Little Angel Street (The Isaac Sidel Novels)

by Jerome Charyn

  “Please tell Frederic that I’m not crazy about pingpong on the Danube. I expect a piece of Nina Anghel.”

  “How do you spell the name, sir?”

  “Like angel, but with an aitch.”

  He hung up the phone, whistled to himself, went to Rivington Street, and found Frederic in his tiny kitchen, eating a half-sour pickle from the king’s icebox.

  “Sidel, the Bureau is taboo, understand? Never call me at the Manhattan field office.”

  “LeComte, shouldn’t your name be on the masthead of Pingpong Power?”

  “What’s your problem?”

  “Margaret Tolstoy. You stole her out of my bed.”

  “Isaac, the lady has a mind of her own.”

  “But she doesn’t have a passport. You gave her to Quentin Kahn and King Carol … nobody bothers to tell me that Margaret’s out of the country. Is Nina Anghel one of your plants?”

  “Isaac, I didn’t invent Nina Anghel. She won the silver and the gold at the internationals in Barcelona. There’s never been a phenomenon like her in women’s table tennis. She can destroy most of the men.”

  “Then why does she need a nurse?”

  “She’s a kid, Isaac. Nineteen. From Bucharest.”

  “Why does she need a nurse?”

  “Isaac, I didn’t twist any arms. Margaret volunteered.”

  “For what?”

  “To educate the kid. Teach her how to dress. Nina’s a hillbilly. And now she’s champion of the world.”

  “Who trained her?”

  “Carol, of course … your coach.”

  “But I’m not a champion. I can hardly hold up my pants when I play. Why is Justice interested in Nina Anghel?”

  “We’re not. She’s part of the sales package. We’re interested in Carol.”

  “I thought you were protecting Quentin’s schemes on account of the governor. You can’t let Billy slide, or the Dems might pick another candidate. Isn’t Oskar Leviathan sacred ground?”

  “Yes, Oskar is. But we’re not protecting Quentin and Carol worldwide.”

  “Quentin and Carol,” Isaac murmured. “Like a comedy team with their own little hearse. But the fuckers made a mistake. They shouldn’t have offed Rita Mae Robinson.”

  “And you shouldn’t have gone to the Gov.”

  Isaac stared into LeComte’s eyes. He could have strangled this commissar from Justice and delivered him to Plymouth Street. The king wouldn’t have mourned LeComte.

  “Are you telling me that Rita died because of my conversations with Billy the Kid?”

  “I didn’t say that. You complicate the picture and anything can happen.”

  “I saw Margaret and Carol holding hands.”

  “What?”

  “In Pingpong Power. They were holding hands … it was a photograph.”

  “Isaac,” LeComte said with a grin. “You can’t blame me. I would have sworn that Margaret told you about her and Black Michael, the captain of Ceausescu’s palace guard who catapulted himself into a king.”

  “I thought Carol was with the Securitate, and pingpong was his cover.”

  “He has many covers, Isaac.”

  “That doesn’t mean he had to hold Margaret’s hand.”

  “Margaret and Black Michael are like sister and brother.”

  “Sister and brother,” Isaac said.

  “Idiot, they were in the same orphanage. They grew up together … until Ferdinand Antonescu plucked her away, enticed her with ballet lessons, took her to Paris and Odessa … Michael Cuza is the only piece of family Margaret ever had. She’s devoted to him. She’d kill for Michael.”

  “Maybe she already has,” Isaac said. He could have learned to tolerate another lover. But not an orphan. “If Margaret is devoted to Michael, how will you trap him?”

  “Any devotion has a price.”

  “And Margaret’s price?”

  “You,” said LeComte. “This is her last gig. I’m taking her off the books. I can’t have you sit at Gracie Mansion all alone. That would be indecent, Mr. Mayor. I’m giving Margaret to you.”

  “Frederic, I’m gonna steal Margaret. I did it before. I’ll do it again.”

  “The girl has no nationality, Isaac. I can drop her in a boat and let her sail to nowhere. Who would take her in?”

  “Gimme a month. I’ll create a sanctuary for her. The FBI would look pretty stupid crashing into a mayor’s house. You’re on the rise, Frederic. You can’t afford black marks. Tell me about Michael. Why did he run away from Ceausescu’s palace?”

