Alien Taste (13 page)

The body came then, interrupting anything she would have said in reply. They had it in a body bag already, but the bag looked far too flat to hold an adult body. Agent Zheng stopped them and unzipped the bag.

The body looked like an Egyptian mummy; flesh sunk down to bone or missing altogether. Limbs had separated from the body, cooked until the joints parted with the gentle movement of lifting the victim into the bag. The skull was missing the jaw, the mouth open in an endless scream, hair and flesh burned away to the blacked bone.

Ukiah reeled backward.
Had Kraynak seen this? No wonder he was sick.

“Are you sure about this, kid?” Max murmured at his elbow.

Ukiah nodded and put out a hesitant hand to touch the coarse burnt flesh. It was difficult, the fire had changed the structure so that he could barely recognize the familiar form. He knew, though, and his eyes filled with tears.

“Who is it?” Agent Zheng asked quietly.

“Janet Haze.”

 

He and Max drove in silence back to the office. He went upstairs to the bedroom unofficially considered his and got a clean T-shirt. When he came downstairs, he found himself drifting through the rooms as Max made countless calls. Ukiah recognized the pattern after the first few calls. Max had contacted anyone that could have helped find Ukiah or avenge his death. His partner was now spreading the news of his safe return.

He raided the kitchen and found he was hungrier than he thought. In the refrigerator was leftover General Tso's Chicken, which he heated and ate. It seemed to trigger a tidal wave of eating. He thawed a porterhouse steak in the microwave and broiled it. He made a box of instant au gratin potatoes, fried all the eggs lining the fridge door, and cooked a package of frozen corn in the microwave.

Max came in for coffee as Ukiah was finishing off the ice cream bars and eyed the remains of his lunch. “Call it a day, go upstairs, and sleep.”

“I was going to do some work after I finished,” Ukiah protested.

Max laughed at him, glancing at his wristwatch. “If you want, I could set a stopwatch for when you crash and burn. You can sleep at your desk or you can sleep upstairs in a bed. Doesn't matter to me.”

“I wasn't going to sleep.” But a huge yawn suddenly forced its way out.

“You got the shit beat out of you yesterday, and you didn't sleep last night. Trust me, I know you. After eating like that, you're always asleep in five minutes. So, you've got four minutes and counting.”

“Okay. Okay.” Ukiah held up his hands in surrender. “Don't let me sleep all day, though. I want to go home tonight and be with my folks.”

“I'll get you up in time to get your bike,” Max promised.

Ukiah returned to his bedroom. Max had had it furnished after the fourth time work or weather had forced Ukiah to spend the night sleeping on the floor rather than make the long trip home. Actually Max had turned the project over to an interior decorator and had written the whole thing off on his taxes as a business expense. It had a queen-size sleigh bed, heavy cherry nightstands, and real oriental rugs over the hardwood floors. Over time, more and more of Ukiah's things had gravitated there. To a casual observer, it would seem he actually lived there.

It was comfortable and familiar, but it wasn't home.

 

He woke by himself at three o'clock. The afternoon sun was full on the bed, blasting it with heat. He woke from a nightmare about being burned alive. It did not help to know that if he had failed the Pack's test, he could easily have been toast today. He stumbled into the bathroom to scrub the previous day's experience from his body: the dirt, the death, the fear, and all the countless bandages. The bruise on his chest and the pellet wound were completely healed (and he assumed the ones on his back were too), thankfully gone without a trace before his moms could see. The Ukiah in the fogged mirror afterward looked completely sound and familiar—one would never know his whole viewpoint of life had been scrambled.

He dressed in clean clothes and came down the sweeping staircase as Max was trotting up.

“Hey!” Max stopped. “I was coming up to wake you. I've got to go check in with Janey and Chino.”

“I was going to walk over and get my bike and head home.”

Max nodded, starting down the steps again. “I need you here tomorrow early, like seven thirty. Okay?”

“Okay. What do you think I should tell my moms?”

Max winced. “I don't know. Something of the truth, but probably not the whole truth. The whole truth is just too hairy. Jo would want to know about your father, if nothing else.”

Ukiah had to admit that was true.

Max snapped his finger and pointed to Ukiah. “Don't forget, get a doll for Cally.”

Ukiah almost missed a step. “I forgot! Thanks for reminding me.”

Max wearily shook his head. “I'll never figure out how you can quote back the yellow pages and forget little shit like that all the time.”

“I have to think of it before I can remember it, Max. I wasn't thinking about dolls.”

“Whatever. See you tomorrow. Drive carefully, and take your gun.”

Ukiah stopped at the front odor. “My gun?”

“Your gun. Two times in two days is too close. I think you should wear your gun full time for a while.”

Ukiah opened his mouth to argue and shut it again. Max looked weary and older than his thirty-eight years. His moan of despair as the Pack gassed Ukiah replayed in his mind, and touching the burnt remains of Janet Haze followed on its heels. Things had turned dangerous in Pittsburgh. Now wasn't the time to be running around unarmed, especially if he was going home to his family. Slowly he nodded. “Okay, I'll get my gun.”

 

While there were shopping areas on his way north to his moms, they required him to go miles out of his way and deal with suburban sprawl. Walnut Street, however, ran between his office and the motorcycle repair shop; it was a sudden explosion of boutiques in the otherwise serenely upscale neighborhood of Shadyside. The five or six blocks represented some of the trendiest stores in the entire city. The little stores with their expensive, eclectic goods crowded together, making real estate prices high and parking impossible. Ukiah started at one end of the street and worked his way down, growing more and more dismayed.

