Lieberman's Law (25 page)

Lieberman moved through the dining room door, taking off his shoes as he went. The television in the living room was on but the room was dark.

“Bess?” he said softly.

David Letterman was on television. Bess never watched David Letterman. She didn't like him. Bess clicked off the television set with the remote, got up slowly. She was wearing her white silk nightgown with the white cotton robe over it. Her hair was tied in a kind of pigtail and her arms were folded.

He moved to give her a kiss.

“I'm lucky,” she said in a tone that suggested she was nothing of the kind.

“We're both lucky,” Abe said, kissing her gently.

“A high percentage of policemen have a drinking problem,” she said. “There's even a support group for their wives and girlfriends.”

“I know,” said Lieberman.

“But what about policemen who eat Whoppers when they have high cholesterol,” she said, her arms still folded.

“A single cheeseburger,” said Lieberman holding up a finger. “It's been a hard day.”

“They left at ten,” Bess said. “A round-the-clock two-man watch will be at the temple every night. The police will make frequent, unscheduled stops.”

“Good,” said Lieberman, following Bess across the dining room and into their bedroom where she sat on the bed, unfolded her arms, and put her hands on her knees.

Lieberman slowly undressed, waiting for whatever was coming, whatever had kept his wife up waiting for him. She let him take off his jacket, remove his gun and lock it in the night table with the key he wore around his neck.

“I stand before you,” Lieberman said, when he was completely nude. “One of God's conundrums.”

“Lisa called,” Bess said, looking at her husband and trying not to smile.

“She's coming for the kids,” he said.

“No,” said Bess. “And I assured her that you had taken care of the problem with the man in the park. She believed me, I think, particularly because she had something to tell me she considered important. Sit next to me, Abe.”

“Without my pajamas?”

“Without your pajamas,” she said.

“What did she say?” he asked, wanting to go brush his teeth and shave the white night stubble from his face.

“She's coming to Barry's bar mitzvah. She won't fight it.”

“That's good news,” he said.

“She is doing well at her job, whatever it is that criminologists do,” said Bess. “And she has met a man.”

“A man,” Lieberman echoed feeling particularly naked now.

“A physician she works with, a medical examiner, someone who cuts up dead people,” said Bess with a shudder. “They've been seeing each other frequently and she thinks he's going to ask to marry her.”

Though Lisa was his daughter and had already been married once without success, he wondered from his own experience how anyone would want to spend his life with She Who Was Never Wrong.

“Talk, Bess,” Lieberman said. “I have a feeling …”

She held up her right hand to quiet him. “He is in his forties, an M.D. from Stanford.”

Lieberman resisted the urge to make his wife move faster.

“His name is Marvin Alexander,” Bess said. “According to Lisa, he is extremely famous in his field. He wants to meet us, the children.”

“Alexander?” asked Lieberman. “He's not Jewish.”

“Neither is Todd, the father of our grandchildren,” Bess replied.

“So, they're coming to the bar mitzvah?”

Bess nodded.

“So, fine,” said Lieberman. “Now I shave, brush my teeth, take my Cardizem, and we go to bed and maybe I sleep.”

“He's black,” said Bess as her husband rose.

“Black?”

“African-American, negro,” said Bess.

“That, my love,” Lieberman said, kissing his wife's cheek, “will make for one very interesting bar mitzvah.”

“Where you been?” asked Fallon when Pig Sticker came through the door shortly after midnight.

Pig Sticker shared the one-bedroom apartment in the Monger house with Fallon. The apartment was always clean. Piles of gun magazines were stacked in bookcases—Soldier of Fortune and various small circulation magazines about the rights of citizens which were being eroded and the lies the media told about history.

The furniture all belonged to the old owner. Her son had lived in the house and had been a close friend of Berk. Her son had been killed in a drive-by shooting in front of Berk's house.

Fallon was on the floor doing sit-ups, a sure sign that he was sitting on his anger or frustration or cabin fever.

