Lieberman's Day (26 page)

“The man you shot this morning,” Lieberman said softly. “He was my nephew.”

“I got to tell you …” Raymond gasped.

Lieberman put his hand over Raymond's mouth and said, “Shh.”

The stairwell door opened and Raymond looked up in the hope of seeing someone who would protect him from the crazy old man with the gun. Two young men came through the door. One was big, a dull blank look on his face. The other was wiry with a wild grin and a scarred face. Both were Hispanic.

“He's gonna kill me,” Raymond gasped.

“Viejo,”
said El Perro. “You gonna kill this brother?”

Lieberman backed away, removing the gun from Raymond's ear. Raymond stood up, his stomach in agony.

“I'm a custodian here, man,” Raymond said, finding the roots of his down-home dialect. “This ol' mon he got seeds in his gourd, think I'm someone named Rayman. My name's Walter, see here, right on my uniform. This here is one crazy ol' mon, I tell you.”

“Well,” said El Perro. “You come to the right place, man. My partner Piedras here and me, we're like special deputy police. You come with us.
Viejo
here won't hurt you.”

Raymond staggered toward the two Hispanics and looked back at the old man, who had pocketed his gun and now watched without expression.

“He's a crazy ol' mon,” Raymond said as Piedras led him through the door to the stairwell.

When the door was closed, El Perro looked at Lieberman and said, “You owe us big already,
viejo.
This one is free, for the pregnant lady.”

Lieberman said nothing, did not move. When El Perro had disappeared through the stairwell door, Lieberman turned and moved slowly down the corridor to the ICU.

The thin nurse with gray hair and the glasses on a chain sat behind the desk again looking at a chart. She glanced up when Lieberman came in and said, “No more than ten minutes, officer.”

“No more than ten minutes,” Lieberman agreed, and he opened the door to Room 316.

The room was dark except for the soft blue light over the head of the bed. A machine with a gray screen and a moving green blip sat on a cart next to Carol's bed. It pinged softly, somewhat like the sonar Lieberman remembered from his two years in the navy.

Carol lay, eyes closed, facing him. Lieberman closed the door and stepped to her side.

“Carol,” he said softly.

She twitched in fear, uttered a gasp, and opened her eyes, looking feverishly around the room until she saw Lieberman. Her hair had been brushed back, but even in this light he could see that she was pale, very pale. Beneath the blanket he could see the bulge of the baby.

“Abe?” she said weakly, looking up at the shadowy figure a few feet from the bed. “I had a nightmare.”

“Raymond,” he said.

“Raymond?” she repeated, letting her head fall back on the pillow. “Who is …?”

“Raymond Carrou. The nightmare.”

Carol blinked and squinted at him.

“He works in the Stowell Building, where you've got your office,” Lieberman explained. “He's worked in the lobby shop for almost four years. Only shop in the building. You must have seen him hundreds of times. Good-looking black man.”

“Yes,” Carol said. “I know him, but …”

“He's the one who shot David,” Lieberman said.

“He's the one who …”

“And you didn't recognize him, couldn't identify him,” Lieberman said flatly.

“It was dark, Abe. I was … He had just shot David …”

“You gave a description of the man. It doesn't match Raymond Carrou.”

“… I'm tired, Abe. I don't feel …”

“It was dark, a bad situation,” Lieberman said softly. “Lots of confusion. Maybe it was just a coincidence that Carrou picked you and David this morning. Maybe he panicked when he recognized you and he and his partner decided to kill you both.”

“Oh, God, Abe. Do you think …?”

“Or,” Lieberman went on, “maybe he followed you. Maybe he planned to rape you, he and his partner. Maybe he'd been watching you and followed you. But David put up a fight and Raymond panicked.”

Carol's eyes were closed now and her head was shaking.

“How many months pregnant are you, Carol?”

She opened her eyes again and looked at him in confusion.

“Six months,” she said.

“More like eight months,” Lieberman said. “I looked at the surgeon's report.”

“I can't believe …” Carol tried, but Lieberman interrupted her again.

“Eight months ago, that would have been in the middle of the summer. David was still in Spain for the Olympics all summer. Network assignment. His big break.”

