The Good Policeman (The Isaac Sidel Novels)

by Jerome Charyn

“Don’t soil him, Isaac, please. I fell in love. But that was later.”

  “How much later? When you were eleven?”

  “It doesn’t concern you, Isaac. I came to see how you were.”

  “Tell me about Odessa … during the war.”

  “What’s there to tell? We lived in the palace of some forgotten count or prince. A Jewish count, if there ever was such a thing. Czar Nicholas welcomed a couple of Jewish bankers into the nobility, I think.”

  “And that’s how you got obsessed with Anastasia. While you were in that palace.”

  “No. It was long before that. I loved the idea of a lost princess. Anastasia appealed to me. So I borrowed her name.”

  “And did the little princess go around Odessa in Ferdinand’s official car?”

  “Sometimes,” she said. “Isaac, you could never imagine. People sold human flesh on the black market. Ferdinand established his own currency. He would print more and more of it, but it was always worthless within a week. We had to steal chickens to survive … and we were rich. But Isaac, I don’t have the time. Sal took a nap after lunch. He’ll wake up and start asking for me.”

  “Margaret, he knows. That’s why I knocked on his door. Are you deaf? He knows you’re with LeComte. He’ll kill you. You’ve got to get away from Sal.”

  “Isaac, I’m going to break him. That’s my job. And don’t you interfere again.”

  “Jesus, I’m not getting through. He’s talked with the melamed about your career in Chicago as LeComte’s little gangbuster. He’ll kill you, I said.”

  “No he won’t. You don’t understand the first thing about Sal. He enjoys the danger of having me around. That’s what turns him on. He loves me, Isaac.”

  “So do I.”

  “But you’re not one of my tricks.”

  “Yes I am,” Isaac said. “Yes I am.”

  “Don’t ruin it for me, Isaac. I want to take him down.”

  “Margaret, does LeComte give you some kind of commission for every scalp you bring in?”

  “No,” she said. “It’s the work. I’m good at it. And if you go near Sal, you’ll get me killed.”

  The worm pulled at Isaac in Margaret’s presence. But it wouldn’t purr.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “for what Sal did to your face.”

  “It wasn’t Sal. It was his captain, the one with the dirty-yellow eyes.”

  “Oh, Eddie. I never liked him.”

  And her silhouette jumped about the room. She was Sal’s moll. And why did he have to think of samovars? Now he understood the worm’s maneuvers. The beast was mourning Margaret.

  “Anastasia, did you love me a little when I was a boy?”

  “No. Yes. No.”

  He saw the full crop of her hair, the little scar under her lip that was like a gorgeous caterpillar in the gloomy light.

  “Isaac, I’d been with Ferdinand. I’d lived with him as his wife. And you were some fresh kid. I’m not sure if I loved you. But I remembered those dark eyes of yours. That means something.”

  He sat one entire night in the Syrian safe house. His mouth was still bruised. Ismail couldn’t keep him company. Isaac had other baby-sitters. And it wasn’t much fun, though they fed him that powdered candy. They weren’t collectors. They knew nothing about baseball. And he had little desire to talk shop with a bunch of Syrian bandits. He bathed, swabbed the inside of his mouth with a salt solution, and left the safe house. He rode the subway out of Brooklyn, searched for phantoms behind his back, shadow men from the Internal Affairs Division, and went uptown to the stable where his Ivanhoes were.

  The street was a little too quiet.

  Isaac entered the stable. The morning light beat upon the balconies. He could have been in some holy manger. But there was no straw around, no horses and donkeys, no three wise, magical men.

  The Ivanhoes had fled without a trace.

  There was nothing that could suggest a command post for Isaac’s own police, not a pencil or the scuff marks of a shoe or a coded message on a wall, the simple signs that Burton Bortelsman might have left. Nothing for Isaac.

  He was a bad penny, a broken shoe. Even the worm had started to snore.

  Part Five

  23

  He didn’t have to wait for the house to fall. His sergeants got him on the phone that very afternoon. Isaac was almost grateful. He was wanted on the fourteenth floor. He went to One Police Plaza wearing a baggy coat and a suit that he’d bought out of a secondhand bin. The collar of his shirt was cracked. His tie had a couple of egg stains. His belt had come off his own father’s pants. He picked his socks carefully. They had the same color. The heels of his shoes were practically gone. But he had his milk bottle.

