Runaway Heart

by Stephen J. Cannell

  "Good, 'cause so far that doesn't quite figure."

  "An hour after my guy gives me this he calls back, and Jack, I never heard him in such a panic."

  Chick squirmed slightly in the brown leather chair, screwing his ass in for better traction, then he leaned forward and said, "He tells me to forget everything he just told me. Says, whatever

  I do, don't tell a soul. He said his career is cooked if it gets back to anybody on his agency flow chart that he gave me this. Apparently he wasn't supposed to be able to access it, but because of his White House security number he leaked in. Big mistake! The systems administrator traced the breach to him. It's called a back-finger. Anyway, a team of federal hitters shows up in my friend's office twenty minutes later and they put him through a half hour of bullshit. He tells these two suits that he'd heard about Octopus, got curious, and was checking because he thought it might be part of one of his drug cases that it was all just a dumb mistake. He doesn't think they bought it. They rattled him good, but he held up, didn't tell them he gave it to me, and I didn't tell him I was doing this for you. Whatever it is, Octopus is not supposed to see daylight."

  After Chick finished Jack poured the big cop a scotch to calm him down. He slid it over, but Chick O'Brian just looked at the glass… stared at it as if Jack had just rolled a live grenade across the desk.

  "What?" Jack asked, slightly perplexed. Then it hit him. It was Miro's glass and Chick was afraid it was crawling with herpes simplex 12., or dick fungus, or some other form of sexual leprosy. So Jack switched glasses, handing his to Chick and taking Miro's for himself. He began sipping, while Chick watched him with something between awe and disgust.

  "You got guts, I'll say that."

  "No, I'm just not a moron. You can't get a sexual disease from a glass."

  "Your dick falls off, don't come crying to me."

  "Right," Jack said. "You'd be my first stop if that happened."

  They sat there for a long minute savoring their drinks.

  "Computer lab, huh? Okay, look, is there any way to track this thing from another direction? Find out more about it?"

  "Don't you listen? This guy freaked out on me, and he's no wuss. We did some doors together. He's solid, and he was scared pissless. I'm telling you Jack, don't mess with it. It's why I came over here in person to warn you. Whatever it is, leave this Octopus thing alone." Chick stood, put his empty glass back on the desk, then stopped and examined the shattered lock. "What happened here?"

  "These guys around here all find me irresistible," Jack said, deadpan. "I'm thinking about not wearin' my Brute cologne anymore. Fucks 'em up."

  "I'm worried about you, Wirta," the cop's cop said over his shoulder as he left.

  "Me too," Jack said softly, wondering what the hell kind of nightmare Strockmire had stumbled into.

  Chapter Twenty-One.

  Jack Wirta met Herman Strockmire in the paved

  lower parking lot off Seaver Drive at Pepperdine University.

  It was strange, the way it happened. Jack arrived first, at 10:00 A.M., and waited. Twenty minutes later Herman pulled into the lot in a silver Mercedes SL500 with a license plate that read FUNY GRL.

  Herman sat motionless in the car after he parked it, so Jack got out of his sagging Fairlane and waved. No response.

  He walked a bit closer and stared right through the windshield at the fat, unhealthy man sitting behind the wheel of Barbra Streisand's luxury Mercedes. He waved again. Still nothing.

  He thought maybe Herman was just gathering his thoughts in there.

  When Herman didn't get out, Jack walked over and tapped on the window. Raccoon eyes turned to look at him, and only then did Herman Strockmire Jr. attempt to move. He grunted and strained as he dragged his huge bulk out of the car.

  Finally, he heaved up, gulping mouthfuls of morning air, grabbed his suit coat and shouldered into it, then slowly retrieved his briefcase.

  "You okay?" Jack asked, concerned.

  "Yep, tip-top. Piss and vinegar."

  Herman certainly looked warm and yellow, but the vinegar was missing.

  In the distance over Herman's shoulder was the Pendelton Computer Science Center, a large, multi-storied white stucco building with red tile patios, arched windows, and a dormered roof. Clustered around it were all the little Pendeltons: the Pendelton Learning Center, the Pendelton Foundation Building, Pendelton Hall. The Pendeltons had obviously dropped some big green on Pepperdine U.

