“Knock that shit off Oleg!” Ruth barked. “That’s your problem, you rotten little slime bucket!”
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. So what can you do for me?”
“Well,” Ruth said, “you got only one thing going for you, far as I can see.”
“What’s that? My auto-parts store? I made fifty grand last year.”
“Okay, you got two things going for you. You’re rich and you’re pretty cute-looking.”
“I am?”
“Yeah, you’re pretty frigging cute,” Anemic Annie also had to admit, and now she was slurring as badly as Ruth the Sleuth.
“Gee, Annie, I only do the deed of darkness with real big girls,” Oleg apologized. “Rut what’s a little fellatio among friends. Can you put your feet behind your ears?”
“Here’s my plan, you maggot-mouth,” Ruth interrupted, looking behind the bar at the eight-string ukulele that Ruben the bartender had propped up by the cash register. “That uke gives me an idea.”
“What’s the idea, Ruth?” Oleg cried. “Stop teasing me!”
“We’re gonna change your act. What kinda clothes you got at home? Annie, you can help. We’re gonna need to borrow a hairpiece from Edna’s Salon before she closes. We’re gonna make Oleg into somebody Portia can’t resist.”
“We are?” the midget squealed in delight.
And though she could never have guessed it, Ruth the Sleuth had taken a significant step toward her consuming ambition of solving a whodunit homicide.
By the time Sidney Blackpool and Otto Stringer got to the Eleven Ninety-nine Club, the walls were starting to vibrate. It sounded like someone was lobbing mortars from the top of the mesa and they were landing short, thumping steadily.
“Must be payday,” Otto observed. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and J. Edgar won’t have no chili left.”
When they got inside, Wingnut Bates was standing at the bar hoisting his third margarita, complaining about a citizen who was threatening to sue him.
“She said she’s suing me and the city for eighty million dollars!” Wingnut wailed. “I shot her dog in the foot is all. Just as he came to the end of his chain which I didn’t see. All I saw was teeth that don’t let go till you cut the head off!”
“I know that broad,” Nathan Hale Wilson commiserated. “She’s one a those loonies from the Animal Liberation Front. Brought a stray inta the station and says, ‘What’ll you do with this poor little thing, Officer!’ ‘Grind it up and feed it to the other dogs,’ I says. She threatened to sue me, for chrissake!”
“That’s what police work’s come to,” J. Edgar Gomez observed. “Every time a cop cranks on the cuffs too tight some guy shows up in court with a surgical collar, a body cast, and F. Lee Bailey.”
“We don’t get paid enough to put up with lawsuits on top a everything else,” Maynard Rivas groused. “If I was the right brand a Indian I’d walk away from this shit in a minute. If I was an Agua Caliente I’d drive a Ferrari instead of a five-year-old Ford pickup with a transmission whinyer than John McEnroe.”
“I hate poor-mouthing! Gimme your phone number so I can call in a pledge!” yelled Beavertail Bigelow from his seat by the jukebox, causing all the cops to glare at the desert rat for his heartless ways.
“Least police work’s steady and gives you a regular paycheck,” O. A. Jones said, pissing off everybody for looking on the bright side. “I know a cop in Orange County quit to become a movie star and doesn’t make five hundred bucks a year. He’ll spend his old age broke and senile, yodeling his heart out like Johnny Weissmuller in the actors’ rest home.”
“You hear about Selma Mobley, that bubble-assed female cop in Palm Springs?” Nathan Hale Wilson asked. “She’s marrying her lieutenant.”
“I just love cop weddings,” Prankster Frank observed. “They’re about as safe as a San Francisco bathhouse.”
“Oughtta give them his-and-hers saps for those special family disputes,” said O. A. Jones.
“Well, they’re both cops,” Pigasus, the sheriffs chopper pilot, noted. “They oughtta understand each other.”
“Like Snoopy and Cujo’re both dogs,” said Dustin Hoffman, the fingerprint man. “He’s Snoopy, the poor fucker.”
Sidney Blackpool looked around the bar and at first the only black man he saw was Choo Choo Chester. He was making a serious move on a masseuse from a hotel in Rancho Mirage, but she wasn’t treating his complaints about his wife with too much sympathy.
“So how’d you meet your wife?” the girl asked.
