Lieberman's Folly Read online

  “Well?” asked Bess, sitting down and taking a sticky piece for herself.

  “Nothing,” said Lisa. “We got nowhere.”

  “We agreed to meet again,” said Lieberman. “And there was progress. Lisa’s ‘no’ was less emphatic after an hour. Todd’s promises were more sincere.”

  “Dad, you are wrong,” Lisa said looking at him. “You are wasting your time, my time, and making it harder, harder on me, on the children, on Mom, on Todd. It’s over.”

  “Maybe,” said Lieberman. “A definite maybe. Todd volunteered to convert to Judaism.”

  “I don’t want him to convert,” Lisa said. “I don’t know where that came from. That’s not part of the problem. He’d rather come up with some grand gesture than deal with the problem.”

  “What’s the problem?” Bess said. “I mean, if it’s not—”

  “Mom, the problem sounds like a cliché,” said Lisa, pushing her cup away. “I don’t want to talk clichés about wanting some freedom, wanting to know I can go where I want to go, do what I want to do, say what I want to say without someone else’s approval. Mom, Todd doesn’t know it but he needs it too.”

  “And Barry and Melisa?”

  “More clichés, Mom,” sighed Lisa. “You want more clichés? They’re better off with us apart and happy than together and miserable. And if they’re not better, they’ll survive. I’ll do for them but I don’t think I have to be miserable for them. I love them. I’ll take care of them.”

  The back door opened with a bang and Melisa came in panting. “Grandpa, how much for a cat?”

  “Alive? I only negotiate for live animals. Nothing for dead ones,” said Lieberman with a yawn.

  “Alive,” said Melisa eagerly.

  “Alive, one dollar, if you let him go in the alley,” said Lieberman. “That’s my best offer. If it’s not good enough, you’ll have to take me to court, but I warn you I know all the judges.”

  “It’s enough,” said Melisa happily, running back into the kitchen.

  “Ladies,” Lieberman said, standing. “This is a moment filled with melancholy. Bess, tell your daughter what I never do in the afternoon.”

  “You want me to …?”

  “Not that,” said Lieberman, leaning over to kiss his wife. “I never take a nap. Never. But I’m going to do it now. I’m not sure if this desire for rest is a temporary lapse or a new phase. If it’s a new phase caused by age, I promise you at least a week of depression and a demand for attention. My speech is over.”

  He moved around the table and kissed his daughter on the cheek. Lisa gave him a hug.

  “Thanks for trying, Dad,” she said.

  “I’m not prepared to admit defeat,” said Lieberman, who padded off in his stockinged feet to the bedroom.

  Hanrahan changed his mind six times about what he would wear on his date with Iris. He had two suits, one in acceptable shape, the other a wrinkled mess. But a suit might be too formal for dinner and a movie. He tried on blue slacks and a blue blazer with a white turtleneck sweater. The mirror told him he was trying too hard to be sporty. Maybe Iris’s father would think he wasn’t serious. He took off the turtleneck and put on a blue shirt and conservative tie. No, still too … He changed to a white shirt, and lied to himself and the mirror by promising to take off twenty pounds. He was sorely tempted to take just one drink, a small one. Even people who didn’t drink had one small one before dinner. But William Hanrahan couldn’t fool himself. He remembered Estralda looking up at him before she died.

  Hanrahan checked the locks and turned off the lights. He didn’t bother to leave a light on. A good burglar wasn’t fooled by a light being left on. A good burglar would get in no matter what Hanrahan did. A lousy burglar wouldn’t catch the wires and would take off when the alarm went off.

  Hanrahan checked his face once more to be sure it was reasonably smooth. It was. It was still light when he pulled away from the front of his house.

  He drove slowly, running no yellows, thinking through how he should behave, wondering if this was a good idea. He got to Iris’s apartment building on Hoyne just north of Granville as the sun was thinking seriously about going down.

  A pair of kids about eight, one white, one Chinese, both boys, looked him over as Hanrahan went to the door, found the bell, and pushed it. The kids were looking at him through the windows of the small lobby. Hanrahan looked back at them and smiled. They didn’t smile back. When the click of response came, Hanrahan reached for the inner door and went in.

