The Year's Best SF 11 # 1993 Read online

  “Like Americans in Russia who were real rollovers. You know how much I had to be fighting that.”

  “Yes, we’re beginning to understand Turkemaw might be probing us in some way, with plausible deniability by the others. It seems a shame to start interplanetary relations on a paranoid basis, though.”

  “Knew a paranoid once. He had great ideas if you could put them together. I used him for a while in security,” DeSpain said. He remembered how the man didn’t work out in the end, rather spectacularly, but DeSpain himself had a good working knowledge of plausible deniability.

  “I get your meaning,” Allen said. “Maybe there were kidnappings.”

  “Especially of folks who wander about of a night.” DeSpain decided he’d drift dialect toward the folksy, keep Allen slightly to way off guard, depending on how bigoted he was. “Folks coming back from something they shouldn’t outta gone to might like to be kidnapped.” Nope, that comment was a little too perceptive. “So what do you want to do? I ain’t had no experience with stereo-speaker-eared creatures.”

  “Give it a break, DeSpain. I also know you went to Emory and Henry.”

  “God, you’re smarter than I thought you was. Man, you must have gone to Harvard.”

  “Princeton.”

  “Even better.”

  “We know Turk’s lawyer is going in for surgery in a few days. She’ll be pretty inactive for a month. If he put a lawyer on retainer, he must feel vulnerable in a way we haven’t spotted yet.”

  “He’s making illegal liquor. He’s drugging people.”

  “State doesn’t get involved in disputes between businessmen, even illegal businessmen. That’s Department of Justice.”

  “I resent you implying that I’m in illegal businesses.” DeSpain didn’t want any competitors, human or alien, to hear what he needed to say. “Let’s go out back. Bring your coffee if you want. Orris has a wonderful garden.” Any more talk along these lines needed to be done in the trailer, DeSpain decided. DeSpain swept his trailers for bugs and replaced them every so often, renovated them enough to pick up some profit. Broken-down trailers cluttered the landscape so badly DeSpain could get all he wanted for the hauling. Allen refilled his coffee cup and followed DeSpain out the back door.

  This month’s trailer sat on concrete blocks about five feet from the ground. A stack of old mill machinery packing boxes made the stairs. Allen climbed up the boxes to the trailer looking as if he would rather have crawled but the coffee cup got in his way; then he carefully put his weight onto the trailer floor. DeSpain watched the State Department man look around at the rubber soundproofing, then explained, “I rehab trailers from time to time. Soundproof so the neighbors don’t complain about late-hour drilling and sawing.”

  “I’d have thought you would have your secure room away from home. Don’t most people in your business try to keep the family out of it?”

  “Orris would worry if I had a place out.” Maybe Allen was a new-style federal revenuer, DeSpain thought, running a fancy variant sting operation with this alien. “So what do you want me to do for you, and how much protection will I get? I take it you don’t want him gunned down.”

  “No. We’ll protect you, but not for that.” Allen put his coffee cup down. “We want to know why he’s making liquor. Just like we want to know why one’s breeding fish in Africa.”

  DeSpain smiled slightly, sure the man came stocked with too many stories of bib-overalled pickup truck drivers with semiautomatics in the gun racks. “How did the alien get his attention focused on me?”

  “You threaten to inform on independent still men who wouldn’t work for you.”

  “No, not me personally, but it has been done that way.” DeSpain wondered if Bobby had gone to talking. “Look, why don’t you tell the other aliens what Turkemaw is doing? And if they don’t stop him, then you know who is doing what here.”

  “We don’t know that their motivations are human. We won’t know why.”

  “God, you need better spies. Shit, Turk knows us by name and occupation.”

  Henry Allen sighed. “I had no idea why he was so curious.”

  “You got him everyone’s name, face, occupation?”

  “Just eccentrics.”

  “How am I eccentric?”

  “You’re a trout-fishing moonshiner. I thought that was pretty funny. Like a radical lawyer living in Rocky Mount.”

  “So you set me up for him?” DeSpain wondered if people playing by their human rules would be able to deal with aliens. “How much do you know about them?”

