El Bronx (The Isaac Sidel Novels)

by Jerome Charyn

  “You’ll sell,” Isaac said.

  “I won’t.”

  “Candy, I’ll fry your ass. I’ll make you into a clerk.”

  “You couldn’t, grandpa. You’d only start to cry.”

  “I don’t understand. You’re the sharpest money manager I’ve ever seen. Wasn’t there a prospectus?”

  “Yes, and I prepared it.”

  “Shh,” Isaac said. “You wouldn’t stab me like that. Richardson’s a snake.”

  “You used to love him, Isaac. You talked about him all the time, pulled him out of the Bronx district attorney’s office to run your brigade. Didn’t Brock find Alyosha for you?”

  “He’s still a snake.”

  “I’m sleeping with him,” Candida said.

  Isaac started to choke on the strudel. Candida had to reach around and pat him on the back. “My doctor thinks I’m pregnant.”

  “It isn’t fair. How can I waste him if you’re carrying his child?”

  “Our child,” she said.

  “He can’t face me. He’s disappeared into the dunes.”

  “That’s because he’s fond of you, Isaac. And he doesn’t want to kill you.”

  “Kill me? You can’t kill a mayor.”

  “You can in the Bronx. Didn’t you say the Bronx has its own weather? Anything can happen.”

  “I lived there with Marilyn. In Riverdale.”

  “Riverdale isn’t the Bronx, Isaac. It’s a golden tooth at the edge of the map. You didn’t have to fall asleep to a hundred different fires, or keep wild dogs out of your pants. That’s why I bought into Sidereal.”

  “Sidereal’s gonna save the Bronx, huh?”

  “I never said that. But at least it will keep out the vultures and encourage local people to invest.”

  “Like Mr. and Mrs. J. Michael Storm.”

  “We had to bring in J. I couldn’t be on the board of directors. Did you want me to deal for Sidereal and City Hall?”

  “God forbid. But did you know that Prince Martin Lima is backing J.? The biggest dope dealer in the Bronx.”

  “Then we’ll have to do dope to stay alive. I don’t mess with J.”

  Isaac grabbed an onion roll. His choking fit was gone. “Well, somebody will have to … he can’t rule the Bronx just because he’s the baseball czar and Yankee Stadium is beholden to him.”

  “But that’s the problem, Isaac. He does rule the Bronx. Nobody else but J. can solve that baseball war. Without him the borough’s asleep.”

  “Where can I find Richardson?”

  “He’ll find you.”

  She got up, grabbed the check, paid for Isaac’s strudel at the counter, touched her white hair, and fled from Ratner’s. Isaac finished his coffee, signed a few more slips, and marched into the street, but he couldn’t seem to shake all his admirers. Milton and Sam were waiting for him. Clarice’s bodyguards. And the Big Guy was almost glad. He couldn’t wait to toss the two of them on their ass.

  But Milton and Sam were much more agile away from Clarice. They seized Isaac by his pants, spun him around, and tossed him into a blue Cadillac, where a mousy little woman attended to him. Milton held his arms while the woman painted Isaac’s face with a fat brush. Were they preparing him for the undertaker? He tried to struggle, and Sam hit him so hard that Isaac’s whole body whipped across the Cadillac and his ears started to ring. Sam hit him again. It isn’t fair, Isaac muttered to himself and fell into a tiny coma.

  19

  The Big Guy woke in some kind of dressing room. He had a white napkin hanging from his neck. There were make-up artists all over him, handling him roughly. “Two minutes,” they mumbled. “His forehead is still shiny … and what about the gray hairs in his nose … he looks like shit.”

  They attacked his sideburns, plucked the gray hairs from his nose, and Isaac felt like a disappointed diva. He’d been in the same hot seat before. It was two minutes to airtime, and there was the typical pandemonium. Milton was picking his nails. Sam was laughing to himself. They adjusted Isaac’s Glock inside his pants.

  “Who are you guys?”

  “We work for Billy the Kid,” Sam said. “And Billy asked us to watch over Clarice.”

  They belonged to the Gov’s elite squad of commandoes. They traveled with him around the country, functioned like a secret service.

  “You’re protecting her from Fantômas, I suppose.”

  “Sure,” Sam said. “If this Fantômas happens to be J. Michael Storm.”

