Big Silence

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “Marvin?” Bess asked.

  “I have an opinion,” he said, “but there is no way I can give it without creating a greater problem. I’ll just sit back and let those of the same blood as the children decide.”

  “Rhesus,” Todd guessed.

  “No,” said Marvin, again adjusting his glasses. “My own idea, but it was a firm part of my father’s basic philosophy. He had a very large extended family, and he survived by making as few familial decisions as possible.”

  “I say,” said Bess, “that we sleep on this and tomorrow someone be designated to ask the children what they’d like after telling them that we are simply getting their input and that the adults will have to make the final decision. Now, who do you trust to discuss it with them?”

  “You,” said Abe.

  “Fine,” said Todd. “You talk to them, Bess.”

  “Okay,” said Lisa.

  “Lisa, you can sleep with Melisa again tonight or go to the hotel with your husband,” said Bess.

  Lisa looked at Marvin, who gave her a small smile. “I’ll go with Marvin.”

  “And, Todd,” Bess said, “you should go discuss it further with your wife.”

  “We have nothing more to discuss,” he said in a way that made it clear that his wife was less than thrilled by her husband’s decision to do battle for the children.

  Lieberman had talked to Todd’s wife several times about the situation. She was older than her husband, well known in her profession, and not at all anxious to take on someone else’s children. Not that she wouldn’t do it if it turned out to be the best thing and she would certainly do her best, but it wasn’t something she was looking forward to. If she had a vote, Lieberman was sure, it would be for the children to stay with Bess and Abe.

  “One more thing,” said Lisa. “I don’t think this is a safe environment for my children. Last night crazy Mexicans dragged a one-armed Vietnamese —”

  “Korean,” Lieberman corrected.

  “Korean,” said Lisa, “into this house, where he threatened to kill you and they volunteered to kill him. That is not a safe environment and I don’t think a judge will disagree.”

  “Mr. Kim and I have had a heart-to-heart talk and he is on his way to San Francisco,” Abe said as he ate his still-crisp salad. “The other gentlemen were business acquaintances. Now I’m tired. I’ve had a long day. I’m afraid I’m getting a migraine. I want a hot bath and I want a few hours of peace with my wife. Which means I am fond of you all, but it’s time to say good night.”

  “Agreed,” said Marvin.

  “Agreed,” Todd said reluctantly.

  Lisa and Bess said nothing though Bess nodded almost imperceptibly to let her husband know that he had, in her opinion, said exactly the right thing.

  Ten minutes later, an exhausted Lieberman and his wife were in the kitchen cleaning the glasses and his dinner plate. They managed to talk for fifteen whole minutes before the phone rang. Abe picked it up.

  “Abe” came the gravelly voice of Desk Sergeant Nestor Briggs, who was closer to retirement than Lieberman. “Thought you’d like to know. Body found about ten minutes ago in an alley behind Lunt not far from Sheridan. Looks like it’s Clark Mills. Couple of bullets in the back of the head.”

  Abe stood silent.

  “You there, Abe?”

  “I’m here,” he said. “What’s the cross street? … I’m heading over there now. You call Bill?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Do it.”

  There was a space almost in front of his house in Ravenswood, less than three blocks from the Ravenswood Hospital. He had been aware that there were lights on in the house even before he was looking at them. Hanrahan knew the house that well. He and Maureen had lived there for a quarter of a century, raised their two boys there. He had become an alcoholic both in and out of that house, and when his wife left, it was from the house in front of which he was now parked.

  There was a FOR SALE sign in the small front yard. Hanrahan had put it there himself a few weeks ago. There were plenty of reasons not to keep the place, particularly the bad memories; some of the more recent ones, like the shooting of Frankie Kraylaw, were especially bad.

  There had been a time Hanrahan would have assumed that the lights on the house meant that Maureen had returned. He had kept the house dust-free, sheets changed, kitchen floor polished, and dishes put away for years while he waited. He had gone to AA and managed with pain to get sober. And he had waited, waited for Maureen to return, until, in spite of the fact that they were Catholics, she had filed for divorce. Hanrahan had taken it hard, but he had neither let the house go to ruin nor fallen off the wagon.

