The Secrets of Harry Bright (8 page)

"That's the second thing."

"I know, I know! Think that doesn't scare me?" "Settle, Otto," Sidney Blackpool said. "Don't jettison your parachute. The vacation may bum out."

"Black Sid," Otto said, shaking his head. "You don't just see the glass half empty, you don't even see the glass. Must get a parched throat being you. By the way, I saw a piece in the Times the other morning about anhedonia. Ever heard of it?"

"Can't say I have."

"Well, I think you got anhedonia. It affects maybe one out of a hundred. It means you can't have fun. No kind of fun. Just like you on a golf course. You look like Torquemada's got the hot pliers on your nuts instead a just enjoying the game."

"Nobody enjoys golf," Sidney Blackpool said. "And what makes you think it's a game?"

"Anyway, people with anhedonia never get turned on by anything. They just go through the motions.

"Like me."

"They don't know if it's congenital or not. People just go around, don't give a shit. I thought a old Black Sid wit
h t
he blank stare."

"Maybe it's not always congenital," Sidney Blackpool said, and Otto Stringer's rosy jowls flushed, and Sidney Blackpool knew that Otto had suddenly thought about Tommy Blackpool although they'd never discussed his boy.

Otto suddenly changed the subject saying, "Wish I hadn't buffaloed-up like this. If I was still in uniform, I'd need the jaws of life to remove my Sam Browne. Think I'd look funny in golf knickers?"

"No funnier'n Pavarotti or Tip O'Neill," Sidney Blackpool said, turning the radio to an easy-listening station and adjusting the volume just enough to give Otto some competition.

"You're thin and you still got hair. It ain't fair, middl
e a
ge.

"You got several hundred left," Sidney Blackpool said. "We'll get you a Loup in Palm Springs."

"Marry a rich broad, I could afford a weave."

Sidney Blackpool had been teamed with Otto Stringer for only two months and liked him fine except he figured he might have to buy a pair of earmuffs from a TWA mechanic in order to cope.

"Did you get . . . philosophical about turning forty, Sidney?" Otto asked.

"No," Sidney Blackpool said. He was still forty years old when he last saw Tommy. Sidney Blackpool stopped fearing middle age after that. In fact, he feared nothing.

"I'm getting that way," Otto mused. "I think I'm old enough to settle down with a nice ugly rich broad. Wonder if Yoko Ono goes to Palm Springs. I got this fantasy I'd like to skizzle old Yoko in a strawberry field. Tribute to the Beatles, sort of."

"That's very philosophical, all right," Sidney Blackpool said, kicking the Toyota into fifth and getting a bit less cynical about the vacation. Maybe he could straighten out the duck hook that was wrecking his tee shots lately.

The hotel was as good as the town had to offer. In the lobby was a tiled fountain with blue and red lights under the water. There was lots of rattan and wicker, and whit
e c
eiling fans. The hotel had a baby grand in the bar and ersatz Mexican arches over the balcony and Formica cocktail tables and more hanging ferns than Hawaii. In short, it wasjust ugly enough to make Otto Strhiger say it was absolutely mah-velous.

While they registered and were waiting for a bell-man, Otto ran to a wicker throne chair, put on his sunglasses and said, "Quick! Who am I?"

dunno," Sidney Blackpool said. "Who are you?" Reverend Jim Jones, dummy!"

"He shot himself," Sidney Blackpool said.

"Don't be morbid, Sidney," said Otto.

It was a friendly hotel like most in the desert, and like most it looked as though it was designed in the 1950's, a lousy decade for architecture, but for most desert rats the last decade that was ever worth a damn. This desert attitude was reflected in many ways. When all the tourists went home to Chicago and Canada and Beverly Hills, the desert residents settled back into the Eisenhower era. Though only two hours from L
. A
. it was definitely not a town for nouvelle pizza topped with Dijon mustard and truffles.

A man at the registration desk said, "Oh, Mister Blackpool and Mister Stringer? I have a package for you."

