Lieberman's Law (33 page)

Dr. Stringman, whose fees were high and whose sense of worth even higher, was quite uncomfortable in the presence of this sister who wished her brother dead. It was equally clear that the mother and father had rather mixed feelings about the successful surgery.

“Well,” said Stringman, looking at his watch. “I must go. I'll check on Robert in the morning on my rounds unless some problem develops, and you can check as often as you like with the surgical nursing station. He'll be in recovery for a few hours and then in intensive care for probably no more than a day.”

Dr. Stringman gave them his most reassuring smile of perfect white teeth. He was a big man and for years he had run into patients and families who connected his name to the University of Michigan Rose Bowl team on which he had played, a blocking back of some distinction who had been drafted by the NFL but had chosen medical school instead, a fact made possible by a father who was a very successful cardiac surgeon. It was a rare event now to be recognized for his football success.

Dr. Stringman left after patting Robert Kim's mother on the arm. The Kims began speaking quickly in Korean before he could leave and there was clearly a disagreement among them.

The sister looked up at Stringman and said, “Can other visitors be kept away? Others besides us?”

“Well,” said Stringman. “If the patient wants to see someone and is capable of the visit, there's not much that can be done. Visitors are generally considered beneficial and your brother is an adult.”

More talk in Korean and the father said “thank you,” extending his hand and shaking the doctor's. Both men had powerful grips, but the strength in the Korean's surprised Stringman.

“I've got to go,” the doctor said with his smile suggesting that he had more lives to save when, in fact, he was meeting his latest mistress, a young surgical nurse who worshiped him and was five years younger than Stringman's eldest son. Stringman had told his wife that he had to spend the afternoon working out his surgical schedule for the week with members of his surgical team. She knew better but said nothing.

It was raining again when Stringman got into his car. He had a bad feeling and, in fact, had lost his desire for the assignation, but he was committed now to an afternoon of lies and the hope that he was up to the challenge of the young nurse's lust.

Anne Crawfield Ready had a Sunday visitor, a cousin from Salt Lake City who was in town for the day and promised the family he would look in on her. He was not really a close cousin, perhaps twice removed by marriage, but he was a decent man doing his duty. His name was Carleton Jackson and he owned a garage in Salt Lake City that specialized in both body work and problems with custom-made and expensive cars. He was actually in Chicago to personally pick up a 1984 Lamborghini engine that had come out of a car wreck completely unscathed. Jackson had a customer for it in Salt Lake, the heir to a well-known line of jams, jellies, and preserves. Jackson had driven the carefully padded covered pick-up truck down and it was parked downstairs of Anne Crawfield Ready's apartment right now.

Jackson was fifty-two and brawny, with a full head of the Crawfield family red hair, and a desire to get this chore over with as soon as possible and get on the road. The engine was well protected and covered but it was raining and there might be a leak in the customized metal rooftop on the pickup.

Jackson ate his piece of cake across from Anne at the little table, drank his coffee and told Anne about her relatives, many of whom she didn't remember ever meeting. When they were finished and Anne had told him about her exciting visit from the police, Jackson made the mistake of asking politely, “Is there anything I can do for you before I head back, Anne?”

“Give my love to everyone. Tell them they're welcome here any time, and take me to the new mall on McCormick to shop for an hour. If that wouldn't be too much trouble?”

“No trouble at all,” said Jackson, seeing no way out and feeling guilty about wanting one. “One hour and then I'll have to get on the road.”

In a car parked in the closed Shell station across from Anne Crawfield Ready's apartment, Massad Mohammed sat with his engine off, watching. He had arrived an hour earlier. He did not read. He did not listen to music. He hardly paid attention to Temple Mir Shavot across the street, the temple he had helped to vandalize two days earlier, the temple whose sacred Torah was stored safely with the automatic weapons far from his old apartment in an empty, recently closed supermarket just off of Western Avenue. The supermarket shelves were empty. A large sign in the front window told prospective buyers who to call if they were interested.

