“With all the reporters racing around? I don’t need rumors about a wrecked marriage. Gloria stays here.”
Marianna couldn’t bear to look at the sadness and sudden animation in Glorias eyes. Tim whisked her out of the suite, and Michael’s party went down a private elevator to the Grand Ballroom. Marianna had never been inside such a place. It had two balconies and a bunch of chandeliers, like an opera house. The lighting was very soft. Nothing ever blazed at the Waldorf.
She had to climb onto the platform with Tim and her dad. People sat behind long tables that stretched across the ballroom like some telescope that was half alive. The optometrists and their wives were all staring at Marianna. She wouldn’t perform for them. Marianna wasn’t in the mood. She was still dreaming of Raskolnikov.
Tim introduced her dad, but Marianna wasn’t listening. She could only catch clumps of words. “A hero of our time … J. Michael Storm.”
The optometrists clapped. Her dad did a little dance, smiled at Marianna, grabbed the sides of the podium and delivered a speech that Tim must have designed for him. He blabbed about the significance of optometry to the nation. Marianna felt nauseous. She wanted to scream. She was in the grip of a terrible vertigo while her dad droned on and on. But if she tumbled off the platform, her father’s ratings would keep going down.
She survived the speech. Then she disappeared, ducked out on her Secret Service man, got into a cab.
“Maldavanka,” she said. “And please hurry.”
The driver didn’t recognize Marianna Storm. He was quite suspicious. “What Maldavanka? Where is it? Brooklyn? The Bronx?”
“Manhattan,” Marianna said.
“There’s no such neighborhood. Maldavanka.”
“It’s near Elizabeth Street.”
“That’s Chinatown.”
“Maybe,” Marianna said. “But it’s also the Maldavanka.”
The driver dropped her off near the stationhouse. Marianna poked through her bag, pulled out the necessary cash, while cops spied on her from the stationhouse steps. She didn’t stay very long. She wandered eastward, into the badlands, her imagination stuck on an educated rat.
Buildings began to disappear, whole streets. She walked in a kind of endless rubble. There weren’t many walls where Alyosha could have exercised his art. She heard a whistling noise. Three men were behind her, dressed in curious clothes, like soldiers or sailors who were also clowns. They had long hats and winter coats in the summer heat. They had combat boots with broken heels, colored handkerchiefs wrapped around their raw, red throats.
They flirted with Marianna. “Hiya, sweetie pie.”
But she wouldn’t flirt back. They crept close to her, bottles of wine hanging out of their big pockets.
“Hold it, sis. We’ll give you a guided tour.”
They reached out to touch her with their filthy hands. She hissed at them. But they surrounded Marianna, and she couldn’t run.
“We wanna play, that’s all. Couldn’t you do the hootchy-kootchy and take off some of your clothes?”
They took her bag away, knocked her to the ground, removed their hats, and stood above her with their swollen faces.
And then time seemed to stop. They stood motionless, mesmerized by a metallic screech that almost burst Marianna’s ears. A pair of claws with eyes and razorlike teeth swooped down upon them in an instant, like a little monster that had learned to fly without wings. It was Raskolnikov. The rat bit their faces as he swerved through the air. The three men howled and started to run. They stopped in their tracks, got down on their knees. “Maestro,” they said, “maestro, we didn’t mean to antagonize your animal. Look at her clothes. How could we figure that Raskolnikov had a rich friend?”
That’s when she discovered the outlaw in the orange pants, with Raskolnikov on his shoulder.
“Shut up,” he said to the three men, “and get out of my sight.”
They wanted to kiss the outlaw’s hand, but Raskolnikov squealed at them, and they ran.
The outlaw helped Marianna off the ground. “We were never introduced,” he said. “I’m Douglas Knight Jr. I’m not supposed to be alive.”
“Who were those men?”
“Weaklings … winos.”
“Do they work for you?”
“No. I ought to cancel their tickets. But I can’t kill everybody.”
“Why is this place called the Maldavanka? There’s no Maldavanka in Manhattan. That’s what a cabdriver told me.”
“Well, cabdrivers could be wrong … it’s a name out of a book. Like Camelot. But there was a Maldavanka once. On the Black Sea. I’m not sure that Maldavanka still exists.”
“It moved to Manhattan?”
“Something like that.”
