O'CASEY'S OTHER VISITORS

Tom Kernan was still in bed on that sunny Saturday morning in July, wrapped in a soft sheet and dreading a bleak breakfast of poached eggs and a fistful of Rice Krispies with 2%. He didn’t hear anything that sounded like a break-in, but when he opened crusted eyes, a big grey guy in a black wetsuit was standing in the doorway.

“You Mephistopheles come for my soul?” he asked.

“No, I’m Maboon from Roswell.”

“You ever live on the moon?”

“Nope, just used the facilities there.”

Tom thought of the six-pack of Bud Lite on the kitchen counter. The specter might be the DTs, or it might be for real. The guy took three steps towards the bed. “It’s one big litter box,” he said. “I wrote my name in the dust. It’ll give the guys who look through telescopes something to ponder.”

His fore-finger didn’t look fickle of fated. “Well,” Kernan said, “help yourself to the eats in the kitchen and use the bathroom. I’m not ready to get up yet.” If Maboon was playing a demon’s game, he wasn’t going to participate. Except to pray.

“I saw your ad in the phone book, Thomas Kernan. You find people for a living and I’m looking for a guy name Grigsby —a galactic gambler who’s wanted on five planets for murder.”

A better man would have chalked up the encounter to demon rum, but Kernan wanted to see where a guy in a skin-tight get-up with no visible pockets kept his wallet. “It’ll cost you.”

“How much?”

“Two hundred dollars a day plus expenses.”

Maboon used his fingers to add. “Two, four, six … that’s fourteen hundred dollars a week.”

He had the cultural currency thing down pat. “You got that kind of money?”

He turned his back to Kernen, and when he faced him again, he had a wad of bills in his hand that he put on the dresser. “Yeah.”

Son-of-a-gun, the guy was golden. Kernan wiggled out of his covers, went to the dresser and counted the money. “What’ll you do when you catch this guy?”

“Take him back to Atorma, dead or alive.”

“So, you’re a cop?” Kernan headed to the bathroom for a quick shower. The guy followed him to the door.

“I’m Maboon … The Universal Bounty Seeker!”

“Okay, Universal BS, how long you been after Grigsby?”

“Four-thousand revolutions around your star. This time …”

“And the last time?” Kernan worked up a head full of lather, then did a quick rinse. “And the last time?” he asked again. Lots of guys talked tough, but weren’t. He dried off and slipped on his robe. Maboon was counting his fingers.

“You call it Saturn. We call it Seven-S. Seventy years.”

He stepped aside as Kernan motioned for him to back up with finger-wave. For this client, he donned yesterday’s slacks and a Hawaiian print shirt. “How’d he give you the slip?”

“I don’t wear dresses.”

Laughing would have been unprofessional. It was either an idiomatic miscommunication, or the guy didn’t want to say. “I have to get all the facts. If you’ve been chasing this bad-ass around the galaxy, you have to know his M.O. Modus operandi.” Maboon got that ‘it doesn’t compute’ look on his face again. “Ahh …how he operates.”

“He’s not a doctor.”

Kernen could see a week of frustration ahead, but he needed the cash. “Tell me about Grigsby. Age, height, weight. Where you saw him last.” He headed to the kitchen for coffee, but there was a bottle of bourbon on the counter next to the beer calling his name.

Maboon smiled. “You want data.”

“I guess so.”

He turned around again, and this time produced a leather-bound notebook that he put on the counter. “All the data you need is recorded in here.”

Kernan skimmed through it, just to make sure it was in English. “Okay, where are you staying?”

“Here, of course. You have a sofa.”

“No can do, pal. I’ve also got a dame who likes to cheat on her ol’ man and comes here once a week. How’d you get here, anyway?”

“Checker Taxi.”

“Where’s your rocket ship?” He wanted to trust the tall gray guy, but verification was always the better part of survival.

“Orbiting. I landed in a yellow pod that looks like a taxi. It’s in the alley,” Maboon said.

Kernan looked out the kitchen window and saw a yellow car with a black and white checkered banner on the side parked next to the dipsy-dumpster. He peeled off a hundred bucks from the load of bills Maboon forked over.

“The landlady has a vacant room down the hall. She’ll take the hundred for the week.” She doesn’t mind renting to weirdos, either, he wanted to say, but pictured himself a pot yelling at kettle. “Wait here. I’ll get the key.”

***

In the hallway, he checked the serial numbers on the bills. Non-sequential. If Maboon was passing inter-stellar counterfeit green, he had great merchandise. Kernan leaned against the wall. Lawd, mornings were awful after a night at O’Casey’s. Why did he go there again? That’s right. Wine, women and song. Wine that always turned into bourbon. Women who always preferred to go home alone. And songs that always turned into honky-tonk laments about bad booze and wicked women.

