Lieberman's Law (37 page)

Mr. Grits was packed. He was watching the news. It was unlikely that anything would come on till ten, not even a bulletin, but it might. He checked his watch. A little after eight. He'd give it ten more minutes and then go out and call Berk from a mall phone. He'd browse for a few minutes, put something expensive on the counter, and ask if he could use the store phone, local call, very quick to ask his wife about the purchase. He wouldn't be turned down. If all had gone well, Berk would be at the gas station on Touhy and Sheridan waiting in front of the outdoor pay phone.

There was a knock at the door. Mr. Grits placed his gun between the pillows of the small hotel sofa. “Who is it?” he asked.

“Plumber,” came a bored voice. “Leak. Bad. Both floors up. Checking lines.”

Mr. Grits got up, walked over to the door, looked through the peephole, saw an engineer's cap, and opened the door. Berk burst in.

“Surprise, Mr. Grits,” he said, taking off his cap and pointing his Mauser at the well-dressed man.

“This is not a good idea, Mr. Berk,” Grits said sadly.

“Aren't you going to ask how I found you?” Berk said.

“Later,” said Grits calmly. “I have your money. I was going to deliver it as promised. I have exactly eleven hundred and twenty dollars beyond that. Are you risking your life for an extra eleven hundred and twenty dollars, Mr. Berk?”

“Lift the jacket,” said Berk. “In fact, take it off slow.”

Mr. Grits took off his jacket. He wasn't wearing a weapon, at least not one Berk could see.

“Hands against the wall, spread eagle.”

Mr. Grits calmly complied and Berk patted him down. He was clean. Berk lifted the eleven hundred from the wallet. He left twenty dollars and the credit cards and checked the driver's license.

“Luckenbill,” said Berk. “Harold Luckenbill. That your real name?”

“No,” said Mr. Grits, pushing away from the wall and moving to the sofa. He offered his guest the armchair in the corner. Berk took it, Mauser still in his hand.

“You're a piece of work, Mr. Grits,” Berk said, shaking his head.

“You're not here because you distrust me,” Mr. Grits said. “You're here because you've failed and you know you will not be paid.”

“We were set up,” Berk agreed. “I'm here to take that money from you.”

“And then kill me?” asked Grits.

“No,” said Berk. “You dead, the money gone, the job a bust? No. Your friends will figure me right away. Killing you won't help. Doesn't mean I won't if you're not cooperative.”

Mr. Grits smiled confidently, though he was beginning to feel his own fear, a fear almost equal to that of the piece of trash across from him. He would have to call his own people as soon as possible, tell them that the plan had gone wrong. It had happened before, but not to Mr. Grits and not to anyone in the link at this level, not a dispatcher. But Mr. Grits smiled confidently. He would not be physically punished, simply given an unofficial demotion. He had worked hard for his present position and now this creature across from him had ruined it. Mr. Grits kept smiling as he said, “On the table, in the briefcase, just as I promised you.”

Berk got up, still watching Mr. Grits, who crossed his legs and uncreased his pants as Berk tried to do a quick count of the money. The television was going, a nondistraction.

“There aren't many places you can hide where we can't find you,” said Mr. Grits calmly.

“I'll just have to try,” said Berk. “I don't see any choice, do you? And with the money you already gave me and this briefcase full, I should be able to get pretty far away.”

“Not sufficiently far,” said Mr. Grits. “What now?”

“Like I said, I tie you up, gag you, and get as far away as fast as I can,” said Berk. “I'm a rich man. Life's full of fuckin' little ironies, you know?”

“I know,” said Mr. Grits, lifting his weapon from between the cushions of the sofa.

Berk's gun was only loosely aimed in Mr. Grits's direction. He didn't get off a shot. Four silenced bullets struck Berk before he could shoot and, fortunately for Mr. Grits, the dying Berk's finger did not tighten around the trigger. Two shots had hit Berk in the face. One to the right side of his nose. The other on a spot just above his right eye. The other two were body shots aimed at and entering the heart. Berk went down hard.

