Winter Warning

by Jerome Charyn

  “Burglars and assassins. It’s their magic tit. What happened to Karel?”

  “Karel’s contained,” the Bull said with a diabolic grin. “We brought him with us. He’s in protective custody. He blubbers about political asylum, but he has to be debriefed before we send him back.”

  “You’re not sending him anywhere. You’ll grant him whatever asylum he wants and you’ll move him into my attic. I don’t care if he has a Marine stationed outside his door, but Karel stays with me.”

  The Bull had a murderous look in his eye. He left with Matt Malloy, and Isaac had to endure a lecture from the physicians at Walter Reed about the calcium deposits in his heart. He wore a hospital gown like some sick crusader and was wheeled from lab to lab with the Secret Service at his tail. It was midnight before he returned to his room. The telephone console near his bed lit up. His daughter was on the line.

  “Isaac, we were worried sick. The papers mentioned a massive detonation. No one could tell me if you were alive or dead. We’re coming to DC tomorrow.”

  “That’s out of the question, sweetheart. The docs say I can’t have any guests.”

  Isaac didn’t enjoy lying to his own daughter. But he’d been reluctant to have her here even before his coronation. He was ashamed of the presidency and all its pomp. He felt like a fraud who had put others at great risk. Marilyn was married to one of Isaac’s own troopers, Vietnam Joe Barbarossa, the most decorated cop in the history of the NYPD, but the contradictions were always there. Barbarossa had dealt drugs in Nam, had murdered other dealers, and continued the drug war while he was a cop. Vietnam Joe still had his citations. He survived firefights with the worst Mafiosi in Manhattan. He jumped off a burning roof with two children in his arms and landed in a cavalcade of clotheslines. Isaac wished he had Barbarossa at his side. He wouldn’t have needed a White House detail. But he would have involved Marilyn in his own mishegas.

  “Sweetheart, I’ll visit soon as I can. Put Joey on the line.”

  “Dad, Dad,” Barbarossa said, “the city’s a wasteland without ya. The correction officers can’t control Rikers. And the streets have become a shooting gallery.”

  “Yeah, and I can’t get a decent half sour pickle. Keep in touch, Joey. I may call upon your services—soon.”

  “You bet, Dad. I’ll be there in a zip.”

  Isaac began to cry the second he got off the phone. He missed Manhattan, but it was more than loneliness. He felt betrayed by his own impulses. He could have rounded up his Modern Library collection of Kafka. He didn’t have to drag his court to Czech Land on a sentimental journey to relive a classic at Columbia College—his humanities instructor, a young man with a frayed collar and dandruff in his scalp, had refined the rabbinical art of excavating The Metamorphosis. “It’s not really Gregor’s tale. It’s Greta’s.” Gregor Samsa was the guy who woke one day as an insect. He was a traveling salesman who could no longer travel. His father was an unsuccessful businessman who had lost his business. Gregor had become the mainstay of his family. His little sister, Greta, was seventeen, and loved to play the violin—she was the artist, not Gregor, who had hoped to send her to the conservatory. Greta cleaned his room and fed her insect brother scraps of spoiled food. But she soon turned away from Gregor, repelled by him. Greta didn’t feel remorse after the insect died—she bloomed. She had her own metamorphosis—a sexual awakening—and she walked with the vitality of a panther.

  It was Greta who had remained in Isaac’s mind all these years, not the insect trapped in his bedroom. And that’s why he was drawn to Ottla. Perhaps, she, too, played the violin, and had walked with a panther’s step. And that’s what the half-blind commandant at Terezín must have noticed as darkness descended upon him—a Jewish panther in the shadows, a panther prepared to pounce.

  Isaac’s console lit up again. This time it was the head of security at Walter Reed.

  “Mr. President, we have two vagabonds outside the gate. They’re pretty insistent, sir, about knowing you.”

  “Are they wearing trench coats and forage caps? If so, send ’em up.”

  Soon Isaac had his old winter warriors, Ariel Moss and Mordecai Katz.

  “How did you guys get here? This isn’t even the president’s hospital. My own chief of staff is hiding me. Can you beat that?”

  “We’re not idiots,” Ariel said. “We have our spies.”

  “Jesus, where have you both been hibernating?”

  “At a cheap motel near the White House,” said Mordecai.

