Lieberman's Folly

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “None of my business, Father,” Hanrahan said. “I don’t think we need your office. I just have a question or two.”

  Parker wiped his moist brow with his sleeve and said, “Go ahead.”

  “Man, homeless man named Jules Van Beeber, known as Jules the Walker,” said Hanrahan. “You know him?”

  “Yes,” said Parker.

  There was a slight echo in the hallway. Hanrahan knew that just beyond the wooden doors would be an aisle and down the aisle, a high ceiling overhead, would be an altar, and over that altar would be a crucifixion and …

  “Officer?” Father Parker said.

  “Sorry,” said Hanrahan, “I’m just … I didn’t get much sleep last night. A woman was murdered not far from here.”

  “Estralda Valdez,” said Parker. “Word travels fast. You think Jules had something to do with it?”

  “We’d like to talk to him,” said Hanrahan.

  “Haven’t seen him for a while,” said Parker. “When it gets cold, he spends some time with us, shares a meal.”

  “You know where I could find him?” asked Hanrahan.

  “Let’s ask Waco Johnny,” said Parker. “He was here last night. Still is, I think. Come on.”

  Parker led the way down the corridor into darkness and down a short flight of stairs to a narrow basement. He stopped at a door at the left and pushed it open. A tired brown Salvation Army Store sofa sat in one corner facing two unmatched sagging chairs, one a blue vinyl, the other an orange tweed. Six beds lined the walls. Two battered Formica-top tables, one blue, one white, stood in the middle of the room with chrome chairs around them. At one of the tables, a man thin as a broom and wearing baggy denim overalls sat looking at a cup of what must have been coffee. The man was worn and wrinkled, his face a creviced series of canyons. His mouth was toothless, but his eyes were the brightest blue Hanrahan had ever seen.

  “Waco Johnny,” said Father Parker. “This is Detective Hanrahan. He’s looking for Jules. Can you give him a hand?”

  Waco Johnny looked up from his coffee cup at the policeman.

  “What’s the Walker done?” asked Waco Johnny.

  “Don’t know that he’s done anything,” said Hanrahan. “We need his help.”

  Hanrahan considered a lie that would get Waco Johnny talking, but remembering he was in a church he couldn’t bring it to his lips.

  “You got a buck you can lend me?” asked Waco Johnny.

  “Hey,” said Father Parker. “Tell the man or don’t tell the man, but don’t put a price on it here.”

  “I got thirty pennies,” said Hanrahan. “Thirty pieces of copper. You want ’em.”

  Waco Johnny flashed his blue eyes.

  “I ain’t no fool, Mr. Cop,” he said. “I’m not selling the Walker out. And what the hell kind of cop are you anyway? You want something from me and you insult me royal.”

  “A tired cop,” Hanrahan said. “Why do they call you Waco Johnny?”

  “Don’t remember,” he said. “Something to do with something I used to do. Circus maybe. I think I rode a horse or shot a gun at something.”

  “Jules,” Father Parker reminded him.

  “Jules hangs out near the beach on Chase, under the breaker near the rocks, when the weather lets him,” said Waco Johnny. “You know where the playground is? Nights sometimes he sleeps inside the pipe thing in the playground looks like a truck. Cops can’t see him and boot his ass. That’s all I know.”

  “Thanks,” said Hanrahan. “I’m giving Father Parker five bucks in your name for coffee or whatever.”

  “Good enough,” said Waco Johnny. “I’ll put it down on my income tax as a charitable donation.”

  Father Parker laughed and Waco Johnny grinned toothlessly, his blue eyes dancing bright. Hanrahan didn’t feel like smiling. He turned and went out the door and up the stairs with Father Parker behind him.

  “Can I ask you something?” the priest said when they got back to the church lobby.

  “I gotta get going, Father,” Hanrahan said, uncomfortably checking his watch. It wasn’t too early for a beer.

  “You’re Bill Hanrahan, right?” said the priest.

  “Right,” Hanrahan said.

  “Come with me,” the priest said. He turned and opened the double doors.

  Hanrahan hesitated and then followed. Father Parker genuflected and crossed himself. Hanrahan did the same, though an abbreviated version. They walked down the aisle and turned right at the altar. Jesus looked down. Jesus wept.

