Lieberman's Choice (16 page)

“You've got a good act, Emiliano,” said Kearney. “But this is Bernie's show.”

“Hey,” said Emiliano, “how come you ain't on my side, New Captain? I'm doin' your work for you, man. I don't come down with Shepard's skin, and you get to go up there next. You wanna take that walk, policeman? You feelin' guilty about somethin'?”

“You're not my idea, thief,” said Kearney.

“Man,” said Emiliano, “I was no one's idea, not my mama's, that's for damned sure. I ain't no one's idea. I'm their fuckin' shadow.”

Kearney and El Perro were almost nose to nose when the door opened and a uniformed officer stepped in with a gym bag in his hand. El Perro lost interest in Kearney, stepped past him, and took the bag from the officer.

“You get lost?” asked Emiliano Del Sol. “Whyn't you ask a cop?”

Before any of the officers in the room could answer, El Perro was inside the bedroom and had closed the door behind him. He took one step into the room and allowed himself a massive grin and a touch of his scar. Yes, no doubt about it, El Perro was enjoying himself. All he needed were some of the Tentáculos watching him, some women. He would tell them all about it later.

The bathroom was dark. El Perro found the switch, put down the toilet seat, and placed his gym bag on it. He opened the zipper slowly to begin his ritual preparation for a job. As soon as he opened the bag, he knew why the cop had been late in bringing it. There was a sealed envelope on the top. Emiliano could feel that it contained money, cash. Hartz had turned out to be too smart to give El Perro a personal check with his name on it, a check to a professional thief. He wasn't even tempted to open it. Two thousand dollars was nothing. The only reason he had asked for money was to make the fat cop Hartz crawl like a roach.

He put the envelope aside and removed a pair of black pants and a black shirt. He took off his clothes, put on the pants and shirt, and checked himself in the mirror.

Good, good, he thought and patted down his hair before putting on a black knit hat. Finally, lovingly, he removed two sheathed knives from the bag, put them down gently on the ledge above the sink, and checked each knife for balance.

Holding one of the knives in his right hand, El Perro picked up one of Jason Belding's yellow monogrammed towels and threw it in the air. The towel landed on the knife and was severed in two without the slightest flick of El Perm's hand or wrist. Satisfied, he returned the knife to its sheath. He removed the second knife, held it up to the fluorescent light over the sink, examined it closely, put his ear next to the blade, tapped the blade with the nail of his small finger, and listened before slowly returning the knife to the sheath. Next, he hooked both sheaths to his belt and put on a lightweight black sweater. Only then did Emiliano “El Perro” Del Sol smile at himself in the mirror and whisper, “A fuckin' shadow.”

When El Perro returned to the living room, Lieberman and Hanrahan had returned and were talking to Kearney.

“How do I look, Viejo?” asked El Perro.

“Brandon Lee would weep with envy if he could see you,” said Lieberman.

Hanrahan, the big Irish, shook his head and Kearney turned to the window.

“Think so?” asked Emiliano seriously.

“Do it,” said Kearney savagely, his back turned.

On the roof of the Shoreham Towers, Bernard Shepard stood looking up at the first light of the night stars. He knew nothing of the stars and couldn't remember ever having simply looked up at them, even as a kid. The stars did nothing for or to him. They were too distant, unreal. He had the feeling deep within him, a feeling he didn't deny but didn't want to let loose, that if he allowed his thoughts to drift to the sky, he would be panicked by the vastness, he would feel himself growing small, so small that he did not exist. He stopped looking at the stars and finished the can of tuna he had been eating. He wiped the fork on his shirt, tucked it into his pocket, and flung the can over the side of the roof and into the night. The dog looked up from his own open can as he heard the clink of metal on the street beyond, and then he returned to his meal.

Bernie Shepard moved to his bunker and looked at the green glowing dials of his watch. Then he adjusted the radio. There was nothing there but static.

He sat beneath the rusted water tower listening to static and the lapping of the dog's tongue and tried neither to think nor to look out at the vast sky.

I
N THE LOBBY OF
the Shoreham Towers, Lieberman and Hanrahan walked with El Perro between them to the open elevator. The officers on duty inside the lobby stopped talking and watched the three men. When they reached the elevator, El Perro entered and turned with his hand out like a traffic cop.

