The Secrets of Harry Bright (16 page)

He thought of that maudlin cop, and he cried out: "Why are you alive then? Why you and not Tommy?"

Then he saw another cop stagger out of the party heading for a car he shouldn't have been driving, and he scared the man by yelling: "Why you? Why you, you son of a bitch? And why me?'

Then Sidney Blackpool for the first time did look up (childhood training perhaps) and he shouted, "Okay, that's enough. I've had enough now. That's it. I've had enough!"

He knew he was very close then. He used to sit alone in the night, cold sober sometimes, and indulge dangerous fantasies. The setting of all fantasies preceded the day in 1983 when Tommy died. He could somehow stop the event from happening, in the fantasies.

And sometimes he indulged in daydreams set in the present. He'd receive an urgent call from his ex-wife saving, "Sid! Sid! It's a miracle! Tommy's alive' It wasn't his body they pulled from the surfl It was a mistake and Tommy's been in Mexico all this time and . . .

It was so absurd and pathetic and shameful that he was never able to indulge that one to the end. He didn't will it, but the fantasy came. After the night in Chinatown he knew that if he let this continue he would die. He read that it most often happened on a Monday, on the fifth day of the month, and in the spring. He decided that since something had ruthlessly reversed the natural order of things in his life, he would perversely defy statistical probability. He came very very close one Saturday night in September, the twenty-second day of the month. Only thinking of his daughter, Barb, at the last moment saved him from smoking it.

Sidney Blackpool sat up in the hotel bed, cursed himself, hated himself, and dialed the Palm Springs P
. D
. asking for the homicide investigator named on the reports.

"Finney's not here," the telephone voice said. "This is Lieutenant Sanders. Can I help you?"

"Sid Blackpool, Lieutenant. I think your boss was told we were coming?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry about Finney. His mother's real sick and he took off yesterday for Minnesota."

"When's he coming back?"

"Depends on her."

"Can anybody else talk about the Watson case?"

"I guess I can. You have copies of the reports, I understand. Not too much to add."

"The reports said you checked out all the radio stations in the desert about that singing voice."

"Finney even checked stations in L
. A
., Vegas and San Diego in case it was some high-powered radio hear
d b
y the Mineral Springs cop. Nobody played 'Pretend' at that time of day. And no singer ever recorded 'Pretend' with only a banjo behind him, far as we know. So Jones either heard a live voice or a tape. He was damn near into heat stroke so we can't be sure."

If it was a live voice it's kinda bizarre."

"Kinda morbid. If it was live it means the guy that killed the kid came back and sang a little requiem over the corpse.

Are you sure the car was actually torched? I mean, it did crash down a canyon."

"No, we're not positive. The gas tank was ruptured by the crash. That car could a caught fire on its own. In fact, if it wasn't for that thirty-eight hollow-point slug in the skull, we had nothing but a fatal traffic accident. The kid drove off a dark canyon trail where he never shoulda been without a four-wheel-drive vehicle. His car caught fire and he died a crispy critter. Period."

"Too bad there wasn't a gun found at the scene," Sidney Blackpool said. "You coulda maybe figured it to be a suicide where the car rolled off the hill after the kid shot himself. "

"No gun," the lieutenant said. "And a very bad angle for a right-handed suicide."

"About how many people live in those canyons?"

"No people. About sixty dirtbag methamphetamine dealers. No Homo sapiens allowed in Solitaire Canyon. They cook up speed in those shacks, but it's almost impossible to get probable cause to bust them. Even if you have a warrant, they can see you coming for two miles and bury the evidence in holes they dig. Lots a those bikers are Vietnam vets. They're a chapter of the Cobras motorcycl
e g
ang::

Any
chance he drove up there because he wante
d t
o?"