But the radio in the back of his head was replaying a newscast that had come over O’Casey’s squawk-box right after Roswell High’s baseball team played Albuquerque. There’d been a plane crash. No, the Army said it was a weather balloon that had deflated and landed in a field. Bill Brazel found it. Other people said it was a space craft. That’s when he and “Fuzzy” Franklin got in Fuzzy’s pick-up, drove north to have a look-see and ran into a road-block manned by two guys in camouflage uniforms. One of them wanted to know their business.

“We want to see the little green men,” Fuzzy told them.

“Be happy with your pink elephants. Now turn this vehicle around and go home,” one of Army guys said.

“You ought not to be riding around the desert at night all liquored up,” the other Army guy said to Kernan. “You could get abducted. Or worse.”

“They’ve got guns, Fuzzy. We better turn around.” Kernan had said, and remembered being the more sober of the two of them that night. He got out of the cab, walked around the back to the driver’s side, and told Fuzzy to move over. “I’ll drive.”

Fuzzy rolled himself over to the passenger side, and Kernan climbed in. He handed one of the Army guys his business card. “If you see any little green men, you give them my card and tell ‘em Tom Kernan wants to meet ‘em. I’ll make ‘em rich and famous.”

Maybe they gave his card to Maboon.

He walked downstairs and pounded on Mrs. Craig’s door. The ol’ bat was almost deaf. “What the blazes do you want, Mr. Kernan? I already called the plumber and he said your drain’s fine. You need to stop leaving your washcloth in the bottom of the shower.”

“I got a fella that needs a room.” He dangled a Franklin in front of her face. “How about it? The one down the hall from me is empty. I can vouch for him.”

“Is he clean?’

“As a whistle. Guaranteed. Came over from Albuquerque to see Brazel’s ranch. He’s a rocket scientist.”

She narrowed her opaque eyes. “What would a rocket scientist have to do with the likes of you, I’d like to know?”

“We’re business associates. He knows I’m a private investigator, and he’s got some investigatin’ to do.” He didn’t want to give her another hundred, but it was an affaire d’honneur at that point. He peeled off another bill and rubbed them together in front of her face.

She grabbed the money, closed the door, then opened it again, and handed him a key. “Alright. No noise. Zip your pants.”

“Money talks, bullshit and P.I.s walk,” he told Maboon, as he handed him the key and led him down the hall. “This is your place for the week. Probably two because she’ll forget how long she agreed to. No noise. You eat much?”

“One cow at a time, Tom Kernan,” he said.

“Oh… oh yeah, cow-burgers at Foster’s Burgers. I get it. Stay here. I’ll get back with you.”

***

If Maboon’s notes were accurate, Blue Ears Grigsby was one wily character, with a rap sheet as long as his lobes: armed robbery, four murders, rocket theft, bigamy, kidnapping jumping bail …well he was on the run so it all made sense. Jumping bail. That must have been when Maboon got involved although he seemed more like a bail-bonds office clerk than a bounty hunter. Too dumb for a P.I., that’s for sure, Kernan concluded.

Maboon’s data noted Grigsby was last observed at O’Casey’s Pub. March 17^th 1947.

Was it possible space guys were here before the Roswell crash? Maybe they shot down a weather balloon by mistake. He’d been poring over Maboon’s notes for the better part of an hour and decided he needed a break. He’d get a coke but nix the bourbon. It was time for some serious thinking. What exactly had he seen that night in the desert?

Fuzzy’s Chevy had stalled on the road. The radio stopped playing Hank Williams and the headlights and the tail-lights went out. He was afraid somebody would rear-end them, so he’d gotten out of the cab and went to the side of the road to gauge the shoulder width. One. Two. Three. Four. If he pulled over four feet, he’d be off the road but still on the shoulder. He got into the cab and let the truck coast in idle as he steered it to the right, then straightened the wheel and let it coast another three feet.

He turned off the ignition and settled back. There was nothing to do but wait until daylight unless somebody came by to help. Fuzzy had passed out. There was that to be grateful for. Fuzzy liked to sing. Then he saw the lights coming towards them. Maybe his vision was skewed, but it looked like they were on top of each other, not side to side. He rolled down the window and waved his arm.

“Hey!” he yelled as the lights zipped by. In the rear-view mirror, he saw them stop, blink and return. Where’d they go? He got out of the cab, and looked upwards. “You know, this ain’t funny,” he remembered shouting.

The next thing he remembered was waking up with the sunrise. Where, he wondered, did people go when they were asleep?

He tried the ignition and the truck was humming. It was a weird dream. One that didn’t include truck repair, but so what? He was starving and thirsty. One thing he didn’t remember was a guy with long, blue ears, and that’s not an encounter easily forgotten.

***

He looked at his watch. Where, he wondered, did time go when people were awake? He’d’ shave and head over to O’Casey’s after he called faithless Terri.

