Read Online Lieberman's Folly by Stuart M. Kaminsky - Free Book Online

the Chicago Vocational High School football team. Dick Butkus, who had graduated from CVS a few years after Hardrock Hanrahan, had told Hanrahan at a reunion that he had been an inspiration. In his senior year, Hanrahan had twisted his knee in a practice. The speed was gone. Just like that. He had still gone on to a football scholarship at Southern Illinois. He’d been hoping for Notre Dame or Illinois but even with a good knee that had only been an outside hope. He had lasted two years at Southern, a journeyman lineman who had lost his nickname and drive. Twenty-five years and three months ago, Bill Hanrahan had left Carbondale and come back to Chicago. He joined his father as a cop as his father had joined his father before him.
    But those were the good old days and these were the bad new ones. Hanrahan had burst through the door to the outer lobby and pulled out his wallet and badge before the young black man in a doorman’s uniform could speak. The young man, whose gold-plated name tag said he was Billy Tarton, wanted no problems.
    â€œValdez,” said Hanrahan.
    â€œSix-ten,” answered the doorman. He pressed the button to open the inner door.
    â€œYou want me to announce—” Billy Tarton began but the look from the burly policeman shut his mouth.
    Hanrahan managed to keep from bowling over a trio of women who looked like bowling pins as they came out of the elevator. He entered the elevator, pushed the button to close the doors, and put his wallet away with his left hand while he pulled his Colt .38 Cobra out of the holster at his waist with his right.
    The elevator stopped at five. An old man started to get in. Hanrahan hid his Colt at his side and motioned the man back. The man looked as if he were about to protest and then noticed that the drunk in the elevator had his hand behind his back. The old man backed out and let the door close. Before the doors were fully open on six, Hanrahan was out, gun at the ready, looking both ways.
    No one in sight. At the end of the corridor to his left a door was open, letting out loud Latin music and light. The elevator pinged and closed its doors behind him.
    Hanrahan moved down the corridor, back against the wall, weapon pointed at the open door.
    At the door he went down low, gun leveled. The trick knee and the double bourbons almost did him in. He felt as if he were about to fall backward.
    â€œNot now,” he told himself. “Jesus, not now.”
    The music blared. From the doorway Hanrahan could see enough to make his already queasy stomach go sour. It was a one-bedroom with a kitchen alcove just inside the door. The refrigerator in the alcove was wide open. Broken bottles, a jar of Hellman’s low-cal mayonnaise, slices of still-frozen Steak’ems and rapidly melting ice cubes littered the floor. It was a hot night. Hanrahan was sweating. The cabinets over the sink were open and boxes were torn apart. Michael Jordan smiled up at Hanrahan from a ripped-open Wheaties carton.
    Hanrahan’s hands were sweating. He alternated drying each one on his already sweat-soaked shirt and then he moved past the open bathroom, glancing in to see the medicine cabinets open, capsules and bottles on the floor and in the tub. The top of the toilet basin was off and its two cracked pieces were on the floor near the wall. The closet door next to the bathroom was open. The rod and shelf were empty. Clothes were on the floor in a pile, hangers sticking out like dark bones.
    The voice of the man on the radio or phonograph repeated, “Todos Vuelven,” over and over again, pounding inside Hawaiian’s head like a migraine.
    And then he stepped into the living room and found what he had expected and feared. Lamps were turned over, the carpeting torn up. The dresser in the corner yawned with missing drawers which were roughly stacked upside-down, their contents thrown around the room. A red bra hung from a small fixture in the center of the ceiling