"Doctor Berry," Detective Applegate said, and Jacob Berry looked up from the waiting room chair at the policeman.
The waiting room at Edgewater Hospital still smelled faintly of cigarettes, though it had been a smoke-free room for almost a full year. Coffee was brewing in a corner. Newspapers were neatly stacked on tables. There were two others in the post-op waiting room besides Jacob Berry and his brother, who sat next to him. There was a pretty young Hispanic woman sitting upright near the bank of windows, an open book in her lap, and an older woman in a pink volunteer's smock.
The older woman, who had almost pink hair, asked in a whisper if either of the two detectives wanted coffee or a sweet roll.
"No, thanks," said Acardo at Applegate's side.
The Berry brothers were almost twins-same height, weight, glasses-though Isaac Berry was a good ten years older, hair fuller, with definite gray in his sideburns and a tired look in his eyes. The detectives, in contrast, looked nothing alike. Applegate was tall, black, bespectacled, and wearing a neatly pressed navy blue suit with a perfectly matched red-and-blue striped tie. Acardo, his partner, was short, white, almost bald, and definitely disheveled. They were known on the streets and in the squad room as Black and White.
Jacob Berry recognized the white officer. Berry had given Acardo a physical about two months earlier. Acardo should have been a physical disaster. He overate the wrong foods, got no exercise, and was on the verge of a serious drinking problem. His vital signs, however, were fine. No high or low blood pressure, cholesterol well within reasonable bounds.
"Yes," said Jacob.
"We'd like a description from you of the man who got away," said Applegate. "Do you think you could help us?"
"I… about six one, dark, wearing a denim… no, a leather jack… I'm not sure. He had a scar. Here."
Jacob made a slashing motion down his forehead through his right eye.
"Dark scar. I'd say it was at least a year old, maybe more."
"Anything else?" Applegate asked politely.
"I think he was the leader," Jacob said.
"Officer Matthews," asked the other Dr. Berry. "Is he, do you know…?"
"Critical, but alive," said Applegate. "Bullet went through a rib and right lung, took a turn, and hit the spleen."
"I shot hun," Jacob said, looking from one policeman to the other.
"Jake," his brother said. "I don't think you should say any more."
"According to the paramedics, you also saved his life in the ambulance," said Acardo.
"Thank God," said Isaac Berry, patting his brother's hand.
"Sorry to do this, Doctor," Applegate said, "but we've got to read you your rights."
"Wait a minute…" Isaac Berry said, rising from the vinyl seat that whooshed as he left it "No," his brother countered.
"They would have killed my brother if he didn't have that gun," Isaac insisted.
"Officer Matthews disrupted the robbery, not Dr. Berry," said Applegate evenly. "We're not really here to argue the merits of the charges, just to deliver them."
Acardo droned off the Miranda while Isaac Berry did his best to look angry and the still-seated Jacob Berry looked through (he window over the shoulder of the pretty Hispanic woman.
"Possession and firing of an illegal weapon," Applegate said. "Assault with said weapon. Assault-"
"Wait," said Isaac. "Assault with a deadly weapon?"
"Charge has been brought by one Albert Davis, one of the three men who entered your brother's office this morning. He claims he was unarmed and Dr. Berry shot him. My guess is that Officer Matthews shot him, but we'll see when they finish getting the bullet out of Davis's leg."
"This is crazy," said Isaac Berry, raising his voice. "A man comes into my brother's officer to rob and maybe kill him. The man gets shot and he wants Jacob to… He can't do that."
"I'm afraid he can," said Applegate. "Was he unarmed, Dr. Berry?"
"Don't answer him, Jacob," Isaac said.
'The little one with the crazy face had the gun," said Jacob dully. "One of them, I can't remember which, had a… the heavy one-he had the knife."
"You sure?" asked Acardo.
"I'm sure."
"You're going to have to come to the station with us, Doc," said Acardo, looking at both doctors to be sure there would be no trouble.
"Fine," said Jacob, rising slowly with Applegate's help.
"Jake, don't say anything more, not a word. I'll have a lawyer at the station as fast as I can."
"I think we should go now, Doctor," Applegate said gently.
"This is illegal, a clear violation of my brother's rights," Isaac insisted.
"No, sir," said Applegate. "It may not seem fair to you, but it's perfectly legal."
"How would you know? Are you a lawyer?" Isaac said, stepping between the detectives and the exit to the waiting room.
"Yes, he is," said Acardo.
