The detective guessed him to be in his early fifties, and also guessed that he was very lucky that the scientist hadn't had a better chance to overpower an out-of-shape detective and stick that syringe full of sodium cyanide right where he lived. The detective could see that the man intended to continue jogging with the two women in warm-up suits. On his second pass by the bleachers, the detective clearly saw the abrasions on his left fist, and he yelled, "Hey, Dr. Fisher! I'm Lester Beemer's friend!"
The two women smiled up at Mario Villalobos and both looked to Noah Fisher for a response. He slowed his jogging pace and stared up at the detective in consummate disbelief.
The detective smiled grimly and sat back down.
On Noah Fisher's next pass around the track, his breathing was far more labored than it should have been. He waved the women on, and stopped. He held his hands on his hips and looked up at the man in the bleachers as though it were a dream. Then he began jogging again, his face dead-white when he passed those bleachers alone.
"I want to talk to you about my friend Missy Moonbeam!" Mario Villalobos said.
Noah Fisher could only gape at the man in the bleachers as though he were dumbstruck. Then he resumed jogging as before. He quickened his pace. He began sprinting, as if he could outrun this specter in the bleacher seats. He passed everyone on the track.
When he got to the opposite side of the track he stopped and held his hands on his knees until he got his breath. Then he stared across the track at the man in the bleachers. He turned and began walking to the gymnasium locker room. When he got near the door he turned again.
Mario Villalobos was standing. He'd moved down to the front row of bleacher seats. He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, "I'll call you at home!"
Noah Fisher turned and entered the locker room without ever uttering a word.
The detective called the residence of Professor Noah Fisher twice that Sunday afternoon. Each time, the chemist's worried wife informed Mario Villalobos that her husband had not returned from his workout and that she was concerned.
He made another visit to Millikan Library, found the same student on weekend duty, and spent hours reading journals, magazines and newspapers, for biographical data. He learned that Anatoly Rozlov was seventy-seven years old, suffering from a serious undisclosed illness. He learned from a newspaper story that Noah Fisher had three handsome sons, and a mentally gifted daughter at the University of California at Berkeley. And of course he read more on the Nobel Prize.
At dusk Mario Villalobos was wandering around the nearly deserted Caltech campus. He saw that there were some chemists coming and going from one of the laboratory buildings, where Ignacio Mendoza had his office. Mario Villalobos was considering another call to Noah Fisher, but instead walked impulsively into the building when he saw that they had left the door unlocked.
He strolled through the halls and heard voices from one of the chemistry labs where half a dozen young men and women were laughing and working alongside an older man who seemed to be in charge of the research group. He continued unhurriedly down the deserted corridor and found himself near the lecture hall where Ignacio Mendoza had first told him about delta to delta-star.
The detective entered the darkened lecture hall and lit a match until he found the light switches. He turned on the light over the lecture platform, and sat in the upper tier of seats looking down at the lighted stage below him. He sat like this for fifteen minutes. Then he got up and walked down to the lighted platform and found the switch under the chalkboard tray. The green chalkboards, which rose twenty feet up the wall, were set into motion and reversed their positions. The detective played with the switch for a moment and watched the giant chalkboards rise and descend on the metal slides.
Then he picked up some chalk and began writing formulas on the chalkboard. It was nearly nine o'clock when he stopped writing and started out of the building. He switched off the light and walked down the hall, passing an office where a janitor was cleaning. He stopped, smiled pleasantly at the Latino janitor as though he belonged there, and picked up the telephone.
Mrs. Fisher answered and said, "Yes, he came home." Then he heard her say, "Noah, it's that man who's been calling."
"Yes," Noah Fisher said, his voice as lifeless as The Gooned-out Vice Cop's.
"I'm in Noyes Laboratory," Mario Villalobos said, "in the lecture hall at the north end, first floor. I think you can find me."
Then he hung up and returned to the lecture hall and smoked, and revised his formulas, and waited.
