Lieberman's Day

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “Those pictures are real paintings, man,” said El Perro, shaking his head. “Islands, the sun, religious stuff, shit like that, you know?”

  “I’m impressed, Emiliano,” said Lieberman.

  “That’s right. And you know who owns this legit business? You got a good idea? That’s right,” said El Perro with a satisfied grin, looking around at the three young men behind him who stood silent and nearly at attention.

  Lieberman knew them all: Fernandez, narrow like the knife he carried and willing to do anything to please El Perro, who had taken him in when his parents had thrown him out; the hefty Carlos “the Crazy” Piedras, who bit off the tops of beer bottles; and Jorge “La Cabeza” Manulito, tall, good-looking, and usually careful enough to know how to stay on El Perro’s survival side.

  El Perro himself was a sight to see. He was dressed entirely in black today, shoes, socks, slacks, T-shirt. His face was a map of wild scars leading to dead ends. A scar from some ancient battle ran from his right eye down across his nose to just below the left side of his mouth. It was rough, red, and had probably taken an afternoon of stitches. His nose had been broken so many times that there was little bone, no cartilage. When lost in thought, which was seldom and frightening, El Perro played with the flesh of his nose, flattening it with his thumb, pushing it to one side absent-mindedly. His teeth were white but uneven, except for his sharp eyeteeth, which made anyone who saw El Perro grin think of a vampire. El Perro’s hair was always slick and brushed straight back.

  “Your friend Mickey Mouse is staring at me again,” El Perro said, pointing at Hanrahan. “Comes into my place wearing that excuse for a suit wanting a favor and looks at me like that. You know something, Lieberman? I still think your partner he don’t like me.”

  “Nonsense, Emiliano, he talks about you all the time, says he wants his yet-to-be-born grandchildren to grow up and be just like you.”

  El Perro laughed, a cackling laugh that the young men behind him picked up on and joined except for Manulito. When they laughed, Los Tentaculos were careful to watch their leader for a change in mood.

  “You got balls, viejo,” said El Perro, giving the bingo-ball cage a sharp final twirl as he rose.

  “And they’re withering fast from age and a tired prostate,” Lieberman said.

  El Perro clasped his hands together and stepped forward as if he was about to pray. “Sometimes I don’t know what the fuck you talkin’ about. Habla, hombre.”

  “My nephew was murdered last night. His pregnant wife was shot.”

  “And you think Los Tentaculos …?” El Perro shouted.

  “No,” said Lieberman. “The killers were black men. One was called George. They had accents, probably Islands accents. They took my nephew’s hat, one of those Russian fur hats. Might be wearing it.”

  “Siga,” said El Perro, standing above the two policemen behind the bingo-caller’s table like a priest of petty gamblers, considering whether to bless his supplicants with bingo and the gift of a portable radio with earphones.

  “No place to go with it,” said Lieberman.

  “Ah, yo veo, viejo. Quieres que nosotros vamos dentro las calles a buscar por sus Negros, verdad?”

  “Verdad, Emiliano. I want you to help us find these guys.”

  “They shoot pregnant women,” El Perro said, shaking his head. “That’s shit, you know?”

  “It’s shit,” Fernandez echoed in confirmation.

  Lieberman knew of at least one instance in which El Perro had beaten a pregnant woman, who had insulted him outside St. Bart’s Church. The woman had been rushed to Cook County where she delivered a month prematurely. The baby lived, just barely.

  The conversation seemed to trouble Carlos. Jorge leaned over to explain in Spanish what was going on.

  “Your nephew. He was a good guy?” asked El Perro.

  “A very good guy, Emiliano,” said Lieberman. “His father is my brother.”

  “So this is a big favor?” said El Perro, stepping off the platform and moving toward the two policemen.

  “Big favor,” Lieberman acknowledged.

  El Perro looked back at his men and scratched his neck.

  “The streets are cold,” he said, turning to Hanrahan and Lieberman. “And you ain’t givin’ me much to work with.”

  “All I’ve got,” said Lieberman, holding open his hands.

  “Vamos a ver lo que podemos de hacer.”

