“That J. Michael wants you dead.”
“Isn’t that what most husbands want? He’s sick of me, or I’m sick of him. I can’t remember which came first.”
“That he went as far as hiring a hitter.”
Clarice was suddenly alert; the vodka seemed to drain out of her eyes. “She shouldn’t have told you that. It’s a wild guess.”
“Is that why you have two bodyguards with their own Glocks?”
“It’s all in the family, Isaac. They’re protecting me from J. Michael. If you’d come for coffee last month, you would have seen a rather large mouse under my eye. A gift from J. He’d like me to break one of Marianna’s trusts. The baseball czar is short of cash.”
“And having you killed gets him onto the gravy train?”
“Almost. He can amuse himself with Marianna’s money, collect on a couple of insurance policies, raid our joint accounts.”
“Not after a homicide. The courts won’t release a penny to him.”
“And what if this phantom hitter makes it look like an accident … or a suicide? Worthless, drunken wife takes a flying leap off her own terrace.”
“But I’ll know about it, and I’ll haunt J. Michael … Clarice, I can lend you my son-in-law, Barbarossa. He’s with Special Services. I think he’s guarding Madonna at the moment. I can pull him off that detail.”
“No cops … my boys have their orders. Shoot to kill.”
“That’s part of the problem. They could get trigger-happy. And then the cops will be all over the place … tell me about the hitter.”
“There isn’t that much to tell. He snuck into my bedroom, before I hired Milton and Sam. I was in my usual vodka haze. He smoked a cigarette, sat beside me, then picked me up, and carried me toward the terrace. He was rather gentle, really.”
“What did he look like? Did you catch his face?”
“Don’t be silly. Would he smoke a cigarette if I could see his face? He was wearing a hood.”
“Hood?” Isaac asked. “You mean a stocking mask.”
“Not at all. An old-fashioned hood, like hangmen used to wear, with eyeholes and a tiny slit for his mouth.”
“Fantômas,” Isaac muttered to himself.
“Who’s Fantômas? I never met him.”
“The king of crime,” Isaac said. “A character out of a couple dozen books. I used to make all my students read about Fantômas when I taught at the Academy. He could corrupt entire police departments, play a police chief … he’s the guy who stands right in front of chaos. He was very fond of masks and hoods.”
“And you think my friend with the hood was another Fantômas?”
“How should I know? He was carrying you toward the terrace, and then what happened?”
“Marianna stumbled into my room. Fantômas stopped, put me down. I could hear him hiss.”
“Marianna saw him?”
“I think so. She couldn’t have missed Fantômas.”
“And he walked out? Why didn’t you call the doorman, have him stopped?”
“Isaac, Fantômas doesn’t like doors. He climbed down the terrace wall, disappeared.”
“Like a fucking jewel thief … Clarice, if he has access to your balcony, if he can come and go like that, it doesn’t matter how many bodyguards you have. He holds the key to your fort. Get out of here, move.”
“And give up Fantômas?”
“It isn’t a joke. Marianna might not be around next time. And that hitter will push you over the wall.”
“Or sleep with me. Isaac, I can read eyeholes. Fantômas was turned on.”
“Yeah, yeah, isn’t that what all the philosophers say? Sex and death are the same thing … suppose he sleeps with you and then sends you down the Fantômas express?”
“But I’ll pull off his mask while he’s coming, and if I don’t like Fantômas, I’ll pluck out his eyes … Isaac, I’m not a flirt. I’ve installed double locks on the terrace windows, and a whole new set of alarms. But couldn’t you be my Fantômas, or are you still faithful to that Russian bitch?”
“She’s Romanian,” Isaac said. His darling was a double agent who’d disappeared from Gracie Mansion. Isaac had swindled her away from the FBI, and one afternoon Margaret Tolstoy kissed him on the mouth and ran from Isaac. She’d been gone six months, and all his probing, all the pressure a mayor could bear, couldn’t bring her back.
“Isaac, you’re safe. I won’t seduce you.”
Clarice hugged the mayor, ground her chest against his, and Isaac couldn’t deny the electrical pull of his own flesh. He would have been attracted to Clarice in another world. But she was Marianna’s mom, and touching Clarice would have been like courting incest.