“I bought a couple dances with her,” Chester whined. “It was all a mistake!”
“You gonna dump her or what?”
“I can’t,” Chester moaned. “She’s expecting a kid in three months!”
“Really, honey?” the masseuse said. “Is it yours?”
Hoping he might have a chance to steal the masseuse right out from under Chester, Prankster Frank sidled up on her left side and whispered, “Baby, you got a body any eighteen-year-old would want.”
“Yeah,” said the sulky masseuse. “So send me an eighteen-year-old and maybe I’ll loan it to him.”
“You’re about as exciting as a wet dream,” Prankster Frank sneered, moving back down the bar to greener pastures.
“Don’t plan to end up in my diary, funnel-face,” said the masseuse.
J. Edgar Gomez tried to avert a brawl by yelling, “Who wants another round? I’m extending happy hour fifteen minutes!” It brought a chorus of cheers and hoorahs. When people started getting surly, J. Edgar knew to ease them into the next stage.
Sidney Blackpool started searching for another black face, one that rested on a much bigger body. Then he saw him, away from the cops, on the side of the saloon occupied by civilians. He was two tables from Beavertail Bigelow. He was alone. It was the president of the local chapter of Cobras, Billy Hightower.
Sidney Blackpool and Otto Stringer both ordered a drink and a bowl of J. Edgar’s infamous chili, and this time there was nothing still alive in the bowl. They could have had a table alone near the John Wayne mural, but walked to the side of the saloon where Billy Hightower sat nursing a double vodka, silently watching the revelry.
“Can we join you?” Sidney Blackpool asked.
Billy Hightower studied both men, and then looked toward the table on the other side of the room, then back at the detectives.
“I’m Blackpool. He’s Stringer. We’re dicks from Hollywood Division, L.A.P.D.”
That was enough to make Billy Hightower curious, so he nodded at the empty chairs and they sat. Otto started spooning through the chili for dead bodies.
“Buy you a drink?” Sidney Blackpool asked.
“I got a drink,” said Billy Hightower.
“We’re working on the Watson homicide,” Sidney Blackpool said, sipping at his Scotch. “The Palm Springs kid they found in the Rolls?”
“Little off your beat, ain’t it?” Billy Hightower said, toying with the double shot of vodka. Up close he looked like a real boozer and Sidney Blackpool had to resist a policeman’s urge to glance at the biker’s enormous forearms for meth tracks.
“We have some information that the Watson kid might’ve been in Hollywood the day he was killed,” Sidney Blackpool said. “That’s how we got involved.”
Billy Hightower looked from one man to the other, then at Otto’s brown gruel. “It ain’t Hollywood, but it ain’t bad,” he said. “Microscopic animals can’t live in it.”
“Hollywood ain’t Hollywood, neither,” Otto shrugged, and he tried a spoonful. It wasn’t bad!
“Hear you used to be on the job,” Sidney Blackpool said. “San Bernardino County sheriffs, was it?”
“Uh-huh,” Billy Hightower said.
“Hear you were in Vietnam,” Sidney Blackpool said.
“Served my country and served my county,” Billy Hightower said. “They gonna do a cop benefit for me or what?”
“We asked around about you cause we got a little something on the Watson
case. Maybe.”
Billy Hightower watched Sidney Blackpool’s hand reaching into his pocket, the way a cop watches hand movements, the way a crank-dealing outlaw biker would surely watch sudden hand movements. His muscles tightened and relaxed when he realized there could be no threat.
“Just on the remote chance that this kid might’ve come up to the canyons to score some drugs,” Sidney Blackpool said, pushing the picture across to Billy Hightower.
The biker picked up the photo and held it toward the dim light from a shaded wall sconce. Then he lit a match and examined the snapshot more closely. Then for the first time he smiled, displaying large broken teeth.
“So, my tip might work out after all?” he said.
“Your tip?” Otto said, chewing up a mouthful of chili beans.
“Yeah, this is the guy I called in about.”
“The Watson kid?” Sidney Blackpool said, pointing at the picture.
“No, his picture was in the papers. The other kid. This kid.” He pointed a thick scarred forefinger at Terry Kinsale.
“I’m not following,” Sidney Blackpool said. “You musta got this picture from Palm Springs P.D., right?”
