Perpetual Motion (9 page)

“What’s the name?” she sighed. After jotting
down the pertinent information, she said, “I’ll get back to you if
anything comes up.”

“This is a priority,” he said, sounding like
he was still her boss and knowing she would resent it. Softening
his tone, he quickly added, “There’s a lot riding on this one,
Cynthia.”

“I said I’ll see what I can do,” she
repeated, not sounding very enthused.

“Thanks,” he said, meaning it.

Hanging up, he leaned back and thought about
his missing person. Just for kicks, he did a quick Google search
and located a three year old paper entitled “Magnetically Charged
States” by a Cal Tech student named M. Dexter. The language was so
densely laden with scientific mumbo jumbo it might as well have
been written in Chinese.

There were also postings that mentioned
Dexter’s name in a couple of ‘free-energy’ forums. The posters
often referred to “The Dex” with the kind of awe reserved for comic
book superheroes. But these people didn’t seem to actually know
“The Dex,” they just passed along rumors about his work.

Cynical looked up ‘perpetual motion,’ along
with other often used phrases like, ‘free energy’ and ‘over-unity.’
Mostly what he found was the modern day equivalents of alchemists
who claimed they could spin gold out of cow pies. Water powered
cars, quick start fuel free generators, and ‘cold fusion’ were a
few of the miracle devices. Even if Cynical couldn’t follow the
science, he could smell a rat in most of them.

The most common characteristic of the
get-rich-quick artists was their ability to tell a good yarn. They
were all ushering in a new age of energy independence, all the
while going to make their investors wildly rich in the process.
Some had drawn up plans which they would build once they had enough
investment capital. Others had built contraptions that appeared to
work, at least in their homemade videos.

As he read on, he found many of the
inventions had wilted under the hot lights of critical scrutiny.
But, even if the inventions were debunked, it did not necessarily
mean the inventor’s ride on the ‘free energy’ gravy train was over.
Just because an egghead couldn’t wrap his head around a radical
breakthrough didn’t mean it wouldn’t work, eventually. Set-backs
were just opportunities to take on new investors.

Mr. Mancuso, however, was not a starry-eyed
idealist or a rube to fall for a fast talking salesman. He was a
hard-nosed business man who didn’t look like anyone’s fool. And
yet, he seemed to be taking this inventor of a perpetual motion
machine seriously. So seriously, he’d pay a million dollars simply
to talk to him again.

Over the next couple of hours, the
x-detective delved deeper into the world of free-energy, finding a
handful of true geniuses that had dabbled in the field, including
Nikola Tesla. Among other inventions, Tesla had come up with the
AC/DC system still used for electricity today. In 1889, he
submitted a patent on a “self-sustaining” apparatus called a
“Dynamo-Electric Machine,” which had metal disks that rotated
between magnets to produce an electrical charge.

In the 1600s, having invented the first
digital calculator and pushed the limits of known geometry, Blaise
Pascal was considered a brilliant mathematician and philosopher. In
his spare time, he liked to tinker with a perpetual motion machine
and built a device in the shape of a wheel to conduct his
experiments on. As legend had it, one of his friends suggested
using the wheel for gambling, and the roulette wheel was born.

No wonder “
Pascal
” was the name
Michael had used as his alias at the hotel. As Cynical pondered the
connection, he suddenly had an idea. Maybe it wasn’t a stroke of
genius exactly, but it was good detective work….When in doubt, go
back to the last place the missing person had been seen. Picking up
the phone, he dialed national information.

“Connect me with the Mirage Hotel, Las Vegas,
Nevada.”

Waiting on the phone line, Cynical came up
with the semblance of a story; now he just had to sell it. A few
seconds later, the operator came on announcing, “The Mirage.”

“Front desk please,” he said, getting into
character.

A couple of rings later, a rushed voice came
on the other line. “Reception. This is Darren. How may I help
you?”

“Hey Darren,” Cynical said, his voice cool
and calm and an octave deeper than usual. “I stayed at your hotel
two nights ago, in one of Penthouse Suites, under ‘Pascal.’” For
some reason, he found himself throwing in a subtle Southern accent.
“It’s an alias - for security reasons. I had to leave in a hurry to
get back to LA for work and, this is embarrassing, but I’m not sure
I paid. I don’t want there to be a rumor that I’m broke.”

