Lieberman's Folly (19 page)

“You know,” the kid said, afraid now that he would lose face. “I don't give a shit on your Chinese girlfriend's face if you are a cop. Hand over your—”

Hanrahan's hand came up in a backhand slap that caught the kid on the nose and spun him around. The two nearby moved forward. One of them reached into his jacket pocket. It was too warm a day for a jacket unless, like the cops, you had a weapon to hide. Lieberman's gun was out and pointed at the two, who stopped dead.

Roberto turned, his nose a mess of blood, his knife up. Hanrahan kicked him solidly in the groin. The kid on the hood of the car was already halfway down the street.

Someone applauded from the house nearby but there was no one in any window. Cars had slowed down to watch the action and then shoot away.

“You change your mind about later, give me a call, you and …” Lieberman began turning the two kids around and pushing them into position against the car so he could cuff them.

“… Iris,” said Hanrahan, helping the moaning Roberto up and turning him so he could be cuffed. “I'll think about it.”

They hustled the trio into the rear of Hanrahan's car.

Half an hour later Abe Lieberman was at the kitchen table presiding over a meeting between his daughter and his son-in-law. Bess had taken the kids to Maish's for pop and knishes. A large pitcher of iced tea sat on the table for Lieberman. The coffee was dripping for Lisa.

“Ground rules,” said Lieberman. “No quoting Greeks. No name calling. No comments about the Cubs. And I'm the only one who can say, ‘shut up.'”

“This isn't funny, Dad,” Lisa said, looking at Todd across the table.

Todd looked terrible, needed a shave, and hadn't combed his hair. His shirt was green and his pants brown corduroy.

“She's right, Abe,” said Todd.

“We start with agreement between the warring parties,” said Lieberman. “A good sign.”

B
ESS HAD COME BACK
a little after four, as agreed by all parties. Todd was already gone.

“Can we see the new
Friday the 13th
?” Barry said before the door was even closed.

“I don't want to see
Friday the 13th
,” Melisa complained.

“No one's seeing
Friday the 13th
,” said Lisa from the dining room table, where she sat drinking her sixth cup of coffee. The last three had been decaffeinated, as was the one in front of her.

Bess looked at Lieberman, who closed his eyes lazily to convey his belief that he didn't know what, if anything, had been accomplished. Bess closed the front door and moved to the table with a bag.

“Halvah,” she announced. “Marble. Want some?”

Lisa gave a half-hearted shrug and continued to sip her coffee, her eyes fixed on the table. Bess looked at Lieberman again but this time in addition to closing his eyes he shrugged almost imperceptibly. Bess moved into the kitchen for a knife and wooden board for the halvah.

“Who's pitching tomorrow?” Barry asked.

“Sutcliffe,” said Lieberman. “Who else would I take you to see?”

Barry smiled knowingly.

“Am I going?” asked Melissa.

“You are going,” said Lieberman.

“Is Grandma going?” asked Melisa.

“Grandma does not go to baseball games,” said Bess, slicing the halvah. Lieberman snatched the first piece, offered it to the kids, who refused it, and downed it in two bites. “It's not that Grandma does not like baseball. It's that Grandma cannot sit on a hard bench or even a bench with a pillow for two or three hours.”

“Let's play bounty hunter,” Lieberman said. “Go out in the backyard and look for a snake. A buck for a snake. A penny a worm. Other noninsect creatures are negotiable.”

“Don't bring them in the house,” Bess said.

When the kids were gone, Lieberman took another piece of halvah and looked at his wife.

“Well?” asked Bess, sitting down and taking a sticky piece for herself.

“Nothing,” said Lisa. “We got nowhere.”

“We agreed to meet again,” said Lieberman. “And there was progress. Lisa's ‘no' was less emphatic after an hour. Todd's promises were more sincere.”

“Dad, you are wrong,” Lisa said looking at him. “You are wasting your time, my time, and making it harder, harder on me, on the children, on Mom, on Todd. It's over.”

“Maybe,” said Lieberman. “A definite maybe. Todd volunteered to convert to Judaism.”

“I don't want him to convert,” Lisa said. “I don't know where that came from. That's not part of the problem. He'd rather come up with some grand gesture than deal with the problem.”