  “But why would Billy interfere? He’s picked J. as his running mate. They’re practically married.”

  Milton winked at Isaac. “Maybe it isn’t the Gov’s idea of marriage.”

  “Please,” the make-up artists said, “we have thirty seconds.”

  “Keep quiet,” Sam said, and the two commandoes plucked off the napkin, pulled Isaac out of his seat, led him across a labyrinth of cables and into a studio where J. Michael sat with Billy the Kid in luxurious armchairs, next to Wooster Freeman, host of Wooster, Dead or Alive, the nation’s most popular afternoon talk show. Isaac could recognize Tim Seligman in the audience, with other Democrats, under the low-key lights; Wooster was an ex-war correspondent who liked to spar with celebrities. But he’d always been easy on Isaac.

  “Welcome to our mystery guest,” he shouted into the cameras. “Sidel, who serves this City twenty-five hours a day. You see him up in the sky, watching the five boroughs, relentless champion of anything and everything New York.”

  The audience whistled and yelled, “We want Isaac,” until Wooster quieted them with a single clap. Isaac shook hands with Billy and J. and sat down in his own armchair. Wooster motioned to Billy the Kid.

  “We have some excitement in the air, wouldn’t you say, Governor?”

  “I couldn’t promise,” Billy said, displaying his aquiline nose to the cameras, the depth of his blue eyes. “But you know how much the baseball strike has hurt us. And I can’t afford to let this happen, not while I’m governor. We’ve been putting pressure on the clubs, getting them to realize how vital the game is to all of us. New Yorkers are the ones who are suffering the most. We have a special claim, don’t we, Mr. Mayor?”

  Who was rehearsing that cocksucker? Who was feeding him his lines? J. Michael Storm. “Yes,” Isaac muttered, “we do have a claim.”

  “Baseball wasn’t invented in Cooperstown,” Billy said. “That’s an old wives’ tale. Organized baseball was born in Manhattan. The very first club was the New York Knickerbockers …”

  “Hardly,” Isaac said. “It was the Bronx Bachelors, made up of volunteer firemen, guys who lived in boardinghouses and loved to play ball. The team captain was Rupert Manly, who organized matches with the Knickerbockers on a hill in Hoboken called the Elysian Fields.”

  “Ah, a touch of heaven and hell,” Billy said. “Isaac is never wrong.”

  “I’m not so sure,” said J. Michael Storm. “Did Manly have his own rulebook?”

  “He didn’t need rulebooks. He kept all the rules in his head.”

  Wooster Freeman plunged right into the argument.

  “Is Michael trying to tell us that the Bronx Bachelors are a figment of your imagination, Mr. Mayor?”

  “Figment, eh? Walt Whitman saw them play in 1846. ‘Their game was glorious,’ he said, after watching the Bachelors cream Manhattan.”

  “Wooster,” said Billy the Kid, “we’re bringing back baseball. We have to win the war.”

  Wooster smiled at Sidel. “And what do you think, Mr. Mayor?”

  “If we can’t get the Yankees, I’ll have to recall the Bachelors from their grave.”

  “And I’ll have to lock them out of Yankee Stadium,” said J. Michael Storm. “We won’t tolerate scabs.”

  “J.,” Isaac said, “how can anyone grant an injunction against a team of ghosts?”

  “Ghosts have no special privileges,” said J. Michael Storm. “They can go down in a court of law … it’s the Yankees, or nothing.”

  Isaac began to fee
l nauseous. Billy the Kid was running for president on Wooster, Dead or Alive. And J. Michael was his battery mate. But why the hell had Billy’s commandoes copped Isaac and delivered him to Wooster’s show? Was it to sanctify Billy’s marriage to J. and serve as justice of the peace? J. sulked for most of the hour, while Billy recited little homilies he must have memorized for weeks. The Gov was preparing his presidential face …

  Isaac cornered J. Michael after Billy left the studio. J. continued to sulk. “The Gov’s giving it to me in the ass.”

  “Billy’s a real heartbreaker, but I thought he was being nice.”

  “Nice? He says if I can’t end the strike in forty-eight hours, he’ll go after Clarice.”

  “That’s funny,” Isaac said. “His own special cops have been protecting Clarice from you.”

  “Clarice doesn’t need protection.”

  “Didn’t you bang her up a bit?”