Mr. Grits got up with a sigh, checked to be sure Berk was dead, and then looked at the blood. He was in a hotel room with a man he had just shot. People from the hotel had seen him. Not often, not clearly, but they had seen him and might be able to identify him from a photograph. Mr. Grits had been in situations not unlike this in the past. He thought he had risen above it. Now he was back. He put his weapon down on the sofa, went to the door, locked it behind him and put on the “Do Not Disturb” sign. He had a very difficult call to make after which he would have to return to this room, clean up the mess, decide which of several ways to get Berk's body out of the hotel and into the trunk of Mr. Grits's rented car, without leaving traces of blood. The process would require some purchases. The whole task would be thankless.

L
IEBERMAN AND HANRAHAN HAD
removed the flashing light. They had not turned on the siren. The man in the car in front of them—it looked like only one man—was driving much too slowly and erratically for a major felon fleeing the scene of a possible murder. Something was wrong.

“You want to get in front of him?” asked Hanrahan. “Stop him?”

“Let's see where he's going,” said Lieberman.

And so they drove, across the expressway bridge, to Western Avenue and north directly behind the man in the car.

“Call it in?” asked Hanrahan.

“We are in slow pursuit of a suspect heading north on Western,” Lieberman suggested. “At present, no backup is needed. We'll keep them informed.”

Hanrahan made the call. It took longer than Lieberman anticipated.

“They patched me through to Kearney,” he said when he hung up. “I got the impression this was one collar he wanted his people to get the credit for.”

There really was no place for Massad to go. He knew he was being followed. Streams of marked police cars could appear on the street any moment. And he was growing more weak and tired with each block.

He had one last plan, not much of one. He shared it with the Torah, asked its advice, and grinned madly when it did not answer. When he was within three blocks of where he was going, Massad got in the left lane. The men in the car behind followed. He had chosen carefully. He would do precisely the same thing he had done to elude the black policeman in Skokie.

In spite of his near delirium, it was much easier this time than it had been the last. Massad in the left lane signaled for a left turn. So did the car behind. He slowed down and then suddenly a break came in the lane on his right. He put his foot to the floor, went through the opening and had no idea if he would hit something in the lane nearest the sidewalk.

As it was, he didn't. A woman with three arguing children in the back seat had slowed down so she could look at them over her right shoulder and threaten them with early bedtime. At that instant, Massad had skidded through the narrow space and down the street.

“Son of a bitch,” shouted Hanrahan.

“Get out, Father Murphy, and stop the traffic,” said Lieberman.

Hanrahan got out, took out his wallet to show his shield and held up his hand. The car in the right lane came within four inches of hitting the big man before it stopped.

“Stay right there,” Hanrahan shouted.

The driver, a man who had been absorbed in listening to a talk show about abortion, froze. The next lane was already moving slowly. Hanrahan had no trouble stopping traffic there.

Abe burst through, leaving his partner in the middle of Western Avenue directing traffic. The car they had been following was nowhere in sight. Since they had been going north, Lieberman made a left turn. It paid. There next to the sidewalk was the car crookedly parked behind a badly rusted Pontiac. There was no one visible in the car he had been following and the driver's side door was open.

Lieberman called for backup now, gave his location, and hung up. He got out of the car, weapon ready, and moved to the passenger side of the parked car, ready to fire if anything moved. It didn't. There was no one and nothing in the car he could see. Lieberman looked around. A rundown apartment building next to an alley across the street, a boarded up supermarket on the curb side of the parked car. Lieberman moved to the front door of the supermarket. Locked tight. He tried to peer between the wooden boards that covered the windows, most of which were broken. He thought he saw a movement.

Lieberman moved around and down past the loading dock of the supermarket stepping over bits of debris on the cracked concrete. There was a rear door. It was locked. It took two bullets to shoot the lock to pieces.

Lieberman went in low. There was some light coming through the boarded up windows around the building. Empty aisles and shelves lined the building. He moved to his left, ready at each aisle.

When he came to the last aisle, he saw the man crouched at the far end. He was holding something in his hands. It was aimed directly at Lieberman who half expected to be torn to pieces, but nothing happened. The man with the object was weeping softly.

Lieberman advanced slowly and said, “Put it down.” Instead the man held it out.

