Lieberman's Choice (15 page)

“This is America,” Kraylaw cried. “My rights …”

Lieberman took out his pistol and placed it on his lap. “You've got a point. You don't want to go. No one can make you go. Money will go back in the pockets of the generous donors who cannot be counted on to renew the offer. They have been known in the past to come up with alternate packages, which, I'm sorry to say, some of the winners find far less attractive.”

Kraylaw looked at the two policemen. He wasn't smiling. Neither were they.

“I'll have to go back to the apartment, pack my things,” said Kraylaw.

When they were back at the apartment, Kraylaw went into the bedroom, leaving the policemen alone in the living room with Tío Coreles's furniture.

“Went pretty far with this one, Rabbi,” said Hanrahan softly.

“Give me the odds on him hurting her or the boy?”

“I don't know. Fifty-fifty maybe. He's a mad one.”

“Maybe one of us should help him pack while the other one figures out where she and the boy can go.”

“My son Mike, the one in Buffalo. Maybe I can give him a call and he can give her a job in the insurance company.”

Lieberman moved to the bedroom door, and Hanrahan ambled to the front door.

“I'll meet you in the car,” said Hanrahan.

There was a chance, a slim one maybe but a chance, that Hanrahan would run across Clark Street and into one of the three bars on the block for a drink. Lieberman considered saying something, considered walking to the window to see if his partner went into a bar, and then decided that it was none of his damned business.

He moved to the bedroom and opened the door. Frankie Kraylaw was throwing clothes into a big khaki duffel bag. He was also doing several things Lieberman did not like. He was smiling and he was singing. Not exactly singing, since Frankie didn't seem to know the words, but hum-singing.

Lieberman leaned against the door, arms folded, and watched lazy-eyed as Frankie became more frantic. His singing grew louder, faster. His smile broadened, and each time he threw a shoe, a mismatched pair of socks, a crumpled shirt into the bag, he looked at Lieberman.

“Enough,” said Lieberman softly.

Kraylaw ignored him and grew even more frantic.

“Enough,” Lieberman repeated. “It's full.”

Frankie Kraylaw looked down at the bulging bag, a battered tennis sneaker in his hand.

“I am not satisfied with this,” said Kraylaw.

“You don't have a vote,” said Lieberman. “Zip it up and let's go.”

“This is not fair. As God is my witness, this is not fair. This is not just. This is not legal.”

“But it is right,” said Lieberman.

I
T WAS ALMOST NINE
, just before closing time, when Lieberman and Hanrahan hit Maish's T&L Deli. There was a lone unfamiliar face at the counter, a hunched-over man about forty in a cowboy hat. At the front table, three Alter Cockers—Herschel Rosen, Syd Levan, and Howie Chen—sat nursing tea and rye toast.

“A late night raid,” said Herschel, who was widely accepted as the clan comic. “Quick, Howie, put away the opium.”

“No, Hersch,” said Howie straight-faced, “tonight it was poppy seed
haman tashen.”

Syd Levan, the youngest of the Alter Cockers at the age of sixty-eight, threw up his hands in a what-am-I-going-to-do-with-these-people gesture and added, “Now, we confess the minute they walk in? We don't even wait to be tortured?”

Abe and Hanrahan moved to their favorite booth in the back where Lieberman could see the door and Hanrahan could look at the wall where a faded color poster cried out the glories of a sandwich made with Vienna red-hots and drenched in mustard, onions, and relish.

“Syd,” said Abe wearily, “I told you before, if you want to be tortured again, you'll have to pay double. Things have been slow in the police extortion business.”

“You get the joke with the
haman tashen?”
asked Chen with a satisfied smile.

“Even I got the joke,” said Hanrahan.

“Notice how they stay away from me?” Herschel asked the hunched-over cowboy, who nodded and went on eating. “Even the police fear the wit of a true Rosen.”

Behind the counter Maish, whom nothing ever bothered, wiped his hands on his apron and said to his brother, “Coffee, Abe?”

“Coffee,” agreed Lieberman. “What's hot and special?”

“The Atlanta Braves and the corned beef,” answered Maish soberly.

“Hear that? What? Listen,” said Herschel Rosen. “Now even Maish is trying to be a stand-up. How am I supposed to make a living in here with all the competition?”

