Chapter 3 ~ Newsman of New City University

A Tale of Two Times: Volume 5 ~ The Wild Way

~ 1 ~ Earlier on the day which would end with him hiding away with the others in Antonia’s house, Leo had talked with Martin from a payphone in the New University Student Union. Martin had instructed him to talk with Isabel and to interview some other people, including the Nigerian princess, Yohanna.

After they had ended the call, Leo went to get himself a cup of coffee and a snack. Because it appeared to him that Rhoda’s adventure had ended somehow at the stone cabin party, he was expecting to finish up his work at New City University soon after completing this latest task. Already, a wave of nostalgia was washing over him, for his campus life as a peer among people who were a decade or so younger than he. He recalled his own wonderful days of being young like them, ready to meet the world. Then he remembered his actual experience of meeting the world…

Alberto Mendoza, editor of New City University’s New City University Review student newspaper, had recognized an opportunity earlier that morning, when his eyes had been drawn to Yohanna as he was entering the Student Union. That highly noticeable young woman had been deep in conversation with two other women—Esther and Evelyn—whom Alberto did not know. He had thought the three women might reveal to him some information for his new scandal story featuring Rhoda Knox and Fr. Haldane. Imagining a headline—"Has a Wealthy Student Test Pilot Seduced the on-Campus Priest?”—he had been following his newsman father's advice: “Begin to make a name for yourself, Alberto, by reporting for a campus newspaper. You will find, in campus life, a rich field for scandal and an endless web of petty politics. It is a safe way in which to begin, and even if you are ejected from the university, you will have made a reputation for yourself and you will receive job offers.”

Alberto had taken his coffee to a table near the three ladies. With his ears tuned to their discussion and his eyes on his notebook, he had begun writing as though he were taking notes from his textbook, of which he occasionally flipped a page. In this way he had been recording the ladies’ conversation, as overheard by him, in the shorthand drilled into him by his father. “Alberto,” his father had said, “if I do not teach you my trade, I will leave you a beggar.” Having learned well from his father, Alberto had listened and recorded, feeling that at last his journalistic career was truly beginning.

When Leo arrived at Yohanna’s table, Alberto had already filled up a good many pages with notes about the stone cabin party, including the names of Het, Hans, Victor, the three women to whom he was listening, and Rhoda. In addition, he had pages of notes about an unusual flight to Santa Barbara which had passed over the Coastal Air Base, and about dancing in Mickie’s by the Sea. And there was information which Esther had pried out of Yohanna.

Hearing Leo reveal that his job was to protect Rhoda from being kidnapped for ransom, Alberto thought that Rhoda must belong to a very wealthy family. He swelled with satisfaction, feeling that he had discovered a story of intriguing proportions.

After the arrival of Eugene, whom Alberto learned was a chemist, the group at Yohanna’s table began breaking up. Then, listening to the conversation between Leo and Yohanna, Alberto learned about Martin, the boss. It seemed that Yohanna and Leo were operatives of Martin who had not known about each other’s work, and the New City University newsman took notes rapidly as the two of them felt each other out and then began to cooperate on the job of watching of Dr. Steuben’s office for something that might “come out of hiding”, which had been stirred up by Rhoda. Wow! Just how big are the jaws of deception from which I am pulling the truth?

After Leo had been left alone at the table, finishing his coffee and eating the roll which he hadn’t touched during the earnest conversation, Alberto finished up his notes by jotting down some overall impressions. Then he flipped a page of the textbook and continued his pretense of reading it, seemingly oblivious to the nearby table’s recent conversation. He had overheard all of it, despite the loud background noise of the Student Union. He had been aided by a pillar next to him blocking some of the noise, and—more importantly—Alberto had developed, under his father’s tutelage, the skill of focusing on particular conversations amid the noise of many.