  The campus was spread across a rolling hillside, and they had to climb two levels of concrete steps to get from the parking lot up to the Computer Science Center. By the time they got halfway, Herman was leaking air like a buckshot dirigible, wheezing and gasping, holding onto the stair rail like somebody's ninety-year-old aunt.

  Susan had been right. Jack was actually beginning to feel a little guilty. They should get this guy hooked up to an IV bag fast. Herman started up the last, steep flight of stairs.

  "Don't you want to wait for your daughter?" Jack said, looking for any excuse to give the guy a little longer to rest.

  "Susan isn't coming. She's at the Registrar's office at UCLA," he answered, turning to face the last flight. Jack thought the twenty-step climb would surely kill him.

  He grabbed Herman's arm and stopped him. "How come? What's out at UCLA?"

  "She's going to law school there."

  "Wonderful," Jack said, thinking how much he hated lawyers.

  "She's worked hard, took prelaw in night school. She went out there this morning to see if she could qualify for academic aid." Herman looked wistfully up the final flight of stairs like Sir Edmund Hillary at the last base camp on Everest. Then he grabbed the rail again and heaved himself up.

  Jack moved along with him, trying to slow the pace. "Man, slow down. These stairs… I'm a little out of shape," Jack lied.

  But Herman just lumbered along.

  Room 212 was on the first floor, despite its two hundred number. They looked through the open door. It was a large computer lab. There were fifty or sixty work stations, but only ten or twelve of them were being used. College-aged boys and girls were dressed in baggy, saggy plumber jeans.

  As they peered into the computer room, a tall, rather good-looking blond man with a Vandyke beard and tweedy sport coat materialized behind them.

  "Something we can do for you?" He used the pronoun "we" as if he took up more intellectual space than just one ordinary person. He was also one of those guys that Jack ran into occasionally who he hated on sight. His bullshit meter was instantly redlined.

  Jack took a step back and studied the man while Herman reached into his wallet for his card. Jack intercepted the process before the card got into the man's possession.

  "Uncle Charles," Jack said scolding. "I don't think the man wants to buy insurance." Then Jack looked at the blonde man and smiled. "My uncle has frontal-lobe dementia. He thinks he's still at Aetna." Jack looked at Herman to see if he was going to play along.

  After a moment Herman smiled and said, "Sorry. Forgot."

  Vandyke replied, "How can we help?"

  "My kid sister, Paulette, is thinking of coming here next year," Jack said. "She's amazing with computers, and over at Administration they said we shouldn't leave without seeing the Pendelton Computer Science Center, so here we are."

  "This is a closed lab." Then he actually reached past Jack and pulled the door shut. "I'm Dean Nichols, head of the computer center."

  "Oh, just the man we should be talking to," Jack enthused.

  "I'm afraid I can't talk right now. This is my class. Call my office for an appointment." He re-opened the door and pushed past them into the room. Jack used the moment to again look inside and scope out the students furiously pounding keyboards and clicking mouses. Then he was looking at polished pine, as the door was slammed in his face.

  "Frontal-lobe dementia?" Herman said, scowling.

  "Listen, Herm, you don't go around passing out the little Institute cards. Don't forget what happ
ened to Roland. Somewhere hiding in this cheese souffle is a madman with acute homicidal mania."

  Yeah… yeah. You're right. Thanks." He heaved a deep sigh. "I didn't think of that. What now?"

  "We wait in the quad for class to be over. I spotted a few kids that looked worth talking to."

  "You mean just then, while he was going in?" He seemed impressed.

  "Yep. You've hired class-A help here."

  A bell rang, doors opened, and it seemed as if two million teens wearing more or less identical outfits flowed into the plaza. All were carrying the same oversized, stuffed backpacks, the same CD headsets. They overran the Pendelton Center patio.

  Jack caught a glimpse of one of the girls he had spotted in the lab: yellow CD player, backpack, plumber bib overalls, curly red hair, and thick glasses. Nerd.

  Nerdy girls were good, because they don't get hit on too often, so they don't get pissy when you talk to them. Jack followed her and Herman caboosed along behind, wheezing and grunting.

