“Make him stop,” Sandra said.
“I’m not kidding. The Prez has his own hitter out looking for him. The best. Margaret Tolstoy.”
Sandra began to laugh and cry. “Margaret Tolstoy.”
“What’s so funny?” Isaac had to ask.
“Margaret was working with Doug Jr.,” the captain said. “They knocked off half the Mafia around Elizabeth Street.”
“She was in Manhattan all this time?”
“How should I know, Mr. Vice-President? She could have shuttled between Manhattan and the President’s bed.”
“That’s nice. But the Prez has still given her Dougy as her own special detail … what would I find if I opened Dougy’s coffin? Some Mafia lowlife with his face shot off and his fingers missing?”
“Open all the coffins you want. Dougy was cremated last week.”
“I was in the Maldavanka,” Isaac said, “wearing orange pants.”
“He’s crazy,” Sandra said.
“People mistook me for young Doug.”
“Get out of my house,” the captain said.
“They handed me crumpled dollar bills … you cut a deal with the President, didn’t you? You staged Dougy’s death. Dougy was supposed to become a sleeper, a hidden submarine, but he went right back into the badlands. Had he embarrassed the President, huh? Was he killing people he shouldn’t have killed?”
Captain Knight tossed Isaac out on his ass.
The little first lady stood over Isaac, scrutinizing him.
“Are you hurt?”
“No,” Isaac said. And he ran from Scottsdale with his entourage.
He couldn’t leave Manhattan for one lousy day. Some graffiti artist had emerged in his absence, drew his picture on the walls of abandoned buildings. Isaac looked like a balding Che Guevara, without a mustache or a beard. Stories began to appear in newspapers and magazines about the mysterious artist. But it wasn’t much of a riddle to Isaac or Marianna Storm. Angel Carpenteros had run away from his country-club prison. Isaac took to the sky. He had to find Angel before the Latin Jokers found him. He roamed Manhattan in his chopper, sat with Martin Boyle, looking down upon the relentless geometry of the streets.
“Boss, it’s like trying to find a cockroach from another planet.”
Isaac searched and searched, but he had no luck.
He went home to his mansion. Marianna grabbed at him, wouldn’t bake the butterscotch cookies Sidel needed to survive. She’d become like his own little wife. The Big Guy wished the campaign would never end and he wouldn’t have to give Marianna back to Michael and Clarice. He liked it when she bossed him and his servants. But she wouldn’t get off the topic of Angel Carpenteros, that little Rembrandt who was making him look more and more like Guevara. Angel began drawing Isaac with a slight beard and a beret.
Seligman screamed from Party headquarters. “Find the artist, whoever he is. We can’t afford him, Isaac. It’s a Republican trick. The Prez is trying to turn you into a pinko.”
“Well, Timmy, wasn’t I the Pink Commish?”
“That was years ago,” Seligman said. “And we scratched it out of your dossier.”
Isaac didn’t give a damn about Tim’s complaints. He would only answer to Marianna Storm.
“He’ll die out there,” Marianna said. “He’s so innocent.”
Isaac didn’t have the heart to tell her that Alyosha had helped destroy his own gang.
He went up into the sky again, with Boyle and Marianna beside him in bucket seats, and scoured the Bronx. But Alyosha had limited his art to Manhattan, outside Joker territory. And when he drew Isaac with a beret and a bigger beard on the walls of a warehouse close to Elizabeth Street, the Big Guy understood that Angel wasn’t simply avoiding the Jokers: he was moving deeper and deeper into the city’s desolation. Isaac ordered his pilot to hover near the Maldavanka. It frightened him. He could have been entering a bloodless black heart, some hole in the universe that might suck him in. He wanted to get the hell out, but Marianna insisted that they cruise.
“Uncle,” she said, “I can feel him … he’s here.”
Isaac discovered a dead church in that no-man’s-land between Essex and the East River. He looked for signs of Alyosha’s art. But there were no images of Isaac as Guevara or Groucho Marx. The walls of the Maldavanka seemed deprived without Alyosha. The kid hadn’t come to no-man’s-land. And Isaac was prepared to turn back. He waved to his pilot, and that’s when he saw the orange pants. A man was running amidst the debris. He had some kind of animal on his shoulder, like a balding cat, but Isaac wasn’t close enough to really tell.
