Lieberman's Law (34 page)

Munger took a deep breath and did what was definitely not acceptable procedure. He too turned right far too close to the Toyota, which clipped Munger's fender sending the patrol car into a spin on the wet side street. Munger righted the car, took another deep breath, and went down the side street, trying to remember the neighborhood he was in. The Oldsmobile was going north on the next street. Munger was heading north. The Olds could do a lot of things including pulling into a driveway and heading back to Dempster. Munger's instincts told him it wasn't likely. The man in the Olds hadn't seen Munger make the same dangerous move he had and probably thought there was a cop back on Dempster trying to find a way to go after him down the street. If the man in the Olds behaved the way Munger thought he would behave, he would get away from the neighborhood, from Skokie, as fast as he could. The problem was, the Olds driver probably didn't know the streets. Munger called in his location, turned off his siren and flashing light and sped up. On these side streets no one but a woman in a yellow raincoat with a little dog on a leash was walking in the rain. The real danger was cars on the cross streets. At the first corner, Munger looked right and saw nothing. He took a chance, went even faster and came to the street in front of the park and the school at the T intersection. He turned right. If the Olds had kept going he would hit this T and have to turn right or left. Left might lead him into the police car that was following him. Munger bet on a right turn.

The policeman turned and thought he caught sight of a car turning down another street a few blocks down. Munger pursued looking down each street as he went, seeing no Olds. When he got to the street where he thought he had seen a turning car, there it was, a block ahead, moving slower, inside the speed limit, trying to avoid notice. Munger drove to the next block, turned left and went north, paralleling the Olds on the next street but going well above the speed limit.

If the timing was right … Munger made a sharp left turn, drove the short block and then turned left again. The Olds was right in front, facing him, maybe thirty yards away. The man in the car stopped. Policeman and suspect looked at each other through the swishing of their windshield wipers. The Olds began to back down the street but the driver couldn't control the car at the speed he was trying to move. He hit a parked car and stalled. Munger gave his location on the radio, said he was in foot pursuit of the suspect, and got out, shielding himself with the open door of his patrol car, window rolled down, weapon in his dark hands leveled at the driver's door of the Oldsmobile.

Munger screamed, “Come out with your hands up.”

He wasn't sure if the suspect heard him. He reached into his car for the bullhorn, and spoke into it after switching it on, “Come out of your vehicle. If you cannot do so, open your window, and put both arms out where I can see them.”

There was no movement from the stalled Oldsmobile but a few faces did appear at the windows of the small brick homes on either side of the street. Munger wanted to keep his weapon leveled at the Olds but he reached for the bullhorn again and said, “Will all of you in your homes get away from the windows? Move to the back of your homes.”

He threw the bullhorn onto the seat. People moved away from the windows. Sweat mixed now with the drizzle- and Munger's blue uniform was getting decidedly wet. He had not had time to put on his raincoat that lay in the back seat of the patrol car.

Suddenly the door of the Oldsmobile opened. A man stepped out. He was around thirty, maybe younger, dark, wearing a raincoat, and carrying an automatic weapon of some kind in his hands.

“Stop,” Munger shouted, taking aim.

Massad fired. A burst of shots hit the patrol car, breaking windows and lights, penetrating the hood. One shot went right through the door behind which Munger was crouched. It missed him by the width of a palm. Munger fired as the man moved across the street, still firing his weapon. The man ran with a definite limp. And then the man stopped for an instant, but just an instant, and Munger was certain he had hit him. The next burst from the limping man sent two rounds through the door, both less than a foot from officer Munger, who felt fear and anger. This man meant to kill him. The feeling was now mutual. Munger stood up to fire. The street was empty. He looked at the sidewalk.

Empty. He looked back at the Olds for an instant but knew that the limping man would not head for the stalled car.

Police sirens came from the south. Munger, firearm at the ready, moved to the site where he thought he had hit the suspect. The rain had almost stopped now but it hadn't washed away the splatter of blood on the street. The blood trailed to the right. Munger followed and when he hit the sidewalk, the bloody trail stopped. The limping man had done something to halt the bleeding, a piece of cloth, a torn shirt.

