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. Keerist! 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 ees relative.”
Mario Villalobos looked at his watch. It was 9:30. “Why’d you take your watch off?” he asked.
“Because a 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 wrist-watch, and erase the magnetic stripe on a credit card. And most certainly could stop the wearer of a pacemaker dead in his tracks.
CHAPTER TWELVE
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.
Finally the Peruvian chemist stopped pacing and said, “Why did you not tell the truth from the first? Why all the bull-cheet?”
“Doctor Mendoza, I didn’t know how to tell it. I didn’t have any evidence. I still don’t. I figured that the president of the university might throw me out if I told the truth.”
“You suggest that a member of the faculty has murdered a private investigator by using our six-hundred-thousand-dollar spectrometer? And then murdered a prostitute by throwing her off a roof? And ees stalking a fairy to murder heem also? You have no motive whatsoever, and the identity of the professor remains a mystery?”
“That’s about it,” Mario Villalobos nodded.
“Correct. He would throw you out of the office.”
“Are you gonna throw us out, Nacho?” The Bad Czech asked.
“That ees what I am contemplating,” Ignacio Mendoza said, beginning his pacing again. Three steps to and fro, cockatoo topknot fluttering crazily.
“Is there a bathroom down here, Nacho?” The Bad Czech asked.
“We are below the water table. The Johns don’t work. Use a beaker,” he waved in the general direction of a pile of glass tubes and beakers on a table.
“Just hold it for a while,” Mario Villalobos said.
“If I held it last time you wouldn’t a met Nacho here!” The Bad Czech said grumpily, “and he’s your only chance a gettin somewheres.” Then to the chemist he said, “Nacho, sometimes a person shouldn’t know the whole truth. The whole truth can make ya sick. And that’s the truth.”
“Een the final analysis, you are correct, Czech.” Ignacio Mendoza pointed one finger heavenward while he addressed the seated cops. “There are two things which eenterest me here. First, that our meeting was no more part of a grand design than the collision of two small stars een the galaxy.”
“Because I took a pee on the tree,” The Bad Czech noted.
“Exactly. I know precisely that there ees no prime mover een the universe. No mysterium tremendum. And I am always looking for ways to prove eet. Secondly, I don’t like Meeckey Mouse people, so my choice of friends ees limited een the bourgeois world where-een I function. Therefore, I find a worthy friend perhaps once every ten years.” Ignacio Mendoza pulled something out of his pocket and put it in his mouth. He loosened his yellow flowered bow tie and took half a pint of Scotch from a drawer. He swallowed whatever he had put in his mouth, washing it down with booze. He didn’t offer the cops any and put the bottle back in the drawer.
“Are you saying that
you won’t help me?” Mario Villalobos asked.
“Don’t tell me what I am saying!” Ignacio Mendoza shouted, his pouting lip glistening in the lamplight. “Only Ignacio Mendoza knows what he ees saying!”
“Sorry, Professor,” Mario Villalobos sighed, glancing wearily at The Bad Czech, who was only looking at the drawer that held the bottle of booze.
“Czech,” Ignacio Mendoza said, “I believe that you possess a philosopher’s heart. Ignaoio Mendoza selects you as a friend!” With that the Peruvian chemist marched to the seated cop and placed a hand on one of The Bad Czech’s monster shoulders. “You are a poet, Czech. I sense eet.” Then he turned to Mario Villalobos and announced, “Sergeant, for the sake of my new friend, Ignacio Mendoza ees at your service!”
Mario Villalobos tried not to show visibly his relief at receiving help—and at having the speech concluded—while the Peruvian posed like Il Duce and smiled down at his big new friend, who only looked at the drawer containing the booze.
“Whadda you think we should do first, Professor?” Mario Villalobos asked.
