The Secrets of Harry Bright (1985) Read online

  He really had a hard time of it when the railroad cops found an envelope tied around the ragpicker's neck addressed to then White House Counsel Edwin Meese. The letter said, "I am truly needy. There really is hunger in America. Keep me and I will vote Republican."

  Also involved in the barroom debate was Beavertail Bigelow, who had been permitted in the saloon by J. Edgar Gomez only after swearing he hadn't voted for the Democrats on November sixth as he'd been threatening to do. J. Edgar Gomez, like most ex-cops and cops in general, was a right-wing Republican as a result of street cynicism run rampant. He wanted the Eleven Ninety-nine Club to deliver 100 percent to Ronald Reagan and his party.

  Beavertail was almost up to his Beefeater limit for this twenty-four-hour period and he was getting surly and ready to pick a fight. He started to badmouth the victorious Reagan-Bush ticket until J. Edgar Gomez, who was behind the bar rolling a cigar in his mouth and trying to doze standing up, opened one bloodshot eye and gave him a glare that said, "You're only in here on a pass.'

  Beavertail was halfway boiled, but he got the message. "Okay, then," he said. "They're all wimps and bitches and pussies and geezers!"

  It was okay to put down Reagan and Bush if you included Mondale and Ferraro in the same breath. Then Beavertail looked across the bar at the only black guy in the place, Choo Choo Chester, and said, "I suppose you voted for Reagan. After all, you sent Edwin Meese all those . .

  "Don't start that shit!" J. Edgar Gomez warned, his eyebrows all spiky. "That rumor's dead and we're sick of its Now drink your gin and don't cause no trouble tonight!"

  So the old desert rat and the young black cop just drank their drinks and pretended to ignore each other, but everyone figured that Beavertail wasn't through with Choo Choo Chester who was one up on him for maybe being the guy who sent Beavertail on that bus ride to nowhere.

  Choo Choo Chester then started picking an argument with J. Edgar Gomez about the jukebox. The young cops were always beefing with the saloonkeeper about his choice of records.

  "I don't see why we can't have one freakin song that was written in this century!" Choo Choo Chester moaned. "I'm sick a Harry Babbitt and Snooky Lanson. I'm sick a Frank Sinatra singin 'Set em up, Joe.'

  "Maybe you kids ain't even capable a understanding songs like 'Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,' the saloonkeeper sighed. "What's gonna be the memory a your youth? 'Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go'?"

  "We gotta play somethin new," Choo Choo Chester persisted. "Shit, I might as well be a telephone operator, goin through life with a fuckin headset glued to my ears!"

  It was true. Four out of the twelve cops in the saloon were wearing headphones with their ghetto blasters sitting beside them.

  "What's wrong with Van Halen or Duran Duran?" O. A. Jones argued.

  "No hard rockers," J. Edgar Gomez said.

  "Okay then, Elton John. Shit, he's an old guy." "No soft rockers," J. Edgar Gomez said.

  "How about The Police then?" Choo Choo Chester asked. "How can a guy like you, who gave thirty years to the law, object to a rock band called The Police?"

  "Don't try to be cute," J. Edgar Gomez said.

  "Damn, Edgar, at least get one Hall and Oates side! They're mellow!"

  "They're scumbag rockers," said J. Edgar Gomez. "I suppose even the Beatles ain't old enough yet?" "They started this shit," J. Edgar Gomez said. "Shoulda depth-charged their fucking yellow submarine."

  And so forth. It was virtually hopeless, but the young cops protested every night. It was pops of the thirties, forties and fifties, and a little country. J. Edgar Gomez allowed Willie Nelson because the saloonkeeper figured that Willie was into the hippie-cowboy trash because he couldn't handle middle age. J. Edgar could understand mid-life eccentricities all right. Yet he allowed Willie Nelson's music only after the singer recorded Stardust and did almost as good a job as Hoagy Carmichael himself.

  "What's wrong with you?" O. A. Jones said to Wingnut Bates when the jug-eared young cop came shuddering into the bar and threw his ten-dollar bill on the bar with a trembling hand.

  "N-n-nothin," said Wingnut Bates. "Except I'm gonna kill Frank Zamelli."

  "Oh yeah, when?"

  "Tomorrow. Tonight if he comes in."

  "Yeah? Well, it's been pretty dull around here."

  "I'm gonna kill him. G-g-g-g-gimme a double margarita, Edgar."

