The Naked Amphibian. (fiction)

“I’m looking for a toad.”

I knew the dame was trouble the nanosecond she walked in the door. She was a long, tall blonde with legs like scissors and lips that would embarrass a cherry. That fact that she looked not only classy but confident in the seediest office in the seediest part of LA told me as much I needed to know. That fact that she was into amphibians was of purely superficial import. I studied the rest of her with perhaps a tiny smirk.

“Hello? Did you hear what I said? I’m looking for a toad.”

Right away I didn’t like her tone. And I didn’t like her attitude.

“There’s pet shop down on the corner,” I said, going back to the Times Crossword. “If you’re lucky, you’ll beat the Chinese restaurant to them.”

“No, I’m looking for a different type of toad. You know, an alien.”

I looked up at her over my reading glasses. Yeah, I’m short, balding and myopic, but those are the only three faults that are immediately apparent. The rest have to grow on you in varying speeds. Reluctantly I put down the paper. “Yeah? An alien. Now maybe I can help you. We talkin’ Mexican, Cuban, Guatemalan?”

“I think you know what I mean. You know, an alien alien.”

I laughed and reached for the paper again. “An alien alien. You mean, like ET? Right lady, you didn’t look crazy when you walked in here, but the happy house is full today.”

She took two staccato steps on those stiletto heels and slapped both palms down on my Times. “Look, Mac, I may be blond, but I ain’t stupid. I asked around. I was told you were the one to see concerning these matters.”

We stared at each other for a long minute. There was nothing romantic in those eyes. She was all business. I was all stubborn.

“Did I mention I was rich and I have references?”

Maybe it was the way she said Mac--an old school reference for sure. Or maybe it was the way her v-neck exposed a helluva lot of round, smooth cleavage when she leaned over the desk. Or maybe it was simply the word rich—one of the more beautiful sounds in the English language. Whatever. I blinked first, leaned back in my chair and said casually, “I doubt you have the kind of references that would interest a guy like me.”

She stood back up with a smirk on her face knowing she had hooked me good. “Mac, I think I have a lot of things that would interest a guy like you.”

* * *

Her name was Susie Bigalow. She didn’t look like a Susie to me—unless it was the kind of cute, sweet and ironic nickname you gave to otherwise dangerous creature. Like Susie the man-eating shark. Or Susie the foul-tempered grizzly bear. She was from Laguna Hills. It was a tony neighborhood. The kind of neighborhood where the weirdest people were movie types—not folks with gills and webbed feet. If she was really looking for a toad, she’d been slumming far from daddy’s loving care and money. Didn’t surprise me though. I’d seen it before.

I told her I had to check her out and ushered her unceremoniously to my “waiting room”-- a folding chair outside in the grungy, poorly lit hallway—and gave her a cup of lukewarm, barely potable, barely palatable java. She didn’t much like it, but she wanted to speed things up. She was desperate; that much was clear. Otherwise she wouldn’t be messing with a guy like me.

I went back into my office and picked up my cellphone and contacted the cricket. Every good dick in this business has their snitches and mine was just a phone call away 24/7. I didn’t even have to dial. Just picked it up and turned it on.

“So… Did you check out the dame?”

“Yeah, nice gams.”

Despite the nickname, the cricket didn’t have a squeaky, high voice. Neither was it low or husky. It was the kind of whiny sarcastic voice you sometimes got in mediocre stand up comics. I always wondered about that voice. See, the cricket wasn’t on the other end of the phone. He was in the phone. Literally. He was some kind of microscopic alien for whom the inside of my empty cell phone was like the Taj Mahal or something. What the cricket lacked in size, however, he more than made up for in knowledge. He seemed know everything. Anything, anywhere, as it happened. I don’t know how he did it, but the little geek was instantly connected to any information database on the planet. And then some. Somehow he knew everything that was going on around him, too, even though he was, apparently the size of an electron or something. Thus his instant appraisal of the woman in my hallway. Not only had he checked out her legs, but he had probably already run a comprehensive background check and personal history.

“So is she okay?”

“Okay? No. There are several definitions of the English word okay and the lady would fail to meet any of them. She is into some seriously kinky—“

“I don’t give a shit about her sex life. Is her money good?”

“Money? Oh yeah, the dame is loaded.”

“Good enough for me.”

I snapped the phone closed—which was kind of rude considering—and stepped back in the hallway.

“I get a thousand a day plus expenses,” I told her.

“Get real, Mac. Five hundred plus travel and lodging. I ain’t paying for your massage parlors and poker games.”

“Alright seven fifty but all expenses. You get billed for a massage—it's because somebody there knew something I needed to know. You know?”

“Fine. When will you start?”

“Soon as you tell me the toad’s name.”

* * *

The toad’s name was Alexander. That’s it. Just Alexander and apparently he passed himself off as some New Age self-help guru. He was a public figure of sorts so I figured it wouldn’t be difficult running him to the ground. Then I figured there had to be a catch. Because, if it was that easy, the dame wouldn’t have been so desperate and she wouldn’t have come to me. And, because in my business--

There’s always a catch.

I put the cricket on his cyber trail while I laid a little groundwork myself which involved taking out the trash. I emptied my office wastebasket on the desk, retrieved the discarded coffee cup with the red lipstick on the rim and headed down the street to the doc’s.