“Did you see my fiance? Angel Carpenteros. Calls himself Alyosha. He draws pictures of Uncle Isaac on the walls.”
The outlaw laughed. “With the eyes of Che Guevara? No, I haven’t seen him. Come on. Let’s eat.”
They entered a little diner that sat among the ruins. The outlaw didn’t have to order a meal. Rice and beans arrived, with bits of ham, toasted bread, a salad, and a bottle of dark beer.
“Drink with me,” the outlaw said, pouring from his bottle. “It’s the badlands. We can break the law.”
Marianna drank the beer. She burped once, excused herself. “Why aren’t you supposed to be alive?”
“Because I made a fuss. I wanted to change things. I had to hurt some people. The whole goddamn government came down on my head. It’s a long story. I worked for the President once.”
“President Cottonwood cares about the Maldavanka?”
“Nah. He was just scoring points. But I care. So they had to pretend …”
“Pretend?”
“Pretend to kill me. I promised to leave the badlands. I was given a fat bank account, another name. Melvin or Marvin. I can’t remember. But I couldn’t leave. And now they’ve stopped pretending.”
“Then you should come and live with us. At Gracie Mansion. Uncle Isaac will take you in.”
“Marianna,” the outlaw said, “my home is here.”
And she couldn’t argue with him. Men and women came up to the outlaw, dropped crumpled dollar bills in his lap. “El Señor,” they said. They saluted Marianna, called her “La Señora.”
“El Señor,” Marianna repeated. “What does all that money mean?”
“Ah, they think I’m their savior. So they feed me dollar bills. To help the poor. I’m a walking collection box.”
“But why are the dollars all crumpled up?”
“To beat the Devil … the Devil doesn’t like wrinkled money. Gives him heartburn.”
“Can I visit you again?”
“Of course. Next time you won’t have any problems. They’ve seen you with me. La Señora.”
Raskolnikov hopped off the outlaw’s shoulder, stood on his hind legs. He was begging for beer. The outlaw fed him from the bottle, like a baby. Raskolnikov lapped the beer and looked into Marianna’s eyes.
“Can I touch him?” she asked.
“Sure. He likes to be stroked. But not by strangers.”
She rubbed the rat’s bald head. Raskolnikov crooned in his tinny voice and closed his eyes. Then he jumped under the table, ran between Marianna’s ankles.
“Quiet,” the outlaw said, and Raskolnikov wrapped his tail around a table leg, hanging upside down like a bat. “You got him excited. He isn’t usually like that.”
She kissed the outlaw on the cheek, said good-bye to Raskolnikov, and one of the men from the diner drove her up to Gracie Mansion. The Secret Service was furious with Marianna. “We were worried,” said Joe Montaigne. “We thought it was another kidnapping. You should never jump off our screen.”
“You don’t have a screen, Joe,” she said and walked out onto the porch, sat in a rocking chair next to Isaac, who was still under house arrest, married to his own mansion while J. Michael was in town.
“Sinbad,” Isaac said, staring out into the waters of Hell’s
Gate. He didn’t even know Marianna was alive. “Sinbad.” He was talking to the sea. Marianna said nothing. She wouldn’t contradict her own personal sailor.
9
Sinbad didn’t want Dougy to die and die and die again. He couldn’t think about election campaigns. If Margaret wasted young Doug, he’d have to get even. But how could Sinbad waste the woman he loved? He’d have to short-circuit her career as a huntress, shove her beyond Bull Latham and the FBI. She could play Scheherazade for the Prez, tell him stories about herself and Isaac. He’d learn to live with that. But he’d have to grab that ghost, Ferdinand Antonescu, who’d outlasted Hitler, Stalin, Khrushchev, and the Cold War, should have gone to Hell years ago but was miraculously alive. Isaac’s networks had froze. He was a mayor, out of touch with all the little intelligence teams that had flourished around him when he was the Commish. He had to rely on his Secret Service man, hope Boyle understood that his career depended on Isaac.
He rose out of his stupor, dug the Glock deep into his pants, and summoned Martin Boyle. “Boyle, I need you to help me find a war criminal. Ferdinand Antonescu. He’s tucked away somewhere in. Virginia. The Bureau is holding him on ice. That’s how the Bull makes Margaret dance. He and the Prez have her on a string. Will you comb all the sanitariums near Alexandria for Uncle Ferdinand’s address?”
