Time to Time: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective (Ashton Ford Series) (3 page)

Chapter Five:
 
First Star I See
Tonight

I did not have lunch
with Ted Bransen that day. His office awakened me with a nine o'clock call to
cancel the appointment without explanation. Suited me fine. I had not gotten to
sleep before dawn anyway, so I was in a welcome mood for a few more hours
between the sheets.

Didn't
work out that way, though. Couldn't go back to sleep, couldn't get any of it
off my mind just lying there, so I got up a few minutes later and hit the shower.
I usually listen to News Radio over breakfast via the kitchen radio because
they give me the world every morning in capsule form, true to their claim, and
because I've found that is about all the world I need on a daily basis.

So
before I even got my coffee I learned that we'd had a full-blown UFO flap
during the night, not just in the Los Angeles area but from Baja to the Golden
Gate and points inland. That quivered the old antennae, let me tell you.

Apparently
there'd been a hell of a concentration of sightings in my immediate area, and
an L.A. County sheriff's deputy had chased a saucer in his patrol car all the
way through Malibu Canyon. I had found Penny Laker on the ocean side of that
canyon, very close to the spot where the deputy first spotted his saucer, and
the time frame was about right.

So
I climbed on the telephone and began running the thing down. My friend Willie
Wilson, who strings for AP, told me that the sheriff's office was trying to
quieten the thing, but he also told me that a television crew had managed to
sneak some tape on the patrol car involved, which had taken quite a beating
during the chase. Apparently the vehicle had scraped the canyon wall a couple
of times and finally ended up in a field at the north end with two flat tires
and an hysterical officer yelling for help via the radio.

So
I postponed breakfast and met Willie in downtown L.A. and we had coffee and
doughnuts with the cameraman from the television unit. This guy's name is Joe
White and he is black, has a very droll sense of humor, hugely enjoyed his
latest assignment. He rolled his eyes at me over his coffee and said,
"Hell, I've been telling 'em for years that there's something up there. I
reported one myself some years back and I can still remember the way those cops
were looking at me—you know, like wondering what my angle was or how much junk
I'd been sniffing. Does me good to see they react to it the same way I did.
That guy tore his damn car all to hell—I mean, practically totaled. Claims he
kept losing power and couldn't steer. Shit. Let me tell you, nobody can steer
with the eyes glued to the sky and the foot glued to the accelerator. I been
through all that myself."

But
I wanted the officer's name and Joe White did not want to give me that.
"Man has been ridiculed enough," he declared quietly. "Leave 'im
alone."

"I
saw it, too, Joe," I told him, just as quietly. "I don't want to
ridicule the man. Just want to talk to him."

"Did
you file a report?"

"No."

"Don't.
Let that be my advice from one who did. Don't."

I
said, "I need to talk to the man, Joe."

"Won't
do you no good," he said. "Anyway, he's in the hospital."

"County
General?"

"Yeah."
He smiled suddenly. "You really do have the itch, don't you."

"Where
it can't be scratched, right."

Those
expressive eyes rolled again. "You haven't talked to me."

"Right."

"Ask
for Grover Dalton."

I
thanked my media friends, picked up the check, and went straight to County
General.

The
man was under no wraps whatsoever. He shared a room with three other men and
all four looked perfectly healthy to me. Except that Dalton's eyes were
troubled and wary, kept flicking upward in an involuntary reflex. I sat on the
edge of his bed with what I hoped was a professional manner and made a big
thing of checking his eyes. I'd already checked his chart. He was on a mild
anti-anxiety medication, nothing else.

"Feeling
better now, Grover?"

"Yes,
sir. When can I go home?"

"Soon.
The quicker you get fully relaxed about all this, the quicker you'll be
home."

"I'll
never get relaxed about all this, sir, until people start believing me. I want
a lie detector."

"I
believe you, Grover."

"Do
you?"

"Sure
I do. Saw the damn thing myself, right close to where you saw it."

"Oh!
Well! Did you tell...?"

"Not
yet. But I will. About twelve-foot diameter, waffle-thin, with a dome on top,
blue lights."

"That's
it! That's what I saw! And underneath—when it comes up and floats over
you—underneath there's these circular revolving lights, the little jets like
blowtorches coming out the sides—did you see that?"

I
said, "Well, I didn't keep with it the way you did. Led you a hell of a
chase, didn't it."

"The
damned thing was sucking me on. I can see that now. It was maneuvering through
that canyon at no more than twenty feet off the ground. Didn't need to do that.
Could've just gone up and over, 'cause when it did finally
 
take off, it went straight up like a skyrocket
and was clean out of sight before I could even think about it."

