Little Angel Street (The Isaac Sidel Novels)

by Jerome Charyn

  “Quent? I met him much later. He sponsored me, brought me out of Bucharest.”

  “And you’ve been loyal to him ever since.”

  “Yes, little father. I’m loyal to Quent.”

  Isaac started to dream. Should he kill his guru before or after the coronation? No. Michael was more valuable alive. A proper pingpong coach was hard to find.

  “Take me to Quent.”

  “He’d love it, little father. He’s been dying to have lunch. You know that.”

  “Then arrange the lunch, Michael. I can’t court some guy who owns the Ali Baba. I’m the mayor-elect.”

  It was Michael who called the Ali Baba, who whispered with Quentin Kahn and drove Isaac out to the River Cafe, under the Brooklyn Bridge. Quentin Kahn was already in the restaurant, at a table that looked out upon the harbor and the Statue of Liberty. A speedboat shot past the restaurant’s glass wall. It was like sitting with a river in your lap. The bottom of the Brooklyn Bridge reminded Isaac of the flattened belly of a monster snail.

  King Carol excused himself.

  Quentin Kahn ordered a bottle of two-hundred-dollar wine. Isaac growled at the price, but the wine was delicious.

  “Pomerol,” said Quentin Kahn. “My favorite red.” Quent had salmon, and Isaac had a swordfish steak in a bed of spinach.

  “Quentin,” Isaac said like a debutante. “I thought you’re supposed to drink white wine with fish.”

  “An old wives’ tale. You can drink Pomerol with shoe leather if you like. I have a weakness for good red wine.”

  “How’s the child market, Quent?”

  Quentin’s eyes began to glow from the Pomerol. “Somebody’s been slandering me. I do favors now and then for people in high places.”

  “You fuck,” Isaac said, across the bottle of Pomerol. “Judah’s daughter kills herself, so you and King Carol invent a phantom girl for him. Little Natalia of Bucharest.”

  “She’s no invention, I promise. And what did we do that was illegal? There was an exchange of letters … Judah contributed toward Natalia’s upkeep at the orphanage, gave her an allowance. And then she died.”

  “And then she died,” Isaac said.

  “It was an accident, Your Honor.”

  “Save the titles. I might never get to Gracie Mansion. I could also have an accident.”

  “She caught pneumonia. We couldn’t interfere. The doctors …”

  “Can I see the little girl’s death certificate?”

  “I could requisition it for you. We’d have to write the orphanage.”

  “Never mind. You’ll shut your factory, Quent. You’ll get out of the child-buying business. And you’ll release Rita Mae Robinson from her bondage.”

  The glow in Quentin’s eyes was gone. There was a meanness to his mouth. “Rita’s not a slave,” he said.

  “Yeah. She’s a whore who happens to babysit for you.”

  “You’re working with LeComte … bugging the Ali Baba.”

  “Me? I got lucky. I caught Harwood chaperoning a small country of blue-eyed kids.”

  “Harwood’s a crackhead. I can’t predict his moves.”

  “But I can predict mine. Come to my inauguration, Quent. The minute I’m sworn in, I’ll sign an executive order closing the Ali Baba.”

  “I have a license … and a lawyer. You can’t sign me out of existence. You can’t rule by decree.”

  “Don’t count on it. I’m a dragon. I eat up lawyers and constitutions …”

  Isaac heard a buzz behind his neck, as if he were being attacked by a magnificent bee.

  “You’re so charming, dear.”

  It was Anastasia in a white jumpsuit and orange wig. She looked like a model from Mars. Isaac was instantly jealous.

  “Quentin, did you tell Margaret about our lunch date?”

  “I swear, I—”

  “He didn’t have to tell me, Isaac. I’ve been following you like a hawk. Quentin, it’s time to go.”

  “We didn’t order dessert,” Isaac said. “They have sherbet on the menu, with marzipan flowers and chunks of white chocolate. It’s arranged like a little garden. This is the River Café.”

  “I know,” Margaret said.

  “We haven’t even finished our Pomerol. It’s two hundred dollars a pop.”

  “He can take the bottle with him, dear.”

  “It’s not the same thing as having a picnic in a restaurant, with the Statue of Liberty floating in back of your head.”

  “Then he’ll have to suffer,” Margaret said.

