Lieberman's Law Read online

  After being treated at the University of Chicago Hospital, Ramu’s killer went to his apartment, got the weapon and the Torah from the closet, and placed them on the table before him.

  It was not over. While they still existed, still demanded, one major battle would be fought, and, if necessary, he would fight it alone.

  He picked up the weapon and slowly, carefully, with the tools and equipment from the small box at his side on the floor, he began to clean it. He now had a total of seven weapons and though the number of those he had been assured were committed was small, their number at least matched that of the weapons he had collected.

  Pig Sticker sat in the corner of the back booth at the Waffle House looking out the window and at everyone who came in. All of the customers looked at Pig Sticker. He was a skinhead far from his friends and his home and what passed for a neighborhood where he lived in a rented one-story house with three other skinheads. The house was the unofficial headquarters for the Hate Mongers. He and Fallon had an apartment in the house as did Luther and Smith the Axman.

  Pig Sticker’s real name, which only the man across from him ever used, was Charles Kenneth Leary. Leary wore a fading leather jacket covered in Nazi insignias, laughing skulls, and a link chain attached to the neck of a kneeling black man. Pig Sticker weighed close to three hundred pounds. His head was shaved and he looked like he would welcome a question he didn’t like.

  “Fast,” said Pig Sticker, scooping in a triple order of potatoes and grilled onions.

  Hanrahan wasn’t eating. He was drinking a diet cola. “Simple,” said Hanrahan. “What do you know?”

  “About the Jew churches?” asked Pig Sticker.

  “No,” said Hanrahan. “I’m interested in your views on term limits, balancing the budget, and whether a girl should go all the way on the first date.”

  “You’re not funny,” said Pig Sticker, finishing his snack and pushing the plate away. A piece of onion stuck to his chin. Hanrahan nodded and rubbed his own chin. Pig Sticker wiped his chin and looked at a skinny old guy on the counter stool nearest their booth. The old guy needed a shave and probably a square meal. He knew enough to mind his own business.

  “We had nothing to do with it,” said Pig Sticker.

  “What about the other skinhead gangs, Nazis, Klan, militia?” asked Hanrahan.

  Pig Sticker shook his head and said, “I woulda heard by now.”

  “Charles Kenneth Leary,” said Hanrahan. “You wouldn’t be lying to an old friend.”

  “You’re not my friend,” said Pig Sticker, his face going red, starting to rise.

  “Sit down, Charles,” Hanrahan said. “I could probably take you. I sure as hell could shoot you. You got six people in here would probably cheer and swear you came at me with a side order of cole slaw.”

  Pig Sticker sat down.

  “You listen. You ask. You tell me. I find out that you know something and you didn’t tell me, I talk to your friends, Luther, The Axman, Stevie Spikes.”

  “I’ll listen,” Pig Sticker said, holding in his rage with clenched fists.

  Normally, the old waitress would have cleaned up their plates. Instead she dropped the check and hurried off to check waffle batter and make some coffee, or pretend to.

  “That’s all I ask, Charles,” said Hanrahan.

  “What about the Nation of Islam, the Arabs?” asked Pig Sticker with a challenge. “Or this guy Martin Abdul and his ignorant black-assed Muslim jokes?”

  “You can ask about them.”

  “We don’t move in their circles,” Pig Sticker said.

  His jacket was open. Beneath it he wore what looked like a new white T-shirt.

  “Day or night,” said Hanrahan. “You know the number.”

  “I know the number,” said Pig Sticker, standing up. He was massive. He made the papers whenever there was a skinhead rally or incident that made the news. There he would be. The biggest, the scariest, saying nothing, arms folded, scowling protectively above the heads of his buddies doing the talking.

  What his buddies did not know that William Hanrahan knew was that Pig Sticker’s father had been a cop. No problem there. He had probably told the Hate Mongers and said his father taught him about the alien shit on the street and how it had to be cleaned up some day. Ted Leary didn’t talk like that. Didn’t think like that. He lived and died a street cop who kept it all to himself and looked as if he carried a sad secret.

