“He’ll wake up faster than a baseball czar.”
“Fine. And I’ll carry J. if I have to. I’ve got a pretty broad back.”
“I know. I was watching it while you were watching mine … don’t tell me I’m your new passion flower. What the hell do you want from the White House?”
“A whiff of reality.”
“Reality? You’re in the wrong business.”
She glided out of the general store and into a black limousine, and vanished from Brighton, Pennsylvania, before the television crews following Isaac and the little first lady realized that Pam had ever been around. Isaac didn’t budge from Brighton. He guarded the shoebox while Marianna phoned Gracie Mansion and talked to Alyosha for half an hour. He drank a Coke; half the population gathered outside the store. He collected Marianna, and with the shoebox under his arm, he chatted with different people in front of the cameras, behaved like a citizen with a new pair of chinos from the general store.
“Isaac, will you change America?”
“Ma’am, I was hoping America would change me.”
“But how will you represent us?”
“Like I’m doing now. I’ll listen … I’ll buy another pair of pants next year. What else does a vice-president have to do?”
People clapped with the television cameras in Isaac’s face.
“I’ll travel around the country with Marianna Storm … when I can steal her from school. If I have to fight Congress, I will. If I have to argue with the President, I’ll walk into the White House and whistle loud as I can.”
He walked back inside the general store, while the population screamed, “Citizen, Citizen, Citizen Sidel.”
Boyle whispered in his ear, “Sir, what the hell are we waiting for? You’ve conquered this tin can. Let’s move on.”
Isaac drank another Coke. He smiled when Tim Seligman floated through the door with the biggest frown Isaac had ever seen on a man.
“Sidel, you’re grounded, you hear? As of this moment, you are not traveling for the Democratic Party. We won’t finance these little excursions. Damn you, J. Michael can’t get any press while you and Marianna are on the road. You’re eating into our prime time … what’s inside that shoebox?”
“Dougy Knight’s pet rat. I had nowhere else to keep him.”
All the fire went out of Tim. He hid his face inside a handkerchief. “Do you realize what will happen to us if word leaks out that you and Marianna are campaigning with a rat?”
Isaac marched Timmy to an open stairway behind the store.
“The Prez had Dougy killed. I couldn’t abandon his rat.”
“Isaac, shut up. You can’t accuse the President of killing people. We’re in the middle of a campaign, or don’t you remember?”
“I remember. But the Prez is losing points every day. Why doesn’t he fight back?”
“He’s licked, and he knows it.”
“Licked, huh? He has the ammunition. He could attack J., talk about the phony land deals in the Bronx, the baseball czar who was getting ready to off his own wife.”
“Calder’s hands are tied. We arranged a quid pro quo.”
“What quid pro quo?”
“We have the goods on him … photographs, tapes. Calder with all his bimbos.”
“Including Margaret Tolstoy.”
“Yes,” Timmy said, excited now. “Including Margaret.”
“And how did you get these tapes?”
“I can’t reveal my sources. That wouldn’t be ethical.”
“Come on, Timmy, you’re talking to the old Commish. You danced a little with the FBI. You cut a deal with the Bull, promised to keep him on during Michael’s presidency. Bull supplied you with the tapes.”
“No comment.”
“Jesus,” Isaac said. “You’re a babe in the woods, and you’re running the Democratic show.”
“Stop that.”
“The Bull is Calder’s man. If he traded with you, it was Calder who told him to trade … how can you hurt the Prez? He has a couple of lollipops, so what? He’s a widower, for God’s sake. The country will sympathize with him. All you have on him is cock-a-doodle.”
“And how would you know?” Timmy said, rocking on the back stairs.
“I looked into Pamela’s eyes.”
“Where? When?”
“She was in Brighton two hours before you. We made love behind a curtain … in the general store.”
“Sidel,” Timmy said, “are you criminally insane? Fucking the Prez’s chief of staff?”
“That’s not the point. I told you. I looked into her eyes. She isn’t afraid of us. She’s laughing her heart out.”
“I’ll meet with the National Committee. We’ll pull you from the ticket, force you to resign.”
Isaac drew Tim close, kissed him on the forehead. “Sweetheart, I’m the only weapon you have left.”
