The Secrets of Harry Bright

CHAPTER 15

They walked into Poppa’s Place only ten minutes before Terry Kinsale was to have been there at 6:00 P.M. It was already very dark in the desert.

The happy-hour-well drinks were about the cheapest in this part of the valley and were poured by three bartenders who hardly had time to scoop up the tips. It was the noisy, intensely raucous crowd often found in busy gay bars. Sidney Blackpool made a quick head count and guessed there were two hundred men drinking. It was standing room only.

“We’ll have to split up, Otto,” he said. “No point even trying to get a drink in this mob.”

“I had enough,” Otto said morosely.

“Think you can recognize him from the picture?”

“I don’t know if I could recognize my ex-wife,” Otto said. “The second one. I know I couldn’t recognize the first one.”

“Wish we could get you some coffee.”

“I need the Schick Shadel Hospital,” Otto said.

The detectives managed to find space in the center of the dark saloon, and each began scanning the crowd. It was a pub crowd, an eclectic mix of professional, businessman and working stiff, with a few marines and bikers mixed in. And there were lots of young blonds, most of whom wouldn’t accommodate them by turning for a full face look. A cheering group caused Otto to slouch over to a table where seven men were literally sitting on each other’s laps. There was a race in progress. The entries in the race were little plastic windup toys that hopped from one end of the table to the other. All the entries were realistic plastic penises. Each one wore the markings and colors of the owner. Blue ribbons, paper valentines, tiny photos of a lover, all adorned the jolly peckers.

“Well, at least this reminds me a Hollywood,” Otto said to Sidney Blackpool. “Now if I see Sirhan Sirhan and a William Morris agent arm in arm with the Hillside Stranglers, and they’re all talking a development deal, I’ll know I’m home.”

A man in his seventies with a mournful face and sagging jowls stared hopefully at a lad with an amused smile who leaned against the wall. The young man was dressed in an oversized street-urchin tunic and winked at the elderly man who mouthed the words of the song coming from the Palm Springs station. It was Marlene Dietrich singing “Falling in Love Again” from The Blue Angel.

“He even looks like Dietrich,” Sidney Blackpool observed.

“Her voice is probably a lot deeper,” Otto whispered. “This ain’t gonna work cause I’m about to faint. And if I faint I’m scared I might wake up at the Honeymoon Motel in a slave bracelet and a tutu. They got more fruits around here than an English boarding school.”

“We gotta give it an hour,” Sidney Blackpool said. “This could be the break.”

“I know, I know,” Otto said. “I’m just getting all these bad feelings about this whole case. This ain’t a regular investigation. Something very weird’s going on and it ain’t just in this saloon.”

“You feel it too,” Sidney Blackpool said. And that surprised him. Otto was not the lost father of a lost son. Otto was just a twice-divorced, sixteen-year cop suffering from mid-life crisis and police burnout. Otto was just a run-of-the-mill big-city detective.

They waited for an hour and were about to leave when Otto said, “Sidney!” grabbing his partner like a beat cop grabs a drunk. “It’s him!”

The young man was into the Calvin Klein, Santa Monica Boulevard, chic marine, gay fantasy look. That is, his white cotton T-shirt was not bought at Penney’s. The jeans were not Levi Strauss. The leather flying jacket was not U.S. Air Force issue. His haircut resembled a marine buzz but with decorator highlights. Both cops immediately looked behind him for the buyer of the fantasy duds, but the young man was alone.

The kid obviously didn’t know whom he was to meet, and kept himself prominently in view near the center of the barroom so that the emissary of the forgotten sugar daddy with the Rolex could spot him.

Terry Kinsale looked at his non-Rolex, then glanced nervously about the bar. Sidney Blackpool walked up behind him and said, “Hi, Terry. It’s me, Sid.”

“Sid?” He had taffy-colored hair and tight little ears. He was taller than the detectives and looked as fit as a tennis pro. It would be very hard for two over-the-hill cops to handle this kid in this environment, and both knew it.

“Phil asked me to give you the Rolex, Terry.”

“Have we met?” the kid asked, studying Sidney Blackpool.

“You don’t remember, Terry?” the detective said. “That hurts a little bit.”

“I’m sorry. Maybe I should remember but …”

“You were with Phil when I met you at his house in Palm Springs.”

“Phil …” Terry Kinsale needed lots of help with this one. He looked hopefully at Sidney Blackpool.

