"Let's go see if we can make a hole or two in our grief-stricken husband's story."
"If…" Hanrahan began shifting in his chair to get a few more inches away from the inferno belching out of die heating vent.
"Hold it," Lieberman said, picking up on something Francis Acardo was saying on the phone a desk away.
"Francis," Lieberman called.
Acardo put his hand over the receiver and said, "Shooting, at Doc Berry's office. Officer down. Cars are rolling. As usual, confusion reigns."
Both Hanrahan and Lieberman got up and, without speaking, ran for the squad room door. They were less than twelve minutes from Argyle Street in normal traffic. They made it with flashing lights in eight. Black and whites, three of them, with lights flashing, were blocking the street. People, most of them Oriental, lined the sidewalk, held back by two female uniformed officers. Lieberman pulled around the police car blocking Broadway and double-parked.
The rain had stopped, at least for now. The street was wet and the clouds gray and grumbling.
They moved past the officers holding the crowd back and saw a young patrolman kneeling over the contorted body of a young black boy. The dead boy's hands were clutching his stomach as if he had a terrible cramp and his face was distorted in agony. He had curled up like a fetus to die.
"This one's dead, Abe," the kneeling patrolman said. "A knife in his pocket, two bucks and some change. No wallet, no ED."
"Officer down?" asked Hanrahan.
The kneeling patrolman pointed to me entrance of Jacob Berry's office.
A clot of people, all police, seemed to be sitting down for a coffee break on the steps. An ambulance wailed outside and not far away. And somewhere up the stairway a man was screaming in anger.
A third female officer, Shea, stood up when she saw the detectives, and Lieberman could now see that an older cop at the bottom of the stairs, Hugh Jensen, was cradling the head of Guy Matthews in his lap. Matthews was covered in blood. Matthews was gasping for air, his chest heaving.
"Lung, I think," said Jensen. "Looks worse than it is. Maybe. If that goddamn ambulance would just get here and clear the blood…"
"What happened?" Hanrahan asked.
The voice above, words unclear, was screaming again.
"Looks like a shoot-out in the doc's office upstairs," said Shea. "Perp down up there. Two of them ran out in the street. Matthews followed them. He was already shot."
She pointed to a trail of blood on the stairs.
"Seems they had a car waiting," said Jensen, "but someone stole it while they were in the doc's office. The dead one out there had a gun. Matthews shot him. The other one ran. I don't like the way he's breathing," he said, looking down at the wounded officer.
Matthews was gasping for air now, eyes closed. Hanrahan stepped forward, knelt, and pried the wounded officer's mouth open with his fingers. He turned Matthews' head down to the right and reached into his mouth to pull out a squirming clot of blood. Then he put his mouth to that of the gasping man and began to suck out blood, spitting it onto Jensen's shoes. Officer Shea bit her lower lip but didn't turn away.
The ambulance was close now, wailing just outside the door. Lieberman went up the stairs. The screamer was at it again. Inside Dr. Berry's office/examining room Abe Lieberman saw a solid tree stump of a young black man, his hands cuffed behind his back, being restrained by two uniformed officers. The young man was seated in the same chair Lieberman had sat in two days ago but kept trying to stand. Blood was oozing through a hole in his right pants leg.
"That fool," the young man screamed in a high voice, looking across the room at Jacob Berry, who sat, stunned, behind his desk. On top of the briefcase before him sat the gun that Jacob had purchased the day before. "Where's Lonny? What you doin' with lago? Man, I want me a lawyer. I want me a doctor, but not that fool."
"Shut up," said one of the two cops through clenched teeth, pushing the screaming man back down on the chair. The cop was big. Both cops were big. They had to be to keep the screaming man down.
Lieberman moved to Jacob Berry, who was staring at the screaming young man as if he heard nothing, as if he had just been awakened and was trying to make some sense of the chaos that greeted him.
"You all right, Doc?" Lieberman said, touching his shoulder.
Jacob nodded. "I shot him," he said, removing his glasses and looking up at Lieberman.
"Yeah," said Lieberman.
"No, not him," Jacob said, looking at the angry young man across the room. "The policeman shot him. I… I think… I know I shot the policeman. I should help him. I'm a doctor. I should do something."