“No problem. I met Antonescu. He’s a cold fish.”
“The Butcher of Bucharest? You met him? How? Where?”
“At the Riverrun Estates. It’s a posh nursing home. Millionaires, senile movie stars, and dinosaur generals. I was Margaret’s chauffeur. The Prez would ask me to drive her to Riverrun. As a personal favor.”
“Grand,” Isaac said. “Then repeat the favor. For old Isaac. Drive me there. I wanna grab that butcher, that son of a bitch. Bring him to Grade.”
“It’s a hornet’s nest, sir. Riverrun’s as tight as Fort Knox. There’s too much history packed into that place. For a lot of people, sir, it’s the last address they’ll ever have.”
“Well, we’ll have to make an exception, Boyle. Antonescu’s mine.”
“Sir …”
“Boyle, who’ll win in November?”
“The Democrats, Mr. President.”
“Is your future with Cottonwood or Isaac Sidel?”
“Sidel, sir.”
“Then you’ll have to be my Virgil.”
“I don’t get it.”
“My guide, Boyle. Virgil took a poet named Dante Alighieri through Hell.”
“Hell’s a picnic, sir, some kind of big joke, compared to Riverrun. It’s rotten with secret agents … probably lose my job.”
They got onto the Metroliner, both of them wearing dark glasses. They looked like a pair of contract killers. They avoided the club car, shunned other passengers, ate sandwiches in their seats. Isaac didn’t want the stigmata of his own candidacy to follow him into Cottonwood’s town. He had to remain anonymous in and around D.C. They arrived at Union Station in their dark glasses, neither of them carrying a businessman’s case. They rode out to Alexandria in a taxicab. Isaac removed his dark glasses.
“Sinbad,” the driver said, “I’m real glad to meet ya.”
Isaac groaned.
“You’re the best thing that’s happened to this country. I voted Republican all my life. But I’m gonna switch. The President aint no damn good. He abandoned us. Doesn’t even know the price of milk.”
The driver wouldn’t permit Isaac to pay the fare. “Call it a contribution … from a born-again Democrat.”
Isaac entered Riverrun, which had its own park along the Potomac. It was a glorious estate, with an English garden. How could he convince Uncle Ferdinand to leave this fucking little paradise?
The doctors and nurses seemed to know about his arrival. Boyle waited in the lobby, and Isaac went upstairs to Ferdinand’s room. The old man wasn’t in a wheelchair. He wore a purple handkerchief in his breast pocket, stood near the door, flowering at eighty-five. The boldness of that handkerchief disarmed Isaac, seemed to announce that Ferdinand was still a sexual creature. Isaac was crazed with jealousy. The criminal had taken Margaret into his bed almost fifty years ago. He handed Isaac a cup of tea and a piece of chocolate cake.
Isaac was ravenous. He finished the cake before he said hello.
“Ferdinand, you don’t have a choice. You’re coming with me.”
“I admire your directness, Monsieur. I wish we’d had the likes of you in Transnistra. We might have won the war.”
Isaac wanted to strangle him. Ferdinand had been viceroy of the Nazis’ puppet kingdom on the Black Sea. He’d rescued his own tailor and a couple of Jewish aristocrats, but murdered gypsies and orphans, lived on their flesh, like a fucking cannibal. Margaret had eaten the same orphans, or she would have starved. Isaac could forgive a twelve-year-old girl, but not Antonescu.
“You’re a pimp,” he said.
Antonescu smiled. “Monsieur, I’ve been called much worse than that.”
“Cut the crap. You don’t have to be gallant. This isn’t Paris, and I’m nobody’s monsieur. I’m—”
“Sinbad the Sailor. I keep up with the news, Monsieur.”
“Margaret slaves for the FBI, works on her back, and you have your run of this little mansion.”
“You’re a sentimentalist, Monsieur. Margaret loves to work on her back.”
“And who trained her?”
“She wasn’t such an unwilling pupil.”
“Shut the fuck up. You’re coming with me.”
The Butcher of Bucharest smiled again. “How could I resist you, Monsieur Sidel? You’re the younger man. But I have my own grievance. Margaret mentions her other lovers, but she never mentions Sinbad the Sailor. You’re her big secret.”
“Then who told you about us, Uncle Ferdinand?”
