"How you doin', Father Murphy?"
Hanrahan nodded.
"I'll be fine, Rabbi."
"Dead kid's name is Lago," said Lieberman, looking at the sheet that now covered the body. "One that got away is Lonny. I've got a description."
Jensen walked back to the detectives and said, "Woman in the crowd, owns the restaurant over mere. She says the one that got away ran through the alley going south. She thinks he had a gun in his hand."
"Thanks," said Lieberman.
Jensen glanced at Hanrahan's ghoulish face and moved back to help control the crowd.
Police cars were pouring in now, lights flashing. The sound of the siren diminished as the ambulance carrying the fallen officer sped toward Edgewater Hospital. Applegate and Acardo piled out of one of the cars.
"Where's Berry?" asked Lieberman.
"Went in the ambulance with Matthews," said Hanrahan.
"Let's go in the restaurant and get you washed up," said Lieberman.
"He's not that far ahead of us, Abe," Hanrahan said, moving toward the restaurant "I'll make the calls," said Lieberman as the crowd parted to let the hulking, bloody policeman through.
Lieberman brought Applegate and Acardo up to date and left them to pick up the pieces and put the story together.
Lieberman went to his car and made the calls. Comb the neighborhood looking for a young black man with a lightning scar through his eyebrow. Probably armed. Definitely dangerous. Try to head off the north- and southbound el trains and search them. Check the buses. Check the cabs. It wouldn't be fast enough, Lieberman knew, but it had to be done. The young man named Lonny was probably out of the neighborhood by now. Alone, afraid, and armed. A very bad combination.
Lieberman got an idea. He called the Chapultapec Restaurant on North Avenue.
"Si, " a man's voice answered.
"Es Emiliano all asked Liebetman.
"iQuien es esto?"
"Lieberman. Es necesario que hablo con Emiliano inmediatamente."
"Emiliano no estd aqui."
"Buscale. Tiene prisa. Diga que tengo algo a decir de Chuculo Fernandez. Comprende?"
"Comprendo. Su numero?"
Liebennan gave the number of the T and L Deli and told the man on the phone that he'd be there in fifteen minutes.
"Bueno," said the man and hung up.
The car door opened and Hanrahan, his hair and jacket front wet, slid inside.
"You clean up good, Murph."
"Compulsive cleaner, Rabbi."
"I know. You up for an early lunch?"
Lieberman put the car in gear as Hanrahan smiled and nodded.
Fifteen minutes later they parked on Devon, half a block from Maish's T amp; L. The clouds complained but didn't burst as they moved past Kim the Korean's Devon Television/VCR Repair Shop, the Dollar Store, also owned by Kim, and the Pistoki brothers' fruit market.
The T and L was empty except for Maish behind the counter reading a book and one Alter Cocker, the redheaded Al Bloombach, who sat alone at the table reserved for the old men, a coffee and half-eaten bagel in front of him. Something was cooking for the lunch crowd. A cabbage pot. Lieberman was sure it was a forbidden cabbage pot. Torture inflicted by Dr. Jacob Berry, who, when he came out of his minishock, would face a far greater torture.
"Where's everybody?" Lieberman asked.
"Baseball game. Syd's son rented a van. They all go to the ball game," explained Al Bloombach.
"And you?" asked Lieberman, moving with Hanrahan to the counter and sitting on the red leatherette stool.
"My sciatic," said Al. "Who wants to sit in the rain with sciatic? And to tell the truth, I'm not such a big baseball fan. Give me the football and I'll watch till the last rumble."
Maish looked up from his book and met his brother's eyes.
"How's Yetta?" asked Abe.
"She's Yetta," said Maish with a shrug.
"How's Maish?"
"You know. Nothing Bothers Maish," Maish said. "What can I get you, William?"
"Coffee. What's good on rye today?"
"A Sandy Koufax. Pastrami, chopped liver, and cole slaw with a pickle," said Maish.
"Heartburn heaven," Al Bloombach called.
"I'll take it," said Hanrahan.
"Abe?" asked Maish.
"Seltzer and toast me a bagel. No butter."
"Diet again?" asked Maish.
"Cholesterol's a little high," said Abe.
Maish called the order back to Manuel in the kitchen and turned his homely bulldog face to his brother.
"We're coming over Friday for dinner," Maish said. "Bess invited."
"Dinner and services," said Abe.
"I'm not going to services anymore," said Maish, finding a spot on the counter that may have been a smudge of mustard. He attacked it with a wet cloth. "I'm not on speaking terms with God right now. When your only son is gunned down by a crazy man in the street for no reason, you tend to get that way. It's reasonable. What d'you think, William?"
Maish poured a cup of coffee and set it down in front of Hanrahan.
"I'm a Catholic," he said.
Maish nodded as if that made perfect sense.
"A Catholic. You're not supposed to get mad at God. You are supposed to make love, not war. Well, I heard on the radio something that made sense, from an Arab no less. The opposite of war is not love. The opposite of war is peace. You don't have to love your enemy. It's not reasonable. Peace, now that's another story. God wants to make peace with me he knows where to find me, but so far he hasn't come knocking and he hasn't sent me a telegram."
"Maish," Abe tried.
"Seltzer and a bagel and a Sandy Koufax. I know."
The phone rang as Maish shuffled away in search of seltzer. Lieberman leaned over the counter, groped for the phone, found it on the fourth ring, and placed it in front of him on the counter.
"Hello," he said. "Maish's T and L."
"Viejo," came the voice of Emiliano "El Perro" Del Sol, the leader of the Tentaculos, the gang that ruled North Avenue when there were enough of them out of jail.
"Emiliano, I've got a deal for you."
Lieberman imagined the slightly mad El Perro sitting in the Chapultapec in near darkness or in his recently acquired bingo parlor on Crawford Avenue.
"I got a deal for you?" said El Perro. "Ain't you gonna ask how I'm doin'? How's my mother? How's my sister? How's Piedras?"
"How are they?" Lieberman asked as Maish placed a large glass of seltzer before him.
"Bueno," said El Perro. "My family. I take care of my family. You know that. I take care of you. You're like an uncle to me, a crazy uncle, Tto Loco."
Lieberman had developed a reputation for recklessness on the streets when he worked out of the North Avenue before being transferred to Clark Street.
Part of the reputation was earned. Most of it was calculated. But Emiliano Del Sol had believed all of it as a Md and respected the old Jew policeman who was every bit as wild as El Perro himself.
"Chuculo Fernandez," said Lieberman after taking a sip of seltzer. "He's like a brother too?"
"More like a cousin, you know?"
"He's in trouble, Emiliano."
"Yo se, Viejo. jQue tiene a decir?"
"Quiero a ayudarle," said Lieberman. "I'm looking for a young black man named Lonny. Doesn't have a last name. I'm working on that He's got a scar running through his right eyebrow. Runs with a pair named lago and Dalbert. lago's dead. Dalbert's bleeding and Lonny's on the streets with a gun. Dalbert's a South Sider. Lonny figures to be the same."
"We find him and… r — "Chuculo walks," said Lieberman, looking at Hanrahan, who was accepting a plate with a fat, heavenly smelling sandwich.
"Vem? He just walks. You got that kinda cojones, Viejo? Let my man Chuculo walk?"
"You got my word, Emiliano. But it's got to be fast and I don't want Lonny hurt. You turn him up by tomorrow morning and you can come pick up Chuculo Fernandez and have him in front of the Chapultapec with his knife in his pocket by three. We find him first and there's no deal."