14
Isaac returned to Gracie with his little caravan. Alyosha hadn’t been idle. He was painting walls again, beyond the sanctuary of Carl Schurz Park. He abandoned Isaac as the object of his art, drew young Doug without a beard or a beret, and scribbled underneath, BENYA LIVES. Someone must have been feeding him tales about the Black Sea. Benya Lives. Dougy’s corpse had disappeared, but he rose up on Alyosha’s walls.
The murals troubled Isaac. He collected his chauffeur and crisscrossed Manhattan until he found the muralist.
“Homey, there’s a price on your head.”
Alyosha stood on a makeshift ladder with crayons in his fist, coloring the eyes of a dead man. Dougy had purple eyeballs in the drawing. Alyosha was on a hill in Washington Heights. Isaac snatched him and the ladder.
“Uncle, it isn’t fair. I have work to do.”
“I can see,” Isaac said, staring at Mr. Doug on an abandoned, broken wall. “And who told you about Dougy’s fate?”
“Bernardo.”
“Bernardo’s busy with Clarice.”
“He always has time for a Joker.”
“Wonderful,” Isaac said.
Mullins drove them back to Gracie, but Isaac didn’t get out of the car.
“Uncle, you abandoning me?”
“Have to visit your old gang, find out what happened to Benya’s body.”
“Take me,” Alyosha said. “Uncle, I’m lonely for the Bronx.”
“They’ll tear your heart out and toast it like a marshmallow.”
“I like marshmallows,” Alyosha said.
Isaac dismissed his chauffeur. Mullins had a weak heart. The Big Guy crossed the Madison Avenue Bridge on his own and entered Joker country. He parked on Featherbed Lane. He wore his Glock high on the hip to show that he wasn’t concealing a weapon, but no one seemed to care. Featherbed Lane was full of Glocks.
Isaac marched into the Jokers’ clubhouse, a deserted dental clinic. Five or six Jokers fell on him.
“Maricón,” they said, “you’re not our mayor. What are you doin’ here?”
“Sixteen hundred,” Isaac said.
“Puta, that’s not the password.”
“Yes it is. You finished Doug, dragged him uptown. What did you do with his body? Donate it to Sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue?”
“Big Balls, that bandido cop protected Angel Carpenteros. He wouldn’t duel with us. He had to die.”
“Where’s his body?”
“He was a hero,” the Jokers said. “We don’t mutilate heroes. We wrapped him up and buried him in Valhalla.”
“What Valhalla?”
“The bottom of the Hudson River.”
“I don’t believe you,” Isaac said.
“Maricón, you can’t call us liars in our own little mansion. You’re just as guilty as the cop. Angel Carpenteros is your protégé.”
“And I’m proud of it. Should I cry?”
These ferocious boys stared at Isaac. They looked undernourished in their rotting clubhouse-clinic. Isaac had a terrific desire to feed them butterscotch cookies.
“Puta,” they said, “we�
��ll make you cry.”
They pummeled Isaac with their fists. But they hadn’t counted on a mayor who loved to battle. The Big Guy was a brawler. He knocked one Joker on his ass, bit another Joker’s ear. “Homeys, you’ll need your catchers’ masks. Let’s play ball.”
A sadness suddenly gripped Sidel. The boys he was fighting were only refugees. Isaac’s own policemen had decimated the gang. But he shouldn’t have grown sentimental in such a narrow space. The last of the Jokers, six boys, pulled out their Glocks.
“Big Balls, we’ll count to three.”
The Jokers never had a chance to count. A whirlwind arrived, knocked them against the wall, slapped the Glocks out of their hands. It was Bernardo Dublin, the nominal head of a gang he’d betrayed and betrayed.
The Jokers began to squeal. “Bernardo, you shoulda told us that Big Balls was on your list.”
“He’s the mayor. Show him a little respect.”
“But he called us liars. This isn’t Manhattan. It’s Featherbed Lane.”
Isaac had to hide his tears with his own hands. The little assassins would go on worshiping Bernardo until he betrayed them all.
“Bernardo,” Isaac said, “it’s a case of corpus delicti. Your homeys insist that Dougy Knight is at the bottom of the river. I don’t believe them.”