  “Are you my godfathers now?”

  “How could we leave you all alone? You’re like a baby who’s lost his diapers, Itzik,” Ariel said, purring Isaac’s Yiddish name. No one called him Itzik except a few renegade rabbis and religious gangsters at the Garden Cafeteria. Isaac didn’t realize how much he mourned that lit dungeon on East Broadway—the Garden had vanished with most of the pickle barrels.

  “What possessed you to run to Prague? Are you an imbecile? Prague is a haven for every gangster in Europe. It’s as bad as Palermo.”

  “But I never got to Prague,” Isaac said.

  “Sure you did,” said Ariel.

  “Come on, I didn’t even get to see the Staranová Synagogue. I wanted to look for the Golem in the attic.”

  Ariel laughed. “You are the Golem, Isaac, with an attic of your own. That’s why people are so frightened of you. A Golem made for Manhattan—it’s a perfect fit. You could ride above the streets with your giant steps. You could rule with or without God’s stone under your tongue. But a Golem in the White House is another matter. You can’t sleep in the capital with a stone in your mouth. You’ll choke on God’s words. Such a character! A bomb explodes under your feet and yet you manage to survive. Isaac, a Golem like you brings the smell of death.”

  “I’m not a Golem,” Isaac had to whisper. “No magic rabbi created me.”

  “That’s because you created yourself,” Mordecai said.

  But Isaac was adamant. “Tell me, comrades, will the Manhattan Golem survive the Swiss bankers and their lottery?”

  Ariel began to ponder with a knuckle in his mouth. “Itzik, that’s a good question—that utterly erases the smash point. But Golems can be killed, certainly.”

  “No, Arik, not at all,” Mordecai said. “You can deactivate a Golem, put him in a coma by removing the sem from under his tongue. But kill him—never!”

  They argued well into the morning like three Talmudists, while doctors came and went, checking the Golem’s blood pressure, putting a thermometer into his mouth. And Ariel concluded that a Golem couldn’t be destroyed but could be retired.

  “You can’t stay at some fleabag motel,” Isaac said. “That’s final. Your new address is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. You’ll be living in my attic.”

  “And how many Golems will we discover, dear Itzik?”

  “As many as you can manage,” Isaac said. And suddenly his sadness slipped away. He’d follow in Roosevelt’s footsteps, surround himself with friends. FDR had turned the White House into a Washington resort hotel. His speechwriter and confidant, Robert Sherwood, had his own bedroom. And Crown Princess Martha of Norway lived at the White House with her royal retinue during the war. FDR loved to go riding with Martha in the Maryland countryside. FDR’s aides considered the sultry crown princess his “girlfriend,” even if she had a husband of her own, Crown Prince Olav. This was the kind of intrigue that Isaac enjoyed. He’d never have FDR’s flair or his political savvy. But he would bring a little of Manhattan to the White House, with as many guests as could fit into the attic.

  PART FIVE

  16

  General Sol Ben-Zion, current chief of Shin Bet, had come all the way from Tel Aviv. He had an ominous presence, because his face was scarred from a dozen skirmishes and wars, battles with his own officers, and bombings in Beirut. He looked a bit like Boris Karloff in full bloom—hangman, soldier, and Frankenstein monster. He’d been whisked into the West Wing from a little private gate, a “ghost” who didn�
�t appear in any logs. There was no hard evidence that Sol had even been let into the United States. He sat in the regal office of Ramona Dazzle. It was Ramona who had summoned him. Sidel, it seems, had fallen off the face of the moon after a disastrous trip to Czechoslovakia and was hidden somewhere within the walls of Walter Reed.

  Sol wasn’t alone. With him were the vice president and a female officer from Naval Intelligence, Sarah Rogers, a thoroughbred beauty with hazel eyes and curls in her hair. Sol was already lusting after her. She had a delicious bruise on her cheek that Sol would have loved to touch with one of his knotted hands. He was a widower with several rich widows in the wings.

  Ramona served as her own self-styled grand inquisitor at this clandestine briefing. She invited the female captain to talk first. Sarah was uncomfortable. The admirals at Quantico had ordered her to the inquisition. She wasn’t Ramona’s little spy. She felt a sudden fury and wanted to lash out at Ramona.

