Lieberman's Day

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  He slid into the car and turned on the heat. The gas gauge showed almost empty. The fan barely turned, sending in air almost as cold as the outside.

  He had no choice now. It would be dangerous, but he had to go to the hospital, find her. He had things he deserved in life. Raymond had been cheated too many times by his own bad choices and the promises of others.

  George was gone. Raymond deserved to be safe.

  He would go to the hospital and when he did what he must do he would walk out into the nightmare of winter with some hope for the future.

  Raymond drove. He would drive until it was time. He would not go back to the apartment until it was safe, until he had dealt with the woman. Yes, he would wait until late, work out the details of his plan.

  Warm air was coming through the vents now. The air had an angry burnt smell to it and Raymond was beginning to feel drowsy. The two glasses of rum did not help. Well, in one way they did. In another, they made it difficult for him to drive through the narrow, unplowed, ice-layered streets.

  Though he had wanted to distance himself from Trinidad, calypso music, and steel-drum bands since he stepped on the boat to New York a decade ago, at times of weakness he found himself remembering snatches of songs he had despised as a teen. One particularly haunted him. It had been created by Lord St. John-Pelly and on more than one occasion he had heard Lord St. John-Pelly sing it on the street. “A man he trusts a woman trusts his faith to the wind. A man he trusts a woman is lost before he can sin.”

  Frankie almost missed his wife.

  The six o’clock shift was just coming on at the McDonald’s on Western near Granville where Jeanine worked. He saw her through the window, wearing a stupid uniform that made her breasts stick out. There she was smiling at men, taking orders, serving burgers and fries and drinks. On display. People could just look at her, even touch her hand.

  He had found a spot in the parking lot where he could watch the counter and where Jeanine was not likely to see him. She had no reason to be looking for him, no reason to know that he had a pickup truck, that he was back. And if she did spot him, he would have to take her right there, make her tell him where Charlie was. If anyone tried to get in the way, so be it. Frankie touched the chill barrel of the shotgun. The Lord would take his hand and people would die, and if they were good Christian people the Lord would take them unto his bosom.

  But Jeanine did not see him. She moved behind the grill and disappeared. He considered getting out of the truck, making his way through the dinnertime crowd to be sure he knew where she was, but that might be dangerous and it probably wasn’t necessary.

  He was sure it wasn’t necessary when Jeanine, wearing a heavy, furry-looking coat he had never seen, suddenly appeared about a dozen yards to his right talking to a guy dressed in a bulky jacket.

  Jeanine was laughing.

  Frankie slunk back into the corner of his seat, into the shadows behind the steering wheel.

  “And when Burns told me to take the mop,” the young man said, “I said, ‘Sure, who you want me to take it to?’”

  Jeanine laughed. It hadn’t been funny, what the man-kid said, but she had laughed to please him.

  From the shadow Frankie watched the young man open the door of a Ford Festiva parked two cars away. Jeanine got in and the young man came around quickly to let himself in. He had trouble getting his Festiva started. Even with a car between them and a grinding engine, Frankie could hear Jeanine laugh.

  Frankie prayed for the car to start, and eventually it did.

  Following them was easy. Watching them as he followed was hard. Did she move toward the man? Touch his arm? It was hard to see through the slowly defrosting window of the Festiva, but was she laughing, talking? Jeanine’s mouth was opening and closing fast. He had never known her to talk a lot or to laugh, but she was doing both now. He was sure of it. What else was she doing? What else had she been doing?

  They drove straight south on Western. Frankie had to run a red light on Lawrence to keep up with them because he was keeping two cars back now. Then, at Wilson, the Festiva signaled for a turn. Two cars went around the turning car and Frankie was on his tail again, but keeping his distance.

  They drove past a hospital, turned right, and went two blocks before the Festiva stopped. Frankie pulled into a spot five cars behind them in front of a fire hydrant and quickly turned off the lights and the engine.

  Was it a minute? Two? The passenger door opened and Jeanine stepped out, laughing. She reached back in with the door open. Touching the man’s face? Shaking his hand?

  And then she withdrew, the door closed, and the Festiva sat, motor running, while Jeanine crossed the street, moved through a low iron gate, went up on the porch of a small, well-lighted house, and fumbled in her pocket for a key. When she found it, she smiled and held it up to show the man in the Festiva.

