The Secrets of Harry Bright by Joseph Wambaugh Read Free Book Online

Watson, and because Pigasus enjoyed scaring the living shit out of the F . B. I . agent who was turning green from the mini-aerobatics. There were lots of red picku p t rucks in a valley this large and even more that appeared to be red from the sky, and lots of others that were not quite red but could appear to be so when seen at ground level by an overheated seventy-eight-year-old Las Palmas gentleman with trifocals.
    In the desert you don't get very much mileage from your fuel. When you're walking, that is. You can get about ten good miles out of your body if you fill your body tank with a gallon of water. You get lots less if you're wearing a navy-blue police uniform and Sam Browne, lugging a 9mm pistol and a hideout gun in a leg holster. Especially if you have a severely sprained ankle and don't know diddly about the desert in the first place.
    When O. A. Jones got so hot and tired he was about to drop, he plopped down prone and breathed through his mouth on the desert floor, which was about 25 degrees hotter than it would be one foot off the ground. When he could gather up the strength to continue, O. A. Jones ignored the many desert birds that would give a rat like Beavertail Bigelow a clue to water holes. He knew nothing of quail flying toward water in the late afternoon, and had never noticed all the times he shot at doves that they also flock toward water holes in the late afternoon and evening. He didn't know of indicator plants--sycamore, willow, cattail, cottonwood--where he might dig. He staggered right past a limestone cave that contained a large pool of cool clean water. He made a painful detour because he was scared of encountering a mountain lion, though one hadn't been seen in those parts for thirty years.
    O . A. Jones was having some very troubling thoughts: If only summer hadn't come so early this year. If only he'd stayed in Laguna Beach where he grew up. If only he hadn't got all hyped about the kidnapping of the rich guy's kid. If only he hadn't taken that trail off into the canyon because he thought he saw a campfire. If only everything would speed up so he wasn't seeing birds fly in slow motion. If only his arms and legs weren't tingly. If only he weren't turning bluer than his uniform.
    Then O. A. Jones heard it: the music. And he thought , This is it! Fucking harps and angels! Then he heard it again. It was a banjo! Somebody was playing the banjo and singing!
    O. A. Jones lurched to a stop and listened. He didn't know how confusing sound can be out there as it bounces off canyon walls and ricochets like a rifle shot, especially if your body temperature is up four degrees and climbing. O. A. Jones heard what sounded like a car engine starting up. O. A. Jones started hobbling in slow motion on his swollen ankle. The wrong way.
    Meanwhile, Victor Watson, with an F . B. I . agent monitoring, had received his second telephone call from the woman, who this time was calling from a place that offered no sound clues. She instructed Victor Watson to obtain $250,000 in tens and twenties and pack it inside a large suitcase. He was told to drive his white Mercedes on a circuitous route that made no sense whatever to the Palm Springs police who were playing second banana to the feds. He was to head out Whitewater Canyon, then to double back on Highway 10, then up Route 62 toward Devil's Garden, then back toward North Palm Springs. It was apparent that if the kidnappers were watching the drop car they'd need an aircraft to do it, and the only aircraft in the skies that day were commercial flights out of Palm Springs and choppers belonging to law-enforcement agencies. Victor Watson was ordered to call home at precise twenty-minute intervals, which was impossible given the desolate stretches up toward Little San Bernardino Mountains and back again.
    After a third call the kidnappers stopped dicking around. Mrs. Watson received it while her husband was gone. She was ordered by the woman to tell Victor Watson when he