  “They have space travel and we don’t. They know where we live and we don’t know where they live. State and Defense consider both those things to be critical.”

  “Maybe we ought to belly-crawl to ’um and cut a deal.”

  “Or get some of them to come here and educate us. Americans and Europeans did that for the Japanese.”

  “Allen, you’ve got to be able to tell me more than you’re telling me. Yes, the man—alien—is taking over some of the local distillers’ accounts, and yes, in the past we’d work over trade competitors in various ways. Mostly psychological, like threatening to turn them in to the law. But it was a decent business. Distillers I know never poisoned their buyers with lead salts. Shit, man, one distiller even tested for poisons.”

  “I notice you’re not saying that was you.”

  “How do I know Turk isn’t working for the feds in a tax grab?”

  “I can offer you immunity if you testify against him, should we go that route. We need someone who understands the business and who can get close to him.”

  “Considering he drugged my memory out when I had my wife with me coming for a social visit, I don’t think he exactly trusts me.”

  “You can find someone for us.”

  Bobby would be perfect, DeSpain thought. “I might be able to help you, but it’s going to take some looking. I really don’t have the connections I used to. Honest.”

  Henry Allen looked around the trailer, moving his head up and down, not just his eyes. He grinned when he saw DeSpain got his point. Yeah, nobody innocent would have a trailer rigged like this. DeSpain decided to get rid of this trailer and use his alternate secure room until this anti-alien deal had gone down.

  5

  Bobby Considers a Proposition Only a Trifle More Appealing

  What DeSpain really wanted to do was to take Orris and the boy to the coast, take a charter out to the Gulf Stream; and kill a marlin. If only he were really rich, out of the mountains, with a accent nobody could trace, he could …

  Do what? He had to tell Bobby to get close to the alien. But that might be dangerous if Bobby was so pissed about being bullied into work that he’d side with the alien.

  “Orris, I’m going out.”

  “When will you be back?” she asked, her hands full of flowers she was arranging in an iron Japanese vase.

  “By midnight. I’m taking the truck.”

  He drove to Bobby’s after calling a garage to rescue his Volvo. Suit in a truck sure looks weird, he thought as he looked down at himself.

  Bobby and his wife were sitting on the front porch snuggling their children, a little skinny girl against Bobby and the ailing baby boy sprawled in his wife’s lap. Bobby said to his wife, “Think you better get the chaps inside.” The little girl looked at DeSpain and ran. Bobby’s wife lifted the boy up against her shoulder and stood up. She looked from Bobby to DeSpain, one hand cupped behind the boy’s head.

  DeSpain came up the porch steps and opened the door for her. He could barely hear her thank-you.

  After she was inside, Bobby said, “So what brings you here, Mr. DeSpain?”

  “I’m thinking that if you can help me out a little, then I might be willing to see you set up as an independent.”

  “You want me to go with your nephews and beat on somebody?”

  “Bobby, just find me out some information.”

  “I’m not real good at being sneaky, Mr. DeSpain.”
/>
  “Well, if you can do this for me, I’ll see to it that you don’t have to be devious anymore. Get close to the alien, offer him your liquor.”

  “That’s not all.”

  “Well, I’ve got to consider what I want to know after you get close to him.” DeSpain needed to know how much the alien intended to expand his operation. Maybe this wasn’t a fuss, but if it was, and if the local law wouldn’t cooperate at all, he could use Bobby to deliver a bomb.

  “Shit, DeSpain, you wouldn’t ask much.”

  “Are you afraid of the alien?”

  “Sheriff talked about his helicopter and your car over the radio. Claim was, the alien’s grapple brake cut loose and you just happened to be snagged. Dennis, maybe you’re picking on something you ought not.”

  DeSpain’s belly tightened, but he thought he was keeping his voice right when he said, “State Department is behind us checking.”

  Bobby said, “Put that way, I’ll call on the space guy.”

  DeSpain said, “If he isn’t in the phone book, then I can arrange for you to leave him E-mail.” He got up, not quite sure that Bobby wouldn’t side with the alien himself, but if it looked like it was going that way, he’d bring in his cousins again.

