Take a Number

by Janet Dawson

  Finally, at six, the orange Camaro roared into the lot and parked near the stairs in back. Harlan Pettibone emerged, wearing a summer white uniform. He hefted a couple of brown paper grocery sacks and climbed the stairs, setting the sacks down outside the door while he unlocked it. He opened the curtains halfway and turned on his stereo, which was tuned to some heavy metal rock station. I could hear it all the way across the street. Evidently the neighbors could hear it more than they cared to, because a man two doors down came out of his apartment and knocked on Harlan’s door. After a brief exchange, the man returned to his apartment and the music went down a few notches.

  I was about to hazard a trip over to check out the Camaro when Harlan emerged from the apartment, wearing his off-duty uniform of black jeans and an orange T-shirt. Even at this distance he radiated energy, bouncing as he walked barefoot along the upper walkway, then down the stairs to the bank of mailboxes near the manager’s apartment. He returned to his apartment with a handful of envelopes. A moment later the music that had poured through the open door stopped in mid-reverb. I saw him framed by the curtains in the front window, left hand to his ear, right hand gesturing, as though he was talking on the phone. Then he disappeared from view.

  Minutes ticked by on my dashboard clock. Then Harlan emerged once again, this time wearing his high-topped sneakers. He bounced down the stairs and got into the Camaro. The engine roared to life and Harlan zoomed out of the parking lot, much too fast for a residential street. I followed him down Pacific. He turned right onto Webster Street, and I wondered if he was heading for the bar where I’d first encountered him. But he passed the tavern, driving all the way down Webster till he reached Encinal. He turned left and I followed a few car lengths back, barely making the light before it changed.

  Harlan was headed for downtown Alameda. He stayed on Encinal until he reached Park Street. He turned left again, bullying his way into traffic. This time I missed the light, banging my fist against the wheel of my car in frustration as the signal turned red. But luck was with me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the orange Camaro stop and back into a spot half a block down Park Street. Harlan got out of the car and went into a building. When the light turned green again, I made the left and drove slowly along the street, glancing to my right to see which business Harlan was patronizing.

  It was a Mexican restaurant called Juanita’s, and the Camaro was parked in front. I passed the restaurant, scanned the street for a parking space, and spotted one near the corner of Park and Central. My dashboard clock read six-fifty. I got out of my car, crossed at the light and walked along the other side of Park Street, looking over four traffic lanes to the plate-glass windows of Juanita’s. Evidently Harlan’s phone call at the apartment had been to his cronies, to let them know he’d been liberated from the brig, because he was sitting at a table by the window with four or five other guys. They were drinking beer and talking all at once. The orange Camaro was parked right outside the window where Harlan and his buddies sat, less than ten feet from the curb. That was far too close for me to examine the rear bumper for Rosie’s R. I’d have to wait until Harlan left the restaurant.

  I watched while they ordered a meal from the waitress, then I doubled back on my side of the street, to a restaurant and coffee bar called the Courtyard. Inside I paid a quick visit to the rest-room facilities at the back, then returned to the counter, where I ordered a caffe latte and a large bran muffin left over from that morning’s breakfast trade. I hadn’t had any dinner and my stomach was making its displeasure known. The Courtyard had several small tables with chairs outside its Park Street entrance, so I carried my coffee and muffin out the door, grabbing last week’s edition of the East Bay Express from the basket of newspapers at the entrance. I took a seat at a table on the sidewalk, facing in the direction of Juanita’s. From that angle I couldn’t see Harlan and his buddies, but I had a relatively unobstructed view of the orange Camaro.

  I peeled the paper off my bran muffin, broke it into small chunks and ate it slowly, nursing my caffe latte as well. The muffin was stale but I consumed it anyway. It looked like I had a long evening in front of me. An hour crawled by and the summer day faded into dusk, until I could no longer read the type on the newspaper in front of me. My coffee was now cold dregs and I’d long since finished reading the newspaper. For something to do while I waited, I was reduced to flicking crumbs off the table with my thumb and forefinger.

