The Secrets of Harry Bright

by Joseph Wambaugh

  “Don’t we all,” Sidney Blackpool said, starting his engine.

  They dropped Terry Kinsale and then drove straight to the hotel to drop Otto who said he hadn’t felt so bad since his second wife got the house and the car.

  “Don’t wake me when you come in, Sidney,” Otto said. “Even if it turns out Harry Bright’s ex-wife is the killer and her accomplice is Fiona Grout. Which I might believe right now. This place is even loonier than Hollywood.”

  “It’s this case,” Sidney Blackpool said. “This case makes no sense on any level.”

  “He didn’t shoot himself, Sidney,” Otto said. “He mighta been real heartsick about his boyfriend two-timing him, but he didn’t shoot himself. You saw the angle a that bullet in the report. And he was right-handed. Forget it if you wanna try’n prove he shot himself.”

  “I know,” Sidney Blackpool said. “That leaves us with Coy Brickman and Harry Bright.”

  “Sure. Or maybe it was a hitchhiker he picked up when he couldn’t find Terry. And maybe the hitchhiker turned out to be Mister Goodbar Junior, and he shot the kid and dumped the car up there and … I don’t know, Sidney, I gotta go to bed. Lemme outta here.”

  “I’ll be awful late by the time I get to Thunderbird,” Sidney Blackpool said. “I better think up a story. See you in the morning.”

  As Otto was walking away, he turned suddenly and yelled, “Sidney! Wait a minute. I almost forgot. I got an idea when the kid was telling us about Jack Watson. Maybe this is a nutty idea but …”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “Terry said that him and Jack pretended things about each other. That their relationship was make-believe.”

  “Yeah?”

  “When the Mineral Springs cop was into heat exhaustion he thought the song was ‘Pretend.’ Now he decides it was ‘I Believe.’ I was thinking, you take ‘pretend’-like, the idea of pretend-and then you put it with the ‘believe.’ … Anyways, maybe a delirious guy mightta heard that other old song.”

  “ ‘Make Believe’!”

  “Yeah.”

  “Otto, I told you you’d make a first-rate corpse cop!”

  “Maybe we can play the song tomorrow. But on second thought I don’t know if it means anything anyways.”

  “I don’t know either, but it’s the best thing I’ve heard all day.”

  “I’m real happy you’re happy. Good night, Sidney.”

  “Sleep well, Otto.”

  He didn’t get to Thunderbird Country Club until after 9:00 P.M. He stopped at the kiosk and said, “I’m Sam Benton. Having dinner with Mrs. Decker. Did she clear me?”

  The guard took his name on a clipboard and said, “Yes, sir. Have a good dinner.”

  He parked and went straight to the dining room. “Mrs. Decker?” the hostess said. “She said she’d be waiting in the bar. That was some time ago.”

  Next he went to the bar where the barman said, “Yes, I know Mrs. Decker. She was here for over an hour. Sorry, sir.”

  Five minutes later he was driving the streets of Thunderbird Country Club. Her car registration had not said Thunderbird Cove or Thunderbird Heights so he figured the street must be around the golf course. There weren’t many streets and he found hers at 9:15 P.M. Two hours after the dinner date, he was ringing her bell, hoping that there wasn’t a maid or housekeeper at home.

  The door opened. She was a little surprised and quite drunk. “I haven’t been stood up in a while. The sure sign I’m losing my grip. How’d you find my house?”

  “I asked at the gate.”

  “They’re not supposed to give the street address without calling.”

  “I’m persuasive. Please, can I come in?”

  “Just till I hear your excuse. I need a laugh.”

  “I took a nap. I didn’t have a wake-up call because I didn’t think I could possibly sleep more than an hour. It’s this desert air. I’m mortified.”

  “That’s not a fun story. That sounds too much like the truth. Well, maybe next time. Now I guess I should ask the strange man to say good night.”

  “I’m not strange. I’ve known you for years.”

  “We met years ago.”

  “Please. A drink. I feel miserable.”

  “One for Highway One eleven,” she said, opening the door wide, taking two unsteady steps. “I was wearing my new leather bolero suit for you,” she said. “Now you caught me in my jam-jams.”

