“That’s a pity. Latham can’t be seen in public with his master spy.”
“Should I get him on the phone, sir?”
“Bull wouldn’t talk to me.”
“Wanna bet? You’re the hottest guy in the country.”
“It’s three A.M., Boyle.”
“He’ll take the call.”
Boyle grabbed Isaac’s telephone, got the Bureau’s switchboard on the line. “Bull Latham, please … you’ll have to wake him. It’s Isaac Sidel.”
Boyle winked at Isaac and handed him the phone. Isaac’s knees were shaking. Bull Latham was a linebacker with the Dallas Cowboys who went to law school and joined the FBI. He didn’t like to sit behind a desk. Latham would rush into the line of fire with his own men. He’d get into fistfights, tackle Mafia chieftains. He ran the FBI like a football team.
“Mr. Director?” Isaac whispered into the wire.
“Call me Bull … what can I do for you, Sidel?”
Isaac wanted to sing Margaret Tolstoy’s name, but he didn’t dare. No one questioned the linebacker about his own business.
“I have a problem, Bull … J. Michael’s daughter is missing.”
“Kind of disappeared after she left your mansion, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, Bull. And I was wondering if …”
“I could have sixty agents at your door in half an hour, Sidel, but you wouldn’t appreciate that much firepower. And you can’t afford the publicity … not until you and Michael have made your speeches. How can Michael address the convention without his darling daughter at his side? It’s a bit of a dilemma. Wouldn’t you say so, Sidel?”
“Who took Marianna away from me?”
“Not us,” Bull said, “not the Bureau … can we talk policeman to policeman? It’s a local matter, Sidel. Your own cops stole Marianna Storm.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Then I’ve failed you. But I’ll have to say good-bye. Can’t function without my beauty sleep.”
The Big Guy prowled his own living room. “My cops are working for the Republican National Committee?” The sailor with the red harpoon flashed in front of his eyes. But Sidel wasn’t napping on his feet. He was having one of his revelations, interpreting his own dreams. Isaac realized the particular fish he had to harpoon.
“Boyle, get your hat. We’re going places.”
“I wasn’t wearing a hat, sir.”
“Then imagine one, because we’ll have to depend on our thinking caps.”
And the two hatless hatters crept out of Gracie Mansion in the middle of the night.
They didn’t get very far. A bunch of cops met Isaac and his Secret Service man outside the gate. With them was Barton Grossvogel, wearing a whistle and white gloves. He’d come to Isaac in his parade uniform, his fists as fat as a man’s head.
“Mr. Mayor, can I talk to you without your shadow?”
“Bart,” Isaac said, “meet Martin Boyle.”
“We’ve already met, haven’t we, Boyle?”
“Where?” Isaac asked, like a sullen boy. Everyone seemed to know Sidel’s business better than Sidel.
“At the White House,” Grossvogel said, “where do you think? Walk with me, will ya?” He grabbed Isaac’s arm and led him into the depths of Carl Schurz Park.
“You stole Michael’s daughter.”
“I did not.”
“But you can tell me where she is.”
“I have my spies, Isaac, just like you. I might be able to repatriate that little girl.”
“And what do I have to do, Bart? Kiss your ass on the convention floor?”
Grossvogel smiled. “Nothing as drastic as that. You’ll promise to lay off, to leave my shop alone.”
“While you rule Elizabeth Street with your own jungle law.”
“The statistics don’t support your little theory. Murder and mayhem are down seventeen percent in my precinct.”
“That’s because a fucking dark prince like you can manufacture your own statistics.”
“Watch your language, Mr. Mayor.”
“Why are you in white gloves?”
“Didn’t you know? I’m part of the honor guard at the convention. Do you like my medals, Mr. Mayor?”
“You’re protected, aren’t you? Is Bull Latham behind you? Or do you belong to the White House?”
“A modest captain like me? Will you cooperate? There’ll be no acceptance speeches without that little girl. The convention will fall into some twilight zone. The delegates will have to stay in Manhattan forever.”
“It’s good for business,” Isaac said. “Is she safe?”
“The darling daughter? How can I give you my guarantee?”
