The Secrets of Harry Bright

by Joseph Wambaugh

  There were other notices hastily tacked up from time to time depending on the season. One sign over the bar said: “No trash sports allowed.” This one pointed to the latest craze for midget tossing. One of the bar’s best customers was a midget named Oleg Gridley who not only condoned being tossed from one end of the bar room to the other but actually encouraged it because some of the girls would invariably get into the tossing frenzy and he could cop a feel here and there.

  The women’s rest room said: “Female mammals only.” In short, you needed hip boots to wade through the testosterone overflow, making the Eleven Ninety-nine Club a fairly typical cop’s watering hole.

  Seated at the bar were about twelve cops from all over the valley, two groupies from No-Blood Alley who were starting to look twenty years younger at that time of night, and a trucker who was trying in vain to argue with J. Edgar Gomez that his latest Moral Majority wall motto had things in common with babies and bath water and should possibly be rewritten. It said: “Women wanting an abortion should be summarily executed. We’re pro life.”

  Involved in the debate was O. A. Jones, who was still being closely monitored by Paco Pedroza who had not found grounds to fire him. There was the stopwatch bandit. There was the discovery of the Jack Watson death car. Everything he did was questionable, but somehow he was becoming a local legend.

  Paco Pedroza said there hadn’t been such potential disaster in a desert since Mussolini took Ethiopia. Paco worried about having troops like Prankster Frank and Outta Ammo Jones and Choo Choo Chester, but at least they kept him from getting bored.

  Choo Choo Chester Conklin was one of the last patrol cops hired by Paco Pedroza, and the only black man. Chester had been with the Coachella Police Department for five years and might have stayed a lot longer except that he was accused of sending special delivery parcels to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

  They didn’t actually prove that Chester was the one sending parcels to the White House, but a railroad stakeout team caught him wrestling with a sleeping ragpicker’s body on the bed of a freight car. Chester claimed that he was trying to pull the wino out of the boxcar to take him to jail even though it was well known that town cops didn’t go around cleaning up for the Southern Pacific.

  He really had a hard time of it when the railroad cops found an envelope tied around the ragpicker’s neck addressed to then White House Counsel Edwin Meese. The letter said, “I am truly needy. There really is hunger in America. Keep me and I will vote Republican.”

  Also involved in the barroom debate was Beavertail Bigelow, who had been permitted in the saloon by J. Edgar Gomez only after swearing he hadn’t voted for the Democrats on November sixth as he’d been threatening to do. J. Edgar Gomez, like most ex-cops and cops in general, was a right-wing Republican as a result of street cynicism run rampant. He wanted the Eleven Ninety-nine Club to deliver 100 percent to Ronald Reagan and his party.

  Beavertail was almost up to his Beefeater limit for this twenty-four-hour period and he was getting surly and ready to pick a fight. He started to badmouth the victorious Reagan-Bush ticket until J. Edgar Gomez, who was behind the bar rolling a cigar in his mouth and trying to doze standing up, opened one bloodshot eye and gave him a glare that said, “You’re only in here on a pass.”

  Beavertail was halfway boiled, but he got the message. “Okay, then,” he said. “They’re all wimps and bitches and pussies and geezers!”

  It was okay to put down Reagan and Bush if you included Mondale and Ferraro in the same breath. Then Beavertail looked across the bar at the only black guy in the place, Choo Choo Chester, and said, “I suppose you voted for Reagan. After all, you sent Edwin Meese all those …”

  “Don’t start that shit!” J. Edgar Gomez warned, his eyebrows all spiky. “That rumor’s dead and we’re sick of it! Now drink your gin and don’t cause no trouble tonight!”

  So the old desert rat and the young black cop just drank their drinks and pretended to ignore each other, but everyone figured that Beavertail wasn’t through with Choo Choo Chester who was one up on him for maybe being the guy who sent Beavertail on that bus ride to nowhere.

  Choo Choo Chester then started picking an argument with J. Edgar Gomez about the jukebox. The young cops were always beefing with the saloonkeeper about his choice of records.

  “I don’t see why we can’t have one freakin song that was written in this century!” Choo Choo Chester moaned. “I’m sick a Harry Babbitt and Snooky Lanson. I’m sick a Frank Sinatra singin ‘Set em up, Joe.’ ”

  “Maybe you kids ain’t even capable a understanding songs like ‘Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,’ ” the saloonkeeper sighed. “What’s gonna be the memory a your youth? ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’?”