“Emilio,” he barked at the pilot. “We’re going down.”
The chopper swerved into the wind and landed on a pile of rubble. “Wait here,” Isaac said to Boyle and Marianna, and jumped out like some forlorn parachutist minus the silk on his back. He rushed toward the orange pants.
“Benya,” Isaac muttered, and now he could recognize that bald animal; the guy in the orange pants had a huge rat curled around his neck. Doug Jr. had risen like Jesus Christ, and roamed the Maldavanka, where a man could take a rat as a pet.
“Dougy,” Isaac said.
“Who sent you?”
He had stubble on his chin, but not a genuine beard.
“I like your pet.”
“He’s a fucking rat, and he doesn’t like strangers. Who sent you?”
The rat stared at Isaac with a terrible longing in its pink eyes. It seemed more human than most of the wise guys Isaac had arrested.
“What’s his name?”
“Raskolnikov,” Dougy said. “But he won’t talk to you.”
“Ah, a philosopher, a talking rat.”
“Why not? He has his own fucking language … who sent you?”
“I sent myself,” Isaac said. “Margaret Tolstoy is coming into the badlands, and she means business.”
“Let her come,” Dougy said.
“Are you stupid? She hunts for the FBI.”
“And sleeps with Calder Cottonwood.”
“Why did you fake your own death, huh? Your dad had to leave Brooklyn on account of you.”
“Did I have a choice, Mr. Mayor? I was part of the President’s own task force. Margaret and me. We knocked off the Maf. But I wasn’t satisfied. Landlords were getting greedy. They hiked up the rent in the worst shitholes, hired goons to beat up on tenants. I had to do something. I couldn’t sit and watch. I whacked one of them, shot him in the head. I’m not sorry. But the Prez got scared. Not about the killing. Politicos might accuse his darling little task force of practicing socialism. I beat the hell out of another landlord. I started stealing from cops at the precinct. Was I supposed to let a lot of grandmas and babies starve? The cops were stealing from grocers. I took their loot away from them.”
“A regular Robin Hood … with a Russian rat. Raskolnikov.”
“Hey, don’t mock him. He’s sensitive.”
“I’m sensitive too.”
“Not. for very long. Once you’re elected, you’ll be as big a prick as Calder. He put the pressure on Dad, through Captain Bart. They said I had to go. Margaret thought up the scheme while she was in bed with Cottonwood. He went for it. Margaret picked Dad as my executioner. First they found a skel …”
“And you were supposed to leave the badlands, go west somewhere. But you couldn’t trade in your orange pants.”
“Not while those landlords and lousy cops are still in bloom.”
“But I told you. Margaret’s coming.”
“She’s one more pistolero, Isaac. I pity her.”
“I could arrest you. I have the Secret Service with me.”
“I know. And Marianna Storm. They’re right behind you.”
Martin Boyle and the little first lady had left the chopper, and stood with Sidel. Marianna kept staring at the rat on Dougy’s shoulder. And that’s when Isaac heard Raskolnikov squeal like a soprano singing inside a tunnel made of tin. Isaac understood. Raskolnikov was in a state of rapture.
The rat must have fallen in love with Marianna Storm. His whole body started to wiggle. Dougy had to shout above the rat’s song.
“You gonna whack me, Isaac? That’s the only way you’ll get me out of here.”
He rubbed the rat’s nose, and Raskolnikov quieted down. Then he turned his back on Isaac and walked away.
“Uncle,” Marianna said, “who is that man?”
Part Three
8
The warhorse was coming to town, Michael Storm, who could have stayed with Clarice on Sutton Place South. But New York was Sidel’s territory, and J. Michael had to give the impression that he was a man of the United States. The Storm-Sidel Election Committee had booked a suite for him at the Waldorf, Michael’s Manhattan address. Michael wanted his own kingdom, like John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who lived at the Waldorf while he was away from the White House. But Michael didn’t have a billionaire dad behind him, a family of Boston Irish brahmins. His own mom and dad were kindergarten teachers. He’d saved baseball, settled a wildcat strike, but he was only an ex—student radical who’d swerved a little to the right.
