Secret Isaac

by Jerome Charyn

  “You’re worse than Marsh, do you know that? I come here to punish myself. It’s just like a whipping. I’d walk out on that dope, but he’d wear the same underpants for a month if I didn’t strip them off his ass. So I have to keep myself happy with the likes of you. Isaac, you’re the shittiest lay I’ve ever had. You know what your cock feels like inside me?… a little boy’s finger with some jelly on it … why are you in Dublin?”

  He wasn’t going to trifle with her after such appraisals. “I’m here to kill Dermott Bride.”

  “Moses, you really are a little nuts.” But she had softened to him. “Why’s it so important to you that Marshall’s little scholar be dead?”

  “Because the prick happened to torture a woman I like.”

  “My God,” Sylvia said, “you are a human being.” And she didn’t seem so dark around the eyes. “Moses, who was she … this woman of yours?”

  “A hooker on Forty-third Street. King Dermott put her there …”

  Sylvia jumped on top of Isaac. “I’ll help you kill the bastard, I swear … we won’t tell Marsh … Marsh’s a chickenshit … I’ll go up to Dermott in my raincoat … get him to visit me in your room … we’ll club him with a pair of lamps … hide him under the bed … how will we get rid of the body?”

  Murder drew her close to Isaac. She was caressing him with wild strokes of her hand. Sylvia discovered a cock on him. The First Dep didn’t have a little boy’s finger poking out of his groin. Off the wall, Isaac figured to himself, but her comradeship, her willingness to take on Dermott, touched him, and he was much more tender to Marshall’s wife.

  12

  SYLVIA Berkowitz had become the nightwalker of the Shelbourne Hotel. She traveled abroad, in and out of her husband’s room, whenever she pleased. The porters had gotten used to her. She was an American lady. The professor’s wife. They would nod to her, taking in the bare knees under her raincoat. Did you look at the pins on her? Lovely piece, that. But they weren’t disrespectful of Sylvia. “Good night, madam,” they would say, each time she passed them in the halls. They knew she was going to her husband from Mr. Moses Herzog’s bed. A ladykiller he is. The man in 411. Mr. Herzog of New York.

  Sylvia was born a Mandel, one of the Mandels of Yonkers, Miami, and Hurricane Beach, men’s clothiers for thirty-seven years. The Mandels could have found a dentist for Sylvia, a Jewish heart and lung man, a widowed accountant, or the scion of another clothing chain. They had the clout to buy any husband that appealed to them. They wanted something more exotic than a lung specialist. They had to have a scholar in the family, a secular rabbi, a man of words. They grabbed onto Marshall Berkowitz. They didn’t worry about his field of interest. James Joyce? A blind Irishman who wrote filthy books. They could forgive such aberrations in a scholar. Even two earlier wives.

  The family would assume Marshall’s debts and alimony payments if only Sylvia agreed to marry him. They expected trouble from her. Sylvia had an independent streak. Her full, brazen calves spelled lasciviousness to the Mandels. She’d pick an Arab tuba player to spite them, and they’d have to support a cove of tiny Ishmaels. They were wrong. Sylvia didn’t have to be coaxed. Marshall wooed her with maps of Dublin, quotes from a cosmology that he stored in his head. Dublin was a fogtown that sprang out of James Joyce. This man-god could create rivers and streets. The Liffey and Fumbally Lane. Sylvia believed in him.

  They were married under a canopy in the chapel of a Yonkers catering hall. A cantor sang the wedding prayers. Marshall wore the kittel, a white marriage shroud. Sylvia drank wine under her veil. She had to walk around the groom seven times to show that he was the center of her universe. The rabbi read the articles of their devotion. Sylvia took off the veil. Marshall broke a wine glass under his foot. They kissed. The family pelted them with bits of wheat and straw. They were ushered into a private room. Sylvia had her period. They weren’t allowed to make love.

  That was her history with Marsh. Menstrual blood and Leopold Bloom. She’d had four years of it. Excursions to Dublin that were holy pilgrimages. Marsh had little energy outside his books. He could raise up a passion for Molly Bloom. But he copulated like a baby boy. Bubbles appeared in his mouth. He would snort after a minute, suck in his belly, and go to sleep.

