“What kind a football schedule would a place like this have?” Hans asked, knowing he’d better soon get something to eat. He loosened his pastel necktie and took deep breaths to make his head less fuzzy.
“Well, we tried to play Tijuana Tech but their team didn’t show up. I think Lopez-Portillo was on a tour and needed the rental bus. But we played Tehachapi.”
“The prison?”
“Yeah, the refs were all inmates so of course they were crooks. One of them got beat up when he called a penalty against the other crooks. So he called all the rest of the penalties against us.”
“Rampart used to have a good football team,” Hans said. “The Czech played for them. Morale’s low everywhere now. Everybody’s dumpin on us co …” Hans stopped running his mouth when he saw the big kid looking at him in puzzlement. “Uh … Rampart’s the name of our restaurant. Ever eat there? Right next to Lawry’s? Rampart House of Ribs?”
“Waiters have a football squad?”
“Yeah, and busboys,” Hans said. “I gotta get some coffee. I’m too drunk to touch my nose.”
“I’m not too drunk to touch his nose,” the braless graduate student said to the bartender, clenching her fist.
“Haven’t seen you around lately, Nacho,” one of the new arrivals at the bar said to Ignacio Mendoza. He was about six feet tall and fiftyish. He had a receding hairline and blond-gray hair. The voice was close to being right.
“I don’t frequent thees Meeckey Mouse place very often,” he said to the man. “The last time was nearly a year ago on Bastille Day. Somebody actually started complaining because I sang the Marseillaise.” And then Ignacio Mendoza relived the moment by humming a few bars: “Da da da Dum da Dum da Dum da da …”
He was interrupted by the graduate student with the Frisbee who was getting smashed. “Casablanca!” the kid said. “Paul Henreid!”
“No, estupido!” Ignacio Mendoza thundered. “Casablanca was …” And breaking into lyrics he sang: “You must remember thees. A kees is steell a kees, a sigh ees just a sigh!”
“Same movie, but Paul Henreid sang the other one,” the kid with the Frisbee insisted.
“Come, Czech!” Ignacio Mendoza roared. “We are getting out of thees Meeckey Mouse place! Call your waiter!”
Mario Villalobos caught up with them as they were climbing the steps, very unsteadily. The Bad Czech and Ignacio Mendoza were arm in arm. Hans struggled along behind them. His pastel necktie hung like a noose from his skinny neck.
“Where’re you going?” Mario Villalobos shouted from the bottom of the landing.
“We’re goin to the open house,” The Bad Czech said, winking about as subtly as a left jab to the mouth. “We’re gonna meet the faculty with my friend Nacho here.”
“Take a good look around, understand?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Hans mumbled.
“Meet me at the wine and cheese table in an hour,” Mario Villalobos ordered.
“Who ees that person?” Ignacio Mendoza asked The Bad Czech.
“He’s one a my headwaiters,” The Bad Czech said. “They’re all alike. Bossy types. I humor him cause ya can’t find good help these days, Nacho.”
When they got outside the Athenaeum, Hans began throwing his arms up in the air and taking deep breaths. They started across the campus past the student dorms where so many famous Caltech pranks were perpetrated by very creative young minds, toward the amphitheater where Mario Villalobos had conjured up his lie that would fly. When they arrived at Mead Laboratory, Hans was tired and cranky.
There were hundreds of people there for open house, in small and large groups, roaming through four buildings that housed chemistry laboratories.
First, Ignacio Mendoza took them to one of the teaching laboratories, a glass-walled instrument room full of visitors. The tourists stood in several groups listening to various students and faculty members demonstrating chromatographs, melting-point apparatus and other equipment. The shapes and structure of tubing connected with some of the devices delighted The Bad Czech.
“All them tubes goin up and down and around! Like the old Rube Goldberg cartoons. I like stuff like that. It’s pretty.”
“I can see you are a man of sensitivity,” Ignacio Mendoza said.
“I’m feeling better,” Hans said, “but I’m getting hungry. I’m going back where the wine and cheese is. I’ll catch ya later.”
“There ees nothing but Meeckey Mouse women there,” Ignacio Mendoza warned.
