Little Angel Street (The Isaac Sidel Novels)

by Jerome Charyn

  Judah drank his grapefruit juice. “I made a bet that you wouldn’t show. You’ve been scarce, Mr. Mayor.”

  “Ah,” Isaac said, “you’re my favorite pharaohs.”

  They were looking for tax abatements, to build their towers with Isaac’s help. But they didn’t mention any towers.

  “Isaac, we’re worried,” Jason said. “About Schyler Knott.” Schyler was president of the Christy Mathewsons, a bunch of baseball antiquarians. He was also an investment banker, but how could he harm the three barons? And then Isaac realized what the hell the breakfast was about. Schyler Knott had a passion for old buildings. He was chairman of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, and Isaac’s barons were the only three realtors on that commission.

  “He’s incompetent,” Jason said.

  “A turkey,” Papa said.

  “He’s a dangerous man,” said Judah. “He wants to landmark everything.”

  “That’s his privilege,” Isaac said. “That’s his point of view.”

  “Then how are we supposed to build?” asked Papa Cassidy.

  “I don’t know.”

  “The tax structure will fall to shit.”

  “Come on,” Isaac said. “You have meetings. You fight a little. Schyler’s no fucking dictator.”

  “He’s worse than that,” said Judah Bellow. “He’ll destroy us all.”

  “How?”

  “We have a parcel of land.”

  “The three of you?”

  “Yes,” Papa said. “On Fifty-sixth and Third. And there’s a matchbox sitting on it, a sixty-year-old monster with rats in the cellar.”

  “Who designed your matchbox?”

  “Emeric Gray.”

  “Judah,” Isaac said, “you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Emeric was your master.”

  “It’s still a matchbox. I wouldn’t touch one of his classics. It’s an undistinguished building.”

  “A tenement, Mr. Mayor, with cockroaches,” said Jason Figgs. “We could put up a beauty. Coca-Cola will take a couple of floors. We could show you Judah’s designs. It would mean a lot to the City, Mr. Mayor. Millions.”

  “You’re all geniuses,” Isaac said. “Couldn’t you find another parcel?”

  “We’d lose six months. Coca-Cola will walk.”

  “Boys,” Isaac said to the three barons. “Build on top of Emeric’s castle, secure the air rights.”

  “Schyler’s against it. He says it will hurt the contours of the building, invalidate the roof. He’s out of his mind, Mr. Mayor.”

  “No. He’s Schyler Knott. I can’t help you, boys.”

  Jason tried to bully Isaac. “We could go to the governor.”

  “Be my guest.”

  “He controls the purse.”

  “I agree,” Isaac said. “We’re paupers. But if he interferes with my Landmarks Commission, I’ll break his leg.”

  Isaac abandoned the three barons. He started singing to himself until he had a vision of Margaret Tolstoy in one of her red wigs. Ah, if only he were eighty-six. He might not think of Margaret so much if his sexual powers ever waned. But he wouldn’t want to get crushed under the wheels of a trolley, like Emeric Gray. And then Isaac recalled that there were no more trolley cars in Manhattan.

  He visited with Rebecca Karp, who sat on the porch at Gracie Mansion, in her rocking chair. She’d grown paranoid about the City of New York, wouldn’t venture into the streets, but she was Isaac’s main advisor, his secret secretary of state.

  “Appearances, Isaac. You have to look like a maven.”

  “Me a maven? I can hardly put on my pants.”

  “That’s because your gun is too heavy.”

  Mayors weren’t supposed to carry guns, but the new Commish had let him keep his permit. Isaac and Sweets both had Glocks, guns with plastic noses.

  “Becky,” Isaac said with a grin, “I’m not wearing my Glock today. I just came out of retreat at the Seventh Avenue Armory.”

  “Cocksucker,” she said, “you haven’t even been sworn in and you start taking advantage of the homeless. Do you want to sink us? I’ll lose my rocking chair if you’re impeached.”

  “Come on. I had to feel what it was like to live inside a shelter.”

  “The homeless can’t save you, Isaac. They never vote. And you have more important projects. You’ll need a first deputy mayor. I have a candidate. Malik.”

  Isaac started to groan. Martin Malik was the trials commissioner at One Police Plaza. Isaac had picked him. Malik was a Moslem and a Turk whose ancestors had been mathematicians in Istanbul. He was a hanging judge who stripped cops of their pensions. The Republicans were grooming him as the next governor. He’d been dating Delia St. John until Papa Cassidy wooed her into his marriage bed.

