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She rose and went behind the property counter. "What do you need?"
"A tall blonde, a Tesstarossa, six figures in the bank, and a new face. "
She grinned playfully. "No got. What else?"
He sighed elaborately. "Effects of two stiffs named Hubley and John Doe.
The latter's an alien, gunshot, brought in in a black vinyl raincoat. I
doubt you've got more than one of those. "
She shook her head. "Only the one is right. Wait here."
A few minutes later she was back with the requested materials. Young, yeah,
but efficient. College, he thought,
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and dismissed the thought irritably. Everybody had different abilities,
and his weren't measurable by quarter-end tests and weekly quizzes.
The pair of regulation-issue storage packets she unceremoniously dumped
on the counter were both filled. Sykes went through the effects of the
dead alien while Francisco studied Hubley's. Ortiz watched for a while,
then returned to her homework. She'd seen it all a hundred times before.
Francisco paused with a small foil packet, held it up to the light before
confessing his confusion to his partner, 'What is this?"
Sykes looked over. "A rubber." When Francisco failed to react he added,
"You know. A condom. Coney Island whitefish?" The Newcomer detective
still looked dubious. "Me"uman males, put them on their, uh, penises to
protect against having babies. "
It was clear that his new buddy was having a tough time with something
that was clear as crystal to Sykes. He glanced back at Ortiz.
"You need this?" he asked her, indicating the packet.
She looked up from her books. "Nope. Anything you guys don't use gets
shoved back in storage."
Sykes nodded, turned to Francisco with his hand outstretched. The alien
obediently passed over the foil packet. Ripping it open, Sykes unrolled
the contents and dangled the condom before the Newcomer's curious gaze.
"Get the picture now? Or should we stop by a bookstore on the way out and
buy you a manual?"
Francisco frowned at the pale membrane. "And that fits?"
It wasn't exactly the response Sykes expected. "Well, yeah. It's rubber.
It stretches."
"And still it fits?"
The detective stared hard at his partner for a long moment, but
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Francisco's expression was utterly serious. Finally he tossed the condom
and empty packet back on the counter and continued probing the dead
Newcomer's effects. Francisco returned to his examination of Hubley's
pile. The subject of birth control was not mentioned again.
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Sykes started in on Raincoat's clothes. The heavy workboots the alien had
been wearing came last and he handled them gingerly. They were still
coated on the sides and sole with some thick, viscous black material. He
took a tentative sniff of the stuff and was gratified it wasn't what it
might have been. Sticky, but not tar or asphalt. Either of those would
have dried to rock hardness by now from their time in storage.
The stuff was still malleable enough to come off on your fingers, though,
as Sykes quickly discovered. Looking disgusted, he hunted for something
to wipe his hand. Francisco looked over.
"Problerns?"
"There's some kind of goo all over these boots." He held out his sticky
fingers for examination. "What is this stuff?"
Francisco studied his partner's outstretched hand. "If I am not mistaken,
it is a resin."
Sykes stopped hunting for a loose rag or towel and looked up in surprise.
"Oh. A resin. Well sure, I mean, that's obvious, isn't it?"
Francisco wasn't finished. "Newcomers working with methane at oil
refineries must paint it on their boots to protect against sparks that
could set off an explosion."
The detective's jaw fell slightly. "How the hell do you know that?"
As it turned out, there was a perfectly good reason. Francisco was
knowledgeable, if no genius.
"A large number of my people were hired by refineries in the Los
Angeles-Long Beach area because the methane fumes that are produced as
a byproduct of certain refining processes are not harmful to us. Our
lungs can tolerate a number of different gases which humans would find
harmful and sometimes even lethal. This fact is widely known." Sykes
bridled only slightly at the implied criticism. "My spouse's brother is
one such worker." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]