Runaway Heart (21 page)

     
"Herman Strockmire Jr. is the most courageous, brave,
dedicated person you will ever have the privilege of meeting." She was
pissed.

     
"I'm already sensing that," he lied. "Really. I'm
getting that loud and clear."

     
"And he is one of the few people you'll ever meet who has
actually committed his life to making a difference. He's trying to stop the
corruption of our national values."

     
"Right. Right. That's obvious to anybody who even looks at
him." Jack was falling back, cursing his transparency.

     
He sensed that he was just seconds away from being fired. If he
wanted to stay on the clock he needed to instantly find a way to make himself
indispensable. He got up and went into the house before she could terminate
him.

     
Once inside he saw Herman hunched over his portable computer.
"Mr. Strockmire, I've got good federal contacts in L.A., and if this is a
federal program, I think I can get a quick rundown on this Octopus thing for
you. I have a buddy who's on the LAPD Anti-Terrorist task force. Guy's got top
Pentagon and White House security clearance. Be no problem for him to punch it
out for me. 'Course, it will mean you'll have to keep me on for at least
another day. But I think it's probably a good investment, given what's
happened."

     
Herman looked up at Jack and heaved a heavy, tired sigh. "I
couldn't find anything about Octopus in here," he said.

     
"Whatta you think?" Jack prodded. "Should I stay on
this one more day, see what I can turn up?"

     
Herman looked at Susan, who had just entered from the beach and
was standing by the door frowning.

     
"If you have a good contact I guess we don't have much choice,"
Herman said. "Susan, write Mr. Wirta another check."

     
"Certainly, Dad." She turned to Jack. "I'll show
you out."

     
She took Jack's arm and led him firmly through the guesthouse, out
to the side of the pool.

     
Once there, she spun him around. It was surprising how strong she
was. His back spasmed as she forced him to pivot.

     
"Stop trying to milk this," she said. "I'm trying
to get him to go into the hospital. He's got a heart problem."

     
"Milk it? You kidding? You don't want me around, I'm gone.
Just say the word."

     
They stood there glowering at each other. Actually Susan was the
one glowering; Jack was just trying to look indignant. For some reason, his
assortment of oft-used street expressions—so devastatingly effective on
skid-row junkies—were useless with Susan Strockmire.

     
"One more day," she warned.

     
"In advance," he reminded her.

     
"One thousand dollars." She pulled out her checkbook and
started writing him another rubber check.

     
"Uh—not to be troublesome, but how 'bout twelve hundred?
Don't forget the two Benjies I advanced you."

     
"What a bargain," she growled as she ripped it off and
thrust it at him. "Listen," she said as he put this check into his
wallet, "this is important to him, okay? This is what his life is about
and—"

     
"Don't rip him off. I know." Jack finished, trying to
end the conversation. His back felt more tender than pounded steak. He needed
to get the hell away from here and take two more pills.

     
"If you take advantage, if you try and play him or con him, I
swear I'll find a way to kick your ass." That unfriendly thought hung
there until Jack turned and walked through the gate at the side of the house.

O
nce 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.

W
hen Chick O'Brian—the policeman's
policeman and one-time LAPD heavyweight boxing champ—entered Jack Wirta's
office it was a little past 6
p.m.
He
was surprised to find his old bud with his shoes off, sitting behind the desk,
feet up, drinking scotch with two nutsack chorus boys. Chick was massive and
kept things simple: guys were guys, girls were pussy. Everything else was
perverted. He had shoulders like an American buffalo. His face was pink and
oily and he always looked like he'd just finished running two miles—a condition
he blamed on acute dermatitis. Miro looked up at the huge, glowering apparition
in Jack's doorway and set his jelly glass down quickly. He knew homophobic
intolerance when he saw it.

     
"Well, it's been ever so. . ." he said, getting up from
the chair where Jackson Mississippi was perched on the arm like a parlor
ornament. Then the two of them hit the road, grinding their way out the door.

     
"Jesus," Chick said, watching them go. "Whatta you
doing hangin' with those two sternwheelers?"

     
"In this neighborhood you have to adapt. Come on over here,
big guy, and give your little Jackie a sloppy, wet kiss."

     
Chick actually took a step backwards. "That ain't funny.
Don't even joke about that shit."
     

     
"You find out what I wanted?" Jack asked. "You coulda
just called."

     
Chick moved over to the chair that Miro and Jackson had been using
and looked at it cautiously, inspecting it for
the AIDS virus. Then he sat down
carefully, like an Episcopalian taking a dump in a public toilet.