“Far as you go,” he said.

Hanrahan grabbed El Perro's sleeve, but Lieberman reached up and gently removed it.

“End of the line for you,” said El Perro, slowly smoothing his sleeve where Hanrahan had touched him. “I got things to do I don't want no cop seeing. You know, like trade secrets. Seven minutes, man; remember seven minutes and you get on that radio—you, Viejo. You pump it up loud and give the man up there a story.”

“Like what?” asked Lieberman.

El Perro reached for the elevator button.

“Like what?” he said, pausing. “Like I don't know. His old lady ain't dead. He just won the lottery. You got a lot to say. You got the tongue. You'll think of something. I got more faith in you than I do in Jesus Christo.”

“I don't know, Zorro,” said Hanrahan sarcastically. “Abe starts wailing like an African-American disc jockey and Bernie will know something's coming down.”

“Hey, stop jerkin' around, man, and do your job. Lieberman knows what to do.”

“Let him go, Bill,” said Lieberman.

“You got it,” El Perro said softly, pushing the button now. The door began to close. “It's my ass hangin' up there on the fuckin' moon and the man up there with a dog and a machine gun.”

Hanrahan reached in and held the door open.

“Makes you stop and think, doesn't it?” he said, checking his watch. “You've got six minutes.”

El Perro laughed.

“You fuck this up and I'm gonna find you. I'm gonna find you and string your guts on your mama's clothesline,” said El Perro.

Hanrahan continued to hold the elevator door open.

“My mama has a GE washer-dryer. I bought it for her with the money I took from the bodies of dead thieves.”

Hanrahan pulled his hand back and held up his watch as the doors closed slowly.

“El chingo tiene cojones,”
came El Perro's voice.

Lieberman and Hanrahan watched the lights above the elevator indicate the floors. One, two, and then three. The light did not go on for four. The elevator had stopped at three. Hanrahan looked at Lieberman.

“The night is full of surprises, Father Murphy.”

“That it is, Rabbi. You gonna mesmerize Bernie while your buddy cuts his throat?”

“Consider the alternatives,” said Lieberman.

Shepard leaned against the rusted leg of the empty water tower. Darkness had come quickly. The full moon was bright. Shepard adjusted his radio, but there was only the soft hum of static. Lying a dozen feet in front of him, the dog opened its eyes and growled softly. Reluctantly, Bernie Shepard reached into his pocket and removed a pair of glasses. When he had the glasses on, he looked around the roof and saw nothing. Still the dog growled. Shepard picked up the shotgun and took a step away from the shade of the water tower and into the moonlight. The dog was now on its feet, its head turning toward the chimney behind the tower.

“Too damn quiet,” Shepard said softly to himself. “Just like an old war …”

A burst of static on the radio cut off the thought.

“Bernie,” came Abe Lieberman's voice. “Bernie? We've got an emergency situation down here.”

“And maybe one up here too,” Shepard said, looking around.

He was alert, gun at the ready as Lieberman's voice went on, “Kearney's been shot. Some crackhead saw you on television. Came with a pawnshop special and tore into Kearney on the street. It doesn't look like Kearney will …”

The dog was growling softly and walking toward the concrete barricade. Shepard dropped the phone and spun around, shotgun up, aimed over the head of the dog into the darkness under the tower. Since there was no sound and no motion in the shadows, Shepard thought—but just for an instant—that the pain in his side was a shock of protest from his ulcer. But that instant passed and Shepard both saw the handle of the knife and knew. He fired as he went down, the shot going over the dog, splattering the concrete and shattering the water cooler. The dog, confused, looked at the fallen Shepard, whose glasses now dangled from one ear.

“Stop him, man,” said Emiliano “El Perro” Del Sol, stepping over the barricade, second knife in his hand. “Stop him or you got dog meat for dinner.”

The dog was poised to leap now. El Perro shifted the knife slightly in his hand, ready. Bernie Shepard forced himself to his knees, put his glasses back on, and looked at the shotgun just out of reach.

“Back off,” Shepard said. The dog backed off reluctantly and moved to his side.