The doc had a little lab in the bad part of town. See, he used to cook meth but found it unhealthy, both literally and figuratively, so he'd started a little laboratory service on the up and up. He mostly just tested DNA. Had billboards all over town. Are you the daddy? 1-800-Prove-it! He even had a reappearing guest spot on the Jerry Springer Show. He also did a few side jobs for me and people like me. Which just went to prove There was more than one way to make a legal living on the margins of society. In that we had common ground.

“Doc,” I greeted him.

 “Julie,” he replied.

Yeah, most people call me Julie. Whatsit to ya? Frankly I preferred the girl's name over my real one—Julius Caesar Kryzhinsky. My pap, the drunken sop, had apparently wanted me to be a Polish emperor. One of the many friggin' things we disagreed on.

“We touched knuckles briefly. Like a lot of health professionals, he didn’t like to shake hands

“Whatcha got for me today?”

“Got a rush job.”

“It’s always a rush job.”

“Cash up front,” I said, slapping down the franklins. "Triple the rate.”

“Rahsheek, we got a rush job!” he shouted, handing off the cup to a little Indian man with one hand and pocketing the bills with the other. “Contact you at the usual place?”

“Yep.”

I stopped off at the thrift store next door, immediately found what I was looking for and settled in across the street at a seedy little dive called “Beer.” For the next 90 minutes or so I nursed a beer in Beer and read a rather sappy, pointless book called “Happy.” If anybody had seen me reading it in Beer, they would’ve been happy to beat me up. As it was, the joint remained empty—as was the meaning of the pathetic drivel written by one Alexander Toad. An exert : Life is an illusion. Therefore all your problems are not real. Redefine your reality and seize your happiness. If I'd had anything besides the beer in my stomach, I would've retched over myself. After five chapters and two semi-flat beers I the only thing I was happy about was when Doc sat down across from me and pushed the results across the table.

“Tell me its human DNA.”

“Oh it’s human all right,” he said with a tiny smirk. “That all you want to know?”

“She ain’t my sister. And she damn well ain’t my daughter,” I growled. “So otherwise I don’t give a damn.”

The guy sat back and shrugged. I pushed the book across the table as I rose to leave. “Don’t worry, be ‘happy,’” I told him. “Got a plane to catch.”

* * *

Sedona, Arizona: you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. Oh sure, it all looks pretty from the outside. All those gorgeous red rocks and desert sun and deep, blue high-altitude sky, but, scratch the surface, and nothing but alien weirdness oozes forth. The New Agers were a kooky bunch but they weren’t far off when they claimed the Sedona area was full of energy vortexes. In point of fact, the area contained several alien energy matrix generators-- a kind of energy wi-fi—that helped the aliens keep their disguises in place and fed, nourished and soothed their scaly, reptilian psyches.

Yeah, that's right. Sit down and hold on to the table. We ain't alone. The world is full of extraterrestrial beings. Only because of some top secret hush/hush treaty, they remain incognito. Which is damn lucky for us because most of them are butt ugly. The sight of one would pucker your sphincter for a month.

Most of them aren't free to roam around, however. They live on reservations—usually near these high tech, top-secret energy zones. Ever wonder why some places are just plain frickin' weirder than other places? Yeah, now you know. The alien weirdness in these places just seemed to create a freak vortex where misfits from all species just kind of congregated, Venice Beach, Key West, Portland, Santa Fe, Greenwich Village, the French Quarter-- these are all alien ground zeroes, a turbulent mix of space warp, time distortion and insanity. I hated them all. But Sedona was the worst.

Aliens, especially those suited to warm, dry climates like toads and lizards, naturally migrated to desert areas like Santa Fe and Sedona. Warm, wet climate-loving species like frogs and snakes, went to similar generating areas in Key West and New Orleans. All of this was supposed to be top secret, hush-hush, but some artistic, sensitive types, like the New Age hippies, seemed to get an inkling of something and were drawn to the subliminal hum of the generators and, maybe, just a little residual radiation.

Good for them.

Myself, I wasn't there for the vibes. I needed to find an alien toad disguising himself as a New Age author. Even if I didn’t have the cricket, even if I didn’t have the IQ God gave earth toads, I still would’ve hopped a plane to Arizona.

It’d been a while since I’d been on the hunt in Sedona. In fact, if my faulty memory served me, after the last time I was there, I vowed never to return. All my snitches, contacts and acquaintances seemed to have gone to ground. Or were in the ground. I was there five minutes when it was apparent I was starting from square one. No matter. The goddamn town was full of low class aliens-- a large percentage of them were jeep tour drivers and time share salesman--so all I had to do was pick one and put the squeeze on.

I stood on the sidewalk in Uptown Sedona and bided my time. “Uptown” was a motley collection of trinket stores and tourist come-ons that was plopped down shamefully in the middle of national park-like grandeur. Throngs of sun-burned and pot-bellied tourists thronged the shops eager to buy something to satisfy their boredom. This was an alien smorgasbord. Though ETs didn’t eat people (that was the official position anyway), they loved to fuck around with their heads: Tricks, pranks, mindfucks and even gentle harassing delighted the alien sense of humor. In places like Uptown Sedona, we were like a poor retarded kid surrounded by a gang of smart-ass teenage boys. Today, though, the retard was gonna fuck back. Like any good predator I knew the best strategy was to let the victim come to me. Sure enough, I wasn’t there ten minutes when a faux cowboy strolled up to me and gave me the once over.