“The Bureau’s like a bunch of old wives. Can’t stop chatting about the miraculous love affair … I’m the wounded party. And I’m locked away in this house.”
“Then come with Sinbad. And Margaret won’t have to be the Bureau’s heavy hitter.”
“Why should I trade mansions, Monsieur? I’d have to look at you. And I might want to crush your skull. It doesn’t take much to bring out my murderous side … no, I think I’ll stay at Riverrun.”
“Wrong,” Isaac said. He grabbed Antonescu’s sleeve. The old man didn’t resist. He walked downstairs with Isaac. Martin Boyle was gone. But other Secret Service men surrounded Pamela Box, who sat in a plush chair with elephants carved into the armrests. She let Isaac have a peek at her long, muscular legs. Pam must have played badminton with the Prez on the White House lawn. Her husband was an alcoholic professor-poet who scribbled speeches for Calder Cottonwood. He taught at Georgetown from time to time, had his own attic room at the White House. Professor Jonathan Box. And when Pamela pranced around naked with the Prez, the Secret Service fed gin to Jonathan, shoved him into a drunken stupor. Calder’s wife had died during his second year in office. She’d been sick when she arrived at the White House, and the Secret Service never had any logistical problems with the First Lady. Pamela ruled Pennsylvania Avenue, and she was also the queen of Riverrun, with her blond hair and blue eyelashes, and her corps of Secret Service men.
“Where’s Boyle?” Isaac asked.
“Don’t worry. You’ll get him back. But he’s a bad boy, Sidel. He shouldn’t have brought you here … hello, Ferdinand. Have you been sleepwalking with the mayor?”
“No, Madame. He was planning to steal me. I told him it was foolish.”
“But you might have yelled.”
“My lungs are already paper, Madame. And I had a suspicion that you’d be at the bottom of the stairs.”
“We’re all proud of you, Ferdinand. Go back to your room. I have things to discuss with Sidel.”
“You shouldn’t treat me like a child, Madame. I had my own secret service in Odessa.”
“I know. With Gestapo armbands.”
Antonescu turned around and walked upstairs.
>
Pamela lit a cigarillo. There wasn’t much patience in her eyes.
“Calder doesn’t like your tricks. Don’t come here again.”
“Then he shouldn’t have used my town as a laboratory.”
“Your town? He’s President of the United States.”
“That doesn’t give him the right to train cops as extermination teams.”
“He isn’t the Butcher of Bucharest. He cleaned up an area that was crawling with criminals and helped create a model precinct.”
“Then why is everybody so eager to kill Dougy Knight?”
“He was a wild card. The President gave him his chance. He shouldn’t have returned to those ruins. And he’s officially dead, isn’t he, Sidel?”
“So Margaret hunts down an invisible man.”
“Do you have a better idea? Would you like NBC to interview him? … he’s your baby, Sidel. Get him off the street, or we’ll have to give him to Mrs. Tolstoy.”
“Mrs. Tolstoy,” Isaac muttered. “You mean Madame Antonescu, Ferdinand’s bride.”
Pamela curled one of her fingers. It was a signal to her Secret Service men. They vanished, left Pamela alone with Isaac in the lobby of Riverrun. She blinked like Cleopatra with blue eyelashes.
“Sidel, pat me down, see if I’m wearing a wire … don’t be afraid.”
She rose from her chair, clasped Isaac’s hands, put them on her body. He could have been exploring a map. There was no electricity in her flesh. She was Calder’s beautiful, cunning mistress and chief of staff.
He pulled his hands out of Pamela’s. “You can wear all the wires you want, Mrs. Box.”
She slapped Isaac. His teeth hurt. He sucked on the salt that mingled with his blood. She had no power over him. He hated her blue eyelashes.
“Sidel, we can have an election or total war. You have a wife in the Florida Keys, or did you forget the Countess Kathleen?”
“I thought she moved to Miami.”
“She’s into Republican politics. We could bribe her, Sidel, script a couple of interviews, offer them to the Miami Herald. Voters might not be too happy about a possible vice-president with a wife in the closet.”
“You can’t bribe Kathleen. She’s richer than the Prez. And if you want to get down and dirty, Mrs. Box, I could script a couple of interviews about Calder’s little harems.”
Citizen Sidel (The Isaac Sidel Novels) Page 7