Jack spotted a pair of orthodox rabbis walking by. "Look," he said, shrinking back. "Men in black."
"Oh, you're a comedian," Zaleski said sourly, but Jack sensed him battling a smile. "You're no Jan Murray of course, but you're a real fucking comedian."
"Sorry," Jack said, not sorry at all. "Couldn't resist." And then he remembered the two men in the black sedan on the Castelemans' street last night. He hadn't got a good look at them, but they'd appeared to be dressed in black.
"Seriously, though," Jack said. "Have you ever actually seen one of these men in black?"
"No, and I'd like to keep it that way, thank you very much. They're supposed to be mean SOBs."
"What do they look like?"
"Like men in black suits, ties, and hats, with white shirts, and black sunglasses. They wear their sunglasses all the time."
"Even at night?"
"Word is they're human-alien hybrids, supposedly with very pale skin, and eyes that are very sensitive to light. Usually tool around in black sedans ... with the headlights off."
Jack felt a prickle at the base of his spine. Zaleski was describing last night's car and its passengers to a T. And what about that black sedan out in Monroe? He didn't believe for a moment in human-alien hybrids, but he couldn't discount the very real possibility that he was being watched ... and followed. How else would they cross paths in Monroe and Elmhurst? No one but Oscar Schaffer knew about the Queens job. Could Schaffer be involved in—?
Wait. Stop. I'm beginning to think like a SESOUPer.
But the idea that someone—anyone—was dogging him changed the prickle in his back to a crawly sensation in his gut. Who? And why?
"You all right?" Zaleski said.
"Yeah, why?"
"You looked like you went away for a while."
"Just thinking."
"Thinking's good." He rose and flipped his cigarette toward the curb. "And right now I'm thinking I'm freezing my ass off out here. Let's go inside. I think I'll check out Miles's panel. Wanna come along?"
"Maybe I'll sneak in later. I want to check out the exhibit room."
"Yeah, well, don't expect to find any fucking exhibits," he said with sudden heat. "It should be called the huckster room. Nothing but piles of worthless shit for sale in there."
"I think I'll check it out anyway," Jack said. Still a ways to go before he was due at Gia's, and he wondered where Zaleski's resentment was coming from.
"Go ahead," Zaleski tossed over his shoulder as he walked away. "You'll see what I mean."
4
Jim Zaleski fled the New World Order panel after about ten minutes. What a load of paranoid horseshit. Miles and his crew were totally clueless. They'd taken every lousy crumb of disinformation MJ-12 had tossed their way and swallowed it whole.
But even if Jim had found the panel vaguely interesting, he doubted he would have been able to focus on what was being discussed. He had Jack Shelby on his mind.
Something strange about that dude. Nothing Jim could put his finger on, but something was not fucking right.
For one thing, he didn't talk enough. He made a comment here and there, but mostly he listened. That could be because he was a newbie—he did seem genuinely ignorant of even the basics of ufology—but it might also mean he was a spy of some sort. And not necessarily from MJ-12 or the grays. Last year a writer had come to a UFO convention and pretended to be an experiencer ... He'd hung around, talking, listening, and secretly recording everything on a hidden mike. A few months later an article about SESOUP appeared in The Skeptical Inquirer. None of the quotes had been directly attributed beyond "a man said" this and "a woman said" that, but Jim had recognized a couple of his own comments, and had been furious.
You couldn't be too careful about whom you spoke to these days.
Maybe that was what it was about Jack Shelby—his vague air of amusement. Nothing overt, but a sense that he found SESOUP and its members ... ridiculous.
Was he another Skeptical Inquirer type playing games? They didn't believe in anything. Probably even had doubts about gravity. But they'd be true believers soon enough. They were like the guy who's falling from the top of a skyscraper, and when people at the windows he's plummeting past ask him how he's doing, he says, "So far, so good!"
But it won't be so good when the grays reveal themselves, Jim thought. I'll have the last laugh, but BFD: nothing funny about Earth being turned into a cattle ranch.