  “It was after dinner and—”

  Ramona interrupted her. “What dinner and where?”

  “At the Czech president’s dacha—his version of Cactus.”

  Ramona interrupted her again. “The captain means Camp David, General.”

  “Yes,” Sol Ben-Zion said. “I’m familiar with Cactus Land. I was there, you know, at the Camp David Accords. I think I saved Sadat’s life more than once. But this is not the right time to boast of such exploits. Continue, Captain, please.”

  Ben-Zion wanted to brush against her hair, fondle her right in front of the vice president and Sidel’s chief of staff. Ramona was clever enough to sniff his sudden desire, and she didn’t like it at all. She would have preferred to bury Captain Rogers in the caverns of Quantico, but the admirals had sent her back to Sidel.

  “And what was a captain from Naval Intelligence doing at a state dinner in Czechoslovakia?”

  “I wasn’t privy to POTUS’s private talks with President Ludvik,” Sarah said.

  Ramona couldn’t stop scratching. “Didn’t it have something to do with Franz Kafka? Wasn’t POTUS on a pilgrimage at the taxpayers’ expense?”

  Sarah pursed her lips. “That was the subterfuge, I suppose. The Czechs are in deep shit. Their currency is worthless. And President Ludvik needed POTUS’s presence to bail him out.”

  “How? With a magic wand? ” Ramona asked with a slight tremor in her voice.

  “As I said, ma’am, I wasn’t privy to their private talks.”

  “And were these talks worth the death of Colin Fremont and the maiming of two Secret Service men?”

  “Stop that,” Bull Latham said. “We all agreed to the talks, Ramona. Don’t crucify the captain.”

  “I’ll do my best, Mr. Vice President. Captain, aren’t you currently residing in the White House attic?”

  “Yes, ma’am, on orders of the president. I’m part of his staff.” Ramona licked her tongue.

  “That’s curious. I never assigned you a berth in the attic.”

  “You’d have to discuss that with POTUS, ma’am.”

  “And who else resides in the attic at the moment?”

  “Captain Oliver. His son Maximilian has a learning disability. And POTUS thought—”

  “I’m aware of the boy’s condition,” Ramona said. “And who are the other occupants?”

  “President Karel Ludvik. He’s sort of in limbo, ma’am. I’m not sure the Czechs want him, and he doesn’t seem to want the Czechs.”

  Ramona went right on scratching. “And who else?”

  “A pair of Izzies, ma’am.”

  Ramona whipped her head around. “And what about you, General Ben-Zion? Ain’t we pals anymore? I thought you guys shared information that was vital to our security. Why’s Ariel Moss still here with the fucking founder of Shin Bet? How long has that lunatic been dancing under your radar?”

  Ben-Zion would have loved to slap her face. He was answerable only to his prime minister, but he didn’t want to rile the relationship between Israel and Uncle Sam. His own purse strings suddenly depended on Ramona Dazzle, who seemed to have all the covert agencies under her spell. Sidel had been adrift from the moment he entered the White House.

  “Ari was always under surveillance,” he said.

  “Even when he robbed banks in Tel Aviv?”

  “Ah,” Ben-Zion said. “The banks were a myth. He took a few shekels, mostly counterfeit coin.”

  “And was Mordecai Katz also a myth?”

  “Enough,” Bull Latham said. “We’re among friends here.”

  Ben-Zion was much more comfortable talking to this Dallas Cowboy, though he didn’t have much faith in the FBI and their starched white shirts. They were more like preachers than gatherers of intelligence.

  “We read all of Ari’s mail. There were vague threats. We checked them out. It was a lot of gibberish.”

  “But that gibberish brought him here,” Ramona said. “Right before an attack on the mountain—and suddenly he resurfaces after the bombing of Ludvik’s dacha.” She whipped her head around again and turned to Sarah. “Isn’t that a strange coincidence, Captain?”

  “Damn you, Ramona,” Bull Latham said. “You’re not at that killer law firm of yours. Captain Rogers isn’t a hostile witness. We’re lucky to have her.”

  “And what if the football was stolen by some foreign agents?” Ramona asked with an inquisitor’s crooked smile.

  “Who cares? They couldn’t do anything without the biscuit.”

  While the president was incapacitated, it was only Bull who could authenticate the codes. But Ramona didn’t give a damn about Bull’s biscuit.

