The Secrets of Harry Bright

by Joseph Wambaugh

  After the image of Tommy running bloody through the house finally faded, Sidney Blackpool said, “Oh, Tommy!” It was all he could say. This was his secret. Victor Watson had his and Harry Bright had his.

  He had the dream that night. In the dream Tommy Blackpool at the age of twelve was watching a football game on television, displaying that special sort of chuckling grin of his. In the dream Sidney Blackpool was still with his wife, Lorie, and he took her aside and made her promise not to tell the wondrous new secret: that he had willed Tommy back! At least his essence. But only for them to know.

  As always, the dream ended when she said, “Sid, we can enjoy him forever now! But you mustn’t tell him he’s going to die when he’s eighteen! You mustn’t tell him!”

  “Oh, no! I’ll never tell him that!” he said to his wife in the dream. “Because now he loves me. And … and now he forgives me. My boy forgives me!”

  As always, he woke up sobbing, and smothering in his pillow.

  For once, his partner was up first. In fact, when Sidney Blackpool dragged himself out of bed with a headache almost bad enough to make him fear a stroke, he was surprised to see that Otto Stringer had gone. He looked at his watch and saw it was after nine, the latest he’d slept since arriving. He showered, shaved and stared at his swollen jaw. His face was done in desert pastels. He ate a light breakfast in the suite and vomited it back up almost immediately.

  He checked out of the hotel at 1:00 P.M. and walked the boulevards of Palm Springs until 2:30 P.M. Then he drove to the Watson home.

  When Harlan Penrod admitted him and saw his damaged face he said, “My gosh! What happened to you? Mister Watson called and said he was coming to meet you. Did you get Terry Kinsale? Is he the one who …”

  “No, he’s not, Harlan,” Sidney Blackpool said. “How about getting me some coffee.”

  “Sure, but tell me who …”

  “Don’t ask me any questions, Harlan. I’ll tell it to Mister Watson. Jack was his kid. Ask him.”

  “But …”

  “Don’t ask me a single question.”

  “Okay. Except how do you like your coffee?”

  Victor Watson arrived from Palm Springs Airport by taxi. He wasn’t even in the house long enough to shake hands with Sidney Blackpool before he said, “Harlan, take the car down and gas it up, will you?”

  “It’s full, Mister Watson.” Harlan said, “Can I get …”

  “Go to a movie, Harlan. Come back at six o’clock. Please.”

  “Sure, Mister Watson,” the houseboy said, looking at the grim set of Sidney Blackpool’s mouth.

  “Look at you, Sidney!” Victor Watson said. “What happened?”

  “Cactus,” Sidney Blackpool said. “The desert’s full a dangers for guys like me.”

  “Tell all of it, Sid. All of it.”

  They went into the study and Victor Watson sat behind his desk while the detective sat across the room on a sofa.

  Sidney Blackpool told almost all of it. There was nothing to gain by naming Coy Brickman. He told Victor Watson about Terry Kinsale, and about his driving Jack Watson’s Porsche, and about the gun that was missing and which no doubt was the weapon used to kill Jack during a misguided act of mercy by a sick drunken cop. He protected Coy Brickman by implying that Harry Bright probably disposed of the gun himself.

  It was nearly dark when he finished. Victor Watson had asked very few questions during the narrative. He sat staring at Sidney Blackpool and missed not a word. His eye sockets became progressively more hollow in the shadow from desert twilight. He looked even older than Sidney Blackpool remembered him. The detective consumed three glasses of water during the dissertation. He’d never felt more parched. He was slightly dizzy and a bit nauseated, like a diabetic. His jaw ached but he did not want a Johnnie Walker Black. He wanted to end this thing cold sober.

  By the time the detective had finished, Victor Watson’s eyes were invisible. Sidney Blackpool was staring at empty sockets and could only imagine the granite irises.

  Harry Bright had unforgettable eyes. When he’d crept close to his bed he could see them staring in their sockets: beautiful blue eyes. Victor Watson had no eyes at all. Sidney Blackpool looked at his water glass and waited.

  When Victor Watson spoke, he said, “I accept full responsibility for the tragic event.”

  Sidney Blackpool was about to console, to tell him that Jack’s death was not his father’s fault.

  But Victor Watson said, “I should never’ve brought you into this case. Not you, Sidney. I believed we might have a kind of bonding, you and me. I felt, upon hearing about you, that it was …”

  “An omen!” Sidney Blackpool said.

  “Yes. Now I see it was just a mistake. A foolish tragic mistake.”

  “Whadda you mean, Mister Watson? What mistake?”

