Journal of a UFO Investigator (15 page)

“Corky's got a needle there,” said Pockface. “He's gonna see how close to your eyeball he can get that needle,” said Pockface. “Without touching it. He's gonna try
real
hard not to touch it. You got to help him not touch it.”

“No,” I said faintly. “No.”

I tried to pull my head back. It was wedged firmly against Corky's shoulder. I jerked myself slightly from side to side. The metallic glint followed, only the tiniest distance from the surface of my pupil.

I began to scream. First a series of short loud yelps, then one protracted howl of grief and terror—for the pain, and for the pain that was to come, and the blindness that would follow. For the space of I don't know how many seconds, I felt myself to be nothing but that one extended howl.

“That was
real
good, Al,” said Pockface. “Good and loud and all. Only trouble is, there's nobody can hear you. So you might want to do your lungs a favor, spare them all the hollering. Know what I mean?”

“I wouldn't jerk around like that either,” said Corky. “All you're gonna do is get your eyeball stuck on my needle. You just stay
real
still.
That's
it. You're a good boy, Al. I got
real
close that time.”

“What do you want from me?” I said. It was almost a whisper; I couldn't speak any louder. I didn't dare take any but the most shallow breaths.

“Just want to talk to you,” said Pockface.

“Shit,” Snaggletooth said. “What have we got to talk to
him
about?”

“You shut up!” Pockface yelled at him. “Got
plenty
to talk to you about, Al. Drugs, f'instance. What d'ya think about drugs?”

“Drugs?”

“Drugs. Like heroin. Like mary-
gee
-wanna. Haven't you ever heard of drugs? Don't you read the goddamn newspapers?”

Corky released my eyelid. I began to breathe again. I could not stop blinking.

“I think—” I really hadn't thought anything, until that moment, about either heroin or marijuana. People in the slums smoked them, or injected them, or whatever. They had nothing to do with me. “I think drugs are a terrible problem in this country,” I said.

“That's right. And terrible problems call for drastic measures. Don't they?”

“Well, I don't know just what we ought to do about—”

My right eyelid was pulled up. Again I glimpsed the needle's shine. I moaned softly.

“
Don't
they call for drastic measures?”

I felt the point of the needle touch the corner of my eye, where the inside of the lid met the tenderness of the eyeball. I cried out. I tried desperately to pull myself back. “
Ooh
,” said Corky. “Got a little close there, didn't I?”

“
Don't
they, Al?”

“Yes,” I wailed. “They call for drastic measures.”

“And how you think drugs get into this country, Al?”

“Get in?”

“They all come in from foreign countries. You knew that.”

“I didn't know,” I said.

“Sure you did, Al.”

He began pacing in front of me as he spoke. “What happens is this. The Mexicans smuggle heroin across the border, into Texas, say, or New Mexico. Then your sister, or whatever the hell she is, gets it from them. Then she puts it into a suitcase, puts the suitcase onto a plane, and somehow manages not to get on the plane herself. Then you pick the suitcase up in Miami, and you got a million dollars in heroin in your hands. All ready to sell to the dealers, up and down the East Coast.”

“
No
,” I said.

“Oh,
yes
, Al. You know it, good as I do. In a minute we're gonna open this suitcase and find the heroin. And then you know what's gonna happen to you?”

“No, no,
no-o-o
.”

“I keep telling you,
yes
,
yes
,
ye-s-s
. We're gonna find that heroin. And then we got the rest of your life planned for you. Don't care how many Jew lawyers you got for brothers-in-law, you ain't
never
getting out. We got you now, for good.”

“Lookit him sweat,” said Snaggletooth.

“There's no heroin in that suitcase,” I said.

But deep down I knew different. At age fifteen, Rochelle was already an experienced housebreaker. Julian had told me that. Why shouldn't she have tried out drug dealing too?

“It's locked,” Pockface said. “Let's have that screwdriver.”

I saw his blurred form bend over the suitcase. I heard the latches snap open. Bitterness burned deep in my stomach.
Fifteen years old, and Lord knows how many boys she's seduced, how many homes she's robbed. How many trusting old sick ladies she's deceived—

“
What'd
I tell you?” Pockface cried.

“Right there in the lining! There's the stash. You can feel it, sewed into the lining!”

“Oldest goddamn trick in the book,” said Snaggletooth. “Don't know why they still think they can get away with it.”

“Corky, you got your razor? Gimme your razor.”

The lining ripped noisily, slashed open. Pockface reached in his hand.

“
Shit!
” he said. “It's a goddamn
book
!”

THE THREE MEN CLUSTERED AROUND WHATEVER IT WAS POCKFACE
had in his hands. I glimpsed a slender blue-covered volume, so much like Julian's copy of
The Book of the Damned
that for a moment I imagined they might be the same. I struggled to stand up, to go over and look at it with them. I'd forgotten I was tied into the chair.

“A
book
?” said Corky.

“ ‘The Case for the UFO
,
'”
Snaggletooth read aloud, in a tone of disgust. “ ‘By M. K. Jessup.' ”

“Look inside it,” said Corky. “Maybe she hollowed it out. You know, cut the pages out, put the stash inside.”

Pockface flipped through the pages. “Nah,” he said, “it's all there. Somebody scribbled over it, is all.
And
doodled. Cripes, what weird pictures!”

“What'd she want to sew that into the lining for?” said Corky.

“Don't know,” said Pockface, setting the book on the desk. “We'll go through it later, figure that out. Let's see what else is in this goddamn suitcase.”

A pile of what seemed to be clothes began to accumulate on the floor. “Hey, hey, hey!” said Snaggletooth. “Take a look at this!”

“Wow!” said Pockface. He turned to me. “This sister of yours is one hot chickee, Al! Got
two boxes
of Trojans in her suitcase.”