“We would have just charged your credit
card,” Darren said quickly but, out of curiosity, was looking up
who had been in the Presidential Suite two nights ago.

“That’s the thing,” Cynical said. “I don’t
think I gave you a credit card. It’s a security thing.”

“Yes sir,” Darren said, having found the
account in the computer. “I have you here for two nights. It looks
like you paid cash up front and were upgraded by the casino.” As he
scanned the bill, he sounded almost apologetic. “Um, actually, you
do have a few unpaid incidentals.”

“Could you go over those with me?”

There was the sound of upset voices in the
background. “I’ll be right with you!” Darren scolded a
check-in.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he said, coming back on the
line with the preferred customer. “Okay, there are some room
service charges, a Swedish massage, a pay-for-view movie, a long
distance phone call, and a bottle of Jack Daniels.”

It sounded like the type of bill a
self-indulgent celebrity could rack up, especially the contribution
of Jack he had made.

“My accountant will want a copy of that, so
could you fax that to me and I’ll get a check over-nighted to you,”
Cynical said reassuringly. “And you’ve been so nice; would it be
okay if I included a gratuity for you Darren?”

“Ah, sure, I guess you could do that, ‘Mr.
Pascal,’ Darren said, pleased.

Cynical gave him his fax number; a Hollywood
area code wouldn’t hurt the charade.

“And should I put it to anyone’s attention?”
Darren asked, trying to get a name he could write home about.

“You don’t need to put my actual name on it,”
Cynical said. “Just make sure that the bill is detailed with
everything itemized. My accountant is a stickler.”

“Your voice sounds so familiar,” Darren
asked, growing desperate.

“Oh?” Cynical said cryptically. “Well, I’ve
been in a few films.”

“I knew it!” Darren exclaimed.

Through the receiver, the detective could
hear a guest demanding that the front desk clerk help him or get a
manager.

“Can’t you see I’m on the phone?!” Darren
snipped; then was back in his sweetest, almost conspiratorial
voice. “I’m so sorry sir. People can be so rude. Okay, what films
have you been in?”

“Well – there have been a few,” Cynical
mumbled, scrambling to come up with something plausible. He hadn’t
thought he’d have to go this far.

“Wait, don’t tell me,” Darren cut him off.
“Any chance you were in Oceans 11?”

“Maybe,” Cynical said hesitantly.

“I knew it!” Darren exclaimed. “Fight Club,
Troy, Moneyball?”

Cynical forced a laugh. “Wow, I guess you
nailed me.”

“I’d recognize your voice anywhere,” Darren
gushed. “I’ve seen all your movies. I’m a huge fan, Mr. Pitt.”

“Hey, thanks, Darren. Whoa, one of my kids
just fell in the pool so I got to go.”

“Sure, I understand, Brad.”

“Fax the bill, okay?”

“Oh, sure and if there’s-”

Mr. Pitt hung up, leaving Darren to bask in
the glow of long distance super stardom. He almost felt bad for
tricking him, even if the kid had mostly deceived himself. It
wasn’t like he was trying to sound like anyone; it was amazing how
people heard what they wanted to hear.

A few minutes later, the phone rang, followed
by the grueling fax machine tone. Slowly, pieces of paper emerged.
First was a cover sheet from the Mirage with a note about how much
Darren loved his work and would love an autographed photograph or a
signed piece of his movie memorabilia. Celebrity had it perks, if
you could put up with all the jerks.

The next page itemized a thousand dollars of
incidentals, including the only item he was interested in: the
phone number Michael had called from the hotel. The good news was
it didn’t look like a cell phone number. Better yet, the area code
was for LA.

A reverse look-up on the White Pages web-site
revealed an actual name and a physical address. “Karen Norton lives
at University Circle,” Cynical said under his breath. Could this be
the girlfriend?

For a moment, he considered calling Ms.
Norton; perhaps she would fall for his Brad Pitt imitation and
invite him over. In the end, he concluded it would be better to
drive over and knock on her door. Glancing outside, he realized it
had gotten dark on him. The clock confirmed it was later than he
thought.