"Not much chance," the lieutenant said. "He seldom drove the Rolls. In fact, I was surprised to get the call from Watson saying the kid drove the Rolls to Hollywood. He wasn't a speed user. And not that it was productive, but we did question every crank dealer and desert ra
t l
iving around that particular canyon. All negative. We have this crime-stoppers program where citizens donate reward money. Better known on the streets as dial-asnitch or burn-a-buddy. And after Victor Watson offered a fifty-thousand-dollar reward I think lots a cranked-out bikers'd roll over on each other if they knew anything. We got nothing. All we know is Watson's car went over the canyon and caught fire. He was pinned in the wreckage. Turns out he was shot in the head before he got cooked, lucky for him."

"Of course no chance to dust for prints in a burned wreck."

"We got a very diligent fingerprint man. Name is Hoffman. He dusts everything. He even dusted the dust. Once he dusted an assault victim's tits, which bought him a three-day suspension. We call him Dustin Hoffman. He got nothing."

"And then a freak came back a few days after the murder and sang 'Pretend.' "

"That's about it. The singer mighta been some prospector or nature lover. Or even a speed head who was just out for a stroll in the canyons after shooting his arms full a crystal. Officer Jones mighta just heard an innocent bystander."

"Could be," Sidney Blackpool said.

"But we doubt it."

"Why's that?"

"In those canyons there's no such thing. Everybody that lives there's a not so innocent bystander. The Mineral Springs cop probably heard the killer all right."

"Returning to sing a requiem?"

"Maybe to look for something he lost."

Sidney Blackpool gave the Palm Springs lieutenant his telephone number and said good-bye, took two aspirins, rinsed his face and lit a cigarette. He was entering the dining room where Otto was still working on his brunch when the bell captain came in.

"Mister Blackpool?"

"Yeah."

"The front desk just took a call for you from the Palm Springs police."

"I just hung up." Sidney Blackpool shrugged to Otto who was leering at a huge wedge of coconut-cream pie. Have a bite first," Otto said.

"Lemme go see what it is."

While Sidney Blackpool was gone, Otto not only ate the pie but asked the waiter if he thought a pina colada would be too rich as an after-brunch drink. When his partner returned, Otto was leaning back in the chair, his belly pressing the table, sucking a tall coconut and vodka special with a little parasol stuck in a wedge of orange.

"This is the life, Sidney," he said with three rapid-fire belches.

"Guess what?" Sidney Blackpool said. "That was the Palm Springs lieutenant. They got a call earlier this morning that he just learned about. The Mineral Springs cop who found the body called to say he's decided the song the suspect sang wasn't 'Pretend. It was 'I Believe.'

"Not sure I know that one."

"You'd know it if you heard it. A Frankie Laine hit. You're old enough.-

"Thank you very much, Sidney. You're so kind to remind me."

"Anyway, whaddaya think a that? The very day we get on the case, they receive the first piece a new information they've gotten in over a year."

"Sidney, it can't make any possible difference what the lunatic was singing. If in fact that was the killer returning to the scene a the crime like in Agatha Christie."

"I know, but it's the coincidence of it. It seems like more than a coincidence. We come here and something happens. After all this time."

"What's more than a coincidence mean? Otto asked, looking sorry that he'd had the pina colada.

And then Sidney Blackpool thought of the tortured face of Victor Watson, an old man's hollow face under those track lights. "I don't know," he said. "Maybe an
*
**

Instead of playing nine holes they were off to Mineral Springs to talk to Officer
O. A.
Jones about his musical revelation.

"Jesus, how we gonna find out if every radio station in two hundred miles didn't play 'I Believe' on that day last year?" Otto asked. "We gotta get in some golf. All I'm doing is eating and drinking("

' 'I Believe' with a banjo? I think someone was there that day. Maybe Jones heard a live voice."

"All we gotta find is a banjo man with a taste for old songs. Let's see, Steve Martin plays one, I think. Maybe Roy Clark or Glen Campbell? Jesus."

