Lieberman's Day (31 page)

But the men had come. Policemen of all sizes and ages and problems, ranging from near exhaustion to failing eyesight, cancer, and long-abused organs. There were those who had bodybuilder torsos and those, like the one he had to talk to now, who looked like a good breeze would carry them out to Lake Michigan.

Their eyes were the same. A moist knowing. They looked around slowly, usually without moving their heads. And then when you spoke to them, their eyes met yours and held. The cops in general made Dr. Berry uncomfortable, but a lot less uncomfortable than the patients in East Lansing. It was the city that had gotten to Jacob almost from the minute he arrived. Dark shadows, insane headlines, sullen and frightened people walking the streets, cursing each other, making offers.

The policeman's name was Abraham Lieberman. He was almost dressed. He glanced toward the window as an el train screeched into the Argyle Station going south. The noise wasn't deafening, but since the platform was only fifteen feet from the window, its arrival gave pause to the conversation and reminded Dr. Berry of why his rent was so low. The rapid deterioration of the neighborhood, the Vietnamese gang extortionists, the el train almost within touching distance had certainly sent the previous occupant fleeing to the suburbs.

“Well,” Dr. Berry tried again, looking at the clipboard containing lab results and notes and trying to strike a relaxed pose as he leaned against the sink and adjusted his glasses. “I've got the results of your lab tests here and—” And he suddenly remembered. His pink face went white.

“Doctor,” said Lieberman, “are you all right?”

“I … yes,” Dr. Berry said as the train pulled away.

Two days earlier Dr. Berry had made the mistake of opening the blinds to let in some natural light. He had been carrying a syringe filled with a flu injection for the policewoman sitting on the examining table. A train had pulled in next to his window and a trio of young men, dark and grinning, had been looking at him. One of the young men, no more than seventeen or eighteen, wearing a backward baseball cap, had produced a knife, which he pointed at Dr. Berry. The one with the knife urged the others to get off the train. The one with the baseball cap had shouted something at Dr. Berry that sounded through the windows and the rumble of the train as it began to move. “I'm bean bag,” he had said, pointing to himself and at Dr. Berry, who had stood rigid, unable to turn away.

The boys had laughed.

Now, with the policeman in front of him, Dr. Berry suddenly knew what the boy had mouthed.

“I'll be back,” Dr. Berry whispered.

“You have to leave?” Lieberman said as he finished tying his shoes.

“No,” said Dr. Berry.

Dr. Berry tried to pull himself back from memory and looked into the sad, steady eyes of Abraham Lieberman. The hangers-on, the Alter Cockers, at the T & L Deli on Devon Avenue, which Abe's brother, Maish, owned, were evenly divided as to whether Abe looked more like a slightly dyspeptic dachshund or an underweight bloodhound. Lieberman, it could not be denied, was not an imposing figure at five seven and hovering around 145 pounds. He looked a good five years older than his sixty-two years. His brother, Maish, definitely a well-fed beagle, thought Lieberman looked like an undernourished Harry James. Maish's fruitless efforts to “put some meat on” his brother had begun almost half a century earlier, and though Abe had been a willing consumer, he had remained thin and in need of tolerant suspenders.

“It's not the amount, not even the quality,” Maish had said with a resigned sigh. “It's your metabolism, Abe. You burn up straight-fat corned beef before it has time to get into your system.”

Lieberman's wife, Bess, thought her husband, with his curly gray hair and little white mustache, looked like a distinguished lawyer or doctor.

But each morning when Abe looked into his mirror, usually after an almost sleepless night, he saw only the face of his father. The man in the mirror had a little more hair, maybe a fuller mouth, but it was the same face.

“Here,” said Lieberman, stepping over to Dr. Berry and guiding him to the chair. “Sit.”

Dr. Berry, trying to come out of his daze, let himself be led and sat. He clung to the clipboard and file and hugged them to his chest.

“A cup of water?” Lieberman said softly.

Dr. Berry nodded and Lieberman moved across the room for a small Dixie cup. He took the cup to the sink. The cold water was tepid. He filled the cup, crossed the room, and handed it to Dr. Berry, who loosened his grip on the cupboard and took the cup from Lieberman.

