Lieberman's Folly

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “I’ll do that,” Bess said.

  The night air was still hot. The smell of curry from the Bombay Restaurant across California Avenue hit Lieberman as he headed back toward home and his car. Maybe it was time to think about moving, but he didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to think about his daughter’s troubles. He didn’t want to think about being chair of the temple’s renovation committee, but all of these were preferable to thinking that Estralda Valdez was dead. He remembered Estralda the last time he saw her, beautiful, joking, planning, that morning. Next to him in the booth. He had smelled her. He remembered her the first time he had seen her, beautiful, defiant, speaking broken English. He wasn’t looking forward to the next time he would see her.

  Exactly four minutes before Bill Hanrahan entered Estralda Valdez’s sixth floor apartment, Jules Van Beeber had lain drunk and apparently asleep a few feet from Estralda’s body. Someone, he knew, had given him a drink, had led him to this place on the floor. That someone had not reckoned with Jules Van Beeber’s needs. Jules had risen, oblivious to his surroundings, made his way to the kitchen, and downed the good part of a bottle of Scotch he found on the floor. Then, feeling more than a bit disoriented by the intake of something of reasonable quality, Jules had stumbled back through the living room to Estralda’s balcony, clutching a small blue table lamp he planned to take with him when he left. The night air and the breeze coming off the lake lured Jules to the railing.

  Jules had leaned over the railing and fallen just as Hanrahan had come through the door. Jules had spun three times in the air, cord of the lamp trailing behind him like a kite tail, and landed in a pile of Glad bags filled with grass.

  Cushioned and blanketed by green plastic shining in the moonlight, Jules looked up at the stars in the August sky over Lake Michigan, smiled, and passed out.

  At the same moment that Hanrahan entered the apartment and Jules Van Beeber went over the railing, not five blocks away, Ernest Ryan, a bartender known as Irish Ernie, fell down two steps after locking his tavern on Clark Street. Cold sober, Irish Ernie hit his head on the sidewalk and died. God makes some strange choices.

  Jules, clutching the lamp to his chest like a protective teddy bear, slept through the police cars and sirens, the television crews and small crowds. He dreamed of a line of amber bottles, an angry man, a soft bed, a beautiful woman who spoke to him in a strange language. He saw the woman lying naked before him and he felt himself walking to a door, feeling the night wind, smelling dead fish on the shore, and flying.

  The garbage bags Jules Van Beeber had fallen on were in the back of Sol Worth’s truck. Worth’s landscaping business had, after eight years, just started to turn a profit, partly because he had stopped using his wife’s brothers as lawn workers and partly because he had paid off a Democratic alderman to put pressure on certain lakefront high-rises to use Sol’s service.

  It was just before ten when Jules took his night flight. No one had witnessed the miracle. When the drunk babbled his tale and dream the next morning, Sol had no reason to believe him. The police cars were gone. The television crews were taking pictures of a giant salmon washed up near Navy Pier. Sol had no reason to believe anything had happened the night before. He pulled the drunk from the back of his truck.

  “Maybe the lamp is magic,” muttered Van Beeber, looking at the lamp he still held.

  “Maybe I’ll break both your arms I catch you sleeping in my truck again,” replied Worth. He resolved never again to leave his truck on the street overnight in front of a job again.

  Sol had his two Korean workers to pick up, seven high-rise lawns to do. When he pulled away, Sol could see the drunk in his rearview mirror sitting on the curb and looking at his lamp.

  When Sol was gone, Jules Van Beeber, who had once owned a greeting card shop in Holland, Michigan, where something had happened that he did not wish to remember, got up and wandered in the general direction of Lawrence Avenue. He remembered, or thought he remembered, a pawn shop there. He had a magic lamp to sell and a wondrous tale to tell if anyone would listen to him.