Might not be a bad idea to check Shelby out while he wasn't looking. He'd said he was going to the huckster room. Jim hated the place, but supposed he could handle a quick fly-by without blowing his stack.
He headed for the room marked "Exhibit Area." Jim had lobbied Professor Roma against a huckster room, saying it put SESOUP in the same league as a Star Trek or comic book convention, but Roma had said he found the dealers' wares amusing. "Wares"—the pompous ass had actually use the word "wares."
He stepped inside and paused at the door. The "Exhibit Area" room always looked the same: long tables lining the perimeter and squared off in the center, each displaying the hucksters' junk. Always the same dealers, who all knew each other. Like gypsies—more like camp followers, really—they followed a circuit of conspiracy conventions.
Keeping an eye out for Shelby, Jim wandered past rows of books and pamphlets on astral projection, the secrets of interdimensional travel, even something called the Cholesterol Conspiracy ("People with the highest cholesterol live the longest!!! ").
I might have to come back and check that one out, he thought.
He strolled past the real truth about Vince Foster, the real truth about the Oklahoma City bombing, all written by "foremost experts," many calling themselves "doctor." Doctor of what? Jim always wanted to know.
Next came a whole array of exposes on the CIA, ranging from a hardcover by Bob Woodward, to pamphlets by the ever-popular Anonymous.
In the services section he passed a guy offering to take pictures of your aura for $20, a woman reading palms for $10 ("Quick! Fast! FUN!"), "Divine Astro-Tarot Readings" for an undisclosed price, then a travel service offering tours to "Places of Power" (Stonehenge and Macchu Picchu, and various Mayan temples).
"Oh, Christ," he muttered as he saw the UFO section. It was biggest of them all, easily claiming the most tables in the room.
God, I can't take this shit, he thought, readying to turn around.
But then he spotted Shelby in the thick of it.
He'd have to go in there.
Jim fought a wave of futility. Sometimes it seemed as if his whole life was a lost cause. He kept fighting to get the truth out, but every time he thought he was making headway, he found himself batted back to square one.
He's begun reading about UFOs in his early twenties. He'd become obsessed with them, and the more he'd read, the more he'd become convinced that a massive cover-up was blocking the truth from the world. He'd committed himself to uncovering that truth.
His commitment had cost him his job with the telephone company—something he was sure had been arranged as a warning, although he could never prove it. But he hadn't let that silence him. His wife left him, but he hadn't let that stop him either. He went into business with his brother, and their hardware store was doing well, although Tom was getting annoyed with all the time he was spending away from the business. Tom didn't understand that this was his life, not hardware.
Maybe if he could finish that book and make it a bestseller, he could leave the store and be on his own, devote every waking hour to making people see. This was when he felt most alive: when he was with fellow believers or preaching to the unconverted. This was what he lived for.
But even this had its dark side—people taking the truth, warping it to commercial ends, and making a quick buck on it. That was what the bastards in here were up to. And Jim hated them for it.
Taking a deep, calming breath, he forced himself forward past racks of glossy photos of crop circles, many of which looked to be more the result of Adobe
Photoshop than alien space craft.
Then came rows of videos about UFOs and close encounters ("Actual footage!!!") and videos of recent Ecuadoran sightings, all narrated by the ubiquitous "foremost experts." Books about UFOs and close encounters ("True accounts!!!) followed.
Lost amid the bright covers and hokey posters were serious pamphlets and broadsides that told the plain unvarnished truth, but nobody was pushing those. The fast-buck artists and second-handers and recyclers had moved in and were making a killing while the real truth languished unnoticed, unread.
He found Shelby amid the flying saucer refrigerator magnets, green alien glo-pops, action figures of Men In Black and gray aliens, and miniature flying saucers of all shapes and sizes, labeled as either "scouts" or "motherships."
"See?" Zaleski said through clenched teeth as he came up behind Shelby.
