Ukiah - Alien Taste Part 24

"Yes, Chino, it's me. It's hard to explain, but has anything about me ever been normal?"

"No, man."

"Have you seen Max? His phone is here at the office. I've been trying for three days to get ahold of him. All the cars are gone too."

"I don't know s.h.i.t about the cars. I was with him in Wheeling when you called. We flew back from West Virginia and still got there far too late. You were cold, oh so stone cold. s.h.i.t man, you were a good kid, no one should have took you down like that. Agent Zheng said that you were taken down because you had something that you'd hidden and wouldn't cough it up. Said you had hidden it in a tree, and just like that Max had to leave for the farm."

Max had the key. Ukiah closed his eyes and wondered if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

"What happened at my moms'?"

"You don't know?"

"Not a clue, except there are dead dogs everywhere."

"FBI scrambled a team out to your place to move out your folks. They were giving the wolves one last run when a car pulled up. Six men got out. One was wearing your face. Your moms almost went out to him when the wolves took him down, tore him to shreds. You know what they say, can't fool animals. That started a gunfight."

"What happened to my moms?"

"The FBI came out on top. Six-zip. Thanks to the wolves. They got around to looking close to the one wearing your face. The build was wrong, you know, wrong size shoes, wrong size pants, slightly too tall. Creepy s.h.i.t."

"Did Max go out to the farm soon after that?"

"Yeah. We hit it right after the mop-up of the bodies. No one had told your moms anything yet. It was all 'do this, do that,' with no why. Max told them about you. They took it hard and then the FBI took them away."

"But they're safe, they're not hurt, right?"

"They're fine, man. You know that Max wouldn't take another step until he was sure they were okay."

"Yeah. Did he go out to the tree house?"

"Is it in that great big tree out back?"

"Yeah."

"Sure did. Was that where you hid the thing? In a tree house?"

"Yeah. I couldn't tell them where it was, not with it on top of my folks."

"I hear you. Look, don't worry about the office or the dogs. I'll take care of it. I'll put out the word that you're back and looking for Max."

"Thanks, Chino.""Take care of yourself, kid. A lot of people love you."

Number five was Janey's home phone and she didn't answer. Her answering machine picked up and Ukiah left a stilted awkward message.

Number six was their lawyer, who didn't believe him until Ukiah recalled the various degrees on his wall and started to give, in order, the names of his cla.s.smates listed under his graduating cla.s.s photo. He promised to contact the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and have a retraction story printed. He also stated that since Ukiah's body was taken before anyone official reached the scene, he hadn't been declared dead.

There was no paperwork there.

Feeling somewhat better, Ukiah decided to take on the FBI directly.

Outside the FBI offices was a news truck, which Ukiah skirted. Inside the receptionist looked somewhat hara.s.sed. She told him firmly that Agent Zheng wasn't taking visitors.

"I'm Ukiah Oregon. I was killed three days ago rescuing Agent Zheng. Can't you at least let her know that I'm back from the dead to visit her?"

She looked a little more rattled. "Pardon me?"

Ukiah took off his shirt, exposing his scabbed-over wounds. "I was killed, shot seven times, and I'm back from the dead."

"I'm sorry, she isn't taking visitors. The message was explicit."

Ukiah decided to continue undressing. It wouldn't be worth getting shot storming the FBI offices.

Naked, maybe no one would a.s.sume he was carrying a concealed weapon.

"Excuse me, what are you doing?"

"I'm going to see Agent Zheng. I do hope she's really here and that's not some idiot line you've been chanting."

"She's here, but she's not seeing anyone."

Ukiah placed Max's door jammer up to the electronic lock and pushed the b.u.t.ton. The door buzzed, and he jerked it open and he was inside, moving quickly. He dropped the jammer and headed for Indigo's office.

A high, piercing alarm went off. Within seconds he was surrounded by tense men and women in black pantsuits pointing Smith & Wesson revolvers at him. He walked forward slowly, hands upraised.

"Look, I just want to see Special Agent Zheng."

At least they didn't shoot him. Instead, a tight knot of unarmed men tackled him in unison, forty feet from her office.

