Lieberman's Day

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  Lisa Cresswell had neither her mother’s delicacy, grace, nor looks. She didn’t have her mother’s sense of humor nor her comfortable assurance and leadership. What Lisa had was her children, her intelligence, determination, and a husband she had probably already lost.

  Lisa poured more coffee for her aunt and mother and tried to pay attention to Yetta’s rambling.

  “You think Carol will say yes?”

  “When she’s up to it, we’ll ask her,” Bess said softly. “Maybe she and David had another name picked, one that David particularly liked.”

  Once again, her mother had said the right thing. If Bess hadn’t been there, if the question had been asked of her, Lisa would have said that the decision to name the baby was Carol’s and Carol’s alone, that it wouldn’t be right to try to tell the mother what to name her child. No one had told Lisa. It was she who had chosen the names of her own children. Todd, who had mounted mild campaigns for more Grecian names for his children—Cassandra, Electra, Orestes—had given in to Lisa’s determination.

  It was also Lisa’s determination that had led her to take her children and leave Todd. Dissatisfied with what she had and not knowing where she wanted to go, she had acted abruptly, uncharacteristically, and with apparent certainty.

  Before she was forty she had to leave Todd Cresswell. Todd the depressing and often depressed. Todd the apologetic. Todd who escaped to ancient Athens when things got too rough in contemporary Chicago.

  She had left determined and now she stood, coffeepot in hand, not knowing how she looked or what she was wearing, wondering if her husband was in bed with a woman named Faye while Lisa’s children slept in the next room. She had to admit that she was still almost certain that she did not want Todd back. She also had to admit that she was less disturbed by the vague image of Barry lying in bed with his eyes open listening to his father and Faye in the next room than she was by the more vivid image of Todd in bed with this woman. What made it worse was that Abe had liked the woman.

  “… is what I think,” said Yetta. “What do you think, Lisa?”

  “That we should wait till tomorrow after we’ve had some sleep to think about it,” said Lisa, not knowing what she was supposed to think about.

  Three women drinking coffee in the warm, familiar kitchen. Tragedy, Todd’s kind of tragedy, had brought them together. Tragedy or not, Lisa felt comfortable, the warm coffee cup in her hand, the erect assurance of her mother across the table, the slouching dismay of her bewildered aunt.

  The house was too warm. It was always too warm.

  Lisa reached out and touched her aunt’s shoulder. The corners of Yetta’s mouth twitched into a pained smile and she reached up to touch her niece’s hand.

  “I don’t know if I can face all those people tomorrow,” Yetta said.

  “I know,” said Lisa.

  “You’ll do fine,” said Bess. “We’ll be right at your side.”

  “David’s dead,” Yetta said, looking at Lisa.

  “Yes,” said Lisa.

  “I keep asking myself,” said Yetta, looking at a photo of Aspen on Barney Weitze’s insurance-company calendar next to the refrigerator, “Why would anyone shoot David? Who would do such a thing?”

  “I don’t know,” said Lisa. “People are … I don’t know.”

  “Abe will find out, Yetta,” said Bess.

  Lisa nodded, but it was not her father roaming the frigid streets nor the rush of icy air that would take his breath as he turned corners that she imagined. It was Todd smiling, content, in the arms of some woman whose face Lisa couldn’t conjure.

  Raymond really had no place to go for another hour at least. He couldn’t go to his apartment for fear that something might lead the police to him. He had taken what little there was of value in the three small, bleak rooms. The trunk of the car was full. The little black and white television sat on the backseat looking up at him with a cold, cataracted eye of disapproval whenever he turned around.

  Raymond had spent more of the dead man’s money on gas but he was not sure where he should go to wait out the hour. He was afraid to go too near the hospital. A policeman might see him with his motor running and wonder what a black man was doing in this neighborhood at night and Raymond, whose mind was racing madly, might not be able to come up with a suitable lie. Keeping the engine running was essential if he was to have enough heat in the car to stay alive.

  The radio said the temperature had dropped to fifteen degrees and would go down to nearly zero.