He disappeared for a moment and came back with a manila envelope that was sealed and taped shut. He handed it to Otto who grinned and winked at Sidney Blackpool. It had to be the money. Victor Watson's secretary had promised that all hotel expenses and golf arrangements were being taken care of by her and that some "expense money" would be awaiting them in the hotel safe.

There was the usual Palm Springs mix in the lobby. Conventioneers from Iowa wearing sport jackets that looked battery operated, a William Morris junior agent in for the weekend with his Indiana Jones leather jacket and a copy of Rolling Stone, and several ex--leg breakers from Las Vegas with cigars and diamonds and not a button nose in the bunch. There were also two hookers working the early shift who were pretending to be interested in going for
a s
wim but were flying around the conventioneers like turkey vultures.

While they were following the bellman up one of two swooping stairways, Otto said, "I used to hear that Palm Springs is where rich Jews go to die."

"Yeah, if they can't stand Cubans and Haitians." "I could die here," Otto said.

"Doesn't matter where you die," Sidney Blackpool said. "It's when that matters. And sometimes that doesn't matter."

"Try not to be morbid, Sidney," Otto said. "Hey, I think I just saw Farrah Fawcett in the lobby!"

Their suite, which was composed of two bedrooms and two baths, thrilled Otto who tipped the bellman a five in a fit of extravagance. There was an ice bucket waiting, a bottle of pretty good California wine, and a fruit basket, compliments of the manager.

Sidney Blackpool was testing his king-size bed when Otto came running in through the connecting door, his rosy cheeks gone white.

"What's the matter, too much luxury for your little heart to bear?" Sidney Blackpool asked.

"Sidney!" Otto cried. "Whaddaya think Watson's giving us for expenses? I mean for a week's expenses?" "Five hundred?" Sidney Blackpool shrugged. "I mean
,
food and drink here at the hotel're comp'd so . . ."

Otto turned the manila envelope upside down an
d t
hey fell out on the bed. Twenty of them: five-hundred-

dollar bills.

"I didn't even know whose picture was on one!" Otto whispered. "Hello President McKinley!"

"He said we might have to pay for some information, but . . ."

"We can't keep it, Sidney."

"Why can't we?"

"Ten thou? I don't have my goddamn pension secured yet! Four years to go, baby."

"We're not being bribed, for c(rissake."

"Okay, we gotta make a ledger and keep track a ever
y d
ollar. If we get any leads and pay snitches we gotta keep track.-

"Are you crazy? We came here to play golf. The investigation's bullshit!"

"I know, I know! We gotta give him back at least nine grand. Damn, I got Hershey squirts in my shorts!"

I, m impressed by the money, Otto. I mean really impressed. I never had ten grand at one time but . . ."

:Okay, okay, but you got a lock on your pension. I don t. Let's give him back eight grand. Two we can justify for a week's expenses. Buying drinks for cops, and buying snitch information, and like that."

"Let's just think about it," Sidney Blackpool said. "What's ten K to a guy like Watson? In his office he had more than that invested in a freaking desk that looked like a piece a rotten liver."

"Okay, okay, we give back six grand," Otto said. can live with that."

"Let's run down to the bar and get a drink," Sidney Blackpool said. "I need a Johnnie Walker."

"Run down to the bar?" Otto cried incredulously. "Call room service! We don't have to run anywheres. Shit, I don't see how we could spend ten grand if we tried. Maybe five. I wonder how much a massage costs in a place like this. I wonder how much you should tip for a massage? I wonder if we could spend that even if we was to try . Maybe seven. Maybe we could justify keeping seven. If we tried . Wait a minute! Didn't somebody shoot poor old fucking McKinley?"

Chapter
5

THE BELIEVER
HE'D BEEN CALLED WINGNUT SINCE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.

The reason was obvious: his ears. Willard Bates looke
d l
ike a wingnut all right, or like a VW bug with the door
s o
pen. For thirteen months he was a cop in Orange Count
y a
nd had nothing but grief, and thought about giving u
p p
olice work altogether.

