“What can I say?” asked Lieberman. “I’m a sweetheart.”
“You always been this funny, Viejo?”
“It’s a gift,” Lieberman said, drinking his Coke and enjoying the plaintive singing of some woman in Spanish. Her heart was broken. There was nothing left for her in the world. There was nothing to live for. She was through with men forever.
“You know the odds against the Cubs winning the World Series next year?” asked El Perro.
“No.”
“Fifteen to one,” El Perro said, leaning over to whisper louder than he had been talking. “You’re a fan, you bet on things like that, you know? I’m gonna put down a few hundred bucks before the odds drop.”
“They may go up,” said Lieberman.
“Then I’ll bet more,” said El Perro.
Lieberman rose and took a small brown paper bag out of his pocket. He handed it to Emiliano.
“What’s this?”
“A present,” said Lieberman. “I picked it up on my way here.”
The gang leader reached inside and pulled a compact disc from the bag. He held it up and read, “Klaz … Kless. Viejo, no puedo de leerlo.”
“Klezmer,” said Lieberman.
“What’s that?”
“Jew music,” said Lieberman. “Next time I come, put it on, another favor.”
El Perro examined the photograph on the front of the CD, a young woman and three young men all with beards, all smiling.
“I’ll listen,” Emiliano said.
Three minutes later, almost unable to hear, his stomach punishing him with jalapeño sauce, Lieberman was back on North Avenue. The sky was overcast and thunder rumbled. Three young Latinos walked toward the little old man as he headed for his car. Lieberman sighed and before they were ten feet away, pulled his gun from underneath his jacket, and pointed it at them. The trio stopped.
“I’m a cop. I’ve got a headache. I’ve got a stomachache and I’ve got a hell of a lot to do. Go away. Mug someone else. ¿Comprende?”
“Sí,” said the smallest of the three.
They were all wearing light jackets and black jeans.
“Andale entonces,” said Lieberman. “I haven’t shot anyone in weeks. Shooting people is like la leche de mi madre por mi. Just ask El Perro. Go.”
The three looked at each other, turned around, and walked away. Lieberman would have liked them to walk faster. He was in a foul mood. He even considered firing his gun in the air, but they might be armed and decide that they had to fight it out or die, and more than one stray bullet had hit an innocent or guilty bystander over the last few decades. He got in his car and drove. He didn’t turn on the radio.
The meeting was not going well. The group was small — Irving Hammel, the lawyer whom Abe called Rommel, Rabbi Wass, and Ida Katzman who was nearing ninety and remained the primary contributor to everything Temple Mir Shavot did. Ida was wealthy. Ida’s husband had left her a string of successful jewelry stores throughout the city. Ida had sold the stores to a chain. Ida was good for about three or four million, maybe more. Bess didn’t know. She was sure Irving Hammel, who wasn’t even forty yet, knew exactly what Ida Katzman was worth.
The meeting was in Rabbi Wass’s office. The rabbi sat behind his desk, slightly pale, dressed in a conservative blue suit and a raven-black kepuh on his head, trying to look very rabbinical and wise and failing miserably, Bess Lieberman thought. Ida Katzman was definitely showing signs of problems with her aging. Her hearing had always been good. It was going rapidly. She was beginning to have trouble sorting out arguments and positions. It was a shame that tore at Bess’s heart. Ida had been a rock. She and her husband had once had a son. He died in Vietnam. Now, Irving Hammel was certain, when she died she would leave all or most of her money and assets to the temple. In his heart, Rabbi Wass agreed.
It was Bess’s plan to honor Ida while she could still possibly enjoy the honor. Hammel and the rabbi were enthusiastic. Ida didn’t care for the idea. Bess promised that it could be small and tasteful or big, whatever Ida wanted.
“Money can be spent better on the temple, the religious school,” said Ida. “I don’t need a party. I don’t want a party.”
“Well,” Bess tried, “how about we have a very small ceremony to officially recognize your contributions and to dedicate a plaque in the temple lobby honoring you and your husband for your years of support?”