He would have had Sidel killed if he could. Sidel was poisoning his future presidency. But he’d never win without that sheriff from the Lower East Side. He lagged behind his own running mate in all the polls. And the knowledge of it gnawed at him. Seligman was preening Michael, had picked him to address an international association of optometrists, who’d taken over the Waldorf. Michael wouldn’t even have to leave the hotel. But he didn’t want Isaac dashing around the city with his Glock. He ordered Seligman to put Isaac under house arrest. The mayor was a prisoner in his own mansion.
Isaac didn’t rebel. He could live outside the dream of politics for a little while. It was his first vacation in years. But he couldn’t stop thinking of Doug Jr., that resurrected Christ. The Maldavanka felt more like a home to him than Gracie Mansion. The Big Guy launched armies in his head. He’d shut down Elizabeth Street, rescue Margaret Tolstoy, find Alyosha. But he couldn’t move while Michael was in town.
The baseball czar phoned from the Waldorf. He didn’t want to speak to Isaac. He growled until Marianna got on the line.
“You never see me,” Michael said. “I’m your dad.”
“I’m looking for Alyosha.”
“That brat, the muralist?”
“He’s missing.”
“Sure,” Michael said. “He does a lot of damage for a missing boy. He’s sabotaging my campaign. He draws Sidel. Why not me?”
“You’re not his hero,” Marianna said.
“Who’s paying him? The FBI, or the Cottonwood Reelection Committee?”
“I’ll hang up on you, Father, if you keep talking like that.”
“So formal with your own fucking dad? … get me Sidel.”
Marianna handed the phone to Isaac, who hadn’t talked to J. Michael since the convention. Michael wouldn’t even say hello to his running mate.
“That’s how you keep my little girl, huh, you prick?”
“What’s eating you, J.? Haven’t I been docile enough? I sit here like a rat in his manger. Aren’t you happy?”
“Have my little girl at the Waldorf in half an hour, or I’ll take her from you, I swear to God. No more cookies, Isaac.”
Michael hung up and Isaac had to plead with Marianna Storm. “If you don’t listen to him, we’ll all suffer.”
“Uncle Isaac, he tried to murder my mom.”
“Shhh,” Isaac said. “There could be a hundred different agencies tapping my phone.”
“He hired Bernardo Dublin, didn’t he? And Mom’s so pathetic, she could only fall in love with a man who came to kill her.”
“Marianna, please.”
“Well, isn’t Bernardo her lover and her bodyguard?”
“If you don’t go to Michael, I’ll lose you. I’m not your guardian. I have no legal claim. And what will I do here? Practically an old man.”
“What about Alyosha?”
“I’ll put Boyle on the case. The Secret Service will find him.”
“Boyle doesn’t even know what Alyosha looks like.”
“We’ll lend him a photograph.”
“We don’t have any, darling.”
“Come on, the kid’s on file with the Bronx brigade.”
“Why would the police have Alyosha’s photograph?”
“Wasn’t he a member of the Jokers? Well, the cops photographed the entire gang … hurry up”
And Marianna rode down to the Waldorf with her Secret Service man. Raskolnikov kept flashing in front of her eyes, the rat who could cling to a man’s neck like a monkey, but the monkey she remembered had such suffering eyes …
The Waldorf couldn’t impress her, even if it contained an entire block, and was like an ocean liner stranded in some dead sea it had swallowed up. She knew that presidents stayed there, that eccentric millionaire’s lived in the towers and never had to leave the Waldorf. She ran up the green-carpeted stairs on the Park Avenue side of the hotel, with Joe Montaigne just behind her. There were fresh-cut flowers in tiny urns on tables at the top of the stairs. Marianna didn’t even bother to look at the murals on the walls, but she did notice the bored lady pianist who sat on her bench in the cocktail terrace like an angel held in position by invisible strings.
Secret Service men with plugs in their ears seemed to rule the lobby. They winked at Joe Montaigne and whispered into button mikes pinned to their lapels. A riot almost erupted as Marianna was recognized. “The little first lady, the little first lady.” Joe Montaigne had to rush her into an elevator car that took her to the towers.
