Runaway Heart (2003)

by Stephen Cannell

  "Yep ... in the flesh. It's me."

  It went on like that for two or three more rounds, until Herman stepped in and broke it up.

  "I'm Herman Strockmire," he said to Russell Ibanazi and the rest of the people in the room. "I'm the one who called you six hours ago. I think you know my daughter Susan."

  "You mean, Lois," Russell corrected, smiling at her. "How's Clark? Did Mimi like the background stuff we did?"

  "Uh ..." She shot a look at Herman, whose eyebrows had climbed up somewhere in the middle of his forehead.

  Susan stammered: "Uh, Izzy, I'm afraid that wasn't exactly all true, what we told you about 213 Magazine ..."

  "What part of it wasn't true?" His handsome face wrinkled in distress.

  "Well, more or less ... all of it."

  "Clark doesn't want to do the 'L.A. Sound' cover story?"

  "Well, he would if he could, but since there is no Clark Lane, and no 'L.A. Sound' cover, and since we're not with the magazine at all ... I don't think you should count on it."

  "Not with the magazine?" Distress morphed into depression.

  "No. We were just trying to find out more about the reservation and what was going on out there. It's why Mr. Trump is here now."

  Russell Ibanazi looked at Donald, then at Herman.

  "Okay," he said. "Then what's going on?"

  Donald stepped forward, dropping his cashmere overcoat over the back of a large club chair. He looked at the faces of the rest of the Ten-Eyck tribe that included men and women of all ages, as well as half a dozen teenagers and a few children. They were handsome, black-eyed people, all dressed in the best Rodeo Drive had to offer.

  "As you undoubtedly know," Donald began, "I'm involved in some big casino developments in Atlantic City and elsewhere ..."

  "Yes, of course we've heard," Russell Ibanazi said, leaning forward respectfully.

  "I understand from Herman that you've voted in a government administrator to run your reservation and that he now has total control," Trump went on. "Is that pretty much the gist?"

  "Yes, sir, that's exactly the situation. Correct." Russell was measured and precise no more show-biz buzzwords. He was back to being tribal chief.

  "I also understand that the government pays you around forty million a year for the use of your seventeen-hundred acre reservation east of Indio."

  Russell Ibanazi looked at Susan, then nodded. "It nets out at a little over two thousand dollars an acre a month."

  "I hate to be blunt," Donald said. "But you're being screwed. Who negotiated that deal?"

  "We . . . well, I set it up, and the entire tribe approved it at council." Concern shadowed his features.

  "Since California passed the Native American Casino Gaming Bill, I'm sure you're aware that your reservation can now host a full-service gambling casino. That reservation is a tremendously valuable asset. Seventeen hundred acres could be worth a fortune if developed correctly. However, it can't be done if the government is fouling the land, dumping toxic waste into illegal ground fills." Trump had them all listening intently.

  "There can't be much waste yet, Donald, it's only been eighteen months," Herman said quickly.

  "Look, I can most likely deal with the toxic waste issues. I can probably force the government to clean it up at their expense or face a shit-storm of negative publicity. What I can't deal with is this non-Indian administrator hired by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency," Donald said. "He will block any attempt of mine to redefine land usage."

  "Don't worry about him. We can vote him out anytime we want," Izzy said. "We could even have an election tonight and reinstate me as administrator. It's in the Tribal Charter."

  The rest of the men and women in the room nodded and mumbled their assent.

  "But the res is way the hell and gone, out in the desert twenty miles east of Indio, almost at the Mexican border. The choice reservation properties for casinos are the ones in and around Palm Springs. Why would you want to build a casino way out there?" Izzy said, trying not to look stupid for recommending the DARPA deal in the first place.

  Trump didn't seem worried. "I'm not concerned about its remote location. That's one of the reasons I'm gonna get it for a good price, but I'll offer you a great percentage of my back-end profits in return. Even at my up-front lease rate, you're going to do three times better than the government is paying now."

  The room murmured with excitement.

