Hanrahan nodded.
“Didn’t think of it that way,” he said.
“Put all your things in those boxes,” she said, turning away. “Iris helped me. She had to go home to her father. Said she’d call you in the morning. Said to tell you she’d come back tonight if you want her to.”
“Thanks,” said Hanrahan, looking at the boxes.
They were filled with things he and Maureen had bought for the room. It was as if the moment of violence had wiped away from the room every trace of his wife, including the family photographs.
“Almost done,” Jeanine said, looking at the boxes. “I’m sorry about all those things. Some in there you can save.”
“I’ll throw them all out in the morning,” said Hanrahan, moving to his favorite chair and sitting heavily. “Probably spend the weekend going through the whole house throwing things away or packing them up for Goodwill. Maybe my son, maybe Michael will want some of it.”
Jeanine stood puzzled.
“She’s not coming back, Jeanine,” he said, looking around the room.
“Iris?”
“Maureen, my wife. I’ve …Doesn’t matter. She’s not coming back,” he said again.
“I’m sorry,” said Jeanine.
“I’m not sure how I feel about it,” he said. “You’d better get some sleep.”
“Not sleepy,” Jeanine said with a shrug. “Tired, but not sleepy. I gotta tell you something horrible. I’m afraid to go to sleep. Afraid I’ll wake up and I’ve been dreamin’, that Frankie’s still alive. That’s a sinful truth.”
“It’s just a truth, Jeanine.”
“Can I sleep next to you tonight?” she asked, hugging herself. “I don’t mean …”
“I know what you mean,” Hanrahan said. “How about moving Charlie into my bed and you sleep with him.”
“O.K.,” she said with a forced smile.
“Leave the rest till tomorrow,” he said. “Goodnight, Jeanine. Thanks.”
“Goodnight, Mr. Hanrahan.”
He had long given up trying to get her to call him Bill. She turned and went through the dining room door, and he listened to her footsteps go up the stairs.
Hanrahan kicked his shoes off. They were wet with melting snow, but he hadn’t taken them off at the door as he usually did. He would sleep there, right there. He wouldn’t move from the chair until morning. But first he had something to do. He reached over for the phone on the table near the door and dialed Lieberman’s number.
As the call went through, Hanrahan sensed something new in him, and when he heard Lieberman’s voice, he knew what it was. If there was ever a moment when he might need a drink, this was it, but Bill Hanrahan knew he neither needed nor wanted a drink.
Fiona Connery sat cross-legged on her bed wearing a flimsy nightgown and watching a rerun of Cheers with a bowl of Orville Redenbacher buttery popcorn at her side.
Paul Nathan, physician-in-residence at Glenbrook Hospital, had stood her up. Well, he had called with the excuse of emergency surgery and a schedule shift about two minutes after she had finished showering, dressing, brushing her hair, putting on makeup, and putting in her contact lenses.
“I understand,” she had said cheerfully. “Happens to me all the time. In fact, I’ve got a case I really should be working on.”
If she had been a drinker, the case would have been of vodka, the only alcoholic drink that didn’t make her retch.
So she had watched television, had not answered a call from her mother on her answering machine, and had put on the diaphanous nightgown to show herself what Paul Nathan had missed. Or might have missed if they went to a third or fourth date.
Then Fiona had made the mistake of answering a call from Don Fredericks, her boss, a call she would have missed had she been out with the definitely bald Paul Nathan. Had she been out, Don would have found Carrie Traub, Daniel Meinike, someone else who would have been given the case. Now, with the snow threatening again, she would have to get up early in the morning, very early in the morning because she had a court date at noon. She would drive to La Grange to interview her newest client, a George DuPelee, who was being charged with the attempted murder of a pregnant woman during a holdup and of being accessory to her husband’s murder.
Fiona gobbled popcorn a handful at a time, cheeks full, finding that, for some reason she could not yet identify, she hated Jean Tortereli, not the man who had shot the pregnant woman, not Paul Nathan, not Don Fredericks. Occasionally, Fiona had a distinct distaste for the murderers, child molesters, muggers, and maimers she was called upon to represent, but this was the first time Fiona could remember having hated a client.
