Big Silence (24 page)

“Some good news, Abe,” said Hanrahan. “My son Michael called this morning before I hit the bed. He and Holly are doing fine. Mike is sober. They want me to come visit them, with Iris.”

“Great.”

“With you?”

“Maish is almost suicidal. Lisa doesn’t know what she wants. The Bar Mitzvah is coming in a month, and we’re dipping deep in the bank to make it happen. I dream about pastrami and chopped liver sandwiches, and I need a vacation.”

“Sounds good,” said Hanrahan.

“Couldn’t be better. You wanna see Gornitz with me?”

“No, you do better without me. I’ll keep looking for the elusive young David Donald Wilhite. Should we go have a talk with Driveway Mike?”

“Give him a day to worry. Late lunch at the T&L?”

“Two?” asked Hanrahan.

The blond transvestite had suddenly risen and bolted for the squad room door, a move destined for failure, particularly in a tight dress and silver high heels, but he ran with a yelp. Everyone watched as the momentarily stunned Lorber finally jumped out of his chair and started after the transvestite just as Ivan, looking quite feminine, had reached the door.

“Watch where you grab her,” called a suspect.

Everyone who wasn’t crying or worrying about their own troubles laughed. Even a few cops.

Lorber was out the door. The sound of feminine screaming came through the squad room door as it snapped shut.

“I’ve got a stop to make after Gornitz,” Lieberman said. “I’ll let you know what’s going on at Maish’s.”

Lieberman moved out of the squad room and Hanrahan sat thinking whether he should have said anything about the call from Iris. She had called this morning after he got up. No, the truth was that her call had awakened him. He probably would have slept a few more hours, maybe the whole day. But Iris had called. She had thought over what her father and Woo had said, had decided that they might be right but that she was prepared to marry Bill whenever he wished. The former Catholic priest and present Unitarian minister who had agreed to marry them was ready when they were. Bill had told Iris that he wasn’t sure that her father and Woo were wrong. Iris had not commented. They both said they loved each other, and Bill said he would call her later.

“William,” said Iris.

“Yes.”

“Will things really be better in a year? The longer we wait, the more time Mr. Woo will have to pressure my father and the more time my father has to make me feel guilty. I would prefer not to wait a year.”

“Holy mother,” he said. “You’re not that different from Irish Catholics.”

“I can ask them to meet at the restaurant tonight,” she said. “Tell them that you have something more to say.”

“You’re not worried about … the way I’ve been behaving?”

“Very worried,” she said. “There will be something else to worry about in a year. That is life.”

“I think I’d better go see Woo,” he had said. “I don’t think it’s polite to ask someone to come to your turf to say you’re thinking of breaking a deal.”

“That would be a good idea, William.”

He loved when she called him William. He had hung up. Now he wondered why he had not told Lieberman. Inspiration struck him. What about bringing Lieberman with him to see Woo? Abe would probably be a match for Woo. Besides, it would be an interesting encounter. He would think about it and ask his partner later.

Now he would wonder who had called Detective Cunningham about David Donald Wilhite before Hanrahan.

There had been no one in the small waiting room when Maish arrived. If the office of Mustapha Aziz had been any farther than Skokie, Maish would probably not have gone. He expected little from this. In a way, he was humoring his brother. Maybe, in a very small way, he was curious. The office was on Skokie Boulevard not far from the Old Orchard Shopping Center. It was a modest yellow brick building called Mason-Wright Office Courtyard. The building was two stories high and there were no vacancies.

Maish had located the office and entered the unlocked door. Aziz was on the first floor.

There were photographs on the yellow walls of the waiting room. All of the photographs were of a distinctly foreign city or town — a marketplace, Arabs stopping on the street to look with suspicion at the camera, mountains rising in the distance behind a minaret. Maish was decidedly uncomfortable. He considered simply leaving, but the inner office door opened and a man stepped out. The man was no more than forty, dark, modestly built, and wearing what appeared to be a sincere smile. His suit was dark and his tie was neatly knotted.

“I, obviously, am Mustapha Aziz,” the man said, holding out his hand.

“And I can be no one but Morris Lieberman. I’ll call you Dr. Aziz. You call me Maish. We’ll both be as comfortable as we can be.”

“Won’t you come in, Maish,” Aziz said.

