Lieberman's Law (27 page)

Both detectives could see that the bleeding man was not thinking straight. He should have walked or run on the grass, made it tougher to follow. The trail turned at the next corner onto a slightly bigger street not very far from where Iris and her father lived. The rain was coming down a little harder now when both men stopped and looked down three cracked concrete steps that led into a very dark tunnel. The pause was brief. Lieberman pulled his penlight out of his pocket, went down the steps. As soon as they hit the bottom step they could hear someone breathing heavily.

The detectives pressed themselves against the wall. Lieberman turned off his flashlight after getting a glimpse of the wounded man.

“Kim?” Lieberman asked. No answer.

“Kim, you're bleeding bad, very bad. You need a doctor and if you could run or walk I don't think you'd be in here. We're your hope.”

The answer came in Korean, not particularly literate Korean but neither policeman knew or cared. The voice was angry, panting.

“In English,” said Lieberman. “And if you're armed, throw the gun in our direction so we can hear it.”

There was a pause and then a weak voice said, “Shit.” Metal clattered down the passageway and the gun actually bounced off of Hanrahan's feet. Their eyes were growing more accustomed to the near darkness and Lieberman thought he could see a shape in a doorway on the left.

“I'm turning my light on now,” said Lieberman. “If you've got a weapon in your hand, you die.”

The light came on.

Kim was huddled in a doorway that probably led to a basement. His right arm was completely red as were his pants. His shirt seemed remarkably clean.

The detectives moved to the fallen man and looked at the wounds more carefully. Neither detective thought there was a chance of saving that arm, but they weren't surgeons.

“I'll get an ambulance,” said Hanrahan.

“Yeah,” said Lieberman, still holding the light on the young man's arm.

Then Hanrahan was gone.

“Am I dying?” asked Kim.

“I don't think so,” said Lieberman. “I've seen people survive worse, much worse. Amazing what the human body can take.”

“My arm,” Kim said. “I can't feel it.”

“You may never,” said Lieberman, “but there too, I'm no surgeon.”

“A little girl,” Kim said. “And Su, Hashimi?”

“The ones who were with you? One's dead. The other is in very bad shape.”

“When this gets out,” Kim said, eyes tearing with pain and humiliation, “people will laugh at me. A little girl.”

Lieberman didn't think people laughing at what happened would be an entirely bad thing, but he didn't say anything.

Kim's breathing became more forced. Lieberman took off his belt and used it as a tourniquet around Kim's double-wounded arm. He made it tight. Kim seemed to feel nothing. The flow of blood slowed, at least it looked that way in the beam of the flashlight. Lieberman was doing his best to keep from getting bloody. He had a decent chance of succeeding if the ambulance came fast.

There was silence, a silence in which neither man spoke but Kim breathed a bit more slowly.

“I'm going to sue,” said Kim.

“Sue?”

“I went into that store to drop off some clothes,” said Kim dreamily. “And the girl got frightened, thought we were coming to hurt her or try to get money. I told her we only wanted to drop off some cleaning. She started to shoot. I'm suing.”

“What did you do with the clothes you brought in to be cleaned?” asked Lieberman.

“Don't remember,” said Kim. “Pain. Lots of pain.”

“Why did you run and hide in here?” asked Lieberman. “You could just go to a pay phone and call 911.”

“Afraid,” said Kim. “Thought the girl had come after me. Couldn't shoot back straight with my left hand. Looked for somewhere to hide. Came in here.”

“Why were you carrying the gun?”

“I have a permit,” Kim said. “You know I have enemies. I need protection.”

“You also have friends who might give an old woman and her granddaughter a hard time?”

Kim shrugged.

“I can take off that belt and do some things that would insure that you won't be alive when the ambulance comes,” said Lieberman gently.

Kim didn't answer. Lieberman didn't remove the tourniquet. They said nothing for five minutes till they heard footsteps in the dark.

“Abe?” called Hanrahan.

“Here,” said Lieberman, turning on his light.

