The Secrets of Harry Bright Read Free Page B

never comfortable walking past Secret Service agents, but had had several occasions to do so in the past twenty-one years when bigshot politicians came to town. Like most policemen he didn't think that Secret Service agents were real cops, so he wasn't altogether relaxed when he had to stroll by with a Smith & Wesson under his coat. Regular cops could spot a plainclothes dick in a minute, but he always feared that one of these guys might eyeball the gun bulge and give him a John Hinckley brain massage with the butt of an Uzi before he could identify himself.
    They didn't call him Black Sid for any reason relate d t o his appearance. In fact, his hair was sandy brown and gray mottled, and his eyes were pale green, and he had the kind of freckled flesh that seemed to invite a keratosis every time he played a round of golf without sunscreen lotion.
    "A skin-doctor's dream," his dermatologist told him. "Keep it up, and by the time you're forty-five you'll progress from something that sounds ugly, like keratosis, to something that sounds pretty, like melanoma."
    People always asked if he got his nickname from being a Dirty Harry, black-glove cop, and he'd explain that policemen love monickers and when your name is Sidney Blackpool you just naturally become Black Sid. What he didn't tell them was that "Black Sid" reflected his cynical demeanor, a look that said doomsday couldn't come soon enough. Nor did he say that he drank lots more than his share of Johnnie Walker Black Label Scotch--ergo, Black Sid.
    Sidney Blackpool was not kept waiting by the foxy secretary at an art nouveau desk shaped like an oil spill. She certainly had no trouble spotting him for a cop, and asked, "Sergeant Blackpool?" the second he entered the office.
    The detective was about to make himself comfortable and maybe see if she was as friendly as she looked when she said, "Oh, you don't have to wait. Mister Watson's expecting you."
    Victor Watson's office was not quite as overdone as the palace at Versailles but it did have a Louis XV parquet floor. And there were terra-cotta urns and Chinese pots on that floor, and Italian rococo mirrors, and a J. M. W. Turner oil painting on the wall, and polished granite tabletops, and a lacquered desk, if it was a desk, that looked like one of those ten-thousand-dollar numbers that're supposed to combine form and function but look like an organ pulled from the belly of a dinosaur.
    Sidney Blackpool was looking for Victor Watson in all this loopy art mix when a voice from the adjoining salon said, "In here, Sergeant Blackpool."
    The smaller room was a sudden relief. It was orderl y w ith nubby upholstery and wood, real wood, and rough tactile accents. It was a man's room, and the desk top of polished granite reflected the pupils and irises of the suntanned smiling man behind it.
    "Doesn't that office make you want to puke?" Victor Watson said.
    Who designed it, Busby Berkeley?" the detective said dryly.
    "My wife did, I'm afraid."
    She only forgot a singing waterfall," Sidney Blackpool said, shaking hands with the older man and being beckoned toward the camel sofa.
    Everyone knew who the "wife" was even if they'd never heard of Victor Watson. She was at one time a top star of feature films and was now experiencing a comeback as a nighttime soap opera killer-bitch.
    There were two crystal tumblers and an ice bucket on the simple oak cocktail table, but there was nothing simple about the Ming-dynasty figural group resting beside a full bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label.
    Victor Watson looked at his wristwatch, Patek Phillipe of course, and said, "Late enough for a drink, Sergeant? You're almost off duty."
    "I don't worry about duty," Sidney Blackpool said. "Only about my liver. Four o clock's late enough."
    Victor Watson sat beside the detective and poured three fingers of Scotch into each tumbler, then added two ice cubes to both drinks. He was so tanned that his crow's-feet crinkled dead white when he smiled, as chalky