Runaway Heart

FORTY-SEVEN

While everybody else waited for three o'clock and the vans, Jack Wirta took a taxi over to Cedars-Sinai to see Casimiro Roca. As the cab driver bounced through a construction zone south of Pico, Jack's head felt like sun-rotted fruit about to explode. He silently cursed everybody, especially his driver, who was a Greek. The name on the hack license looked like it belonged on the Rosetta Stone. "Slow down," he growled to the man, who replied "Ho-kay," but didn't.

When they arrived at the main entrance of Cedars, Jack felt like he'd gone ten rounds with Lennox Lewis.

After a few minutes of wandering the polished, antiseptic halls of the hospital he finally found himself outside of Miro's door. He pushed it open and discovered the little ex-dancer reading The Advocate. When he looked up, Jack winced… Miro's face had gone half purple with bruises. His swollen eyes were greased with some kind of ointment and, as Susan had said, he'd lost several teeth.

Jack moved into the room and sat next to the bed on an institutional metal chair that sagged in the middle. He tried to ignore his own symphony of aches and pains as he focused on Miro's damaged face.

"Are you using too much Maybelline blush, or is that actually a bruise?" he said, trying to keep it light.

"I guess I got myself kinda stomped," Miro said. "Those men… they came back."

"Yeah, I got it all from Susan. What you did for me…that was something pretty special. I just wanted you to know, if you hadn't gotten that info about Black Star in Cleveland, I'd be opening at Forest Lawn this weekend."

"That's what neighbors do for one another."

"Listen, Miro, neighbors just call the cops when the music is too loud. What you did was heroic, man. We're buds for life. I owe you."

"You do?" he smiled suggestively. "How were you thinking of paying Miro back?"

"Don't start with that," Jack smiled. "But you saved my life. I just want you to know I'll never forget it."

"Now you're making Miro blush."

"How can you tell?" Jack quipped.

"Take my word…" Miro smiled, then winced. "Oooh… sorry… hurts."

"So, what can I get you? Anything. Just name it."

"Jack, would you go to my office, make sure the Reflections answering machine isn't maxed? Pick up the messages and call the boys in the book to give them their appointments?"

"Uh… sure," Jack said. "You mean set up some, uh… whattayacallit… dates?"

"Yes… dates." He didn't smile because it hurt, but his eyes were twinkling as he gave Jack the key.

"I have to be back in court at three this afternoon, but I guess I could do that," Jack agreed hesitantly.

So Jack Wirta, ex-LAPD sergeant and one-time kick-ass homicide dick, cabbed across town to Reflections where he opened the door with Miro's key, entered, and hit the playback button on the answering machine.

"This is Leon," a voice said. "I'm calling for Marlon. I'm ready to party. Call me at 555-3478."

Jack wrote it down: Marlon-Leon's ready to party. He found a book of names, flipped it open, then had to scan the whole book because he didn't have a last name. There was only one Marlon, so Jack phoned and left a message on his machine with Leon's number. So far so good. Forgetting that prostitution was a crime, he thought this was pretty easy.

The next message was from somebody named Carl, for somebody named Jack, but Wirta didn't know if that was Jack with the nipple pierce or Jack with the fox terriers.

Jack Wirta, temporary escort service intern, worked on the Reflections weekend business for almost an hour. He had done some strange things in his life, but this was number one on his list of all-time favorites.

The van ride to Indio was long and nobody had much to say. Jack thought the driver, an overweight deputy marshal in a too-tight uniform, might have been snoozing between Banning and San Bernardino, but that was just an impression and he hoped he was wrong. Jack rolled down a window to perk himself up some. He'd had enough freeway madness for awhile.

On the highway to Indio the terrain became decidedly less interesting. Shopping malls and gas stations thinned down to roadside jewelry stands and faded real estate signs.

There were two Indio Sheriff's cars parked at the side of the road as the Econoline vans turned onto the dirt lane leading to the Ten-Eyck reservation. The deputy had cut the old padlocks off the gate and it was now standing open.

"This the whole shebang?" an Indio deputy sheriff drawled as he stood in the desert heat with his stomach and gunbelt sagging.

Judge Krookshank got out of the lead van and stood at the side of the road while Joseph Amato gathered up his collection of identical co-counsels. Most of the attorneys looked slightly more human to Jack with sweat on their faces and their ties rolled up in their pockets.

"Okay," Krookshank said to Herman. "This is your discovery, so you do it."

They all squeezed into the front van and rumbled past the main gate led by the Sheriff's department escort car, jouncing along on the dirt road, all of them cheek to jowl, scowling like prisoners who didn't make bail. Herman was looking out the window trying to spot the chimera lab, which he was pretty sure would be a big brick or concrete block science pod. What they saw was considerably less noteworthy. There was certainly no shortage of cactus, broken trucks, and old tires. It was an impressive collection of rubble, but there wasn't one chimera to be seen. There were a few trailers rusting away in the dusty sunshine, but no huge concrete research facility. No little furry soldiers with human faces and talking computers. No spirited games of Capture the Flag taking place in the desert heat with DARPA coaches holding clipboards, scoring, and shouting instructions… just seventeen hundred acres of arid desert.

"Let's look in that one," Herman said with a sigh, pointing at a rusting, silver Airstream trailer. They climbed out of the van and Herman knocked on the door. Russell Iban-azi had some keys and opened up. It was empty.

"This was Bob Horsekiller's place," Izzy said. "He's got a big Spanish Tudor on Charing Cross Road now."

Good for Bob Horsekiller, Jack thought, as he looked inside the threadbare trailer. I'd rather live in a mansion on Charing Cross, too.

There was nothing inside the Airstream but broken furniture.

Back in the van, they headed off again. Herman was getting frustrated. "It has to be a large facility," he said, then pointed at a dirt road. "Try that one-there."

The van swung right and headed in that direction. More tires, more trailers, some stables, and an occasional dilapidated wood barn.

Herman got out and checked everything, walking into empty living rooms, kicking old rugs, unlocking the empty barns and leading them inside where there was nothing but empty stalls and piles of petrified horseshit. Through it all they were getting strafed by horseflies large enough to carry passengers.

Up until now Amato had remained silent, but he had started smiling. "Seen enough?" he quipped, managing to sound bored and ballsy, prickish and disgusted. Ten letters, two words and it was all there. Brilliant, Jack thought.

Then the tour was over. Izzy seemed glad to be heading out of there. His dark childhood memories of the place reconfirmed. He was a resident of Bel Air now and his Michelins were where they belonged-under his Porsche, not his porch.

They stopped at the gate. The sheriff waited as Russell Ibanazi locked up tight, putting on new padlocks he had brought with him. What he was protecting seemed a mystery.

"Anything else before we go home?" Krookshank asked.

"No… no… I guess not," Herman replied. He looked over at Susan, who shrugged.

Jack watched Herman carefully. He looked very old in that moment, older than his fifty-five years, heavier than his two hundred and forty pounds, more worn and tired than his shiny black suit.

"Oh well," Herman said. Two words, and they conveyed nothing but fatigue. Herman seemed outgunned and out of luck.

Jack felt sorry for him. It must be hard to believe in something so passionately and be completely wrong.