“Clean,” Isaac said, “very clean.”
The Big Guy went up to Gracie without his driver. There was an aroma in the mansion that lightened his mood. He followed that aroma into the kitchen like a happy dog. Marianna was baking a new batch of butterscotch cookies. She wagged her head at him. “Take off that stupid nose.”
“Marianna, did the bad guys let you go?”
“What bad guys?”
“The ones who grabbed you outside the mansion with Mullins.”
“I don’t remember. I had a dream. I was with a sailor on a ship.”
“Did he have a red harpoon?”
“I think so.”
Isaac laughed at the picture of Marianna and himself. A couple of twins dreaming in chorus.
“What did he catch with the harpoon?”
“Junk,” Marianna said. “Nothing but junk. A rusty badge. An old shoe.”
“And then what happened?”
“I opened my eyes … and I was on a bench in Carl Schurz Park. So I came here.”
They’d chloroformed her, put a rag in her mouth, slipped her into Elizabeth Street, and then carried her back up to Isaac’s domain.
“Marianna, did you call your mom?”
“Why should I? I only had a nap.”
“Some nap.” He called Clarice. He’d have to lie like Sinbad the Sailor.
“Found her,” he said. “It’s my fault. She fell asleep in one of the bedrooms. Clarice, I swear. I didn’t even know she was in the house.”
“You son of a bitch,” Clarice said, “wait until you’re vice-president. J. will send you to Siberia.”
Marianna grabbed the phone. “Mother, stop picking on Isaac … I’m fine. I don’t have to come home. Isaac will bring me to the convention.”
Marianna started to undress. Isaac panicked, found her a robe. She took a bath while the Big Guy’s maid washed and ironed Marianna’s clothes. He crept upstairs, stood in front of the mirror, frightened of his own face. He was a madman with a harpoon. Sinbad the Sailor. He put on another suit from Milan and went back down to Marianna, who looked like an angel in her ironed clothes.
“Darling,” she said, “don’t forget your speech.”
They were like royalty. Isaac and Marianna walked arm in arm, and had their own mysterious glow under the Garden lights. The Democratic donkey flashed onto the electric signboard over their heads. Then an image of Marianna displaced the donkey. She’d become the Democrats’ little darling, and Isaac was her escort, him with the battered face.
They marched to the podium, sat among Party people. Clarice was already chafing. Her own daughter had outclassed her on the night of J. Michael’s acceptance speech. The magnificent décolleté of her dress was nothing compared to the grace of a twelve-year-old girl.
The cameras were on Isaac and the Garden’s little first lady. But the Big Guy wasn’t thinking of his Democratic future. He saw Bull Latham in the crowd, among the crisscrossed signboards of each delegation. He crept off the podium and followed Bull into the men’s room. As soon as Bull entered one of the toilet stalls, Isaac banged the door against him, and climbed on the Bull’s back.
“You kidnapped Marianna. Captain Bart was only your accomplice. It was your men who brought Marianna back to the Garden.”
“You’re crazy, Sidel. I had to act once Bart grabbed the girl. I couldn’t stay out of the loop. I negotiated for Tim … and get the fuck off my back.”
Isaac bit the Bull’s ear, and Latham ran with him across the men’s room like a linebacker.
“What did you promise Bart?”
Bull knocked Isaac against the wall. A mirror smashed. The Big Guy slumped to the floor. His suit had ripped at the shoulder. Bull kicked him once and was about to walk away. “I promised him the world, if you’d like to know.”
Isaac wasn’t finished. He tackled Bull Latham, who twisted around and kept smashing Isaac with his elbows. The Big Guy lost a tooth. He had blood on his shirt. He blinked and blinked, but he couldn’t see the Bull. Then an angel appeared in the men’s room. Martin Boyle. Boyle was holding Isaac’s Glock against the Bull’s cheek.
“You wouldn’t shoot,” the Bull said. “I’m FBI.”
“I might,” Boyle said, “if you had homicide on your mind. Let the Citizen go.”
Bull walked inside the stall, and Boyle helped Isaac to his feet.
“Martin,” Isaac said, “I’m blind. I can’t see a fucking thing.”
“It will pass, Mr. President. He hit you pretty hard.”