Bernardo grabbed two of the Jokers. “You heard the Big Guy. What did you do with Doug?”
“Bernardo, we wanted to bury him. But the feds raided our mansion. They dropped some money on us and grabbed Mr. Doug. ‘Regards from Sixteen hundred.’ That’s all they told us.”
“And you never reported the news to me?”
“How could we snitch on the President’s people?”
“Homeys, who’s the one and only president you’ll ever have?”
“Bernardo Dublin.”
Bernardo walked out of that cave with Isaac Sidel. “Boss, should I try and steal Dougy back?”
“Nah. It’s too late. But how the hell did you know I was here?”
“Rembrandt paged me.”
“Alyosha?”
“He worries about you. He says you can’t even hold onto your pants.”
Isaac couldn’t seem to function in a mayor’s public house. He longed for his old apartment on Rivington Street, at the edge of the badlands. It was the Citizen’s personal and private address.
He grabbed the shoebox and stole away from his mansion without the Secret Service, hitched a ride down to the Lower East Side like the famous vagabond that he was. Sidel. He had holes in his pockets, but he still had the right key to Rivington Street. He arrived at the tenement, walked up the stairs, and had a curious premonition that he wasn’t alone. He turned the key in the lock, shoved at the door, and let Raskolnikov out of the shoebox. The rat hopped onto his shoulder. His tail was twitching. That was the only barometer Isaac needed. He pulled out his Glock. But a hand shoved at him with the force of a crowbar. He dropped the gun. He had a fist in his face. His ass was on the floor, but the rat was still curled around his neck.
“Raskolnikov,” Isaac shouted, “will ya do something? Show your fucking claws.” And then he realized who his assailant was. Raskolnikov wouldn’t attack Doug’s own dad.
Captain Knight was standing over Isaac.
“Hope you wouldn’t mind, Mr. Mayor, if I borrowed your apartment.”
“I didn’t kill him, Cap.”
“But you know who the murderers are, and you’ve done nothing about it.”
“It’s an election year, and—”
The captain kicked him in the chest.
The rat still clung to Isaac. “Latin Jokers. They were wearing catchers’ masks.”
“Masks, Mr. Mayor? But whose hands were behind those masks?”
“Barton Grossvogel. He stole—”
“Small potatoes.”
He bent down, and Raskolnikov climbed onto him. “That’s a good lad. Did you know that I was there, Mr. Mayor, the afternoon Dougy found the rat? It was uncanny. He looked up at us, like he was engaging us in a conversation. We fed the little starving bastard. And he was Dougy’s for life … wouldn’t leave his shoulder. And don’t think he was domesticated. The beast is as wild as they come. A killer rat. But he must have felt a kinship with Doug. Coup de coeur. That’s what Daniella would have called it. Thunder in the heart. I have thunder, Mr. Mayor. But it’s a different kind. And it doesn’t come from loving.”
“Captain …”
“They went back on their word. Didn’t I move to Arizona like a good little boy? And they butchered Doug.”
“But he was supposed to leave the badlands.”
“How could he leave when Bart Grossvogel turned the territory into his own random harvest? A man has a conscience, doesn’t he?”
“Why did you bargain with them?”
“And what would you do, Isaac, when the President talks to you on the telephone, makes a personal appeal, and Bull Latham backs him up? It wasn’t a lie. Dougy had been shooting people. He was indictable. I went along with their scheme … God, they must have chopped my boy into little pieces and hid them in a hundred empty orchards.”
“He wasn’t buried in the badlands.”
“How do you know?”
“I had a team of gravediggers comb every orchard. They couldn’t find Doug.”
“So what? Your gravediggers stink.”
Isaac didn’t mention the other gravediggers, those from Sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue. He didn’t want to complicate his own little war with the White House.
The captain took Raskolnikov and returned him to Isaac’s shoulder. “I’d keep him, but I have to travel light. And you’ll need his companionship, you sorry son of a bitch.”
The captain left Isaac sitting on his ass, and rushed out the door. Isaac went back uptown. The apartment didn’t seem his anymore. It was someone else’s lair.
