The Secrets of Harry Bright (29 page)

"Where's Gina?" he said, glaring at the two detectives. "Takin a shower," Billy Hightower said.

"In here, baby!" Gina yelled from the bathroom. "I washed my hair! I'll be right out!"

"What the fuck these porkers doin? Gina told me you sent her to bring em up here!"

"They ain't dope cops," Billy Hightower said. "They're workin on that murder where the Rolls was dumped in the canyon.

"Cops is cops," Shamu said, and he lurched sideways when he tried to lean on the doorjamb. "They all smell the same."

"Gina!" Billy Hightower yelled. "Come on out here and get Shamu home to bed. He ain't in a good mood tonight. How bout a beer, brother?"

"You got no right to bring em up here," Shamu said, and now he was glaring at Billy Hightower, his lip sullen and drooping.

"I use my own judgment," Billy Hightower said, his voice as soft and cool as a prison yard. "I'm the president.-

"You're a smart-mouth fuckin nigger that's jist gettin too big for your boots is what you are," Shamu said. "Where's my woman?"

"She ain't your woman, brother," Billy Hightower said. "She's her woman. She can do what she wants on this hill. With anybody she wants to do it with. Remember the rules.-

"GINA!" Shamu bellowed, as Otto waited for the windows to shatter.

Otto was one unhappy Hollywood detective a long way from home. Shamu looked like one of those Cossacks who only drank champagne so they could eat the glass.

The girl came out fully clothed, drying hair that now looked sandy instead of mousy brown.

"Get your ass home, you cunt!" the boozy giant said. "I din't tell you to come over here'n jump outta your clothes."

"I'm comin Shamu, just lemme get . . ."

He hit her so hard with his open palm that her body jerked sideways and knocked over a table lamp before thudding to the floor beside the sofa. She lay there weeping.

"You jist insulted me," Billy Hightower said, standing up very slowly. "You jist used violence in my house on one a my guests. You broke the rules.-

The bearded behemoth looked as though he wasn't mad anymore. He started to giggle, as though he was suddenly in a wonderful mood. He lowered his head and charged. The crash of bodies sent nearly six hundred combined pounds of outlaw flesh hurtling into the tiny kitchen, collapsing the table like a shoe box.

Both detectives leaped up and started to come to Billy Hightower's aid, but in the hug of Shamu, and writhing in pain, he yelled, "STAY OU'FTA THIS!"

Then the two bikers, grunting like grizzlies, staggered back into the living room where Shamu braced against the wall and got Billy Hightower in a very good choke hold.

"Jist . . . jist . . . like . . . like the cops do it!" he grinned, as he applied the forearm and bicep to Billy Hightower's throat, pinching the carotid artery.

Sidney Blackpool was making a move to use a kitchen chair on Shamu's skull when Billy Hightower took three short strangling breaths, puffed his cheeks, dropped his chin and clamped down on Shamu's hairy forearm with those huge broken teeth.

It took perhaps three seconds, but then Shamu began howling. He leaped away from Billy Hightower as if the Cobra leader was on fire. Billy Hightower, with Shamu's blood dripping down his chin, fell back against the wall wheezing and holding his throat.

"MY ARM. LOOK AT MY FUCKIN ARM!" the bearded biker roared.

There was a flap of skin and muscle hanging loose, and Otto Stringer thought he could see a tendon wriggling like a nightcrawler. Shamu was still staring in shock and pain at his ravaged arm when Billy Hightower drove his fist straight in like a saber thrust. He hit Shamu in the solar plexus and the giant crashed back against the wall blowing like an elephant. Then Billy Hightower did it again. The same shot in the same spot and Shamu's head shuddered and his teeth cracked shut like a trap and he genuflected. Then Billy Hightower stepped back and affected a grin with black blood-flecked lips and said, "Don't . . . don't never try to choke out a . . . a hard-core stree
t c
op!" Then he added, "I gotta . . . gotta mark you for this. Sorry, my man."

He took a step and kicked the giant in the side of the face with his boot. Shamu hit the floor like an anvil. Sounding like one lung had collapsed and the other was going.