"You wouldn't be much good," said Lieberman. "Where'd you get the gun?"
"Gun? Bought it from somebody, a man, yesterday. I was afraid."
Lieberman sighed. The young black man had gone sullenly silent after uttering one more, "Damn fool."
"So you bought an illegal weapon," said Lieberman. "I told you I'd help you."
"Couldn't wait," said Berry, throwing up his hands.
A scrambling out the door and down the stairs, voices of paramedics.
"I've got to help," Jacob Berry said, wiping his eyes with his sleeve and rising.
"Sure," said Lieberman, stepping out of the way.
Jacob Berry didn't glance at the restrained man who had cursed him. Instead Dr. Berry rushed to help the man who may have saved his life, me man he had shot. Lieberman rubbed a finger across his mustache and stepped over to the seated young man.
"You get me a fuckin' doctor," the young man screamed. "I'm bleedin'."
"His name is Albert Davis," said one of the officers.
"Social Security card, four dollars, a condom, and a photo ID from a drug store in his wallet. Address is on MLK Drive near Michael Reese Hospital."
Lieberman nodded and turned to Albert Davis.
"One of your friends is dead," he said.
"Dead?" Dalbert said, looking at each of the two uniformed policemen for confirmation. "Which one?"
"What do this lago and Lonny look like?" Lieberman said.
"How you know their names?" Dalbert said in panic.
"You told them to us a minute ago, Albeit," Lieberman said calmly. "You want to know which one is dead and which one got away?"
"Got away? lago's a skinny kid. Lonny's big, got a scar like lightning over his eye."
"Last names, Albert," Lieberman pressed.
"Nobody calls me Albert. Dalbert. I'm Dalbert. Get me a damn doctor. Who's dead?"
"Names, Dalbert?"
"I don't know no last names," the young man said sullenly as a paramedic in blue hurried into the room.
"lago's dead," Lieberman said.
Dalbert bit his lower lip, nodded, and went silent as the paramedic knelt to rip away his trousers and examine the bullet wound.
'Touch nothing and call Evidence," Lieberman told the two officers. "Leave the weapon where it is."
Both cops nodded.
There was nothing on the steps as Lieberman walked down, nothing but a trail of Guy Matthews's blood. Outside, the door to the ambulance was just closing. A second ambulance was rolling down the street.
The crowd had grown. Jensen and Shea had moved forward to help control it, but the sight of Bill Hanrahan, blood covering his mouth and face, was enough to restrain even the most adventurous of the gawkers. Hanrahan was doing his best to remove the Wood with a handkerchief, but he wasn't making much headway.
"How you doin', Father Murphy?"
Hanrahan nodded.
"I'll be fine, Rabbi."
"Dead kid's name is Lago," said Lieberman, looking at the sheet that now covered the body. "One that got away is Lonny. I've got a description."
Jensen walked back to the detectives and said, "Woman in the crowd, owns the restaurant over mere. She says the one that got away ran through the alley going south. She thinks he had a gun in his hand."
"Thanks," said Lieberman.
Jensen glanced at Hanrahan's
ghoulish face and moved back to help control the crowd.
Police cars were pouring in now, lights flashing. The sound of the siren diminished as the ambulance carrying the fallen officer sped toward Edgewater Hospital. Applegate and Acardo piled out of one of the cars.
"Where's Berry?" asked Lieberman.
"Went in the ambulance with Matthews," said Hanrahan.
"Let's go in the restaurant and get you washed up," said Lieberman.
"He's not that far ahead of us, Abe," Hanrahan said, moving toward the restaurant "I'll make the calls," said Lieberman as the crowd parted to let the hulking, bloody policeman through.
Lieberman brought Applegate and Acardo up to date and left them to pick up the pieces and put the story together.
Lieberman went to his car and made the calls. Comb the neighborhood looking for a young black man with a lightning scar through his eyebrow. Probably armed. Definitely dangerous. Try to head off the north- and southbound el trains and search them. Check the buses. Check the cabs. It wouldn't be fast enough, Lieberman knew, but it had to be done. The young man named Lonny was probably out of the neighborhood by now. Alone, afraid, and armed. A very bad combination.
Lieberman got an idea. He called the Chapultapec Restaurant on North Avenue.
"Si, " a man's voice answered.