  "Excuse me," Jack called out. "Excuse me, Miss."

  She looked back at him, a puzzled frown on her freckled face. "Huh?" She didn't remove her headset.

  "Hi, I wonder if I could ask you a question?"

  Nothing.

  "My kid sister, Christine, wants to major in computer science at Pepperdine. She's a senior right now, over at Pali High. I was wondering if you could tell me if you're enjoying your courses here?"

  "Huh?" She was proving to be a conversational treat.

  "I was wondering if you get a lot of computer time in the labs, if the terminals were state of the art, that sort of thing… if you had good job opportunities upon graduation. Do companies come on campus and do job-placement interviews?" "Oh."

  "What I mean is, do you like it here?" Getting one simple sentence out of her was tough as animal dentistry.

  "Huh?" She looked at him, then added, "You mean do I like it here?"

  We have ignition, Jack thought. "Yeah, that's what I was wondering."

  "What's not to like?"

  "Right," Jack said. "What's not to like? But could you be slightly more specific?"

  "Well the labs are great…"

  "Like the one you were just in?"

  "Well, that's not so much a lab, really, it's it's…" And she stopped and looked at him closer. "Do I, like, know you?"

  "No." Jack wondered what was going through her fuzzy head besides Metallica music.

  She finally said, "It's not a lab, it's paid work. We work like on a scholarship program. Some of us got recruited outta high school 'cause we scored high on computer aptitude, so Dean Nichols gave us these partial scholarships. He runs this special program at the lab three times a week. At least, I have it three times. I think there's also a Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday lab for some other kids."

  "And you get paid," Jack smiled. "That's pretty cool."

  "Half tuition and all our books."

  "Really? And what do you have to do?"

  "Like, we just monitor stuff. It's pretty complicated. You should ask Dean Nichols. It's supposed to be like a secret. We're not supposed to say. Gotta go. I hope your daughter comes here, it rocks." She turned and bebopped away, mixing with the others until he lost sight of her.

  It took them as long going down the two flights as it had going up, Herman grabbing the rail and slowly lowering himself step by step. Jack had seen piano movers make better time. Herman finally folded himself into the silver Mercedes, dropping his ass in first, then backing in like the last clown in the Volkswagen. Jack got in beside him on the passenger's side.

  "What do you think?" Herman wheezed softly, still out of breath from the walk.

  "You heard her. She's, like, on a scholarship. She works in a lab, like, monitoring stuff."

  "She said it was secret," Herman wheezed.

  "Vandyke's an academic. These guys guard their research. He's probably writing a book." Jack was studying Herman, thinking the man really did need to get his ticker fixed, and he was just about to suggest that when the overweight man turned and looked him right in the eye. Jack saw something in that raccoon

  glare that almost scared him a latent intensity that didn't square up with his broken-down condition and schlubby build.

  "I want you to follow Dean Nichols," Herman said. "See where he goes, who he talks to."

  "You mean a stakeout? Goody, those are neato." Jack was trying to make it sound as stupid as he thought it was. He didn't want to run a stakeout on a tweedy asshole like Dean Nichols. "Look, Herman, I really don't think there's much here. That's my trained, law-enforcement opinion. Furthermore, I think you need to address your medical problems."

  "But you said there was a homicidal maniac here."

  "I didn't say that. I said don't hand your card around like you're Mike Ovitz until we know what we're dealing with. In police work you have to rate your possibilities you have to figure where your best opportunities are. I'm telling you, in my professional opinion, this is a dead end."

  "But it's a secret lab," Herman challenged.

  "Yeah, and my guess is that the Pentagon and DARPA aren't using teenagers to work top-security programs with sexy names like Octopus. We went off the track somewhere. I think we need to back up because we missed something."

  "I want you to follow Dean Nichols. I have a hunch."

  "That's not a hunch, that's a chemical reaction. I had it too. He's an arrogant shit with oh-so-slick hair, but that doesn't make him a government spook."

  "I think it's worth pursuing. Since I'm paying you a thousand a day, you should do what I say. If that doesn't work for you, I'll get someone else."