“He still alive?” Hanrahan stood over him soaking wet.

“Mr. Kim claims that he was an innocent customer who got shot by a panicky kid,” said Lieberman.

“Quick thinking for a dying man,” said Hanrahan.

“And if I don't die?” Kim said so softly that they could barely hear him.

“Well,” said Lieberman. “We work from there.” Lieberman turned the light on Kim. The Korean's eyes were closed but he was breathing.

“A brain like that,” said Abe. “He could have been a computer whiz or something.”

“Or something,” Hanrahan agreed.

About a minute later they could both hear the ambulance siren through the lightly falling rain.

Rene Catolino found the hairpieces El Perro had told Lieberman about. The team started with the neighborhood El Perro had given them, though none but Lieberman, Hanrahan, and Captain Kearney had known the source of the information.

It was Kearney who had insisted that the team go out to ask and carry photographs from the rally. The telephone would be the last resort if they started running out of time. Monday was two days away. It was Saturday. Lieberman was excused from duty on Saturdays and Friday nights. Hanrahan usually covered for him as Lieberman did for his partner on Sundays, especially now that Hanrahan was actually going to services at St. Bart's. Of course, when something big was coming down or a lead just couldn't wait, God was asked to understand. It was both Lieberman and his partner's belief that their respective gods did not much care if the policemen worked on the Sabbath. What they were doing was more important than the repose, worship, and solace they would have sitting or standing with their congregations.

But it was Rene who found the hair, in the fourth stop she made. It was in a hair consultation shop for men where transplants were one of the options. Rene spoke to a receptionist who assured her that women were welcome as clients and that there were quite a few in spite of the masculine nature of the business.

“Women are understandably more sensitive,” the full-headed red-haired receptionist old enough to be Rene's grandmother, had said softly out of the hearing range of a lone man with a receding hairline pretending to read a
People
magazine in the waiting room.

“I'm not sensitive,” Rene assured her in her most confident Chicago accent, showing her badge. “I want to see whoever's in charge.”

“If you'll just have a …” the woman began.

“Now,” said Rene. “One minute.”

“Is it really necessary to …” the woman tried again.

“Absolutely,” said Rene. “One minute.”

The old woman was clearly shaken now. Rene could have handled it various ways. This was the one she had learned from her father. It seemed especially effective coming from a tough-sounding, good-looking young woman with an attitude.

The old woman said something on the phone and hung up.

“Mr. Churchill will be out in a moment,” the woman said, glancing at the man reading
People
magazine, who tried hard to mind his own business.

The walls of the waiting room were tastefully covered with photographs of men with white, toothy smiles and heads of wonderful hair that looked as if they needed no grooming, just occasional admiration. A door not far from the receptionist opened and a man emerged. He was small, wore a gray suit, a concerned smile, and a head of dark hair that deserved a picture on the reception room wall. In fact, Rene looked back at the wall and confirmed her memory that a photo of this man was there, though in the photograph he wore a much bigger smile.

“My office?” he said, holding the door open for Rene Catolino who stepped in.

“I am Randy Churchill,” he said as if he expected her to recognize him.

She didn't, even when they were seated in his office, Churchill behind a big desk. She sat in a modern black leather and chrome chair before it. The walls were covered with bookshelves. Identical books, large, black.

“Styles, satisfied customers,” Churchill said, seeing her eyes scan the walls.

His desk was completely clear except for a telephone and two photographs which were turned just far enough so Rene could see them. One was a trio in color, a small blonde girl with a ribbon in her hair on the knee of a pretty, dark-haired, smiling woman in her thirties. A young teenage boy with dark hair stood next to the woman. The other photograph was much smaller, black and white, an old man and woman.

“Last week,” said Rene. “Six, maybe seven wigs …”

“Hairpieces,” Churchill jumped in.

“Hairpieces,” she said. “Six or seven. The buyer wanted good ones. Wanted them without you seeing the people they were for.”

“Officer …”

“Catolino,” she said. “Six or seven hairpieces. Do you know what I'm talking about?”