The supermarket was in a small mall where none of the shops were open on Sunday. Massad had a key to the back door, a key obtained through threat, coercion, and an appeal to Arab patriotism from an Arab who worked in the real estate office. The man's name was Fred Starr. No one in the office had the slightest idea that Fred was an Arab. Given the political climate of the United States, Fred Starr had not chosen to share this information, but other Arabs knew and one of them was Massad Mohammed.

Now, Massad sat in the car making up his mind, wondering who the big red-haired man in the flannel jacket was who had parked his car and gone up to Anne Ready's apartment over the photography store. The photography store was closed but the baseball card store next door was doing a brisk Sunday business. There were more bicycles than there was space for on the metal rack. Kids went in and out.

Were the woman alone, as he had reason to believe she always was, Massad would have simply gone up to the apartment, made her tell him if there were any photographs of him taken from her window on the night of the vandalism of Mir Shavot. Jara had told him of the woman she had seen in the window, had told him of the photographs the police had of her. It was Jara who quickly concluded that the old woman in the window had taken the photographs and she had shared this with her brother and others, though the information seemed now to be of no use to Jara.

Massad thought that the old woman with red hair would have been frightened if he came through her door, gun in hand, scarred face, on a Sunday afternoon. She was an old woman. She wasn't a Jew. He would take no pleasure and have little satisfaction in what he would have to do. Finding incriminating photographs or not, he would have to kill her. Then, to insure that there were no hidden negatives or photographs of him, he would burn the apartment. This had to be done today. Tomorrow, Monday, was the attack. He would have to leave as soon as the attack was successfully completed. He had a false ID that said he was a Saudi Arabian. He had some money. The FBI would be after him and if they found him, he wanted as little evidence left behind as possible. Jail didn't frighten him. But if he were in jail, he could not carry out his lifetime mission. The old woman might have taken a photograph of him on the night they attacked the temple that he could now clearly see. It would be part of a chain of evidence. Who knew what others were already saying about him? He knew there were those who might even suspect him of being the killer of Howard Ramu and the other two Arabs. They might suspect it but they would not say it. It was too terrible a possibility to be uttered. Massad Mohammed, however, was committed to the terrible, had been since his father, mother, uncle, aunt, and cousins had been slaughtered on a dark road by a mad Jew.

He could wait no longer. If necessary, he would also kill the man with the red hair. In a war there are sometimes innocent victims. Arafat had said that before he betrayed the Palestinians. It was still true.

He started to get out of the car in the very light drizzle when the door across the street opened and Anne Ready and the red-haired man came out, got in the small truck, and drove away.

Massad had no idea how long they would be gone. If they returned too soon, the gun he carried would kill them silently, a single bullet in the head before the victim had any idea of what was going on. He would shoot the red-haired man first because he was the bigger threat and then, with his body on the floor, he would question the woman who would be too frightened to lie. Then he would kill her.

Massad got out of the car, locked the door, and limped across Dempster Street. In front of the card shop, three boys were talking about something called a Cal Ripken card and showing it around. Massad didn't care for any sport but soccer, which he could watch dreamily and without enthusiasm on television. The three boys didn't look up at Massad, who did his best to hide his limp in case these children were questioned later and one of them remembered a man going through the door.

When he got to the top of the stairs, Massad could see that the apartment door was no problem. The lock was a joke. There was an apartment across from Anne Ready's. No sound came from it. Still, Massad opened the door carefully and quietly. His search was thorough. The problem was the overwhelming vastness of the collection of photographs and negatives of Anne Crawfield Ready's life. He went through books, boxes, held negative strips up to the window. Twenty minutes. Too long. He could simply sit and wait, gun in hand, and carry out his other plan, but he decided against it. Too much risk. Suppose they came back with friends? Suppose the police came to ask her more questions? Not likely, but possible. Massad knew what photographs the police had of him at the rally. That couldn't be helped, but there might be more, better, something in this room that connected him directly to the crime across the street, something she had overlooked or held back.

