Lieberman's Law (32 page)

“Why do you do that, grandpa?” Melisa asked.

“Your grandpa finds gorillas soothing,” said Bess, guiding the brood through the crowd. They had already eaten. The sky was overcast but not enough to promise rain. They had gone home where Lieberman ate a bowl of potato barley soup and played a game of Uncle Wiggly with Melisa.

Barry had felt confident enough with his grandfather's promise, that it was definitely safe to play baseball at the JCC. Barry had left and Bess had gone to some temple committee meeting. Sunday was a good day for meetings if you weren't Christian.

Bess had changed since the attack on Mir Shavot. It was slight and Lieberman knew that he was the only one who noticed. She was a drop more serious, and an atom more determined with a protected darkness, a sadness inside her. Only Lieberman could see it. It was the Torah. The missing Torah. Who had it? What were they doing with it or what had they done to it? She had said nothing to Lieberman about it. He knew and had stopped just short of promising its return.

And now Lieberman sat listening at the table in the interrogation room, drinking a cup of water from the cooler, and wanting a cup of coffee.

The only person in the room wearing a suit and tie besides Captain Kearney was Special Agent Triple of the FBI, who sat erect drinking real coffee, at least the stuff Nestor Briggs made every morning that many swore was from a special supply of cheap coffee beans that had been rejected by Juan Valdez.

Rene Catolino wore a dress and sweater. The dress was a brown knit. The sweater was a muted green. Lieberman, Hanrahan, Said, and Tony Munoz all wore lightweight zipper jackets, slacks, and shirts of various colors.

“Summary,” said Kearney. “A group of skinheads led by William Stanley Berk with the help and possible participation of Massad Mohammed either working on his own or with one or more dissident Arabs is going to dress up like Jews and stage a raid on a meeting of Martin Abdul's black Muslims. They're going to leave definite clues that the raid was conducted by Jews who may or may not blame them for the synagogue attacks. That it? Anybody see it any other way?”

“Lots of ways to see it,” said Triplett. “Information is leaking all over the place, from your source inside the skinhead group, a guy who sells hairpieces, Massad's sister. I can see Massad doing this, taking this chance, though I think he'd prefer the direct approach of simply killing a group of Jews and blaming it on black Muslims.”

“I agree,” said Said. “Massad claims that his principal goal is to discredit Jews and drive them from Israel. I think his goal is to purge his anger by killing Jews.”

“Berk?” asked Kearney.

“Similar problems,” said Hanrahan. “Why does he need to work with Massad? Why a massacre? Why not kill Jews and blame Arabs or blacks?”

“Detective Hanrahan has a point,” said the FBI man. “Berk has managed to spend no more than a few hours in jail his whole life. He has no criminal record other than a long sheet of arrests for disturbing the peace. None of the arrests resulted in convictions. He's smart. Whatever violence he's done before, it's probably always been short of murder, at least as far as we know.”

“A new incentive,” said Lieberman.

“New incentive?” asked Kearney. “What ‘new incentive?' ”

“Sex, money, fame,” said Lieberman with a shrug. “Maybe he has a brain tumor or stomach cancer and he wants to go out in a flash, a martyr, betraying his Arab partner, killing who knows who, a bunch of uppity blacks.”

“That what you really think, Abe?” asked Kearney.

“Money,” said Lieberman. “That's my guess.”

“Money? From where?” Kearney asked. “From who? Massad?”

Lieberman looked at the FBI agent, who paused for a long beat and finally said, “There are well-funded groups, white supremacists, who we think have been making payoffs to small groups around the country to spread anti-Jewish and anti-black feelings. It's a small coalition. They don't use phones that can be easily tapped. They don't keep books. They don't use fax machines and they don't put anything in writing. They send dispatchers who make deals with groups like Berk's, pay off, and disappear without giving their names or even letting themselves be seen by the people they're paying.”

“And what makes you think that might be happening here?” asked Kearney.

“One of the dispatchers for one of the bigger, wealthier groups is in the area,” said Triplett. “Been here for about five weeks. He may be the one who brought the plan, whatever it is, and is making a pay-off to Berk, probably a personal pay-off. We've got an informant in this dispatcher's group. Low ranking but reliable. We haven't been able to pinpoint the exact location of this dispatcher yet, but he's here and he may be handing Berk cash, maybe a lot of cash.”