  Only when she was in the house and the door closed did the Festiva pull away.

  Frankie waited, counting to two hundred, praying, wanting to plan but unable to think of anything beyond getting his wife and son, having them next to him even if he had to tie them down, and heading west.

  Frankie got out of the car and looked both ways. There was no traffic on the residential street. Cars filled the spaces on both sides. Frankie crossed the street about forty yards from the front of the house Jeanine had entered. He walked slowly, watching the door of the house, listening for the sound of approaching cars or footsteps. Nothing but the distant swoosh of tires on Wilson Avenue two blocks away.

  In the dark snowy patch between the house Jeanine was in and the dark one next to it, Frankie stood on his toes trying to look into a window. He couldn’t see much, but what he saw was sufficient. Charlie’s head moved by. Not talking but walking. Jeanine came next, saying something Frankie couldn’t hear.

  Whose house was this? What was his family doing here? Slowly, carefully, warning himself, Frankie moved toward the front of the house and, ankle-deep in snow, stepped over the low iron fence and tiptoed up the steps. Through the window on his left he could see an open sofa bed, the blankets a mess. Jeanine, still in her uniform, was talking and starting to make the bed.

  Was it Charlie’s? Had his wife slept in it? Alone?

  No longer worried about noise, Frankie ran down the stairs and looked at the mailbox. There was no name on it. He opened the box and pulled out a handful of mail. The streetlights had come on a few minutes earlier but there wasn’t enough light for Frankie to read the name. He stepped back, holding the top letter close, and made out the name William Hanrahan on a bill from Commonwealth Edison. The name. Frankie was sure he knew the name. He found another letter, this one also to William Hanrahan, from Publishers’ Clearing House, the name in big, clear, bold letters.

  Frankie dropped the mail in the yard and strode across the street to the cab of his pickup. He removed the shotgun, cradled it in his arms, and recrossed the street, ready to drop the weapon to his side if someone should appear.

  He carried his own lightning now. And he would wield it as the Lord moved his hands.

  Frankie moved onto the porch and knocked at the door, his feet tingling inside his boots, his mouth tin dry. She was coming. Yes. The door opened and there she stood. It took her a beat to recognize him. By the time she had gathered herself enough to close the door, Frankie had pushed it toward her.

  Jeanine’s laugh was gone. It was replaced now by the familiar look of fear as she backed away.

  Frankie stepped in, shotgun in his arms, and kicked the door closed.

  “What sins have you committed during my exile by the heathens? What sins with that policeman who expels me from the city so he can fornicate with my wife?”

  “I haven’t …” Jeanine said in panic, looking around for help that wasn’t there as Frankie took another step into the room.

  Charlie appeared in the doorway behind Jeanine. The room behind the boy was a dining room set with three places. Charlie’s look did not change. He stepped into the
room, blinking and expressionless, and now stood with no sign of emotion as his mother clung to him, sobbing.

  “Get your things, fast,” said Frankie. “Get a bag, a box, and throw things in. I’ll give you five minutes.”

  Jeanine was shaking her head no, not defiantly but as if her world had come apart.

  “No back talk,” said Frankie, pointing the shotgun toward the doorway to the dining room. “Move. I hear a window open, a door open, and I come letting the Lord dictate what my finger does with this tool of vengeance.”

  Neither Charlie nor Jeanine moved.

  “You forsook me, Jeanine Peasley Kraylaw,” said Frankie.

  Frankie took another step toward them before he was aware of another presence in the room, a person standing in the doorway behind Frankie’s family.

  “It would be best if you and Charlie stepped back,” said Hanrahan.

  The policeman’s face was red. His jacket was open, and in his hand, pointing toward the ground, was a gun, a black-gray gun.

  Frankie raised the shotgun in the direction of the policeman who had stolen his family.

  “Best move now,” said Hanrahan gently. “Better if the boy’s not in the room.”

  Jeanine looked at Frankie and then at Hanrahan. Then she guided Charlie behind Hanrahan.

  “The Lord has delivered you into my hands,” said Frankie. “He means me to punish you for breaking commandments with my wife.”