  "The second reason it doesn't matter," Donald continued, "is that we will make this casino absolutely magnificent. There will be pools and fountains, solariums and traveling walkways, trams and amusement parks. Seventeen hundred acres of holiday fun with an airport to service it. It doesn't matter if it's twenty miles east of Indio on the Mexican border or twenty miles east of Egypt." Then he smiled, his white teeth and blue eyes glistened. "Because, in the words of my favorite actor, Kevin Costner: Tf we build it, they will come.' "

  Chapter Forty-five.

  Now this is more like it. Jack was grinning. He felt

  better than a troop of traveling clowns, more lit up than a Macy's Christmas window.

  Okay, so maybe this little room is colder than a pimp's heart, but does that make it a bad place}

  There were no windows and no furniture, and Jack Wirta, America's most engaging private dick, was forced to sit on the floor, contemplating concrete. Does that make this a bad experience? Fuck no. Concrete can be beautiful. Behold, its rough-hewn perfection. Study the poured-block worlds below. There are shapes lurking behind this gray molecular mass . . . little mountains and valleys, tiny fields of creation . . . microscopic and pure. A complete gnat-size world full of itty-bitty bumps and

  crevices that make up a carnival of untold beauty. Or an untold carnival of beautiful bumps and crevices ... or a concrete carnival of untold bumpy canyons. Anyway, all kinds'a good shit.

  Better still, Jack Wirta, heavy thinker, is having some world class thoughts. Even Emil Matasareanu and his dimwitted buddy Gene Philips couldn't fuck up this shoot-out. Jack was grinning, but suddenly, he felt sick. Time out. . . need to vomit. Auggh . . . auggh . . . ahhh . . . wooph, splash. Oh-oh . . . Jack did a boo-boo.

  But, hold on . . . let's take a closer look. Even vomit can be morphed into something beautiful. What used to be a Big Mac is now a pool of regurgitated floor art.

  He put his fingers in it and began to draw designs.

  Sure it smells a little funky, but Jack Wirta, grinning artist, can work past that. Picasso had his oils. Wirta has his vomit.

  The door swung open, crudely breaking his creative flow. Jack saw two of the neatest-looking commandos coming toward him dressed in cammies, with their heads in shiny metal pots.

  "It's kicking in," one of them said to the other. "He's stoned outta his mind."

  "Let's get this fucking asshole outta here."

  "Jack Wirta, fucking asshole, is ready to go, sir!"

  They yanked him up to his full forty-foot height. It was awesome up there, his feet dragging a perfect line of vomit across the floor. Toe art. Would the wonders ever cease? "I gotta go. Yes, yes. Here we go," he caroled as they pulled him out the door.

  They muscled him down the corridor. A beautiful concrete corridor full of abstract microscopic crevices. How could he have missed all this before? Oh yeah, he remembered now. He'd had his head in a canvas sack.

  And then he was outside. "This is so fucking great," he told the man on his left. "I've got to do this more often get out in the forest with all the little creatures." He smiled at the man on his right, who didn't answer but shoved him into the back seat of a car.

  "Shut your piehole, you moron."

  "Moron Jack, shutting his piehole as instructed, sir," Jack giggled.

  Valdez came out of the concrete block building.

  "Hey Vinnie," Jack waved at him. "We're going for a ride."

  "Take him down the mountain, then put him behind the wheel. Head him onto the 134," Valdez said.

  "Hey, good idea,"
Jack grinned. "Bye, Vinnie." He waved at Valdez.

  The car started moving. Jack was having a ball. "We're going on the freeway, we're going on the freeway," he chanted.

  The two men in the car with him didn't seem to find him amusing. "Hey Wirta, for the last time, shut up!" one of them growled.

  Jack put his finger to his lips and turned an imaginary key. "Birds ... I see birds," he shouted, and pointed out the window at some hawks sailing above.

  The man in the back seat with him hit Jack hard in the stomach. He doubled over, gasping for breath. "No fair," Jack whined. After a moment he struggled upright and looked over at the glowering man who had just punched him. Something wasn't right. He felt strange. What was it? Oh yeah, I know. "Gotta puke." And he let fly, hitting the commando in the chest and lap with projectile vomit.

  "Goddamn!" the man said.

  They were down by the gate that went across Santiago Road, leading them out of the Cleveland National Forest. A ranger opened the gate and waved the car past.

  "Hi," Jack grinned. "We're going to go on the freeway."