Knowing that Leo was likely a trained detective or an intelligence operative of some sort, Alberto thought it would be unwise to interview him directly. He did want to get to know Leo, and to watch this watcher of Steuben’s office, so he rose from his chair, intending to ask Leo to keep an eye on his things while he went to refill his coffee cup. In that moment, Leo stood up, preparing to leave the Student Union. Alberto set down his cup and picked up his belongings. He followed Leo out onto a campus path.

Leo swung around in pursuit of a man like himself in age and build, who was striding down the path to the President’s office. Alberto maintained his own pursuit of Leo, thrilled to be inside a story. He was a reporter in the midst of breaking events which only he was recording.

Lurking near Leo outside the office of Dr. Steuben, whom Alberto recognized from having interviewed him several times, the newsman watched Steuben get into his car with the man whom Leo had followed. Having heard the man say, “Lisa—Su’s daughter”, Alberto recalled that Yohanna and the other young women had talked about “Lisa” returning to Hong Kong.

After Dr. Steuben drove off with the unknown man, Alberto followed Leo as he wandered through the Natural Sciences building and the library, obviously looking for someone—whom he found in the library. She was an attractive but carelessly-dressed young woman whom Alberto did not recognize. She appeared to be in distress, and to be very glad and relieved to see Leo. Alberto followed Leo and the young woman, driving to an apartment building near his own quarters in an area of lower-cost housing.

He decided to wait there for an hour before calling it a day, and he was rewarded by Leo’s emergence only a few minutes later. Alberto watched Leo walk to the nearby Gas & Grocery and use a payphone there to make a short telephone call; then he followed Leo as he drove at high speed to Antonia’s Hacienda. There, he watched Leo being greeted in the parking lot by Yohanna and Hans and a lady who appeared to be near Leo’s age, and saw the four of them enter the restaurant. The others appeared to Alberto to have been waiting for Leo, so he concluded that Leo’s telephone call must be associated with their rendezvous. He followed them into the restaurant and watched them enter a private dining room. Then he took a stool at the bar from which the private room was visible. Ordering a beer and a burger, he said to the server, “Nice place you have here. It can’t be a chain.”

“No, it’s not part of a chain. It belongs to Antonia, the lady you were watching when she went with her friends into that private dining room. If you’re looking for a job here, she’s the one to talk to.” Being also the restaurant’s bouncer, the server had sized up Alberto as a poor foreign student looking for a job—not as a threat to the peace of the house. He made a point of being the first to serve new clients, especially young men.

“Thanks. I might do that.” Alberto finished his burger and his beer and slid off the stool. While paying his tab, he asked, “Is Antonia in during the day?”

“Usually, unless she’s out with a client. She owns the real estate business next door, too. Here’s her card.” The server took a business card from under the desk and wrote his name on it: “Tomás.” Handing it to Alberto, he asked, “Your name is?”

“Alberto Mendoza.”

“Good name, Alberto. I’m Tomás, Antonia’s barkeeper and bouncer. My signature is a recommendation.”

“Thank you, Tomás.” Alberto considered actually applying—maybe for a job in the real estate office. He was confident of his ability to successfully interview with Antonia for the selling of houses.

“I like your hat, Alberto. Looks like a vintage Panama.”

“It is. My father wore it.” Alberto was obviously pleased.

He waited in his car after leaving the restaurant. After setting his hat on the passenger seat, he studied his notes, keeping one eye on the restaurant’s door. The group of four emerged much sooner that he had expected, and he followed Antonia’s limousine straight to the apartment building from which he had tailed Leo to Antonia’s Restaurant & Bar. His heartbeat grew faster.

Alberto had felt such excitement only once before: As a small boy, he had watched soldiers pile out of a van and charge into his family’s house, where, miraculously, his father had been able to calm the pistol-brandishing officer in command. Speaking gently, his father had said, “Please look again at your warrant. Juan will be highly displeased if your driver has misread the address. He might blame you for it. I must finish writing the President’s speech for this evening.” When the poor man had been convinced of the mortal folly into which he had almost fallen, Alberto’s father had said, “Do not worry. I will say nothing of this. I know that you are a man who follows the rules, but your driver may not be. I advise you to check his wallet. It is most likely that someone has paid him to misdirect you here.”