  Quentin Kahn patted his lips with a napkin and disappeared.

  “Spider Lady,” Isaac hissed. “Do you discard all your lovers like that?”

  “I don’t have lovers, Isaac. I’m devoted to you.”

  “But you sleep with Quentin Kahn.”

  He wanted to grab her wrists, fly out the window with Anastasia, and crash around in the water like a couple of mermaids. He didn’t have the heart to be mayor without her.

  “Isaac,” she told him. “You’re stepping on Frederic’s toes.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “He can toss me out of the country.”

  “Margaret, you can always marry me.”

  “I’m not fond of arrangements,” she said. She’d married Ferdinand Antonescu when she was twelve, the bride of Little Angel Street, had eaten human flesh, or she would have starved in Odessa.

  “Arrangements?”

  “Shhh,” Margaret said, one of her fingers slicing across his mouth. “We can’t afford to close the Ali Baba … not right away.”

  “Ah, that’s a new twist. I thought you were tracking Quent because of the Roumanian kids. I thought you were going to pounce.”

  “We were, but there’s a glitch. Quent has a champion now.”

  “Judah Bellow.”

  Anastasia laughed under her wig. Isaac felt like a schoolboy. He couldn’t forget the orphan who’d first come into his class. Anastasia was a wound he’d have to wear all his life.

  “LeComte isn’t frightened of pharaohs,” she said.

  “Who is he frightened of?”

  “Isaac Sidel.”

  “Come on,” Isaac said. “He owns the one person on this planet I adore … who’s Quent’s rabbi, who’s his hook?”

  “I’m not supposed to tell.”

  “I’ll find out, Margaret. I’ll tap all of Frederic’s lines, I’ll bug the Ali Baba. Who’s Quentin’s hook?”

  “Billy the Kid.”

  She was talking about the governor, who had a whole series of nicknames.

  “Billy’s a Democrat. Justice ought to love that. Did he invest in the Ali Baba? Or did he give a stolen child to each of his daughters as a Hanukkah present?”

  “The governor’s Episcopalian. And he doesn’t have any daughters.”

  “What’s the difference? Write your own script. Frederic always does.”

  Isaac growled at the head waiter. “Where’s the check?”

  “Mr. Kahn took care of it, sir.”

  “Nobody asked him to,” Isaac said, reaching for his wallet. But he couldn’t even have paid for the Pomerol. He had fifty dollars in his pants and a canceled credit card. The pension he collected from the City of New York went to the Delancey Giants. It was expensive to equip a baseball team. And Isaac had to save some cash for his brother Leo, who was in and out of alimony jail. Leo was a notorious shoplifter. And it was Isaac who had to fight with the detectives of different department stores to preserve his brother’s skin. Leo would probably shame him once Isaac sat in City Hall.

  He couldn’t slink out of the River Cafe. The bartender demanded his autograph. Customers saluted him. He’d become a celebrity in spite of himself. He signed his name on a napkin, dreaming of Margaret Tolstoy.

  “Come home with me.”

  “Can’t,” she said. “Frederic is waiting.”

  “I’ll close down Quentin Kahn. You’ll see.”

  “Darling, don’t play with fire. You can’t win.”


  His sweetheart from junior high kissed him on the lips. It was enchantment, nothing less. He couldn’t spin free of Anastasia.

  The parking attendant produced Anastasia’s car, a red Jaguar that must have been a gift from Justice, the spoils of some drug war the DEA had won.

  “Darling, can I offer you a lift?”

  “I’ll walk.”

  “Isaac, it’s the Brooklyn waterfront. You might get lost.” But he loped away from Anastasia.

  “I’ll manage,” he said, and Anastasia sped out of the little parking lot.

  He crossed the Brooklyn Bridge on foot, like a fucking pilgrim. Bikers and pedestrians stared at him. But Isaac looked beyond them, through the wires of the bridge, and onto the ruined silhouette of lower Manhattan, glass pyramids that killed the grace of an older skyline. These were the pyramids of Judah Bellow and Jason Figgs. Isaac already missed the clarity of Schyler Knott, his devotion to a softer past.

