by Dane Hartman
Harry looked to where Judson was pointing. Sandy Patel had just come in. He was in his uniform; it looked as crisp and ungodly fresh as he did.
“What’d he do, renounce abstinence? I’ve never seen him here before.”
“No, no, nothing like that. Patel get pissed? Never happen. He orders orange juice, Perrier, some shit like that. You watch.”
Just as Judson predicted, Patel asked for a large glass of orange juice which he hastily downed, then hurried out.
“The pause that refreshes,” Judson mumbled.
“Maybe I have been following the wrong person,” said Harry, abruptly abandoning his seat.
“What did you say, Harry? Hey, where are you going?”
Patel was alone in his squad car, one of the few members of the department who’d volunteered to ride solo. The object was to spread the police around, give them a greater presence. But there was a serious drawback, as far as the Benevolent Association saw it, and that was that a patrol officer couldn’t rely on the immediate backup a partner would provide.
But Patel claimed he preferred the solitude and didn’t mind going it alone, and as far as his colleagues were concerned that was fine with them. A guy like Patel, who doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink, hardly ever swears, keeps to himself, never accepts invitations out when he’s off-duty, doesn’t exactly endear himself to the people he works with.
It struck Harry though, as he tailed the unsuspecting patrolman through the North Beach sector, that there might be another motive Patel had for keeping his own company, something besides an obsession with privacy (Harry knew about that, suffered it too often), something behind the smug attitude he manifested, the I-can-handle-any-shit-they-throw-at-me attitude. Riding solo gave him the opportunity to move freely. You report in but there’s no one by your side to maintain tabs on you; no one you have to cut in on a deal so that he won’t turn you in out of frustrated greed, no one to suspect you of anything at all.
The intersection of Broadway and Columbus was ablaze with lights, primary colors blinking on and off with mesmerizing rhythms, advertising the delights of the flesh to the accompaniment of loud brassy music, Donna Summer and Gloria Gayner blasting out of every other hole in the wall. Lean, aggressive men half-hidden in the shadows were calling out to the passersby: “Girls, girls, girls, check ’em out, don’t cost you nothin’ to look!”
Patel was stopping a block beyond this famous intersection, double-parking, leaving the motor running. He disappeared into the door of a topless joint that once used to be a decent jazz club. Not that Harry minded the topless joint; it was just that the dancers there were so damn ugly that you knew something else was going on. No way a place like that could pull in the rent each month with those girls alone.
Patel was back in five minutes. He thrust something into his pocket and looked around, possibly expecting to see somebody he knew. Then he returned to his car and pulled away, continuing down Broadway.
Harry was listening in on the police band; he was hearing exactly what Patel was hearing.
But it was only when the dispatcher addressed Patel directly that he sat up and took notice.
“Car 42 . . . Car 42 . . .”
Patel picked up, “This is Car 42.”
“We have a report of an eleven-two in progress at the corner of Fifth and Mission. Two men both armed.”
“Ten-four.”
Patel’s squad car made its existence known with a wailing siren as he continued along Columbus. Harry followed him into Montgomery and then onto Market and down Fifth.
At first it was impossible to determine what was happening at the corner. Patel, a 9mm high-powered Browning gripped steadily in his hand, got out of his car and began walking toward the corner. A man dashed up to him and grabbed him on the arm so suddenly that Patel seemed ready to blow him away.
“Not there, Officer,” the man cried. “Down to your right. That pawnshop. A spade and a white dude.”
Patel turned and raced toward where the man had pointed. Harry by this time had parked his own car and was just half a block behind Patel. Much as he disliked Patel, Harry was prepared to back him up; he wasn’t about to let even a corrupt and arrogant cop get killed by low-lifes on the street if he could help it.
A faint light shone through the rectangular window of the pawn shop, which was cluttered with clock radios, Motorolas, Sony color TVs, an electric typewriter, and a harpsicord, of all things. The iron grill fence that ordinarily protected the shop at night had been pulled half-way to the door. Maybe the pawnbroker had forgotten something while closing up and gone back inside. Maybe he was interrupted and forced back.