  Across the street, a blue Honda found a parking space. The Honda had followed Hanrahan from his house. The driver had been careful, not too close, not too far, always letting a car or two or three remain between his car and Hanrahan’s. He was careful. There was a lot to be careful about.

  Normally, even with a few drinks in him, or maybe, especially with a few drinks in him, Bill Hanrahan would have spotted that blue Honda. But this was not a normal night.

  The man in the Honda looked over at the two kids in front of the apartment building. If they had looked back at him, he would have moved his car or gotten out and walked around the corner. But they went running down the street.

  The man in the Honda leaned back, hoping the darkness would come before Hanrahan came out of the building. The man did not want to kill the policeman, and perhaps he wouldn’t have to. Killing whores was one thing. That would fade and die after a few days. But killing a cop, that was a very different tale.

  The man leaned forward and opened the glove compartment. The gun was there, oiled, clean. He preferred, if it were necessary, to use the gun. But sometimes, like with the woman, you couldn’t always do what you wanted to do. Sometimes you had to use whatever you had handy.

  He sat back, resisted the temptation to turn on the radio, and to pass the time tried to remember the names of all of his cousins.

  10

  WRIGLEY FIELD IS A SOLID, comforting, four-sided gently curved mass of concrete, girders, and white paint with a vine-walled park in its center surrounded by more than thirty thousand wooden seats in which adults can watch other adults playing ball. Other structures in which baseball is played can call themselves parks, but Wrigley truly is one. Its gates open like a metal smile on the morning of each game, letting in swarms of loyal fans from as close as the next block and as far as Sarasota, Florida. Wrigley Field smells like home, real grass, real vines, and bright sunshine, in spite of the lights installed two years ago.

  Lieberman loved Wrigley Field as he loved the Cubs. He loved the smell of the freshly painted green seats on opening day. He loved the vendors who slopped beer down the aisles. He loved the bleacher bums waving flags, shouting for their favorites, trying to rattle the other team’s outfielders.

  Lieberman snuck away four or five times a summer, put his visor down to show his “police business” card to get a place to park, and found a single seat. You could almost always find a single even on crowded days, even at the last minute. Augie Slotsow, who worked security at Wrigley, could always get in an old friend. Lieberman had only one rule about Wrigley. He would not go to a night game. Period. Zero. Never. It didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like the Cubs. At night the grass looked blue-green. The players looked like zombies. Ballplayers didn’t look as happy at night. At night, baseball was a job. In the daytime, baseball was still a game even if you were making two or three million dollars a year.

  Today, Lieberman had bought three seats. They were good seats, about ten rows up in the boxes right behind third base. Lieberman sat Melisa next to him and Barry next to her. He offered to buy them both Cub hats, but Barry said he was too old. Melisa accepted. Lieberman bought one for himself and one for Melisa.

  They had gotten to the park early enough to watch Sutcliffe warm up but not early enough for batting practice. They got to the park early enough to finish hot dogs, peanuts, and Cokes before the game. They got there early enough to hear the four guys in front of them give their opinions to each other about the game, opinio
ns which both Barry and Lieberman knew were wrong, a knowledge they shared with an arch look.

  “I saw them all in this park,” Lieberman told his grandchildren. “When I was still in diapers my mother took me here to see Babe Ruth play. He was with Boston. Legend has it a foul ball of his almost hit me in the head.”

  “Can we get more peanuts?” asked Melisa.

  “Later,” said Lieberman. “I promise to let you get sick if you wait till the late innings so we don’t have to miss anything. Deal?”

  “Drinks?” she asked.

  “Drinks,” he agreed. “Bill Nicholson,” he went on. “Saw him hit one way out over Waveland. Right on the roof of that building. The one over there.”

  Barry looked where he was pointing and then back at Sutcliffe moving to the mound.

  “Hank Sauer hit one almost that far,” he said. “And Kiner at the end of his career hit—”

  “Is that André Dawson?” shouted Melisa as the Cubs ran out on the field after the “Star Spangled Banner.”

  “Quiet,” said Barry. “That’s not Dawson. That’s Dunston.”