  He’d stood on this bridge forty years ago with Anastasia, had watched the glory of Manhattan stone and glass through the morning fog, towers that seemed to invent themselves in Isaac’s mind. He wanted to catch the moment by the tail. Schyler was right to resign from Landmarks. Those real-estate barons had pissed upon the town. Isaac would have to find another crazy warrior to run the Landmarks Commission.

  There was another pilgrim waiting for him on the Manhattan side of the bridge. This pilgrim was dressed in blue. Frederic LeComte, without his black commandos, at the mercy of the wind. His tie had traveled around his neck; the wings of his collar had risen. He looked comical on the bridge.

  “Wouldn’t go to the governor if I were you.”

  “Jesus, Frederic. He’s only a Democrat.”

  “But he’s our Democrat,” said the cultural commissar of the Justice Department, a wind-ripped boy.

  “You bought the Gov?”

  “Isaac, think like a politician, for God’s sake. You’ll have your own mansion in a month. You’re the king.”

  “Stop that. I’m Isaac, remember me? I was your Alexander Hamilton Fellow. I traveled around the country like a worthy son, making speeches about all the fucking complexities of crime.”

  “But you abandoned the tour, Isaac, you didn’t keep your promise.”

  “I wouldn’t talk about promises, Frederic. You got yourself a toehold on this town while I was gone. You’re the one who profited from my fellowship.”

  The wind slapped at Isaac. He had to bite his own words. He was standing on the Brooklyn Bridge with a commissar who could wreck anyone’s career.

  “You’ve tarnished the spirit of Alexander Hamilton,” said LeComte. “You’ve killed people.”

  “So have you … LeComte, you bought the Gov. Admit it.”

  “He’ll be running against the president in ’eighty-eight. He’s a known commodity. We’d rather have him on the ticket than some wild man who might hurt us at the polls.”

  “So you’re protecting the son of a bitch from any scandal, huh? You can’t afford to let the governor fall. Is he boss of the Ali Baba? Does Quentin Kahn work for him?”

  “The governor was a little foolish, that’s all. He has a favorite niece.”

  “Ah, let me guess. She had fertility problems. Couldn’t conceive. So Quentin Kahn found the governor’s niece a magical child.”

  “That’s the thrust of it.”

  “Blue-eyed? A boy? Fresh from an orphanage in Bucharest. What’s the boy’s name?”

  “Oskar, I think … listen to me. The niece had adopted a baby boy before Oskar arrived. But the courts returned the boy to his mother. The niece went into mourning, Isaac. She wouldn’t leave the house. It got so bad they had to administer electric shock. Nothing could cure her … until Quentin brought Oskar to the house. She crawled out of her depression the moment she laid eyes on him.”

  “Oskar’s an orphan, right?”

  “Almost. He did have a mother. But she sold him to Quentin Kahn.”

  Isaac couldn’t control himself. He grabbed LeComte by the lapels, shook him against the wind. “That’s monstrous. No mother would sell her child. She was coerced, wasn’t she, LeComte? Ceausescu’s people blackmailed her, threatened to—”

  “Not at all. It was a simple transaction. Five hundred dollars and a bill of sale … let go of me, Isaac.”

  “Bill of sale? A boy’s not a horse, not even in Roumania.”

  “Let go of me.”

  Isaac released the commissar. He didn’t want to cry in front of LeComte, but his shoulders started to heave.

  “Isaac, it was dollars and cents.”

  “Don’t say that,” Isaac said. “Don’t ever say that, or I’ll throw you off the bridge.”

  “Listen. Five hundred dollars could feed her for a year … and she gave the boy a future he could never have had.”

  “I suppose it’s patriotic to give your child away to a governor’s niece. But I come from a different school. Losing a mother is like losing a limb. Worse than that. If my mother had sold me to some pasha, I would have screamed and screamed.”

  “Oskar didn’t scream. He has a tricycle. He goes to a terrific school.”

  “I’d like to meet the boy.”

  “Isaac, I’m not the governor’s social secretary.”

  “I’d like to meet the boy.”

  “Isaac, if you bother the Gov, I’ll make your life at City Hall one long, uninterrupted hell.”

  “You’d disappoint me, Frederic, if you did anything less.”

  Isaac swerved around LeComte and walked off the Brooklyn Bridge, into the belly of Manhattan.

  14.