“And you wait till now to tell us?” asked Kearney.

“We're following up on it,” said Triplett. “We're not certain this is the situation, but …”

“When do we move?” asked Tony Munoz. They all looked at Triplett, who looked at Kearney. “Do we pick up Berk now, maybe some of his people? Massad?” Munoz said. “Let 'em know we know what's going on. Make 'em uncomfortable.”

“We'd like a felony in progress,” said Triplett. “A felony and the clear breaking of civil rights law.”

“Then we're playing with the lives of—if we're right—Martin Abdul and his buddies, not that I'd send flowers to their funeral,” said Rene Catolino.

“Since Detective Lieberman's information came to us this morning,” said Triplett, “we've alerted Martin Abdul. He doesn't particularly trust the federal government in general and the Bureau in particular and insists that he can take care of any problems that might arise. Our man dealing with Mr. Abdul believes Abdul thinks we're setting up a trap for him, that we've concocted a government plot to kill him and blame Jews, Arabs, skinheads, whoever.”

“So,” said Lieberman, “we save him in spite of himself.”

Kearney looked at the FBI man.

“I'd like to talk to Agent Triplett alone,” said Kearney. “We'll work out response details. This room is headquarters, direct phone line, operational with a live officer twenty-four hours a day till this is over. Detective Hanrahan calls as soon as his informant gives some information. Then we move. All my people are on duty from four till who knows when. In or near this room. Objections, Agent Triplett?”

“None,” said Triplett. “The Bureau will have a team ready. Low profile. It's your show.”

“So I've been told by my chief,” said Kearney.

Lieberman didn't look up but he read the subtext. It was Kearney's squad that had come up with this plot. It was crazy, but it was possible. Downtown didn't want to touch it in case it was a fizzle and the media found out. The FBI wanted a low profile for the same reason. Captain Alan Kearney was out there alone and if he read the information wrong and there was some kind of deadly attack that he missed, it would be all his. Once Kearney had been the department's Irish hope. Then things had gone wrong and now he was high on the list of department scapegoats. He looked tired all the time and Lieberman could see that the man was in a constant battle with himself to keep from losing control.

“Agent Triplett?” Kearney said. It was the sign for everyone else to leave. They did. Rene was the last one out. She closed the door and resisted the urge to pause for a few seconds to try to catch part of the conversation. She had a date with her dentist, named Marty Stevenson. He was divorced, had a good practice, and was in great shape, ranked among the top ten squash players in the country in the over-fifty group. Marty had nice hands.

Hanrahan and Lieberman went back to their face-to-face desks near the window of the squad room. Sundays were busy. Sundays were loud. People weren't working. They got into trouble. Hanrahan was sure someone had vomited in the squad room in the not-distant past.

“You want a coffee, Rabbi?” asked Hanrahan.

Lieberman said no and looked around the room as Hanrahan got himself a cup. Victims bleeding, angry, perps feigning innocence, maybe even a few of them innocent. Most of them in this district were Hispanic, though it had its share of blacks and poor whites. One of the black guys, a big man who looked a little like George Foreman, sat at Roper's desk bleeding from a cut deep on top of his shaved head. He was trying to staunch it with a towel that may have been slowing the bleeding but, depending on where the towel came from, might be infecting him with viruses undreamed of except in the recesses of a Chicago district station.

Hanrahan returned. “Well, Rabbi?” he asked.

Lieberman watched his partner drink the coffee. His stomach immediately told him not to consider what he was considering.

“Took Bess and the kids to the zoo this afternoon,” said Lieberman.

“Gorillas?” said Hanrahan, knowing his partner.

“Even when they're shitting right in front of dozens of people, locked up for no crime they committed, they have dignity,” said Lieberman. For Lieberman it was either the great apes or, during the baseball season, the Cubs. “Got a call from Lisa on the machine when we got home. She's coming tomorrow for a few days, bringing a friend. We thought we wouldn't see her till Barry's bar mitzvah.”

“A friend?” asked Hanrahan, now certain that someone had vomited in the squad room and someone else had done a half-assed job of cleaning it up.