  “Will you really leave me alone if I tell you about the alien?”

  “Surely.”

  “Gonna look bad for you if you can’t protect your own.”

  DeSpain didn’t think of Bobby as his own.

  When the Lawyer’s Away

  I asked in the recovery room if my operation was over, asked enough times that about the fifth time I was apologizing for asking. After I got that clear and was upstairs, I didn’t feel like talking. Nurses came in offering painkillers. One was so nervous when I refused, I took the shot anyway. Stainless-steel staples ran every quarter inch from just below my navel to a finger span above the pubic bone.

  I napped for a while, then woke up to see Marie sitting by my bed. She squirmed with all she had to tell me.

  “Am I okay?” I asked. I had an oxygen gizmo poked into both nostrils and an intravenous needle holding my wrist rigid.

  “It looked like a big gizzard,” she told me, “only round.”

  “The doctor normally shows the organs only to the family.” I’ve heard that only Southern doctors come out with the organs.

  “But what I’m really here about is Bobby. He came by to see Berenice this morning. He’s scared. DeSpain…”

  “Uh. What about the biopsy?”

  “I know you’re not feeling quite up to working now, but Bobby wonders what it would take to get a court order to keep DeSpain from bothering him.”

  “What does DeSpain…” Why did I come back here to practice, I thought, when I could have shared a practice in Charlottesville? People would have let me recover in peace then. “Was my biopsy okay?”

  “I don’t know. They’d tell you first.”

  “Marie, I like you a lot and all but—”

  “Well, maybe it can wait for a couple of days. DeSpain wants Bobby to check out the alien for him. Spy for him.”

  “I should be out in another three days. Tell them all to wait.”

  “Five days. The day of surgery counts as day zero.”

  I was too tired to suggest anything. Marie put a piece of ice in my mouth, then more, spooning ice into my mouth as if it were oatmeal. I threw up. Marie buzzed in a nurse to take care of the pan.

  Argh. I don’t know if I recovered faster from the worry or not, but after Marie left, I got up to use the toilet. The nurse rolled the IV with one hand and held me up with the other.

  “Have you heard anything about the alien?” I asked.

  She shook her head, but with nurses, one never can be sure whether the sign is for no or you’re not ready to get involved in that yet, honey.

  I slept after she gave me the pain shot, then woke up about four hours later, not particularly in pain, but really awake when the night nurse came in to take my blood pressure, temperature, and pulse.

  “Need anything?” she asked.

  I mumbled no and closed my eyes. I’d call my alien client tomorrow and advise him to stop doing anything that could get him arrested until I got better.

  In the morning, I watched the IV needle keep coming and coming out of my hand as the nurse pulled. “That’s why they taped you so good,” she said as she covered the hole. As I reached for the phone to call Turk, I felt a dull ache at my wrist bones from the four-inch needle.

  Turk’s voice reminded me of how weak I still was. “This is your lawyer, Lilly Nelson. Don’t mess with Bobby Vipperman. DeSpain’s trying to get him to inform on you, but he doesn’t want to do it.”

  “Thank you for the information,” the alien said and hung up. I suddenly remembered the first time I’d seen him, how alien he seemed then. Over the phone, I forgot those stereo speaker ears.

  Humans Getting Together

  Bobby ignored me. Bobby was what we call a dumb-ass naive racist, so prevalent in Southwest Virginia they made DeSpain look good to me. “Berenice, that alien was right behind me, even when I was going ninety. I heard he knows everything in the county. I don’t guess anyone could tell me how he came to know DeSpain wanted me to investigate him.”

  I asked, “Where were you?”

  “I was driving around below Ferrum, thinking about spying on him, Marie. Berenice, maybe I should stand up for my own kind and help DeSpain deal with him.”

  Berenice said, “I’ll get you some tea. Sit with Marie while I set up.” Bobby sat off from me on the porch while Berenice made iced tea.

  “You been seeing DeSpain, Marie?” he finally asked, raising his chin from where he’d been keeping it tucked.

