Lieberman's Choice (14 page)

The massive white tower of the Baha'i Temple gleamed in the late afternoon sunlight. Wayne looked past his daughter and bore witness to its beauty, though he did not let it bear him away.

“I love him.”

“And that, you believe is relevant? I once loved a girl named Gina who skated in the Roller Derby. And then there was a secretary whose name was, if I recall correctly, Thelma. Your mother and the course of time convinced me that I was not really in love with either Gina or Thelma. However …”

“I'm not going to let him face this alone,” she interrupted.

She sat rigid, determined, her eyes fixed on his. Her face was lovely, her makeup perfect. The black dress and white pearls looked as if they had been purchased moments ago. D. Wayne Duvier knew the signs of victory, the last rigid set of the spine, the last threat, the last challenge before martyred capitulation.

“Then,” he said, “there really isn't anything to discuss, is there?”

Carla shifted in her seat, turning her head angrily away from her father.

“I'm not abandoning Alan,” she said.

“That,” said her father, “is entirely up to you, Carla. You haven't needed my approval for the past decade.”

Wayne reached over and touched his daughter's shoulder. As he anticipated, she shrugged him off and turned further away.

“Given your decision,” he said, “would you prefer not to go to the Baker reception tonight? I'll be happy to make your excuses and I'm sure, given the situation, Anne and Sherman would understand.”

“I'll go to the reception,” Carla said, her voice filled with exasperation.

Wayne said nothing. He smiled, not a smile of triumph but a smile of bitter victory, which he was sure his daughter did not see.

Since Emiliano Del Sol was not going up on the roof of the Shoreham for almost three hours, Kearney had told Lieberman and Hanrahan to take the time to get something to eat and some rest. Kearney had spent two hours on Jason Belding's bed thinking of Navahos, dozing, listening to the voices in the living room. He had heard Chief Hartz come in, had heard El Perro, and he knew that he should get up, but he didn't. He had left it to Lieberman and now he owed Lieberman some time.

When Hanrahan and Lieberman were in the car, Hanrahan asked, “You ever been to New Mexico? Santa Fe?”

“Once, drove through. Looked nice. Why?”

“Navahos are from there, right?”

“I don't know.”

“I've been thinking of vacationing there,” said Hanrahan.

Lieberman didn't answer, so Hanrahan looked at himself in the mirror and touched his cheek.

“I need a shave.”

“Use the electric,” said Lieberman, pulling into traffic going south on Sheridan.

Hanrahan reached for the glove compartment, opened it, and pulled out a compact Braun razor.

“I need a real shave,” he said, hitting the switch.

“I'll get you a real sandwich at Maish's,” said Lieberman. “Today's Thursday. T&L Special's your favorite.”

“Brisket?” asked Hanrahan over the razor's buzz as he tried to reach the little protected area just beneath his nose.

“None other,” Lieberman confirmed. “And tonight it's on me.

Hanrahan clicked off the razor. He had more stubble to deal with, but he needed to be clear when he heard what was coming.

“Rabbi,” he said, “what have you got in mind?”

“One stop on the way,” he said as they passed the 400 Theater. “You ever see this
Rocky Horror Picture Show?”

“No,” said Hanrahan warily. “And I don't plan to.”

“Father Murphy,” said Lieberman with a sigh, “you are losing your youth.”

“Where are you taking me, Abraham?”

“Kraylaws. There's a problem.”

“God,” said Hanrahan with an enormous sigh.

“God, indeed, Father Murphy,” Lieberman agreed.

There were no parking spaces on Clark or on Albion, not even in front of the fire hydrant, where a van was camped. The alley off Albion was marked from telephone pole to brick apartment wall with signs in both English and Spanish saying
NO PARKING: VIOLATORS WILL BE TOWED.
There were no reasonable spaces in the alley. Lieberman pulled into an unreasonable one in front of someone's backyard. There was enough room for a thin human to squeeze through the gate. It was the best they could do.

The policemen walked around the building to Tío Coreles Muebles.

Less than an hour earlier, in a phone call filled with sobbing, Lieberman had been told by Jeanine Kraylaw that Frankie had broken up the furniture in their apartment a week ago. It had all been replaced in the last few days by Tío Coreles, who had felt sorry for Jeanine and Charlie Kraylaw and had given her pieces of furniture he claimed he had been unable to sell.

