The Secrets of Harry Bright (21 page)

"Do you think you'll have more questions?" The car dealer sounded ill.

"I doubt it," the detective said.

When Sidney Blackpool came back to the suite, Otto was all gussied up in his best golf outfit, the one with the pink argyle sweater. He was in the sitting room reading the newspaper.

"Thought you might still be asleep," Sidney Blackpool said. "I went for a ride. Stayed longer than I thought."

"We playing golf today, Sidney? Or we gonna set up roadblocks and start searching cars for the murder gun?"

"What's wrong?"

"You see, partner, I'm just an old narc and a brand-new dead-body dick, but even old narcs can figure things out after a while."

"What're you talking about?"

"I been wondering why you didn't wanna go to that Rolls-Royce dealer to verify the hot new clue about the Watson kid driving the Rolls to Hollywood. But I just figured, well, Black Sid's the homicide cop. Me, I'm just the new kid on the block, so I didn't say anything. But I got to thinking."

"Thinking what?"

"Thinking that you're working this case like it's the Lindbergh baby snatching, not a no-clues homicide where we're supposedly just going through the motions.

"So what've you decided?"

"I decided to call the Rolls dealer who's a pal of Victor Watson. I could get more sincerity from a wedding chapel in Las Vegas."

"And?"

"And he's about as reliable as a Pravda editorial. Watson cooked this thing up with his pal just to get L
. A
. P. D. drawn into a Palm Springs case. Am I right?"

"I didn't call the car dealer. You did."

"Look, Sidney, I'm not a Mensa, but I'm not real dumb."

"You're not a bit dumb, Otto."

"You figured all along that Watson set it up to bring us in. You wanted to be brought in."

"Let's say you're right."

"Hey, I don't care if you did it because you wanted a Palm Springs holiday. I don't care if you figured he'd lay some expense money on us. Maybe you even knew it'd be ten grand. I don't know what-all's behind it, but I think if I'm riding shotgun, I got a right to know if I'm gonna get waylaid by hostiles."

Sidney Blackpool lit a cigarette and straddled his chair and looked away. Then he said, "Okay, Otto, you're right. I did figure from the git-go that Watson cooked up the Hollywood connection, but I went along. And not just for a fun-filled week in Palm Springs."

"So far, we ain't having much fun. We're working."

Sidney Blackpool took a big hit on the cigarette and blew a cloud through his nose, saying, "I didn't know he'd give us ten thousand, but that's not what's making me take a run at this case. Watson offered me a job if I could impress him."

"What job?"

"Security director for Watson Industries. Hundred grand a year. Travel. Country-club privileges. Perks. I won't be super rich but I can live rich."

"Every cop's hope and dream," Otto whistled. "How to turn twenty years of shit into sunshine."

"It's the first thing I've been a little stoked about in a long time, Otto. It's something to . . . go for."

"Go for? I'd kill for it. You shoulda told me." "Sorry, partner."

"So now I know, let's forget the golf. I'll work al
l w
eek if that's the payoff for you. I can always play golf in Griffith Park. "

Sidney Blackpool grinned and said, "Thanks, but gues
s w
hat?"

"What?"

"We're gonna hit the links today."

All right!" Otto said. "Which course?"

You pick it. We got three to choose from."

"Eeny meeny miny Tamarisk! Let's go play Tamarisk Country Club."

"Kay by me," Sidney Blackpool said. "Hey, guess what I saw out in the desert?"

"What?"

"A bird I saw in the desert magazine. A butcher-bird they call it. It impales mice and lizards on thorns and barbed wire, then eats them. Beautiful songbird. Teal-colored back. Gray cap, black mask, wings silver gray like a Mercedes. With white pinstriping. A gorgeous deadly little songbird. Reminded me a my ex-wife."

"Sidney, puh-leese!" Otto said. "You promised not to get so morbid!"

The clubhouse at Tamarisk was brand-new but the golf course was old. Along with Thunderbird Country Club, it was the oldest posh club in the desert. The detectives weren't certain what to do, but started lugging their own clubs until a kid saw them and took their golf bags, directing them to the locker room where they changed shoes.

