Lieberman's Law

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “Where are we going?” asked Tabitha.

  “To the city,” Massad said. “Slowly. If you see police, smile. If you know a way out through alleys, take it. If we are stopped by the police, people will die. You under stand?”

  “Yes,” said Tabitha. “Have you ever killed anyone?”

  Massad hesitated and answered, “I think so. Once. An Israeli soldier. I was a boy. One of my friends had hit him with a rock. When I got to him, he was groaning and reaching for his glasses. He was not much older than I was. I hit him with a tree branch. I don’t know if he died. And there have been others.”

  He had Tabitha drive him down the Kennedy Expressway to Division Street and park not far from the elevated train tracks.

  The neighborhood businesses—restaurants, hardware stores, pawn shops, used bookstores—were closed. Traffic was light.

  “You can stop,” said Tabitha. “Stop killing people.”

  “No,” Massad said. “I cannot. I will not. My people are oppressed.”

  “Sounds familiar,” said Tabitha with a wry wry chuckle. “When it really comes down to it, it isn’t the big stuff, countries, causes, history that counts. It’s people, one-on-one. Like me and Arnold. You wanting revenge.”

  “Now you are a philosopher,” Massad said with slight derision as he peeked over the top of the seat to check the traffic.

  “Read a lot,” she said. “Always have. I’d say the coast is clear.”

  “I assume you plan to tell the police,” he said, reaching for the door handle.

  “Soon as I can find a phone,” she said. “No point in lying to you.”

  Massad never even considered shooting the old couple. It was what he should have done, have them park even further away, parked on a side street where their bodies might not be discovered until Monday had passed and he was far away. But Massad had to admit to himself that he liked the old couple, particularly the dying woman who did not panic.

  “Good luck,” he said, getting out of the car with his canvas Michael Jordan bag.

  “And to you,” said Tabitha without emotion, though Massad knew that she meant it. Arnold turned to face Massad, who stood next to his window now. A small sad smile touched Arnold Shultz’s face.

  Massad motioned for Tabitha to drive. She headed slowly down Division Street east toward the lake. When he was sure she could not see him in the rear view mirror, he entered the shadows of the overhead elevated train as one rumbled above. The space between the pillars of rusting metal was a tunnel of junk and weeds. Massad entered the long tunnel between the pillars.

  On each side of the train tracks were fences, most high and wooden, a few of stone, neither safe from gangs of children or the homeless who often found shelter below the tracks. They lived in property that was limited in value because of the rumbling noise of the trains.

  Massad did not want to run, but he had little choice. Complicating this escape was his limp, which slowed him down and marked him for identification. He knew Tabitha would find the nearest phone and that police would be all over the area within minutes. Running caused his shoulder great pain, but it didn’t seem to be bleeding. Tabitha Shultz had been a good nurse. The canvas bag with the folded automatic bounced against his leg. He held the handgun with the silencer in his other hand, his hand that throbbed with the pain of the shoulder wound.

  Massad ran four blocks under the tracks, tripping once on an empty beer can, pausing as an animal, perhaps a cat or large rat, raced across the strip of filth in front of him. Then he turned onto the street he was looking for. The rain had stopped and the sky was actually clearing. A few children were out playing. He put the handgun in the canvas bag and moved slowly on the opposite side of the street from the children, four girls absorbed in jumping rope and arguing.

  The houses were small, reasonably cared for. Here and there a small apartment building sat, red brick, dirt courtyard where bushes and grass had once grown, one larger apartment building boarded up and scheduled, according to the sign, for demolition.

  When Massad got to the apartment building he searched for, he heard no sirens, not yet. He had moved far and, considering his limp, his wound, and the weapon he carried, he had moved quickly. He was panting now as he entered the small hallway of one of the apartment buildings and rang a bell. No one answered but he could hear a door open beyond the inner door and footsteps coming down the stairs. Through the barred glass he could see the face of Yasar, who did not look happy to see him. Yasar hesitated for only a second and opened the door.

  “Massad?” he asked.

  Massad nodded, breathing heavily.

  “It’s been a long time,” Yasar said. “Two years.”

  “Almost three,” said Massad. “I need your help. For the cause.”