  The day before he had decided to go to AA, on the same night that he had been too drunk to keep alive a woman he was supposed to be watching, he had met Iris Chen in the Chinese restaurant right across from the apartment building he was supposed to keep an eye on. Iris’s father owned the restaurant. Iris had looked at the big half-drunk Irish cop with concern. Later that concern turned to love. Iris had, much to his surprise, been there for him when everything had fallen apart. Iris had now agreed to marry him, and she had a key to the house. She had never used it before, but Hanrahan was sure she was inside, wondering why he hadn’t come to see her or call since he had fouled up on the Gornitz murder and the kidnapping of the boy.

  He walked up the front steps noticing that the Tribune wasn’t on the doorstep. Iris must have brought it in. Just in case it wasn’t Iris, Hanrahan checked his weapon, put it in his right hand, and opened the door with his left. There were people out there who might want William “Hardrock” Hanrahan dead.

  Every downstairs light in the house seemed to be on. Nothing seemed disturbed. He moved forward toward the kitchen and found himself looking at a crowded table, much as his partner had been doing at almost the same moment. Iris, beautiful Iris, sat next to her father, a tiny man who spoke little English. Iris’s father, Huang Chen, was looking at the old man at the far end of the small table. Liao Woo could have been any age, but he was certainly old. He carried a silver-handled cane and wore thick glasses. Liao Woo was, officially, an importer of Oriental goods. He was, unofficially, the most powerful man in Chinatown. He quietly ruled the area around 22nd Street that contained a concentration of 100 percent Chinese except for tourists and Chicagoans who came for dinners and dim sum breakfasts. Liao Woo was also well acquainted with members of the aging Chicago mob.

  Seated on either side of the chair left open for Hanrahan were two young Chinese men whom Hanrahan recognized as Liao Woo’s bodyguards. Both, Hanrahan knew, were armed. Both, Hanrahan knew, had already done severe, possibly lethal bodily harm to those who threatened or displeased Liao Woo. Hanrahan had clashed with the well-dressed duo for the simple reason that Liao Woo had, for years, quietly harbored the certainty that he would wed Iris Chen. After several confrontations and a number of warnings, Woo and the Irish detective had reached an understanding and declared a truce, providing Hanrahan remained sober, attentive, and a good husband after the marriage took place.

  Iris’s smile was the same as always, but Hanrahan had learned to recognize when it was forced, a beautiful mask. Iris was, in fact, several years older than Bill though she could easily have passed for his daughter. He had no doubt that he loved her and wanted to marry her. He also had no doubt that this gathering was not going to be an hour of joyous talking about old times and preparations for the marriage reception.

  “I see Iris made you some tea,” Hanrahan said, putting his gun back in his holster.

  “I hope we haven’t offended you,” said Liao Woo, “but we brought our own tea.”

  “I’m not offended,” Hanrahan said sitting.

  The five Chinese around the table were looking at him as if he were expected to speak.

  “To what do I owe this honor, Mr. Woo?” Hanrahan said.

  “Trouble follows you,” said Woo. “People are hurt, die. We think, as I understand you do, that you are carrying a
curse, and we do not wish Miss Chen to be a victim of this curse.”

  “Curse?” Hanrahan asked.

  “I do not mean witch doctors and medicine men,” Woo said slowly. “I believe you carry the curse in your heart, that you bring destruction wherever you go, that it is you who have cursed yourself. You seek danger and those around you suffer.”

  “And?” Hanrahan asked, recognizing the same basic argument he had heard from Sam Parker.

  “I know what happened in Ohio,” said Woo. “I have even been informed of your dangerous behavior earlier today in capturing a man with a shotgun. That cannot continue.”

  Hanrahan, wondering how Woo had found out but not surprised, rose and said, “I’m getting coffee. Anyone else?”

  No one answered.