Big problems for Wingnut Bates started there in Orange County two weeks after he finished police training. One afternoon he was driving his patrol car by Disneyland with his training officer riding shotgun. His partner, Ned Grogan, happened to be eyeballing a little cupcake in the crosswalk who was dressed in shorts and a "Kiss" T-shirt for her day in the magic kingdom when suddenly she almost got kissed by a Lincoln with New York plates. It failed to brake for pedestrians and blew by at forty miles an hour.

Wingnut punched it on the amber light and sailed through a six-lane intersection after the New York Lincoln. His partner tightened his seat belt and said, "Easy, kid. This is only a traffic ticket."

Wingnut managed to catch the car since the driver was weaving from lane number one to number two an
d b
ack again even though there were no cars directly in front of him.

"A deuce," Ned Grogan griped. "I don't wanna book a deuce right now. I wanna go get a hot pastrami."

He was a deuce all right, so drunk he didn't see the gumball lights behind and didn't hear Wingnut toot his horn for a pullover. Wingnut had to blast the siren in the drunk's ear before the Lincoln made a lurching stop against the curb.

Wingnut had never booked a drunk driver up to then. He was anxious to give his first field sobriety test and was trying to remember all the instructions without checking his notebook. But Ned Grogan preempted his act.

"Over there," Ned Grogan said to the middle-aged tourist who staggered out of the Lincoln. "On the sidewalk before you get killed by another drunk."

"Marvin Waterhouse," the drunk said, trying to shake hands with Ned Grogan. "Hope I wasn't speeding, Officer. Get a little confused on these California highways. Not like back home."

"May I see your license, please?" Wingnut asked, and Marvin Waterhouse looked at the young cop's freckled nose and said, "You a real cop, sonny?"

"Just give him the license, Marvin," Ned Grogan sighed. "Let's get on with it."

"Sure, sure," Marvin Waterhouse said, making Ned Grogan step back from the blast of 80-proof bourbon. Was I speeding? I'm very sorry."

As Wingnut was about to get into the drunk test, Ned Grogan said, "Look, Marvin, you know and we know you're too drunk to drive or walk."

"I don't think I'm . . ."

"Don't jive me, Marvin, I'm about to give you a break."

"Yes, sir." Marvin Waterhouse was no fool. "Whatever you say, Officer."

"Where's your hotel?"

"I'm at the Disneyland," Marvin Waterhouse said. "Okay, now there's a taxi stand across the street. I
want you to lock up your car and get in a cab and go back to the hotel and go to bed. Will you promise me you'll do that, Marvin?"

"Yes, sir!" Marvin Waterhouse said. "Right this second. "

Wingnut was disappointed, but it wasn't the first time he'd lost an arrest when Ned Grogan wanted a pastrami or an enchilada or something. Wingnut figured his partner'd eat a stray dog.

As Marvin Waterhouse was starting to stagger into the crosswalk, Wingnut grabbed his elbow and said, "I better help you."

Ned Grogan stayed on the far side of the crowded intersection and watched across six lanes of Disneyland traffic as Wingnut Bates, looking like a gun-toting Boy Scout, steered the New York tourist toward the taxi stand.

And then Marvin Waterhouse made a mistake that lots of easterners make when they come out west for the first time. He reached in his pocket, pulled out a $20 bill and tucked it inside Wingnut's Sam Browne belt.

It happened so fast that Marvin Waterhouse was half inside the cab when Wingnut looked at the money. The street was packed with cars and pedestrians, but nobody noticed Marvin's gesture of New York gratitude. Except that Wingnut Bates felt a thousand eyes. The guy thought he was a grafter! He'd just been fucking bribed!

"We don't do things like this!" Wingnut Bates cried, leaping toward the cab. "You can't . . ."

It was too late. The door was slammed by Marvin Waterhouse and the cabbie drove off.

"HE BRIBED ME!" Wingnut screamed across the traffic noise to Ned Grogan who was trying to figure out if his rookie partner had gone crackers in the heat.

"What?" Ned Grogan yelled.

"I BEEN BRIBED!" Wingnut Bates screamed, running after the taxi, which had crossed the intersection but was stopped by traffic trying to get into the Disneyland parking lot.