Joseph Wambaugh - The Secrets of Harry Bright

“I wouldn’t imagine Harry Bright’s missing gun is ever gonna turn up anywhere, is it?” Otto asked, handing his borrowed gun to Coy Brickman.

“The desert wind doesn’t uncover a gun as easy as a ukulele,” Coy Brickman said, looking at Sidney Blackpool.

Then the tall sergeant got up and walked to the videocassette recorder. He punched the button and turned on the television. “Watch the end of the movie. I’ll be at the station with Paco. I can repeat this fifty-grand make-believe story for him if you want, but why not just tell Paco that you’re saying good-bye. Better yet, don’t even say good-bye. Just go back to Hollywood where you belong.”

“How’s this make-believe story come out?” Otto asked. “ The Enchanted Cottage , I mean.”

“It comes out real happy,” Coy Brickman said. “The young couple get married and probably even have a son, if you like to imagine past the movie ending. Maybe he’s just like Danny Bright. The three of them probably live happy ever after. I guess that’s the way you’d imagine the story if you started to live a make-believe life.”

“Okay, Brickman,” Sidney Blackpool said. “You’ve made a lot a make-believe points here tonight. Now I’ve just about had enough a you and Patsy Bright and Harry Bright and whatever fantasy he created in this house trailer. I’ve had enough sad stories about lost kids and lost fathers and everything else. Now there’s gonna be no more make-believe. Now I wanna see Harry Bright. With my own eyes.”

“Let’s go. I won’t even phone Paco. He’ll understand.”

“We’ll follow you,” Sidney Blackpool said. “In case you got lost it’s …”

“We know exactly where it is,” Sidney Blackpool said.

There was no fear of losing Coy Brickman’s patrol car. He never exceeded the speed limit on the drive toward Indio. Sidney Blackpool chain-smoked. Otto Stringer was getting sick to his stomach but he knew it wasn’t the cigarette smoke.

They were on Highway 10 when Otto said, “This is a garbage case, Sidney. You can’t turn garbage into gold no matter how you try. I’ve learned that here. Have you learned that?”

“I think Harry Bright can talk,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Or maybe he can at least communicate. That’s all it’ll take.”

“Even if he can, even if he does, I don’t wanna be the one to charge him with manslaughter. And I don’t wanna throw Coy Brickman in jail.”

“I want a way out,” Sidney Blackpool said. “I want out the way Watson said it could be. Is it so wrong to want something like that for yourself?”

“It’s a garbage case,” Otto said. “That’s all I know for sure.”

There were only a few visitors’ cars at the nursing home that time of night. Coy Brickman got out of the patrol car and went in first, saying a few words to the nurse on duty. She nodded and he waved to the two detectives. The nursing home wasn’t so bad on the inside. It was seedy but clean, and had one doctor in attendance. The rooms could easily have been tiny motel rooms except that remodeling had joined two rows of rooms with a connecting corridor.

The room was near the far end of the corridor. It was a private room with one bed. There was a lamp on a table beside the bed. Also on the bedside table was a radio with a built-in cassette player. There were I.V.’s nourishing him and oxygen available. Otto looked at the cadaverous old man. Only the feet bulged under the sheet.

“Where’s Harry Bright?” Otto asked.

“Take a closer look,” Coy Brickman said.

Otto crept closer to the bed to inspect. The face was yellow, with a burst of spidery veins on the nose and cheeks and under the eyes. The eye pouches were yellow-brown like nicotine stains. His hair was wispy and sparse and gray. His fingernails were fungus yellow. Stretched from head to toe he looked to be about six feet three inches. Otto guessed he weighed one hundred pounds, only because of the size of his large bones. The eyes were yellow except for the irises, which were beautiful and blue.

The man stared at the ceiling with his jaw hanging open. There was saliva forming at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes were tearing slightly. He stared as unblinking as Coy Brickman. Otto leaned over the bed to look in those blue eyes for response and saw just the faint twitching of his tongue. He had a strong cleft chin.

The bedsheet fluttered every few seconds with his heartbeats. “That man should be in an intensive-care unit,” Otto said.

“I believe he’d rather do his dying here,” Coy Brickman said. “I think Harry likes it here.”

Sidney Blackpool wouldn’t approach the bed. “Is it, Otto?” he said. “Is it him?”

“It’s Harry Bright,” Otto said. “After life got all through fucking with him.”

And then Sidney Blackpool said something that astonished Otto more than anything he’d heard this day. Sidney Blackpool took three steps closer to the bed of the dying man and said, “Brickman, why not tell me where his gun is? If it matches ballistics, that’s it. We can write up this investigation to leave you completely out of it, can’t we, Otto? I give you my solemn word we can write it up so it looks like you never knew that Harry Bright got drunk and shot the kid after the car crashed. We can tell it just the way it happened and we can prove it, if the ballistics test is positive. Then I’d tell Victor Watson that you deserve the reward for figuring out how the shooting went down and for helping us. Fifty thousand could be yours .”

Coy Brickman didn’t take his eyes from Sidney Blackpool’s face when he walked around the bed. He looked below the side rail, then he looked back at the detective and said, “Damn, it’s empty.”

“What’s empty?” Sidney Blackpool asked.

“The catheter bag. I wanted to throw it in your face. From Harry and me.” Then he turned to the breathing corpse and said, “Damnit, Harry, why can’t you take a pee when I need it?”

“Let’s go, Sidney,” Otto said. “Let’s go home.”

“Before you go, I got something you wanted,” Coy Brickman said. Then he punched the button on the cassette player and slipped in a cassette he took from the pocket of his uniform pants. He looked at Harry Bright as he pressed the play button. They heard a few off-key chords from the uke and then it was in tune, Harry Bright introduced a song again.

Harry Bright’s voice said, “This is happy Harry Bright coming to you from the Mineral Springs Palladium out on Jackrabbit Road where I’d like to introduce a tasty tune, a sizzling side, a heavenly hit! It’s called ‘Make Believe.’ And ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to dedicate this number to Patsy.”

Otto Stringer turned away and absolutely could not look at the cadaverous figure in the bed as Harry Bright sang:

“We could make believe I love you,

“Only make believe that you love me.

“Others find peace of mind in pretending.

“Couldn’t you, couldn’t I, couldn’t we?”

Sidney Blackpool looked like a sleepwalker. He forced himself to lean over the bed. He studied the corpse that breathed. He leaned over the bed on one side while Coy Brickman stood on the other side watching him. The color drained from Sidney Blackpool’s face. He stared into Harry Bright’s beautiful blue eyes. Looking for what?

“Make believe our lips are blending

“In a phantom kiss or two or three.

“Might as well make believe I love you

“For to tell the truth, I dooooooooo!”

When it was over, Coy Brickman took the cassette out and reached across the bed, jamming it into Sidney Blackpool’s shirt pocket. “There,” he said. “You wanted it so bad. Take it.”