  No, what Pig Sticker’s friends did not know was that Charles Kenneth Leary’s mother was a Jew. Hanrahan knew but it wasn’t common knowledge. Hanrahan knew from table and living room conversation when he was invited to the Leary house. Shirley Levitt Leary had no family in Chicago. Her people were up in Minneapolis and though she sometimes visited them, they never visited her. Not the least of the reasons the Learys had few visitors was Charles Kenneth, who was almost taller than his father by the age of eleven. Charles Kenneth was an angry child. Hanrahan had witnessed one of the boy’s rampages over not being allowed to take the family car one night. Charles Kenneth had been a long-haired fat boy with no friends.

  And then, probably to spite his father, shame his mother, and feel that he belonged somewhere, the massive child had moved out of the house at the age of sixteen. Two months after that he had shaved his head and begun saying things his usually quiet father could not tolerate, especially when they were made against his wife’s people.

  There had been a fight, a real fight, which Charles had obviously expected to win. Instead it had ended within seconds when Ted had hit his block of a son with an elbow to the boy’s neck and a knee in the stomach, and the boy leaned over spitting blood on the living room carpet.

  Hanrahan had not been there. Shirley had told him about it at her husband’s funeral, a funeral Charles Kenneth “Pig Sticker” Leary did not attend. “Lord, forgive me,” she had said, held up on one side by Bill Hanrahan and on the other by Maureen Hanrahan. “I was afraid Charles would show up.”

  It was shortly after that that Bill Hanrahan had talked to Pig Sticker about an incident in which a group of Chicago Hate Mongers had been in a small battle with a beret-wearing group calling themselves the Jewish Protection Army. The Jewish Protection Army wore armbands, blue armbands with white letters saying, “NEVER AGAIN.”

  Hanrahan had found himself talking to the huge creature in the small interrogation room on the second floor of the Clark Street Station. Hanrahan had asked the captain if he could handle Charles and one or two others individually. The captain Hughes, who was black, didn’t care. He had only warned that there be no marks on any of the Mongers beyond the ones already inflicted by the Jewish Protection Army. From the information that had been brought to Hughes, he had figured the battle between the two groups had been close to a draw.

  It was in that small room sitting across from Charles Kenneth Leary that Hanrahan had struck pure double-eagle gold. After two or three minutes of “I-don’t-give-a-shit-if-you-do-know-my-family,” Hanrahan had asked the great hulk if his friends knew he was half-Jewish.

  The Pig Sticker’s face had gone as white and flat as his gang wanted the world to be.

  “I tell them and you’re a dead half-Jew,” Hanrahan had said. “Your mother won’t tell. She’s ashamed of you. Her family won’t tell. Hell, they don’t even know what happened and wouldn’t recognize you if they saw you on the news. And your father has no living kin in this country. It’s just you and me, boychick.”

  “What the fuck do you want?” asked Pig Sticker, sitting down, more than a little like a slightly deflated balloon.

  “You always let me have a number where I can reach you,” Hanrahan had said. “I’ll say I’m your cousin Carl from Germany. You can tell your buddies I’m from your mother’s side of the family and your grandfather was a lieutenant in the SS. From time to time, I come through town and we get together.”

  “And I answer your questions or you …?” Pig Sticker had begun and then let his voice drop.

  “Right o
n the button, Charles Kenneth Leary,” said Hanrahan, “son of Shirley Levitt.”

  And since then, Hanrahan had called on his American cousin four times for a nice meal at a distant Denny’s and some information. Hanrahan had had to protect Pig Sticker a few times on some minor counts, but it was worth it. The only ones who knew about his connection were Captain Kearney, who replaced Hughes, and Abe Lieberman.

  Abe was back at the dining room table with a fresh cup of coffee. He had excused himself to make a phone call from the bedroom, leaving Bess to deal with a distraught Todd, who tried to keep his voice down. When Lieberman sat down at the table again, he reached for another slice of cake. Bess gave him a look of warning. Abe ignored it. He needed the cake.

  Bess sat on his left. Todd on his right.

