Harvey Porter Does Dallas by James Bennett

Lichtenstein.
    â€œIt was pretty messy. I really don’t wanta talk about it.”
    â€œHarvey,” asked Mrs. Bert, “if that is indeed your name, what criminal activities were you involved in as a member of the street gang?”
    â€œJust your basic stuff like robbin’ liquor stores or convenience stores.”
    â€œ Armed robbery?”
    â€œYeah, 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?”
    â€œThey 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.”
    â€œBut they wouldn’t really know,” Harvey said. “You could just be sittin’ there turnin’ pages or something.”
    â€œNo, 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.”
    â€œYou 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.
    â€œBesides Harv, without high-tech computer stuff we couldn’t have like e-mail or Playstation .”
    â€œYeah, okay. I’ve got somethin’ I wanta show you.”
    â€œOkay, show me.”
    â€œI have to go up to the dorm to get it.”
    â€œI’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?”
    â€œNo, not tennis. I’m gonna show you what’s inside, but you never saw it, okay?”
    â€œMy lips are sealed,” his friend replied, while making a motion like zipping his mouth shut.
    Lichtenstein was approaching them. “Not now, Lichtenstein.”
    â€œHow’s come?”
    â€œBecause 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?”
    â€œWe’ve already agreed about that.”
    â€œOkay.” 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?”
    â€œI don’t know. That’s the point.”
    â€œWhere’d you get it?”
    â€œI don’t know, maybe out of a dumpster somewhere. I just wanta know if you can interpret it.”
    â€œIt’s just a list of places, Harv.”
    â€œI know. But what kind of a list?”
    â€œI have no idea. These are just street addresses and towns.”
    â€œI thought it might be a criminal’s list of places he was gonna knock over. Or maybe he already knocked them over.”
    â€œBut what is Klaus Kirka? It sounds like Russian or something. And what about Yokosuka? That sounds like it’s Chinese or something.”
    â€œYeah I know.”
    â€œBesides, 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?”
    â€œI don’t know. Look on the