  The governor was a ghost in the City of New York. He had his own executive offices at the World Trade Center, but he seemed in constant exile whenever he was away from his Albany mansion. He didn’t have Isaac’s mark. He was a creature of the suburbs, an upstate man. “He’ll play in Kansas and Mississippi,” his advisors like to boast. They were grooming him for the White House. A Democrat with a conservative trim. He wouldn’t piss money away on undesirables. He had no plan for the homeless. He was mute on most topics. His ship of state was a prairie schooner composed of platitudes. Billy the Kid had all the blue-eyed handsomeness of a narcoleptic gunslinger.

  Isaac didn’t have to shove his way past secretaries. LeComte must have phoned the governor, who was waiting for Isaac with a homburg on his head. Billy the Kid, his shoes shining like dark and bitter glass.

  “How are you, Billy?”

  “Don’t spar with me, Sidel. You’re no better than a common criminal … come on, you wanted to meet my grand-nephew.”

  “Grandnephew?”

  “Oskar Leviathan, my niece’s little boy.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Shut up, Sidel.”

  They rode down the elevator with the governor’s bodyguards, who looked for suspicious characters in the basement garage. Isaac sat with the governor and the bodyguards in a sleek limousine and found himself sandwiched between several sedans in Billy the Kid’s wagon train.

  The Gov was brutal in front of his bodyguards, talked around them as if they were deaf and dumb. “Sidel, I could have you whacked. No one would know. I’d use professionals.”

  “Ask LeComte. He’ll help.”

  “Fuck LeComte. You’re the most visible man in America, mayor of New York. The whole Party will be judged by you, Sidel.”

  “Ah, I’m an amateur,” Isaac said.

  “And I’m Billy the Kid, but you’re the king.”

  They arrived at a modest little ranch house in Yonkers. Billy the Kid and Isaac got out of the car, crossed a stone path, and entered the ranch, where Billy’s niece and the boy were waiting for them. The niece’s name was Rose Leviathan-Smith. She was in her thirties, with iron-colored hair and a slight tic in her cheek. The king liked her instantly. And he liked the boy, who was nine or ten, and stood with his body against hers, as if he could protect her from some profound malady.

  “Rose,” the governor said, �
�this is Sidel. I told you about his inquisition. Wants to take Oskar back to Bucharest.”

  “I didn’t say that, Billy.”

  “Oh, he’s brilliant. He’ll smear me before I can mount a proper campaign. But I’ve considered putting a price on his head. I’ll rub him out, Rose. I will.”

  “Uncle Billy,” the niece said. “Go back to the car.”

  “I wouldn’t leave you alone with him. He could be wired. He’s a stinking policeman.”

  Billy the Kid looked into Rose’s eyes and trudged out of the ranch. Isaac followed Oskar and Rose into an enormous kitchen, where he settled in with black coffee and Mississippi mud pie. He was starving after his lunch at the River Café. Ever since he woke up from his coma he couldn’t control his appetite.

  “Ma’am, I’m not here to judge. I …”

  “You can talk to Oskar. Ask him whatever you like.”

  And she walked out of the kitchen with that shivering wound in her face.

  “Scrumptious,” Isaac said, his mouth filled with mud pie.

  “I take care of Rose,” the boy said.

  “Don’t you miss your mother?”

  “I’m Oskar Leviathan. Rose is my mother now.”

  “But you must have had friends in Bucharest.”

  “Only one. Tudor. We played chess. But baseball is better for American boys. Willie Mays visited my school. He is also a refugee.”

  “He was born in Alabama,” Isaac said.

  “But he caught a terrible cold when the Giants moved out of Manhattan. That’s what Uncle Billy says.”

  “Billy’s right.” How could Isaac explain the betrayal he’d felt when the Giants fled to San Francisco? Mays was an outcast and an orphan inside the windy walls of Candlestick Park. Or perhaps it was Isaac himself who was orphaned without Willie Mays.

  “I have my own team, Oskar. Would you like to play for it? I could arrange a tryout.”

  “I am a disaster. I am dreaming of chess on the baseball diamond. I am getting confused. The outfielders are like horses. And the catcher is my king.”

  “Happens to me all the time.”

  Isaac had another piece of mud pie and returned to the governor’s limousine.

  “I maligned you, Billy. The boy is great. I would have adopted him myself.”