“Where’d you get that kid’s picture?”
“From Victor Watson’s house. The houseboy found it and gave it to us in the hopes it might be a lead we could develop.”
“You mean to tell me, in all the reports and follow-ups, there ain’t no mention a me or my tip on that kid Terry?”
“Well there might be,” Sidney Blackpool lied. “We haven’t seen everything. Maybe the Palm Springs homicide dicks just put that in a separate file we haven’t seen. You know how dicks carry notes hanging outta every pocket.”
“Yeah, well, I can’t believe Harry Bright wouldn’t a told them about it. He was too good a cop to ignore a tip like that. So I want you to run this down and get back to me about it. If that kid’s involved in this I got a right to the bread.”
“Okay,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Too bad we can’t talk to Harry Bright.”
“Nobody’s ever gonna talk to Harry again,” the biker said. “Last time I saw him he looked real bad and I heard he’s deteriorated since then. Jist stares straight ahead. Don’t even respond with blinks they tell me. I can’t stand to see Harry Bright like that.”
“Who knows him best?” Sidney Blackpool asked. “I mean, besides his family?”
“Harry ain’t got no family,” Billy Hightower said. “Lives alone in a little mobile home over the other side a Mineral Springs. Always invited me to visit him, but I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t want him to be seen with me. Told him I’d come for supper the first week after he had a lock on his pension. Then I wouldn’t give a shit what people said to the mayor or the district attorney. He lived all alone. Divorced.”
“Who knows him best?” Otto asked.
“That’s easy,” said Billy Hightower. “The other sergeant. Coy Brickman knows Harry best. He used to work with Harry at San Diego P.D. years ago. He’s Harry’s best friend, far as I know.”
“One other thing,” Sidney Blackpool said. “Earlier tonight we saw you drive your bike down toward the tamarisk trees where they found the Watson car. Why’d you do that?”
“The other day I saw that young cop O. A. Jones nosin around the canyon. I got curious if there was somethin new after all this time. Then today before it got dark, I was comin in from the post office and I saw another cop back there goin over the place. It looked like Coy Brickman, and I think, what is this shit? Then tonight I see your Toyota back there. I already heard all about you from the other night at the Eleven Ninety-nine.”
“You don’t miss much, Billy.” Sidney Blackpool grinned.
“Mineral Springs ain’t much, man. We reduced the size a our world considerably.”
Suddenly they heard footsteps on the gravel outside and Billy Hightower held a thick finger up to his lips. He tensed, and then smiled and said, “Come on in, Shamu, you clumsy motherfucker, before somebody shoots you down like a coyote.”
The door opened and a man entered who was just a little shorter than Billy Hightower. He weighed less than a tractor. He wore a Greek sailor’s cap over black hair that could scour every griddle in the House of Pancakes. A gray-streaked black beard exploded from a grimy face studded with blackheads. He wore the inevitable boots and filthy denim. His belt buckle was turquoise and silver, about the size of a turkey platter. He wore turquoise and silver Indian rings on six fingers so scarred and battered they looked like chunks of jagged coral. And he was drunk. Mean drunk with a wired look as though he’d been mixing booze and crank.
“Where’s Gina?” he said, glaring at the two detectives.
“Takin a shower,” Billy Hightower said.
“In here, baby!” Gina yelled from the bathroom. “I washed my hair! I’ll be right out!”
“What the fuck these porkers doin? Gina told me you sent her to bring em up here!”
“They ain’t dope cops,” Billy Hightower said. “They’re workin on that murder where the Rolls was dumped in the canyon.”
“Cops is cops,” Shamu said, and he lurched sideways when he tried to lean on the doorjamb. “They all smell the same.”
“Gina!” Billy Hightower yelled. “Come on out here and get Shamu home to bed. He ain’t in a good mood tonight. How bout a beer, brother?”
“You got no right to bring em up here,” Shamu said, and now he was glaring at Billy Hightower, his lip sullen and drooping.
“I use my own judgment,” Billy Hightower said, his voice as soft and cool as a prison yard. “I’m the president.”
“You’re a smart-mouth fuckin nigger that’s jist gettin too big for your boots is what you are,” Shamu said. “Where’s my woman?”
“She ain’t your woman, brother,” Billy Hightower said. “She’s her woman. She can do what she wants on this hill. With anybody she wants to do it with. Remember the rules.”
“GINA!” Shamu bellowed, as Otto waited for the windows to shatter.
Otto was one unhappy Hollywood detective a long way from home. Shamu looked like one of those Cossacks who only drank champagne so they could eat the glass.
The girl came out fully clothed, drying hair that now looked sandy instead of mousy brown.
“Get your ass home, you cunt!” the boozy giant said. “I din’t tell you to come over here’n jump outta your clothes.”
“I’m comin Shamu, just lemme get …”
He hit her so hard with his open palm that her body jerked sideways and knocked over a table lamp before thudding to the floor beside the sofa. She lay there weeping.
“You jist insulted me,” Billy Hightower said, standing up very slowly. “You jist used violence in my house on one a my guests. You broke the rules.”
The bearded behemoth looked as though he wasn’t mad anymore. He started to giggle, as though he was suddenly in a wonderful mood. He lowered his head and charged. The crash of bodies sent nearly six hundred combined pounds of outlaw flesh hurtling into the tiny kitchen, collapsing the table like a shoe box.
Both detectives leaped up and started to come to Billy Hightower’s aid, but in the hug of Shamu, and writhing in pain, he yelled, “STAY OUTTA THIS!”
Then the two bikers, grunting like grizzlies, staggered back into the living room where Shamu braced against the wall and got Billy Hightower in a very good choke hold.
“Jist … jist … like … like the cops do it!” he grinned, as he applied the forearm and bicep to Billy Hightower’s throat, pinching the carotid artery.
Sidney Blackpool was making a move to use a kitchen chair on Shamu’s skull when Billy Hightower took three short strangling breaths, puffed his cheeks, dropped his chin and clamped down on Shamu’s hairy forearm with those huge broken teeth.
It took perhaps three seconds, but then Shamu began howling. He leaped away from Billy Hightower as if the Cobra leader was on fire. Billy Hightower, with Shamu’s blood dripping down his chin, fell back against the wall wheezing and holding his throat.
“MY ARM. LOOK AT MY FUCKIN ARM!” the bearded biker roared.
There was a flap of skin and muscle hanging loose, and Otto Stringer thought he could see a tendon wriggling like a nightcrawler. Shamu was still staring in shock and pain at his ravaged arm when Billy Hightower drove his fist straight in like a saber thrust. He hit Shamu in the solar plexus and the giant crashed back against the wall blowing like an elephant. Then Billy Hightower did it again. The same shot in the same spot and Shamu’s head shuddered and his teeth cracked shut like a trap and he genuflected. Then Billy Hightower stepped back and affected a grin with black blood-flecked lips and said, “Don’t … don’t never try to choke out a … a hard-core street cop!” Then he added, “I gotta … gotta mark you for this. Sorry, my man.”
He took a step and kicked the giant in the side of the face with his boot. Shamu hit the floor like an anvil. Sounding like one lung had collapsed and the other was going.
“Shamu!” Gina cried, running to the fallen giant. “Baby, baby!”