Lieberman's Folly (16 page)

“I'll make a deal,” said Lieberman. “I stop telling Papodopolus stories and you stop quoting dead Greeks.”

“Papodopolus is alive?”

“Doing life in Joliet,” said Lieberman, shaking his head. “You want to talk now?”

“I didn't do it,” said Todd. “I talked to Anastasia Holt, sure, even had lunch with her a couple of times. She's a Plato scholar, but I never touched her, never—”

“Lisa doesn't think you did,” said Lieberman.

“She doesn't? I thought—”

“If you're thinking of quoting another dead Greek now, forget it or get the hell out of my car,” said Lieberman. “She says you don't spend time with her. You think about your work. You look right through her. You make it clear you'd rather be at work. You never ask her what she thinks or feels. She's a professional without a profession. She feels like a nonperson, the days going by, the kids getting older and she getting no place. She had seven-ten Graduate Record Exam grades in both verbal and quantitative, which, she says, were higher than yours. You following this?”

“Yes,” said Todd, brushing his wet hair back with one hand.

“Good, because I was up most of last night listening to it,” said Lieberman. “And I'll probably be up half the night tonight hearing it again.”

“She's right,” said Todd. “It's all clichés but it's right. The maddening thing about clichés is that they're so often right. That's how they became clichés. Do you like me, Abe?”

“Have you been drinking?” asked Lieberman, wiping his hands on a tissue from the box in his glove compartment

“Yes, a little. You think I normally follow policemen and cry in front of them? Do you like me, Abe?”

“Yes,” said Lieberman.

“Bess is disappointed that I'm not Jewish,” said Todd.

The rain had suddenly ceased its waterfall noise and turned into a strong patter, which gradually eased to a moist whisper as they spoke.

“She got over it,” said Lieberman.

“What should I do?” whispered Todd. “I love Lisa, the kids.”

“Go back home. Watch the fights on television. Read a science fiction novel. Take a long bath. Better yet, you ever see
The Man Who Could Work Miracles
? With Roland Young, the guy who played Topper?”

“Abe—”

“Let her think it over, Todd,” said Lieberman. “Don't push it. Call our house and say you'd like to know how she is. Tell me or Bess to tell her you love her. Tell us to tell her you want to see a marriage counselor.”

“I can't just—”

“I know a good one,” said Lieberman. “Levan's daughter-in-law, Darla. In Evanston, not far from you.”

“The kids,” said Todd.

“The kids can go too. Talk to them. Tell them you love them. They can use a few days' vacation. Let me tell you a story. When I was kid, maybe eight, nine, my parents got in a fight. Maish went to my Aunt Sadie's for the night. My older cousin Lenore took me out to a movie. Never forget it,
Dr. Cyclops
, hell of a movie. Albert Dekker was bald, big thick glasses. He made people little in the jungle. After the movie Lenore took me home. My mother and father were still fighting. Lenore took me back to the movies, a double feature,
The Cat and the Canary
with Bob Hope and
Charlie Chan at the Opera
. When we got home just before midnight, my mother and father were having coffee and holding hands. I'll never forget that day.”

“Is there a point to that story, Abe?”

“Hey, you came to me. One of the prices you pay is listening to me remember when I was a kid,” said Lieberman. “There's a point. Let it alone. Lisa's like my mother. She wants to come to you she'll work it out and come to you.”

“Your story didn't have anything to do with that,” said Todd after a sigh.

“I forgot I was talking to a professor,” said Lieberman. “The point of the story was you should postpone feeling guilty and go get a tape of something and relax and wait. Nobody waits anymore. I'll work on Lisa. You call later. I want to go home now, take a shower, eat some of this corned beef, and play Yahtzee with your kids.”

“OK,” said Todd, opening the door, his crumpled jacket in one hand.

“You want a corned beef sandwich for the road?” asked Lieberman.

Todd shrugged. Lieberman dug in the bag and put together a corned beef sandwich by tearing open a bagel and sticking in a stack of meat. Todd took the sandwich and closed the back door.

“Thanks,” said Todd.

“You're welcome,” answered Lieberman.

The rain had completely stopped.

“I love Lisa,” said Todd, biting into the sandwich as a Toyota splashed by.