  “And you mean to punish her and the boy, too?” asked Hanrahan.

  “I mean to,” Frankie said. “It’s my right, my obligation.”

  “The Lord didn’t send me, Frankie. I followed you from McDonald’s. You left an easy trail, starting with the man you almost killed at Wendy’s. When I knew you were in town and looking for me and Abe, it didn’t take much to figure what you might be up to. I don’t know how you found her, but …”

  “The Lord Jesus Christ led me,” said Frankie.

  “If he did,” said Hanrahan sadly, “then I think God’s got a sense of humor I can’t figure out.”

  “I’ll pray for your soul,” said Frankie, raising the shotgun.

  “I’ll need it,” said Hanrahan, gun still at his side as Frankie Kraylaw pulled the trigger of his father’s shotgun.

  Lieberman and Bess walked into Temple Mir Shavot on California Avenue just four blocks from their house. As always, Bess adjusted the yarmulke that bobbed on top of Abe’s curly hair before they went into the low-ceilinged, fluorescent-lit reception hall. There were tables of food under the windows and people milling around, all familiar faces, talking softly. Word had gotten around quickly.

  It had been Bess’s idea to have an open house before relatives and a minyon gathered at Yetta and Maish’s apartment to sit Shiva. As president of the synagogue, Bess had certain unstated rights. Rabbi Wass had not hesitated to approve and support the idea and to get both the Women’s Auxiliary and the Men’s Club to get on the phone and put out word of the tragedy and the get-together.

  Abe agreed that it was a good idea. It got Maish busy catering for the event and pulled him out of the T&L. It nudged Yetta into dressing herself, making some plans.

  “Elliott Ness is here,” Herschel Rosen said, stepping up to the Liebermans with his wife, Sarah, at his side.

  “This is a time for jokes?” Sarah Rosen said, pushing her husband.

  “It’s all right, Sarah,” Bess said, taking the woman’s arm and walking her away.

  “I’m trying to lighten up a little,” explained Herschel. “It’s my way. Besides, who knows what to say at times like this? You know what I mean? I’ve seen wives, brothers, kids, everyone die. You never know what to say. You know how I feel for you and Maish, Abe?”

  “Thanks, Hershy,” Lieberman said, touching the little man’s shoulder. Herschel Rosen shrugged and lost himself in the small crowd.

  Hymie Fried, the cantor, who looked like a former middleweight contender but sang almost like Jan Pierce, was wolfing down a bagel oozing with cream cheese as he talked to Rabbi Wass, who looked vaguely like a pudgy Claude Rains tonight.

  Alter Cockers, even Howie Chen, dressed in jackets and ties, stood near the far wall drinking coffee. They nodded at Abe as he wended his way forward looking for his brother. Manny Resnick with the bad hip, who still owned the hardware store on North Avenue next to Slovotny’s Meat Shop, found a hole in the crowd and grabbed Abe’s hand in both of his, pumping.

  “A shame,” he said. “Whatever I can do, Abe. Whatever. I told Maish. Same goes for you. Whatever.”

  “Thanks, Manny.”

  Resnick reluctantly released Lieberman’s hand and edged back as Abe moved forward.

  “Abe,” came Lisa’s voice at his side.

  There was something in his daughter’s voice beyond grief, something Lieberman would prefer not to face.

  A woman, thin, well dressed, and smelling of dark perfume, put her arms around him and kissed his cheek. The woman was weeping as she said, “So young. So young.”

  Someone pulled her back.

  “I think that was Levan’s first wife,” he said, turning to face Lisa.

  “Abe, you saw her,” Lisa said as if she were establishing the initial, essential premise of a syllogism.

  “Her?” asked Lieberman.

  “Abe,” Lisa said with exasperation.

  Lisa was dressed in appropriate black, her hair tied back, looking very sober, serious, and professional.

  “You talked to the kids,” he said.

  “I talked to Melisa. Barry wouldn’t tell me anything.”

  The crowd buzzed, kept their distance for the father-daughter talk. Through a cluster of heads Abe saw his brother, hound-faced and nodding to someone hidden by a wave of mourners and sympathizers.

  “Her name is Faye,” said Lieberman.

