The Prez looked at Renata. Damn you, cut him off.
“It was Isaac who kept me out of jail, who convinced the court that I was acting upon my own beliefs, that I wasn’t trying to destroy society, but make it more democratic, more responsive to our needs.”
Calder watched the TV cameras pan on Isaac Sidel, who sat in the front row with the fucking little first lady, a Glock sticking out of his pants.
“Was I immature?” Michael asked. “Then Isaac matured me. And I wouldn’t be here on this platform without him.”
“Thank you, Mr. Candidate,” Renata said. “I think—”
“Ma’am, I’ll take another minute, do my introduction now. The President talks about the badlands he’d like to rebuild. I congratulate him, and I’d ask Isaac Sidel to help him any way he can. But it’s not so simple, ma’am. Good people died in those badlands, innocent people that no one has bothered to mourn.”
The Prez stared at Bull Latham. Michael was on the counterattack, wasn’t caving in as the Bull had promised. Then he glanced through the glare, saw Captain Knight sitting between Tim Seligman and J. Michael’s whore of a wife, and all the brilliance and glamour went out of the Prez. The fuckers had set him up. He couldn’t even ask the Secret Service to grab the man who’d tried to murder him. The captain would sing one song too many. Assassinations in the Presidents name. Illegal bloodletting. Calder’s body began to tilt. He was almost stooping. The Lincolnesque profile was gone. He’d already stopped listening to Michael Storm.
21
Isaac was the babe in the woods, Sinbad, an expendable sailor. But he was still proud of J. The kid was like a wrecking crew. He’d danced around Renata Jones and stabbed Calder into a kind of dumbfounded silence.
The Prez closed his curtains, withdrew into the White House, left Teddy Neems to dangle by himself. And Isaac had to fly to Los Angeles for his debate at the Beverly Wilshire. Tim had commandeered the whole first-class cabin of Sinbad’s plane. Isaac wouldn’t sit with him, but Timmy followed Sinbad from seat to seat.
“I was your straw man.”
“Isaac, we did what we had to do.”
“I want Barton Grossvogel dragged out of Elizabeth Street.”
“We aren’t wizards. There’s a limit to where we can reach. Your PC isn’t in our pocket … not yet.”
“You can’t buy Sweets. He’ll break your bones. I’ll go into Elizabeth Street myself.”
“That’s brilliant. Grossvogel will eat you alive.”
“What about Bull Latham? Can’t the Bull sock Bart?”
“Not while Calder is in the White House.”
“Then I’m beside myself,” Isaac said. “I can’t sleep … not until we’ve recaptured Bart’s precinct.”
His head dropped suddenly. He began to snore. He wasn’t on the plane when he woke. He was on Sunset Boulevard in a big sedan. He sat with the little first lady and Tim, Joe Montaigne and Martin Boyle on the jump seats. People stood on both sides of the boulevard, waving to Isaac and Marianna Storm.
“Sinbad,” they said, “Sinbad the Sailor.”
They arrived in Westwood. “Stop the tank,” Isaac said, and he went searching for Marilyn Monroe’s grave. There was a simple marker built into the wall of the cemetery:
MARILYN MONROE
1926–1962
Isaac placed two pennies on the ground near Marilyn’s grave. It was an old policeman’s superstition: pennies to protect the dead. He returned to the sedan, shouted at Martin Boyle, “Get me the White House, will ya?”
“Isaac,” Tim said, “don’t give me grief. Calder hasn’t recovered from the debate. He talks to no one.”
“He’ll talk to me.”
Isaac clutched the phone, sang “Sidel here,” and waited until Calder Cottonwood got onto the line.
“Mr. President, I just returned from Marilyn’s grave. I left two pennies near the wall. From both of us.”
“That’s kind of you … Isaac, be gentle with Teddy Neems. He has a weak heart. I’m not sure he can survive the excitement of a televised debate.”
“Calder, I can’t hold his hand.”
“Nurse him along. That’s all I ask. Good-bye.”