"Shamu!" Gina cried, running to the fallen giant. "Baby, baby!"

"You guys better go now," Billy Hightower said. "I kin handle this."

There wasn't anything to say so they didn't try. Sidney Blackpool and Otto righted some of the overturned furniture as Shamu rolled over on his stomach. Attempting to kneel. Attempting to breathe.

"I kin do that," Billy Hightower said when Otto plugged in the lamp and put it back on the table.

The bearded biker was now braying in pain and sobbing, "Gina! Gina! I hurt!"

"I know, baby!" she said. "I know." Then she said, "Billy, help me get Shamu outside."

Billy Hightower grabbed Shamu around the belt, saying, "Okay. It's okay. I got ya. You're okay."

"I'm sorry, Billy," Shamu blubbered.

"I know," Billy Hightower nodded. "We jist gonna forgit all about it tomorra."

That was the last the detectives saw of them, the troglodyte and the tattooed girl, hobbling down the road to their shack where the shower didn't work but wasn't needed very often.

The detectives were standing in the darkness when Billy Hightower said, "Kin you walk back to your car? I ain't feelin too good."

"You oughtta go to a doctor," Otto said.

The outlaw biker shuffled bent and wounded toward the door. He turned and watched the detectives walking down the gravel road. It obviously hurt to speak but he said, "I . . . I didn't mind talkin to you guys tonight. Maybe some time we could . . ." Then he thought it over and shook his head and started to shut the door. But at the last second, just before it closed, he said, "This ain't a bad life. These people, they want me.

Chapter
13

SIDNEY
BLACKPOOL CHAIN SMOKED ALL THE WAY BACK
to the hotel. Otto had to open the window to breathe, shivering in the night air that blew through the canyons.

"Making any sense yet, Sidney?" Otto finally asked.

"I dunno. Sometimes part of it does, then it doesn't."

"A dope dispute? Naw, we ain't talking big dopers. How about a straight rip-off by the Cobras? They set up the gay boys in the bar, bring them up to the canyon with a promise of low-priced crank and waylay them."

"Why two cars then? Why was Jack Watson in the Rolls and Terry and the marine in the Porsche?"

"Yeah, and why wouldn't Terry step up and tell his story right away if he saw somebody kill his pal? Especially after the reward was posted."

"Maybe he was already outta town by then. Anyway, Billy Hightower says he's sure his people didn't do it. Billy does seem to have effective interrogation methods."

"And what's Harry Bright got to do with it? And why's Coy Brickman nosing around out there now that we're stirring things up?"

"There's always the possibility that Terry planned th
e k
idnap and ransom of his pal Jack with the help of Bright or Brickman," Sidney Blackpool said.

Should call this place Urinal Springs, you ask me," Otto said. "The whole place stinks, far as I'm concerned. It's like the city of Gorki, closed to foreigners. And we're foreigners, baby.-

"First thing tomorrow let's work on the uke. We'll call the manufacturer. See what they can tell us. I wonder how many music stores there are in this valley? Not many, probably."

"It's hard to imagine Harry Bright involved in a murder, ain't it?" Otto said.

"You never even met Harry Bright."

You re right. This place is making me goofy. It ain't real hard to think a Coy Brickman icing somebody down. Those eyes a his, probably the freaking buzzards got eyes like he's got."

"We gotta get this connection between Harry Bright and Coy Brickman. Maybe it started back in San Diego P. D. "What?"

"Whatever might make one a them or both a them kill Jack Watson."

"We're getting real close to where I say we call Palm Springs P
. D
. and cut them in on this, Sidney. We coulda bought it tonight, if that creature from the black lagoon turned on us instead a Billy Hightower."

"Another day, Otto. Let's see how it develops after one more day."

"One more day," Otto sighed. "Wonder if it's too late for room service. I think I got me a live one after all. Something in my stomach just did a two and a half forward somersault, with a full twist."

Sidney Blackpool wasn't able to sleep. A double shot of Johnnie Walker Black didn't help a bit. He could hear Otto snoring in the other bedroom.