  “I’m not talking to DeSpain anymore,” I said, flushing. “I told Lilly that DeSpain asked you to spy on Turk. I felt bad about disturbing her.”

  “But that Turk thing is her client. And you’re keeping house for them.” He sounded like that was the one thing about me made sense.

  “I’m helping a friend, not working as a maid.”

  “I guess.”

  “Bobby, whatever all bad you want to say about Dennis, he talked to me like I was just another person.”

  He looked startled. “I’m just not used to talking to college people I didn’t grow up with.”

  Maybe that was it, not racism at all, I wondered. But then Bobby looked away and tightened his face muscles. Maybe he didn’t like to be talked down to by Dennis’s ex-mistress, but I wasn’t in the mood to credit him with a good motive.

  Berenice came out with the iced tea. I went back for glasses and she filled them. Bobby almost said something to me, maybe telling me to help the poor old white lady, but he looked back at Berenice.

  “All I ever wanted was to work honest,” he said.

  “All I ever wanted was to work smart and honest,” I said.

  “Marie, don’t bait him.”

  Poor bastard looked so grateful at Berenice. I sat back and sipped my iced tea. Bobby said, “She’s a bigot toward rednecks.” My iced tea flew up my nose.

  Berenice said, “You both know that Turk is making illegal liquor and drugs, both. Liquor is one thing, but drugs another.”

  “And we’re all humans together,” Bobby said.

  “Maybe Dennis is playing Turk’s role in the Urals?” Berenice said. “Getting ganged up on by the locals or cheating them. It isn’t quite clear.”

  “What we gonna do now, in this country?”

  I said, “Lilly warned Turk that Dennis wants you to get information on him.”

  Bobby set his glass down and stood up and paced. “Oh, Lordy, why’d she do that.”

  We women both looked at each other as if we’d realized that lawyer’s messages that were sensible to a human might work different on alien brains. Berenice said, “I think maybe I ought to go see the alien.”

  “Lilly’s due back day after tomorrow,” I said.

  “I’ll go see him before then,” Berenice said. She st
ill had her driver’s license, but I knew Lilly tried to keep her from driving. Said enough retired people clogged the roads.

  “You … can you go with her?” Bobby said.

  “He’s selling liquor at The Door 18, so he might not mind a black woman much,” I said.

  Berenice said, “I’ve been rather bored lately for a woman who used to break bank windows.”

  “Why’d you do that?” Bobby asked.

  “Banks represented imperial powers in the world,” Berenice replied, her eyes defocusing as she recalled when she was young, blond, and an absolute stone radical. I had kin like that on Staten Island. We left them there even when Granddad was selling lots on our road to maybe common-law wives. Berenice said, “I’ve got to call Turk for a convenient time.”

  I rather hoped we couldn’t go until after Lilly got back, but Berenice came back out to the porch before we finished our tea and said, “We can come right over now.”

  Bobby looked grateful. He finished his tea in two big swallows, then took off out of there.

  I didn’t feel really well, rather nauseated, but Berenice just grinned and handed me the keys to the old miniature Cadillac.

  The car was rigged with electronic gadgets from a cellular phone to a radar detector to an old Toshiba laptop computer, everything absolutely dusty. I slid in and wiped the steering wheel off with the second tissue that popped out of the box. Berenice opened the laptop and pushed its jack into the cigarette lighter hole. “The batteries are dead,” she said.

  “What about the car batteries?” I asked.

  “I’ve been recharging them every month. Some days I get in and just let it run in neutral. Pretty sad, huh.”

  “Bad for the air to idle a car,” I said. Then I realized she must have driven the car here from the last place she’d been really free, not the old aunt needing a niece to take care of her.

  “Had the tires changed last year. The old ones rotted through.”

  “Maybe we should wait until Lilly gets back?”

  “She won’t be fit for a deal like this for six weeks. And I’m so old, I won’t scare him like a younger human.”

  So I turned the ignition, hoping that it wouldn’t start. This was worse than being a velveteen fool for a white bootlegger, I thought as the engine cranked and ran with just a few spits at first. We reversed, then went down the driveway.