Joseph Wambaugh - The Secrets of Harry Bright

Otto took a walk outside, careful to avoid cactus gardens, while Sidney Blackpool continued watching The Enchanted Cottage . Eventually, Otto came back inside. He was exhausted. He looked at his watch and wondered if it would be yet another night of being too late for the hotel dining room. Somehow he wanted just one more dinner in the hotel, and then he was going home to Hollywood whether his partner did or not. But one more meal in the hotel dining room would be very nice. He thought he deserved it.

Otto got himself settled on the sofa while Sidney Blackpool slouched in Harry Bright’s easy chair. Otto could see that his partner seemed enthralled with the old movie about people making believe. And people making believe made him think of Harry Bright’s song. And thinking of Harry Bright’s song made him think of Coy Brickman. And while he was thinking of Coy Brickman he heard footsteps outside the mobile home.

Then the door opened and Otto Stringer said, “I was just thinking about you.”

“Paco told me to come get you guys,” Coy Brickman said. “He figured you’d be here after Annie told him you borrowed a gun to maybe protect you from coyotes. Night shooting in the desert can be tricky.”

“You son of a bitch,” Sidney Blackpool said, starting to get out of the easy chair until Otto laid his hand on his partner’s shoulder.

Otto switched off the videocassette recorder, and Coy Brickman, pretending he hadn’t heard Sidney Blackpool, said, “Watching The Enchanted Cottage , huh? That’s Harry’s favorite movie. Musta seen it a hundred times. I even had to sit through it myself a couple times when Harry was drunk. What happened to your face, Blackpool?”

Sidney Blackpool’s jaw was puffy and turning purple from ear to chin. In a swatch, six inches long and an inch wide, were a dozen clotted pinpricks where the barbs had been extracted.

“Sidney fell down,” Otto said. “I fell down too. City boys don’t belong in the desert.”

“I coulda told you that,” Coy Brickman said, staring at Sidney Blackpool with those unblinking gray eyes.

Otto looked at Coy Brickman’s shoes, but they were shiny and clean. He’d had time to brush them. His blue uniform pants were also dust free. His thinning auburn hair was freshly combed. In fact, he looked as though he was ready for inspection, which in a sense he was, Otto realized.

“How’d the door get that crack in it?” Coy Brickman asked. “And how’d you guys get in here? Paco give you a key?”

“Don’t push, Brickman,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Not too much.”

“What’re you talking about.” Coy Brickman’s question wasn’t a question at all. “I was told by Paco that you guys have some cockamamy theory about Harry Bright and me smoking the Watson kid. He says you want a ballistics check on our guns.”

Then Coy Brickman scared Otto by whipping his revolver from the holster while staring at Sidney Blackpool. He offered the gun butt first. “Careful, it’s loaded,” he said.

“Fuck you,” Sidney Blackpool said, not touching it.

“You don’t want it? Change your mind?”

“You wouldn’t happen to know where Harry Bright’s gun is?” Otto asked.

“Sure,” Coy Brickman said, with what passed for a smile. “It’s back here.” He walked to the wardrobe, opened it, and said without emotion, “It’s gone.”

“Whaddaya know,” Otto said.

“You say you found the place unlocked?”

“We didn’t say that,” Otto said.

“Well, did you?”

“Yeah,” Otto said. “We found the place unlocked.”

“Then the gun musta been stolen. I told Paco that Harry’s keys shouldn’t be kept around the station. Too many people come here. The plumber came a couple times. The cleaning lady comes every two weeks. A window washer came and …”

“No telling who left the door unlocked,” Otto said.

“That’s right,” said Coy Brickman. “Looks like nothing else was taken.”

Then for the first time Sidney Blackpool spoke to Coy Brickman in other than profanity. He said, “Another thing was taken.”

“What’s that, Blackpool?” Coy Brickman asked, turning those unblinking eyes on the detective.

“A cassette. With Harry Bright singing some songs. One a them is a song called ‘Make Believe.’ ”

“Yeah,” Coy Brickman said. “Paco just told me all about that piece a business. So did O. A. Jones. Saw him a little while ago. You been spinning your wheels all over the desert trying to trace a uke and find a cassette? All you had to do was ask me. I bought that uke for Harry’s birthday, and I have the tape. I play it for him from time to time.”

“You play it for him?” Otto said.

“Sure. I play him lots a music. Harry loves music. You can’t be sure if he can understand it now, but I believe he can. Do you know what an intracerebral stroke can do to a man?”

“Maybe we oughtta see what it can do,” Sidney Blackpool said. Now he and Coy Brickman were staring at each other with such fury that Otto stepped between and lit his partner’s cigarette.

“You wanna see Harry Bright?” Coy Brickman said. “Sure. I’ll ask Paco if I can go down to the nursing home tonight. I think he won’t mind. He’d probably like you to satisfy yourself. I know I would. So we can see you out of our little city.”

“Just for the record,” Otto said, “I don’t suppose you were up in Solitaire Canyon the day the Watson car was found.”

“Heavens no,” Coy Brickman said. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

“And I don’t suppose you knew Harry was given a potentially important tip by Billy Hightower a couple days after that?”

“Harry? No, he didn’t tell me anything about Billy Hightower.”

“I’d like to ask Harry Bright myself,” Sidney Blackpool said.

“Well, why don’t we go see him then?” said Coy Brickman. “You can ask him anything you want. Now how about you guys answering a question for me.”

“And what’s that?” Otto asked.

“What prompted all this hard-core sleuthing we been seeing? I mean, this is a Palm Springs case all the way. Most detectives I ever knew were always trying to figure out how to give their cases to another jurisdiction, and here you guys are trying to take a case away from Palm Springs. Now I just can’t help wondering if maybe Victor Watson said he’d like to give you boys that fifty-grand reward if you came up with something. Could that be what’s happening here?”

“You answer a hypothetical and I’ll answer your hypothetical,” Sidney Blackpool said.

“Okay,” said Coy Brickman.

“Hypothetically, give me a situation where a guy like Harry Bright could murder a Palm Springs kid when the kid was out where he shouldn’t be. What could the kid’ve seen that’d make a cop murder him?”

“Drinking on duty?”

“Don’t fuck with us too much, Brickman,” Otto said. “You already won but don’t fuck with us.”

“What’s there to win around here anyway?” Coy Brickman’s face was darkening now. “All I can think of is maybe fifty grand from Daddy Watson if you guys hang something on some poor bastard like Harry Bright.”

“Okay,” Otto said. “Keep all this hypothetical. What could the kid’ve seen in the canyon that’d make Harry Bright smoke him?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

“Then, in a hypothetical, why would the kid be murdered?” Otto asked. “Give me something Victor Watson might buy.”

“You want a fifty-thousand-dollar story?” Coy Brickman asked. “Is that what you want?” The cop sat down on the sofa directly across from Sidney Blackpool and said, “ You tell me. If that’s what you want.”