Alberto was recalling that event while he watched Leo and Yohanna enter the three-story apartment building, leaving Hans and Antonia waiting outside the building’s entrance. He opened his notebook and began making notes. Then Leo came out of the building and went back in with the other two. After about twenty minutes, a light was extinguished which had been shining from a second-floor window. Soon Hans, Leo and Antonia emerged and Antonia unlocked her car’s doors. Leo held open the front passenger-side door, and Yohanna slipped out of the apartment building and quickly entered the car—carrying in her arms a woman’s limp body! His excitement coming to a peak, Alberto wondered whether the limp woman was alive or dead. She must be the same woman whom Leo had driven to this place earlier. This is a story!

Alberto was breathlessly watching them drive away fast in the large limousine… and he suddenly realized that he was not following them! Seeing them beginning to disappear from sight in the darkening evening, he panicked, flooding the engine of his old, poorly-maintained Ford. Ten or fifteen minutes of waiting were required before making another attempt to start the car. Rats! Alberto waited only five minutes, tried again, and failed. Well, what was the best that he could do now? There was no way to know where Yohanna and the others had gone. He got out of his car and began walking toward the apartment building’s entrance. Then he thought better of it, and walked over to the Gas & Grocery.

“Battery need charging?” asked the attendant, who had stepped outside to smoke a cigarette.

“No. Engine’s flooded. I’ll just have to wait. Thought I’d get a newspaper to kill the time.” Alberto looked over the selection on the news rack. There was a greater variety of papers than he had expected. University influence, probably. He bought a Hollywood Rag and ambled back to his car. Just enough light for reading shone from the streetlight near his parking spot, so he slouched against its pole and began reading the Rag.

Alberto had convinced the Rag’s editor, who was acquainted with his father, to let him start a scandal column covering the east end of New City. The editor had said, “Write me a few articles, and maybe I’ll publish them. What’s the name of your column, Alberto?”

“Intrigues in the East,”Alberto had answered at once.

“Intrigues is perfect. Cut in the East. Do you have something written?”

With the help of Dean Esmeralda Montgomery, he had. Alberto and the Dean of Students had soon discovered that they had information interests in common. Esmeralda had amassed a store of scandal information extending beyond the University into the greater Los Angeles area. If Alberto’s proposed column were a success, she would feed him scandal news items which would come home to the University for her enjoyment. The first item that Alberto had submitted for the column was about professor Bolt’s wife, who was a first-term state senator pretending to be a conservative. The threat of a personal scandal during the coming election would make her squirm, and it would give Esmerelda fascinatingly powerful leverage in New City University politics.

Alberto had stood by while the editor read his typed copy, marking it occasionally with his red pencil. The man had remarked, “I like your question-and-suggestion style; it arouses both curiosity and anxiety. And it sells. Tell me, Alberto: Who are the real targets of speculation here?” After Alberto had told him, the editor had nodded approvingly. “I may ‘doll this up’ a bit. I’ll byline it with your first name. Since you’re an unknown, readers will think that you’re someone in-the-know who wants to remain unknown. There’ll be a few weeks before it appears, because I’m going to wait until there’s a news lull, when the introduction of Intrigues will draw more notice.”

Alberto had sent in two more columns, but not one of them had yet appeared in the Rag. Finding nothing in this issue, either, he was folding it up when he noticed an announcement on the front page: “Coming next week: Intrigues. This new column presents questions that you want answered about what’s going on with whom.”

Alberto was reading this with satisfaction when he was alerted, by the noisy engine of an ancient Buick pulling into the apartment building’s parking lot across the street, to the fact that time had quickly passed. The ancient Buick appeared to be in worse condition than his own faded-green Ford. Alberto slid back behind the wheel, resolving to start the Ford carefully, without touching the gas pedal until it needed just a light touch. He was only dimly aware of the Buick’s driver getting out and entering the apartment building. Then, as he was holding his key and looking up to heaven for a little extra help in starting his car, he saw the lights go on in the apartment which was likely the one from which Yohanna had carried the limp woman.