He hadn't meant to speak but this shit never failed to put him over the edge. Every time he stepped into one of these places he felt like doing a Jesus-and-the-moneychangers number.
Shelby turned. "Oh, hey, Jim. I thought you were going to the—"
"See what I was talking about?" Jim said, hearing his voice rise. "This is what I meant by trivialization. These creeps are selling the human race down the river with this cutesy shit. Anything to make a lousy fucking buck. Lemme outta here before I strangle one of these assholes!"
To hell with Shelby. Who cared who he was. The worst enemies of the truth were right here in this room!
Without saying anything more, he pushed his way through the crowd and found the door.
5
Definitely a loose cannon, Jack thought, watching Zaleski go. Ready to blow somebody away at the slightest provocation—if he hasn't already.
Jack hung around a little longer, checking out the goodies. He found a wristwatch in the shape of a gray alien's head, with flying saucers on the hour and minute hands. He bought it for Vicky. She was going to love it.
He sighed as he stuffed the watch in his pocket, fighting the feeling of futility that was slowly enveloping him. At least he'd come out of the morning with something. He sure as hell hadn't got any closer to finding Melanie Ehler.
Jack had been giving some thought to this gig while browsing the exhibit area. The nightmare last night, the weird crate in his bathroom ... something very wrong here ... and a damn certain feeling that things were going to become much more wrong before the conference was over. His gut urged him to cut and run now.
At least the tension he'd sensed coiling in the hotel all yesterday seemed to have eased this morning, as if a pent-up charge had been released.
He spotted Lew in the common area outside the exhibit room, and ducked toward the escalator, hoping to get away without being seen. He was itching to get over to Gia's.
But no such luck.
"Jack!" Lew called, hurrying toward him. "Have you found any leads?" he asked when he reached him.
Jack shook his head. "Nothing useful. Look," he said slowly, not sure exactly how to phrase this, "I don't know if I'm the right guy for this job."
Lew stared at him with a stricken look. "You can't be serious."
Yeah, he could be ... pretty much.
"I'll give you the money back, Lew."
"I don't care about the money. It's Mel I want!" His face screwed up. He looked like he was about to cry.
"Easy, Lew."
"Don't say that when you don't know what she means to me. I was nothing before I met her."
"I thought you said you owned that plant over in—"
"Yeah, sure, I owned it, but I was letting it go to hell. I thought it was too much for me, that I wasn't up to running a business by myself. I was trying to sell it when I met her. She turned me around. She told me I could do it. She said I was perfectly capable of handling it, and she helped me. She showed me how. And you know what? She was right. I damn well could do it. I just never believed it. With this gimpy leg, I was never able to keep up with the other kids while I was growing up—couldn't run worth a damn, couldn't climb worth a damn—and that's how I began to think of myself: not worth a damn."
"Yeah, but—" Jack said, trying to sneak a word in. He didn't need to hear Lew's life story.
"But Mel changed all that. In my whole life I've never felt so good about myself. And it's all because of Mel. That's why you've got to find her, Jack. Without her, life means nothing to me. And you're the only one. 'Only Repairman Jack can find me. Only he will understand.' Remember?"
"Yeah," Jack said glumly, feeling trapped. "I remember."
"So please, I'm begging you—"
"All right. I'll keep plugging, but—"
"Oh, thank you! Thank you!"
Lew tried to wrap him in a bear hug but Jack dodged clear.
"Hey, hey. None of that. We haven't even known each other two days. But I've got to tell you, it's not looking great."
"You're the one," Lew said with a burst of confidence. "Mel said you're the one and Melanie's never wrong."
"Let's hope so," Jack said.
6
Roma stood with a group of SESOUP members, trying to appear interested in their vacuous blather as he kept an eye on the stranger. The man who called himself Jack Shelby was in animated conversation with Lew Ehler at the far end of the common area. He wished he knew the connection between those two.
He heard a sudden burst of high-pitched screeching and turned to see Mauricio scampering toward him across the floor. Something in the creature's voice sounded almost like ... terror.
