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

called to drive out Highway 10 to the Thousand Palms turnoff, then to proceed north to the oasis by Dillon Road.
    As It turned out, the kidnappers weren't kidnappers at all. They were a pair of drifters named Abner and Maybelle Sneed, who usually made their living growing pot in Oregon but had migrated south after the law started applying so much heat to the Oregon plantationers. The y h ad stopped in Palm Springs for a three-day holiday, heard on the news about the disappearance of jack Watson, and gone to the library to look through a copy of the Gold Book," Palm Springs's Who's Who. Then they'd stopped at the pharmacy nearest to the Watson residence, and while Maybelle Sneed kept the pharmacist busy, Abner grabbed the Rolodex from behind the register and found customer Victor Watson's phone number. It was all done in about 120 seconds by people with 75 I . Q .'s, this after Victor Watson had spent more than $15,000 for intruder alarms and sophisticated protection.
    The only surprising move made that day by the would-be extortionists was that Abner rented a motorcycle and was lying in wait near Pushawalla Palms for the Watson Mercedes to pass north. The plan was to scan the skies for cops, and if it looked okay, to whip on out the highway, overtaking Victor Watson and holding up a sign that said: "Toss out the money and you will be told where your boy is."
    Abner and Maybelle were very fine pot farmers, diligent and fair to customers. They took pride in their product and refined it carefully, putting it up like grandma's peaches, with jars, rubber gaskets and labels. But they were not kidnappers and were lousy extortionists. Abner scanned the skies for aircraft with a pair of brand-new binoculars, but never even thought about a radio transmitter in the Mercedes that was signaling the feds hovering far beyond his line of sight.
    Just after Abner roared up on the Honda and made contact with the Mercedes, a signal from Victor Watson brought Pigasus driving in. Moments after Victor Watson threw the suitcase from the car window, the F . B. I . agent had Abner, the failed extortionist, in his scope sight.
    Meanwhile, Maybelle was waiting at a date bar on Dillon Road. It was one of those roadside shacks that sell Coachella Valley dates and date candy and date milk shakes. Maybelle was on her third date milk shake when she spotted Abner roaring up on the Honda, all dust and teeth and giggles, the suitcase balanced across the handlebars. While Maybelle fired up the family sedan, Abner scoote d w est to the side trail and ditched the rented Honda behind a tamarisk tree where he tried to open the locked suitcase.
    "Abner, git in the fuckin car!" Maybelle hollered with her squeaky little voice. "We'll open er later!"
    But Abner couldn't wait to see what $250,000 looked like and he started cussing at Maybelle as though it were her fault that the bag was locked.
    "We gotta git!" Maybelle squeaked, jumping out of the car and running toward the tamarisk tree where Abner was banging on the suitcase like the gorilla in the Samsonite luggage commercial.
    Maybelle was first to sight the helicopter in the distance. She pointed and screamed and when the spotter knew they'd blown their cover, Pigasus closed in on Abner and Maybelle. Abner was like a monkey with his closed fist in a jar trap. He just couldn't let go even after they jumped in the car. He was still fussing with the suitcase lock when Maybelle pulled a bogus carbine from the backseat and aimed it at the bubble of the chopper.
    "To scare them off," she later said.
    While Maybelle was speeding northwest on Dillon Road, Abner took a peek out the window at the trailing chopper. A muzzle flash was the last thing he ever saw.
    Abner didn't die right away and Maybelle didn't die at all even though she had a bullet in her leg and another lodged near her collarbone when the chase ended.
    It was a typical police chase. Before it was over, six different law-enforcement agencies were in on it,