The light inside revealed a human figure passing before the window; the figure passed again in the opposite direction. Alberto stepped out of his car to get a better look, and saw flames in the apartment’s window! A fire alarm began to blare. Alberto ran to the Gas & Grocery, shouting at the attendant, “Next door building is burning! Call the fire department!” The clerk had been stocking shelves, his back turned to the windows. He turned to look, and immediately snatched his telephone from under the counter.

Alberto ran back to drive his car away from the fire hydrant, somehow remembering to start the engine gently. Driving slowly up the street past the Gas & Grocery to a more remote parking location, he pulled from its case the Leica camera which had been a high school graduation gift from his father. After parking, he set his Panama hat firmly on his head, pinned on his press badge, and walked back quickly to cover the news. The fire had advanced more rapidly than he had expected. He took care to count the pictures as he shot them, because of the 36-photograph capacity of a roll of film. While replacing a roll with a new one, he might miss a good news shot or an interesting angle of the story that he was covering. He must shoot his pictures sparingly.

The fire alarm rang persistently while flames appeared in more and more windows as the fire spread. Amid the ringing and crackling, Alberto heard shouting, and soon he heard the sirens of fire engines. He watched people scrambling down the fire escapes and out of the building past its open front door while the newly-arrived firefighters smashed windows to get in and aid those still inside. He snapped a few pictures of them, hoping that the fire itself was providing enough light.

Then he saw a man fleeing from the building in unexpectedly extreme terror. Immediately behind him ran two firefighters carrying a long box between them and displaying similar terror. Then a dozen others emerged, also fleeing recklessly.

Firefighters had been regularly re-entering the building to rescue additional residents. Now the residents’ exodus from the building ceased, and the last firefighters exited, followed by green flames billowing from the entrance. Alberto saw that the two firemen who were carrying the long box had followed the terrified running man to his car and were tossing the box into its trunk. Now they joined the escaped residents and the other firefighters standing at a distance and watching the fire’s ferocity come to a peak. The building exploded and collapsed. Alberto snapped the last photograph on his roll of film.

Wondering about the unusual service provided by the firefighters to one escaping apartment-dweller, Alberto looked more closely at the man and recognized him as the one who must have turned on the lights in the young woman’s apartment. Then he recognized the old Buick as the one which he had seen earlier. Alberto retreated to his car, preparing to follow the man. Strange as the fire had been, he felt that there was an even bigger story here, to which this man was a lead.

He followed Scott to the Natural Sciences building on the New City University campus, noting the make and license plate number of his car, and watched him use a key to enter the building, which was locked at night. From the parking lot, he watched the partially-lit building, and after a few minutes he saw light appear in one window. After carefully noting its location, he returned to the scene of the fire—which was still breaking news.

Wearing his Panama hat, Alberto found the fire chief and got his attention long enough to tell him that, by chance, he had seen the whole fire, and that he had taken a roll of photographs that might be of use. “Chief,” he said, “If you want, I’ll give you a complete set of the photographs as soon as I can get them developed—probably late tomorrow.” An old reporter from Herald of the City, having arrived just in time to overhear Alberto’s words, agreed to share a byline, with his own name following Alberto’s, for Alberto’s eyewitness account. Alberto was a reminder to the old-timer of himself, eager in his early days to make his name known. Within an hour, the two reporters had written up their hold-the-presses account of the fire, for the morning edition.

Their account was the one that Hans read and reported to Isabel, after she had awaken to find herself safe in Antonia’s house, having been rescued from the Foe’s incineration of her apartment building in that slow Refining Fire which had been witnessed by Scott and Alberto.

~ 2 ~ On that same morning, Alberto returned to New City University and tracked down Scott, whom he found sleeping on a sofa in the biology section’s lounge. Scott, relieved that it was not a faculty member who had discovered him camping in the lounge, took Alberto to his office to be interviewed by him. Alberto showed Scott his news article, for which the old reporter had given Alberto, alone, the byline—“By Alberto Mendoza, special to the Herald”—pointing out that he was also editor of the New City University Review. Alberto spotted, under Scott’s desk, the long box that he had seen the firemen load into Scott’s car trunk; he said nothing about it.

