Lieberman's Choice (20 page)

Kearney and Lieberman moved to Shepard, who held out his hand. Kearney reached for it, but the hand went limp. Bernie Shepard was dead.

The two SWAT men advanced toward the body as dog and SWAT man fell onto the roof through the doorway.

“Stop,” shouted Kearney at dog and man.

The dog stopped first.

The bloody SWAT man stepped back and aimed at the animal.

“I said stop,” Kearney shouted again, and the man lowered his weapon.

The dog smelled, sensed something now. It turned its head toward the two shadows holding black rifles and ran to Shepard's body. The men on the roof stood watching as the dog looked to each of them for an answer and then began to howl at the full moon.

Kearney turned his back on the scene and went past the broken steel door. The dog made a decision. It looked at Lieberman and trotted after Kearney into the darkness of the stairway.

The street was filled with people. There had been the sounds of the dog, a single shot, no explosion, and then the horrible howling.

Hartz and Brooks looked at the Shoreham from the doorway of the building where the command post would no longer be needed.

A television crew struggled to get past four police officers at the end of the street. Radios crackled and the voice of a SWAT man came through the night with, “… secured. I repeat, secured. Subject is down …”

Hartz spotted Kearney coming through the front door of the Shoreham with the dog at his side. He started toward him, but Kearney moved through the crowd, heading into the alleyway next to the building where he had reparked his car.

Hartz hurried toward him through the crowd as another voice on the radio said, “… need aid for Tolliver. Medic, ambulance. Advise bomb squad. It is wired and hot.”

“What happened?” Hartz demanded.

Kearney ignored him and opened the door of his car.

“Captain Kearney,” Hartz shouted. “What the hell happened?”

Kearney closed the door and without looking back drove a dozen feet, stopped suddenly, and reached back to open the rear door. The dog ran past Hartz and leaped in. The door closed and Chief Hartz found himself standing alone and without his answer as the car groaned off into the night.

I
T WAS JUST AFTER
three in the morning when William Hanrahan parked in front of his house in the Ravenswood section of Chicago. Ravenswood, sandwiched between the decay to its south and the terrors of Uptown to the north, almost held its own thanks to the stubborn old-timers like Hanrahan and the young blue collars who wanted some stability but could not afford a suburb.

Parking was never a problem on Hanrahan's street. There was only one apartment building on either side of the street. The rest of the block was small houses with little front yards. Ravenswood Hospital was two blocks away, just far enough so visitors and staff who couldn't get into the parking lot wouldn't be tempted to stray this far.

Hanrahan needed a drink. He sat in the car looking at the night breeze fluttering the branch of a tree in front of the streetlight. No, he corrected himself, he did not need a drink. He wanted one and he knew where to find it, the one Beer of Temptation he kept in the back of the refrigerator. He had convinced himself that if he could resist the urge of that beer, the lies his devious mind created for taking it, if he could resist that single beer, he could resist anything. But, God, it was only a beer. And nothing, nothing tasted like a beer. Iced tea, Coke, coffee—nothing satisfied Hanrahan's thirst. It wasn't as if he wanted a double J&B from Sandy's.

Hanrahan looked at himself in the mirror over the dash.

“What do you see?” he asked softly. “I'll tell you what you see. You see a man lying to himself is what you see.”

Hanrahan opened his door, shifted his weight, and stood up in the street. Far away, probably on Wilson, cars swished by. The breeze rustled the trees on the dark street, and Hanrahan closed his door.

A twinge over his right eye reminded Hanrahan of his healing wound and gave him another hint for an excuse. The pain. Bernie Shepard's death. The memory of Olivia Shepard and Andy Beeton in the bedroom. Maureen's leaving him. His sons' blame. Hell, there was a world of reasons out there to have a drink.

He walked to the sidewalk, pushed open the low wrought-iron gate, and went up to the door. Hard to tell, but it looked like the paint on the wood trim was fading. He would work on that this weekend. Maybe he would paint the whole porch. No, he had promised Iris Huang that he would drive her up to Antioch to pick up some dishes or something for the Black Moon Restaurant. Sunday then. He would do it Sunday if it didn't rain.