  “Isaac, that woman tried to stab me with a knife.”

  “Was it a lovers’ quarrel, or something to do with Sidereal?”

  They both sat in the dressing room, glancing into the mirror with powder on their cheeks: they could have been ghostly players on Isaac’s team, the Bachelors of the Bronx.

  “Isaac, am I gonna get shit from you about a company that’s dropping into the ground?”

  “That’s not how Porter sees it. He says Sidereal is a dream … and you’re a liar, J. You did try to loop Clarice. You asked Brock Richardson to send an Apache after her, that man in the mask.”

  “Fantômas?”

  “No. Bernardo Dublin, her chevalier.”

  “I had to freak her out. She was threatening to seize my shares in Sidereal if I didn’t keep away from her and Marianna.”

  “What if Brock had sent the wrong Apache, someone who broke her neck?”

  “Come on, Bernardo was tailor-made for the job. He wouldn’t have whacked Clarice.”

  “But you couldn’t have known that. You wanted her dead, or something close. Like a docile wife in a wheelchair. You were counting on it. And when it didn’t happen, you flipped your tactics around, used Bernardo to your own fucking advantage.”

  “Didn’t you call him her chevalier? Well, she’s had other chevaliers, including Billy the Kid.”

  “Billy’s been boffing your wife?”

  “And so have you … I’m still her husband. Clarice tells me everything. And don’t think I’m crushed. She says you’re the lousiest lay she ever had, next to Billy. But at least she’s fond of you. Billy’s an icicle.”

  Isaac rose out of his chair, seized J. Michael by the collar, and started to twist. “You’ve been choreographing her lovelife, haven’t you, J.? Like a pious little general. Billy sleeps with Clarice, and he doesn’t even blink while you and Richardson and your lousy client, Prince Martin Lima, rape the Bronx.”

  “Lima isn’t my client.”

  “Yeah,” Isaac said, ripping J.’s collar right off his shirt. “And Snow White never laid eyes on the Seven Dwarfs … I’m Isaac, remember? You don’t have to play innocent with me. You’re the prince’s man in Texas and the Bronx. You launder money for that little son of a bitch. And Sidereal is your personal laundry room. I ought to strangle you, J., but there’s only one baseball czar. And he’s immortal until the lights go on at Yankee Stadium.”

  The Big Guy wiped off the powder and paint, but J. Michael pawed at him. “Isaac, don’t leave me here.”

  “You’re untouchable. You’re on top of the world.”

  “Billy doesn’t think so. He’d like to damage me.”

  “And lose his running mate?”

  “He’d prefer a vice-president without a pair of balls.”

  “You can always decide not to run.”

  “It’s too late. I’ve already promised myself to Seligman. He controls all the Party patronage. He could have me drummed out of my own firm.”

  “Then I’ll light a candle, J., and cry for you.”

  Isaac strolled into the corridor, but the baseball czar clung to him. Wooster stood in the semidarkness with Tim Seligman, smoking Cuban cigars. Isaac watched the burning ash next to their teeth.

  “Tim, was it your idea to make me Wooster’s mystery man?”

  “A little national exposure can’t hurt,” Seligman said. “I wanted the Gov to bask in your glory. It’s important. I’d like the public to regard you, Billy, and J. as our Three Musketeers.”

  “But isn’t that one musketeer too many? You can’t have two vice-presidents on the same ticket.”

  “Ah, but we’ll manage, won’t we, Wooster?”

  “Of course,” Wooster said. “What other city can boast a law and order liberal, a radical cop?”

  “I’m not a cop anymore. That’s what people keep telling me.”

  “But you’ll always be our Pink Commish,” Wooster said. “Isn’t that true, J.?”

  J. crept out from behind Isaac’s shoulder. “Yes,” he said.

  “J.’s been a bad boy,” Seligman said. “He’s sort of blackmailing us. Can’t make up his mind to end the strike.”

  “Tim, I have owners and players to contend with.”

  “That isn’t our problem, not while Billy is stagnating in all the polls. He needs some thunder and lightning. And you’re our thunder god, our Zeus … knock some sense into him, will you, Isaac?”

  “I’ll try,” Isaac said, dancing into the street like a good Democrat, J. just behind him. Milton and Sam stood in front of their blue Cadillac, eating enormous ice-cream cones covered with specks of chocolate.

