Grandmothers and little girls bowed to him. An old man gave him a crumpled dollar bill, not as tribute, but as some special totem. More and more people gave him crumpled dollar bills.
He was having the time of his life until Elizabeth Street caught up with him, discovered his charade. Captain Bart stepped out of a patrol car.
“What the fuck are you doing, Sidel?”
“I’m not sure. But it’s my guess that some of the citizens are mistaking me for young Doug.”
“Dougy’s dead.”
“Then what are those crumpled bills all about?”
“Get into the car, will ya, Sidel? Or do we have to drag you in plain daylight?”
Isaac got into the car. Grossvogel wiped the rivulets of black paint from Isaac’s cheeks with a big handkerchief.
“Shall we have our own true confessions, huh, Mr. Mayor? Dougy was out of his mind. He dreamt he was a character in a book.”
“Benya Krik.”
“I don’t care about the details. He’d gone insane. That was enough. He was protecting the little people.”
“And they thanked him with crumpled dollar bills.”
“Evidently. But he didn’t collect enough. He was robbing merchants and Mafia button men, giving all his loot to dope addicts and skels who lived on the roofs … like the whole precinct was his patrimony, his private estate.”
“Maldavanka,” Isaac mumbled.
“Will ya listen to me? He robbed from other cops, from his own fucking captain. I wanted to psycho him out, but it would have left a scar on my ship. So I talked to his dad, I summoned Captain Knight to Elizabeth Street for a chat, and that son of a bitch blamed me, said I was corrupting Doug Jr., teaching him how to steal. Jesus, man, didn’t we drive half the Mafia out?”
“With money from the White House and Bull Latham.”
“The Bureau can spend millions, but I can’t … the dons are in jail. And the Chinese gangs have moved out to Queens. Sidel, I run a quiet ship.”
“Too quiet. You shouldn’t have grabbed Marianna, drugged a little girl.”
“Ah, Daniella’s been talking to you, eh? Didn’t I take care of the girlie? Nothing rough. She had the best babysitter in the world. My own daughter. And I returned the package, didn’t I? No harm done … and you shouldn’t go around in orange pants, Sidel. That’s what pimps wear in the barrio. I’d have to arrest you for soliciting. And it would cause a scandal.”
The captain produced an enormous pair of scissors from under his seat. He signaled to his men, who held Isaac down, while the captain proceeded to cut different patterns in Isaac’s pants, like some inspired couturier.
“I could kill you right now. Dump you in some lot. They wouldn’t find you for a month. But you’re a lucky man. You have your own champion in the White House. The Prez is awful fond of you. You’re his hero. A mayor with a Glock in his pants. He’d have to commit suicide if Michael wasn’t such a mediocre candidate. ‘Can’t we turn Isaac around, make him into a Republican?’ That’s what the President said to me.”
“He stole my woman.”
“I’m not prepared to discuss the President’s love life,” Grossvogel said and continued to cut Isaac’s pants.
“Are you finished, Bart?”
“Almost.”
He delivered Isaac to Carl Schurz Park and socked him in the face. “Don’t ever come into my turf again.”
“Your turf, Bart? I grew up on the Lower East Side.”
“But you graduated to Gracie Mansion. It’s healthier for you uptown.”
Isaac went through the gate in his tattered orange pants like some medieval jester. The detectives from his own detail didn’t dare smirk at him. But Isaac felt a chill in his bones. It had nothing to do with torn pants. He had a guest from D.C. Margaret Tolstoy with her almond eyes, her silver hair cropped like an army recruit. Isaac wanted to smile, but he couldn’t. She hadn’t come to him out of some crazy whim, the desire to see an old school chum. He’d been in love with a phantom these forty years. Anastasia. He was gloomy again. Margaret was the President’s lady … and the President’s man.
6
Hello, bashful. I like your pants.”
He hadn’t seen her in months. She’d lived with him in Grade as his houseguest and disappeared. Bull Latham, that son of a bitch, had sneaked her into Prague. It was Timmy’s doing. Tim had prodded the Bull to get rid of Anastasia, while the Democrats groomed Isaac, prepared him for the vice-presidency. Foreign diplomats began to fall in love with Isaac’s dark lady, and Tim had to pull her out of Prague.