“This is my friend, Otto,” the detective said, as his partner shouldered through a mob of newcomers who were pressing close enough to crack ribs.

“Hi, Terry,” Otto said. “I heard all about you. Wait’ll you see the Rolex. Sidney, let’s get outta here unless the oxygen masks are gonna drop real soon. I can hardly breathe.”

“Okay. Let’s go, Terry.”

“To where?” the kid asked, but he followed them. “Where’s the watch?”

“At Phil’s. He lives over near the tennis club. Don’t you remember?

“Is he there?”

“Phil got married,” Otto said. “To a girl?’

“Yeah,” Otto said. “That Phil’s a caution. He won’t be able to see you no more, but he did want you to have something to remember him by.”

“Sure, I think I remember Phil now!” the kid said, knocking himself on the side of the head. “Sorry I forgot. Tell the truth, I just got myself cleaned up. I was pretty heavy into drugs the past year.”

“Booze is bad enough, I can tell you,” Otto said, sincerely.

The young man looked disappointed upon seeing Sidney Blackpool’s Toyota. Phil and the Rolex apparently made him expect a richer emissary with new prospects.

Otto squeezed into the backseat, allowing Terry Kinsale to sit in front. Sidney Blackpool drove toward Palm Springs, not knowing exactly where the police department was, except that it was close to the airport.

When the detective followed an airport road sign the kid said, “Hey, this ain’t the way to the tennis club! You’re going the wrong way!”

Otto reached over the front seat with his police badge in his left hand. With his right, he began a pat down. “Just relax, boy,” he said. “We’re Los Angeles police officers and we wanna talk to you.”

“Police! Hey, wait a minute!”

“Freeze, or you’re going to sleep for a while,” Otto said, getting a loose choke hold around Terry Kinsale, while Sidney Blackpool speeded up the car to discourage thoughts of jumping.

Sidney Blackpool helped pat him down with his right hand, driving with his left.

“What’s this about?” Terry Kinsale said. “What’s this about?”

Sidney Blackpool found the police station easily enough. He pulled into the parking lot and stopped, turning off the engine and lights.

Otto said, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against …”

“Hey, I don’t care about that!” the kid yelled. “I wanna know what you think I did!”

“Quiet down, son,” Sidney Blackpool said. “We’ll tell you all that in a few minutes.”

Otto took his arm from Terry Kinsale’s neck and continued the rights advisement with his hand on the door lock. Terry Kinsale slumped dejectedly.

He responded to all the required questions about constitutional rights and lawyers, and then he said, “I got nothing to hide, sir. I just wanna get this over with, whatever it is. In fact, I was gonna come in here to the police station to register as a hotel worker. I just got a job as a bellman. I don’t do drugs no more and I got a new apartment and a new roommate. I got nothing to hide.”

“Let’s go inside, Sidney,” Otto said.

“Just a few questions first,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Let’s talk for a minute. Tell us, Terry, when did you first meet Jack Watson?”

“Is this about Jack? Wow!” the kid said. “I thought maybe somebody I did dope with last year was, you know, a narc or something. That’s what I thought this was about. Like, maybe some old deal where I sold a couple joints to some guy?”

The kid was so relieved that he looked happy, which made both cops very unhappy.

“I shoulda called the police about Jack soon as I heard he was killed. But it ain’t a crime that I didn’t. I didn’t know anything about his death. I was more shocked than anybody.”

“Where’d you meet him?” Otto asked.

“At a disco.”

“A gay disco?”

“A straight disco. I ain’t gay.”

“Of course not,” Otto said.

“No, really. I needed money last year. I did what I had to do to make money. But I ain’t gay.”

“Okay, so you met Jack. How’d it happen?”

“Just talking at the bar. About which girls looked good, and like that. He was my age. Nice guy. College type. He drove me home that night. We became friends.”

“Did he do drugs with you?” Otto asked.

“He wasn’t a druggie. Maybe smoked a little grass.”

“How about crystal?” Sidney Blackpool asked.

“Not Jack. I did crystal, I admit. Snorted it. I didn’t shoot it.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“Used to know this biker up in Mineral Springs. Name a Bigfoot. I called him when I wanted crystal.”

“How long did you know Jack?”

“About six months. Till he died. I was shocked, and that’s no lie.”

“How often did you see him?”

“About two, three weekends a month.”

“Every time he came to Palm Springs?”

“I guess so.”