Fallon was wiry thin and in great shape. He could do hundreds of sit-ups and push-ups while the television blared. Fallon had done time. He had learned a lot. Since his hair was so naturally dark, it was hard for Fallon to keep his head cleanly shaven as much as he tried.

“None or your fuckin business,” said Pig Sticker, taking off his jacket and hanging it in the closet.

An old cowboy movie with Fred MacMurray was on the tube. Fred was in a bad way, inside a burning house, fighting off a bunch of guys with beards.

“Just asking,” said Fallon. “Hey, we're all brothers, right and white?”

“Yeah,” said Pig Sticker, moving to a chair and siting to watch the movie, whatever it was.

“So, where you been?”

“Talking to the cops,” said Pig Sticker. “I set up a meeting, went into nigger turf, met a couple of cops in a park and told them everything. I've had a change of fuckin' heart. I see that I've been wrong. I want to wipe the slate clean. Help make America the great melting pot. OK?”

Fallon laughed and kept doing sit-ups while he talked. “You are a crazy bastard,” he said as Fred MacMurray shot the last bad guy, an easy target, a fat old guy.

“I went to a bar on Elston,” Pig Sticker said. “Saw some of the guys there. We had a few beers, talked, and here I am. And, to tell the truth, Fallon, even though we're right and white brothers, it's none of your fuckin' business where I go or when.”

Fallon shrugged and kept bobbing. “When you're right, you're right,” he said. “How about we go out for another few. On me?”

“It's almost one,” said Pig Sticker. “I'm tired.”

“I can't stay in this room. I've got to get out for a while,” said Fallon, suddenly stopping. Who knows how many sit-ups he had done. Sweat beaded on his bare chest.

Pig Sticker shook his head and got up. “One beer each,” he said. “You pay.”

Fallon jumped up and reached for his shirt.

“It's the waiting for whatever's coming down,” said Fallon, buttoning up. “I wish it was tomorrow. I hate waiting.”

Pig Sticker gave his roommate a whack in the head with his open palm. The blow had two purposes. One, it was supposedly a sign of masculine friendship. Two, it was a sign to Fallon that Pig Sticker was by far the more powerful of the two of them, that if they ever fought, it would be Fallon who would go through the window. The blow was enough. Pig Sticker put his arm around Fallon and said, “Let's go.”

“N
O PAY,” THE OLD WOMAN
said, holding her hands folded together in front of her to keep them from shaking.

The cleaning store was small, a Lawrence Avenue institution that had gone through many hands, each reflecting a change in the neighborhood. Four Star Cleaners still got some customers from the high rises on Sheridan, especially from the Edgewater Beach Apartments, but most of their customers were neighborhood people, Korean, Vietnamese, some whites. The family of six that owned the Four Star worked long hours and delivered clothes clean and spotless for reasonable prices. They had one son in graduate school studying physics at MIT and a daughter, who now stood with her grandmother behind the counter, checking in a stack of shirts. She had just earned a full scholarship to the University of Illinois to study computer science when she finished her last year of high school.

Customers were not likely at the moment. The sky was dark, a very slight rain was falling, and rush hour wouldn't really begin for another hour or so. The three Korean men who stood across the counter were spangled with water. Their dark hair was damp.

Kim and the two men with him glanced at the girl. One of the men kept looking.

“You pay, like always,” Kim said. “Or your store has an accident, a very big accident like the one that happened to Son Lee's grocery a few months ago.”

“No pay,” the old woman repeated shaking her head. She would have been far more comfortable talking in Korean and she had a lot to say but the young man had refused to speak the language of his birth from the first day he had come into the store months ago and demanded protection payment.

The old woman's husband was in the hospital, ill, something wrong with his lungs. He had always been a heavy smoker. Her son and daughter were away. There was just her and the girl.

“We had meeting last night,” the old woman said. “We no pay. You go away. We tell police. Jew policeman say we no have to pay.”

