The Secrets of Harry Bright (23 page)

When he hung up, Sidney Blackpool said to Otto, "Can you put off the massage for a while? Harlan's got a picture of Jack Watson and a girl. I think he wants to sign on as our secret agent."

"Haven't I had enough tragedy for one day?" Otto groaned, flopping down on the sofa. "I feel like the paddock at Santa Anita--all tromped on and covered with shit."

"Harlan's one of our only links to Jack Watson. We can't afford to make him mad at us."

"Do you think the guy with the deerstalker at Two twenty-one B Baker Street woulda stayed in business if he had to humor the Harlan Penrods of this world? I don't know, maybe I'll never be a corpse cop. I know I'll never be a golfer."

"You're on your way to being both, my boy. Take a little rest. I'll send for some drinks."

Harlan Penrod was already waiting when at 6:30 P
. M
. they pulled up in front of the Watson home.

"Sam Spade Junior," Otto said.

Harlan wasn't dressed like Sam Spade but he did have a Burberry trenchcoat over his shoulder and it wasn't raining. Otto didn't comment, but rolled his eyes at Sidney Blackpool who, like Otto, was still dressed as a resort golfer.

"Here it is!" Harlan hopped into the backseat of the Toyota with a small flashlight, which he shone on the photo.

"I see you came prepared," Otto said. "Hope you're carrying a piece. We weren't expecting that much trouble on this case and we left our iron in L
. A
."

"She's a beautiful girl," Harlan said. "Just Jack's type. His fiancee's a blonde like that. Tall like him and leggy."

"About all we can do is drop by the hotel and see if anybody at the registration desk might recognize her. Or maybe the cocktail girls who work around the pool."

"Boys," Harlan said. "That hotel uses pool boys and waiters."

"Maybe it'll turn out she was with the other kid," Sidney Blackpool said, pointing at a second young man.

In the photo, Jack Watson had a girl around the waist and was about to dunk her under. A blond, broad-shouldered young man had her by the feet and was almost out of frame. All three were laughing into the camera.

"Fine-looking boy, all right," Sidney Blackpool said.

"A very foxy young lady," Otto said.

"Lucky girl," Harlan remarked. "Two beautiful boys."

"Well, it's all we got to start with," Sidney Blackpoo
l s
aid, as he drove the Toyota toward Palm Canyon Drive. "They didn't start with much in The Maltese Falcon,"

Harlan remarked.

"I told you, Sidney," Otto muttered, while Harlan's eyes glistened like desert stars.

The hotel wasn't exactly as upmarket as they would've expected. But then, they figured the girl in the photo could just as easily have been an airline stew or a teacher from Orange County or a tourist from Alberta whom Jack Watson met in some night spot.

There were two pairs of men sitting in the lobby enjoying a cocktail before dinner, and another pair of men breezed through on their way to the dining room. A man and a woman were checking in and had the front desk occupied, so the detectives and Harlan Penrod strolled out by the swimming pool. Another pair of men sat with their feet in the water and sipped mai tais, chatting with the waiter who was dressed in a white shirt and black pants with a red bow tie and red cummerbund. There were a man and woman watching a candlelit game of backgammon being played by yet another pair of men at a poolside cocktail table.

"Harlan," Sidney Blackpool said. "Is this a gay hotel?" "Of course not."

"Is it a mixed hotel?"

"You might say that," Harlan nodded.

"Did you think it odd that Jack was at a mixed hotel?" Otto asked.

"Of course not. There's often a price break at mixed places. Maybe she's some secretary from Culver City who couldn't afford a more upscale hotel."

"Okay, let's check with the front desk," Sidney Blackpool said.

They showed the picture to everyone working in the lobby and pool area: front desk, bellmen, waiters. Nobody had ever seen the laughing blond girl in the photo, even though it was clearly the hotel pool in which she frolicked. Nor did anyone recognize Jack Watson or the other lad. Harlan Penrod was looking dejected, figuring they were about to take him home, when the valet-parking boy in a blue golf shirt, white shorts and white tennis shoes came running in from the parking lot.

"I'd like to show you a picture of a girl," Harlan said, and Otto smirked at Sidney Blackpool in that Harlan was now directing the investigation.

"That's our pool," the kid said.

"The girl was probably a guest," Harlan said. "Ever see her?"

"No," the kid said, "but I know the guy."

"You know the guy?"

"He worked here.

"Jack Watson worked here?" Otto pointed at the photo.

"Not the guy with black hair," the boy said. "The other guy. The blond guy holding the girl's feet. His name's Terry something. He was a parking attendant for a week maybe. Worked nights when I was on days."

Five minutes later, the detectives and Harlan Penrod were in the hotel office with the night manager who was digging through the employee files, saying, "Well, we shouldn't have too much trouble, Sergeant. Hotel employees in this town have to have police identification cards. We send our people to the police when we hire them an
d t
hey get their pictures and fingerprints taken. Everyon
e w
ho might have access to rooms, that is: maids, bellmen, even valet parkers."

"Our first real lead!" Harlan said, looking as though he'd just found the elusive bird from Malta.

The young man's name was Terry Kinsale. He'd given an address in Cathedral City and a local telephone number. He listed his permanent address as Phoenix, Arizona, with a Phoenix telephone number in case of emergency. A sister, Joan Kinsale, was the person to contact.

The detectives and Harlan Penrod took down the information, thanked the night manager and headed back to the front where the parking boy had the Toyota waiting.

Sidney Blackpool said, "You did good," and tipped the kid twenty bucks. They were off to the address given by Terry Kinsale.

"I don't know about that address," Harlan said. "Highway One eleven isn't a residential zone. Unless maybe it's a motel, or he lives upstairs of a store or something."

