The Secrets of Harry Bright (12 page)

"She's not your size anymore," Sidney Blackpool said, trying to decide whether to order things he couldn't spell or keep it a cop's night out. That is, steak or prime rib.

"I'm glad they translate the French," Otto said. "I hate restaurants where the menu's all in French or Italian.
,
"How often do you eat at restaurants where the menu s in any language but English, Spanish and Chinese?"

"Sidney, I'm a man a the world! Let's get a win
e s
teward."

Just then the dining-room captain came to the table and said, "Have you gentlemen decided yet?"

"I'll have grease," Otto said. "I usually eat grease."

Otto didn't end up with grease, but he did get a lot of unfamiliar and very rich continental cuisine. He started out with champagne and escargots, and red caviar because they didn't have the good stuff. He went on to veal with a champagne cream sauce you could lose a fork in. He had a side of fettucine Alfredo because, like Mount San Jacinto, it was there. He finished up with half a pound of marzipan and a flambe crepe because he wanted something they set on fire.

Sidney Blackpool, realizing that he was way past his limit of Johnnie Walker Black, had only one glass of champagne, veal piccata with lemon and capers, a Bibb lettuce salad and no dessert.

Otto was halfway through the crepe, saying, "Sidney, you gotta relax and let yourself go," when he started to hiccup.

"Damn," he said.

"Let's order you some bitters and lime. It works for me," Sidney Blackpool said.

"These hiccups feel funny," Otto said, his upper lip beading with sweat. "I think I'll run to the john and . . ."

He barely made it. Otto upchucked for ten minutes. When he returned, he was pale and shaky.

"You're a little green around the gills," his partner observed.

"I just lost a hundred bucks worth a fancy groceries!" Otto moaned.

"Well, it was your first time, Otto. You'll do better tomorrow. Your tummy's a rookie on this beat."

"O000h, I'm sick," Otto said. "And now I'm hungry!" "Let's go to sleep," Sidney Blackpool said.

"But I wanted to see the night life."

"Let's get a good night's rest. Tomorrow you can order breakfast in bed. You'll be a new man."

"Tomorrow I'm sticking to grease," Otto said.

"I'll have room service bring you a plate a grease first thing in the morning," his partner promised.

A deluge. There had never been so much rain in the desert. Sidney Blackpool watched a terrifying flash flood swell like a tidal wave on the very crest of Mount San Jacinto, then cascade down on the hotel. Men and women were screaming. It was awful, and though his own life was in jeopardy, he had to stand and face the next wall of water because he could see it riding the crest: a coffin. The lead-lined coffin rode like a fiberglass surfboard. Sidney Blackpool was weeping with the other doomed hotel guests, but not for his imminent death. He wept because he knew the coffin bore the half-drowned body of Tommy Blackpool who, wearing a red-and-black wet suit, clung like Ishmael as the coffin suddenly began cartwheeling away, down the Coachella Valley.

"Tommmmmmmyr he sobbed, and then he was awake. It was dawn. He hadn't awakened at the dreaded drinker's hour as he deserved, having put away so much Johnnie Walker Black. The bed was soaked as always after a recurring dream about Tommy Blackpool.

In the dream, Tommy would often be clinging to his coffin, or sometimes to his surfboard, which had been torn from his ankle strap by the huge wave in Santa Monica that drowned him.

Sometimes Sidney Blackpool would dream simply that Tommy was getting soaked to the skin lying in that coffin in the cold ground. This, during rainstorms. Sidney Blackpool hated rainstorms now and had begun to wish that he'd had Tommy cremated. His ex-wife had suggested it, but deferred when he insisted on burial in the ground. Like many lapsed Catholics he could not entirely escape the tenets drilled into him in grammar school. Even though the modern Church no longer cherished mystery and ritual and burial in the ground. The dead with bones intact to await the Redeemer? He never really knew why they used to demand it, but he had buried Tommy in the ground. And now he regretted it every time it rained. He used to read weather forecasts even before the headlines in the days when he was going mad.

