Al continued, “The colored individual who called asked about the ‘Little Eva’ record. Did he not?”
Harman’s head moved up and down.
“Your response,” Al said, “was an offer to sell him some. But we weren’t fooled. It took a long time, Chris, but we did do it.”
“Did do what?” Harman said.
“We got inside,” Al said. “We penetrated your organization. You were right. We’re here, now.” He paused. “Aren’t we, Chris?”
Still Harman’s eyes showed no reaction. It was, Al thought, as if the man actually did not hear him. Had not heard in the slightest.
“And him,” Al said, pointing at the old man. “We reached him, too. You heard what he said. About the letter.”
Turning, Harman walked away from him. He walked over to Ross, Mrs. Harman, and the old man.
“You can’t get away,” Al said.
Harman did not stir. But the old man ceased talking. The room was silent. The old man, Bob Ross, Mrs. Harman all gazed at Al.
“We’ve watched your activities for a long time,” Al said. “In the main, we’ve found you a shrewd operator. You’ve interested us. But even good things can’t go on forever. And you’ve had quite a good thing going for you. Haven’t you, Chris? But now the time has come.” He walked from the dining room, into the hall. “We’re going to blow the whistle. On all of you.”
At the telephone he dialed, watching the three men and the woman. They remained where they were, in the dining room. Harman was saying something to them. Al could not catch it. He did not try.
The phone receiver clicked, and then, in Al’s ear, a woman’s voice said, “Good afternoon.” A warm, familiar, reassuring voice. “Lane Realty. This is Mrs. Lane.”
Al said, “This is Al.” The people in the dining room had stopped talking now. Their sound had died away.
“Oh yes,” Mrs. Lane said. “How are you today, Mr. Miller? I been wondering about you, how you been getting along. Actually I been a little worried about you, but I suppose you know what you’re doing.”
“Could you come and pick me up?” he said.
Hesitating, she said, “I—you’re not at your lot, I know. I can see down there. Where you at?”
“I don’t have a car,” he said. “I’m up in Piedmont.” He gave her the address. “I’d appreciate it,” he said.
“Well,” she said, “by the tone of your voice I can perceive something is going on. I know you wouldn’t call me. Okay, Mr. Miller. There ain’t any bars in that neighborhood, so it ain’t that again. I’ll be there. As soon as I can. Should I just honk or—”
“No,” he said. “Come on up to the porch. If you will.”
“I’ll get out of the car,” Mrs. Lane said. “But I won’t go any further than the sidewalk. You have to come down. Goodbye now.” She hung up then.
He put down the phone and walked back into the dining room. The four of them watched him silently as he approached.
“This is it,” he said.
Pressing her hands together, Mrs. Harman said, “Chris, is something dreadful going on?” She moved over to stand by her husband.
Bob Ross had relit his pipe. He seemed completely at sea; he started to say something and then, grunting, wandered off. Perhaps, Al thought, it was too much for him.
“Do you want to do business?” Al said to Harman. “With me?”
The old man said in a squeaky voice, “Listen, Al—you’re jealous of me and I wish you’d get the hell out of here. Isn’t that a fact? You’re doing this out of spite.” He, too, seemed confused; his hand, pressed against his coat, now scrabbled and then dug into the inside pocket. He brought out an envelope, and from it took a checkbook and a passbook; he studied them, his lips moving. “You know what I got in here?” he said to Al. “Want to know? Listen to this.” His head bobbed up and down, trembling. He swallowed, cleared his throat.
“That passbook is a fake,” Al said.
They all stood rigid, their eyes fixed on him.
“Didn’t you know that?” Al said to Harman. “Did you get hooked on that, too? God, he hooked me years ago, when we went into business together originally. That book’s been around since 1949. Eleven years. He uses it to establish credit; he waves it around. Like he’s doing now. With you.”
Bob Ross laughed.
Swiveling his head, Harman said, “What’s funny, Bob?”
