The Secrets of Harry Bright (27 page)

Oleg Gridley had all the moves. He did a bump. He did a grind. He'd turned his back to the raucous crowd and shook his booty. He was, to Portia Cassidy, adorable.

"This, ladies and gentlemen," Ruth bellowed over the horn, "is show business!"

Bitch Cassidy jumped off the bar stool and wildly applauded her relentless suitor.

Toward the end of his number, Oleg Gridley parted the crowd and waddled right up to Bitch Cassidy showing her the best miniature Elvis impression the Coachella Valley was ever likely to see.

He lip-synched, " 'You ain't never caught a rabbit and you ain't no friend of milliner

And Portia Cassidy nearly swooned right on top of the midget. Ruth the Sleuth was so proud.

The detectives had to sit through one more lip-synched Elvis classic. Oleg stood on a bar stool and "sang "Love Me Tender" to Bitch Cassidy who was drunk enough to get all teary-eyed, resigning herself to a midget in her bed.

Only Beavertail Bigelow, drunk and surly as usual, didn't get a bang out of Oleg's performance. In fact, h
e l
ooked downright mad. He staggered out of his chair while the crowd was screaming "Encore!" and demanding a curtain call. He strode right up to the midget and accused him of larceny: "That's Clyde Suggs' uke! Where'd you get that uke, you little thug?"

"Get away from me less you want it in your hat!" Oleg warned. "They don't serve Beefeater highballs in the intensive-care unit!"

"He stole this uke from Clyde Suggs," Beavertail announced to the crowd, who lost interest since Beavertail was obviously in his fight-picking mode, and in these parts that was as predictable as big wind.

"I found this like (it in Solitaire Canyon," Beavertail Bigelow accused. 1 suld this uke to Clyde Suggs."

Of course, by now nobody in the saloon was even listening to all this bullshit. Everyone had returned to drinking, dancing, griping, lechering. Except for Officer
O. A.
Jones, who gave up trying to seduce a Palm Desert bankteller and approached the surly desert rat.

"Where in Solitaire Canyon did you find it, Beavertail?"
O. A.
Jones asked.

"By the road that goes up the hill. Past the fork."

"Can I see that, Oleg?"
O. A.
Jones asked the angry midget who said, "Sure. I don't know what this rat's talking about. We borrowed it from Ruben over at the Mirage Saloon. Ruth and Annie were with me."

"Then he stole it from Clyde Suggs," Beavertail said, looking for justice somewhere in this miserable fucking world.

"Why don't you go back to your table, Beavertail,"
O. A.
Jones said. "I'll take over this big larceny investigation."

"Probably let that rich pygmy bribe you outta doing your duty," Beavertail complained, but did as he was told.

"Be right back,"
O. A.
Jones said to Oleg Gridley, who was now snuggled up to Portia Cassidy, basking in all the attention, wondering how he could drink the freebies that were being bought by his admiring public.

"See, you don't have to be an. evil disgusting pervert when you put your mind to it," Portia Cassidy cooed t
o t
he now popular midget. "You can be awful sweet and nice.

"Portia," Oleg said somberly. "I do have a confession to make. I got a real ugly dingus. One night last year Maxine Farble slammed the window on it when I was sneaking outta her bedroom cause her old man came home early. And the biggest woody I ever get might look to you like a belly button."

"Size and beauty ain't important," said Bitch Cassidy, nuzzling up to the brand-new celebrity, Elfis himselfis. don't care if you gotta jerk off with tweezers."

Sidney Blackpool was about to tell Otto Stringer that they could get started for the canyon when he looked up and saw the surfer cop holding a ukulele.

"This might be the banjo,"
O. A.
Jones said.

It took ten minutes to trace enough of the Mineral Springs ukulele odyssey to get an idea that this could indeed be the stringed instrument heard by
O. A.
Jones one day last year when he discovered the burned corpse of Jack Watson.