It was nearly 9:30 when the detective heard the door to the lecture hall creak open. He stood on the lighted podium and didn't bother to peer up into the darkness at the top row of theater seats.
He could see the shadow figure move into the top row and sit down. Mario Villalobos was feeling calmer than he had in two days. He ground the cigarette on the floor and kicked it out of his way. Suddenly it occurred to him that he hadn't had an alcoholic drink in nearly forty-eight hours, a record to be sure.
He picked up the pointer, the size of a deep-sea fishing rod, and pointed toward the formula he had written on the chalkboard. The detective stood in the wash of light and faced the darkness.
He said, "I'm Sergeant Mario Villalobos of the Los Angeles Police Department."
The introduction made, the detective paced back and forth on the podium looking up at his formulas. He said, "All week I've been very upset because I couldn't formulate it." He pressed the switch and the top blackboard descended to his pointer.
"I bet you almost went bonkers when that Russian sub ran aground last year," Mario Villalobos said. "I bet they were crapping Swedish meatballs the size of BBs when that Russian captain drew his finger across his throat and the Swedes wondered if he was referring to himself or them. I bet you heard lots of talk about how next year the committee would have the screws tightened by their own politicians. To give the Russians something they'd like more than fifty golds in the Olympics. Right when they're trying to persuade Scandinavia to join in a nuclear free zone. I bet you figured if ever a Russian chemist like Anatoly Rozlov had a chance, it was now But you probably got real nervous because Rozlov's very old and sick. And they don't give that prize to dead men. You probably concluded it better be now, in 1982.
"I bet you thought that if someone powerful on the chemistry committee in Stockholm was really pushing Rozlov, it'd give him at least a fifty-fifty shot this year. What you planned really wasn't much worse than what nations do. They try to exert pressure and badger the committee, don't they? That's all it started out to be: a simple, understandable, low-life badger game.
"You hired your pal Lester Beemer to set up the Swede, Jan Larsson." Then the detective pointed to his formula: BG + NP = WR
The detective said: "Badger Game, plus National Pressure equals Winning Russian. A pretty good formula. You weren't remotely considering murder. Just encouraging the most powerful man on the committee to push for the Russian chemist. An agreeable thing to do anyway at this time in Swedish history. I bet old Lester Beemer had a laugh when he contacted the Swede, with his filthy little tapes or photographs, and warned that Rozlov better be the winning horse next time. That must've been pretty funny. The sleazy little Pasadena private eye playing like a Russian agent promoting his Soviet countryman."
The detective pushed the button and the blackboard slid on the rails until he could reach the next one. "Then poor old Lester Beemer decides that two can play your game. He starts looking at the lousy thousand or two that he got paid by you and he starts computing what a Nobel Prize could be worth, not just the two hundred grand in front money, but in the possibilities for an ambitious Nobel laureate. After getting Jan Larsson all ready to cooperate, he tells you that you have a partner now. That the president of the university and the Nobel Committee were going to know about your extortion conspiracy unless he was your fifty-fifty partner from the day you walk into that concert hall in Stockholm and pick up big casino.
"Now whe
re were you? From plain old low-rent badger game, you were facing the prospect of not just losing your chance now, but forever. Not to mention a criminal prosecution."
The detective pointed to a formula that read: BC = I
"Big Casino equals Immortality," he said. "But you were never going to be immortal if he informed on you. Now this is something to kill for, I've come to understand. Even I might kill for immortality, Professor."
The detective felt a rush of adrenaline when the shadow figure stood for a moment, but then sat back down. The detective kept his coat clear of his holster when he continued.
"The old Caltech science groupie had a little knowledge. And in this case, it was a very very dangerous thing. You probably made the date to meet him in the no-tell motel because it was a believable place to find a man like Lester Beemer with a dead pacemaker. Did you talk about getting one of his whores for you? Anyway, you changed the meeting place to here, late at night, in that little room with the NMR spectrometer. You didn't have to lift a finger to kill him, just to carry his body to the motel where they found him.