"DePaul University Law School, nineteen-eighty-four," said Applegate. "Now, I know you're distraught, but if you even touch one of us, you will be obstructing justice and we'll have to fill out a lot of papers and this could get very complicated."
"Isaac, please. It'll be all right," Jacob Berry said, touching his brother's arm.
"Oh, Jake, what'd I do? I talked you into coming to this goddamn city and now…"
"I'll be all right," Jacob said, moving toward the door with the two policemen. "The officer's not dead. He saved my life and I shot him. Can you imagine?"
Jacob's eyes met those of the pretty Hispanic woman. He thought she was, indeed, trying to imagine, and a look crossed her impassive face mat made it clear that her imagination matched his deed.
Applegate and Acardo flanked Jacob Berry and ushered him down the blue-carpeted corridor.
It was Applegate's opinion, shared only with his partner and based on almost fifteen years of experience, that Dr. Jacob Berry would be a bigger television news splash than the Dana Rozier murder. Public indignation, the fear of invading blacks, and the gun control flap would make Dr. Berry a hero or a martyr. The sagging man between him and Acardo would probably walk away from all of this with a suspended sentence and a fine. The American Medical Association would probably issue a note of censure, but that wouldn't keep Berry from practicing. He'd have to leave the city, but Acardo doubted if at this point that meant very much to the young doctor. Applegate and Acardo had seen it before. Slightly different script, but same story. They could save a lot of time and taxpayers' dollars by packing Dr. Jacob Berry's things and putting him on the next train to Lordsburg. But that wasn't the way things worked.
"We're stopping for a coffee on the way back," said Acardo. "You want one?"
They stepped into the empty hospital elevator.
"I don't know," said Jacob, looking at Applegate. '1 don't know."
Lonny stood in the parking lot and looked at the entrance to the convenience store. An ad for Virginia Slims showing a lean, light-skinned black girl with the whitest teeth and the fullest lips in the world glared at him from the store's stone wall. Next to it was a sign that announced a dollar off on a six-pack of Coke.
Lonny didn't try to find shelter. He was soaked through and tired. He just stood behind a car and waited till there were no customers inside. Then he looked around to see if anyone was heading toward the store before he hurried across the lot and opened the door.
The whole day had been a bad dream. It was just continuing. Lonny Wayne did not carry guns. Lonny Wayne did not rob stores. Lonny Wayne didn't get drug dealers angry with him by stealing their wheels. Lonny Wayne just wanted a few dollars in his pocket, a car, and the girl he'd met last night in McDonald's. What was her name? He had it written down on a sheet in his wallet His ambitions were small. He wasn't even asking for the fox in the Virginia Slims ad.
Lonny grabbed something from a shelf, some Dolly Madison cupcakes. He brought them to the counter, where one of those people from India or somewhere stood waiting, watching Lonny drip on the floor.
"Anything else?" the thin, dark man said.
Lonny put the cupcakes on the counter and pulled his few dollars from his pocket. The man behind the counter, who had seen derelicts and addicts, robbers, and madmen and women in his four years in the store, was suspicious, but dozens with Lonny's vacant look came in every day. Money was money. The man opened the cash register to put in the two singles and give Lonny his change. Lonny saw bills hi the tray. He had to be sure that there was a chance at the three hundred before he pulled this.
Satisfied, Lonny took the gun from his pocket and leveled it at the man.
"I have a wife, a mother, and three small children," the man said, as he had said the last two times he was robbed.
"I ain't no widow maker," Lonny said. "Just put bills on the table, fast All the bills, under the tray too, and don't go pushing no buttons or buzzers or that shit, you understand?"
"Yes," the man said and began removing bills and laying them on the counter.
Gun in his left hand leveled at the frightened man, Lonny scooped bills and shoved them into his jacket pockets.
"You know who I am?"
"No," said the man.
"Good," said Lonny. "We keep it that way. You wait five minutes before you call the cops, you hear?"
"Yes," said the man.
"And you ever see me again you keep sayin' you don't know me, understand?"
Lonny was backing toward the door.
" 'Cause you ever ID me I'll get you or my friends will. You understand?"
"Yes," the man said again.
This is easy, and I'm good at it, Lonny thought. I get that car, head for Georgia, and do this again when I need cash. Me and Dalbert and lago should have done this a long time ago.
He reached behind him for the door, and turned his head to look into the lot to be sure no one was coming. Far away in the hospital lot a man was running through the rain for his car.
And then Mohammed Achman Izar shot Lonny Wayne and ended Lonny's dream.