  Sol didn’t put the whole thing together till he got back home that night with an empty truck, an aching back, and a sore throat from yelling at his brother-in-law Bradley who, though safely off the lawns, was supposed to be answering phones in the office. Only when he was drifting off to sleep while his wife was reading her weekly pile of supermarket tabloids and listening to the ten o’clock news did Sol make a connection. Sol was only half-awake when the story came on the television and he realized that the woman the blonde anchorwoman was talking about had been murdered two blocks away from where he now lay almost but not quite asleep. She had been murdered in the building he parked his truck next to the night before. The truck in which he had found a drunk telling a crazy nuts story.

  Sol sat up in bed, sending Inquirers and Stars flying. His wife hit him on the shoulder with her fist, but Sol didn’t feel it.

  “I think some drunk told me he killed that woman,” he said.

  “Yeah?” said his wife.

  “Right next to the building. Told me just like that and I let him walk,” said Sol Worth.

  “So?” she asked.

  “So, I’m calling the cops.”

  Two hours before Jules Van Beeber went over the railing on the balcony of Estralda Valdez’s apartment, William Hanrahan had called Estralda to be sure she was there and all right. He called from the Chinese restaurant in the Lakefront Motor Inn across the street from the Michigan Towers high-rise. The restaurant, the Black Moon, was the only commercial property on the block and Estralda had been right; there was a good view of the entrance to the high-rise from the window.

  Estralda had told him she was fine. Hanrahan had said he would be watching all night but that there had to be at least two other entrances to the building, a service entrance and an entrance through the building’s underground garage. He asked her to go to her window and pull the shade up and down. He found the window and when she got back on the phone he told her to leave the shade down but pull it up if she needed his help.

  After that he had shown his badge to the pretty Chinese woman of no particular age who served him pork-fried rice and a double bourbon on the rocks. He had told her he would be sitting at that table till closing time.

  The double bourbon was followed by a second and an order of egg foo yung. Customers came and went. People went in and out of the high-rise. Hanrahan watched the black doorman greet them, nod. No one suspicious. He watched Estralda’s shade. It was still down.

  When the last customer had left the Black Moon, Hanrahan motioned to the Chinese woman.

  “You Irish?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said the woman, confused.

  “You’re Irish?” Hanrahan said again, taking a serious look at the woman.

  “Iris,” she said. “My name is Iris.”

  “Didn’t think you were Irish,” he said, relieved. “Irish and Chinese have a lot in common,” he said, looking at his empty glass. The woman said nothing. She was not just pretty, she was delicately pretty and, he decided, she was about Maureen’s age. He was wrong. She was ten years older than his wife. “Want to know what they have in common, the Irish and Chinese?”

  “Yes,” said Iris. She smiled at the policeman, who was definitely drunk.

  “Children,” he said. “Family loyalty. We marry late and stay together. Like the Chinese.”

  A couple went into the lobby of the Michigan Towers across the street. Hanrahan glanced at them. A taxi pulled up in front of the lobby a few seconds later. The cabby got out and went into the building.

  “But never,” he said, “marry an Irishman. Are you married?”

  “No,” said the woman.

  “Ever go out with an Irishman?” he asked.

  The thought had never occurred to her.

  “No,” she said. She smiled a nervous smile.

  “Would you like to?” Hanrahan said. “I’ve never been out with a Chinese woman. I me
an I’ve been with a … Never been out with a Chinese woman. Did go out once with a Siamese lady, I must admit. Couldn’t take the curry.”

  She reached over and began to clear his plates. She called out something in Chinese to the kitchen and an old man’s voice answered in Chinese.

  “Calling for help?” asked Hanrahan, glancing out the window.

  The cabby who had gone into the high-rise came out carrying two suitcases. He opened his trunk, put them in, and got into the driver’s seat. The doorman opened the door and let out a woman. She was dressed in the same clothes Estralda was wearing that morning. She was also wearing a floppy wide-brimmed Annie Hall hat. She got into the waiting cab and waved to Hanrahan who lifted a hand in acknowledgment.

  “Can’t figure it,” he said. “She asks for help and then packs her bags and goes out.”

  “Asking for help?” the Chinese woman said.