“Howdy partner,” he said in an accent that was so awful it would've embarrassed a transgender John Wayne impersonator. I could tell by the way he blinked his eyes real slow and lazy that he wasn’t entirely human. “Howz about it? You ready for the ride of your life?”

I played stupid. “You mean one of those crazy Jeep tours? I dunno… Sounds kind of scary.”

“Aw, it ain’t so bad. I’d take real good care of you.”

“How much? It’s just me.”

“It’s 75 per person. And I’m sure we’ll get a full jeep in no time.”

“No. How much for just me? I don’t like people all that much.”

“Well then. It’d be 250 to rent the whole jeep.”

I reached in my pocket and peeled off three more franklins. Hell, it wasn’t my money.

“You promise not to hurt me?” I said handing him the cash.

“Ain’t killed no one yet.” he said, and smiled slyly as he pocketed the cash.

* * *

Riding in the jeep in slow motion down a red rock cliff face was like slowly pounding a tree trunk up my ass. Why anybody did that for pleasure, I could not fathom. The driver prattled on about geology, ancient seas and petrified sand dunes while interspersing it with lame jokes. I hung on until I could hang no longer. When I Jeep trail leveled out, I put my hand on the guy’s shoulder and asked him to pull over for a minute.

“Need to stretch my legs.”

“Sure, sure. Enjoy the scenery. Take a few pictures. We’re in no hurry here.”

I climbed out of the jeep grateful for the sudden quiet and calm although my body was still vibrating from the jolting it took. I walked a little ways to a rise where I had a panoramic view of the red rock wilderness. Of course, the view was spoiled by the knowledge it was all fake—a pretty screen designed to cover alien machinery.

“Beautiful isn’t it?” The jeep driver asked joining me on the rock.

“Amazing,” I said curtly. I fished into my pocket and pulled out a cigar. “Mind if I smoke?”

The guy quickly took one step back. There were two kinds of aliens: those who hated smoke of any kind and those who loved it—way too much. “Actually… You’re not supposed to smoke. Forest fires, you know.”

I shrugged and lit up anyway. “So what about all these New Age vortexes I keep hearing about?”

The guy smiled nervously and shrugged with one shoulder. “Some people believe that the area contains energy vortices—natural places in the earth’s crust where electromagnetic and others energies are close to the surface. Some people claim to be able to tune in to those energies in certain spots.”

“Sounds like a lot of bullshit to me.”

He smiled greasily. “I make no claims either way.”

“What about aliens? I heard there was a lot of extraterrestrial activity in the area.”

The smile quickly faded. “What? like flying saucers?”

No, I said, taking a step towards him. “Like fucking lizards who parade around like jeep tour drivers.”

“Who are you? You aren’t a tourist. You don’t even have a camera.”

I kept coming. He turned to run but I grabbed his shoulder, spun him around and ,with a nifty trip/kick, had him flat on the ground in a couple seconds. I put one knee on his chest, took a puff of my cigar, and blew smoke in his face.

“This can go hard. Or this can go easy.”

The guy winced at the smoke. “What do you want?”

“Ever hear of a toad named Alexander?”

The guy shook his head with his eyes closed.

I bounced once on his chest. “No?”

“Come on, dude,” he pleaded, his phony cowboy accentsuddenly gone. “Am I supposed to know every toad in town?”

“This one’s pretty famous. He’s written some books. New Age crap.”

“I don’t know! I don’t hang out with that crowd!”

I bounced again, harder this time, and picked up a rock.

“Ooff. Hey man, what are you doing with the rock?”

“Listen up lizard,” I said. “I know exactly what happens when one of you people die. The disguise melts pretty fast. And the men in black suits show up real quick and haul away the carcass. Do they investigate your murder? Not if nobody saw nothing.”

“All right. All right,” he said. “I heard of the guy. He hangs out in the Village. Does a morning meditation on Bell Rock every day for the suckers. I mean tourists. Or used to anyway. That’s all I know.”

I looked at the rock as if considering something. “Anything else I should know about this guy? Any hobbies, preferences or special abilities I should know about?”

“No. I don’t know. I told you I don’t hang out with that crowd.”

“What crowd would that be?”

“You know. Them.”

“Them?” I asked, hoping I'd misheard. “Them?”

“Yeah. Them them. Heavy hitter. Way out of my league. And, I might suggest—ever so respectfully—out of yours too.”

I sat back and thought about it.

The lizard sat up a little. “If that rock is your best weapon, you’d better go home right now.”

“Good advice,” I said and slapped him upside the head with the rock. It was a big rock, size of a navel orange, and it made a satisfying wet, smacking noise as the guy flew backwards towards the ground. Probably would’ve killed a human. As it was, Newt there was gonna have a helluva headache when he woke up.

I walked back to the jeep and started to climb into the driver’s seat when I realized I was still carrying the rock. It was dripping with blood. I tossed it aside.

“Damn the red rocks,” I muttered to myself.

* * *

“We got a problem,’ I picked up my phone and told the cricket. “Alexander is a them.”

“A them?”

“A them. A they.”