“So what’s wrong with big ears and a few whiskers?” the K-9 cop leered. “Ya stay till midnight, they all look good.”
“Go on, but keep your eyes open,” The Bad Czech said.
“Eyes open for what?” Ignacio Mendoza asked, when Hans was gone.
“He falls asleep all the time,” The Bad Czech said. “Can’t take him anywheres.”
Next, the Peruvian chemist took The Bad Czech to Noyes Laboratory, where they joined a queue of people watching laser spectroscopy in a small room.
“Thees shall be an attempt to understand the nature of the interaction between light and matter,” Ignacio Mendoza said to The Bad Czech, who got really excited watching the ultra-short pulse-lasers used to excite molecules in different phases.
“These things could make great weapons for cops and people like that!” The Bad Czech said. “Burn the freaking eyes outa some a these pukes. You know, we had … I mean, I read about a couple a Cuban boat people down in Los Angeles shot at some cops last month while they was robbin a market. When they get to trial they claim they’re just poor hungry refugees tryin to steal food for their families. Sure. The food is kept in the safe? That’s where the cops found them. Lasers like this, you could shoot right through a wall and burn the bastards up. Outa sight!”
The Bad Czech was next led by Ignacio Mendoza toward the solar photochemistry demonstration. Ignacio Mendoza said, “I myself am exploring the chemical processes occurring on a variety of catalytic surfaces.”
“Can you do pretty experiments like they did with the lasers?”
“Maybe you will like the next demonstration,” Ignacio Mendoza said. “Eet’s very pretty.”
“No lasers?”
“No, but they are trying to effect a practical and efficient production of hydrogen and other fuel from water. You understand, eef eet could be done by producing a high yield, the Pacific Ocean would be a gas station!”
“Primo!” The Bad Czech said.
“The Middle East could return to being a place to raise goats and date palms. Not worth fighting for. I hope you agree that we have had enough bourgeois wars?”
“I had enough, Nacho. I was in Nam. My partner Cecil Higgins was in Korea. He had enough too.”
“You are not the sole owner of your restaurants?”
“Well, my partner owns about three of em. What’s goin on m this room?” he asked, to change the subject as they joined a throng of people.
“Thees shall be Doctor Harry Gray’s group,” Ignacio Mendoza said. “The research group deals weeth the synthesis of compounds containing rhodium and platinum and tungsten and so forth, which have the ability to capture sunlight and use the energy to produce fuels.”
“Oh, that’s pretty!” The Bad Czech cried, as he watched the chemist instructing one of the tourists on how to jiggle a test tube in a demonstration of chemiluminescence.
Two molecules were reacting to generate a new molecule which was so excited that it dumped off light. It had a beautiful luminescence which reminded The Bad Czech of a heightened version of the neon glow on the face of The Gooned-out Vice Cop.
Then The Bad Czech noticed that Professor Harry Gray was tall and had very dark hair and dark-rimmed glasses. He looked younger than the man outside Dagmar Duffy’s apartment house, but then, the light was not good in this room. If he was wearing a false moustache …
“Is that guy a regular around here?” he whispered to Ignacio Mendoza.
“He ees the chairman of chemistry,” Ignacio Men
doza said.
“A high-powered guy?”
“Yes.”
“He ever been known to do anything … violent?”
Ignacio Mendoza looked quizzically at The Bad Czech and said, “You have a great eenterest een violence, my friend.”
“Can I meet him later and hear him talk? I mean, talk to him?”
“At the wine and cheese reception. I weel be pleased to make you acquainted. Shall we go on to the next exhibit?”
And while Ignacio Mendoza and The Bad Czech moseyed across the campus in what turned out to be a balmy California night, Mario Villalobos decided wisely that he had had much more than enough to drink, and so had Lupe Luna. The two of them were in the lighted garden sampling cheese and strawberries when Mario Villalobos saw Hans staggering with a glass of white wine toward the reception area, where a quartet of students was playing chamber music. There were two violins, a viola and a cellist who looked like he was wearing a fright wig.