  He said hello to the sergeants and his secretaries and sat at his desk. No one visited him or came in to water the plants. The quiet around Isaac was like the eve of an electrical storm. The air breathed its own blue color.

  And then the pounding started. Soft at first, as if it had arrived from another planet, and Isaac was only the innocent observer of a doom that didn’t belong to him.

  He was sitting where Teddy Roosevelt had once sat, that stouthearted man with a mustache, rooting out corruption wherever he went, wandering into the old Tombs to bring out a convict who happened to belong to Connecticut, not New York; and sometimes he’d stand in the yard and exercise with the convicts themselves, because Commissioner Ted believed that a man who exercised must have some moral worth. The desk was an oak affair with such deep drawers that Isaac could have stuffed his whole experience into them and all the shirts he’d ever had. But they weren’t deep enough for him to hide. And the noises were getting louder and louder until Isaac thought the walls would melt from the heat of all the bodies outside his room. They wouldn’t offer him the last little dignity of announcing who the hell they were. He deserved that. He was the Commish, like Teddy Roosevelt had been, long before Isaac.

  They barreled into his office, a mob of women and men, with Boris Michaelson as their leader. The corruptions commissioner had arrived with his Three Sisters and half the reporters in Manhattan. There wasn’t enough room for them all. They destroyed Isaac’s plants. But not even Michaelson could pronounce the magic words. He was a bit of a prosecutor, not a policeman. They had to wait for Deputy Chief Inspector Morris McCall, head of Internal Affairs. And Morris was at the back of that little circus. He was taking his time.

  There was no pleasure in McCall’s eyes. He wasn’t really part of the mob. He was only the arresting officer. He’d been in Isaac’s graduating class at the Police Academy. He was an old-line cop, ferocious and polite. He believed in protocol.

  “Begging your pardon, Commissioner, but you’re under arrest.”

  Isaac was booked at the precinct on Ericsson Place, like Tiger John. Two PCs in a row had been marched out of their domain in handcuffs, like common criminals. Reporters snarled in his face. “Anything to tell us, Isaac?”

  “Talk to Michaelson. He’s an eloquent man.”

  And while Isaac was being printed and photographed, Becky Karp appeared on the five o’clock news. McCall allowed Isaac to watch Becky on the precinct’s tiny television set. The reception was poor and Becky Karp had to compete with ghosts of herself. “It’s a sad day,” she said. “We’ve all been so fond of Commissioner Sidel. He’s still innocent in my eyes. But I would never block an investigation.”

  “Your Honor, will you fire him?” a reporter asked.

  “Not a chance. But I’ll have to suspend him without pay.”

  And Isaac was trundled off to the Criminal Courts Building at 100 Centre Street. He sat in the holding pen with black prostitutes and their pimps, Latino drug dealers, men who might have jumped bail and were back for another sitdown with the judge, a madwoman who talked to Jesus. Isaac seemed like the only Anglo in town, and no one was really sure of his roots. The mayor was hoping to humble Isaac, teach him a lesson. But Isaac wasn’t forlorn in the holding pen. It was much quieter than the emergency war
d at Bellevue.

  He was called upstairs to the arraignment room, which was like a big, dirty library without books, and was charged with two counts of “bribe receiving in the second degree.” Isaac had used his office to become involved in a criminal enterprise, a family of crime. There was a bit of a tangle at the bench. The judge had asked where Isaac’s counsel was, and Isaac mentioned Maurie’s name. The judge smiled. He was fond of Isaac. He was also some kind of a king at Manhattan Criminal Court. “Isaac, you can’t be represented by an invisible man.”

  “He’ll show in good time,” Isaac said. “Meanwhile, Your Honor, I’m communing with Maurie and taking care of myself.”

  The judge offered to postpone the arraignment, but Isaac said no.

  “Then the court will have to get you a counselor until Mr. Goodstein decides to come.”

  There was a grab bag of legal aid lawyers lurking in court. They looked almost as broken as Isaac.

  “Mr. Swanberg,” the judge said to one of these broken men. “I’m assigning you to Mr. Sidel. There will be a fifteen-minute recess.”