“Came for a visit,” she said. “I can’t stay.”
They went up to Isaac’s bedroom. She undressed. Isaac peeked at her varicose veins. They were like gorgeous landmarks on her body. She shucked off Isaac’s clothes. It didn’t matter how artful she was. Isaac’s prick was asleep. He couldn’t make love to Margaret.
Should he ask her about her trips to the White House?
“I missed you,” she said. “Your curly hair.”
“Margaret, look again. I’m practically bald.”
“Stop kidding me. You have half a forest.”
He considered strangling her. He couldn’t. She stared at his miserable peanut. “I’m out of practice,” he said. “You shouldn’t have left me like that. I wake up. You’re gone.”
“I’m a whore.”
“That’s no explanation,” he said. “Tim told me about your exploits in Prague. Every diplomat in the country was under your spell.”
“It’s your fault. You entered politics. How could I live in a mansion with you? You’re a married man.”
“Means nothing. Haven’t seen Kathleen in years.”
He’d married the Countess Kathleen when he was just a kid. A redhead in real estate she was. She introduced Isaac to the Irish Mafia at the NYPD. They had a daughter, Marilyn the Wild, who kissed all the boys in the cellars of Marble Hill. Kathleen fled to Florida, became a millionairess, and Isaac had holes in his pockets, spent all his money on the baseball team he managed in the Police Athletic League. If the Democrats won, Isaac would be the first pauper vice-president.
“Kathleen wouldn’t interfere in the election,” Isaac said. “She’d never hurt me.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But there’s another complication. I’m also married.”
Ah, his prick started to stir. “Married to whom?”
“The Butcher of Bucharest.”
“Antonescu? Jesus, you were a baby. You couldn’t have been more than eleven when you married him.”
“Twelve.”
“Twelve’s not a legal marriage.”
“It was in Odessa.”
Ferdinand Antonescu ruled the Black Sea during World War II, had his own little Nazi state, and managed to smuggle his bride out of Odessa in forty-four, on a Red Cross boat.
“I thought the Russians killed him.”
“No. He was with a circus for a little while.”
“Margaret, he must be a hundred years old.”
“He’s eighty-five and he has all his teeth … lives in Alexandria.”
“How the hell did he get to Egypt?”
“Not that Alexandria. He’s in a nursing home near the Potomac.”
“An FBI crib,” Isaac said. “That’s the hold the Bureau has over you. Goddammit. You have to protect a living ghost.”
“He’s not a ghost. He raised me, Isaac.”
“And took you into his bed.”
“I was a waif. He paid for my ballet lessons.”
“And took you into his bed. I’d call it fucking child abuse.”
“We didn’t have such fancy terms in those days. He kept me alive. I’d never have met you without Ferdinand.”
“Should I go to that crib and thank him, dear?”
She slapped Isaac’s face. It wasn’t torture. His peanut grew. He made love to Margaret. He was just as evil as the Butcher of Bucharest. He was filled with spite.
“Who sent you? Bull Latham or the Prez?�
��
“Calder would skin me alive if he knew I was here. I had to dodge the Secret Service. They’re with me around the clock.”
“That’s funny. I have the Secret Service right in this house.”
“They’re your Secret Service men, not Calder’s.”
“Aren’t they part of the same stinking show? Calder Cottonwood and his band.”
“Don’t mock the President of the United States.”
“Margaret,” Isaac asked, “are you patriotic all of a sudden? What did America do but turn you into a huntress?”
“It introduced me to a gypsy schoolboy, Isaac Sidel.”
“I wasn’t such a gypsy,” Isaac said.
“But that’s what I tell the President.”
“You talk about us?”
“All the time.”
“The intimate details of our romance?”
“Every one. He can’t go to sleep without some new adventure about us … Isaac, I’m his Scheherazade.”
“Grand,” Isaac said. He wanted to will his past away, forget the little girl with holes in her socks who destroyed the stability of Isaac’s class, turned boys into beggars competing for Margaret’s charms. She called herself the Princess Anastasia, royalty who’d arrived out of nowhere and was whisked back to Roumania, where she continued her schooling at a KGB kindergarten. Was she already working for the FBI? A double agent who played with dolls.
