"Well, if you see her?" Evelyn said. "Tell her to get in touch with me right away?"
As she moved off, Zaleski reappeared, and Evelyn stopped him.
"Here comes Mr. Personality again," Jack said. "What's he do for a living—euthanize stray dogs and cats?"
Lew said. "He used to work for one of the Baby Bells, but now he runs a hardware store with his brother…and I understand he's got a contract from a major publisher to write a UFO book."
The waitress brought the check. Lew grabbed it. As he signed it and charged it to his room, Jack watched Zaleski.
The guy was crass, abrasive, dogmatic, obviously frustrated, and seemed to have a short fuse. He'd implied that he expected vindication from Melanie's Grand Unification Theory, but what if he'd learned the theory would counter his "mainstream ufology?" Something like that could threaten not only his reputation and standing in the UFO community, but his book contract as well. He seemed hot-headed and unstable enough to do something rash.
Finally Zaleski finished with Evelyn and returned to the booth.
"Yes sir," he said, slapping his belly as he slid behind the table. "Nothing like a healthy shit to get the day off to a good start." He craned his neck and looked around the restaurant. "You've heard about the missing Olive?"
"Evelyn just told us," Lew said. He rose from the seat. "I think I'll wander around and see if I can find her. See you later," he said to Jack, then walked off.
"Come on outside," Zaleski said. "I need a smoke."
Jack debated the offer. He had a bad feeling about Olive. Had she joined Melanie on the missing persons list? But it was too early yet to call her missing.
He checked his watch—still too early to head over to Gia's too. He hungered to be alone with her, and the clock was limping toward eleven.
"All right," Jack said. "As long as you sit downwind."
3
Outside they found a concrete planter to the left of the front entrance and settled on its rim. Even in the mid-morning sun, the air still held a chill. Some of the hotel workers lounged around them, taking a tobacco break.
"Here we are," Zaleski said, gesturing to his fellow smokers as he lit up. "The latest persecuted minority."
Jack made the same gesture toward the clouds of smoke wafting through the air, and at the confetti of filtered butts on the surrounding pavement and in the dirt around the flowers in the planter.
"Gosh-a-rootie, I can't imagine why."
Zaleski smiled thinly and sucked greedily on his Camel.
"You think Olive might be with Melanie?" Jack said, watching him carefully.
Zaleski made a sour face. "I doubt it. Melanie couldn't stand that nut."
"Really? That's not the impression I got."
"Yeah?" he said, eyes narrowing. "When did you get this impression?"
Jack had no idea what Zaleski knew, so he figured the best course would be to play this straight.
"Olive stopped by my room yesterday and—"
"Did she make you hold her silver cross?" Zaleski said with a smirk.
Jack nodded. "And she asked me the same thing you did: What else did Melanie say when she contacted me? She gave the impression they were close friends."
"Melanie's not into religion, and if you ain't got religion, you can't be close friends with Olive. I mean, she's got no fucking sense of humor, and a real set of hot buttons. I get such a boost out of pissing her off. You should see her face when I say something like, 'Jesus paid for our sins, so let's get our money's worth.' Goes so purple she looks like Goofy Grape. Or when I tell her the pillars of cloud and fire that led the Israelites through the desert weren't from God, that they were UFO-generated instead—which they very likely were—she almost goes postal on me." He laughed. "But what can you expect from someone who blames Satan for everything that goes wrong in the world?"
When you really should be blaming the gray aliens, right? Jack thought.
"It's like her brain's gone five hundred years back in time," Zaleski said, shaking his head. "You should hear her go on about computers—666 chips and other eschatological bullshit. Thinks they're tools of the Devil."
He grimaced as a guy in an "Area 51" cap and a blue jumpsuit studded with UFO badges strolled by. The front was open to reveal his T-shirt. It read: Abduct me now! I wanna go home!
"Asshole," Zaleski said under his breath. "Why the fuck did Roma invite jerks like him into SESOUP?
Can't figure it. They make me crazy. Trend-humping dilettantes. UFO fans—fans, can you believe it? This is serious shit and they make a fucking hobby out of it." He growled. "Guess I can't blame them. They've got the government, Madison Avenue, and Hollywood messing with their heads."
"Hollywood?"
"Christ, yes. Those bastards were bought off a long time ago. Spielberg's the worst. I wonder what MJ-12 paid him to do Close Encounters of the Third Kind and ET. Those two films started the whole aliens-are-cute, aliens-are-our-friends bullshit. Men in Black was another, probably the most blatant example, and unquestionably financed by MJ-12 to make the MIBs look ridiculous. But that's their tactic: Take a fucking serious problem and defang it by making a joke out of it." He ground out his cigarette. "And where Hollywood leaves off, Madison Avenue takes up."
"The advertising industry's in on it too, huh?"
"From Day One. Just watch the fucking tube for an hour and you'll see flying saucers delivering Maytags or families of gray aliens driving around in Buicks. None of that's accidental. They've trivialized the grays. When the aliens finally reveal themselves, they'll be welcomed with open arms and given the keys to the whole fucking planet."
Jack spotted a pair of orthodox rabbis walking by. "Look," he said, shrinking back. "Men in black."
"Oh, you're a comedian," Zaleski said sourly, but Jack sensed him battling a smile. "You're no Jan Murray of course, but you're a real fucking comedian."
"Sorry," Jack said, not sorry at all. "Couldn't resist." And then he remembered the two men in the black sedan on the Castelemans' street last night. He hadn't got a good look at them, but they'd appeared to be dressed in black.
"Seriously, though," Jack said. "Have you ever actually seen one of these men in black?"
"No, and I'd like to keep it that way, thank you very much. They're supposed to be mean SOBs."
"What do they look like?"
"Like men in black suits, ties, and hats, with white shirts, and black sunglasses. They wear their sunglasses all the time."
"Even at night?"
"Word is they're human-alien hybrids, supposedly with very pale skin, and eyes that are very sensitive to light. Usually tool around in black sedans…with the headlights off."
Jack felt a prickle at the base of his spine. Zaleski was describing last night's car and its passengers to a T. And what about that black sedan out in Monroe? He didn't believe for a moment in human-alien hybrids, but he couldn't discount the very real possibility that he was being watched…and followed. How else would they cross paths in Monroe and Elmhurst? No one but Oscar Schaffer knew about the Queens job. Could Schaffer be involved in—?
Wait. Stop. I'm beginning to think like a SESOUPer.
But the idea that someone—anyone—was dogging him changed the prickle in his back to a crawly sensation in his gut. Who? And why?
"You all right?" Zaleski said.
"Yeah, why?"
"You looked like you went away for a while."
"Just thinking."
"Thinking's good." He rose and flipped his cigarette toward the curb. "And right now I'm thinking I'm freezing my ass off out here. Let's go inside. I think I'll check out Miles's panel. Wanna come along?"