“You have a definite tendency toward abrupt behavior.”

“You haven't seen my behavior yet,” she said. “Just a small sign of my attitude.”

“You know who I am?” he asked, sitting up.

“Winston Churchill,” she said.

“Randy Churchill,” he said. “Most people recognize me from the ads on television. You know, I was my first customer. I show a picture of me when I was bald.”

“Different guy did it first,” Rene said impatiently.

“Well, he did it first, but mine is different. He …”

“Six or seven hairpieces,” said Rene.

“Our services, I'm afraid, are confidential,” he said. “You can understand that.”

“You're no lawyer, you're no doctor, you're no private detective, or psychologist,” she said. “You're not even a fucking chiropractor or acupuncturist. I leave anything out?”

“Your manners,” he said, obviously shaken.

“These photographs,” she said, reaching for the one of the woman and two children. “Your family?”

“Well … actually, no. A member of my staff. I'm very fond of them.”

“No wife. The old man and woman?”

“I bought it,” he said with irritation and just a bit of bravado in the presence of this aggression.

“Hairpieces,” she repeated.

Churchill touched his fine head of hair to be sure it was still there.

“If I have to take you to the station or we have to start calling your lawyer, I'm going to be very upset because lives may be on the line here, and the clock is moving, and your hair will definitely suffer.”

Churchill sagged, defeated. “Seven pieces,” he said softly. “Very good ones. All male. All dark. Since I wasn't allowed a fitting, I didn't give my usual warranty. Payment was in cash.”

“Paid well?” Rene pressed on.

“Yes,” Churchill admitted.

“With a warning to keep your mouth shut about the sale?” she said.

“I don't want to get in trouble with the police,” he said. “I have a sensitive clientele.”

“Who bought them?”

“A man, in his thirties,” Churchill said.

“Bald?”

“No,” said Churchill. “Full head of hair. All natural. I can tell.”

“Describe him,” she said, taking out her notebook.

Churchill shrugged. “Hard to remember.”

“It's your job to remember how people look before and after,” she said, “Exercise your professional skills and give me a goddamn description.”

“I intend to report your bellicose behavior,” Churchill said.

“Bellicose,” Rene repeated, pursing her lips and nodding her head in appreciation of his vocabulary. “Describe the person who bought the hairpieces.”

“Dark, not very tall. Male. Slight accent perhaps.”

“What kind of accent?”

“How do I know?” Churchill said with a sigh.

“Look at these photographs,” she said placing the pile from the rally on the desk facing Churchill. “Slowly. Stop if you see anyone familiar, even if it's not the man you sold the hair to.”

Churchill sighed and began to go through the photographs. He started to go through them quickly. Rene told him to slow down and look carefully or they could do it in the peaceful solitude of an interrogation room.

Churchill went more slowly. There were thirty-six photographs. He pulled out three and pointed to a man in the small crowd.

“Him,” he said. “At least I'm sure in that photograph and fairly certain in this one. He's moving in the last one but I think
…
”

“Thanks,” said Rene, gathering the photographs.

“I won't be asked to testify about this, will I? I mean if this man is in trouble?” asked Churchill as Rene stood.

“It's possible,” she said. “But I doubt it.”

“You mean,” he said, “there isn't much chance of my getting involved in this? After all, all I did was sell a man some hairpieces.”

“He must have been a real sweetheart,” she said.

“It was not comfortable to be with him,” Churchill admitted. “He was very determined and filled with something, maybe rage. He told me distinctly not to discuss this transaction and I had a strong impression that I was being threatened with great harm. He actually picked up the photograph of Santiago's family and looked at it when he told me to keep the transaction very private.”

“Thanks for your help,” Rene said. “I'll know where to find you if we need you.” She went out the office door, closing it behind her.

Randy Churchill began to shake. He had already started perspiring and he could feel his hairpiece growing warm and slipping back. He had four hairpieces, all human hair from the same person, each a different length to simulate daily growth and authenticity.