Take a Number

by Janet Dawson

  “I’m tailing someone. I don’t know how long I’ll be,” I said when Alex picked up the phone. I kept one eye on the liquor store’s checkout counters. So far I hadn’t spotted Raynor. “If I don’t meet you at the restaurant, I’ll meet you at the theater.”

  “And if you don’t meet me at the theater?” Alex inquired, his voice somewhere between disappointed and understanding.

  “Then I’m sorry and we’ll talk later.”

  As I hung up the phone, I saw Raynor wheel a cart to one of the cashiers. He stacked a case of Budweiser on the conveyor belt and followed it up with several liquor bottles, a large can of nuts, and some bags of pretzels and chips. Either he was going to a party or stocking up for the weekend. The cashier rang up the sale and bagged Raynor’s purchases. By the time he’d unloaded the stuff into his Trans-Am, I was in my Toyota, the engine running, ready to follow him on the next leg of his journey.

  Raynor drove back across Webster Street, through a residential section of the West End, and finally parked on Fourth Street near Marion Court. Alameda is full of little cul-de-sacs like this one, short dead-end streets tucked between blocks, lined with cottages built close together. On Marion Court they were beige stucco, probably constructed in the thirties or forties, each with a tiny porch and a postage-stamp front yard, grass going brown in the drought. There were six one-story cottages on either side of the court, and two at the back with second stories built over a garage. The narrow street was crowded with parked cars, most with two wheels on the sidewalk.

  Raynor tucked the case of beer under one arm and picked up his brown paper sack with his free hand, cradling the burden against his chest. His destination was the fourth cottage on the left, the one with a large green and white spider plant hanging next to the door. He knocked and was promptly admitted.

  Another car parked in front of me and two men got out, one black and one white, both with short haircuts, both edging toward forty. One carried a large bucket of take-out chicken, and the other a grocery sack similar to the one Raynor had carried. I heard one man laugh and say, “Didn’t I tell you never to draw to an inside straight?” I watched them walk into Marion Court, their destination the fourth cottage. So the Friday night poker game made the transition from Guam to Alameda. I’d say the odds were good that the game’s host was Chief Yancy.

  I got to Le Cheval just as the waiter set Alex’s dinner in front of him. He raised black eyebrows above his dark brown eyes and greeted me with his quirky smile. I glanced at the menu and ordered, glad that I’d have enough time for dinner. It had been several long hours since my salad at lunch. Fortunately the service at the Vietnamese restaurant was quick and efficient, and Alex and I were able to get to the Paramount Theater right before the show started at eight o’clock.

  We bought our tickets at the box office under the Paramount’s brightly lit marquee, advertising Bette Davis in Dark Victory, then strolled through the sumptuous green and gold lobby, In the orchestra section we found two vacant seats near the aisle and sat down, listening to the guy at the Wurlitzer organ play “Strike Up the Band.”

  “The tail job,” Alex said, draping his arm around my shoulder, “is it the case that involves a sailor?”

  “Yes.” I waited a moment as the organist segued into “Night and Day.” “This Chief Yancy in your department, did he just transfer here from Guam?”

  Alex looked alarmed as he swiveled his head in my direction. “You’re not investigating Chief Yancy?”

  I shook my head. “No. Someone who knew him on Guam.”

  “There’s another man in my department whose last duty station was Guam. Also a recent arrival.”

  “Sam Raynor?” I guessed.

  “Damn.” Alex frowned. “I don’t like the sound of this.”

  Seven

  SATURDAY AFTERNOON I RETURNED TO THE WEST ALAMEDA apartment building. Harlan Pettibone’s name was on the mailbox, but Sam Raynor had a key. Evidently they were sharing the apartment. It’s customary for tenants to give landlords all sorts of personal information, including financial. Maybe I could get a look at the rental application.

  I didn’t see Raynor’s red Trans-Am anywhere, and the blinds were shut at the windows of the second floor unit I’d seen him enter yesterday, so I headed for the mailboxes near the front of the building. Two strips of red plastic tape with raised letters decorated the mailbox for Apartment 101, one reading MANAGER and the other TORELLI. Inside the apartment a television set was going full blast. When I knocked, the noise level abated, then the door swung open.