“What you doin’, Mr. Sex Appeal,” she said in her hot-to-trot voice.

“Getting’ ready to visit the can and Gillette off my five o’clock shadow.”

“Oh, talk dirty to me, Daddy, I love it!”

“Meet me at O’Casey’s ‘round nine tonight, Doll-face, I’m on a case and I gotta talk to a guy.”

***

He’d let her beat him there by a half hour, figuring she’d find company. No matter what tavern she haunted, she’d scare up somebody. He was right. She was sitting at the bar, her faux-mink coat enveloping her petite frame like a bear hug. Next to her sat a bald-headed Nosferatu look-alike he recognized as Grigsby even though a Stetson sat on the bar; not even the tomahawk n’ feathers tattoos on those lobes could disguise them. Geez, he wasn’t hard to find. What was Maboon thinking?

Kernan slid into the booth with the broken light fixture. A buxom red-head jiggled over to him. “Bring me a beer without any fanfare, Loretta,” he said and nodded towards Terri and Grigsby.

She gave him a thumbs-up and a toothy smile. Maybe he’d overlooked heaven right here at home. He looked for a gold band when she brought him the draft. Terri didn’t look at her watch once. There was a time, if he was five seconds late, she’d accuse him of abandonment. Like the way she left her two kids with her mother in Omaha.

She reached for her purse, mined for her keys, and twirled them on her finger. Grigsby stopped them mid-twirl. Kernan knew what that meant. They’d played the same game when she picked him up. They walked to the register.

This was too damn easy. Why didn’t Maboon just nab him?

He saw a shadowy figure moving towards him, and recognized Maboon’s body speedo. He sat across from Kernan. “What’s your plan?”

Kernan leaned towards him. “My plan was to get laid, but Grigsby changed all that.”

“He’s a vile sneak, that one.”

“What’s your plan?” Kernan countered.

Maboon scratched his chin. “Kill him?”

“How?”

“Pay you more green paper to do it, Tom Kernan. If I’m caught, I’ll be a freak show in one of your courtrooms.”

His first thought was to explain the difference between a P.I. and a hit-man, but his second thought was in technicolor. “How much more green paper?

“All you want.”

This was serious temptation. “Tell me, Maboon, how bad is Grigsby, really?”

“You see that woman with him? He’s going to kill her.” He took a drink from Kernan’s glass. “He’s called The Charmer.” Funny, the moniker fit Terri, too. “He’s killed thousands of women all over the galaxy.”

“You’re a cop, aren’t you?”

“Officially, no. My superior told me to get Grigsby any way I can, but I can’t bear the thought of being laughed and gawked at. Are you angry?”

He should have been. Nothing’s worse than lying coppers. They can lie to civilians but civilians can’t lie to them or it’s slammer time. How many times had Maboon asked for help in getting’ this guy only to be turned down when he told the truth? Maybe hate between P.I.s and cops was universal.

“I know where you’re coming from, pal. It’s never the deed but the get-away that’s the problem.”

“I had plenty of opportunities to get Grigsby, but I couldn’t put an innocent entity in mortal danger,” Maboon said.

Toothy-boobs Loretta brought two glasses of beer to the table this time. When she left, Grigsby and Terri were exiting arm in arm after a few sloppy kisses.

“I’ve lost him tonight,” Maboon said. “I’ll save her though. I’ve done it before.”

He started to rise, but Kernan stopped him. “I’ll take care of it. You finish your beer, and go back to your room.”

Kernan left by the back door, and saw the passionate couple come around the corner. He was so close, he could hear her purring, but they didn’t see him lurking in the shadows.

“Let’s take my Jag,” Terri said.

Grigsby got in on the passenger side. Kernan had played the same part in the original film just six months ago. He followed them to her place on Geronimo Canyon Drive. She called it her lair.

He parked on the street and walked through the yard to the rear. They’d be coming out soon, bringing their martinis to the hot tub for some rest & relaxation before a little slap and tickle. He pulled his .45 and waited. Terri was her usually flirty self, an angel who could play the devil, ohhh so well. Grigsby knew she was horny, or whatever the galactic equivalent is, because Kernan knew she was horny when he’d played the role.

“You are a specimen,” she said as Grigsby’s powerful frame eased into the bubbling blue water. He held her close, then closer still. “Wait, Honey,” Kernan heard her say. She still didn’t realize what was happening or that ‘honey’ was the last word she’d ever say before the Charmer held her under. When she stopped struggling, Grigsby dragged her out onto the Italian marble tile she admired.

He crouched over her, looking around like an animal guarding its prey. His head dipped to her face, and when he looked around again, his face dripped blood as he munched a mouthful of flesh.

Kernan moved closer and took aim. One bullet to the shoulder, the other to the chest. Grigsby lurched up, jerking his head side to side, searching for the source of his pain. Kernan fired again, pumping more lead, this time into his skull. That shot stopped him; Grigsby’s legs crumpled like aluminum foil.