There were dolls to be found. One store sold voodoo dolls complete with certificates of authenticity at a frightening price (and even more frightening, a curious brush of fingertips revealed that human blood stained the cloth body.) Another shop stocked Peruvian fertility charm dolls. The Japanese dolls in silk kimonos were charming, but unpractical at the level of abuse Cally practiced on her toys. He thought he had lucked out at one store with an entire shelf of Barbie dolls on display, only to discover that they wore hand-stitched original designer clothes. And no, they wouldn't sell the Barbie dolls naked.

On one of the side streets among the Walnut Street–wannabes, he discovered a Native American arts store. The door stood open while the sign firmly announced, “closed.” Half the shelves stood empty, and the floor was crowded with unopened boxes marked dream catchers, fetishes, and Navajo blankets. One box near the door had been opened to reveal a collection of dolls in beaded dresses.

A gray-haired woman stocking the shelves caught sight of him standing in the doorway. “I'm sorry.
The air-conditioning is broken, so I opened the door, but we're not ready for business yet.”

He pointed down at the dolls. “I've been in every shop in the neighborhood looking for a doll for my little sister. The dog ate her complete collection last night and I promised her a new one.”

“Oh dear! Ate them all?” She gave a laugh. “Well, we're set up for credit purchases, but not for cash. If you have a card, I could sell you one.”

“American Express?” He took out his wallet to find his card.

“We take all the major ones.” She picked up the box of dolls, carried it to the checkout counter, which doubled as a jewelry display case. “I think these are all the same, despite the fact the dresses are all hand-beaded.” She laid out five to confirmed their identical nature. “Take your pick.”

He picked up the center doll. Hair black as his own decorated the doll, tied into two long braids. Black eyes blinked at him as he inspected the brightly beaded dress. A wealth of information came from the thin leather and tiny glass beads. A Native American woman had made the dress. He fingered her genetic ghost—black-haired, dark eyed, dusky skin—so many of his own traits that he wondered about his parents. “I'll take this one.”

“Let me wrap it for you,” the storekeeper said, producing a small box. “Then I'll have to find my charge slips. They're here someplace.”

The doll hidden away inside the box, Ukiah glanced about for the charge slips. His attention was caught, however, by a collection of small stone statues of various animals in the display case.

“These are beautiful.” He breathed, bending down to examine them closely.

“Those are fetishes made by the Zuni Indians.”
The storekeeper lectured as she wrapped the doll's box in silver wrapping paper. “Each animal has a different power. The belief is that if you own that animal, and you treat it with respect, the animal will share its power with you. The bear is health and strength. The mole protects underneath; the Zuni bury it beside their crops but it's considered
the thing
to have it placed in the foundation of a new house. Um, the frog is fertility and rain.”

Perhaps it was his upbringing, but the wolf statue seemed to be the best. Carved from a blue stone, its eyes captured perfectly the steady patience of a hunting wolf. It reminded him, somehow, of Agent Zheng's even gaze.

“What power does a wolf share with you?” he asked.

The storekeeper set the wrapped present before him. “Wolf, mountain lion, and badgers share the power of hunters, if you're going after something.”

A hunter—like Agent Zheng. “May I buy the wolf fetish too?” Impulse moved him to get it as a gift for her, when he wasn't sure if he'd ever see her again. “It doesn't need to be wrapped.”

“Certainly.” She unlocked the display case and took out the stone statue. Wrapping the fetish in cotton, she slipped it into a small bag. “May I ask, are you Native American?”

“I think I am,” Ukiah admitted. “I was”—he decided not to go into his upbringing too deeply—“adopted. I don't know my true parentage.”

“Oh.” She took his charge card and swiped it through her machine, then checked the back to see if it was signed. “Ukiah Oregon. What a clever name. I've been there. A tiny little town. There's a reservation nearby of Plateau Indians.”

“Really?”

“The Cayuse, Umatilla, and the Walla Walla tribes. Nice people. They make beautiful baskets. I have some that I'll be unpacking later. Perhaps you would like to come back and see them.”

He signed the charge slip. “I'd like that. Thank you.”

Putting the bag with the fetish into his pocket, he left carrying the doll box, thinking about his parentage. Certainly his parents hadn't been a love match. The Pack all but said that his father meant to kill his mother while she was still pregnant with him—for that was the only way to kill an unborn child by blowing up a ship. But his father hadn't killed her. Was it because he had a change of heart (and never got around to telling the Pack) or had his mother survived the murder attempt and escaped unnoticed? If it was the latter, it certainly explained why he was abandoned into the wilderness to fend for himself.

It was a depressing thought, so instead he took out the memory of Agent Zheng greeting him at the fire and relived it in glorious detail.

 

“Hey, Wolf Boy!” Mike hollered in greeting as Ukiah strolled into the dark confines of the repair shop. The mechanic beamed through a layer of grease. “I expected you yesterday!”

Mike never seemed to be able to talk much lower than a full shout. Max said it probably indicated a hearing problem. Ukiah thought it just indicated the level of Mike's exuberance—his cheerful moods and constant grin certainly seemed to back Ukiah's guess.

“I—I had some trouble yesterday.” Ukiah laughed at how trivial his explanation made his experience sound.

“Really? You have a tracking job?”

Ukiah reluctantly nodded. “The FBI hired me to find one of their missing agents.”

“That Trace fellow? They lost another one last night. Warner! It's all you hear about on the news! How did it go?”

“I got kidnapped by a biker gang.”

“You're shitting me!” Mike shouted. “Get out! Why would a biker gang kidnap you? You know all that shit about biker gangs being tough dudes is just a lot of hype! Hell, my aunt and uncle are part of the Hell's Angels.”

“This was the Dog Warriors.”

Mike's constant grin dropped from his face and he whispered. “Oh shit, man, are you okay?”

“Yeah. They didn't hurt me.”