Quentin dropped the silver gun. His shoulders started to heave. He wiped his eyes with a bloody handkerchief.
“Get out of my sight. I can’t bear to look at you, Quent. You have the soul of a chicken. I ought to rip your face off with my hands. I could, you know.”
Quentin Kahn shuffled out of the room, his shoulders still heaving.
“He’s brilliant with money, absolutely brilliant. But he’ll bend on me, he’ll break. He’ll run into witness protection, and I’ll get caught between the Mafia and the FBI.”
Isaac pointed to the man in the blue hat. “Why did the Hungarian want to end Nina’s career?”
“It wasn’t personal. He belonged to a ridiculous cult of exiled cops. Cockroaches. They wanted to steal my product.”
“You mean the palace jewels. That’s some patrimony, Michael. The national treasure in your pocket. And most of your partners listed as John Doe and lying in a communal grave on Harts Island.”
“Not John Doe, little father. Geronimo Jones.”
“I could exhume the corpses, Michael, tie them to you and all the other Knickerbocker Boys.”
“How, little father? Who’s declared them missing? You have dead bodies that nobody wants. Where’s the crime?”
“But didn’t you know that once you decided on ‘Geronimo Jones,’ it would never leave my head? That I’d have to haunt you, Michael?”
“Ah, but we were getting out of the business. It was the endgame, little father. It bought us some time. And you can haunt me as much as you like … I’m proud of you.”
“Why?” Isaac asked like an eager boy.
“You solved Nina’s blindfold trick. You stifled her game, little father, swallowed the sound of the ball. You turned poor Nina into a mute.”
“Remind me to give her a consolation kiss … Michael, you shouldn’t have had Rita Mae Robinson killed.”
“I was fond of Rita. But we had our orders. I’m not God, you know. We’re part of a troika, Quent and me.”
“And who’s the third wheel?”
“I’d rather not discuss it.”
“Then one of us is gonna die tonight … who is it, huh? Not Schyler. He has his own ideas about the nobility of bloodlines, but he wouldn’t have ordered Rita’s execution. Was it Papa Cassidy or Jason Figgs?”
“You’re getting warm, little father.”
“The other baron,” Isaac muttered. “Judah Bellow.”
“Correct. Judah had all the credentials. Most of our clients came from him.”
“I talked to Judah. His daughter was a suicide. Natalie. And he was corresponding with a little Roumanian girl. She died of pneumonia. Did he blame Rita?”
“No. But Rita was our weak link.”
“Her and Harwood and Brother William. They were the caretakers of Quentin’s kids.”
“We’ve stopped importing children.”
“But I saw them,” Isaac insisted.
“The last batch. And Rita might have compromised herself, snitched on us to protect her brother and the boy. Judah was being a good businessman.”
“You’re all fucking pharaohs. You bury and you build. Michael, I already warned you. One of us has to die.”
The king jumped on Black Michael, who started to laugh. Isaac wrestled him to the ground. Michael kept laughing. He called out. “Anastasia.”
It hurt the king to hear that name. Anastasia. It was the only thing he had left with Margaret Tolstoy, that totem word from the time when she was a princess at Isaac’s junior high.
Margaret came into the room without her wig. Her cropped skull aroused him terribly. He’d have to go and seek a cure. Forty years, and the wound of her hadn’t healed.
Isaac lost heart, but he didn’t let go of Michael. Anastasia stooped over him. “Darling, if you kill him, you’ll have to kill me. I’m sworn to protect Michael.”
“You’re not Nina’s nurse,” Isaac said. “You’re Michael’s babysitter, his bodyguard.” He crawled away from Michael, got to his feet. “Margaret, did you help plan Rita’s death?”
“No. But I wouldn’t have stopped it.”
“You’re a Knickerbocker Boy,” he said.
“And so are you.”
PART SIX
23.
The king returned to Manhattan.
He spent Christmas all alone. He had a hundred invitations for New Year’s Eve. He turned them down. His own Party began to panic. Isaac hadn’t leaked a word to the press about his administration, hadn’t announced a single commissioner or deputy mayor. The pols began to predict that their king would flounder about in a rudderless ship.