  They weren’t exactly jam-jams. It was a platinum nightgown and peignoir made in Italy and sold exclusively in Beverly Hills. It was ankle length and scalloped at the bottom and at the scooped neckline. It wasn’t enough to be wearing when one entertained strangers, but she didn’t seem to care. He figured he wasn’t the first man she’d encountered like this when her husband was away. Maybe not even the first this week.

  The interior looked like a decorator package, desert style. All secondary colors, with lots of desert pastels, and glass-framed graphics chosen not by subject but to enhance the hues in fabric, carpets and wallpaper. The kind of package they’ll drop in for about $100,000. Not distinguished, but acceptable for a second home. They were all second or third or fifth homes for entertaining and easy living. One member of a desert course, a European industrialist, had thirty-one residences, each named, they said, for a Baskin-Robbins ice-cream flavor.

  “Help yourself,” she said, waving in the direction of the wet bar before she wobbled to the sofa where her vodka awaited, a whole decanter of it.

  He didn’t find any Johnnie Walker Black, but there was plenty of Cutty Sark. He poured four fingers, hesitated, poured in another shot and dropped in one ice cube.

  “This isn’t amateur hour, I see,” she said.

  “Haven’t had a drink all day.”

  “Gonna catch up all at once, huh?”

  She was slurring by now and weaved even while seated on the sofa. He wasn’t going to be catching up. Not with her. Not tonight.

  “Can’t tell you how sorry I am about dinner,” he said.

  “You’ve already told me. You did me a favor. I have to lose a few pounds.”

  “Not by my reckoning,” he said, hitting at the Cutty very hard. He had to get a little drunk for this, but not too drunk.

  “So what’ll we talk about? The old days at South Bay? You ever work Northern? That’s where I wanted Harry to work. But it was too fancy for him. La Jolla and all that. Called it a silk-stocking job. Of course, Harry was not a silk-stocking guy.”

  She drank to that, then started to put the glass down, but took another drink.

  “How’d you ever get out here in the desert?” he asked, thinking he should turn down the music. It was the Palm Springs oldie station.

  “It’s where my husband wants to be. In the winter anyway. The air’s good for arthritis.”

  “Oh, yes,” he said, and realized he was gulping. Mustn’t gulp.

  “Bet you’re wondering,” she said, grinning over her vodka tumbler. “What?”

  “How old he is. He’s twenty-nine years older than I am. And I’ll be goddamned if I’ll tell you how old that is.”

  “You’re old like Lee Remick’s old,” he said.

  “Wonder who does her cosmetic surgery. Mine’s done by the same guy who did our illustrious neighbor, Betty Ford.”

  The obsession with age made Sidney Blackpool up his guess. She was maybe forty-five. Since he felt sixty he wondered how old she felt.

  “So what else can we talk about?” She missed the onyx ashtray with her cigarette.

  “It’s hard for me to really remember all that much about Harry,” Sidney Blackpool said. “When you leave the job it’s amazing how fast you forget.”

  “I’ve noticed too.”

  “Did you meet your present husband in San Diego?”

  She nodded. “Shopping in Fashion Valley. Not that a cop’s wife could buy anything very fashionable. With Herb it was love at first sight. I sighted his Maserati and fell in love.”

  Her eyes snapped like a whip. T
he look had so much defiance in it he figured she might be just about as guilt-ridden in her life as he was in his.

  “How many years ago was that? Twelve? I was working Southern then, but I didn’t know Harry got a divorce. Guess he didn’t bitch about things like most cops. Like I did when I got my divorce.”

  “Harry wouldn’t,” she said. “He’s not that kind of man. Pour me another one, will you? Just a touch.”

  He took that as an offer to move to her sofa, so he did. His “touch” turned out to be a triple shot before she said, “That’s enough.”

  She missed the ashtray again and he stepped on an ember as he handed her the fresh drink.

  “Sometime I’ll burn myself to death if I don’t die of lung cancer,” she said, looking as though she didn’t give a damn one way or the other.

  “You never see Harry at all?” Sidney Blackpool was absolutely astonished to see that his own glass was empty. He went to the bar and poured another big one to steady his hands.