Carol said nothing.

“I'll tell you how it could have been, Carol,” Lieberman said. “David was gone. Raymond Carrou was there. Something happened. You. Him. Both of you. Someone got carried away. Someone wasn't careful and you got pregnant.”

Lieberman paused. Carol's eyes were closed again. Her lips were dry. She ran her tongue over them but it didn't help.

“You could have had an abortion, but you didn't,” Lieberman said. “That's the part I …”

“Raymond said he loved me but if I killed the baby, he'd tell David and I'd have to run away with him,” Carol said, so softly that Lieberman had to step forward, straining. “If I didn't have the baby, if I tried to abort it, he'd tell David. But the second the baby was born, David would know it wasn't his. I couldn't … I couldn't leave everything, ran away with Raymond. He …”

“So,” Lieberman said, “you decided to kill David.”

“I didn't think of it that way,” Carol sobbed. “I didn't know what to do. I …”

“David would be dead. You'd be a grief-stricken pregnant widow. You'd want to go away from the city where he was murdered, away from the memories, go somewhere alone to have your baby. Then we'd get a call or a telegram saying you were coming home, saying the baby hadn't lived.”

“No,” said Carol. “You make it sound so … so simple. I was going to tell all of you that I was going to stay with my sister in Arizona to have the baby.”

“Then you and Raymond were going to live happily ever after in Arizona or Trinidad on David's insurance money,” Lieberman said.

Carol was shaking her head no.

“I never wanted more than … I'd been married for eight years, Abe. Eight years. David traveled. David was busy. David was with other women when he traveled. David was kind, but David wasn't a lover. And David didn't need me. I couldn't think of anything to do.”

“Except murder your husband.”

“David wasn't a saint,” Carol sobbed. “I could tell you things …”

“Don't,” said Lieberman.

Carol was crying softly now.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Raymond Carrou has disappeared,” said Lieberman, his voice wavering. “I have a feeling he might never be found. When you get out of the hospital, you go to your sister's farm and have the baby. Don't come back. Put the baby up for adoption. Keep it. Up to you. But don't come back. You understand?” he said again.

Carol looked up at the dark figure at her bedside, straining to see his face in the shadows, sure she heard anguish in the voice.

“You'd do this for me? After what I …”

“If Maish or Yetta find out about this, it would kill them,” Lieberman said.

“I was crazy, Abe,” Carol said, reaching her hand toward the dark figure.

He took a step back as the door behind him opened.

“Ten minutes are up,” the gray-haired nurse said softly.

“Did David ever tell you he loved baseball?” Lieberman asked.

Carol pulled her hand back, a puzzled look on her face.

“Baseball?”

“Yes,” said Lieberman.

“No,” said Carol, tears filling her eyes.

Lieberman took one last look at the woman in the bed, turned, and walked past the nurse. He took the stairs slowly to keep his knees from rebelling. He also took them slowly because he wanted to think.

As he went up the last short flight of stairs, he could hear Emiliano Del Sol shouting into the wind, “Then go ahead, man. Fuck you. Only reason I don' have Piedras throw you off is
viejo
would bite off my
cojones
and spit them in my face.”

Opening the door with the wind pressing against it was damned hard, but Lieberman managed to get enough room to ease through. The door slammed behind him, almost catching his hand.

He turned into a fierce blast of freezing air that took his breath and threatened to knock him over. The roof was deep in snow. Only the footprints of El Perro, Piedras, Jorge, and Raymond broke the smooth night whiteness, telling the story of their movements.

Raymond stood about twenty feet away at the edge of the roof. His footprints showed a direct long-stride line. El Perro had been pacing, as he now was. Both Piedras and Jorge stood silently shivering, waiting for orders.

“Goddamn,
viejo.
Where you been? We got a little problem here.”

“I see,” Lieberman said with a shiver, feeling the high snow seeping down his pantlegs.

“Way I see it,” said El Perro, jacket open, ignoring the weather, “we let the son-of-a-bitch bastard jump. Hell, he doesn't jump we throw him off. That way it's all done. Jus' like that.”