  “Your Honor,” Sam said, “you can go home … but we have some business with Mr. Storm. Ask him to get into the car.”

  “Couldn’t do that, lads,” Isaac said, adopting his policeman’s brogue, a melody he’d learned from a long line of Irish cops. Billy’s henchmen shouldn’t have come at Isaac eating ice-cream cones. He shoved the cones into their muzzles, confused them, made their eyes start to water, then banged their heads together, and shouted at the baseball czar, “Start running, huh? I can’t do this all day.”

  “But where should I go?”

  “To Houston and Chicago, J. And settle that strike if you want to keep alive.”

  The baseball czar darted across the street, while Milton reached for his Glock. Isaac kicked the gun out of Milton’s hand, pivoted like a toreador, punched Milton and Sam into the ground. People began to gather, but they didn’t seem alarmed: they liked to catch their mayor in the middle of a brawl. He was their favorite hooligan, and they would have gladly helped him out. But the Big Guy wasn’t looking for help. All his anger seemed to descend on Milton and Sam, his hatred of politics, his disgust with Sidereal, a corporation with all the tentacles and inky blood of an octopus. He was one lone hombre, El Caballo, stuck in a war he could no longer grasp. He pummeled Milton and Sam, who couldn’t fight a mayor surrounded by all his fans. Then he looked up, saw Wooster and Tim Seligman outside the studio, cheering Isaac. The further he ran from politics, the deeper he was enmeshed. “Alyosha,” he muttered, longing for the dunes. He’d have to disappear, suck his own thumbs and pray that no one nominated him for anything. El Caballo.

  Part Five

  20

  —Hey, marica, maricon.

  Alyosha would find little caves in the Park Avenue trestle and live like a rat, surviving on old candy bars and containers of sour milk. The Malay Warriors and the San Juan Freaks had given up the chase. They couldn’t track Alyosha and avoid Richardson’s Apaches, who were following them as they followed the kid, and picking them off two and three at a time. But it was Alyosha’s own gang, the Jokers, who persisted, with certain Dixie Cups, borrowed from the Dominoes. They would howl at Alyosha, call him a cunt in their own Bronx vocabulary.

  —Hey, fruta bomba, how are you, man?

  He might have surrendered to the Jokers, but not to the Dixie Cups, who sucked on their pipes and sold crack to infants while they pursued Alyosha.

  —Hey, marica, maricón, did you know that
Paulie’s dead?

  Paul was a magician, like the Big Jew. You couldn’t kill Paul. But Alyosha got suspicious. Why would the Jokers and the Dixie Cups keep singing that same little song?

  —Fruta bomba, Paulie’s dead ’cause of you.

  He took a quarter out of his pocket, raced into a telephone booth near the trestle, dialed Rikers, haggled with the operator, who finally switched his call to the max security center, where a guard got on the line and teased Alyosha.

  “Paulito aint registered at our hotel.”

  “But where is he?”

  “Try the Atlantic Ocean … or the Bronx morgue.”

  And the phone went dead before Alyosha could say another word. He didn’t have a fresh coin to shove into the slot, and he shouldn’t have exposed himself. Because there could have been a stray Freak who hadn’t given up the hunt and was looking for a little reward money. But the coast was clear, and Alyosha ran beside the tracks, wondering if he should hurl rocks at a passing train, but it wouldn’t have given him pleasure to harm any of the ricos who lived in Connecticut, where Alyosha had never been. He could duck into the shadows, but he couldn’t escape the voices around him.

  —Fruta bomba, fruta bomba, who murdered Paul?

  Alyosha started to shiver, because all the maricónes couldn’t have had the same theme unless some of it was true. He was hungry for cash. He had to have another quarter. He put on his blue handkerchief, wore it like a mask, waited outside a grocery store and stopped a niño who couldn’t have been more than five.

  “Homey,” he shouted under the muslin of his mask, “gimme all you got.”

  The niño started to cry. “Mamà will kill me.”

  “Hey, you’re talking to Angel Carpenteros. Why should I care?”

  But as he grabbed the niño’s grocery bag and little black purse that must have been swollen with coins, he suffered a knock on his wrist, a savage blow that could have come from a hammer or one of Richardson’s blackjacks. He dropped the groceries and the purse.