  “Asking for …” Hanrahan repeated, and. looked up at the window of Estralda Valdez’s apartment. The shade was up. Hanrahan looked for the cab, remembered it had headed south on Sheridan. It was blocks away by then, or on Lake Shore Drive. He got up only slightly dizzy.

  “I talked to my father,” Iris said with a blush Hanrahan did not catch.

  “Got to go,” said Hanrahan. “I’ll take your card. Call you.”

  “My name is Iris,” she said, watching the policeman hurry to the door, drop a twenty-dollar bill on the counter, and take a restaurant card.

  “And mine is William,” he said. “And I think I’m in deep shit.”

  Iris watched him amble across the street and into the lobby of the apartment building. She wondered if he would call and if she really wanted him to and then she heard her father’s voice scolding her from the kitchen and she knew she and her father would be getting into their car after they cleaned up and closed the restaurant and that they would drive to the apartment they shared and that he would burn incense and complain about the poor day they had had. And then if he was not too tired, her father would watch one of his Charles Bronson videotapes.

  Iris decided that she wanted the Irishman to call.

  Hanrahan had hurried across the street, but hurrying did not come easily to him, especially with two double bourbons. Once Bill Hanrahan had been the fastest lineman on the Chicago Vocational High School football team. Dick Butkus, who had graduated from CVS a few years after Hardrock Hanrahan, had told Hanrahan at a reunion that he had been an inspiration. In his senior year, Hanrahan had twisted his knee in a practice. The speed was gone. Just like that. He had still gone on to a football scholarship at Southern Illinois. He’d been hoping for Notre Dame or Illinois but even with a good knee that had only been an outside hope. He had lasted two years at Southern, a journeyman lineman who had lost his nickname and drive. Twenty-five years and three months ago, Bill Hanrahan had left Carbondale and come back to Chicago. He joined his father as a cop as his father had joined his father before him.

  But those were the good old days and these were the bad new ones. Hanrahan had burst through the door to the outer lobby and pulled out his wallet and badge before the young black man in a doorman’s uniform could speak. The young man, whose gold-plated name tag said he was Billy Tarton, wanted no problems.

  “Valdez,” said Hanrahan.

  “Six-ten,” answered the doorman. He pressed the button to open the inner door.

  “You want me to announce—” Billy Tarton began but the look from the burly policeman shut his mouth.

  Hanrahan managed to keep from bowling over a trio of women who looked like bowling pins as they came out of the elevator. He entered the elevator, pushed the button to close the doors, and put his wallet away with his left hand while he pulled his Colt .38 Cobra out of the holster at his waist with his right.

  The elevator stopped at five. An old man started to get in. Hanrahan hid his Colt at his side and motioned the man back. The man looked as if he were about to protest and then noticed that the drunk in the elevator had his hand behind his back. The old man backed out and let the door close. Before the doors were fully open on six, Hanrahan was out, gun at the ready, looking both ways.

  No one in sight. At the end of the corridor to his left a door was open, letting out loud Latin music and light. The elevator pinged and closed its doors behind him.

  Hanrahan moved down the corridor, back against the wall, weapon pointed at the open door.

  At the door he went down low, gun leveled. The trick knee and the double bourbons almost did him in. He felt as if he were about to fall backward.

  “Not now,” he told himself. “Jesus, not now.”

  The music blared. From the doorway Hanrahan could see enough to make his already queasy stomach go sour. It was a one-bedroom with a kitchen alcove just inside the door. The refrigerator in the alcove was wide open. Broken bottles, a jar of Hellman’s low-cal mayonnaise, slices of still-frozen Steak’ems and rapidly melting ice cubes littered the floor. It was a hot night. Hanrahan was sweating. The cabinets over the sink were open and boxes were torn apart. Michael Jordan smiled up at Hanrahan from a ripped-open Wheaties carton.

  Hanrahan’s hands were sweating. He alternated drying each one on his already sweat-soaked shirt and then he moved past the open bathroom, glancing in to see the medicine cabinets open, capsules and bottles on the floor and in the tub. The top of the toilet basin was off and its two cracked pieces were on the floor near the wall. The closet door next to the bathroom was open. The rod and shelf were empty. Clothes were on the floor in a pile, hangers sticking out like dark bones.