“Did you ever sleep at his house?”

“No.”

“Did he ever sleep at your house?”

“Not all night. No.”

“Boy, I got a headache,” Otto said. “And I’m about to puke all over your pretty jacket. And I’m also about to book you for murder and let the Palm Springs cops sort it out. Now don’t fuck with us! You and Jack were lovers, right?”

“Not lovers. I’m not gay.”

“You had … experiences together,” Sidney Blackpool said, double-teaming him with the Mutt and Jeff routine.

“I guess so,” the kid said.

“Did he talk about his fiancée?”

“He didn’t wanna get married. His family was pushing him. His father’s a very strong guy, he told me.”

“How much did Jack like you?” Otto asked.

The kid hesitated for a second and stopped looking at his hands and turned to Sidney Blackpool, saying, “Lots more than I liked him. Man, I was running wild at that time. Jack was a serious guy. He had so many problems with his dad and his wedding plans that … I could see Jack and me could never go nowhere. It’d just be a lotta trouble for me, and I didn’t wanna, you know, tangle with his dad. But he … Jack liked me a lot. He was always calling me from college.” Then the kid stifled a sob and said, “And I liked him too. Jack was a good friend. I’d never hurt him.”

“Tell us about the night Jack was killed,” Sidney Blackpool said.

“About the night he was killed?”

“Son, I’m feeling more dangerous than an Arab with a truck full a dynamite,” Otto said in the kid’s ear. “My … patience is gone. You were in his Porsche that night!”

“You know about that?” the kid said, and this time he did sob. “That’s why I left Palm Springs! I was scared something like this’d happen. I was in his car but he wasn’t. I don’t know what happened to him out in that canyon.”

“Why’d you have Jack’s car?”

“I lied to him. He told me his housekeeper was outta town that night. He wanted me to spend the night with him.”

“Keep going, Terry,” Sidney Blackpool urged.

“I went over there to his house and told him I had to pick up my sister at the airport. I told him she came into town like all of a sudden and I needed to borrow his car. I said I’d take her to a hotel and come back and sleep … and, you know, spend the night at his house. He gave me the keys to the Porsche. Told me he’d be waiting. I never saw him again.”

“Then what’d you do?” Otto asked.

“well …”

“Go on, Terry,” Sidney Blackpool said gently.

“I wanted to show off the car to somebody.”

“Who’s that?”

“To some guy I knew. He was in town on a two-day pass. Some marine I’d met in a … gay bar. I liked him better than anyone. He was my best friend. You know what? Now all I can remember is his name was Ken. That’s what crystal does to you when you use as much as I did in those days.”

“So what’d you and Ken do?”

“We went to score some meth. I called Bigfoot but got no answer. So I went ahead and drove on up there to his house in Solitaire Canyon. We got there just when he was coming home from somewheres and he said he didn’t have no crystal. But he goes, ‘You guys sit in your car down at the end a the gravel road and wait.’ But pretty soon this other biker comes up. This huge black guy. He had a shotgun! He told us if we didn’t get out he was gonna kill us and feed us to his dogs. We went real fast.”

“Keep going. You’re doing just right,” Otto said.

“I can’t go no further. That’s it. I drove Ken back to my place and I took the car to Jack’s. He wasn’t home so I parked it in front and put the keys in his bedroom.”

“Now how the hell did you manage that?” Otto asked.

“I had the house keys on his key ring. In fact he told me that, you know, when I came back I should just come right in and …”

“And what?”

“And like … get ready for bed because he’d be … already in bed. Only he wasn’t there. And then I looked in the garage and his dad’s car was gone. That Rolls he always said he hated. I figured he was out looking for me.”

“Think very carefully,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Did Jack know you sometimes bought meth up there in Solitaire Canyon?”

“I don’t have to think about it. He knew because he went up there with me the second time I scored. He drove me up in his Porsche.”

“I thought you said he wasn’t a doper.”

“He wasn’t! But I begged him to drive me. I told him if he took me just once and loaned me the money for the crystal, like, I’d go to a de-tox center and clean up and never do it no more. Just like every doper says.”

“And that was how long before he died?”

“Maybe three weeks.”

“Did he know you hadn’t cleaned up?” Sidney Blackpool asked.

“He knew but he didn’t wanna know. He pretended to believe me. It was all make-believe, the way we were with each other. Just make-believe.”

“Wait a minute,” Otto said.

“Sir?”