“I just have to laugh,” Ross said. Again he laughed. “I’m not laughing at you,” he said, but he obviously was; he moved into the next room. They could still hear him laughing.
Very slightly, Harman smiled.
“Maybe he’s nuts,” Al said, nodding toward the old man. “I’ve wondered about that. He may very well think he’s really got all that money. Here’s what became of his garage. He went into bankruptcy. They took it over. That’s why he retired. He got nothing out of it. In fact, he owes his brother-in-law seven thousand and me five hundred; he borrowed up to the hilt.”
After a time, Harman said in a casual voice, “Well, we don’t have to dwell on it now.” He moved toward the kitchen. “We’ll have another round of drinks and then lunch.” To his wife, he said, “What about baked ham sandwiches and coffee? And possibly you could fix a salad.” To Al he said, “We’ve got some good French bread.”
As Mrs. Harman went past him and into the kitchen, Harman smiled at Al. He had completely regained his composure. Or, at least, he showed nothing but composure. This is really a smart man, Al said to himself. He knows that it can be checked on in half an hour. He needs to do nothing but put in a couple of phone calls to banks here in town, and then he’ll know all there is to know about the old man’s financial situation. He won’t waste his time trying to battle it out in words. There is no showdown in words, not with this.
I almost had him, Al Miller realized. I almost plugged him with words. But he knows too much about words. He knows they are nothing.
The old man had said nothing; he still stood holding his passbook. Then he put it away in his pocket and started from the dining room, back toward the front part of the house. Al walked after him. As he came into the living room, he saw the old man get the passbook out once more, glance at it, and then again put it away in his coat pocket.
“Fuck you,” the old man said, seeing him.
“The same to you,” Al said.
They were both silent.
There’s no use telling him I saved his money for him, Al said to himself, because he wouldn’t care anyhow. And I haven’t saved it because tomorrow or tonight or next week he will sign it over to Chris Harman anyhow. So it doesn’t matter. But, he thought, at least I didn’t have to stand there and watch it.
“This is a nice house,” the old man said hoarsely.
“Yeah,” Al said.
“Must cost around seventy-five thousand,” the old man said.
“I don’t know,” Al said. “The stucco’s beginning to crack. I think he’s let water get behind it. That’s what ruins stucco.”
From behind them, Harman said, “No water has gotten behind the stucco of this house. I can assure you of that, gentlemen.”
“Al knows everything,” the old man muttered. “No use arguing with him; he’s a know-it-all.”
“Evidently,” Harman said. “Well, the world can use that, too. Any ability can be useful, depending on what it’s applied to.” He gave Al an amiable smile.
There’re no hard feelings there, Al said to himself. That man can afford to be magnanimous; he knows what I know, that what he failed to get today he’ll get tomorrow anyhow. And he knows, too, that I’ve done everything I can; I’ve completely exposed myself, laid myself out bare, and accomplished nothing. I’ve shot my wad. Whatever menace I posed to him was over when he asked his wife to fix baked ham sandwiches and coffee; he had the situation back in his hands at that moment, and he will never lose it again.
To Harman, he said, “How about a raise?”
Startled, Harman said, “For—” H
e gasped and turned red.
“I think I’m worth more than I’m getting,” Al said.
“We’ll see,” Harman murmured, in an automatic manner; he had no other response, evidently. And then he collected himself. “I tend not to agree,” he said to Al. “No, I can’t agree at all.”
“Then I quit,” Al said.
To that, Harman had no response at all.
Outside, from the street, came the sound of a car horn.
“I’ll see you,” Al said. He walked to the window and looked out. There, on the sidewalk beside her old dun-colored Cadillac, stood Mrs. Lane, wearing a long heavy coat and peering up at the Harman house. Her hair was tied up in a silk scarf; she had not had time to dress as fully as she usually did. Seeing him, she gave a sign of recognition. He did the same, and started toward the front door of the Harman house.
Coming from the kitchen, Mrs. Harman said rapidly, “I’m glad to have met you, Mr.—” Her voice faltered.