  “Not now. And never without Herb. Not since the day I walked out of our house in Chula Vista. I left Harry a note with all the platitudes that don’t explain anything. I gave him primary custody of Danny because Herb was too old for an adolescent boy. But I saw Danny on all the holidays and a month every summer. I took Danny to Europe once. Why, I even took Danny …” She stopped, sighed, took a big gulp of 100-proof vodka and said, “I haven’t seen Harry at all since we buried our son.”

  He was keeping his eyes riveted on his Scotch while she talked. He had a technique for interrogating drunks. If the drunk was talking freely, he never, but never did anything to interrupt the flow. And with a drunk, even eye contact could result in a change of mood that might dry her flow like a desert wind.

  “I was thinking of visiting Harry,” Sidney Blackpool began tentatively. “I mean, you said he was in a rest home. Can you tell me …”

  “Desert Star Nursing Home,” she said. “Down by Indio. I wanted to have him put in a better hospital. My husband was naturally distressed by that, so I dropped it. But I send them money so Harry can have proper care. Herb doesn’t know.”

  “I see. Well, maybe it’s not such a bad place.”

  “It is,” she said. “I was there today.”

  “You were?” Sidney Blackpool said. “I thought you haven’t seen Harry in years.”

  “I haven’t. I keep track of him by calling his old friend. You might know him. Coy Brickman? He worked for San Diego P.D. with Harry. Did you know Coy?”

  “Coy?” Sidney Blackpool said. “He’s out here too? I’ll be damned. I lost track a him five, six years ago.”

  Now he looked up and saw she’d wiped away a few tears. No eyeliner went with it. Those fantastic eyelashes were all hers. Irises the color of apricot jam and lashes you could hang your Christmas lights on.

  “Harry got Coy a job at Mineral Springs P.D.,” she said. “Now that Harry’s … in the condition he’s in, Coy’s been a godsend. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

  “So you went to the nursing home today? Why?”

  “Coy said he wanted me to meet him there to give me a report on Harry’s prognosis. Which isn’t good.”

  “Coy always was a strange guy,” Sidney Blackpool said, keeping his eyes on the Scotch. “He could’ve told you what you needed to know on the phone.”

  “He wanted something of Harry’s. He asked me to bring a cassette that Harry sent me.”

  “A cassette?” Now he stopped looking at the Scotch.

  “Of Harry singing.” She smiled then. “You might’ve heard Harry sing at one of the Christmas parties? He embarrassed me to tears sometimes.” She showed him that lopsided grin but the tears were welling once more. “Harry sent me a cassette about two years ago. Then he wrote and apologized profusely. Said he was drunk when he sent it and hoped I wasn’t offended. And hoped my husband wasn’t offended.”

  The detective said, “Trish, you’ve got me curious. What’d old Harry sing about on the tape?”

  “Oh, God!” she said. “Just all the old songs he loved so much. He played and sang eight or ten of his favorites. My God!”

  Now he was getting tense. She was even drunker than he’d thought. The tears might gush. He could lose it all with one big ballooning drunken sob.

  “So old Harry’s still singing? I remember he used to play an instrument. Let’s see …”

  “He used to play a guitar when … when we were young,” she said. “Or rather, he knew a few chords. He played a ukulele on that cassette.”

  “Wonder what Coy wanted with the cassette?” Sidney Blackpool mused.

  “Said he wanted to make a copy for himself. Said he’d return it in a week. Now can we stop talking about Harry? I’m starting to get sleepy and …”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “And I’m sorry you gave it to him. The cassette. I was just gonna ask you if I could hear it. For old times.”

  “I don’t think I can do that.”

  “You uh, didn’t give it to Coy then?”

  “Told him I threw it away. I had it with me but decided I couldn’t let him hear it. Harry made it for me. It was personal. It was as close as Harry dared come to a final love letter.”

  And that did it. She spilled her drink and began to sob. It started out quietly, but very soon her shoulders were shaking. Finally, she threw herself down on the sofa and wept. Sidney Blackpool drank his Scotch and watched. Then he got up and went to the bathroom where he found a box of tissues. He came back to the sofa and gave her a handful. He patted her back while she tried to settle.

  “My God, I’m drunk!” she said. “How the fuck do I let myself get …”

  “Easy, Trish,” he said, rubbing her back and shoulders. “It’s okay. It’s perfectly okay.”

