Conspiracies

  "Not that I know of."

  "Didn't think so."

  "Looks like you've got your work cut out for you," she said, batting her blues as she smiled up at him.

  "But I'm up to it." Then, raising his voice. "Before I'm through with her, the Vickster will be the best ballplayer in the whole damn city!"

  "Yay!" Vicky cried, pumping her fist in the air.

  They tossed the ball back and forth a few more times, and then Vicky wanted a break.

  "I'm hungry," she said.

  Gia held up her Granny Smith. "Want some apple?"

  "Wait," Jack said. "I've got just the thing."

  He trotted over tothe shopping bag he'd brought with him and produced a red paper box. He tossed it to Vicky.

  "Animal crackers!" she cried, and tore open the top.

  Jack watched Vicky munch and pick through the crackers to find her favorite animals. So easy to make her happy. She took such a disproportionate amount of pleasure from little things, and he took an equally disproportionate amount of pleasure from hers.

  He looked around and knew he loved it here. So far from mutilated bodies and names stolen from dead children. At times like these he didn't want to leave. Ever.

  Vicky turned to her mother. "Want a lion, Mommy?"

  "Vicky!" Jack said in a shocked tone. "How can you say that? You know your mother doesn't eat meat!"

  Gia winged her partially eaten apple at him.

  It sailed wide. Jack reached out and snagged it, then took a sloppy bite and gave them both a big juicy grin. Vicky laughed. Gia smiled and shook her head as she bit into her lion cracker.

  Life could be so good.

  16

  After a quick stop at his apartment to drop off the letter and pick up some extra clothes—and delay his return—Jack finally reached the hotel. As he walked up to the front entrance, he was struck by the absence of officialdom. He'd expected at least one blue-and-white unit to be hanging around.

  The lobby looked pretty quiet too, although he could feel that strange tension again, coiling and building in the air. Most of the excitement should have subsided by now, but he'd expected to see at least one or two knots of people whispering and glancing over their shoulders.

  He spotted Evelyn heading for the stairs on her Little Lotta feet. He hurried to catch up with her.

  "I just got back," he said, slowing to match her pace. "Did Olive show up yet?"

  She shook her head. "No one's seen her? And she hasn't contacted anyone?"

  Jack repressed a groan. Don't tell me they haven't opened her room yet.

  "What about her room?"

  "She wasn't there? I had the managers—"

  Jack froze. "What?"

  "Her room was empty? I—" She stopped and looked at him with motherly concern. "Are you all right?"

  Jack was mentally reeling. He knew if his face reflected half of the shock he was feeling, he must look terrible. He tried to compose himself.

  "She wasn't in her room?"

  She shook her head. "I can't tell you how relieved I am? I was so afraid? Like maybe we'd find her dead of a heart attack or a stroke or something?"

  His mind raced, stumbling along as it tried to decide which way to go. Not there? Impossible. He'd seen her ... dead ... mutilated ... her head twisted around ...

  "You're sure you had the right room?"

  "Of course? Eight-twelve? I was there? I searched the room myself? Olive's suitcase? And her clothes? They're all there in the drawers? But no Olive? Isn't that strange?"

  "Yeah," Jack said. "Real strange."

  "It makes you wonder? You know, about the End Days? When the faithful are taken away in the Rapture? Could this be the start? And Olive is one of the first to be taken?"

  How do I—how does anyone—answer that? Jack wondered.

  Evelyn smiled and patted his arm. "Rapture or not, the show goes on? I have to run? I'm introducing Professor Mazuko's panel on Japanese UFOs? See you later?"

  "Sure," Jack said, still feeling dazed. "Later."

  He wandered up to the common area and dropped into a chair. Olive's corpse ... gone. How had it been spirited out through a hotel full of people?

  Spirited out ... swell choice of words.

  And without leaving a trace of the murder.

  This left him and the killers as the only ones who knew that Olive Farina was dead.

  Or was she dead? Did he know that?

  Jack was having a SESOUP moment here—he'd witnessed something but didn't have a shred of physical evidence to prove it.