“So do I,” said Lieberman. “Go home.”

Lieberman left his son-in-law standing in the street, his wrists sticking out of the sleeves of the tight sweat shirt, his hands around a corned beef sandwich. Five minutes later Lieberman pulled up in front of his house, got out with his bag, went to his front door, opened it with a key, and stepped in to say, “I'm here.”

“Grandpop the cop,” said Melisa, looking up from the television set.

“Hi,” said Barry, looking away from the television only long enough to smile.

“What're you watching?” asked Lieberman, kicking off his shoes.

“
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
,” said Barry.

“They're doing the guy who plays the monster in those movies,” said Melisa.

“Sounds very educational,” said Lieberman. He moved into the kitchen where Bess and Lisa sat whispering.

“Lieberman,” Bess said, looking up. “You been jogging in the rain?”

He put the bag on the table, kissed his wife and daughter, and sat down.

“I've been solving the problems of the world,” said Lieberman, “and it has made me hungry.”

“Eat fast,” Bess said. “You've got fifteen minutes to get to the synagogue. There's a meeting of the Committee to form a Fund-Raising Committee.”

Bill Hanrahan was tired. He had knocked on forty-three doors and received twenty answers, a damned good percentage, which he attributed to people staying home or coming home because of the storm. He took pages of notes and found probable cause for a narcotics arrest in three apartments. Eight people refused to let him in. He talked to five of them through closed doors and persuaded three of the refuseniks to let him in. A few he talked to remembered seeing Estralda Valdez, at least a few admitted it. He had the feeling that some of the married men had noticed her but didn't want to say so.

He struck silver twice. A pair of men in their forties, definitely gay, said that they had seen Estralda Valdez talking several times to a woman named Gwen who lived on the ninth floor. Hanrahan, who had been working his way down, went back up to the apartment of Gwen Dysan on nine. He had already talked to her, a quiet woman in her midtwenties with her hair combed straight back, her skin clear, her glasses too large for her face.

“Another few questions if you don't mind, Miss Dysan,” Hanrahan said with his most winning smile as the woman opened her door.

“I told you I didn't know her,” Gwen Dysan said nervously.

“You knew her, Miss Dysan,” said Hanrahan gently.

“I didn't,” she said.

“I can continue this with you down at the station if need be,” he lied. “I don't want to.”

“Come in,” she said, stepping back.

The apartment was efficient, furniture modern, not comfortable looking, easy to move out of fast. Gwen Dysan left the door open and folded her arms, not defiantly but defensively.

“How well did you know her?” Hanrahan asked.

“Not well,” she said.

“Why didn't you tell me you knew her?”

“She … I knew she was a prostitute,” said Gwen Dysan. “She told me. I was embarrassed I guess. I didn't know her all that well.”

“You liked her?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Gwen, looking him in the eyes.

“She talk about men, people she knew?”

“No,” said Gwen. “She talked about her family. I told her about mine.”

“Her family?” Hanrahan asked, trying to keep from sounding particularly interested. “Father, mother …?”

“Her father is dead,” said Gwen. “Her mother and brother.”

“They live in Chicago?”

“Yes,” she said.

“You know where?”

“South Side somewhere. I think she said Ogden Avenue. I'm not sure.”

“You think Mrs. Valdez knows what happened to her daughter? It didn't even make the ten o'clock news on television.”

“Her name isn't Valdez,” said Gwen Dysan. “It's Vegas. She wasn't what you think. I mean Estralda. She was—”

“I knew her,” said Hanrahan.

“We talked,” said Gwen Dysan softly.

“Talked, yes,” said Hanrahan.

Gwen Dysan's sigh was enormous.

“I'm a Catholic,” she said. “Your name is Irish. Are you a Catholic?”

“Yes,” said Hanrahan.

“I work in a print shop,” said the woman, looking out the open door into the empty corridor.

Hanrahan turned. There was no one there.

“I'm a secretary,” she said. “My family is in North Dakota. I'll grow old and die a secretary in a print shop. Estralda said I was too pretty to do that.”

Gwen Dysan looked at the policeman with wet eyes.

“You are,” he said.