  “One game,” said Lieberman to Melisa, who clearly didn’t know what he was talking about, “against Cincinnati. Fondy was on first. Terwiliger at second. Smalley was at short. I think Baumholtz was in right. Kluzewski, a giant, wore his shirts cut at the shoulder to show his muscles, hit one almost tore—”

  “Who’s playin’?” came a voice next to Lieberman.

  Lieberman didn’t even look at El Perro. A moment earlier a little man wearing a green eye-shade had been sitting in the seat.

  “Cubs and Cincy,” said Lieberman. “You want some peanuts?”

  “No,” said El Perro, looking around with a big smile. He looked out of place in the sunlight. “I should get out here more often. What you think, viejo?”

  “You should get out here more often,” Lieberman agreed.

  Barry and Melisa looked at the man next to their grandfather. The man looked back at them and grinned. The man was wearing tight black leather pants and a vest over a short-sleeved Day-glo shirt. His hat was also black, leather and wide-brimmed.

  “Are you the Joker?” asked Melisa.

  “His left-hand man, niña,” said El Perro. “They sell beer here or what?”

  “Yeah,” said Lieberman.

  “Rabbi,” said El Perro. “You know something? You look kinda cute in that baseball hat.”

  “I know,” said Lieberman. “José Madera.”

  Sutcliffe had struck out the first batter. Lieberman considered this a bad sign. But the next batter grounded out and the one after him hit a long fly to center field for the out.

  “Why you think El Perro is here, Rabbi?” asked El Perro. “You think I just dropped in for an inning to catch the sun and see an old friend?”

  “Can I tell you something?” Lieberman said, leaning over to El Perro as Ryne Sandberg came out to lead off the bottom of the first inning. “You’ve seen Treasure of the Sierra Madre too many times.”

  “You think so? Thanks. I like that picture,” said El Perro. “Now, can I tell you something?”

  “Tell,” said Lieberman as Sandberg led off with a first-pitch single to left.

  “I’m a lovable person,” El Perro whispered. “Just ask anybody. But I got a deal to make. Yesterday you pulled my cousin and my brother in. They in the can now. Assault with a deadly weapon. Assault on a police officer.”

  “Your brother look like Roberto Duran?”

  “No, that’s Ernesto, my cousin,” said El Perro. “They’re kids, you know. They don’t mean nothing. Besides your buddy broke his balls. Drop charges. I give you José Madera.”

  “Your brother is an innocent victim of social injustice,” said Lieberman. “He and your cousin and their friend will be out by tonight.”

  “I trust you, Rabbi,” said El Perro. “Here’s where you can find Madera and his old lady.”

  He handed Lieberman a piece of gray cardboard with an address written on it. Lieberman looked up just in time to see Mark Grace fly out to right field.

  “Madera, he ain’t one of my people,” said El Perro with a sigh. “Too loco in the cabeza.”

  “Coming from you, that’s quite a testimonial,” said Lieberman evenly.

  “Gracias,” said El Perro. “My brother and the others are out by dark, right?”

  “They’ll be back looking for blood by the light of the full moon,” said Lieberman.

  “You look cute, Rabbi,” said El Perro, getting up.

  “Sit down,” said a scrawny woman in the row behind them.

  El Perro turned to her with a smile and said,

  “The sun is shining. I’m in a good mood. I just made a deal with the Rabbi here, so I’m not gonna cut your tongue out and make you eat it.”

  The woman’s eyes and mouth opened wide. The man at her side pretended to be completely absorbed in watching the center-field scoreboard. Lieberman turned to the woman and lifted his eyebrows to her in warning. She took the look and decided to not carry this any further. El Perro climbed the steps as André Dawson came to the plate with a man on second.

  “Who was that guy?” asked Barry.

  “Business,” said Lieberman. “I gotta make a phone call. Be right back.”

  Dawson did something good. Lieberman could tell that from the sound of the crowd and the fact that people were standing and screaming, but he didn’t look back. He went to a bank of phones across from a hot dog stand and called Hanrahan at the station. He gave Hanrahan the address and told him he’d meet him there at five after he dropped the kids at home. When he got back to his seat, it was the second inning and the Cubs were ahead two to nothing. Shawon Dunston bobbled a tough grounder and let the runner get to second with a throw that sailed into the left-field box seats. Barry groaned.