Coreles's reward for his donation was a visit from Francis Kraylaw with a black metal bar. The ranting Kraylaw had threatened the old man with death, smashed five lamps and a vase, destroyed a wooden chair, and accused him of lusting after Jeanine.

The stop at Tío Coreles's was brief. The old man, shaken, was surrounded by soothing neighbors and family members. Tío Coreles had decided, he said, not to press charges. Instead he announced that he had taken on a junior partner, his nephew Antonio, a large man at his side of no great intellect but, both Hanrahan and Lieberman knew, possessed of a rap sheet that included two arrests for assault.

“I hope that crazy fool comes back down here again and tries something,” Tío Coreles told the policemen.

Hanrahan and Lieberman went back outside and three steps north to the doorway that led to the apartments above Coreles's shop.

They opened the door and were hit by the musty smell of ragged carpet on the stairway. Lieberman pushed the bell next to one of the two mailboxes. They could hear the metallic ring above them.

“They're not here,” said Hanrahan.

Lieberman looked at his partner with a sad smile and rang again. This time they heard footsteps on a wooden floor above and the opening of the door at the top of the stairs.

“Who is it?” came the voice of Frankie Kraylaw.

“Sergeant Lieberman and Sergeant Hanrahan,” answered Lieberman.

“Jeez, oh. I've got to get to work and all. So if …”

“We'll just take a minute,” said Lieberman, starting up the stairs.

“It's not a great time,” said Kraylaw. “Not a great time.”

“Tell us all about it, Francis,” said Lieberman. “We are generally recognized as men of great compassion and understanding.”

“What is it? I mean, why …?”

“We happened to be in the neighborhood,” said Hanrahan, “and we thought we'd just say hi to you and your fine family.”

“You're always in the neighborhood,” Frankie Kraylaw said with a false smile in his voice. “The station's two blocks away.”

“Our thoughts were with you,” said Lieberman. “As we drove by I said to Sergeant Hanrahan, ‘William, let's pay our respects.'”

“I don't have to let you in,” said Kraylaw.

They were standing in front of him now on the narrow landing. He had the door partly opened and they could see his smiling face, his red hair combed neatly back. He was a lean, good-looking young man, no doubt about it, but the bland look of madness flickered through his soul. Kraylaw was wearing jeans and a faded white button-down shirt with a frayed collar.

Beyond the door, Charlie Kraylaw whimpered.

Hanrahan pushed the door, sending Kraylaw scuttling backward into the room. Lieberman entered behind his partner.

A rusting window fan clanked behind the sofa in the cramped room. Lieberman sat away from it in an old but reasonably respectable green armchair. All the furniture was different from the last time Lieberman had been here. Now nothing matched in the room.

“You did some damage downstairs,” said Lieberman.

“Downstairs?” Frankie repeated.

“Broke up the place,” explained Hanrahan.

“I never,” said Frankie sincerely. “Sergeant, you know I would never.”

He reminded Lieberman of Anthony Perkins at the end of
Psycho,
sitting there dressed in his mother's clothes and thinking as he smiled, “I wouldn't hurt a fly.”

The bedroom door suddenly opened and Jeanine Kraylaw stood there in jeans, shirt, and a frayed windbreaker, clutching her son and a black patent-leather purse and a small battered suitcase.

“We're ready to go,” she said, not looking at her husband, pulling Charlie's head to her side.

“Jeanine,” said Frankie, looking at her and then the policeman. “What are you …?”

Hanrahan moved to intercept Kraylaw as he moved toward his wife and son.

“What happened?” asked Lieberman.

And she told them a tale of constant threats from her husband and his joy in telling her about the “disappearance” of people who had “troubled him,” including his own sister Rachel.

“He told me something had happened to them in their sleep,” she said quietly, frightened, not looking at her husband. “He was always different. He was always smart. But I think failure has made its mark on his brain.”

“You think he might kill you?” Lieberman asked.

“And Charlie,” she added. “He doesn't think Charlie is his.”