He’d been at the computer for hours,
researching perpetual motion and Michael Dexter. Suddenly, he
became aware of how tired he had become. At least he’d come away
with from the day with a lead. With a sigh, the private detective
closed his computer and decided to rest his eyes and his case for
the night.

It was just mid-morning when Cynical made his
way over to UCLA in his Chevy Impala. While the nondescript beige
car was perfect for stake-outs, it felt out of place in this
bastion of scooters and BMWs. And just because he noticed a young
woman or two, it didn’t make him a dirty old man, just observant,
or so he told himself.

Earlier that morning he’d devoured the
background reports that had come back. Michael had grown up in Ohio
with his mom. Moms loved to talk about their children and often,
inadvertently passed along valuable bits of information.
Unfortunately, Michael’s mom had a number that had been
disconnected. If Michael’s father was ever around, there wasn’t any
record of it. A father who was MIA and a mother who was unavailable
were two similarities Cynical shared with the kid.

Any parallels he might have had with the
young man diverged after high school. Having won a scholarship to
MIT, Michael had moved to Boston, before transferring to Cal Tech
for graduate school. For no apparent reason, he dropped out just
prior to completing a doctorate in engineering. While it was all
interesting color, it didn’t help him now, except to support
Michael’s claim that he was a real inventor and not a mere flimflam
man.

The white high-rise apartments on University
Circle mostly housed upper classmen and grad students at UCLA.
Unfortunately, the address he had didn’t specify an apartment
number, so he would have to find that on his own.

Parking in front of the complex, he walked
into the building and immediately came under the hawkish eye of
young man perched behind a raised desk. Cynical sized the crew-cut
security guard as ROTC who worked out at the gym once or twice a
day. He was also the type of guy that played by the rules. If you
tried to bribe someone like that, things could go bad in a
hurry.

“Hey,” Cynical said, taking a nice, friendly
tone. “I’m looking for Karen Norton.”

The guard, who wore a shined up badge that
read Karl, seemed to recognize the name. “Do you want me to call up
for you?”

“Ah, sure, go ahead. Tell her Detective Jones
is here.”

As Karl tapped on his keyboard, Cynical
angled to the side, trying unsuccessfully to get a look at the
computer screen. Punching in the extension, Karl looked up at the
visitor as he waited for the phone to ring. “You’re a detective,
huh?”

“Private detective,” Cynical clarified. “I
was with the police department for ten years; cop, then detective.
You get a lot of good training there.” The kid seemed interested,
and Cynical wondered if he’d found his way in. “You ever thought
about being a cop?” he asked, as if sizing him up for a
uniform.

“I’ve thought about it,” Karl admitted. “A
machine is coming on,” he suddenly announced. “Do you want me to
leave a message?”

“That’s okay,” Cynical said.

The guard put the phone down and, looking up,
asked, “Do you mind me asking what’s going on, sir?”

Cutting a glance around the empty lobby,
Cynical settled a stare on Karl. “Can I trust you?”

“I’m in charge of security for this
building,” Karl informed him with an air of importance, before
adding, “during this shift.”

“Okay,” Cynical said, convinced he was
talking to the right man. “Well, Ms. Norton is a key witness in a
major - ”

He stopped in mid-sentence as the lobby door
opened and a co-ed hurried over to the elevator. The conversation
remained awkwardly halted until the young female student had
disappeared behind the closing metal doors. Truth was, Cynical was
grateful for the time to think up the rest of his story.

When he resumed, he spoke in an even lower
tone. “Ms. Norton witnessed a murder.” He paused for dramatic
effect. “She can identify the Mafia’s top hit man.”

Nodding slowly, Karl’s expression said it all
made perfect sense. After all, he’d seen it on TV a thousand times.
Then a cloud drifted across his otherwise clear mind.

“How come you’re looking for her?” he asked.
“I mean, shouldn’t a real cop be doing that?”

Cynical let the ‘real cop’ thing slide.
Actually, it was a valid question. “You’re right,” he admitted. “In
most cases, they would. Sometimes, on special cases, the DA hires
me because I have a background with witness protection and
organized crime.”