  Finally Harlan and his buddies burst out of Juanita’s, Harlan’s orange T-shirt a glowing nucleus as the others whirled noisily around him on the sidewalk, with much backslapping and rough-housing. I leapt up and headed for my own car. By the time I crossed Park Street at the light, the others had spun off one by one and Harlan was opening the driver’s side door of his Camaro. I heard the engine roar as I unlocked my Toyota. I turned the key on my own engine as he came abreast of me.

  Harlan wasn’t going home. He made a right onto Central, driving the opposite direction. Keeping my distance, I followed him as he turned right again on Broadway, heading toward the bay, then left onto Otis. We sped past the High Street intersection, around the curve at Fernside and onto the metal-surfaced bridge that separates the main island of Alameda from the Harbor Bay development, on what used to be marshland north of the Oakland International Airport. Harlan steamed through the intersection at Island Drive and continued on Doolittle, headed south, in the direction of the airport. To my right were the lush greens and ponds of the Alameda golf course, barely visible in the gathering dusk. Farther south and east was San Leandro Bay, and for several miles Doolittle ran right along the shoreline of what was known as the airport channel. But Harlan didn’t plan on driving that far. He made a right turn onto Harbor Bay Parkway.

  Nearly a mile into the parkway the road curved to the right, and widened with the addition of a grassy median strip. Just past this point Harlan pulled the Camaro over to the side of the road and stopped, lights on. Either he knew he was being followed or he was keeping an appointment. I didn’t have much choice. I passed him and drove another quarter mile until I reached the nearest intersection, Maitland Drive. I turned right and so did the boundary of the golf course. I parked the Toyota, switched off my lights and got out.

  Now that the sun had disappeared behind the hills of San Francisco, there was a slight chill in the air, a breeze blowing off the bay, raising a fine layer of gooseflesh on my bare forearms. I shoved my purse under the seat and locked the car door. I carried only my keys and the tiny flashlight I’d had with me Saturday night, when Joe Franklin and I talked to Rosie in the cemetery. Now I stuck both keys and flash into pockets of my jeans and quickly walked the short distance to the parkway.

  I could still see the lights of Harlan’s Camaro parked in the distance. If he’d picked up on the fact that I was following him, surely he would have left by now. So I figured my guess that he was meeting someone was correct. I considered my options. If I approached the Camaro from this side of the parkway, he’d see me for sure. I darted across the deserted street. Maitland Drive dead-ended at the airport perimeter. Both sides of the parkway were paved and curbed, landscaped with grass and bushes. The few streetlights arrayed on either side of the street illuminated only their immediate area. Harlan had parked midway between two such lamps. I set out in the direction of the Camaro. I’d only walked a dozen yards when a car turned off Maitland onto the parkway. I dropped and flattened myself on the grass, motionless, as the headlights passed me.

  As the vehicle continued down the parkway toward Doolittle Drive, I got to my feet and moved forward slowly, my shoes swishing through the grass. My footsteps sounded loud to me, despite the intermittent roar of jet engines from the airport. I moved in a low crouch as I approached Harlan’s Camaro, thankful I’d worn dark clothing. Though an expanse of asphalt and the median strip separated us, I was wary of being seen. I saw Harlan, a shadow sitting behind the wheel of the orange Camaro.

  Another car was approaching, this time on Harlan’s side
of the parkway. The vehicle was long and shiny, white with lots of chrome. It came to a stop a few yards in front of the Camaro, engine running, lights still burning. The driver got out, a tall man in dark pants and a white shirt. He shut the car door and walked back toward the Camaro. Now Harlan got out of his car, but he left the driver’s side door open, as though he wanted to be able to slide quickly under the wheel. He stepped around the door and walked forward. The two men met in the space between the cars.

  Another car turned off Maitland Drive onto the parkway and approached on my side of the road. After it passed, I moved several yards farther along the parkway until I came to the spot where the median strip ended. Now I was well past the rear of Harlan’s car. Harlan and his companion seemed intent on their conversation. I darted across the parkway to the fence that bordered the golf course, then I moved forward, my objective the rear bumper on the passenger side of Harlan’s orange Camaro, its red taillights glowing at me.