“Shit,” the cowboy said, throwing down a few bills. “Man can't go anywhere for a quiet coffee and hot dog without a bunch of dumb …”

Before he could finish, Maish picked up the bills and held them out to the cowboy.

“It's on me,” he said.

“Generous Jews,” said the cowboy, adjusting his hat but taking the bills. “Now I've seen everything.”

“No you haven't,” said Hanrahan, standing up. “You haven't seen the inside of your asshole, but we can take care of that omission right now.”

The Alter Cockers were silent, enjoying the showdown.

“Gunfight at the Okeydokey Corral,” said Herschel.

“High nine o'clock,” added Howie Chen.

The cowboy stuffed the bills into his pocket and smirked. He was lean and possibly a little drunk.

“My pa didn't raise a fool for a son,” said the cowboy. “I don't fight with cops. I just wandered in here by mistake.”

“Cowboy among the Indians,” said Syd.

“The lost tribe,” Herschel added quickly, not to be one-upped by his straight man.

“Afraid we might scalp him,” said Howie.

The cowboy lifted his hat to reveal an almost bald head.

“Genetics beat you to it,” he said without cracking a smile.

“Stranger,” said Abe Lieberman, “have a nice night.”

“I'm driving straight through to Cleveland,” said the cowboy.

“You're not from Texas?” asked Chen.

“Cleveland,” said the cowboy, adjusting his hat and moving to the door. “Had a few too many beers. Sorry.”

“You believe that, Abraham?” asked Hanrahan as the cowboy walked onto Devon Avenue.

“I believe in both God and the devil,” said Lieberman, “and sometimes in our business I think they are in cahoots.”

“I'll have a hot dog with everything,” said Hanrahan, sitting down.

“One hot dog?” asked Maish, clearing the cowboy's plate and coffee mug.

“He's on a diet,” explained Lieberman.

“Ah, a lady in the poppy seeds,” said Herschel.

“Is she Jewish?” asked Howie Chen.

“Chinese,” said Hanrahan.

Syd and Herschel laughed as if a joke had been made at Howie's expense.

“Another comedian is heard from,” said Chen.

Neither Lieberman nor Hanrahan tried to correct them. Maish disappeared behind the short-order counter, and the policemen settled back in the hope of a few minutes' peace before they had to get back to the Shoreham.

“The guy on the roof?” asked Levan. “What's gonna happen? No joke?”

“We're going to get him down,” said Lieberman.

“I know. I know,” said Levan impatiently. “He could die of old age and you could carry him down with the start of the next century. That's not what we want to know. We got a special connection here. A source. We wanna go home and brag what we know before the television or the morning papers.”

“Rabbi,” said Hanrahan softly, “maybe we didn't pull a trigger, but what we did to Frankie Kraylaw maybe isn't a hell of a lot different from what Bernie Shepard did to his wife and Andy Beeton.”

“It bother you?”

“What we did to Kraylaw? No.”

“It bothers me,” said Lieberman. “But I can live with it. Consider the alternatives. No, you want to know what bothers me?”

“Del Sol,” said Hanrahan.

“You know me well, Father Murphy.”

“Well, Rabbi, look at it this way. If we get him down, he does time, a lot of time. Bernie Shepard is no kid. And a cop, especially a cop like Bernie, slammed … Well, maybe he's better off with El Perro.”

“That the way you'd want it?” asked Lieberman.

“The way I'd want it,” said Hanrahan.

“That doesn't make it right.”

“Doesn't make it right at all.”

Maish returned with coffees for Abe and Hanrahan and placed them on the table.

“Yetta all right?” asked Abe, taking a sip.

“Of course she's all right,” answered Maish. “She's not a spring chicken, but … You're not working Saturday, why not bring the kids over? I'll ask my Sam to bring Heather and David so they can play and we can talk.”

“If he's off the roof, we'll see,” said Lieberman.

“You're welcome too,” Maish said to Hanrahan.

“Thanks,” said Hanrahan. “But …”

“You bring your Chinese lady,” said Maish. “My daughter-in-law speaks Mandarin, learned it at the University of Chicago. They'll talk. Your lady speak Mandarin?”

“I don't know,” said Hanrahan. “I'll ask her.”