  The man didn't hear him. They continued on, heading down toward the 134 Freeway that was coming into view a short distance in front of them.

  Jack heard a helicopter overhead. "Hey!" he cried out happily. "Helicopter!"

  "Shut the fuck up," the man with the vomit on his uniform growled.

  "But, it's a helicopterJack persisted.

  The roar became deafening, then for a second Jack could see the chopper was hovering in front of them, cutting them off. The car swerved, and in that instant Jack thought he saw someone he knew hanging out of the helicopter door. "Hey . . . it's Shane!" He called out.

  The car skidded sideways attempting to manuever around the chopper, then careened off the road, down a dirt trail, and into the trees. The helicopter was forced to pull up to avoid hitting the tall pines. Jack felt the car come to a stop, then the two commandos were pulling him out of the back seat.

  "Are we here?" he grinned, as they shoved him into the front seat and buckled him in behind the steering wheel. The man without the vomit got in beside Jack, butting him over slightly so he could also squeeze behind the wheel. Then the car started rolling again; The man wedged in next to Jack was driving awkwardly, negotiating a narrow track through the overgrowth. The helicopter sounds faded.

  "Wheee!" Jack grabbed for the steering wheel, but the man knocked his hand away.

  "Not yet, asshole."

  "Okay," Jack grinned stupidly.

  A half mile further, the car emerged from the trees and came to a stop at the base of a freeway ramp. The man jumped out. "Now. Get it on up there."

  "Yes sir. On the case, sir."

  The man slammed the door shut and Jack hit the gas. He was shooting up onto the freeway. "Here I come!" he shouted at the windshield.

  Damndest thing, though. Cars were honking at him and the drivers all seemed angry. "What'd I do?" Jack whined. Something is definitely wrong. What the heck is it? What is pissing these other drivers off? Is it. . . yes, yes . . . maybe this is it: The cars are coming at me. "Hey, everybody! I'm going the wrong way!" he shouted.

  Suddenly, the helicopter was in front of him again, flying sideways along the freeway, trying to warn oncoming traffic, rising occasionally to pop over an overpass then dropping down again. It was trying to block him.

  Traffic was pinwheeling everywhere, tortured rubber burning and squealing. Jack was aiming the car more than driving it. He spun the wheel to the right as a horn blared and a big rig started jackknifing, all eighteen tires smoking. "Good one," Jack shouted.

  His car began pinwheeling as well round and round, trees and signs and off-ramps whirling by in a confusing array of colors and shapes. Then it shuddered to a stop.

  The helicopter hovered in front of him, and landed on the freeway. Men were running around waving their arms and stopping traffic. Jack was still sitting behind the wheel smiling when the door was yanked open. Shane Scully unbuckled him and pulled him out.

  "Shane, we're taking a trip. We went up the freeway off-ramp," Jack grinned.

  "What the fuck's wrong with you?" Shane asked, looking into Jack's eyes, staring at blown-out pupils.

  "Nothing, Shane. Nothing," Jack said. "I'm having great thoughts. Oops, Gotta vomit."

  And he threw up on his ex-partner's shoes.

  Chapter Forty-Six.

  Jack's head was throbbing. It felt thick as oatmeal, heavy as a fifty-pound medicine ball. He was in the back row of Federal District Courtroom Sixteen, wedged between two more unlikely characters. On his right was a skinny old man with a string bean. On Jack's other side, snoring like Bluto's wife after a hard night of drinking, was the fattest woman he had ever seen. She was slumped over sleeping, and kept oozing toward him.

  The TRO against DARPA was back in court and Herman was droning on. Susan was sitting next to him at the plaintiff's table, making notes. Warren Krookshank was up on the bench. He was a handsome African-American judge with silver-gray hair, rimless glasses, and a quiet, no-nonsense demeanor. The defense counsel, all ten of them, were gathered

  around their rectangular mahogany table in a pregame huddle.

  Jack tried to focus on Herman's argument and ignore the old geezer muttering on the wooden bench next to him.

  "... reviewed the whole question of Charles Chimera's DNA," Herman was saying as Jack's attention returned.

