Joseph Wambaugh - The Secrets of Harry Bright

“I really should be running along, Mister Benton.”

“Listen, lemme level with you,” he said. “I only left police work a year ago. I’m director of security for an aviation plant in the San Fernando Valley and I’m here for a golf outing with my boss. And … well, I’m a little intimidated. This is pretty tall cotton for a guy that used to work the streets around Southern substation. How about one drink? Gosh, you look the same except you’re even more …”

“Sure, sure,” she said. “You still sound like a policeman. Okay, the bar’s this way.”

“I already found it,” he said. “I wasn’t a cop twenty-one years for nothing.”

“Twenty-one years,” she said. “You don’t look that old.”

“We are really gonna get along,” he grinned.

Sidney Blackpool spotted Otto outside the foyer looking for him and he said, “Mrs. Decker, could you order me a Johnnie Walker Black Label, please? I just have to tell a friend where I am.”

He caught Otto as he was about to head back to the pro shop.

“Otto!” he said. “I’ve met her. She is Harry Bright’s ex-wife! I told her my name’s Sam Benton in case it comes up. I don’t want her telling Coy Brickman she met the Hollywood dicks on the Watson case.”

“Whaddaya want me to do?”

“Play golf.”

“What?”

“Play a round. Tell the pro that your partner got detained. If this washes out I’ll grab a cart and meet you out on the course. Or maybe at the turn.”

“Play without you?”

“You’ve played without me before.”

“Not in a place like this! What if I get another stress attack like over at Tamarisk? What if they put me in a foursome with an ex-president and Betty Grable, for chrissake?”

“She’s dead.”

“Well, who’s the one that was married to Phil Harris? I see he’s a member here.”

“Alice Faye.”

“Yeah, what if they put me with Alice Faye?”

“Go play golf, Otto,” Sidney Blackpool said.

When he returned to the bar she was well along with her martini. It looked like vodka. That was very good for Sidney Blackpool. She liked to drink. The problem would be in controlling his own bad habit while encouraging hers.

“Sorry,” he said, placing a twenty-dollar bill on the bar.

“Put your money away,” she said. “I sign for the drinks around here.”

“But I invited you .”

“To the bad old days,” she said.

“To our alma mater,” he said, clicking glasses. “Southern substation.”

“I should tell you, I haven’t seen Harry in years.”

“What’s he doing now?”

“He lives here in the Coachella Valley. He was with another police force here. Mineral Springs.”

“was?”

“He had a stroke last spring. And then a heart attack. He’s … they tell me he’s very bad. It was a long time ago when we parted.”

“Well, what’re you doing now besides playing golf?” He touched her left hand, which was several shades lighter than the other suntanned hand. Her hands said she was in her forties, even if her face didn’t.

“Still a cop, I see,” she smiled. “We play quite a bit of golf.”

“And how do you shoot?”

“Awful.”

“I’ll bet. Not with that athlete’s body.”

He was delighted to see that she was down to one more sip, and that it was a double vodka martini. The mere smell of gin nauseated him, and straight vodka drinkers were the biggest lushes of all. To keep her going, he told himself, as he drained his Johnnie Walker. Not because I’ve got a drinking problem. Oh no.

“Please let me buy us another one,” he said.

“I’ve told you your money doesn’t work here,” she said, nodding to the barman. They were the only two at the small bar.

The luncheon room was nearly cleared by now, and there were just a few people passing the foyer. The barman poured her a double. Sidney Blackpool imagined that country-club bartenders had to know their members.

“Whadda you do when you’re not playing golf?” he asked.

“Nothing much. A little tennis, but my legs aren’t what they used to be.”

“Well,” he said in obvious disagreement.

She didn’t mind. She knew what kind of legs she had. “Sometimes we play Oklahoma gin-from the stage play not the state. What I like is when we have fourteen ladies and play two against one. It’s a rotating game we call ‘kill your sister.’ You can lose a thousand a day.” Then she gave a lopsided grin and said, “Came a long way from Southern substation, haven’t I?”

He liked that sardonic, weary, lopsided smile. It looked very familiar.

“What’s your husband do?”

“Oil leases. He spends a lot of time in Texas and Oklahoma. Sometimes in the Middle East. We summer in Lake Tahoe or Maui.” Then she realized how that one sounded to a guy just out of police work, and she grinned in apology. “What can I say?”

“Thanks, I guess,” said Sidney Blackpool. “You’re a lucky girl. All you can say is thanks.”

“Sure, thanks,” she said.

And then he thought about it. He thought about her son, Harry Bright’s son. He said, “Do you have children?”

“No. No children.”

He despised himself for an instant, but he said, “That’s funny. I could’ve sworn Harry had …”

“Our son was killed. Long after we were divorced.” She really took a hit at the vodka, but smiled wearily. “It’s okay. Not all San Diego policemen knew about our boy. He was on PSA Flight 182. He was nineteen years old in his first year at Cal.”

“I’m truly sorry, Mrs. Decker. Really I …”

“Lots of other people’s children died that day too.” Then she drained the glass and said, “Well, I think I should be …”

“I’m feeling real bad for prying. I’d do almost anything if you’d have just one more,” he said. “Please … Patricia.”

“They call me Trish,” she said, and then she looked sadly at her glass and at the bartender.

The bartender poured them both doubles this time, knowing a heavy hitter when he saw one.

“This is a drinking man’s club,” she said. “This and Eldorado.”

“We played Tamarisk the other day,” he said.

“That’s not a drinking club. This is a drinking club and a gambling club.” Then she looked at him with her sad eyes and there were a lot of things he didn’t want to ask this woman. But there was something he did want to ask. Even if it never helped to solve the murder of Jack Watson.

“Trish, would you have dinner with me tonight? I’m lonely here in the desert.”

She didn’t waste time with the third martini. “How long’ll you be here?” she asked.

“Till the end of the week.”

“Are you married?”

“No.”

“I believe you. You don’t look married.”

“Please. How about it?”

“And what should I tell Herb?” she asked, looking at her wavering reflection in the martini. “My husband.”

“You … you could invite him along,” he said. “I’d be happy to have both of you.”

She laughed at that one, and looked up from her drink. “Would you now, Sam?” she asked huskily. “From one old cop to another, would you really like him to come along?”

“If it’s the only way I could see you,” he said earnestly, and his thigh was brushing hers. It had been a long time since Sidney Blackpool had courted any woman except for an occasional cop groupie whose name he wouldn’t remember three days later. And who would just as easily forget his.

“I don’t run around to desert restaurants when my husband’s out of town. Doesn’t look appropriate. But I hate dining alone. How would you like to be my guest tonight? Right here at the club. Say about seven?” She glanced at her Cartier Panthère wristwatch.