Reading that all but two of the residents had been accounted for, Scott claimed that he knew that the other resident, Isabel, was safe. He told Alberto that, because he usually gave her a ride to the campus, Isabel had told him that she would be visiting friends for a while. In fact, Scott knew only that she had not been in her apartment.

Alberto suspected Scott of lying. He, himself, had lied to Scott, by telling him that he had found Scott after hearing that the missing man worked in the Natural Sciences Building of New City University. Alberto suspected that the woman whom he had seen being carried out of the building before the fire broke out was in fact the other missing resident.

“Isabel?” he asked.

“Yes, Isabel Tavares. She studies math under Dr. Cox.”

“Scott, you’re welcome to stay at my place until you find another place of your own. It’s not great, but there’s an extra room across the hall that I use for storage; it has a cot in it to crash on, but you’ll have to pass through my one-room apartment to use the bathroom.” Alberto gave Scott his New City University Review card after writing his home address and telephone number on the back.

“Your place is only a half-mile or so from my old place, Alberto. Thanks. At least for tonight, I’ll take you up on that.”

Then Dr. Het Kerrigan walked into Scott’s office, carrying a copy of Aviation Week and not noticing Alberto, who was sitting next to the open door, quietly jotting down a few notes prior to departing. Het said, “Scott, here’s the report on the Greased Lightning that I told you about. I’ve been thinking about what my mom said about her flight in it… Hello! …I didn't know you had a visitor, Scott.”

Alberto stood up and offered his hand. “Don’t mind me; I was just leaving. Scott’s apartment burned down last night, so I offered him a temporary place to stay. I’m Alberto Mendoza, the editor of the New City University Review. I’m doing a story on the fire.”

Het was surprised, and a little wary. He said, “Oh?” looking questioningly at Scott.

“Alberto,” said Scott, “this is Dr. Kerrigan. Everybody calls him Het. Het, Alberto and I met just a few minutes ago. He happened to witness the fire, and he wrote this report in the Herald. You can read all about it.” He handed the newspaper to Het.

After examining the front-page photo, taken by Alberto, of the building engulfed by flames, Het read the article while Scott and Alberto stood by. He noted that the story and the photo were credited to Alberto, and the account was well-written. The strange nature of the fire struck him in an odd way… He set that aside for the present. “I didn’t know the editor of our school paper was a seasoned newsman. Glad to meet you, Alberto.” There was respect in his manner as he again shook Alberto’s hand. Alberto was flattered, but he hid it. This story was his first major front-page, bylined news story.

He said, “Well, gentlemen, I can see that you two have work to do. So do I. Scott, give me a call if you don’t find a better place to stay, and we can arrange a time for you to get in. I’ve got a second key, if you need to stay longer. No cockroaches; I spray every week. Het—Dr. Kerrigan—I’m pleased to meet you. Until the next story...”

“I’ve seen him around, Scott, wearing his Panama hat. Now the hat makes sense. What happened? I haven't heard anything.”

“It’s fresh news.” Scott picked up the newspaper and studied the picture. Then he read the story again, in detail and with his full attention, while Het sat reading the account of the Greased Lightning in Aviation Week.

“Het, there’s some connection between the strange fire that destroyed my apartment building, and the strange light we saw in the stone cabin’s fireplace when Rhoda caused that explosion. …What happened to you then, Het?”

“What connection?”

“I said ‘some connection’. If I knew, I’d name it.”

“Well, what do you mean by saying that Rhoda caused it?”

