After Chick finished, Jack poured the big cop a scotch to calm him down. He slid it over, but Chick O'Brian just looked at the glass… stared at it as if Jack had just rolled a live grenade across the desk.

"What?" Jack asked, slightly perplexed. Then it hit him. It was Miro's glass and Chick was afraid it was crawling with herpes simplex 12, or dick fungus, or some other form of sexual leprosy. So Jack switched glasses, handing his to Chick and taking Miro's for himself. He began sipping, while Chick watched him with something between awe and disgust.

"You got guts, I'll say that."

"No, I'm just not a moron. You can't get a sexual disease from a glass."

"Your dick falls off, don't come crying to me."

"Right," Jack said. "You'd be my first stop if that happened."

They sat there for a long minute savoring their drinks.

"Computer lab, huh? Okay, look, is there any way to track this thing from another direction? Find out more about it?"

"Don't you listen? This guy freaked out on me, and he's no wuss. We did some doors together. He's solid, and he was scared pissless. I'm telling you, Jack, don't mess with it. It's why I came over here in person to warn you. Whatever it is, leave this Octopus thing alone." Chick stood, put his empty glass back on the desk, then stopped and examined the shattered lock. "What happened here?"

"These guys around here all find me irresistible," Jack said, deadpan. "I'm thinking about not wearin' my Brut cologne anymore. Fucks 'em up."

"I'm worried about you, Wirta," the cop's cop said over his shoulder as he left.

"Me too," Jack said softly, wondering what the hell kind of nightmare Strockmire had stumbled into.

Jack Wirta met Herman Strockmire in the paved lower parking lot off Seaver Drive at Pepperdine University.

It was strange, the way it happened. Jack arrived first, at 10:00 a.m., and waited. Twenty minutes later Herman pulled into the lot in a silver Mercedes SL500 with a license plate that read funy grl.

Herman sat motionless in the car after he parked it, so Jack got out of his sagging Fairlane and waved.

No response.

He walked a bit closer and stared right through the windshield at the fat, unhealthy man sitting behind the wheel of Barbra Streisand's luxury Mercedes. He waved again.

Still nothing.

He thought maybe Herman was just gathering his thoughts in there.

When Herman didn't get out, Jack walked over and tapped on the window. Raccoon eyes turned to look at him, and only then did Herman Strockmire Jr. attempt to move. He grunted and strained as he dragged his huge bulk out of the car.

Finally, he heaved up, gulping mouthfuls of morning air, grabbed his suit coat and shouldered into it, then slowly retrieved his briefcase.

"You okay?" Jack asked, concerned.

"Yep, tip-top. Piss and vinegar."

Herman certainly looked warm and yellow, but the vinegar was missing.

In the distance over Herman's shoulder was the Pendelton Computer Science Center, a large, multi-storied white stucco building with red tile patios, arched windows, and a dormered roof. Clustered around it were all the little Pendeltons: the Pendelton Learning Center, the Pendelton Foundation Building, Pendelton Hall. The Pendeltons had obviously dropped some big green on Pepperdine U.

The campus was spread across a rolling hillside, and they had to climb two levels of concrete steps to get from the parking lot up to the Computer Science Center. By the time they got halfway, Herman was leaking air like a buckshot dirigible, wheezing and gasping, holding onto the stair rail like somebody's ninety-year-old aunt.

Susan had been right. Jack was actually beginning to feel a little guilty. They should get this guy hooked up to an IV bag fast. Herman started up the last, steep flight of stairs.

"Don't you want to wait for your daughter?" Jack said, looking for any excuse to give the guy a little longer to rest.

"Susan isn't coming. She's at the Registrar's office at UCLA," he answered, turning to face the last flight. Jack thought the twenty-step climb would surely kill him.

He grabbed Herman's arm and stopped him. "How come? What's out at UCLA?"

"She's going to law school there."

"Wonderful," Jack said, thinking how much he hated lawyers.

"She's worked hard, took prelaw in night school. She went out there this morning to see if she could qualify for academic aid." Herman looked wistfully up the final flight of stairs like Sir Edmund Hillary at the last base camp on Everest. Then he grabbed the rail again and heaved himself up.

Jack moved along with him, trying to slow the pace. "Man, slow down. These stairs… I'm a little out of shape," Jack lied.

But Herman just lumbered along.

Room 212 was on the first floor, despite its two hundred number. They looked through the open door. It was a large computer lab. There were fifty or sixty work stations, but only ten or twelve of them were being used. College-aged boys and girls were dressed in baggy, saggy plumber jeans.

As they peered into the computer room, a tall, rather good-looking blond man with a Vandyke beard and tweedy sport coat materialized behind them.

"Something we can do for you?" He used the pronoun "we" as if he took up more intellectual space than just one ordinary person. He was also one of those guys that Jack ran into occasionally who he hated on sight. His bullshit meter was instantly redlined.

Jack took a step back and studied the man while Herman reached into his wallet for his card. Jack intercepted the process before the card got into the man's possession.

"Uncle Charles," Jack said scolding. "I don't think the man wants to buy insurance." Then Jack looked at the blonde man and smiled. "My uncle has frontal-lobe dementia. He thinks he's still at Aetna." Jack looked at Herman to see if he was going to play along.

After a moment Herman smiled and said, "Sorry. Forgot."

Vandyke replied, "How can we help?"

"My kid sister, Paulette, is thinking of coming here next year," Jack said. "She's amazing with computers, and over at Administration they said we shouldn't leave without seeing the Pendelton Computer Science Center, so here we are."

"This is a closed lab." Then he actually reached past Jack and pulled the door shut. "I'm Dean Nichols, head of the computer center."

"Oh, just the man we should be talking to," Jack enthused.

"I'm afraid I can't talk right now. This is my class. Call my office for an appointment." He re-opened the door and pushed past them into the room. Jack used the moment to again look inside and scope out the students furiously pounding keyboards and clicking mouses. Then he was looking at polished pine, as the door was slammed in his face.

"Frontal-lobe dementia?" Herman said, scowling.

"Listen, Herm, you don't go around passing out the little Institute cards. Don't forget what happened to Roland. Somewhere hiding in this cheese souffle is a madman with acute homicidal mania."

Yeah… yeah. You're right. Thanks." He heaved a deep sigh. "I didn't think of that. What now?"

"We wait in the quad for class to be over. I spotted a few kids that looked worth talking to."

"You mean just then, while he was going in?" He seemed impressed.

"Yep. You've hired class-A help here."

A bell rang, doors opened, and it seemed as if two million teens wearing more or less identical outfits flowed into the plaza. All were carrying the same oversized, stuffed backpacks, the same CD headsets. They overran the Pendelton Center patio.

Jack caught a glimpse of one of the girls he had spotted in the lab: yellow CD player, backpack, plumber bib overalls, curly red hair, and thick glasses. Nerd.