Then it was quiet except for the gentle sucking sounds of the tub filters. He checked the bodies: Terri’s chewed off face, and Grigsby’s blue ears. Dark and smoky bars were the perfect markets for cougars and cannibals to shop for dinner. The police would report her as a victim of a fiend with tattooed ears, and him as a cult member, perhaps. Kernan remembered Maboon’s moon urine sample and decided to make things a little more interesting for the boys in blue. He got a butcher knife from the kitchen.

***

“I couldn’t save her, but I made sure Grigsby’s definitely dead,” Kernan told Maboon, and showed him a Chinese food carton with two blue ears and a long blue finger with a sapphire ring to prove it.

“How much green paper do you require, Tom Kernan?”

He threw a medium-sized suitcase of the sofa. “Fill ‘er up with hundred-dollar bills, and we’ll call it good.”

“I can do that, but it will be hard for you to explain where you got all this green paper. The police will suspect there might a witness or an accomplice. I spoke with the over-developed waitress. She thought you very attractive, and will remember you. She wanted to know your name, I told it was Seymour Berrigan.”

“Who’s that?”

“A detective on Seffonia.”

“Is he a good detective?”

“No one’s as good as you are. He told me the P.I.s on earth are the best in the galaxy and you have proven him right. You are without behavioral inhibition, but you value justice.”

“Why’re you blowing smoke up my ass?” Kernan pulled his .45. “You wouldn’t cheat me now, would you, pal? Pay up and go home.”

Maboon grinned. “You should go on the galactic lam. There are many people wanted for crimes from planets you would like to see. Beautiful females who will sing your praises. And many law enforcement officers you could train. We have not had any weapons or training for many centuries. We were told we didn’t need to them,” Maboon continued.

It was a great idea. Hiding out on earth, he’d always be looking over his shoulder. “There’s no doubt I could teach you a few things.” With the right clothes, Maboon wouldn’t be a side-show, he’d be a true business partner. “I like the idea. I can teach peace-loving aliens to kill bad guys.”

Maboon toasted him with the body parts carton.

That’s how the Kernan and Maboon Universal Law Enforcement Academy began, with a man, a plan, lots of green paper, and a large order from Misters Smith and Wesson. And that’s how Tom Kernan wound up abducted again. Only this time he was sitting in an Atorma jail, on trial for Terri’s negligent homicide, outsmarted by a guy who knew a greedy drunkard when he met one on a desert road near Roswell, unafraid of anything or anyone until he finally sobered up for real.

Crap, if Maboon was smart enough to travel the galaxy, he was damn sure smarter than a guy who could be bought with a bunch of worthless green paper, Kernan thought as he sat alone in his cell. Maybe, according to the letter of the law, he was guilty of letting Grigsby gnaw Terri’s life away, but by the spirit of the law he had good reason to fear for his own life. What if Grigsby wasn’t allergic to lead? What if it took a silver bullet to do him in?

Kernan heard the clang of the cell block door. Praise God, was it time to eat? Maboon appeared with a sack of sandwiches that looked something like hamburgers and a slippery spoon. “I do not know why an Earthman would need a greasy spoon to eat a cow-burger, but I have brought you one, Thomas Kernan. I have told my superior that I will take you home before I begin my next search for a baddie named Sean Reagan. It is not fair for us to judge you by Atorma standards when you are a goof-ball by Earth standards. I believe you qualify as a side-kick. I will need you to help me navigate your culture.”

Who knew aliens were such decent, rational folks? “That’s one-hundred percent accurate, Maboon,” Kernan said as solemnly as he could. “I’m not worth the powder to blow me to hell. Take me home and I’ll help you. I will, I swear it, and I’ll never drink or be negligent again.” Did Maboon hear the desperation in his voice? Or the bullshit?

“I believe that is a demonstrably false promise, but I would appreciate your help. Many space criminals have made Earth their hideout over the centuries because Earth is such a backward planet. Your governments insist there are no such thing as other entities on other planets. They are wrong. Space baddies know this. They are not just ‘out there’, they are among your kind, living next door, going to your schools, posing a threat to the very friendly people like the well-developed waitress at O’Casey’s, and we must bring them to justice.”

Kernan wondered if he should warn Maboon that it was going to be a harder job than it seemed because Earthlings were complicated. Mrs. Craig could be a hag, but she’d let him slide on the rent when he was down on his luck. He didn’t have to order Maboon a beer. Loretta brought two because any friend of an O’Casey regular was a friend of hers. Baddies could be good; saints could be sinners. All things considered, Maboon would learn Earth was a good time. Although, there was something in the way Maboon walked to the ship, increasing the pace every three steps, that told Kernan Maboon might already know that.