Runaway Heart

NINETEEN

Once he was in the car, Jack called his friend Chick O'Brian at the LAPD Anti-Terrorist squad and asked him what he could find out about Octopus. "Will do," the big, bullheaded detective agreed. Jack gave him his new number and address, then rang off.

An hour later Jack parked in his office lot, locked his primered and patched Fairlane, then walked around the corner past the 4:00 p.m. fishing party. Ten guys sitting on the wall in front of the Hollywood Sports Connection casting their lines at the cruising whitefish.

"Hey!" a short blond man with a sculpted upper body and a mesh T yelled at him. "Don't I know you?"

"Don't think so," Jack said as he kept moving.

"Do you have a little Scandinavian in you?"

" 'Fraid not."

"Want one?"

It drew a laugh from the others.

Jack hurried on.

He climbed the staircase to the third floor because there was a new Out of Order sign on the elevator. Although he had taken two pills at the beach just an hour earlier, his back was again beginning to spasm.

He arrived at the third floor at the far end of the hall and froze. His office door was ajar. He knew he had locked it when he left. He reached around and unpacked his AMT Hardballer. It was a lightweight forty-five that had seven in the clip and a burnished 125-mm barrel. He slid it from his belt-mounted Yaqui slide holster, chambered it silently, and crept slowly down the hall toward his office. As he got closer he could see that the lock on his door had been shattered. Wood splinters decorated the yellow linoleum corridor.

He paused next to the door and listened… Someone inside was talking in a low voice:

"If you don't, I'll have to do it for you… that's no damn way to act," the voice whispered.

Jack took a deep breath, then kicked the door open. It slammed against the inside wall hard and he came in fast behind it. A man he had never seen before was sitting at his desk.

The guy yelled: "Yeeeeeekkkkk!", threw the telephone receiver over his head, and jumped to his feet. He was wearing iridescent plastic blue jeans and a silk pirate's shirt.

"Who the fuck are you?" Jack demanded, pushing the Hardballer into his face. Jack guessed he was about twenty, but his eyes were ageless.

"I'm Gary. Miro told me to sit in here and answer phones and shit," the boy shrieked.

Then Jack heard footsteps in the hall and Casimiro Roca came running-sliding actually-into the room. He had to grab the door frame to keep from falling. "What? What? What!" he squawked as he skidded to a stop in the threshold. He was wearing ballet slippers. "What is it? What's going on?" Miro demanded.

"Jesus, Miro, who the fuck is this?" Jack holstered his Hardballer and looked at these two guys who were dressed from the beach bonanza section of the International Male catalogue.

"When I came in about two this afternoon your little office had been broken into," Miro said. "I figured you'd want it, so I called a man to fix the lock, but he said the door hadda be replaced. So I asked Gary to sit in here to watch your stuff, 'cause those nasty people from the herbal place down the hall kept looking in. I thought they might steal what was left."

"That's really nice of you, Miro," Jack said, feeling bad that he'd pulled his gun. "Sorry I scared you." He looked at the narrow-shouldered, panicked boy in the iridescent jeans and billowing pirate shirt who, on second glance, looked more like an ice skater than a pirate.

"Jack Wirta, meet Jackson Mississippi," Miro intoned delicately.

"My God. My God," Jackson whined. "My heart is pitty-patting like a little bunny."

"I'm really sorry, guys… I'm having an off day." Then Jack sat in the guest chair and began looking around his office, taking inventory.

His clock radio was gone, along with his old desktop calculator. The calculator was a candidate for the Smithsonian anyway. His two police certificates were missing, along with his formal Academy graduation picture. He wondered why the picture was gone. "Not much of a heist," he muttered softly.

"Beg pardon?" Jackson Mississippi huffed, hands on his slender hips.

Miro glanced at Jackson. "It's okay, honey, thanks. I'll take over now."

"I would say 'any time,' except I'm never coming in here again. Here's your only message." He handed Jack a slip of paper. "That lady from your bank called. I put her name and number down, but she said they close at five… so they're closed." He snapped this off savagely. Then he got up and flounced out of the office.

"I hope you didn't scare him back into the closet." Miro grinned, then sighed theatrically. "This neighborhood… there's a lot of drug use and break-ins. Some of these boys have deep sexual anger and depression. They do all kinds of bad shit."

"Maybe it's only that, maybe it's something else."

"Something else?"

"Yeah; Look, thanks for keeping an eye on the place." Jack opened his bottom desk drawer and found a bottle of Blue Label scotch that, surprisingly, had not been lifted during the robbery. He pulled it out and showed it to Casimiro Roca. "Do you think a seasoned drug bandit would leave a good, fifty-year-old downer like this behind?"

Casimiro looked at the bottle and shrugged. Jack pulled two chipped jelly glasses out of the bottom drawer and set them on the desk, just like Sam Spade.

"Join me?"

"I never refuse a drink from a handsome, well-intentioned gentleman."

"Listen, Miro, if we're gonna be friends, we gotta get past the sexy repartee, okay? I'm not used to it from guys."

"I'll try, but in your case it's gonna be hard… no pun intended." He smiled and nodded at Jack, who poured him the drink and then handed it across the desk to him. They clinked glasses and sipped scotch, both thinking separate thoughts.

"Tell Jackson I'll pour him a shot if he needs something to calm his nerves."

Miro tossed off his drink like a Singapore sailor and went next door to fetch Jackson Mississippi and bring him to the party.