She touched Isaac’s cheek. “Imbecile. Calder can’t live without my stories. He’s impotent.”
“That’s kind of you to say. I don’t believe it. He’s always chasing women.”
“Now he chases me … Calder’s seen a hundred urologists. They can’t do a thing. But my stories soothe him. Sometimes he has a tiny erection, but it never stays.”
“And I have to hear about it?”
“You love details. You could be Calder’s twin.”
“Does the Prez want to whack me, put a bullet in my brain?”
“Warm, darling … I’ve been hunting for a renegade cop.”
“Captain Grossvogel?”
“Not Grossvogel. One of his men.”
Isaac had to bite his lip. Sinbad the Sailor was a prophet on his little boat. Dougy wasn’t dead.
“You’re going into the Maldavanka, aren’t you?”
“This isn’t Odessa, darling. This isn’t the Black Sea.”
“Wanna bet? You’re chasing a guy in orange pants.”
“Benya Krik. You’ve been reading too many books. And don’t question me, darling. You have your own Lolita in the house.”
“What Lolita?”
“That cutie pie who pretends she’s Clarice’s daughter.”
“She is Clarice’s girl. Marianna Storm.”
“Are you sleeping with her?”
“Margaret, she’s twelve.”
“I was rolling around with Uncle Ferdinand long before that.”
“But I’m not Ferdinand. And Marianna’s in love with a little street artist. She has her own bedroom in the mansion. And a bodyguard.”
Anastasia started to dress.
“I could keep you here,” Isaac muttered, “lock you in this room.”
“It’s been tried … you’d have bodies everywhere, and Bull would get mad at me.”
“But Dougy doesn’t deserve to die.”
“You’re talking riddles, Isaac. Did I say ‘die’? And who’s Dougy?”
“Captain Knight’s boy.”
“He’s already dead. And I don’t do miracles.”
She kissed Isaac Sidel, sucked at his face, and ran away from him before he could summon the Secret Service.
7
He began to rise and rise in the polls. The Democratic Party had to get behind Sidel. What did he care if Seligman screamed? Isaac decided to go to Scottsdale with the little first lady. He wouldn’t bumble around in Phoenix. He’d lecture to a couple of classes at the university, not as a candidate, but as a criminologist. He appealed to his Secret Service man. “Boyle, do a little shopping, will ya? Find me Captain Knight’s address.”
And he caught a flight with Martin Boyle, Marianna, and her Secret Service man, Joe Montaigne, charged the tickets to the Storm-Sidel Election Committee. He couldn’t pretend to be some anonymous voyager. Everybody recognized Marianna. He was only her escort, a balding mayor with sideburns. People kept making pilgrimages to Marianna’s window seat. Boyle found her a big red crayon, and she wrote “Affectionately, Marianna Storm” on menus and bookmarks and slips of paper.
There was a motorcade from the airport to the university. Marianna had to sit in the lap of her Secret Service man and wave at women and children who stood along the edge of the road with astonished looks.
“Bless you, Marianna. We hope you’ll make it to the White House with Mr. Isaac.”
A classroom couldn’t hold Sidel. He had to lecture in the gym. Arizona was Republican country. The Prez was from Phoenix, had gone to Arizona State, might have played basketball in this very gym. But Isaac hadn’t come to provoke President Cottonwood. He wouldn’t talk partisan politics. He stood on a special platform near center court, with the little first lady beside him. Boyle started to tremble.
“We can’t protect you, sir. Not under these conditions. It wasn’t supposed to be a gym. There could be a sniper upstairs … with your name and Marianna’s on a dumdum bullet.”
“Stop worrying. I’ll hold Marianna under my wing.”
Isaac rocked on the platform, never mentioned Republicans, Democrats, and Calder Cottonwood’s anti-crime commission. But the crowd hadn’t forgotten Isaac’s acceptance speech.
“Sinbad,” students shouted at him, “Sinbad the Sailor.”