He could find nothing. He strewed negatives and photographs around the small apartment. Negatives and photographs are highly flammable. Massad started the fire in three places and the effect was immediate. Flames spread quickly, scorching the walls, igniting books. Massad did not care if the fire investigators concluded, as they surely would, that it was arson. Nor did he care if the police considered the photographs as a possible motive. It was Sunday. This was Skokie. It would take them days. It would all be over by then.

Massad backed out of the blazing room, closed the door gently, and limped down the stairs as quickly as he could. There were no children standing outside when he went into the light rain. He moved slowly, but steadily back across Dempster and got into his car.

Across the street, the window of Anne Ready's apartment blew out, showering glass, some of it as far as the sidewalk in front of Mir Shavot, which struck Massad as pleasant irony.

He put the car in gear, looked up at the smoke now billowing through the broken window, and started his engine. He took a right turn out of the parking lot, and a car almost ran into him but skidded to a near stop. Massad headed toward the expressway. People were already looking up at the window of the apartment. He wondered if there were some frightened Jew in the temple hearing the noise who would come to the door, see the blaze, and cower in fear of another attack.

Massad smiled.

Officer Edward Munger was driving his marked car down Dempster, making his rounds, double-checking on the temple, when he heard the windows of Anne Ready's apartment break. He looked up, knowing that the woman who lived there had been questioned and had provided information to the task force. Officer Munger caught a glimpse of a man who took two limping steps and climbed into an Oldsmobile parked in the closed Shell station across from the blast. Something clicked. A report about a possible terrorist with a limp had just come in that morning or the night before. Still, Munger was about to pull into the small mall parking lot, run up the stairs, and see if there was anyone, particularly the old woman, who needed help.

Then Munger saw a blue Ford Escort almost hit the Oldsmobile, which pulled out of the Shell station. Munger had to hit his brakes behind the Escort. The Olds sped down the street. Munger watched it for a second and then made his call on the radio. He shouted the location of the fire and added, without fully knowing why at the moment, “I'm in pursuit of the possible arsonist. He's in a late eighties blue Olds Cutlass.”

Munger had been a police officer for five years. Two years back home in Zachary, Louisiana, after he graduated from Grambling, and three years here in Skokie when he moved his wife and two children north, looking for some promise of advancement. The Mungers lived on the south side of Skokie just off of Howard Street on Kedvale, an area of whites, Asians, and a few African-Americans like the Mungers. The schools were good. The neighborhood was safe, and Munger was due for a promotion.

He moved now on instinct. A car pulling out of an empty station across from the crime, the driver hardly looking jack when he was almost hit by another car, not even slowing down to see why there was a police car whose lights were now flashing two cars behind him, the profile of the driver who with a brief glimpse looked foreign. Munger had decided this was enough to warrant pursuit. If the woman was still in the apartment and in trouble, he was making a big mistake, but his radio gave him slight comfort as he followed the Olds by saying that another patrol car was already arriving at the fire site. Behind him, Munger could hear the siren of a fire engine. The closest station was only a few blocks away.

Foot traffic on Dempster was heavy in spite of the light rain and unusual chill. People were out visiting with their families, going to movies, lunch, relatives, friends, rides to keep from being cooped up in the house with the kids. It wasn't like a rush hour morning, but it wasn't clear either. Munger ran his siren and weaved through the traffic past the Escort, keeping an eye on the Oldsmobile, which was now switching lanes and definitely taking chances to move ahead in the traffic. No doubt. The guy in the Olds was running. Munger felt better. He also felt a bright surge of adrenaline. He took a chance and moved into the oncoming lane, which had no traffic at the moment. He made up three car lengths before he had to pull back into the westbound traffic.

He was right on the Olds's tail now, siren going, lights lashing. The Olds paid no attention and suddenly made a right turn from the left lane, almost hitting a Toyota. Munger watched the Olds go down the side street. He called it in and was told that a police car was on duty at the fire site and two kids had said that the old lady and a red-headed fat man had gone out a while earlier and not come back. It appeared, according to the fire unit chief on the site, that there were no fatalities. They were trying to contain the fire and keep it from the photo store below that probably had enough chemicals, film, and negatives to cause an explosion.