El Perro moved carefully, knife ready, and kicked the shotgun further out of Shepard's reach.

“You got hardware in your belt and your shoe,” said El Perro. “Take it out slow and throw it easy, or you'll be reaching for a blade in your throat.”

Shepard slowly, painfully removed the pistols from his belt and his boot and shoved them toward El Perro. The dog whimpered.

“Hey,” said El Perro in a stage whisper, leaning forward as if they might be overheard, “you really do have fuckin' dynamite up here. You weren't just jivin' them, man.”

Shepard didn't answer. He knelt, wincing in pain, and reached for the handle of the knife in his side.

“Wouldn't take that out if I was you,” said El Perro, picking up one of the pistols and kicking the other well across the roof. “Might bleed to death.”

Shepard blinked once, gave El Perro a grin, gritted his teeth, pulled out the knife with a small grunt, and shifted it to his palm.

“Now drop it,” said El Perro, aiming the pistol.

Shepard, his face suddenly drenched in sweat, considered his chances as El Perro stepped forward quickly and kicked the knife from his hand.

The dog was pacing now. A howl of frustration came from deep inside him.

“You're one fuckin' macho cop, man,” said El Perro with genuine admiration. “But you ain't no cop no more. You're like me. More like me now than you think. You dyin' or something?”

Still on his knees, Shepard pressed his palms on the open wound and looked up at Del Sol, who squatted to get a better look at Shepard's face and the damage.

“Hey, what you did, Shepard,” he said. “To your old lady and that cop? I'd do the same. No shit. Any man with balls would do the same thing. You know what? Fuck those people out there. I took my shot at you. I got my pay. Now, I'm getting the hell out of here. They wanna finish you off, they can do it themselves. How you like that?”

Emiliano reached over, retrieved his first knife, and wiped its bloody blade on a dark handkerchief he whipped from his pocket.

“Here,” he said, tossing the handkerchief to Shepard, who grabbed it before he hit the roof.

Shepard made a hissing sound and the dog stopped howling.

“I hope you make it, old man,” said El Perro, backing into the shadows. “I hope you make it, tear out the heart of that asshole Kearney who whored your old lady.”

Shepard could barely see him, but El Perro's voice came out of the darkness.

“I hope you blow up the whole fuckin' city.”

El Perro dropped the pistol, flipped the razor-sharp knife in the air, caught it neatly without taking his eyes from Shepard, and slid the knife into the sheath at his side as he took three steps backward into the shadows and disappeared.

Something touched Shepard's side. His first impulse was to swat it away, punch it away from his pain. He caught his fist coming down, opened it and let his hand come to rest on the dog's head.

“He's gone,” Shepard told the dog.

“Bernie?” came Lieberman's voice.

The radio lay about a dozen feet in front of him.

With the whimpering dog at his side, Shepard took off his glasses, gritted his teeth, and slowly, painfully pulled himself along the roof toward the shelter of the concrete barricade.

“Bernie?” came Lieberman's voice again.

The radio was a few feet away from him now. Shepard picked up the radio and pushed the switch.

“I'm still alive,” said Shepard, trying to keep the ripping pain from his voice.

“I thought you might be,” said Lieberman.

“It was worth the try, Lieberman,” said Shepard. “I'd have done the same.”

“Let's talk, Bernie.”

“Not tonight,” said Shepard. “I've got things to do. Tell Kearney we still have a date in less than three hours. If you find Del Sol, which I don't think you will, he'll tell you that I'm not bluffing about the explosives.”

“Never thought you were, Bernie,” said Lieberman.

“Pass it on to Hartz. Don't call again.”

Shepard pushed the switch and watched the lights of the radio shimmer and fade. He placed the radio, sticky with his own blood, on the top of the barricade before he crawled through, flipped on a flashlight, and groped for a first-aid kit in the canvas bag. The bag was wet. The shattered water container had drenched it.

“The door,” Shepard said, nodding toward the steel door.

The dog didn't understand at first.

“There,” Shepard repeated. “The door.”

This time the dog understood but was reluctant to move.

“Now,” said Shepard sharply, and the dog padded out to take its position.