In any case, you couldn’t really see anything. The interior was mostly bathed in darkness. The pawnbroker must have relied on a silent alarm under the counter, Harry thought.
Patel, still unaware of Harry’s presence in the vicinity, moved cautiously into the doorway, flattening himself out against the narrow wall so as to avoid being spotted from within. Then, slowly, he took hold of the door knob and twisted it to the right. Nothing happened. It was locked.
So Patel shot out the lock, kicked the door halfway open, and went down into a crouch.
Reaction to this was practically instantaneous—not on the part of the two would-be robbers but from the store’s owner. The problem was that the robbers, still with their handguns directed on the pawnbroker, hadn’t yet mobilized themselves to deal with this latest threat. The pawnbroker, a corpulent figure who looked like he suffered from a terrible disposition, was certain that Patel’s invasion had given him the opportunity he was waiting for.
Reaching below the counter he came up with a gun of his own.
“Freeze! Freeze, you’re under arrest!” Patel was shouting.
Harry was a couple of feet away from him, but stayed well to his right, not wanting to endure the barrage of bullets should the men fail to obey Patel’s instruction.
And in fact, the two men would have frozen were it not for the pawnbroker who seemed reluctant to be deprived of his moment of glory. Evidently unappreciative of Patel’s rescue effort, he trained his gun on the white member of the pair and discharged it. They were so close to each other that only a blind man could have missed.
The white, a bearded mother of around forty, staggered with the impact, but he wasn’t quite ready to lay down and die. He fired back, now at the pawnbroker, now at Patel. It was a Luger he had and while it was only firing .22s, it was making a huge racket. Patel had ducked back, out of the line of fire, shooting back but not with any great effect since he was unable to see around the corner and into the pawnshop.
The pawnbroker, having the ill fortune not to have ducked in time himself, looked vastly surprised by the way everything had developed. How many times he’d been punctured by .22s was impossible to determine, but a ship could have set sail on the blood that rushed out over his clothes. He refused, however, to acknowledge defeat. He raised his gun with difficulty and was about to shoot again when a 9mm bullet pierced his head. He had gotten in the way of Patel’s fire. Harry was the only one to realize this but he was in no position to do anything about it—and come to think about it what could he do?—being forced to lay low while the wounded white partner in this misconceived operation continued to spray the street with a hail of bullets.
What the .22s couldn’t do the 9mm cartridge surely did. The pawnbroker, astonished that life should terminate so abruptly and on this particular August night, lurched over and collapsed with a final groan.
The white, himself critically wounded, was no longer in command of his faculties. His shooting was dangerous and erratic; he seemed to have no special target in mind. Blood, in systolic rhythm, spurted out from a wound at the base of his neck. And when he opened his mouth, almost as if to say something, blood crested up from his throat and dribbled down his chin.
His tall black companion looked simply appalled at the way things were working out. Whatever the plans he and his dying partner had contrived, obviousl
y didn’t include this kind of shit. He was, just like Patel and Harry, ducking, crawling along the floor, doing his utmost to save his ass, swearing up and down that should he emerge whole from this melee he would be happy to serve God, country, and the Man, in whichever order was necessary. “God help me!” he kept screaming. “Somebody help me! Don’t have to be God!”
Patel risked stretching his head out into the doorway to see if he could capture a better glimpse of the madman who refused to be shut down. He nearly got his scalp singed by a passing bullet for his trouble. Like a turtle disappointed with what it sees, he retracted his head immediately.
Harry crept way around, crossing Fifth, taking no notice of the terrified pedestrians who, having scattered at the sound of the first shot, were now peering out from doorways and windows.
It was clear that the white had another weapon, maybe a couple more to supplement the Luger. No way of telling. But he kept on firing. Weak as he was, he wouldn’t stop shooting. And with the pawnbroker out of the running, he had apparently settled on taking random potshots at the street.