But no one dared contradict him. He had the right to remain silent. A king didn’t have a “voice” until his coronation. He wasn’t idle. He walked down from the pingpong club to Emeric Gray’s matchbox on East Fifty-sixth. This was the building that Papa, Jason, and Judah wanted to destroy. He could recognize Emeric in the pieces of limestone wedged into the corners of the building, like binders of a book, in the turreted brick tower that encased the water tank, in the blue awning above the revolving door, with a frosted deer sculpted into the glass. Emeric’s markings soothed the king. He wasn’t going to give up this building to the pharaohs.
He stood in a phone booth and got Jason Figgs’ secretary on the line.
“What’s your name, dear?”
“Cordelia.”
“Please tell Jason that he can’t have the matchbox.”
“Matchbox, Mr. Mayor? I’m sorry. I—”
“Emeric Gray. He’ll understand. If he touches that building, he won’t get a dime from the City. No tax abatements. Good-bye, Cordelia.”
He continued downtown, stopped on Orchard Street, searched in the clothing barrels, found a Borsalino with a gorgeous feather, a pair of saddle shoes, a white shirt with someone’s initials sewn into the pocket, G.R., a pair of white socks with red piping, a double-breasted suit made of black wool, a winter coat with a mousy fur collar, a maroon necktie, and Isaac had his coronation clothes.
He went to his apartment on Rivington Street, but he had a strange feeling the second he opened the door. There was a poster in the kitchen, called “Pirate Ship.” By Paul Klee. What the hell was it doing here? Had someone been living in his apartment while the king was in Carcassonne? He’d have to murder the landlord for lending out his keys. But it wasn’t the landlord. It was Margaret who’d bought “Pirate Ship” at a little shop to decorate Isaac’s barren walls when she moved in with him for a couple of weeks. She’d arrived without pajamas. Just her Glock and the clothes she was wearing. And her wig. The wig was part of her chameleon life as gangbuster and girlfriend to the Mob. She wouldn’t take it into the king’s bed. He fell in love all over again with this new Anastasia. The cropped hair made her look like Joan of Arc. Isaac had everything he wanted. Margaret and his own cappuccino machine, a gift from Jerry DiAngelis. Isaac would twist a knob and produce magical cups of coffee with steamed milk. But Margaret preferred her coffee black, with a bite of chocolate from a huge brick that she kept in her bag. The king tried Margaret’s chocolate once. His eyes twitched from all the bitter cocoa. And when Margaret disappeared on him, Isaac stopped making cappuccinos … and “Pirate Ship” sank into his head.
Klee’s ship had a smokestack, a paddle wheel, and two mainmasts. It had nine or ten flags. It had a navigator with yellow teeth and a captain with red eyes. The captain was a dreamer, lost in a maze of ladders, like Isaac Sidel.
He couldn’t sit still. He rode uptown with a bottle of champagne. He had Wig’s address in his pocket. He’d gotten it from Brother William, who was still in protective custody at Gracie Mansion. Isaac couldn’t take the risk of losing him and Harwood to another one of Black Michael’s wipe-out campaigns. William and the boy were running up a prodigious ice cream bill, which Isaac charged to his own administration. He didn’t want to get Becky’s cook into trouble.
Isaac hadn’t seen Wig ever since they’d borrowed a coffin from one of Wig’s undertake
r friends and buried Archibald Harris in an upstate apple orchard that must have belonged to the Purple Gang. Isaac didn’t ask any questions. But it pained him that Arch would have to lie in some anonymous grave without even one obit to portray his exploits in the Negro National League. Isaac had to wonder why Arch had never been inducted into the Hall of Fame. Cooperstown had started taking in celebrated ghosts from the Negro leagues, like Judy Johnson and Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell. Arch had been their equal.
Isaac got to Wig’s place on Convent Avenue. The door was open. Wig sat in the dark. He didn’t bother saying hello to Isaac. They’d shoveled dirt together, sang a little prayer to Arch in the apple orchard. That’s how intimate they were.
“No disability pension, Brother Isaac. I’d rather starve.”
“Wig, can you see what I’m holding in my hand?”
“A baseball bat.”
“Jesus. It’s a bottle of champagne.”
“Well, I’m working at being a blind man. Takes a little time.”
“Lemme bring you back to the hospital, Wig. You can convalesce.”
“That’s nasty shit. Nursing homes and Seeing Eye dogs. Okay, I get monster headaches. My sight comes and goes. But I aint no invalid.”
Isaac put the champagne in Wig’s freezer and had to dislodge boxes of frozen Milky Ways. Wig and Isaac had a feast. The nougat cracked in Isaac’s mouth. It was much better than ice cream. They split a box of Milky Ways between them and started on champagne.