The new clubhouse was perfect for the desert: lots of glass and space, decorated in desert pastels. There was a membership roster on the wall inside the lobby. Otto saw Gregory Peck's name and began getting panicky. He half expected to run into Yoko Ono.

Although he'd played an occasional game of golf over the years, Otto had never really gotten interested in the game until he started working with Sidney Blackpool, a pretty good golfer. In their months together, Sidney Blackpool had managed to get them some play at a few of the second-line private clubs in Los Angeles County, whic
h w
ere goat tracks compared to the manicured perfection of the desert country clubs.

"Oh, my God, Sidney!" Otto said when they were standing with the club pro looking at the eighteenth green. "I never seen anything like this. It's . . . It's . . . I used to date a girl with a pussy like that!"

"Green?" said the club pro.

"Velvet," Otto said. "It looks like velvet around that pin. And look at the fairways, not a blemish. Do you use Clearasil on them, or what?"

"Have fun, fellas," the pro said. "You'll make a threesome with Mister Rosenkrantz. He's on the first tee warming uy."

"Thanks much," Sidney Blackpool said, needing to take Otto's elbow to get him away from the eighteenth green. The boy already had their clubs loaded on an electric golf cart and was wiping down their woods.

"Do we tip the kid or what?" Otto whispered.

"After we're through," Sidney Blackpool said.

"Do we pay green fees or what? Is ten grand enough for green fees?"

"Relax. Victor Watson took care a everything," Sidney Blackpool said. "Imagine what it'd be like working for a guy like him."

"Imagine what it'd be like living in a place like this, Sidney. I gotta find me a rich woman in this town!"

The man waiting on the first tee was about sixty-five years old and fatter than Otto Stringer, but stood only about five feet six. He wore a floppy golf cap that came to the top of his ears and plastic-rimmed glasses that kept slipping down his nose. He smoked a cigar that was bigger than a twelve-ounce sap.

"You must be Mister Guildenstern," Otto said, sticking out his hand.

"I'm the other one," the man said. "Rosenkrantz with a K. Glad to know you boys."

"He's Sidney Blackpool and I'm Otto Stringer. Thanks for letting us play."

"Glad to do a favor for friends a Victor Watson," he said. "Call me Archie. What's your handicap?"

"He's about a twelve," Otto said. "Me, I'm a beginner. Thirty handicap oughtta do it."

"Last guy told me that beat me like a whorehouse rug," Archie Rosenkrantz said. "So I give you fifteen strokes. Sidney, you give me three. How about we play for twenty bucks four ways. Front, back, automatic press on the back and totals."

"Sounds okay," Sidney Blackpool said. "You go ahead and show us the way, Archie."

While Archie Rosenkrantz was getting himself ready on the first tee, Otto felt the panic bubbling. He whispered to his partner, "Did you trade President McKinley for a whole bunch a Andrew Jacksons? We never played for more than two bucks at Griffith Park!"

"We got money, don't worry," his partner whispered back.

Just then, a mixed foursome drove up in two custom golf carts and parked at the tee. One golf cart was Chinese red, built to resemble a baby Rolls-Royce. The man driving was older than George Burns. The girl in Ultrasuede was younger than Brooke Shields. Otto felt eight eyes on him. Disapproving eyes, he figured. He was sure they knew he was a Griffith Park hacker.

Then Otto heard a sound that reminded him of the Samoan's hand colliding with his skull. Fat old guy, my ass! The freaking ball rocketed out there 220 yards. Dead straight .

"Can we just pay you now and get it over with?" Sidney Blackpool asked, as he stepped up and stuck a tee in the ground.

"Lucky shot," Archie said, puffing on the Havana.

Otto kept glancing behind him at the clubhouse. He just knew there must be fifty people looking out through the tinted glass. He held his breath for twenty seconds and blew it out. He flexed his fists, forearms and biceps, then relaxed them. When he'd whiff at Griffith Park to the delight of some plumber, it was no big deal. But in this place?