  "What'd Prankster Frank do this time?" O. A. Jones asked Wingnut as he eyed a sagging mid-lifer from No-Blood Alley who'd look like a $6,000 facelift by 1:00 A. M.

  "A sn-sn-snake!" Wingnut cried.

  "He put a snake in your car?"

  "My 1-1-1-locker," Wingnut said.

  "That's going too far," O. A. Jones said. "Even for Prankster Frank. Was it a king snake? Don't tell me it was a rattler! I wouldn't believe that!"

  "R-r-r-rubber," Wingnut Bates said, grabbing the margarita in both hands and gulping half of it down.

  "O000000h, rubber! Well, that ain't too bad, Wingnut. That ain't so bad."

  "I b-b-believe I'm gonna kill him," Wingnut said. "Jesus, I'm st-st-stuttering!"

  "You sure are. Finish your drink, maybe you'll calm down."

  "I believe!" Wingnut cried. "I believe I'm g-ggonna .. .

  "What's that?" O. A. Jones cried out.

  "Keep it down(" J. Edgar growled. "Only freaking rest I get around here is when I doze standing up. Like a freaking parakeet."

  "I believe(" O. A. Jones said, running over to the jukebox, which was playing Green Eyes by Helen O'Connell. "I believe! Hey, Edgar, ain't that a song from your time? Ain't that one you used to have on this box?"

  "What?"

  " 'I Believe'! How's it go?"

  Without removing his cigar or opening his eyes, J. Edgar Gomez sang, " 'I believe for every drop of rain that falls, a flower gr000000ws!' "

  "Yeah, that's it!" O. A. Jones said.

  " 'I believe that somewhere in the darkest night, a candle gl0000ws. ' "

  "Okay, enough!" O. A. Jones said. "That's its Wingnut, that's it!"

  "What's it?"

  "The song I thought I heard the killer singing in the desert when I found that Watson kid fried in his car!" "You said it was 'Pretend.' "

  " 'Pretend you're happy when you're bluuuuuue,' " J.

  Edgar Gomez suddenly sang. "I just loved Nat King Cole."

  "I thought it was 'Pretend,' "said O. A. Jones, but the song never did sound right when the Palm Springs dicks played it for me. I mean, I thought I heard the guy singing something about pretending. Now I think it was 'I Believe.' Yeah! I think that's it!"

  "That ain't nothing like 'Pretend,' " J. Edgar Gomez said, finally opening his eyes. "You been drinking too much vodka. I told you whiskey's better for your head."

  "I know it was something about 'believe,' " O. A. Jones said, wrinkling his brow.

  "I can't believe this is so important," J. Edgar Gomez said. "And I wish you'd keep your voice quieter. Beavertail's nodding off. Might get by without a fight tonight."

  " 'I Believe,' " O. A. Jones said. "Tomorrow I'm calling the Palm Springs dicks. I'm the only lead to the killer!"

  "That don't seem like much of a clue to me," J. Edgar Gomez said, closing his eyes again.

  "I'm calling them tomorrow," O. A. Jones said.

  "I'm killing Prankster Frank Zamelli tomorrow," Wing-nut Bates said.

  Chapter 6

  FLOATING COFFINS

  -DON'T LOOK FOR MERCY FROM THAT SON OF A BITCH," Otto Stringer said, referring to their captain. "He's the Cotton Mather of the cop world."

  "I don't think we'll need mercy, Otto," Sidney Blackpool said. "Nobody's ever gonna know about the ten grand, and even if they do, it's expense money. No strings attached."

  "The amount, Sidney. That's the string. In fact it's a rope. In fact it's a noose if our department ever hears about it."

  "Nobody's gonna hear. Relax. Finish your tequila and tomato juice. How can you drink that stuff?"

  "Like this," Otto Stringer said, stretched out
at poolside on a lounge chair at dusk.

  He guzzled the tall one and waved to a waitress with a gardenia in her hair who swayed over to poolside in a persimmon muumuu, Palm Springs being big on Hawaii and exotica in general.

  "Another?" she smiled, making Otto deeply regret the big four-oh and sexual extinction.

  "That was de-voon, dahling," Otto said, "but I think I'll try another kind."

  "That's the fourth other kind you've had," Sidney Blackpool said. "Mixing is tricky."

  "Not to worry," Otto said. "Let's see, I never been much on martinis so I think I'll try a martini. How about a vodka martooni, my dear."

  "Twist or olive?"

  "Both. And a cocktail onion. Make it two cocktail onions."

