Even in the early days of television, residential sidewalks were abandoned at night. Walking alone in the dark, Harrison must have casually gazed into the window of a house, perhaps seen the glow of a television set, and realized how alone and unseen he was. That spring was unseasonably warm, and while people sat entranced before the black and white electronic hearth, windows were left open. Rear windows. And Harrison became aware of an optimum, statistically confirmed period of time when all those people were likely to be frozen in place, unaware of his, or anyone else’s, presence.
Dragnet, the most popular show since the beginning of television, provided the true advantage he needed. The show had a compelling documentary-style realism from actual L.A.P.D. cases, and a police detective, Sergeant Joe Friday (Jack Webb), who solved cases without ever cracking a smile. Its gritty procedural approach was completely different from any other detective show. “The story you are about to see is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent,” ran the intro, followed by: “It was two forty-five. We were working the day watch out of homicide...” Certain fines of Joe Friday’s dialogue entered common usage: “Just the facts, ma’am.”
With the aid of Dragnet, Harrison became an efficient, calculating, and maddeningly systematic burglar. During the thirty minutes of Joe Friday’s investigations, he, the real-life criminal, entered through back windows. His success generated a public reputation, and just as Clyde Barrow had written to Henry Ford complimenting him on the getaway virtues of the Ford V-8, so too did Frank Harrison write to Jack Webb complimenting him on the virtues of Dragnet. In heavy black ink Harrison proclaimed his gratitude and catalogued his ability to hit at least two and often three houses in a single neighborhood every Thursday evening between eight thirty and nine P.M. “I have extreme confidence,” he wrote Webb, “both in your talent as a low-key, cool actor, and in your skill as a director.”
The police took three weeks to catch on to the pattern of the burglaries, but just as they began to issue warnings, Harrison decided to vary his schedule by switching to Gunsmoke, on Saturday nights at ten. His anonymous letters to actor James Arness mention only that he, as a fan, wished he could see the program rather than merely hear it from dark bedrooms as he rifled through drawers in search of money and jewelry. “You are a fine actor,” he told Arness, “and the situations are believable and realistic.”
Harrison began to push his luck during summer reruns. He almost got caught twice in June, but it seemed he would continue during this high-risk period until the beginning of the new fall season.
It was on a midsummer evening that the Dragnet Burglar made his final excursion.
That day I had stupidly gotten locked inside Kenny Beal’s garage. I was more embarrassed than angry at being tricked into going in there and hearing the click of the latch behind me — and too miffed to yell for little Kenny-the-creep to let me out.
As I strained to see into the shadows, I discovered by a crack of light that Kirk Beal was storing a lot of gasoline in there. I could make out at least a dozen five-gallon containers. Maybe Mr. Beal was hoarding it for all those future Fiats, or maybe it was for some other reason, but it was a cryptic sign of serious adult irrationality. “I got somethin’ to show you,” Kenny had said before I’d stepped ahead of him into the trap.
After banging on the door, I took a deep breath and sat down on a relatively clean area of the concrete floor. In about an hour I heard someone. A dark shadow covered the crack between the big wooden doors. Then I heard Mr. Beal’s low voice.
“David, are you in there?”
I hesitated. “Yes,” I said as resentfully as I could.
The latch clicked open, fight flooded in, and Mr. Beal peered into the garage.
“Kenny locked me in,” I said.
“He told me a couple of minutes ago. He’s sure as hell in trouble. How long have you been in here?”
“I don’t know. An hour, I guess.”
Mr. Beal motioned me outside. I squinted into the afternoon brightness and stepped out onto the sidewalk while he closed the doors. I’d had only a vague impression of him before. Maybe he was okay — an understanding father with a miscreant son. Then, as I thought of the gasoline, it was a potential arsonist who rested a thin white hand on my shoulder. “There’s no excuse for what Kenny did. We’ve put him in his room. He’s going to stay there for two days. We’re going to serve him meals in his room. Scant meals. He’s allowed to come out to use the bathroom, but that’s all. When he comes out for good, he is going to come over to your grandparents’ house and apologize to you for locking you in the garage.”
Not enough, I thought, but I didn’t say it.
“Kenny may be a little wild sometimes, but he’s a good kid. We want him to be aggressive and self-sufficient. I hope you don’t take this shenanigan too seriously.” His expression was confident, contemplative, and he had the tone of someone giving thoughtful advice. “The Russians have a lot of missiles pointed at us, you know. And we have a lot of missiles pointed at them.” The lines on his forehead deepened. “We have a lot of missiles pointed at each other. You know what I mean?”
I nodded at this incomprehensible leap in subject matter. We walked a few paces toward a heavy wooden gate that led into the Beals’ back yard.
“When the next war comes, it’s going to be pretty tough, and only those who are prepared will survive.”
I thought of how we kids played “army,” and tried to connect this with what Mr. Beal was saying. I remembered the rumor from the summer before that the Beals had built a bomb shelter in their back yard. No one believed it.
“We have to be prepared for any eventuality,” he continued. “Kenny will be prepared to survive the next war if that war should ever come.”
“Sure,” I said, trying to imagine how cheating at Monopoly would help.
Mr. Beal smiled knowingly. “You kids are all good kids, but you have to be tough. Maybe it wasn’t so bad you got locked in that garage after all. Maybe you’ll learn something from it. Okay?”
“Sure.”
“But we’ll see it doesn’t happen again.”
“Yeah. I gotta go now.”
“All right, David. Tell your grandparents we’re disciplining Kenny and he’s going to apologize.”
“Sure,” I said. “Bye.”
The Beal household had become an arsenal. Kirk Beal, as a result of his personal visions of nuclear apocalypse, had discovered “survivalism.” Neighbors’ conversations with him in the following months — conversations that filtered down to us — revealed that not only was he hoarding fuel and food, but that he’d acquired a number of deadly weapons, mostly of World War II vintage. I knew about one of the guns because Kenny had shown me a loaded German Luger pistol in his father’s desk drawer in a corner of the living room. Not only had Kenny known the gun was there, but he knew where to get the key to open the drawer. It’s hard to keep secrets from one’s own kids, especially when they’ve been trained to be observant, clever, and opportunistic. But perhaps I’m being too hard on Kirk Beal, having the advantage of hindsight.