  “I knew that. I told you that,” said Lisa. “What does she look like? What’s she like?”

  “Look,” said Lieberman with a sigh, “I saw her for a minute, maybe …”

  “Abe.”

  “Nice-looking lady, around forty-five, maybe even older. Weight around one-fifteen or twenty. Hair short, gray-brunette. Good smile. Teeth her own, unstained. Doesn’t smoke. Stands erect. I’d say she exercises regularly. Skin color is good. Steady hands. Eyes, hazel, meet yours when she talks. Definitely not Jewish. Her …”

  “You want me to scream, Abe? Right here? Right now?”

  “It’s not in you, Lisa,” he said with a sad smile. “I think I’d like to see you just let go and scream.”

  “You want me to say ‘please’?” Lisa said, looking around to be sure no one could hear their conversation.

  “Hell, no,” said Lieberman. “You say ‘please’ and I pay for it the rest of my life. O.K. I liked her. She handled the situation well, the kids well, doesn’t seem to push Todd. There was a look in her eye, asking for an even break. I think the lady’s been through a lot in her life.”

  “Pretty?” asked Lisa, biting her lower lip.

  “Pretty yes, beautiful no,” answered Lieberman.

  Lisa shook her head and folded her arms.

  “My cousin is dead and I’m worrying about who Todd might be sleeping with.”

  “He’s your husband.”

  “I walked out on him, Abe. I took the kids and walked out on him.”

  “I know,” said Lieberman. “You’re all living at my house, remember? Now you think maybe you made a mistake.”

  “No,” said Lisa. “I think I did the right thing, but it doesn’t make it hurt less when someone like Faye comes along and you think she may be a better wife for your husband.”

  “Nothing’s easy, Lisa,” Abe said as Maish saw him and waved. “Maish wants me.”

  Abe looked at his daughter, who met his eyes and smiled the smile of the perplexed.

  “I always preferred biochemistry to tragedy,” she said softly. “‘How hard, abandonment of my desire. But I can fight necessity no more.’ Antigone. After fifteen years, it rubs off. Go tak
e care of Uncle Maish. I’m being selfish.”

  Lieberman made his way through a half dozen more condolences and found his brother, Yetta, and Bess standing in front of Ida Katzman, who sat on a bridge chair, her cane standing in front of her held erect by her thin befreckled hands.

  Abe gave Yetta a hug and touched her cheek. There was nothing to say. Yetta held back tears.

  “Death,” said Ida Katzman.

  Ida Katzman, eighty-six, looked into the hound-dog eyes of Abraham Lieberman, and repeated, “Death.”

  As the temple’s principal benefactor, Ida was seldom contradicted. Since she seldom spoke, and when she did it was to observe and not to dictate, contradiction was seldom even contemplated by those who dealt with her.

  “Yes,” said Lieberman, taking Bess’s hand.

  Ida shook her head. “Mort and I had no children,” she said. “You know that.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Lieberman.

  Ida shook her head. “Not that we didn’t like children,” she went on. “Children are the heart of our belief, of our religion.”

  Ida’s frail hand moved to her chest to tap the heart about which she spoke.

  Lieberman nodded.

  Ida shook her head again, the hand that had been at her heart returning to help balance her cane.

  “Times like this,” she said. “The pain of losing a child. I remember when Woodrow Wilson was the president, when that actor with the bad breath …”

  “Clark Gable,” Lieberman supplied, in spite of a warning squeeze of his hand from Bess.

  “Clark Gable had bad breath?” asked Ida.

  “So I’ve heard,” said Abe, “but you had someone else in mind.”

  “I don’t remember,” said Ida, looking at her cane for help down the path of memories. “Oh, times like this when I can’t imagine the hurt of such a loss.”

  Everyone was looking at Lieberman now. Yetta, Maish, Bess, Ida Katzman. Somehow, as a policeman, as a man who had seen more death than anyone in the room with the exception of Isaac Pankovsky, who had survived Auschwitz, Abe Lieberman was expected to make a meaningful observation.

  “I can’t feel,” said Maish before Abe could speak. “There’s no pain. I want it to come, but … I’m what you call numb. You think we have enough coleslaw?”