  "Vodka martini," she said, writing on her pad. "With a dinner salad."

  As the cocktail waitress hip-swayed toward the bar, Otto sighed and put his hands behind his head and stopped sucking in his belly. He was wearing brand-new white doubleknits and white loafers with yet another acrylic golf sweater, this one pink and maroon, over a maroon shirt.

  Sidney Blackpool was wearing the same pants as earlier, but had switched to a green golf shirt and white V-necked sweater for the evening. Palm Springs is very casual and they'd been told that only a few restaurants in the entire desert required a jacket. Nobody demanded neckties except dining rooms in the country clubs, but they'd brought coats and ties in case.

  "Was it hot enough for you today, dah-ling?" Otto asked, watching a pair of thirtyish women stroll out by the pool, look toward the two detectives, and go back inside without apparent interest.

  "Yeah, I guess it was hot enough," his partner shrugged.

  "That's half a the conversation. Now, where we eating tonight?"

  "I dunno. Should I worry about it?"

  "That's the other half a the conversation."

  "What conversation?"

  "The Palm Springs conversation," Otto said. "I listened to a bunch a people by the pool today. That's the only thing they say. Hot enough today and where we eating tonight. That's it."

  "Exciting."

  "That's all people got to worry about around here,"

  Otto said. "They don't even move enough to keep their watches wound.

  "Rich people, Otto. Not people like you and me." "We're rich, Sidney," Otto reminded him.

  "This week only."

  You got that right," Otto said, which next to Tom Selleck aloha shirts and moustaches was this year's cop mannerism. The phrase "You got that right."

  "That waitress is all time," Otto said. "She's the kind tries to lick you with her eyes."

  "I thought you said you were looking for ugly broads."

  To marry. A rich ugly broad to marry. Not to spend a vacation with. That's what I like about Yoko Ono. She looks like the leading lady in Kabuki theater and they're all men. I'd marry her in a minute."

  "Let's sign for the drinks and go to dinner," Sidney Blackpool said.

  "Signing for drinks." Otto grinned. "Let me sign. I wanna write in a big tip for that little heartbreaker. She'll remember Otto Stringer before this week's out."

  "I hope ten grand's gonna be enough," his partner said, as they strolled inside.

  The dining room was like the rest of the hotel, but there was less wicker and rattan, and the floral patterns weren't out of control. The maitre d' dressed formally and the waiters wore standard desert chic: white dress shirt, black bow tie, no coat.

  The menu required two hands to lift. In fact, Otto Stringer, hidden behind it, said, "Sidney, I could take this thing out by the pool tomorrow, shove two poles under it and have enough shade for me, a golf cart, and Liz Taylor."

  "She's not your size anymore," Sidney Blackpool said, trying to decide whether to order things he couldn't spell or keep it a cop's night out. That is, steak or prime rib.

  "I'm glad they translate the French," Otto said. "I hate restaurants where the menu's all in French or Italian., "How often do you eat at restaurants where the menu s in any language but English, Spanish and Chinese?"

  "Sidney, I'm a man a the world! Let's get a wine steward."

  Just then the dining-room captain came to the table and said, "Have you gentlemen decided yet?"

  "I'll have grease," Otto said. "I usually eat grease."

  Otto didn't end up with grease, but he did get a lot of unfamiliar and very rich continental cuisine. He started out with champagne and escargots, and red caviar because they didn't have the good stuff. He went on to veal with a champagne cream sauce you could lose a fork in. He had a side of fettucine Alfredo because, like Mount San Jacinto, it was there. He finished up with half a pound of marzipan and a flambe crepe because he wanted something they set on fire.

  Sidney Blackpool, realizing that he was way past his limit of Johnnie Walker Black, had only one glass of champagne, veal piccata with lemon and capers, a Bibb lettuce salad and no dessert.

  Otto was halfway through the crepe, saying, "Sidney, you gotta relax and let yourself go," when he started to hiccup.

  "Damn," he said.

  "Let's order you some bitters and lime. It works for me," Sidney Blackpool said.

  "These hiccups feel funny," Otto said, his upper lip beading with sweat. "I think I'll run to the john and . . ."

  He barely made it. Otto upchucked for ten minutes. When he returned, he was pale and shaky.

  "You're a little green around the gills," his partner observed.

  "I just lost a hundred bucks worth a fancy groceries!" Otto moaned.

  "Well, it was your first time, Otto. You'll do better tomorrow. Your tummy's a rookie on this beat."

