Margaret entered the room, saw the curl of cigarette smoke. She wasn’t alone. Pamela stood between the cribs.
“Has Jon been a nuisance?”
“It’s nothing, Pam.”
They tried to be civil for the President’s sake. Pam was the wounded one. Margaret had replaced her in the President’s own curious affections. But all Margaret cared about was that ragamuffin, Sidel. Pam almost felt sorry for Mrs. Tolstoy.
“He’s been asking for you,” Pam said. “He’s nervous.”
“Who?”
“The Powerhouse.”
The two rivals laughed. Cottonwood, that ladies’ man, hadn’t had an erection in months. Margaret and Pamela were giggling like schoolgirls. But they stopped when the Powerhouse appeared. He must have swiped the Barracuda from Professor Jon. He had grease around his eyes, nightfighter paint that the Marine at the door had lent him. He preferred the attic to the Oval Office. He loved to romp around, start war games with whatever Marines were available. He removed a solid silver flask from his pocket, sucked on it, then wiped his mouth. His blue eyes narrowed, pinkened like a rat’s.
“Pam,” he said, “nobody invited you into my meditation room. Get the hell out of here.”
He tossed the flask at her. It struck the wall, and whiskey splashed over their heads.
Pam cooed at him. “Calder, you ought to take a nap.”
“Shut up. I have business with Margaret.”
“But you’re tired. Did you forget? You’re having dinner tonight with all the arts and humanities people. You have to freshen up.”
“Fuck the arts and humanities people. Scram, before I lock you in one of the cribs.”
“I wouldn’t mind. You’ve always been my jailor, Mr. President.”
He shoved her out of the room, locked the door, and approached Margaret with the gun in his hand. She didn’t budge. She was like some kind of spectator in Calder’s attic. The blue had come back into his eyes. He dug the Barracuda into her cheek.
“If you point a gun at a girl, Mr. President, you’d better fire it or get fucked.”
“You can’t talk to me like that.”
“Why not? What will you do? Get rid of me like you got rid of young Doug? Bury my brains in the Rose Garden?”
“That hooligan cop was your responsibility, and you flubbed it. He could have wrecked my whole campaign.”
“Then you’re off to a sorry start. You can’t fix those badlands, Calder. Not even Isaac can.”
“But I can fix you and that little mayor of yours.”
Margaret walloped him. He crashed into a crib. The Barracuda fell out of his hand.
“You hit me. You struck the President.”
“Aw,” Margaret said, “come to Mama.” She had to defuse him, smother his violent dreams. She held out her arms, and he stumbled toward her. Margaret ran her fingers along the ridges of his war paint. She didn’t feel like cuddling him in a mammoth crib, taking off her clothes, like some Salome.
“Isaac,” he said, “it’s always Isaac. You were with genuine warriors, Nazi captains and colonels, and that degenerate, Antonescu. But at least he was an adult. How could you have fallen in love with a stinking schoolboy on the Lower East Side? … ah, I already know. Love has its own lightning. But it’s a lot of crap.”
“Then what are you complaining about?”
“Can’t I complain? A schoolboy. He hadn’t even sentenced anyone to death.”
“Maybe that’s what I liked about him. He had Odessa in his brown eyes. Isaac could make a girl remember the sea.”
“And what about Calder Cottonwood?”
“He’s stuck inside the bars of a crib.”
Margaret saw that delicious jolt of pain cross in front of his eyes. He had his fix for the afternoon. He wouldn’t rush around with a gun, bother Pamela Box. His forehead crinkled under the war paint.
“Don’t be stingy,” he said. “I’ll kill you if you leave out a single detail. You’re a little girl in ragged clothes. It’s your first day in class. You come through the door, the starving princess who danced across an ocean. Tell me. Tell me. What do you see?”
She had him now. Calder was hooked. He’d be in rapture soon as Scheherazade started to sing.
12
Nothing was reported. There was no news about a missing man in the Maldavanka. But Isaac dreamt of Dougy, saw the blood. He woke with a shiver on his rosewood bed, a priceless antique handed down from mayor to mayor. There was a knock on his door. He climbed out of the blankets in his blue pajamas. He fumbled with the combination lock, let his Secret Service man into the room.