Isaac rode in silence to the Bev Wilshire, where Steve McQueen had lived like a recluse during the last year of his life. Bullitt was the Big Guy’s favorite film. McQueen’s a cop who barely says a word, like Isaac’s own lost adjutant, Manfred Coen. Coen had died in one of the police wars Isaac himself had arranged. He was still mourning Manfred Coen.
Marianna got into her bathing suit and rushed off to the pool with Joe Montaigne. Tim Seligman had booked a pair of suites in the penthouse. Isaac had a marble bathtub, with faucets made of silver and gold. He felt like some penny-ante Nero with palm trees under his window. It could have been hurricane weather. The trees bent into the wind. But the sun was out on Wilshire Boulevard. The hurricane was inside Isaac’s own head. His conversation with Calder had been a subterfuge. Both of them were desperate without Margaret Tolstoy.
He went down to the bar, had to duck Martin Boyle and Tim Seligman for a few moments. He was thinking of Margaret and the dark chocolate she adored. Uncle Ferdinand had to risk his own life and rob from the Gestapo to find black chocolate for his little bride in Odessa, bricks of chocolate that were much more valuable than human blood. “Son,” Isaac asked the barman, who was about sixty years old, “do you have black chocolate?”
The barman didn’t even blink. “I can find you some, Mr. Sidel. This is the Bev.”
The barman returned with a tiny brick of chocolate on a gold-rimmed plate, a napkin, a knife, a fork, and a glass of low-fat milk. A woman came up to Sinbad, sat on the next stool. Isaac was trembling. She looked like Margaret.
“Sidel,” she said, “I can’t stay very long.”
It was Pamela Box, wearing one of Margaret’s wigs.
“Will you share some of my chocolate?”
“I hate the stuff. I can’t afford to have Tim find me. He’ll make a fuss.”
“Don’t worry. I talked to the Prez. I won’t hurt Teddy Neems.”
“It’s not Neems I’m worried about. It’s you.”
“Ah, I’ve inherited a fairy godmother.”
“Not quite … keep on your toes. You have kamikazes behind you. That’s why Margaret disappeared. I had to send her on a mission. She’s been killing all the kamikazes she can. There are only a couple left.”
“Who hired these kamikazes?”
“That’s the problem. I’m not sure. The Prez was at a meeting with his people. The Bull was there. And Bart Grossvogel. Calder was having one of his fits. He talked of settling Isaac Sidel. It was as simple as that. The machinery got into motion. There was a special team, attached to some agency that isn’t even in the phone book. The point is that the team can’t be recalled once it’s set in motion. Not even Bull can stop the chaos, and he’s tried.”
“Is Marianna in danger? Because if she is, I’ll …”
“No,” Pam said. “The kamikazes are quite strict. One target, and only one.”
“And Calder knows?”
“Dammit. He’s forgotten all about your death sentence. And if I remind him, he’ll go over the edge. And we’ll have a schizoid in theWhite House.”
“So I have to watch out for the fucking wind … can’t even eat my chocolate. It could be spiked.”
“The kamikazes kill with their hands. That’s the one solid bit of info we have.”
She touched Isaacs hair. “I can understand why Margaret loves you.” And she was gone, like the wind off a palm tree. Isaac wanted to go out to the pool, watch Marianna swim, but he was like a poisoned object who might sting anyone around him, thanks to the kamikazes.
He returned to his suite. People began to flit around him. Any one of them could have been a candidate to strangle Isaac. But how could he recognize the hands of a kamikaze?
“Fuck it,” he said. He put on a silk suit. He lent himself to the makeup girl. He didn’t need advi
sors. He could demolish Teddy in his dreams. Marianna accompanied him to the Bev’s ballroom. She was wearing a tiara and a white dress.
“Darling, this is my last engagement. Bring me Alyosha, or get yourself another girl.”
Isaac’s head was fuzzy. He put his arm around Marianna, shielded her from whatever kamikazes might be around. It wasn’t much of a debate. The cameras never left Isaac. He had to hug Teddy Neems, or the vice-president might have disappeared into his own private hurricane.