“To nineteen eighty-six,” Wig said.
“I’d rather drink to auld lang syne … can you give me one good reason why Archibald Harris didn’t get into the Hall of Fame?”
“Hall of Fame? That’s for white trash.”
“Josh Gibson is in the Hall.”
“Window dressing,” Wig said. “Arch was a convict. How could he get in? And even if they wanted Arch, he’d have to refuse. He couldn’t promote his face. Arch was the Purple Gang.”
“That’s what everybody says about you. I guess Harlem has to have a Robin Hood.”
“It aint got nothin’ to do with Robin Hoods. Archibald hit on people for the Maf.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“You’re the blind man, Brother Isaac. And why are you defending that sucker? He made friends with Rita and then he finished her off … I hear you been to France. Did you catch King Carol?”
Isaac didn’t have the courage to replay Carcassonne for Wig. He’d have to discuss his devotion to Margaret Tolstoy. He said nothing about Judah Bellow. He didn’t want to send Wig on a dangerous chase.
They knocked off the bottle of champagne. Isaac opened another carton of Milky Ways. He began to stagger.
“Wiggy, will you join my ’ministration?”
“You looking for a doorman?”
“No, Wig. A bodyguard.”
“You’ll make history. The first mayor of New York with a blind bodyguard.”
“Nobody will know except me and you.”
“And Sweets.”
“Sweets will have to live with it. It’s an economy measure. We’ll take you off his payroll and put you on mine.”
“And what if I decide to off Eddie Royal?”
“I’ll help you. Wiggy, but the little rider is gone.”
“What about Joey? He could get jealous. He’s your chauffeur, aint he?”
“He’s my son-in-law,” the king said. “I can’t have him around all the time. People will accuse me of nepotism.”
“Well, don’t count on me driving, Mr. Mayor, unless you want to crash into a shitstorm on every block.”
“Wiggy, can’t you listen? Joe will drive us. When we need him.”
“When do I start?” Wig asked between bites of nougat candy.
“Right away. You’ll have to live with me around the clock.”
“And what happens when you’re making it with Margaret?”
“You’ll close your eyes and be a good boy … but Margaret belongs to Black Michael.”
“You talking about King Carol?”
“Carol doesn’t exist. Carol’s a joke, a tag Michael made just for me.”
“We’ll blow him out of the water.”
What water? Isaac wanted to say. But he helped his bodyguard pack. Wig was as pathetic a homemaker as Isaac himself. Nothing made sense in this crib. Isaac had to search like a demon for Wiggy’s socks and unlicensed guns. Wig needed a poster on the wall. Klee’s “Pirate Ship.”
Isaac packed whatever he could into one suitcase. More than one meant bad luck, according to Wig. He wouldn’t let Isaac carry the suitcase down into the street.
“I do the carrying. I’m the bodyguard.”
Isaac was relieved. Wig couldn’t have survived much longer all alone. And neither could the king.
“We’ll have champagne and Milky Ways on New Year’s Eve,” Isaac said and whistled for a gypsy cab.
A Cadillac halted in front of Isaac. A white limousine. Gypsy cabs must have been having their own renaissance. The door opened. A pesty man was holding a Glock on Isaac. It was the little rider, Eddie Royal.
“You been following me, Ed?”
“You bet. Come on. Climb aboard … but not him, not Wiggy.”
“I don’t go anywhere without my bodyguard.”
The little rider started to laugh. “That’s priceless. Your bodyguard is a hospital case. I’ll count to three. And then I shoot.”
Isaac looked into Eddie Royal’s eyes.
“One,” said the little rider.
Isaac smiled.
“Two.”
Isaac shoved his belly against the Glock.
“Three.”
Isaac clicked his teeth.
“Ah,” said Eddie Royal, “be a sport, will ya?”
Isaac climbed into the Cadillac with Wig. It was like an enchanted cottage with a lot of jump seats. Eddie Royal sat near the floor. Behind him were Papa Cassidy and his wife, Delia St. John. She’d been a pornographer’s model before she retired to Papa’s bedroom. Most of Manhattan’s political moguls had slept with Delia, who loved to dance in bottle clubs. She had long, joyous arms and legs. Her eyes seemed to reflect a permanent state of mischief. Not even papa knew Delia’s age. She photographed like an eleven-year-old with pubic hair and breasts.