Boyle shoved the Glock back inside Isaac’s pants, walked him out of the men’s room and onto the podium, with cameras flicking in his face. He wanted to find his seat, but Tim grabbed his arm and shoved him toward the microphone, hissing into his back. “Damn you, it’s time for your speech.”
Ah, he hadn’t looked at Marianna’s version. He started to pat his pockets. He’d lost his speech in the men’s room. It didn’t matter. He’d sing a mayor’s song. “I’m Sinbad,” he said, “and I accept my Party’s nomination,” before he swooned and fell off the podium, into the arms of his Secret Service man.
The Democrats climbed ten points in the polls. They had a fighter on their team who warred with the FBI and delivered the shortest acceptance speech in American history.
He was rushed to Roosevelt Hospital, slept with a tube in his arm. Marianna visited him in the morning, kissed him on the forehead. “Darling,” she said, “Mother wants to disown me. But I thought you were wonderful. Who would ever dare campaign against Sinbad the Sailor?”
Isaac closed his eyes. He was content. His body curled over. He started to dream. Sinbad had his red harpoon. He dredged a monster with a humped back out of the sea. It wasn’t a shark or a baby whale. Isaac’s catch had human eyes. His mouth shaped a scream.
“Shhh. I won’t harm you.”
It was Daniella Grossvogel. She’d come to Isaac in a blue skirt, with blood-red roses in her hand.
“Did your father send you?” Isaac asked.
“No, Mr. Mayor. Dad would murder me if he knew I was here. But I had to come. I betrayed you.”
“Professor Grossvogel, you’re not my bride.”
“It’s worse than that.”
“Ah,” Isaac sang, with the only humor he could summon from his hospital bed. “Did you send that gangster in orange pants after me? Babel’s gangster. What’s his name? Benya Krik. The guy who owns Odessa’s Lower East Side.”
“I wish it were Benya Krik,” Daniella said. “You would have got along with him.”
“He’s only fiction,” Isaac had to mutter.
“Sometimes fiction can leap off the page.”
“But can it govern seven million souls? Ah, I’m getting philosophical. Forgive me, Daniella.”
“I’m the one who has to beg forgiveness. I betrayed you. I minded Marianna Storm for Dad. I was her babysitter.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Dad brought her to me, carried her in his arms. She was in quite a heavy sleep, almost like a coma. And he didn’t want to leave Michael’s girl with his own ruffians at the station-house. So I was elected, Mr. Mayor.”
“But you could have phoned me.”
“It was too dangerous. I wasn’t alone. Dad’s policemen were in the other room.”
“And why are you telling me now?”
“I’m ashamed,” she said. “I’m a criminal, like Dad and young Doug. I belong to Dad’s crime school.”
“Nah,” Isaac said, “you had to protect the little girl. She was safe with you. I’m the one who ought to be grateful. You should have married Dougy, eloped with him, pulled him away from Elizabeth Street.”
“I couldn’t,” she said. “Elizabeth Street had become his opium den. He liked to imagine himself as Benya Krik.”
“Daniella, did he wear orange pants?”
“Most of the time. But he wasn’t Benya. Benya wouldn’t have worked for Barton Grossvogel. Benya didn’t like police stations.”
�
�Maybe some magician could bring him back alive. I liked the kid. He was a good cop.”
“Before my father got to him.”
“It’s not so simple. The White House was running Elizabeth Street. I just found out. Elizabeth Street was part of the President’s phantom commission. Can you imagine? Barton Grossvogel doing hits for the United States.”
“That’s how Dad sucked Dougy in so deep. It was like a religious order. The President’s band of criminal knights. But Dougy never got rich. He borrowed from Dad, gave all his money to an assortment of lowlifes.”
“Until his own father shot him dead.”
“Don’t believe it. Captain Knight didn’t kill Dougy.”
“Then who did?”
“I’m not sure,” Daniella said. “Dad might have ordered his execution, but he loves me in his own stupid way. And he wouldn’t have deprived his crippled daughter of a husband.”
“Then how the hell did Dougy die?”
Daniella shrugged her shoulders. “It’s a mystery, Mr. Mayor.” She left the roses on Isaac’s bed and was gone before the invalid could thank her or say good-bye.
