Lieberman's Day (10 page)

He held up the key, opened the window, and threw it out.

“Let's see,” said Raymond, now taking a right turn into decidedly unfamiliar and white-faced territory.

George tilted the plastic bucket so Raymond could look at the money. Then George lifted out some bills. Twenties, tens.

“Here's a fifty. Must be a couple of thousand dollars,” George said with a grin and a cough. “We're on our way.”

Raymond didn't know what had been in the buckets, but whatever it was, it was worth a hell of a lot more than the few thousand dollars George had picked up. The Russians must have thought he was some stupid local dumb-shit nigger passing up who knows how much in shit for a few bills.

They'd come looking for him. If they couldn't speak much English, maybe they hadn't caught George's accent. But they had seen his face, the hat. They'd come looking for him. They'd have to make the effort or have the word put out with every trigger-happy, knife-carrying punk that the Russians were good for a few thousand easy ones.

George sat there smiling, clutching the bucket. He was even more of a liability now for Raymond than he had been twenty minutes ago. And he deserved to die, to die for what he had done. Raymond seriously considered taking out his gun, shooting George in the face, and kicking his carcass out of the car, money and all. But he rejected the idea. First, he didn't know where they were, didn't know if he could get away safely. Second, there might be a way to link this fool to him. Raymond didn't know how, but there might be. No, it would be better to get things together, tie up all the ends, be packed and ready to move, and then kill George outside the city.

“Looking like good times now, Raymond,” George said, patting him on the back.

“Yes,” said Raymond, knowing that he had let in the devil's own fool two nights ago and the fool had not only ruined the plan but was sure to get Raymond caught or killed if he did not get things moving fast.

H
ANRAHAN WAS DIZZY AS
he sat up in the pull-out bed in the living room. He couldn't remember how many years it had been since he'd last opened it. Eight, nine? Longer. When he had snored fiercely during the worst of his drinking, Maureen had kicked him out and told him to sleep in the living room.

He sat at the edge of the bed, looked at his suit crumpled on the chair, and wondered if he had dreamed the whole thing, if he had gotten up in the middle of the night, gotten drunk, and imagined the morning. Iris had been more than fine; willing, giving, gentle, satisfied, soft. Reserved though she was with her clothes on and in the sight of others, in bed she had been all passion and plumage, and he feared for an instant that if it weren't a dream, he might not be able to keep up with the Iris who had exhausted him.

Iris had gone. She had kissed his nose, placed his right hand between her legs for an instant, and then disappeared. He had closed his eyes, arm over his face for what felt like a moment, and then came awake seconds ago, dizzy.

He reached for his watch, found it on the table where he seemed to remember leaving it, and realized he was late. There would be no time to finish the dishes, no time to make up the pull-out bed.

The fleeting thought of Maureen coming through the door, seeing the unmade bed in the living room, finding the dishes on the table in the kitchen, gave him a moment of near panic. He considered trying to reach Lieberman, telling him he would be a few minutes late. Claim illness, an emergency.

Then he stood up and grew calm.

If he called, Lieberman might think he had been drinking. Lieberman's nephew had been murdered hours ago and Lieberman was still going to go ahead with the sting. Could Hanrahan miss the whole four-week setup to clean house? “Hell with it,” Hanrahan muttered, and he frantically began to put on his now-rumpled suit.

Frankie Kraylaw was nearing panic too, but for a very different reason.

Nothing wrong with his plan. Sit, let the Lord enter his mind, sip the hot drink, ignore stupidity, blasphemy, remember the greater goal given him, the test for which he had been commanded to return from distant lands to redeem his family. And yet they sat where he could not avoid them, not if he was to be able to see the entrance to the Clark Street police station.

Two women, little more than girls, painted, tight dresses under their open coats. And a man. They ate, they drank coffee, and though he could not see beneath the table he was sure that the man was reaching over, touching the young women where he should not, making them laugh the laugh of the demons. And words would come, the sick words of the city, of corruption.
Cunt, fuck, asshole, prick.
Frankie could not cut the words out with prayer. Could not move to avoid them, could not keep himself from glancing at them, praying for a bolt of lightning that would crack the window, launching shards of glass to tear them to pieces.