  “Gracias otra vez,” said Lieberman.

  Hanrahan stood stone silent, eyes fixed emotionlessly on the face of the swaggering young man across the table.

  “No gusta, su amigo,” said El Perro, returning Hanrahan’s gaze.

  “Pienso que el hombre creyó el mismo de usted,” answered Lieberman.

  “I can live with that,” said El Perro. “I’ll get back to you we find anything.”

  Lieberman touched Bill Hanrahan’s shoulder and the two policemen walked slowly toward the door. Behind them they could hear the sound of the bingo-ball cage being nervously spun.

  “Una cosa mas,” came El Perro’s voice as the policemen neared the door.

  Lieberman had been expecting this, but he showed nothing on his hangdog face as he turned.

  “Que quieres, Emiliano?”

  “We find this guy for you, what you figure you owe me?”

  Bill Hanrahan was about to answer, but Lieberman stopped him with a touch on his partner’s sleeve.

  “You or one of your hombres walks on the next misdemeanor.”

  El Perro shook his head and let a single finger trace the path of the long scar on his face.

  “Two misdemeanors,” Lieberman offered.

  “Hey, man, we don’t commit no misdemeanors,” Jorge said.

  El Perro turned on his man suddenly, fists clenched, shoulders tight with fury.

  “Despensame, jefe,” Jorge said, taking a step back. “Solamente una pequena chiste.”

  “Callete tu boca, Pacito,” said El Perro very softly. “Mas tarde vamos a ver lo que pasa.”

  “Perro jefe, yo …” Paco started.

  “What you say, viejo?” said El Perro, turning to Lieberman and Hanrahan. “I spin the cage, pull a number. If it’s on the card I forget Jorge’s insult. If it’s not, pues entonces …”

  “We don’t have time for this bullshit,” said Hanrahan.

  Fernandez smiled.

  “I’m spinnin’, Jorge,” said El Perro. “I’m spinnin’ to see if I let you keep your fingers for embarrassing me in front of el viejo and Mickey Mouse.”

  “I had enough, Abe,” said Hanrahan, turning and walking out the door.

  El Perro took a bingo card from the table and sailed it over his shoulder as he faced Lieberman. The card fluttered past Jorge, who scrambled after it, his gold chains chinking.

  “I’m spinnin’,” said El Perro, reaching down for the cage full of balls and spinning it madly once, twice, three times.

  Lieberman checked his watch.

  “Two felonies,” said El Perro. “We walk for the next two felonies.”

  It was Lieberman’s turn to shake his head no.

  “All right, all right,” said El Perro, stopping the metal cage, opening the latch, and pulling out a ball. “One felony.”

  “One felony with no assault,” said Lieberman. “Which means no one, nadie, gets touched, not even a scratch, and nothing with weapons showing.”

  “Guns, bueno, no guns, but knife. Let’s deal here, viejo.”

  El Perro threw the ball into the air with a yelp. The ball sailed toward Lieberman, who reached out his left hand and caught it.

  “Muy bueno,” said El Perro, clapping his hands and turning to be sure Fernandez and Carlos joined him, though Carlos did not seem to know what he was applauding. “You got a deal. Now what’s the number on the ball? Don’t keep my man in suspense up here.”

  Lieberman looked at the ball.

  “B-4,” he said, looking up at the stage as Jorge’s dark, handsome face turned from saggin
g fear to an idiotic grin.

  “I got it,” Jorge said.

  Lieberman threw the ball back to El Perro, who reached forward to catch it.

  “One felony, no one getting hurt. No guns,” said El Perro, returning the ball to the cage and latching it.

  “Can’t guarantee, but I’ll do my best if you find George and his partner.”

  “Best is good enough for me,” said El Perro. “You know something? I hate the fuckin’ cold.”

  Hanrahan was in the driver’s seat of the car listening to Rush Limbaugh when Lieberman slid in and closed the door. Hanrahan turned off the radio.

  “What are we doing, Rabbi? Notice I said ‘we.’”

  “Making deals with the devil,” said Lieberman. “Picking my nightmares. Trading new pain for old. Father Murphy, the truth as I know it is I want the guys who killed David and shot Carol.”