  “Isaac, come on. A former national champion. Who else could train Nina Anghel? He took a leave of absence.”

  “And ended up at Schiller’s pingpong club, giving lessons to amateurs like me.”

  “That’s no accident,” said LeComte. “Have you had a look at Michael’s other pupils? Oskar Leviathan. Jason Figgs. Papa Cassidy. Billy the Kid.”

  “I never saw the Gov at Schiller’s.”

  “Isaac, the governor has his own table.”

  “And King Carol cuts a very wide swath. Where is he now?”

  “Hard to say. Paris. Prague. Carcassonne. Nina’s a fickle creature. She likes to give exhibitions without much notice.”

  “That’s nice, but somebody has to have her agenda. Frederic, I could beat it out of you.”

  “Perhaps,” said LeComte, removing another half-sour pickle from Isaac’s fridge. “Delicious stuff.” Two of LeComte’s black commandos appeared on the king’s fire escape. Another commando broke through the king’s front door. “Shouldn’t threaten me, Isaac. My boys are courageous.”

  “They were listening to every word.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t walk into the lion’s den without wearing a wire … you have a future, Isaac. Don’t spoil it. I promised Margaret to you. Forget Black Michael and Nina Anghel.”

  “You planted Carol in Schiller’s club.”

  “Not true. Carol had nowhere else to go. You’ve read Pingpong Power. Schiller’s is the last club in Manhattan. The man is a dinosaur. He could have sold out and made a fortune.”

  “He can’t sell. Manfred Coen died at the club.”

  “It always comes down to Coen, doesn’t it? Well, I’m not interested in ghosts.”

  Two black commandos climbed down the fire escape. LeComte left with the third commando.

  “Ghosts,” Isaac mumbled to himself. And he wasn’t thinking of Coen.

  20.

  Wig dreamt of his hospital room and that bronze Jesus on the wall. He liked all the nuns. But he couldn’t sit there until the headaches blinded him completely or went away. He had to find Harwood all over again. Who could have kidnapped the boy and swiped Wig’s last box of Milky Ways? Wig felt cheated, betrayed. It was his fortress, his own fucking crib. Some mother had seized Wig’s address. He had to rest for an hour in the prisoner’s chair, the same one that had held Harwood. But he must have dozed off, because it was dark when he woke. He heard himself whimper. Wig had a hole in his heart. He’d never considered how lonely he was for Rita Mae. He was Icarus, all right. Couldn’t even drown in some unfamiliar sea. His wings had melted on the day he was born.

  He had to find the boy.

  He stole a car out in the street, started the engine with a strip of wire, and drove to the firehouse on Eleventh with a blur in both his eyes. The door wasn’t even locked. Wig strolled inside, pulling the little .32 out of his ankle holster. He wasn’t going to shoot up a firehouse with his Glock. The walls might have collapsed. He could hear a chirping noise in the background. The ambulance was gone. He bumped into a card table and two familiar shadows.

  “Aw, Wiggy, you wouldn’t hurt us. We playing chess, is all.”

  It was Brother Franklin and Brother Ralph, the two panhandlers from St. Nicholas Avenue who’d brought him home to his crib. He ran his fingers along the card table. He couldn’t find one chess piece.

  “Children, you play chess with invisible knights and kings?”

  “Wiggy, we practici
ng the moves in our heads.”

  “Never heard of panhandlers in a firehouse. What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Minding the ambulance for Arch.”

  “Ain’t no ambulance I can see.”

  But he couldn’t see much. Shadows. Buildings. Streets. He was as blind as Archibald Harris, without Archie’s cataracts.

  “Archibald asked us. Said we should come to the fire-house, so we come. We couldn’t disagree. Didn’t he start the Purple Gang?”

  “Jesus,” Wig said, “he’s a blind baseball player left over from the nigger leagues.”

  “But wasn’t he in Sing Sing?”

  “Yeah, he had to knock off liquor stores to pay the rent.”

  But Wig began to worry. The myth of the Purple Gang only flourished after the war. Arch could have changed careers while he was still with the Brown Bombers, could have gone from catching baseballs to catching people. Wig couldn’t believe it.