“Oh… one of those.” The cricket lapsed into an uncharacteristic and overly dramatic pause. They were the people who ran things. No one was sure who they were. Whether they were alien or human or a combination of the two. No one knew when or why or where they came about, or what precisely they hoped to accomplish. We just knew they ran the alien affairs on earth and no one crossed them. Ever.

“Well, if it's true,” the cricket said, “The smart thing to do would be to give the dame her money back and let’s take a long vacation somewhere.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. That’d be the smart thing.”

“But you never do the smart thing, do you?”

“You know, I was hired just to find the toad. I don’t have to mess with him. I don’t even gotta talk to him. I just gotta find him. What could that hurt?”

“Something tells me you’re going to find out. And my guess is, it’s going to hurt plenty.”

“Just check out this meditation thing, will you?”

“Already have,” said the cricket. “There’s nothing advertised in any form of local media. Must be one of those word-of-mouth type things.”

“Yeah, so I guess the thing to do would be to take an early morning hike around Bell Rock.”

“You? hike?”

“Hey I’m driving a jeep, ain’t I?”

“Yes, you’re a regular Crocodile Dundee.”

* * *

Usually I believe it is simply impolite to enter the day before the sun was standing upright, but the next morning found me out at dawn, trudging across the sandstone “slickrock” at the base of Bell Rock in my sport coat, tie, fedora and a jumbo large coffee from the local Circle K. Bell Rock was a big humongous rock—a small mountain really—that was shaped, surprise, like a bell. It sat on the very outskirts of an upscale Sedona bedroom community called the Village of Oak Creek—or simply the Village to locals. Because the rock was right next to town, conveniently located next to a state highway and was reportedly the strongest Sedona vortex in the area, it attracted a large assortment of tourists, pilgrims and wackos. At 5:30 a.m. there were already several people wandering around the bottom of the bell.

And if they thought a guy in a suit and fedora stomping through the desert vegetation at that time of day was unusual they didn’t seem to let on.

I wasn’t expecting to find Alexander. I was sure he’d moved on. But people were like sheep. Once they were accustomed to doing something, they usually kept on doing it. If he’d started a prayer group that met here every morning, my bet was that some of them still came. And maybe one of them might know something about where he went.

It didn’t take me long to find the likely group. They were above me, higher on the rock, a half dozen or eight people in karate-type robes and were sitting in a row facing the rising sun. They were softly chanting something. It sounded like Happy, happy, joy, joy. Happy, happy, joy, joy.” Give me a break. Crappy, crappy, hoi polloi.

I climbed higher. Close enough to hear any conversations, but not so close they’d feel bothered by me. I sat on a chair-sized rock and pretended to blissfully take in the morning sunrise and meditate on the wonderfulness of life all the while guzzling my coffee and dreaming of the of a nice cozy bed.

They broke up after another thousand happy, happy, joy, joys and, one by one, they drifted away, down the rock and to their cars. One of them, however, stayed behind putting away and carefully arranging things in a duffel bag. He was a tall, blond, pretty boy with a perfect tan and a lean physique. If he were 500 miles to the west I would’ve categorized him as a surfer. He looked over at me a couple times, then, when his bag was properly packed, he walked over as I suspected he would.

“Hello, friend.”

“Hi,” I said toasting my coffee cup towards him and giving him a blank smile.

“I couldn’t help but notice you sitting there. You’re not from around here are you?”

“No,” I shook my head sadly. I’d had a few minutes to come up with a great story, so I let him have it. “Twenty four hours ago, I was just another schmo stuck in traffic headed to a job I despised. Something just snapped. Now I’m here. Not sure how it happened…Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”

“Not really. This is Sedona. I’ve seen it a hundred times. You’re sitting on Bell Rock. It’s the beacon vortex. It calls out to everyone seeking enlightenment.”

“Really? I didn’t feel anything.”

“Oh but I think you do. It has summoned you here. In the next couple of days you’re going to learn a great deal. Much will be illuminated. Right now, though, you need to get happy.”

“I’m kinda happy…”

“No, you need to get happy.” He reached into his duffel and pulled out the Alexander book.

“What’s that?” I asked, thinking this was too easy..

He stepped towards me, waved the book in front of my face and his expression suddenly changed.

“This is the real reason you’re here. Alexander is the person you want to find.”

I tried to step backwards but the rock was there I sat down abruptly and the surfer boy suddenly towered above me.

“Nobody finds Alexander,” he snarled. “Alexander finds them.”

Too late I noticed the other nuts hadn’t disappeared at all. They had circled back and were now emerging from out of the sparse vegetation and surrounding me. One against twelve. Not good odds. Hell, I wasn’t even sure I could take surfer boy by himself.

“Okay,” I said. “You made your point. I get it. I’m off the case. Gimme three steps and I’ll be out of town in ten.”

“Had your chance,” a voice said to the left. “I told you exactly who he was and yet you continued on.”

I turned and recognized the jeep driver. He was wearing a Japanese style scarf around his head to hide the goose egg I’d left him. Shit, I thought glumly. It was all a set-up. Too late I remembered that the jeep driver had approached me not visa versa. Stupid! I had walked right into it. I damn well deserved what was about to happen to me.

I’d been in my business for a long time. I’ve doled out and taken my share of beatings. When cornered like this I knew there was only one thing to do…

I ran.