  I wished I had a ditch or some bushes to mask my movements. Instead I had a sidewalk and the inadequate cover of the foliage planted near the fence. As I moved closer to the Camaro I heard voices. Harlan and the tall man seemed intent on their conversation. They hadn’t budged from their spot between the two cars. Finally I was even with the rear bumper of the Camaro, parked at the curb. I remained crouched for a moment, sheltered by a low-hanging bush with scratchy leaves. Then I moved low and fast, over the grass and the sidewalk to the rear bumper of the Camaro. I pulled the little flash from my pocket, shining its narrow beam on the bright orange finish. And there it was, the spiky R Rosie had scratched deep into the surface with her nail-studded stick, on Saturday night when Harlan Pettibone and Sam Raynor had argued on Howe Street.

  “Don’t fuck with me, man.” I heard Harlan’s voice now, in his affected Texas twang, carried back on the breeze as he talked with the man who’d come to meet him. “You had two weeks to turn over the fucking car. I want my money.”

  The other man’s reply was muffled as a jet took off from the Oakland airport. Eager to hear more of the conversation, I risked moving closer, edging up the passenger side of the Camaro, mindful of the red glow of the taillights of the second car, which I now saw was a Cadillac Coupe de Ville. I was unable to tell whether there was anyone else in the Caddy. Now I was close enough to pick up words and phrases.

  “I know how much the fucking Mercedes is worth,” Harlan was saying. “So don’t hand me that bullshit. Only reason I ain’t come looking for you before is I’ve been out of circulation. But I’m here now. And you got your cut. So fork over the goddamn money.”

  The other man was white, tall and bulky, his features soft and fleshy in the harsh illumination provided by Harlan’s lights. He grumbled a bit and reached into his pocket. I tensed, and so did Harlan, but the taller man pulled out a thick roll of bills. He counted out what appeared to be a substantial sum.

  Harlan was going to benefit quite nicely from the theft of Tiffany’s Mercedes, the one that everyone assumed was warm, if not hot, when Sam bought it. It was even hotter now. No wonder Tiffany swore Sam had been angry when the car was stolen. He’d set up the purchase, loaning Tiffany the cash and arranging a payment schedule, solely as a means of laundering his money. Then his pal Harlan got greedy, saw an opportunity and took it. No doubt that was one reason for their argument the night Sam was killed.

  Suddenly the transaction was over. The tall, bulky man strode to his Cadillac, got in and fired up the engine. I memorized the Caddy’s plate number so I could check it with the Auto Theft detail at the Oakland Police Department. He pulled out onto the asphalt, headed toward Maitland Drive. Harlan remained standing in front of the left headlight of the Camaro as the Caddy made its U-turn at the intersection and headed back down the parkway toward Doolittle Drive. I froze, tensed, by the car’s right front fender. All I had to do was wait until he got into the Camaro. Then I’d make a run for that bush at the golf course fence, staying in its shelter while Harlan drove away, leaving me to double back to where I’d left my Toyota.

  I’d been kneeling too long, and when I attempted to straighten my legs, my foot slipped. I swore under my breath as my foot made contact with some gravel, the pebbles pinging against the Camaro’s hubcaps. The sound was enough to divert Harlan from counting his money.

  “What the fuck?” he said as he moved swiftly from his position near the left front of the Camaro to the right, shoving the cash into his pocket. I stood up to meet him.

  “What the fuck?” he said again, staring at me.

  “I told you I was going to be all over you, Harlan.”

  Thirty-nine

  “LIKE FLEAS ON A DOG. I REMEMBER.”

  Harlan grinned. This time he didn’t look like the skinny goofy sailor with the crooked nose, who rose to the bait I provided that day in the bar. He looked menacing.

  “I remember, honey. You really got me goin’. I went home, told Sam about it. He cussed up one side and down t’other, told me you was a private eye.”

  I moved forward, away from the Camaro, onto the concrete sidewalk that paralleled the road. “You really have the shitkicker routine honed to a fine edge, Harlan. The cornpone accent, and all that ‘T for Texas’ bullshit. You play the buffoon, and no one takes you seriously. Not even Sam. He must have been surprised when Cousin Ty blew him away.”