The very office in which they sat had a plaque on the wall indicating that the room had been bought and paid for in honor of Ida’s son.
“How small?” asked Ida, her hands resting on the cane in her lap.
“As small as you like,” said Bess. “Maybe just the temple officers.”
“The president, vice president, president of the men’s club, president of the women’s club, chair of the fund-raising committee, all of you and who knows who else,” Ida Katzman said. “You want a plaque. Gey gezundt. A plaque. Maybe dinner with you and Lieberman.”
“Ida,” Irving Hammel said gently. He wanted a big bash, a fund-raiser. He wanted to run it. He wanted to invite prominent Jews, potential clients, to the gala at a big hotel. “I hope you don’t mind me calling you Ida. We’ve known each other and worked together for more than five years now.”
“You can call me Mrs. Katzman,” the old woman said. “When you’re maybe ten years older, if I’m still alive, which would be a miracle and a joke played by God, you can call me Ida. You’re a good boy, Hammel, but you are a devious good boy and I think you should have more run. Fats Waller was dead when he was your age. He had run. That’s all I have to say.”
The old woman stood with the help of her cane and looked at the rabbi and then at Bess. Everyone had joined Ida in standing.
“Whatever you want to do, Ida, we’ll do,” said Bess.
“I want to die in my sleep and find out there’s a heaven,” Ida Katzman said. “I hope that I’m there because I belong there and not because the Lord keeps a book of those who donated enough to a synagogue building fund to make a hundred heaven points. Mr. Small is waiting outside to drive me home. I’m tired. Good-bye.”
Bess accompanied the old woman to her car where Mr. Small, her driver and guardian, opened the door for her.
“Driving Miss Daisy,” Ida said, getting in with the help of Mr. Small, who defied the remark by the fact that he was white and as dedicated to the old woman as he had been to her husband. Mr. Small had been the manager of one of the jewelry stores. He had suffered a pair of small strokes and the Katzmans had taken him into their house and helped him as much as he helped them.
The car drove off and Bess straightened her dress, took a deep breath, stood upright, and went back to face the always wavering rabbi and the always determined Rommel who was, she was sure, ready with some plan to save the idea of a big fund-raiser and law practice builder in honor of Ida Katzman.
Bess was now equally determined that such an event would not be if Ida didn’t want it. There would be no surprise parties, no visit from the women’s auxiliary board, not even a visit from old Rabbi Wass who was retired but could always be persuaded to come back from Florida to save the Jewish people.
Bess was the president of the temple. She would bully the rabbi and persuade the board while Irving Hammel did the same.
It never stops, Bess thought, going back into the rabbi’s office. She glanced at her watch. She had to pick up the children at school at three.
The call came at four. The caller had said he wanted to talk to Gornitz very soon. Carbin gave him a number and told him to call at four. Gornitz would answer. The caller had hung up.
Now it was four and the phone in the hotel room was ringing.
Mickey Gornitz picked up the phone and said, “Hello.”
“You’re still alive,” the male voice said. “We’re disappointed. Very disappointed. We keep our word, Mickey. Matthew dies in fifteen minutes and his body will be someplace where it won’t look pretty and it might not be found for weeks, maybe longer.”
“Give me a little more time,” Mickey pleaded.
“No more time,” said the caller. “Talk to your son for the last time.”
“Dad” came Matthew’s voice. “He’s going to kill me.”
The boy began to sob and the phone was taken from him by the caller.
“You didn’t say ‘good-bye,’ ” the caller said.
There was a sudden, loud howl from Mickey and the sound of the phone dropping. Then the caller heard a male voice say “Stop him. Stop —”
The sound of breaking glass and a howl of fear fading away.
“Oh, Christ” came a man’s voice.
The caller was about to hang up. Gornitz had gone through the window. The caller hoped the window was high enough.
“This is Eugene Carbin in the state attorney’s office, you son of a bitch” came the deep, steady voice of a man obviously making an attempt to remain calm. Behind him were voices arguing and what sounded like someone crying. “Let the boy go now. If anything happens to him, when we catch you, and we will catch you, there won’t be any goddamn plea bargains.”