But hate her she did, and while she watched Cliff try to explain a lunar eclipse to Woody she considered the ways she might withdraw the pending offer of her client’s testimony against Lester Alan Wiggs. She considered the ways, knowing deep inside that she would execute none of them.
But hating Jean Tortereli was a lot better than facing what she would not admit to herself, that if bald Dr. Paul Nathan called again and asked for a date, she would say yes. And if he bailed out of it, she would probably even give him a third chance.
Fiona would keep a mental notebook and pay back every time he stood her up by doing the same thing to him on the truth or pretext of a legal emergency.
Only by staying even could she keep her respect for Paul Nathan and for herself.
She searched the bottom of the bowl for a few crunchy kernels, letting them cling to the moist tip of her finger and dropping them on her tongue.
All this she would do if Paul Nathan ever called again.
Meanwhile, she would watch Cheers reruns, eat popcorn, and create plots against her own client. It had been one rotten day.
When he entered his house, Lieberman could hear the faint sound of the television in his and Bess’s room. He removed his rubbers and shoes with a grunt, put them in the closet with his coat, hat, and scarf, and padded across the living room, through the dining room, past the kitchen and bathroom to his room, where Bess lay in bed watching Nightline.
“How’s Yetta?” he asked, removing his gun and holster and placing them in the night table.
“Lisa’s staying with her tonight,” Bess said, looking up at him. “Abe, you look terrible, what’s wrong?”
“Catching a cold, tired. A long day. We got the guy who shot Carol. He’s in a hospital in La Grange. The one who shot David tried to get to Carol. We were watching. He ran up to the roof and jumped. He’s dead.”
Lieberman locked the drawer with the key at the end of the chain around his neck.
“Do Maish and Yetta know?” she asked.
“I called from the station.”
“You’re not looking me in the eyes, Avrum,” Bess said.
Lieberman looked down at his wife. She wore a pink and white robe he had given her for a birthday, Valentine’s Day, Hanukkah, something. She had removed her makeup but her hair was still in place.
“You are beautiful,” he said.
“You are not telling me something,” she answered.
Behind him Ted Koppel was correcting someone or trying to keep him on the subject.
“Tell me about the funeral,” he said, taking off his pants.
“So, we’re not confessing,” she said.
“We’ve got nothing to confess,” he said, unbuttoning his shirt. “I’ve got nothing to confess. I’m tired. I confess I’m tired.”
“Look at you,” Bess said.
Lieberman looked down at his pale body, his slight potbelly, his blue boxer shorts.
“A sight to melt the heart of every woman in Troy,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed and looking at Ted Koppel.
“You’ll tell me, Avrum,” Bess said. “Eventually. Tomorrow. Next week. You’ll tell me.”
“Probably,” he agreed.
“Hungry?” asked Bess.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“We’ll watch Nightline and then I’ll make yo
u something with no fat or cholesterol,” she said. “Now, go shave.”
Lieberman got up and had taken a step toward the bathroom when the phone rang. He turned toward Bess, who had reached over to pick it up.
“Hello,” she said. “William? What …Yes, he is. Thank you. Maish and Yetta are all right.”
She put her hand over the receiver and said, “He sounds like he’s been drinking again, Abe.”
Lieberman took the phone and sat again. A commercial darted before his eyes: Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny.
“Father Murphy, you all right?”
“Frankie Kraylaw’s dead, Rabbi,” Hanrahan said.
It wasn’t alcohol in Bill Hanrahan’s voice. Lieberman knew that sound too well.
“What happened, Bill?”
“I shot him. He broke into my house looking for Jeanine and the boy. Had a shotgun.”
“You want me to come over? Or you come over here? Lisa’s staying at Maish and Yetta’s and the kids are with their father. Bring Jeanine and Charlie.”
“I’m O.K., Rabbi. Jeanine and Charlie seem O.K. too. I went to church. Just sitting here now.”
“Get some sleep, Father Murphy,” Lieberman said. “We got the guys who shot David and Carol. I’ll tell you the rest tomorrow. Now get some sleep.”
“You, too,” said Hanrahan. “It’s been a hell of a day.”