“I never said …” Frankie began, and tried to move around Hanrahan, who grabbed him firmly by the arm.

“Is he?” asked Lieberman.

“No one else's he could be,” she said.

“There's a blue car parked in the alley. Police sign in the window,” said Lieberman. “You and Charlie take your things and get in the car. Pack what you need.”

“You can't,” said Frankie. “My family …”

“… is going to be just fine,” said Hanrahan.

When the woman and boy had left, Lieberman and Hanrahan took Frankie Kraylaw out for a walk and a Coke at the I-HOP. The conversation was brief and the warning clear. For an instant Frankie Kraylaw did not take the warning seriously. But that instant passed quickly. Lieberman took his gun from his holster and placed it on the table. Frankie Kraylaw grinned and looked at Lieberman, who sipped his coffee.

“How many people have I shot, William?” he had asked.

“Four,” Hanrahan answered.

“Why?” Lieberman asked, watching Kraylaw's eyes.

“Combination of things,” Hanrahan answered with a small shrug. “Harris was an anti-Semitic comment. The other three, all abuse cases, wife abuse. Spainner, Kleitman, Harley.”

“Why am I particularly concerned about abuse of wives?”

“Because your mother was beaten to death by your father,” Hanrahan answered emotionlessly.

“And what is your position on this issue?” Lieberman continued.

“Hell, you're my partner. You cover for me. I cover for you.”

“You're bluffing,” Kraylaw said.

Lieberman picked up the gun, aimed it just past the grinning face, and fired.

The sound both froze and deafened Kraylaw.

People turned toward the explosion and Hanrahan slipped out of the booth to calm them.

“Accident,” he said. “Police. Blanks. Nothing to worry about.”

Lieberman put the pistol back in his holster and took a slow sip of his coffee.

“Good coffee,” he said. “Bad company. Are you capable of hearing me, Kraylaw?”

Frankie Kraylaw's grin was gone. His face was pale. His eyes were wide and fixed on Lieberman as Hanrahan returned to the booth and said, “Either of you two want another round of coffee?”

“You're crazy,” said Kraylaw.

“I just told you that,” Hanrahan said as if talking to a very slow fourth-grader.

The bullet had been a blank, and Hanrahan's story was one of many they had told over the years. Abraham Lieberman had never shot anyone. Abraham Lieberman's father, who had died at the age of ninety-two, had never so much as spoken a harsh word to his wife in over sixty years of marriage.

“You are harassing me,” said Frankie Kraylaw.

“No,” said Lieberman. “We tried that. It didn't work.”

“I have not laid a hand on her. I have not threatened her.”

“You told her stories,” said Lieberman.

“I told her … Is that a crime?”

“You told her stories to frighten her,” said Lieberman. “To make her think you might kill her.”

“This is nuts,” said Kraylaw.

“I agree,” said Lieberman. “Chicago has not been good to you, Francis, but luck has finally smiled upon you. You have won exactly”—Lieberman opened his wallet and counted and then looked up at Hanrahan, who held up two twenty-dollar bills—“forty-three dollars in the Clark Street Take-a-Trip-on-Greyhound contest. I suggest you go pack a bag, catch the El downtown, and take the first bus out of the state.”

“No,” Kraylaw said, turning to Hanrahan. “We can't just …”

“Not ‘we,'” Lieberman corrected. “You. Just you.”

Kraylaw began to pace, but there wasn't much room.

“Who do you think you are? Telling a man he has to get out of town like some … some … cowboy movie. You're no sheriff. You've got no right.”

“I'm going to tell you a story, Francis. It's not a long story. I've been a cop for more than thirty-five years. I've seen women, kids come and ask us for help. A father, boyfriend, uncle, neighbor they're afraid of. We go and give the guy a scare. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't and someone gets hurt.”

“This is illegal,” Kraylaw shouted.

“Walk on down the street,” said Hanrahan. “Our captain's name is Kearney, Alan Kearney. He's a little tied up today, but he should be in in the morning. You just wait for him and tell him what we said. Your file will be on his desk waiting before you get there. My guess is he'll congratulate you on your good fortune.”

“Not every day a man wins the Clark Street Take-a-Trip-on-Greyhound Contest,” said Hanrahan enviously.