  “We gotta play somethin new,” Choo Choo Chester persisted. “Shit, I might as well be a telephone operator, goin through life with a fuckin headset glued to my ears!”

  It was true. Four out of the twelve cops in the saloon were wearing headphones with their ghetto blasters sitting beside them.

  “What’s wrong with Van Halen or Duran Duran?” O. A. Jones argued.

  “No hard rockers,” J. Edgar Gomez said.

  “Okay then, Elton John. Shit, he’s an old guy.”

  “No soft rockers,” J. Edgar Gomez said.

  “How about The Police then?” Choo Choo Chester asked. “How can a guy like you, who gave thirty years to the law, object to a rock band called The Police?”

  “Don’t try to be cute,” J. Edgar Gomez said.

  “Damn, Edgar, at least get one Hall and Oates side! They’re mellow!”

  “They’re scumbag rockers,” said J. Edgar Gomez.

  “I suppose even the Beatles ain’t old enough yet?”

  “They started this shit,” J. Edgar Gomez said. “Shoulda depth-charged their fucking yellow submarine.”

  And so forth. It was virtually hopeless, but the young cops protested every night. It was pops of the thirties, forties and fifties, and a little country. J. Edgar Gomez allowed Willie Nelson because the saloonkeeper figured that Willie was into the hippie-cowboy trash because he couldn’t handle middle age. J. Edgar could understand mid-life eccentricities all right. Yet he allowed Willie Nelson’s music only after the singer recorded Stardust and did almost as good a job as Hoagy Carmichael himself.

  “What’s wrong with you?” O. A. Jones said to Wingnut Bates when the jug-eared young cop came shuddering into the bar and threw his ten-dollar bill on the bar with a trembling hand.

  “N-n-nothin,” said Wingnut Bates. “Except I’m gonna kill Frank Zamelli.”

  “Oh yeah, when?”

  “Tomorrow. Tonight if he comes in.”

  “Yeah? Well, it’s been pretty dull around here.”

  “I’m gonna kill him. G-g-g-g-gimme a double margarita, Edgar.”

  “What’d Prankster Frank do this time?” O. A. Jones asked Wingnut as he eyed a sagging mid-lifer from No-Blood Alley who’d look like a $6,000 facelift by 1:00 A.M.

  “A sn-sn-snake!” Wingnut cried.

  “He put a snake in your car?”

  “My l-l-l-locker,” Wingnut said.

  “That’s going too far,” O. A. Jones said. “Even for Prankster Frank. Was it a king snake? Don’t tell me it was a rattler! I wouldn’t believe that!”

  “R-r-r-rubber,” Wingnut Bates said, grabbing the margarita in both hands and gulping half of it down.

  “Oooooooh, rubber! Well, that ain’t too bad, Wingnut. That ain’t so bad.”

  “I b-b-believe I’m gonna kill him,” Wingnut said. “Jesus, I’m st-st-stuttering!”

  “You sure are. Finish your drink, maybe you’ll calm down.”

  “I believe!” Wingnut cried. “I believe I’m g-g-gonna …”

  “What’s that?” O. A. Jones cried out.

  “Keep it down!” J. Edgar growled. “Only freaking rest I get around here is when I doze standing up. Like a freaking parakeet.”

  “I believe!” O. A. J
ones said, running over to the jukebox, which was playing Green Eyes by Helen O’Connell. “I believe! Hey, Edgar, ain’t that a song from your time? Ain’t that one you used to have on this box?”

  “What?”

  “ ‘I Believe’! How’s it go?”

  Without removing his cigar or opening his eyes, J. Edgar Gomez sang, “ ‘I believe for every drop of rain that falls, a flower groooooows!’ ”

  “Yeah, that’s it!” O. A. Jones said.

  “ ‘I believe that somewhere in the darkest night, a candle gloooows.’ ”

  “Okay, enough!” O. A. Jones said. “That’s it! Wingnut, that’s it!”

  “What’s it?”

  “The song I thought I heard the killer singing in the desert when I found that Watson kid fried in his car!”

  “You said it was ‘Pretend.’ ”

  “ ‘Pretend you’re happy when you’re bluuuuuue,’ ” J. Edgar Gomez suddenly sang. “I just loved Nat King Cole.”