  “Recess, recess,” Isaac muttered with a crack in his mouth. He knew Owen Swanberg, who bled money out of prostitutes and crazy old women.

  Isaac stood in the corner with Swanberg. “Owen, fuck you.” And he returned to the bench.

  Swanberg pulled on his ratty tie. “For the record, Your Honor, my client refuses to confer with me.”

  The judge could have been Roy Bean in the badlands of Manhattan. He made the law, and he was losing his patience. “I can whistle your client off to Bellevue if you like and request a psychiatric exam.”

  Isaac muttered in Owen’s ear. “Your Honor, may we have a few more minutes?” Swanberg asked.

  “But no more tricks.”

  And Isaac waltzed back into the corner with Owen Swanberg. “Owen, if you don’t do exactly what I tell you, I’ll bust your balls every day of the week. I’ll get affidavits from all the old ladies you swindled out of cash. And if I can’t find them, Owen, I’ll invent a few.”

  “I don’t understand,” Swanberg said.

  “I need a rest.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Just shut up and bring me home.”

  They were like a comedy team, Swanberg and Sidel.

  “Well, how does your client plead to the charges?”

  “Not guilty,” Swanberg said.

  “Let the court note that Isaac Sidel has been a good policeman,” the judge said. “And I’d like to release him on his own cognizance if Ms. Beard doesn’t mind.”

  The Three Sisters huddled with Boris.

  “No objections, Your Honor,” Selma Beard said. Boris didn’t want Isaac to sit in jail. It would make a martyr out of the Commish and might hurt Becky’s chances at the polls.

  Isaac muttered again in Owen’s ear. “Your Honor, my client cannot accept the court’s generosity. The charges are grave. He might bump into criminals on the street and—”

  “Mr. Swanberg,” the judge said.

  “He could have an irresistible urge.”

  “Mr. Swanberg.” The judge was angry now. Isaac had mocked his office. And Isaac wasn’t king of this court. “Then your client will have to come back. I’m not setting bail tonight.”

  Isaac slept in the basement. He found a cockroach in his pants.

  The judge was still angry in the morning. He stared at Owen and Isaac and set bail at sixty thousand dollars. “I hope that will keep your client from bumping into too many criminals.”

  Isaac was brought downstairs and put on a bus to Riker’s Island. He was one more piece of garbage, him with the swollen mouth, handcuffed and chained to a bench. He sat among all the prostitutes and petty thieves and imbeciles who couldn’t make bail. But Isaac was some borderline case. He looked like a bum, but the bondsmen upstairs at Criminal Court would have secured Isaacs bail if only he’d winked at them. But Isaac wouldn’t wink. He wanted a little jail time. A burglar sitting next to Isaac on the bus scowled at him. “What the fuck is a white man doing on our bus?”

  The black corrections officer who was in the “shotgun seat” told the burglar to shut his face. The officer moved closer to Isaac. He had a little gold star in his ear, like some lost prince of Riker’s Island. He was the tallest man on the bus. “Commissioner, I heard you talk once. About the projects in Brooklyn and the Bronx. You know all the shit that’s going down. But you shouldn’t have gone after Henry Lee. He was our last hero, man. He was telling it to Uncle. He didn’t care about no banks. He supported every church in Harlem. He visited hospitals and the old folks’ home. That’s why he wore them skirts. He needed a good disguise.”

  “What’s your name, son?”

  “Isaac, like you,” the officer said.

  “Well, Isaac, if I hadn’t gone in after Henry, my associates would have shot him dead.”

  He was put in the isolation ward at the House of Detention. He lived among a society of fallen public servants, child molesters, and stool pigeons waiting for their trials, men who wouldn’t have stood much of a chance among the general population of prisoners. And so they took their meals alone in a little dining room and had a tiny yard to play in. But they had to pass another cellblock to get to their yard. And the prisoners would hiss at them or hurl light bulbs at their heads.

  The child molesters clung to Isaac. He had to hold their hands like infants. The rogue cops and deputy commissioners would bunch at the end of this ragtail line. But it was Isaac who got most of the flack. The Rastafarians and black Muslims would murmur, “Henry Lee, Henry Lee.” Isaac stared into their eyes, as if his own psyche was entering their cells, and the Muslims grew to admire him. But they wouldn’t stop murmuring “Henry Lee.”