“Nothing. Go ahead with the story,” Otto said.

“That’s the end a my story. I walked from the Watson house in Las Palmas to the gay bar where I left Ken. And we spent the night together. I read about Jack a couple days later.”

“And what’d you think?”

“I thought he must a went looking for me in the Rolls and maybe some biker shot him and drove his car off the canyon. They all have guns. They’re all crazy cranked-out animals!”

“And yet you didn’t call the Palm Springs police?” Otto asked.

“They started investigating the Cobras soon as the kidnapping stuff blew over! And they said on television a few days after Jack died that the F.B.I. was getting outta the case and the bikers were the best bet. What more could I tell them?”

“You coulda told them about the guy you scored from. About Bigfoot. Maybe he went to Bigfoot’s looking for you and got wasted. You coulda told them that,” Otto said.

“I was scared! I didn’t wanna get mixed up in a murder with the Cobras or anybody else!”

“How about the reward?”

“What reward?”

“You didn’t know Mister Watson posted a reward?”

“When?”

“About a week after the body was found. After the F.B.I. pulled out.”

“I was gone then. I went to Miami Beach for a couple months and worked in a hotel. Then I came back to California and got a job in La Jolla. I didn’t hear. How much?”

“Fifty grand,” Otto said.

“Fifty … let’s go!” the kid cried.

“Where?”

“Let’s go inside! I wanna make a statement! I want my name down in the police file! If it’s Bigfoot, I deserve the reward! Let’s go!”

Otto Stringer sat back in the seat and held his throbbing head. Sidney Blackpool just lit a cigarette and stared out the side window at the police parking lot. Terry Kinsale jumped out of the Toyota, anxious to get on the money list. He had lost his fear of Cobras and homicide cops.

“Come here, Terry,” Sidney Blackpool said. “What time was it when you were up in that canyon, where the big black biker scared you off?”

“I don’t know. That was over a year ago.”

“Try to think,” Sidney Blackpool said wearily. “What time did you say your sister’s plane was coming in when you lied to Jack?”

“Ten o’clock. I remember saying ten o’clock.”

“So you got the car at what time then?”

“Maybe nine-fifteen.”

“And you cruised the boulevard and you went to the gay bar and found your marine. How much time did that take?”

“Maybe an hour and a half.”

“What’d you and the marine do then?”

“We sat in the parking lot for a little bit. We decided to score the crystal. I called Bigfoot and didn’t get no answer so …”

“How long did that take?”

“Fifteen minutes maybe.”

“Then what?”

“Then we drove to Mineral Springs.”

“So you got to Mineral Springs about midnight or later?”

“I guess so.”

“You didn’t happen to see a burning Rolls-Royce anywhere off to the left of the canyon when you drove up the hill?”

“You kidding?”

“Okay. So sometime after you left the canyon, Jack Watson was up there looking for you?”

“Maybe.”

“Get back in the car, Terry. I’ll drive you home.”

“I wanna go inside! I wanna make my statement and …”

“I’ll pass it on tomorrow,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Bigfoot didn’t shoot anybody. He was with a very good alibi witness about that time.”

“Who’s that?”

“He was with the big black biker.”

“Maybe they both did it!”

“The black guy reported you to the police a few days after the car was found. You’re pointing at each other. Now get in the car and I’ll take you home.”

The young man walked dejectedly to the Toyota, got in and slammed the door. “I want that reward if those bikers got anything to do with it!” he said. “I wanna start a new life!”

“Don’t we all,” Sidney Blackpool said, starting his engine.

They dropped Terry Kinsale and then drove straight to the hotel to drop Otto who said he hadn’t felt so bad since his second wife got the house and the car.

“Don’t wake me when you come in, Sidney,” Otto said. “Even if it turns out Harry Bright’s ex-wife is the killer and her accomplice is Fiona Grout. Which I might believe right now. This place is even loonier than Hollywood.”

“It’s this case,” Sidney Blackpool said. “This case makes no sense on any level.”

“He didn’t shoot himself, Sidney,” Otto said. “He mighta been real heartsick about his boyfriend two-timing him, but he didn’t shoot himself. You saw the angle a that bullet in the report. And he was right-handed. Forget it if you wanna try’n prove he shot himself.”

“I know,” Sidney Blackpool said. “That leaves us with Coy Brickman and Harry Bright.”

