Maria's Girls (The Isaac Sidel Novels)

by Jerome Charyn

  Maria smiled. “Welcome to God’s kitchen.”

  “You create the shortages, Maria. You capitalize on missing board erasers.”

  “This isn’t my warehouse. I have to pay for each desk the City can’t provide.”

  “Who owns this place?”

  “The jeweler.”

  And they rode up to the roof in a freight elevator. Two men were waiting for them on the final landing. They had shotguns holstered inside their coats. They didn’t like Maria. But they ogled Dee, bowing to her while the shotguns bent with their own bodies. They unlocked a wire door. A voice growled from within. “Who’s there?” A voice full of gravel and spite. “Who’s there?”

  “The schoolteacher and a girl.”

  “Maria’s girl?”

  “Yeah, boss. Maria’s girl.”

  “Angelo, you’re impolite. Let ’em in.”

  Diana and Montalbán were thrust inside that door and entered an elaborate living room as large as a baseball diamond. A man sat in a wheelchair at the center of the diamond. He only had half a face. He wore white gloves to hide his wounds. His legs were covered with a blanket. Maria approached the wheelchair and kissed his hand.

  “Padre, I’m a little short this week.”

  “You’re always short. Schoolteacher, get out of here.”

  “But we have to talk.”

  “Not in front of the lady.”

  And Maria touched her hair and withdrew into the dark, leaving Diana alone with the cripple.

  “Hello, Caroll’s bride.”

  “Who are you?”

  “The mystery man. Princess, I’m supposed to be dead. Isaac killed me. It was in all the papers. But he wasn’t mentioned. He’s the Pink Commish.”

  “You’re Sal Rubino,” she said.

  “No, I’m all that’s left of Sal. I belong in a museum.”

  “I don’t believe Isaac shot you.”

  “Ask your dad.”

  “Where did you meet my father?”

  “Princess, don’t be naive. Nothing gets built in Manhattan without Sal. I own a lot of cement. Ah, ya know what I wish? That I had my legs again so I could dance with you. I don’t want to diddle. Just to dance. And I have to eat my heart out. Because you’ll dance with somebody and I’ll start to cry … how do you like your rings? The rings you’re wearing, I made them myself. I used to be a goldsmith. I studied gold in school. But I got involved with cement. And I lost the feel of my fingers. I can’t hammer out a ring. That’s my biggest tragedy … and not being able to dance with you.”

  “What if I promised not to ever dance again?”

  “Ah, you’d try to keep that promise but you couldn’t. You’ll dance at my funeral, you’ll see.”

  She wanted to pick Sal out of his blanket and sway with him, but she didn’t dare. He was one more wounded man in her life. One more casualty.

  “Princess, did ya know your husband’s been seeing a shylock? I canceled the vig. I took it on my shoulder. It was a calculated risk. I was grooming him to kill Isaac Sidel.”

  “Stop it,” Dee said. “I won’t listen.”

  “It’s only fair.”

  “I won’t listen.”

  But she didn’t move away from Sal. She was bound to him in some manner she couldn’t explain. It was the ravages of the wheelchair. She could only seem to care about dangerous men. Caroll had rescued her from Fred the gardener, another dangerous man. Perhaps she had encouraged Fred a little, smiled at him, but that didn’t mean he had to slash at her with a knife. And she wouldn’t have allowed any other rescuer but Caroll, who had his own sad danger. She imagined him handcuffing her even before they’d gone to bed. He didn’t have the bluster of other cops. She only wanted Caroll on the case. And she got Caroll. And now this lunatic in the wheelchair wanted Caroll to kill Isaac. And what about Maria? Where did Maria fit?

  “Mr. Rubino, Isaac has already been shot. He came back from the dead, like you.”

  “There’s no comparison. Isaac had a beauty sleep under the bridge. I arranged it for Caroll to find him.”

  “And who was the killer?”

  “There was no killer. Just a hired gun.”

  “A gun that you’ll let loose on Isaac again.”

  “I don’t give second chances. It’s up to Caroll. But he’s a bad boy. He’s been meddling with my property, Delia St. John.”

  “She’s my father’s property too.”