“I’m a cop,” Isaac said. “I know how to fight. Sometimes it gets dirty. I wish I knew some other way …”
There was a party at the pool. Isaac stared at the woman who fed him hors d’oeuvres. She had one brown eye and one blue. He noticed the horseshoe triceps under her uniform. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Kate.”
She was the kamikaze. Isaac was almost serene, imagining the battle that would take place. He welcomed it. He kissed Marianna good night, whistled on his ride upstairs to the penthouse. He got into bed with his gun. There was a knock on the door.
He opened up, stood in his pajamas, stared into a brown eye. “Come in, Kate.”
He didn’t even wonder when he saw her white gloves. But he expected a tiny bit of foreplay, and he got none. She banged into Isaac, and the Glock fell out of his waistband. She kicked him in the groin and thrust a wire around his neck. But Isaac managed to catch two fingers under the wire, or she would have torn his neck off. He danced around the room, noticed the Microbe’s alligator belt on the back of a Louis Quatorze chair. He clutched the belt with his left hand, swung it like a battle chain, and clipped Kate on her blue eye with the buckle.
Isaac had to forget that she was a woman. He walloped her again. The blue eye closed. He wrapped the belt around her throat, pulled at both ends with all his might, and strangled the strangler.
He deposited her in the closet, called Martin Boyle and Joe Montaigne, showed them the body. “Lads, you’ll have to get rid of her.”
“No problem,” said Joe Montaigne. “Sir, is she a kamikaze? There were rumors. We didn’t know what to believe.”
“Grand,” Isaac said. “I have two bodyguards who let me freelance on my own.”
They wheeled Kate out the door in a laundry cart.
Isaac had a nasty cut on his neck. The night porter arrived with balls of cotton and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. Isaac was cautious. He couldn’t face another kamikaze.
The telephone rang at two A.M. Tim Seligman must have heard about the little accident in Isaac’s suite. But it wasn’t Timmy. Marianna was calling.
“Darling,” she said, “I can’t stop thinking of Alyosha.”
22
Suicide girls. Sidel didn’t care how many kamikazes he met. He’d rip them off the streets of Beverly Hills, dance with them on Rodeo Drive. The Big Guy was worried about Margaret Tolstoy. He was no Cassandra. He stopped dreaming of rats and red harpoons. But he’d always been a baseball addict. Isaac knew his stats. Not even a demigod like DiMaggio could sock home runs forever. The immortals had to strike out.
He shivered when Martin Boyle knocked on his door at the Bev. Isaac was taking a bath. He climbed out of the tub, unlocked the door, and couldn’t blind himself to the dread marks on Boyle’s face.
“Margaret’s down, isn’t she, Boyle?”
“She was rushed to Bellevue, Mr. President.”
“Is she alive?”
The Secret Service man shrugged his shoulders.
Isaac had to ask again. “Is she alive?”
“Barely, sir. She’s in a coma. She took a terrible crack on the head.”
“I thought the kamikazes only strangle people.”
“Correct. They strangle their victims, but not their pursuers, sir.”
Isaac was scheduled to toss the opening ball at Dodger Stadium, but he got on the earliest flight out of L.A. with Marianna and their two babysitters, while Tim was snoring at the Bev. Isaac wouldn’t eat on the plane, wouldn’t even give his autograph to a little girl. He was at Bellevue’s critical ward in under six hours. Margaret lay with an enormous bandage wrapped around her head, like a beautiful mummy. A little blood leaked out of the bandage. She was connected to a couple of machines. Her almond eyes recognized nothing. Isaac was only one more person in the room.
Bull Latham was at her bedside.
“What happened?” Isaac growled.
“We don’t know. We found her in the badlands, mumbling on Sheriff Street.”
“Mumbling on Sheriff Street. Near Barton Grossvogel’s barn.”
“Isaac, it wasn’t Bart. His own men called in the attack.”
“After they pistol-whipped her, dented Margaret’s skull.”
“And could have totaled her, but they didn’t. Your logic sucks. Bart’s men saved her life … I had to tell the Prez. He was crying when he heard about Margaret.”
“Wonderful. He gave the order to have me bumped. And you listened, Bull. You sent out the kamikazes.”
