The Delta Star (25 page)

“You might find the next one to your liking, Czech,” Ignacio Mendoza said. “NMR spectroscopy
ee
s one of the best ways to analyze chemical compounds.”

“Yeah, sounds like fun,” The Bad Czech said.

“Under a very high magnetic field all the protons
een
a molecule can be looked at. You understand that the nuclei
een
molecules have tiny magnetic moments? The spectrometer can be used to monitor structural changes
een
a molecule.
Ee
t’s like stepping out to the street and being able to see whether a stoplight
ees
red or green. Th
ees
ees
the most sensitive spectrometer
een
the world. There
ees
a very very powerful magnetic field, so leave your watch outside the room. Me, I don’t wear one.”

“Okay, Nacho,” The Bad Czech said, taking off his watch and giving it to a student who was on duty.

They followed a group of seven visitors into the small room.

“Any chemist who needs to determine the structure of a molecule
wee
l use the spectrometer,” Ignacio Mendoza said. “The powerful magnetic field could damage your watch. There are stories of janitors trying to clean up around a spectrometer and their vacuum gets pulled right
ee
nto the magnet and topples
ee
t.”

It was a shiny metal cylinder about the size of The Bad Czech’s apartment-size refrigerator. He was disappointed with the magnet because he thought it would look different. It weighed less than a ton, depending upon whether or not it was filled with helium, and squatted in the middle of a small basement laboratory. It was tied off at the top and affixed to the ceiling because of California earthquakes.

“I was hopin it was shaped like a big horseshoe magnet,” The Bad Czech said. “I thought we could play with it. You know, like make a hairpin fly across the room?”

“Chemists like to use gases contained in heavy cylinders,” Ignacio Mendoza explained. “And they say once a cylinder on a cart was drawn right
ee
nto the magnet.”

“Can we go get somethin to eat, Nacho?” The Bad Czech asked. “I’m gettin hungry.”

By this time Mario Villalobos had said goodnight to a very tipsy Lupe Luna, who had to be driven home by another secretary.

The detective had trouble finding Hans, who had followed the pinstripe suit through two of the laboratory exhibits and back to the reception area.

“Mario!” the K-9 cop said when the detective located him. “That guy’s a maybe
!
I already found out he’s a member of the chemistry division. And his voice is close. I dunno. I’d like the Czech to hear him.”

“Where’s the Czech?”

“I left him with that goofy professor. Where’s the skirt?”

“I let her go home,” he sighed. “Business is business.”

“Here comes the campus couple now,” Hans said to Mario Villalobos, who turned and saw The Bad Czech and Ignacio Mendoza, still arm in arm, strolling across the lighted walkway toward the wine and cheese table.

“Hey, Mario!” The Bad Czech called. “You should go over to them laboratories. Just like Star Trek and Disneyland. They got some pretty stuff over there.”

“Could I have a word with you in private?” Mario Villalobos asked.

“Grab us a couple glasses a wine, Nacho,” The Bad Czech said, “and get me a big dish full a cheese and strawberries and grapes and apples and lots and lots a crackers and Goldfish and anything else ya can find. I’ll join ya in a few minutes. I want ya to introduce me to a few professors.”

“Have any luck?” Mario Villalobos asked after he got the monster cop and Hans away from the milling throngs of people.

“The head a this chemical division is a suspect, far as I’m concerned,” The Bad Czech whispered. “Name a Harry Gray. And I seen some others that … Hey, there’s the guy!”

Mario Villalobos saw a tall man with nearly black wavy hair and dark-framed glasses standing with a group of people who were listening to the chamber music.

“He’s about six-foot-two,” Mario Villalobos said. “I thought you guys decided the guy wasn’t over six feet?”

“He ain’t that tall, is he?” The Bad Czech asked.

“Nobody seems tall to someone that looks like he was built by a mad scientist, for chrissake!” Hans said. “Course he’s tall. I don’t think it’s him. But it might be him, Mario.”