The man who had called himself Eugene Carbin hung up the phone. Hard.
“Iris and I are getting married a week from Sunday,” said Bill Hanrahan, sitting in the chair next to Abe Lieberman’s desk. “Unitarian. Ex-priest Vince DiPino. His church is out in Des Plaines.”
“Iris’s father?” asked Abe drinking one of the two coffees he had picked up at Dunkin’ Donuts. Bill had the other.
“He’ll come around,” Hanrahan said with what sounded like less than total conviction.
The squad room was relatively quiet. Two uniforms were standing near the water fountain arguing about something. Detectives were doing paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. Typewriters were clattering. They had been told for years that they were all getting computers … sometime. Only Lorber really wanted one. The others were used to the typewriters. Cops don’t change easily.
“Woo?”
“He’ll come around too, and if he doesn’t, the hell with him. Iris and I want to get married. We don’t want to wait.”
“Your life, Father Murphy. Congratulations.”
“Rabbi, let me ask you something.”
“Ask,” said Lieberman.
“You think I’m suicidal?”
Lieberman had some more coffee, thought for a few seconds. “Yes, I do. I also think you want to stay alive. You don’t know why you do things? Welcome to the congregation. People get hurt, killed because you think you screwed up. You’ve made it to the board of directors of the Society of Screwed-Up Police Officers. You’ve got a conscience you don’t think you can live with. Congratulations on that too. You’re the president of the human race, Father Murphy.”
“Not that easy, Abe.”
“I should have taped this conversation. When did I say it was easy? When did I say you’d find answers? One day I’m in a good mood and I let three kids who want to mug me get away. Another day I feel like Darth Vader — my grandson’s favorite character of all time — and I pull in a woman for standing in the middle of the street and impeding traffic.”
Hanrahan finished his coffee and dropped the paper cup in the trash can near his feet. The can was almost overflowing.
“My old friend Woo isn’t going to like this,” he said.
“As we’ve already observed. Then maybe we should go see Mr. Woo and soothe his moral indignation.” Abe nursed his coffee.
“Won’t do any good, Rabbi,” said Hanrahan.
“Won’t know if we don’t try,” said Lieberman. “We’re off in a few minutes. Let’s pick up some hot and sour soup in Chinatown and engage in some friendly discussion with Mr. Woo.”
“If I’m living and Iris doesn’t change her mind, I’d like you to be best man and Bess to stand up with us. You know, bridesmaid, something like that.”
“Okay with Iris?”
“More than okay.”
“Then you’ve got yourself —”
The phone on the desk rang. Lieberman reached over and picked it up.
“Lieberman,” he said. And then he listened for a long time before he spoke again. “What do I think? It’s your call. No surprise. In a few years when I’m ready for retirement, I’ll run into those two and they’ll shoot a big hole in me or I’ll shoot a big hole in them … know you don’t have to get my permission. You’re just feeling like a compromising … forget it. Have a nice day.”
Lieberman hung up the phone and looked at his partner.
“One day,” he said, “one day and Salt and Pepper’s public defender plea-bargains them down to attempted robbery. The prisons are full. They’d both appear in court with cast, bandages, their mothers, their ministers — who they haven’t seen before in —”
“Saviello’s a Catholic,” said Hanrahan.
“His lawyer would find a priest. They’ll both be out in less than two years, probably one year. They’re going to kill some poor Pakistani some time, probably not together. Maybe if the State of Illinois is lucky, they’ll kill each other. Hell, William, you should have shot the bastard. I should have shot the bastard.”
“I’ve done enough of that for a while, Rabbi.”
Lieberman got up, dropped his cup in the garbage where it teetered precariously and decided to remain magically balanced within the ring of garbage.
“Let’s go see Mr. Woo,” he said.
It was after five.
“You are a remarkably well informed Jewish detective,” Woo said a little more than an hour after Abe and Bill had left the Clark Street station. The hot and sour soup was in two white pint cartons in the backseat of their car. They would drink it like coffee when they finished talking to the ancient man.