He got his Glock back from Milton and Sam, and had his own man whisk him up to the Bronx, where he hoped to relax among the debris and forget about Fantômas. Jerome Avenue had become a whore’s roost. Drivers coming off the Cross Bronx Expressway could have their pick of girls who loitered under the Jerome Avenue El. The girls would lead their johns into the courtyard of the Castle Motel, a huge brick box with no windows on its outer wall. The girls had their own godmother, Mimi Brothers, a Bronx nurse who operated a van near the motel, distributing free condoms, flu shots, vitamins, sex education booklets, coffee, sandwiches, and chocolate bars. Mimi Brothers had the words “Heart of Gold” tattooed on her left bicep and kept a baseball bat inside the van. If some crazy client attacked a girl under the El, Mimi would come running.
Isaac shared a chocolate bar with her.
“Mimi, I promise you, one of these days I’ll bring an ax and demolish that fucking motel.”
“Isaac, you’re a baby. That’s why I voted for you. Demolition won’t work. There’ll always be a Castle Motel. At least if a girl shoots up, I know where to find her.”
The godmother was short of cash, and Isaac contributed a hundred dollars to her kitty. Then he strolled up Featherbed Lane without his bodyguard. It had once been the most elite address in the West Bronx. Now it was a garden of broken bricks beside Robert Moses’ expressway. He cursed that master builder, cursed him in his grave. But the mayor noticed something while he ranted: a painting on a wall. It wasn’t the tropical landscape of some young Latino artist, or a fanciful dream of brotherhood that would never happen in the Bronx. It was an illustrated tombstone on a dead brick wall. There was the face of a fallen gang member with a little message, “Rest in Peace, Homey,” and a detailed drawing of Featherbed Lane, with cars, prostitutes, and Moses’ highway, like a grim paradise looming over the planet. The artist signed the obit in one corner with a large A.
Isaac kept walking. He found another obit by the same artist, another illustrated tombstone, with a harsh domestic scene of the Bronx: drug dealers and policemen in a danse macabre.
The obits disturbed Isaac and exhilarated him. Those young gang members who’d died in the Bronx had found their own chronicler in “A,” who didn’t draw fields of angels and demons, or metaphysical forests, just the psychic weather of Featherbed Lane.
Isaac ran down the hill, almost as excited as the first time he saw Anastasia, aka Margaret Tolstoy. He wanted to tell all his deputies about the artist he’d discovered in the ruins, right next door to the highway that had killed the Bronx.
3
The Bronx had its own historian, Abner Gumm. Isaac was dying to meet the man who’d photographed wild dogs in Crotona Park, torn curtains at the Paradise (one of the last movie palaces), shellshocked faces of young prisoners at a Bronx jail for juveniles. He’d spent fifty years in the street with the same simple box camera. Gumm received no salary as borough historian. He lived on a small inheritance.
The mayor invited him to lunch at the mansion. He was in his late fifties, like Sidel. He wore secondhand clothes, same as Isaac, who could feel Gumm’s distress among the chandeliers and antique sofas. The borough historian was a slightly dysfunctional hermit who would have been hospitalized if he hadn’t found a way to step back into the world with his box camera. Isaa
c was immensely fond of him after five minutes. He almost felt like asking Gumm to move into the mansion.
“A,” Isaac said, with a toothpick in his jaw. “Tell me about that fucking genius. Give me a hint.”
The borough historian began to blink.
“Come on,” Isaac insisted. “We’re street kids … we walk the line. You must have photographed those murals. They’re unforgettable.”
Isaac and Abner began to drink Harvey’s cold potato soup. Both of them were wearing napkins pinned to their chest … in case they spilled the soup. It was clever of Isaac to have a cook who was also a valet. Harvey could feed the mayor and his guests and clean them up.
“Murals?” Abner had to ask.
“The ones on Featherbed Lane … to honor the locals who died in the neighborhood.”
“Your Honor, I shot a whole series on Featherbed Lane less than a year ago. There weren’t any murals.”
“That’s weird. They just bloomed … like cherry trees?”
“No. The gangs are inventive. I can’t keep up with them.”