"That
was when you were in the open field?"

"Yes,
sir."

"What
was it doing when you first saw it?"

"Well
it just jumped across the road and started wiggling at me."

"Wiggling?"

"Yes,
sir, like standing still in the air but bouncing side to side."

"I
understand. Then what happened?"

"Well
see, I was—there was this woman—I came around the bend and saw this woman in
the middle of the road, had to slam my brakes to avoid her. And off to the side,
off the road, I could see these eyes reflecting my headlights as I swerved
around trying to avoid the woman—you know like deer's eyes reflect in the night?
—only these were like big round bug eyes, I mean several pair of them, and I
could see movement in the bushes, and..

"What
was the woman doing?"

"She
was just standing there in the middle of the road."

"How
was she dressed?"

"I
don't—I believe she wasn't dressed, or not very. It all happened so quick—but
I'm sure I saw a woman in the road, that's why I braked."

"And
then?"

"Well
I was... really thinking about the woman, I guess. But even before I got the
car under control, this thing jumped up at me—like you described it, sir,
that's the same thing I saw. And I saw these little figures scurrying around
outside of it, and then it just leapt up about twenty feet off the ground and
started dancing at me. I was—listen, I was scared to death and I don't mind
saying so. But I feel like an ass now because..."

"Because
what?"

"Well
because I was going to the woman's aid. I mean that’s what I had in mind, and
it's what I should have done. But then the damn thing just lured me away from
her."

"You're
sure of that, huh."

"Thinking
back on it, yes sir, I'm sure of that. It started off real slow, just dancing
along. I jumped back in the patrol car and went after it. No matter how fast I
went, it just hung out there about fifty feet ahead. All the way through the canyon
like that. And my headlights kept going off and back on again, my engine was
losing compression, and my radio was crazy with static even with the squelch
all the way up. Kept losing the steering. Hell I wanted to stop but I couldn't
stop, it was like I was hypnotized or something, I just kept right on after it
even though that was the last thing in the world I wanted to do."

"You
wanted out."

"Damn
right I wanted out but they wouldn't let me out."

"They
who?"

"They
the bug-eyed bastards in the UFO. They finally dropped me in the middle of a
field."

“Dropped
you?”

"Yes,
sir. My wheels weren't even on the ground the last mile or two."

"That's
uh, pretty far-out, isn't it."

"I
don't care how far-out it is. That's what happened."

Poor
guy was getting all worked up. I patted his hand and left him sitting there
with his eyes twitching, stopped at the nurse's station and again consulted his
chart, handed the chart to the nurse with a meaningful look, and told her,
"He's almost due for his medication. Better do it now."

She
replied, "Yes, Doctor," with hardly a second look at me.

It
was the psycho ward.

But
at least one patient in there was as sane as anybody. The danger now, as I saw
it, was that maybe he would not be sane for long. Close encounters have a way
of jangling the mind. I had to wonder why that was so. Was there something
buried in genetic memory, something terrifying and horrible, that was activated
by these experiences?

I
happened to know, because I'd been keeping on top of it, that a whole new
school of medicine was arising around these unfortunate contactees—and I knew a
man in Washington who was the unofficial dean of that school.

So
I went to a phone booth right there at the hospital and gave him a call.
"Is this about the California flap?" he immediately asked me.

"It
is," I replied, and I told him about Grover Dalton. "Can you swing
some help his way?"

"I
can try," he said wearily.

He
needed to try. Police officers are especially vulnerable to the UFO Depression
Syndrome. The experience often blights their careers and changes their lives
forever. Again, I had to wonder why.

And
I had to wonder, also, why the insane governmental secrecy was still the order
of the day—and why so many esteemed men of science kept stonewalling the UFO
question and ridiculing reliable eyewitnesses and contactees when what these
people needed most of all were sympathetic comfort and reassurance.

I
don't wonder so much about any of it anymore, of course. I don't have all the
answers, but I have a lot more now than I did then.

And
I'm still scared.

Chapter Six:
 
Through Other Eyes

I
made two other stops while I was in town. A friend works at one of the major
radio stations serving the area. He showed me a "situation room"
where two people were doing nothing but reviewing and plotting the reported
sightings of the night before.

"It's
a major flap," he told me. "We already have two hundred reports on
the board and they're still coming in."

"How
are you handling it for the air?" I wondered.

He
looked a bit embarrassed as he replied, "We're still skulling that
question."

"Meaning?"