Part Two
5
He had the little first lady all to himself. The Democrats didn’t want Marianna on the same bus with Clarice. And they didn’t want Sidel. Seligman and his spin doctors couldn’t capitalize on Sidel’s popularity without hurting Michael. And so they developed a strategy to contain Isaac, keep him out of Michael’s hair.
He wouldn’t tour with Michael and Clarice. He would stick to his mansion, or make little forages into the heartland.
He went up to Peekskill with Marianna Storm. He wasn’t on a Democratic mission. Isaac had to play Marianha’s beard. She was in love with Angel Carpenteros, aka Alyosha, a twelve-year-old artist and police spy who belonged to the Latin Jokers, the biggest and baddest gang of the Bronx. Alyosha had drawn murals on the walls of Featherbed Lane, celebrating the gang’s fallen heroes, heroes he himself had helped to trap. Isaac couldn’t figure out the politics of a Bronx gang. Alyosha had been caught between the cops and the Bronx’s natural chaos. Isaac himself had introduced the muralist to Marianna at a meeting of Merlin (one of his cockeyed schemes, a cultural enrichment program), and the two kids fell in love, Marianna Storm of Sutton Place South and Angel Carpenteros, address unknown. Isaac had to tuck Alyosha away at a posh juvenile facility in Peekskill, where the Latin Jokers couldn’t get to him and peel off his skin for having betrayed the gang.
“Darling,” Marianna said, “let’s hide Alyosha in your mansion. I’m lonely without him.”
“Wouldn’t I hide him if I could? Reporters are all over the place. And if they run into Alyosha? Think of the headlines. Candidate’s daughter romances local artist-hoodlum-priest.”
“He isn’t a hoodlum.”
“But the press will call him that. And the Jokers will find him. He wouldn’t last a week.”
The Big Guy was guilty as hell. He hated institutions. But Peekskill Manor had all the trappings of a country club, even if it was locked behind a gate with wires that could produce a terrible shock. There was plenty of privacy within the manor walls, where Marianna and the muralist could kiss and stroll, with Isaac a hundred feet behind them. The Big Guy was embarrassed. He’d never seen such hunger in two twelve-year-olds. Romeo and Juliet were like kindergartners compared to them.
“Boss,” Alyosha said, “do you have to trail us? I’m glad to see you. But enough is enough. We’re Merliners. We have things to discuss.”
“I’m responsible,” the Big Guy said.
Marianna hissed at him. “Uncle Isaac, go away. Get lost.”
And Isaac had to sit on a bench with his Secret Service man and Marianna’s. “You’re not to breathe a word,” he barked because he had no other audience at Peekskill Manor. “Alyosha doesn’t exist. I don’t want him mentioned in any briefs … or gossip among you guys.”
“We won’t upset the lovebirds,” said Marianna’s Secret Service man, Joe Montaigne, a sharpshooter from Missouri.
“They’re not lovebirds,” Isaac said. “They’re gifted children, Merliners—”
“Who like to kiss.”
“You’re not supposed to notice that,” Isaac said to Joe Montaigne.
“Then how can we protect them?”
“Look again, Montaigne. This manor is a closed world.”
“Any little acrobat can scale a wall … we have to watch them kiss.”
Marianna and her muralist returned in half an hour with swollen eyes and lips.
“Uncle,” Alyosha said, “I want to marry her.”
“Keep quiet. There’s a price on your head.”
“I’ll run away from here. Me and Marianna can’t live apart.”
“Grand,” Isaac said. They could move into the Democratic caravan, with Clarice and her “bodyguard,” Bernardo Dublin. It was Bernardo who’d destroyed half the Latin Jokers, even though Bernardo had once been a Joker himself. Isaac had recruited him right out of the gang, sent him to the Police Academy, taught him a policeman’s tricks. Isaac was responsible for Bernardo and Alyosha and the dead gangs of the Bronx. The children Alyosha had painted in his murals were casualties of Isaac’s war. The Big Guy had decimated a borough in his zeal to clean up the Bronx. He was some kind of Oliver Cromwell.
“Darling,” Marianna said, “you’ll have to give Alyosha to me … I won’t step inside the White House without him.”
“Would you both like the Lincoln Bedroom?”
“No,” Alyosha said. “It’s filled with ghosts.”
“Marianna, it would take a miracle to arrange the marriage of two twelve-year-olds, but even if I could, I’d only be hastening Alyosha’s death. The Jokers would get to him.”