  “Malik’s my enemy,” Isaac said. “He thinks I was Papa Cassidy’s pimp, that I took Delia away from him. He’ll never join my administration. He’s too ambitious.”

  “He’ll join a man who got ninety percent of the vote.”

  “Eighty-six,” Isaac had to declare. “Don’t exaggerate.”

  “Malik will keep the minorities off your back. And he won’t let the barons bite your ass.”

  “I had breakfast with them,” Isaac said. “Papa, Judah, and Jason Figgs. They want me to muzzle Schyler Knott, kick him off the Landmarks Commission.”

  “They’re right,” Rebecca said.

  “You appointed him.”

  “He’s been intransigent, Isaac. We have to side with the builders. They’re our bread and butter.”

  “But they want to tear down an Emeric Gray.”

  “The matchbox on Fifty-sixth? It’s cockroach country. We can afford to lose one Emeric Gray. And if we frustrate the barons, they might run to another town. It’s always a delicate dance, Isaac. Schyler will have to go.”

  “Then you fire him.”

  “Isaac, you asked me to appoint Sweets as police commissioner, I appointed him. I can’t fire Schyler Knott. All the conservationists will come down on us. And they’ll know your hand was behind it. I’m Ms. Rebecca, the lame duck. You’ll ease Schyler out, appoint him to another commission.”

  Rebecca’s cordless telephone rang. She picked it out of her lap, muttered a few words, and handed the phone to Isaac. “It’s for you.”

  “Sidel here,” he growled.

  It was his son-in-law, Barbarossa.

  “Boss, there’s a dead man in your bed.”

  “Joey, speak a little slower, will you? What dead man?”

  “Geronimo Jones.”

  “I’m Geronimo Jones,” Isaac said.

  “Not anymore. He’s lying in your bed at the Seventh Avenue Armory with a knife in his neck.”

  “Joey,” Isaac said, “I’ll be uptown in five minutes,” and he leapt over the porch rail like a useless gazelle.

  3.

  Lieutenant Quinn, chief of the mayor’s detail, drove him up to the shelter. Isaac darted around the glass cage and entered the big dormitory. There wasn’t much of a commotion. The medical examiner had arrived. He stood with a patrolman, a homicide detective, two lads from forensic, and Joe Barbarossa around Isaac’s former bed. A naked man was lying in it. The knife had been removed from his neck. A very narrow mark remained, clotted with blood. Otherwise, he was as pink as Isaac Sidel.

  “Who found him?”

  “I did,” Barbarossa said. “I was looking for you and …”

  “Weren’t there any witnesses?”

  “Boss, it’s a shelter, for Christ’s sake. Nobody hears, nobody sees. This Geronimo died all alone.”

  “Why are you sure he’s Geronimo?”

  “That’s the name he had when he was logged in. Geronimo Jones.”

  “It’s a scam,” Isaac said. “Some mother is sending me a kite. ‘Watch your ass, Sidel. You won’t live long enough to have a coronation.’ I want every single man in this barrack questioned. We’ll bring in twenty detectives from Manhattan North.”

  “Boss, you’re not the police commiss
ioner.”

  “Yeah, Joey. The commissioner works for me.”

  “That’s the problem. He doesn’t work for you. You’re not mayor yet.”

  “But I will be.” And Isaac started to interrogate the medical examiner. “Boris, was there a struggle, some kind of fight?”

  “I’d have to say no. The cut is too clean. That poor bastard died in his sleep.”

  And Isaac drove downtown with the escort Sweets had assigned to him, his own son-in-law. Isaac wasn’t very talkative. He didn’t ask about Marilyn the Wild or the new apartment they had in Tudor City, which was like its own small town on a cliff above Forty-Second Street. Isaac couldn’t afford to buy them the apartment. The money had come from his estranged wife, Kathleen, the Florida real-estate goddess.

  He stopped off at Rivington Street, collected his Glock, stuck it under his belt, because he wasn’t fond of holsters, and shoved his way into Police Plaza with Joe. He was still the Pink Commish, even if he had no real status at One PP. A future king didn’t have much of a portfolio. He rode up to the fourteenth floor, barked at Sweets’ aides, and entered the commissioner’s office. Sweets and Wig were watering Isaac’s plants.