“Down,” Lieberman insisted.

The man continued to hold the object out and Lieberman seriously considered shooting him, but something about the object, something in the dim light, caught his eye. It was blue, but not a metallic blue.

Ten steps closer and Lieberman recognized the Torah.

There was nothing else in the man's hands. Lieberman moved closer and took the Torah. It took both arms. Lieberman held it awkwardly still pointing his weapon at the man who was on his knees, weeping and blinking his eyes.

“I was going to destroy it, but you saved my life. You saved Jara's life,” he said. “You carried us. You found the doctor. You should have this sacred object.”

The man slumped to the floor. Lieberman carefully put down the Torah on one of the steel shelves and went to the man. He was conscious. He had a
gan,
which Lieberman took and shoved down the aisle.

“Massad Mohammed?” he said.

Massad's eyes were closed but he smiled.

It took fifteen minutes to get Massad to the hospital and another hour for Hanrahan and Lieberman to get to the main police station downtown where the skinhead Mongers were being booked. Pig Sticker exchanged no looks with Hanrahan or Lieberman. They had a deal. He would do his time if he had to. Hanrahan and Lieberman were confident that with the help of some people they knew in the district attorney's office, some way would be found to get Charles Kenneth Leary out of prison very early should he be convicted along with the others.

“A long day, Rabbi,” said Hanrahan.

“A long day, Father Murphy,” Lieberman agreed.

Their shift was over. Lieberman drove Hanrahan home. Michael's car was parked in front and something was frying in the kitchen when Hanrahan went through the door.

“Michael?”

“In the kitchen,” his son called.

Hanrahan hung up his coat and moved into the kitchen where Michael was at the oven, a skillet in his hand.

“Right on time,” said Michael. “Did you know I have a great recipe for blackened fish?”

“That I did not,” said Hanrahan, looking carefully at his son.

“I haven't had a drink, Dad,” he said. “I'll get there.”

“I'm gonna wash up,” said Hanrahan. “It's been a long, dirty day.”

Lieberman was home a little over half an hour later. He thought the kids might be asleep. They weren't. They were at the dining room table listening to Marvin Alexander telling a ghost story his own father had brought from Jamaica. The children were enthralled. Melisa was in Marvin's lap, drowsy but listening carefully. Even Lisa at the end of the table was listening to the tale, Lisa who thought anything but nonfiction was a waste of time, even in children's books. Both children wore their pajamas. Abe wondered what sleeping arrangement Bess had made.

Bess was at the head of the table, her back to him. She nodded back and waved, not really getting a look at him.

“Grandpa,” Barry said excitedly. “You know what Marvin does? He cuts open dead bodies, even looks in their stomachs. He said I could watch sometime if it was all right with you.”

Dr. Marvin Alexander looked up at Abe apologetically. Abe had seen autopsies. He had never forgotten his first, had never forgotten any of them.

“We'll see,” Abe said as he approached the table, stopped in front of his wife. Marvin stopped his story. Abe carefully placed the Torah on the table in front of his wife. Silence at the table as Bess looked at it and then at her husband. She stood, almost knocking down the chair, and gave Abe a hug and kiss.

Marvin Alexander knew what a Torah was and thought this was an especially fine example of one, but what he did not understand was why his mother-in-law sat down again, put her forehead against the blue velvet covering and began to cry softly.

When his doorbell rang the next morning, Eli Towser had just awkwardly finished his morning prayers and was carefully and ritually putting away the headpiece and narrow black bands that he had wrapped around his hands and fingers during his devotions before the rising sun.

It was very early, and because he had heard about what had taken place the day before he approached the door carefully, his heavily cast arm resting awkwardly in a sling. Doing his prayers three times each day was going to prove difficult, but he was quickly learning to make adjustments.

Eli looked through the peephole. There was no one there. Carefully, leaving the heavy chain in place, he opened the door an inch or two and tried to scan the corridor. No one. A mistake? A wrong bell rung so early in the morning and an embarrassed visitor hurrying away? Eli knew the chain could not keep out a determined violent intruder and no one had yet kicked open the door.