  There was a door to the right of the altar. Parker went through, holding it open for Hanrahan.

  “My office,” said the priest.

  The office was large, cluttered. Hanrahan thought it looked more like what Lieberman probably had expected Hanrahan’s house to look like that morning.

  “Over here,” the priest went on.

  The walls were filled with photographs, mostly football players. Most of the photographs were signed. Hanrahan looked at the photos while Father Parker found the one he was looking for.

  “Here,” Parker said and Hanrahan looked. It was a shot of four men, three white, one black. Hanrahan recognized himself. He didn’t recognize the others.

  “That’s you,” Hanrahan said. “You’re Whiz Parker?”

  “I was Whiz Parker,” the priest said. “Bad knee like yours. You told me about it the day that picture was taken. Homecoming 1978.”

  “I don’t even recognize those other guys,” said Hanrahan looking closely at the picture.

  “I don’t either,” said Parker, “but I remember you.”

  “Long time ago,” said Hanrahan.

  “Not so long,” said Parker. “You’re a Catholic, aren’t you?”

  “I dropped enough clues,” Hanrahan said with a smile. “My name for instance. I gotta go, Father. Maybe I’ll drop by we can talk football again some time.”

  “You look tired, Hanrahan,” said Parker.

  “Things on my mind,” Hanrahan said. “Gotta go. I can find my way out.”

  He turned, opened the door, and went out into the hallway, closing the door behind him. He stood there for a few seconds, sighed, turned, and knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” said Parker.

  Parker was sitting at the desk in front of the cluttered table, wiping his face with a crumpled towel.

  “Father,” said Hanrahan, “I want to confess.”

  “Give me a few minutes to shower and change and I’ll meet you upstairs,” said the priest.

  Hanrahan nodded and went back through the door and through another door into the church. It was still empty. He walked up the aisle. He almost kept walking. His knees were shaking the way they’d shake when he was a kid and his mother told him to confess. He sat in the back row and tried to put his thoughts in order, but images, names, anger, sorrow came in waves. The dead woman, Maureen, his sons, Lieberman, even the Chinese woman last night, who had, he was sure, seen through his blustering and looked at him with understanding.

  William Edward Hanrahan had not been to confession in almost twenty years. He looked at his watch, the watch Maureen had given him for his birthday six years ago. He had had it repaired beyond the point where it made sense to repair it. This was taking too long. Hanrahan didn’t have the time. Jules the Walker might be moving now. He was just getting to his feet when Father Parker appeared near the altar wearing a cassock and collar. He came up the aisle, ran his right hand down from collar to sash, and said, “You get the whole show.”

  Hanrahan hesitated.

  “God’s waiting,” said Parker.

  Lieberman started with the Golden Earring Pawn Shop on Devon. The owner, a Korean named Park, which was the last name of ninety percent of the Koreans Lieberman had encountered in his life, said that he had never seen Jules or that he had seen so many people like Jules that he couldn’t tell the difference. In any case, no one like him had been in today to try to pawn a lamp.

  “Don’t need lamps,” said Park. “Even good
lamps. No room for them. Need anything with gold, silver, or electric stuff that works, radios, watches, razors. No more guitars. Got a CD player? I’ll take it off your hands, even it don’t work good.”

  Lieberman made his way down the street finding nothing and saving Raw Izzy for last.

  Raw Izzy was in the shop sitting in an overstuffed chair in front of his cage reading a book. Raw Izzy was pale, as pale as Estralda Valdez in death. He was white and short and fat. A tuft of brown hair stood up on his otherwise bald head and with glasses perched on his nose he looked like an intellectual Muppet.

  “Izzy,” said Lieberman, stepping into the shop to the sound of the little bell on the door. “How you doing?”

  Izzy looked up over his glasses and book.

  “Since last you saw me, I got a pacemaker. You know about this book?” asked Izzy, holding up the book. “The H.L. Mencken book?”

  “Heard he was an anti-Semite and a bigot,” said Lieberman.

  “This news surprised you?” said Izzy, who had a Ph.D. in philosophy and another in theology from the University of Chicago.

  “I don’t know much about Mencken,” said Lieberman.