“What's the problem?” Bess said. “I mean, if it's not—”

“Mom, the problem sounds like a cliché,” said Lisa, pushing her cup away. “I don't want to talk clichés about wanting some freedom, wanting to know I can go where I want to go, do what I want to do, say what I want to say without someone else's approval. Mom, Todd doesn't know it but he needs it too.”

“And Barry and Melisa?”

“More clichés, Mom,” sighed Lisa. “You want more clichés? They're better off with us apart and happy than together and miserable. And if they're not better, they'll survive. I'll do for them but I don't think I have to be miserable for them. I love them. I'll take care of them.”

The back door opened with a bang and Melisa came in panting. “Grandpa, how much for a cat?”

“Alive? I only negotiate for live animals. Nothing for dead ones,” said Lieberman with a yawn.

“Alive,” said Melisa eagerly.

“Alive, one dollar, if you let him go in the alley,” said Lieberman. “That's my best offer. If it's not good enough, you'll have to take me to court, but I warn you I know all the judges.”

“It's enough,” said Melisa happily, running back into the kitchen.

“Ladies,” Lieberman said, standing. “This is a moment filled with melancholy. Bess, tell your daughter what I never do in the afternoon.”

“You want me to …?”

“Not that,” said Lieberman, leaning over to kiss his wife. “I never take a nap. Never. But I'm going to do it now. I'm not sure if this desire for rest is a temporary lapse or a new phase. If it's a new phase caused by age, I promise you at least a week of depression and a demand for attention. My speech is over.”

He moved around the table and kissed his daughter on the cheek. Lisa gave him a hug.

“Thanks for trying, Dad,” she said.

“I'm not prepared to admit defeat,” said Lieberman, who padded off in his stockinged feet to the bedroom.

Hanrahan changed his mind six times about what he would wear on his date with Iris. He had two suits, one in acceptable shape, the other a wrinkled mess. But a suit might be too formal for dinner and a movie. He tried on blue slacks and a blue blazer with a white turtleneck sweater. The mirror told him he was trying too hard to be sporty. Maybe Iris's father would think he wasn't serious. He took off the turtleneck and put on a blue shirt and conservative tie. No, still too … He changed to a white shirt, and lied to himself and the mirror by promising to take off twenty pounds. He was sorely tempted to take just one drink, a small one. Even people who didn't drink had one small one before dinner. But William Hanrahan couldn't fool himself. He remembered Estralda looking up at him before she died.

Hanrahan checked the locks and turned off the lights. He didn't bother to leave a light on. A good burglar wasn't fooled by a light being left on. A good burglar would get in no matter what Hanrahan did. A lousy burglar wouldn't catch the wires and would take off when the alarm went off.

Hanrahan checked his face once more to be sure it was reasonably smooth. It was. It was still light when he pulled away from the front of his house.

He drove slowly, running no yellows, thinking through how he should behave, wondering if this was a good idea. He got to Iris's apartment building on Hoyne just north of Granville as the sun was thinking seriously about going down.

A pair of kids about eight, one white, one Chinese, both boys, looked him over as Hanrahan went to the door, found the bell, and pushed it. The kids were looking at him through the windows of the small lobby. Hanrahan looked back at them and smiled. They didn't smile back. When the click of response came, Hanrahan reached for the inner door and went in.

Across the street, a blue Honda found a parking space. The Honda had followed Hanrahan from his house. The driver had been careful, not too close, not too far, always letting a car or two or three remain between his car and Hanrahan's. He was careful. There was a lot to be careful about.

Normally, even with a few drinks in him, or maybe, especially with a few drinks in him, Bill Hanrahan would have spotted that blue Honda. But this was not a normal night.

The man in the Honda looked over at the two kids in front of the apartment building. If they had looked back at him, he would have moved his car or gotten out and walked around the corner. But they went running down the street.

The man in the Honda leaned back, hoping the darkness would come before Hanrahan came out of the building. The man did not want to kill the policeman, and perhaps he wouldn't have to. Killing whores was one thing. That would fade and die after a few days. But killing a cop, that was a very different tale.