  Had to stop that kind of thinking. Olive was dead. No question about that. But who sliced her up? The two men in black he'd run into? Or someone else?

  All of which made Jack intensely uneasy. This was supposed to be a quiet job, a safe job. No rough stuff.

  But the condition of Olive's corpse had said loud and clear that someone was playing very rough.

  Of course there was always the possibility that Olive's murder had nothing to do with Melanie's disappearance.

  Yeah, right. I should be so lucky.

  Olive gone without a trace ... just like Melanie. Did that mean Melanie was hidden away somewhere with no lips, no eyes, and a broken neck?

  A logical conclusion, seeing as Jack, like everybody else except the killers, would be thinking of Olive as simply missing—or taken by the Rapture, if you were into that—if he hadn't broken into her room. He was glad he hadn't told Lew about Olive. He'd jump to the same conclusion, and that might just kill the poor guy.

  He looked around at the SESOUP folk streaming into one of the conference rooms. Maybe these people weren't as crazy as they seemed. And maybe he could learn something useful at one of these panels.

  As he followed the crowd he spied a flyer taped to the wall. He stepped closer to read it.

  CALL FOR RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS

  If one of your parents is an alien

  OR

  If one of your siblings or one of your children is the

  product of an alien sexual encounter

  PLEASE CALL IMMEDIATELY!

  Then again, he thought, maybe SESOUPers are even crazier than they seem.

  Even though Jack had been sure at times during his childhood that his older brother was part alien, he resisted copying down the phone number.

  He filed inside and found a seat near the rear of the room. He fought an urge to shout out: "All those who believe in telekinesis, raise my hand!" Instead, he listened to Evelyn introduce Professor Hideki Mazuko of the University of Tokyo—what department, she didn't say—and was startled to learn that the man didn't speak any English. He did, however, speak French. So did Evelyn, and she would provide a running translation of Dr. Mazuko's address.

  As a lantern-jawed middle-aged Asian in a gray suit, white shirt, red- and blue-striped tie advanced to the dais amid polite applause, Jack groaned and looked around for a way out. He realized he couldn't make it without stumbling over a lot of SESOUPers, so he grudgingly settled in and promised himself a trip to the bar immediately afterward.

  Dr. Mazuko began speaking in French, saying a few words, then stopping for Evelyn to repeat it in English. Jack had always assumed water torture required water; here was proof that he was wrong.

  After his interminable stop-and-go preamble, Professor Mazuko asked that the lights be turned down so he could show slides of recent photos of UFOs over Tokyo.

  A progression of images of blurry blobs of light flashed on the screen, with the audience oohing and aahing at each one. Jack wondered why, if UFOs were supposed to be such a secret, they were always lit up like the Fuji blimp?

  When one particularly strange-looking glowing object appeared, the woman on Jack's right began to clap and others joined her.

  "Incredible!" she said in a voice hushed with awe.

  Jack wholeheartedly agreed: Incredible was just the word for it. Even eight-year-old Vicky would see that it was a kite. Or pie in the sky—literally.

  Like Abe had
said the other day ... believing is seeing. Yes, sir.

  "Shit, shit, shit!" Suddenly someone was shouting. "That does it! Turn on the lights! Turn on the goddamn lights!"

  Jack thought the voice sounded familiar, and when the lights came up, he spotted James Zaleski striding toward the front of the room.

  "What's the matter with you people!" he shouted. "These are the goddamn phoniest looking photos I've ever seen!"

  Jack heard groans around him and muttered variations on the theme of "Oh, no, Jimmy's on a tear again."

  Obviously this wasn't the first time he'd made a stink at a UFO panel.

  "Dammit," Zaleski yelled, "you've got to be more discriminating! You've got to be critical! We know they're here, but are we so desperate for proof we'll accept anything, even these poorly doctored fakes, as real? We demand the truth from the government, but how are we ever going to be taken seriously if we don't demand honesty within our own ranks? We come off like a bunch of gullible cranks!"