“Go listen to his voice, Hans,” Mario Villalobos said. “We gotta get something outa this night besides a hangover. This fruitcake investigation’s making me tired.”

“Okay, but see the other guy, Mario? The guy over there by that nut case friend of the Czech’s? The guy in the pinstripe suit? That’s the one that I want the Czech to hear his voice. He’s the most likely, I think. He could a been wearing a black wig the day we saw him.”

“Okay. I’ll talk to mine. You talk to yours,” The Bad Czech said.

The monster cop lumbered over toward the man in the pinstripe suit. The man had an aquiline, refined face and seemed a bit standoffish. Nothing like the jovial chairman of the division, who The Bad Czech could now see talking to Ignacio Mendoza while the K-9 cop lurked around behind them, about as subtle as Ludwig would have been in the same assignment.

The man in the pinstripe suit didn’t seem anxious to chat, and he nodded politely from time to time to several of the people milling around. He seemed most interested in being alone and listening to music.

The Bad Czech said to him, “Kin you tell me where I kin find the john?”

“Right through that door,” the man said. “First door on your left.”

“Thanks,” The Bad Czech said and, instead of going in the direction of the rest room, wheeled and ran back to Mario Villalobos, who shook his head and looked heavenward.

“Czech, make it less obvious!” Mario Villalobos said. “Was it him?”

“It might be!” The Bad Czech said. “The voice was real close, Mario!”

“Go listen to him some more,” Mario Villalobos said. “I wanna talk to your friend Mendoza about the guy. Who did you tell Mendoza I was, another busboy?”

“Headwaiter,” The Bad Czech said.

“Okay, go listen to that guy some more, and … Goddamnit! look at that freaking Hans!”

The K-9 cop was skulking backwards on one side of a tall azalea bush while Professors Ignacio Mendoza and Harry Gray stood on the other side making small talk.

“This looks like a Pink Panther movie!” Mario Villalobos moaned.

“I told ya we wasn’t detectives, Mario,” The Bad Czech said. “Whaddaya expect? I never had to pretend I wasn’t a cop before!”

“Okay, okay, just go take another close look and try to listen to him talk. I’ll find out from Mendoza who he is.”

When Hans came running back into the shadows to report to Mario Villalobos, he said, “I found out two things. That guy Harry Gray likes country music. One of his favorites is Conway Twitty singing, Tight Fittin Jeans.’ “

“And what else did you find out?” Mario Villalobos sighed wearily.

“That it ain’t him. The voice is different.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. And he’s too young. The other guy was at least fifty.”

“Okay, we’ll concentrate on pinstripes.”

The K-9 cop ran back to the reception area, but found The Bad Czech already in conversation with Professors Harry Gray and Ignacio Mendoza. Hans was feeling a tiny bit sober, what with all the running around, so he did the expected thing: he had another glass of wine.

The Bad Czech was saying to Harry Gray, “You’re pretty tall, ain’t ya, Professor?”

“
Not as tall as you,” the chemist said, looking puzzled.

“Your hair’s pretty dark,” The Bad Czech said.

“Not as dark as yours,” the chemist said, shooting a very puzzled look at Ignacio Mendoza, who by now was used to his new friend’s eccentric questions.

The K-9 cop walked among them just then and said, under his breath, “Czech, Mario wants to talk to you and your pal about Mister Pinstripes. And I don’t mean Joe DiMaggio.”

The Bad Czech nodded and said, “C’mon, Nacho, I want ya to meet my headwaiter, Mario.” Then to the tall chemist he said, “Doctor Gray, this here’s Hans. We work together. Doctor Gray here’s the head a the whole damned chemistry shebang.”

Suddenly Hans got very excited. This guy might not be a suspect, but he was just the man the K-9 cop was looking for. He said, “Hey, Doctor Gray, you probably can mix just about any kind a formula there is, can’t ya?”

“I don’t know about any kind,” the chairman of the chemistry division said, studying the skinny drunk in the leisure suit.