  “Not a chance. I introduced Delia to your dad. It’s strictly cash. But not with Caroll. I want him out of her life. I could get angry. I might not let him kill Isaac for me. And Caroll’s bride will become a widow. I get wicked ideas in my wheelchair … Angelo, come here.”

  She might never survive her trip to the jeweler. She didn’t blame Maria Montalbán. Mr. Rubino had all the bitterness of a man who could no longer hug a woman. And when his two gorillas put their hands on her, pawed her in front of Sal, slapped her, ripped her clothes, she watched Sal and couldn’t find the least pleasure on his broken face.

  Part Five

  18

  Old Jim had come to the Park in his cardinal’s cape. He’d rather have arrived incognito, but he might have been mistaken for a bum. He had a rotten habit of picking up cigarette butts and smoking them until his mouth nearly burned. He had a rough nature. He liked to deliver his own Christian charity with a sock in the teeth. He had to scout the playing fields because Isaac’s lads would practice their baseball during the worst winter storm. And he had his own Manhattan Knights to consider. He wouldn’t want to lose a championship on account of any negligence. But there was no one about. The fields were as naked as a gorilla’s arse.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder. He jumped. It could have been one of Isaac’s spies, or the Bomber himself, Harry Lieberman, who was coaching the Delancey Giants.

  But he shouldn’t have panicked. It was only Captain White, the vicar of Sherwood Forest, looking like a scorched rat in his overcoat. The rat hadn’t shaved. He belonged to the Holy Rood of Catholic cops. Jim was their advisor.

  “Lucas, you scared the piss out of me. Announce yourself, for Christ’s sake.”

  “I couldn’t,” the captain said. “You were standing there … like in a dream. I couldn’t interrupt.”

  And he stooped to kiss the cardinal’s ring.

  “Will you stop that? You’re a grown man. And I didn’t come here as a prince of the Church. I’m a baseball manager. I’ve my own team to worry about. Isaac is lurking in the bushes with his lads.”

  “He’s a thief,” the captain said.

  “I wouldn’t doubt it.”

  “He wants to sack me.”

  “Sack you? He’s an invalid. He doesn’t have the powers of a PC.”

  “He hates my guts,” the captain said.

  “Did you ever harm him?”

  “He hates my guts … I have to retire.”

  “At forty-six? You’re in your prime. What will ya do?”

  “I’ll join the Church.”

  “Jesus, you’re one of us, as fine a Catholic as the Department ever had.”

  “I want to become a priest.”

  The cardinal squinted at Captain White. “Can’t imagine you as a seminarian … studying the Lord’s Book until your eyes are scratchy.”

  “I have the calling, Jim. I always did. I’ll kill Isaac before he kills me.”

  “Kill? That’s Satan’s work.”

  “I’ll do it,” the captain said.

  “And I’ll slap your face.”

  “It won’t be the first time, Jim.”

  The captain started to laugh. It sounded like an explosive cough.

  “You’re tired, lad. Take a rest.”

  “Rest? The whole Park is my precinct, Jim. I’m the sheriff here. Not sheenie Isaac.”

  “Ah, don’t belittle the man. He’s ill.”

  “If he’s so ill, you wouldn’t be here. Isaac bothers you. He’ll steal the pants off your boys. I could fix him for you.”

  “Jes
us, I will slap your face. I’ll do worse.”

  “It’s a joke, Jim. Would I take advantage of an invalid? I have to go back to Sherwood Forest and inspect the toilets.”

  Captain White wove around the cardinal and disappeared into a thicket of trees.

  “Like a ghost,” Jim said, “like a bloody ghost.” He wrapped himself in his cape and left those forlorn fields.

  He’d been dreaming of the Bomber again, Harry in some center field that looked like the Harlem Meer. He could chase a ball in the blackest water. And then Isaac realized it wasn’t Harry. It was the Pink Commish, splashing, splashing, because Isaac couldn’t swim. And while he drowned, it wasn’t Marilyn who blinked at him, or Margaret Tolstoy, his errant sweetheart, or his own mom and dad, but Blue Eyes, who died under a ping-pong table …

  Isaac had to answer the phone.

  “Who is it?”

  “A friend of Maria’s.”

  “I was dreaming. What the hell do you want?”

  “I hope it was a wet dream,” said the voice on the phone.

