“Who knows him best?” Otto asked.
“That’s easy,” said Billy Hightower. “The other sergeant. Coy Brickman knows Harry best. He used to work with Harry at San Diego P.D. years ago. He’s Harry’s best friend, far as I know.”
“One other thing,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Earlier tonight we saw you drive your bike down toward the tamarisk trees where they found the Watson car. Why’d you do that?”
“The other day I saw that young cop O. A. Jones nosin around the canyon. I got curious if there was somethin new after all this time. Then today before it got dark, I was comin in from the post office and I saw another cop back there goin over the place. It looked like Coy Brickman, and I think, what is this shit? Then tonight I see your Toyota back there. I already heard all about you from the other night at the Eleven Ninety-nine.”
“You don’t miss much, Billy.” Sidney Blackpool grinned.
“Mineral Springs ain’t much, man. We reduced the size a our world considerably.”
Suddenly they heard footsteps on the gravel outside and Billy Hightower held a thick finger up to his lips. He tensed, and then smiled and said, “Come on in, Shamu, you clumsy motherfucker, before somebody shoots you down like a coyote.”
The door opened and a man entered who was just a little shorter than Billy Hightower. He weighed less than a tractor. He wore a Greek sailor’s cap over black hair that could scour every griddle in the House of Pancakes. A gray-streaked black beard exploded from a grimy face studded with blackheads. He wore the inevitable boots and filthy denim. His belt buckle was turquoise and silver, about the size of a turkey platter. He wore turquoise and silver Indian rings on six fingers so scarred and battered they looked like chunks of jagged coral. And he was drunk. Mean drunk with a wired look as though he’d been mixing booze and crank.
“Where’s Gina?” he said, glaring at the two detectives.
“Takin a shower,” Billy Hightower said.
“In here, baby!” Gina yelled from the bathroom. “I washed my hair! I’ll be right out!”
“What the fuck these porkers doin? Gina told me you sent her to bring em up here!”
“They ain’t dope cops,” Billy Hightower said. “They’re workin on that murder where the Rolls was dumped in the canyon.”
“Cops is cops,” Shamu said, and he lurched sideways when he tried to lean on the doorjamb. “They all smell the same.”
“Gina!” Billy Hightower yelled. “Come on out here and get Shamu home to bed. He ain’t in a good mood tonight. How bout a beer, brother?”
“You got no right to bring em up here,” Shamu said, and now he was glaring at Billy Hightower, his lip sullen and drooping.
“I use my own judgment,” Billy Hightower said, his voice as soft and cool as a prison yard. “I’m the president.”
“You’re a smart-mouth fuckin nigger that’s jist gettin too big for your boots is what you are,” Shamu said. “Where’s my woman?”
“She ain’t your woman, brother,” Billy Hightower said. “She’s her woman. She can do what she wants on this hill. With anybody she wants to do it with. Remember the rules.”
“GINA!” Shamu bellowed, as Otto waited for the windows to shatter.
Otto was one unhappy Hollywood detective a long way from home. Shamu looked like one of those Cossacks who only drank champagne so they could eat the glass.
The girl came out fully clothed, drying hair that now looked sandy instead of mousy brown.
“Get your ass home, you cunt!” the boozy giant said. “I din’t tell you to come over here’n jump outta your clothes.”
“I’m comin Shamu, just lemme get …”
He hit her so hard with his open palm that her body jerked sideways and knocked over a table lamp before thudding to the floor beside the sofa. She lay there weeping.
“You jist insulted me,” Billy Hightower said, standing up very slowly. “You jist used violence in my house on one a my guests. You broke the rules.”
The bearded behemoth looked as though he wasn’t mad anymore. He started to giggle, as though he was suddenly in a wonderful mood. He lowered his head and charged. The crash of bodies sent nearly six hundred combined pounds of outlaw flesh hurtling into the tiny kitchen, collapsing the table like a shoe box.
Both detectives leaped up and started to come to Billy Hightower’s aid, but in the hug of Shamu, and writhing in pain, he yelled, “STAY OUTTA THIS!”
Then the two bikers, grunting like grizzlies, staggered back into the living room where Shamu braced against the wall and got Billy Hightower in a very good choke hold.
