Big Silence (15 page)

El Perro had abandoned his office at the front of the bingo parlor in favor of the platform where he ruled like a bandit king. The bingo parlor was not the most lucrative part of El Perro’s enterprises. After extortion came a variety of things, arson for insurance, beatings or even murders paid for on a sliding scale, a little cocaine dealing but no other drug, and car theft, but the bingo parlor had taken what existed of El Perro’s imagination.

“You called,” Lieberman said in English so his partner could understand the conversation.

The detectives mounted the platform and stood in front of the gang leader.

“Siéntase,”
said El Perro.

“We’ve got an appointment,” said Lieberman. “Can’t stay long.”

El Perro looked at Hanrahan.
“Viejo,
your partner still hates me.”

“He’s funny that way,” said Lieberman.

“But you,
Viejo,
you and I are friends.”

“I suppose in a crazy sort of way, we are,” said Lieberman. “I’ll ask you the same question you asked me Emiliano,
que pasa?”

“Quiero a hablar solamente con usted,”
El Perro said, looking at Hanrahan.

“No es
—” Lieberman said.

“I got enough of what he said,” Hanrahan said. “I’ll go out and talk about capital gains taxes with Chuculo.”

“Gracias,
Irish,” said El Perro.

“De nada,”
said Hanrahan, stepping down from the platform and heading between the chairs and tables and through the doors.

“He’s learning Spanish,” said El Perro, obviously pleased.

“Picking up a little here and there.” Lieberman continued to speak in English in case Hanrahan was listening at the door. “Comes with the job. Some cops pick up a little Vietnamese, Russian, Creole. What did you want to talk about?”

“Kim,” said El Perro. “That Korean is loco.”

And you, thought Lieberman, are a model of sanity.

“Kim,” Lieberman repeated.

“I think he should disappear
por siempre.
He’s gonna keep coming after you, your
familia, todos.
I can hurt that one-armed motherfucker but he won’t stop. Never seen anything like him. Those people are smart, but they can be crazy nuts. I think maybe I should —”

“I’ll have another talk with him,” said Lieberman.

“Won’t do no good,” El Perro said with a shrug. “I say just go in there and shoot the bastard.”

“In there?”

“Mi oficina.”
El Perro nodded at the office.

Lieberman knew there were no windows in there. That was one of the things El Perro had liked about it. There was only the one solid oak door to which Emiliano kept the only key. He nodded in agreement.

“Bueno,”
said El Perro, fishing the office key out of his pocket and handing it to Lieberman.

“Cinco minutos, no mas,”
said Lieberman.

“Take your time,” said El Perro. “I got numbers to weigh and mark. New numbers. You wanna call numbers some night,
Viejo?
It’s fun.”

“I’ll think about it,” Lieberman said over his shoulder as he headed for the office.

“It’s fun,” El Perro repeated.
“¿Verdad, Piedras?”

“Sí,”
said the stone-faced enforcer.

“Almost as good as having a woman,” said El Perro.

Lieberman didn’t comment on that one. When he got to the office, he put the key in the lock, turned it, walked through the open door, and closed the door behind him. Kim was sitting on the floor in the corner of the room. Every bit of furniture had been moved out. The office had been turned into a windowless cell. The Korean was hugging his knees with his one arm and his head was down. He looked up and saw Lieberman. Hatred burned. Kim’s face was puffed, bruised, and his right cheek looked odd and was probably broken.

“They won’t stop me,” he said. “That crazy Spic won’t stop me from killing you.”

In the reverse situation, Lieberman was sure El Perro would have referred to Kim as a gook.

Lieberman was hungry. Lieberman was not looking forward to going home and dealing with his daughter and his brother. Lieberman was, he realized, in a very bad mood.

“Kim,” he said, “you lost your arm because you were a criminal extorting from your own people and one of them shot you in self-defense. You lost your gang. Your family disowned you. I didn’t do anything but my job.”

“You hounded me,” said Kim, still seated in the corner. “You made me lose my people, my family, my work, my arm, my self-respect. That cannot be forgiven.”

“Let’s say you kill me,” said Lieberman. “Then what? Who do you hate next? What do you live on?”

“I will worry about that when I am relieved of your presence on this earth,” said Kim.

“El Perro suggested strongly that I kill you,” said Lieberman. “Or that he do it.”

