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silent, old round-faced Irish were there, bunched together to the right of the altar in the first five or six rows. When I was a kid, the whole right half of St. Leonard’s was filled with those pink faces. Every year there were fewer of them and every year they were older. Father Conlon, whose Irish accent was as much a mystery to the Poles as it was to my mother and the other Irish, seemed to address these faces more than ours but I was convinced it wasn’t out of preference or prejudice to his own. He just found them harder to get through to.”
    They passed Slovotny’s Meat Shop with the white sign in crayon saying that blood soup was on sale today, and went into Resnick’s Hardware Store.
    Lieberman did something with his mouth that resembled a smile or a stifled burp. His hand went into his jacket pocket and came out with a small bottle of Tums.
    â€œHere,” he said, dropping the money El Perro had given him onto the counter in front of Resnick. One of the bills floated into the little clear plastic display barrel of assorted key chains.
    Resnick beamed and pulled in the bills, looking at Hanrahan and Lieberman with joy. The lids of Lieberman’s hooded eyes drooped even further as he chewed on a Tums.
    â€œHow did you do it?” Resnick asked.
    â€œWe just asked him for it politely,” Hanrahan said. “Abe and El Perro are buddies from way back.”
    â€œAnd to know him is to love him” said Lieberman.
    â€œWho cares?” Resnick chimed in, opening the cash register and hiding the bills under the false bottom of the drawer next to the .32 Lieberman knew was there.
    â€œWhat can I say?” Resnick asked, beaming at Lieberman, who scratched his hairy ear and glanced around at a display of colorful ceramic cups. “How about taking a wrench or something you can use around the house?”
    â€œMake it a couple of cheeseburgers from Solly’s next time we come by,” Lieberman said.
    When they were back in the car heading toward the lake, Lieberman popped a few more Tums and said, “Valdez.”
    â€œYou want me to take her?” Hanrahan said.
    â€œIt’s Friday,” Lieberman reminded him.
    Hanrahan nodded and said, “Got nothing better to do, Abraham.”
    â€œI’ll take the next one,” Lieberman said.
    â€œWe’ll take ’em as they come,” said Hanrahan. “We’ll just take ’em as they come.”

2
    I T WAS CLEAR FROM the moment Abe stepped through the front door that Bess had a “topic.” A “topic” was more important than “something to discuss.” Hours before a “topic” was about to be laid out on the kitchen table, Bess’s lips went tight and she smiled at everything Lieberman said whether it was about the day’s mayhem or a bit of comedy overheard at Maish’s. He also knew the “topic” would bubble near the surface of their Shabbat conversation till the blessings were finished and Lieberman had his glass of wine.
    Other signs were evident, especially to a detective with thirty years’ experience. His wife’s dark hair cut short, her gray suit neatly pressed, her smile a little too sweet, and her conversation a little too mundane, were dead giveaways.
    Above the flame of the two candles at the dinner table set with their best linen tablecloth, Bess had given him a look that said, “Prepare.”
    Bess was five years younger than Abe Lieberman. On a bad day she looked fifteen years younger. On a good day, she looked like his daughter. She was her husband’s height, dark and slender. While she was not a beauty, she was a fine-looking woman, Lieberman thought, and a Lady with a capital “L.” Her father had been a butcher on the South Side, but she carried herself as if he had been a banker, and she had a voice that telephone operators dream of.
    After he had said the prayer over wine and shared a drink with her from