“He’s a widower,” Pam said. “He’s entitled to a harem.”
“In the White House, Mrs. Box? Tell that to Alabama and Tennessee.”
“We have a file on you, sonny, that could fill a room.”
“Fuck your file,” Isaac said. He grabbed Pamela, kissed her on the mouth with all the poison he could produce. She trembled in his arms. Her vulnerability troubled Isaac. He preferred Pam as a dragon lady or a queen bee. He ran out of Riverrun, found Martin Boyle in the back of a Secret Service sedan.
“Judas,” Isaac said. “You told them I was coming to River-run. Pamela’s your real boss.”
“We’re a fraternity, Mr. President, one tribe, but I didn’t have to tell. Pam’s clairvoyant. She can anticipate all your moves.”
“All my moves, huh? The White House witch. Who wired Gracie Mansion for the Prez? Joe Montaigne or you?”
“Sir, it was wired long before we moved in. Bull Latham has everybody’s handle.”
“Grand,” Isaac said, and he growled at the driver. “Will you take me and this thug out of Virginia? We have a train to catch.”
He couldn’t escape Alyosha’s murals. The kid drew him with a full black beard and a blacker beret. The drawings appeared on television screens: Isaac in the garb of a revolutionary. Republicans clapped their hands. The guy they feared the most had turned into Che Guevara. Isaac should have fallen in the polls. But he was identified with the hurlyburly of Manhattan, where Guevara was one more lost soul who could rise out of the grave and travel from wall to wall.
Tim Seligman began offering rewards, but no. one could capture the muralist. Isaac took to the sky again with Marianna Storm. He returned without a clue. And then the guard telephoned him from the mansion’s gate. “We have a couple of characters, sir. A runt and some clown with a blanket.”
“I’m in the middle of a conference,” Isaac said, munching on Marianna’s cookies. “Tell ‘em to scram.”
“The clown insists that he has a friend who knows you.”
“What friend?”
“Somebody called Raskolnikov.”
“Jesus,” Isaac shouted. “Will ya let ’em in?”
And young Doug entered the mansion looking like Christ in a blanket. Angel Carpenteros was with him. He had specks of blood on his face. Dougy removed the blanket, revealed his orange pants and a soulful Russian rat curled around his neck. Mananna came down from her bedroom, smiled at the outlaw, and rushed over to Alyosha.
“What happened to your face?”
“The Jokers found me. This hombre saved my life,” he said, pointing to young Doug.
“I had to get him out of there.”
“Grand,” Isaac said. “This isn’t the Maldavanka, where you can play Benya Krik. Bull Latham will know that you surfaced. You’ll have to accept the sanctuary of a mayor’s house.”
“Not a chance. It’s much too clean for Raskolnikov.”
“Then we’ll get it dirty. We’ll build him a nest.”
The rat looked at Marianna Storm, leapt off Dougy’s shoulder, spun around in midair, and landed on a couch, wailing his own lamentable love song. The maid heard Raskolnikov’s metallic sound, ran into the living room, saw Raskolnikov, and started to scream.
“Your Honor, there aren’t any rodents in my contract.”
“Miranda, he’s an intellectual. And he has feelings … like a human being.”
“I don’t care. A rat’s a rat.”
And she stormed out of the living room, while Raskolnikov did another somersault and reached the chandelier, without taking his eyes off Marianna.
Isaac was perplexed. He turned to Alyosha. His hands started to tremble.
“You wanna ruin us, kid? First you escape from Peekskill, and I’m responsible for you. And then you exercise your art at my expense. You draw me as Che Guevara.”
“You are the Che,” Alyosha said. “You’re a revolutionary.”
“Shhh,” Isaac said. “What if the Grand Old Party hears that? I’m on the Democratic ticket. The Republicans will slaughter me.”
“You’re a dreamer. Your head’s in the clouds. Like the Che.”
“But I didn’t die in Bolivia,” Isaac said. “I wanna help New York. It’s not the same thing.”
Marianna grabbed Alyosha’s hand, while Raskolnikov dug deeper into the glass twigs of the chandelier.
“Darling,” she said to Isaac, “you’ll have to let him live here with us.”
“And if Children’s Court finds out? I’ll be arrested.”
“Who will arrest you? You’re practically president.”