"But his girl friend showed up at the motel and found old Lester dead of an apparent heart attack. Missy Moonbeam was a smart girl. She decided she was going to be your partner. She phoned you and introduced herself. You were terrified to discover that Lester Beemer had let the whore in on the whole deal.
"It still could've worked out except for one little thing: simple, low-life greed. When she found his body she did a little low-life corpse robbing. You'd taken his wristwatch which the spectrometer had busted, but he kept his wallet in his sock! Can you imagine?
"She decided to have a little fling for a few days on his American Express card, but the magnetic stripe had been erased by the magnet. Isn't that something, Professor? Such a little thing."
The detective pointed to another formula that read: I = 1DH + 1DP
The detective said, "For you, Immortality now equaled One Dead Hooker, plus One Dead Pansy. But actually the pansy wasn't in on the scheme with Lester and Missy, so you would've stuck him full of sodium cyanide for nothing. But I suppose that one dead pansy more or less doesn't make much difference when the payoff is immortality."
And then it started closing in on Mario Villalobos: the bombardment of myriad sensations and the danger of the present moment. He remembered the syringe full of poison, and Missy Moonbeam, nee Thelma Bernbaum of Omaha, hanging in pieces from Chip Muirfield's ice-cream suit.
He could hardly keep his voice from trembling when he said, "I suppose that one dead hooker more or less doesn't make much difference either, when the payoff is immortality. After all ..." The detective startled himself by shouting, "Khufu killed ten thousand slaves to become immortal!" Then he scared himself by screaming: "But I'll tell you something, mister-he didn't do it on my beat!"
The detective felt himself go weak, and his knees started to buckle. His hands were shaking too much to let the man in the darkness see them, so he didn't light a cigarette though he needed one. He pushed the button which sent the last chalkboard down into range of his ten-foot pointer. He pointed to another formula.
"I could have figured it out earlier, maybe. No, I take that back," the detective said, holding on to the podium because his head was spinning. "I couldn't, because then I couldn't get into an excited state like a nutty electron. I came to learn that a shared prize is the same as an unshared prize. There's no asterisk here to show whether you hit sixty home runs in a short season or a long season. You're just as immortal as the guy who takes it alone."
He pointed to a formula that read: ViBC = I
"In other words, One Half of Big Casino equals Immortality. If Rozlov was chosen by the committee, they had to choose you with him, because you'd done separate but identical work in the field of organometallic diradical chemistry. You'd get the prize right with him!"
Then the detective went to the chalkboard and feverishly drew three huge symbols: 8 8 *
He turned and said, "I got into a state of delta to delta-star for a while, but I know there's no practical application of my theories. Yet in pure science the knowledge in itself is worth the quest. I've sought the answer for its own sake. You can believe me, if I could prove my theory in a court of law, I'd be climbing over those fucking seats to slap the iron on your wrists!"
He threw the pointer on the table and said, "That's it, Professor. Lecture's over. There's only one thing I can promise you: I'm calling Jan Larsson in Stockholm, and I'm explaining your badger game to him, and I'm telling him he has nothing to fear from a phony Russian agent who was just a blackmailing private eye hired by Dr. Noah Fisher. And if you wanna stop me, I suggest you get out your syringe and try it right now. You're never gonna get that prize! You're never gonna be immortal if I can help it!"
Mario Villalobos stepped down from the podium, not taking his eyes from the shadow figure seated in the darkness of the top row.
The detective walked cautiously toward the door, the blood banging in his temples, ready to go for the cross-draw holster under his coat.
Suddenly the figure stood up and went to the light switch, illuminating the entire lecture hall.
"Estd terminado?" the Guatemalan janitor asked. "Feenish? Feenish, senor?"
***
At eleven o'clock that night Mario Villalobos was sitting in The House of Misery with the regular cast of losers. Everyone was very worried about him because he stared at the broken mirror. He had a shot of vodka sitting in front of him, untouched.