  “Perhaps my time in psychotherapy is worth something after all,” Victor Watson said. “I see myself in you. The way I was. The rage. The confusion. The guilt.”

  “I don’t understand, Mister Watson.”

  “I know you don’t, Sidney. I know. Call it a form of transference, but labels aren’t important. You’ve projected feelings from your life, feelings about your own lost son into this investigation. Can’t you see that?”

  “But Mister Watson …”

  “It’s my fault. It’s all my fault. I saw in you a lost father of a lost boy who might succeed where others … well, I was right, and being right I was terribly wrong. I’m sorry to have done this to you.”

  “Please, Mister Watson, I don’t understand!” Sidney Blackpool moved to the edge of the sofa but still could not see eyes in the hollow sockets. If only he could read the eyes. An investigator had to see the eyes!

  “My son Jack,” Victor Watson said, “was the finest, brightest, most loving young man you would ever meet.”

  “I believe that, Mister Watson.”

  “Our relationship had the normal stresses of fathers and sons, but I think we handled it.”

  “I believe that,” Sidney Blackpool said, and knocked over the empty water glass reaching for a cigarette.

  “No one, but no one who had ever known Jack Watson could ever under any circumstances believe he was homosexual.”

  “I didn’t say …”

  “And no one, but no one, would ever believe he could be stupid enough … insane enough to drive up to that miserable canyon in the dead of night for any reason whatsoever, other than because a criminal held a gun to his head.” Then Victor Watson stood, but his eyes were still in darkness, backlit by the lamp. “A fact that was proved when a bullet was fired into his skull!”

  “Please, Mister Watson, please …”

  Victor Watson sat back down in the chair and said, “I find it all very interesting, what you’ve told me. It’s interesting that there’s a cop named Harry Bright who told somebody he shot my son while he was drunk.”

  “I’ll name the somebody, Mister Watson!” Sidney Blackpool cried out. “It’s Sergeant Coy Brickman! He told his friend, Sergeant Coy …”

  “Be quiet, please!” Victor Watson said. “I find it very interesting that an alcoholic cop possibly had a drunken hallucination when he heard about my son being found in the canyon where the cop slept off his drunken tour of duty. It’s particularly ironic that the drunk is himself the father of a lost son. That’s particularly ironic and very sad. But that’s all it is.…”

  “But Coy Brickman, Mister Watson! Coy Brickman went to the canyon. He saw …”

  “Did this Coy Brickman admit this to you, Sidney? Will he make that statement to me?”

  “No, Mister Watson. But I know it’s true.”

  “Did he admit that to you?”

  “He didn’t admit it, but …”

  “Will he admit it to anybody?”

  “He won’t admit it to anyone, Mister Watson. But I know …”

  “Sit back and try to be calm, Sidney,” Victor Watson said. “Try to understand what I’m saying to you.” />
  “My God,” Sidney Blackpool said. “My God!”

  “What I’ve put you through, I’ll regret forever. I had no idea how little you’d traveled from the grave of your own son. I tried to use your empathy, but now I’ve done considerable harm to you.”

  “My God, Mister Watson! This …”

  “I believe that Jack had a friendship with this boy, Terry Kinsale. If you say so. But even this boy hasn’t claimed that there was anything … unwholesome in that friendship. I believe that this boy borrowed Jack’s Porsche. I believe he was a narcotics user and that Jack discovered it and didn’t approve. I believe in the substance of all the facts you’ve uncovered. And I’m impressed by your diligence and skill. But what no one who has ever known my son could ever believe is that he was some sort of hysterical faggot! Who went trailing after some valet-parking boy up in …” Victor Watson stopped and massaged his brow and shook his head. “And everything else you’ve told me is your theory, your hypothesis, your supposition. Can you substantiate by any independent source any of these … ideas of yours?”

  “My partner, Otto Stringer,” Sidney Blackpool said quietly. “He might … he would agree with my hypothesis.”

  “I see he’s not even here, Sidney. It probably made the poor man uncomfortable to think of coming here and listening to your … unfortunate conclusions about a boy you’ve never known and obviously never will, not in any sense.”

  “Whadda you want from me, Mister Watson?” Sidney Blackpool pleaded.

  “Nothing more, Sidney,” Victor Watson said. “You’re a hell of a detective to’ve done as much as you did.”

  “The job, Mister Watson? The job!”

  “What job?”

  “Director of Security with Watson Industries! I’ve proved something, haven’t I? Even if you think my conclusions are wrong, you admit I’m a good investigator!”

  “We have lots of investigators,” Victor Watson said. “And we’ve decided to fill that position with one of our own. It instills organizational loyalty to promote from within. Even your police department always selects the chief from within.”