  The voice of the man on the radio or phonograph repeated, “Todos Vuelven,” over and over again, pounding inside Hawaiian’s head like a migraine.

  And then he stepped into the living room and found what he had expected and feared. Lamps were turned over, the carpeting torn up. The dresser in the corner yawned with missing drawers which were roughly stacked upside-down, their contents thrown around the room. A red bra hung from a small fixture in the center of the ceiling and the man kept singing in Spanish as Hanrahan saw the overturned bed and the torn mattress heaped in a corner of the room. He moved around the bed and stood in front of the mattress.

  “Oh Mother,” he muttered, crossing himself. With his free hand he threw back the mattress and found himself looking down at the naked body of Estralda Valdez.

  Hanrahan had seen many a body in his twenty-four years as a cop. His reaction had always been the same. Something in him denied what he was seeing. It was there, but for an instant the dead body had no meaning. But that moment always passed and Hanrahan felt an enormous pain in his gut. He wanted to moan, but if others were around, he had to pretend that death had no meaning to him. His father had taught him a trick to deal with those first moments.

  “Don’t think of them as people,” Liam Hanrahan had advised. “Think of them as exact replicas, down to the tiniest detail. God’s taken the real ones away and given instead these amazingly precise replacements. What you see is the evidence God left for the police to bring the killers to justice in our courts before they face his. That way, Billy, you stay sane and righteous.”

  And, more or less, it had worked. When Hanrahan saw a body, he always dutifully crossed himself. He had seen a family, including a baby, cut into large parts in the crossfire of a gang battle. He had seen a man who had abused his wife for years ripped by the woman’s teeth and nails when after ten years she could take no more. He had seen … but, he suddenly realized, this woman before him was still alive. God had not replaced her. The illusion would not hold even for the needed instant. Blood pulsed in her wounds and her wounds were many and deep.

  Hanrahan put his gun away and knelt at her side.

  “I’ll get you help,” he said over the voice of the man singing in Spanish as he reached for a blanket to cover her.

  Her head was at an angle but she turned her eyes in his direction and Hanrahan imagined that she said, “Where were you?”

  He had no answer.

&nb
sp; “I’ll get help,” he repeated.

  Her mouth moved, perhaps a breath, perhaps the attempt at a word, but nothing came out.

  “The phone,” Hanrahan said, searching for it. “The phone.”

  He found it on the floor next to the bed. The music suddenly stopped. Behind him he heard a sound from Estralda Valdez and he knew it was death. He crossed himself but didn’t look back. He made the call, reported the location, and nature of the wounds and the fact that it was an assault. He knew it was now also a homicide but he’d let them send the paramedics. He’d made enough mistakes for one night.

  After he’d called in, he started looking for Lieberman. He found him at the synagogue on the second call. When he hung up, Hanrahan moved to the sink in the kitchen alcove, used the side of a spoon to turn on the cold water so he wouldn’t disturb any prints, and filled his cupped hands. He plunged his face into his hands and felt the water curl down his neck and chin. It wasn’t enough. He grabbed some melting ice on the counter, and rubbed his face. He considered, but only for an instant, finding a bottle, a bottle of anything, taking a drink to straighten himself out so he could deal with what was coming. And, in fact, he did see an open bottle of Scotch on its side on the floor, the top off, the amber liquid dribbling over the lip of the bottle. Something told him that a drink now wouldn’t be a grand idea and he listened to the something that spoke.

  He turned off the water and stepped over debris as he moved out onto the small balcony. The moon was full, a white glowing ball casting a path on the rippling lake. It was beautiful but Hanrahan was in no mood for beauty. He leaned over the railing and looked down at the traffic. Across the way in an adjacent high-rise an early weekend party was in full swing. People were laughing. Directly below him Hanrahan saw a truck filled with something shiny and green. He couldn’t see Jules Van Beeber who was passed out under three of the garbage bags clutching his lamp, dreaming of the naked woman who had spoken to him and handed him a present.