God, he thought as he opened his front door and went in, he was thirsty. It would be impossible to sleep and he had to get in before eleven in the morning to work with Lieberman on their report. The hell with it, he decided. Who knows? Who cares? One beer to help me sleep. After what I've been through.

He stepped toward the kitchen, knowing the way without seeing, and heard the sound. A creak, a footstep. Someone was standing on the stairs leading up to the bedrooms.

Most of the houses on the block had been broken into in the last few years. Until now, Bill Hanrahan's house had escaped. Hanrahan dropped to one knee in the shadow near the living room and pulled out his gun, knowing that whoever was there had already adjusted to the darkness.

“Freeze,” Hanrahan said.

The figure on the stairs shifted and caught its breath.

“It's me,” said a thin voice.

Hanrahan reached up, hit the wall switch while keeping his weapon leveled on the steps.

Jeanine Kraylaw looked at the gun with wide eyes.

“He's here?” she said, looking around desperately. “Frankie is here?”

She wore an extralarge T-shirt with the words
UNGRATEFUL DEAD
printed in red block letters. Her long brown-blond hair fell over her face. Her dark eyes scanned the small alcove.

“No,” said Hanrahan, putting the pistol away and standing. “I … I forgot you were here.”

“Oh,” she said. “I'm sorry.”

“You can go back to bed,” he said, feeling a slight ache in his knee where he had knelt. He never knelt on the knee when he had time to think. There was a metal pin in there, had been for more than twenty-five years. It had ended his football dreams.

“You just gettin' in?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said.

He could see her breasts pushing out the first
U
and the last
D
in
UNGRATEFUL DEAD.

“I'm gonna have a glass of water and get some sleep myself,” he said, walking to the kitchen.

She padded in barefoot behind him as he turned on the kitchen light and moved to the refrigerator; He got his bottle of water out, went to the cabinet, poured two glasses, and went to the table. He hadn't looked at the green bottle in the back of the refrigerator.

Jeanine was sitting, her arms folded over her breasts as if she were chilled. He handed her a glass and she took it with a “Thank you.”

Hanrahan sat and they drank their water silently. Jeanine had to brush her hair back with her hand once or twice.

“Good water,” she said.

“Thanks.”

Silence again.

“I don't know what Charlie and I are gonna do,” she said finally. “I mean, I'm not complainin' or askin' you for anything. I'm just … you know, talkin'. We made a few eggs and stuff.”

“That's fine. You can take what you want. How old are you, Jeanine?” Hanrahan asked.

“Twenty-four,” she said. “Can I say somethin'?”

“You can say something,” he said.

“I'm scared. Not so much of Frankie. You know what I'm talkin' about?”

“I think so.”

“Good, 'cause I ain't so sure.”

More silence. Hanrahan felt his eyes close. He snapped them open and started to get up. Jeanine beat him to it and swept up both empty glasses. Hanrahan didn't try to stop her.

“I put Charlie in the bedroom over in the corner like you said,” she said, moving to the sink.

“It was my sons' room,” he said.

“You have a son?”

“Two. They're grown now. Live in other cities. The one in Buffalo, Mike, that's the one I'm gonna call about getting you some work. I think you should get out of this town soon and far.”

“You do think Frankie's coming back,” she said.

“I think the fewer risks you take, the longer you're likely to live.”

She turned from the sink and looked at him.

“Your wife? She keeps a nice house. Where …?”

“Left me about four years ago. I think I'll get some sleep now. Just turn out the lights when you come upstairs.”

He rose.

“You want me to sleep with you?” she said suddenly, quickly.

Hanrahan was almost to the door. He turned and looked at her frightened face.

“Jeanine, you don't have to pay your way like that. We'll get you a job, and if you want to, you can pay me a few dollars when you're all set up.”

“No,” she said. “I'm scared to be alone. Maybe that's why I didn't leave Frankie before.”

Hanrahan laughed. “No,” he said. “I'm not laughing at you.”

“Then why're you laughin'?”