"Well...
we're sort of playing it cool right now, just tracking it and, uh, watching the
reaction."

"How
can there be a reaction if everyone in the media is just sitting on it?"

"That's
the reaction I'm talking about. We don't want to be the only ones out there
with egg on our faces."

I
said, "That's gutless."

He
said, "Sure it is. But we're not here for guts. We're here for
revenues."

I
understood that language. This was not a rock station with news headlines on
the hour, it was a station whose stock-in-trade was news and commentary, and it
depended on public confidence if it was going to attract advertisers. If it did
not attract advertisers, it did not stay in business—and not staying in
business was tantamount to cataclysm for these people. They could not afford to
become a laughingstock.

It
seems that there is always quite a lot to laugh at in every UFO flap because it
is a phenomenon that feeds on itself. It brings out all the pranksters and
gypsters and fringe lunatics who apparently cannot pass up an opportunity to
climb on the bandwagon. That is the major problem for serious UFO
investigations, besides which it provides all the raw meat necessary for those
who prefer to ridicule serious concern.

I
also looked in on the sheriff's department. If your image of a sheriff is a
rawboned guy with a big hat and a star pinned to his shirt, then you do not
live in Los Angeles County. This sheriff sits astride not a horse or a jeep but
one of the largest and most sophisticated law-enforcement organizations in the
world. His turf embraces four thousand square miles of mountains, deserts,
beaches, and forests, property valued at more than 250 billion dollars, and
eight million people living in or around nearly a hundred incorporated cities.

But
I was not surprised to learn that all UFO inquiries were being handled by the
public-information office.

They
were cooling it, too.

I
could get absolutely no information regarding the incident in Malibu Canyon,
not even an admission that an on-duty officer had been involved.

But
I did manage to see a guy I had met once socially who is a staff psychologist
for the department. I told him that I'd talked to Grover Dalton.

He
lifted both eyebrows at me and quietly asked, "When?"

I
replied, "Little while ago. Are you working with him?"

He
said, "Not yet."

I
jotted down the name and phone number of my psychiatrist friend in Washington
and handed it to him. "You should," I told him, and left him staring
at my jottings.

My
next stop was at the Brentwood home of Ted Bransen and Penny Laker. It was by
now early afternoon. It's a sprawling ranch-style house positioned around a
swimming pool and tennis court. I'd been there before. Between pool and court is
a lanai that projects from a small room filled with bodybuilding equipment.
Bransen is one of those who thinks health and physical culture but gets around
to it only when it's convenient, which means probably a couple of hard workouts
per month—but I guess that's better than nothing.

I
couldn't get a response to the doorbell so I scaled a five-foot brick wall
behind a breezeway to the garage and dropped into the backyard.

A
young Oriental man dressed in domestic white was fiddling with a buried lawn
sprinkler. He looked up with a start but said nothing as I nodded to him and
went on.

Someone
was doing laps in the pool—a female someone, it appeared, but I couldn't be
sure from the angle I had.

Julie
Marsini sat at a small table on the lanai, her attention riveted to some
reading matter, clad only in a string bikini. Scratch everything I said earlier
about "gray people" and understated beauty. In this light and
attitude, the lady was worthy of full masculine attention. She did not hear my
approach but also did not seem startled when I sat down across from her.

"We
 
expected you before this, Mr.
Ford," she told me with a cool look that came from somewhere in the stars,
it seemed. Very, very dark eyes.

I
said, "Me, too. But I had to check some details first. Is that Penny in
the pool?"

"Yes."

"She
seems to have recovered well."

"Recovered
from what, Mr. Ford?"

"Why
don't you just call me Ash."

"Recovered
from what?"

"Her
ordeal of the night."

"Was
there an ordeal?"

She
was fencing. I said, "Looked that way to me. She was staggering along a
deserted road in a remote area far from home and stark naked, bombed out of her
mind with something or from something. I'd call it an ordeal, yeah."

Julie
stared at me through an unblinking moment, then dropped her gaze and said,
"Do you have to tell her about that?"

I
replied, "Doesn't she know?"

"I
hope not."

"Does
this happen often?"

She
again raised her eyes to mine. "Does what happen often?"

"Her
blackouts, memory gaps. Has it happened before?"

She
was speaking so softly I was almost reading her lips as she told me, "It
has become almost routine. Can you help her?"

"She
needs a doctor, maybe."

Julie
shook her head in a firm negative. "She wouldn't hear of it. And it is not
a medical problem."

"What
kind is it, then?"

"She
has... visitations."

"From
where?"

