Lieberman's Day (21 page)

In the dark snowy patch between the house Jeanine was in and the dark one next to it, Frankie stood on his toes trying to look into a window. He couldn't see much, but what he saw was sufficient. Charlie's head moved by. Not talking but walking. Jeanine came next, saying something Frankie couldn't hear.

Whose house was this? What was his family doing here? Slowly, carefully, warning himself, Frankie moved toward the front of the house and, ankle-deep in snow, stepped over the low iron fence and tiptoed up the steps. Through the window on his left he could see an open sofa bed, the blankets a mess. Jeanine, still in her uniform, was talking and starting to make the bed.

Was it Charlie's? Had his wife slept in it? Alone?

No longer worried about noise, Frankie ran down the stairs and looked at the mailbox. There was no name on it. He opened the box and pulled out a handful of mail. The streetlights had come on a few minutes earlier but there wasn't enough light for Frankie to read the name. He stepped back, holding the top letter close, and made out the name William Hanrahan on a bill from Commonwealth Edison. The name. Frankie was sure he knew the name. He found another letter, this one also to William Hanrahan, from Publishers' Clearing House, the name in big, clear, bold letters.

Frankie dropped the mail in the yard and strode across the street to the cab of his pickup. He removed the shotgun, cradled it in his arms, and recrossed the street, ready to drop the weapon to his side if someone should appear.

He carried his own lightning now. And he would wield it as the Lord moved his hands.

Frankie moved onto the porch and knocked at the door, his feet tingling inside his boots, his mouth tin dry. She was coming. Yes. The door opened and there she stood. It took her a beat to recognize him. By the time she had gathered herself enough to close the door, Frankie had pushed it toward her.

Jeanine's laugh was gone. It was replaced now by the familiar look of fear as she backed away.

Frankie stepped in, shotgun in his arms, and kicked the door closed.

“What sins have you committed during my exile by the heathens? What sins with that policeman who expels me from the city so he can fornicate with my wife?”

“I haven't …” Jeanine said in panic, looking around for help that wasn't there as Frankie took another step into the room.

Charlie appeared in the doorway behind Jeanine. The room behind the boy was a dining room set with three places. Charlie's look did not change. He stepped into the room, blinking and expressionless, and now stood with no sign of emotion as his mother clung to him, sobbing.

“Get your things, fast,” said Frankie. “Get a bag, a box, and throw things in. I'll give you five minutes.”

Jeanine was shaking her head no, not defiantly but as if her world had come apart.

“No back talk,” said Frankie, pointing the shotgun toward the doorway to the dining room. “Move. I hear a window open, a door open, and I come letting the Lord dictate what my finger does with this tool of vengeance.”

Neither Charlie nor Jeanine moved.

“You forsook me, Jeanine Peasley Kraylaw,” said Frankie.

Frankie took another step toward them before he was aware of another presence in the room, a person standing in the doorway behind Frankie's family.

“It would be best if you and Charlie stepped back,” said Hanrahan.

The policeman's face was red. His jacket was open, and in his hand, pointing toward the ground, was a gun, a black-gray gun.

Frankie raised the shotgun in the direction of the policeman who had stolen his family.

“Best move now,” said Hanrahan gently. “Better if the boy's not in the room.”

Jeanine looked at Frankie and then at Hanrahan. Then she guided Charlie behind Hanrahan.

“The Lord has delivered you into my hands,” said Frankie. “He means me to punish you for breaking commandments with my wife.”

“And you mean to punish her and the boy, too?” asked Hanrahan.

“I mean to,” Frankie said. “It's my right, my obligation.”

“The Lord didn't send me, Frankie. I followed you from McDonald's. You left an easy trail, starting with the man you almost killed at Wendy's. When I knew you were in town and looking for me and Abe, it didn't take much to figure what you might be up to. I don't know how you found her, but …”

“The Lord Jesus Christ led me,” said Frankie.

“If he did,” said Hanrahan sadly, “then I think God's got a sense of humor I can't figure out.”

“I'll pray for your soul,” said Frankie, raising the shotgun.

“I'll need it,” said Hanrahan, gun still at his side as Frankie Kraylaw pulled the trigger of his father's shotgun.