"Es Emiliano all asked Liebetman.
"iQuien es esto?"
"Lieberman. Es necesario que hablo con Emiliano inmediatamente."
"Emiliano no estd aqui."
"Buscale. Tiene prisa. Diga que tengo algo a decir de Chuculo Fernandez. Comprende?"
"Comprendo. Su numero?"
Liebennan gave the number of the T and L Deli and told the man on the phone that he'd be there in fifteen minutes.
"Bueno," said the man and hung up.
The car door opened and Hanrahan, his hair and jacket front wet, slid inside.
"You clean up good, Murph."
"Compulsive cleaner, Rabbi."
"I know. You up for an early lunch?"
Lieberman put the car in gear as Hanrahan smiled and nodded.
Fifteen minutes later they parked on Devon, half a block from Maish's T amp; L. The clouds complained but didn't burst as they moved past Kim the Korean's Devon Television/VCR Repair Shop, the Dollar Store, also owned by Kim, and the Pistoki brothers' fruit market.
The T and L was empty except for Maish behind the counter reading a book and one Alter Cocker, the redheaded Al Bloombach, who sat alone at the table reserved for the old men, a coffee and half-eaten bagel in front of him. Something was cooking for the lunch crowd. A cabbage pot. Lieberman was sure it was a forbidden cabbage pot. Torture inflicted by Dr. Jacob Berry, who, when he came out of his minishock, would face a far greater torture.
"Where's everybody?" Lieberman asked.
"Baseball game. Syd's son rented a van. They all go to the ball game," explained Al Bloombach.
"And you?" asked Lieberman, moving with Hanrahan to the counter and sitting on the red leatherette stool.
"My sciatic," said Al. "Who wants to sit in the rain with sciatic? And to tell the truth, I'm not such a big baseball fan. Give me the football and I'll watch till the last rumble."
Maish looked up from his book and met his brother's eyes.
"How's Yetta?" asked Abe.
"She's Yetta," said Maish with a shrug.
"How's Maish?"
"You know. Nothing Bothers Maish," Maish said. "What can I get you, William?"
"Coffee. What's good on rye today?"
"A Sandy Koufax. Pastrami, chopped liver, and cole slaw with a pickle," said Maish.
"Heartburn heaven," Al Bloombach called.
"I'll take it," said Hanrahan.
"Abe?" asked Maish.
"Seltzer and toast me a bagel. No butter."
"Diet again?" asked Maish.
"Cholesterol's a little high," said Abe.
Maish called the order back to Manuel in the kitchen and turned his homely bulldog face to his brother.
"We're coming over Friday for dinner," Maish said. "Bess invited."
"Dinner and services," said Abe.
"I'm not going to services anymore," said Maish, finding a spot on the counter that may have been a smudge of mustard. He attacked it with a wet cloth. "I'm not on speaking terms with God right now. When your only son is gunned down by a crazy man in the street for no reason, you tend to get that way. It's reasonable. What d'you think, William?"
Maish poured a cup of coffee and set it down in front of Hanrahan.
"I'm a Catholic," he said.
Maish nodded as if that made perfect sense.
"A Catholic. You're not supposed to get mad at God. You are supposed to make love, not war. Well, I heard on the radio something that made sense, from an Arab no less. The opposite of war is not love. The opposite of war is peace. You don't have to love your enemy. It's not reasonable. Peace, now that's another story. God wants to make peace with me he knows where to find me, but so far he hasn't come knocking and he hasn't sent me a telegram."
"Maish," Abe tried.
"Seltzer and a bagel and a Sandy Koufax. I know."
The phone rang as Maish shuffled away in search of seltzer. Lieberman leaned over the counter, groped for the phone, found it on the fourth ring, and placed it in front of him on the counter.
"Hello," he said. "Maish's T and L."
"Viejo," came the voice of Emiliano "El Perro" Del Sol, the leader of the Tentaculos, the gang that ruled North Avenue when there were enough of them out of jail.
"Emiliano, I've got a deal for you."
Lieberman imagined the slightly mad El Perro sitting in the Chapultapec in near darkness or in his recently acquired bingo parlor on Crawford Avenue.
"I got a deal for you?" said El Perro. "Ain't you gonna ask how I'm doin'? How's my mother? How's my sister? How's Piedras?"