Lonny turned and fired at the storekeeper, but all he hit was the glass front of a dairy cabinet. Mohammed was a much better shot. He'd had more practice.
Lonny went through the door running, hearing an alarm behind him, dropping bills and hoping they were singles, wondering if there was a bullet in his head. He ran, ducked between cars, shoved the gun back in his pocket. Ran.
The forest of familiar high-rises, garbage bins, and traffic was a few blocks away. He ran, wondering if he would suddenly fall dead. Lonny panted, breathing hard. He slipped and went down, keeping his hand in his pocket to hold the bulge of bills. And then he was up again, hand to his ear. It came down with blood.
Lonny touched his scalp and couldn't find a hole.
"Everyone has a fuckin' gun," he panted, racing for the high-rises, the alarm behind him prodding him to exhaustion, "lago, the doc, even the goddamn Indian."
He made it. The sound of the alarm behind him grew more faint. He made it. Between two dirt-gardened high-rises, behind an overflowing dumpster. Lonny leaned against a wall where he couldn't be seen, rain pelting, and in the eave of the dumpster he caught his breath and let his weary legs tremble as he counted the bills in his pocket. Two hundred and eighty-three dollars.
It would have to be enough for Skilly Parker.
Lonny touched his ear. It was bleeding, the part of it that was left. Lonny held his hand to his ear and looked around. He pressed his soaking sleeve to the wound and forced himself to move. He was alive. He still had a chance. But God, it had suddenly gotten awfully cold in Chicago.
They would follow him. Harvey Rozier was sure now that the police would follow him. But he would have to get away, have to go to Patniks's house, have to kill him-but more carefully, smarter than what he had done to Dana. He had made Dana's murder too complicated.
Lieberman was probably sitting outside waiting for him to come out and drive to work. Let him wait. Let him wonder. Harvey moved to the window, where he could see the driveway and street Yes, a car was parked across the street, its motor idling. Exhaust fumes mixing with cold rain and turning to steam. Lieberman.
Harvey had managed to convince Betty Franklin that she needed to go home and rest. He had assured her with kisses that he loved her and that he had nothing, nothing to do with Dana's death. She believed because she wanted to believe, because it was necessary for her to believe.
Harvey crossed the bedroom and turned on the television. Images of war and soap operas skittered by, a cartoon about a dog, an old movie. He turned the television set off.
If Betty didn't believe him, if Betty abandoned him, he would have killed Dana for nothing. Ken had told Harvey that he had no more than six months or a year at best, and Betty had confirmed that one night in a bedroom at the Palmer House. Harvey had wept, and Betty had comforted her lover over the prospect of losing his closest friend, his confidant.
Rain hit the windows, thudded on the roof. Thunder rattled in the distance.
Dana was no saint, and their marriage had, at least for the past five years, been for show only. But, he had to admit, Dana had played her part well and she had been rewarded for it. She had never fought with him, had seldom even talked to him, which had been fine with Rozier. They had never discussed divorce. Harvey never could have afforded to pay her what she would have asked even if she had agreed, and he doubted that she would have agreed.
If he could have told Lieberman, Harvey would have said that it was she, Dana, who had repeatedly and openly been unfaithful, Dana who had picked up his friends, employees, and had even said that she was considering old Ken just to see how he would take the invitation.
The phone rang.
Harvey had been reasonably constant in his marriage.
The phone was still ringing. The answering machine clicked on, but the person calling didn't leave a message.
It was that suggestion by Dana that had set him thinking about Betty Franklin and the millions she would inherit when Ken died, not to mention the family money she already had.
Harvey did not believe in eternal life or eternal damnation. Harvey believed that whatever heaven or hell existed, it was on earth and one molded it or was its victim. They would all die. Ken sooner. Betty, perhaps with some subtle help, a little later, and Harvey last of all. If the police didn't catch him, there would be no punishment, onJy reward and the distant prospect of meaningless death.
The phone rang again. Harvey picked it up.
"Yes," said Harvey.
"This is Mr. Edgar, Mr. Rozier. I heard about your grief. I'm very sorry to trouble you now, but I need to pick up all that paperwork I left at your house during my visit the other day. You remember, the file where I caught that big mistake of yours? There's nothing for you to worry about now, but I'm leaving town and need to clear things up before I go."
Harvey sat and sucked in air.
"I'm afraid you can't come now," he said, reasonably certain, as his caller obviously was, that the police had tapped the phone.
