Judging Time

18

O

n Monday Rick Liberty was taken to identify the body of his wife in the morgue but was not allowed in the room to touch her. The rest of that day and the next day he stayed at home, receiving his and Merrill's friends as was appropriate for one in deep mourning. He provided a splendid spread of food and drink, but did not dress up or make much of an effort to speak with his guests. No one but his partners seemed to expect it. On Tuesday evening he spent several hours reviewing his personal and family history with Jason Frank for the police. The interview required a great -.deal of reflection and forced him to think about things he had pushed out of his mind for a long time. Throughout the interview, he managed to preserve a facade of calm and restraint, but the experience triggered a deep rage. Rick did not sleep at all on Tuesday night. By dawn on Wednesday morning he could no longer bear the inaction of waiting.

Early in the morning Rick decided to test the waters outside his building. He did not know that today would be the day of Tor Petersen's autopsy or how much was at stake in what the medical examiner found. He figured that people from the press would again gather around his building to see if this would be the day for him to come outside and break his silence. He knew that the police already considered him a suspect. He figured they, too, must have their representatives watching-the building. Before making his move, he wanted to talk to Jason again, but he was afraid to call him.

He now had a three-day stubble that was thick and surprisingly gray for a man of only forty. He was glad he'd always been so very particular about his appearance. No one had ever seen him tattered or with a three-day growth. Now he was glad to look as ugly as he felt. There was a doorman, but no elevator man, in Rick's building. He took the elevator to the basement. Before eight o'clock, no one was around. He traveled through the dark halls to the storage bin assigned to his apartment. He dialed the combination, unlocked it, and went in without turning on the light. After only a few minutes of rummaging around, he found what he was looking for: a rusty-colored parka, stained and dusty from years in a cardboard box that had not been properly sealed. Near it was a pair of lace-up snow boots, with their sides flopping over. He put on the snow boots and cut off part of the laces with the knife on his keychain so the tops would continue to flop. Underneath the jacket he wore a sweatshirt. With the hood of the sweatshirt up he looked dangerous. In his neighborhood, people would not make eye contact with dangerous-looking black men. He relocked the storage bin and went out the building on the Fifty-sixth Street block. No one was looking for him there.

At 11 A.M. Rick walked into the Persian Garden on Ninth Avenue and Forty-eighth Street, where Wally Jefferson was waiting for him in the empty restaurant. Jefferson was sitting with his back to the wall at a table for two, drinking coffee and reading a racing form. When he saw Rick, he dropped the paper and got up.

"Mr. Liberty, I'm sorry for your loss," he said. His cap was in his hand. He hung his head to show his respect.

"Sit down, Wally."

Wally sat down. "You okay, man?" he asked solicitously. "You look bad."

"Let's talk about your well-being, not mine." Rick sat down in the outside chair, pinning Jefferson in.

When a tiny Asian woman came over to take his order, he waved her away.

"Look, I said I was sorry about your car. It was one of those things. You know how it is." He looked at Rick strangely. "You okay, man?" he asked again.

"I don't steal people's cars, Wally. So I don't know how it is." Rick clenched his fist.

"I didn't steal the car. I told you 1—"

"You stole the car."

"Now wait, that's a cold way of looking at things. I was a little strapped. I needed it for a day. I'll get it back."

"Wally, you listen to me. My wife and best friend are dead. I don't give a damn about the car."

Wally looked scared. "No sir, I didn't have nothing to do with that. I swear." He was nervous. His eyes darted toward the door. "I swear it, man. Nothing to do with that."

Rick's fist hit the table. His knife jumped off the edge and struck the floor, making a loud clatter in the empty room. "You're a liar!"

Wally eyed the knife. "No, man. He sent me home, I swear it. I don't know nothing about it."

"What do you use the cars for?" Rick's fist hit the table again. The tiny Asian woman came out of the kitchen. "How about you order," she said calmly.

"Coffee," Rick said without looking at her.

"Espresso, cappuccino, latte, Turkish? What kind coffee?"

"Regular coffee."

She went back into the kitchen.

Wally shook his head. "You don't look good, man. Maybe you should see a doctor."

"I want you to understand me, Wally. I need to find out what went wrong here. You understand. You're not going to shit me. I'm going to know."

"I told you-"

"No, you didn't tell me."

"I can't tell you nothing about no killing. I don't

know about that. They were fine when I left them." Wally looked at his hands guiltily.

"Then what do you know about?"

"I got two kids. I don't know nothing about nothing." He gave Rick the goofy smile of a dumb person catering to a smart one.

Rick studied the grin for a long time, holding Jefferson's gaze until the Asian woman brought the coffee. Then he got up, dropped a five-dollar bill on the table, and left the restaurant.

Through the window, Jefferson watched him head downtown. When Liberty had passed from his view, he pulled a cell phone from his pocket and called Julio. "You have to get that car back for me. I'm coming out to Queens to get it now," he said and hung up before the Dominican could argue.