“You,” came the voice of the man.

Frankie kept his eyes on the window.

“You, kid, you with the pink titty cheeks,” the voice of the man came again.

“Leave him alone, J.J.,” said one of the women. “Don't start no shit here. Come on. Cops are right over there.”

“What am I doin' that's so bad?” said J.J. “I wanna talk to the fuckin' kid, be friendly, maybe offer him your pussy for dessert. What you say, kid?”

Frankie turned his head from the window. The devil was distracting him for his trial and he was succumbing. The policemen would come when he looked away at the demon and the temptresses.

Both women were dark, pretty, Mexicans maybe. He couldn't be sure. One was smoking and chewing gum at the same time. The man was dark too, but his hair was yellow, almost white, unnatural. All of them were looking at Frankie now.

They were the only customers in Wendy's. A fat young woman behind the counter was talking to a kid in a white shirt who was making something on the grill.

“Kid, you a deaf asshole?” the man called J.J. said. “I hate myself when I pull this shit,” he said to one of the girls, who giggled. “But it's just in me. You know?”

“Whatever,” said the gum chewer, flicking ash in the general direction of the aluminum ashtray.

“Let's just go, J.J.,” said the other girl.

“We got no work for hours,” J.J. said, shrugging her off. “This'll take a minute. We can all go get some beauty sleep.”

The girl shrugged, resigned, and sat back looking at her fingers.

“Kid, you are pissing me off here,” said J.J. “I'm jus' tryin' to have a little friendly conversation between strangers. This is a big, cold city. You make friends where you can find 'em.”

“The Lord is all the friend I need,” said Frankie.

“What?” said J.J., almost choking on his coffee. “You hear what he said? The Lord is all you need? What about at night when you start thinking of a nice piece of pie like Lauren or Jess here?”

“Stop now in the name of the Lord Jesus,” Frankie said, clasping his hands together.

“I can't believe this,” said J.J., getting up. “I didn't know they really grew fruitcakes like this anymore.”

Frankie fixed his eyes on the window, beyond the window to the front of the Clark Street police station. Two uniformed policemen, both black, came out and hurried around to the rear of the building.

“I'm gonna have to insist that you look at me when I talk to you, little Jesus,” said J.J., taking a step toward Frankie.

The fat girl behind the counter picked up on what was happening and stopped talking to the kid in the white shirt.

“What's going on?” she asked.

“Nothing,” said J.J. “Friend and I are just having a little fun here. We're just two couples cooling down after a night on the town.”

The girl looked at J.J.'s false grin and then at Frankie, who did not meet her gaze. She started talking to the kid in the white shirt again but kept glancing back at J.J., who advanced on Frankie and leaned over on his table, palms flat, breath stale from rot and brimstone.

“Hey, kid, Jesus is fine but will he be there to go down on you when you need him?” J.J. whispered in Frankie's ear.

Before J.J. could really start his laugh, he felt himself flying backward as if the wall had exploded. Someone screamed and J.J. couldn't breathe, couldn't see anything but black, and then he felt the knee in his stomach, and again, and something in his ear.

“Get off, get off, you crazy bastard,” the girl called Lauren screamed.

“Stop that,” yelled the fat girl behind the counter.

Then the weight was off him and J.J. could see. Standing over him was a crazed, open-mouthed bloody thing. The thing was kicking him. The thing turned and punched Jess in the throat. She staggered back, holding her neck, trying to breathe. Lauren screamed, “Oh, my God,” and went running for the door as the crazy thing J.J. had let loose grabbed a chair and threw it at her.

J.J. tried to sit up, but something was broken and he couldn't move.

Screaming, more voices.

The kid who was no longer a kid had picked up another chair and turned toward J.J., who tried to slide backward, gasping, “Hey, I was kidding, for God's sake. What the fuck are you doin'?”

And then the horror hit J.J. The horror that came with the realization that the kid had something raw and bloody between his teeth, the realization that it was JJ.'s ear.