"Indigo!" he shouted as they took him down. "Indigo!"

They wrenched back his arms and handcuffed him. "Clear!"

She came out of her office, gun ready.

"Indigo," he whispered, looking into her steel gray eyes. "Please, Indigo, please talk to me. My moms are gone. Max is missing. The dogs are dead. The key is gone. All I want is to talk to you."

She looked down at his chest. One of the scabs had broken and was seeping a trickle of blood. She looked back to his face. "Ukiah?"

"Indigo, it's me. I've tried to call, but I couldn't get through. Please, I didn't know what else to do."

She unc.o.c.ked her gun and handed it to the agent beside her and dropped down in front of him. Her eyes were filled with tears as she lightly touched his battered chest. "Oh, Ukiah, you were dead. I saw him kill you. After the Pack came, I held you and wept. You were dead.""I was," he whispered.

"How can you be alive again?" She looked up into his eyes.

"I'm Pack, remember?" he whispered for her ears alone. "Remember I told you about Pack living a long time? This is why. We heal all damage done to us, even after our hearts stop beating. You have to burn us to keep us down. That's what the gel fuel was for."

She stroked his cheek, her eyes soft liquid gray. "I learned the meaning of heartsick, to watch him beat you and not be able to do a thing, say a word."

"I couldn't let them hurt you. I love you, Indigo. I would do it again to keep you safe."

She kissed him, and part of his world was right again.

They took off the handcuffs and let him up. Someone retrieved his clothes and produced a first-aid kit. They called his moms first, Indigo doing all the talking at first, confessing falsely that she had made a horrible mistake in telling people that Ukiah was dead when in fact he was alive. She gave him the phone then, but all he could do was listen to his mothers cry until he distracted them with talk of burying the dogs.

They were at a safe house on a lake, they told him, with its own private beach. Cally was happy digging in the sand. She had slept through most of the chaos of the gunfight. They had decided, until his body was found and a funeral could be set, that they wouldn't break the news to her. Now she wouldn't have to know. He promised to drive up shortly and be with them.

After this call, Indigo cycled quickly down Ukiah's phone list with her steel command voice. Instead of trying to convince each person that she was actually a person back from the dead, she was able to say, "This is Special Agent Indigo Zheng of the FBI. I'm trying to reach Max Bennett or discover the whereabouts of his company vehicles. Can you help me?"

Usually this was followed with, "Yes, I was the one Ukiah was protecting. Yes, he was a good kid.

The paper unfortunately jumped the gun; the paramedics were able to revive him. He isn't dead. Yes, that's right. He's still in critical care. I'm sorry, I can't give out that information. Do you have any idea how I can reach his partner, Max Bennett?"

"You know, you are an amazing liar," Ukiah said after she hung up with Max's accountant. "What information can't you give out?"

"People want to know where they can visit you and send flowers."

They hit pay dirt on the eighth call-Kraynak. He wasn't home, but his niece informed Indigo that the Hummer was in the Kraynaks' garage.

"I'll go out and get it." He kissed her and reluctantly let her go. "You keep on calling. And make sure I can get in the front door this time."

Kraynak lived in Beechview, technically still within the Pittsburgh city limits, but only by a few feet.

Ukiah pulled up and parked his motorcycle on the left side of the narrow one-way street, behind Kraynak's battered Volkswagen van. The street was lined with nearly identical three-story brick houses with wide porches. Kraynak's porch was scattered with toys, and his sheepdog barked furiously as Ukiah rang the doorbell.

"Kitchen!" Kraynak shouted in the house and opened the door, still looking behind him at his dog.

"Kitchen! Alicia, come get this dog!"

He turned and went slack-jawed.

Ukiah supplied the dialogue: "Ukiah, you're dead! No, I'm not. Yes you are, I saw you, you're dead.

Okay, I was dead but I got better. Blah, blah, blah, etc, etc, etc. Hey, come on in."Kraynak blinked, then laughed somewhat nervously. "I guess you've heard that a lot today, eh?"

He hadn't moved, however, to let Ukiah in. His gray s.h.a.ggy sheepdog showed a better sense of hospitality by rambling over to stick his nose into Ukiah's hand.