“Sure. Or maybe it was a hitchhiker he picked up when he couldn’t find Terry. And maybe the hitchhiker turned out to be Mister Goodbar Junior, and he shot the kid and dumped the car up there and … I don’t know, Sidney, I gotta go to bed. Lemme outta here.”

“I’ll be awful late by the time I get to Thunderbird,” Sidney Blackpool said. “I better think up a story. See you in the morning.”

As Otto was walking away, he turned suddenly and yelled, “Sidney! Wait a minute. I almost forgot. I got an idea when the kid was telling us about Jack Watson. Maybe this is a nutty idea but …”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Terry said that him and Jack pretended things about each other. That their relationship was make-believe.”

“Yeah?”

“When the Mineral Springs cop was into heat exhaustion he thought the song was ‘Pretend.’ Now he decides it was ‘I Believe.’ I was thinking, you take ‘pretend’-like, the idea of pretend-and then you put it with the ‘believe.’ … Anyways, maybe a delirious guy mightta heard that other old song.”

“ ‘Make Believe’!”

“Yeah.”

“Otto, I told you you’d make a first-rate corpse cop!”

“Maybe we can play the song tomorrow. But on second thought I don’t know if it means anything anyways.”

“I don’t know either, but it’s the best thing I’ve heard all day.”

“I’m real happy you’re happy. Good night, Sidney.”

“Sleep well, Otto.”

He didn’t get to Thunderbird Country Club until after 9:00 P.M. He stopped at the kiosk and said, “I’m Sam Benton. Having dinner with Mrs. Decker. Did she clear me?”

The guard took his name on a clipboard and said, “Yes, sir. Have a good dinner.”

He parked and went straight to the dining room. “Mrs. Decker?” the hostess said. “She said she’d be waiting in the bar. That was some time ago.”

Next he went to the bar where the barman said, “Yes, I know Mrs. Decker. She was here for over an hour. Sorry, sir.”

Five minutes later he was driving the streets of Thunderbird Country Club. Her car registration had not said Thunderbird Cove or Thunderbird Heights so he figured the street must be around the golf course. There weren’t many streets and he found hers at 9:15 P.M. Two hours after the dinner date, he was ringing her bell, hoping that there wasn’t a maid or housekeeper at home.

The door opened. She was a little surprised and quite drunk. “I haven’t been stood up in a while. The sure sign I’m losing my grip. How’d you find my house?”

“I asked at the gate.”

“They’re not supposed to give the street address without calling.”

“I’m persuasive. Please, can I come in?”

“Just till I hear your excuse. I need a laugh.”

“I took a nap. I didn’t have a wake-up call because I didn’t think I could possibly sleep more than an hour. It’s this desert air. I’m mortified.”

“That’s not a fun story. That sounds too much like the truth. Well, maybe next time. Now I guess I should ask the strange man to say good night.”

“I’m not strange. I’ve known you for years.”

“We met years ago.”

“Please. A drink. I feel miserable.”

“One for Highway One eleven,” she said, opening the door wide, taking two unsteady steps. “I was wearing my new leather bolero suit for you,” she said. “Now you caught me in my jam-jams.”

They weren’t exactly jam-jams. It was a platinum nightgown and peignoir made in Italy and sold exclusively in Beverly Hills. It was ankle length and scalloped at the bottom and at the scooped neckline. It wasn’t enough to be wearing when one entertained strangers, but she didn’t seem to care. He figured he wasn’t the first man she’d encountered like this when her husband was away. Maybe not even the first this week.

The interior looked like a decorator package, desert style. All secondary colors, with lots of desert pastels, and glass-framed graphics chosen not by subject but to enhance the hues in fabric, carpets and wallpaper. The kind of package they’ll drop in for about $100,000. Not distinguished, but acceptable for a second home. They were all second or third or fifth homes for entertaining and easy living. One member of a desert course, a European industrialist, had thirty-one residences, each named, they said, for a Baskin-Robbins ice-cream flavor.

“Help yourself,” she said, waving in the direction of the wet bar before she wobbled to the sofa where her vodka awaited, a whole decanter of it.

He didn’t find any Johnnie Walker Black, but there was plenty of Cutty Sark. He poured four fingers, hesitated, poured in another shot and dropped in one ice cube.

“This isn’t amateur hour, I see,” she said.

“Haven’t had a drink all day.”

“Gonna catch up all at once, huh?”

She was slurring by now and weaved even while seated on the sofa. He wasn’t going to be catching up. Not with her. Not tonight.