“Hell of a day,” Lieberman agreed. He handed his wife the phone and she hung it up.
“What happened?” asked Bess.
“He shot Frankie Kraylaw,” said Lieberman.
“The one whose wife …”
“The one,” said Lieberman, lying back.
“Shot?”
“Killed him,” said Lieberman, covering his eyes with his left arm.
“God help me for saying this,” Bess said. “But there may be times when it’s best for everyone when someone really bad dies.”
Bess looked at her husband, who was lying there in his boxer shorts and white cotton socks, face covered by his arm.
“I’ll make you a snack,” she said, leaning over to kiss his gray-stubbled cheek and starting to get out of bed.
“No,” said Lieberman, holding out his right hand. “Just turn out the lights and come into my arms.”
“Promise not to snore,” she said.
“I’ll promise not to sleep.”
“Sleep, snore,” she said. “I’ll get the lights and turn off the television.”
“That will do it for tonight,” Ted Koppel said. “For all of us at Nightline, goodnight.”
The television clicked off followed by the lights. And in no more than the beat of a heart or the tick of a clock, Bess was back in bed and cradling her husband’s head against her breasts.
Abe Lieberman was asleep almost instantly and dreaming a short time after that, a dream he would not remember when he woke up, a dream in which he sat in a box seat right behind first base with Barry and Melisa on one side of him and Lisa and David as they were as children on the other.
It was opening day and the sun was hot. Rick Suttcliffe was warming up right in front of them. It felt good. It felt right.
Warm-up finished, Rick Suttcliffe, his red beard catching the light, lobbed the ball into the air. It came spinning in slow motion toward Lieberman, who raised his right hand and plucked it out of the sky. The crowd cheered and Barry, Melisa, and Lisa clapped as Abe handed the ball to David, who took it gently in two hands as if it were a fragile treasure. Lieberman heard the umpire shout, “Play ball.”
Dr. J.W.R. Ranpur put on his neatly ironed sleeping gown, turned off the lights, turned on the burglar alarm, and went into his bedroom where he turned on the television set and watched and listened to Ted Koppel talk about terrorists for a few minutes.
Then he turned off the television, got into bed, and turned off the lights. He slept with no pillow and no blankets on a queen-size bed with an extra-firm mattress. He always slept on his back, turning seldom to right or left and never onto his stomach.
He reached over and pushed the power button and play button on the remote control that rested on the nightstand.
The scratch of the old 78 record that he had transferred to tape came through like radio static, and then the plaintive voice of Bert Williams singing, “Good Lord, I thought I was prepared, but I wasn’t prepared for that. It seems my theory of success was only idle chat.”
Yes, thought Dr. Ranpur. Yes and many yeses again. He would hear this tale and the following song, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s simultaneously happy and sad rendition of “Maple Leaf Rag.” His hands would move in the darkness trying to mime the slide of the trombone. His lips would pucker and his cheeks fill with air and he would fall gently asleep as the song finished and the machine clicked off. When the weather changed, perhaps he would make a pilgrimage to New Orleans, perhaps he would even push himself to sit in on a session in Preservation Hall or one of the other places he had heard allowed musicians to sit in.
He did not deny himself thoughts of the man who was murdered on his lawn this morning. Nor did he deny himself concern for the woman and her unborn child. His thoughts, however, paused on the sad face of the policeman named Lieberman, the one who looked a little like Harry James.
In the morning, he would call the policeman, ask him what had been discovered, perhaps suggest that the policeman stop for a bottle of green life-herb tablets.
And then, through the sound of Bert Williams saying, “… ace of spades,” Dr. Ranpur heard another voice in the darkness, the voice of a woman.
For an instant it seemed to be coming from outside and then he knew it was the voice of memory, the voice of the woman who had been shot saying, “Raymond, why?” over the crying wind. He had forgotten this or masked its sad memory, but now it was vivid, clear. It had happened. He had heard these words. But what they might mean he did not know.
In the morning, he would tell this to the policeman with the sad eyes. But for now, he thought, closing his eyes and letting the Preservation Hall Jazz Band carry him away, for now I rest.
It had been a long day.