Sidney Blackpool smacked it as hard as Archie Rosenkrantz, and being younger and more limber, he got a
n e
xtra fifteen yards out of it. The ball faded but settled on the right side of the fairway.

"You ain't so bad yourself, kid," Archie said, chewin
g t
he cigar to bits. "I ain't gonna get fat on you boys, I can "

see.

Otto was starting to feel all wrong. His lime-green doubleknits suddenly bit at his crotch. His argyle sweater chafed his armpits. His golf shoes seemed to be rubbing blisters on his ankles though he hadn't walked twenty feet. Even his goddamn Ben Hogan cap was too tight. He was a wreck.

Otto took a practice swing and sent a thirteen-inch slab of Tamarisk flying twenty yards. He ran off the tee and retrieved the chunk of turf while Archie Rosenkrantz puffed on the Havana and said, "There's an eighty-year-old member here wears a toup looks just like that divot, cept his is orange. Don't be scared, kid. Just kick back and L. T. F. F."

"What's L
. T
. F. F. ?" Otto asked, feeling his jaws going tight.

"Let the fucker fly," Archie said.

But suddenly Otto's golf gremlin showed up! His fear gremlin looked like Renfield, that giggling little fly eater in the old movie who leads you to your room in the west tower and tells you to ignore that flapping outside the window because it's just some old drag queen from Bucharest and if you give him a peek at your bare bum and some warm milk with a Tollhouse cookie he'll flutter on home. Sure

"Let the flicker fly," said Otto bravely.

"Heh heh heh," said Renfield, crunching on a blood-bloated horsefly as big as a pistachio.

Otto let the fucker fly all right.

"That wouldn't be bad distance," Archie said, "if that was the ball instead a the club."

"I can't understand it!" Otto cried, looking over his shoulder at the mixed foursome who were getting a real bang out of the gifted athlete on the first tee.

Sidney Blackpool trotted out to retrieve the graphite driver and Archie said, "Tell you what, son, let's call of
f t
he ,bets. This frigging game's got enough stress built in. Let s just go out and have some fun, enjoy the day, have a laugh or two and a drink later."

"Okay by me," Sidney Blackpool said, handing Otto his driver.

Otto told himself it'd be easy now. The pressure was off. Except that the women in the mixed foursome were whispering, and Otto's ears were the color of the pink argyles on his tummy Still, he forced himself to move that club low and slow. He took it back slower than Don January ever thought of doing. He was feeling loose and dreamy. He was s000 slow. He was s000 relaxed he just might fall asleep. Except that just as he got that club past horizontal, Renfield said, "There's nothing to fear but fear itself. Heh heh hee heeeee!" Otto knew that hovering rodent outside the window only had the face of Bela fucking Lugosi!

Otto gave it a Reggie Jackson fast-ball swing. With the same result. He whiffed that baby so bad he torqued like a licorice twist and found his head looking straight behind him like a cockatoo. Right at the two women in the mixed foursome who were beaming like two stews on Aloha Airlines: "Welcome to paradise, stranger!"

"So I lied," Renfield shrugged, his teeth full of flies.

Archie Rosenkrantz almost lost his cigar. "Did I hear a growl?" he cried. "Lon Chaney needed a full moon to lunge like that!"

"Let's forget the first tee," Sidney Blackpool suggested. "Otto'll settle down after we get out on the fairway."

"Palm Springs ain't heard a bigger swish since Liberace came to town," Archie said. "Okay, let's move along. My varicose veins're breakdancing."

The first hole was a five par, 483 yarder, which shouldn't have caused too many problems. Otto was allowed to place his ball 200 yards out, near the drives hit by his playing partners.

"Now, Otto," Archie said. "There ain't nobody watching you so just step up there and look around at the mountains and smell the flowers and think how lucky you are that God gave you this happy day. Just say this t
o y
ourself: Aw, fuck it! And if I can't fuck it, I'll cover it with chocolate like old Mary See!"

So Otto stepped up and addressed the ball, letting his arms and forearms and wrists and hands and hips and legs go limp, and thought, "Fuck it or cover it with chocolate." And he let er fly and heard a dull thunk.