"It sounded like a banjo," the young cop explained.

"It's a strange-looking uke," Sidney Blackpool said. "Wish I knew something about ukes. Eight strings. What would a regular uke have?"

"Four, I think," Otto said.

"Maybe it's got nothing to do with the case,"
O. A.
Jones said. "Maybe somebody just lost a uke sometime, back there in the canyon."

"It's at least worth checking out," Sidney Blackpoo
l s
aid.

It was a finely made old instrument. There was a maker's tag on the head of the ukulele that read C
. F
. MARTIN & CO., NAZARETH, PA. Sidney Blackpool recorded that information in his notebook.

"Tell you what," he said to
O. A.
Jones. "Let's keep an evidence chain intact in case this amounts to something. You hold on to this uke personally. Tell the bartender at the Mirage Saloon you're going to borrow it for a coupl
e d
ays."

"I better call Palm Springs detectives tomorrow,"
O. A.
Jones said.

"Don't do that . . . yet," Sidney Blackpool said, and this caused Otto to do a take. "The detective that worked on the case's outta town. Don't tell anyone about this. I'll make a few calls and if it seems promising I'll notify Palm Springs. We can book it down there as evidence if and when the time comes. Okay?"

"Okay."
O. A.
Jones shrugged, strumming the uke a few times. "Maybe I oughtta try this out on that sexy little bank teller who keeps shining me on. It worked for Oleg."

"I'll contact you in a couple days about the uke," Sidney Blackpool said. "Remember, don't talk about it to anyone.

"By the way," the surfer cop said, "I heard an old-time singer on the Palm Springs station that sounds like the voice I heard that day. Guy named Rudy Vallee."

Suddenly, Maynard Rivas who had been almost into a crying jag because so many scum buckets were suing cops these days came very close to his first Indian war whoop. "There's a cricket in my chili!" he screamed at J. Edgar Gomez.

"That's a dirty lie!" the saloonkeeper yelled back, up to his elbows in slimy water at the bar sink. "There ain't no crickets in my freaking chili!"

"It's got a big ugly mouth, a wimpy body, and hops around like a speed freak!" cried the outraged Indian. "It's either a cricket or Mick Jagger!"

"Lies! Lies!" J. Edgar Gomez hollered.

"My whole life's nothin but crickets in my chili! Well, I had enough! I'm Kirin me a ruthless Jew tomorra morning. I'm gonna own this fuckin joint!" the Indian promised.

They were halfway out the highway toward Solitaire
Canyon before Otto spoke. "I don't like this, Sidney."

"I'm not fond a driving out here myself, but . . ." "I don't like the way we're going about this." "Whaddaya mean?"

"This is a Palm Springs homicide all the way. If tha
t u
ke has anything to do with it, they should be told. I don't like withholding evidence. It makes me real nervous."

We re not withholding evidence. This might not even be evidence."

"That's not for us to determine. It's for them to determine. It's their case."

"Damn it, Otto, their detective isn't even in town now. We can check it out. No harm done."

"We could also keep them informed a what we're doing, yet we haven't set foot in their police station."

We will if and when the time comes, Otto."

"This is what the feds used to do to us all the time," Otto said. "They'd keep us in the dark and try to steal the glory."

"I'm not doing it for glory, Otto."

"I know, Sidney," Otto said, looking out the window at the desert landscape sailing by in the headlight wash. "You're doing it for money."

"For the job. I want that job."

"I'll play along," Otto said, "but if this case starts developing any further, I wanna go down to Palm Springs P
. D
. and tell them everything we've learned. I don't have my pension in the bag yet. I wanna protect my job."

"Fair enough, Otto," Sidney Blackpool said. "I wouldn't do it any other way."

The asphalt road seemed darker, if that was possible. The moon looked smaller but there were more stars glittering. The moaning wind sometimes shrieked. They drove farther down the asphalt road and saw a large shape on a dirt road to the right. A van was parked in the darkness with its lights out. The van flashed its lights on and off when the detectives got close.