“Het, Rhoda was the immediate cause, at least. It was her reading in that weird voice that made the room go strange, and the fire flared up after she threw the divining bones into the fireplace, and... Where the hell did you find her? And what did you see? I thought it was all some tasteless practical joke. But my apartment fire scared me in the same way I was scared by the stone cabin experience. It seemed like icy fingers with hardly any substance were trying to grab me.” Scott had become so agitated that his behavior was now that of a person very much unlike his usual soft-spoken, rational self. Seeing this side of him caused Het to fear that Scott might just walk out for good, like a temperamental artist. He was alarmed. He needed Scott’s mathematical insight in order to embark on the expanded career which he desired.

“Scott, when I shouted ‘Oh, no! I’m wrong!’ it was because I was seeing… Well, seeing might not be the right word. ….seeing in some empirical way, that there were un-evolved intelligent beings in the universe. I was seeing one right in front of me… It was like a giant crystal—in a lattice of just amazing mathematical precision and elegance—and it was actively communicating with a lot of others like it. It was definitely in the room. And I felt those icy fingers holding on to me—in order to be in the room.”

Scott leaned forward. “How do you know it wasn't an illusion—maybe drug-induced?”

“Of course I can’t prove it. But you asked what I saw, and that’s it. It was weird, and I’ve put it into words as well as I can. I’m convinced I really did ‘see’ some other life form. It’s the same as if I’d seen a living trilobite when I was diving, and I couldn't bring it back and I never saw it again. I’d know I’d seen one, even if I wouldn't want to say so without real evidence. I’ve been thinking a lot about my experience, and I’ve become certain that the universe is unfolding, and natural selection is working in our biological end of it because it uncovers structures that have already unfolded but have gotten randomly mixed up or entangled. It may be a real simple and elegant theory, if the unfolding occurs in meta time and selection works in real time. We were thinking the other way around—that meta time evolves from real time and becomes independent with organisms, and then becomes more independent with the rise of culture. …Scott, somehow I suspect that the being I saw was in meta time. In fact, I’m sure of it. If that’s so, then cultural meta time is like some harmonic of original meta time. What do you think?”

“Shit, Het, I haven’t had more than two minutes to think, but I’ve got a hunch that putting meta time first—giving the Q dimensions priority over the P dimensions in some way, could make the math easier. But let’s say your meta time beings are substantially real. Might not they be dangerous?”

“I don't think they’d be. All of them must have their places in the one Q lattice, so they don't reproduce. They can’t have our appetites that have been cultivated by selection.”

“How can you know all this, Het? I know Don gave you some LSD, and I know some drug-heads who are full of talk that sounds like yours.”

Het was growing angry now. “Scott, that was a long time ago, and I flushed Don’s drugs down the toilet after I saw what they did to him! …Okay, Scott, I’m not making any truth claims. I’m saying let’s change our meta time model by making real time and meta time concurrent over all of natural history. We can start rethinking from there. Professor Gould pointed out to me that it’s easier to derive modern plants from a complex original archetypical plant. I asked him the obvious question: Where do you get the original archetypical plant? I knew he was an atheist like me, so he couldn’t appeal to God. ‘Maybe time flows in two directions,’ he said, ‘so the original archetypical plant exists first in our minds. If so, our thinking now actually shapes the evolutionary past, and the events of the past shape our thinking. There would be one big organism occupying both past and present. Maybe we should think of the past in the way we think of the microstructure of our cells working in the present moment.'"

Scott was happy not to have to disclose to Het the business about Isabel and the fire. She was still missing. Maybe she had been incinerated in that fire. He very much hoped not, because he was beginning to rearrange his mathematical ideas for Het’s project, and he needed to talk over some things with her. Earlier, he had explained to her his technical concept of the difference in Q and P dimensions, and she had immediately suggested that he try setting all Q derivatives to zero or to one, and then treat the P derivatives as physicists usually do. “If you try that, Scott, I’m certain you’ll get some solutions that don’t bomb.” After he had spent only a few minutes explaining to her the problem on which he was working for Dr. Kerrigan, Isabel had grasped the mathematics which had taken him months to develop. After two long weeks, he had successfully applied her suggestion; then he and Het had written a paper which was quickly accepted by a respectable journal.