"How are they?" Lieberman asked as Maish placed a large glass of seltzer before him.
"Bueno," said El Perro. "My family. I take care of my family. You know that. I take care of you. You're like an uncle to me, a crazy uncle, Tto Loco."
Lieberman had developed a reputation for recklessness on the streets when he worked out of the North Avenue before being transferred to Clark Street.
Part of the reputation was earned. Most of it was calculated. But Emiliano Del Sol had believed all of it as a Md and respected the old Jew policeman who was every bit as wild as El Perro himself.
"Chuculo Fernandez," said Lieberman after taking a sip of seltzer. "He's like a brother too?"
"More like a cousin, you know?"
"He's in trouble, Emiliano."
"Yo se, Viejo. jQue tiene a decir?"
"Quiero a ayudarle," said Lieberman. "I'm looking for a young black man named Lonny. Doesn't have a last name. I'm working on that He's got a scar running through his right eyebrow. Runs with a pair named lago and Dalbert. lago's dead. Dalbert's bleeding and Lonny's on the streets with a gun. Dalbert's a South Sider. Lonny figures to be the same."
"We find him and… r — "Chuculo walks," said Lieberman, looking at Hanrahan, who was accepting a plate with a fat, heavenly smelling sandwich.
"Vem? He just walks. You got that kinda cojones, Viejo? Let my man Chuculo walk?"
"You got my word, Emiliano. But it's got to be fast and I don't want Lonny hurt. You turn him up by tomorrow morning and you can come pick up Chuculo Fernandez and have him in front of the Chapultapec with his knife in his pocket by three. We find him first and there's no deal."
"I like you, Viejo," said El Perro.
"It is the knowledge of that affection that sustains me in trying moments," said Lieberman.
El Perro laughed. "You are some crazy son of a bitch," he said.
"I try to keep the troops amused," said Lieberman. 'Tomorrow morning."
"He's alive, we find him. I'll put Los Negms on this."
Los Negros were the Oliveros, two black brothers and a cousin, from Panama City. Los Negros could go on th
e South Side looking for Lonny. The rest of the Tentaculos would get cold looks, no answers, and a ten-to-one certainty that someone would get hurt.
"Sounds good to me," said Lieberman.
El Perro hung up the phone and Maish brought the toasted bagel. Hanrahan laughed and said, "You're a devious one, Rabbi."
"What?" asked Maish.
"We have to let Fernandez go by tomorrow no matter what," Lieberman explained, looking longingly at the sandwich his partner was downing. "Our witness backed out."
"How about an omelette with Egg Beaters, onions, some mushrooms?" Maish asked.
Lieberman shrugged in resignation.
Maish nodded and called back me order.
"How are you doing, Father Murph?"
"I'm pleased to announce that I've regained my appetite."
"I didn't know you'd lost it"
"Briefly," said Hanrahan, taking a bite of his pickle. "The truth, Abraham. You think Iris and I could make it? I mean, married?"
"Who knows?" said Lieberman, finishing the last of his bagel.
"Marriage is an institution,'' called Al Bloombach. "A mental institution."
Al chuckled, proud of himself and sorry he had no Alter Cockers around to appreciate his joke.
"You're a big help, Rabbi," said Hanrahan.
"Marry her," said Lieberman, holding up his empty glass for a refill.
"I'm an irresponsible Irish cop with a drinking problem that might come back when I'm not on guard. She's Chinese and she'll be shunned by her people."
"Don't marry her," said Lieberman.
"That's your advice? Marry her or don't marry her?"
"That's my advice too," said Maish, shuffling to the kitchen.
"If you have kids…" Bloombach called.
"No kids," said Hanrahan. "We're both too old for kids."
"Father Murph," Lieberman said. "If I don't give advice, I can't be blamed for giving bad advice if it goes wrong. I won't get credit for good advice either, but that's easier to live with."
Hanrahan nodded.
Maish schlepped the omelette from the kitchen and placed it in front of Lieberman. It didn't smell half bad.
"After we eat-" Lieberman began.
"Patniks for me. Rozier for you," said Hanrahan.
"And tea for two," called Al Bloombach.
"That man is desperately in need of companionship," said Lieberman, probing his omelette with a fork.
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