  He could not go back to his job. He would call in and say that he had to go back to Trinidad to be with his family, that he could take no more of the cold. Old Wycheck wouldn’t mind. He’d find another black or maybe a Mexican for less than Raymond was getting.

  He told himself that in a week, two weeks, a month, the police would search less hard if he could stay hidden, and the newspapers and television would have long forgotten.

  It was not hard to hide if you were black, smart, and stayed out of white neighborhoods. Raymond had learned that. It was the money that bothered him. The money, and her eyes, looking up at him when George had shot her.

  He went down a dark street past a Jack-in-the-Box and found himself next to a high school. He parked half a block down, close enough to the Jack-in-the-Box so that if he was approached by a policeman he could say that he was about to get out of the car to buy some cheeseburgers. He would even get out and buy the cheeseburgers and would explain that the parking lot had been full when he pulled up.

  Raymond needed sleep, but he dared not sleep. It wasn’t that he feared nightmares, the sight of the dead man with the fur hat, the sight of George lying on his stomach in the frigid ditch of dirt and snow. He feared dreaming of warm breezes and a white sandy beach, of his sister calling him from the street where he was playing cricket with his friends Bryan and Jason, using a dead tennis ball and planks from banana crates, of the cocoa-colored body of the girl named Zeal whose beaded sweat smelled of sweet sugar the afternoon they made love in her father’s house. He feared dreaming these dreams and waking to the nightmare that was now his life. And he longed for Lilly.

  Raymond turned on the radio. It crackled, and a woman’s voice came on.

  “… seems to me that if you can’t be safe on the street in a good neighborhood of this city when the temperature is minus zero then you might as well pack it in and … when I was a kid in Buffalo we never …”

  Raymond changed stations until he found music, an old song, a voice that sounded as if it came from the past, a band of mellow brass and memories.

  “Just one more chance,” the man on the radio crooned, “to prove it’s you alone I care for. Each night I say a little prayer for … just one more chance.”

  The walls of the office of Father Samuel Parker of St. Bart’s on Granville were filled with photographs, mostly of football players. All the photographs were signed. One, which Hanrahan had seen before, was of himself in uniform, or someone about twenty who used to be him, someone big, erect, confident, with the open face of a boy to whom nothing could happen and for whom the future was open and sunlit.

  Hanrahan had parked in the small lot of the church, which had been neatly and efficiently shoveled, probably by Whiz Parker himself. There were two other cars in the lot.

  The front door to St. Bart’s had been open, and when he entered the warmth of the church interior had drawn him in. Hanrahan had looked at the crucifix inside the door, crossed himself automatically, and looked for the stained-glass window above the door. During the day the window let in blue-red light and cast a dancing image on the wooden floor in the open lobby. Now the glass image of Jesus being taken from the cross had the pale gray cast of winter. The dark lead that formed the crown of thorns on the head seemed faded and the four women in the glass looked weary and defeated, particularly the woman who reminded him of Maureen.

  He had been in St. Bart’s several months ago, and had had his first confession in more than twenty years. A woman had die
d, and though Hanrahan had come to the church in search of a witness, he had stayed long enough to confess to Father Parker his own sense of guilt over the murder. Bill Hanrahan had been assigned to watch the victim’s apartment. He had gotten drunk at the Chinese restaurant across the street. He had gotten drunk and met Iris and the woman he was supposed to be watching had died. The next day, after confessing to Father Parker, Bill Hanrahan had gone on the wagon, cold, flat, frightened but determined, and he had remained on the wagon. No AA, no talks with the Overton district shrink.

  Tonight Hanrahan had walked through the door in the church lobby and down the aisle past a lone skinny woman praying on his left toward the back and an old couple up in front on their knees looking up at the Virgin Mother.

  Hanrahan knew where he was going and turned to the right several rows behind the praying couple, turned to the left, eased down the aisle of wooden pews, and moved past the confessional booths to the dark alcove behind which was Father Parker’s office.