“What did you tell him, Emiliano?” Lieberman said, looking over at Raymond, whose shivering looked more like shock than cold.

“Scared him a little. Warm him up a little for you. That's all,” said El Perro.

“Thanks,” said Lieberman. “It was very helpful.”

“Our pleasure. Besides, we got a deal.”

“We've got a deal,” Lieberman said. “Wait here.
Por favor,
Emiliano.”

Lieberman fought the wind and took a dozen steps toward Raymond, whose oversized hospital custodian's uniform billowed and flapped in the wind.

“Don't come closer or I swear I'm gonna jump,” Raymond shouted.

Lieberman stopped, scratched his neck, pulled his knit hat from his pocket, put it on his head, and pulled it over his ears. He plunged his ice-pained hands into his pockets and said nothing.

“I'll jump. I swear to you on my mother's life,” Raymond repeated.

“You can walk out of this alive, Raymond,” Lieberman said. “If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead.”

“But not tortured,” shouted Raymond, looking at El Perro. “You know what he said he was going to do to me?”

“I can imagine,” said Lieberman. “Hey, it's cold and you're standing too near the edge of the roof. No one's going to hurt you.”

“I'm stayin' here,” Raymond repeated.

“Suit yourself,” said Lieberman. “You come down with me and I'll say you turned yourself in, that you felt guilty about what you did. I'll agree to testify that you cooperated and showed genuine remorse. I'll talk to the state attorney's office about not asking for the death penalty.”

“Why would you do that for me?” Raymond asked.

“One condition. You keep Carol out of it. Her working at the Stowell Building is just a coincidence. You don't know her.”

“Hey,
viejo
” El Perro shouted behind him. “It's cold up here.”

Lieberman ignored him, his eyes fixed on Raymond Carrou, who said, “I still say why, but I know. She's white. I'm black.”

“If she goes down with you, it kills my brother and his wife. Raymond, you owe me one.”

“How do you figure that?” Raymond asked through chattering teeth.

“You murdered my nephew,” Lieberman reminded him. “This morning you …”

“The baby,” said Raymond. “Hey, tell them to stop inching over here.”

Lieberman turned. El Perro, Jorge, and Piedras had moved forward. El Perro's eyes met Lieberman's and the young man held up his hands to show he was stopping. Lieberman turned back to Raymond, who had moved even closer to the edge of the roof.

“All I wanted here was to take the baby back home to my family when it was born,” Raymond sobbed. “She would have killed it. You guarantee she won't hurt my baby.”

“I've already talked to her. She won't hurt the baby. The baby will be fine. You give me the name of whoever you want to have the baby and I'll get in touch with them.”

“If I don't involve her,” said Raymond.

“Whether you do or don't,” said Lieberman.

“I didn't come here tonight to hurt her,” said Raymond. “I wanted to see how she was, be sure the baby was all right. Maybe find a way for her to get me some money so I could stay around till he was born.”

“I believe you,” Lieberman said as a wave of wind pushed him back.

“Viejo,”
El Perro called. “What the fuck you two talkin' about?”

“Go wait in the stairwell, Emiliano,” Lieberman said without turning around. “Three more minutes, tops.”

“I hate the cold,” Raymond said, hugging himself.

“You learn to live with it.”

“I don't know if I can keep up my end of the deal,” Raymond said, gulping in chill air. “I can try, but … You promise you take care of my baby no matter what?”

“I promise,” said Lieberman.

“Damn problem is I can't promise,” Raymond said, pounding his chest with his right hand.

“Then just do your best,” said Lieberman. “What can I tell you?”

“Goodbye,” said Raymond. Then he turned, let out a howling scream, and leaped over the edge of the building.

Lieberman took an involuntary step forward.

“All right,” El Perro said gleefully. “Now we can get the fuck out of here.”

W
HEN HE WALKED THROUGH
the front door of his house, Bill Hanrahan expected to be standing in the wreckage of what he had done. Instead, he found a clean, vaguely familiar room and Jeanine Kraylaw in a green robe putting a broken vase in one of two large cardboard boxes.