“Jist … jist … like … like the cops do it!” he grinned, as he applied the forearm and bicep to Billy Hightower’s throat, pinching the carotid artery.
Sidney Blackpool was making a move to use a kitchen chair on Shamu’s skull when Billy Hightower took three short strangling breaths, puffed his cheeks, dropped his chin and clamped down on Shamu’s hairy forearm with those huge broken teeth.
It took perhaps three seconds, but then Shamu began howling. He leaped away from Billy Hightower as if the Cobra leader was on fire. Billy Hightower, with Shamu’s blood dripping down his chin, fell back against the wall wheezing and holding his throat.
“MY ARM. LOOK AT MY FUCKIN ARM!” the bearded biker roared.
There was a flap of skin and muscle hanging loose, and Otto Stringer thought he could see a tendon wriggling like a nightcrawler. Shamu was still staring in shock and pain at his ravaged arm when Billy Hightower drove his fist straight in like a saber thrust. He hit Shamu in the solar plexus and the giant crashed back against the wall blowing like an elephant. Then Billy Hightower did it again. The same shot in the same spot and Shamu’s head shuddered and his teeth cracked shut like a trap and he genuflected. Then Billy Hightower stepped back and affected a grin with black blood-flecked lips and said, “Don’t … don’t never try to choke out a … a hard-core street cop!” Then he added, “I gotta … gotta mark you for this. Sorry, my man.”
He took a step and kicked the giant in the side of the face with his boot. Shamu hit the floor like an anvil. Sounding like one lung had collapsed and the other was going.
“Shamu!” Gina cried, running to the fallen giant. “Baby, baby!”
“You guys better go now,” Billy Hightower said. “I kin handle this.”
There wasn’t anything to say so they didn’t try. Sidney Blackpool and Otto righted some of the overturned furniture as Shamu rolled over on his stomach. Attempting to kneel. Attempting to breathe.
“I kin do that,” Billy Hightower said when Otto plugged in the lamp and put it back on the table.
The bearded biker was now braying in pain and sobbing, “Gina! Gina! I hurt!”
“I know, baby!” she said. “I know.” Then she said, “Billy, help me get Shamu outside.”
Billy Hightower grabbed Shamu around the belt, saying, “Okay. It’s okay. I got ya. You’re okay.”
“I’m sorry, Billy,” Shamu blubbered.
“I know,” Billy Hightower nodded. “We jist gonna forgit all about it tomorra.”
That was the last the detectives saw of them, the troglodyte and the tattooed girl, hobbling down the road to their shack where the shower didn’t work but wasn’t needed very often.
The detectives were standing in the darkness when Billy Hightower said, “Kin you walk back to your car? I ain’t feelin too good.”
“You oughtta go to a doctor,” Otto said.
The outlaw biker shuffled bent and wounded toward the door. He turned and watched the detectives walking down the gravel road. It obviously hurt to speak but he said, “I … I didn’t mind talkin to you guys tonight. Maybe some time we could …” Then he thought it over and shook his head and started to shut the door. But at the last second, just before it closed, he said, “This ain’t a bad life. These people, they want me.”
CHAPTER 13
OMENS
Sidney Blackpool chain smoked all the way back to the hotel. Ot
to had to open the window to breathe, shivering in the night air that blew through the canyons.
“Making any sense yet, Sidney?” Otto finally asked.
“I dunno. Sometimes part of it does, then it doesn’t.”
“A dope dispute? Naw, we ain’t talking big dopers. How about a straight rip-off by the Cobras? They set up the gay boys in the bar, bring them up to the canyon with a promise of low-priced crank and waylay them.”
“Why two cars then? Why was Jack Watson in the Rolls and Terry and the marine in the Porsche?”
“Yeah, and why wouldn’t Terry step up and tell his story right away if he saw somebody kill his pal? Especially after the reward was posted.”
“Maybe he was already outta town by then. Anyway, Billy Hightower says he’s sure his people didn’t do it. Billy does seem to have effective interrogation methods.”
“And what’s Harry Bright got to do with it? And why’s Coy Brickman nosing around out there now that we’re stirring things up?”