  Todd Creswell, former son-in-law, father of Lieberman’s two grandchildren upstairs now probably playing Nintendo instead of doing homework, and associate professor of classics at Northwestern University, was badly in need of a comb. Todd was a good-looking man rapidly approaching forty. He was also a worried man. He kept running his hand through his thick hair, taking his glasses off and putting them on, and generally looking as nervous as an innocent man who believes he is about to be arrested for a major felony.

  “They can’t stay here,” Todd said.

  “You live in a small one-bedroom apartment,” Abe said.

  “It’s not that small.”

  “It’s small,” said Lieberman.

  Todd pushed his coffee cup away. It was still full and growing cold. Todd didn’t need any more stimulation.

  “It’s not that small,” said Todd.

  “You and … you and your wife are hardly ever home,” Bess put in, a slight variation on what she had told Lisa.

  “We have to deal with it, Todd,” Lieberman said.

  “The man who thinks he ever stood a chance against the Gods was born a fool,” said Todd. He looked up and added, “Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris. I can’t help it.”

  Abe shrugged. Todd thought in terms of Greek tragedies and couldn’t keep from quoting them, which normally irritated Lieberman. Today Lieberman was inclined to let it pass.

  The phone rang. There was a rushing of feet overhead and Melisa’s voice muffled.

  “We talked to Maish and Yetta. The kids can stay there a while,” said Bess.

  “A while?” asked Todd. “Their family has been torn apart. Their mother moved to Los Angeles like a … a … Meryl Streep in Kramer vs. Kramer. I see them once a week. Where’s their stability? I’m sorry. You’ve both been fine, but now we’re talking about threats. How crazy are these people, Abe?”

  “Crazy” was not quite the word Lieberman would use. “Serious” seemed far more appropriate, especially after he had noticed the car parked behind Todd’s Geo.

  “It’s for you, grandpa,” Barry shouted from upstairs. “It’s mom.”

  Lieberman sat still for several heartbeats as Bess got the phone from the table in the corner and handed it to her husband. Lieberman didn’t like these remotes, never had. No substance. No heft. Everything was getting lighter, easier, and wearing out faster.

  “I’ve got it, Barry,” Lieberman shouted. “You can hang up.”

  More scurry of feet and Lieberman heard the phone, a sturdier old model, being hung up.

  “Lisa,” Lieberman said, looking at Todd who shook his head, fearing inevitably in the next few minutes he would have to talk to his ex-wife.

  “If anything happens to my children,” she said, “I hold you responsible. You and your job and the violence. I grew up with Bess trying not to show how scared she was when you showed up late or forgot to call. Tell me, Abe, were there times when those madmen threatened to kill me and mom? Times you never told us about?”

  “First,” said Lieberman, looking at Bess who strained to understand what was going on from Lieberman’s side of the conversation. “I accept the responsibility. I have no choice. Second, there were a few times when I heard threats about you and your mother. They were all just street punks who threatened everyone when they were caught, including me, the judge, the mayor, and their own families. When they went back on the street, they forgot threats, remembered that they hadn’t lost face in front of the police. I was threatened on a regular basis. Still am.”

  “An honest answer,” Lisa said, as if she were holding a checklist to see if her father would score the requisite one hundred points that meant she could leave her children with him and her mother.

  Lieberman moved carefully into the conversation knowing his daughter wanted him to score high, didn’t want to come flying back to Chicago to be responsible for her children. But if Abe didn’t make the score, she might have to start making reservations.

  “They’re trying to scare me, Bill, the department, into letting them have their kingdom,” said Lieberman, looking at Todd.

  “They?” asked Lisa.

  “A Korean gang,” explained Lieberman. “I’ve already made plans to take care of the problem, maybe in the next day or two.”

  “What are you going to do? Have Bill kick down their door and the two of you go in with a gun in each hand, shooting surprised Koreans?”

  “No. Hard diplomacy with something to back it up,” said Lieberman. “That’s all I can say. The kids will be safe.”

  “If anything happens to them …” Lisa continued.