  Members of the audience had started rising to their feet during his impassioned plea and now they were shouting at him to be quiet and return to his seat and let Professor Mazuko finish.

  Jack remembered Gia taking him and Vicky to the revival of 1776 when it had played at the Roundabout. This reminded him of the booming opening number when the entire cast rose and sang "Sit Down, John!" to John Adams.

  Jack used the uproar to cover his exit. On the way out he saw Miles Kenway standing ramrod straight against the rear wall, staring at him. Jack felt like a school kid caught playing hooky. He matched Kenway stare for stare.

  How do I get to talk to Kenway? he wondered as he reached the common area. At least he and Zaleski were still around. If someone was knocking off the top people in SESOUP, they hadn't reached the men yet. But was it just a matter of time before they did?

  Just then two dowdy, silver-haired members of Professor Mazuko's audience emerged from the room, in heated discussion.

  "You don't believe that, do you?" said the one wearing the MK-Ultra Stole My Brain! T-shirt.

  Her friend nodded vigorously. "Of course I do."

  "No," said the first, as they wandered away. "You can't really believe that."

  I believe I'll have a beer, Jack thought.

  He headed for the bar.

  17

  "He is our enemy, I tell you." Mauricio's voice grew louder with each word. "Just look at what he has done to the Farina woman! That man is out to destroy us!"

  "Hush, please. You do not know that."

  They stood in the bathroom of Roma's suite where Olive's mutilated corpse lay stretched out in the tub. They had partially covered it with ice to keep it from stinking.

  "I do! I saw him in the hall outside her room!"

  "And you also saw one of the Twins at the same time."

  "And they both fled together."

  "Or he chased the Twin."

  "If he did, he's crazy."

  "Have you ever known the Twins to work with anyone but each other?"

  Mauricio looked away. "No," he said sullenly. "Not directly."

  They had run down the hall after the stranger and the Twin had disappeared into the stairwell, found Olive's corpse, and quickly moved her here.

  "I think there is another explanation. I believe he discovered Olive, saw the Twin, and gave chase."

  "Then why didn't he report the body?"

  "Perhaps he is a thief and broke into her room to steal. Or perhaps he has a criminal record and was afraid he would be blamed. It does not matter. As far as I am concerned, the very fact that he did not report the body proves that he is not working with the Twins."

  "I don't follow."

  "Think, Mauricio: Why was Olive Farina mutilated in that fashion? Look at those wounds. Obviously meant to call to mind cattle mutilations and spread panic among our attendees. A discovery like that would disperse them, send them fleeing to the safety of their little homes all over the country."

  Mauricio's dark monkey eyes widened. "Do you think the Twins know what we're doing?"

  "No. Undoubtedly they know somebody is up to something, but they do not know who, what, or why. Under those circumstances, their best course is to break up the party. They tried, but failed."

  "Only by the merest chance. If I hadn't stepped out into the hallway at that moment ... " Mauricio let the rest of the sentence hang.

  "True," Roma said, nodding. "But were we lucky ... or guided?"

  "We can speculate all day. The question is, what do we do about the stranger?"

  "We watch him," Roma said.

  "In other words, nothing!" Mauricio said, scorn ripe in his voice as he expanded to true form. He rose on his thicker, stronger legs, showing his fangs and fixing Roma with the ripe strawberries of his eyes. "The stranger calls the tune?"

  "Watching is not 'nothing.'"

  "And what of tonight's delivery? Do we to let that fall into his hands as well?"

  "Do we have a choice?" Roma said. "The Otherness is in charge, do not forget. If the stranger received the shipment, it was not in error. I sense another purpose at work here, one that is compatible with our own."

  "I do not," Mauricio said, his voice rising as he banged a large knotty fist on the black-furred barrel of his chest. "Something went wrong last night. I do not intend to allow that to happen a second time."

  "Mauricio!" Roma said as the creature slouched toward the door.

  "I know of only one way to settle this."

  "Wait!"

  But Mauricio ignored him. He reached up and turned the doorknob, then shrank again to capuchin form before stepping out into the hall.