“There’s always the possibility that Terry planned the kidnap and ransom of his pal Jack with the help of Bright or Brickman,” Sidney Blackpool said.
“Should call this place Urinal Springs, you ask me,” Otto said. “The whole place stinks, far as I’m concerned. It’s like the city of Gorki, closed to foreigners. And we’re foreigners, baby.”
“First thing tomorrow let’s work on the uke. We’ll call the manufacturer. See what they can tell us. I wonder how many music stores there are in this valley? Not many, probably.”
“It’s hard to imagine Harry Bright involved in a murder, ain’t it?” Otto said.
“You never even met Harry Bright.”
“You’re right. This place is making me goofy. It ain’t real hard to think a Coy Brickman icing somebody down. Those eyes a his, probably the freaking buzzards got eyes like he’s got.”
“We gotta get this connection between Harry Bright and Coy Brickman. Maybe it started back in San Diego P.D.”
“What?”
“Whatever might make one a them or both a them kill Jack Watson.”
“We’re getting real close to where I say we call Palm Springs P.D. and cut them in on this, Sidney. We coulda bought it tonight, if that creature from the black lagoon turned on us instead a Billy Hightower.”
“Another day, Otto. Let’s see how it develops after one more day.”
“One more day,” Otto sighed. “Wonder if it’s too late for room service. I think I got me a live one after all. Something in my stomach just did a two and a half forward somersault, with a full twist.”
Sidney Blackpool wasn’t able to sleep. A double shot of Johnnie Walker Black didn’t help a bit. He could hear Otto snoring in the other bedroom.
He tried the technique taught by the police department to reduce stress. He concentrated on his toes, feet and ankles, gradually working up until his shoulders and neck and jaws began to relent. Sometimes he imagined himself in a meadow or in a solitary cottage in an isolated valley. Tonight he thought of lying on a blanket under a tamarisk tree, the shaggy branches wafting like an ostrich fan as his body contour settled into the warm sand. He slept soundly until just before daybreak when he had a dream.
It was a joyous dream, a triumph, a wonder. Of course, the dream took place before Tommy died. In the dream, Sidney Blackpool was alone, ankle deep in cool sand, atop the tallest dune in the desert. Though it wasn’t particularly hot in the desert he was pouring sweat from every pore. It was morning and yet there was no sun anywhere on the horizon. The moon was translucent white, and directly overhead. There were a few clouds scudding in the wind. It was a Mineral Springs kind of moaning wind and he was being sandblasted so badly he thought his flesh might tear, but he dug his feet deeper into the sand until it gripped his ankles like concrete. He believed that nothing could blow him off the dune.
He could hear the savage ocean surf crashing against the Santa Rosas on the far side, and some of it even lapped over the top of Mount San Jacinto and splashed down toward the tram car.
Suddenly the moon was not overhead. His heart nearly stopped because he thought he’d missed his chance! Then he saw that it was hovering over the mountain peak.
Sidney Blackpool extended his arms, his body a cross buried in the sand. The sun appeared over the Santa Rosas, a fireball powering upward. When the sun was precisely atop the peak of Mount San Jacinto, he started screaming.
It wasn’t a scream of pain or rage or terror, it was a scream of absolute triumph and joy. He was holding them at bay, the sun and moon. The sun could not rise, the moon could not set. Sidney Blackpool held them powerless with his outstretched arms and his scream of triumph. Time could not advance. He was making time stand still.
Now there could be no waves crashing, no floating coffin. He would spend eternity alone in the desert screaming with his lungs and his heart. He would never see Tommy Blackpool again, but Tommy would live. This was his destiny.
No man had ever known such joy. His happiness was so great that he awoke weeping. He tried to muffle his sobs with the pillow so Otto wouldn’t hear him.
Because of the three-hour time difference between California and Pennsylvania, Sidney Blackpool was finished talking with the man at the Martin Guitar Company long before Otto came shuffling into the sitting room in his underwear, scratching his balls.
“I bet I could get rid a this blubber if I only slept thirty minutes a night like you,” Otto said to his partner who was showered, shaved and dressed, with a legal pad full of notes in front of him.