Over in the corner Bob Ross stood smoking, saying nothing, watching everything with an ironic expression.
Harman walked to the window and glanced out; he had started to speak, to say goodbye to Al, perhaps. But then he made out Mrs. Lane.
“We’ll be seeing you, Harman,” Al said to him. “Again.”
He opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. A moment later he was going down the flagstone path to the Cadillac. He did not look back. He’s probably signing over his money right now, he thought. Even before I’m gone. But there was nothing he could do about it, so he went on, to the parked car. Mrs. Lane had gotten back in behind the wheel; as soon as he opened the car door and seated himself, she drove out onto the street.
“I know who house that be,” she said presently.
“Yes,” Al said.
“Crazy Al Miller,” she said. “Coming back from that house, like some I don’t know what. Do you know?”
“No,” he said.
“Did you get it done?” she said. “Whatever you had to get done? Did you do it to your satisfaction?”
He said nothing.
“You didn’t,” she said.
“No,” he said.
“Too bad,” she said. “That really too bad. But anyhow you out of there. That something.”
“I hope so,” he said.
“Just don’t go back. Promise me, Mr. Miller. As one small West Oakland businessman speaking to another.”
He did not answer.
“Otherwise,” she said, “it going to get you finally.”
“Maybe so,” he said.
“I know so,” Mrs. Lane said.
They drove on until they had reached the Broadway business section.
“Where you want to go, Mr. Miller?” Mrs. Lane asked. Her voice had softened somewhat. “To your lot? Or home?”
“I want to go home,” he said.
She drove him to the building, the gray three-story old wooden building, in which he lived.
“Thanks,” he said as he got out of the car. He felt weary and run down.
“Get a good rest,” she said. “And tomorrow you see things with a new eye.”
He went on and up the stairs to his apartment, too tired even to say goodbye.
That night, very late, he was awakened by his wife pushing at him and calling insistently in his ear. He had taken two phenobarbitals and for a long time it was impossible for him to come fully awake; he sat upright in the bed, resting against the wall, rubbing his forehead.
“Didn’t you hear the phone?” Julie was saying loudly.
“No,” he said.
“And me talking? And trying to get you to wake up and talk to her?”
“To who?”
“Lydia,” his wife said.
“He’s dead,” Al said. “Isn’t he?” He got out of bed and went to the bathroom to wash his face with cold water.
While he washed his face, Julie sat on the edge of the tub; she had on her bathrobe and slippers and seemed fully awake and rational. “He had a bad heart attack about ten-thirty in the evening,” she said. “They rushed him to Alta Bates Hospital and put him in an oxygen tent. He died, I think she said, at three o’clock. It’s five now.”
“Five,” he repeated, drying his face.
“Lydia said it was the strain of some big check he wrote out. He told her when he got home at around six.”
“So he did write it out,” Al said.
Julie said, “They argued about it, but she said she could see he was unnaturally tired, so she didn’t try to reason with him but let him go to bed. Around nine. He went right to sleep and seemed to sleep soundly. Until the attack.”
“She can stop the check,” Al said. “I know God damn well he couldn’t have put it through.” But he did not know it; he only hoped it.
“That’s what she said,” Julie said. “She’s going to stop it, she said. It apparently was an enormous check. All their money. In the tens of thousands.”
“Good,” he said.
“You don’t seem very upset,” Julie said.
“Hell,” he said, “I saw it coming. We all knew it was coming.”
“Lydia wants you to meet her at her attorney’s office at seven-thirty,” Julie said. “She begged me to have you do it.”
“Seven-thirty a.m.?” he said.
“Yes. So they can be sure of stopping the check.”
“Christ,” he said, going back toward bed.
“You will,” she said, following. “You have to, with all that involved. She has to have someone she can lean on. I wish you could have talked to her. It would have made her feel better, and you would understand more. It’s really dreadful. They’ve been married for almost thirty-five years.”