  “All my dreams are wet dreams. What do you want?”

  “Your bitch had an accident … Diana Cassidy.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Maria’s crib.”

  “That’s grand. How many cribs does Maria have?”

  “Only one that concerns you, Professor Sidel. Just meet me at the southeast corner of Marcus Garvey Park. And wear your baseball pants, professor, or I might not recognize you.”

  Isaac wasn’t in the mood for baseball pants or that white embroidered cap of the Delancey Giants. He wanted his gray fedora, but it was at his apartment on Rivington Street, with the rest of his clothes. So he suited up, the Beekman Bomber, and strode out of the hospital, with his cleats attacking the linoleum floor.

  He looked like a medicine man on the subway, or some refugee from an asylum, but no one considered him strange. He was one more straphanger. He got out of the subway and stood on the corner that had been assigned to him, his pants ballooning against the wind. People began offering him nickels and dimes, figuring a crazy white man had come to beg at Marcus Garvey Park. There were no drug dealers, no rampaging gangs, and he wondered if Harlem had become a haunted house.

  A cop approached Isaac, tapped him on the shoulder with his billy, and Isaac snarled, “What’s your name, officer? I’m Sidel.”

  “I know,” the cop said.

  “What precinct are you from? I’ll have you working the graveyard shift for life.”

  “Shut the fuck up and follow me.”

  Ah, it was Harlem, and not even a Pink Commish could matter very much. Nor did he have the strength to strangle the cop. And it wouldn’t have brought him to Dee. So Isaac followed this steerer in a blue bag. The cop led him to a brownstone near Lexington Avenue.

  “Go to the top of the stairs, chief. I think the door is open … and regards from Maria Montalbán.”

  “I’ll break your bones, you son of a bitch.”

  The cop laughed. He had crooked teeth. “You’re a hospital case,” he said. “Good for drinking jello.”

  Isaac climbed toward the roof. The stairs rattled under his feet. Huge strips of plaster hung from the walls. He found Maria’s crib. It was a duplex with its own garden. It had a couch and a stereo that could have been worth two months of Isaac’s salary. This is where the school money goes, Isaac muttered to himself. This is ten thousand sandwiches that never got to the kids. Diana was lying in bed on the duplex’s lower floor, wrapped in a red cape. Her mouth was swollen. She had little tears of dried blood on her neck. Her eyes were open. She smiled. It quickly turned into a line of black blood.

  “I failed you, boss. I couldn’t get Maria for you … I think I fell in love with him a little.”

  Isaac kissed her eyes. “I’ll get you an ambulance.”

  “No,” she said. “I hate hospitals.”

  “So do I.”

  “You can live anywhere, Isaac. You’re always scheming … no hospitals, swear to me.”

  He called Gordon Gould, chief pathologist at the NYPD.

  “I don’t have to come, Isaac. You’re in limbo right now. I work for Sweets.”

  “That’s true,” Isaac said. “But I’ll be back, Gordon. I’ll be back on the fourteenth floor, and I’ll give you my own pathology lesson. I’ll shove a pencil sharpener up your ass.”

  “You can’t talk to me like that.”

  “I’ll expect you here in fifteen minutes.”

  He covered Dee with a blanket. He warmed her hands with his own hot breath. “Who hit you?”

  “The jeweler’s people.”

  “Jeweler? I don’t know any jeweler.”

  “Sal Rubino.”

  “You mean the dead man. And it was Maria who set you up.”

  “I’m not sure. He’s afraid of the jeweler. I’m not sure.”

  “Where did Maria take you?”

  “A warehouse,” she said. “Stuffed with school supplies. Maria bought everything from the jeweler. He can’t trust the Board of Ed.”

  “He gave you to Sal. And Sal must know you work for me … I’m such a fool. I should have closed my shop … they hit you. How many men?”

  “Two.”

  “And they touched you, took off your clothes.”

  “No. Nothing like that. They might have wanted to, but Sal was there.”

  “And Maria?”

  “Maria disappeared.”

  “He gave you. I can’t forgive that.”

  The pathologist arrived with his medical bag. He was also Isaac’s physician, but Isaac didn’t believe in checkups. It took a Glock to get him off his feet.