Isaac rushed Grossvogel in the dark, but the captain danced around him and socked Isaac in the face. The mayor fell on his ass. He dreamed of that eyeless sailor again. But the sailor had lost his harpoon. His ship was sinking. Isaac opened his eyes and looked up at Boyle.
“You’re bleeding, sir.”
“Of course I’m bleeding. Did you see the size of his fists? He’s a weight lifter.”
“Shouldn’t we return to the mansion, clean you up?”
“We don’t have the time. Why didn’t you tell me that you knew Barton Grossvogel?”
“I’m not a mindreader, sir. We never discussed Captain Bart.”
“Is that what the Prez calls him?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Boyle, did the Prez ask you to spy on me?”
“That wouldn’t be ethical, sir. I’m paid to protect your life.”
Isaac climbed up off the grass of Carl Schurz Park. He was limping a bit. He had to lean on Martin Boyle.
He hailed a cab on East End Avenue.
“Where are we going, sir?”
“To the Garden.”
“Before dawn?”
“Tim Seligman never sleeps,” Isaac said.
They got to Madison Square Garden, were rushed through the gates, Isaac still limping. Policemen saluted him.
“I’m not a general,” Isaac growled.
He found Tim Seligman in his tiny cockpit, under the air-conditioning ducts, where Tim could orchestrate the convention and harangue crucial delegates with a radio-phone hooked around his head. Boyle had to stay outside the cockpit. There was only room for Isaac and Tim.
“Ah, so you’ve surfaced again,” Tim muttered. “Your mouth is bloody. Wash up.”
“Not while Marianna is missing.”
“Christ, man, can’t you stop playing the detective? We’ll get Marianna back. Who the hell would harm her? We’ll be running the country in four months.”
“Without me,” Isaac said.
“My favorite diva,” Tim said, grabbing Isaac’s tie. “Behave. You’re a Democrat, and you’re on the ticket. You can’t get off.”
“You promised me Margaret Tolstoy if I went to Washington.”
“You’ll get Margaret,” Tim said. “We’re already negotiating with the FBI.”
“She’s sleeping with the President. And Bull Latham is the beard.”
“That’s preposterous.”
“Bull hires some phony general on his payroll to bring her to the White House. But he’s the beard. The Prez is in love with Margaret, isn’t he? That’s what the little kidnapping is all about. He wants to embarrass me in my own town.”
Seligman plucked off his radio-phone. “It’s much more complicated than that.”
“But you’re in cahoots with those bastards.”
“I am not. The Republicans are desperate. So they’re trying out a little war game.”
“With the help of my own police department … Grossvogel grabbed Marianna. And he’s the President’s man.”
Seligman tightened his grip on Isaac’s tie. And Isaac couldn’t shove him away. The mayor had been in a hundred brawls. He’d bitten off a mobster’s ear, had killed a crooked policeman, but he couldn’t shake Tim. He tried to punch the Party’s prince, but Seligman whacked him on the side of the
head. And for the second time in an hour Isaac Sidel was on his ass. He crawled out of the cockpit, while Timmy grabbed at his clothes.
“Boyle,” he shouted, “get me Bull Latham on the horn.”
“You can’t talk to the Bull,” Seligman said, but Isaac had already closed the door of the cockpit.
They got to a pay telephone. It started to ring. Isaac picked up the phone and heard Bull Latham growl at him. “Sidel, is that you?”
“No, it’s Sinbad the Sailor.”
“Meet me in half an hour.”
“How, Bull? Should I take the angels’ express to D.C.?”
“I’m at the Waldorf, Sidel. Would I leave the Democrats all alone in Manhattan, with a mayor who’s lost half his marbles? … Come up to my room. We’ll have a bit of breakfast.”
3
It had once been the classiest address in the world. Cole Porter kept a suite at the Waldorf. So did General MacArthur and John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Isaac remembered a film he’d seen as a boy, Weekend at the Waldorf. With Lana Turner and Ginger Rogers. It was 1945, and Isaac would walk up from the Lower East Side in his Sunday suit, get past the doorman with a smile, sit in a lobby as big as a battlefield, contemplate among the mirrors and the chandeliers, dream of a very fat future, with Ginger Rogers clinging to his arm. Isaac’s Ginger turned out to be Margaret Tolstoy, a Roumanian orphan who showed up at his junior high school with almond eyes. She called herself Anastasia, the lost princess with holes in her stockings, and Isaac had been chasing after her ever since …
He didn’t want to get knocked on his ass again. Seligman and Grossvogel were like infants compared to the Bull, who was a solid six foot six, and could tackle Mafia chieftains ten at a time. He’d have to anger the Bull. Isaac wanted Marianna and Margaret Tolstoy.