“Did you forget about your dad?”
“He’s just a temporary toothache,” Marianna said. “He’ll go away.”
She smiled at young Doug, blew a kiss to the rat inside the chandelier, and went onto the porch with Alyosha.
Raskolnikov lost his interest in Isaac’s house. He stopped exploring, and jumped back onto Dougy’s shoulder.
“How can I protect you?” Isaac said. “You’re on the President’s irrevocable shitlist.”
“I’d consider that a compliment.”
“Your parents are in exile. They’ll never survive the Arizona sun.”
“Wrong,” Dougy said. “Mom and Dad talked of retiring to Scottsdale for years. They collected brochures.”
“Brochures?” Isaac said. “It’s like collecting stamps.”
“I would have gone to Scottsdale too. I would have joined them.”
“With Daniella Grossvogel?”
“Daniella’s not your business, Mr. Mayor.”
“Does she know you’re still alive?”
“I couldn’t tell her. She’d have come looking for me. She’d have gotten right in the middle of the crossfire.”
“Grand,” Isaac said. “She’ll have to mourn you twice … and what if Captain Bart told her?”
“I doubt it. What would he say? ‘Daniella, your own little Doug walked out of the grave and I’ll have to kill him.’ Bart’s too much of a coward. He’ll play silent with his daughter. He always does.”
“And you? You run back into the badlands with your bodyguard. How long will you and Raskolnikov last?”
“Long enough.”
“Even if you escape Margaret Tolstoy, Captain Bart and the Bull will send other hunters after you.”
“It’s my territory now. They’re the strangers. I’ll do a little salsa in the streets, dance around the bullets …”
“Like a matador, huh?”
“The Prez had Margaret and me clean up the place. We knocked off the bad guys, and then Captain Bart moved in, grabbed whatever he could, until I chased him out with all his men. Was I supposed to go on a permanent holiday, sit in the sun, while Bart was plundering people? I didn’t have a choice.”
“But I could go after Bart.”
Dougy laughed to himself. “It would be like kissing a mirage. He’s connected.”
“So am I.”
“Excuse me, sir, but all you are is a candidate pissing in the wind.”
“Not after November.”
“November? That’s light years away. I can’t think past tomorrow.”
He rubbed Raskolnikov’s back, said good-bye, and walked out of Gracie Mansion. And Isaac was left all alone, like Sinbad stranded in some ocean he couldn’t even recall.
10
He couldn’t stop thinking of Daniella. Doug was her Odessa man, her Benya Krik. He could have gone down to Washington Square Village and knocked on her door … he didn’t have to knock. Doug had her key. But the doorman knew his face, and Doug was supposed to be dead. She’d tutored him at the precinct. He was studying for the sergeant’s test, like all the idiots of Elizabeth Street. The other cops made fun of her, called Daniella a beast. But Dougy didn’t mind the boil on her back. She was like a shooting star with a radiance sitting on her shoulder. And when she talked of that gangster in the orange pants, he’d watch her lips move, and he fell in love with the daughter of a captain he despi
sed. He had battles in the locker room. No one was allowed to call Daniella a beast …
He didn’t stop at Washington Square Village. He went directly to the Maldavanka, with Raskolnikov tucked under his blanket. He got out of the cab, gave the blanket to a grandma sitting on a sofa at the corner of Henry and Clinton, and started to travel south. Sidel had been right. Elizabeth Street must have known that he’d left the badlands, because Captain Bart was waiting for him near the Rutgers housing project, with five or six of his boys. He wasn’t worried. He had Raskolnikov and a Glock in his pants. All he had to do was touch the rat’s tail, and Raskolnikov would have clawed Barton’s eyes out.
It was Bart who was nervous.
“You keep the rat on your shoulder, hear?”
“Anything,” Doug said, “anything for my future father-in-law.”
“Stop that,” the captain said. “My Daniella aint marrying a dead man … we have you six to one. Will ya go to Arizona, where you belong? We’re not FBI. We’re simple cops. We don’t shoot one of our own.”
Dougy didn’t like Barton’s song. The captain was stroking him, and then Doug realized what the song was about. Barton began to smile.