“No,” Sidney Blackpool said. “This is a lead we’re developing independent of Palm Springs P.D.”
“Guddamnit!” Billy Hightower whispered. “What is this shit? I gave up this dude three days after they found the body. Soon’s I read about the old man posting a fifty-thousand-dollar reward! If this kid’s the one that smoked Watson, that reward’s mine, guddamnit!”
Sidney Blackpool felt his heart jump. Even Otto Stringer paused with the spoon halfway to his mouth.
“You help us and if this kid’s our man, you’ll be in line for Watson’s reward,” Sidney Blackpool said.
“I want your word on that, man,” Billy Hightower said.
“You got it. I’ll put it in writing if you want.”
“Was that your Toyota out in the canyon tonight?” the biker asked.
“Yeah.”
“Gimme thirty minutes and then drive back to that spot,” Billy Hightower said. “I’ll send someone to meet you and drive you up the hill to my house. We’ll talk on my turf, not yours.”
“Okay,” Sidney Blackpool said.
“That money’s mine,” Billy Hightower said. “You unnerstand what I’m sayin?”
When he stood, the biker was even bigger than he seemed. He crossed the saloon with six boot-crashing steps and was out the door before Otto had his last bite swallowed.
“We gotta go back out there,” Sidney Blackpool said to his partner who nodded unhappily but didn’t comment.
They hadn’t noticed when Anemic Annie and Ruth the Sleuth entered the bar and selected a 1950’s tune on the jukebox, one that J. Edgar Gomez tolerated because it was old enough. The record started spinning just as Ruth’s husky voice boomed over the din, amplified by a police bullhorn that scared the hell out of everybody.
“Ladies, gentlemen and others!” Ruth announced on the bullhorn. “The Eleven Ninety-nine Club is proud to present the one and only-Elfis himselfis!”
When the first beats of Elvis Presley singing “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog” crashed out of the jukebox, Anemic Annie threw open the front door and Oleg Gridley waddled in.
He was wearing a white satin shirt with collars bigger than his head, a remnant from his disco days. He was wearing the tightest pants he could find from when he still weighed seventy-five pounds and hadn’t ballooned up to eighty-three. He had on a drum majorette’s sequined boots that Annie had borrowed from the daughter of a hairdresser at Edna’s Salon, and on his head was a black pompadour wig with sideburns drawn in black mascara over half his face.
He carried what looked like a midget-sized eight-string guitar but was actually a ukulele borrowed from Ruben, the bartender at the Mirage Saloon.
“ ‘You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog,’ ” Elvis sang while Elfis himselfis lip-synched the words, driving the crowd mad with delight.
Oleg Gridley had all the moves. He did a bump. He did a grind. He’d turned his back to the raucous crowd and shook his booty. He was, to Portia Cassidy, adorable.
“This, ladies and gentlemen,” Ruth bellowed over the horn, “is show business!”
Bitch Cassidy jumped off the bar stool and wildly applauded her relentless suitor.
Toward the end of his number, Oleg Gridley parted the crowd and waddled right up to Bitch Cassidy showing her the best miniature Elvis impression the Coachella Valley was ever likely to see.
He lip-synched, “ ‘You ain’t never caught a rabbit and you ain’t no friend of miiiine!’ ”
And Portia Cassidy nearly swooned right on top of the midget. Ruth the Sleuth was so proud.
The detectives had to sit through one more lip-synched Elvis classic. Oleg stood on a bar stool and “sang”
“Love Me Tender” to Bitch Cassidy who was drunk enough to get all teary-eyed, resigning herself to a midget in her bed.
Only Beavertail Bigelow, drunk and surly as usual, didn’t get a bang out of Oleg’s performance. In fact, he looked downright mad. He staggered out of his chair while the crowd was screaming “Encore!” and demanding a curtain call. He strode right up to the midget and accused him of larceny: “That’s Clyde Suggs’ uke! Where’d you get that uke, you little thug?”
“Get away from me less you want it in your hat!” Oleg warned. “They don’t serve Beefeater highballs in the intensive-care unit!”
“He stole this uke from Clyde Suggs,” Beavertail announced to the crowd, who lost interest since Beavertail was obviously in his fight-picking mode, and in these parts that was as predictable as big wind.
