'Wait, hold it,' said Fernandez, starting to get up. Cadwell reached over, grabbed the young man's shoulder, and calmly pushed him back down.
'Viejo, you go see Emiliano,' Fernandez said. 'He'll make you a deal.'
'When I have some time,' Lieberman said, walking away.
When Lieberman got back to the library, Harvey Rozier, apparently lost in his nightmare, looked up at him.
'We can go now. Sorry,' said Lieberman.
Rozier shook his head and smiled understandingly.
They drove back to Rozier's house in silence. Not even the radio. The sky was sunless and gray, as it had been for days, and the rain was back, light but certain.
Lieberman was sure of one thing. He didn't like Harvey Rozier. Maybe it was class envy or that Rozier reminded him of some almost-forgotten enemy in high school or the way Rozier looked as if he were struggling to contain his grief. Or maybe Lieberman was wrong. It wasn't necessarily a meaningful observation. Abe had known victims who deserved shooting and no sympathy and he had known and liked more than one murderer.
Lieberman would do his job. And it looked like he would miss the Cubs, at least today. Hell, it would probably be rained out anyway.
Houses
The game wasn't rained out. There were two delays but they rushed it through between cloudbursts. The Pirates were up four to two in the top of the seventh when Lieberman and Hanrahan came in the door of the T and L Deli on Devon.
On the radio, Harry Carey was exhorting the crowd.
'Let me hear ya,' he cried, and the crowd came back with 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game.'
At their reserved front table, the only table in the T amp; L, three of the Alter Cocker regulars-Herschel Rosen, Syd Levan, and Howie Chen-kept singing along with Harry when the policemen entered. There was a fourth man at the table who wasn't singing, but he was smiling knowingly and nodding his head.
Syd Levan, the youngest Cocker at sixty-eight, motioned to Lieberman and Hanrahan to stop at their table. They did and dutifully waited till 'Root, root, root for the Cubbies' let the patrons of the T amp; L, including two women at the counter and a couple with a small child in one of the red leatherette booths, know that the important part was coming.
'For it's one, two, three strikes you're out at the old ball game,' the three Cockers and the little boy in the booth belted out.
Syd, always jaunty, a retired insurance salesman, in a yellow sweater, held up a hand to let Herschel introduce the new man. Hersch, who was seventy-one, was a retired jewelry salesman. He had been 'Red' Rosen back in the late thirties when Marshall High School went on a hundredgame winning streak. There were people who still recognized the name, though the white hair held only a hint of red-orange. Hersch was the acknowledged leader of the Alter Cockers, the wit, the one with the most moxie and the biggest reputation.
'Detectives Lieberman and Hanrahan,' Herschel Rosen said somberly, 'I want you to meet a new member of our table, Morris Becker. Morris was telling us just before you came in that he didn't know if he should be carrying a couple of ounces of heroin in his pocket. He's from Saint Louis, where they let old farts get away with anything.'
'No,' Morris Becker cried, suddenly standing up and almost knocking over what looked like a glass of cherry seltzer.
Becker was frail, thin, and, in spite of a green jacket and a matching beret, less than a monument to free spirithood.
'No,' Becker repeated, looking at Herschel Rosen with disbelief. 'I never… As God is my witness. On the grave of my father, aleh vei sholom, I've never…'
'Herschel's joking,' said Howie Chen. 'He's getting a distorted idea of humor since he's gone senile.'
Howie, the only non-Jew hi the Cockers, was also the oldest at eighty-two, though he looked two decades younger. Howie had owned the Blue Dragon Restaurant a block away, working fourteen to eighteen hours a day for more than thirty years. When he retired and left the restaurant to his grandson, he had been welcomed to the table. Outside of Herschel and Morrie Stoltzer, Howie spoke the best Yiddish of all the Cockers.
'Abe, tell him,' Howie said.
'It's a joke, Mr. Becker,' Lieberman said, holding out his hand.
'Then you're not the police,' Becker said, slowly putting out his right hand, half expecting it to be grasped and the cuffs snapped in place like on television.
'We are the police,' said Hanrahan, 'but we know Mr. Rosen. You're being initiated.'
'Pleased to meet you,' said Becker, shaking hands and sitting back down with a suspicious glance at Herschel.
'Al and Morrie?' asked Lieberman.
'The atheists are in traffic court,' explained Howie Chen. 'Al backed into Morrie in the parking lot and-'
'No, no, no,' Herschel groaned. 'Morrie backed into Al.'
'It makes a difference?' Howie asked, looking to Lieberman for help.
'It makes a major difference here,' Herschel insisted. 'What are you talkin'? In China it might not make a difference. Here it makes a difference.'
Howie Chen had never been in China. He was born in San Francisco. Herschel had come to the United States in 1931. It gave Howie about three years longer in America.
'Anyway,' Howie went on, 'they face each other in traffic court this afternoon. We're waiting for the winner to come and crow.'
Al Bloombach and Morrie Stoltzer were best friends, had been for almost seventy years. They were also known as the atheist contingent of the Alter Cockers. And, in spite of their shared conviction that there was no deity, they fought over almost every other issue.
The rear booth near the kitchen was free. The detectives moved to it and slid in facing each other. The little boy with his parents at the next booth had heard the two men introduced as policemen. He was standing on his seat and looking back at Lieberman, who opened his jacket to reveal his holster. The boy's eyes widened. Lieberman winked and turned his attention to Hanrahan, who had pulled out his notebook.
There was a poster on the wall above the booth. The faded colors oozed with the call of a Vienna red hot drenched in mustard, onion, tomato, and relish. Lieberman tried not to look.
Manuel, the cook, who normally stayed in the kitchen handling short orders, brought Abe and Bill cups of coffee.
'Where's Maish?' asked Lieberman.
'Your brother's walking,' said Manuel, a lean black man in his late forties. Lieberman had put Manuel away on a series of car thefts in 1967. When he got out of prison, where he learned to cook, Lieberman introduced him to Maish, who hired him immediately. That was over twenty-two years ago.
'He does that a lot these days,' Manuel continued.
Lieberman nodded.
Maish's son, a rising television executive, had been gunned down in a senseless robbery two months ago. Maish, known throughout his sixty-five years as the deadpan Nothing Bothers Maish, had been badly shaken. Maish had given his life to his wife, Yetta, his son, and his deli. Now he took long walks to who knew where and showed little interest in the business.
'How about a corned beef, slice of sweet onion on fresh rye, small chopped liver or kishke on the side?' Manuel recommended.
Hanrahan nodded yes, and Lieberman said, 'Just a bagel, toasted, with maybe a little jam, jelly, something.'
Manuel shrugged and went to take some cash from the two women at the counter who were standing near the cash register.