“Will ya finish him, for God’s sake?” Barton said to someone behind Doug, and Dougy didn’t have to turn. It was Margaret Tolstoy. He could smell Margaret’s perfume. She appeared in the corner of his eye. She was much more clever than Bart. She had a Glock in one hand and a broom in the other. She meant to slap Raskolnikov out of the air.
“Hello, Dougy,” she said.
The captain’s eyes were bulging. “Stop palavering, woman. Kill him.”
“Not today.”
“What’s wrong with today? You were hired to kill him, Mrs. Tolstoy. Didn’t we plan it like that?”
“You planned it, Bart. I just nodded my head.”
“I work for the White House. Don’t you?”
“Some of the time.”
“And what if I talked to the Bull? You’ll lose your paycheck and your pension … and that ancient husband of yours in Alexandria.”
“You ought to be more respectful of Ferdinand. He ran a whole country.”
“I can’t believe it,” Barton said. “The Bull lends us his ace, and she treats us like a bunch of niggers … boys, we’ll have to do the both of them.”
“I’m protected,” Margaret said. “I have the broom. Can you imagine what Raskolnikov will do to your face before you pull your trigger … and then I’ll shoot off your kneecaps.”
“She’s a psychopath. I never trusted her. She undresses for the President. That’s how he gets it off.”
“Shall I remind Calder of what you said about him? He’ll love it, Bart. He’ll pull you right out of the picture.”
“You won’t remind him of anything … boys?”
And that’s when Barton heard Raskolnikov’s metallic scream. He lost his bite and his ambition. He had no more battle plans. He withdrew without a word, his six cops paddling behind him.
Margaret put down the broom, and Raskolnikov jumped on her shoulder. She didn’t flinch. Doug watched her stroke the rat’s belly.
“Should I thank you, Margaret?”
“No. I’ll have to come back. But without Bart. I owe you that bit of courtesy … take care of yourself.”
“I saw Sinbad. He looks sad without you.”
“He’s always sad … good-bye, Dougy. And get the hell out of here. People can spot you a mile away in your orange pants.”
She kissed him on the mouth, and Raskolnikov traded shoulders, returned to Doug.
She was the best partner Dougy ever had. The two of them could have tamed the whole Wild West. She’d tell him stories about the Maldavanka during World War II, when there were no Benya Kriks around, and any Jewish gangster in orange pants would have been lucky to be alive. “The Maldavanka was piss-poor. It was overrun with rats, and they didn’t have Raskolnikov’s charm. They’d chew the fingers off a boy in a baby carriage … you should know better, kid. I love books. I’m a reader. But literature’s a dangerous thing.”
He liked it when she called him “kid.” But she couldn’t destroy Benya, not even with all her ramblings. Heck, you had to have a hero. Benya fed the poor with fat cows he stole from the rich. There were no cows near Elizabeth Street. And Dougy had depleted his small fortune riding up to Gracie Mansion and riding down. He had a few crumpled dollar bills in his pocket. He’d have to rip off a couple of policemen, but Bart’s own little boys kept out of sight, unless they arrived with the captain himself in regular war parties.
Doug could fall asleep in any abandoned building. Raskolnikov would wake him. The rat was like a master sergeant. Doug had to smile. He noticed a drawing of Sidel in a beard and beret on a Cherry Street wall. But he couldn’t linger, couldn’t stop to admire the authenticity of Alyosha’s art. That wall was a magnet for the Latin Jokers. He’d snatched Alyosha away from the gang. They were frightened of Raskolnikov, had to protect their faces from a rat who could fly in the air. He might have shot a Joker in the foot if he had to. But he wouldn’t have really glocked them. They were kids. They couldn’t even grow a proper mustache.
He smoked his last cigarette, let Raskolnikov have a puff. The rat was crazy about tobacco, loved to nibble on it. Raskolnikov lived on cigarettes and ice cream and the dark earth of the Maldavanka. The earth had minerals that brightened the color of Raskolnikov’s coat. But how long would the orange in Dougy’s pants last? There were no dry cleaners in the badlands. He had to depend on the kindness of certain grandmas, who would wash and iron Dougy’s pants in the basement of some hovel near the East River. He had his parishioners. He was almost like a priest … or a constable. He had to give up his badge, so something could be pinned on the corpse that was picked to play Doug. But he was getting a little tired. He wasn’t a strategist like Benya Krik. He didn’t have a master plan. And how could he revive this Maldavanka, a world of abandoned buildings and housing projects that had a relentless silhouette, without the least decoration, the least human line?
