Free Big Silence by Stuart M. Kaminsky Page B

about ten years ago. Too much food. Too many kids. Too many islands with too many stores trying to sell you stuff. He can have it. Al will be back tomorrow.”
    Two clerks from the Rosenthal Men’s Shop down the street were hunched over the table in their booth trying to carry on a conversation over the banter between Abe and the Alter Cockers but the two salesmen were trapped in the booth between the cop and the Cockers.
    The T&L was the last of a dying breed. Once Devon was Jewish with a sprinkling of Chinese restaurants and a Greek fruit store or two. Now the street was Korean with a minority of Vietnamese who probably outnumbered the Jews from Ridge Avenue to McCormick Boulevard. Actually, business at the T&L was better than it had ever been. A lot of Koreans liked corned beef and matzoh ball soup or a good brisket.
    Three women on stools at the counter downed bowls of cabbage borscht. Two of the women talked to each other, usually at the same time. Abe recognized them. One was the daughter of Myrna Kransky, whom Abe had dated in high school. The daughter was in her thirties, pretty, with thick glasses. The other woman he recognized, Irene Richman, was a member of Temple Mir Shavot where Bess was president and Abe was constantly being shoved into committees, some of them with Irene, a plump, always suited, even-tempered assistant vice president at a bank on Irving Park Road. Irene had an MBA from the University of Chicago, a fact her mother often brought up when Irene put forth an argument during a committee meeting. Irene’s mother, Rose, was a widow who had a modest income from her husband’s insurance. Rose’s goal in life was to be on every committee her daughter was on at the temple.
    The third woman, the one sitting alone, looked familiar, but he couldn’t place her. She was good-looking, dark, short businesslike haircut, pearl earrings, wearing no-nonsense makeup and a look that could have been anything from determination to blank daydreaming. He would place her, remember her name. It used to be easier.
    The T&L door opened. The two salesmen went out. Bill Hanrahan came in. For a late-weekday afternoon, business was booming.
    “Look who walked in,” said Herschel Rosen. “The Irish Republican Army delegate.”
    “Here to make another attempt at contacting the Israeli government through those of us with connections,” said Morris Hurvitz, the short, smiling, bespectacled, and still-working seventy-eight-year-old psychologist.
    “Irish and Jews against the British,” Hanrahan said with a sad smile as he headed toward Abe’s table. “Unbeatable. We’d have the British out in a week.”
    Hanrahan sat across from his partner and Maish brought a cup of coffee without being asked.
    “You want a bowl of soup, a sandwich?” asked Maish.
    “You decide,” Hanrahan said, touching his brow and closing his eyes.
    “Corned beef and chopped liver on rye?”
    “Sounds fine,” said Hanrahan.
    Maish joggled slowly back behind the counter to place the order and to ring up a customer on the cash register.
    “Booked and out on bond?” asked Lieberman.
    “Booked on five counts of fraud,” said Hanrahan. “Judge was Mason Harvey. Old Mason must be seventy-five minimum. Doesn’t take kindly to people who pull scams on our senior citizens. Set the bond so high our pal Mike almost couldn’t post. By the way, his name isn’t Mike. It’s Mikhail Piniescu. Not a citizen. Things go right, Mikhail could be on his way back to the old country.”
    “If things go right,” Abe said, drinking some coffee.
    “Which they almost never do,” said Hanrahan.
    Abe nodded. The Alter Cockers chattered behind them. Two of the three women at the counter paid their bill and left together. The third woman, whom Lieberman was still trying to place, checked her watch and picked at her food. A couple of guys in hard hats and overalls came in and sat at the counter.
    “I blew it, Rabbi,” Hanrahan finally said, opening his eyes and