Harry, taking refuge behind a parked car, rose above the hood just enough to get the crazed dying bastard in sight. Carefully aiming his .44, he fired.
The white man gave out a shriek that might have awakened the dead he was shortly to have as company, then he seemed to levitate for a moment before collapsing backward, thrown by the force of the bullet that had entered his belly and sprung out in back, taking sizable chunks of vital organs in its passage.
“Oh shit, oh fuck! This is some crazy shit!” the black was muttering, his hands over his head in a supplicant gesture, his gun tossed aside.
Patel meanwhile was having a hard time understanding what had happened, why this intense little engagement he’d had going had come to such an abrupt end.
He was unable to see Harry because Harry had gone down behind the car, uncertain that the danger was over. Nor with the darkness in the shop could he see that the dead man’s partner was ready to surrender.
When it was evident that the firing had ceased, Harry stood up again, but by that time Patel had gone charging into the pawnshop, his 9mm Browning ready to speed whomever had survived into the next world.
Harry, convinced neither of Patel’s competence nor of his sense of mercy, hastened across the street, right behind him.
Patel was under the impression no one was watching him; he figured he had a few moments to earn a medal without a witness to say that maybe he didn’t deserve it. If he wondered about who had fired the bullet that took the white out he didn’t seem to let it stop him from putting his gun to the survivor’s head.
He wanted to kill him, to prove he had achieved some kind of victory here, little realizing that it was his gun that had succeeded in killing the man he was supposed to be protecting. True, he hadn’t intended to but it would be a bit of an embarrassment for him.
“Oh man, don’t! Oh shit, man, please! My gun ain’t even loaded. Check it out.”
Patel had his finger on the trigger, in no mood for such excuses.
Harry was sure Patel would have fired if he hadn’t interrupted.
“Party’s over, Sandy.”
Patel glanced up; irritation showed in his face but he left it out of his voice.
“I should have guessed. You were the one who got him then?” He gestured towards the fallen man whose body was still pumping out blood, trying to get rid of it all before the embalmer had to do it instead.
“That’s right.”
“You shouldn’t have done that, Harry. It was my show. I could have handled it. You’re not absolutely indispensible.”
He was still looming over the black man, the Browning poised at the man’s temple.
“I’m awfully sorry about that, Sandy, but if I hadn’t interrupted, this shooting match might have gone on forever.” Sandy scowled and made some unfortunate remark under his breath. Harry ignored him. “Besides, I was rather worried you might hit another innocent bystander.” Noticing Patel’s look of incomprehension, he gestured to the fallen pawnbroker. “The .22s didn’t bring him down, it was your Browning that did it. Don’t believe me? Wait until ballistics checks on that wound in the head.”
Obviously Patel didn’t believe him; he sensed that Harry was playing some sort of a trick on him for motives he couldn’t immediately discern. In any case, he still had his gun on the man lying prostrate on the floor.
“I think you can safely let the suspect stand up.”
Sandy didn’t care to do this, evidently not having abandoned his notion of blowing someone away—intentionally this time.
“How many times you got to be told, Sandy?”
Patel, flushing with anger, raised his gun.
Gratefully, the black dared to look up. For the first time, his eyes met Harry’s. There was immediate recognition.
“Officer Callahan!”
“Well, I’ll be damned. Longlegs!”
Patel’s face was filled with his perplexity and annoyance. He might have suspected that the two were confederates.
Well, they weren’t confederates exactly, but they were old acquaintances you could say. Longlegs was a man with a rap sheet that could compete favorably in length with War and Peace. The guy had done time for cashing fraudulent checks, thieving cars, pickpocketing, sticking up five & dimes, grocery stores, gas stations, and greasy spoons; he’d been served summons for loitering, for drunk and disorderly conduct, for peddling hot watches, for creating a disturbance with a mother of a transistor radio; beyond that, he was suspected of contributing to a variety of scams, con jobs, felonies, and misdemeanors. He couldn’t help it. It was in his nature. He didn’t mean any harm by what he did nor did he ever hurt anyone—their pocketbooks maybe but not their bodies. So it did not surprise Harry when he picked up Longlegs’ gun and found that it was not loaded.