  "O000h, I'm sick," Otto said. "And now I'm hungry!" "Let's go to sleep," Sidney Blackpool said.

  "But I wanted to see the night life."

  "Let's get a good night's rest. Tomorrow you can order breakfast in bed. You'll be a new man."

  "Tomorrow I'm sticking to grease," Otto said.

  "I'll have room service bring you a plate a grease first thing in the morning," his partner promised.

  A deluge. There had never been so much rain in the desert. Sidney Blackpool watched a terrifying flash flood swell like a tidal wave on the very crest of Mount San Jacinto, then cascade down on the hotel. Men and women were screaming. It was awful, and though his own life was in jeopardy, he had to stand and face the next wall of water because he could see it riding the crest: a coffin. The lead-lined coffin rode like a fiberglass surfboard. Sidney Blackpool was weeping with the other doomed hotel guests, but not for his imminent death. He wept because he knew the coffin bore the half-drowned body of Tommy Blackpool who, wearing a red-and-black wet suit, clung like Ishmael as the coffin suddenly began cartwheeling away, down the Coachella Valley.

  "Tommmmmmmyr he sobbed, and then he was awake. It was dawn. He hadn't awakened at the dreaded drinker's hour as he deserved, having put away so much Johnnie Walker Black. The bed was soaked as always after a recurring dream about Tommy Blackpool.

  In the dream, Tommy would often be clinging to his coffin, or sometimes to his surfboard, which had been torn from his ankle strap by the huge wave in Santa Monica that drowned him.

  Sometimes Sidney Blackpool would dream simply that Tommy was getting soaked to the skin lying in that coffin in the cold ground. This, during rainstorms. Sidney Blackpool hated rainstorms now and had begun to wish that he'd had Tommy cremated. His ex-wife had suggested it, but deferred when he insisted on burial in the ground. Like many lapsed Catholics he could not entirely escape the tenets drilled into him in grammar school. Even though the modern Church no longer cherished mystery and ritual and burial in the ground. The dead with bones intact to await the Redeemer? He never really knew why they used to demand it, but he had buried Tommy in the ground. And now he regretted it every time it rained. He used to read weather forecasts even before the headlines in the days when he was going mad.

  In all his years as a cop--even during the Watts Riot when he was trapped inside a burning warehouse believing he'd b
e burned alive--he'd never awakened in what they call a cold sweat. Dreams of fire had never tormented him. It was these dreams of water, and Tommy so cold. The detective was shivering as he plodded toward the shower, feeling very old, hoping he could stem the headache starting at the base of his skull.

  Cold sweat. A parent who dreamed of something as outrageous, as unnatural as his eighteen-year-old child lying in the ground, that's who coined that one. He showered, shaved, dressed, took three aspirin and went downstairs hoping the hotel coffee shop opened early.

  Otto Stringer had breakfast served in his bedroom as promised. It was a typical Palm Springs November day. "The kind you expect" as the radio disc jockey said. About 78 degrees with humidity around 19 percent, making it comfortable and invigorating. Otto finished four eggs, two orders of bacon, toast, jam and coffee. He showered, shaved, put on a baby-blue golf shirt with a navy sweater tied around his neck, and realized they hadn't decided where to play.

  They had the names of three head pros who would arrange games for them at some of America's most famous country clubs. Victor Watson's secretary had assured Sidney Blackpool that even if all the courses were not yet ready for the official opening of the 1984-85 desert season, she could make arrangements for them at just about any club that was. When Otto arrived at the coffee shop, his partner had a copy of Palm Springs Life on the counter beside him, along with the file containing the police reports dealing with the murder of Jack Watson.

  "Which one's most fun to read?" Otto asked, nodding to one of the desert's thousand daytime waitresses who have a tough time making it during the short tourist season, and who all walk like their feet hurt.

  "Morning," she said, pouring Otto's coffee. "Hot enough for you today?"

  "Sure is," Otto said.

  "That's half a the day's conversation," Sidney Blackpool said to Otto.

  "Where we eating tonight?" Otto asked, thus completing the other half.

  You wanna play golf today or make our show for Watson?"

  "I was thinking, Sidney, maybe we oughtta get the business over with in case he calls and wants a report."

  "I don't think he'll call," Sidney Blackpool said. "He must know unconsciously that this is a fantasy. He's just.. just a screwed-up father who can't deal with the loss of his son. Maybe lots a guys in his shoes if they had his money'd do strange things to try to find some . . ."