Harvey Porter Does Dallas (10 page)

Carmelita had her hand in the air. She went first. “I never had any criminal background. The cops always thought I had information, because my older brother is the leader of a brown bread street gang. But he never told me anything and I never asked. I didn't want to know anything about it.”

“Then why did you end up in this new school?” Mrs. Bert asked.

“The cops would come to my high school and take me into one of the counselor's offices. I got the third degree. They never believed me when I told them I didn't know anything.”

“And then what?”

“My counselor told me if I came to SAS, all of that would stop because there were cops as teachers and even the principal was an ex-cop.”

“Mr. D'artagnan prefers to be called headmaster.”

“Whatever.”

Mrs. Bert told the class, “You see? It's all part of the fabric of the criminal element. The profile you might say. Innocent people get dragged wrongly into the mix. Carmelita is living proof.”

The class clapped for Carmelita; she blushed.

Then it was Lichtenstein's turn. He was very irritating, but Harvey vowed to stick to the promise he'd made.

Mrs. Bert asked him, “Mr. Lichtenstein, do you have a criminal past?”

“I'm afraid so.” He bounced his Adam's apple. “I used to steal peoples' garbage cans.”

“Their garbage cans?”

“Yeah, that and pink flamingoes out of peoples' gardens.”

Oh God
, thought Harvey. He slumped in his chair. Lichtenstein went on, “I only stole a certain kind of garbage can.”

“And what would that be?”

“It had to be those blue rubbermaid ones with the dark blue lids. That's the only kind I ever stole.”

“Why?”

“I don't know, I just liked 'em. I liked the colors and the way they felt. They weren't heavy.”

“What did you do with these garbage cans once you'd stolen them?”

“Not really much of anything. I just lined them up in the back yard and kept them clean. I hosed them off after it rained. Sometimes I even washed the insides out. I told my mother I got them at yard sales, and she was good with that, because she's a yard sale freak. Sometimes when my line got too long, I cleaned up one or two and took them back to their owners.”

Harvey yawned and stretched, then raised his hand. “Mr. Porter?”

“Yeah, you think we could move on? Lichtenstein is gonna put us all to sleep.”

“Let him have his chance to finish, I'm calling on you next.” She turned back to Lichtenstein. “What about those pink flamingoes?”

“I don't know what it was. I just liked 'em, the same way I liked the garbage cans.”

“What did you do with them?”

“Not much. I just took 'em home and stuck 'em into the back yard, in front of the garbage cans. Eventually, I had eleven, all lined up in formation like a football team. I made sure I stuck 'em all into the ground the same so they were all the same height.”

“Did you ever take them back to their owners' gardens?”

“Yeah, I did that a lot too.”

Harvey couldn't stand another minute of this. He raised his hand aggressively. When he was called on, he said, “Can't you see how bogus this is, man? Pretty soon he's gonna tell us about jaywalkin' or spittin' on the sidewalk.”

“Are you calling me
Man
?” demanded Mrs. Bert immediately. She had her hands on her hips, which were cocked to one side.

“No, not you, Mrs. Bert, just, you know, like to everybody in general.”

“I'll accept that for now, but if you ever call me
man
in this classroom, I'll write you up for a detention so fast it'll make your head spin.”

Harvey wondered what a detention meant. He'd never heard students talking about them. He looked at Victor, who was smiling. “It's gonna be okay, Harvey,” he whispered, “just be cool about what you say.”

Harvey repeated himself. “This is completely bogus, because Lichtenstein took pink flamingoes out of peoples' gardens, and lots of times he took them back. There's no
crime
here.”

“Stealing personal property is still against the law, Harvey, at least the last time I looked.”

Harvey dismissed her remark. “Strictly nickel and dime stuff. Not worth talkin' about.”

“I think you're missing the main point.” Mrs. Bert turned to speak to the whole class. “If you listened to your friend Mr. Lichtenstein, notice that he didn't know why he stole the items. He says he just liked their looks and decided he had to have them.”