Longlegs was maybe in his forties. He was in any case one of those whose age remains a perpetual enigma; truly he had a lean and hungry face with sad, slitted brown eyes and a mouth that seemed to droop in a state of permanent melancholia. You could tell he never expected anything to go right, was just going through the motions in desperate hope of beating the odds. He’d gained his nickname—his real name was long ago buried beneath a barrage of aliases, so many that even he’d probably forgotten the one he’d started out with—not because his legs were particularly long but rather because he’d once entertained tourists down on Fisherman’s Wharf by parading about on stilts.
Right now Longlegs needed more than stilts to get around: Police sirens, ambulance sirens were shrieking up and down Mission.
Harry turned to Patel. “I’m taking Longlegs into custody myself.”
Patel didn’t like this idea. Without Longlegs he was left with two dead bodies. Dead bodies aren’t particularly articulate when it comes to clarifying how they had arrived in their current condition.
“He’s mine.”
“Not any more.”
Longlegs looked dazedly from one man to the other. “What is this shit? I’m supposed to go to the highest bidder?”
“You’re coming with me, Longlegs.”
Longlegs didn’t seem willing to move without a guarantee that rising to a vertical position wouldn’t jeopardize his health. But Harry was impatient, and he decided he’d better risk it.
“Where are you taking him, Harry?”
“That’s my business. Your business is to explain how a 9mm cartridge got into that guy’s skull there. Maybe you could tell our friends on the force about Clay Meltzer’s unemployment status. But I suppose you’re saving that for later, aren’t you, Sandy?”
“Son of a bitch,” was Patel’s succinct commentary.
Just as Harry and his charge began to emerge from the battle site, they were confronted by DiGeorgio and three officers Harry vaguely recognized.
“What is this, Harry? Every goddamn disaster and you’re there! You addicted to trouble?”
“That’s right.”
&
nbsp; DiGeorgio’s eyes moved to the right into the pawnshop. The extent of the carnage appeared to be greater at first glance than it actually was, with all the wreckage and the blood.
“What happened here?”
“Sandy’ll explain. It’s his show.”
“Patel?” DiGeorgio grunted. He felt about the man more or less as Harry did. Now he seemed to notice Longlegs. In his eyes lay an unspoken question: What the hell does he have to do with this?
“Longlegs, you know DiGeorgio?”
Longlegs was like an actor who, without the benefit of either a script or a rehearsal, found himself thrust out on center stage with no choice but to perform—or do something.
“No, sir, don’t believe we have met.”
His manner was so polite and deferential that DiGeorgio was instantly suspicious.
“I busted him on Sixth for lifting a wallet from some poor sucker. Then I heard the shooting and came down to see what the fun was. I brought along Longlegs, figured he’d get a kick out of it.”
DiGeorgio had better things to do than to puzzle out Harry’s remarks.
“I want to know one thing, Harry.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“When are you going to say one blessed thing I can believe?”
“That time hasn’t come yet.” He turned to Longlegs. “We got to get your ass down to the station, my friend.”
To Longlegs anything was possible tonight. But of one thing he was certain; for whatever inscrutable reasons Harry had, he wasn’t going to be tied in with what had gone on in the pawnship. And that made Longlegs an extremely happy man.
Harry motioned Longlegs into his car. He didn’t say a word to him until he’d driven down to a location on the Embarcadero on the edge of the bay. It was dark and there was no one around. Which was exactly how Harry wanted it.
Longlegs was growing uneasy. Having anticipated a ride to the station house, a ride he was by now very familiar with, he was mystified to find himself in this desolate part of the city. His relief at having escaped blame for the pawnshop mess was turning into apprehension.
Although Harry had stopped the car he left the motor running. A sign he meant to be brief.