  "Objection, Your Honor," shouted Joe Amato. He was on his feet, his white cuffs and porcelain caps glittering. "The law clearly dictates denial of this TRO solely on the issue of standing. Counsel is attempting to sue my clients using an animal as his plaintiff. So before we get into the merits of the TRO, or whether this beast even exists, I want to get a ruling with regards to whether counsel can stand over there and represent a chimpanzee."

  Herman was also on his feet.

  "Not a chimpanzee, Your Honor, a being who has DNA closer to human homology than that of a Down's syndrome child. Judge King has already accepted the stipulation of the parties, that DNA is the yardstick for measuring humanity. That fact has already been established in this case."

  "I know what Judge King ruled regarding stipulation, Mr. Strockmire. I've read the court transcript." Krookshank removed his glasses and looked down at Herman sternly. "Before I rule on that objection, is there anything else you want to submit, counsel?"

  Herman moved out from behind the plaintiff's table. "Yes, Your Honor." He cleared his throat, then took a breath to center his thoughts. "Inequalities have existed for as long as people have been on this earth. We are a species that seems to treasure our ability to defend and fight for our inequalities, and there are many. We have religious, racial, and gender inequalities. We have inequalities of social status and of wealth. There are even commercial inequalities like those afforded to people flying first class as opposed to those flying coach. As a society, in order to grow we have to learn to embrace the natural inequalities that exist between us and reject the artificial ones. I'm not in favor of banishing all inequalities, Your Honor. Perhaps some of these differences exist between us for a reason, and perhaps some of them aren't bad at least the nondiscriminatory ones. Perhaps by seeing certain people differently, others will strive to be better.

  "But what happens, Your Honor, when a person, no matter how hard he or she tries, cannot redefine their station in life, and for that reason they are discriminated against? For instance, no matter how hard each of us tries, we will always be our same race, we will always have our same genetic or gender differences. Therefore we must accept that there are some things that simply cannot be changed. For instance, the makeup of our own DNA. Our DNA is a map of our personal genetic history, and up till now it was unchangeable no matter what we did.

  "But my client's DNA has been changed to within a few tenths of a percentage point of human DNA. This, I will remind you, was done without his permission. Should the fact that Charles Chimera's DNA does not now exactly match the rest of us be enoug
h to deny him Constitutional rights? Should that fact cause him to have to suffer further torture and inhumane testing? Because, Your Honor, this is what is happening here. Charles Chimera and his John Doe chimera coplaintiffs have had their DNA altered, causing them grave bodily harm. Only this court stands between them and any future irreparable experimentation."

  "Objection," Amato said.

  He sounded bored. He sounded amused. He sounded frustrated, Jack marveled. All of that in one nine-letter word. The guy was simply magnificent.

  "What does any of this have to do with the fact that Mr. Strockmire is representing an animal in this court and doesn't have a shred of standing for his plaintiff," Amato challenged.

  Warren Krookshank seemed to ponder that, and looked down at Herman. "This court concedes that inequalities exist, Counselor. However, this court is also bound by legal precedent. The defense raises a good point. Historically, only Homo sapiens have been allowed access to our judicial system."

  "Your Honor, need I remind you of Dred Scott a slave who was told that because he was a slave, and therefore was defined as property, he could not sue for his own freedom in a court of law? That decision was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court. But before that it was the law. He was denied court standing, just as Charles Chimera is being denied his legal access. Even though he is closer to a human, by virtue of his DNA chart, than a Down's syndrome child or a genetically damaged fetus many of whom have availed themselves of their legal rights in federal court.

  "I have here a table of federal cases in which the court has heard lawsuits on behalf of beings with DNA further from the human norm than Charles Chimera's, together with a description of their DNA status. I would like to submit this as Exhibit B." He rummaged in his folder and withdrew a stack of pages, then handed his list of cases to the clerk, who marked them. Herman handed out copies to the defense, then reached up and ceremoniously laid one on Judge Krookshank's bench.

  "I have to admit, there is something in this argument that is intriguing," Krookshank said. "The law must be prepared to change with the times. However, I'm still not convinced. I'm going to let you continue on the assumption that as we proceed you will establish facts to bring this more clearly into focus. I will rule on the issue of Charles Chimera's standing at some point down the road."