Since delivering his lecture to the befuddled Spanish-speaking janitor, Mario Villalobos had twice callcd the home of Noah Fisher with no answer. He had driven to the scientist's house but found both cars gone and the premises deserted.
Suddenly a momentous event occurred in that saloon. Leery took the detective's watery drink away and replaced it with a fresh one. Free of charge.
The detective responded only when Cecil Higgins said, "Did ya hear, Mario? That kid smoked it. The Gooned-out Vice Cop. He was found this mornin in bed. Shot himself in the mouth, poor kid."
"Sweet Jesus!" Mario Villalobos groaned. "Is there no end to it? Sweet Jesus."
"I wish I'da bought him a drink," The Bad Czech said.
"I wish I hadn'ta been scared of him," Dilford said.
"I should've tried to talk to him," Jane Wayne said.
It was a very morose night. Mario Villalobos, who had been wrong so many times, began to wonder if he could be wrong again. About all of it. If so, it had not been delta to delta-star, only utter madness.
He got his answer just after eleven o'clock.
The television news caused Mario Villalobos to spill his untouched drink all over the bar. During the recital of local happenings, one of Los Angeles' happy-talk newsreaders, an eye-shadow champ with bangled earrings, worked her eyebrows for all they were worth. And made an announcement that Caltech scientist Noah Fisher had leaped to his death in Pasadena. Overlooking the Rose Bowl. At a place called Suicide Bridge because it had claimed so many other miserable wretches.
After Mario Villalobos spilled his drink and walked shakily from the bar, Leery said, "Goddamn! That's the last time I give anybody a free drink! Where does generosity get ya?"
EPILOGUE:
One night in october of 1982, Leery stood behind the bar in The House of Misery resplendent in a brand new L. A. Dodgers batting helmet, happily sucking his teeth and leering at the assembled cripples and misfits and losers, who had remained after drinking hours for an exceedingly bizarre reason. They were waiting for a telephone call about an event in Sweden.
They were joined by a civilian guest with hair like a cockatoo who drank with The Bad Czech and promised to take the monster cop to the best little whorehouse in Lima, if The Bad Czech could ever rathole enough money from the spousal support to his three ex-wives.
Due to the time difference, it was 4:00 a. M. when the telephone call came. Ignacio Mendoza picked it up, listened, and made an announcement: "The Swede must have believed you, M
ario. The Russian did not win!"
This brought a roar from the gathered group reminiscent of the one earlier in the year when the Los Angeles Lakers won the championship of professional basketball.
It was exceedingly puzzling to a liquor distributor who found the flotsam and jetsam when he made an early-morning delivery.
"A celebration?" he said incredulously. "Because a Russian didn't win a Nobel Prize? No wonder detente's almost dead!"
Mario Villalobos looked around at the grinning boozy faces with some satisfaction. He made everybody ecstatic by buying another drink for the house, now absolutely finished with a case without evidence which would be officially and forever classified as an unsolved homicide.
When Leery was carrying beer down the bar to Hans and Ludwig, he discovered that Ludwig had skulked up onto Leery's new pool table and gone to sleep.
The saloon keeper started to say something, when Ludwig began growling in his sleep. Deep in some canine dream or fantasy, Ludwig began to moan.
Leery looked at him in horror, lying there the full length of the new pool table, below the hanging light. There was no mistaking it.
"Goddamnit, Hans!" Leery screamed. "Ludwig's jizzing on the new pool table!"
Mario Villalobos didn't finish his vodka. He didn't drink so much anymore. He stepped out of the gloom into cold blue moonlight and black shadows, into the fresh smog on Sunset Boulevard. He took in a lungful of noxious fumes and looked up at frosty stars. Like spinning electrons in a black Los Angeles sky.
The last thing he heard from The House of Misery was Leery screaming: "Achtung, Ludwig! Achtung!
the Delta Star (1983) Page 28