After the dance, Portia Cassidy tried to move down the bar, hoping Oleg Gridley would get trampled if he tried to make open-field moves among three layers of legs. But the midget was relentless.
The detectives heard him whisper, “I gotta go to the little boys’ room, Portia. I’ll be right back and we’ll talk.”
“I can’t wait,” Bitch Cassidy sighed. “Like I can’t wait for an acid rainstorm or world war three.”
Oleg Gridley did not go to the little boys’ room. The little boys’ room was too big for Oleg Gridley. When the toilet stall was occupied, Oleg Gridley was out of luck because he couldn’t possibly reach the urinal. Oleg grumbled and stormed out the back door to pee on the eucalyptus, which formed windbreakers to keep the Eleven Ninety-nine Club from doing business in Indio, minus its foundation. He saw Ruben, the bartender from the Mirage Saloon, walking by and singing “Pennies from Heaven” at the top of his lungs as he strummed on a stringed instrument he couldn’t play at all. Suddenly he thought of Portia Cassidy getting stolen away and he ran back inside.
A lachrymose Maynard Rivas on Bitch Cassidy’s left said to Nathan Hale Wilson, “It ain’t that my wife’s fifty pounds overweight. It’s just that she’s got inverted nipples. They look funny. I’m so unhappy!”
By now, J. Edgar Gomez was really hustling. His nighttime waitresses had arrived and one was washing glasses behind the bar while the other served Edgar’s “chili” from a huge pot simmering in the kitchen.
“Goddamn, this chili’s greasy!” Choo Choo Chester yelled. “Can I just have the grease mainlined straight into my arm, J. Edgar? Sure would save my stomach.”
“You don’t like it, don’t buy it,” J. Edgar Gomez muttered, puffing on a cigar as he poured a line of seven drinks with a phenomenal memory for the orders being screamed out by patrons over the din.
“Hey, Edgar,” Wingnut yelled, “you got a wine list?”
“You want the wine from K mart or the stuff from Gemco?” the saloonkeeper hollered back.
“K mart.”
“Three ninety-nine a bottle!” the saloonkeeper bellowed.
“Got any cheaper?”
“Gemco’s three fifty.”
“I’ll take it. What color is it?”
“Off-white I think, with little dark freckles.”
“Make it two bottles!” the young cop yelled, happy for a bargain.
“Jesus Christ!” Prankster Frank cried. “A spider just did a Greg Louganis in my chili!”
“That’s a dirty lie!” J. Edgar Gomez said, but someone had turned up the jukebox and Ethel Merman was screaming about show business louder than any live voice in the saloon.
“Knock that off or I’ll eighty-six ya!” J. Edgar Gomez suddenly warned Prankster Frank, Nathan Hale Wilson and the Palm Springs fingerprinter, Dustin Hoffman, who were all holding up cocktail napkins with scores of “9.9, 9.8, and 9.8” written in lipstick at the diving spider who was swimming for his life.
Just as Otto was about to suggest that O. A. Jones wasn’t going to make it, a young cop with fluffy blond hair tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Sergeant Blackpool?”
“I’m Stringer,” Otto said. “He’s Blackpool.”
“I’m O. A. Jones,” the kid said.
Sidney Blackpool stared at him. He did look like a surfer.
“Sorry I’m so late,” he said. “Sergeant Brickman sent me out to Solitaire Canyon, out to where I found the Watson car. Told me to go over the area one more time to see if there was anything we missed. He said since you guys from Hollywood were coming we oughtta take one last look.”
“For what?”
“That’s what I asked. For what? He said he’d just like me to go over the area one last time for anything that didn’t belong. He was out there with me for a while, and when he went to the station he told me to give it a try for an hour.”
“Funny he didn’t mention it,” Sidney Blackpool said to Otto. “He never said you were gonna be late because you were out there.”
“Sometimes us small-town boys don’t like to look like we’re intimidated by you big-city guys.” O. A. Jones grinned. “He probably didn’t wanna say that we’d be real embarrassed if you lucked onto something the wind uncovered after all these months.”
“Let’s go somewhere we can talk,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Got your drink?”
The young cop hoisted a beer bottle and they gave up their bar seats to the delight of Oleg Gridley. The midget darted around the legs of two women and crawled up on the vacant stool before Portia Cassidy could escape.
“You hold that beer bottle like an Olympic torch!” Oleg said passionately.
“E.T., go home,” she said.
When the detectives finally found a semi-quiet corner in the saloon, Sidney Blackpool said, “Tell us about your call to Palm Springs P.D. today. We’re checking out a possible Hollywood connection to the death of Jack Watson.”
“Okay,” O. A. Jones said. “I was in here last night with a couple a guys and one a them said something about ‘I believe.’ Not even sure now what he was talking about. He just said ‘I believe.’ And it clicked something in my head.”
“What’s that?” Otto asked.
“Well, when I was lost out there in the desert and heard that guy singing and playing the banjo, I really couldn’t say at first what the song was. It seemed like something with ‘pretend’ in it. The Palm Springs detectives played this old record for me. Nat King Cole. I’d never heard him before.”
“You never heard Nat Cole?” said Otto.
“I mighta, I’m not sure,” the young cop said.
Otto rolled his eyes and felt old. As old as murder.
“Now you’ve changed your mind?”
“Well, it’s bothered me a lot for several months. See, I started tuning in these hokey Palm Springs stations to listen for old songs. I started doubting that it was ‘Pretend.’ The voice was … well, I tried to tell them. It was like a thin quivery voice. Like you’d hear in old movies about the nineteen-thirties or something.”
“You were uncertain if it was a live voice or a radio voice or a taped voice?”
“I still can’t say for sure. Like, I can’t even say if it was a car engine or a truck engine or a bike engine. I was in real bad shape that day in the desert.”
“Okay, about last night,” Otto said. “Have you ever heard the song ‘I Believe’?”
“Today,” the cop nodded. “I went to a record store in Palm Springs and found it. Frankie Laine. I bought it and played it. He’s pretty good.”
“And?”
“And … well, I think it’s the song but not the voice. At least it was something about believing. Somebody ‘believes.’ Something like that. I don’t know why I ever thought it was ‘Pretend.’ It’s very mixed up in my mind. Well, that’s it. I guess it won’t help but I wanted the dicks in Palm Springs to know. Now they know. Now you know.”
“It’s good you’re so diligent,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Can we buy you a drink?”
“Like to, but I got this girl over there by the dance floor. She promised me a dance.”
“Got it,” Sidney Blackpool nodded. “You still surf?”
“Heard I was a surfer, huh?” The young cop grinned. “I must be famous. The Desert Surfer they call me.”
“Ever surf the Wedge at Newport?”
“Yeah! How’d you know about the Wedge?”
“I used to watch surfers at one time.”
“Maybe I shoulda stayed in Laguna.” O. A. Jones shrugged. “Well, I’ll call you if anything jells in my head about the music. Know what? I’m starting to like old songs. Hanging around here and all, and listening for that kind a voice I heard.” Then he added, “An old kind a voice, you know?”
“An old man’s voice?”
“No, I don’t mean that. An old style a voice. I’ll listen to the Palm Springs stations and try to get you a singer’s name who had that kind a style. If I do I’ll tell Chief Pedroza and he can give you a ring.”