In all his years as a cop--even during the Watts Rio
t w
hen he was trapped inside a burning warehouse believing he'd be burned alive--he'd never awakened in what they call a cold sweat. Dreams of fire had never tormented him. It was these dreams of water, and Tommy so cold. The detective was shivering as he plodded toward the shower, feeling very old, hoping he could stem the headache starting at the base of his skull.

Cold sweat. A parent who dreamed of something as outrageous, as unnatural as his eighteen-year-old child lying in the ground, that's who coined that one. He showered, shaved, dressed, took three aspirin and went downstairs hoping the hotel coffee shop opened early.

Otto Stringer had breakfast served in his bedroom as promised. It was a typical Palm Springs November day. "The kind you expect" as the radio disc jockey said. About 78 degrees with humidity around 19 percent, making it comfortable and invigorating. Otto finished four eggs, two orders of bacon, toast, jam and coffee. He showered, shaved, put on a baby-blue golf shirt with a navy sweater tied around his neck, and realized they hadn't decided where to play.

They had the names of three head pros who would arrange games for them at some of America's most famous country clubs. Victor Watson's secretary had assured Sidney Blackpool that even if all the courses were not yet ready for the official opening of the 1984-85 desert season, she could make arrangements for them at just about any club that was. When Otto arrived at the coffee shop, his partner had a copy of Palm Springs Life on the counter beside him, along with the file containing the police reports dealing with the murder of Jack Watson.

"Which one's most fun to read?" Otto asked, nodding to one of the desert's thousand daytime waitresses who have a tough time making it during the short tourist season, and who all walk like their feet hurt.

"Morning," she said, pouring Otto's coffee. "Hot enough for you today?"

"Sure is," Otto said.

"That's half a the day's conversation," Sidney Blackpool said to Otto.

"Where we eating tonight?" Otto asked, thus completing the other half.

You wanna play golf today or make our show for Watson?"

"I was thinking, Sidney, maybe we oughtta get the business over with in case he calls and wants a report."

"I don't think he'll call," Sidney Blackpool said. "He must know unconsciously that this is a fantasy. He's just.. just a screwed-up father who can't deal with the loss of his son. Maybe lots a guys in his shoes if they had his money'd do strange things to try to find some . . ."

"Justice."

"I was, gonna say peace. He told me he knows there's no justice."

"I feel sorry for the guy, Sidney. Let's work on his case today. We got all week to play golf. Wanna drop by Palm Springs P
. D
.?"

"I was thinking about going by Watson's house," Sidney Blackpool said. "After all these months I don't suppose Palm Springs P
. D
. knows anything we don't already know. The houseboy's supposed to be there."

"How long's he been with the family?"

"Only two years."

"Let's pin it on him."

"Maybe we could get in nine holes this afternoon," Sidney Blackpool said.

The Las Palmas residence of Victor Watson was a disappointment to both cops. They were expecting a Beverly Hills mansion rather than a sprawling one-story home without real style that couldn't even be seen behind the jungle of oleander. In Beverly Hills the residents claimed they wanted privacy but made sure that the ogling masses could at least see upper windows and gabled roofs over the vine-covered walls and through the wrought iron.

Victor Watson's home was 1950-ish, flat-roofed, spread around a large oval pool with a small grove of orange trees at the rear. The property was about an acre and a half i
n s
ize. The drive-in gate was locked and they rang the buzzer but got no answer.

"The houseboy might be out to the store or something," said Otto.

"Might be back in that grove," Sidney Blackpool said, climbing up on the gate to take a peek.

"I got my new pants on, Sidney, and I'm too old to climb."

"It's only an electric gate. Just lean on it with the whole two-sixty."

"Probably set off an alarm," Otto said, leaning his weight onto the gate and pushing against the jointed arm, which creaked and gave. The gate clanged shut after they were both inside.