  “I thought it was ‘Pretend,’ ” said O. A. Jones, “but the song never did sound right when the Palm Springs dicks played it for me. I mean, I thought I heard the guy singing something about pretending. Now I think it was ‘I Believe.’ Yeah! I think that’s it!”

  “That ain’t nothing like ‘Pretend,’ ” J. Edgar Gomez said, finally opening his eyes. “You been drinking too much vodka. I told you whiskey’s better for your head.”

  “I know it was something about ‘believe,’ ” O. A. Jones said, wrinkling his brow.

  “I can’t believe this is so important,” J. Edgar Gomez said. “And I wish you’d keep your voice quieter. Beavertail’s nodding off. Might get by without a fight tonight.”

  “ ‘I Believe,’ ” O. A. Jones said. “Tomorrow I’m calling the Palm Springs dicks. I’m the only lead to the killer!”

  “That don’t seem like much of a clue to me,” J. Edgar Gomez said, closing his eyes again.

  “I’m calling them tomorrow,” O. A. Jones said.

  “I’m killing Prankster Frank Zamelli tomorrow,” Wingnut Bates said.

  CHAPTER 6

  FLOATING COFFINS

  “Don’t look for mercy from that son of a bitch,” Otto Stringer said, referring to their captain. “He’s the Cotton Mather of the cop world.”

  “I don’t think we’ll need mercy, Otto,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Nobody’s ever gonna know about the ten grand, and even if they do, it’s expense money. No strings attached.”

  “The amount, Sidney. That’s the string. In fact it’s a rope. In fact it’s a noose if our department ever hears about it.”

  “Nobody’s gonna hear. Relax. Finish your tequila and tomato juice. How can you drink that stuff?”

  “Like this,” Otto Stringer said, stretched out at poolside on a lounge chair at dusk.

  He guzzled the tall one and waved to a waitress with a gardenia in her hair who swayed over to poolside in a persimmon muumuu, Palm Springs being big on Hawaii and exotica in general.

  “Another?” she smiled, making Otto deeply regret the big four-oh and sexual extinction.

  “That was de-voon, dahling,” Otto said, “but I think I’ll try another kind.”

  “That’s the fourth other kind you’ve had,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Mixing is tricky.”

  “Not to worry,” Otto said. “Let’s see, I never been much on martinis so I think I’ll try a martini. How about a vodka martooni, my dear.”

  “Twist or olive?”

  “Both. And a cocktail onion. Make it two cocktail onions.”

  “Vodka martini,” she said, writing on her pad. “With a dinner salad.”

  As the cocktail waitress hip-swayed toward the bar, Otto sighed and put his hands behind his head and stopped sucking in his belly. He was wearing brand-new white doubleknits and white loafers with yet another acrylic golf sweater, this one pink and maroon, over a maroon shirt.

  Sidney Blackpool was wearing the same pants as earlier, but had switched to a green golf shirt and white V-necked sweater for the evening. Palm Springs is very casual and they’d been told that only a few restaurants in the entire desert required a jacket. Nobody demanded neckties except dining rooms in the country clubs, but they’d brought coats and ties in case.

  “Was it hot enough for you today, dah-ling?” Otto asked, watching a pair of thirtyish women stroll out by the pool, look toward the two detectives, and go back inside without apparent interest.

  “Yeah, I guess it was hot enough,” his partner shrugged.

  “That’s half a the conversation. Now, where we eating tonight?”

  “I dunno. Should I worry about it?”

  “That’s the other half a the conversation.”

  “What conversation?”

  “The Palm Springs conversation,” Otto said. “I listened to a bunch a people by the pool today. That’s the only thing they say. Hot enough today and where we eating tonight. That’s it.”

  “Exciting.”

  “That’s all people got to worry about around here,” Otto said. “They don’t even move enough to keep their watches wound.”

  “Rich people, Otto. Not people like you and me.”

  “We’re rich, Sidney,” Otto reminded him.

  “This week only.”

  “You got that right,” Otto said, which next to Tom Selleck aloha shirts and moustaches was this year’s cop mannerism. The phrase “You got that right.”

  “That waitress is all time,” Otto said. “She’s the kind tries to lick you with her eyes.”