  She sat up and wiped her eyes, but he didn’t stop caressing her body.

  “I’m getting sleepy,” she said.

  “Sure you are.” He was now positive that she’d had lots of male visitors in her time. The only difference was that the others didn’t talk about Harry Bright and make her cry.

  But he wasn’t positive he could manage it. He’d almost lost interest in sex after Tommy died. Line of duty, he thought sardonically. Black Sid screws over Harry Bright every which way.

  He leaned over and kissed her. He ran his hand inside the dressing gown. It was so easy that he became less sure he could manage it. He thought of his ex-wife, Lorie. Whatever she was, no matter how much he came to despise her, she could always arouse his passion, every kind of passion, mostly destructive. This one was enough like her in some ways, except that she was vulnerable. But now Lorie might be more vulnerable. Maybe now that Tommy was gone, Lorie was like this woman.

  He carried her to bed. Without a word he stripped off his clothes and removed her dressing gown. Her skin was pearly, not young, not old. He made believe she was Lorie all through it. She wept all through it. He hoped that she didn’t hate him. He kissed her and caressed her before and after, and he tried not to feel like the miserable son of a bitch he was.

  Afterward, he was on his side caressing her. Her back was to him now. He became aware of the radio when she said, “That song always makes me think of Harry.”

  “The way your smile just beams,

  “The way you sing off-key,

  “The way you haunt my dreams,

  “No, no, they can’t take that away from me.”

  “Harry took the job in Mineral Springs after Danny died,” she said. “Danny was just beginning at Cal. Danny was a smart boy. And he had a football scholarship.”

  “Yes.” Sidney Blackpool kept caressing her. “Yes.”

  “I knew Harry took the job in Mineral Springs so he could at least live close to me. Even though he could never … never hope to see me. I knew he had some crazy hope that … that someday I might walk away from … from all this. Harry was such a goddamn fool!” she sobbed.

  “Yes,” Sidney Blackpool said.

  “After … after we buried our so
n, I never saw Harry again. There was no need to. That life was … it was irrevocable. Do you know what that means? Irrevocable. Do you know how long it takes to understand that word?”

  “Yes,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Yes.”

  “And then last March Coy Brickman called and told me about Harry’s stroke. And later he called again and told me there was a heart attack. And from time to time he calls to update Harry’s condition. And through all this I never went to see Harry. Not once. Because after Danny died it was … irrevocable. And … one day I asked Coy, I asked why he kept calling me even though I never went to see Harry. And he said because he knew Harry would want him to, And … and he said he hoped I would never see Harry, not the way he is now. He said he knew that Harry wouldn’t want me to. He said that …”

  She sobbed again. He wondered if it was the song. Fred Astaire sang, “ ‘It’s so easy to remember, but so hard to forget.’ ”

  “You remember,” she said, “how … how he was. Such a big strong happy …”

  “Hush,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Hush, now. Try to sleep, Trish.”

  “That’s not my name,” she said, and they were the last words she ever spoke to Sidney Blackpool. “That’s what we call me now. Herb and all my … present friends. When Harry Bright was my man, I was Patsy. I was just plain old Patsy Bright.”

  “Hush now, Patsy Bright,” he said, still caressing her shoulders and neck and back.

  She was ready then, and slid into a deep vodka slumber. He didn’t even have to creep or tiptoe. He got out of bed, dressed quickly, and started searching for it: the cassette. She wouldn’t keep it by the stereo, not where her husband might find it. It’d be hers, her personal connection to Harry Bright, and to the son she’d left back there.

  He rummaged through her drawers and through her walk-in closet containing at least fifty pairs of shoes. He went back to the living room and located the state-of-the-art sound system concealed in a cabinet near the bar. There was a mix of albums and cassettes, all commercially labeled. There was no homemade cassette that she might have left by the machine when her husband was out of town. Then he thought of it: the car.

  Sidney Blackpool went through the kitchen and out to the attached garage. He found a four-door Chrysler and her Mercedes 450 SL. Herb had obviously outgrown the Maserati. He opened the passenger door of the Mercedes and then the glove box. It was full of cassettes, all commercially labeled except for one. He slipped that cassette into his pocket and went back inside, turning out all the lights. He locked the front door when he left.