believed that Overseers never laughed.

He had seen Paul Iniko laugh.

He believed that Overseers were heartless in the human sense: cold,
selfish, brutal, unfeeling.

He had seen Paul Iniko helping a drunk by sharing his own shame and
hope.

"Some programs take longer to process than others," he muttered to no
one in particular.  He turned around, walked back to Jessup's room,
knocked on the door, and stuck in his head.

"Yes?"  Duke answered.

"I just had a question I wanted to ask Paul."  He shifted his gaze and
looked at the former Overseer former F.B.I. agent.

"Would you like to come to my house tonight for dinner?"

Iniko's eyebrows went up.  "I think I'd like that just fine."

"Seven o'clock.  Good luck at the hearing."

"I'll be there, and thank you."

As he walked to the elevator George recognized that, despite everything,
he really didn't feel any different toward Overseers.  What he was doing
wouldn't prevent another riot, but still he was committed to at least
straightening out his own perception of the universe.  Matt seemed to
understand.  Maybe it was that old thing about lighting a single candle
rather than cursing the darkness.  Or maybe it was that thing about the
program he heard Bad John say at the N.A. meeting: "Bring your ass; your
heart and mind will eventually follow."

It would be a step.  Perhaps even the right thing to do.

THE END