“Is it nice as this?”
“Sure. Gimme your business card,” Archie said. “I’ll have you over some time.”
“No movie stars around here, huh?” Otto was checking out the people coming from lunch.
“Maybe see Lucille Ball. Her husband’s a good golfer.”
“They live here?” Otto asked.
“Naw, they live in Thunderbird.”
“Why doesn’t he belong to Thunderbird?”
“He’s a Jew. He lives there, but he’s a member a this club.”
“Look here, Archie,” Otto said, “we play in Griffith Park with a bunch a cops. Among em there’s two Mexicans, a brother, and a Jew. Now, you tell me if we all win the California lottery we can’t join a fancy country club together?”
“People say they wanna be with their own kind, kiddo,” Archie said.
“But they’re cops. They are my kind!” said Otto.
“You little mensch,” Archie said. “If you could figure out a golf swing that quick you’d be the best fat golfer since Billy Casper.”
Otto was truly amazed. “A few million bucks can’t get a leg over the wall if you’re not the same kind?”
“Easier to get a leg over the Berlin Wall,” Archie Rosenkrantz said. “Heading west. How about another drink, kiddo? With one ice cube.”
CHAPTER 11
By the time they were on their way back to the hotel Otto felt like he needed a piña colada and a soak in the spa and maybe a nap before contemplating the recent disaster.
“Sure was a beautiful place,” Sidney Blackpool said, trying to make conversation.
“I don’t wanna talk about golf.”
“Otto, it was you that said I take golf too …”
“I don’t wanna talk about it.”
“It’s only a game, Otto.”
“Like firewalking’s a game. Or playing chicken with Andrei Gromyko. Like a game of twenty questions in an Iranian jail.”
“At least we met somebody.”
“I like Archie fine. The people treated us nice. The country club’s beautiful. Now pull over to the curb and park.”
“What for?”
“I wanna toss my sticks down the sewer.”
“So you were a slight failure at golf.”
“Like Charlie Manson was a slight failure at parole.”
“Wait till we get back and have a couple drinks. You’ll feel different.”
“I feel like a brain tumor. They should stick me in a jar for study by future generations.”
“Maybe you should get a massage.”
“What’s the use. I probably couldn’t even hit the massage table with my ass.”
“Have it on the floor. Call a masseuse up to the suite.”
“That don’t sound like too bad an idea,” Otto had to admit.
When they got back to the suite the message light on the phone was blinking, so Sidney Blackpool called the operator. The message was from Harlan Penrod.
“Probably wants another date tonight,” Otto said. “He’s more ready for adoption than Oliver Twist.”
Harlan Penrod answered by saying, “Hellooooo. The Watson residence. May I help you?”
“This is Sidney Blackpool, Harlan.”
“My favorite sergeant since Gary Cooper!” Harlan twittered. “Do I have some news for you!”
“What is it?”
“I rummaged through all of Jack’s things and found something stuck in a textbook with school papers and other junk. I don’t imagine the police saw it.”
“What was it?”
“A picture of Jack and a girl.”
“So?”
“The background’s a swimming pool here in Palm Springs! I recognize it because I used to have a friend who stayed there when he was in town. The reason I know that stupid pool is because one night we got in a fight and he tossed me in and I banged my head on the handrail that’s in the picture. I lost all my clothes and a new pair of shoes and a wristwatch.”
“Is that all? I mean, a picture of Jack in a hotel pool with a girl?”
“Well, isn’t that something?”
“Yeah, it’s worth a look.”
“Maybe she was some girl from college, maybe not. At least we can check it out.”
“Okay, Harlan. You gonna be home this evening?”
“You bet!” Harlan cried. “Do I dress casual or do we try to fit in with the hotel guests? Lots of Vegas hotel workers use that place. Shall I go more for the dated disco king, or trash Vegas flash?”
“Use your own judgment,” Sidney Blackpool said. “We’ll be by in a couple a hours.”
When he hung up, Sidney Blackpool said to Otto, “Can you put off the massage for a while? Harlan’s got a picture of Jack Watson and a girl. I think he wants to sign on as our secret agent.”
“Haven’t I had enough tragedy for one day?” Otto groaned, flopping down on the sofa. “I feel like the paddock at Santa Anita-all tromped on and covered with shit.”
“Harlan’s one of our only links to Jack Watson. We can’t afford to make him mad at us.”
“Do you think the guy with the deerstalker at Two twenty-one B Baker Street woulda stayed in business if he had to humor the Harlan Penrods of this world? I don’t know, maybe I’ll never be a corpse cop. I know I’ll never be a golfer.”
“You’re on your way to being both, my boy. Take a little rest. I’ll send for some drinks.”
Harlan Penrod was already waiting when at 6:30 P.M. they pulled up in front of the Watson home. “Sam Spade Junior,” Otto said.
Harlan wasn’t dressed like Sam Spade but he did have a Burberry trenchcoat over his shoulder and it wasn’t raining. Otto didn’t comment, but rolled his eyes at Sidney Blackpool who, like Otto, was still dressed as a resort golfer.
“Here it is!” Harlan hopped into the backseat of the Toyota with a small flashlight, which he shone on the photo.
“I see you came prepared,” Otto said. “Hope you’re carrying a piece. We weren’t expecting that much trouble on this case and we left our iron in L.A.”
“She’s a beautiful girl,” Harlan said. “Just Jack’s type. His fiancée’s a blonde like that. Tall like him and leggy.”
“About all we can do is drop by the hotel and see if anybody at the registration desk might recognize her. Or maybe the cocktail girls who work around the pool.”
“Boys,” Harlan said. “That hotel uses pool boys and waiters.”
“Maybe it’ll turn out she was with the other kid,” Sidney Blackpool said, pointing at a second young man.
In the photo, Jack Watson had a girl around the waist and was about to dunk her under. A blond, broad-shouldered young man had her by the feet and was almost out of frame. All three were laughing into the camera.
“Fine-looking boy, all right,” Sidney Blackpool said.
“A very foxy young lady,” Otto said.
“Lucky girl,” Harlan remarked. “Two beautiful boys.”
“Well, it’s all we got to start with,” Sidney Blackpool said, as he drove the Toyota toward Palm Canyon Drive.
“They didn’t start with much in The Maltese Falcon,” Harlan remarked.
“I told you, Sidney,” Otto muttered, while Harlan’s eyes glistened like desert stars.
The hotel wasn’t exactly as upmarket as they would’ve expected. But then, they figured the girl in the photo could just as easily have been an airline stew or a teacher from Orange County or a tourist from Alberta whom Jack Watson met in some night spot.
There were two pairs of men sitting in the lobby enjoying a cocktail before dinner, and another pair of men breezed through on their way to the dining room. A man and a woman were checking in and had the front desk occupied, so the detectives and Harlan Penrod strolled out by the swimming pool. Another pair of men sat with their feet in the water and sipped mai tais, chatting with the waiter who was dressed in a white shirt and black pants with a red bow tie and red cummerbund. There were a man and woman watching a candlelit game of backgammon being played by yet another pair of men at a poolside cocktail table.