“I’ll use another name,” Alyosha said.
“Homey, you have no other name.”
And Isaac whisked Marianna away from Peekskill before she could kiss Alyosha again. She’d become Isaac’s houseguest while Clarice and Michael were on the road. She bossed the cooks and maids around, prepared hard-boiled eggs for Isaac in the morning, ironed his summer suits, called Peekskill every night, punished the mayor with a fat phone bill. But the Big Guy loved having her around. It eased the ache of losing Margaret Tolstoy, knowing she was in the President’s arms. He’d glut himself with Marianna’s cookies and produce a prodigious bellyache.
He couldn’t stop thinking of Captain Knight and his dead son. A funny thing had already happened. The grand jury wouldn’t hand down a bill of indictment. Captain Doug was sent home from his monk’s cell at Criminal Courts. Grossvogel and his men swore that young Doug had been drinking and cursing at Elizabeth Street, talked of shooting his dad, stealing money from his mom. It was a little too neat a scenario. A father shoots his son in self-defense. The captain would have wrestled Dougy’s gun away. Isaac rode out to Pineapple Street, but neither the captain nor his wife would see him.
Isaac had to shout through the door. “Doug, will you speak to me, for Christ’s sake? I could break in, you know. I could pick your locks.”
But the Big Guy didn’t do a thing. And the next day Doug disappeared from Brooklyn Heights, moved out to Scottsdale, Arizona, with his wife, to live in the land of perpetual sun. Isaac had nothing against Scottsdale. He could have retired there himself, among the cactus plants, and a Howard Johnson’s that served a seven-course meal. He could have lectured at Arizona State, become an adjunct professor of criminal justice, even an honorary sheriff, but Captain Doug was Brooklyn-born, proud of Pineapple Street. He might have played golf in Scottsdale, but he’d never have given up his native ground. Isaac had served with Doug when he was the Commish, had pinned medals on him. Doug didn’t scare. But somebody had chased him out of Brooklyn.
Isaac neglected Marianna, forgot to campaign. He wandered around Elizabeth Street, searching for some imaginary creature in orange pants. What had Daniella said, with her fistful of blood-black roses? Sometimes fiction can leap off the page. But nothing leaped.
There were no Benya Kriks in Isaac’s back yard.
A rage built in him. He was being used. He’d become the Democratic bulldog who had to sit with a rope around his neck when he wanted to run to D.C., find Margaret Tolstoy, and grab her away from the President. But he would have ruined the show, toppled that crazy house of American politics. Jack Kennedy had had a dozen mistresses, shared one or two with the Maf, another with his own brother Bob, but no previous president had battled the mayor of New York over the rights to a gorgeous double agent who was developing varicose veins.
He couldn’t trust Boyle or Joe Montaigne. These were the President’s men, even if they’d swallow bullets or bombs for Isaac. But he could trust a Merliner, like Marianna Storm.
“Darling,” he said, “I need a pair of orange pants.”
“That’s ridiculous. Orange pants. The country will laugh. And you won’t get elected. Not that I’d mind. I prefer Gracie Mansion to the White House.”
“Don’t argue,” he said. “I’m on an errand. And that errand calls for orange pants.”
He could have gone to the barrels of Orchard Street. But he didn’t want peddlers to know his business. Marianna got to work with the maids. They didn’t have to seek fresh material. They tore apart an old curtain and constructed a pair of orange pants. These pants had a magical pull. Isaac felt magnificent in them, like a gangster from the lush ghetto streets of Odessa. He had a makeup kit in his bedroom, a smattering of old clothes for his many disguises. He painted his eyebrows black. Benya Krik had to be a younger man than Sidel. He wore a red scarf, with a seaman’s cap on his balding pate. And then he ducked out of the mansion, fled to his Maldavanka, the badlands near Elizabeth Street.
Nothing happened.
He pointed himself like a compass and went deeper into the badlands. He wasn’t campaigning now. He wasn’t Sidel or Sinbad the Sailor. He was hiking in his orange pants. His painted eyebrows began to melt. He hadn’t considered the sun. Did he look like some drag queen?
A little boy came up to him, handed Isaac a rotting flower. “El Señor,” the boy said.
Citizen Sidel (The Isaac Sidel Novels) Page 4