“Oh, shit!” Paco said. “Where’s O. A. Jones?”
“He’s after them!”
“Where’s Wingnut?” Paco grabbed his gun from the desk and ran toward the front door of the station house. “He’s off the air!”
“Goddamnit! I’ll be back soon as I can! Annie, when Coy comes in, tell him to wait in my office!”
Paco Pedroza was gone before she yelled, “Coy’s already on the street! And I can’t reach him on the air!”
“Whaddaya mean, he’s already on the street?” Sidney Blackpool asked Annie.
“He came in and took his messages and rushed out to his unit. I can’t reach him. He’s not answering.”
As Annie went back to the radio, Sidney Blackpool and Otto looked at each other and walked out of Paco’s office. They heard Maynard Rivas break in to broadcast his location as the secondary chase car.
Then Sidney Blackpool said to Annie, “What’d Sergeant Brickman say when he left?”
“Nothing, except to ask me what time the message came in.”
“What message?”
“A pawnbroker called to ask if Coy’d been given back the ukulele that the detective had inquired about. He didn’t say which detective. I figured it was you.”
“Let’s hit it, Otto!” Sidney Blackpool yelled, rushing out the front door.
“Loan me a gun!” Otto said to Anemic Annie.
“Are you sure it’s okay, Sergeant?” she asked. “You can’t join the pursuit in a private car, and …”
“Gimme a fucking gun!” Otto bellowed, and the trembling woman quickly unlocked the drawer at the front desk and shoved a.38 Colt four-inch revolver across the counter to Otto Stringer who jammed it in his waistband and ran out of the station.
“We shouldn’t be doing this!” Otto said, as he slid into the Toyota.
“We got no choice! He knows we’re onto him. He’s either getting rid of his gun or Harry Bright’s. If it’s his gun we can’t guess where he might be. If it’s Harry Bright’s gun we know where that is.”
“Brickman might try to shoot us, Sidney!”
“We got no choice. At least, I got no choice. Want me to leave you here?”
“I’ll back you up,” Otto said without enthusiasm.
Sidney Blackpool blew through the red light and was wheeling left on Jackrabbit Road within minutes. He cut his lights and drifted toward the end of the cul-de-sac in total darkness. The street was on the edge of town. There were no sidewalks, no curbs, no sewer lines, and no streetlights.
“Where is it?” Otto asked, barely moving his lips. “Where’s Brickman’s car?”
There were only six mobile homes on the street and they were all thirty yards apart. Behind them was open desert and a view clear to the foothills. When they parked they heard the coyote packs loping down from the mountains, yapping in ecstasy as they began the night’s hunt.
“He’s not here yet,” Sidney Blackpool said.
“Or he’s here and gone.”
“No, because he’d wanna find two things: Harry’s gun and the cassette with Harry’s songs. He’d need a little time. I think he’s getting rid a his gun. I think he’ll be coming along here at least to get the cassette. Even if it was his gun and not Harry’s that the kid was shot with.”
Sidney Blackpool backed in behind a mobile home that looked vacant. At the mouth of the street a dog uttered a halfhearted bark. Anyone would think that the dog was just nervous about the pack of coyotes, as well he should be.
They got out of the Toyota and walked across a grass driveway. The wind gusted and howled, and the coyote voices joined in.
They could see a woman through a kitchen window of a mobile home on the opposite side of the road. The home belonging to Harry Bright was only large enough for one bedroom. There was a telephone line and a cable T.V. hookup coming from a pole at the edge of the property.
“Otto, I’m gonna wait behind the mobile home,” Sidney Blackpool whispered. “How about you staying near the car? If he spots me or gets nervous about anything, I’d like you to turn on the headlights and make a lotta noise and run right toward us. I want him to think Paco’s with you. I don’t want him to know it’s just us two, He might fight.”
“He might shoot.”
“I’m not gonna give him a chance. Soon as he’s inside Harry Bright’s place, I’m gonna announce our presence and tell him the ball game’s over and he might as well come out and talk.”
“Wonderful!” Otto said, looking down. “This fucking Colt’s not loaded!”
“Paco should be here any minute,” Sidney Blackpool said. “I just hope he doesn’t pull up at the same time Brickman does, and spook him.”
“This is an evil fucking case,” Otto said, hefting a flashlight and an empty gun.
A car turned into the dark street and drove to the end of the cul-de-sac. It was not a police car. There were two kids in it. The car made a U-turn and headed back to the main road. The detectives could hear the coyote voices growing faint. That hunt had passed them by.
There were other night sounds: the trill of insects, the hoots and chirps and whoops, and the demented yapping in the desert at night. A shaggy tamarisk tree behind Otto started rattling in the moaning wind and scared the hell out of him. He looked fearfully at the gargoyle shapes behind him in the desert, and up at the glittering gems whirling in the pure black air. He thought of bloated buzzards with ugly naked heads, and of writhing deadly serpents that rattled like the trees.
Sidney Blackpool thought he heard a scrape. At first he believed it was in front of the mobile home. He crept around and looked at the street. Nothing. He was walking back past the door and on impulse gave the knob a turn. It was unlocked!
The idea of it only half registered. His brain needed a second to signal the potential danger. The man in the mobile home didn’t need a full second. He was crouched and had been ready to escape for several minutes. He kicked that door the instant Sidney Blackpool turned the knob. The door smashed into the side of the detective’s face, jolting him backward. He fought for his feet like a man falling down a flight of stairs. When he landed in the desert garden he didn’t even feel the spines of the jumping cholla cactus.
He was aware of saliva turning sour in his throat. Then there were some pulsating flashes. He was aware of Otto running and falling hard and yelping in pain.
“Sidney!” Otto shouted. “Ohhhh, my hands!”
“Otto!” Sidney Blackpool sat up, feeling the stabbing in his face and neck. “Otto, you okay?”
“My hands!” Otto moaned. “I’m in cactus! Goddamn cactus!”
“Me too!” Sidney Blackpool said. “Was it him? Was it Brickman?”
Then they heard the sound of a car engine on the main road as it sped away.
“I dunno, Sidney. He was in dark clothes. Coulda been a police uniform. But I dunno. Ohhh, my fucking hands! I’m hurting!”
Both men got to their feet and Sidney Blackpool led the way to the mobile home. The door was hanging open and he reached inside, turning on the light.
“No sense worrying about prints,” he groaned. “If Brickman takes care a the place, his prints’d be everywhere anyway.”
“Maybe we just walked in on a righteous burglary,” Otto said. Then he thought that over and added, “Sure. And maybe you’re Robin Hood cause you’re carrying a quiverful. Sidney, what’re we doing in this desert?”
Otto entered the bathroom of the little mobile home. He pulled spines out of his hands and arms and dumped rubbing alcohol over the wounds while Sidney Blackpool ransacked the drawers and closets. He found a wardrobe behind the bedroom near a storage space containing a bicycle and a tire pump. In the wardrobe were six police uniforms with sergeant stripes. He remembered hearing that a desert cop needs six because of summer heat. There was a Sam Browne belt draped over a hook. The Sam Browne held an empty holster.
“Goddamn son of a bitch!” he yelled, kicking the door of the wardrobe closet.
“Okay, so it’s gone,” Otto said, without being told. “Come in the kitchen and sit. Lemme pull those filthy little needles out.”