The Secrets of Harry Bright (28 page)

"After you left police work . . ." Sidney Blackpool began, but was interrupted by the biker.

"After they fired me."

"After they fired you, what made you come out here?" "I jist drifted with the wind."

"But why a motorcycle club?"

"Because they wanted me," said Billy Hightower.

"And you ended up president a your chapter."

"Ain't that some success story," Billy Hightower said, draining his beer and thumping into the tiny kitchen to get another. When he returned he said, "They ain't so bad, these redneck motherfuckers. Jist like most a the guys I was in Nam with. I showed em how to act with cops when they get in a stop and frisk. I taught em a few things about probable cause, and search and seizure. And also, I beat the fuck outta their baddest dudes till they came to love me. Everybody needs a daddy."

"What about the rumor a you dealing to Palm Springs kids, Billy?" Sidney Blackpool asked.

"I wish it was true," said Billy Hightower. "Only thing gets dealt outta these canyons is crystal, and it stays local. I ain't sayin nothin everybody don't already know. Nearly every shack up here's a speed lab. Ain't nobody gonna get rich manufacturin crank but it ain't too bad a life."

"How much is crystal going for out here?" Otto asked.

"Bout sixty-five hunnerd for half a pound a meth plus half a pound a cut. Trouble is, all these jackoff Cobras get hooked behind this shit. Better'n junk, they say. You don't zombie out for three hours, they say. You kin change the engine on your bike, you kin paint the kitchen, you kin bone your old lady twice. But they never get that job finished when they're cranked out."

"You ever shoot speed?" Otto asked.

"Not like these rednecks around here. All these crankers'll tell you they toot it. Bullshit. They mainline it. I think they oughtta make it legal, though. You wanna reduce taxes? This'd be better'n a state lottery. We buy the makins under the table from legit pharmaceutical houses. When I was a cop I wish I knew what I know now. I coulda retired to Acapulco."

"Good profit margin?" Otto was still a narc at heart.

"Damn right. Red phosphorus is legal to buy and hydriodic acid too. An idiot could brew it. Then somebody's always makin it easier for us. The Germans came up with ephedrine, their biggest chemical discovery since Zyklon B. Almost wiped out the Jews with that one. They're gonna git the rednecks with this one. You use ephedrine and one hydrogen atom and you get meth real easy."

"Where the hell do you buy a hydrogen atom?" Otto wondered.

"Anyways, I'd rather deal snort," Billy Hightower said. "You get thirty percent more a gram, and a nicer clientele. But it's jist too hard for guys like us to get it at a price. So you heard there's Palm Springs youngsters bein dealt to by Billy Hightower? I ain't never dealt to juveniles. And that brings me to the subject a this meeting, genlemen. That young dude in the picture you showed
me.

"His name's Terry Kinsale," Otto said.

"I don't know no names a people that buy crystal, but I don't forget faces. I saw that kid twice, once in a bar down in Cathedral City, once up on this hill the night the Watson kid disappeared. And I reported that fact to the police. So it's me that should get a reward if he's the one that iced Jack Watson."

"How'd you meet him?" Sidney Blackpool asked.

"I went with one a my guys on a run one night. Delivered an ounce a crystal to some sissies at this gay bar on Highway One eleven. This kid was one a the guys that took delivery."

"Did he pay you the money?"

"Naw, his sugar daddy did."

"Who was the sugar daddy?"

"Jist some faggot. My man knew him so it was okay. Some local sissy with lots a green and a thing for pretty young boys like this guy Terry. Terry said he'd like to do business with us from time to time. Said he liked to mix speed with other stuff. His funeral, I figgered."

"Then you saw him on the night a the murder?"

"There was a little too much bidness goin on at the time to suit me. Too many a those Cat City dudes comin up here to score. I told my people it had to stop, that we'd go down there to do the transactions. But we got this one Cobra, he does real good for hisself down there in the gay bars. Good-lookin dude all covered with leather and flyin his colors, he thrills the shit outta all the sissies and they buy him lots a drinks. That night he wanted an ounce a crank from my stash, but I wouldn't give it up. He said he had a customer waitin down where the asphalt road runs out. I didn't like the sound a the whole thing so I walked down there with a shotgun to check it out. It was this guy Terry and another dude."