The scientist resumed his three-step pacing and wheeling, and said, “During the Martian probe we were called to Jet Propulsion Laboratory as consultants when a very strange event occurred that could not be readily explained. You see, they eenjected food from the space vehicle onto the surface of Mars. Eet was converted eento products een a manner that suggested metabolism of the substance witheen a few seconds. Een other words, metabolic processes and oxidation and carbon dioxide release. What organisms must be present! Super life! Everybody was very excited. Eet reminds me of your position, Sergeant. You are looking for the same thing that these scientists were looking for. You are looking for the mouse who ate the cheese.”
“So, did the Martian mouse eat the cheese?” Mario Villalobos asked.
“Of course not! The only rational chemical theory ees that Mars ees bombarded by ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Radiation we do not get on earth because of the ozone layer. The food was oxidized instantly by a combination of ultraviolet radiation and the special nature of the planet’s surface which ees highly oxidizing because of the bombardment. Can I prove my theory? Of course not. Perhaps some physicists or astronomers or engineers or biologists are walking around today preferring to believe that the Martian mouse ate the cheese. But I ask you, ees eet rational?”
“So where does that leave me?”
“You have no rational theory on your side. Eet ees preposterous to think that one of our own people would seek to compromise a visiting Soviet scientist. For what? To get the scientist on the staff? The best chemistry een the world ees done een America, and een West Germany and Britain. As a matter of fact, we chemists at Caltech are even accused of being elitist by our colleagues een other divisions. Do you suppose we need the Soviets? There ees no mouse for you here, my friend.”
“How do you know my mouse, my theoretical mouse, would have to be in the chemistry division, aside from the telephone number in the hooker’s book?”
“The NMR spectrometer,” he said. “Eet ees primarily a tool of chemists. Others usually know the structure of molecules they work with. When a structure ees already determined, they wouldn’t need it.”
“Let’s forget the motive,” Mario Villalobos said. “Pretend that one night an old private eye with a pacemaker kept a date with someone down in that laboratory, and they sat and talked, and the magnetic field played a cha cha on his heart machine and he expired. The person then carried the body up the elevator, put it into a car and dumped it in a motel where maybe the meeting was originally to have taken place. Is any of this implausible? All you people have keys. You can get in at night. In fact, people work in these labs every night.”
“But why would he do such a thing?”
“He’s being blackmailed by the private eye and the hooker. They have pictures of him. The badger game.”
“Someone commits murders for being caught een a ménage?”
Now it was Mario Villalobos up and pacing. Ignacio Mendoza finally noticed The Bad Czech staring sadly at the desk drawer, so he opened it and took out the bottle of Scotch and a small glass beaker. He handed it to the smiling giant, who poured four ounces into the beaker and was about to put it to his lips, but stopped abruptly.
“Ees okay, Czech, I don’t pee in that one,” Ignacio Mendoza promised, and The Bad Czech happily guzzled.
“The Russian part’s a problem,” Mario Villalobos said. “There had to be a Russian here last month when Missy and Dagmar had their date with the foreigner.”
“When Russians come, we know eet,” Ignacio Mendoza said, shaking his head.
“Well, what the hell was going on that could have attracted Soviet agents?”
“Nothing whatsoever.”
“Jesus Christ!” Mario Villalobos said. “It’s hopeless.”
“Jesus Christ was just a gifted confidence man,” Ignacio Mendoza said to The Bad Czech, who was amusing himself by playing with tubes and beakers, pouring Scotch back and forth into them.
“Okay, Professor, what happened of any consequence in the chemistry division that brought in one or more foreigners who might have stayed at a downtown hotel rather than a Pasadena hotel?”
“The Pasadena hotels are not much. Lousy dining rooms. The Biltmore downtown has a very good dining room. But then, scientists are not necessarily gourmets.”
“Last month,” Mario Villalobos pleaded.
“Ees possible that the members of the Nobel Committee have gastronomical requirements which may persuade them to stay een downtown Los Angeles.”
“What committee?”
