Lieberman's Law Read Online Free PDF Page B

and squeezed his hand.
    â€œThe ex-priest would be fine with me,” said Iris softly.
    Hanrahan shrugged. He had waited for years for his ex-wife Maureen to return. She had obtained a civil divorce, unrecognized by the Church. He had waited for his sons to forgive him for his drinking, his fights with their mother, his not being around when they grew up. He had kept the small house in the old neighborhood on the other side of Wilson spotless, like an ad on television, in the hope that Maureen would return, not so much that she would see what he had done and return to him but that she would see that he had not fallen completely apart. He had done that even when he was carrying his badge and suffering as an alcoholic.
    What had put him firmly on the wagon happened the night he met Iris. He was supposedly watching the front entrance and a window in a high rise on Sheridan. He had sat inside the Black Moon Chinese Restaurant. Iris had waited on him. Hanrahan had spent several hours drinking and watching through a rain not much different from the one now falling, but it had been darker that night and he had missed the closing of the drapes signal from Estralda Valdez that she needed help. By the time Hanrahan noticed the signal, made it across the street, and up to the apartment, Estralda Valdez was a bloody corpse. Lieberman covered for his partner. Hanrahan had stopped drinking and carried his guilt to Sam Parker. He had also joined AA, though at first he had felt little confidence in their beliefs.
    How many times? How many guilts had Bill Hanrahan confessed to Sam Parker? And how in the name of the Blessed Mother could Father Parker continue to absolve him and remain his friend?
    â€œCall the ex-priest,” said Hanrahan with resignation, looking at Iris who nodded. “Am I risking excommunication?”
    â€œThat one I think I can deal with,” said Parker, burrowing through the clutter for á black address book.
    Hanrahan’s pager suddenly went off. Usually, he turned it off when he entered the church. This time he had been more than a bit nervous. He asked to use the phone, called in to Nestor Briggs on the desk at the Clark Street Station. Nestor reported that the Korean extortionists had been booked, printed, and scowled at. Nestor gave Hanrahan a number to call. Hanrahan made the call. Identified himself, listened, nodded his head, and said nothing.
    â€œGot to get back on the job,” said Hanrahan, checking his watch.
    â€œI’ll stay and make the arrangements,” Iris said.
    â€œYou sure?” Hanrahan asked standing.
    â€œI am sure,” she said.
    â€œI’ll give Miss Huang a ride home,” said Sam Parker, as he found DiPino’s phone number in his book. “I’ve got hospital calls to make.”
    Hanrahan gave Iris a chaste kiss, said he would call her later, and said to the priest, “Thanks, Father.”
    Father Parker was already dialing the number.
    Hanrahan hurried down the aisle of the empty church, stopped, looked up at the stained glass image of Jesus on the cross, rain on me other side of the window running down his face like tears. Hanrahan knelt, crossed himself, and prayed. He used no words and thought none. He simply gave himself over to prayer.
    The blue, flat cushions on most of the benches in the main worship hall of Temple Mir Shavot had been ripped by a sharp object. Padding puffed out like gray-white intestines. No windows were broken, but the ark had been opened and three of the four Torahs had been unfurled and torn and thrown toward the congregation seats like sheets of wallpaper. The fourth Torah was gone. The walls were spray-painted in red, hurriedly with no style or graffiti grace and pride.
    â€œKikes eat our babies,” was dripping down one wall next to, “Jews get out or die.” The other messages were equal in kind and hatred. “Yids will die in the street,” “Soon we will cut off your …”