  “Overrated,” said Izzy. “Could turn a phrase but he rode the liberal tides. I wasn’t surprised. Actually, I was pleased. If Mencken could be one of them, anyone could be. You can’t trust. That’s also the motto of my business, which, as you can see, is why I have been so enormously successful. You know the last time you came to see me, Lieberman?”

  “Hansford case,” Lieberman guessed.

  “Case … case. You were looking for a trumpet for your grandson,” said Izzy, still sitting. “You ever find one?”

  “No, but he switched to the drums. Then the piano.”

  Lieberman found himself looking at a shelf of harmonicas safely locked behind a thick glass panel. When he was a kid Lieberman had a harmonica. He’d learned to play “Tara” from Gone With the Wind, an accomplishment that earned him half a buck from his emotional mother who loved Abraham and MGM as much as Abe loved the Cubs. He had gone on to a chromatic harmonica in his twenties when he was working nights in the patrol car with Tuna Kingsford and learned to play “Cherry Pink,” “River of No Return,” and the song from Shane. Tuna had been tolerant and Lieberman had improved, but one night after a domestic violence call in Uptown, the harmonica was missing when they got back to the car.

  “You’re not looking for a piano today,” said Izzy. “What are you looking for besides memories?”

  “Wanderer known as Jules the Walker,” said Lieberman.

  “Lamp,” said Izzy.

  “That’s him,” said Lieberman.

  “Over there,” said Izzy, pointing behind a carefully enclosed three-level case of watches.

  Lieberman moved behind the watch case to an almost black-stained end table. On the table was a lamp, the exact duplicate of one he had seen broken on the floor of Estralda Valdez’s apartment.

  “This is it,” said Lieberman. “Talk to me.”

  “Not much to say,” said Izzy removing his glasses. “Man wanders in holding the lamp like a sick baby. He tells me it’s a magic lamp. I consider his condition, offer him two bucks, which, apparently, is two bucks more than anyone else on the mile offers him.”

  “He say anything else?” Lieberman said.

  “That he was going to tell his tale to the Wonder Man,” said Raw Izzy.

  “The bartender at Blarney Inn?”

  “One might think so, but your man was not focused on this planet or dimension when he entered or left,” said Izzy.

  “I’ll give you three bucks for the lamp,” said Lieberman.

  “Five,” said Izzy.

  “I could take it as evidence for nothing,” said Lieberman. “It’s stolen property.”

  “I could call my lawyer,” said Izzy, pointing his glasses at the policeman.

  “For a two-buck lamp?” Lieberman said.

  “For a principle,” said Izzy.

  “Four,” said Lieberman.

  “Compromise is moral defeat,” said Raw Izzy.

  “All right, five,” agreed Lieberman, pulling out his wallet.

  Izzy remained in his chair to receive the five singles and then handed Lieberman a key.

  “The case you were looking at, the harmonicas. Take one, a premium. Goes with the lamp. Special today.”

  Lieberman opened the case, removed a Hohner, key of C, put it in his pocket, locked the case, and returned the key to Raw Izzy.

  “Life,” said Izzy, “is a series of strange and seemingly pointless stories. Meaning is derived from a relationship of story, storyteller, and listener, but by far the hardest task is that of the listener.”

  Lieberman picked up the lamp and went to the door.

  “I’ll be in touch,” he said.

  “Come back when you can play ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,’” said Izzy, returning to his Mencken book.

  Jules the Walker had been at the Blarney Inn that morning, but he was long gone by the time Lieberman got there. It had taken him less than an hour to drink his two bucks and be on his way. Wonder Man, the diminutive bartender, did remember that Jules had headed east down Chase. Lieberman thanked him, went out the door, and moved as quickly as his tender knees would let him to his car.

  Five minutes earlier, Hanrahan had arrived at the Chase Street beach. Jules the Walker was not in the truck and he wasn’t under or near the rocks. Hanrahan decided to walk west on Chase in the vague hope of spotting Jules or someone who looked as if he or she might be acquainted with someone like Jules.

  Hanrahan had gone only half a block when he saw Jules Van Beeber heading toward him. Jules Van Beeber also saw Hanrahan and knew instantly that the big Irishman was a cop. Jules, who normally walked, turned and ran. He ran right into the arms of Abraham Lieberman, who had also seen the Walker as Lieberman drove down Chase toward the lake. Lieberman had seen him, parked, and stepped out to approach him when Hanrahan had appeared.