“The Jew policeman is wrong,” said Kim calmly, deciding what he should do to teach this woman to pay without complaint. Things were going wrong. There had been a meeting Kim had not known about. The police were showing up. Crazy Mexicans were threatening him and someone who had been at the restaurant had probably spread the word about the visit from El Perro. Something really big had to be done. He looked at the girl who looked back at him. She was pretty with long hair, a little on the thin side for him, but this was just going to be a lesson.

“No pay,” the old woman insisted, shaking her head.

Kim nodded to his right. The young man took off his sunglasses and started behind the counter toward the girl.

“No,” said the old woman stepping in front of him. “You no come back here.”

The young man pushed the old woman out of the way.

Kim nodded to his left. The second young man went behind the counter and headed for the long rack of clothes, and took a knife from his pocket.

There was a shot. Of that Kim was sure. He had not drawn his gun nor had his two men. He reached for his weapon as the man near the girl slumped to the floor holding his stomach, as if he were praying. The man with the knife turned at the sound and another shot came. This one hit the man holding the knife in the chest. His sunglasses went flying. His knife dropped to the floor.

It was only a second or two but it had been so unexpected. It was the girl. The girl held a large, old pistol tightly in both hands. She turned it now, steady, at Kim who dropped to one knee and fired. The bullet missed the girl and went into the wall. The old woman began to scream. Kim fired at the girl once more, but as he fired, a bullet tore into his shoulder spinning him to his right. The gun fell from his hand. He reached down with his left hand for the weapon when the next shot came, hit him in his right hand.

Kim abandoned the weapon, abandoned his wounded men, and ran bleeding from the store.

The girl called 911 while her grandmother wept. She said the family cleaning shop had been robbed and that she had shot two of the perpetrators. She believed one was dead and the other badly injured. She had also shot a third robber in the arm, but he escaped.

The girl, so frightened that she had wet herself, comforted her grandmother and made a second call. This one she got from a card inside the drawer under the cash register.

“Hanrahan,” came the man's voice. The girl identified herself and he said he was on the way.

The girl sat her grandmother in a chair and went to the fallen man who had the knife. She tried to be calm. She checked his pulse, opened one of his eyes and put her head to his chest being careful to avoid the blood. He was dead. The second one was slumped over in the praying position. He groaned softly. She touched his shoulder and he rolled over on his side. There was a lot of blood and the man began going into convulsions. Now that his sunglasses were off, she recognized the young man, had gone to high school with him, though he had been a grade ahead. He rolled to his back and the convulsion stopped. The girl pumped his chest and then gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He was breathing but weakly when the police car, sirens blaring, screeched to a stop in front of the shop.

The policemen had their guns out. Both were in uniform. One was black. The other was white. The police looked at the two bodies, the blood on the floor and at the calm girl.

“Extortionists,” the girl said. “I have called Detective Hanrahan who knows about the case.”

An ambulance pulled up, its sirens also blaring, and two paramedics came in.

“That one is dead,” said the girl, handing the black policeman her gun and pointing. “The other one has lost a great deal of blood but I don't think the bullet hit his heart. And my grandmother could use some sedation.”

The paramedics, both black, nodded knowingly.

“What happened?” asked one of the policemen.

“They were going to destroy our store, maybe rape me, hurt my grandmother,” the girl said evenly. “I shot them. There is a trail of blood out the door from the one I failed to kill. Now, I would like to use the wash room in the back of the shop.”

“Go ahead,” said the black policeman.

When she was gone, the white cop said, “You ever see anyone involved in something like this, so cool? Like it happens every day.”

“You can't figure with these people,” the black cop said.

In the small bathroom in the back of the shop, the girl closed the door, removed her panties and put on the spare pair she carried with her every day. She also changed her soiled dress, putting on one she kept on a hanger at the back of the shop. And then she sat on the closed toilet and cried. Tomorrow would be her seventeenth birthday

“I'm telling you, when Tampa Bay gets the Devil Fish …”

“Devil Rays,” Morrie Liebow corrected.

“Devil Rays,” Herschel shrugged, a what-can-you-do-with-a-newcomer attitude. “Rays, fish, carp, sharks, whatever.”