“There's Cantonese and there's Mandarin,” explained Maish. “Howie speaks Cantonese, right, Howie?”

Howie answered in Cantonese, which earned him a pat on the back from Herschel.

“What'd I tell you?” said Maish. “Think on it.”

“Think Kraylaw'll come back?” asked Hanrahan softly when Maish moved away to check on their food.

They had driven Kraylaw all the way downtown, bought his bus ticket, and waited to put him on the first bus south with a bag of Cheetos and a Frank Roderus paperback western,
Mustang War.
Then they had gone back to pick up a few things for Jeanine and Charlie Kraylaw and take them to Hanrahan's house in Ravenswood. It was temporary. The house was big enough. Bill and Maureen, who had left him four years ago when the drinking had been as bad as it had been in twenty years, had raised two sons in the house. Now the house was empty, which, normally, suited Hanrahan well enough.

The stay in the hospital had helped him step away from the bottle. It hadn't done long-term wonders for his head, but God, whom he was starting to talk to again, sometimes made strange and incomprehensible deals.

The agreement was that Jeanine would take care of Hanrahan's house till she decided where she wanted to go. Truth be told, Hanrahan was an excellent housekeeper, an almost obsessive housekeeper, since Maureen had left him. For the first two years he had kept it immaculate in the hope that she would come back and be delighted. For the next year he did it so that if she came back, she would see how well he was doing without her and be miserable. For the last year, he had simply done it because it had become a habit that he couldn't break, just as placing his football helmet on at exactly the same spot and angle had been essential during his high school and college playing days.

“He'll come back,” said Lieberman. “If he were just mean and stupid, he'd stay away, but he's crazy and a little smart. He'll be back.”

“He'll be back,” agreed Hanrahan. “You think Bernie Shepard's crazy too?”

“Ich vais?”
said Lieberman with a shrug. “Yiddish lesson for the night, Father Murphy. It means ‘who knows.' Who knows what a person will do when they love and hate at the same time? Bernie, Kraylaw, my son-in-law Todd?”

Lieberman touched his bristly mustache for stray hairs and smoothed it down.

“Yeah,” said Hanrahan.

Maish brought the sandwiches and the two policemen ate silently, listening to the Alter Cockers argue the merits and demerits of
Once upon a Time in America,
the movie they had seen at the JCC that night.

After they ate, Lieberman looked at his watch.

“Time,” he said.

“Time,” Hanrahan agreed with a great sigh.

“How's your head?” asked Lieberman.

“It's fine, Rabbi, fine.”

They got up and walked past the Alter Cockers.

“Abe,” Herschel called.

Lieberman and Hanrahan paused to let Herschel have his joke.

“What is it, Herschy?” asked Lieberman.

“You and the Irish be careful.”

“Yeah,” echoed the Alter Cockers.

“… don't know where he is,” said the officer on the phone in Jason Belding's apartment. “He was here half an hour ago. … Sure, I told Captain Kearney who you were. He wouldn't lie to a reporter. He has too much respect for the press.”

Across the room Alan Kearney, in shirtsleeves and tieless button-down blue denim shirt, decided that it was dark enough. His eyes moved down to the seated Emiliano Del Sol, who wore a fixed deadpan look.

“Something on your mind, thief?” asked Kearney.

El Perro's eyes locked on the policeman and said nothing.

The policeman on the phone went on, “No, I don't think anything. Nobody here thinks anything. Chief Hartz does all the thinking. He's a god to us. … I told you he isn't here. What do you want? You want me to swear? Swear on the Bible? Okay, I fuckin' swear on the Bible. … Sure, you can quote me, go ahead and quote me. You don't even fuckin' know who I am. I'm a bum who wandered in off the street. My eyes are going bad. I'm half drunk and almost ninety and even I can see that Captain Kearney ain't here.”

“No way in hell you're going to take Bernie Shepard,” Kearney almost whispered to Emiliano.

El Perro smiled and stood, eyes still on Kearney.

The cop on the phone looked at the interchange with interest and went on to the reporter, “Okay. You got me. My name? Steve Carella, Eighty-seventh Precinct. … That's a coincidence. … Complain to your alderman. … Yeah, yeah. … Put it in a doggie bag and sleep with it.”

The cop hung up with that and gave his full attention to the drama across the room.