  “I thought you said you were looking for ugly broads.”

  “To marry. A rich ugly broad to marry. Not to spend a vacation with. That’s what I like about Yoko Ono. She looks like the leading lady in Kabuki theater and they’re all men. I’d marry her in a minute.”

  “Let’s sign for the drinks and go to dinner,” Sidney Blackpool said.

  “Signing for drinks.” Otto grinned. “Let me sign. I wanna write in a big tip for that little heartbreaker. She’ll remember Otto Stringer before this week’s out.”

  “I hope ten grand’s gonna be enough,” his partner said, as they strolled inside.

  The dining room was like the rest of the hotel, but there was less wicker and rattan, and the floral patterns weren’t out of control. The maître d’ dressed formally and the waiters wore standard desert chic: white dress shirt, black bow tie, no coat.

  The menu required two hands to lift. In fact, Otto Stringer, hidden behind it, said, “Sidney, I could take this thing out by the pool tomorrow, shove two poles under it and have enough shade for me, a golf cart, and Liz Taylor.”

  “She’s not your size anymore,” Sidney Blackpool said, trying to decide whether to order things he couldn’t spell or keep it a cop’s night out. That is, steak or prime rib.

  “I’m glad they translate the French,” Otto said. “I hate restaurants where the menu’s all in French or Italian.”

  “How often do you eat at restaurants where the menu’s in any language but English, Spanish and Chinese?”

  “Sidney, I’m a man a the world! Let’s get a wine steward.”

  Just then the dining-room captain came to the table and said, “Have you gentlemen decided yet?”

  “I’ll have grease,” Otto said. “I usually eat grease.”

  Otto didn’t end up with grease, but he did get a lot of unfamiliar and very rich continental cuisine. He started out with champagne and escargots, and red caviar because they didn’t have the good stuff. He went on to veal with a champagne cream sauce you could lose a fork in. He had a side of fettucine Alfredo because, like Mount San Jacinto, it was there. He finished up with half a pound of marzipan and a flambé crepe because he wanted something they set on fire.

  Sidney Blackpool, realizing that he was way past his limit of Johnnie Walker Black, had only one glass of champagne, veal piccata with lemon and capers, a Bibb lettuce salad and no dessert.

  Otto was halfway through the crepe, saying, “Sidney, you gotta relax and let
yourself go,” when he started to hiccup.

  “Damn,” he said.

  “Let’s order you some bitters and lime. It works for me,” Sidney Blackpool said.

  “These hiccups feel funny,” Otto said, his upper lip beading with sweat. “I think I’ll run to the John and …”

  He barely made it. Otto upchucked for ten minutes. When he returned, he was pale and shaky.

  “You’re a little green around the gills,” his partner observed.

  “I just lost a hundred bucks worth a fancy groceries!” Otto moaned.

  “Well, it was your first time, Otto. You’ll do better tomorrow. Your tummy’s a rookie on this beat.”

  “Ooooh, I’m sick,” Otto said. “And now I’m hungry!”

  “Let’s go to sleep,” Sidney Blackpool said.

  “But I wanted to see the night life.”

  “Let’s get a good night’s rest. Tomorrow you can order breakfast in bed. You’ll be a new man.”

  “Tomorrow I’m sticking to grease,” Otto said.

  “I’ll have room service bring you a plate a grease first thing in the morning,” his partner promised.

  A deluge. There had never been so much rain in the desert. Sidney Blackpool watched a terrifying flash flood swell like a tidal wave on the very crest of Mount San Jacinto, then cascade down on the hotel. Men and women were screaming. It was awful, and though his own life was in jeopardy, he had to stand and face the next wall of water because he could see it riding the crest: a coffin. The lead-lined coffin rode like a fiberglass surfboard. Sidney Blackpool was weeping with the other doomed hotel guests, but not for his imminent death. He wept because he knew the coffin bore the half-drowned body of Tommy Blackpool who, wearing a red-and-black wet suit, clung like Ishmael as the coffin suddenly began cartwheeling away, down the Coachella Valley.

  “Tommmmmmmy!” he sobbed, and then he was awake. It was dawn. He hadn’t awakened at the dreaded drinker’s hour as he deserved, having put away so much Johnnie Walker Black. The bed was soaked as always after a recurring dream about Tommy Blackpool.