  Harlan laughed. “Me? Now what makes you think that?”

  “Harlan T for Tyrone Pettibone.” I moved another step away from the Camaro and he watched me warily. “Not Texas, not tiger. Tyrone. Tiny bones,” I said. I’d been singing the phrase in my head for the past few days, and it was an effort not to sing it now. “When you were kids, Sam used to call you tiny bones, because you were short and skinny and it’s a play on both your names. Later he shortened it to Ty-Bone, because everyone called you Ty.”

  “Where’d you get all this stuff?” Harlan asked. He raised his bony shoulders in a shrug, then strolled toward the open driver’s side door of his car.

  I angled in that direction, stepping off the curb onto the road in front of the Camaro, to see what he was up to, but he merely stood next to the door with both hands visible, resting on the hips of his black jeans.

  “I talked to your cousin Nancy down in Gilroy this morning,” I said. “She filled me in on the family history. Your mother’s maiden name was Tyrone. Lots of Tyrones down in Bakersfield. They came out here from Texas during the Depression. Your mother is Ida, younger sister of Alma Raynor and Elva Burgett. You were born in Bakersfield. You never even got to Texas until your parents split up. Your mother married Ed Coffin and you didn’t like him, so you went to live with your father in Lubbock. But you used to come to Gilroy in the summer and stay with your aunt Alma. You and Cousin Sam raised some serious hell.”

  Harlan blinked his pale eyes and raised his right hand to rub his chin. “Yeah, we did at that. Now, I admit to bein’ a hell-raiser. What makes you think I’d kill somebody?”

  “Money. That long green stuff you just collected from your partner in the Caddy.” I watched him as he stood near the car. Was it my imagination, or had he moved closer, as though he were going to slip behind the wheel? I edged a little farther to my right in an effort to see him clearer. Now I was in the middle of the right lane of the parkway.

  “It was always money.” My body tensed as I stared at Harlan, ready to move if he did. “That’s where I got sidetracked. So many people who had good reasons to hate Sam, whose lives were destroyed or damaged because they came in contact with him. I lost sight of the fact that this whole case was about the money he was hiding from Ruth. Sam wasn’t murdered because of all that white-hot passion. The motive was cold hard greed.”

  Harlan backed up, leaning against the Camaro, just behind the open door. “How do you figure that?” he drawled, still twanging the Texas accent. He even hooked his thumbs on his belt loops for effect.

  “I don’t have to figure. I’ve got account numbers and balances. Twelve separate accounts in banks fr
om here to Vacaville, all in your name. All opened with amounts less than ten thousand dollars, so you wouldn’t attract any attention. All opened within ten days of Sam closing his account at Wells Fargo in San Jose, the one that received the wire transfer from Guam.”

  “You’re a damn good detective, honey. Don’t mind telling you, you had ol’ Sam worried.”

  “Worried enough to want to get his money back from ol’ Harlan. But you didn’t want to give it up. So you killed him instead.”

  “I got busted for fighting Saturday night,” he protested, raising his open hands in a parody of supplication. “Wasn’t anywhere near Sam.”

  “I’ve got witnesses who place you at the scene, every step of the way. You were at Fenton’s with your buddies at ten-thirty. From there you went to the corner of Forty-first and Howe. You met Sam there, at Sam’s request. Sam was pissed off because he figured out it was you who stole the Mercedes. He also told you I was getting too close and he wanted to stash the money somewhere else. You argued about it, in voices loud enough to be heard across the street. One of you even slapped the car.”

  I watched his face in the light from the nearby street lamp, looking for some reaction, but I saw none. “Sam demanded his money back,” I continued, speculating on what those voices actually said. “He gave you an ultimatum. As far as he was concerned, that was that. Then he headed across the street. He wanted to throw a scare into Ruth. You tagged along. Maybe you were still arguing. Maybe you even wanted to keep Sam from doing something stupid to Ruth. Mostly I think you were looking for a chance to hang on to all that money. And you found it.”