“What's the point?” asked Victor Vice.

“The point is, it's a perfect example of obsessive-compulsive criminal behavior.”

“Obsessive comwhosis?”

“It's a mental disorder and it means people do things but they don't know why. They just get urges which they can't resist. Sometimes, the urges involve stealing. Do you understand, class? Our job here is to try and understand the whole fabric of criminal behavior, the complete ball of wax.”

Victor could really relate now.

Harvey actually thought she had a point. Then she asked, “Okay, Harvey, please tell us some of the details of your criminal past. I've read your file, so I don't think there's time to talk about all of it.”

Harvey sighed. “Where you want me to start?”

“How many times have you been in juvenile prison?”

“Three.”

“Did their programs do you any good?”

“No. It was all lame.”

“Why don't you start with these troubles you had in junior high school? You were suspended three times before you got expelled.”

“Yeah, that was when I was livin' on the street with my dodger. I never went to much school, just here and there and it usually never lasted.”

“What did you do in junior high?”

“I was just beatin' kids up, takin' their lunch money, just little stuff like that.”

“Little stuff? Do you consider beating up your schoolmates little stuff?”

“Yeah, basically. I only beat up kids who
deserved
it.”

“And how did you decide if they deserved it?”

“They were guys who had loud mouths on them or were real irritating, you know what I mean? I went to this high school where I beat up these two kids pretty bad. They were makin' fun of my dodger. I couldn't let it go. I was in criminal court for assault and battery. Those were two of the times I got sent to juvenile lock-up.”

Victor raised his hand. “Mrs. Bert, I'd like to hear more about Harvey's dodger when he was livin' on the street.”

“What about it, Harvey?”

He shrugged. “He was an old guy who watched out for me and taught me a lot of street smarts. Of course, I don't need to say that, because everybody knows that's what dodgers do. Anyway, when I was younger, ten maybe, he taught me my first scam.”

“Which was?” asked Mrs. Bert.

“I would go to the convenience store and put two quarters in the USA TODAY newspaper box. When the door opened up, I took all the copies they had. It could be as many as 12 or 15 copies. 'Course you had to do this early in the morning before other customers bought them. Then Harvey would put me on a busy downtown street corner during heavy traffic. I sold the papers for a dollar apiece. Most all of 'em got sold, too, I guess people decided it was worth it since they didn't have to get out of their cars.”

“Do you understand that this was criminal?”

“Maybe just a little. A drop in the ocean.”

Victor raised his hand again and Mrs. Bert gave him permission to speak. “I think I heard Harvey say that
Harvey
was the name of his dodger. What's up with that?”

“Well, when he finally died last year, I just decided to take on his name. I really respected him because of all those years he watched over me. His name was Harvey Porter, so I decided that would be my name too.”

Mrs. Bert got irritated. “You're saying you adopted the name of an old burned-out junkie street guy?”

Harvey shrugged again. He was pissed but he only said, “That's one way of puttin' it I guess.”

“Why?” she wanted to know.

“Because I don't know what my real name is. I never knew who my parents were. I still don't know what my real name is. I just did it out of honor and respect for Harvey. I think the only serious crimes I did was when I was a member of this brown bread street gang.”

“What street gang?” asked the teacher.

“
Los Rebeldes
,” Harvey answered, and the room went so silent you could have heard a pin drop. Carmelita's head snapped so quickly in his direction it was almost like she had a pivot built inside her neck.

“Are you still in
Los Rebeldes
?”

“No. I got out.”

“How'd you do that?” asked Lichtenstein.

“It was pretty messy. I really don't wanta talk about it.”

“Harvey,” asked Mrs. Bert, “if that is indeed your name, what criminal activities were you involved in as a member of the street gang?”

“Just your basic stuff like robbin' liquor stores or convenience stores.”

“
Armed
robbery?”

“Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes it's the only choice you get. You run into the clerks who won't cooperate. They want to be like heroes or somethin'.”

Mrs. Bert sighed while closing her eyes. “I don't want to try and untangle any more of your history, Harvey. Class dismissed.”

Later that afternoon, Harvey found himself gabbing with Victor Vice down in the lounge. Harvey asked him, “Mrs. Bert said somethin' about detentions. What's a detention in this place?”

“They take away your afternoon free time,” Victor answered. “They put you in this one classroom upstairs that has a surveillance camera. You have to be reading from one of the books on the reading list.”

“But they wouldn't really know,” Harvey said. “You could just be sittin' there turnin' pages or something.”

“No, they
would
know. They have a computerized program that tracks what you actually read. It's real advanced software.”

Harvey felt irritated. “You know, this high-tech shit is really gettin' out of hand.”

“You mean more so than robbin' liquor stores?”

Harvey looked at the broad smile on his face, and then couldn't help laughing. Then they were both laughing out loud.

“Besides Harv, without high-tech computer stuff we couldn't have like e-mail or
Playstation
.”

“Yeah, okay. I've got somethin' I wanta show you.”

“Okay, show me.”

“I have to go up to the dorm to get it.”

“I'll be right here,” said Vice, still grinning.

Harvey went up to his hutch and got out the tennis ball can.

When he got back down, Victor said, “Tennis?”

“No, not tennis. I'm gonna show you what's inside, but you never saw it, okay?”

“My lips are sealed,” his friend replied, while making a motion like zipping his mouth shut.

Lichtenstein was approaching them. “Not now, Lichtenstein.”

“How's come?”

“Because I'm havin' a private talk with my man here. Now get lost.”

Lichtenstein got lost, and wasted no time doing it.

When he was out of sight Harvey said, “I'm gonna show you this piece of paper inside, but it's just between you 'n' me, right?”

“We've already agreed about that.”

“Okay.” Harvey looked around cautiously to see if there might be anybody, sitting close. There wasn't. He pulled out the scrolled piece of yellow pad and flattened it out so Victor could read it.

Victor read it carefully, with a frown on his face. He finally asked, “What is this?”

“I don't know. That's the point.”

“Where'd you get it?”

“I don't know, maybe out of a dumpster somewhere. I just wanta know if you can interpret it.”

“It's just a list of places, Harv.”

“I know. But what kind of a list?”

“I have no idea. These are just street addresses and towns.”

“I thought it might be a criminal's list of places he was gonna knock over. Or maybe he already knocked them over.”

“But what is Klaus Kirka? It sounds like Russian or something. And what about Yokosuka? That sounds like it's Chinese or something.”

“Yeah I know.”

“Besides, Harv, some of these are just addresses of houses or apartments in residential neighborhoods. It doesn't sound like a knock-over list to me. Who wrote it?”

“I don't know. Look on the back.”

Victor turned the letter over and read the back. “
It's safe. It's in the bank
.” What does that mean?”

“I got no idea. I was hopin' you had a theory.”

“Nah, Harvey, this could mean anything. Whoever wrote the list might have had some cash for somebody. Or he could have put something secret in a safety deposit box. It could be anything.”

Harvey rolled up the paper again so it would fit back in the can. “I'm sorry I can't help you out,” Victor apologized.

“It's okay, bro. At least you tried.”

12. THE LIST

Harvey decided to take his list to Professor Meel. On Thursday morning, he found him on the park bench, but he was basking. Harvey looked him over.
I bet he weights about 450 pounds. That's probably why his shoes are always untied. He couldn't reach down and tie them even if he wanted to
.

Harvey had the list in his pocket, but he didn't think it would be right to jostle him out of his “zone.” He waited at least half an hour before he worked up jostling him out of it.

It turned out he had no time to kill at all; Carmelita was striding in his direction and she was moving fast. She had a determined look on her face. She took a seat next to him. “Why didn't you tell me you were in
Los Rebeldes
?” she whispered.