He wasn’t surprised when he saw them. Raskolnikov had already rattled his tail and hissed. Ten Jokers with long knives, their faces covered with catchers’ masks. They were the ones with a strategy, not Doug. They’d adapted to Raskolnikov in under a day. He felt like smiling, because the Jokers had a medieval look, like knights in the wilderness. He could have outrun their knives, or let Raskolnikov attack their groins. But he was weary of war. He wouldn’t attack children, and how could he flee his own territory? He was El Señor, who had the status of a king with crumpled bills in his pockets.
The Jokers surrounded him.
“Homey,” they said, “you should have given us our puta. We have no quarrel with you. You’re like a holy man in this ‘hood. But Angel Carpenteros is on our death list.”
“Fine. But I wouldn’t have let you kill him.”
“Then take out your Glock, man, and duel with us a little.”
“I only duel with enemies,” Doug said. And he began to wonder. Was it Captain Bart who’d supplied them with the catchers’ masks? Were they part of the captains team? It didn’t matter. He still wouldn’t attack them. He had to clutch Raskolnikov, prevent him from leaping on the Jokers. But he could feel Raskolnikov’s heart beat, feel the bristling skin of a warrior rat.
“Niños,” he said, “are you with the police or the FBI?”
“Both,” they said.
He still wouldn’t fight. He remembered Daniella’s smile. But there wasn’t much else in the world that he’d miss. Only Raskolnikov. And his poor mom and dad. He plucked Raskolnikov off his shoulder, pushed him deep under a rock, because he knew that these kids were capable of burning a rat alive, and bringing his carcass back to Bull Latham.
“Raski,” he said, “listen to me. Don’t you come out from that rock.”
And then he stood up straight in his orange pants, bowed to the Latin Jokers.
“Niños,” he said, “come on and play.”
But he didn’t go for his Glock.
Part Four
11
It was like a separate village with its own nickname, the Infirmary, and a Marine who guarded its stairs. No one could enter without revealing his or her ID. Margaret wore a special badge that Calder himself had given her. She was part of the Infirmary’s hectic, hidden elite. It was supposed to have been a little hospital during the Civil War, a place where colonels and generals of the Union might convalesce. And Margaret wondered if these colonels and generals still haunted the attic on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Half the attic was like a hotel with the Presidents house-guests. Pam’s own husband lived here. The other half was a haven for the President’s harebrained cabals. Calder loved intrigue, couldn’t exist without it. And Margaret never questioned the rough-and-tumble women and men who seemed to loiter in the halls among the more intellectual types, a band of architects put in the attic to build phantom housing projects for the Prez. There were models of these phantom projects all over the place. Margaret kept bumping into papier mâché towers. One tower started to move. Margaret smiled at the sudden metamorphosis. It was Pam’s drunken spouse, Dr. Jonathan Box, camouflaged as a building. He wore a Browning Barracuda in his pants, like other cowboys in the attic. He’d threatened to shoot a couple of chandeliers with his 9 mm cannon, but Margaret wasn’t even sure he knew how to fire a gun. He was the Republican Party’s chief theoretician. Calder cuckolded him as often as he could, but the Prez had stopped sleeping with Pam.
“I’ll bite your titties,” the professor told Margaret. “I’m crazy about you, kid.”
“Jon, cut it out.”
“Calder can’t have everything … and don’t rile me, Margaret. Remember, I have a gun.”
She tapped him gently, and the tower that he was playing started to tumble. Margaret grabbed him in time, propped Jonathan against a wall.
“You be good,” she said.
“Margaret, I’ll try.”
The Prez had created a madhouse under his own roof, where he could pretend to be powerless, fulfill the fantasies of a boy with mischief on his mind. He’d also built an outsized nursery with enormous cribs and hobbyhorses. Before Jonathan had moved into the attic, the Prez would sneak Pamela up there, dress her in a little gown, have her climb into one of the cribs. But the nursery was idle now. And Margaret liked to sit and contemplate in a corner of the room. It reminded her of her childhood, when she had a hobbyhorse she could ride endlessly and dream. And perhaps the attic was an instrument of Calder’s desire to dream away his presidency.
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