“Dougy’s dead, isn’t he, Boyle?”
“I think so, Mr. President.”
“Is it a fucking hypothesis?”
“No, sir. It’s a fact.”
“Did Captain Bart knock him off?”
“Indirectly, sir.”
“Boyle, it’s too early in the morning for riddles. Can’t you see? I’m shaking all over. What happened?”
“I don’t have all the details, sir. But I suspect Bull paid Captain Bart to hire the assassination team.”
“Was Margaret with that team?”
“Well, sir … she was and she wasn’t.”
“Will you stop talking Chinese?”
“She made contact with Doug … but that was before the second team arrived.”
“There were two fucking teams? Have the major leagues come to the badlands?… Boyle, I’m going back to bed.”
“Sir, it’s less complicated than you think. Captain Bart arrived with his goon squad. But Margaret made him abort. She wouldn’t allow Bart to hammer Doug.”
“She saved his hide?”
“Exactly, sir … and then the second team showed up with rather strange gear … catchers’ masks.”
“Bart wanted to neutralize Raskolnikov, didn’t he?”
“Sir, he lent the masks to the Latin Jokers and gave them pocket money.”
“The Jokers did Dougy?”
“That’s the scenario, sir. And Bart buried him, God knows where. I doubt that we’ll ever find Doug.”
“And you got that information from your fucking fishwives at the Secret Service.”
“No, sir. Joe Montaigne has a cousin who’s pretty close to some temp at Elizabeth Street. She caught the captain celebrating with his men.”
“And where’s Raskolnikov, where’s Dougy’s rat?”
“The rat wasn’t discussed, according to that clerk.”
“Boyle,” Isaac said, “I’m mayor, Manhattan’s Big Man, and your lousy little network is better than mine.”
Isaac got into his clothes and fled Gracie Mansion with Boyle right behind him. They were like a couple of ghosts. Isaac couldn’t walk a step in Washington Square Village without scribbling his autograph. A woman dropped her grocery bags and kissed Isaac. “I’ll die,” she said. “Isaac, you’re so handsome.”
With all his gloom, the Big Guy couldn’t resist such spontaneous warmth. He danced with the woman, did a little foxtrot he remembered from his days at Seward Park High, when he was a thug with sideburns, a delinquent who would move on to marry the Countess Kathleen. It was Kathleen’s Irish connections at the NYPD that had saved Isaac Sidel. The Irish took him in because of his bride, and he rose relentlessly, from undercover cop to Commish. He would have gotten nowhere without his Irish rabbis.
He went upstairs to Daniella Grossvogel. She wore a red robe that seemed to highlight her lovely face. She didn’t need lipstick. Isaac felt like proposing to her. He made a fist to keep from crying.
“Would you like some coffee, Mr. Mayor?”
“Daniella, I can’t lie to you. Dougy’s dead.”
“Sit down, please. Should I call a doctor? You look feverish.”
“That other death, it was a fake. The FBI set it up. Dougy was supposed to disappear. But he stayed in the badlands.”
She collapsed onto her couch, pale now in her red robe. “How can I believe you? I would hav
e known … I went to his funeral, Mr. Mayor.”
“Daniella, did they ever open the box?”
“But there were horrible wounds. His father …”
“Captain Knight never touched his son. He’s a cop, the best. The Bureau moved him to Arizona.”
“But Dougy would have …”
“How could he visit you? He was running from the FBI and your dad.”
“I would have heard him … in my heart.”
“You did hear him, Daniella. Every time you lectured about Benya Krik … he couldn’t leave that rotten community. He wanted his own Maldavanka. He wanted you.”
“But I could have …”
“He was afraid something would happen, that you’d go down there, get hurt.”
Isaac sat with her on the couch. She was the one who held Isaac in her arms, rocked the mayor, like she was reading a lullaby to him. “Doug never wanted to be a sergeant, not really. But he enjoyed the lessons. He was my ablest pupil. He couldn’t live without words. He read and read and read …”
Isaac was blubbering now. “Daniella, I’m so sorry. Maybe I could have …”
“He was doomed. I shouldn’t have introduced him to Benya Krik. He was an outcast, couldn’t relate to cops.”