“Can’t tell you how sorry I am about dinner,” he said.

“You’ve already told me. You did me a favor. I have to lose a few pounds.”

“Not by my reckoning,” he said, hitting at the Cutty very hard. He had to get a little drunk for this, but not too drunk.

“So what’ll we talk about? The old days at South Bay? You ever work Northern? That’s where I wanted Harry to work. But it was too fancy for him. La Jolla and all that. Called it a silk-stocking job. Of course, Harry was not a silk-stocking guy.”

She drank to that, then started to put the glass down, but took another drink.

“How’d you ever get out here in the desert?” he asked, thinking he should turn down the music. It was the Palm Springs oldie station.

“It’s where my husband wants to be. In the winter anyway. The air’s good for arthritis.”

“Oh, yes,” he said, and realized he was gulping. Mustn’t gulp.

“Bet you’re wondering,” she said, grinning over her vodka tumbler. “What?”

“How old he is. He’s twenty-nine years older than I am. And I’ll be goddamned if I’ll tell you how old that is.”

“You’re old like Lee Remick’s old,” he said.

“Wonder who does her cosmetic surgery. Mine’s done by the same guy who did our illustrious neighbor, Betty Ford.”

The obsession with age made Sidney Blackpool up his guess. She was maybe forty-five. Since he felt sixty he wondered how old she felt.

“So what else can we talk about?” She missed the onyx ashtray with her cigarette.

“It’s hard for me to really remember all that much about Harry,” Sidney Blackpool said. “When you leave the job it’s amazing how fast you forget.”

“I’ve noticed too.”

“Did you meet your present husband in San Diego?”

She nodded. “Shopping in Fashion Valley. Not that a cop’s wife could buy anything very fashionable. With Herb it was love at first sight. I sighted his Maserati and fell in love.”

Her eyes snapped like a whip. The look had so much defiance in it he figured she might be just about as guilt-ridden in her life as he was in his.

“How many years ago was that? Twelve? I was working Southern then, but I didn’t know Harry got a divorce. Guess he didn’t bitch about things like most cops. Like I did when I got my divorce.”

“Harry wouldn’t,” she said. “He’s not that kind of man. Pour me another one, will you? Just a touch.”

He took that as an offer to move to her sofa, so he did. His “touch” turned out to be a triple shot before she said, “That’s enough.”

She missed the ashtray again and he stepped on an ember as he handed her the fresh drink.

“Sometime I’ll burn myself to death if I don’t die of lung cancer,” she said, looking as though she didn’t give a damn one way or the other.

“You never see Harry at all?” Sidney Blackpool was absolutely astonished to see that his own glass was empty. He went to the bar and poured another big one to steady his hands.

“Not now. And never without Herb. Not since the day I walked out of our house in Chula Vista. I left Harry a note with all the platitudes that don’t explain anything. I gave him primary custody of Danny because Herb was too old for an adolescent boy. But I saw Danny on all the holidays and a month every summer. I took Danny to Europe once. Why, I even took Danny …” She stopped, sighed, took a big gulp of 100-proof vodka and said, “I haven’t seen Harry at all since we buried our son.”

He was keeping his eyes riveted on his Scotch while she talked. He had a technique for interrogating drunks. If the drunk was talking freely, he never, but never did anything to interrupt the flow. And with a drunk, even eye contact could result in a change of mood that might dry her flow like a desert wind.

“I was thinking of visiting Harry,” Sidney Blackpool began tentatively. “I mean, you said he was in a rest home. Can you tell me …”

“Desert Star Nursing Home,” she said. “Down by Indio. I wanted to have him put in a better hospital. My husband was naturally distressed by that, so I dropped it. But I send them money so Harry can have proper care. Herb doesn’t know.”

“I see. Well, maybe it’s not such a bad place.”

“It is,” she said. “I was there today.”

“You were?” Sidney Blackpool said. “I thought you haven’t seen Harry in years.”

“I haven’t. I keep track of him by calling his old friend. You might know him. Coy Brickman? He worked for San Diego P.D. with Harry. Did you know Coy?”

“Coy?” Sidney Blackpool said. “He’s out here too? I’ll be damned. I lost track a him five, six years ago.”

Now he looked up and saw she’d wiped away a few tears. No eyeliner went with it. Those fantastic eyelashes were all hers. Irises the color of apricot jam and lashes you could hang your Christmas lights on.