"Hey, Radar." Ukiah rubbed him behind his s.h.a.ggy ears. "Good dog. Sorry, no treats today."

Tension went out of Kraynak's pose and he swung open the door. "Come on in, kid. Radar, kitchen!"

The front door opened into the living room. Comfortable overstuffed furniture crowded around the walls, leaving paths to the rest of the house. A baseball game played on the television in the corner. Snacks, bottles of microbrewed beer, and gun magazines lay scattered on the coffee table in front of the couch.

Obviously Kraynak was making the most of his day off.

Kraynak flicked off the TV and twitched a gun magazine off the couch. "Sorry, kid, but I heard about what happened at your moms'. My kids and wife are home. I can't afford inviting trouble in."

"Agent Zheng called and got Alicia. She said you weren't home, but the Hummer was in your garage. I came over to pick it up. I need to find Max. I think he's in trouble."

Kraynak shook his head. "You think you know someone. I would have bet even money that Max would have moved heaven and earth to track down your missing body. But he said he knew how you died, when you died, and even why you died. He didn't need your body to mourn, just knowledge. If it had just been you getting killed, I think he would have been okay. What hurt him was what they did to what he had left. What they did to your moms' and his house. They threaten everything he's built since his wife died. I tried to talk him out of trying to find them, but he wouldn't listen to me, he even stopped carrying his phone.

I don't know where he went, kid, but he's probably heading for deep s.h.i.t."

"He took the Cherokee?"

Kraynak nodded. "He said it would stand out less. The Hummer is out in my garage and Janey has the sedan. He said that the Pack took your bike, and that kind of bugged him too, but I can see why they did."

"Can I swap my motorcycle for the Hummer, store it in your garage?"

"Sure, kid, anything to help."

Ukiah unlocked the Hummer and climbed into the driver's seat. He flipped on the deck and keyed up the tracking program. The agency owned a dozen tracers, split up among the three cars. He cycled quickly through the list. Four showed up on the map firmly in Beechview with him. Five were parked at Janey's place in Squirrel Hill. The remaining three weren't on the local map, and he had to flip up to the southwestern Pennsylvania map for them to show up.

Narrows Run Road, out toward the airport.

He checked several times as he started up the Hummer and slowly eased it out of the narrow garage and into the equally narrow alley. The Cherokee didn't seem to be moving. There was no way to tell if Max was even in it anymore, but it was his only lead.

Max had left the radio on, as usual. Top story of the hour? "Legal representatives of local hero, Ukiah Oregon, announce that the private investigator hadn't been killed in the rescue of Special Agent Indigo Zheng as earlier reported." Minutes later his phone rang with the first of many seeking interviews with him. After the first dozen, he turned it off.

The Cherokee sat parked squarely among hundreds of other cars in the airport parking lot. It wasn't the expensive lots near the newer airport terminal, but one of the failing cheap lots near the old abandonedterminal. Ukiah pulled the Hummer up behind the Cherokee and killed the engine. There was no sign of violence, no air of destruction and ruin. He climbed down out of the Hummer to circle the Cherokee warily.

Its security system was active, double-locked by the remote and door code. Ukiah disarmed the security system with the remote on his key ring. No one but Max, himself, and Chino had used the door handles in the last few days. No sign of blood on the font driver seat. He leaned across and turned on the deck.

"Hey, get away from the car!"

Ukiah leaned back out of the car. The parking lot attendant was coming toward him quickly, a huge bruiser of a black man with a shaved-top hair cut, goatee, and more body parts pierced than Ukiah wanted to count.

Ukiah indicated the Cherokee. "This is my car."

"The h.e.l.l it is." The attendant was almost on him.

"I can prove it. I have an owner's card."

The man scowled at him but slowed his charge to a reasonable walk. "You ain't the man that left it here. He paid me up front."

"Late thirties, white, brown hair graying at the temples, about a head taller than me?"

The attendant nodded slowly. "Yeah, that's the man."

"That's my partner, Max Bennett. n.o.body has seen him for three days. When did he park the car here?"