The Delta Star (28 page)

Chapter T
hirteen
MYSTERIUM TREMENDUM

Mario
V
illalobos couldn’t sleep, not a wink. He lay in bed twitching, with a heating pad under his wrenched back. Both eyes were swollen and marbled and his nose felt fractured. He had drunk so much coffee that he could hardly close his eyes. He could only twitch, and wait for the dawn.

He was at his desk very early. He was shaved, showered, combed, and wore a fresh suit. He thought he looked acceptable.

“You look like hell” the detective lieutenant said upon seeing him. “You look like the phantom of the opera.”

The detective bureau was closed on weekends, but given the extraordinary events of the previous evening, the lieutenant was called from home to meet Mario Villalobos for a briefing. Ditto for a crime lab forensic chemist who bitched for half an hour about working on Saturday. He gave a preliminary report that the syringe contained sodium cyanide and that unfortunately it was an ordinary syringe, sold in any first-class pharmacy.

It was noon before his lieutenant was completely informed about the sad state of affairs. When Mario Villalobos was finished, the lieutenant said, “That’s it for roaming around alone at night all over Pasadena and Hollywood.”

“Whadda you mean, that’s it?”

“That’s it, Mario. You can stay on this with Chip and Melody helping you, but no more playing solitaire.”

It was a relief, actually. His reach had too far exceeded his grasp. He was too tired to sleep. Too tired to think. He was wired to a short circuit from coffee, booze, cigarettes and exhaustion. He was inadequate.

“Maybe it would be good to give it a rest,” Mario Villalobos said.

“Go home,” the lieutenant nodded. “And rest your back and put some ice on your kisser and go to sleep for a couple days. See you Monday.”

By 1:00
p.m.
Mario Villalobos was in bed trying to sleep. He couldn’t remember when he’d been so tired. He couldn’t remember when he’d been so embarrassed, nor when he’d been such a failure. He couldn’t remember when he’d felt so sorry for himself.

At 1:30
p.m.
he switched on the radio, turning from the Dodger network to a local station that played music of the forties, day and night for lots of people like Mario Villalobos, obsessed with Time.

At 2:00
p.m.
he was in his private car on the Pasadena Freeway heading for Caltech, dizzily thinking of all the poor sharks in the sea. Never able to rest. To stop moving was to die of anoxia.

Saturday and even Sunday were by no means days of rest at the university. There were always research groups at work. In fact, some scientists worked only at night due to the nature of their experiments or by personal preference.

He made inquiries of a group of postdocs and found Ignacio Mendoza in a lecture hall in Noyes Laboratory. The lecture hall contained some ninety theater seats in six graduated rows descending steeply to a lecture platform. Ignacio Mendoza, dressed in a pink and green aloha shirt, gym shorts, sandals and black socks, was addressing his research group while they ate Kentucky Fried Chicken. The pink flamingos on the aloha shirt slithered on a field of slimy moss. The shirt was greasy from food, chemicals and perspiration.

Behind the scientist were three enormous green chalkboards rising twenty feet, nearly to the ceiling. The chalkboards were covered with exotic chemical formulas, and Ignacio Mendoza, who was holding a pointer as long as a deep-sea fishing pole, could not have reached the top ones with it. That problem was solved when the Peruvian chemist touched a switch and the chalkboards were raised or lowered on a mechanical slide.

Ignacio Mendoza did not see Mario Villalobos enter. The students came and went as they pleased during Ignacio Mendoza’s informal presentation on solar energy conversion.

The Peruvian chemist was saying, “A particularly intriguing redox-active energetic species
ee
s the delta to delta-star singlet excited state of octachlorodirhenate dianion, whose energy
ee
s one-point-seven-five electron volts and whose excited state lifetime
ee
s one hundred and forty nanoseconds
ee
n acetonitrile solution at twenty-five degrees centigrade. Various electron acceptors such as tetracyanoethylene, chloranil, and the phosphorus-twelve tungstate trianion, quench the delta to delta-star luminescence
ee
n solutions, thereby producing the octachlorodirhenate anion and the reduced acceptor.”

Mario Villalobos liked the sound of it. It was mysterious and hopeful and soothing like the pop music of his youth, music which lately had begun to call forth nostalgic sentimental moments he was afraid to indulge, given the wreckage and waste of his life.

The informal lecture was over thirty minutes after the detective arrived. For the first time in thirty-two hours he had managed to doze a bit. He remained in his seat until all the students had gone. Ignacio Mendoza was gathering his papers when he noticed the detective sitting in the top row of the elevated lecture hall.

“You have returned, Sergeant Villalobos,” the Peruvian said.

“Yes.”

“You have been playing football since last night?”

“I had an accident, Professor. I ran into the killer I’ve been looking for.”

“Yes! Go on!”

“He beat the crap outa me. It wasn’t Professor Feldman.”

“Of course not. Who was
ee
t?”

“I don’t know. He got away. He had a syringe full of sodium cyanide for the little pansy.”

“My God!” the chemist said. “I thought
ee
t was all bull-
s
h
ee
t!” “It is.”

“But you have part of it! A sodium cyanide solution
ee
s the favorite method of suicide for scientists. You are getting somewhere!”

“I don’t think so. I’m too beat-up and tired and inadequate. I’m ready to use the old ‘police are baffled but an arrest is imminent’ gag and let the whole thing slide.”

“What do you mean, slide?”

“The guy that got sucked into the badger game wasn’t the Stanford Nobel candidate. It was Jan Larsson, the Nobel Committee member.”

“My God!” Ignacio Mendoza cried.

“For a guy that’s so sure He doesn’t exist, you sure call His name a lot,” the detective said, lighting a cigarette.