They were in a room behind the Chinese import shop that Liao Woo owned and that was a front for activities both legal and questionable. Lieberman had the bad taste to have brought up some of the questionable activities to their host in the office tastefully decorated with teak furniture, a large Oriental rug, and Chinese paintings on the wall. Woo was wearing dark slacks and a black silk Chinese shirt that buttoned to his neck.
“I’m a remarkably well informed detective,” said Lieberman.
The two detectives had sat in large finely polished wooden chairs with sturdy carved arms. Woo sat in a plainer version of the two chairs facing the men.
“It comes from living a long time and paying attention to the past,” said Lieberman. “I think we share that.”
Woo nodded and looked at Hanrahan.
“I am disappointed in you, William Hanrahan,” he said. “We have always conducted our conversations in a civilized manner and between the two of us.”
“Things have changed,” said Hanrahan. “Iris and I don’t want to wait. It’s got nothing to do with you. We can step back and respect each other and you can give Iris a nice wedding present, or my partner and I …”
Woo smiled.
“Officers,” he said, “I cannot be intimidated. I’ll not bore you with my boyhood and youth in China, but for every horror you have witnessed, I have witnessed a hundred. For every threat that you issue, I have survived a dozen. I have come near starvation and have engaged in acts which were beneath me, but one survives. Do not threaten me with misery. Do not bother to hint at it. You have no experience of real misery. I need not remind you that I am old, that my knees and back are beyond the help of physicians or acupuncture. William Hanrahan, you agreed to my proposal in your own home. You agreed to wait. You will live by that agreement. That is not a threat. It is what shall be whatever I must do to make it so.”
“When was it, Woo? Back in the early eighties, a cocaine shipment,” said Lieberman. “Narcotics tore this place apart, found one of those big vases sitting right out in your shop filled with packages of cocaine.”
Woo rose and looked at Lieberman. There was no emotion in Woo’s face.
“That was an error,” said Woo. “My attorneys rectified the error.”
“You’v
e done a lot of rectifying,” said Lieberman. “You were a poor street kid in a little town in China where, I understand, people survived by eating each other. You made it to Shanghai and found out how to stay alive in the dark alleys, and now you’re playing Fu Man Chu right up to the top of your silk shirt, which, I must say, is quite classy.”
“I do not know what you seek in this attempt at provocation,” said Woo leaning on his cane. “I believe it is a characteristic of your race. It has seemed so in my experience. Jews have a tendency toward abrupt transitions. I assure you, neither flattery nor threats will sway me from my duty, and it should not sway Detective Hanrahan from his promise.”
“Mr. Woo,” said Lieberman. “They don’t want to wait.”
“Then he should not have promised,” said Woo. “I have a modest but sufficient income and am able to help friends in my community and to chastise those who would take advantage of me or my friends in this community. It is not my access to money which has brought me respect. It is that I keep my word. Always. I would prefer to die than break my word.”
“You’ve got a point,” Lieberman said.
“If you like,” Woo said, “I will have coffee or tea brought in to you and you may take as much time as you wish. Meanwhile, I have other business.”
“More important than this?” asked Lieberman.
“No,” said Woo. “Simply more likely to have an affirmative conclusion.”
“We’ll leave,” Hanrahan said, rising.
“I think I might like some coffee,” said Lieberman. “Provided it’s good coffee.”
“Espresso.” Woo went through a door behind the desk and closed it. “Egyptian. Very strong.”
And the old man was gone.
“Abe,” Hanrahan said with some exasperation when the door had closed. “You were supposed to help me.”
“I like the old guy,” Lieberman said, sitting comfortably and admiring the chair. “I didn’t know I’d like him, and he has a point, Father Murphy.”
“I know.” Hanrahan got up and moved to the desk. He turned to face his partner and leaned back against the solid support.
“Woo has a reputation for being reasonable,” said Lieberman. “Had it from the first time I first heard of him back in the late sixties. I’ve seen him around, but this was the first time I’ve really talked to him.”
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