He got into bed and pulled the covers over him.
14
At seven-thirty the next morning, Al Miller showed up at the address he had been given. It was an office building on Shattuck Avenue, and in front of it he found Lydia Fergesson standing with a small round bald-headed man who carried a briefcase and wore an old-fashioned double-breasted suit. Lydia introduced him as Boris Tsarnas, her lawyer. She herself was dressed as he usually saw her; she did not look especially different on this occasion.
As soon as she saw him, she came swiftly toward him, calling out to him, “The man whom you know, that criminal person, has possession of the check. What is his name? That we need to know at once.”
The lawyer explained that by eight o’clock he could be in touch with an official of the Bank of America. If the check had not cleared, it could be stopped, even though it might have been cashed somewhere, even at a branch bank. He spoke very rapidly, in an accented monotone. Al decided that he was Greek, too; certainly from the Balkans.
“If it’s a legitimate investment venture,” Tsarnas said, “this Mr. Harman can take legal action to force payment. But if he’s the confidence man that you and Mrs. Fergesson seem to feel, then he won’t dare go into court. He’ll know the situation. Probably he has no idea that your husband, Mr. Fergesson, passed away during the night, so we have at least half a day’s jump on him in connection with closing the account, if we decide to do that. It was a joint account, this commercial account on which the draft was made, is it not?”
“Yes,” Lydia said.
From Al, the lawyer got information about Harman’s business, his residence, the situation under which the check had been written. He seemed to be satisfied, and yet, throughout, he had an oddly neutral attitude. At last Al realized that this man had been Fergesson’s lawyer also, and, if the investment were on the level, he meant to see that the check was finally released. He took an abstract view of the whole business; to him, no persons were involved, only legal issues. His attitude amazed Al.
Scarcely anyone was up this early; only a few cars moved along Shattuck Avenue. The air was cold. All the shops remained shut from the night. Many neon signs, Al noticed, were still on. Pale in the morning sunlight.
“Now what?” he asked Lydia, after the lawyer had gon
e off in his own car. He and Lydia remained on the sidewalk together.
Lydia said, “I have God knows so much to do. It is all like some dream. You have been a great deal of help to me, Mr. Miller. Boris has the will. I know its contents. However, it must be formally read. You are not in it.”
“I guess I’ll survive that,” Al said. “Are you in it?”
“The law requires it to be,” Lydia said in a firm voice, the same voice she had used from the moment he had met her this morning.
“It was quite a surprise,” Al said.
“It was a fortunate thing that he died right then,” Lydia said, “because even a day later it would be too late to stop the check.”
Her matter-of-factness overwhelmed him. It was as if he were seeing the original peasant person showing through from beneath all the culture and learning. The same practical worldly dedication that he-had seen in the old man; they were two of a kind. But, on final analysis, it did not strike him as wicked. It seemed perfecdy natural. Even, he thought, what the old man deserved.
As they walked toward Al’s car, Lydia said, “This individual who has the check, this Chris Harman, will harbor ill-will toward you as a result of what you have done for me.”
He shrugged. “Maybe so.”
“Do you concern yourself with that?”
He did not know if he did. It was too early; too early in the day.
“You can count on my gratitude,” Lydia said. “I know that in a situation unforeseen now, perhaps I can return for what you did.”
To that, he said nothing.
She patted him on the arm. “Be of good cheer.”
“Why?” he said.
“Only God can know why,” Lydia said, and started off in the direction of the taxi which was waiting for her.
Now I have no job, he said to himself as he got groggily into his own car, a Chevrolet from the lot. Nothing. The old man is dead and I’m not in the will; not that I expected to be, or even gave it a thought. I am finished with the Harman organization. My lot is ruined beyond any doubt, not two months from now but right now. All the old mans property will be tied up in court. And the lot belongs to him; it is part of his estate. Of course, when the courts look it all over, they will conclude that it was legally sold. But that will take time.
Humpty Dumpty in Oakland Page 19