“Like the Phantom Fives?”
“Featherbed Lane belongs to the Latin Jokers. I ought to know. I have a little card that lets me shoot in their territories.”
“And if you didn’t have a card?”
“I’d lose my camera … and my life.”
“But I walked Featherbed Lane, and nothing happened. I didn’t meet one Joker.”
“They were there, Your Honor, but they avoided you. You’re a celebrity. They follow your exploits on the tube. They call you El Caballo, the Big Jew.”
“Grand,” Isaac said.
“You ought to be flattered. They’re not usually that affectionate about a mayor. Manhattan’s a forbidden planet to them.”
“But I’m also mayor of the Bronx.”
“In theory, yes. But your mansion isn’t in Van Cortlandt Park. And you never had a power breakfast inside the Bronx Zoo.”
“I hate power breakfasts,” Isaac said.
“But you have them all the time.”
“That’s one of the liabilities of my office. Power breakfasts and power lunches.”
“And they can’t find much Manhattan treasure flowing into the Bronx.”
“Jesus, I do what I can. We’re in the middle of a baseball war, and it’s the governor who controls the purse, not me.”
“Billy the Kid means nothing to them. They’re only interested in El Caballo.”
“And I’m interested in an artist who’s still unknown to my borough historian.”
“I’m not God, Your Honor, but I’ll shoot Featherbed Lane again.”
Abner turned gloomy, wouldn’t taste his dessert. Isaac had the rotten habit of always expecting too much from his soldiers. Abner Gumm had narrowed the arc of his interest to a borough that was like a bitter Manhattan suburb, some kind of kindergarten, and he’d covered that kindergarten as much as he could. But he couldn’t catalogue every little Rembrandt.
“I’m sorry,” Isaac said. “I didn’t mean to pressure you. You’re not an information bureau …”
The borough historian still wouldn’t touch his dessert. He tried to unpin his napkin. He was only agile with his box camera. Harvey had to assist him.
“You can photograph the mansion if you like.”
“I wouldn’t know what to shoot … Manhattan isn’t the right subject for me.”
“But you’re in the mayor’s house.”
“Forgive me, Your Honor, but it’s like a glorified hotel … I’d only be shooting shadows.”
And Gumm himself left like a ghost. Isaac was forlorn. He’d played the naif with Gumm. He knew all about the Latin Jokers. He’d recruited undercover cops from their ranks when he was a troubleshooter with the First Deputy’s office. Isaac borrowed Fantômas’ best lines of attack. He wore disguises out in the street, and for three months he ran a rival gang that nearly crippled the Jokers.
Later on, when Isaac himself was Commish, he had the Ivanhoes, who traveled where ordinary policemen weren’t permitted to go. But he had to disband the Ivanhoes, and now he was left with one remote unit of outriders, the Bronx major crime brigade. He wasn’t supposed to meddle in police matters, but Isaac was a born meddler. He often rode with Brock Richardson, the young assistant D.A. in charge of the brigade. And Isaac faxed him at his office in the Bronx County Building.
TO BROCK RICHARDSON, MAJOR CRIMES/BRONX
SUBJECT: MERLIN
MEET ME AT THE MANSION 1400 HOURS
(signed) SIDEL
P.S. I’LL CUT OFF YOUR BALLS IF YOU’RE LATE
Brock hadn’t photographed Featherbed Lane. Brock wasn’t the borough historian. But he slept in the same crib with the Latin Jokers …
Isaac heard someone hum in the kitchen. It didn’t sound like Harvey or Mathilde or one of the maids. He strode into the kitchen with his Glock. Marianna Storm was ironing the mayor’s shirts. She hovered over the ironing board with a tantalizing concentration. She had a watering can and Harvey’s hundred-dollar iron. But Isaac couldn’t locate any cookie batter. The oven was cold. He hungered for the smell of mocha chip …
“Marianna, Merliners don’t have to iron, you know. That’s not part of the agenda.”
“Clarice cut off my allowance … you mentioned the hit man to her, and Mom is mad as hell. It was supposed to be our secret.”
“Some slob in a hood tries to throw Clarice off her terrace, and I can’t interrogate her?”
“He wasn’t a slob,” Marianna said.