  Hanrahan looked at his partner, who turned in his seat.

  “What?” Lieberman said wearily. “What are you looking at?”

  “You deal with the devil and you can count on a marked deck,” said Hanrahan.

  “Old Irish saying?”

  “No, a Greek bartender named Gus at Bobbie Lavery’s Tavern. You hungry?”

  Lieberman nodded.

  “Fajitas or gyros?” asked Hanrahan, pulling into Crawford Avenue traffic.

  “Surprise me,” said Lieberman, pulling his collar up.

  The American Indian Center on Wilson looked like an old streetcar barn, two stories, dirty red brick. Bundled men and women with high cheekbones moved in and out walking slowly, hands deep in pockets. One skinny old man whose face was wrinkled beyond anything Frankie had ever seen, with the possible exception of Hickory John Bassett, walked down the concrete steps, lit a cigarette, and looked both ways and up at the sky. Then he pulled up his collar, put his head against the wind, and moved to the west.

  As Frankie got out of his pickup an El train rattled by down the street behind him and screeched like a tack on a slate into Wilson Avenue Station. There weren’t many people out and those that did appear moved fast against the cold. That is, if they weren’t Indians. The Indians didn’t seem to have anywhere to go. The storefronts, almost all of them with Spanish names over their doors, were frosted. Frankie crossed the street and hurried up the stone steps, opened the door, and walked into semidarkness, his soles and heels clapping on the bare wood.

  Two men and a fat woman, all of them Indians, stood in a circle near a stairway.

  “Pardon me,” said Frankie. “I’m looking for a woman named Angie. A Sioux woman.”

  “The Polack,” muttered one of the men, who was red-eyed and maybe a little drunk. He was dressed entirely in unfashionably tattered denim, including a denim vest.

  “Yes,” said Frankie eagerly.

  “What do you want with her?” the fat woman said. There was education in her voice and Frankie went wary and let the Spirit move him.

  The fat woman was better dressed than the men, a dark, sacky sort of dress, clean, maybe even new or close to it.

  “She’s an old friend,” he said. “I just want to say hello, tell her I’m back in town, talk to her.”

  “She’s not here,” the woman said.

  “I …” Frankie began.

  “She’s not here,” the woman repeated flatly.

  “Can you tell me when …?”

  “I can, but I won’t,” the woman said.

  “I beg your pardon, ma’am?”

  “You’re not her friend,” the woman said.

  The second Indian man, tall and lean with a dark pony-tail, said something Frankie didn’t understand. The Indian woman nodded but kept her eyes on Frankie.

  Frankie smiled. The woman did not.

  “You’re burning with hate,” the woman said. “It’s not a friend you’re looking for.”

  Frankie felt the surge of the wet, hot eel of anger, but he grinned. “Indian magic?” he asked. “You read minds?”

  “No,” said the woman. “I’m a social worker here. You’ve got the look of an angry drunk who tries to hide it with a false smile. Only you’re worse. You’re not drunk on whiskey.”

  Frankie took a step toward the woman, but the two Indian men stepped between them.

  “I don’t want any trouble,” said Frankie, holding up his hands, his eyes darting between the men.

  “Yes, you do,” said the woman. “But we’re not going to give it to you. Turn around, walk out that door, and don’t come back here again, ever.”

  The two Indian men took a step toward Frankie, who backed up.

  “You don’t understand,” he said, stopping, determined. “I’m doing God’s work.”

  The woman puffed out her lower lip, said nothing, and shook her head.

  Frankie was face to face with the larger of the two Indians.

  “Big Bear was in jail,” the woman said. “He lifted weights for four years. You want to find out if I’m telling the truth?”

  “I fear only the wrath of the Lord,” said Frankie.

  “I wasn’t trying to frighten you,” the woman said. “I was telling you what you were up against so you’d consider your options more seriously.”

  “I’ve never insulted your people,” said Frankie.

  “That’s good,” said the woman. “I’ve insulted yours. Maybe you’ll go to Heaven and I’ll go to prison, but somehow I don’t think so.”

  Big Bear’s huge hands started to rise.