“His moron has already come close to doing that,” said Kim. “I am sure I have some broken ribs and a broken bone in my face.”

“I’m sorry,” said Lieberman.

“Do not be. It strengthens my hatred of you.”

“How much do you want to live, Kim?”

No answer.

“I’m going to give you two choices,” the detective said softly. “You walk out of here with me, we pick up your things, and then we take you to the Greyhound station where we buy you a ticket to anywhere and you don’t come back. You’ll have company while you wait. A gentleman named Clark Mills. If you don’t come with me and promise to get on a bus, I just leave here and you stay with El Perro. You’re not giving me much of a choice.”

There was silence in the room. In the hall behind Lieberman, El Perro shouted,
“Diez y ocho”
and began to laugh.

Lieberman checked his watch and stood waiting.

“I could come back,” said Kim.

“You are a man of your word,” said Lieberman. “That’s about all you have left. Walk out with me and I’ll believe you. Stay and —”

“I’ve already given my word that I would kill you,” Kim said, getting to his feet with the help of the wall and his one arm.

“No, technically you’ve
vowed
to kill me,” said Lieberman. “You haven’t given your word to anyone.”

Kim closed his eyes in pain. Discretion was the better part of painful death.

“I will go with you,” he said. “But that will not end my hatred.”

“Hate away. Just get out of town and stay out. You want to write me a hate letter once in a while, feel free. You know where I live. Let me give you a hand.” Lieberman stepped forward to help the injured man.

“Would that you could along with an arm,” said Kim.

“The doctors said you could be fitted for a prosthetic arm,” said Lieberman. “Follow up on that when you get where you’re going.”

Kim nodded and refused the detective’s outstretched hand.

“Remember, you will live with my eternal curse and hatred,” said Kim.

“I’ll just have to learn to live with that,” Lieberman said. “Let’s go.”

Kim almost fell as they walked out, but Lieberman didn’t touch him.

“You takin’ him,
Viejo?”
El Perro shouted. “Bueno. But you can just kill him in the office. I’ll have someone get rid of the body.”

“I’ll take him, Emiliano,” Lieberman said.

El Perro nodded, satisfied. Now El Viejo owed him another favor, not that they were counting.

Kim staggered into the alcove where Hanrahan grabbed him before he could fall. Kim, for some reason, didn’t blame Hanrahan for his woes, though Lieberman and Hanrahan had both been on his case. Maybe Kim couldn’t handle two hatreds at the same time.

El Chuculo seemed disinterested as the two policemen took the Korean out the front door of the bingo parlor.

“I’ll take him,” said Hanrahan.

Lieberman nodded. He had nothing more to say to Kim, and he didn’t think a conversation would be a good idea.

It was raining lightly, but thunder cracked somewhere west.

Soon Abe would have to face his family. It was going to be a very long day. He deserved something to eat, something fat and full of calories. He would try to resist.

Irwin Saviello, shotgun in his lap, ate two more Little Debbies as he faced the door in the only chair with arms in the room he shared with Antoine Dodson.

Irwin was angry, an anger so deep and burning that he didn’t even think about it. It just roared inside him. He was sure he had a temperature. That, he knew, might well come from the fact that he had a broken arm, but he preferred to think that it was a result of the rage he felt against his partner and supposed friend.

Antoine had abandoned him, left him standing with one arm broken and holding a shotgun in the parking lot of that convenience store. There was no reason Antoine couldn’t have waited another few seconds, no reason to leave him for the police to come with the screaming woman.

But Irwin had fooled them and himself. Somehow he had managed to get away. Irwin was not smart. He knew that. He had always been dependent on others. First, there had been his brother Salvatore, who had taught him breaking and entering and fought at his side in bars and alleys. They had been a good team. Then Sal had been killed by a broken grape juice bottle in one of those alleys. His face had been slashed, his throat ripped open. Irwin had tried to make it on his own, being used as a bodyguard or backup by a series of small-time drug dealers and armed muggers till he had tried to go off on his own and had been quickly caught. Then, in prison, he had met Antoine Dodson. He had been taught by Sal not to trust niggers, but Antoine was smart. They had done well in prison and after. Well, they had done well enough for Irwin Saviello. Then this.