"And I'm afraid I have to insist on getting it back before I go. In fact, I can't leave without it," the man said. "I didn't want to just drop by unannounced, so I'm calling you from the phone booth at the Shell station across from the church. I hope you understand."
"I think so," said Harvey. "I'll do what I can to help you out."
"Good," the man said, and hung up the phone.
Harvey moved to the bedroom window again. Lieber-man, or whoever it was, was still out there. Betty would be back with Ken in an hour or two. Harvey had to hurry, had to hurry, and hoped he had understood the man's message.
Harvey moved to me closet, pulled out his sneakers, an old raincoat, and folded a pair of leather driving gloves into his pocket. Then he went downstairs, through the library, and into the garage. Harvey had removed the red toolbox from the safe and it now sat openly on a shelf next to an aluminum toolbox. Harvey moved around his Lexus, opened the red toolbox, removed the small crowbar, and placed it inside the deep pocket of his raincoat. Then he opened the back door, checking to be sure it wasn't being watched. There was no reason for it to be watched, no reason for the police to think he would be running off, certainly not on foot.
Harvey pulled his collar up against the rain and hurried across the lawn and through a slight break in the bushes, die same route he had used just two nights ago when he murdered his wife. Through the wild, dead-end growth of trees and bushes, he wound his way, coming out on the cul-de-sac of Camino Real Road.
He leaped puddles and quickstepped down the street to the comer in front of the First Methodist Church. He crossed to the Shell station, looking both ways for Patniks. Nothing. Patniks had mentioned the phone. Harvey dodged through swishing traffic across the street and to the phone booth. The phone was ringing. Harvey picked it up.
"Hello," he said.
"I've got a problem, Mr. Rozier," Patniks said. "I've got to run. Cops came, put pressure on me, threatened, said they knew I knew something, offered me deals that were a crock of shit. I played along and went out my bathroom window. They're looking for me, Mr. Rozier, and if they catch me, I'm not going down for your wife's murder."
"I don't know what you're talking about, whoever you are, but if you know anything about my wife's murder, I think you should turn yourself in."
"I understand," said George. "But you understand me. I'm gonna have to leave my life behind, my mother, my work. I'm gonna have to break parole and run. How about you come get me? I'll think about turning myself in and talking about what I saw. You think about bringing ten thousand in cash. Animal barn in the Lincoln Park Zoo. Four o'clock. That gives you a few hours to get to the bank."
"I can't-" Harvey started, but George Patniks had hung up.
Harvey couldn't go home to get his car. He pulled out a quarter and called the Franklin house. Ken answered.
"Ken," Harvey said. "I've got to do some thinking. I'm going for a walk in the rain. You and Betty come over, let yourselves in. I'll be back before six."
"Well," said Franklin, "are you sure you want to be alone? Betty tells me that Liebowitz-"
"Lieberman," Harvey corrected.
"Liebowitz, Lieberman-a Jew name. What difference does it make? The man upset Betty, accused you-"
"He didn't accuse me, Ken," Harvey said. "He was careful not to accuse me. He said others were accusing me."
"Hearsay, clever," Franklin said with a sigh. "Those people are cunning. I have to deal with them more than you imagine, and they are cunning."
Harvey kept from responding to Franklin's prejudice. He had heard it before, disagreed with it, and made his disagreement known. Race, religion, belief meant nothing to Harvey Rozier. Everyone was equal. Everyone lived and died and was nothing. In the greater scheme of things, race and belief were small differences, not worth the extension of prejudice, the time and effort, A waste of time. Prejudice was stupid and unproductive.
"Just let yourselves in," Harvey said. "I'll be back by six. I promise."
"By six, Harvey," Ken emphasized like a concerned father hearing that his son might be home late from a date.
Harvey hung up and checked his wallet. A little under four hundred dollars. He called a cab and went into the station to wait.
He would have the cab drive him to Rush Street From Rush Street he would jog to the zoo. Plenty of time.
At the zoo he would get George Patniks to go with him through the bushes to Harvey's supposedly parked car where the money and toolbox were in the trunk. In the bushes Harvey would beat George Patniks to death with his own crowbar.
Harvey didn't want the rain to stop. He wanted it to come down hard. A monsoon would have suited him, something that would keep people indoors and out of the park.
When the cab pulled into the Shell station, Harvey was outwardly calm, determined. He would keep it simple mis time. Into the bushes, strike, throw the crowbar down a sewer, catch a cab back to the Shell station and home, free.
It could be done. It had to be done.