  She looked very young, twenty at the most, with curly black hair pulled back in an untidy ponytail. She wore denim cutoffs that revealed slender legs, and a sleeveless gray T-shirt with a U.S. Navy emblem stretched over round little breasts. One hand held a can of soda and the other ruffled the hair of the wide-eyed toddler who clung to her leg, training pants riding low enough for me to see that he was a boy.

  “Mrs. Torelli?” I asked. She nodded. “Are you the manager?”

  “Me and my husband,” she said in a wispy little voice that made her seem even younger. She took a sip from the can. Her eyes assessed me over its rim. “You looking for a place to live?”

  “Actually I’d like some information.”

  Mrs. Torelli’s brown eyes widened and she fluttered a pair of long lashes. “We’re not supposed to give out information on tenants.”

  “I’m doing a background investigation on Mr. Pettibone in 210,” I told her. “It’s classified.” If she was a Navy wife, the word “classified” might pry open her mouth.

  “Oh, yeah? Do you have some identification?” The little-girl voice turned quite firm.

  I handed her one of my business cards. “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t tell anyone I’ve been here.”

  Mrs. Torelli turned my card over in her hand, examining it, her black eyebrows arched above her brown eyes as curiosity won over caution. “Is Hal in some kind of trouble?”

  “Well, I can’t really give you any details. Just that there’s a large sum of money involved.”

  “Hal and money? To hear him tell it, he hasn’t got any.”

  The kid set up a clamor, and Mrs. Torelli handed him the soda can. He tipped it up to his mouth, gulping noisily, a trickle of the brown liquid running down his bare chest. His mother didn’t miss a beat as she reached into the pocket of her cutoffs, pulled out a tissue and mopped the spill.

  “If he’s borrowing money, he’s a lousy credit risk. If he’s coming into some cash, I’d sure like to know. He’s always late with the rent.”

  I frowned and pulled a pen and notebook from my purse. “He doesn’t pay his bills on time? Always?”

  “Every month, sometimes a few days, sometimes a week or more. My husband has to lean on him to collect.”

  “When did he rent the apartment? Could you verify that date for me?” I asked, itching to get a look at Pettibone’s rental application.

  “Okay. Come on in.”

  I followed Mrs. Torelli into the apartment. Her rubber thong sandals slapped against the soles of her feet. On my right a small dining area held a round wooden table with three woven rattan place mats, its centerpiece a box of vanilla wafers. Beyond that was a cramped-looking kitchen with a refrigerator and stove in that avocado-green shade popular years ago. The refrigerator door was decorated with an array of food coupons clipped from newspapers and magazines, all affixed to the metal surface with magnets.

  In the living room the shag carpet was the same tired green as the appliances, and its surface was littered with enough toys to make walking across it a hazard. One end of the brown and gold plaid sofa held a stack of neatly folded laundry, its source a big rattan basket still full of tangled clothing. The back wall of the living room held shelves with a stereo, a VCR, and a wide-screen television set, showing a close-up of the characters of a recent and forgettable movie emoting in muted dialogue and hurt-your-eyes color.

  The toddler picked up a bright red plastic
gizmo and stuck it into his mouth as his mother disappeared into one of the bedrooms. She returned a moment later with a file folder in her hand, just as the toddler removed the toy he was gumming from his mouth. He offered it to me, streaked with saliva and vanilla wafer residue, a beatific grin on his round-cheeked face.

  “No, thanks,” I told him. “I’ve already had lunch.”

  “Don’t bother the lady, honeybunch,” Mrs. Torelli said, tousling his hair. Honeybunch made a chirruping noise and butted his head against her leg. She set the soda can on top of the television set, opened the folder and leafed through several sheets of paper. I moved closer, looking over her shoulder.

  “Hal rented the apartment in March and moved in April first. April Fool’s Day.” She laughed. “More fool us. He paid first and last month’s rent and a security deposit. That’s the only time he paid on time. My husband told him if he was late again, he’d have to move. But it’s really hard to evict people in this state, so we threaten first.”

