“Harlan,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Is this a gay hotel?”
“Of course not.”
“Is it a mixed hotel?”
“You might say that,” Harlan nodded. “Did you think it odd that Jack was at a mixed hotel?” Otto asked.
“Of course not. There’s often a price break at mixed places. Maybe she’s some secretary from Culver City who couldn’t afford a more upscale hotel.”
“Okay, let’s check with the front desk,” Sidney Blackpool said.
They showed the picture to everyone working in the lobby and pool area: front desk, bellmen, waiters. Nobody had ever seen the laughing blond girl in the photo, even though it was clearly the hotel pool in which she frolicked. Nor did anyone recognize Jack Watson or the other lad. Harlan Penrod was looking dejected, figuring they were about to take him home, when the valet-parking boy in a blue golf shirt, white shorts and white tennis shoes came running in from the parking lot.
“I’d like to show you a picture of a girl,” Harlan said, and Otto smirked at Sidney Blackpool in that Harlan was now directing the investigation.
“That’s our pool,” the kid said.
“The girl was probably a guest,” Harlan said. “Ever see her?”
“No,” the kid said, “but I know the guy.”
“You know the guy?”
“He worked here.”
“Jack Watson worked here?” Otto pointed at the photo.
“Not the guy with black hair,” the boy said. “The other guy. The blond guy holding the girl’s feet. His name’s Terry something. He was a parking attendant for a week maybe. Worked nights when I was on days.”
Five minutes later, the detectives and Harlan Penrod were in the hotel office with the night manager who was digging through the employee files, saying, “Well, we shouldn’t have too much trouble, Sergeant. Hotel employees in this town have to have police identification cards. We send our people to the police when we hire them and they get their pictures and fingerprints taken. Everyone who might have access to rooms, that is: maids, bellmen, even valet parkers.”
“Our first real lead!” Harlan said, looking as though he’d just found the elusive bird from Malta.
The young man’s name was Terry Kinsale. He’d given an address in Cathedral City and a local telephone number. He listed his permanent address as Phoenix, Arizona, with a Phoenix telephone number in case of emergency. A sister, Joan Kinsale, was the person to contact.
The detectives and Harlan Penrod took down the information, thanked the night manager and headed back to the front where the parking boy had the Toyota waiting.
Sidney Blackpool said, “You did good,” and tipped the kid twenty bucks. They were off to the address given by Terry Kinsale.
“I don’t know about that address,” Harlan said. “Highway One eleven isn’t a residential zone. Unless maybe it’s a motel, or he lives upstairs of a store or something.”
It was neither. It was a bar. A gay bar close by two other gay bars.
“Maybe the name’s bogus,” Otto said.
“He wouldn’t a been able to keep the job if he had a rap sheet,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Palm Springs P.D. mugged and printed him.”
“Hey, how about letting me go in alone?” Harlan suggested. “I can show the picture to the bartender and customers. Nobody’s gonna get hicky about me.”
“Hinky is the word they always use on the cop shows,” Otto said.
“Yeah, nobody’s gonna get hinky about me. They’ll tell me if they know Terry.”
“Here’s a twenty for some drinks,” Sidney Blackpool said. “We’ll be waiting across the street at the other bar.”
“Don’t get caught cruising!” Harlan said with a naughty smile.
“Hurry up for crying out loud, Harlan!” said Otto. “I’m getting hungry.”
After the houseboy was gone, Otto said, “We really going in that saloon?”
“You wanna wait at the gas station?”
“One drink I’ll catch AIDS, my luck,” Otto said. “And my lip’ll rot off like a leper on Molokai.”
“It’s not that kind a disease, Otto,” Sidney Blackpool said as they parked on Highway 111.
The saloon was empty except for a pair of middle-aged men sitting at the far end of the bar bickering about something. The bartender looked about as swishy as Rocky Marciano. His face was a pink-and-white mass of old lumpy tissue.
“Jesus,” Otto whispered after he took their drink order. “Know what I saw shining there on the top of his face? Eyes. He’s got two of them back in there somewhere.”
“Lemme have all the quarters and dimes you can spare,” Sidney Blackpool said to the bartender, putting a twenty on the bar. “I gotta make a long-distance call.”
“Whadda we doing, Sidney, calling Buckingham Palace? This turned into the search for Vera Lynn?”
“I may as well call Terry Kinsale’s sister in Phoenix while Harlan’s doing his sleuthing. I’ll use the phone booth next door at the gas station.”
“You leaving me here alone?”
“Say hello to Mister Goodbar if he drops by.”
“Hurry back, will ya?” Otto said, inspecting the lip of his bucket glass before sipping the booze.
“Is Terry all right? Was it an accident?” Joan Kinsale asked, after Sidney Blackpool identified himself.
“I’m sure he’s okay. We’re trying to find him,” the detective said. “We’re working on the murder of Jack Watson and thought you or Terry might be able to help us.”
She waited several beats and then the young woman said, “Who?”
“Jack Watson.”
“Watson?” she said. “Was that his last name? You mean Terry’s friend Jack? The good-looking guy with black curly hair?”
“The one with you in the hotel swimming pool,” Sidney Blackpool said. “We have a snapshot of the three a you. It was you, wasn’t it?”
“He’s dead?” Joan Kinsale said. “When?”
“A year ago June. He was found shot to death in his car.”
“Terry never mentioned it! But I’ve only heard from him a few times since then. I met Jack when I went to visit Terry for a few days.”
“Did you ever date Jack?”
“No, he was Terry’s friend.”
“Is Terry gay?” the detective asked abruptly.
“Well, I don’t think so. Not really,” the young woman answered. “He was a little … confused about himself.”
“Where is he now?”
“La Jolla. At least he was last time he wrote. Hoping to work at a hotel, he said. No real mailing address. He’s a bit immature, but a really good kid. Everyone likes him.”
“He ever been in trouble with the law?”
“Never that I know of.”
“He use drugs?”
“Not that I know of. I mean, maybe he smokes a little grass like everybody else.”
“When did he leave Palm Springs?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Over a year ago, I guess.”
“If he calls or writes I’d like to talk to him,” Sidney Blackpool said. “I’m going to give you my office number. They can reach me.”
Meanwhile, Otto Stringer finished his second drink and was trying to avoid eye contact with a Harlan Penrod lookalike, this one with his own hair, who sat at Otto’s end of the bar nursing a virgin margarita while an Anthony Newley oldie played on the Palm Springs radio station.
He managed to look directly into Otto’s eyes as he sang it with Tony: “ ‘This is the moment! My destiny calls me!’ ”
Otto’s eyes slid back in his skull and he ordered another double, AIDS or not, just as Harlan came bubbling into the saloon.
“I’m onto something!” he whispered breathlessly to Otto.
“So’s he,” Otto said, pointing to the lip-syncher. “Angel dust maybe. So how’s the life of a secret agent?”
“Terry Kinsale’s been away and now he’s back in town! He was in the bar Saturday night!”
In a few minutes Sidney Blackpool returned and began comparing notes with Harlan while Otto’s admirer gave up and started singing to a bogus cowboy in dirty jeans who ordered two beers the moment he sat down.
“We’ll check with Palm Springs P.D. tomorrow and see if Terry Kinsale’s trying to register for hotel work. Meantime, let’s keep it very quiet, Harlan. He left Palm Springs about the time Jack was killed so this could turn into something.”