I think I caught them off guard too. I ran straight at surfer boy and then veered at the last second. I almost made it, but he got a leg out just in time to trip me up. I stumbled and fell face first down the slickrock. Slick rock like hell. That shit was like coarse grit sandpaper. And my skin was a piece of un-sanded pine. By the time I raised myself to my knees, they were on me. Kicking and kidney punching. Turns out the karate robes weren’t just for show. Turns out they really were a happy bunch of fellows as they thoroughly seemed to enjoy themselves. Thankfully, I blacked out before they could have too good a time.

* * *

When I came to, I was face down on the red stone and everyone was gone. I tried to move but, nothing, at first, would respond. My first thought was paralysis, but even as I thought that, I half-rolled over and immediately wished I was paralyzed. My whole body felt like it’d been bounced on by bears with pogo sticks. I half sat up and realized half my face was covered in blood. Tiny sandstone pebbles were lodged in my mouth. I spat them out on the bloody ground.

“Damn red rocks,” I muttered.

I felt like shit. Worse than the physical pain and injury was the mental one. I’d been stupid, played for a sucker, and taught a very simple lesson. Don’t mess with your betters. Even a dimwit like me knew what to do now. I had to quit the case, refund Suzie’s money in full and get the hell out of town. The trick in this business was to know when to say when and not let pride get in the way.

Pride, however, was getting in the way.

I did not like getting beat up. Rather than humble me, it pissed me off. And when I got angry, I did mean, stupid things.

I stood painfully, dusted myself off, and picked up my crumbled fedora. The suit was ruined, but I’d charge the client enough to replace it twice. The hat, though, concerned me. It wasn’t easy finding a fedora these days and this one was just broke in. I carefully dusted it off, attempted to reshape it the best I could, then carefully put back on my already swelling head. I vowed to wear it damaged. Maybe it would serve as a reminder of my own stupidity.

Once standing, I felt in my pockets for my keys (check), wallet (check) and phone—

Son of a bitch. They’d got my phone. They’d taken the cricket. Just to be sure I hunted around the area in a frantic kind of panic. Without the cricket I was doomed. Without the cricket…

I was alone.

* * *

I must’ve passed out again at my motel because when I woke up I was lying on the bed in my clothes and it was dark. I lay there still as could be. I knew when I moved it was going to hurt. A bunch. Maybe I could lay there stock still for a couple weeks until I could move again without pain. Or maybe I could sit up, down a bunch of OTC painkillers and wash them down with the pint of bourbon I’d bought on the way back. I really can’t recommend that form of self-medication to everyone, but I can tell you, in my case, it seemed to work. Within a few minutes I was able to stand up and make my way into the bathroom and a nice hot shower. By the time I stepped out, I was feeling within a stone’s throw of human.

I managed to dry off without looking at all the welts and bruises in the mirror, wrapped myself in a towel and walked back into the room, wearing nothing but a cheap motel towel and a partial grimace, That was when I heard the knock at the door: soft, hesitant but incessant. Immediately I looked around for a weapon. I know, I know. You’re thinking every good dick should have a piece. But I wasn’t no ordinary detective. In my experience, guns only pissed ETs off. So I didn’t carry one. Besides, I usually had the cricket who helped me think my way out of these situations. The cricket could’ve scanned whatever was outside the door for me in a second and told me, nine times out of ten, what they wanted.

I wasn’t going to be able to do this without the little bug.

Right then, though, I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I grabbed the lamp off the bed stand, cord and all, and walked softly to the door where the knocking continued. I peered out the little peephole but couldn’t see much in the dim light. Still how dangerous could they be? I finally asked myself. If they were going to hurt me they wouldn’t have bothered knocking. I left the security chain on and opened the door a crack. And braced myself against the door just in case they were going to try to kick it open.

“Open up,” said a husky but feminine voice. “It’s me, Mac.”

My first instinct was to slam the door in her face. I don’t know why I didn’t. Maybe it was because I was feeling lonely and sorry for myself. Maybe it was the booze and painkillers. Maybe it was the high-heeled shoe and gorgeous leg that showed through the crack in door. I don’t know. But I slid the chain off the door and she walked into the room.

“Kinda dark in here, Mac” she said casually.

She turned and in the light from the bathroom, saw the shape I was in. She gave a little gasp.

“They hurt you.”

“How did you find me?”

She ignored the question and stepped closer. Ran a soft hand down my bruised ribs. “They didn’t have to hurt you.”

“I think you owe me an explanation. I think you need to tell me what’s really going on…” I tried to sound angry and mean, but her hands were very distracting.

“I know, I know,” she said sadly, tenderly. “I need to make this up to you. I’ll tell you everything…in the morning.”

I’d like to tell you I had willpower, moral resolve and righteous indignation. I’d like to tell you I wasn’t an easy mark for a pair of legs and a set of red lips. That I had professional ethics and a strict code of conduct. That I was through being played.

I will tell you the lamp hit the floor about the same time as the towel.

* * *

The combination of drugs and booze and sex and beatings combined for, ultimately, the best night’s sleep I had in a long, long time. I slept like the proverbial dead and when I woke up some 14 hours later, I had a smile on my face. Sure, I was still bruised and battered, more than a little hung over, but somehow the night had turned things around for me. Somehow, I felt like I had done something right for a change.