  Her son was now beating the arm of the sofa with his red plastic toy, talking to himself in a litany of toddler-speak that competed with the dialogue from me television. “Honeybunch, cut that out,” Mrs. Torelli said automatically. Honeybunch showed no sign of desisting.

  “What about Pettibone’s roommate?” I asked over the din.

  “Roommate?” Mrs. Torelli frowned. She expertly removed the plastic toy from her son’s hand and replaced it with a plush purple and green frog. The kid emitted a delighted screech and crushed the frog to his bare chest, then he gurgled as he waddled around the living room, training pants slipping even farther down his butt. I took advantage of his mother’s temporary distraction to scan Pettibone’s application.

  “Well, Hal said that was a temporary arrangement. It’s only a one-bedroom unit, but he’s had this guy named Sam staying with him since July,” she said, returning to the folder. “If it looks like Sam’s gonna stay on much longer, he’s gotta fill out a form. I don’t want to get in Dutch with the people that own this place. My husband’s too easy on these guys.”

  “What do you mean?” I wanted to keep her talking. But so far Mrs. Torelli didn’t give any indication that she was ready to end this interview. Maybe she liked talking to another adult, a reaction to being cooped up all day with Honeybunch, who wasn’t exactly a challenging conversationalist. “Too easy on which guys?”

  “Sailors. My husband keeps cutting ‘em slack because they’re Navy. Us Navy people gotta stick together. But let me tell you,” she said sagely, as though she’d had years of experience, “you manage apartments, you gotta be careful. People take advantage of you.”

  “That’s true. Has Pettibone ever bounced a check?”

  “No,” she said, frowning. “Has he done that before?”

  “I’m afraid so. With the Bank of America account. Is that what he’s using to pay his rent?”

  “It’s the credit union on base.” Her index finger ran down the rental application and stopped midway. “He doesn’t say anything here about an account at the Bank of America.”

  “I didn’t know about this credit union account.” I quickly wrote down the account number and as much other information pertaining to Harlan T. Pettibone as I could see on the form, including his social security number and the plate number of his car, an orange Chevy Camaro.

  “Boy, my husband’s not gonna like hearing that Hal writes rubber checks,” Mrs. Torelli was saying.

  “Maybe it’s just an isolated incident.” To my chagrin, Mrs. Torelli closed the folder before I could jot down anything else about Pettibone. “I mean, Pettibone’s in the Navy, right? Maybe he was out to sea when the rent was due and he couldn’t get to the credit union to deposit his check.”

  “Oh, he works in Port Services. The only thing that gets under way there is a tugboat, and they don’t go much past the breakwater. I’m a Navy wife. I know when payday is. He’s in port most of the time, and if he’s like a lot of sailors, his check is direct-deposited at the credit union.”

  All of a sudden it seemed quiet in the room, despite the television set. Honeybunch had worn himself out and was now curled up on the green carpet, eyes closed, his head pillowed on his green plush frog. Mrs. Torelli crossed the living room to her son. She knelt, hands smoothing his dark hair, then she pulled a blanket from the laundry basket and covered him. With a tired sigh she sat on the sofa, slipped her feet out of the sandals and propped them up on the cluttered coffee table.

  “You know, I’ve never actually seen Pettibone,” I said, smiling at the younger woman’s obvious pleasure in this one quiet moment “What does he look like?”

  She laughed. “He looks weird, but he thinks he’s God’s gift to women. It’s always the funny-looking guys think they’re studs. I mean, he’s short and skinny and has that funny nose.”

  “What do you mean by funny?” I moved a wooden train engine from an armchair and sat down.

  “Well, it kinda goes like this.” Mrs. Torelli’s hand sketched a vague shape in the air, enough to make me suspect that someone had punched Harlan in the hooter a time or two. “He sure as hell came on to me when he moved in. But I let him know exactly how I felt about that.”

  “What does he do for entertainment?”

  “My husband says he spends all his time in those bars on Webster Street. Plays pool. Even has a custom-made cue.”

  “Any other problems with Pettibone, besides his being late with the rent?”

  “That damned orange car with the tiger stripes. It’s noisy. He likes to rev it, and it sure needs a muffler.”