"Not Watson?" Otto asked.

"Naw, a jarhead from Twennynine Palms. A freckle-nose skinhead marine shakin in his twenny-dollar shoes. I recognized Terry from the other time."

"Did you sell them the crank?"

"I told em to get the fuck outta here and don't ever come up in my hills again or I'd feed their ass to my dog."

"Whaddaya think he was doing with the marine?" Otto asked.

"Whadda you think?" Billy Hightower said. "He was scorin some crank to get the kid loaded so he could fuck him. What else you do with a nineteen-year-old marine?"

"So after you read about them finding the Watson car down on the other side a the canyon, what'd you think?" Sidney Blackpool asked.

"I worried it was one a my guys that shot him. Man, we don't need that kind a heat up here. I'm tryin to get these rednecks organized into some legit bidnesses. Look at the Hell's Angels. They're makin toy runs for the poor every Christmas. Pretty soon there's gonna be Hell's Angels teddy bears and Hell's Angels Cabbage Patchers. W
e c
an learn from them, I tell my people. Then I fronted them off about the Watson kid. I interrogated em one by one. And I scared the fuck outta the ones that scare easy. I got nothin. Nothin at all. I know none a my people shot the kid. So I think, okay, how about the sissy and the marine? Terry was up on the hill that night. But I also think, well, maybe he's got nothin to do with it. Maybe some righteous kidnapper snatched the Watson kid and somethin went wrong and they shot him and jist picked our canyon because it was on their way home to Vegas. So I don't worry about it for a few days."

"Then what?"

"Then Watson comes on T
. V
. and offers a fifty-grand reward. Then I say, fuck it, Terry's a long shot, but for fifty grand you take a long shot. That's when I made the call. -

"You called Palm Springs P. D. ?-

"I don't know em so I don't trust em. I called somebody I trust and told him about Terry, and his car, and the gay bar where I met him."

"What kind a car was it?" Otto asked.

"A Porsche Nine-eleven," Billy Hightower said. "Black on , black. I figured it belonged to one a Terry's sugar daddies."

Sidney Blackpool looked at Otto who'd been a cop long enough to play it like aces wired. He sipped his beer and said calmly, "Who was the cop you trusted? Who'd you tell all this to?"

"Only one cop I do trust. Harry Bright over at Mineral Springs P
. D
. Now I'm trustin you guys cause it's my on'y chance for the reward."

"Why'd you trust Harry Bright?" Otto asked.

Billy Hightower smiled and said, "You ever met Harry Bright you wouldn't ask. If I worked for a guy 'like that when I was on the job I'd still be on the job. He s a cop's cop and he's a good guy. To this day he's the only cop ever walked over and sat down and bought me a drink in the Eleven Ninety-nine Club. Till you guys did it tonight. They all think I'm some kind a killer-freak dope fiend or somethin. I met Harry when I first joined the Cobras. H
e e
ven tried to get me on Mineral Springs P
. D
. when it was first formed, but you don't get hired after you put a police captain in jaw wires and plastic surgery. Whether the motherfucker deserved it or not. I spent lots a time with Harry Bright the last six years. Lots a drinks, good cop stories and laughs. Jist him and me."

"Where? At the Eleven Ninety-nine?"

"I wouldn't do that to Harry," Billy Hightower said, shaking his head. "I wouldn't want the others to see him bein too friendly with a guy like me. He had his career. He was too close to a pension to get it flicked up. When Harry'd wanna sit with me in the saloon I'd make some excuse and leave. Jist to protect him from any trouble. I'd visit with Harry right here."

"In this house?"

"Right in this house. Some nights when the graveyard shift needed a sergeant, or one a their guys was sick and Harry had to cover, he'd come up here and talk to me. Park his unit down the road and stroll right on in, in full uniform. One night, I had a guy here almost had a heart attack seein Harry walkin up the road with his five-cell flashlight. We'd sit'n drink, Harry and me. He always drank way too much. I worried more about his job than he did. Sometimes he'd get so tanked he'd sleep in his patrol unit right down where you met Gina."

