Lieberman's Law by Stuart M. Kaminsky Page A

hate.”
    Said sat silently. Old Braverman’s sleeve was pulled up. On his arm was a still-vivid concentration camp number.
    â€œShoot them dead on sight, Lieberman,” Braverman said with calm certainty.
    â€œLet’s go to the temple instead of sitting here repeating ourselves, see if we can help,” Moscowitz said, taking Braverman’s arm. “I’ll call my daughter-in-law. She’ll take us.”
    As Moscowitz turned, Braverman said, “Well, was I right or was I right? Arabs or Nazis. Or maybe the Klan.”
    â€œI don’t know,” said Lieberman.
    â€œThere’s right and right,” said Moscowitz, as he and Braverman went to the pay phone near the washrooms to call Moscowitz’s daughter-in-law.
    â€œThey think I’m a Jew,” Said said. Lieberman nodded and worked on his coffee. “I’m as American as they are. Maybe more so,” Said continued, watching the men make their call.
    â€œChildren?”
    â€œTwo,” said Said. “Don’t tell me you want to see their pictures.”
    â€œIf I don’t tell you, how do I communicate the information?”
    Said reached into his jacket pocket, came out with a wallet and opened it to a photo of a pretty, dark woman and two remarkably beautiful children, one a boy, the other a girl.
    â€œBeautiful,” said Lieberman, handing Said his wallet open to a picture of his daughter and two grandchildren.
    â€œAlso beautiful,” said Said.
    Lieberman took back the wallet and looked at the photograph as if he had never seen it.
    â€œNot beautiful,” he said. “That’s Lisa, my daughter, and her two kids. Lisa is too serious to be more than pretty and too stubborn to work on it. The kids are fine. Barry looks like his father, which is good, and Melisa looks like her mother which makes her, I’d say, on the verge of good-looking.”
    â€œAnd now?” asked Said.
    â€œYou and I go see some of the people Howard Ramu knew,” said Lieberman.
    Said nodded and opened his wallet to take out a five-dollar bill. Lieberman stopped him. “At Maish’s, my guests don’t pay.” On the way out, Lieberman called out his thanks to Terrill, who was nowhere in sight.
    The phone was ringing.
    Bill Hanrahan sat in his immaculate living room in his perfectly clean little house in Ravenswood not far from the Ravenswood Hospital. He and Maureen had raised their boys here, fought here, made love here, and very seldom had any visitors because of Bill’s odd working hours and his drinking.
    The phone was ringing.
    Bill Hanrahan had been an alcoholic. He probably still was but he didn’t drink, though he occasionally wanted to. A woman had died because of his drunkenness and he had stopped drinking with the help of AA and Smedley, his sponsor. Hanrahan had always been a big man. Without the booze, he had grown even bigger. He wondered why Iris, calm, determined, beautiful, even-tempered Iris wanted to marry him.
    The phone was still ringing.
    Iris said she didn’t mind living in the house when they were married. They had made love here once, on the open-out couch in the living room, the couch on which he now sat looking at the phone. No, he couldn’t keep living here. There were ghosts and memories on every shelf, in every corner, on every piece of furniture. He had kept himself busy the night Maureen left by cleaning house. The boys were already grown and on their own clearly wanting nothing to do with their drunk of a father.
    He had never struck Maureen and never wanted to, though, ironically, she had frequently, toward the end, tears on her cheeks, slapped Bill, slapped him hard and he had taken it, knowing she was right.
    He had cleaned the house better than she had ever done and he waited for years for her return, waited for her to come to the door and see what he had done, the shrine he had kept to their marriage and family.
    The phone did not stop