  Yasar, who bore a small resemblance to the actor Don Knotts, nodded, knowing that he had no choice. He stood back to let Massad enter.

  SIXTEEN

  IT WAS MONDAY MORNING. The children had four more days before school ended. Bess and Abe blessed those four days as they waited for the passengers at the gate at O’Hare. The 10:40 A.M. plane from Los Angeles had arrived. Bess and Abe searched for Lisa. She was one of the last to exit. She looked younger to Abe, still serious but not quite so serious as he had remembered. And she was wearing a yellow dress. Lisa did not wear yellow. She wore black, dark browns, somber blues. Lisa was holding the hand of a black man who wore slacks, a light tweed sports jacket, and a black turtleneck sweater. The man looked nothing like what Bess expected, nothing, she admitted to herself, like a young Sidney Poitier. Lieberman had learned to expect nothing.

  As they approached and Lisa recognized her parents, the man at her side smiled. He was slightly taller than Lisa, on the thin side, and decidedly older than their daughter. His hair was definitely showing signs of gray.

  Lisa gave her mother their usual quick hug with Bess trying to hold on just a bit longer. Then Lisa turned and hugged her father. Unprecedented. He had expected the usual handshake and solemn smile. Granted, the hug was fleeting, but it was a hug. People hurried past, greeting others, racing for the baggage claim counter, an automated feminine voice in the not great distance informing people that they were about to enter the moving walkway and should be careful.

  Lieberman and Bess shook the hand of the black man whom Lisa introduced as Marvin Alexander. The handshake was firm, the smile sincere. There was a hint of something deeper than initial awkwardness behind Dr. Marvin Alexander’s smile.

  “Shalom,” said Alexander, taking Lisa’s hand.

  Lisa beamed nervously.

  “You don’t have to overdo it, Marvin,” said Lieberman.

  “You were right, Abe,” Bess said.

  “Right?” said Lisa.

  “You’re already married,” said Lieberman.

  “Yes,” said Marvin Alexander taking both of Lisa’s hands in his.

  An image came unbidden to Lieberman. Lisa would have more children. They would be black children. When Lieberman was almost eighty, his teenage grandchildren would walk down the street and people would be afraid of them. He didn’t want people to be afraid of his grandchildren, grandchildren probably not yet conceived and maybe not even contemplated. He put the image from his mind. Lieberman had enough to worry about, a bad stomach, cholesterol, a bar mitzvah, the telling of Barry and Melisa that their mother had not only remarried but married an African-American. Before he could stop himself, something made Lieberman ask, “Are you an American?”

  Alexander smiled. “Yes. But my parents were from Jamaica.”

  “Marvin got his M.D. from Stanford,” Lisa said.

  The crowd had thinned. Lieberman nodded.

  “He’s won the Flexner Prize, the …” Lisa began.

  “Married before?” asked Lieberman.

  “This can wait, Abraham,” Bess said firmly.

  “Yes,” said Alexander. “I was married before. My wife died.”

  “Children?” asked Lieberman. s

  “Abe
,” Bess insisted.

  “None,” said Alexander, “to my regret. She died young. And before you ask your next question, I am forty-nine years old and I do not mind the questions.”

  Lieberman nodded, satisfied for the moment, liking the man who made his morose daughter smile. They headed for baggage claim, Lisa holding Marvin Alexander’s hand and talking.

  “Marvin is considering converting to Judaism,” said Lisa. “He speaks Hebrew, spent almost two years at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.”

  “Did he run into your Aunt Fanny there?” asked Lieberman.

  Bess nudged her husband and said, “That’s not funny, Abraham.”

  “We’re all more than a bit nervous,” Alexander said.

  “If you want to stop in the bathroom and take the contacts out,” said Abe as they headed for baggage claim, “we’ll wait.”

  “Lisa said you were a good detective,” said Alexander.

  “She did?” asked Lieberman with slight surprise.

  “I wore the contacts …”

  “At my request,” Lisa confessed.

  “I wore the contacts in the hope that I would look a bit younger,” Alexander said. “I do not, as you noted, find them comfortable.”

  “Take them out,” said Lieberman. “We’ll sit here.”

