Lieberman's Folly Read Online Free PDF Page A

Lieberman.
    â€œWant to stop at Simi’s on the way?” said Hanrahan, looking casually at a fascinating Pontiac showroom. “Burger and a beer?”
    â€œI don’t want to miss El Perro,” Lieberman said.
    â€œI understand,” Hanrahan said softly, holding up his hand and giving a pained smile. “I understand. Why should one’s friends be any more loyal than one’s children. Why should obligations and promises be met? You know what today is?”
    â€œFriday,” said Lieberman.
    â€œSeven years and six days since the dry cleaner,” said Hanrahan.
    â€œYou don’t know how many days, Murphy,” said Lieberman.
    â€œGive or take one or two, Rabbi. Give or take one or two.”
    The incident in the six-store mall had been on a routine call. Argument, shouts in a dry-cleaning shop on Petersen. Pizza shop next door had called in the complaint, said the shouting was scaring customers away. Lieberman and Hanrahan had taken the call on the way to a follow-up with a robbery victim. They’d hit the shop at a little after three, heard voices arguing inside. Lieberman had knocked. He had been ignored.
    Lieberman had knocked again and someone had come to the door. The someone had a very large gun, a Hopkins & Allen .38 five-shot, in his very small hand. The gun had been pointed at Lieberman. The sight was comic. A little shaking man with wild curly hair and a big gun. Behind the man inside the shop stood a big black man in some kind of delivery uniform.
    â€œPut the gun …” Lieberman had begun, but the first shot had stopped him.
    He had no idea if the man had missed or hit him. All Lieberman could think of was, “I wonder who this man is who is going to kill me?”
    There was a second shot but it went through the window of the dry cleaning shop, spraying glass onto the sidewalk. It missed Lieberman by a good six feet because the little man with the big gun was on his way to the floor with a large hole in his chest from Hanrahan’s police special.
    That was way back and this was right away, but …
    â€œWe’ll stop at Simi’s after we see El Perro,” said Lieberman.
    Hanrahan settled for it and spent the rest of the drive complaining about the ingratitude of friends and relatives. Lieberman tuned him out but nodded occasionally and threw in a word here or there, generic words like the guy who did Santa Claus on the radio every year and took calls from the kids. Santa Claus gave no promises, laughed a lot, and asked if the kid calling had been a good boy or girl.
    Hanrahan had been drinking fifteen years ago when he and Lieberman became partners after Lieberman’s first partner, Xavier Flores, had retired. But the drinking he did back then was nothing compared to what he started to do five years ago when Maureen, Hanrahan’s wife, moved out on him and left him an empty house in Ravenswood. No talk of divorce. They were good Catholics. No thought of moving out of town. Lieberman had helped Maureen get a job with Sol Schuster’s accounting company. When the two Hanrahan boys and their families came to town, Bill and Maureen would meet at the house, have a dinner party, and Maureen would go back to her apartment after everyone left.
    North Avenue near Crawford was wide, busy, and full of parking spaces. The street was bright, hot, and heavy. A fat woman in a blue dress shifted her shopping bag from one hand to the other and talked quickly to her friend or sister, who was also fat. As they got out of the car and locked it, Lieberman smelled the sweat of the two women as they passed and it was neither pleasant nor unpleasant.
    The Chapultapec was across the street. The two cops walked to the corner, waited for the light to turn green, ignored the sound of squealing brakes somewhere down the street, and crossed, their eyes fixed on a broomstick of a kid dressed in black who leaned against the darkened windows of the Chapultapec