  “I did nothing,” Jules whispered in Lieberman’s arms.

  Van Beeber and Lieberman lay on the sidewalk, suspect on top, cop on the bottom.

  Hanrahan hurried over and lifted the man off of his partner.

  Jules repeated to the big cop, “I did nothing.”

  “You hungry?” Lieberman asked getting up.

  “I could use something,” Jules conceded.

  “Good, let’s get a Big Mac,” said Lieberman.

  Less than ten minutes later, they were sitting in a booth in the McDonald’s on Howard Street. The place was nearly empty. A fat woman with three kids sat at a table nearby. No matter what the kids said, the fat woman replied, “Just eat your fries.”

  “That’s not good for you,” Jules the Walker said as Lieberman took a bite out of his Big Mac.

  “I’m celebrating,” said Lieberman. “Wipe your mouth when you eat.”

  Jules took a big, messy bite and wiped his mouth.

  “Celebrating?” said Jules.

  Jules was wedged into the booth next to Hanrahan. Lieberman sat across from them. Jules had ordered a Coke, a cheeseburger without mustard, and a large fries. Hanrahan settled for a coffee and Lieberman went for the Big Mac and Diet Coke. Jules’s burger had taken an extra five minutes because it was a special order.

  “I’m celebrating two things,” Lieberman explained, helping himself to Jules’s fries. “Passed my annual physical and we caught you.”

  “I flew,” said Jules pausing in midbite, mouth full. “I gotta tell you. I flew. That’s the God’s truth.”

  “Chew your food and swallow it,” said Hanrahan. “You’re disgusting.”

  “I’se regusted,” said Jules. “That’s what Andy used to say on Amos and Andy when I had a TV.”

  “Mouth shut when you eat, Jules,” said Hanrahan.

  “OK,” Jules agreed and continued eating, a task made difficult by his lack of teeth. “Easier to eat the burgers without false teeth.”

  “That’s good to know,”
said Lieberman. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jules, looking at Hanrahan.

  “Why did you kill Estralda Valdez?”

  “I killed—” Jules said in midbite again.

  “Chew,” said Hanrahan.

  Jules resumed chewing.

  “You were in her apartment last night,” said Lieberman. “She was there. You went in, killed her, took the lamp, and—”

  “Flew the coop,” said Jules.

  “You got a knife?” asked Hanrahan.

  “No,” said Jules. “Used to have one. No. Don’t think I killed anyone last night.”

  “When did you kill someone?” Hanrahan asked.

  “War,” said Jules between bites.

  “Which war?” asked Lieberman.

  “Don’t remem … Yeah, there were guys. Australians we were shooting at,” said Jules. “Yes, Australians.”

  “We’ve never been at war with Australia,” said Lieberman.

  “Then I don’t know what war,” said Jules. “Can I have a drink?”

  “Coke,” said Hanrahan.

  “A drink,” said Jules. “Then I’ll talk.”

  “Just eat your fries,” the fat woman with all the kids screamed.

  “What’ll you say?” asked Lieberman.

  “Anything. You tell me.”

  “You killed her,” said Hanrahan.

  “I … no, I don’t think so,” Jules repeated. “Not this time.”

  “Not this time?” Lieberman said.

  Jules’s eyes suddenly focused on another universe. His mouth dropped open. Bits of cheese dripped out.

  Hanrahan reached over with one hand and pushed Jules the Walker’s right shoulder gently to bring him back to Chicago. Jules jerked back and hit his head on the wall. The fat woman with the three kids stopped chewing in midbite and looked at the three men.

  “I hardly touched him,” Hanrahan told the woman with the kids and his partner who shrugged and kept on chewing.

  “I’m here,” said Van Beeber.

  “That’s good to know,” said Lieberman, handing him a napkin. “Wipe your mouth.”

  “I know where I am,” said Van Beeber, focusing on Lieberman. “I just don’t know for sure when I am.”

  “Valdez’d never let him in,” said Hanrahan, examining the creature at his side. “And if she did, she could take him with one hand.”