The man leaned forward and opened the glove compartment. The gun was there, oiled, clean. He preferred, if it were necessary, to use the gun. But sometimes, like with the woman, you couldn't always do what you wanted to do. Sometimes you had to use whatever you had handy.

He sat back, resisted the temptation to turn on the radio, and to pass the time tried to remember the names of all of his cousins.

W
RIGLEY FIELD IS A SOLID
, comforting, four-sided gently curved mass of concrete, girders, and white paint with a vine-walled park in its center surrounded by more than thirty thousand wooden seats in which adults can watch other adults playing ball. Other structures in which baseball is played can call themselves parks, but Wrigley truly is one. Its gates open like a metal smile on the morning of each game, letting in swarms of loyal fans from as close as the next block and as far as Sarasota, Florida. Wrigley Field smells like home, real grass, real vines, and bright sunshine, in spite of the lights installed two years ago.

Lieberman loved Wrigley Field as he loved the Cubs. He loved the smell of the freshly painted green seats on opening day. He loved the vendors who slopped beer down the aisles. He loved the bleacher bums waving flags, shouting for their favorites, trying to rattle the other team's outfielders.

Lieberman snuck away four or five times a summer, put his visor down to show his “police business” card to get a place to park, and found a single seat. You could almost always find a single even on crowded days, even at the last minute. Augie Slotsow, who worked security at Wrigley, could always get in an old friend. Lieberman had only one rule about Wrigley. He would not go to a night game. Period. Zero. Never. It didn't feel right. It didn't feel like the Cubs. At night the grass looked blue-green. The players looked like zombies. Ballplayers didn't look as happy at night. At night, baseball was a job. In the daytime, baseball was still a game even if you were making two or three million dollars a year.

Today, Lieberman had bought three seats. They were good seats, about ten rows up in the boxes right behind third base. Lieberman sat Melisa next to him and Barry next to her. He offered to buy them both Cub hats, but Barry said he was too old. Melisa accepted. Lieberman bought one for himself and one for Melisa.

They had gotten to the park early enough to watch Sutcliffe warm up but not early enough for batting practice. They got to the park early enough to finish hot dogs, peanuts, and Cokes before the game. They got there early enough to hear the four guys in front of them give their opinions to each other about the game, opinions which both Barry and Lieberman knew were wrong, a knowledge they shared with an arch look.

“I saw them all in this park,” Lieberman told his grandchildren. “When I was still in diapers my mother took me here to see Babe Ruth play. He was with Boston. Legend has it a foul ball of his almost hit me in the head.”

“Can we get more peanuts?” asked Melisa.

“Later,” said Lieberman. “I promise to let you get sick if you wait till the late innings so we don't have to miss anything. Deal?”

“Drinks?” she asked.

“Drinks,” he agreed. “Bill Nicholson,” he went on. “Saw him hit one way out over Waveland. Right on the roof of that building. The one over there.”

Barry looked where he was pointing and then back at Sutcliffe moving to the mound.

“Hank Sauer hit one almost that far,” he said. “And Kiner at the end of his career hit—”

“Is that André Dawson?” shouted Melisa as the Cubs ran out on the field after the “Star Spangled Banner.”

“Quiet,” said Barry. “That's not Dawson. That's Dunston.”

“One game,” said Lieberman to Melisa, who clearly didn't know what he was talking about, “against Cincinnati. Fondy was on first. Terwiliger at second. Smalley was at short. I think Baumholtz was in right. Kluzewski, a giant, wore his shirts cut at the shoulder to show his muscles, hit one almost tore—”

“Who's playin'?” came a voice next to Lieberman.

Lieberman didn't even look at El Perro. A moment earlier a little man wearing a green eye-shade had been sitting in the seat.

“Cubs and Cincy,” said Lieberman. “You want some peanuts?”

“No,” said El Perro, looking around with a big smile. He looked out of place in the sunlight. “I should get out here more often. What you think,
viejo
?”

“You should get out here more often,” Lieberman agreed.

Barry and Melisa looked at the man next to their grandfather. The man looked back at them and grinned. The man was wearing tight black leather pants and a vest over a short-sleeved Day-glo shirt. His hat was also black, leather and wide-brimmed.