“Harry got Coy a job at Mineral Springs P.D.,” she said. “Now that Harry’s … in the condition he’s in, Coy’s been a godsend. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

“So you went to the nursing home today? Why?”

“Coy said he wanted me to meet him there to give me a report on Harry’s prognosis. Which isn’t good.”

“Coy always was a strange guy,” Sidney Blackpool said, keeping his eyes on the Scotch. “He could’ve told you what you needed to know on the phone.”

“He wanted something of Harry’s. He asked me to bring a cassette that Harry sent me.”

“A cassette?” Now he stopped looking at the Scotch.

“Of Harry singing.” She smiled then. “You might’ve heard Harry sing at one of the Christmas parties? He embarrassed me to tears sometimes.” She showed him that lopsided grin but the tears were welling once more. “Harry sent me a cassette about two years ago. Then he wrote and apologized profusely. Said he was drunk when he sent it and hoped I wasn’t offended. And hoped my husband wasn’t offended.”

The detective said, “Trish, you’ve got me curious. What’d old Harry sing about on the tape?”

“Oh, God!” she said. “Just all the old songs he loved so much. He played and sang eight or ten of his favorites. My God!”

Now he was getting tense. She was even drunker than he’d thought. The tears might gush. He could lose it all with one big ballooning drunken sob.

“So old Harry’s still singing? I remember he used to play an instrument. Let’s see …”

“He used to play a guitar when … when we were young,” she said. “Or rather, he knew a few chords. He played a ukulele on that cassette.”

“Wonder what Coy wanted with the cassette?” Sidney Blackpool mused.

“Said he wanted to make a copy for himself. Said he’d return it in a week. Now can we stop talking about Harry? I’m starting to get sleepy and …”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “And I’m sorry you gave it to him. The cassette. I was just gonna ask you if I could hear it. For old times.”

“I don’t think I can do that.”

“You uh, didn’t give it to Coy then?”

“Told him I threw it away. I had it with me but decided I couldn’t let him hear it. Harry made it for me. It was personal. It was as close as Harry dared come to a final love letter.”

And that did it. She spilled her drink and began to sob. It started out quietly, but very soon her shoulders were shaking. Finally, she threw herself down on the sofa and wept. Sidney Blackpool drank his Scotch and watched. Then he got up and went to the bathroom where he found a box of tissues. He came back to the sofa and gave her a handful. He patted her back while she tried to settle.

“My God, I’m drunk!” she said. “How the fuck do I let myself get …”

“Easy, Trish,” he said, rubbing her back and shoulders. “It’s okay. It’s perfectly okay.”

She sat up and wiped her eyes, but he didn’t stop caressing her body.

“I’m getting sleepy,” she said.

“Sure you are.” He was now positive that she’d had lots of male visitors in her time. The only difference was that the others didn’t talk about Harry Bright and make her cry.

But he wasn’t positive he could manage it. He’d almost lost interest in sex after Tommy died. Line of duty, he thought sardonically. Black Sid screws over Harry Bright every which way.

He leaned over and kissed her. He ran his hand inside the dressing gown. It was so easy that he became less sure he could manage it. He thought of his ex-wife, Lorie. Whatever she was, no matter how much he came to despise her, she could always arouse his passion, every kind of passion, mostly destructive. This one was enough like her in some ways, except that she was vulnerable. But now Lorie might be more vulnerable. Maybe now that Tommy was gone, Lorie was like this woman.

He carried her to bed. Without a word he stripped off his clothes and removed her dressing gown. Her skin was pearly, not young, not old. He made believe she was Lorie all through it. She wept all through it. He hoped that she didn’t hate him. He kissed her and caressed her before and after, and he tried not to feel like the miserable son of a bitch he was.

Afterward, he was on his side caressing her. Her back was to him now. He became aware of the radio when she said, “That song always makes me think of Harry.”

“The way your smile just beams,

“The way you sing off-key,

“The way you haunt my dreams,

“No, no, they can’t take that away from me.”

“Harry took the job in Mineral Springs after Danny died,” she said. “Danny was just beginning at Cal. Danny was a smart boy. And he had a football scholarship.”

“Yes.” Sidney Blackpool kept caressing her. “Yes.”

“I knew Harry took the job in Mineral Springs so he could at least live close to me. Even though he could never … never hope to see me. I knew he had some crazy hope that … that someday I might walk away from … from all this. Harry was such a goddamn fool!” she sobbed.