"Must be our ride," Sidney Blackpool said.

"This is about as safe as the Khyber Pass," Otto said. "Or a Mexican wedding."

Sidney Blackpool turned onto the dirt road just past the fork, parked, and locked the Toyota. Otto took the flashlight from the glove box and they waited for the four-wheel-drive van to pull out from the trail where i
t w
aited. The van moved forward slowly with the high beam blinding the detectives. Satisfied, the driver dimmed the lights, pulled up to the two men, leaned across and unlocked the door.

"One a you jump in the back," she said.

The driver was a young woman in her late twenties. Her hair could make a home for three chipmunks and a kangaroo rat. She wore a dirty tank top and a biker's jacket with the Cobra colors across the back. She looked like a girl who could be working at any lunch counter in the Coachella Valley, and may have been, before being "adopted" by outlaw bikers. She was a pretty girl in a life where they grow old before they grow up, if they ever do.

"My name's Gina," she said. "I'll take you guys to Billy's. -

Gina didn't talk during the five-minute ride up the hill. Not until the asphalt was gone and they were on a gravel road that forked left. They passed six houses on the way, every one with a noisy watchdog. The gravel road veered close to the edge of the canyon. There was a small stucco house perched too near the brink, especially for flash-flood country.

"That's where Billy lives," she said.

"You live with Billy?" Otto asked.

"I live over yonder, the other side a the canyon," she said. "Me'n my old man."

"He a Cobra?"

"Everybody's a Cobra. Everybody in my life," sh
e s
aid.

"Who does Billy live with?" Sidney Blackpool asked.

"Whoever's around," Gina said, carefully watching the gravel road, which was partially washed away where it looped into a turnabout in front of Billy Hightower's hillside lair.

Billy Hightower opened the door when the van parked in front, nearly obliterating the backlight with his bulk. He'd removed his Cobra jacket and it was plain that his massive body was going to fat. But he still cut a very impressive figure.

Sidney Blackpool led, and Otto followed behind Gina.

Billy Hightower showed his fractured teeth when the detectives entered the little house.

"This ain't Hollywood neither," he grinned, "but it's all mine and paid for. Wanna drink? I got vodka and beer."

"I'll take a beer," Sidney Blackpool said.

"Me too," said Otto.

The detectives sat on a velveteen sofa that no doubt had had a color at one time. There were grease smudges everywhere. Outlaw bikers had left their tracks where they walked, sat, lay. The carpet was uniformly stained by engine grease.

Another thing stained by engine grease was the dirty yellow tank top worn by the girl. The cotton was stretched tight by her big arrogant breasts. She helped Billy get the beer and examined the two detectives in a curious friendly way.

Then she said, "Billy, I'm a mess. Mind if I take a shower? Ours ain't been workin for a week now and Shamu won't fix it."

"Help yourself, babe," Billy Hightower said, and seemed amused when Gina stripped off the tank top in front of the men.

"Way you can tell a biker momma is her tits're dirty," Gina said to the detectives. "From hangin against a guy's back all day. Just look at my shirt!"

Of course she knew that the detectives weren't looking at her shirt, which she pretended to be inspecting. They were looking at her breasts, especially the right one, which was decorated by a tattoo of a bearded biker on a Harley. Her right nipple was the bike's headlight.

"You might get a fifty-grand endorsement from Harley Davidson if they got to see that," Otto said.

The girl smiled saucily and winked.

"Speaking a fifty grand . . ." Billy Hightower began, then turned to the girl. "Go take a shower, momma. We gotta talk bidness."

When they could hear the shower running, Billy Hightower chuckled and said, "she's real proud a that tattoo. Jist gotta show everybody."

"Her old man gonna mind her in your shower?" Otto asked, sipping the beer.

"We ain't possessive out here," Billy Hightower said. "We left all that back where we came from. Here we share and share alike."