Bull Latham didn’t have a suite at the Waldorf, only a room with a couple of windows that looked out upon another world of windows called midtown Manhattan, where Isaac hated to be. He’d hide out in Harlem or among the ruins of the Lower East Side, gobble yellow rice and black beans at some hole-in-the-wall. And here he was at the Waldorf-Astoria with Bull Latham of the FBI.
Bull had prepared a breakfast table, smoked salmon, with coffee and danishes, from the Waldorf’s kitchen. He had blond hair and wore a paisley robe for breakfast. His fingers seemed fragile for a linebacker. He didn’t have Captain Bart’s fat fists.
They sat across from each other. “Is the salmon good, Sidel?”
“Delicious,” Isaac mumbled with a packed mouth.
“It was flown in this morning from Nova Scotia …”
“The Waldorf can’t resist you,” Isaac said. “You played for the Cowboys.”
“You’re anxious about Margaret Tolstoy.”
“I don’t like being fucked by the FBI. You’re her beard, aren’t you, Bull?”
“Can you think of a better one?” Bull said, biting into his danish.
“How did it happen?”
“It was an accident, a fluke.”
“She just waltzed into the White House, huh? Some fluke.”
“The Prez saw her picture and he went apeshit, had to meet Margaret.”
“Was he searching for the Bureau’s best Mata Hari?”
“I had to show him Margaret’s photograph … she was part of his task force.”
“What task force? I thought it exists only on paper, a phantom army.”
“But phantoms can move.”
The Prez had announced his own war against crime. It was the linchpin of his reelection campaign. A task force with a maniacal mission. Wipe out crime in America, make each inner city safe. And now Isaac realized where Barton Grossvogel fit. The President’s anti-crime commissioners were using Elizabeth Street as their own little laboratory. Grossvogel had climbed aboard the President’s ship. And all the pirate-cops at his precinct had suddenly become pioneers in the Prez’s “great urban struggle.” It sickened Isaac.
“And where was Margaret operating?”
“Downtown D.C.”
“A hop away from the White House … is that prick of a president ever going to give Margaret back to me?”
“He’d rather lose the election.”
“I don’t blame him,” Isaac said. “The man’s in love … I blame you, Bull. Margaret was mine, and you tossed her at the Prez. It was Timmy’s idea, wasn’t it? Hook the Prez on one of the government’s whores, compromise him, cut him off at the legs while Tim keeps me dangling. Isaac Sidel and the Prez in love with the same woman. You’re gambling that the Democrats will win, or you wouldn’t have gotten in bed with Tim Seligman.”
Bull finished his danish and smiled. “I’m FBI,” he said. “I can’t afford to go to bed with politicians.”
“You made your deal, Bull. Timmy’s promised to keep you on after the election. But you’ll have to deal with me. Because I’ll break Tim soon as I can. I’ll shove him into the corner like a doll. He’ll sit for eternity … where’s Marianna Storm?”
“Relax. Tim will rescue her at the last minute.”
“What has he promised Captain Bart? Is he going to make that thief your deputy director? I’d like a list of Bart’s safe houses, all the rotten holes where he might store Marianna.”
“Sidel, you’ll be searching for a week. Bart isn’t a dummy. You want Marianna, follow your nose.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Your nose, Sidel. Pay attention to Seligman’s stink.”
4
Seligman’s stink.
Isaac wore a false nose at the convention, looked like Sherlock Holmes playing Shylock. He’d stolen the badge of a Texas delegate, pinned it to his chest, hid his eyes under a baseball cap. He watched Tim’s cockpit, but Seligman didn’t stir.