  He had knocked, afraid that Parker wouldn’t be there, afraid that he would fall apart and run for the nearest bar on Devon. But Parker had been in, lean, black, welcoming, and dressed in denim jeans, blue cotton shirt, and sneakers.

  “Bill,” he said, holding out his hand.

  “Father,” said Hanrahan, stepping into the office.

  Parker looked at him for a few seconds, still holding the big policeman’s hand.

  “I’d like to say it’s good to see you,” said Parker. “But from what I can see, I’d have trouble getting it out.”

  “You got time to talk?” Hanrahan said.

  “It’s my job,” said Parker.

  “You were on your way out.”

  “Park district. Basketball league,” explained Parker. “My guess is they can play a half without me. Given the weather and the fact that the team we’re playing is from South Shore, I have a feeling there may be no game. Have a seat. I’ll go make a call and be right back.”

  It was when the priest was gone that Hanrahan had roamed the room looking at old football photographs, some of which included a Whiz Parker who looked not much younger than he did now. The difference was that the Whiz Parker in the photos was still running on his own right knee, not one made of plastic, pins, and metal joints.

  “Sorry,” said Parker, coming back into the room and closing the door. “Coffee? Tea? Water?”

  “Nothing, Father,” said Hanrahan, sitting.

  Father Parker didn’t move behind his desk. Instead he pulled up a chair and sat a few feet away facing the troubled policeman.

  “The ball’s yours, Bill,” said Parker softly.

  “I killed a man tonight, Father,” Hanrahan said, looking toward the dark window beyond the desk.

  “You want to confess?” Parker said softly.

  “That’s the problem, Father,” Hanrahan said, looking back at the priest. “I don’t want to confess. I murdered a man and I don’t feel guilty. I murdered a man because I was sure that if I didn’t he was probably going to wind up killing his wife and his son.”

  “And …?”

  “And,” Hanrahan repeated, shaking his head, “the wife and son lied for me. I killed the woman’s husband, the boy’s father, and they lied to save me.”

  Hanrahan remembered Jeanine and Charlie beside him when Frankie Kraylaw pulled the trigger on the empty shotgun chambers, felt them, saw them.

  “What do you want from me, Bill?” Father Parker asked.

  “Should I let them live with that lie?”

  “Are they Catholic?”

  “What difference does it make?” Hanrahan said irritatedly.

  “Let’s put it another way, Bill. Do you want me to talk to them?”

  “I don’t know. Should I let them live with that lie?”

  “Can you?”

  “I ask you a question and you ask me a question and nobody answers questions. Nobody ever answers the damn questions and I can never make the damn decisions. Can you for Chrissake just tell me what to do?”

  “No, for Christ’s sake, I can’t,” said Father Parker.

  “Then tell me what you think.”

  “I think if you hadn’t killed this man, God’s will would have been done.”

  “Sam, he would have killed them,” Hanrahan said, getting to his feet and turning his back on the seated priest.

  “Maybe,” said Parker. “Maybe you could have done something else.”

  “Maybe,” echoed Hanrahan. “Then again, maybe not.”

  “It’s a question of belief, Bill.”

  “That it is,” Hanrahan agreed, looking at the framed photograph of Willie Galimore with his arm around a small black boy who was certainly the priest sitting behind Hanrahan.

  “Father, you can’t believe if you don’t believe. God built that in. Frankie Kraylaw said God talked to him, Jesus talked to him. He believed.”

  “He was wrong,” said Sam Parker with a confidence that turned Hanrahan to face him again.

  “How do you know you’re not wrong?”

  “I have to answer that?” asked Parker, getting out of his chair.

  “Another question answers a question. No,” said Hanrahan, rubbing his face. He needed a shave. He needed to make up his mind. “Faith. You’ve got to have faith.”

  “You’ve got it or you don’t,” said Parker, “I can’t just hand it to you. You can go through the motions, hedge your bets and make the right moves, but if you don’t believe …”

  “How about I just do the right thing to start with?” said Hanrahan. “And hope the rest comes.”