  “Wonderful,” Isaac said. “A devoted couple … I want that man arrested, Sweets.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “He killed Geronimo Jones.” Isaac turned to Barbarossa, who was at his heels. “Joey, will you cuff Wig and read him his rights?”

  “Boss,” Barbarossa said.

  “Nobody’s cuffing me,” Wig said. “Not your little ass-wipe, Barbarossa.”

  The three of them, Isaac, Wig, and Joe, pulled out their Glocks.

  “I’m calling in my sergeant,” Sweets said. “I’m putting you all in the clink.”

  “I’ll fire you first,” Isaac said.

  Barbarossa had to whisper in his ear. “Boss, you can’t fire anybody. It’s floating time. You’re one more civilian until the new year.”

  “Tell him,” Wig said. “He’s a white ghost.”

  Sweets started to rock. “I won’t have drawn guns in my office. Holster them or get out.”

  The Glocks disappeared.

  “Now, will you enlighten me a little?” he said.

  “Joey found a corpse at the Seventh Avenue Armory … a white homeless male with a knife in his neck. He was registered as Geronimo Jones and living in my bed.”

  “And where does Wig enter the fucking picture?”

  “Didn’t he promise to kill Geronimo Jones? Didn’t he say he would off me if he had the chance? He was amusing himself. He offed another Geronimo Jones to give me a fit.”

  “He’s not that fancy, Isaac. Wig’s not a poet.”

  “But he’s a member of the Purple Gang.”

  “Do I have to listen to that old song?” Sweets said. “The Purples are a myth. You know it, I know it, Wig knows it. Ask Joe.”

  “I never saw a Purple,” Barbarossa said.

  “That’s settled … Isaac didn’t dream up that dead man, Wig. How did he get there?”

  “Shit, Sweets. I’m not a witch doctor.”

  “But Seventh Avenue is your department store. A man named Geronimo Jones dies in Isaac’s bed …”

  “It’s not Isaac’s bed. He happened to sleep there. Should I tell you how many George Washingtons and Abraham Lincolns there are at the shelter?”

  “But there was only one Geronimo Jones,’ Isaac said. “Me.”

  “And how did I spot you, bro’? Every moron in the neighborhood knew that King Isaac was registered at the armory as Geronimo Jones. I didn’t have to do diddly. I followed my nose to the big stink.”

  Sweets stared at Wig. “I still don’t like the percentages. Two Geronimo Joneses landing in the same bed.”

  “Aw, Sweets, that mother could have been offed anywhere and dropped in Isaac’s bed. I’ll bet you a hundred dollars there’s no rap sheet on Geronimo. Call Crime Scene.”

  “It’s too early,” Isaac said.

  “Crime Scene can tell you about the hairs in a dead man’s nose.”

  “It’s too early,” Isaac muttered. “We were with the M.E. and two lab technicians an hour ago.”

  “Sweets,” Wig said, “call the wizards.”

  Sweets made two quick phone calls. Then he shook his head. “There’s nothing on Geronimo Jones. He was a floater, Isaac. He has no history. He was never processed downtown at the main shelter. No one sent him up to the armory.”

  “But his name was in the logbook. Joey saw it.”

  “Logbooks can lie,” Sweets said. “I’ll have Wig look into it.”

  “Not Wig,” Isaac said. “Not Wig.”

  “Are you telling me how to run my shop, Mr. Mayor?”

  “No,” Isaac said. “Wig will be our explorer … come on, Joe. We’re a couple of outcasts. We aren’t welcome on the fourteenth floor.”

  “The cardinal’s been asking for you again,” Sweets told him.

  “I keep my own fucking calendar,” Isaac said, but he had Barbarossa dial the cardinal’s office after they’d returned to the car, which was a battered blue Plymouth Joe had swiped from the police garage. His boss was no aristocrat. Isaac was the people’s king.

  They found the cardinal at a recreation center near the Williamsburg Bridge. The locals were against the AIDS hospice Jim had opened on Attorney Street. They wanted to shut it down. They talked about the plague Jim had brought to their streets.

  “Jesus,” Jim said, with a cigarette in his mouth. He’d been a bantamweight boxer in Chicago before he was a priest. He wasn’t wearing his cardinal’s robes. He looked like an ordinary parishioner. His pants were wrinkled. His tie was askew. He loved to move about his parishes in mufti. But his flock was shouting at Jim.