  There was silence while the detective got some cold coffee from the pot, poured it into a cup, put it in the microwave, and stood listening to the hum of the machine, his back turned to his “guests.” It didn’t surprise Hanrahan that Woo would have an informant in the department, informants all over the place. Woo dealt in information.

  The microwave pinged. Hanrahan removed the hot cup and went back to his seat. No one had moved. He looked at Iris, who seemed to try to convey something he wasn’t sure he understood.

  “I think this is up to me and Miss Chen,” Hanrahan said.

  Woo nodded, looked at the silver handle of his cane, and said softly, “Detective, I suppose to you we look like something out of an old movie, Chinese following traditions which make little sense to you and other Americans. The traditions are nearly dead both in mainland China and Taiwan. The traditions are maintained by those who left China when such traditions still existed and had meaning. They settled in communities all over the world and maintained those traditions which gave and give meaning to their existence. There are such Chinese communities in Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, and many other cities including Chicago. You are a Catholic. Would you like someone to tell you that your traditions, your church, are no longer meaningful?”

  “No,” said Hanrahan who, in fact, wasn’t at all sure that all of what the Catholic church stood for was still meaningful, at least to him.

  He drank his coffee and waited, silent while Woo looked at his withered hands and then at Iris.

  “I propose, with the agreement of Mr. Chen, that the wedding be postponed for a period of one year during which we observe your behavior and see if death continues to leap upon you.”

  “Iris and I want to get married next month,” said Hanrahan.

  “Do you find my conditions unacceptable and unreasonable?”

  Hanrahan started to say something and realized that, whatever the motives of the old Chinese at the table, considering his own behavior, there was certainly some sense in what the man said. In fact, it wasn’t much different from what he had been thinking himself.

  “Iris?” he said.

  At first he couldn’t understand her, she spoke so softly.

  “I wish to marry you as soon as possible,” she said. “It is difficult for me to go against my father who values the advice of Mr. Woo and who has done much for us. They have not said they wish us to not marry. They wish to be careful.”

  “During the year,” said Woo, “you may certainly continue to see each other and I give you my word, as I have before, that I will not press my attentions on Miss Chen. You may ask her if I have done so since our agreement.”

  Iris looked down and shook her head no.

  “Okay,” said Hanrahan, wanting to go for some of the aspirin with codeine he kept upstairs in his medicine cabinet. “It makes sense.”

  “Good,” said Woo, rising. “Then you agree?”

  “If Iris agrees,” Hanrahan said.

  Iris’s nod was almost imperceptible.

  All the others around the table also rose, including Hanrahan.

  “As a token of good faith,” Woo said, looking at the detective, “I wish to give you some information. I do not know where the missing boy is who you are seeking. However, I suggest that you look in the boy’s past for information which can help you. I have people inside of Mr. Stashall’s organization who give me information in exchange for considerations. I do not believe that Stashall has the boy or took him. He may know where he is, but he did not do the deed himself. There is another male you seek.”

  The phone rang.

  Hanrahan wanted to ask some questions, talk to Iris whose father took her arm. He wanted to let the phone ring, but he couldn’t. He had no answering machine. He had smashed it against the kitchen wall after a message from Maureen about the divorce. Then he had carefully replastered the hole he had made in the wall and covered it with perfectly matching paint. The story of my life, he thought. I break it and then I try to fix it.

  The call might be from his son Michael who had recently stayed with his father during Michael’s own battle with alcohol. It might be from Abe saying there was a lead on the Gornitz kid.

  He answered the phone and heard a voice say, “Bill?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Clark Mills was found dead about half an hour ago in an alley. Lieberman is on his way.”

  Nestor Briggs gave Hanrahan the location and hung up.

  “I’ve got to go,” said Hanrahan.

  “You might wish to shave before you do,” said Woo. “In your bathroom you will find a new, highly efficient electric razor. The one you have is ancient and useless. Please consider it an engagement gift. It would be good if you are to marry Miss Chen if you could be clean shaven and neatly dressed at all times. Respect, Detective Hanrahan.”

  “Respect is what makes calamity of so long a life,” said Hanrahan.