“Kamikazes. That’s a myth.”
“Was it a myth that tried to strangle me at the Bev Wilshire? Margaret was crushing them, one by one. Who’s their leader, who trains them?”
“There are no kamikazes. And even if there were, that’s classified.”
Isaac rushed at the Bull, and three nurses had to hold him.
“You’ll have to leave, Mr. Mayor. We can’t take care of Mrs. Tolstoy while you’re around.”
Isaac left the hospital. He had nowhere to go. He went to Elizabeth Street. The desk sergeant smiled when he saw Isaac, didn’t even ask him to remove his Glock.
“You can go upstairs, Mr. Sidel. The captain’s expecting you.”
Detectives saluted him, got out of his way. Their sudden politeness disturbed Isaac. It felt like the overture to a kill. He walked into Barton’s office. The captain’s bandages moved on his face like a little white whale. “Glad you could make it.”
“I’ve been meaning to visit,” Isaac said. “Regards from Raskolnikov.”
“You’ve got a pair of balls on you, mentioning that rat.”
A bunch of cops arrived from another door. They didn’t menace Isaac, simply surrounded him. But he still had a touch of vertigo.
“You’re running kamikazes from this stationhouse,” Isaac said. “This is the storage battery.”
“Think so, Mr. Mayor? If I’m that important, why the fuck are you still alive? I lost half my nose because of you. I’ll wear these wounds into the grave.”
“Cap,” one of Barton’s soldiers said, “can’t we do the little politician?”
“Not today.”
That wasn’t Bart. It was a voice that shot into Isaac’s back. Isaac couldn’t maneuver among all those cops, but he could recognize the melody of Bernardo Dublin. Bernardo dug a path to Isaac with his elbows.
“Ah,” Bart said, “your rescuer’s arrived. From the Democratic camp … how’s Clarice?”
“Shove it, Bart,” Bernardo said and marched Isaac out of Elizabeth Street.
“Margaret’s in a coma,” Isaac said. “The bastards almost beat her to death.”
“And you’re gonna battle a whole police station?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
Bernardo laughed. “Yeah. That’s because I was trained by a superidealist, Isaac Sidel.”
“I’ll need guards in front of Margaret’s bed. Night and day.”
“Boss, Sweets has already handled it. Nobody can get near her.”
“Then why was Bull Latham right in her room?”
“Boss, he’s FBI.”
“But he could have trained whoever got to Margaret.”
“Possibly,” Bernardo said. “But he’s not stupid. He has to back off.”
“Bernardo, I want you on the case. It was no ordinary geek that she met in the badlands. A geek couldn’t have gotten that close to Margaret, a geek couldn’t have knocked her in the head. That fucking brief encounter had to be with someone she already knew.”
Who else could Isaac have trusted but a killer cop like Bernardo Dublin? He could only draw a company of badasses around him. “Bernardo,” he said, “just do what you can, okay?”
Isaac hugged Bernardo and returned to Bellevue, visited the chief pathologist. He wanted to examine the X rays of Margaret’s skull. The pathologist shouted at his assistants, who scurried around, then whispered in the pathologist’s ear.
The pathologist glanced at the wall. “Isaac, the X rays are missing.”
“Stolen, you mean. They’ve been lifted from Bellevue.”
“Nothing like that. It’s sloppiness. They’ll turn up. They’ve been misplaced.”
Isaac grabbed the pathologist’s neck. “A woman is lying in a coma, and you can’t even come up with her X rays. Take me to the doc who admitted Margaret.”
“Isaac, what can he tell you? He’s a nobody, a boy.”
“Take me to, him, and get the fuck out of my sight.”
Isaac sat in a tiny room with a young black intern, Rufus Rowe, who wore wire glasses and had delicate hands.
“Doc, was she hit with a blunt instrument, like a hammer?”
“No. The lacerations didn’t suggest that. There was another pattern. I’m not a pathologist, but I’d say that she was struck once behind the ear and then kicked.”
Citizen Sidel (The Isaac Sidel Novels) Page 14