“
Ee
s just an expression,” the chemist said. “But Sergeant, that
ee
s fantastic!”

“Naturally I expect you to treat this confidentially.”

“Of course! But Sergeant, I cannot believe this. What then? Someone
ee
s trying to influence the committee?”

“You could say that for sure,” the detective said, rubbing his neck and moving painfully in the seat.

“But Feldman
ee
s the only logical chemistry candidate, Sergeant,” the Peruvian exclaimed. “Th
ee
s
ee
s madness! We have other men who have done notable work but not approaching Feldman’s body of work. Madness!”

“I don’t know,” Mario Villalobos said, resting his head on the back of the seat. “I’m not thinking too well since he beat me up. Maybe Van Zandt’s behind it. Maybe he’d resort to this to win.”

“But he’s up
ee
n Stanford. Not here with access to our NMR spectrometer.”

“I know, I know,” Mario Villalobos said. “Maybe if I go home and let it alone for a few days and get some sleep …”

“Let
ee
t alone? Get some sleep?” the chemist screamed. “
Estupido
! Gringo with Hispanic name! You are on the verge or discovery and you talk about sleep? How did you get your Hispanic name? No, don’t tell me! I don’t even want to know!”

Then Mario Villalobos gaped at the Peruvian chemist in his nutty aloha shirt, with his red cockatoo topknot fluttering electrically as he charged up the steps in slapping sandals to the top row of the lecture hall. The scientist took a white capsule out of his pocket and boldly shoved it into the mouth of the astonished detective.

“Here, gringo
!
” the Peruvian thundered. “To help you live up to your noble Hispanic name!”

“What is it?” Mario Villalobos said.

“Swallow
ee
t!” the chemist thundered.

It took three tries before he could get it down. When he did, h
e said, “If I die before I wake
…”

“Talk about death later, bourgeois cop!” the scientist shouted, descending back to the podium. “Die when your work
ee
s completed and there
ee
s time to die!”

“But I don’t know what to do next, Professor!” the detective said.

“I don’t know! I don’t know! That
ee
s what I hate about
Meec
key Mouse people
ee
n this bourgeois world!” the scientist roared, pacing back and forth on the stage at the bottom of the lecture hall. “
Ee
s why I don’t own a gun or knife! Think! And you shall know!”

Three steps one way, three steps back. Whirling quirkily. Topknot jumping on his cockatoo’s head. His fingers kneaded each other, as though he were weaving the warp and woof of the
mysterium tremendum
. Finally he said, “I am going to write for you a formula that even a
Meec
key Mouse bourgeois cop can understand.”

He wrote on the blackboard, in letters two feet high: NP = I.

“What’s that?” Mario Villalobos asked.

“All the bull-
s
h
ee
t you throw at me! To blow my mind!” the chemist shouted up to the detective, his topknot dancing. “Bull-cheet about money motivating a scientist to compromise a Nobel Committee member! And after being blackmailed himself, to murder once, twice!
Ee
t
ee
s not rational, but I let myself be seduced by
estupid
, irrational cop thinking. Money? Money sucks! But
ee
n your own way you were achieving some rational results with irrational reasoning. Would Ignacio Mendoza murder for money? Never! But Ignacio Mendoza would murder.”

“For what then?” the detective asked, staring down at the crazy chemist, who was standing on tiptoes, his index finger pointing heavenward.

“One can work an entire life doing science. I have. One can do great and famous work een science. I have. One can receive fulfillment and satisfaction beyond the dreams of ordinary people. I have. But until some
estupid
bourgeois
Meec
key Mouse cocksuckers in Stockholm select my name, I cannot live forever
!
The money directly or indirectly gained
ee
s meaningless. For the same reason that Khufu killed ten thousand slaves constructing his monument, I would kill. For nothing more nor less than immortality!”

He pointed to the NP = I and said: “Nobel Prize equals Immortality!”

Suddenly he started erasing the formulas on the lower chalkboard. He dropped the eraser, cursed in Spanish, picked it up and frantically wiped.

He drew three enormous symbols on the chalkboard:
ÄÄ
*

“There
ee
s the key to your solution.”

Mario Villalobos was starting to feel an energy rush. The scientist’s “medicine” capsule was working. “What’s that mean?”

“
Ee
t’s delta to delta-star!” the scientist thundered, cracking his pointer against the chalkboard until it snapped in two. “
Ee
t
ee
s a new kind of excited state whose peculiarly long lifetime was discovered here at Caltech. Let’s call
ee
t a lingering excited state. Look at you. A cop burnout. Anyone can see
ee
t. Still a young man and yet you project like you are seventy-no, eighty years old!
Ee
f you could ever get
ee
nto a delta to delta-star excited state, just long enough to be creative for once
ee
n your bourgeoisie cop life, perhaps you could find what you are looking for!”

“Delta to delta-star?” the detective said.

“Did you see my research group?” the scientist said. His topknot red as sunset threw fluttering moth shadows. “They are all smart. One was a prodigy who entered university as a child. Are they necessarily creative? Not at all. I believe that pure creativity can only be achieved
ee
n an excited state. Like an electron gone mad! I am not asking you to be smart. I am asking for infinitely more than that. Show me a dramatic change
ee
n your creativity. Show me the excited state of delta to delta-star!”

At four o’clock that afternoon, Mario Villalobos lay on the campus grass beneath a California white oak that was perhaps 150 years old. At first he felt as old as the tree. He watched a sparrow veer on the wind and wondered if its fall would be of any more cosmic significance than that of a leaf or a Hollywood whore. The clouds were white as linen over the university and darting squirrels played on the limbs of the ancient oak.