  Woo paused. “Is that Shakespeare?”

  “It is,” said Hanrahan. “Can’t say I remember much of what I had to learn in school, but that and a few other things stuck with me.”

  “You will have to, at your leisure, tell me other things which have stuck with you. I assume some of the religious rituals of your faith can be included.”

  “It can,” said Hanrahan. “Meaning no disrespect, I can’t keep the razor.”

  Woo smiled, pleased, and nodded at one of his young men, who bounded toward the stairs leading to the bedrooms. They all stood waiting the few seconds till the young man brought down a small box.

  “You should make a good husband,” said Woo. “It is a pity you are not Chinese.”

  “I think I agree with you on both counts,” said Hanrahan.

  As they left, Hanrahan touched Iris’s arm and said aloud, “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said, touching him back. “Do you want the key back?”

  “No,” said Hanrahan. “Never.”

  Her father escorted her out of the kitchen and Hanrahan followed as the five visitors left the house. He gave them time to move slowly with the old man. Hanrahan, standing in the doorway, listened to the sound of Woo’s cane tapping against the concrete walk. A limousine was waiting double parked. It had not been there when Hanrahan came home. The windows were dark and he watched Woo, Iris, and Iris’s father disappear into the backseat and the two young men disappear into the front. When the limo pulled away, Hanrahan felt his face of stubble, sighed, closed the door, and went upstairs to shave with a fresh blade.

  Clark Mills lay in the middle of the alley. A woman in a nearby building had heard the shots and called the police. A few people were gathered in the alley watching though it was past midnight. The area had been taped off by the first two officers on the scene. When Lieberman had arrived he asked them what they had done. Fortunately, they had done almost nothing except determine that the big man lying on his face was dead with two holes in the back of his head. The evidence, what Abe, Bill, and Rutgers, from downtown Homicide and Forensics could find of it, would be reasonably intact.

  “Rabbi,” said Hanrahan arriving at the scene.

  “Father Murph,” said Lieberman. “Rutgers from Homicide’ll be here in a few minutes.”


  Hanrahan nodded in understanding. Rutgers would give some orders to the medical examiner’s people, say a few things to the evidence technicians, and disappear. The murder of a homeless man who had been harassing the neighborhood wasn’t worth the effort he could be putting into domestic, drug, and gang murders. Rutgers probably caught an average of one murder every two days. This one, left to Homicide, would stay on the board for a few weeks unless the evidence search turned up a miracle. Then, either way, Clark Mills would be forgotten unless Hanrahan and Lieberman worked on it, which they were entitled to do since Mills was already their case on misdemeanor counts.

  “Wish it could have been inside,” said Lieberman. “Inside you get the prints, blood, all kinds of things. Out here, who knows what was trampled on and what, if anything, you can get prints from.”

  Lieberman wasn’t telling his partner anything he didn’t know. It was just something to say while they both looked.

  Hanrahan watched where he was walking as he approached the body and knelt to examine it without touching. The first thing that struck him was that Mills still had the thick, solid neck of a pro lineman. It was in the man as it had been and still was in Hanrahan in spite of the years of alcohol and lack of exercise.

  Hanrahan got up and returned to his partner who was looking at faces in the small crowd at the end of the alley behind the yellow tape. He didn’t see anyone who might be a likely suspect, but you never know. Maybe that couple still in their robes in spite of the night chill had killed the man who had terrorized their neighborhood. Maybe a lot of things.

  “One thing’s sure, he died long after he was supposed to meet us in the park.”

  “Yeah,” said Lieberman. “Shall we?”

  “Let’s,” said Hanrahan.

  For the next two hours, the two men searched the alley with their flashlights. Rutgers showed up, gave the body a quick look, and said a few words to the medical examiner’s men and the two cops who had taken the call. He watched the police photographer take pictures, probably more than would be needed or carefully examined, but mistakes had been made in the past and would be again and again. He didn’t say anything to Lieberman and his partner beyond an initial “I hate alleys. Seems like half the victims want to get killed in alleys.”