Lieberman and Bess walked into Temple Mir Shavot on California Avenue just four blocks from their house. As always, Bess adjusted the
yarmulke
that bobbed on top of Abe's curly hair before they went into the low-ceilinged, fluorescent-lit reception hall. There were tables of food under the windows and people milling around, all familiar faces, talking softly. Word had gotten around quickly.

It had been Bess's idea to have an open house before relatives and a
minyon
gathered at Yetta and Maish's apartment to sit
Shiva.
As president of the synagogue, Bess had certain unstated rights. Rabbi Wass had not hesitated to approve and support the idea and to get both the Women's Auxiliary and the Men's Club to get on the phone and put out word of the tragedy and the get-together.

Abe agreed that it was a good idea. It got Maish busy catering for the event and pulled him out of the T&L. It nudged Yetta into dressing herself, making some plans.

“Elliott Ness is here,” Herschel Rosen said, stepping up to the Liebermans with his wife, Sarah, at his side.

“This is a time for jokes?” Sarah Rosen said, pushing her husband.

“It's all right, Sarah,” Bess said, taking the woman's arm and walking her away.

“I'm trying to lighten up a little,” explained Herschel. “It's my way. Besides, who knows what to say at times like this? You know what I mean? I've seen wives, brothers, kids, everyone die. You never know what to say. You know how I feel for you and Maish, Abe?”

“Thanks, Hershy,” Lieberman said, touching the little man's shoulder. Herschel Rosen shrugged and lost himself in the small crowd.

Hymie Fried, the cantor, who looked like a former middleweight contender but sang almost like Jan Pierce, was wolfing down a bagel oozing with cream cheese as he talked to Rabbi Wass, who looked vaguely like a pudgy Claude Rains tonight.

Alter Cockers, even Howie Chen, dressed in jackets and ties, stood near the far wall drinking coffee. They nodded at Abe as he wended his way forward looking for his brother. Manny Resnick with the bad hip, who still owned the hardware store on North Avenue next to Slovotny's Meat Shop, found a hole in the crowd and grabbed Abe's hand in both of his, pumping.

“A shame,” he said. “Whatever I can do, Abe. Whatever. I told Maish. Same goes for you. Whatever.”

“Thanks, Manny.”

Resnick reluctantly released Lieberman's hand and edged back as Abe moved forward.

“Abe,” came Lisa's voice at his side.

There was something in his daughter's voice beyond grief, something Lieberman would prefer not to face.

A woman, thin, well dressed, and smelling of dark perfume, put her arms around him and kissed his cheek. The woman was weeping as she said, “So young. So young.”

Someone pulled her back.

“I think that was Levan's first wife,” he said, turning to face Lisa.

“Abe, you saw her,” Lisa said as if she were establishing the initial, essential premise of a syllogism.

“Her?” asked Lieberman.

“Abe,” Lisa said with exasperation.

Lisa was dressed in appropriate black, her hair tied back, looking very sober, serious, and professional.

“You talked to the kids,” he said.

“I talked to Melisa. Barry wouldn't tell me anything.”

The crowd buzzed, kept their distance for the father-daughter talk. Through a cluster of heads Abe saw his brother, hound-faced and nodding to someone hidden by a wave of mourners and sympathizers.

“Her name is Faye,” said Lieberman.

“I knew that. I told you that,” said Lisa. “What does she look like? What's she like?”

“Look,” said Lieberman with a sigh, “I saw her for a minute, maybe …”

“Abe.”

“Nice-looking lady, around forty-five, maybe even older. Weight around one-fifteen or twenty. Hair short, gray-brunette. Good smile. Teeth her own, unstained. Doesn't smoke. Stands erect. I'd say she exercises regularly. Skin color is good. Steady hands. Eyes, hazel, meet yours when she talks. Definitely not Jewish. Her …”

“You want me to scream, Abe? Right here? Right now?”

“It's not in you, Lisa,” he said with a sad smile. “I think I'd like to see you just let go and scream.”

“You want me to say ‘please'?” Lisa said, looking around to be sure no one could hear their conversation.

“Hell, no,” said Lieberman. “You say ‘please' and I pay for it the rest of my life. O.K. I liked her. She handled the situation well, the kids well, doesn't seem to push Todd. There was a look in her eye, asking for an even break. I think the lady's been through a lot in her life.”