I sat up slowly and pushed an empty bottle of wine away from me. This isn’t one of those cheesy romance stories, so I won’t bore you with sugary details of the previous night’s passion. Neither is it soft-core porn. So no explicit details. I will tell you this. Susie was special. Sometimes, once in a great while, sex becomes more than just animal pushing and thrusting. It transcends the act itself. I’ll stop short of using the “L” word, but I will tell you this. As I carefully swung out of bed that morning and pulled on my shorts, I was…

Happy.

Imagine that. I look back at that moment and try to recreate the feeling, but how do you construct something so ethereal and fleeting? You can’t define it. You can’t recreate it. You just are. Enjoy it while it lasts, friends, because the feeling is brief. Sometimes oh so very brief.

“Susie?”

I rubbed my eyes and looked around the dimly lit motel room. Small streaks of sunlight leaked in through the shades and I could see well enough that the small room was emoty and thrashed. I smiled again. Things had gotten a little physical last night… Lamps lay on the floor, clothes were scattered and draped about the room, pictures had fallen and a brassiere hung from the fire detector. I stood up, found my land legs and called out again.

“Susie?”

The door to the bathroom was open but I couldn’t hear any water running. No sounds at all. Maybe she had gone out for coffee. The idea that she had just used me and left never occurred to me. Somehow I just knew she’d never do that. Not now. Not ever. I got up and padded towards the bathroom intending to relieve myself and wait for breakfast…

I stopped dead in my tracks in the doorway refusing to believe what I saw. The entire bathroom was splattered in blood. Streaks of it arced across the mirror, pools of it puddled on the floor. Bloody hand prints covered the tile walls. A blood covered corkscrew lay on the vanity. And in the bathtub, draped with a bloody shower curtain…

I fell towards the toilet and vomited up everything that was inside of me. Every good feeling, every good memory I ever had was instantly and sickeningly repulsed from my being. I puked and puked and when I could puke no more…

I looked over at her.

She had been stabbed, it looked like, at least a hundred times. Where the skin wasn’t punctured and torn, it was shredded like some kind of meat you'd see in third world butcher shop. Her face, though, hadn’t been touched. Somehow that made it worse. That beautiful face stared up at the sky, the skin totally white, drained of its last drop of blood……

I vomited some more.

I stood up shakily and turned my back on her. My legs and hands were now covered in sticky blood from the floor. But it didn’t matter. There was no help for her. There was no help for me. I knew I was as doomed as she was. I wandered back into the motel room in a complete fog. I sat down on the bed and, I guess, I intended to sit there until they came for me. I just didn’t care anymore.

I don’t know how long I sat there staring at the dirty carpet and my bloody feet. Min utes, hours… I don’t know. After a while though a new feeling arose in me. It burned slow, but ti burned hot. Anger. Vengeance. I knew that I was doomed, but I could damn well hurt them somehow. I could damn well go down swinging.

Quickly I got dressed. Ignoring the blood I threw on my clothes, gathered my keys and wallet, and prepared to flee the scene.

Someone knocked on the door. It was a hard knock that could only come from one kind of person. A cop. Of course. My mind reeled with too many conflicting thoughts and surging emotions. Whatever else I was thinking. I knew this was because of me and I knew I was in trouble. Through all the trauma and chaos, however, I had enough present of mind to act.

There was no back way out of the place—not even a small bathroom window. So I did what I had to do. I opened the door a crack.

The man identified himself as a police officer.

“Can I see some identification please,” I stalled. When the guy flashed his badge, I shrugged and opened the door. He and his partner did what every cop always did when entering a room. They cleared it visually. Their eyes quickly scanned the entire room, checking for other entrances, exits, and closets… And while they were doing that I went out the front door—post haste.

I knew I wouldn’t have much of a head start and was just beginning to formulate the next part of my getaway plan when a Billy club entered it. My mind I mean. I came out the door, made a sharp turn to my lef,t and blam. The blow came out of nowhere. As I melted slowly to the ground, I foggily counted three more cops standing outside the building…

Of course it could’ve been triple vision.

* * *

I sat at their table and answered their questions.

“Why did I kill Susie Bigalow?”

“I didn’t.”

“Then why was her DNA all over her body?”

“We’d had intercourse.”

“But you didn’t kill her.”

“No.”

“Where were you while she was being killed?”

“I was sleeping.”

“You were sleeping while a woman was stabbed a hundred times in the next room and you didn’t see or hear anything?”

“I think I was drugged.”

A sad shake of the head.

“Why did you kill Susie Bigalow?”

Four stanzas of that song and dance and even I didn’t believe my story. I clammed up and clammed up good. I asked for my attorney. My attorney from North Hollywood. Wouldn’t say another word until he got there. Which would be a while because he didn’t fly.

Sure, they tried all their little police tricks, but in the end, they had no choice but to transfer me to lockup. I wasn’t crazy about the idea, but I figured the more they shuffled me around, the more likely someone would make a mistake, and I’d get my chance. Yeah, I planned to run—first chance I got. My case was so weak even Johnny Cochrane couldn’t get me off. I was headed straight to the long walk, the green mile, the dead man’s shuffle—or whatever rattlesnake pit version Arizona had.