  “Don’t touch me,” Frankie said through clenched teeth, trembling with rage.

  “Don’t touch him, Bear,” the woman said. “He wants to walk, let him walk.”

  Frankie took a step back and then turned and went out the door and down the concrete steps. The heavy wooden door banged behind him.

  Inside, Billy Blue Feather turned to Connie Sekajowa and said, “What the fuck was that all about?”

  “I don’t know,” said Connie. “Go tell Angie that he was looking for her. Tell her what he looks like. Ask her if she knows him and then get her out the back and someplace safe.”

  “She can stay at my place two, three days,” said Big Bear.

  Connie Sekajowa, her eyes still on the door through which Frankie Kraylaw had fled, nodded again.

  “World’s full of goddamn crazies,” Billy Blue Feather said with a sigh, starting up the stairs.

  Outside Frankie hurried to his pickup, got in, and tried to control his breathing. He was panting, trying to catch his breath. She was in there. She was in there. No doubt. He could tell from the way the fat Indian woman had boned him. She had no right.

  He watched the door and thought for a minute and then turned on the ignition and moved the pickup to where it couldn’t be seen from the doorway of the Indian Center. He stopped in the driveway of a cleaning store on the corner, where he could watch the front door of the center and see down the street on the side of the building in case someone came out of the alley.

  Frankie shivered from the cold and something else he did not give a name. The taste of blood from JJ.’s ear was still clinging like dry metal to his tongue. He had not slept in more than thirty hours and was not now tired. He would stay awake for days. He would pursue for the rest of the life that God gave him if he must, but Frankie Kraylaw would endure and be rewarded. And if the Lord chose that he not be rewarded on earth then so be it. His will be done.

  From the alley came the Indian named Big Bear, helping a tiny woman in a long cloth coat around the dirty mounds of ice and snow. It was Angie, no doubt.

  “So,” said George. “Let me see if I got this straight.”

  They were in the rattling car, not much heat and no energy, rambling down the Dan Ryan Expressway heading south in the general direction of Florida.

  “Your cousin Celia, she married Massinet Hart,” George went on, the Russian hat tipping back on his head.

  “Yes,” said Raymond, looking around for an empty field, something, somewhere he could get George out and shoot his fool head off.<
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  “So,” said George, holding up two fingers for no reason that Raymond could understand, “that makes you and me some kinda cousins, something like that?”

  “No,” said Raymond. “It doesn’t make us cousins.”

  Raymond tried not to sound surly. But his life was on the line and he was driving away from the place he had to be, where he had the most important business of his life, driving away from Lilly. Raymond didn’t like the way he had been picking up on the Islands accent that he had worked so hard to lose. Associating with George had done that to him.

  “Seems to me it does,” said George, clutching the battered bag containing the few thousand dollars that he had stolen.

  “Seems to you,” said Raymond, nodding.

  He hit the radio, hoping the sound of anything would stop George from talking. There weren’t many stations the radio could receive. The antenna had long since been torn off by who knows who.

  Someone, a man with a high voice or a woman with a strange one, was singing in Spanish. George shut up, listening or thinking.

  “That corn out there?” George asked.

  “Weeds,” said Raymond.

  George nodded, ingesting this important information.

  “Raymond, you mind I ask you again?”

  “What?”

  “Why you shoot the white fella?”

  “Why did you shoot the woman?”

  “I asked you first off,” said George. “An’ you shot first.”

  “Thought he was going to give us a fight,” said Raymond.

  “Didn’t look that way to me.”

  “It did to me,” Raymond answered, raising his voice and hitting himself on the chest with his right hand. “Why did you shoot her?”

  George tried to think about it again, to remember, to make sense.

  “You shot. I shot.”

  “I had a reason,” said Raymond.

  “Not me,” George said. “I just got bucked.”

  They were quiet for about five minutes while Mexican bands and singers wailed plaintively or sang so fast that the entire song seemed to be one word.

  “What’s that book you bring with you?” George asked.

  “What Makes Sammy Run?”

  “What it about?”

  Raymond didn’t answer.

  “I think I’m hungry,” said George.