Hans sat down hardly noticing the music, very occupied in trying to suck a piece of strawberry out of his molar. Then he noticed a middle-aged man in a pinstripe suit holding a glass of champagne.
He stood perhaps twenty feet from the patio near a camellia bush, quietly humming the Bach melody while the students played. The man’s hair was not black but gray. He was rather tall, well built, and was perhaps fifty-five years old. The pinstripe in his suit was subtle, but a man who liked pinstripe might also wear chalk stripes like the man in front of Dagmar Duffy’s. Hans pulled himself together, stood up and strolled toward the camellias.
“Like the music?” the K-9 cop asked, sipping at his wine, trying to act sober.
The man nodded.
“I like classical music,” the K-9 cop said, not knowing DvořáK from the Doobie Brothers. “Like, uh, Beethoven’s my favorite.”
“Some people might say that Beethoven wasn’t a classicist,” the man said, moving away and strolling toward the wine and cheese table.
The voice! Maybe, Hans thought. Maybe! Hans started to feel a little more sober. He pushed the knot on his necktie closer to his skinny neck and tried to tuck his shirt in. There might be some police work to do after all.
By the time The Bad Czech and Ignacio Mendoza reached the basement of Crellin Laboratory, the monster cop was running out of steam. He had pumped the Peruvian professor with about as much subtlety as he was capable of mustering, and had seen about six members of the faculty who were possibles but no one he was very certain about. He was also getting tired of visiting the various demonstrations, even if some of them were pretty. He was disappointed that he hadn’t found anything else that offered promise that in the future, cops were going to have better weapons with which to preserve order and keep the peace—by blasting lots of puke bags into teeny bits.
“You might find the next one to your liking, Czech,” Ignacio Mendoza said. “NMR spectroscopy ees one of the best ways to analyze chemical compounds.”
“Yeah, sounds like fun,” The Bad Czech said.
“Under a very high magnetic field all the protons een a molecule can be looked at. You understand that the nuclei een molecules have tiny magnetic moments? The spectrometer can be used to monitor structural changes een a molecule. Eet’s like stepping out to the street and being able to see whether a stoplight ees red or green. Thees ees the most sensitive spectrometer een the world. There ees a very very powerful magnetic field, so leave your watch outside the room. Me, I don’t wear one.”
“Okay, Nacho,” The Bad Czech said, taking off his watch and giving it to a student who was on duty.
They followed a group of seven visitors into the small room.
“Any chemist who needs to determine the structure of a molecule weel use the spectrometer,” Ignacio Mendoza said. “The powerful magnetic field could damage your watch. There are stories of janitors trying to clean up around a spectrometer and their vacuum gets pulled right eento the magnet and topples eet.”
It was a shiny metal cylinder about the size of The Bad Czech’s apartment-size refrigerator. He was disappointed with the magnet because he thought it would look different. It weighed less than a ton, depending upon whether or not it was filled with helium, and squatted in the middle of a small basement laboratory. It was tied off at the top and affixed to the ceiling because of California earthquakes.
“I was hopin it was shaped like a big horseshoe magnet,” The Bad Czech said. “I thought we could play with it. You know, like make a hairpin fly across the room?”
“Chemists like to use gases contained in heavy cylinders,” Ignacio Mendoza explained. “And they say once a cylinder on a cart was drawn right eento the magnet.”
“Can we go get somethin to eat, Nacho?” The Bad Czech asked. “I’m gettin hungry.”
By this time Mario Villalobos had said goodnight to a very tipsy Lupe Luna, who had to be driven home by another secretary.
The detective had trouble finding Hans, who had followed the pinstripe suit through two of the laboratory exhibits and back to the reception area.
“Mario!” the K-9 cop said when the detective located him. “That guy’s a maybe! I already found out he’s a member of the chemistry division. And his voice is close. I dunno. I’d like the Czech to hear him.”
“Where’s the Czech?”
“I left him with that goofy professor. Where’s the skirt?”
“I let her go home,” he sighed. “Business is business.”
“Here comes the campus couple now,” Hans said to Mario Villalobos, who turned and saw The Bad Czech and Ignacio Mendoza, still arm in arm, strolling across the lighted walkway toward the wine and cheese table.