Still, I wondered as the deputy helped lower my head under the back door of the cruiser. Why all the trouble? If they wanted me out of the way, why not made me disappear? For that matter, why beat me up then go to the considerable trouble of killing someone in my room? It didn’t add up. No matter how badly I counted it. What was the angle? I was nobody to them, about as much a threat as a flea. The girl had to be the key. She was on to something, had something on them, and was using me as a pawn against therm. Well, they’d skipped right over the pawn and taken the queen.

Leaving the pawn dead by default..

There were two police officers in the front of the car, a heavy-duty cage in between us and doors that locked from the outside and hands cuffed behind my back. Not much chance of escaping, so I sat back and enjoyed the ride. They were taking me from Sedona to another town that housed a central county jail complex some twenty-five miles away. The Sedona scenery crawled by but, knowing what I did about the place, I couldn’t really enjoy it. Thinking hurt, too, but all thoughts returned to last night and Susie Bigalow. So, numbed by pain and circumstance, I simply stared out the window at nothing at all—my mind a complete and utter blank. At least I still had a talent for something.

“Do you believe this shit?”

I looked up and saw that our progress down the hill out of Sedona was being held up by bicycles. A lot of bicycles. They filled the entire two lanes of traffic as the Lycra clad men and woman pumped furiously down the hill. Must’ve been some kind of race, since they were using the entire highway. But, if so, the cops apparently didn’t know anything about it. The driver braked and cursed.

“Give ‘em the siren,” the other cop suggested.

The driver gave a little whoop of the siren and turned on the flashers. The mass of bicycles began to part and peeled off on both sides of us. Still there were bicycles in front blocking our progress through the pack. I began to have a bad feeling about this. I think the police were beginning to feel the same way. They turned the sirens back on and the driver gunned the engine. If anything, though, the pack closed in tighter.

I looked back out the window and thought that maybe I was hallucinating. Maybe that smack in the head with the Billy club had shaken something loose. The bicyclists seemed to waver—the bright colors of their jerseys began to bleed, bend and pull together. Then—stretch apart…

“What the hell?” the policeman braked and swerved.

Suddenly the bicyclists had transformed. Instead of Lycra clad bike geeks, they were now brightly colored and scaled snakes. Giant, fanged-snakes with wings.

The worst kind.

They swarmed the police cruiser. Their fanged mouths open wide and their cruel reptilian eyes focused only on me. I think I might have screamed like a girl. For the record, the policemen did also. The driver gunned the engine and flying snakes flew off the hood of the car in various states of assembly. But more kept falling on us. Suddenly the driver’s door flew open and the officer disappeared in the huge maw of a snake. The police car seemed to pick up speed without the driver. We hit a guardrail without slowing. Then we were airborne—a feeling of weightlessness then—

The impact threw me some distance from the crumpled wreck. No blackout this time as I landed somehow on my ass. And with my hands cuffed behind my back, rolled freely through a prickly pear cactus patch. I came to a stop and brushed it off. Even though I was a human pincushion, I scrambled to my feet. I glanced back at the crumpled car already buried in writhing, ravenous, winged snakes. Apparently, they hadn’t noticed I’d been thrown from the wreckage and I didn’t intend to wait. I ran.

With hands cuffed, I couldn’t dodge out of the was of all the prickly vegetation that grew there. Thorny mesquite limbs, ocotillo and other spiny plants raked my face and body, but I didn’t slow down. I was a terrified bull in a knife shop and I only hoped when it was done there’d be something left for the meat-cutter.

I ran and stumbled over a rock. With no hands to protect my fall, I fell face first on the rough stone and donated yet more of my precious plasma to the rock coloration.

“Damn the red rocks.”

I got back up and jogged some more. I don’t know how long I ran when I finally came to the conclusion that nobody and nothing was following me. I slowed to a fast walk, then a slow one. Finally I just stood there and looked around. I was in a dry sandstone wash. The red stone terraced down into what would be mini waterfalls in the rainy season. As it was, I thought I heard the giggling, gurgling sound of running water. Then again, maybe my ears were still ringing from the car crash and subsequent cardio. I stood there and regained my breath and my composure. I picked a few of the larger cactus needles out of my person. My heart slowly stopped thumping in my chest and gradually I could hear again.

Then it came again. Voices on the wind. In the water. Whispers that appeared out of the desert like an audio hallucination. I started walking down the wash towards the faint sounds.

Soon a trickle of water did appear. It flowed softly but musically over the smooth rock. As I followed it downhill, the voices seemed to grow stronger. Now the gurgle really did transform into a giggle and damned if I couldn't hear the clink of crystal.

I strolled around a bend in the creek bed and suddenly it opened up into a little slickrock grotto—a virtual stone patio in front of a panoramic red cliff background. In the middle a table was set with tablecloth, china and crystal. Two well-dressed people sat in chairs, eating hors d'ouerves ad drinking champagne. The man was dressed in white slacks and a kind of white, puffy tunic. I recognized him, of course, from the book jacket. Alexander at last.

The woman had her back to me. She wore a backless white evening gown and her hair was up in a formal arrangement. Though Alexander made eye contact with me and smirked, she didn't turn. Didn't have to. I knew damn well who she was.

Susie Bigalow.

“Please,” the guy said, “Have a seat. You look thirsty.”

My handcuffs magically fell to the ground. At this point, I just accepted that fact. I was was beginning to accept a lot of things. Why not the champagne as well? Casually as I could with cactus needles sticking out of tender places, I seated myself at the table. As Alexander poured the glass of bubbly, I looked over at Susie.