She got out of the car and was greeted by other Secret Service men with plugs in their ears. They escorted Marianna to Michael’s suite, while Montaigne waited outside the door.
Tim Seligman sat near the window in a room that was like an enormous terrace. She could have floated out the window and sat on one of the gargoyles of the Chrysler Building. That’s how Marianna felt. Tim was with some blonde who must have been Michael’s bimbo. She clutched a notebook and had a blank, bewildered look on her face.
“Marianna, meet Gloria, your father’s new secretary.” Gloria blinked. The absence in her eyes made Marianna remember Raskolnikov more and more.
“Where’s the candidate?”
“In bed. He has the blues.”
“Then why was I summoned here, Mr. Seligman? Am I his nurse?”
“Hon,” Tim said, “you’re invaluable to us. The country’s crazy about you … I was hoping you might cheer him up.”
“I’m inhuman, made of ice. Didn’t Daddy tell you that?”
“But you’re our last resort. If we can’t get him out of bed and downstairs to that optometrists’ convention, we’re up the creek.”
“Where is he?” Marianna asked, looking at Gloria of the absent eyes.
Seligman opened a door and Marianna went into Michael’s bedroom. Her dad was lying under the covers, in a kingsized bed. He looked like a beetle.
“Baby,” Michael whispered. He’d been crying. “I’m lonely. I’ll win the election and I’ll be the president nobody wants. It’s all Sidel, Sidel, Sidel.”
“Have you taken your Valium?”
“It’s worthless. Like peppermint candy.”
“Then what’s the solution? Seligman can find you a bed at a nice, cozy clinic, but how will you campaign from there?”
“You could love me a little. That would be a start.”
“Tell me you didn’t hire Bernardo Dublin to throw Mom out the window.”
“I was confused,” Michael said. “But I figured Clarice would fall for him.”
“That was only a wild guess,” Marianna said. “He wasn’t hired to fall in love, though I have to admit that he’s cute. And I might have fallen for him myself under the same circumstances.”
“Stop that. You’re my little girl.”
“Get out of bed! Right this minute.”
“I can’t. I’m paralyzed. My feet are frozen.”
Marianna pulled the covers off. her dad. He was wearing silk pajamas. His feet weren’t frozen at all.
“Do you want that bimbo to dress you? Or should I call in the Secret Service?”
“What bimbo? Who’s been teaching you such words?”
“Mom,” Marianna said. “She likes to talk about your bimbos. It’s her favorite topic.”
“I couldn’t survive without Gloria. She keeps all my records.”
“Where? In what part of her anatomy?”
“Stop that. You behave.” And Michael began to shout. “Gloria, come here.”
The blonde rushed into the bedroom. She had a gorgeous body, Marianna had to admit. But Clarice had much more character, even if she was fascinated with a detective who had murder on his mind.
The blonde shucked off Michael’s pajamas, gave him a quick sponge bath, combed his hair, buttoned him into a clean white shirt, selected a dark suit and a paisley tie, and Michael almost looked like a man who could be president.
“It isn’t fair,” Michael said. “I’m at the Waldorf. Shouldn’t I have the Presidential Suite? They said Calder might get mad. Imagine. Any civilian can rent it out if he’s willing to pay the price, but not me.”
“Father, what are you complaining about? You’ll inherit that suite soon enough. Meanwhile you have all the luxury in the world. It’s still the Waldorf.”
“I know, I know. But I wanted to sit at FDR’s desk. It comes with the suite.”
“Who’s FDR?” the blonde asked.
Marianna ignored her, but Michael kissed her on the nose.
“J.,” she said, “couldn’t I come downstairs with you and listen to your speech?”
“And create a scandal? Tim would murder us. You’ll wait right here for me.”
“But can’t I listen, J.? I won’t bother anybody. I’ll be as quiet as a mouse.”
Marianna felt a surge of sympathy for the blonde. “I’ll bring her. Gloria can sit with me. We’ll say she’s with the Secret Service.”
And she marched out of the room with Gloria and Michael. Tim started to scream. “Gloria doesn’t go near the ballroom.”
“Come on. Mr. Seligman, Gloria’s my guest.”
Citizen Sidel (The Isaac Sidel Novels) Page 6