Isaac waited all morning. Finally the cockpit opened, and Tim emerged in a seersucker suit and a straw hat, like a bumpkin. Isaac understood. The prince of the Party was wearing his own disguise.
“Timmy,” one of his aides barked, “I can’t find the Citizen.”
“Sidel? He’s turned into a ghost.”
“But who’ll deliver his speech?”
“Another ghost.”
Seligman left the Garden in his straw hat, and that ghost, Isaac Sidel, figured a stretch limo would pick him up, or one of Grossvogel’s police cars, and drive him to the kidnappers’ den. But Timmy marched toward the Hudson River, singing to himself. Isaac wasn’t near enough to catch the tune. The prince of the Party should have been choreographing Michael’s appearance at the Garden, not strolling in a straw hat.
Isaac watched Timmy go into a waterfront hotel. “Grand,” the Big Guy muttered to himself and performed a jig in the street. Now he’d get Marianna back. The bums on Eleventh Avenue thought he was cracked until they realized it was the mayor in one of his masks.
“Isaac,” they shouted, “talk to us.”
“Shut up. Can’t you see? I’m on a case.”
He charged into the hotel with his Glock. The desk clerk peed in his pants when he saw the hurricane in Isaac’s eyes.
“Where’s the little girl?”
“Girl?”
“Don’t get cute. I’ll dynamite your lousy hotel. Where’s the young lady?”
“In room nine.”
“How many mothers are guarding her?”
“Mothers?” the clerk said. “There’s only one man.”
“Does he have a gun?”
“Yes.” The clerk was still hysterical. “No … maybe.”
“If there’s a scratch on Marianna’s body, a single mark, I’ll come downstairs and put your hair on fire. Are you reading me? What’s your name?”
“Milton.”
Isaac tore out the wires of the hotel’s ancient switchboard. “Milton, what will you do while I’m upstairs?”
“Pray,” the clerk said.
“That’s not good enough. You’ll crawl under your desk and hide there. Understand?”
Milton disappeared under his desk, and Isaac went up to room nu
mber nine. He didn’t knock. He didn’t care about keys. He broke the door down with a shove of his shoulder. “Marianna,” he screamed, “I’m coming.”
It was a room with disgusting, dirty wallpaper. Tim Seligman was lying in bed with a gal from the Ohio delegation who’d kissed Sidel the day the Democrats had come to town. There was no Marianna Storm. The prince had taken time out for a bit of romance. Isaac was tempted to pull off his false nose, but the gal with Tim controlled the entire Ohio delegation.
“You can have my wallet,” Timmy said.
“More,” Isaac said. He wanted to scare the life out of Tim. “Are you Seligman, the big Democrat?”
“I am.”
“And your girlfriend’s another Democrat?”
“She isn’t my girlfriend. We’re—”
“I hate Democrats.”
“Who sent you?” Timmy asked.
“The wind, the rain …”
The Ohio delegate hid behind Timmy’s back. It upset Isaac to see her suffer. “Timmy, it’s gone too far, the President’s tricks.”
“Shirl,” Tim said, “this man isn’t from the President. He’s a local hood.”
“He busts in here. He pronounces your name.”
“We’re in the papers, Shirl. We’re on the tube. The hotel must have hired him.”
He handed Isaac a thick wad of traveler’s checks.
Isaac tore up the checks. The prince started to shake, and Isaac walked out of the room. He cursed himself. The Bull had sent him barking at the moon. He couldn’t find Marianna with or without Seligman’s stink.
He returned to the Garden, bumped into his chauffeur. He had to shake Mullins, whisper in his ear. “It’s me. Where the fuck have you been?”
“I don’t know, boss. Somebody cracked me on the head while I was walking out of Gracie with the little girl.”
“And you just woke up and wandered into the Garden?”
“They put me in a cellar.”
“With Marianna Storm?”
“She wasn’t there, boss. They were kind to me. They let me have my heart medicine.”
“Think, Mullins. Were you in the dungeon at Elizabeth Street?”
“It was too dark to tell.”
“And who chauffeured you here? The captain’s own cops?”
“They could have been cops, boss, but they weren’t wearing uniforms. I didn’t recognize any of them. They looked very clean.”
Citizen Sidel (The Isaac Sidel Novels) Page 3