"Shaggy clouds and shaggy trees," Sidney Blackpool said. "It's got a threatening look sometimes, this desert."

"Know what I noticed, Sidney? It changes. I mean, it never looks the same one minute to the next."

"The cloud shadow," Sidney Blackpool said, looking up from under his sunglasses as he drove. "It throws shadow and light and color everywhere. And the colors change. This is a strange place. I don't know if I like it or not."

"I'm gonna love it," Otto said. "If we ever get on the freaking golf links. I ain't hit a ball in over a month."

"Three weeks," his partner reminded. "At Griffith Park. I bet these courses won't look like Griffith Park."

"You mean no tank tops? No beer cans or tattooed arms? No sound of thongs slapping the feet when your playing partner steps outta his Ford pickup? Hey, what's that?" Otto pointed three miles off in the distance toward the base of the mountains.

"That's where six thousand souls survive in this desert because a the golf and tennis and pina colada we just left," said Sidney Blackpool. "That's Mineral Springs."

"Kinda windy around here," Otto said, watching a dozen whirlwinds dancing across the desert in the shimmering rising heat. "Bad place to die out in those lonely canyons.

"Doesn't much matter where," Sidney Blackpool said, lighting a cigarette, looking at the shacks that dotted th
e t
rails high in the hills. "Have to be real important to drive up there at night."

"I'd have to be forced to make the drive."

"Possibly," Sidney Blackpool said.

When they arrived, Chief Paco Pedroza had a case of heartburn from yelling at Wingnut Bates and Prankster Frank. He had forbidden any more threats to shoot Prankster Frank on sight, explaining that he needed every cop he had. And he prohibited snakes--real, rubber or photographic--from being brought into the station. In that spirit, Paco even removed the picture of the sidewinder on the sign that said "We don't give a shit how they do it in L
. A
."

After sending his cops back to work he was dozing with his feet up when the Hollywood detectives announced themselves to Anemic Annie, the pale, birdlike civilian at the front desk.

"In here, fellas," Paco said. "Siddown. Want some coffee?"

"No, thanks, Chief," Sidney Blackpool said, as the three men shook hands. "He's Stringer. I'm Blackpool."

"Call me Paco. I used to work Hollywood. You mightta heard?"

"We did," Otto said. "We were both at Newton Street at that time."

"Pinkford was captain then," Paco said. "He still on the department?"

"Yep," Otto nodded, "and will be till Ronald Reaga
n g
oes gray.

"Pinkford never wanted much outta life," Paco said. "Just enough glue to stick his face on Mount Rushmore. I woulda walked a beat in Sri Lanka to get away from him. Anyways, I'm glad to see you boys're wearing your golf rags. Most L
. A
. cops come out this way in suits and neckties even if it's a hundred and twenty degrees.

"Actually, Chief, this is sort of a vacation," Sidney
Blackpool said. "Paco. -

"Paco. We're just here for some golf. Our boss said we might do a little follow-up since Victor Watson recently learned that his kid visited Hollywood on the day he disappeared from Palm Springs. Apparently the kid made a quick trip into town and back to the desert."

"Mean anything?" Paco asked.

"Not yet," Otto said. "Reason we came to your department is to talk to Officer
O. A.
Jones. He called Palm Springs P
. D
. today with some new information about the song he heard the suspect singing."

"
O. A.
Jones," Paco grunted. "That little fucker's gonna get me indicted some day. Does a job all right, but everything he does looks like it mighta happened a little different than he says. In fact, no desert's seen so much single-handed swashbuckling since Lawrence of Arabia. I don't know if you can rely on everything that surfer says."

"Surfer?" Sidney Blackpool said. "Where would he surf out here?"

"Ex-surfer," Paco said. "Used to be with Laguna Beach P
. D
. and then Palm Springs P. D. I took a chance on him and so far he ain't got in any traffic accidents where there might be one body too many. But that's another story. He's on duty today. Want Annie to call him for ya?"