He tried the technique taught by the police department to reduce stress. He concentrated on his toes, feet and ankles, gradually working up until his shoulders and. neck and jaws began to relent. Sometimes he imagine
d h
imself in a meadow or in a solitary cottage in an isolated valley. Tonight he thought of lying on a blanket under a tamarisk tree, the shaggy branches wafting like an ostrich fan as his body contour settled into the warm sand. He slept soundly until just before daybreak when he had a dream.

It was a joyous dream, a triumph, a wonder. Of course, the dream took place before Tommy died. In the dream, Sidney Blackpool was alone, ankle deep in cool sand, atop the tallest dune in the desert. Though it wasn't particularly hot in the desert he was pouring sweat from every pore. It was morning and yet there was no sun anywhere on the horizon. The moon was translucent white, and directly overhead. There were a few clouds scudding in the wind. It was a Mineral Springs kind of moaning wind and he was being sandblasted so badly he thought his flesh might tear, but he dug his feet deeper into the sand until it gripped his ankles like concrete. He believed that nothing could blow him off the dune.

He could hear the savage ocean surf crashing against the Santa Rosas on the far side, and some of it even lapped over the top of Mount San Jacinto and splashed down toward the tram car.

Suddenly the moon was not overhead. His heart nearly stopped because he thought he'd missed his chance! Then he saw that it was hovering over the mountain peak.

Sidney Blackpool extended his arms, his body a cross buried in the sand. The sun appeared over the Santa Rosas, a fireball powering upward. When the sun was precisely atop the peak of Mount San Jacinto, he started screaming.

It wasn't a scream of pain or rage or terror, it was a scream of absolute triumph and joy. He was holding them at bay, the sun and moon. The sun could not rise, the moon could not set. Sidney Blackpool held them powerless with his outstretched arms and his scream of triumph. Time could not advance. He was making time stand still.

Now there could be no waves crashing, no floating coffin. He would spend eternity alone in the desert screaming with his lungs and his heart. He would never see
Tommy Blackpool again, but Tommy would live. This was his destiny.

No man had ever known such joy. His happiness was so great that he awoke weeping. He tried to muffle his sobs with the pillow so Otto wouldn't hear him.

Because of the three-hour time difference between California and Pennsylvania, Sidney Blackpool was finished talking with the man at the Martin Guitar Company long before Otto came shuffling into the sitting room in his underwear, scratching his balls.

"I bet I could get rid a this blubber if I only slept thirty minutes a night like you," Otto said to his partner who was showered, shaved and dressed, with a legal pad full of notes in front of him.

"Morning, bright eyes," Sidney Blackpool said to Otto. "Here's s what I found out from the guitar company. It's a very rare ukulele, called a Taro Patch. Probably made between 1915 and 1920. The old Hawaiians loved its sweet sound. Liked to play it while they watched the taro grow."

"I need some breakfast," Otto said. "I can't figure out whose tongue I got in my mouth."

"This kind of ukulele wouldn't be found in a regular music store. It'd be the kind of antique to end up in a pawnshop. The good news is there're only six pawnshops in this whole valley."

"The bad news is it might not've been bought in this valley," Otto said.

"That's a possibility," Sidney Blackpool agreed. But look on the up side. Don't be so morbid."

While Otto ordered a titanic breakfast from room service, Sidney Blackpool took notes and smoked and waited anxiously for the hour when a pawnshop would open. It made him think of the dream for an instant, the yearning to manipulate Time. He got one of those shivers in his heart and swelling in the throat, but he pushed it away. He started calling before nine o'clock but pawnshop proprietors in the desert valley are in no hurry. Otto was finishing breakfast before Sidney Blackpool started makin
g c
ontact.

It was on his fourth call that he reached a man who said, "Yes, I know what a Taro Patch uke is. I played one nearly fifty years ago on Catalina Island. It's a wonderful instrument."

"I'm Sergeant Blackpool, Los Angeles Police Department. We're investigating a crime involving a Taro Patch uke. Have you ever had one in your shop? Anytime in the last few years, if you can remember?"