      
That face was a total blank. I could read
absolutely nothing there as she replied, "I don't know where."

      
"Aliens?"

      
She shivered slightly but still there was
no reading on the face. "Who are the aliens," she said quietly, and
it was not a question.

      
I said, "Exactly. Who are
they?"

      
"Maybe they are us," she
murmured.

      
"Do they look like us?"

      
"Sometimes."

      
"What does that mean?'

      
"They can look like us. Maybe you're
one." Another shiver. "Maybe she is one."

      
I was feeling a bit reckless so I asked
the deadpan young lady with alien eyes, "What is the meaning of the golden
triangle?"

      
She immediately looked away, eyes focused
somewhere far off, pulled up a leg, and absently scratched a shapely ankle,
said to me in a barely audible voice: 'Time."

      
“Time?”

      
"Yes. It is time."

      
“Time for what?"

      
Her gaze fell to the ankle. She massaged
it delicately with an artful hand, said nothing.

      
“Time for what, Julie?"

      
“Time for them."

      
"What does that mean?"

      
“Time to time, they come. This is their
time to come."

      
"For what?"

      
She shrugged delicately, an almost
imperceptible movement of glistening shoulders. "Fulfillment, I
guess."

      
That was as far as we got with that.

      
Penny had come out of the pool and was
walking toward us with a large white towel draped about her. I had the
strongest feeling that there was nothing beneath that towel but flesh. She
pulled out a chair and sat down, lit a cigarette, totally ignored my presence
there, said to Julie: "The water is perfect. You must try it."

      
Julie replied, "You know I never
swim in sunlight."

      
I simply was not there.

      
"Such a bore. Your skin will not
melt, my dear. We must get a dolphin. Have you looked into that? Wait, a pair
of dolphins. Every soul must have its mate."

      
"Mr. Bransen says no dolphins. The
problems are immense. The authorities require impossible standards. They would
never permit dolphins in a residential swimming pool."

      
"Mr. Bransen is no longer an issue.
We shall enlarge the pool, remove that ridiculous cement slab for bouncing
balls. Call the engineers. Meet the standards. Then we shall have the
dolphins."

      
I tried to edge in there: "You're
looking great, Penny."

      
Zilch.

      
"Mr. Bransen is very much the issue.
And he grows more strident with each passing day."

      
I mean, I was wondering who'd written
these lines! Talk about stilted dialogue!

      
"Cut off his funds. That will tame
him."

      
"I'd love to screw your brains out,
Penny. Yours too, Julie."

      
"That has been deemed inadvisable.
But we must devise a rational approach to the problem."

      
"Ashton Ford shall solve the
problem."

      
"Ashton Ford could become the
problem."

      
"You are using my name in vain,
ladies. I am in no way involved in any of this. Yet."

      
"This is an interesting man."

      
"Yes, but also a potentially
dangerous man."

      
Penny abruptly got to her feet, dropped
the towel— confirming my suspicions—and stubbed out the cigarette as she capped
that conversation. "There are no dangerous men."

      
She went into the house, then, without a
glance at me —that divine body jiggling in all its feminine freedom, leaving me
with mouth agape and tumbling emotions.

      
Julie smiled brightly at me and said,
"What did you say?"

      
I growled, "I said I'd like to screw
your brains out."

      
Those great eyes fell but the smile hung
in there as she replied, "That could perhaps be arranged." Then she
seemed to notice for the first time the wet towel draped across the chair Penny
Laker had just vacated. Her gaze darted to the pool, then around the area, in
some confusion.

      
"She just went inside," I said
quietly.

      
"Oh," she said.

      
I said it too, but silently to myself.

      
Either I was being conned by the slickest
act in the business or...

      
"When would you like to attack my
brains?" Julie was asking me in a playful tone.

      
"Entirely at your own convenience,
ma'am," I replied, trying but probably failing entirely to match her mood.

      
"I'll let you know about that,"
she told me.

      
"When you let me know about the
golden triangle," I suggested.

      
But she was already off her chair and
moving swiftly into the house. She did not even look back or wave as she
disappeared inside.

      
I picked up the stubbed cigarette and
smelled of it, decided it was plain tobacco with no exotic ingredients added,
then retreated the way I'd come in.

      
The little guy in the white suit was
staring at me from poolside. "Great job you've got, kid," I told him
amiably in passing. I was wondering if he liked dolphins as much as naked
ladies.

      
But he gave me no clue, no clue whatever.

      
And I had to wonder if he was
really
Oriental. Or if he even knew what
a naked lady is.