“A very important member of the chemistry committee was here for an address on the chemistry of explosives. Eet didn’t tell anything new, but of course, eet was a very popular lecture. Though hardly worth attracting Soviet spies.”
“What’s the Nobel Prize worth?”
“Worth?”
“In money.”
“Two hundred thousand dollars, depending on the value of the Swedish krona.”
“Now we’re cooking,” Mario Villalobos said.
“Lot a guys’d knock ya off for a lot less than that, Mario,” The Bad Czech observed.
“How many get Nobel science prizes each year?” Mario Villalobos asked.
“Three to nine, depending on whether eet ees shared. A prize can be shared.”
“Is it like winning … Wimbledon?” Mario Villalobos asked. “I mean, you don’t get television commercials, but can it be turned into more money?”
That jiggled the cockatoo topknot. “Money! Just like a cop! Bourgeois mentality!”
“Money is the motive in badger games, Professor, at least in my experience. Can it be turned into more money? How about lectures? Could a winner command a big fee?”
Whatever Ignacio Mendoza had downed with his Scotch was taking effect. His pupils were clearly dilated and he was standing mannequin-stiff, rocking on heels and toes, his hands behind his back. He looked as if he might go straight up in the air like a hummingbird.
“All right!” he said with overwhelming disgust. “We shall be bourgeois for a moment, like cops.” He pulled open another drawer, withdrew another half pint, cracked it open and handed the bottle to The Bad Czech, who was ecstatic. “A man gets the Nobel Prize and decides to make money. A man who has been doing fine work for a long time and getting lecture expenses when he was lucky. Now with the prize he can command three to five thousand dollars a lecture. He does four lectures a week, yet thees ees merely mad money. He ees a celebrity with total peer recognition. Now he can set up a multinational company. Venture capital people come to him. Raising money ees trivial for a Nobel laureate. There ees a man from Harvard, for example, who now heads a fifty-million-dollar company. Does that supply for you the bourgeois motive that you need?”
“That’s definitely worth killing for!” Mario Villalobos said.
“That ees not worth killing for and not worth dying for!” Ignacio Mendoz
a bellowed, kneading his fingers, his eyes popping.
“The Russian connection,” Mario Villalobos said. “Give me the names of a few professors of chemistry who’re hot right now.”
“Hot?”
“Hot candidates for big casino. For the Nobel Prize. Do you have one here at Caltech?”
“Only one. He ees working on actinide photochemistry and …”
“What’s he look like?”
“Your friend was talking to him.”
“The pinstripe suit?” The Bad Czech cried.
“That one,” Ignacio Mendoza nodded. “Hees name ees Feldman. And he has done some famous work on the chemistry of electronically excited organoactinide molecules.”
“And what’s the practical application of that?” Mario Villalobos asked.
“Separating isotopes for nuclear chemistry and many other applications.”
“Nuclear applications?” Mario Villalobos noted.
“You are back to the Russians!” Ignacio Mendoza shouted. “You are making Ignacio Mendoza angry!”
The Bad Czech, who was leaning his head back against the wall, opened one eye and said, “Have a drink, Nacho. Don’t get mad.”
“The scientific community frowns on exploiters!” Ignacio Mendoza cried, his dilated brown eyes sparking. “The Nobel laureate who would accept a chairmanship een the research division of a multinational company, when he could be doing split-brain research or curing epilepsy, would be speet on by his peers! Yes, there are a few who have done eet, but there are also those who gave away the prize for the resettlement of refugees! Perhaps the Meeckey Mouse young men of today might exploit eet, but the prize does not go to young men. Eet ees given ten or twenty years after your best work can be seen een perspective!”
“So, who else is a hot candidate for this year’s prize?”
“No one else here at Caltech, I don’t believe. There ees a man at Stanford perhaps. No one can say for sure. Eet ees a closely guarded secret. There are no leaks een the Nobel operation. A very elaborate procedure goes on all year. They screen hundreds of applicants from all over the world.”
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