“Morning, bright eyes,” Sidney Blackpool said to Otto. “Here’s what I found out from the guitar company. It’s a very rare ukulele, called a Taro Patch. Probably made between 1915 and 1920. The old Hawaiians loved its sweet sound. Liked to play it while they watched the taro grow.”
“I need some breakfast,” Otto said. “I can’t figure out whose tongue I got in my mouth.”
“This kind of ukulele wouldn’t be found in a regular music store. It’d be the kind of antique to end up in a pawnshop. The good news is there’re only six pawnshops in this whole valley.”
“The bad news is it might not’ve been bought in this valley,” Otto said.
“That’s a possibility,” Sidney Blackpool agreed. “But look on the up side. Don’t be so morbid.”
While Otto ordered a titanic breakfast from room service, Sidney Blackpool took notes and smoked and waited anxiously for the hour when a pawnshop would open. It made him think of the dream for an instant, the yearning to manipulate Time. He got one of those shivers in his heart and swelling in the throat, but he pushed it away. He started calling before nine o’clock but pawnshop proprietors in the desert valley are in no hurry. Otto was finishing breakfast before Sidney Blackpool started making contact.
It was on his fourth call that he reached a man who said, “Yes, I know what a Taro Patch uke is. I played one nearly fifty years ago on Catalina Island. It’s a wonderful instrument.”
“I’m Sergeant Blackpool, Los Angeles Police Department. We’re investigating a crime involving a Taro Patch uke. Have you ever had one in your shop? Anytime in the last few years, if you can remember?”
“Matter a fact I had one maybe two years ago,” the pawnbroker said. “Shoulda kept it, but you can’t keep everything. Wished I’d a kept it though. Never gonna see another.”
“Would you have your records from two years ago?” Sidney Blackpool raised a fist at Otto. “I have to know about it for an important police investigation.”
“Can I call you back? I can’t remember who brought it in. Some trucker from Blythe, I think. It ain’t my fault if it was stolen. I always take identification and comply with the law.”
“Don’t worry,” Sidney Blackpool said. “I’m really only interested in finding out who bought it. We found it and wanna return it to its owner.”
“Well, that I can tell you soon as I look up his name. He was in uniform, I know that. A policeman. From maybe Indio P.D.”
> “How about Mineral Springs P.D.?” Sidney Blackpool asked.
“Could a been,” the pawnbroker said.
“Wonder if his name was Harry Bright?”
“That don’t sound familiar,” the pawnbroker said. “Lemme look it up and call you right back.”
“I’ll wait,” Sidney Blackpool said.
“I better get my ass in the shower,” Otto said. “We ain’t playing golf today.”
He hadn’t finished toweling off from the shower when he heard Sidney Blackpool say into the phone, “Yes. Yes. Okay. Thanks very much. Yes, we’ll see that he gets it back. Thanks very much.”
Otto stepped out of the bathroom saying, “Well?”
“Coy Brickman,” Sidney Blackpool said. “He bought the uke just over two years ago. That means he owned it long before the Watson murder.”
“I really don’t like this, Sidney,” Otto said. “He’s a policeman. We shouldn’t be playing this lone hand, not on this case.”
“We haven’t got a damn thing yet, Otto. Just pieces. We’ll call Palm Springs P.D. tomorrow morning one way or the other.”
“And we’ll do it before I even have my breakfast,” Otto Stringer said, looking his partner dead in the eye. “I mean it, Sidney!”
By 10:00 A.M. they were yet again on their way to Mineral Springs, causing Otto to say, “Why don’t we just get a room next door to the Eleven Ninety-nine? We could save Victor Watson a whole lotta hotel expenses, not to mention all this wear and tear on your car.”
“We gotta be careful talking to Paco Pedroza,” Sidney Blackpool said. “In fact, maybe we shouldn’t talk to him.”
“We gotta level with somebody,” Otto said. “Unless you think even the chief’s involved in this nutty case.”
“I don’t know who might be involved. First rule of homicide investigation …”
“I know, I know. Everybody’s a suspect,” Otto said. “Even an old lady in an iron lung.”
The Secrets of Harry Bright Page 21