  “Where’s Brother William?”

  “Holing up with a whore.”

  “Where?”

  “That depends. He has a bunch of concubines.”

  “Yeah, redheads, blondies, and brunettes. Where?”

  He pulled three or four addresses out of Brother Franklin and Brother Ralph. William kept his concubines in different cribs. But none of the cribs seemed to materialize. Wig struggled across Manhattan in pursuit of William. He couldn’t uncover a single concubine. And then, cruising Harlem with the same blurry eyes, he spotted a fat man and a tall, skinny boy inside a playground at the foot of Morningside Park. He got out of the car, approached William and Harwood, who were huddled together, feeding on Milky Ways. The boy’s nose was running. Brother William had a nasty cough.

  Wig couldn’t control his rage. He grabbed William, pounded him into the concrete while Harwood watched with the curious detachment of a crackhead.

  “Wiggy,” William pleaded. “I wouldn’t have touched your candy unless we was starving.”

  “How’d you get into my crib? It’s confidential.”

  “Aw, Rita was there once. She give me the address.”

  Wig couldn’t remember making love to Rita on Convent Avenue. His past had begun to shrink. He was only one more Icarus waiting for a fire escape or a roof to fall down from.

  “You drove her to Plymouth Street, didn’t you, William? You were with Archie’s ambulance corps.”

  “She was dead,” William blubbered from the playground’s concrete floor. “I couldn’t do nothin’ about that.”

  “Did you cry for her, William?”

  “She was dead.”

  “Who found her?”

  “I did. She was sittin’ inside her booth at the Baba with a pigsticker in her neck. Her hands were folded, Wiggy. She almost had a smile on her face. It was the spookiest thing. I didn’t know what to do. I called Arch. He brung the ambulance. We wrapped her in a sheet.”

  “And you dumped her in Brooklyn. Why?”

  “Arch was scared. We didn’t have instructions. Quent wasn’t there. Carol wasn’t there. Only Eddie Royal. Brooklyn was Eddie’s idea. He said we had to have at least half a borough between her and the Baba, or the cops would be on our tail. Plymouth Street belonged to the Maf, so it was a good place.”

  “And you reasoned with Eddie Royal like a fucking wise man in front of your own dead sister.”

  “Aw, Wig.”

  “Didn’t even bother about who might have killed her.”

  “Could have been anybody, Wig.”

  “Like King Carol.”

  “Told you. Carol wasn’t there. He was doing pingpong with Quent in one of them European capitals. Geneva or something.”

  “And what happened after you dropped off Rita?”

  “I ran. Arch wanted me to stay with him, but I wouldn’t. I knew I was next on the list.”

  “So you hid with one of your white whores.”

  “For half a day. She kicked me out. So I went to your crib. You never there.”

  “You broke into my place, you fat son of a bitch. You picked my lock and started living in the land of Milky Ways. Where were you when I brought Harwood and tied him to the chair?”

  “In your closet,” William said. “I woulda come out, Wig, I promise, but I was trembling and I pissed in my pants.”

  “And then?”

  “I untied Harwood after you left. But I figured you’d come back to feed him. So I took all your candy and a pair of pants. I was desperate, Wig. And me and Harwood have been hiding ever since.”

  “In Morningside Park? I spotted you, William, and I’m the closest thing to a blind man.”

  “I used up all my money. So I called Arch. He’s coming to collect us in his ambulance. We’re gonna live with Arch for a while. Arch loved Rita. He cried like the devil when he saw Rita’s ghost in the booth. He was with the Purples, Wig. I thought he was tough enough to protect her.”

  “How long have you been waiting for Arch?”

  “Nine, ten hours. But it’s all right. Arch has never failed us.”

  The ambulance arrived in half an hour, like some macabre angel of mercy, with its headlights on, Wilson Bright sitting up front in the cabin, all alone in his grotty uniform, wearing gloves behind the wheel. The back doors opened. Archibald Harris peered out with his cataracts. He didn’t seem disappointed when he saw Wig. “Hey, you desperadoes, get in.”