  “Get real! Does someone have a fucking clue about the mental state of Isaac Sidel?” Ramona kept scratching at the same raw wound. “I think you ought to go on the tube, Mr. Vice President—talk to the country, tell the people what’s happening.”

  Ben-Zion didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to catch the battle lines. Ramona had reached too far. She turned her own office in the West Wing into a travesty of a command center, sat with a “ghost” from Tel Aviv and a lovely intelligence officer with limited powers, and tried to invent a new crisis—the unraveling of Isaac Sidel—with Bull Latham as her partner, but the Bull wasn’t buying it.

  “I’m not gonna create a worldwide panic, Ramona, just to satisfy your own whims.”

  Bull watched the Witch of the West Wing blow her cool. Her hands were shaking. “My whims? We have to walk around on tiptoe and protect a president who’s an utter incompetent, who doesn’t have the least conception of his own responsibility, who’s put all of us in harm’s way?”

  “Not here,” Bull whispered, “not now.”

  The Bull winked at Sol Ben-Zion and walked out of Ramona’s office with him. He hijacked Ramona’s chief deputy and locked her out of her own office.

  “Sol, Ramona doesn’t have the weight to pull you into her orbit. And yet here you are. What’s going down? You’re not a meddler, Sol. Or a tinkerer. And yet you’re tinkering.”

  “I am not,” said the chief of Shin Bet. “I didn’t make up Ramona. She’s as powerful—and mischievous—as Haldeman ever was.”

  “Solly,” Bull said, “you don’t know shit about American politics. Nixon was a wounded man after Watergate. He ceased to exist as president, and Haldeman crept into the vacuum.”

  “What’s different now?” Ben-Zion asked, taunting the Bull. “Sidel is a clumsy magician in the midst of his own disappearing act.”

  “He’s visible enough,” the Bull said. “You aren’t fond of him, are you?”

  “We worry,” Ben-Zion said. “A Jew in the White House, the first of his kind, and we don’t know a thing about the Big Guy. He could dance with Arafat, and leave us out in the cold. Has he ever shown an interest in Tel Aviv?”

  “But you can’t measure him that way,” the Bull said.

  “Why? Is he unmeasurable? He talks of visiting Beirut.”

  “Yes. He says it’s like the South Bronx.”

  “Wonderful! The Jewish St.
Francis. The South Bronx is paradise compared to Beirut. Sidel would be flayed alive by all the different factions. Yes, Ari may have stumbled onto something, but it’s no simple plot. Sidel is a very soft target, racing around like a knight in armor. He should be undone.”

  “That’s treasonable stuff,” said the Bull.

  Sol Ben-Zion laughed. “Half of what we do is treasonable. I came here because I’m curious. Two of the men I most admire, Ari Moss and Motke Katz, have been swindled, caught up in some deceit about Sidel—tell me, that young captain in Ramona’s office, how can I find her again?”

  “You can’t, Sol. Go home.”

  “I’d like to recruit her.”

  “Go home.”

  And the Bull returned to Ramona, who must have banished the young captain to Isaac’s attic. Ramona hissed at him, her mouth full of venom.

  “Don’t you ever humiliate me like that again, mister. Not in front of Shin Bet and Miss Steel Toes. I could have relegated you to the back kitchen, like other vice presidents, and I still can. We agreed to get rid of Sidel.”

  “Sure, we’ll rip him right out of his hospital bed. The nation would love that. And you should never have invited Ben-Zion here. You wanted to deliver a coup d’etat in front of that fox catcher. Now he knows all our weaknesses.”

  “Come on,” Ramona said. “He was so busy eyeballing Miss Steel Toes, he didn’t have time for anything else. And I wanted to know if Ariel was acting on his orders—if he was on some covert mission.”

  Bull Latham stared at the wintry garden outside Ramona’s window, then his eyes turned inward, and he grabbed her by the throat. There wasn’t a fleck of pity in his pale blue eyes. He could have strangled her right in the West Wing. Her throat was rattling.

  “Be quiet,” the Bull said. “You told the Izzies more about us than they could have dreamt up on their own. Ben-Zion spotted all the cracks in our command—that the president has a team of piranhas ready to devour him at any moment. You should never have invited Shin Bet into our playground.”