  She couldn’t sing to the Mandels. Hadn’t she walked around Marsh seven times? They wouldn’t listen to the complaints of a wife. God, was she supposed to say, Marshall, Marshall, why won’t you chew my tits? She had to take scraps of love wherever she could find them. From Marshall’s colleagues. A lonely sculptor at a Beethoven festival. The man from the stationery store. And Isaac.

  She was committed to none of them, sculptor, stationery man, or cop. But she did have a feeling for this Moses. Something had eaten the fat out of him. Moses had more character than her other men. There were pieces of chivalry in Isaac Sidel. He didn’t peek at women’s garters, like Leopold Bloom. Or parade in Night-town, near the Liffey, with his pants unfurled. He was the kind of man who could kill Dermott Bride for having mistreated a hooker in New York. He wouldn’t bawl over a dead house on Eccles Street and shake his big fat ass. Moses had work to do. He was no better than Marsh when it came to chewing her tits. His orgasms seemed to rumble out of him like a bit of dry puke. But she forgave his pathetic courtship. Moses didn’t get his Nighttown out of any book. He was in love with a Forty-second Street whore.

  So she voyaged through the Shelbourne with a raincoat around her shoulders. Porters were carrying up trays of white coffee and toast. The Irish preferred to rise at six. “Would the madam like her breakfast in bed?”

  “Thank you, no.”

  She might wake the dean, spreading marmalade on her toast. She crept back to Marsh’s room, dropped the raincoat on the floor. Marsh was clutching the blanket with his fists. This was the man who wore a shroud at her wedding, who broke a glass under his foot. She opened one fist with gentle pulls on his fingers, got under the covers, closed his fist again, and hugged him around the waist, her Poldy, her Leopold, her Bloohoohoom.

  13

  ISAAC maundered in Dublin. He had nothing to do. He couldn’t isolate Dermott from his vassals. Killing the king had become pure whim. Little Dermott was safe in Dublin town. But Isaac wouldn’t go home. His students at John Jay would have to suffer without his lectures for a while. He began to follow Dermott’s narrow routes, in order to put himself inside the king’s head. So he ate at the Red Ruby on Merrion Row, an hour before Dermott was scheduled to arrive. Isaac had his lo mein, a spring roll, and Chinese chicken soup. He imagined Dermott at the table, with chopsticks and hot mustard, his vassals eating with forks. Wasn’t there another restaurant in Dublin that would have the boy? Did Dermott need that lo mein a block from the hotel? He had peculiar territories for a king.

  Isaac would duplicate Dermott’s walk in St. Stephen’s park, inhabit Dermott step by step. What did the king look at from his gazebo? The slow, meticulous paddling of the ducks? The way they poked their mouths into the water? Did he notice the scum, leaves, and bottles at the northern end of the pond? The thick green bowls of the trees? And did he stare up at the roofs of the Shelbourne from the park? The iron grilles, the great television aerial, the nude flagpole, dormer windows, the fine white molding, the four weather vanes? A few hundred yards in front of the Shelbourne. Is that where Dublin ended for Dermott Bride?

  Isaac had his room changed. The porters moved him to the front of the hotel. I want to see what Dermott sees. He would stare out his window at St. Stephen’s, at the houses near his corner of the park, with their pitched roofs, the traffic, the hills outside Dublin, and then go to the lounge. Funny people were sitting there. Rowdies with broken noses. They drank jars of Guinness and wore helmets that looked like housepainters’ hats, only these helmets came with chin straps. Isaac couldn’t understand why the porters didn’t throw them out. But the lounge seemed to be in awe of them. Men and women came over from the other tables to shake their hands. Isaac was dumbfounded until a porter told him that
tomorrow was All-Ireland hurling day. These were the champions. Hurlers from Cork. What the fuck was hurling about? A game with sticks called hurleys and a leather puck. Ireland’s national sport. Sixty thousand would rush to the hills of Croke Park for the final game between Wexford and Cork. Rougher than football, the porter said. Break your mouth with one of those hurling sticks. Isaac wished he had a hurley in his hand to come at Dermott’s vassals. He’d win for Ireland and the United States. Use Dermott’s scalp for a puck. Roll that head in the grass. He’d be the master hurler, “man of the match.” All the Irish bishops would be at Croke Park. Isaac might get canonized. They’d give him the Rock of Cashel to take home with him to America …

  The First Dep was out of his skull. These men in their painter’s hats wouldn’t have served on any team with him. Isaac gave the lounge to them, the champions from Cork. He decided to walk the Liffey. He didn’t need Ulysses as a primary text. He could have his Dublin without Mr. Joyce. Marshall was the haunted one. Not him. He wasn’t going to court the river goddess, Anna Livia. He’d leave that to the Irish. But the river seemed fiercer today, much less of a pissy stream. The sun burnt down on the water, colored it red, like a king’s beard.