  “Tiger stripes? You mean the paint job or the upholstery?”

  “Both. The car’s orange with black trim, plus he’s got tiger-striped seat covers. It’s so tacky.” She rolled her eyes. “He says his middle name is T for Tiger. He’s even got a little stuffed tiger hanging from the rearview mirror, and another one with suction-cup feet stuck to one of the side windows.”

  That should make Pettibone easy to locate, I thought. Just look for the tigermobile. I glanced over my notes. “Do you know anything about the roommate, Sam Raynor?”

  She shrugged. “He’s a first-class petty officer, in one of those aviation ratings. My husband says Sam and Hal knew each other on Guam. Sam drives a red Trans-Am. He’s not here much, just to sleep. He’s getting a divorce from his wife. I’ll bet he’s got some sweet young thing on the beach,” she said using the Navy lingo for “out in town.” She pulled a towel from the laundry basket and folded it, adding to the stack at her side. Then she sat up straight. “I just remembered something. Sam got beat up a couple of weeks ago.”

  Now that was an interesting piece of news. “How badly? Where did it happen?”

  “He had a shiner and some cuts on his face. When I saw him I asked about it, and he made a joke about running into a herd of flying fish. But my husband says he got jumped by some bikers in the parking lot behind Nadine’s.” I knew the place, a night spot on Webster Street that played oldies.

  On the floor the toddler stirred. “I’ve taken up enough of your time,” I said, getting to my feet. “You’ve been very helpful, Mrs. Torelli. I would appreciate it if you didn’t tell either Pettibone or Raynor I was here.”

  As I left, she stood in the doorway of the apartment and I felt her eyes follow me out to my car. My request for silence was probably a useless exercise. Mrs. Torelli would tell her husband that I’d been there. If he was the type to cut fellow sailors some slack, he might let Raynor or Pettibone know I’d been there asking questions. Practically speaking, it was only a matter of time before Raynor found out someone was asking questions about him. And he’d know why.

  After leaving the apartment building, I drove downtown to the Alameda Police Department. I wanted a look at whatever information the cops had on the incident that earned Sam Raynor a black eye. I paid for a copy of the police report and took it back outside to my car.

  The assault happened two weeks ago, on a Thursday night, as Raynor was le
aving Nadine’s. Raynor told the police that two men in biker garb accosted him in the parking lot, braced him against the wall and worked him over. Harlan Pettibone had followed Raynor outside a few minutes later. When he saw the attack, he joined the fray, along with two other sailors who were standing near the club’s front door. Together they routed the bikers, who jumped on their Harleys and roared off down Webster Street, in the direction of Oakland and the Tube.

  Raynor had given Pettibone’s address as his own and claimed he didn’t know why the assailants jumped him. He speculated they were after his wallet, but as I read the report, the bikers appeared to be more interested in hurting Raynor than taking his bankroll. Aside from the two sailors, who were assigned to the aircraft carrier berthed at the air station, there was another witness, a man named Agustin Lopez, evidently an employee of the club. He’d been smoking a cigarette at the rear door. According to Lopez, the bikers said something to Raynor before their fists came into play.

  Interesting, I thought Was someone sending Raynor a message?

  I drove back to the West End. The nightclub was in a one-story building at the corner of Webster and Pacific, its rough stucco exterior painted a tired blue, with red and orange signs advertising the name of the joint and various brands of beer. Inside, I saw tables in front of me and to my left. On the right was a counter where patrons could order beer or food. As befitted a place named Nadine’s, Chuck Berry’s song of the same title blasted out of the jukebox, a big squat Rockola over in the corner. I asked the guy at the bar where I could find Lopez. He waved me toward the kitchen. Lopez wasn’t much help, though. He couldn’t recall anything more than what he told the cops two weeks before. In fact, he seemed hesitant. Had someone, or something, made him forget?

  I returned to my car, considering what I’d learned this afternoon and the questions that knowledge raised. Why had the bikers attacked Sam Raynor? What if someone besides me was looking for Raynor’s money, not the cash he had on him, but the much larger sum he had buried so deeply? If that was the case, why and who?