  Lieberman took off his Cub cap and handed it to Barry, who put it on. Melisa was about to say something, but Lieberman put a finger to his lips and she nodded in a very adult way to show that she would not point out to Barry his change of heart about the cap.

  This might, Lieberman thought, turn into a long afternoon.

  Bill Hanrahan wasn’t very early, only forty minutes early. He turned off of Ogden within earshot of the expressway and parked across the street from the address Lieberman had given him. The neighborhood was entirely Latino, almost entirely Mexican. Hanrahan stood out like a sore Irishman. Even then he might have sat tight if it hadn’t been for the open door.

  He sat for fifteen minutes thinking of Iris and last night. The day was hot and the street relatively empty. Two kids were playing catch on the sidewalk with a tennis ball. A trio of women, two fat, one thin, sat on the steps of a house near the corner. All the houses were small and from the outside looked clean. The grass, what little there was in the small fenced yards in front of each house, was crew-cut and green.

  No one came in or out of the house he was watching, but the door was open and the three women on the corner were looking over at him. There were only four cars parked on the dead-end street. No place to wedge in and scrunch down.

  Hanrahan got out of the car and stretched, looking around as if searching for an address. He pulled his notebook from his back pocket and pretended to check it before turning to his destination, the house with the wide-open door. Hanrahan put the notebook away, crossed the street, and marched straight up the steps to the front door.

  The house was a one-story, recently painted white and green. Hanrahan rang the bell and waited with a smile, looking over at the three women on the steps. One of them, the skinny one, held one hand bridged over her eyes and squinted into the sun toward him.

  No one answered the door, which was not only what Hanrahan expected but what he wanted. Hanrahan said, “Hello,” loud enough for the ladies of the afternoon to hear him, and stepped through the open door.

  He found himself inside a living room, the furniture old, overstuffed, clean, and flowery. A huge framed poster, a color photograph of the ruins of wh
at looked like a castle surrounded by green-green forest, dominated the wall over the sofa. The white lettering on the poster indicated that this was Guadalajara.

  “Anybody home?” asked Hanrahan, stepping in.

  He had decided to identify himself as a cop if anyone answered. If no one was home and he got a look around and was caught, he’d still identify himself as a cop and say that he saw the door open and thought he saw a suspicious man enter. It wouldn’t fool anyone but the chances were better than a hundred to one that no one in this neighborhood would file a complaint against a cop for walking through their open door.

  “Hello,” Hanrahan called.

  No answer.

  He moved through the living room into a small dining room with a dark wooden table and six matching chairs. There was also a sideboard with a painting of Jesus over it. Jesus was looking toward the ceiling.

  “Anybody here?” Hanrahan asked once more, though not as loud as his first call.

  The kitchen, like the rest of the downstairs, was clean. No dishes in the drainer. No food on the small table. The faint smell of some spice reminded Hanrahan of his Aunt Aileen, his mother’s sister, the cook in the family who had come to the United States at the age of seven and gone back to Dublin at the age of seventy-five.

  A drink would have been nice. A small drink. Double gin and whiskey, a Gay and Frisky, as Aunt Aileen’s husband Jack used to call his favorite drink.

  Hanrahan moved through the kitchen. There were three doors off of a small alcove near the back door. Two of the doors were open. One led to a bedroom, dark lace and more pictures of Jesus. A second door led to darkness and stairs, a basement. The third door was pay dirt. He stepped in. The shade was down but enough light was coming through it to show that this was a woman’s room, not an old woman’s room like the one next door with dark lace and Jesus. The furniture was art deco and polished. The bed was oval and covered with a pink comforter. On top of the dresser in the corner, next to which stood a floor-to-ceiling mirror, were about a dozen photographs of Estralda Valdez at different ages. In almost all of them she was with a slightly older girl. Estralda, even at seven, had her hand on her hip and a knowing smile. The photos of Estralda and the other girl stopped at about the time Estralda was twenty. Then a gap and two photos of Estralda Valdez more or less as Hanrahan had seen her. It was definitely Estralda, but a subdued sun-dressed Estralda with sunglasses, little make-up, and her arm around an older, heavy woman squinting into the sun.