“A black guy, doctor, medical examiner,” said Lieberman. “They'll talk to each other and I won't understand a word they're saying. Then she'll tell me they're getting married.”

“You sure?”

“Why else?” said Lieberman.

Hanrahan nodded. He knew his partner was right. “How's the family going to take it?” he asked.

“They'll get used to it,” said Lieberman. “They'll talk when we're not around, make ‘Guess Who Came to Dinner' jokes, feel sorry for me and Bess. It'll come. It'll pass, not completely, but with time, it'll pass.”

“Iris and I have a date,” said Hanrahan. “We're going out for dinner with the priest to talk it over. Michael's coming too. Maybe Smedley if he can get away.”

Lieberman nodded.

“I thought he was going to leave last night, Rabbi,” said Hanrahan, looking out the window at the parking lot full of cars. “But he stayed. I think he's got a chance, but …?”

“But, indeed, Father Murphy. You think I can talk this guy into becoming a Jew?” asked Lieberman.

“The black doctor? I think you're going to try,” said Hanrahan. “Iris won't turn Catholic. She wants to try to have a kid. I think it's too dangerous at her age, but she wants to try. Says we can raise him or her as a Catholic.”

“Doctor say?”

“Iris has the body of a thirty-year-old and the health of an aerobics fanatic,” said Hanrahan. “Doctor says there's a chance we could pull it off.”

“You want to, Father Murphy?”

“I want to get a chance to do it right, Abe. This time I want to do it right.”

Lieberman nodded and wondered if a Diet Coke with caffeine would be tempting the gods. He decided to tempt the gods. “You think Leary will come through?” asked Lieberman.

“I don't know, to tell the truth,” said Hanrahan. “You think?”

“I had a good feeling about him,” said Lieberman. “Anti-Semitic bastard, but he's got something that passes for a conscience.”

“If he doesn't,” said Hanrahan, throwing his empty cup in the overflowing wastebasket, “it's gonna come down the ladder and land on us.”

“Not the first time,” said Abe.

“Not the first time,” agreed Hanrahan.

On Sunday, Robert Kim lost his right arm. The surgery went quickly but there were complications caused by a loss of blood and shock. The surgeon, a near-retirement physician named Stringman, saved enough of a stump so a prosthetic arm could be more easily fitted and manipulated.

After almost two hours of surgery, Dr. Stringman, after changing into his slacks and sports jacket, combed his silver hair, and went out to talk to Kim's parents and sister who listened without comment or emotion.

“I understand your son does not have medical insurance,” said the doctor.

“Cash, he can pay dollars,” said Kim's father.

“So I understand,” said Dr. Stringman, who had heard from one of the nurses that the young Korean had been involved in a shootout and belonged to a gang. “I'm not concerned about getting paid. I was concerned about how you'd be able to manage.”

“We manage,” the father said.

The sister was young, looked angry, arms folded.

“He will live?” asked the mother.

“He'll be fine,” said the doctor. “We'll have him working with a therapist in a week. He'll be fitted for a prosthetic arm and hand soon, depending on his recovery time.”

“And he will be back on the streets and holding a gun in that hand,” the sister said. “He would be better dead.”

Kim's mother bit her lower lip and tried not to weep. She had done a lot of weeping in the past two days, in fact, during many of the days they had been in the United States. Most of the weeping had been because of her son.

“Maybe this will change him,” said the father. The sister turned away.

“When he was going under the anesthetic, he mentioned a girl,” said the doctor. “Said he wanted to see the girl with the gun. Does that make sense to any of you?”

“He was shot by a girl trying to protect her grandmother,” said the sister. “When you and your nurses and therapists spend all your hours and days saving his life, he will, at the first possible moment, murder that girl. You would be better to have let him die.”

Dr. Anthony Stringman had been performing surgery for more than thirty years. With rare exceptions, when the patient was saved and he informed the family, he was blanketed in praise and thanks. It was, he assumed, something like what an actor must feel when he takes his curtain call. There had been exceptions—particularly, one abusive husband who had been in a drunk-driving accident and whose life insurance would have been a blessing to a wife and children, and whom Dr. Stringman had saved with no thanks from the prospective widow who foresaw even more abuse in her future and that of her children.