  Jack got out of the car. "I'll call you if I get anything."

  Herman nodded and drove away.

  "Bitchin'. A stakeout," Jack said to himself. "And he's payin'

  me.

  Of course, Jack didn't know that both checks had already bounced, and by the time he found out, it would already be too late.

  Chapter Twenty-Two.

  After Herman left, Jack tried to call Wells Fargo,

  but his cell battery was fried. So he walked to the Administration building and used their pay phone. After laboring through the bank's computerized help menu, a recorded voice informed him that Mrs. Donovan wasn't available please leave a message. He left his name, then picked up a two-hundred-page academic catalogue, sat in the air-conditioned waiting room, and looked up Dr. Nichols, dean of the Pepperdine Computer Science School, who was listed as a "distinguished professor." A string of letters hung off the end of his name like knots in a kite's tail: A.B.M.A., M.A., Ph.D.

  Jack already knew he was distinguished, because he'd seen the neatly trimmed Vandyke. But it was his pedigree paragraph that caught Jack's interest.

  Dr. Paul Nichols had done his graduate work at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., right down the road from CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. It wasn't exactly a big "wow," but further complicating the dean's curriculum vitae was his doctorate degree. His Ph.D. was in political science, not computer science which begged the question: What was he doing running the computer science school at Pepperdine?

  He read on. Dr. Paul Nichols had been a dean since 2001 a short-timer. Strangely, he also coached women's volleyball. An interesting sideline. But then, everybody loves tall, muscular girls in sports bras.

  He found a listing for the campus police office and used the guest phone to make a call, pretending to be one of the names he picked at random off the faculty listing page.

  "Hello, University Police Department," a man's voice answered.

  "This is Dean Harry Gransky, Communications and Journalism," Jack said, pinching his nose for acoustical effect. "That damn Dean Nichols is in my parking space again. I can't park anywhere,'cause the lot's full."

  "Are you sure it was Dean Nichols's car?" the man asked.

  "Think I don't know his damn car by now? This is the fifth time he's done it. The brown Chevy Nova with the purple antenna feather?" Just fucking
around a little, trying to shake a case of boredom.

  "Just a minute." And he was on hold, listening to a strange rendition of "Eleanor Rigby" done on the bagpipes.

  The man came back. "I just punched out Dean Nichols's parking pass. He's not driving a brown Nova. He drives a blue Chevelle."

  A Chevelle} Jack thought. Who, except postal inspectors, drive Chevelles? "Are you sure? Gimme his plate number."

  "EWU 357," the man said. "Listen, Dean Gransky, maybe just for today you could find an empty spot in the Baxter Drive lot."

  "I'll try, but this always makes me late for class."

  Jack hung up and walked back across campus to his Ford Fairlane, vehicle of champions. He backed out and drove around looking for Dean Nichols's blue Chevelle. He found it in a freshly paved upper lot off Tower Road. Jack waited until a woman in a red Volkswagen nearby pulled out, then he stole her space, turned off his engine, and adjusted his side mirror so he could watch the dean's old Chevelle drip axle grease on the fresh, new pavement. He spent the afternoon watching his minute hand make three painfully slow laps around the dial, gobbled some Peres, washed them down with bottled water, then belched loudly. Whatta life.

  At 4:30 Dean Paul Nichols wandered out to his Chevelle, unlocked the trunk, and put his briefcase and stack of papers inside. No volleyballs.

  Damn. Jack had been looking forward to volleyball practice.

  Dean Nichols got behind the wheel and tooled the little blue Chevelle out of the parking lot. Jack backed up and followed.

  The next few stops were studies in adrenalized exhilaration. Paul Nichols went to the supermarket, pulled into the lot, then added to the day's excitement by committing a parking lot felony and stealing a handicapped stall.

  Jack wished he'd never heard of Herman Strockmire Jr. or the Institute for Planetary Justice. Susan was still on his wait-and-see list.

  He sat in his car, yawning occasionally, until Dr. Nichols finally pushed his shopping cart out of the market and loaded his groceries in the trunk.

  Then it was off to the laundry and a heart-pounding trip to the drugstore. Breathtaking. This stakeout was definitely going in the book.