This time when I turned and started towards the house, they fell in line, like baby ducks behind their mother. Having established my authority in such an over-the-top manner, I would be expected to remain in character. I relished the thought.
As the landlord unlocked the door, he ventured to ask, “The lady isn’t planning on breaking her lease, is she?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I snapped. “When does her lease expire?”
“Two more months. It was a six month lease.”
“I don’t think there’ll be a problem, then. She’s talking about moving to Baltimore in late August or early September.”
After that, he was silent. Human psychology being what it is, he followed Martin from room to room to make certain that he didn’t steal anything. After all, it’s always the underlings who have sticky fingers—never the boss.
While Martin led him as far away as possible, I quickly rummaged through desk drawers and closets. I looked under the refrigerator and behind the sofa. I thudded down the hallway. “Let’s go. I’ve seen enough to fix up the estimate.”
He nodded.
As we were preparing to go out the door, the landlord asked, “Uh, do you have a card? We ought to leave something so that she’ll know you’ve been here.”
I snorted again. “I don’t carry cards because I don’t have pockets. People don’t usually have trouble remembering me—I don’t look like any other mover in town. Thanks for letting us in. Tell Miss Hinds we’ll be in touch.”
With that, I stalked back out into the grass, Martin hurrying to catch up. As he lifted me into the car, he gave me a very strange look indeed, part anger, part confusion.
As we pulled away from the curb, he started in on me, “Victor, don’t you ever pull a setup out from under me that way again! If I had—”
“Martin, shut up,” I said quietly.
He shut up.
“What would you have done when he asked you for a business card? Given him some lame excuse about having given out your last one an hour ago? How did you expect to explain me? As your accountant? Hardly. A mover? Even worse. Clearly I have more brains than muscle—”
“That’s not saying much,” Martin muttered under his breath as he negotiated a turn.
“—So my only possible role would be as the boss.”
“But what if he had recognized you?”
“In a manner of speaking, I’m sure he did.”
“What?”
“He’s probably seen my picture in the paper from time to time, but it’s a truism that all aliens look alike. He probably just assumed that I’m a different one from the one he’s seen in the paper. You were safe because they never run your picture. Who wants to see a picture of a human when they can have a picture of an alien, instead?”
Martin grumbled and growled, snarled and snorted. “All right, all right, but warn me before you do that again, OK?”
“I didn’t know until I saw him that he was the business card type. After that, it was just a question of improvising.”
He sighed. “Victor, you’ll be the death of me.”
“Don’t die yet. You have to take me by the dump first.”
“So what did you discover while I was leading him on a wild goose chase through the house?”
“Nothing.”
“What!”
“Believe it. Nothing. No receipts in the drawers, no unpaid bills on the kitchen counter. Nothing. The furniture was rented, just like the house. She took one suitcase full of essentials and left everything else behind. No question about it, the bird has flown the coop.”
“Bird’s the other one—his wife,” Martin pointed out.
I ignored him. “The conclusion is obvious. Elaine, if that’s really her name, which I am beginning to doubt, is a pro.”
“Pro?”
“A beautiful woman with no visible means of support comes out of nowhere, gloms on to a lonely rich man, gets friendly, gets the goods, gets out of town.”
Martin nodded as he saw my point. “And at this very moment, somewhere in Palm Springs, a beautiful blonde in a silver Ferrari is renting a place to live while she seeks out another victim.”
“Precisely.”
He grimaced. “That is one cold woman.” He glanced over at me. “Any ideas as to where to go from here?”
“We could go through her trash on the off chance that there might be something useful in there.”
“Ugh!” he grunted. “I hate going through peoples’ trash.”
“I volunteer.”
“You would,” Martin growled, as he turned the car around.
Needless to say, there was nothing useful in the trash, either. The can was as empty as the house. Clearly, she had left quickly, but not in haste; all according to a predetermined plan. Elaine Hinds was nothing if not thorough. I was beginning to doubt that the duplicate phone bills would give us anything we could use. She was not the type to leave us access to a telling long distance charge. I grudgingly raised my estimation of her another notch.
While we were out and about, Martin swung by the city dump and dropped me off, saying he had an errand to run. Actually, I suspect that he simply doesn’t want to be seen in the presence of an extraterrestrial who licks out the insides of discarded cans of sauerkraut.
He was back in half an hour, as promised, but as I approached the door to the car he began shaking his head. “Oh, no, you don’t. You’re greasy, smelly, and sticky from head to toe. You’re riding home in the trunk. Then I’m going to rinse you off with a hose before you go inside. You smell awful!”
“Probably the oranges,” I mused aloud. “A whole crate of moldy oranges. Oh, and the fish heads! That was the best part—”
Martin turned a pasty color. “Uh, Victor, could we change the topic? I’m not really all that interested in what you ate out there, you know.”
“But you tell me about what you eat—for that matter, I even watch you eat.”
“That’s different,” he grumbled, as he unlocked the trunk. “I eat real food, not leftovers.”
“Just think of me as part of the recycling effort,” I told him.
“I’d rather not,” he replied, as he lifted me into the trunk, wearing the rubber gloves that he kept in the car. “To me, being green means helping the environment, not trying to keep from throwing up.”
Sure enough, he sprayed me down with the hose when we got home. Some would see a shower in the yard as insulting—not me. Happily, I turned to and fro, making sure that all parts of my skin got wet. Water is one of the most sensuous pleasures available anywhere in the known Universe, and I made the most of it. Aside from the purely physical pleasure, it evoked fond memories of rainstorms back on my home world.
Since we had been out of the office all afternoon, Martin called and tapped in the code that caused the recording machine to regurgitate its accumulation of messages. Grombaugh had called, wanting to know if we had made any progress tracking down Elaine.
Martin turned to me after hanging up the phone. He looked troubled. “Victor, I’m not sure we’re going to be able to find Elaine in time to save Grombaugh.” He slumped into a chair. “I absolutely hate losing, but…” He shook his head in resignation.