"How old a man's Harry Bright?" Sidney Blackpool asked.

"I happen to know cause he's eligible for retirement this Christmas. They're on the state pension. Two percent a year and go out at fifty years. Harry'll be fifty years old in December. Poor Harry. He ain't gonna know it when he does get that pension."

"When'd he have his stroke?" Otto asked.

"Last March, I think it was," Billy Hightower said. "I went to see him twice in the hospital. I even cleaned up and wore a suit so I wouldn't panic the little candy stripers. I couldn't stand to see him like that. Harry was a big of corn-beef daddy cop. Like the daddy you always wanted instead a the motherfucker you ended up with. Harry was everybody's old man on that police force. Paco's the bos
s b
ut Harry's the daddy and Paco listens to him. And now I wanna know somethin from you."

:Anything we can tell you," Sidney Blackpool said. Where'd you get that kid's picture?"

"From Victor Watson's house. The houseboy found it and gave it to us in the hopes it might be a lead we could develop."

You mean to tell me, in all the reports and follow-ups, there ain't no mention a me or my tip on that kid Terry?"

"Well there might be," Sidney Blackpool lied. "We haven't seen everything. Maybe the Palm Springs homicide dicks just put that in a separate file we haven't seen. You know how dicks carry notes hanging outta every pocket."

"Yeah, well, I can't believe Harry Bright wouldn't a told them about it. He was too good a cop to ignore a tip like that. So I want you to run this down and get back to me about it. If that kid's involved in this I got a right to the bread."

"Okay," Sidney Blackpool said. "Too bad we can't talk to Harry Bright."

"Nobody's ever gonna talk to Harry again," the biker said. "Last time I saw him he looked real bad and I heard he's deteriorated since then. Jist stares straight ahead. Don't even respond with blinks they tell me. I can't stand to see Harry Bright like that."

"Who knows him best?" Sidney Blackpool asked. "I mean, besides his family?"

"Harry ain't got no family," Billy Hightower said. "Lives alone in a little mobile home over the other side a Mineral Springs. Always invited me to visit him, but I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't want him to be seen with me. Told him I'd come for supper the first week after he had a lock on his pension. Then I wouldn't give a shit what people said to the mayor or the district attorney. He lived all alone. Divorced."

"Who knows him best?" Otto asked.

"That's easy," said Billy Hightower. "The other sergeant. Coy Brickman knows Harry best. He used to wor
k w
ith Harry at San Diego P
. D
. years ago. He's Harry's best friend, far as I know."

"One other thing," Sidney Blackpool said. "Earlier tonight we saw you drive your bike down toward the tamarisk trees where they found the Watson car. Why'd you do that?"

"The other day I saw that young cop
O. A.
Jones nosin around the canyon. I got curious if there was somethin new after all this time. Then today before it got dark, I was comin in from the post office and I saw another cop back there goin over the place. It looked like Coy Brickman, and I think, what is this shit? Then tonight I see your Toyota back there. I already heard all about you from the other night at the Eleven Ninety-nine."

"You don't miss much, Billy." Sidney Blackpool grinned.

"Mineral Springs ain't much, man. We reduced the size a our world considerably."

Suddenly they heard footsteps on the gravel outside and Billy Hightower held a thick finger up to his lips. He tensed, and then smiled and said, "Come on in, Shamu, you clumsy motherfucker, before somebody shoots you down like a coyote."

The door opened and a man entered who was just a little shorter than Billy Hightower. He weighed less than a tractor. He wore a Greek sailor's cap over black hair that could scour every griddle in the House of Pancakes. A gray-streaked black beard exploded from a grimy face studded with blackheads. He wore the inevitable boots and filthy denim. His belt buckle was turquoise and silver, about the size of a turkey platter. He wore turquoise and silver Indian rings on six fingers so scarred and battered they looked like chunks of jagged coral. And he was drunk. Mean drunk with a wired look as though he'd been mixing booze and crank.