"Cost the ten grand he gave us just to repair our damage," Otto said.

"Can't waste too much time, Otto. We gotta play golf."

Both men went to the driveway on the side of the house and Otto yelled, "Hell00000!" but there was no sound from the grove except for desert birds chattering in the trees.

Sidney Blackpool peeked in the garage and saw the Watson Mercedes. Otto rang the front doorbell and could hear music inside.

"Let's go around to the pool," Otto said. "Maybe he was working on his tan and fell asleep."

The pool was impressive because of its size. There was a separate spa, large enough to accommodate the kind of orgy Otto dreamed of joining this week.

"Whaddaya think, Sidney?" He winked toward the spa. "All this privacy. Bet they could throw some parties." "What the hell's that?"

By a chaise lounge in the shade of the patio roof was a coffee cup spilled. Sidney Blackpool touched the coffee, which was cold. On the patio stones near the overturned cup was an unmistakable smear of blood. It looked very fresh.

"Let's get in that house pronto," he said.

It wasn't difficult. The French doors leading to th
e p
atio were unlocked and the detectives entered carefully, looking at each other as they both realized they were ready for a golf vacation, not a homicide investigation. They were unarmed.

"Anybody home?" Otto yelled, half expecting an intruder wet with gore to come slashing out of a closet.

The home bore the touches of Mrs. Victor Watson. There was the same dizzy designer mix that Sidney Blackpool had seen in Watson's outer office: Grecian urns, broken remnants of Roman antiquities in has relief, pre-Columbian artifacts, eighteenth-century English landscapes, and three "conversation areas" that were overwhelmed by massive sofas, settees and loveseats, which were supposed to say, "We are desert casual in this house," but which to Sidney Blackpool said, "I am without subtlety but do I ever have megabucks."

The radio's music was coming not from the main bedrooms down the hall by the entertainment area but from the other side of the house, just off the kitchen. Otto picked up a vase, hefted it like a club, shrugged at Sidney Blackpool and put it back down. Both detectives were a little tense as they crept past a huge kitchen containing commercial gas ranges and ovens, freezers and refrigerators, all in stainless steel, which would've satisfied the needs of any restaurant chef in Palm Springs. There was an old chopping block in the center of the kitchen, showing a patina of fifty years. On the chopping block was a fourteen-inch butcher knife, stained by blood.

Now Otto Stringer wished he'd kept the vase, and started looking for a real club. They crept a little more quietly toward the sound of the radio. It was turned to one of the Palm Springs stations, which, like the rest of this valley, refused to march with Time past the era of Dwight Eisenhower.

The song on the radio was "Wheel of Fortune" by Kay Starr. They could hear the sound of a shower running. Kay Starr finished her song and the programmed music segued into "Long As You Got Your Health," by Ozzie Nelson.

Otto tried to break the rising tension by whispering, "I didn't know he sang."

"Who?"

"Ozzie Nelson. I thought he was just Ricky's old man on television."

Sidney Blackpool stuck out his foot and nudged the bedroom door open. The music and shower got louder. They tiptoed toward the bathroom and could see that the shower curtain was drawn but there was no one standing behind it. Then they saw the outline of a human figure crumpled in the bathtub.

Sidney Blackpool leaped forward and jerked the shower curtain back.

A hairless man screamed, "Yeeeee!" dropping his toenail clipper and leaping to his feet. He was jockey size. His reflexes didn't make him throw up his hands in defense. His hands flew over his genitals. He stood with his hip toward the detectives, his knee raised, covering his crotch. "Who are you?" he cried.

"Sergeant Blackpool and Detective Stringer," Sidney Blackpool said. "We were told you'd be expecting us. There was blood on the patio. And a butcher knife. We thought . .

"Oh, God!" the little man cried, wrapping himself with the shower curtain.

"We'll let you get dressed," Sidney Blackpool said, and both detectives retreated to the living room.

"Poor little guy," Otto said. "Coulda swallowed his tongue."