“Yes,” Sidney Blackpool said.

“After … after we buried our son, I never saw Harry again. There was no need to. That life was … it was irrevocable. Do you know what that means? Irrevocable. Do you know how long it takes to understand that word?”

“Yes,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Yes.”

“And then last March Coy Brickman called and told me about Harry’s stroke. And later he called again and told me there was a heart attack. And from time to time he calls to update Harry’s condition. And through all this I never went to see Harry. Not once. Because after Danny died it was … irrevocable. And … one day I asked Coy, I asked why he kept calling me even though I never went to see Harry. And he said because he knew Harry would want him to, And … and he said he hoped I would never see Harry, not the way he is now. He said he knew that Harry wouldn’t want me to. He said that …”

She sobbed again. He wondered if it was the song. Fred Astaire sang, “ ‘It’s so easy to remember, but so hard to forget.’ ”

“You remember,” she said, “how … how he was. Such a big strong happy …”

“Hush,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Hush, now. Try to sleep, Trish.”

“That’s not my name,” she said, and they were the last words she ever spoke to Sidney Blackpool. “That’s what we call me now. Herb and all my … present friends. When Harry Bright was my man, I was Patsy. I was just plain old Patsy Bright.”

“Hush now, Patsy Bright,” he said, still caressing her shoulders and neck and back.

She was ready then, and slid into a deep vodka slumber. He didn’t even have to creep or tiptoe. He got out of bed, dressed quickly, and started searching for it: the cassette. She wouldn’t keep it by the stereo, not where her husband might find it. It’d be hers, her personal connection to Harry Bright, and to the son she’d left back there.

He rummaged through her drawers and through her walk-in closet containing at least fifty pairs of shoes. He went back to the living room and located the state-of-the-art sound system concealed in a cabinet near the bar. There was a mix of albums and cassettes, all commercially labeled. There was no homemade cassette that she might have left by the machine when her husband was out of town. Then he thought of it: the car.

Sidney Blackpool went through the kitchen and out to the attached garage. He found a four-door Chrysler and her Mercedes 450 SL. Herb had obviously outgrown the Maserati. He opened the passenger door of the Mercedes and then the glove box. It was full of cassettes, all commercially labeled except for one. He slipped that cassette into his pocket and went back inside, turning out all the lights. He locked the front door when he left.

His hands trembled as he inserted it into his car cassette player. He started the engine, punched the play button, and while he drove away he listened to Harry Bright.

O. A. Jones was wrong. Harry Bright didn’t sound like Rudy Vallee. His voice was reedier, more quivering, more of a tenor. But he sang in a similar style. And with the ukulele accompaniment, he sounded like an old-time singer. Harry Bright sang “Where or When.” After that he sang “I’ll Be Seeing You.”

For his last number, Harry Bright cleared his throat and struck a false chord before beginning. Then he strummed until he found the correct one and sang “We’ll Be Together Again.”

Sidney Blackpool thought of Trish Decker, née Patsy Bright, weeping in her bed. Harry Bright sang, “ ‘I’ll find you in the morning sun and when the night is new, I’ll be looking at the moon but I’ll be seeing you.’ ”

It was the end of the medley. He advanced the spool. He punched the play button again but there was nothing. He reversed the cassette. There was nothing at all on the other side. Harry Bright had not recorded “Make Believe.” Not on this cassette.

He reversed it and replayed Harry Bright’s songs. Harry Bright had dedicated one number on that cassette. His speaking voice sounded an octave lower than his singing voice. Harry Bright said, “This song’s for Patsy.” Then he strummed an introduction and began “I’ll Be Seeing You.”

While Harry Bright sang, Sidney Blackpool again thought of Patsy Bright. Until the chorus when Harry Bright sang,

“A park across the way, the children’s carousel, “The chestnut tree, the wishing well.”

Then Sidney Blackpool thought about the boy he’d never seen. He thought about Danny Bright. Then he thought of both Patsy Bright and Danny when Harry Bright sang the last chorus:

“I’ll find you in the morning sun and when the

night is new,

“I’ll be looking at the moon but I’ll be seeing you.”

Sidney Blackpool found himself searching for the rage. He wanted the fury. It was always so easy to find it. In fact, it was often impossible to avoid. Now where was it when he needed it? He found himself starting to cry and couldn’t say for whom. He got himself under control just prior to arriving at the hotel.