  Gordon Gould felt under her cape with hands that were as delicate as a virtuoso on the violin. He looked into her eyes. He listened to her heart, placing the cup of his stethoscope at the edge of her brassiere.

  “Nothing broken,” he said. “But she’s suffered some trauma. I’d recommend an ambulance.”

  “Gordon, you’ll drive her home in your car.”

  “That’s absurd. There could be hemorrhaging. I won’t take the responsibility.”

  “You’ll drive her home.”

  “And where are you going?”

  “To find a friend.”

  He helped the pathologist bring Diana down to the car. Then he returned to the crib. He called the one dispatcher he knew at the Board of Ed, a police buff.

  “Gloria, I need to know Maria Montalbán’s whereabouts.”

  She whistled into the wire. “He’s a tough cookie. But I’ll try.”

  Isaac gave her the telephone number at the crib. Then he waited with a venom inside his gut. He had spasms on the left side of his body, near the bullet holes. He couldn’t heal properly. He’d always have that puckered skin. He couldn’t seem to get rid of his bile. He smashed the stereo; the wires bled a blue ink. He ripped the couch with a knife and fork borrowed from Maria’s kitchen.

  The phone rang. It was Gloria.

  “He’s not in the district,” she said. “But I tracked him down. He put in a call to the chancellor. There’s been a revolt. Some kids took over the lunchroom at one of his sister schools uptown.

  And Maria’s rushing to the school. Alejo doesn’t want any cops around.”

  “Maria is Alejo’s troubleshooter. He’ll restore the peace with boxes of bubble gum … or pencil cases he stole from another district. Gloria, what’s the name of this school?”

  Isaac couldn’t run. The walls of his chest throbbed with each step he took. But he got to that troubled junior-high school near Paladino Avenue and the East River Drive before Maria did. The school was under the massive approach to the Triborough Bridge. It lived in perpetual darkness, without a single pinch of light, as if the architect had schemed to make schoolchildren mad. Isaac met Maria at the door of his limousine. Maria was bundled inside a mink coat. He bowed to the Pink Commish.

  “Glad you could come, Isaac.”

  “Don’t patronize me, you fucking prick.
You shouldn’t have deserted Dee … Sal’s thugs gave her a beating and brought her back to your crib. One of your lads telephoned me.”

  “I don’t have ‘lads’ like that.”

  “You shouldn’t have deserted Dee.”

  “And you shouldn’t have got her involved. She has to suffer if she’s your little soldier. But I don’t have time for a debate. I have to stop a riot.”

  “I’m going with you,” Isaac said.

  “This isn’t your kingdom, Isaac. It’s a public school.”

  “I’m going with you.”

  And they entered that piece of midnight under the Triborough Bridge.

  “If you wave your pistol, Isaac, I’ll smash it against the wall.”

  “Do you see a pistol?” Isaac said, pointing to his belt and his baseball tunic. “I’m a boarder at Beekman Downtown. I have to drink castor oil, or I couldn’t go to the toilet. I shouldn’t be here. I’m a delinquent. I …”

  Isaac had to quit talking. There were children in the corridor, with eyes that held nothing for him, that were beyond the power of a convalescing police commissioner. No one cared about his uniform. The Bomber had played at the Polo Grounds, which was blitzed while Isaac was a boy policeman, and turned into a housing project where many of these children now lived, outside the shadow of Harry Lieberman or Isaac Sidel. The Polo Grounds projects. Isaac was one more antiquarian, who belonged in the Christy Mathewson Club, not with a population of young women who carried pencil cases next to their hearts. Isaac couldn’t tell where the boys had gone. One or two floated in the periphery of these girls and their pencil cases. But they weren’t part of the same powerful storm. These girls must have carried that lonely field of learning at this junior high. They paused near Maria, who seemed to calm them with his mink coat and high heels.

  “Who’s Mr. Dark Eyes?” they asked, after noticing Isaac.

  “The man’s a little crazy,” Maria said. “Leave him alone.”

  They formed an escort around Maria and his ragtail twin, Sidel the hospital refugee, and delivered them to the lunchroom, which had become a barricade in the hands of these girls. Their leader, who looked a little pregnant, peered out from behind a nest of chairs. Her name was Miranda Smith. Isaac tried not to stare at her swollen belly.