“Pretty?” asked Lisa, biting her lower lip.

“Pretty yes, beautiful no,” answered Lieberman.

Lisa shook her head and folded her arms.

“My cousin is dead and I'm worrying about who Todd might be sleeping with.”

“He's your husband.”

“I walked out on him, Abe. I took the kids and walked out on him.”

“I know,” said Lieberman. “You're all living at my house, remember? Now you think maybe you made a mistake.”

“No,” said Lisa. “I think I did the right thing, but it doesn't make it hurt less when someone like Faye comes along and you think she may be a better wife for your husband.”

“Nothing's easy, Lisa,” Abe said as Maish saw him and waved. “Maish wants me.”

Abe looked at his daughter, who met his eyes and smiled the smile of the perplexed.

“I always preferred biochemistry to tragedy,” she said softly. “‘How hard, abandonment of my desire. But I can fight necessity no more.'
Antigone.
After fifteen years, it rubs off. Go take care of Uncle Maish. I'm being selfish.”

Lieberman made his way through a half dozen more condolences and found his brother, Yetta, and Bess standing in front of Ida Katzman, who sat on a bridge chair, her cane standing in front of her held erect by her thin befreckled hands.

Abe gave Yetta a hug and touched her cheek. There was nothing to say. Yetta held back tears.

“Death,” said Ida Katzman.

Ida Katzman, eighty-six, looked into the hound-dog eyes of Abraham Lieberman, and repeated, “Death.”

As the temple's principal benefactor, Ida was seldom contradicted. Since she seldom spoke, and when she did it was to observe and not to dictate, contradiction was seldom even contemplated by those who dealt with her.

“Yes,” said Lieberman, taking Bess's hand.

Ida shook her head. “Mort and I had no children,” she said. “You know that.”

“I'm sorry,” said Lieberman.

Ida shook her head. “Not that we didn't like children,” she went on. “Children are the heart of our belief, of our religion.”

Ida's frail hand moved to her chest to tap the heart about which she spoke.

Lieberman nodded.

Ida shook her head again, the hand that had been at her heart returning to help balance her cane.

“Times like this,” she said. “The pain of losing a child. I remember when Woodrow Wilson was the president, when that actor with the bad breath …”

“Clark Gable,” Lieberman supplied, in spite of a warning squeeze of his hand from Bess.

“Clark Gable had bad breath?” asked Ida.

“So I've heard,” said Abe, “but you had someone else in mind.”

“I don't remember,” said Ida, looking at her cane for help down the path of memories. “Oh, times like this when I can't imagine the hurt of such a loss.”

Everyone was looking at Lieberman now. Yetta, Maish, Bess, Ida Katzman. Somehow, as a policeman, as a man who had seen more death than anyone in the room with the exception of Isaac Pankovsky, who had survived Auschwitz, Abe Lieberman was expected to make a meaningful observation.

“I can't feel,” said Maish before Abe could speak. “There's no pain. I want it to come, but … I'm what you call numb. You think we have enough coleslaw?”

Yetta wept and clung to her husband's arm.

Bess let go of Abe's hand to comfort Yetta, and someone touched Abe's arm.

Abe turned to face Whitlock, the old black man who served as janitor and all-purpose handyman for the temple.

“Telephone,” Whitlock whispered. “Rabbi's office.”

“Excuse me,” Abe said.

Neither Ida Katzman, Yetta, or Maish seemed to notice as he turned to leave. Bess's eyes met his and let him know that she had the situation under control.

Lieberman followed Whitlock through the crowd, touching an extended hand here, feeling a sympathetic pat on his shoulder there.

Whitlock ushered Lieberman out of the room.

“I want you to have my condolences,” said Whitlock as they turned to the right and headed down the short corridor past the sanctuary.

“Thank you,” said Lieberman.

“I've got a sense of what your brother must be going through,” said Whitlock. “Lost one boy in Vietnam. The second is fine, but I worry.”

“I know,” said Lieberman, entering the tiny carpeted and book-lined office.

Whitlock left, closing the door behind him, and Lieberman took the three steps across the room and lifted the phone.

“Lieberman,” he said.