“No, Daniella. He was the cop. And your father’s men were the chiselers.”
He stopped blubbering. Daniella had revived him. They hugged each other like orphans might have hugged. But Isaac was already dreaming murder.
He collected Boyle outside Daniella’s building and marched across SoHo to the Maldavanka. He avoided Elizabeth Street. He wasn’t Billy the Kid or one of the Daltons, prepared to shoot it out with a police station. He couldn’t beat Captain Bart with a Glock or a Colt. He would come at Bart from the sea, like Sinbad the Sailor, and poison the waters around Bart. But there were no seas in the neighborhood. And Isaac hadn’t come in orange pants, pretending to be the wild man of Odessa.
No one handed him a crumpled dollar bill. No one called him El Señor. He was one more pol, a possible vice-president, and pols had no place in the badlands. He wandered around with Martin Boyle, drifted into that curious Sahara, where the sand was dark and wet.
“What are we looking for, sir?”
“I don’t know.”
And the Big Guy recovered all his wits. He saw three brats in filthy clothes circle a rock. They were laughing like hyenas. Their leader poked at something with a stick. Isaac stood on his heels, with a horrendous face, and clumped along like Frankenstein. The brats ran away from their rock.
“Ah,” Isaac said, with a blend of bitterness and joy he couldn’t have experienced anywhere outside the badlands. Raskolnikov was lying near the rock, only half alive. There was no illumination in the rat’s eyes. He had blisters all over his body. His claws were gone.
Isaac picked up the rat, cradled him.
“Come on, Raskolnikov. We’re going home.”
13
Isaac found a vet who bathed Raskolnikov in a pink lotion, fed him dark milk in special baby bottles. The maid took pity on Raskolnikov and decided not to quit. She boiled the bottles. Raskolnikov sucked on a tiny nipple, but nothing seemed to happen until Marianna returned from a weekend with her mom and dad. The rat blinked at Marianna, and his eyes lit up with their usual suffering look. He started to chant. But Raskolnikov had lost that deep metallic timbre. He must have been mourning Dougy too much …
A giant in soiled pants marched through the gate, called himself Hernan Cortez. He was the last stoolie Isaac had on this earth. The Big Guy had rescued him from Rikers, where Cortez had been languishing without a number or a dossier. The system had “forgotten” Cortez, placed him in purgatory. Isaac discovered him on his annual walk through the City’s jails. The Big Guy had a fondness for numberless men. Cortez was a gravedigger. He’d grown up in the Bronx, among the Latin Jokers, but he’d never really been a Joker. Isaac had sent him out with a small party of men to find young Doug’s remains. Cortez scoured the badlands with flashlights and shovels. The dirt of the Maldavanka was still on his face and pants. He watched Isaac feed Raskolnikov with a baby bottle.
“Boss, there were rats like him in Rikers. I taught them how to play a little violin.”
Isaac didn’t even look up from the bottle. “Raskolnikov’s no prison rat. He’s from the badlands … well, what do you have for me? A finger? An eye? Give Uncle Isaac the gruesome details.”
“’S nothing to give. Boss, we searched everywhere. We shoveled up old bones, perfect, beautiful skeletons of dogs, cats, drug dealers, but there wasn’t a fresh grave to be found. Mr. Doug isn’t buried in the badlands, not the least part of him.”
“How can you be so sure? Did you get into the cellar at Elizabeth Street?”
“We did.” The ghoul winked at Isaac. “We posed as exterminators, had a permit … but Mr. Doug isn’t under Bart Grossvogel’s ground.”
“I saw Dougy’s blood in a dream … he has to be dead.”
“You can’t have a corpse without a corpus delicti … even in a dream.”
“Ah,” Isaac said, “you’re a philosopher now.”
“No, I dig and undig graves. And Mr. Doug doesn’t have a grave, not yet. But I did hear the Latin Jokers rejoicing.”
“Rejoicing? Where?”
