Runaway Heart

TWENTY-0NE

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 happened 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.