There were passageways between houses, leading, Munger knew, to small backyards and one-car garages. It was not only insane to pursue alone with only a handgun, it was against departmental rules. Two more patrol cars came up the street from the south. Munger knew the officers who stepped out of each: One was holding a shotgun. Both were white.

“Automatic weapon,” Munger said. “I got him, don't know how bad. Went that way.”

The other two officers nodded. Now he could pursue. There were families in these houses. Shotzman, the senior of the three officers on the scene, motioned to Munger and the other officers to comb the nearest cement sidewalks next to the nearest brick houses. They did. When they got to the yards, they looked both ways, weapons ready, fearing attack. There was no sign of the limping man. The officer with the shotgun panicked and fired at a bush that moved in the breeze. There was no one behind the bush. They moved to the alley. It was empty. They carefully tried garage doors on both sides of the alley, all locked. More cars arrived, marked and unmarked. Leo Benishay had heard the call in his own car. He was pulling out of the parking lot of Wok Fu's Restaurant. He told his wife and daughter to go back inside and have a dessert. His wife knew better than to argue.

The search went on for two hours. Doors were knocked on, roofs climbed, bushes moved. Signs of blood searched for. The limping man was gone.

Leo Benishay told Munger he had done a good job and ordered him back to the station if he was in shape to drive and his car could still move. As it turned out, twenty-one rounds from Massad's weapon had torn into it and the car wouldn't budge. More rounds had hit nearby cars and made holes in the street. Munger got in the passenger seat of Shotzman's car, happy to be alive, wondering what had happened to the limping man.

Leo Benishay found Lieberman at his desk. The call was quick, information clear. It looked as if Massad Mohammed had torched Anne Ready's apartment and been pursued by an officer who was sure he hit him with at least one shot. Suspect's car had been examined. There were no weapons, no Torah. Suspect had not yet been found.

Massad's shoulder was bleeding and time was passing. The old couple, who said their names were Tabitha and Arnold Shultz, sat quietly on the bed while Massad sat on the floor. No one outside could see them in this room. The only problem had come when the police had knocked at the door.

Massad had sent the woman to answer. She had seemed the calmer of the two. He had told her, “You have seen nothing. You heard some sounds, noise outside, but you and your husband are just about to watch television. You convince them, and they go away. You fail, and I kill your husband and then come out shooting, probably killing us all. You understand?”

Tabitha Shultz had nodded that she understood and she had left the bedroom and gone to the front door. Massad had listened to her through the partly open bedroom door while he watched Arnold sitting erect and frightened on the bed. The police had gone away.

It had been surprisingly easy to get into the Shultz house. He had simply knocked at the back door, his weapon under his coat, turned sideways to keep his wound from being seen. Arnold had immediately opened the door and asked, “What's wrong?”

He and his wife found out.

These were not Jews and he had no desire to hurt them, but they were Americans and if he let them live, he wanted them afraid. Under Massad's direction, Tabitha, her white hair in a bun, had tended Massad's wound. The shot from Officer Munger had torn through Massad's shoulder just below the right collarbone.

“I can see the tip of the bullet,” Tabitha Shultz had said looking at Massad's back when he took off his coat and shirt revealing a large handgun in addition to the automatic weapon he cradled in his arms.

“Pull it out,” Massad ordered, aiming his weapon at Arnold.

Tabitha disappeared and returned in a few minutes. She had pliers in her hand.

“Heated it over the flames from the gas range,” she said. “No point in telling you this is dangerous and you should see a doctor.”

“Take it out and put a bandage on the hole,” Massad ordered.

She did. The pain was monstrous. Massad fought to keep from passing out.

“I think you'll live,” Tabitha said after bandaging the wounds. “I was a nurse in World War Two. I saw worse.”

“You're not afraid?” he said long after the police had left and darkness was coming.

“Not for me,” said Tabitha Shultz. “I have cancer. Pretty soon I'll be in the hospital and start my dyin'. Arnold doesn't talk much, accident years ago, hurts his throat, but he's a good man. Never hurt anyone. Well read. Machinist, retired.”

She touched her husband's head lovingly, and he took her hand.

“He'll go live with our daughter in Des Plaines when I'm gone,” she said.