  “Pray the rest comes,” the priest amended. “How many times have you been through this conversation since you were a kid, Bill? Straight answer.”

  “With a priest?”

  “With anyone.”

  “Five, six. Couple of times with my father before he died. It’s come up once or twice with my partner. There’s a case. Abe’s a Jew, a good man. Maybe he’s got faith in his God. You can’t both be right, Father.”

  “How old are you, Bill?”

  “Half a century.”

  “Make a decision, Bill.”

  The two men sat in silence and Hanrahan felt it coming a long way off, the memory of Maureen, the choking he felt when he listened to Sarah Vaughan tapes. The first sobs were small. He tried to hold them back, but they wouldn’t stop. He looked up at Parker, whose face showed patience, patience and maybe sympathy.

  “God damn it,” Hanrahan sobbed.

  “Let’s hope not,” said Father Parker.

  The tears were coming now, not heavy yet, but coming beyond Hanrahan’s control. He put his head in his hand and cried, “Jesus Christ.”

  “Well, for him you’ve come to the right place,” said Parker softly.

  Hanrahan let the tears come now.

  “Father, I’d like to confess.”

  “We can do it here,” said the priest.

  “No,” said Hanrahan, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “Let’s do it right. Like last time. Cassock and collar.”

  Ten Thirty-Seven P.M.

  GETTING INTO THE HOSPITAL HAD been much easier than Raymond Carrou had expected, much easier than he had hoped for. In the car he had forced himself to come up with excuses to use if he was stopped. It would have depended on who stopped him. A nurse, a doctor he would have told that he was a new man on the cleaning staff. He was even prepared, if stopped by a security guard, to claim that he was a visiting physician in search of the radiology department. He had purchased a clipboard and some paper at a twenty-four-hour Walgreen’s on Montrose and he consulted it frequently as he made his way through the hospital avoiding conversation.

  Raymond’s stomach had gurgled and twisted with fear. The gun had sagged conspicuously in his pocket. But no one had challenged him. People were too busy and he had moved briskly with the air of someone who knows where he is going and is running a bit late. He made sure, when passing anyone, to check his watch and clipboard and shake his
head. What they saw was a tall, confident, good-looking black man whose face they would not remember.

  The most difficult part was finding the woman. He had been in hospitals, when his uncle Monroe had the cancer, when his mother had the women’s problem. He knew there was an intensive-care unit and that Carol Lieberman had been taken there. This he had discovered with a phone call to the hospital and the explanation that he was one of her coworkers who had heard about the tragedy on the radio. The directions to the ICU were clearly marked on walls and in the elevator.

  When he got to the third floor, he made a right turn off the elevator and found an empty corridor. The ICU was at the end through double doors. Luck stayed with Raymond. He pushed through the doors and faced the nursing station expecting to see someone formidable behind the desk. But there was no one there. He could hear the authoritative voice of a woman coming from the open door of one of the rooms.

  His plan had been to ask which room Carol Lieberman was in, because a flower delivery was coming. He would hold up his clipboard, look impatient, check something off, look at his watch. If that did not work, he would wait for a shift change and someone else at the desk. But the desk was empty and on a slate board behind the desk, written in ink on rough pieces of white adhesive tape, were the names and room numbers of each patient in the unit. Carol Lieberman was in Room 316. He turned, found 316 on his left, and quickly made his way back through the double doors to the corridor when he heard the authoritative voice of the woman through the open door say, “I’ll check with Dr. Saper. If he says you can have juice or water, I’ll be right back. Just lie still. Relax.”

  Back in the third-floor corridor, Raymond found a custodian’s closet. The door was open. He stepped in, turned on the light, and found that luck was still with him. Hanging on a peg was a pale gray custodian’s jump suit. It was probably too big for Raymond, but that was far better man being too small. He changed quickly, quietly, heart beating faster and faster, and decided that he would watch the door to the ICU for the right moment, perhaps the ward nurse going to the toilet. At worst, he would slouch over and walk in carrying a mop and tell the nurse that there was an old woman in the waiting room holding her chest and looking for a nurse.