Joseph Wambaugh - The Secrets of Harry Bright

“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 …”