Roma stooped and extended his hand toward Mauricio, to allow him to scamper up to his shoulder, but Mauricio, eyes wide with apprehension, was having none of it. He grabbed Roma's fingers and began tugging him toward the elevators.
A prickle of apprehension urged Roma to follow him. Had he found the device? Had something gone wrong with it?
He put on a wry smile and turned to the knot of attendees. "Excuse me, but apparently Mauricio wants lunch. We'll finish this discussion later."
They laughed as he moved off. At least he was free of those dullards, but what could have put Mauricio in this state? He saw the elevator doors open and half a dozen attendees step out, leaving the car empty. He hurried inside and pressed the "8" button.
"The Twins!" Mauricio said breathlessly as soon as the doors slid shut. "I saw one of the Twins!"
A chill rippled down Roma's back. "Impossible!"
"Don't say it's impossible when I saw him with these two eyes!"
"Where?"
"On the eighth floor—your floor."
The chill became a frozen hand against his spine. "Lots of other people on that floor as well. Just one Twin? What was he doing?"
"Sneaking along."
"Near my room?"
"No. He was at the other end of the hall. I didn't stay around to see any more. I was afraid I'd be recognized."
Roma glanced up and saw a red "6" on the floor indicator. Quickly he jabbed the "7" button.
"Good idea," Mauricio said. "You wouldn't want to step out of the elevator and come face to face with the Twins."
"They cannot possibly know who I am. But your true nature is not so well insulated. They might spot you. As for me, I'm sure I could walk right past them without their guessing."
"Why else would they be here? It's obvious the Enemy knows—"
"Hush," Roma said as the car stopped. "Let me think."
The doors opened onto the seventh floor elevator alcove. Roma stepped out, pressed the down button, and checked the hallway. Empty. As the elevator doors closed, he paced the alcove, trying to order his thoughts.
The Twins—ruthless, relentless agents of the opposition. Created sometime during World War Two as watchmen, after the first guardian was released from his duties, they had proved to be a nettlesome pair, barging into areas where the Otherness was making inroads. But their ham-handed methods often proved effective, and the men-in-black myth that had sprung up around them tended to work in their favor.
But
now they might prove more than nuisances; now they could ruin everything. Worse, they would destroy him on sight—if they recognized him.
"Let us consider this logically," Roma whispered. "We can assume they do not know that I am The One. If they did, they would have grabbed me at the first opportunity—they would not care where, public or private ... while I was giving the welcoming address last night, for instance—and torn me to pieces in front of everyone."
"But they must know something," Mauricio said. "Why else would they be here? Unless ... "
"Unless what?"
"Unless they know what the Ehler woman discovered."
"Good thought, Mauricio. That might be it. Although, I will bet they know only that Melanie Ehler discovered something, and not what, and that is why they are here. They must have followed her husband right to our doorstep."
The slam of a door down the hall jolted Roma. It was followed immediately by the chime of the elevator car heading down. Roma leaped inside and jabbed the lobby button until the doors closed.
"Now will you abandon this folly?" Mauricio said quickly—neither knew how much time they had before the elevator picked up another passenger. "As I've said all along, it is not yet your time. Too many things have already gone wrong, and even if they hadn't, the arrival of the Twins alone is reason enough to abort it."
Roma shook his head. "These are merely complications. We will go ahead as planned. The second and final delivery is tonight."
"But we haven't located the first yet!"
"Then you must keep searching, Mauricio. Find that device!"
The elevator doors opened, admitting a young couple. Roma was glad of that. He knew Mauricio had more to say but he didn't want to hear it. All he needed was another twenty-four hours, and he would be able to fulfill his destiny.
7
"Look at your scars," Gia said, tracing her fingers across his chest. 'They're all inflamed."
Jack leaned against the tile wall of the shower stall with closed eyes. An hour of vigorous lovemaking had left him with partially vulcanized knees. The steam from the hot water was easing him into a pleasantly tranquil state of paralysis.