“Are you in love with him too?”
“Love? Clarice has the hots for him, that’s all.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Isaac said. “You’re twelve years old.”
“And I’m ironing your shirts, Mr. Mayor. It will cost you twenty bucks an hour.”
“That’s robbery,” Isaac said. “Harvey does my ironing.”
“I’m glad. The City pays him, and you’ll pay me.”
“But you saw the hitter yourself. Tell me about him.”
“Fantômas? He was polite … and his voice was familiar. I’m sure I met him somewhere without his mask.”
“Then think,” Isaac said. “I’ll give you your wages, Marianna, but start to guess.”
“I’ll remember … when I hear his voice again.”
“That isn’t good enough. Guess!”
A man in cowboy boots came into the kitchen. He wore a denim shirt and a Glock under his belt, like the other members of the Bronx brigade. “Boss, have you been looking for me?”
Isaac ignored him. “Marianna, do you recognize that voice? Is he your Fantômas?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Marianna said. “You couldn’t have Merlin without Mr. Richardson.”
“Hey,” Brock said, “what the hell is going on?”
Marianna ordered both of them out of the kitchen. “Will you let a girl iron in peace? I’m only human. I could set a couple of sleeves on fire.”
Isaac moved onto the back porch with Brock. They sat down in rocking chairs, with their feet against the rails. Richardson was a pothead, but he wouldn’t toke up in front of Isaac, and he always seemed a little deprived without his stash. One of his hands started to shake.
“Jesus,” Isaac said, “you’ll be incoherent in another five minutes if you don’t light up.”
“I’m fine,” Brock said.
“I need you to find a kid. He does wall drawings. I caught two of them on Featherbed Lane, one near Macombs Road and the other near the El. He signs his art with an A.”
Richardson’s hands stopped shaking. He smiled at Isaac, breathed in imaginary smoke as if he were sitting on a mountain of Tijuana Red. “Boss, you don’t have to worry. I can lead you right to the little man. His name is Alyosha …”
4
Abner Gumm walked across the “moat,” an iron bridge that led into the Castle Motel. No one mistook him for a john. The boy who was guarding the gate, a fifteen-year-old Latin Joker with a Nighthawk, a machine
pistol made of fiberglass, winked at the borough historian. “Hiya, Shooter.”
“Mind the store,” Abner said. “And stop peeking under the girls’ brassieres.”
“Shooter, they don’t wear no brassieres.”
“Then close your eyes, Abdul.”
“How’m I gonna guard the store?”
“With the eyes in your ass.”
A small band of prostitutes waited behind the moat for their afternoon fix. The Shooter had to supply them with drugs, or they were worthless inside the motel and out on the street. He’d hired a nurse, Mimi Brothers, to watch over them. He bought her a van, stationed her under the El, where she could feed them candy and spot the police or a Dominican gang that wanted to rip off the motel.
The Bronx historian had been in and out of psychiatric wards, a manic depressive who would drink his own urine and lick the paint off a wall. He couldn’t have held a job. His mom and dad, who’d bought into a frozen yogurt franchise, had left him a series of annuities that matured like tiny explosions every five years. He lived off these “explosions,” wandered the Bronx, photographed back gardens, buildings, and walls, searching for some unbelievably bald texture that could unlock his own barren music, and when this music became too hard to bear, he’d arrive with a suitcase at one of the wards, sit with Mimi Brothers, a psychiatric nurse who would give sponge baths to patients like himself. Mimi encouraged him to become a small businessman. He borrowed money, opened several motels under the Cross Bronx Expressway. He had little desire for scenic routes; he preferred brick and concrete along a brutal line …
The Shooter had prospered with the help of certain gangs, had discovered early on that he couldn’t survive without them. He was loyal to the Latin Jokers, who stole all kinds of trees and plants and artificial grass for the motel’s inner mall, which was now Gumm’s secret garden. He’d built the motel like a bunker. Inside the outer bricks was a group of concrete bungalows, each with five or six bedrooms, a garage, and windows that could have been cannon emplacements. A john was perfectly safe within these walls. And so was the Shooter.
El Bronx (The Isaac Sidel Novels) Page 2