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factory instead of walking around in suits, ties, and dark glasses with big guns trying to get tribute from Korean businesses.”
    “I will kill you,” Kim repeated. “You put me in disgrace. I cannot walk down Devon without people smiling at my dishonor or turning their heads. I am a one-armed parah.”
    “You mean ‘pariah,’ ” Lieberman corrected. “You like the Cubs?”
    “The Cubs?”
    “Baseball,” Abe explained.
    “No.” Kim, confused, was trying not to show it.
    “Listen, I have family business to take care of and I’d like, if possible, which seems unlikely, to watch the last inning or two of the baseball game. So, I’ve got your gun, which I feel confident is not registered. I don’t want to get my shoes on and take you in for carrying a concealed illegal weapon. I don’t like paperwork and I don’t think it would get you more than a few months in jail if anything. That missing arm is good for at least five percent sympathy. So I’m going to let you walk out of that door. If you want a job out West, I’ll make some calls, but I have a feeling you won’t take help from me. So, think about it and take a warning instead. You come near here again, you’re dead. I think it’s better to be alive than dead, but you make up your own mind.”
    “I can go?” Kim asked warily.
    “I wish you would. I’ve got an important phone call to make.”
    Kim rose, confused. “You won’t even arrest me?”
    “No.”
    Lieberman’s foot was driving him crazy. He had to scratch it, and he did.
    “So, more dishonor from the Jew devil,” Kim said.
    “You get your dialogue from very bad Hong Kong movies,” Lieberman said. “You need a slightly higher grade of culture. You ever see Mildred Pierce?”
    “Mildred …?” Kim said.
    “Forget it.”
    “You’re ridiculing me again,” Kim said angrily.
    “Maybe,” Lieberman said. “I’m tired and I think I have a long night ahead with my family problems. You know how that is. Go now, and don’t say ‘I’ll be back.’ ”
    Kim stood in confusion trying to think of something to say while Lieberman finished Lisa’s coffee. Lieberman wondered what, if anything, was sweet in the kitchen. He knew there was a Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia frozen yogurt, but he had a taste for something baked and comforting. All he could remember in the pantry were Fig Newtons, which was the last resort.
    Kim blinked once and looked around the room, not to remember it but to make sure he was really here, that this was really happening. And then he moved slowly, nearly shuffling, to the door.
    “Don’t turn around,” Lieberman said, still seated at the dining room table. “Just leave and close the door.”
    Kim paused at the door, defeated, and then opened it quickly and left, closing the door behind him. Lieberman had to give the young man some credit. He hadn’t slammed the door. Maybe there was a small sign of hope. Frankly, and only to himself, Lieberman didn’t believe that Kim would give up. It would all probably end with Kim dead, which Lieberman regretted since he had developed some sense of what the Korean had gone through. From dreams of being a successful American-style gangster, he had fallen to one-armed outcast seeking revenge against the man he blamed for his fall.
    Seconds after the front door closed Bess and Lisa came down the stairs.
    “Kids hear any of this?” he asked.
    “They’re asleep,” Bess said.
    “We have any cake, coffee cake with that white swirly frosting?” Lieberman asked.
    “In the freezer,” Bess said. “I’ll thaw it in the microwave. Abe, a small piece.”
    “Cholesterol,” Lieberman said. “I know.”
    “Abe,” Lisa asked, “who were those people?”
    “Business acquaintances,” Lieberman said.
    “Business? They were criminals. In this house. With my children.”
    “I had it under control,” Lieberman said.
    “Lisa,” Bess said, “I have learned over the course of the past forty years to accept the possibility