“I found this uke out in Solitaire Canyon,” Beavertail Bigelow accused. “I sold this uke to Clyde Suggs.”
Of course, by now nobody in the saloon was even listening to all this bullshit. Everyone had returned to drinking, dancing, griping, lechering. Except for Officer O. A. Jones, who gave up trying to seduce a Palm Desert bankteller and approached the surly desert rat.
“Where in Solitaire Canyon did you find it, Beavertail?” O. A. Jones asked.
“By the road that goes up the hill. Past the fork.”
“Can I see that, Oleg?” O. A. Jones asked the angry midget who said, “Sure. I don’t know what this rat’s talking about. We borrowed it from Ruben over at the Mirage Saloon. Ruth and Annie were with me.”
“Then he stole it from Clyde Suggs,” Beavertail said, looking for justice somewhere in this miserable fucking world.
“Why don’t you go back to your table, Beavertail,” O. A. Jones said. “I’ll take over this big larceny investigation.”
“Probably let that rich pygmy bribe you outta doing your duty,” Beavertail complained, but did as he was told.
“Be right back,” O. A. Jones said to Oleg Gridley, who was now snuggled up to Portia Cassidy, basking in all the attention, wondering how he could drink the freebies that were being bought by his admiring public.
“See, you don’t have to be an evil disgusting pervert when you put your mind to it,” Portia Cassidy cooed to the now popular midget. “You can be awful sweet and nice.”
“Portia,” Oleg said somberly. “I do have a confession to make. I got a real ugly dingus. One night last year Maxine Farble slammed the window on it when I was sneaking outta her bedroom cause her old man came home early. And the biggest woody I ever get might look to you like a belly button.”
“Size and beauty ain’t important,” said Bitch Cassidy, nuzzling up to the brand-new celebrity, Elfis himselfis. “I don’t care if you gotta jerk off with tweezers.”
Sidney Blackpool was about to tell Otto Stringer that they could get started for the canyon when he looked up and saw the surfer cop holding a ukulele.
“This might be the banjo,” O. A. Jones said.
It took ten minutes to trace enough of the Mineral Springs ukulele odyssey to get an idea that this could indeed be the stringed instrument heard by O
. A. Jones one day last year when he discovered the burned corpse of Jack Watson.
“It sounded like a banjo,” the young cop explained.
“It’s a strange-looking uke,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Wish I knew something about ukes. Eight strings. What would a regular uke have?”
“Four, I think,” Otto said.
“Maybe it’s got nothing to do with the case,” O. A. Jones said. “Maybe somebody just lost a uke sometime, back there in the canyon.”
“It’s at least worth checking out,” Sidney Blackpool said.
It was a finely made old instrument. There was a maker’s tag on the head of the ukulele that read C.F. MARTIN amp; CO., NAZARETH, PA. Sidney Blackpool recorded that information in his notebook.
“Tell you what,” he said to O. A. Jones. “Let’s keep an evidence chain intact in case this amounts to something. You hold on to this uke personally. Tell the bartender at the Mirage Saloon you’re going to borrow it for a couple days.”
“I better call Palm Springs detectives tomorrow,” O. A. Jones said.
“Don’t do that … yet,” Sidney Blackpool said, and this caused Otto to do a take. “The detective that worked on the case’s outta town. Don’t tell anyone about this. I’ll make a few calls and if it seems promising I’ll notify Palm Springs. We can book it down there as evidence if and when the time comes. Okay?”
“Okay.” O. A. Jones shrugged, strumming the uke a few times. “Maybe I oughtta try this out on that sexy little bank teller who keeps shining me on. It worked for Oleg.”
“I’ll contact you in a couple days about the uke,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Remember, don’t talk about it to anyone.”
“By the way,” the surfer cop said, “I heard an old-time singer on the Palm Springs station that sounds like the voice I heard that day. Guy named Rudy Vallee.”
Suddenly, Maynard Rivas who had been almost into a crying jag because so many scum buckets were suing cops these days came very close to his first Indian war whoop. “There’s a cricket in my chili!” he screamed at J. Edgar Gomez.
“That’s a dirty lie!” the saloonkeeper yelled back, up to his elbows in slimy water at the bar sink. “There ain’t no crickets in my freaking chili!”
The Secrets of Harry Bright Page 19