His father had betrayed him by leaving home when he was a baby. His mother had betrayed him by dying. Only his brother, only Sal, had never betrayed him. He knew that now. There wasn’t anyone alive who wouldn’t betray him.

Irwin had walked quickly from the convenience store parking lot, crossed Howard, hurrying past the smells of a pizza parlor and into a narrow walkway between two apartment buildings. Then, shotgun in hand under the sweater and clutching his bag of sweets, he had run, run as fast as the gun and his screaming arm would let him. He didn’t know how long he had run through alleys and down streets, past kids and couples, men sweeping sidewalks, mothers out with babies.

Then he had found himself in the parking lot of a strip mall. The mall was fairly large and full. There was a Walgreen’s, a deli, and a dollar store. Irwin thought he heard a siren. It wasn’t the first time since he had begun running, but this was close.

He had looked around, breathing hard, and saw a woman putting groceries in the trunk of her car from a supermarket cart. She wasn’t young, but she wasn’t old either. He thought from her face that she was pretty and probably Mexican. He didn’t care. He moved slowly behind her, looked around as she closed the trunk, and said, “I got a gun.”

The woman had turned quickly in fear to look at him. He had let the sweater slip back to reveal the shotgun.

“Get in. Drive where I say. I won’t hurt you. I won’t even punch you.”

“Don’t kill me.” The woman whimpered, looking around for help.

“Get in. Now. Drive where I say and I won’t hurt you. I just want to get away from here.”

She shook her head as he nudged her to the passenger side of the car. She opened the door and slid in, going awkwardly over the gear shift lever into the driver’s seat. Irwin got in after her, let the gun rest on his lap, and closed the door.

“Where?” she had said.

“Just drive,” he said, pushing his bag of stolen sweets on the floor between his legs. “Drive that way.”

He had pointed in what he thought was the direction of uptown, hoping to recognize something.

“Down that big street,” he said.

She drove south on Western Avenue. He ate Twinkies and packages of Oreo cookies, carefully putting the crinkly wrappers and pieces of cardboard with clinging remains of the small cakes into the small paper bag. He tried to think. All he could do was focus on getting to the apartment, hoping that Antoine was there so he could blow his head off, providing he could level the shotgun and fire with his left hand. He was reasonably sure he could. The worst that could happen would be that he would strangle his partner with one hand. Even if Antoine had his gun and shot him, Irwin would get to him. Of that he was sure.

He offered the woman a Snickers bar. She shook her head no.

They had driven saying nothing. She had breathed heavily, trying, he knew, not to cry.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said.

They drove South on Western until they reached some things that Irwin thought he recognized — a Burger King, an Ace hardware, a martial arts studio with a painting of a man in white pajamas kicking his bare foot over his head.

“That shit never works,” Irwin had said, pointing an Oreo at the sign. “You got a stick, a baseball bat, a gun, your hands if you’re big like me. That shit never works.”

The pretty Mexican woman nodded. She was afraid to speak. He knew she was thinking of just jumping out at a stoplight because his hand wasn’t on the trigger, but she was afraid and she was right to be.

“Over there,” he said. “By that house, between those two cars. That’s where I live.”

She pulled in. Traffic was a normal heavy on Western. It made her feel safer.

“Give me ten dollars,” he said.

She rumbled for her purse, opened it, and came up with her wallet. There was more than sixty dollars in it. She took out two fives and handed them to Irwin, who took them in his one good hand and pocketed them in his jacket.

“Now I’m gettin’ out. You drive. Forget you met me. They catch me and you I.D. me and I come for you. I blow your head off. You’re scared and you lost ten bucks. That’s all.”

He got out and watched the woman speed away. He still had at least eight blocks to walk, but he was proud of the way he was handling things, proud of being able to do it on his own. Now all he had to do was get Antoine.

He had made it back to the apartment. If Antoine was there, he had decided to let him soft talk. Then he would get close and beat the bastard to death with the shotgun. Friends, partners don’t leave each other in parking lots with broken arms. But Antoine wasn’t there. His few clothes were still in the closet. The money he had hidden under the linoleum was still there. Somehow Irwin had gotten there first. Maybe Antoine had stopped somewhere to take care of his pellet-filled and bleeding leg. Maybe Antoine had died. That was as far as Irwin could think and much further than he was usually able to go in thought.