“Better?” Lieberman asked.

Dr. Berry nodded.

“It's my brother's fault, Isaac,” Dr. Berry explained.

Dr. Berry, his temples touched with premature gray that matched his eyes, a full, dark mustache above his lip, looked to Lieberman like either a young man trying to look older or an older man trying to look younger.

“What's your first name?” Lieberman said, moving across the room to rest against the desk.

“My …?”

“It's not Barry?” Lieberman asked. “Barry Berry?”

“No.”

“Good,” said Lieberman, folding his arms.

“My name is Jacob.”

“You're Jewish?”

“Yes.”

“Married?”

“No more.”

“Gay?”

“No.”

Lieberman shook his head. He would pass this information on to Bess, who was looking for a suitable professional replacement for their daughter Lisa's husband. Lisa had walked out on Todd Cresswell with Lieberman's two grandchildren. She had declared her independence, ten years after it was fashionable to do so, and moved in with Abe and Bess.

“I'm fine now,” said Dr. Berry.

“You want to tell me?” asked Lieberman.

Somewhere on the street two stories below them an argument started in an Asian tongue. The arguers moved away as Dr. Berry took a deep breath and told about the three young men on the el train.

“You have a gun?” Lieberman asked.

“A gun?”

“Here, in the office, a gun.”

“No.”

“Consider it,” said Lieberman. “Five years ago I'd have said no, but today …”

“You think those three will really come back here?” Berry said, a quiver of fear in his voice.

“No,” said Lieberman. “You want odds, I'd say ninety-eight to two they forgot you five minutes after the train left the station.”

“Then …?”

“You want to take a chance on two percent?” asked Lieberman. “And what about the ones who come looking for drugs?”

“I didn't need a gun in East Lansing,” said Dr. Berry, adjusting his glasses.

“Sounds like one of the songs my grandson listens to,” sighed Lieberman. “I didn't need a gun in East Lansing, but baby I could use one now.”

The clipboard was wet now with perspiration from Berry's palms. He eased the board to his lap.

“I don't know how to get a gun, shoot one,” he said softly.

“I'll tell you how to get one and where to go to learn to use it,” said Lieberman. “This is a good neighborhood to have a gun in. Even if you haven't made faces with some fun-loving citizens.”

“I'll think about it,” said Berry, wiping his face with his sleeve. Much of the starch had gone out of the blue jacket.

“Good,” said Lieberman. “I'll give you a call. Now …”

“Now?” said Berry.

“Now you tell me what, if anything, is wrong with me.”

“Oh, yes.”

Dr. Jacob Berry nodded, cleared his throat, made the effort, and looked down at the clipboard.

“Detective Lieberman—”

“Abe.”

“Abe, your heart is fine. Your blood pressure is in check but I think you should stay on the Cardizem. You said you've had no migraines for almost six months?” He looked up at Lieberman, who still stood over him, arms crossed. Dr. Berry knew their positions should be reversed, but he wasn't ready to stand yet. He was familiar with blood, death, and violence from internship duty in Ann Arbor and his own practice in East Lansing, but that was violence and death to others and after the fact.

“No migraines,” agreed Lieberman, checking his watch. “When I feel one coming I take a Fiorinal. Works.”

“You … let me see,” said Dr. Berry, running his finger down the sheet on the clipboard. “You still have elevated liver enzymes. You tested positive for hepatitis A, B, and C, but I understand—”

“I've had two biopsies,” Lieberman recited. “Both negative. I've had this since I was a kid. Don't ask me why. Almost kept me off the force. Check on it. More than thirty years.”

“Your liver is slightly enlarged.”

“I'll make a note.”

“Good,” said Dr. Berry with a little more confidence and a sense that if he tried, he could stand. He remained seated. “I see no further significant deterioration of the knee joints. Any new pain? Different or …?”

“No,” said Lieberman.

“Arthritis can be—”

“Doc,” Lieberman said.

“Yes.”

“Is there a flashbulb, a snake with springs, something at the end of this box?” Lieberman said, checking his watch again.