“Listen, Doc, let’s suppose a person had a … problem. Like he was a real macho guy but all of a sudden a strange thing starts happening to him. This is hard to explain. Let’s go over and get ourselves a few glasses a wine and maybe we can talk better.”

Meanwhile, The Bad Czech and Mario Villalobos were being forced to come semi-clean with Professor Ignacio Mendoza.

“You are a police officer?” Ignacio Mendoza exclaimed, after examining the identity card of the detective.

“Yeah and he carries one too,” Mario Villalobos said. “We’re working on this very large jewel theft, you see. It involves a Caltech professor who was out with a young lady not his wife and ..

“You don’t own all the restaurants, Czech?” the chemist asked, scratching his red cockatoo topknot.

“You ain’t mad at me, are ya, Nacho?” The Bad Czech said boozily. “If I did have any money I’d give it to ya for research. But my three ex-wives can outspend Saudi Arabia.”

“Let’s go for a walk, Professor,” Mario Villalobos said, “and I’ll explain the jewel theft and what we need here.”

And while Mario Villalobos was trying the lie that would fly on Professor Ignacio Mendoza, The Bad Czech got himself a couple of glasses of red wine. He didn’t like it very much. He tried a glass of white wine and gulped it down. He switched to champagne. He wished he could find one of the postdocs he met in the basement bar. He wished he was back in the basement bar. They served lousy drinks up here. To pass the time he ate another apple and half a pound of cheddar cheese. He could see Hans gesturing wildly at Professor Harry Gray.

“C’mon, Doc!” Hans was pleading with the tall chemist, “You must have a chemical warehouse with everything in it!”

“Hans, I’m not a medical doctor,” Harry Gray said. “I think it might be a problem for a … psychiatrist?”

“No no
no
!” the drunken K-9 cop cried in utter frustration. “It’s just a little temporary thing that I know could be fixed up with some special chemicals.
Kee
-
rist! Are you people some a the best in the world, or ain’t ya?”

Mario Villalobos and Ignacio Mendoza sat on a concrete bench beneath a California live oak and drank some champagne while Ignacio Mendoza listened to the jewel theft flimflam.

It was then that The Bad Czech came scuttling down the concrete walk in the moonlight yelling, “Hey, Nacho!”

“Over here,” Mario Villalobos called, “by the big tree.”

When The Bad Czech came puffing to a stop he said, “I left my watch down in the basement.”

“Can you remember how to get there?” the chemist asked the monster cop.

“You kidding? All these big buildings look alike.”

“Okay,” the chemist said. “Back we go. I don’t know why people carry watches anyway. Time
ee
s relative.”

Mario Villalobos looked at his watch. It was 9:30. “Why’d you take your watch off?” he asked.

“Because
of the
big magnet,” The Bad Czech said. “It can stop a watch.”

The Bad Czech and Ignacio Mendoza were halfway down the walk in the darkness when they heard Mario Villalobos scream: “What big magnet?”

Five minutes later Ignacio Mendoza, The Bad Czech and Mario Villalobos were locked in a little office in a basement, having a very private conversation in which Mario Villalobos was, for the first time at Caltech, telling the whole truth about his homicide investigation to a very interested chemist.

Every few seconds the detective would pause and consider a very big and very strong magnet. One that could break a wristwatch, and erase the magnetic stripe on a credit card. And most certainly could stop the wearer of a pacemaker dead in his tracks.

Chapter T
welve
THE MARTIAN HOUSE

The office of ignacio mendoza was in a sub-basement. It was there that he chose to think alone, behind locked doors, in impossible clutter. He refused to admit janitors, and his footprints showed in the dust as he paced the floor. He walked three steps in one direction and three back, whirling quirkily at the completion of each three paces. His cockatoo topknot jerked and fluttered, throwing strange shadows on a green chalkboard affixed to the wall. The chalkboard was covered with written formulas. For once, Ignacio Mendoza was silent, and so were Mario Villalobos and The Bad Czech. The cops had confessed the whole truth and were asking for help.