  There was no discussion. Lieberman simply sat in an empty waiting area where the board indicated that the next plane was arriving from Seattle in an hour. Lisa touched Alexander’s cheek and he moved toward the nearest restroom. Bess sat next to her husband. Lisa hovered over her parents.

  “Well?” she said.

  “We just met the man,” said Lieberman. “He makes a good first impression, but so did Irving Spoderman.”

  “Irving …?” Lisa asked.

  “Murdered his wife with a small, slightly dull ax back in ’79 or ’80,” explained Lieberman. “Couldn’t meet a nicer guy. Wrote poetry, loved movies, could quote from The Wild Bunch, Ibsen, It’s a Wonderful Life nearly as well as Iris Huang’s father. Did a pretty good Jimmy Stewart. Had a good job, editing trade magazines about welding, machine equipment. Had no explanation for what he did. Just got up one morning, said, ‘the hell with it,’ and was decidedly unkind to his wife of almost thirty years.”

  “Abe, this is too much,” said Bess.

  Lisa was close to tears.

  “Sorry,” said Abe with a sigh. “I’ve had a bad week and a long night to look forward to on the job. Truth is, so far I like him and, since we’re being honest, I am impressed that he likes you. Lisa, you’re my daughter and I love you, but your mother and I and your former husband, not to mention several of your employers and brief friends, have found you a bit too critical and somber.”

  “Marvin’s changed me,” said Lisa. “Give him a chance. Give us a chance.”

  “You got it,” said Lieberman. “Besides, do I have a choice?”

  “He’s really considering converting?” asked Bess as she saw Alexander returning.

  “Yes, Mother,” said Lisa. “And he really is a doctor.”

  “Mother?” Lieberman said. “Not Bess? You going to start calling me ‘Father’ or ‘Dad’ instead of ‘Abe?’ ”

  “We’ll see,” Lisa said with a smile, moving to meet her husband.

  “Rimless glasses,” Lieberman said to Bess. “Now he looks like a professor.”

  “What do you think, Abraham? First impression. I’m your wife, remember, not your district captain.”

  “I said I like him,” said Lieberman, rising. “Let’s go get the luggage. I’ve got to get to work.”

  Hanrahan checked his watch. He had about half an hour, maybe a little more before he went to the station to wait for the call from Pig Sticker. He was carrying the cellular phone he shared with Lieberman on which Pig Sticker could reach him, but he might have to move fast. He’d be more comfortable back at the station, but he sat back and watched as Michael and Smedley Ash talked on the other side of the living room. Hanrahan had chosen not to listen, but he was sure his very presence was putting pressure on Michael who was listening to Smedley, nodding, and talking very softly.

  Smedley was not an imposing figure, a small, bald man with a little round gut who wore suspenders and now worked as a leather cutter in a luggage factory. Monday was Smedley’s day off.

  Hanrahan got up and moved into the kitchen to bring them both more coffee. The discussion in the other room was only the first step. Next, they’d go to a meeting tonight where Michael would decide whether to go on.

  Hanrahan had made a full pot. Michael had been consuming it at an enormous rate, possibly a good sign. Hanrahan poured two cups, black, and sugared Michael’s.

  Earlier that morning, Maureen had called. It had been a shock. Hanrahan had convinced himself that he was over his ex-wife, that he had put her in a deep but cherished box of his memory, that if they met, it would be a polite conversation, if she would allow it to be, and that it would be conducted with slight nervousness but, he hoped, cordiality. Maureen was aware of Iris and probably knew about the wedding plans. That was fine. But her voice had taken him by surprise. Memories collapsed inside him. He had to sit down.

  He had been at the kitchen table when she called, reading the Sun-Times, which had been delivered at the door, waiting for Michael to get up and Smedley to arrive. The call was early, before Maureen had to go to work.

  “Bill?” she repeated when she didn’t get an immediate answer.

  “Yes,” he said after a long pause. “How are you, Maureen?”

  “I’m fine, Bill. Michael’s with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “How are you doing?”

  “Still sober, approaching two years,” he said, understanding her question quite clearly.

  It was Maureen’s turn to pause. Bill had waited.

  “Can you help him?”

  “I may be able to help him help himself,” said Hanrahan. “I’m trying. I’ll try.”