  “I’ll have Bill kick down a door and shoot surprised Koreans,” said Lieberman. “Then I’ll shoot myself. But maybe first I’ll shoot the furnace repairman who has been making his retirement money off of me and your mother. Then I shoot Sergeant Hurley, Curly Hurley, remember him? Works out of the Hyde Park. Anti-Semitic. Remember me telling you about him?”

  “I remember, Abe,” Lisa said impatiently. “I don’t find you funny.”

  “You never did,” said Abe with a sigh. “It was my curse. The kids will be fine.”

  “It would be hard to come right now,” Lisa said formally. “I just accepted some additional lab responsibility, DNA testing for felony cases. But I might be making a trip soon for a few days. I’ll be bringing a friend.”

  Abe had no idea where Lisa was working or on what. She had never volunteered the information and she had made it quite clear she didn’t want to be asked.

  “DNA, felony cases. You’re a criminalist?” asked Abe.

  “Los Angeles,” she said. “I did a little work on the O. J. Simpson case.”

  There was a challenge in his daughter’s voice that Lieberman did not want to face. His biochemist daughter who hated and was ashamed of her father being a policeman was now building a career in law enforcement.

  “Your mother and Todd are here. Your mother wants to talk. You want to talk to Todd?”

  “To Bess, not Todd.”

  Lieberman handed the phone to his wife and whispered to Todd, “She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

  Todd’s relief was punctured by a gentle exhalation, as if he had been holding his breath.

  “So,” said Bess. “Are you going to be staying here when you come in for Barry’s bar mitzvah?”

  Lisa spoke. She spoke for a long time.

  “Socialism is a meaningless dying ritual,” said Bess calmly. “Bar mitzvahs have been going on for over four thousand years. Are you coming? Are you not coming? You want to think it over some more? Think it over?”

  This time Lisa did not speak long.

  “The cleanup is going fine,” Bess said. “It hit Rabbi Wass and Ida Katzman hard. They were just here. The children told you?”

  Lisa answered.

  “The children will stay with Maish and Yetta for a few days. I’ll call you. What’s the best time? Can I reach you at work?”

  Lisa spoke and Bess motioned to Abe for something to write with. He handed her his pen. She put on her glasses and wrote some phone numbers on the back of a telephone bill.

  “I’m not going to tell you not to worry,” said Bess to her daughter. “I’m not going to tell you to
pray, which you wouldn’t do in any case. I’m going to tell you that you should have faith in your father. He knows what he is doing. I love you.”

  Bess hung up looking slightly stunned.

  “She said, ‘I love you too,’ ” said Bess.

  “Our daughter warms with age,” said Abe, taking back his pen and clicking it closed. “The kids told her about the desecrations?”

  Bess nodded her head.

  “It was also in the Los Angeles Times, on television,” she said. “Abe, I didn’t tell you, but I agreed to let ABC interview me for the late news. They said they might even want me for ‘Nightline’ to talk about what happened.”

  “Ted Koppel used to be a Jew,” said Todd.

  “There’s no such thing as ‘used to be a Jew,’ ” said Lieberman, feeling decidedly hungry. “You are born a Jew. You call yourself what you want but everyone calls you Jew and when you die, even if you’re a Franciscan monk, your fellow monks say prayers and call you the Jewish Brother.”

  “How do you know that?” asked Todd.

  “I don’t know it,” said Lieberman sitting back. “I made it up like Sophocles.”

  Todd nodded. “Can I see the kids?”

  “Whenever you want,” said Bess. “You know that.”

  Todd got up and headed for the stairs. Looking back, he said, “What do you want me to tell them?”

  “Whatever you want to tell them,” said Lieberman. “Whatever you have to tell them. Whatever they ask. I’ll take care of the problem.”

  “Dare death with us,” said Todd, “which awaits you anyway. By your great soul, I challenge you, old friend. The man who sticks it out against his fate shows spirit, but the spirit of a fool. No man alive can budge necessity.”

  “More Euripides, I suppose,” said Lieberman.

  “Yes, Heracles.” Todd ran up the stairs.