He slept on the porch, drank Marianna’s lemonade. He was no vengeance artist. He couldn’t ruin Calder and the Bull with one masterful stroke, not while Bart was entrenched in his captain’s castle on Elizabeth Street … and Anastasia was floating on Pennsylvania Avenue. Then fate seemed to sound in Isaacs ear. The President was coming to the Waldorf, would stay in his suite, and had scheduled a trip to the badlands, where he’d deliver an important speech. Isaac called J. Michael’s headquarters, couldn’t locate Bernardo Dublin. Bernardo could rescue him from the Jokers. That was kid stuff. Featherbed Lane. He called Clarice, but she was out somewhere with her bodyguard. Isaac left a message. She didn’t return the call.
But he was Sinbad the Sailor. Clarice came to him, brought Bernardo along. “This mansion is worse than a bordello.”
“What the hell do ya mean?”
“You turn a blind eye, let my little bitch of a daughter go to bed with a delinquent.”
“Alyosha? Christ, he and Marianna are twelve years old.”
“Almost thirteen.”
“So they fool around a little.”
“And I suppose you supervise all their play?”
Marianna appeared, hugging Alyosha’s hand. “Mother, will you please go home.”
“Bernardo,” she said, “I command you to kidnap her.”
Bernardo scratched his red mustache. “Ah, Clarice.”
Isaac let Raskolnikov out of the shoebox, and while Clarice shrieked and ran behind an upholstered chair, he led Bernardo out to the porch.
“She’s a handful, boss. She doesn’t let me out of her sight. I had to duck her like a little devil to pull you out of the Bronx.”
“Well, you’ll have to duck her again and organize a posse.”
“What’s the posse for?”
“To keep Calder Cottonwood from getting killed.”
Bernardo laughed with his Latin-Irish eyes. He was handsome as a movie star, but he couldn’t have sat still long enough to perform in any film. Isaac mentioned the Maldavanka.
“Where’s that?”
“The badlands between Catherine Street and Corlears H
ook. Where Dougy died. Calder’s gonna visit. And he might get glocked.”
“By whom?”
“Captain Knight.”
“And I drop the captain for you?”
“No. You surround him, keep him away from the Prez. But you don’t hurt him, hear?”
“How do I hire people?”
“You can borrow all the men you want from my own detail.”
“And what’s my reward?”
“Gratitude,” Isaac said.
Bernardo smiled. Isaac would never recruit another cop like Bernardo Dublin. They went back inside the house. Raskolnikov had already charmed Clarice. The rat was performing miracles. He carried matches on his whiskers, built a crooked teepee. Clarice clapped her hands. Marianna was feeding her vodka gimlets from the mansions fridge.
Clarice was cockeyed. “Sinbad,” she said, “did you tempt my bodyguard?”
And she began to snore on Isaac’s couch, cradled in her own arms.
15
It was the Calder Cottonwood Show. Isaac couldn’t compete with the flimflam of a president who hadn’t left the White House in a month. The pollsters said he was sitting in his own grave. Calder hadn’t even gone to his summer cottage. And then he came out of nowhere like a comet with a deep, presidential grin. He was six feet four, and during his honeymoon year on Pennsylvania Avenue Republicans looked at his profile and called it Lincolnesque. But he quarreled with his own cabinet, had to fire his first two chiefs of staff, and was soon a listless, unpopular president. He hired Pam, and she set about to undo all the damage.
He arrived at JFK on Air Force One, carrying the model of an enormous housing development, which his own architects, magicians in dark suits, assembled in Continental’s first-class lounge. “A city within a city … like the Waldorf,” he said. “But my city won’t be for the superrich. I’m going to rip the heart out of the worst slum in Manhattan. I’ve spent sixteen months weeding out the pestilence in that jungle … and in other jungles across the land. But Manhattan is my baby. Isn’t it where the twentieth century began? On an obscure patch lying in the bay. Ellis Island. How many of our grandpas poured into Manhattan from that immigrant station? Some went to Chicago. And St. Louis. But we’ll start here, in Century Town. And I promise you. It won’t have any second-class citizens. Affordable housing with a luxury look. We’ll landscape it, build gardens … may I have a glass of water, please? I’m a little dizzy.”
Citizen Sidel (The Isaac Sidel Novels) Page 10