  “It’s a disease,” she said. “Inherited from you.”

  It hadn’t been an accusation. Just a statement sadly, pensively made in a tone he recognized.

  “Something like that,” Hanrahan had said. “Yes.”

  “Does he want to … Will he see me?” she had asked.

  “I’ll ask,” he had said. “I think so, but not this week, maybe not for a week or two.”

  “Quite a reversal,” Maureen had said. “When he came to town with his wife and new baby, it was you he didn’t want to see. Now …”

  He had almost said, “Now you know how it feels,” but he didn’t because he really didn’t feel it. Instead, he had said, “I’ll tell him you called. It’s up to him. Let’s have some faith in our son.”

  “Take care of yourself, William,” Maureen had said softly.

  “I’ll try,” Hanrahan had said and she had hung up.

  He sat at the table after the call trembling. God help him, the deep demon told him he needed a drink, but the demon was deep in a locked box and he knew he could and would resist it. Stopping had been too horrible. Starting again with the prospect of going through the whole process again would probably lead him to the suicide he had once considered. No, the demon could speak but it was in a tight box.

  Hanrahan had a bowl of Frosted Flakes and milk after Maureen’s call. He had read the paper, sports first, comics, editorials, and then the news. He skipped the obits and wondered why Lieberman always read them first. And then Smedley had come.

  He brought the mugs into the living room and handed one each to his son and Smedley who nodded their thanks.

  “I’ve got to go,” said Hanrahan. “I don’t know if this is a good time, but there won’t be another till tonight or tomorrow morning. Michael, your mother called before you got up. I told her I wasn’t sure if you’d want to call her for a while. She understood. You do what you want.”

  Michael nodded and Smedley gave Hanrahan a reassuring look. No one had come back from deeper than Smedley, who had lost family, friends, job, and w
as among the homeless before he found AA. “A lot of God and mumbo-jumbo, I’ll admit,” Smedley had once told Hanrahan, “but it saved me. And I believe in it.”

  It had taken time and Smedley’s help for Hanrahan to believe in it. Hanrahan went to meetings with only a few reservations, carrying the deep demon that Smedley had said he would never be rid of.

  “You learn to live with it,” Smedley had said one night. “When it wants to converse, don’t talk to it. Don’t even tell it to shut up. Just ignore it.”

  Smedley had been right. He had known. His own deep demon was probably stronger than Hanrahan’s, and Michael’s was not even in a box yet, but sitting on his shoulder, invisible, urging. Hanrahan wondered if all diseases were like that, an AIDS demon, a cancer demon, a hepatitis demon, a different demon for every disease saying there was no hope.

  Hanrahan left his son and Smedley and went to work. They hardly noticed him leaving. On the whole, Hanrahan felt pretty good. The air was unseasonably cool. He had weathered a call from Maureen. Michael looked as if he had a chance. Iris had held his hand especially tight the night before and it was clear she and Michael had gotten along. They had eaten at Rodity’s, Michael’s favorite restaurant in Greek Town on Halsted Street. There had been no wine and the waiter hadn’t pushed it. Michael had ordered the combination plate, Bill the mousaka, and Iris the leg of lamb. If he lived through this day, the future looked brighter than it had in a long, long time.

  Lieberman was seated at his desk when Hanrahan arrived. The squad room was reasonably quiet. A few typewriters taking complaints, booking moody suspects, one a white woman with wild white hair and a face that said she was probably younger than she looked. She was in outer space, dreaming, and Roper was trying to get a rape report. The day janitor was trying to clean up. Word was that there were budget cutbacks and they were going to lose the day man. He wasn’t going to lose his job, just get transferred to night duty at the North Avenue, much closer to where he lived. The night man there was retiring after almost forty years. Lieberman knew the night man at the North. He was a black man everyone called Solly. Lieberman wondered if they were going to have a retirement party for Solly. He’d call Rodriguez tomorrow and find out. However, there would be no replacement when the Clark Street Station lost the day janitor. Budget cutbacks. In a few weeks, it would be next to impossible to breathe the daytime air in the squad room no matter how hard the night man scrubbed and cleaned, carted, sprayed, and emptied.