It was neither. It was a bar. A gay bar close by tw
o o
ther gay bars.

"Maybe the name's bogus," Otto said.

"He wouldn't a been able to keep the job if he had a rap sheet," Sidney Blackpool said. "Palm Springs P. D.

mugged and printed him."

"Hey, how about letting me go in alone?" Harla
n s
uggested. "I can show the picture to the bartender an
d c
ustomers. Nobody's gonna get kicky about me.

"Hinky is the word they always use on the cop shows,"

Otto said.

"Yeah, nobody's gonna get kinky about me. They'l
l t
ell me if they know Terry."

"Here's a twenty for some drinks," Sidney Blackpoo
l s
aid. "We'll be waiting across the street at the other bar. "Don't get caught cruising!" Harlan said with a naught
y s
mile.

"Hurry up for crying out loud, Harlan!" said Otto.

"I'm getting hungry."

After the houseboy was gone, Otto said, We reall
y g
oing in that saloon?"

"You wanna wait at the gas station?"

"One drink I'll catch AIDS, my luck," Otto said. "And my lip" rot off like a leper on Molokai."

"It's not that kind a disease, Otto," Sidney Blackpool said as they parked on Highway 111.

The saloon was empty except for a pair of middle-aged men sitting at the far end of the bar bickering about something. The bartender looked about as swishy as Rocky Marciano. His face was a pink-and-white mass of old lumpy tissue.

"Jesus," Otto whispered after he took their drink order. "Know what I saw shining there on the top of his face? Eyes. He's got two of them back in there somewhere."

"Lemme have all the quarters and dimes you can spare," Sidney Blackpool said to the bartender, putting a twenty on the bar. "I gotta make a long-distance call. -

"Whadda we doing, Sidney, calling Buckingham Palace? This turned into the search for Vera Lynn?"

"I may as well call Terry Kinsale's sister in Phoenix while Harlan's doing his sleuthing. I'll use the phone booth next door at the gas station."

"You leaving me here alone?"

"Say hello to Mister Goodbar if he drops by."

"Hurry back, will ya?" Otto said, inspecting the lip of his bucket glass before sipping the booze.

"Is Terry all right? Was it an accident?" Joan Kinsale asked, after Sidney Blackpool identified himself.

"I'm sure he's okay. We're trying to find him," the detective said. "We're working on the murder of Jack Watson and thought you or Terry might be able to help us."

She waited several beats and then the young woman said, "Who?"

"Jack
Watson."

"Watson?" she said. "Was that his last name? You mean Terry's friend Jack? The good-looking guy with black curly hair?"

"The one with you in the hotel swimming pool," Sidney Blackpool said. "We have a snapshot of the three a you. It was you, wasn't it?"

"He's dead?" Joan Kinsale said. "When?"

"A year ago June. He was found shot to death in hi
s c
ar.

"Terry never mentioned it! But I've only heard from him a few times since then. I met Jack when I went to visit Terry for a few days."

"Did you ever date Jack?"

"No, he was Terry's friend."

"Is Terry gay?" the detective asked abruptly.

"Well, I don't think so. Not really," the young woma
n a
nswered. "He was a little . . . confused about himself." "Where is he now?"

"La Jolla. At least he was last time he wrote. Hoping to work at a hotel, he said. No real mailing address. He's a bit immature, but a really good kid. Everyone likes him."

He ever been in trouble with the law?"

"Never that I know of."

"He use drugs?"

"Not that I know of. I mean, maybe he smokes a little grass like everybody else."

"When did he leave Palm Springs?"

"I don't know," she said. "Over a year ago, I guess."

"If he calls or writes I'd like to talk to him," Sidney Blackpool said. "I'm going to give you my office number. They can reach me."

Meanwhile, Otto Stringer finished his second drink and was trying to avoid eye contact with a Harlan Penrod lookalike, this one with his own hair, who sat at Otto's end of the bar nursing a virgin margarita while an Anthony Newley oldie played on the Palm Springs radio station.

He managed to look directly into Otto's eyes as he sang it with Tony: " 'This is the moment! My destiny calls me!' "

Otto's eyes slid back in his skull and he ordered another double, AIDS or not, just as Harlan came bubbling into the saloon.

"I'm onto something!" he whispered breathlessly to Otto.

"So's he," Otto said, pointing to the lip-syncher. "Angel dust maybe. So how's the life of a secret agent?"

"Terry Kinsale's been away and now he's back in town! He was in the bar Saturday night!"

In a few minutes Sidney Blackpool returned and began comparing notes with Harlan while Otto's admirer gave up and started singing to a bogus cowboy in dirty jeans who ordered two beers the moment he sat down.

"We'll check with Palm Springs P
. D
. tomorrow and see if Terry Kinsale's trying to register for hotel work. Meantime, let's keep it very quiet, Harlan. He left Palm Springs about the time Jack was killed so this could turn into something."

"I think I might die of excitement!" Harlan cried.

"But I'll keep it on the q
. T
. Where're we going now?" "Otto and I have to go back to Mineral Springs." "We do?" Otto said.

"Good. I've never been up there!" Harlan said.

"Uh, Harlan, how about you hanging around the gay bars tonight? Ask around about Terry. You might come up with something."

"I'll bet," Otto muttered

"You might even come up with Terry," Sidney Blackpool said. "Here, this should be enough." He handed the houseboy four twenty-dollar bills. "You can cab it home aftenvard."

"Okay," Harlan said, "but let me know tomorrow what we're working. I would've dressed a little less butch if I knew we were coming out here."

"Call you tomorrow," Sidney Blackpool said, as they left Harlan to finish his drink at the bar.

"So why're we going to Mineral Springs again tonight?" Otto wanted to know as they drove away.

"So we can look at it at night. I mean really look a
t i
t.