Delia had a grudge against Isaac, who’d closed down all her bottle clubs, but she cuddled against Wig and kissed him on the mouth.
“That’s enough,” Papa said.
“But Wiggy saved my life,” Delia said. “You ought to be grateful, Papa.”
“I am,” Papa said. “We’re all grateful to Wig.”
Wig had escorted Delia to several of the bottle clubs when he was chief of Rebecca’s detail and partners with Mario Klein. He’d kept all the clowns and unsuccessful suitors away from Delia. He’d also been one of Papa’s bagmen.
Isaac turned to Papa and asked, “How’s Jason and Judah?”
“Jason and Judah couldn’t come. They’re aristocrats. They don’t like to dirty their hands. Isaac, you’re not our mayor yet. You have five more days of freedom. If an accident should happen to you, it would only be a very minor catastrophe.”
“Ah, I love the way you threaten people,” Isaac said. Papa was his campaign treasurer. Isaac couldn’t have raised a dollar on his own. He didn’t know how.
“It’s not a threat. You can’t rule the City without us. You’ll die. You have to give us our Emeric Gray.”
“Not a chance,” Isaac said. “I’m gonna landmark that matchbox.”
“We’ve invested millions. We have Coca-Cola on a string …”
“What about Carcassonne?” Isaac purred at Papa Cassidy. “Will Delia dance while little Nina does her pingpong with a handkerchief over her eyes?”
“The man is crazy,” Papa said.
“Papa, you shouldn’t have gone into business with Black Michael. Too many fucking people had to end up in potter’s field.”
“Shut him up, will you, Mr. Royal?”
&
nbsp; “It’s my pleasure,” said Eddie Royal with a huge grin. He wiggled about in the jump seat and waved the Glock in front of Isaac’s eyes. But Wig slapped the Glock out of Eddie’s hand, lifted him off the jump seat, and banged his head against the roof of the Cadillac. Eddie Royal began to twitch. His tongue clacked inside his mouth. Delia screamed. Papa Cassidy grabbed her hand and got out of the Cadillac. He stood in the middle of Convent Avenue with his bride. He didn’t know what to do.
Eddie Royal’s ears had gone deep purple. His nose was bleeding.
“Did you write Archibald a big fat check for doing Rita?” Wig asked Eddie Royal.
Isaac touched Wig’s shoulder. “He isn’t worth killing. He’s only a messenger.”
“Rita aint dying like that,” Wig said. “Somebody’s gotta pay.”
“I agree.”
Wig stuffed Eddie Royal between two jumps seats. Isaac knocked on the glass wall between him and the driver, who sat like stone.
“Rivington Street,” Isaac said. “We’re in a hurry.”
And they rode downtown with Eddie Royal at their feet.
24.
The State’s chief judge, Jack Caution, swore him in on the steps of City Hall. Isaac took off his Borsalino. He looked like Al Capone. He repeated his oath of office while a light snow began to fall. It wasn’t much of a coronation. Isaac had arrived with Wig and Joe and Marilyn and Sweets and Cardinal Jim and Rebecca Karp, and his own baseball team, the Delancey Giants, kids he’d rescued from oblivion, delinquents who wore his colors and forgot how to steal. They stood in their winter jerseys—orange and black— Isaac’s chorus and color guard.
The pols were also there, Democrats and Republicans, but Isaac avoided them. He was already sick of the mantle he would have to wear as mayor, that impossible cloak of power. He didn’t have friends, only petitioners and penitents, people who were hungry for whatever Isaac had to give. His signature was better than gold. He could spawn entire industries with one scratch of his pen.
Reporters nudged his arm. He was supposed to have a press conference, talk about the Sidel administration and all the miracles it would accomplish. Isaac had a ghostwriter, Wilson Bright, that bandit guard at the Harlem shelter who’d created poisonous little notes for the Knickerbockers. He was the only scribbler the king could trust. He wasn’t jockeying for position among Isaac’s aides. Wilson was an amateur. He’d studied Descartes and was considered a dangerous man, because he was unpredictable and had never bothered to graduate from college. He’d been up two nights, preparing Isaac’s maiden speech. It was pure poetry. Musical shock waves backed up with statistics about homeless women and the housing crisis. But Isaac didn’t want to rock on the steps of City Hall like a renegade rabbi. He stuffed Wilson’s speech into his coat pocket.
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