Massad had said nothing. He had gulped down half a bottle of Tylenol and two tablets of a stronger pain reliever prescribed for Tabitha Shultz. He was afraid to take more. The bandage seeped a bit of blood, but not much. He went to the closet and found a shirt, a dark brown shirt. He put it on carefully, watching the Shultzes but sure they would give him no trouble.

“You have a car?” he said.

Tabitha Shultz nodded.

“You both drive?”

“Take turns.”

“Good,” said Massad. “Go to your car, open the garage, start the engine, Arnold and I will come out behind you.”

Tabitha rose, touched her husband's cheek, picked up a small brown purse on the corner of a dresser and went out to start the car.

Massad asked Arnold for a gym bag or shopping bag. Arnold, zombielike, went to the closet and came up with a white canvas shopping bag with a full-color picture of Michael Jordan smiling on the side. Massad folded the handle of his weapon and fit it into the bag. He took out his handgun, led Arnold to the kitchen. Arnold sat. Massad waited no more than a minute and told Arnold it was time to go. Arnold rose. The yard seemed clear as they moved to the garage. Inside, Tabitha sat in the driver's seat. Massad told Arnold to get in the front passenger seat while he kept down in the back seat with his canvas bag and gun. Tabitha drove out into the small alley and closed the garage door with the automatic opener.

“Where are we going?” asked Tabitha.

“To the city,” Massad said. “Slowly. If you see police, smile. If you know a way out through alleys, take it. If we are stopped by the police, people will die. You under stand?”

“Yes,” said Tabitha. “Have you ever killed anyone?”

Massad hesitated and answered, “I think so. Once. An Israeli soldier. I was a boy. One of my friends had hit him with a rock. When I got to him, he was groaning and reaching for his glasses. He was not much older than I was. I hit him with a tree branch. I don't know if he died. And there have been others.”

He had Tabitha drive him down the Kennedy Expressway to Division Street and park not far from the elevated train tracks.

The neighborhood businesses—restaurants, hardware stores, pawn shops, used bookstores—were closed. Traffic was light.

“You can stop,” said Tabitha. “Stop killing people.”

“No,” Massad said. “I cannot. I will not. My people are oppressed.”

“Sounds familiar,” said Tabitha with a wry wry chuckle. “When it really comes down to it, it isn't the big stuff, countries, causes, history that counts. It's people, one-on-one. Like me and Arnold. You wanting revenge.”

“Now you are a philosopher,” Massad said with slight derision as he peeked over the top of the seat to check the traffic.

“Read a lot,” she said. “Always have. I'd say the coast is clear.”

“I assume you plan to tell the police,” he said, reaching for the door handle.

“Soon as I can find a phone,” she said. “No point in lying to you.”

Massad never even considered shooting the old couple. It was what he should have done, have them park even further away, parked on a side street where their bodies might not be discovered until Monday had passed and he was far away. But Massad had to admit to himself that he liked the old couple, particularly the dying woman who did not panic.

“Good luck,” he said, getting out of the car with his canvas Michael Jordan bag.

“And to you,” said Tabitha without emotion, though Massad knew that she meant it. Arnold turned to face Massad, who stood next to his window now. A small sad smile touched Arnold Shultz's face.

Massad motioned for Tabitha to drive. She headed slowly down Division Street east toward the lake. When he was sure she could not see him in the rear view mirror, he entered the shadows of the overhead elevated train as one rumbled above. The space between the pillars of rusting metal was a tunnel of junk and weeds. Massad entered the long tunnel between the pillars.

On each side of the train tracks were fences, most high and wooden, a few of stone, neither safe from gangs of children or the homeless who often found shelter below the tracks. They lived in property that was limited in value because of the rumbling noise of the trains.

Massad did not want to run, but he had little choice. Complicating this escape was his limp, which slowed him down and marked him for identification. He knew Tabitha would find the nearest phone and that police would be all over the area within minutes. Running caused his shoulder great pain, but it didn't seem to be bleeding. Tabitha Shultz had been a good nurse. The canvas bag with the folded automatic bounced against his leg. He held the handgun with the silencer in his other hand, his hand that throbbed with the pain of the shoulder wound.