Maish followed the man into the inner office. He glanced around, thankful that there was no couch. If he had been asked to lie on a couch, Maish would have left. There was a desk, paneled walls, degrees and certificates on the walls, and a bookcase. There were also four matching green chairs with arms, in a circle in front of the desk.

“Pick one,” said Aziz.

“I could use two,” Maish said, selecting a chair and easing into it.

“Perhaps if you return, I will find one for you.”

“If
,
”
Maish said warily.

Aziz hitched up his trousers and sat facing Maish. Maish didn’t like people hitching up their trousers.

“I have insurance,” Maish said.

“Good,” said Aziz. “I’ll get the information when we conclude our session.”

“This isn’t a session,” said Maish. “I told my brother I’d talk to you.”

“When we conclude our talk then,” Aziz replied.

Then came silence.

“I consider your brother a friend,” said Aziz. “He was very helpful to me when my wife and daughter died.”

Maish shifted his considerable weight uneasily and watched the smiling man. “I’m a Jew,” he said.

“That fact has not escaped my notice,” said Aziz. “I am, obviously, an Arab. What is less obvious is that I am also a Moslem and what is even less obvious is that before I became a citizen of the United States I was an Israeli.”

“A Palestinian,” said Maish.

“No, an Israeli,” said Aziz. “There are many of us.”

“Your wife and —” Maish began and then stopped.

“Drunken driver downtown,” said Aziz. “We were coming home from a Saturday afternoon concert at Orchestra Hall. My daughter died instantly. My wife was unconscious till she died the next day. I was unhurt.”

“This is none of my business,” said Maish.

“I know about your son and unborn grandchild,” said Aziz. “Your brother informed me.”

More silence.

“What happened to him?” Maish asked. “The driver who killed your family.”

“Her,” Aziz corrected. “The drunken driver was a woman. She survived. Her license was taken away and because she was old, she was given a very light sentence, a lecture, and a warning. She lives still and I understand she has twice more been arrested for drunken driving without a license. She gets no younger and the judges get no more harsh.”

“You wanted her dead, didn’t you?” asked Maish.

Aziz shrugged. “It crossed my mind unbidden,” he said. “I found myself daydreaming about violent and just destructions of the woman who was white and without real remorse. I tried to return to work but found my mind wandering and even found myself disliking my patients for coming to me with their small problems while I tried to deal with what had happened. I asked God. He did not answer.”

“Yes,” said Maish.

“Now,” said Aziz, “I have revealed myself. Tell me about your son if you would.”

“Your mind won’t wander?” asked Maish.

“I will never forget what has happened,” said Aziz. “But I find that I can function and that there are those I can sometimes delude myself that I am helping. From time to time, I am even convinced that I am helping them and, by some illogical and logical extension, helping myself to survive.”

“Yes,” Maish said with a sigh. “Well, it was a cold night, a very cold night …”

Gornitz had insisted that his old friend Abe Lieberman could see him whenever Lieberman wanted to do so. Carbin had balked. Gornitz had insisted. And now Lieberman was at the hotel sitting on the lumpy sofa with a cup of coffee in his hand. He was facing Gornitz, who looked more haggard each day.

The state attorney’s men were both outside the door, and the woman from the day before and a different man were sitting at a table in the corner pretending to carry on a conversation.

“They tell me they’re closing in on where Stashall may have my son,” Gornitz said, leaning toward Abe and whispering. “Are they?”

Lieberman shook his head no.

“I knew it,” Gornitz said nervously, tapping his thighs with the palms of both hands. “Abe, I’ve got no choice here. I’ve got to take the chance. I’ve got to take myself out. Even if I refuse to testify now, Stashall’ll have to get me on the streets and I won’t have any protection. If he’s gonna kill Matt, he’ll do it either way. I know that.”

Lieberman drank more of the bitter brew of some cut-rate instant brand from the nearest supermarket and then whispered to Gornitz while the woman from the state attorney’s office stood up. Lieberman talked fast as the woman approached.

“Mr. Carbin said there were to be no secrets,” she said almost apologetically.

“We were talking about sexual dysfunction,” said Lieberman. “It’s up close and personal at our age.”

“No secrets. Detective,” she said.

Lieberman shrugged and looked at Gornitz.