  “Your Eminence, we don’t want our young children involved in the plague. Move your hospice into another parish.”

  “There is no other parish,” Jim said.

  “AIDS is the Devil’s disease.”

  “Then we’ll fight the Devil,” Jim said. “But with kindness and compassion.”

  There was a constant chant. “Move the hospice, move the hospice.”

  “I will not abandon dying children and women and men.”

  But the criers drowned his voice and defeated Jim. His cheek began to twitch. He chewed his cigarette. And then there was a bit of silence. The king had entered the recreation hall without Barbarossa. Isaac had put him on the case of Geronimo Jones. It wasn’t legal. But Isaac couldn’t survive without his own minuscule police force, and that force now consisted of his son-in-law, Joe.

  The king approached Cardinal Jim.

  “You deserted me, boyo,” Jim said. “I’m a forlorn prince of the church. I’ll have to go on retreat.”

  “Stop moaning,” Isaac said. “I’ll handle this.”

  And he faced the parishioners like some Mussolini, with the Glock sticking out of his pants.

  “With all due respect, Mr. Mayor,” said an Irish accountant from one of the middle-income projects on Essex Street. “Would Cardinal Jim, bless his heart, have invaded Park Avenue with his hospice?”

  “No,” Isaac said. “Some millionaires’ club would have crippled him. The millionaires and their wives could have gotten an injunction from a friendly judge and no hospice would have ever been built.”

  “Then why do we have to suffer?”

  “Because this is the Lower East Side. It’s where politics began. We protect the weak.”

  “Our schools are bad enough without sick children. We don’t want a plague.”

  “I’ll tutor the children myself. Do you feel better? I’ll devote ten hours a week.”

  “Sonny,” the cardinal whispered, “don’t promise what you can’t deliver.”

  “Keep out of it, Jim. I have my own parish.”

  And the local citizens had their king. He was much less remote than an uptown cardinal from the powerhouse of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Isaac was one of their own. He wouldn’t betray
them. They drank schnapps with him out of paper cups and went home.

  Isaac stood in the deserted hall with Cardinal Jim and a mountain of cups.

  “Sonny,” Jim said, “I was wrong about you. You’ll be a formidable mayor. But we have to arrange a meeting, your lads and mine.”

  “Ah, those wonderful monsignors. They’re sharks, Jim. I couldn’t survive in the same room with them. They’d steal my pants and the City’s revenues.”

  “I’m a cardinal,” Jim said. “I have to steal. I run half the City, boyo. And don’t you forget. I campaigned for you. I delivered the Catholic vote.”

  “Pish,” Isaac said. “You wanted a Republican mayor so you could rule this town. You had your monsignors contribute to the Republican treasure chest, and don’t you deny it.”

  “Jesus, I had to hedge a little. And you had a real liability, son. That Tolstoy woman. She grew up around the Nazis. I hear she ate orphan boys in Odessa.”

  “She was a child, Jim.”

  “Old enough to marry the Butcher of Bucharest. Antonescu, wasn’t it? Drank gypsy blood. He was a genuine ghoul.”

  “He was her ballet teacher.”

  “Ah, that’s a laugh. The lord of Transnistria, his own fake little country by the sea. A Nazi prince.”

  “You must have kept your monsignors busy doing research.”

  “Not at all. I had a chat with Frederic LeComte. He couldn’t lie to a cardinal, could he? You’d better drop the Tolstoy woman as soon as you can. The town won’t take to a Nazi princess.”

  “Don’t talk about Anastasia.”

  “Ah, the little bride of many names.”

  Isaac walked out on the cardinal, left him standing there with his tobacco fingers and a cigarette butt. He returned to Rivington Street. He took off his clothes. The king didn’t have to drop off into some dark sleep. He dreamt of Margaret Tolstoy while he sat inside his kitchen tub. He’d forgotten to fill the tub with water. Isaac would have to endure one of his dry baths. His head fell onto his shoulder. He was off on one of his astral trips. He’d gone to Odessa from his magic tub. It was the middle of World War II. Isaac saw a mansion. It didn’t have wooden shutters or a wooden porch, like Rebecca’s house. It was made of stone. It sat on a hill. Isaac was near a harbor. He could smell the sea.