“I think I might die of excitement!” Harlan cried. “But I’ll keep it on the q.t. Where’re we going now?”
“Otto and I have to go back to Mineral Springs.”
“We do?” Otto said.
“Good. I’ve never been up there!” Harlan said.
“Uh, Harlan, how about you hanging around the gay bars tonight? Ask around about Terry. You might come up with something.”
“I’ll bet,” Otto muttered
“You might even come up with Terry,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Here, this should be enough.” He handed the houseboy four twenty-dollar bills. “You can cab it home afterward.”
“Okay,” Harlan said, “but let me know tomorrow what we’re working. I would’ve dressed a little less butch if I knew we were coming out here.”
“Call you tomorrow,” Sidney Blackpool said, as they left Harlan to finish his drink at the bar.
“So why’re we going to Mineral Springs again tonight?” Otto wanted to know as they drove away.
“So we can look at it at night. I mean really look at it.”
“A little town like that? What’s to look at?”
“I wanna see the road Jack Watson took for his last ride. I wanna see how it looks at night.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know why.”
“Then why do it?”
“We might get an idea.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know any other way to work a whodunit homicide. It’s the way I was trained.”
“You know, Sidney, I don’t think I’ll ever make a good corpse cop. Maybe you oughtta bounce me over to the robbery detail or something.”
“You’ll be a corpse cop and a twelve handicapper before I’m finished with you, Otto.”
“ ‘This is the moment!’ ” Otto suddenly sang. “ ‘My destiny calls me!’ ”
“That’s the spirit, kiddo,” Sidney Blackpool said, à la Archie Rosenkrantz. “Golf’s a mystery but murder isn’t. You look at a whodunit the way you look at the desert. This desert changes from one minute to the next. Same with a whodunit. But you gotta be able to see it.”
“Hope I don’t get the spider in my chili tonight,” Otto said. “Looks like we’re dining at the Eleven Ninety-nine Club.”
Twenty million years ago the Coachella Valley was created by fault action, and today the huge San Andreas Fault runs along the mountains on the north side of the valley. Mount San Jacinto and the Santa Rosas, which partly shelter this valley, are much younger than the neighboring San Bernardino Mountains, less rounded, more dramatic and impressive to the human eye. The bottom of the Salton Sea is 273 feet below sea level, only a few feet higher than Death Valley. In the daylight this desert valley seems lifeless and inhospitable. But the desert at night is quite another story.
The Santa Rosas are home for 650 bighorns. There are birds as huge as the turkey vulture soaring over open country. There is the great horned owl glowering forever like the boss ayatollah, and there’s the spotted skunk, which can fire its scent while doing a handstand like an Olympian. There is an occasional lion sighted in this country and packs of coyotes everywhere. There are diamond-backs more than six feet in length.
And there are smaller, more secret night prowlers, the kit fox for one, no larger than a house cat. And kangaroo rats, as cute as chipmunks, with large white tails used for balance as they hop. There are leaf-nosed bats flitting like shadows on the desert floor in the moonlight. There are black widows, scorpions, cockroaches as big as locusts, and 340 species of birds. The desert at night is not at all lifeless. But it can be inhospitable, especially to detectives from Hollywood.
Sidney Blackpool drove as far as was comfortable into Solitaire Canyon on the main asphalt road. Then he took a flashlight from the glove box and led Otto on foot toward the smaller canyon where the Watson car was found.
“You didn’t happen to stick an off-duty gun under the seat a your car when we left L.A., did you, Sidney?” Otto asked hopefully.
“Didn’t think we’d be up against too much physical danger on the links,” Sidney Blackpool said.
“This freaking place’s spooky,” Otto said. “Listen to the wind howl. When it really blows I bet it could turtle the Queen Mary.”
“It sounds like surf crashing against the rocks,” Sidney Blackpool said. Then he switched off his flashlight and gazed up the canyon toward the lights in the shacks and cottages occupied by outlaw bikers.
Smoke trees clawed wispily at the wind. On the rocky slope a tree of vertical whips cracked out from the hillside. It was twelve feet tall and the branches floated and wavered in the moaning wind as though it were underwater. All around them were twisted tormented shapes of desert plants and trees, gargoyle shadows. And there were banshee laughs and screams of nocturnal creatures killing and being killed on this perfect November night. Neither detective knew for sure if the demented sounds were made by animals or by those who lived on the road above in the shacks where the lamps flickered in utter darkness.
“Listen!” Sidney Blackpool said.
Under a desert willow that would soon have flowers of rose and lavender, they heard the melody of a burrowing owl living in an abandoned coyote den: COO-COO-COOOOOOO.
Then as Sidney Blackpool stepped closer in the darkness, the owl felt threatened and cried “KAK KAK KAK!”
Sidney Blackpool stepped yet closer and the owl imitated the buzz of an angry diamondback.
And two city boys turned tail, hotfooting it toward the road.
“Kee-rist!” Otto cried.
“Was that what I thought it was?”
“What the hell you think it was?”
“Well, I was reading in the tourist guide that desert creatures can imitate rattlesnakes. It could’ve been a desert impressionist.”
“A hog’s ass could be kosher, but I don’t think so! And I don’t wanna catch his act again, even if it was Rich Little! Now let’s get out of this freaking place before we get gobbled by buzzards or something.”
Then they heard it coming: a motorcycle. A Harley came thundering down the dirt road from the shacks at a speed that seemed impossible at night. The driver was obviously very sure of himself or didn’t give a damn.
Instead of going out the main road, he turned the bike back into the canyon, back by a stand of strange shaggy trees. He stopped the bike and got off. He stood for a moment and peered around in the light from the Harley’s headlight.
“I got a feeling,” Sidney Blackpool said quietly.
“You got a feeling what?” Otto whispered.
“That he’s looking in the very spot where the Watson car was found. I bet it was down in those trees.”
“My neck hair’s doing the boogaloo and the freak-a-deek,” Otto whispered. “Let’s make a run for the car.”
“Let’s duck behind the rocks and watch him.”
“He might catch us and think we’re cops!”
“We are cops, Otto.”
“I’m losing my fucking mind! I mean he might think we’re local dope cops. He might shoot first and apologize later after he finds out we’re only harmless homicide dicks from Hollywood … who don’t even have a nine iron to defend themselves with!”
The biker gave up looking and got back on the Harley, digging it into the sand, which made him get off and rock it out. He was a very big man, that much was certain even at a distance.
“Too late to run now,” Otto breathed. “Here he comes.”
The Harley growled toward them at a much slower pace. Then the driver spotted the Toyota far down the road and made straight for it. Both detectives peered over the rocks as he passed, but he punched it and kicked up a dust cloud. They could see his silhouette stop beside the Toyota as he peeked inside for a moment. Then he was off and heading toward the main highway and Mineral Springs.