“There's an old Irish story,” he said. “Paddy and Mike are walking down the street, and Paddy suddenly stops and says, ‘Did you hear that?' ‘What?' asks Mike. ‘That terrible noise,' says Paddy. ‘No,' says Mike. ‘It's as I thought, Michael,' says Paddy. ‘I'm going crazy.' ‘Thank the Lord,' says Mike. ‘For a minute I thought I was going deaf.'”

Jeanine looked at him puzzled.

“Are you Irish?” she asked.

“That I am,” he said, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes.

She shook her head.

“My bedroom's the one to the right upstairs,” he said.

“I know.”

He held the kitchen door open for her.

“You go climb in my bed. The sheets are clean. There's an old sofa in the room. I'll sleep on it so you won't be alone, but I've got to brush my teeth and shower. In the morning, we'll see how Abe is doing getting you some work. Okay?”

“Okay,” she agreed, moving past him into the hallway.

“I snore,” he warned.

“Worse than that been keepin' me up. I can tell you.”

“Tomorrow I'll make you and the boy an Irish breakfast just like my mother used to make me.”

“What's that?”

“Fried egg foo young.” Hanrahan laughed again. “I'm not crazy,” he said. “Just up too late. Get some sleep, little lady.”

“Thank you,” she said, and padded into the hall and up the stairs.

Hanrahan looked around the kitchen, decided that everything was in place. He had kept the house like this in the hope and fear that Maureen would one day knock at the door. He would let her in and she would see without his having to say it that he was doing very well on his own, that he didn't need her. It was never quite clear to him whether his ultimate purpose was to get her back, to hope that she had heard that he was now sober and responsible, or simply to imagine himself rejecting her, saying that he was going on with his life.

He thought of Bernie Shepard again. He saw Shepard and his wife, a fleeting pair of ghosts in the dark corner of his living room, whispering. He knew they weren't there, that his mind was telling him something, that the faint outline was only the flower pattern of the chair and lamp in the corner.

Bill Hanrahan went upstairs to sleep on his couch.

Frankie Kraylaw stretched his legs when the bus stopped in Effingham, Illinois. It was a little after one in the morning. Most of the people on the bus got out for coffee, a smoke, a clean toilet, or a sandwich. When the lights had gone off on the bus about two hours earlier just outside of Chicago, some guy with a foreign accent had started to moan in the dark. “I got no friends. I got no family.”

People had answered, even laughed.

“Hey man. You better off.”

“You think you got a sad story? I'll tell you a real one.”

“Shut the fuck up, man. I wanna sleep.”

Frankie tried to find the voice in the dark. He wanted to sit near him, tell him that God was his friend and family, that he, Frankie Kraylaw, knew what it was like to have your family taken from you. It had just happened to Frankie, but God had told him to start thinking about going back. You can't just walk away from your responsibilities. That's what Frankie would tell him.

“Oh, shit,” hissed the gray-haired black man next to Frankie at the window. “Driver, shut that son of a bitch up.”

“No friends. No family. No love,” moaned the man with the foreign voice.

“The man is crying for help.” said Frankie softly to the black man.

“I got me an ulcer. I got me a bad heart. I got no work and my only sister is dyin' in Memphis,” said the black man. “I paid my ticket and I need my sleep. I don't need no feel-sorry-for-himself Russian or whatever, and I sure as fuck in the mornin' don't need no half-wit white kid like you tellin' me what's what or who's who or why's why. So just leave me be.”

Frankie grinned knowingly in the dark. The rage was in him. The rage that the Lord sent through him when someone failed to see, to understand the sanctity of marriage, of family.

They were at the bus stop now, and Frankie stood just outside the bus, waiting for the old black man to come, hoping the lonely man with the foreign accent would get off and do something to let Frankie recognize him.

Frankie was feeling better now. He had a mission. He would complete his mission and then, in spite of the big Irish cop and the little Jew who knew nothing of the salvation of the Lord, he would return to his family.

Lieberman walked around to the rear of the house so he wouldn't disturb Barry and Melisa sleeping in the living room. A few nights earlier he had tripped over Barry in the late night darkness, not knowing that his grandson had moved his bedroll near the door.