“In that other badland. They were having a party on Featherbed Lane.”
“And what the hell was Hernan Cortez doing at a Joker party?”
“I’m their mascot, their little homey, I do graves for them, get rid of the corpus delicti.”
“They didn’t mention Doug?”
“Not once.”
“Then what was the rejoicing about?”
“Dunno. But they kept saying ‘Sixteen hundred.’ Sixteen hundred this, Sixteen hundred that.”
“You’re my scout, Hernan, and you don’t even have a clue? What’s the address of the White House?”
The ghoul shrugged his shoulders. “Dunno.”
“Sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue. The Jokers have a new sponsor. Calder Cottonwood.”
Isaac dismissed the ghoul, sent him into the street with a butterscotch cookie. Then he collared Martin Boyle and Joe Montaigne.
“The Prez has to have a game plan. What is it?”
The two Secret Service men rocked on their heels.
“That’s wise,” Isaac said. “Dummy up. The Prez falls and falls in the pols. He’s practically out of the race, but he sends a dying Bronx gang into the badlands with catchers’ masks. He isn’t senile. Laddies, what’s his game plan?”
“Sir,” Boyle said, “we’re guarding you and Marianna. Calder doesn’t trust us. We’ve been blipped off his screen. We’re floating in space.”
“How did he get to be Prez?”
“He kicked the shit out of the Democrats. He broke their ass.”
“Then why isn’t he breaking ass now?”
Isaac put the rat in a shoebox and went on the road with Marianna. He shunned auditoriums and sports palaces, kept away from the usual campaign trails. He visited junior high schools and nursing homes and hamlets that had a single soda fountain and general store. No one drummed for Isaac. He didn’t have advance men. He would arrive unannounced, off the cuff, with sandwiches in his pockets and lettuce for Raskolnikov. He appeared at coffee klatches, dances, and bingo games, defying the conventional wisdom of Republicans and Democrats. He didn’t go for the numbers, wasn’t looking for the big score. But he and the little first lady electrified whoever they met. He was scoring in the heartland, converting people who had never voted in a national election. He was as dangerous to Tim as he was to the Prez. He was campaigning for the singular party of Isaac Sidel.
But Sinbad wasn’t really fishing for votes. He wanted to draw Pamela Box into his little net. He could have phoned the White House. But the number-two man on the Democratic ticket wasn’t supposed to confer with Calder Cottonwood’s chief of staff. He thought of going back to Riverrun Estates, camping outside Ferdinand Antonescu’s
door. But Pamela would have read his motives, seen right through Sinbad. And so he campaigned with a rat in a shoebox, puzzled by Pamela, who hadn’t come to pounce on him.
One afternoon, while he was trying on a pair of pants in a general store outside Philadelphia, Pam appeared. She was wearing a sexy leather outfit that seemed bold for a chief of staff.
She ducked under the little curtain and went right into the changing booth with Isaac. Sinbad was magisterial. He gave her a calculated kiss. And they rocked in the booth, completely naked, though Isaac had the devil of a time shucking off her leather pants.
“Pam,” he whispered.
“Don’t talk.”
She hugged the ceiling while Isaac entered her. He looked into Pamela’s eyes. They revealed what Isaac had already guessed. She wasn’t afraid of him and his tricks. He watched her back in the mirror, the magnificent, muscular lines.
She nibbled his ear, got dressed, sneaked out of the booth, and Isaac wondered if the White House had planted cameras in the wall. She was smoking a cigarette when Isaac came out in his new pair of pants.
“Chinos,” she said, “like a college freshman.”
“They’re practical. The seat doesn’t wear out when you’re rushing from place to place.”
“And have to carry J. Michael. Because he’s nothing in the polls without you.”
“Why’d you come here, Pam?”
“I was curious … I wanted to taste you, Isaac dear. But not in an ordinary bed. That would have been banal.”
“And how did I taste?”
“Like a Democrat about to lose an election.”
“Pam, don’t misjudge J. He can get very hot. And your man’s been lying in a coma.”
Citizen Sidel (The Isaac Sidel Novels) Page 9