“Hello, Mac.”

“I found the toad,” I said, cocking my head at Alexander. “I'll send you my bill.”

She gave me a small but heart-breaking smile. “Bravo, Mac.”

I took the glass and started to raise it, then stopped. “One thing I don't get. How are you even alive--”

But then it came to me. The way Doc had told me she was human all right. What else did I want to know. Yeah. I nodded to myself. “Clones.”

“Very good,” she said, with what could've been a slight blush.

So which one are you? Are you real or are you Memorex?”

“Does it matter,” she asked, but looked away.

“What matters is that we are finally all here,” said Alexander, raising his champagne glass. “To a successful case!”

I raised my champagne glass but didn't drink. Instead another question occurred to me. The one that had been bugging me for the last 24 hours.

“Why?” I asked. “Why go to all the trouble? I am nothing. Why even bother with me?”

“Think about it,' Alexander said. “And don't be so hard on yourself. What is the one thing that makes you special. What is the one thing that propelled you headfirst into this whole business?”

It must've been all the beatings I took because nothing came to me. If I'd proved anything the past couple of days, it was that I was average or below in mental and physical acuity. They'd proven that every step of the way. As far as I was concerned, there was nothing special about me.

Alexander frowned at my defeated expression. “Come, come, Julius. You possess, or used to possess one thing that kings would kill to have.”

The light bulb went off in my bruised noggin. “But you took that. Like the first fucking day.”

Alexander grinned like a proud parent of a performing ape. Gingerly he took my cell phone out of his pocket and carefully laid it on the table. “Do you have any idea how rare this particular alien is in the universe? You call it a cricket. But they're really more like hermit crabs. They move from shell to shell, many times found in everyday objects, but rarely do we know they're even there. Even rarer do they communicate with anyone outside their species.”

It all suddenly came clear to me. I grinned and lifted the champagne glass. “What you're saying is, he won't talk to you.”

Alexander shrugged. “As I suspected, it will only communicate with you.”

“So you need me.”

“And you, us.”

I took a long gulp of champagne. It was all clear now. They set me up for murder, so they could leverage me.

“Maybe I do. Maybe I don't. Maybe I'm the kind of pug that likes the joint. Maybe I'd rather walk the long walk than help someone like you.”

Alexander shrugged again. “That is your prerogative. We would, of course, destroy your cricket. What we can't used, we don't need. And for what? You think you're free? You think you're not already in a cage?”

My eyes began to water and blur. My head swam. I peered at Alexander and his sneering face seemed to waver and ripple. I got a glimpse of something very dangerous underneath.

“Let me tell you something about your proud and superior species. You, the few that actually know about us, presume that you somehow allowed us to share space on your planet. Not even remotely correct. You were almost extinct when we got here. The entire planet was an abomination. Tactical nuclear wars, industrial accidents, over population, global warming... We could have just let you go for a few more generations and it would've all been over for you. That's what we should've done. Instead, the more liberal among us, yes we have bleeding hearts too, convinced the committee to embark on this elaborate zoo project. We rolled back your little minds to the last time in your history that you were prosperous and... happy.”

I was hearing his words just fine, but my vision was dimming. My stomach was convulsing like epileptic in a strobe factory.

“What's the matter? Feeling a little disoriented?”

A little. I rubbed my fists in my eyes while a red hot poker jabbed into my ears. The little shit had drugged me and it was apparently ripping apart my entire body.

“Don't worry, the feeling passes. Since, I presume you'll be working for us, it's important you see how the world really is. It's important you have no illusions whatsoever.”

Suddenly the pain abruptly stopped. My eyes flew open almost on their own. I stared at what lay before me.

Alexander was still sitting there at the table, but now he was an eight foot tall orange scaly creature with sinister yellow eyes. Despite the freakishness of his alien appearance, I could tell he was smiling at me. Behind him, the landscape was transformed. A vast wasteland stretched out endlessly behind him. A cracked and parched desert dotted by wreckage of a long dead civilization. Here and there I could make out alien vehicles crawling across the scene of destruction. Purple lightning flashed across a yellow sky. I looked over at Susie, who was still human, and saw that she was softly crying.

You should've finished my book,” Alexander the Toad grinned. “It concludes by saying if everything is an illusion, then happiness is a choice.”

I guess all the cliche's could describe what I felt then. My mind reeled. My reality snapped. My world was turned upside down. And yet... And yet, I can't say that I was shocked. I can't say that I felt any different than a man who'd been finally handed proof that his old lady was cheating on him. I was mad, sure. I was sad, absolutely. But there was also some sense of relief that now I knew the worst.

The toad hiccuped. I guess he was laughing at me. “So. What's it going to be, Julie?”

I picked up the champagne glass and downed the rest of it. “Yeah, you got me, but I got one condition.”

The toad grinned. “

You want the girl.”

“Hell no. I want the illusion.”

“Most people do,” Alexander said. “The drug will wear off in a few hours. The world will then appear as it did before. We'll be in touch.”

Our business seemed to be concluded. I stood up and pocketed my cell phone. I walked away into a strange, ruined world I no longer knew. Knowing nothing about my destination, knowing nothing about the world.

And knowing more than I ever wanted to know.

-30-