“She said I was pretty enough to do what she did, that I could make enough money in two years to buy a print shop or a beauty shop or a … I knew I couldn't do it.”

“I know,” said Hanrahan. “Anything else you can tell me? Anyone you know in the building who …?”

“Nikki Morales,” said Gwen Dysan softly. “Eighth floor. I don't know the apartment number. I've never gone down there. But Estralda talked about her. I know they were friends.”

Jealousy echoed in her words.

“Did Estralda ever mention a sister, Lupe or Guadalupe?” Hanrahan began.

“No. Can you leave now?” asked Gwen Dysan.

Hanrahan considered pushing just a little, but the woman folded her arms and set her jaw in a way Hanrahan had encountered hundreds of times. He might have broken through it but it wasn't worth the effort, at least not now.

“Sure,” he said, leaving the apartment.

The door didn't close behind him as he went for the elevator. He had a name, Vegas, and a neighborhood, and he remembered what Jules Van Beeber had said about Estralda saying something was under the house at her mother's house. He also had another tenant to check out, Nikki Morales on eight. He had rung every bell and knocked on every door on eight, but none of the people who had answered were Nikki Morales.

Hanrahan went back to the doorman, who was sitting at his desk and watching the video monitor that showed the garage entrance. Billy Tarton sat up when Hanrahan came through the door. Tarton didn't smile, but he did look up with an eager-to-please curiosity.

“Nikki Morales,” said Hanrahan.

“Eight-ten,” answered the doorman. “But she's not in. Went out early, carrying a couple of suitcases.”

“Where was she going?” asked Hanrahan, glancing through the window toward the Black Moon Restaurant.

The doorman shrugged.

“Said she'd be away a while,” Tarton said. “But she'd be back for more of her things before she left town.”

“What does she look like?”

“Morales?” Tarton said getting up. A car was pulling into the driveway and making the turn to stop in front of the entrance. “Good-looking lady. Lives alone.”

He moved toward the door and adjusted his hat.

“Friend of Estralda Valdez?” asked Hanrahan.

“Who knows? Could be. Never saw them together. Or maybe I did and don't remember,” the doorman said, going out the door to help an old woman out of the backseat of a black Pontiac. The woman beamed at the doorman and touched his cheek. Billy Tarton smiled. Hanrahan wanted a drink, needed a drink.

The old woman came in on the doorman's arm.

“Gotta help Mrs. Dinkst to her apartment,” he said.

Hanrahan nodded.

“Nikki Morales, she look anything like Estralda Valdez?” he asked as the doorman pushed the button to the inner lobby and moved slowly with Mrs. Dinkst on his arm.

“Maybe,” said Tarton over his shoulder. “About the same height, weight, build. Miss Morales is a little younger, darker hair, maybe lighter skin. Who knows? You know what I mean?”

“I know,” said Hanrahan, following the doorman and the old woman through the inner lobby door.

Hanrahan could have called it a day and gone out looking but he wanted to check every door where someone was home. He took the elevator up to the third floor and got out, leaving the doorman and the old lady behind him. On the third floor, Hanrahan knocked at the first door and found himself facing Captain Dale Hughes in YMCA shorts and a white T-shirt. Captain Dale Hughes was sweating. Captain Dale Hughes was obviously also in good shape. A door was open behind Hughes to Hanrahan's left. Inside it was a Nautilus machine or something that looked like one.

“Hanrahan, what do you want?” he said panting.

“Nothing,” said Hanrahan. “I've been knocking on doors. Forgot you were on this—”

“You mean you hoped I wouldn't be behind one of the doors,” said Hughes. “You could have asked the doorman where I lived and walked on by. Come in.”

Hanrahan came in and Hughes closed the door.

“You want a cold drink? Iced tea?” asked Hughes.

“No thanks, Captain,” said Hanrahan.

“I'll finish mine.” Hughes moved through a door to his right and Hanrahan knew from the layout of the apartments he had been in that beyond the door was the kitchen. Hughes came back with a towel around his neck and a glass of iced tea in his hand. “Sure you don't want one?”

There were wedding pictures in the hallway. Hughes smiling in a tux, arm around the bride, his family surrounding the couple. Hughes took a sip and watched Hanrahan's eyes.