Turn the page to continue reading from the Abe Lieberman Mysteries
The Burglar Prowls
GEORGE PATNIKS HATED HIS nickname, “Pitty-Pitty.” There was no dignity in a name like Pitty-Pitty Patniks, but then Alex Sewell, the boss of cell block C, hadn’t been concerned about George’s dignity. Sewell had a great nickname, “Steelhead.” It implied that nothing could penetrate Sewell’s head, not a tool shop knife made from a toothbrush, not a V bar loosened from the bottom of a bunk, not a thought or idea. Steelhead was a risky nickname. It gave a target and defied the other cons to go after it.
But Pitty-Pitty, what the hell sense did that make? George, whose real name was Gregor Eupatniaks, was sure that Steelhead Sewell, who was serving two life sentences for murdering a pair of runaway girls in Moline, hadn’t thought about the nickname he bestowed on the skinny kid who had just done the first month of time for his first felony, breaking and entering.
But the name stuck. George couldn’t shake it. It followed him to Chicago’s Near North Side neighborhood where he had spent his life, except for the two years he had done for breaking and entering and the two more years he had done for breaking and entering again and the year he had done for possession of a weapon, a dinky piece, a .22 he carried in his tool belt under his jacket. It was really the burglary tools in the belt that they had gotten him for, not the Friday night nothing-special, but they couldn’t nail him on the tools so they got him for the gun.
Even the police called him Pitty-Pitty. A grown man, now pushing forty-six, with almost six years of down time on three felonies. That was one of the worst things about being picked up, cops yelling his nickname across a squad room.
George considered himself one of the most successful burglars in Cook County. He wasn’t sure how many houses, businesses, and apartments he had plucked—two hundred? Maybe three hundred? Maybe more? You’d think he’d k
eep count, but he didn’t, like a movie star on Jay Leno who can’t remember how many movies he’s been in.
George hadn’t worked an honest day in his life since his sixteenth birthday, but the dishonest ones had added up over the years. He practiced his profession once every three or four weeks for a few hours—not counting set-up time—and devoted the rest of his time to eating, sleeping, hanging out with his brother when he was around, and trying, sometimes successfully, to pick up women or girls at Unikle’s Tap or the Blue Truck Bar. But what he liked to do most was something that he had picked up in prison. George’s passion was painting. He had always liked to draw, but in prison an artist from Chicago named Joplin—guy in denims, hair hanging over his eyes, mess of a beard—had conducted a six-week class in painting. George had taken to it. He was a natural. He could paint what was in his head from the moment he picked up the brush.
Most people thought Steelhead Sewell had given him the name Pitty-Pitty because it was what Steelhead thought it sounded like when George was painting. Trouble was, George was sure Steelhead Sewell did not know he was taking the class or painting.
Joplin the painter had told George that he had talent. Years later, when George was exhibiting in an art fair in Lincoln Park, he ran into Joplin, who was showing his own stuff. They talked. Joplin said he had been out of town a few years. His hands shook. Rummy. Joplin’s paintings were for shit. Who had he been to tell George Patniks that he was a good painter? George had a better grasp on reality than that.
George looked at his own paintings—cons leaning lonelily against concrete block walls, smoking and looking at nothing, buildings that looked so tired they might tumble over with a pat on the back from a good wind off Lake Michigan, kids playing in the park on the merry-go-round but not looking like they were having fun. George knew he had the eye. But he didn’t have the magic. Wasn’t there. No avoiding the truth. No use crying. George could paint. He could paint what he saw, but he was never going to be anything but a summer exhibitor looking for a park district ribbon.
That was fine with George. No kicks. Life was good. Work once every couple of weeks. Make the good score, sometimes big cash in the back of a drawer inside a pair of socks. Sometimes a good sale to one of the pawnshops on Devon or Milwaukee that fenced on the back and down side. You get caught once in a now and then. That was the price. You took it straight up. It was usually bad luck that got you. At least it had been bad luck that got George each time he had been caught, a really good silent alarm connected to a security service, neighbors when there shouldn’t have been, a small green-stoned necklace hidden under the floorboard of his apartment and lucked on by an overeager detective on his first case.
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