  One of them broke into the isolation ward and started to strangle a child molester, and it was Isaac who had to lift the Muslim off the molester’s back. “Are you the monkey man?” the Muslim asked.

  “No. I’m just Isaac Sidel.” And to show his good faith he helped smuggle this Muslim out of the ward. “Thanks for the visit. But if you come again, I’ll break your fucking skull.”

  And a kind of truce was declared. The lads from the isolation ward could go to their playpen, and all they had to endure was some hissing and songs about Henry Lee.

  The warden visited Isaac in his cell. His name was Salinger. He’d been a policeman once, a member of the Hands of Esau, that order of Jewish cops.

  “They crucified you,” he said. “Michaelson arrests you in front of your own men and brings you to Criminal Court like a fucking animal.”

  “It’s politics, Warden. Rebecca wants to embarrass me.”

  “Without an indictment?”

  “She’ll get her indictment. The Three Sisters are probably sitting with Michaelson’s grand jury right this minute.”

  “It’s Mickey Mouse time. Michaelson will have to cut you loose.”

  “We’ll see,” Isaac said. “The corruptions commissioner is a clever boy.”

  The warden took a little plum cake out of his pocket and shared it with Isaac. “Anything I can do, just ask.” And then he disappeared.

  Isaac wasn’t lonely. He imagined whole progenies of baseball players out of the past. Socks Seibold. Bubbles Hargrave. Braggo Roth. Cotton Tierney. Sheriff Blake. Flint Rhem. General Crowder. And the Goose. Baseball had become Isaacs America. It had “naturalized” a boy from the Lower East Side. And the names themselves were like a river Isaac could journey on. He had his own Mississippi at Riker’s Island. With Bubbles Hargrave and Braggo Roth.

  A guard knocked on Isaac’s door. “Telephone call.”

  Isaac received the call in a special booth that had been built for the isolation ward. It was made of Plexiglas and looked like some curious time bubble, a contoured womb.

  “Hello, grandpa.”

  Isaac shivered and cried in the bubble. It tore at him that his first phone call at Riker’s should be from a boy in a brother institution.

  “How are y
ou, Mr. McCardle? I guess you must have heard the news.”

  “Grandpa, I’m not so sure you can take care of yourself.”

  “I think you’re right. I functioned better when you were around.”

  “I could come and live with you again.”

  “They wouldn’t let you into Riker’s. I’m a prisoner, Mr. McCardle.”

  “I’m a prisoner too,” the boy said.

  “No you’re not. That’s a children’s shelter you’re at.”

  “It’s a jail, grandpa. Just like yours.”

  “Kingsley,” Isaac asked, “are you studying for college?”

  “I’d never get in.”

  And the line went dead on Isaac. He stood in the bubble until a guard retrieved him and returned Isaac to his cell.

  There was a furor that afternoon. The cardinal had come to Riker’s. He wore his red beanie. The Rastafarians had never seen such a prince of the Church. And even the Muslims showed their respect. “Morning, Cardinal.”

  “Good morning to you.”

  Jim smiled as he stepped along the narrow bridge between the different tiers of cells. Warden Salinger had offered to accompany him, but the cardinal didn’t want the chief screw on his ride across Riker’s. He got to the isolation ward and sat down with Isaac in the visitors’ room while a little gang of blue-eyed boys stuck close to Isaac.

  “Who are these comely lads?” the cardinal asked.

  “Child molesters,” Isaac said.

  “Jesus Christ. You’ll give me a heart attack one of these days.” And the cardinal took out a pack of cigarettes. “Can we have a little privacy?”

  “Of course,” Isaac said, and turned to the leader of the gang, a young Latino with the bluest eyes of them all. “Macho, will you go to the checkerboards, por favor?” But Macho kneeled down and whispered in Isaac’s ear.

  “Jim, Macho would like to kiss your cardinal’s ring.”

  The cardinal’s own blue eyes began to twist in his head. “Isaac, I can’t allow it. He’s a bloody pervert … attacked a child, didn’t he?”