characteristics: left side of face sags slightly from nerve damage resulting from a beating from his mother's boyfriend when Simms was six. Arrests: two, for breaking and entering. Convictions: two; remanded to parental custody on both occasions. No time served. Residence: mother's apartment.
'I say we do it,' Lonny said, still looking out the window but pulling down his Oakland Raiders cap to emphasize his determination.
'What the hell, you know? We do it,' Dalbert said with a shrug.
'What the hell,' added lago. 'When?' 'Tomorrow. Why we gotta wait?' asked Dalbert, turning to face his friends.
'That's fresh froze with me,' said Dalbert, watching Yogi Bear shoot up on a geyser. Lago shrugged.
It was fate, destiny, dumb luck, something. Less than five hours after Abe Lieberman had left his office, Dr. Jacob Berry, late of Lansing, Michigan, had a gun.
The morning schedule had been light. Four uneventful physical exams for police officers, two off-the-street patients, both Vietnamese, one with a severely strained back, the other with cuts on his arm from an exploding jar. Both of the Vietnamese had paid in cash, which, when they left, Jacob Berry had folded and tucked into the pocket of the money strap tied to his ankle and hidden by his sock. Jacob also kept his driver's license, credit cards, and Blue Cross cards in the hidden pocket. In his wallet he kept around fifty dollars, some family photographs, and a few store credit cards from East Lansing. He had purchased the hidden pocket four days after coming to an initial understanding of where his practice was located.
When he had finished patching the arms of the Vietnamese man, who looked ancient and malnourished and communicated through an old woman whose English was incomprehensible, Jacob adjusted his glasses and called his brother.
'Isaac? I'm sending you a police officer named Lieberman, Abraham Lieberman. History of heart disease in the family. High cholesterol and the rest. I'll mail you the file and lab results.'
'He calls. We book him. That's our motto,' said Isaac abruptly, which was a clear signal to Jacob that his brother had something more important to do than take this call. 'Anything else?'
'I can make it for dinner Wednesday.'
'Good. Call Jennifer. No, I'll tell her. Seven-thirty if you want to see the kids before they go to bed.'
'Seven-thirty, fine.'
'Anything else, Jacob?'
'You have a gun, Isaac?'
A short pause and then, 'What happened?' Isaac asked.
Jacob looked at the window of his office/examining room. He had kept the blinds closed, a captive of daylight darkness instead of gray spring light.
'This isn't the safest part of the city, Isaac. I took your word, let you…'
'We've been through this, Jacob. No place is safe in the city. You go where you can practice and make a living. The worse the neighborhood the more diverse the patient problems.'
Jacob did not point out that his brother's practice was in two offices, one on Michigan Avenue and one in Winnetka, reasonably safe from immediate violence.
'I asked you, Isaac. Do you have a gun?'
A beat passed. A sigh and, 'Yes. I keep it in my briefcase, put the case on the corner of my desk every morning and next to me in the car. It doesn't go in the house. You're thinking about getting a gun.'
Isaac's house was in Kenilworth, the most exclusive and restricted suburb on the Lake Michigan shore.
'I think I should,' said Jacob.
'Jake, I don't have time now, but listen. You have police officers coming into your office all day. What better protection could you want?'
'Not all day, Isaac. And they don't go out the door with me. They don't walk me to my car and to my apartment when I get home.'
'We'll talk about it Thursday, OK? I really have to go.'
'OK,' Jacob agreed.
Isaac hung up first.
Jacob Berry took off his blue shirt with the embroidered name and hung it on a hanger in the closet. He left his lights on, moved to the waiting room, went out, and locked his office door behind him. He thought he heard a sound in the darkness of the corridor, near the solid wooden door of A. R. Oriental Imports about a dozen feet away. But no one was there.
He hurried the two short flights down the stairs, took five echoing steps across the cracked white tile floor that was almost exactly like the tiles his mother had in her bathroom, and went into the chilly spring afternoon.
An el train going north toward Evanston had just rattled out of the station. Jacob didn't look up. He passed Vietnamese, whites shopping at the Oriental stores, and a few black men he recognized as working in the neighborhood. His destination was the Solid Blue Diner on the corner of Broadway and Argyle. It was where he ate almost every day. Jacob's digestive tract couldn't take more than one Oriental meal a week and the Solid Blue specialized in solid, tasteless tuna sandwiches, burgers, daily specials, and vegetable soup.
Before he was twenty feet from the door of his office, one of the things he dreaded took place. An ancient Oriental woman with a heavily wrinkled face approached him and said, 'You want buy jewelry, watches? Real jade. Cheap jade for your lady?'
Jacob Berry shook his head politely but firmly and moved on. Only half a block to go when an Oriental man of no discernible age, hair slicked back and a cigarette burning in the corner of his mouth, approached on his right.
'Listen,' the man whispered. 'You doctor. I know. Got lots of things, watches, coffee grinders, hot stuff, you know?'
The man winked when Jacob met his eyes while continuing to walk.
'What you need? What you want?' the man whispered, glancing furtively at passersby. 'Silk scarves, pearl- handled knives, finest shirts from Hong Kong, cheap.'
'You have a gun?' Jacob asked, surprising himself.
The man stopped and so did Jacob. People moved around them. The man with the cigarette in the corner of his mouth cocked his head to the side and looked at Jacob's eyes.
'No,' the man said.
'OK,' said Jacob, starting to move away.
'Wait I don't deal in guns but I know someone who does.' The man's accent was gone.
'When and how much?' Jacob asked.
A wide Chrysler almost hit a man jaywalking across Bryn Mawr. The Chrysler's driver hit his horn. The jaywalker, a burly Oriental, smashed his fist down on the Chrysler's hood, screaming something in Chinese or Vietnamese.
'Why don't you just go buy one at Sears?' the man asked suspiciously.
'It takes time, days. I don't want to wait days.'
The Oriental man removed the cigarette from his mouth and said, 'In this neighborhood, I don't blame you. Where you heading?'
'Diner,' Jacob said.
'Eat slow. Digest your food. I'll see what I can do,' the man said, turning his back and moving slowly with the flow of pedestrian traffic.
Jacob got a booth in the rear of the dining room of the Solid Blue Diner, which had gotten its name from the pale blue walls. He ordered a bacon, lettuce, and tomato on white toast, a Greek salad, and a Diet Coke. He had bought a late-edition Sun-Times from the machine in front of the diner but he didn't feel like reading it.
The old waitress with an odd walk who always waited on him brought the salad. He ate slowly, trying not to listen to the waitress calling orders and people at other tables bantering, joking, talking about nothing.
He was finished with his sandwich and nursing his Coke after the waitress brought his check when the man he had talked to on the street came in and moved toward him. The man was carrying a small paper bag. He slid into the booth across from Jacob Berry. There was no expression on his face.
