The Secrets of Harry Bright (1985)

by Wambaugh, Joseph

  The bartender grinned and dumped two ice cubes, pouring more bourbon.

  "Less ice than this scuttled the Titanic," said Archie. "This a Jewish club?" Otto asked.

  "Whaddaya think, kid?" said Archie. "Do I look like Henry Cabot Lodge? This club was built by Jews when they wouldn't let em in Thunderbird. I heard they even turned down Jack Benny. Nowadays they might keep a few Jews but they ain't allowed to drop kippers on the greens and they gotta tie building blocks to their foreskins till they stretch. Gotta drop their drawers before they even get on the driving range, I hear."

  "I thought if you just had enough dough, you were like the big monkey, go anywhere you want."

  "You got a lot to learn, kid. Where do you guys belong anyway?"

  "Well, we don't actually belong to a club exactly." "We're cops from L. A. P. D.," Sidney Blackpool said. "Yeah?" Archie said. "I played a few games with two a your deputy chiefs one time. Over at Hillcrest." "Is it nice as this?"

  "Sure. Gimme your business card," Archie said. "I'll have you over some time."

  "No movie stars around here, huh?" Otto was checking out the people coming from lunch.

  "Maybe see Lucille Ball. Her husband's a good golfer." "They live here?" Otto asked.

  "Naw, they live in Thunderbird."

  "Why doesn't he belong to Thunderbird?"

  "He's a Jew. He lives there, but he's a member a this club."

  "Look here, Archie," Otto said, "we play in Griffith Park with a bunch a cops. Among em there's two Mexicans, a brother, and a Jew. Now, you tell me if we all win the California lottery we can't join a fancy country club together?"

  "People say they wanna be with their own kind, kiddo," Archie said.

  "But they're cops. They are my kind!" said Otto.

  "You little mensch," Archie said. "If you could figure out a golf swing that quick you'd be the best fat golfer since Billy Casper."

  Otto was truly amazed. "A few million bucks can't get a leg over the wall if you're not the same kind?"

  "Easier to get a leg over the Berlin Wall," Archie Rosenkrantz said. "Heading west. How about another drink, kiddo? With one ice cube."

  Chapter 11

  GARGOYLES

  BY THE TIME THEY WERE ON THEIR WAY BACK TO THE hotel Otto felt like he needed a pina colada and a soak in the spa and maybe a nap before contemplating the recent disaster.

  "Sure was a beautiful place," Sidney Blackpool said, trying to make conversation.

  "I don't wanna talk about golf."

  "Otto, it was you that said I take golf too .. 77 "I don't wanna talk about it."

  "It's only a game, Otto."

  "Like firewalking's a game. Or playing chicken with Andrei Gromyko. Like a game of twenty questions in an Iranian jail."

  "At least we met somebody."

  "I like Archie fine. The people treated us nice. The country club's beautiful. Now pull over to the curb and park."

  "What for?"

  "I wanna toss my sticks down the sewer."

  "So you were a slight failure at golf."

  "Like Charlie Manson was a slight failure at parole."

  "Wait till we get back and have a couple drinks. You'll feel different."

  "I feel like a brain tumor. They should stick me in a jar for study by future generations."

  Maybe you should get a massage."

  "What's s the use. I probably couldn't even hit the massage table with my ass."

  "Have it on the floor. Call a masseuse up to the suite.

  "That don't sound like too bad an idea," Otto had to admit.

  When they got back to the suite the message light on the phone was blinking, so Sidney Blackpool called the operator. The message was from Harlan Penrod.

  "Probably wants another date tonight," Otto said. "He's more ready for adoption than Oliver Twist."

  Harlan Penrod answered by saying, -Hell00000. The Watson residence. May I help you?"

  "This is Sidney Blackpool, Harlan."

  "My favorite sergeant since Gary Cooper!" Harlan twittered. "Do I have some news for you!"

  "What is it?"

  "I rummaged through all of Jack's things and found something stuck in a textbook with school papers and other junk. I don't imagine the police saw it."

  "What was it?"

  "A picture of Jack and a girl."

  "So?"

  "The background's a swimming pool here in Palm Springs! I recognize it because I used to have a friend who stayed there when he was in town. The reason I know that stupid pool is because one night we got in a fight and he tossed me in and I banged my head on the handrail that's in the picture. I lost all my clothes and a new pair of shoes and a wristwatch."

  "Is that all? I mean, a picture of Jack in a hotel pool with a girl?"

  "Well, isn't that something?" "Yeah, it's worth a look."

  "Maybe she was some girl from college, maybe not. At least we can check it out."

  "Okay, Harlan. You gonna be home this evening?"

  "You bet!" Harlan cried. "Do I dress casual or do we try to fit in with the hotel guests? Lots of Vegas hotel workers use that place. Shall I go more for the dated disco king, or trash Vegas flash?"

  "Use your own judgment," Sidney Blackpool said. "We'll be by in a couple a hours."

  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 Blackpool said, 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 and they get their pictures and fingerprints taken. Everyone who 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 two other 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?" Harlan suggested. "I can show the picture to the bartender and customers. 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'll tell me if they know Terry."

  "Here's a twenty for some drinks," Sidney Blackpool said. "We'll be waiting across the street at the other bar. "Don't get caught cruising!" Harlan said with a naughty smile.

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

  "I'm getting hungry."

  After the houseboy was gone, Otto said, We really going 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 his car.

  "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 woman answered. "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!" h
e 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 at it.

  "A little town like that? What's to look at?"

  "I wanna see the road Jack Watson took for his last ride. I wanna see how it looks at night."

  "Why?"

  "I don't know why."

  "Then why do it?"

  "We might get an idea." "About what?"

  don't know. I don't know any other way to work a whodunit homicide. It's the way I was trained."

  "You know, Sidney, I don't think I'll ever make a good corpse cop. Maybe you oughtta bounce me over to the robbery detail or something."

  "You'll be a corpse cop and a twelve handicapper before I'm finished with you, Otto."