  He’d entered a section of warehouses on the quays. A poorer Dublin again. Dog carts and little grocery stores. Children lunged at his pants. They had dirty faces and torn sleeves. Isaac didn’t know what they expected from him. They were trained beggars from some gypsy camp north of Dublin. He gave them all his Irish pennies. They still lunged at him. An old man had to chase them away with a stick, or they would have followed Isaac inside his pants. He was at Sir John Rogerson’s Quay. Lime Street and Misery Hill. A huge black sedan was just behind him, trundling at Isaac’s pace. Isaac stopped and started again. He wasn’t going to give the car an easy time of it. Let the bitches stall on Sir John’s Quay. The dog carts could drive them back to O’Connell Street. The car rumbled up close. A door opened for him. The First Dep was hauled in like a stinking fish out of the Liffey. He was sitting on Timothy Snell’s lap. “Dumb fuck.” There’s only two choices, Isaac figured; they’ll take me to Dermott, or kill me in an alley off the quays. The car moved into a blind, dead street. Moses the apostate had no prayers to mutter. Would they push him down on his knees? Isaac should have stuck to the Shelbourne, like the king.

  He was still a puppet on Timothy’s lap. Couldn’t they give a man a little more room? Old Tim slapped him on the head. “Dermott is offering twenty thousand … he won’t go higher than that. You’re a nuisance, but he can always dig around you.”

  Twenty thousand? What were they talking about? Timothy slapped him again. “Isaac, the lad has made you an offer.”

  Isaac’s head was whistling. He didn’t mind the slaps, but they must have scared the worm. His gut squeezed horribly tight. He could have fallen off Tim’s lap, the way the worm grabbed at him.

  “Eat your twenty thousand,” Isaac said, swearing his belly would explode and drop his entrails on Timothy’s shoe. “Tell the king my trip was all about Annie.”

  Old Tim pushed him off his lap. Isaac huddled near the door. He realized now that Dermott didn’t care to have him dead. They drove him back to the Shelbourne, and picked him out of the car. The doorman smiled at Tim.

  “He’s a bit soused,” Timothy said. “One jar too many.”

  The doorman helped Isaac into the hotel.

  Part

  Three

  14

  TIGER John Rathgar became the forgotten man at his club. There were peculiar goings-on inside the Dingle. Irishmen appeared and disappeared without so much as a whisper to the PC. Some of them were lads from the Retired Sergeants Association who had sworn themselves to Chief Inspector McNeill. They wore derbies instead of eight-piece caps. McNeill had swallowed them up. John couldn’t get a word out of the boyos. They wouldn’t sing in his presence. Those wild geese, retired sergeants and Sons of Dingle Bay, had old boarding passes in their vest pockets. They shuttled between Ireland and Ameriky without telling John.

  He was reduced to a ceremonial piece, with his handsome profile and his straw hair. He would arrive at the funeral of a slain cop, hug the widow, give his hellos to the padre. He would hang ribbons on female detectives who had fired their guns at some nigger thief. He would shake his jaw and pronounce statistics of doom at the closing of a precinct.

  Otherwise he was at his club, sitting in a corner with bankbooks in his pocket. He knew the names by heart. Gertrude MacDowell. Nosey Flynn. Molly and/or Leopold Bloom … Where was Jamey O’Toole that would show up at the Mayor’s house with a bankbook for John? Should he cry to Dennis Mangen, the Special State Pros? Dennis, find me this O’Toole. I’m lonely for the names in a little book. Why were his brothers at the Dingle so secretive? Were they frightened of the great god Dennis? Couldn’t they come to John? He was their headman, the first Son, and the Commissioner of Police.

  15

  MOSES Herzog arrived at Kennedy. He tore his passport to bits. A king and a worm had broken the First Dep. He got out of Dublin with his tail in his ass.