“Hey, Mario!” The Bad Czech called. “You should go over to them laboratories. Just like Star Trek and Disneyland. They got some pretty stuff over there.”
“Could I have a word with you in private?” Mario Villalobos asked.
“Grab us a couple glasses a wine, Nacho,” The Bad Czech said, “and get me a big dish full a cheese and strawberries and grapes and apples and lots and lots a crackers and Goldfish and anything else ya can find. I’ll join ya in a few minutes. I want ya to introduce me to a few professors.”
“Have any luck?” Mario Villalobos asked after he got the monster cop and Hans away from the milling throngs of people.
“The head a this chemical division is a suspect, far as I’m concerned,” The Bad Czech whispered. “Name a Harry Gray. And I seen some others that … Hey, there’s the guy!”
Mario Villalobos saw a tall man with nearly black wavy hair and dark-framed glasses standing with a group of people who were listening to the chamber music.
“He’s about six-foot-two,” Mario Villalobos said. “I thought you guys decided the guy wasn’t over six feet?”
“He ain’t that tall, is he?” The Bad Czech asked.
“Nobody seems tall to someone that looks like he was built by a mad scientist, for chrissake!” Hans said. “Course he’s tall. I don’t think it’s him. But it might be him, Mario.”
“Go listen to his voice, Hans,” Mario Villalobos said. “We gotta get something outa this night besides a hangover. This fruitcake investigation’s making me tired.”
“Okay, but see the other guy, Mario? The guy over there by that nut case friend of the Czech’s? The guy in the pinstripe suit? That’s the one that I want the Czech to hear his voice. He’s the most likely, I think. He could a been wearing a black wig the day we saw him.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to mine. You talk to yours,” The Bad Czech said.
The monster cop lumbered over toward the man in the pinstripe suit. The man had an aquiline, refined face and seemed a bit standoffish. Nothing like the jovial chairman of the division, who The Bad Czech could now see talking to Ignacio Mendoza while the K-9 cop lurked around behind them, about as subtle as Ludwig would have been in the same assignment.
The man in the pinstripe suit didn’t seem anxious to chat, and he nodded politely from time to time to several of the peopl
e milling around. He seemed most interested in being alone and listening to music.
The Bad Czech said to him, “Kin you tell me where I kin find the john?”
“Right through that door,” the man said. “First door on your left.”
“Thanks,” The Bad Czech said and, instead of going in the direction of the rest room, wheeled and ran back to Mario Villalobos, who shook his head and looked heavenward.
“Czech, make it less obvious!” Mario Villalobos said. “Was it him?”
“It might be!” The Bad Czech said. “The voice was real close, Mario!”
“Go listen to him some more,” Mario Villalobos said. “I wanna talk to your friend Mendoza about the guy. Who did you tell Mendoza I was, another busboy?”
“Headwaiter,” The Bad Czech said.
“Okay, go listen to that guy some more, and … Goddamnit! look at that freaking Hans!”
The K-9 cop was skulking backwards on one side of a tall azalea bush while Professors Ignacio Mendoza and Harry Gray stood on the other side making small talk.
“This looks like a Pink Panther movie!” Mario Villalobos moaned.
“I told ya we wasn’t detectives, Mario,” The Bad Czech said. “Whaddaya expect? I never had to pretend I wasn’t a cop before!”
“Okay, okay, just go take another close look and try to listen to him talk. I’ll find out from Mendoza who he is.”
When Hans came running back into the shadows to report to Mario Villalobos, he said, “I found out two things. That guy Harry Gray likes country music. One of his favorites is Conway Twitty singing, ‘Tight Fittin Jeans.’”
“And what else did you find out?” Mario Villalobos sighed wearily.
“That it ain’t him. The voice is different.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. And he’s too young. The other guy was at least fifty.”
“Okay, we’ll concentrate on pinstripes.”
The K-9 cop ran back to the reception area, but found The Bad Czech already in conversation with Professors Harry Gray and Ignacio Mendoza. Hans was feeling a tiny bit sober, what with all the running around, so he did the expected thing: he had another glass of wine.
Delta Star Page 24
