Read Lieberman's Day for Free Online Page A

“They sustain me physically and esthetically. Do you find it too warm in here?”
    â€œA bit,” admitted Hanrahan.
    â€œI am sorry. By the time I turn it down and it comes into effect, you will probably have long left. You have questions other than the ones asked by the young man and woman in uniform?”
    Lieberman tried to focus on the little man across from him, tried to pay close attention, but the memory of the telephone conversation he’d had with his brother, Maish, haunted him. They were in the car on the way to see Dr. Ranpur when the hospital had tracked Maish down outside the emergency room. Maish had not screamed, wailed, or cried.
    â€œMaish, you there?”
    â€œI’m here,” Maish had answered, his voice flat, the voice of a man who expects the worst. “Carol and the baby are alive.”
    Maish had said he would get Yetta up and they would stay at the hospital for a while. Rabbi Wass was going to join them there.
    â€œI’ll meet you at the hospital later,” said Abe.
    â€œIt may kill her, Abe.”
    â€œThe doctor says …” Lieberman began.
    â€œNo, not Carol, Yetta. She’s not a well woman. I don’t know what to say to her. She’s sitting out there. I can see her. I don’t know what to tell myself. I don’t know what to tell her. God help me, Abe. I hate my wife for having a baby that would grow up and get killed.”
    â€œMaish …”
    â€œIt’s all right, Abe,” Maish said with a sigh. “I’m just talking. I know it’s not Yetta’s fault. I’m just talking. You know how it is.”
    Abe Lieberman had no words for his brother. The sigh on the other end of the line had been enormous.
    â€œAbe, David is dead.”
    And then Abe had heard the horrible wail and he knew that his sister-in-law, Yetta, was walking toward Maish, heard her husband’s words. Abe imagined Yetta, a bulk of a creature, arms wobbling, staggering across the room in the first dress she had found in her closet, the bulky blue coat swishing as she moved.
    â€œAbe,” his brother had said in confusion, and the line had gone dead.
    â€œHe didn’t pick up the hat, Abe,” came Bill Hanrahan’s voice; Lieberman returned to the hot room in which he was having trouble keeping his eyes open.
    Both men were looking expectantly across the table at Lieberman.
    â€œThe hat?” Lieberman said, trying not to imagine the sad, resigned face of his brother.
    â€œDr. Ranpur didn’t see a hat,” explained Hanrahan with a look of concern that Abe tried to dispel by joining the conversation.
    â€œMay I presume,” Ranpur said softly, “to prescribe something organic which may cause you some alleviation of your distress.”
    â€œThe man who got shot was his nephew,” Hanrahan explained.
    â€œAh,” said Ranpur, sitting up straight, “that explains much. My offer of the alleviation remains.”
    â€œThank you,” said Lieberman. “Maybe I’ll take you up on that. Why don’t you just tell us what you saw tonight, what you heard, what you did?”
    Ranpur nodded, looked at the two men, and told his story while Hanrahan took notes.
    â€œI shall endeavor to speak slowly,” he said. Hanrahan nodded in appreciation, though he had no intention of writing much of what the old man said. Other, younger, detectives and even some of the old-timers used little pocket tape recorders. Both Lieberman and Hanrahan had tried them and decided that they were too much work. You had to go back and listen to the whole thing again and take notes anyway. The tapes weren’t admissible as evidence and they made a lot of witnesses uneasy about talking.
    â€œI was soundly asleep upstairs,” said Ranpur, actually pointing upward. “I could use the room in the back as a bedroom so I would not have to climb stairs, but the climbing is good for me. I am a deep sleeper,