“Do what you have to do,” said Mickey. “I’m talking big here. I’m talking, for God’s sake, about killing myself. I don’t even know if I’d be able to do it. I’m not a brave man, Abe. Numbers I know. Killing myself I don’t know. But for my son …”

“You want to talk some basketball?” Lieberman asked.

“Why not?” Mickey said with a shrug. “Watched the Bulls yesterday. Beat the Sonics. Brand kept hitting from the inside. He had — I don’t know — forty points.”

“Mickey Gornitz can’t remember an exact number?” Lieberman said with a smile, putting the rest of his coffee down.

“Mickey Gornitz is in a state of nearly constant panic. I don’t think I’m up to talk. Sorry, Abe. Maybe later. Maybe tomorrow.”

Lieberman got up and so did Gornitz. The two men shook hands.

“Hold on, Mickey,” said Lieberman.

“I wish I believed in God enough to pray.”

“Listen, I go to the temple with my wife almost every Friday night and all the holidays. I pray. I don’t know if anyone’s listening. I don’t know if I want to pray to a God who’d solve my problems and screw up someone else’s life in the process, but I’ll tell you something, Mickey. I pray and it makes me feel better. I don’t ask for much and never for myself. If there’s a trick, that might be it. I’m hitting about fifty-fifty with that plan. It doesn’t hurt.”

“It’s Friday,” Mickey said. “You gonna pray for me?”

“During a silent reading,” said Lieberman. “I’ll put in a good word for you.”

“It’s fifty-fifty,” Gornitz said, trying a smile. “What have I got to lose?”

Lieberman was barely in the hall when the woman from inside the room followed him out.

“What did you whisper to him?” she asked politely.

“Sexual dysfunction,” Lieberman said.

“Yours or his?” she asked.

“The answer to that I’ll take to the grave,” Lieberman said with a smile. “Now, we’d better stop the questions because I might make a flattering sexist remark which would be apropos at this point and which you might be forced to report to Mr. Carbin.”

The woman shook her head and tried to hide a grin. “Go on.”

“I’m gone,” Lieberman replied.

He went to a Vietnamese restaurant across from the hotel, ordered a Vietnamese iced coffee to wash away the taste of instant coffee, and called the station. Nestor Briggs told him there was one call. God was already listening. It was from the person Abe was planning to call when he finished his coffee.

Lieberman was the only customer in the restaurant darkened by closed blinds. He watched the lone little waiter bring the coffee to the table. Then Abe carried the chilled glass to the phone near the door and made his call.

The answer came on the first ring.

“Ola,” said a young man.

“Lieberman aquí. El Viejo, quiero a hablar con Emiliano.”

“Okay,” said the voice at the other end.

There was a pause. He sipped the coffee. The sweet jolt was perfect.

“¿Viejo?”
came El Perro.

“I’m returning your call,” Lieberman said.

“Viene a mi restaurante, por favor. Es muy importante.”

“¿Cuando?”
asked Lieberman.

“Hey,” said El Perro. “I said it’s important. You want to meet some place else,
bueno.
I trus’ you,
Viejo.”

“The restaurant’ll be fine,” said Lieberman. “I’ll be there inside an hour.”

“Bueno,”
El Perro said happily.
“Hasta luego.”

Lieberman hung up and went to sit down and finish his coffee. It was very cold, very sweet, and very good. He savored it, drinking slowly imagining Mickey Gornitz erode away under the acrid terror of bitter instant coffee. When he was finished, Lieberman would have to go see Eugene Carbin.

Lieberman drank slowly.

Jimmy Stashall sat behind his desk, hands folded. He didn’t raise his head high but looked up at the big man across the desk. This, Heine Manush knew, was a very bad sign. He had seen it several times before and usually watched this look and manner lead to an explosion. Jimmy Stashall’s explosions were legendary. He took tablets to keep his blood pressure down and downed Xanax tablets with every meal to control his anxiety. Stashall knew that both his father and grandfather had died of strokes. His grandfather had been with Jimmy’s father at a clothing store. Stashall’s grandfather had gone wild with anger when he had insisted that a sweater was green and the clerk had calmly insisted that the sweater was teal. Then came the stroke. Jimmy’s father had learned nothing from the graphic lesson he had witnessed. He too had died of a stroke after screaming at Jimmy’s mother over the consistency of Thanksgiving cranberry sauce. First they had thanked God. Then Jimmy’s father had started with the cranberry sauce.