  “But this isn’t fair, Mister Watson!”

  “Sidney, you’ve been put through a lot by a foolish old man. And I’ve never felt more like an old man than I do today.”

  “It’s not fair, Mister Watson. This isn’t fair!”

  “Sidney, of all people, you should know that life isn’t fair.”

  “All right, now listen to me, Mister Watson. This whole case … maybe there’s an evil design here! You and me and Harry Bright? I thought it was all a fucking accident!”

  “What?”

  “Everything! But maybe I was wrong! I need more time to think!”

  “About what?”

  “This case. Maybe there’s a kind of design. Right now it’s drifting on me. Like sand in the wind!”

  Now Victor Watson showed him his eyes. He switched on the desk lamp and removed a checkbook from the drawer. “I want to pay you for your services.”

  Sidney Blackpool stood up, and came forward like a sleepwalker. “I have most a the expense money here. I can’t use it now.”

  “I want you to keep that and I want to write you a check.”

  “Not now.” Sidney Blackpool threw the envelope on the desk. “Not now.”

  “Sidney, I think it’s urgent that you talk to your police psychiatrist.”

  “I don’t …”

  “Listen to me, please,” Victor Watson said. “I’ll share a secret with you. I hope it helps. Sometimes, Sidney, sometimes the father of a dead son has to be careful not to turn the awful outrage against the boy. Sometimes he might come to feel that the son failed in his obligation to survive the father. Don’t confuse your torment with mine, Sidney. My son didn’t fail me. My son was murdered. Now I beg you. Take the money.”

  Sidney Blackpool stared with eyes as bright as desert gemstone and said, “I can’t. It wouldn’t do any good now. It’s too late.”

  EPILOGUE

  THE SECRET

  It was nearly 10:00 P.M. when Sidney Blackpool found himself approaching Mineral Springs. He’d started out driving aimlessly and suddenly found himself here. He was surprised to be here and yet he wasn’t. He was clutching at a shapeless idea. It was just beyond his grasp, a flitting sparkling image. The elusive fireflies would almost alight. Then they’d flutter. It was something very familiar, but kept drifting away.

  He drove down the main street and saw Beavertail Bigelow staggering into the Eleven Ninety-nine Club. He proceeded to the other side of town and turned left on Jackrabbit Road. He drove to the end of the cul-de-sac and parked his car. He got out and walked to the door of Harry Bright’s mobile home and saw that the broken door had been temporarily nailed shut. He cut his finger on a nail trying to straighten it. Finally, he went to the Toyota and got a screwdriver. He pried the nails loose from the door frame. He jerked it open and entered the mobile home and turned on the light.

  Harry Bright’s easy chair felt wonderful. He saw that his finger was bleeding on the arm of the chair and he wiped the blood on his shirt. He looked at the wardrobe closet, at an empty holster that would never be filled, not with the same gun. He had to smile, a crooked smile like the one he’d seen on Patsy Bright. Good thing Harry Bright’s gun wasn’t there. Good thing.

  Then he got up and went into the kitchen and found a fifth of bourbon. It would do. He poured a water glass full of it and went back to the easy chair. He sat and drank and watched the fireflies flitting across his mind.

  He got up and went to the videocassette machine. He turned it on and rewound the spool to the beginning. Then he opened the other cabinet door and switched on Harry Bright’s modest little sound system. He took the tape that Coy Brickman had shoved in his pocket and slid it into the machine. Then he rewound it. When everything was ready, he switched on the television, but turned the volume all the way down. He punched the play buttons on both machines and went over to Harry Bright’s easy chair and made himself comfortable.

  While sitting in Harry Bright’s chair and drinking Harry Bright’s whiskey he watched The Enchanted Cottage. Since he knew what was happening he didn’t need its sound. Instead, he listened to Harry Bright saying, “This is happy Harry Bright coming to you from the Mineral Springs Palladium out on Jackrabbit Road …”

  While Harry Bright sang “Make Believe” and Sidney Blackpool watched The Enchanted Cottage, the fireflies in his mind flitted away. The elusive sparkling image took shape. He settled back and felt the way one feels when a fever finally breaks: tired, tingling, yet strangely restful. Pretty soon he felt a kind of peace that scared him and excited him.

  The sand had stopped drifting. He wished he could share this with Victor Watson but knew he must tell no one. Not ever. At last he understood. The dream about Tommy Blackpool. Where he could re-create his son. Or the essence of his son.

  His heart stalled from the joy of it. Now it was perfectly clear. As clear and pure as the desert sky at dawn. He was so happy he began to weep. Now he owned it. It was his and his alone: the merciful magical secret of Harry Bright.

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