  Isaac hid out at his hotel. Phone calls were coming in from his office. Isaac went down to Centre Street, where he could sit in the dark, listen to the scurry of the rats. The cops on duty at the old Headquarters were genuflecting to him. Why? They’d never missed him before. They had a certain terror in their eyes, an awe of him. A miracle passed while Isaac was in Dublin doing futile work. Mayor Sam had won the primary from his hospital bed. He’d smacked Rebecca between the eyes. The Irish came out for Becky Karp, but the “blues” and the Yids went for Mayor Sam. Isaac was lord of the primaries. He’d gathered in the votes for Sam with his talks in the synagogues, his lectures in the clubs. The Dublin idiot, Isaac Sidel, owned New York City.

  “Hizzoner” was recuperating inside Gracie Mansion. He’d been asking for Isaac. “Where’s the lad?” The First Dep had to rush uptown. It was a madhouse near the old Mayor. The deputies who had deserted Sam months ago crowded the master bedroom. They would have gotten into bed with Sam, under the big chandelier. “Hizzoner” had to drive them away. He was much less senile after the primaries. “Isaac, they laugh at us in Chicago. We deserve a better Commissioner of Police. I’m making you the new PC.”

  A year ago you couldn’t have separated Tiger John and Sam. “Hizzoner” wanted a PC that he could wrap around his thumb. But John had become a hindrance to him. John was an unpopular “Commish.” John might lose City Hall for Mayor Sam.

  “Your Honor, I won’t sit at Headquarters like a loyal mole. Thank you, I’ll stay where I am.”

  “Isaac, you’re not a baby anymore. You can’t keep wandering around in old suits.”

  Isaac would avoid Gracie Mansion until winter came. “Hizzoner” had a habit of forgetfulness. The First Dep would creep out of Sam’s head in a day or two. Let those rebels who had gone over to Becky find a new Commissioner for Mayor Sam.

  Isaac was coming out of his Dublin sloth. He went to Roosevelt Hospital to see Annie Powell. Annie wasn’t on the hospital’s lists. “What the hell do you mean?” Isaac growled. “She was here two weeks ago with a broken face.” The residents, the nurses, and the guards couldn’t keep Isaac from going through the hospital. Annie wasn’t in the wards. She wasn’t in a private bed. “Christ, do sick girls vanish from these fucking rooms?”

  A doctor located her discharge slip. “Annie Powell walked out of here.”

  “When?”

  “Last week … she got her skirt from the closet and disappeared.”

  “I suppose that happens all the time,” Isaac said. “Losing a girl like that. You didn’t have anybody to stop her?”

  “We don’t run a prison, Commissioner Sidel … we can’t lock people to their beds.”

  She was at her whore’s station on Forty-third Street, mad-eyed, bruised, with Dermott’s mark annihilated from her, that “D” covered over with crisscrossing welts and blue lines. She didn’t recognize Isaac without his bum’s pants. “Mister
, what are you staring at?… if you don’t like the goods, you can crawl up or down a few more blocks.”

  “Annie,” he said, “I’m Father Isaac.”

  Those mad eyes whirled in her head. “Keep away from me … I don’t know any Father Isaac.”

  “Annie …”

  Her shoulders began to heave with a terrifying rhythm. Isaac had set her off. She was leering at him with froth in her mouth. “The champagne boy … wanna buy some pussy?” She pulled her skirt up to her belly. Annie had forgotten her underpants. Tourists and dudes were blinking at her. A plainclothesman ran over from an Irish bar. Isaac kept him from Annie. “Go back to your whiskey house … I’m Isaac Sidel. I’ll handle the girl.”

  Annie lowered her skirt the minute Isaac walked away. She muttered to herself. Anybody could have heard the clacking of her teeth. God knows where she would find any johns. Isaac phoned his office from a booth on Ninth Avenue. “Annie Powell,” he said. “She’s doing the shimmy on Forty-third. I want two kids to watch her day and night … hold her hand if they have to … she could hurt herself.”

  He couldn’t put on his stinking pants. He wasn’t in the mood to be Isaac the bum, with black shit on his face. Would Annie show her crotch to the universe every time he came near her corner? Isaac went looking for the king’s muscleman, Jamey O’Toole.

  O’Toole had stepped on Annie, and somebody had to pay. It wasn’t Dublin, where Isaac had to sneak around with a hairbrush as his only weapon. He brought six detectives with him to Jamey’s apartment house. O’Toole lived in Chelsea with a thick metal plate on his door to discourage burglars, thieves, and cops like Isaac. It was two in the morning. Isaac hadn’t come unprepared. His men had shotguns, crowbars, and a sledgehammer.