“Kids,” Isaac said, “I’m only a sailor in my dreams … but I’d love to recruit all of you, have you become policemen and policewomen. Because it’s important. Not the pension and the other perks. Not the gun in your belt. Not the uniform. But the little marks of wisdom. I’d ask you to study Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, and Chester Himes. Those are your real law books. Human laughter and pain. Not statistics,” Isaac said.
Marianna crept out from under him. “I agree. I’d go to any cop school where Uncle Isaac can teach …”
“Sinbad,” the students shouted, “Sinbad and the little first lady.” They banged their feet against the floorboards, and the gym began to sway. Joe Montaigne handed Isaac a portable phone.
“Not now,” Isaac barked.
“It’s Tim Seligman, sir.”
“I don’t need that prick to punish me.”
“Tim’s not into punishment, sir.”
Isaac grabbed the phone. “Yeah, Tim. I know. I’m in Cottonwood country, and I’d better get the hell out of there. But I have a chore to do.”
“It was perfect,” Seligman said. “I wasn’t expecting a major policy address. Cops without guns, Shakespeare in their pockets. That we can sell.”
“How did you happen to hear my speech?”
“We’re not amateurs, Isaac. We had a radio hookup in the stands.”
“Tim, are you microphoning me?”
Isaac tossed the telephone back to Joe Montaigne. “Next time, Joe, I can’t be reached.”
But the Big Guy wasn’t through. He had to field questions from that storm of people in the stands. His heart pounded when he noticed Pamela Box among the students. Pam was Calder’s chief of staff, a ferocious girl of thirty-five who’d stepped away from the White House to dog Michael during the campaign. She was also sleeping with the Prez, and Isaac could imagine how Margaret Tolstoy had begun to complicate her life. She was much younger than Margaret, more of a classic beauty, with blond hair and a perfect nose, but how could Pam compete with Margaret’s varicose veins?
“Sidel, it’s wonderful to imagine a world of educated constables, Shakespearean scholars roaming the streets with a Glock, but aren’t you a bit naive? Will your scholars shoot when they have to shoot? Or will they quote Shakespeare to young hoodlums and psychopaths?”
Isaac didn’t shy away from Pam.
“Perhaps my Shakespeareans will hesitate before they shoot. But that won’t make them any less of a constable. Trigger-happy cops are psychopaths themselves. I’d rather have a cop who can reason with the worst criminals.”
“Same old story,” she shouted back. “But you can’t have much compassion in a jungle.”
“I’m not so sure. Kill compassion, and that’s where the jungle begins.”
“Then why are you wearing a Glock?”
“It’s a weakness, Mrs. Box. I might not need one if I had more Shakespeare in my blood.”
He whispered to Martin Boyle. “Let’s move before she cuts us to pieces.”
The university had arranged a lunch, but Isaac darted out of the gym with Marianna and the two Secret Service men. They had a meal at Howard Johnson’s, where Isaac was served his own pot of coffee. He drank and drank.
“Darling,” Marianna said, “you’ll get palpitations.”
“Don’t henpeck me.”
“She’s right, sir,” Boyle said. “You’ve had two pots.”
“I have to fortify myself … Captain Knight’s a tough cookie.”
The Big Guy stepped across the street. The captain was hiding in a fancy bungalow behind Howard Johnson’s. Isaac didn’t even have to knock. Captain Knight came out to greet him.
“Sidel, go away.”
“Can’t, Doug. I think you and your little boy have been romancing me.”
“Don’t you speak of the dead like that.”
“I wouldn’t, but you see, Dougy’s still alive.”
The captain shoved Isaac into the bungalow, left Marianna and the Secret Service standing in the street.
The bungalow wasn’t like Brooklyn; it had no charm. It must have been furnished by the FBI or the President’s own people. Captain Doug and his wife were trapped inside a world of wallpaper, where some endless garden of tulips seemed about to swallow them up.
“How did you make me so quick, Mr. Vice-President?”
Isaac couldn’t tell Captain Doug that his own Secret Service man, Martin Boyle, was on the case. Boyle had a magic resource: Isaac Sidel. Doors began to open the minute he invoked Isaac’s name.
“Dougy’s in danger,” Isaac said.
Citizen Sidel (The Isaac Sidel Novels) Page 5