Joseph Wambaugh - The Secrets of Harry Bright

“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.