“I'm not sure I …”

“I do this for a living, Jacob,” Abe said. “You're the suspect who wants to confess and I should wait and let you dance around it till you're ready. But I'm the patient. You are the pro. And I have a vague but dwindling hope that I can make the Cubs game this afternoon.”

“Your insomnia …” Dr. Berry tried.

“This sit-down isn't about insomnia, is it, Doc?”

Jacob Berry shook his head, pulled himself together, and stood.

“Do you drink? Your liver and—”

“Wine on the Sabbath. A beer maybe once a week, not even that.”

“What do you eat? Normal day—yesterday?”

“Who remembers yesterday?” said Lieberman, his eyes firmly on the doctor's face. “I'll try. Coffee in the morning, with a toasted bagel, cream cheese, and lox. In the afternoon, let me see, a couple of hot dogs with the works and grilled onions. Another coffee. Dinner, that's easy. Bess made liver and onions. What's the problem, Jacob?”

Jacob Berry was looking more like a doctor now.

“You have a cholesterol level of almost three hundred. Your record says you have been warned twice and put on diets. You haven't paid attention to the diets, have you, Mr. Lieberman?”

“I watch, but a man—”

“We'll try a diet first. And this time we'll follow it to the letter.”

“We? Your cholesterol level high too?”

“No.”

“Then just say ‘you will try a diet.' Humor me, please.”

“When you've been on the diet for four months, we'll test again and decide if you need medication.”

“Tell me about this diet, Jacob. Tell me quickly. I'm a good listener and I still harbor some small hope of getting to Wrigley Field this afternoon.”

“We … you start by cutting all red meat. It would be best if you cut all fish and fowl, but let's see how you do without red meat. No alcohol. No milk or milk products. No butter.”

“Hot dogs, corned beef, chopped liver …?”

“Animal organs are definitely out.”

“What,” said Lieberman wearily, “do you think about assisted suicide?”

“What? I …”

“It's a joke, Jacob. I have too many responsibilities to die. My family would never forgive me. Anything else?”

“Your father and mother both died from heart-related problems,” Dr. Berry said, consulting his clipboard.

“Yes. My father was eighty-six, my mother was eighty-one.

“I'd like you to see my brother, Isaac.”

“Why? Does he have two heads?” Lieberman put up his hands. “Sorry, I have a useless hope that bad humor will sustain me through starvation.”

“My brother is a cardiologist,” Dr. Berry said in humorless confusion as Lieberman's beeper suddenly demanded attention.

The beeper went mad. Lieberman took the small black plastic box from his pocket and clicked it off.

“Use your phone?”

Dr. Berry nodded. Lieberman dialed the Clark Street Station, identified himself, and listened.

“He asked for me? … I don't remember. …Are you asking or telling? …Then I'm going. Give me the address. …Thank you. I'll meet you there. …I'm fine. How are you? …Good, then we're both fine. Good-bye.”

Lieberman put down the phone and turned again to Dr. Berry.

“Give me your brother's number and address,” said Lieberman, opening his notebook.

Jacob Berry had to get the address and information brochures on diet from his desk drawer. Lieberman took the stack, wrote down Dr. Isaac Berry's address and phone number, snapped his notebook shut, and put it in his pocket.

“How do you feel?” Jacob Berry asked.

“I'm breathing,” said Lieberman, moving to the door, thinking that he probably looked a hell of a lot better than the frightened young man in front of him. “A good way to start any day.”

With his hand on the door, Lieberman turned. He almost collided with Jacob Berry, who was following him.

“Couple more questions,” Lieberman said. “You like music? Read?”

“Sure,” said Berry, wondering where this was going.

“Classical—Mozart, Vivaldi?”

“Yes.”

“Favorite authors?”

“I don't …I don't read much fiction.”

Lieberman shrugged.

“Baseball. You like baseball?”

“Yes. I played at Evansville when I was an undergraduate.”

Lieberman nodded.

“Position?”

“Second base,” said Jacob.

Lieberman nodded as if this were essential information.

“I'll give you a call. We'll get you a gun, teach you how to use it. You get users in a neighborhood like this and they start thinking that doctors have a drug supply. You like brisket?”