“Oh,” moaned J.J. “Help. Somebody, help.”

The creature standing over J.J. spat out his ear and brought the chair down on him, crying, “Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?”

That was all J.J. Prescott remembered, that and the sight of Jess trying to cry and catch her breath. All he would remember until he woke up in the intensive-care ward of Weiss Hospital four days later.

Frankie was going to hit the demon again, but the Lord whispered in his ear that the bloody exorcism was complete. Frankie turned to the gasping woman, the one who had chewed gum and smoked at the same time. She staggered backward when he looked at her, fell back over a table, and hit her head against the window while trying to scream.

Frankie dropped the chair and ran for the door, the same door Lauren had run through seconds ago. He ran out into the street knowing that he was a bloody vision.

He raced through the cold, frightened an old woman on her way to the bus stop, and made his way to the refuge of his pickup truck.

He pulled the collar of his jacket up to cover part of his bloody face, forced himself to be calm, and turned on the ignition. In the rearview mirror he saw Lauren coming out of the police station with two uniformed policemen who weren't even wearing coats. They didn't look in Frankie's direction. The Lord was still on his side. Praise the Lord.

He pulled into the slow-moving traffic heading south into the city.

He had passed the latest test, had defeated the demon, and now he would have to return to his task. The Lord might well place many other obstacles in his path, but now he knew that it was within his power to smite demons and recognize tempters.

Frankie Kraylaw, with the help of God, would prevail. He would destroy the two policemen. He would wrench his wife and son from this city of evil. Then a new thought struck him, the voice coming as he was sure it had come to Abraham. When the task was completed, when God's will was done and Frankie had been rewarded on earth for his faith, God might well want him to sacrifice his firstborn son.

Yes, if God so bid him, he would sacrifice Charlie on the altar of the Lord though he truly loved his son as Abraham had loved Isaac.

Frankie wanted to say “Praise Jesus” aloud. He tried, but his throat was dry with blood and he choked upon the words.

There were four people at Maish and Yetta's 1950s split-level brick house in Lincolnwood when Abe arrived with his bag of bagels, bialys, and cream cheese. He avoided Bess's eyes and went to Yetta, who stood, her eyes red, a heavy woman who had given up any pretense of holding herself or her feelings together. She looked and felt in his arms like a sack of cotton left out in the rain.

Spindly-legged dark furniture and faded flower patterns, gray carpet throughout, two bedrooms, one of which had been shared by David and Edward until they each left for college, marriage, and their own families.

“Avrum,” she said, clinging to him, almost knocking him over.

“Yetta,” Abe answered, patting her head and trying to keep his balance.

Her pain came into him, a sudden wet shock, and she cried. “I can't remember what he was like as a baby,” she said, holding him at arm's length to make this statement that astonished her. “Can you remember Lisa?”

“Some things,” Abe said, looking at Lisa, who stood across the room.

Bess, dressed in black, was now moving toward him and Yetta. She did not look angry. Bess was erect, slender, as tall as her husband and looking fifteen years younger than him, though only five years separated them. Bess was not a beauty, but she was a fine-looking woman, a lady. Her father had been a butcher on the South Side, but she carried herself as if he had been a banker. She had the soft, clear voice that telephone operators used to have.

Lieberman had done his best, which was not always very good, to keep his wife from being displeased with him, not because he feared her but because he felt the criticism of her common sense.

“Yetta,” Bess said softly. “Come, let's have another cup of coffee and show the Reiffels the family pictures. Come.”

Yetta nodded dutifully and started to turn, but paused to say to Abe, “Maish went to work.”

“I know,” said Lieberman. “I just came from there. He sent these.”

Bess took the package and handed it to an overly made-up woman who could have been sixty or eighty.

“You remember Marge Reiffel,” Bess said.

“Of course,” Lieberman said with a smile, though he had no idea who this woman was. “How have you been, Marge?”

“Don't ask,” Marge said, turning away with a wave of her hand and a tear in her voice as she headed for the kitchen with the bag.