was his chance. He scratched his arm even though it didn't itch.
"Can I have a cigarette?" he asked.
"Why don't you answer my question first," the constable said, his jaw tense.
He wasn't going to gain anything by lying. Maneck and the aliens had used him. Had created him as a tool, for their own selfish purposes. Turning them over to the Enye would settle his score with them and make him a hero in the governor's eyes, all at the same time. He had every reason to tell them everything. Just the way he'd had every reason to keep to himself in the El Rey. But on the other side of the balance were the kii, the young. Killed for no reason that Ramon or Maneck could fathom.
That and the fact he didn't like the idea of dancing to some pinche alien's tune, no matter if it was Maneck or the Enye.
"Maybe you could tell me," Ramon said, "what the fuck business it is of yours?"
The constable's boss glanced at the Enye and then the surveillance camera and back. Just a flicker, like a poker player's tell.
"We'd like to know," the constable said.
"The governor wants to know about my fucking bathrobe?" Ramon said. "He gonna have you sniff my panties too? Fuck off."
The Enye spoke. Its voice was high and piping and awkward; a being speaking a language not merely foreign to it but nearly unthinkable.
"Why do you refuse?"
Ramon gestured to the constable with his chin.
"I don't like this motherfucker," Ramon said.
The Enye considered this, its long tongue flickering out to cover its body in saliva. The constable flushed nearly purple with rage, but said nothing. The alien was running the show now, the power shifting visibly. Ramon tried to keep his body relaxed while his thoughts darted and spun. Part of his mind was bright with panic, another part defiant and amused. It was like being in a fight.
He enjoyed it.
"You," the Enye said. "The one called Paul."
The constable took on an attitude of respect just short of clicking his heels. Ramon shook his head in disgust.
"You are removed. Leave. Do not return."
The constable blinked, his mouth gaping for a moment, then audibly closing. He looked at his supervisor, who shrugged and nodded to the door. The constable - Paul - walked out of the interrogation room, stiff as a man with a broom up his ass. Ramon lifted a finger to the remaining human.
"Hey, ese," he said. "I get that cigarette now?"
The supervisor was an older man, and his anger had room for amusement at the corners of his eyes. He took a cheap self-lighting cigarette from his pocket, struck it on the floor and rolled it, burning, across the table to Ramon. It smelled like old cardboard and tasted like somebody's ass. Ramon sucked the smoke in deep and let it float out as he spoke.
"It's my bathrobe," Ramon said, pointing with his left hand. "Had it for years. There was this accident with my van. I was sleeping. That's all I got out in. Fucking pain not having shoes, too. I still got blisters."
"Where did it come from?" the Enye fluted.
By now, Ramon had come up with his lie. For short notice, he was proud of it.
"From you," he said.
In the ensuing silence, the supervisor leaned forward a centimeter. His voice was equal parts warm avuncular joking and cold steel threat.
"Don't push it, hijo ."
The Enye shifted back and forth, its eyes rolling slowly. Its tongue, thankfully, had retreated inside its hidden beak. Ramon knew from his time, years before, that when an Enye stopped licking itself, it was pissed off.
"I got it on the trip over," Ramon said. "From Earth. On an Enye ship. There were a couple of you people wanted to learn how to play poker. We had a game going, so we let them in on it. They sucked. One time I was drunk, I let this one big pendejo put this fucking bathrobe in instead of whiskey. He said it was a battle souvenir or some such shit. I didn't catch it all. Anyway, he loses fours and sevens to my three queens, and I got me a bathrobe. It was bigger then. I had to make him cut it down to fit me, but it held up pretty good until now." He paused to take another drag. "So you want to tell me what's so important about it?"
A stench like rotting eggs and boiling turnips filled the room, intense enough to