  "Do not do anything—!"

  The door slammed, cutting him off. He hurried to the door and pulled it open, but Mauricio was nowhere in sight.

  What was that creature thinking? He hoped he was not planning anything rash.

  18

  Jack felt better halfway through his second pint of Sam Adams. He was ready to polish it off and head for his room when he sensed someone behind him. He turned and found Roma.

  "Learn anything in Monroe?" Roma said.

  Jeez, Jack thought, annoyed and chagrined, did someone follow me out there? Am I being watched?

  "What makes you think I was in Monroe?"

  Roma grinned. "I have contacts there. It's a small town, as you know. And when an outsider starts asking about 1968, it doesn't take long for word to get around."

  Canfield had probably heard about his visit, and told Roma. That made Jack feel a little better ... he preferred being on the Monroe grapevine to being shadowed.

  "Then I guess you know what I found: nada."

  "But how did you feel being there?" Roma asked, giving him an intense look.

  "Feel? Like I'd wasted my time."

  "No, no," he said. "In the air. Did you not feel a residual trace of something strange, something ... Other?"

  "'Other?' No. Why should I? First Canfield, now you. What's the story with this 'Other' and 'Otherness' business anyway?"

  "It is something that has no rational explanation."

  "Oh, well, thanks for clearing that up."

  "Surely you've seen things that have no rational explanation."

  "Maybe," Jack said, thinking of the creaking hold of a rustbucket freighter filled with cobalt-skinned, shark-headed creatures.

  "Not maybe. Definitely. You are much more a part of this than you realize."

  Something in Roma's voice stopped Jack, something unsaid. What was he getting at?

  "You mean because of my experience?" And at that instant he realized that Roma was the only one who hadn't quizzed him on his cover story. Hadn't even mentioned it.

  "Yes, but not the one you've been telling people about. Your other experience—the one that left you marked by the Otherness."

  "Hey, let's not go tying me into any of that stuff."

  "You already are."

  "Like hell."

  "Really? Then what left those scars on your chest?" br />
  An arctic wind seemed to whistle through the bar; Jack could almost feel it rustle his clothes as it chilled his skin.

  "How do you know anything about my chest?"

  "The Otherness has left its mark on you, my friend. I sensed your contact with it the instant I saw you on the registration line. And when I am this close to you, I can almost see those scars glowing through your shirt."

  Just as he'd done the night of the first reception, Roma raised this three middle fingers and hooked them into claws, then made a diagonal slashing motion in the air.

  "Like that, yes?" Roma said.

  Jack said nothing. His tongue felt like Velcro. He looked down at his shirt front, then back at Roma, remembering how his chest itched both times he'd been in Monroe.

  Jack found his voice. "I think we need to have a nice long chat about this sometime."

  To Jack's surprise, Roma nodded and said, "How about now?" He pointed to a tiny table in a darkened corner. "Shall we?"

  Jack grabbed his beer from the bar and followed him.

  As soon as they were seated, Roma said, "You were scarred by a rather formidable creature, yes?"

  Jack didn't move, didn't speak. He'd never told a soul about the rakoshi episode. The people closest to him had been a part of it, and they were trying to put it behind them. Anyone who hadn't been part of it would think he was crazy ... would think he belonged in SESOUP. So how the hell could Roma know?

  He sipped his beer to wet his tongue. "You've seen one?"

  "Seen one?" Roma grinned. "I was present when the Otherness conceived them."

  Jack gave a mental whistle. This guy was as loony as the rest of them. Loonier, maybe. But he did know things he had no right knowing.

  "Were you now?" Jack said. "You and this Otherness thing."

  "The Otherness is not a thing."

  "Then what is it? Besides a word, I mean?"

  Roma stared at him. "You really don't know, do you."

  "Know what?"

  "Never mind. As for defining the Otherness, I doubt very much you can grasp the answer."

  "Humor me."

  "Very well. Let me see ... one might describe the Otherness as a being, or a state of being, or even a whole other reality."