“Gonna have her a wild weekend,” said Snaggletooth.

“And get a load of these underpants!” said Pockface. He held up against his face something that looked like a vivid red cloth. Then a black one. “All perfumed too.” I could see his large body swaying as he began to chant, “All-the-
girls
-in-France, woo-woo-
woo
-woo-
woo
-woo-
woo . . .
”

“Find any heroin yet?” I said.

“
You shut up!
” he yelled. He turned back to the suitcase and again began rooting through it. The pile on the floor grew larger. “Well, hey, hey,
hey
. What do you know? What
do
you know?”

“What?” said Snaggletooth.

“Envelope. Got all her receipts in it, looks like. Hey, now
this
is something! For you, Corky. Seems like this lady rented herself a car in Albuquerque. August the nineteenth. 'Bout three weeks ago.”

“Yeah?” said Corky. “What kind of car?”

“A 1963 Plymouth Valiant. So the little piece of paper says.”

Corky whistled. “That's it all right.”

“And what the hell's this?” said Snaggletooth. “A motel receipt. Monday, September ninth.
Yesterday
. At the Sunset Motel. Roswell, New Mexico.”

There were other receipts, for other dates, all of them in Roswell, New Mexico. The three men tore at the slips of paper. They fought one another to see them. For a moment I thought they'd forgotten about me.

Then Pockface moved toward me.

“
Shit
,” he said.

I saw the huge shape loom over me. I felt Corky's arm tighten around my neck. His finger forced my left eye wide open. I wanted to scream. I bit my lip.

“Awright, Shapiro,” Pockface said. “You start talking, and you start talking fast. What was this cunt up to in Roswell?”

“I don't know,” I said.

“
You lying little kike!
What was she doing in Roswell?”

“I tell you I don't
know
.”

Pockface took a breath, lowered his voice. “Listen to me, Danny. I got the impression you don't see too good, am I right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “You're right.”

“You'll see a hell of a lot worse with a needle sticking into your eyeball.”

“
Don't!
” I screamed. “For God's sake, please don't! I swear to God I'll tell you everything I know. But I don't know anything. I don't know what she was doing in Roswell. I never even
heard
of Roswell. I swear to God I haven't.”

“Never heard of Roswell, New Mexico?”

“
No!
”

“Never heard of a disk that came down, crashed?”

“No, no!”

“Never heard of any little men found dead inside it? Or maybe alive, just
almost
dead?”

“No-o-o!”

“I count to ten,” said Corky. “Then in goes the needle.”

“
You've got it all wrong!
” I shrieked. “The crash was at
Maury Island
. That's in Puget Sound.
Not
New Mexico.
Never
New Mexico. It was Harold Dahl who saw it. Only he didn't see it, because it didn't
happen
.
Nothing
happened. It was all a
hoax
. You understand? A
hoax
.”

I babbled on and on, at the top of my voice, about Harold Dahl and Maury Island and its all being a hoax. I was obsessed with the idea they were too stupid to know what the word
hoax
meant. And because they didn't know what a hoax was, they were going to stick a needle into my eye.

Finally I ran out of breath. Corky didn't start counting to ten. The others were silent too.

Snaggletooth said, “Maury Island,
shit
.”

Corky's hand didn't move from my eye. But his muscles relaxed, and I found I was able to blink. He seemed to be trying to keep himself from laughing.

Snaggletooth said, “Harold Dahl,
shit
.” And snickered.

“Come
on
,” said Corky. “We gonna waste the whole night here, or what? This kid doesn't know shit about Roswell. He doesn't know shit about
shit
.”

“Danny,” said Pockface mildly, “you don't know shit about shit, do you?”

“No,” I said. “I guess I don't.”

They were all laughing now.

“All you know is what Harold Dahl says, what Jack Shit says, what this other fella says. Isn't that right?”

I said nothing. My face blazed with shame and relief.

“You don't even know this Perlmann bitch, do you?”

I shook my head no.

“Just wanted to steal the suitcase, right?”

I nodded.

“Probably figured it was a girl's suitcase, right? From the color. Figured, a suitcase like that, there had to be girls' underwear in there. So you could try it on. That's what you like to do, try on girls' underwear. Am I right?”

I sat motionless, my eyes shut, my face flaming.

“Knew it the minute I laid eyes on him,” said Pockface.

“Lookit him sweat,” said Snaggletooth.

“Go ahead, Corky,” said Pockface. “Show him the picture. Let our little friend know what he's getting himself into.”

“Danny,” said Corky, moving around to stand in front of me. “I want to show you a little something. Scenic photograph from Roswell, New Mexico. Think it might interest you.”

He held the photo right in front of my eyes for just a second. Then he pulled it away. I had the impression of a metallic vehicle like a flying saucer resting on the ground, with a humanlike creature lying inside it, in some contorted posture, presumably dead. Corky held the picture about three feet from me. Without my glasses it was a blur. The wire cut into my wrists as I strained against the chair, trying to get a little closer, see the photo a little better.

“Hell,” said Pockface. “Let's give him his glasses.”

Snaggletooth picked them up from the floor and put them on my face. By some miracle they hadn't shattered. There was a long vertical crack in the right lens, from the top almost to the bottom. But the frame seemed to be holding it together.

I saw how I'd misread the photo. Yes, there was a vehicle; yes, it was resting on the ground. But it was an ordinary automobile. And there was a humanlike being inside, in the driver's seat, visible through the windshield, and yes, this humanlike being was plainly dead. He had died badly, his body twisted, his eyes practically bursting out of his skull with terror. But he was an ordinary human being.

He was Tom Dimitrios.

I blinked several times. I forced myself not to turn away.

“Looks to be a fella about your age, doesn't he?” said Pockface. “Only looks like maybe he could see without his glasses.”