  Harwood climbed in first. Then Brother William and Wig. They sat across from Arch, who had his own narrow bench, the handle of his pigsticker poking out of his pants. And Wig didn’t have to reinvent the act of murder or imagine the details of Rita’s death. He was worse than Sidel. He’d let the romance of the nigger leagues blind him to Archibald Harris.

  “Tell me all about it, Arch.”

  “What’s there to tell?”

  “How you started the Purple Gang. Was it ’forty-six or-seven?”

  “Pish! I was playing with the Bombers in ’forty-seven.”

  “Old man, you had a dead career. You started stabbing people. You could go anyplace in Harlem. Who would have bothered a big celebrity like you?”

  “Celebrity, son? I didn’t have enough to eat.”

  “You invented your own team. Called it the Purple Gang. There was no gang. There was only you. Archibald Harris. You barnstormed in Harlem, and the legend began. I’d say you weren’t even rich. The Maf must have been stingy with their new nigger prince. You had to supplement your income, knock off a few liquor stores. People forgot about the nigger leagues. You weren’t so famous after Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella and Willie Mays. You didn’t even have to wear a mask. But one of the store owners happened to recognize a fucking worn-out phantom, or you would never have been caught.”

  Archibald laughed. “Brother William, I have my biographer sitting here. I went to jail when he was still dirtying his diapers.”

  “I never had diapers, Arch. My mama couldn’t afford them.”

  “Then you must have had a wounded ass. Because you don’t know shit about me or the Purple Gang. I aint a Purple. I never was. I wouldn’t kill unless I had to.”

  “Breaks my heart to hear that. Because you killed Rita Mae, old man.”

  Arch was cackling now. “Me? I’m blind.”

  “She wouldn’t have let nobody near her neck like that unless she trusted him. And she trusted you. It was no stranger, it was no john. Did Eddie Royal give you a lot of nasty little dollars to off her? William was the chump who found the body. It was all planned. Quent was cleaning up his act, getting out of the business of buying children. And he had to separate himself from Rita … and Harwood … and Brother William. You were asked to kill all three. But William bolted on you and I found the boy before you could.”

  Archibald wasn’t cackling any longer. The color of his eyes seemed to escape their cataracts. They looked profoundly purple and blue inside the ambulance. “Wiggy, I’m a casualty of war. I crippled myself in the nigger leagues.”

  “You killed Rita and you’ll
have to pay.”

  Wig was close enough to catch Archibald’s moves. He reached into his ankle holster while the old man shoved him back against the ambulance wall with one hand, grabbed that pigsticker with the other, and tried to puncture Wig’s throat. But Wig ducked under Archibald’s arm and shot the old man in the mouth. There was a boom in the ambulance that sounded like a bowling ball. Archie’s head slumped against his right shoulder. His mouth grew into an obscene red hole. Harwood and William had blood on their faces. They watched like children. The ambulance stopped. Wilson Bright peeked into the bowels of the ambulance. Wig poked his belly gun, his little .32, between Wilson’s eyes.

  “You be good now, Mr. Bright. And bring this ambulance home to rest.”

  Wig didn’t have to bother about the gun. It wasn’t registered. He’d toss it into the Harlem River soon as he was finished with Arch. The Harlem River had become a graveyard for Wig’s guns.

  There was a surprise waiting for Wig at the old fire-house. Brother Franklin and Brother Ralph had fled, but the firehouse had another homeless man. Geronimo Jones. He stood in his winter coat, like an orphan with sideburns, aiming his Glock at the ambulance.

  “The Knickerbocker Boys,” he said. “Lovely people. You’re all under arrest.”

  “Brother Isaac,” Wig said from his window. “You can’t arrest an ambulance.”

  “Who’s your latest victim, huh?”

  “Archibald Harris.”

  “You whacked the best second baseman the Negro leagues ever had? That’s criminal,” Isaac said. “Wiggy, come down from that ambulance. I’ll tear your heart out.”

  “Archibald killed Rita Mae.”

  “I don’t believe it. He was my hero. He caught balls with his bare hand.”

  “And tattooed people with a pigsticker.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  Isaac climbed aboard the ambulance with his Glock. He saw Archibald Harris, lately of the Brown Bombers and the Baltimore Elites, slumped on a narrow bench with a big red wound where his mouth had once been.