The Secrets of Harry Bright

by Joseph Wambaugh

  “It’s got a big ugly mouth, a wimpy body, and hops around like a speed freak!” cried the outraged Indian. “It’s either a cricket or Mick Jagger!”

  “Lies! Lies!” J. Edgar Gomez hollered.

  “My whole life’s nothin but crickets in my chili! Well, I had enough! I’m hirin me a ruthless Jew tomorra morning. I’m gonna own this fuckin joint!” the Indian promised.

  They were halfway out the highway toward Solitaire Canyon before Otto spoke. “I don’t like this, Sidney.”

  “I’m not fond a driving out here myself, but …”

  “I don’t like the way we’re going about this.”

  “Whaddaya mean?”

  “This is a Palm Springs homicide all the way. If that uke has anything to do with it, they should be told. I don’t like withholding evidence. It makes me real nervous.”

  “We’re not withholding evidence. This might not even be evidence.”

  “That’s not for us to determine. It’s for them to determine. It’s their case.”

  “Damn it, Otto, their detective isn’t even in town now. We can check it out. No harm done.”

  “We could also keep them informed a what we’re doing, yet we haven’t set foot in their police station.”

  “We will if and when the time comes, Otto.”

  “This is what the feds used to do to us all the time,” Otto said. “They’d keep us in the dark and try to steal the glory.”

  “I’m not doing it for glory, Otto.”

  “I know, Sidney,” Otto said, looking out the window at the desert landscape sailing by in the headlight wash. “You’re doing it for money.”

  “For the job. I want that job.”

  “I’ll play along,” Otto said, “but if this case starts developing any further, I wanna go down to Palm Springs P.D. and tell them everything we’ve learned. I don’t have my pension in the bag yet. I wanna protect my job.”

  “Fair enough, Otto,” Sidney Blackpool said. “I wouldn’t do it any other way.”

  The asphalt road seemed darker, if that was possible. The moon looked smaller but there were more stars glittering. The moaning wind sometimes shrieked. They drove farther down the asphalt road and saw a large shape on a dirt road to the right. A van was parked in the darkness with its lights out. The van flashed its lights on and off when the detectives got close.

  “Must be our ride,” Sidney Blackpool said.

  “This is about as safe as the Khyber Pass,” Otto said. “Or a Mexican wedding.”

  Sidney Blackpool turned onto the dirt road just past the fork, parked, and locked the Toyota. Otto took the flashlight from the glove box and they waited for the four-wheel-drive van to pull out from the trail where it waited. The van moved forward slowly with the high beam blinding the detectives. Satisfied, the driver dimmed the lights, pulled up to the two men, leaned across and unlocked the door.

  “One a you jump in the back,” she said.

  The driver was a young woman in her late twenties. Her hair could make a home for three chipmunks and a kangaroo rat. She wore a dirty tank top and a biker’s jacket with the Cobra colors across the back. She looked like a girl who could be working at any lunch counter in the Coachella Valley, and may have been, before being “adopted” by outlaw bikers. She was a pretty girl in a life where they grow old before they grow up, if they ever do.

  “My name’s Gina,” she said. “I’ll take you guys to Billy’s.”

  Gina didn’t talk during the five-minute ride up the hill. Not until the asphalt was gone and they were on a gravel road that forked left. They passed six houses on the way, every one with a noisy watchdog. The gravel road veered close to the edge of the canyon. There was a small stucco house perched too near the brink, especially for flash-flood country.

  “That’s where Billy lives,” she said.

  “You live with Billy?” Otto asked.

  “I live over yonder, the other side a the canyon,” she said. “Men my old man.”

  “He a Cobra?”

  “Everybody’s a Cobra. Everybody in my life,” she said.

  “Who does Billy live with?” Sidney Blackpool asked.

  “Whoever’s around,” Gina said, carefully watching the gravel road, which was partially washed away where it looped into a turnabout in front of Billy Hightower’s hillside lair.

  Billy Hightower opened the door when the van parked in front, nearly obliterating the backlight with his bulk. He’d removed his Cobra jacket and it was plain that his massive body was going to fat. But he still cut a very impressive figure.

  Sidney Blackpool led, and Otto followed behind Gina. Billy Hightower showed his fractured teeth when the detectives entered the little house.

  “This ain’t Hollywood neither,” he grinned, “but it’s all mine and paid for. Wanna drink? I got vodka and beer.”

  “I’ll take a beer,” Sidney Blackpool said.

  “Me too,” said Otto.

  The detectives sat on a velveteen sofa that no doubt had had a color at one time. There were grease smudges everywhere. Outlaw bikers had left their tracks where they walked, sat, lay. The carpet was uniformly stained by engine grease.

  Another thing stained by engine grease was the dirty yellow tank top worn by the girl. The cotton was stretched tight by her big arrogant breasts. She helped Billy get the beer and examined the two detectives in a curious friendly way.

  Then she said, “Billy, I’m a mess. Mind if I take a shower? Ours ain’t been workin for a week now and Shamu won’t fix it.”

  “Help yourself, babe,” Billy Hightower said, and seemed amused when Gina stripped off the tank top in front of the men.

  “Way you can tell a biker momma is her tits’re dirty,” Gina said to the detectives. “From hangin against a guy’s back all day. Just look at my shirt!”

  Of course she knew that the detectives weren’t looking at her shirt, which she pretended to be inspecting. They were looking at her breasts, especially the right one, which was decorated by a tattoo of a bearded biker on a Harley. Her right nipple was the bike’s headlight.

  “You might get a fifty-grand endorsement from Harley Davidson if they got to see that,” Otto said.

  The girl smiled saucily and winked.

  “Speaking a fifty grand …” Billy Hightower began, then turned to the girl. “Go take a shower, momma. We gotta talk bidness.”

  When they could hear the shower running, Billy Hightower chuckled and said, “She’s real proud a that tattoo. Jist gotta show everybody.”

  “Her old man gonna mind her in your shower?” Otto asked, sipping the beer.

  “We ain’t possessive out here,” Billy Hightower said. “We left all that back where we came from. Here we share and share alike.”

  “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 a
in’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. We can 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. He even 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 fucked 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 fi
fty 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 ol 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 boss but 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.”