He couldn’t really sniff the lay of the land. Something was wrong. It was too fucking allegorical, this descent into darkness. A little hamlet of poor blacks that seemed outside the usual rub of time, and another hamlet, bereft of people, where the only real citizens were books. Isaac might have been less suspicious if he’d seen one live alligator. But it was as if their little caravan of Democrats was trapped inside the brainstorm of a wizard in a limestone castle. . . .
They slept in motels among the bayous or in some dead orchard, where they could park the yellow bus. Isaac had his own bungalow. But it couldn’t protect him from having the same bad dream. A boy again, in short pants, he was bumping along when he discovered a cafeteria right on Broadway, with electric signboards above his head. The women painted on them were twenty feet tall. They looked ready to leap out of the signboards and crush a boy in short pants.
He ran into the cafeteria, but he had to pay a premium of fifty cents if he wanted to sit at one of the tables. These tables were much too tall, and the chairs were treacherous. It took him the better part of an hour to find his way onto a bruised leather seat. And he couldn’t command any of the waiters no matter how hard he signaled. He didn’t have an ounce of pedigree inside this cafeteria. No one would listen. He began to sob.
And then he saw her. She sat next to Isaac in a tall chair. But she wasn’t harsh and overweening, like the women in the signboards. She had a silver hat clapped to her head. He wished it were Trudy Winckleman, come to haunt his nights in a humdrum motel. But this cafeteria lady had very long legs. And then he recognized her. He was looking at the original Inez, Rothstein’s blond beauty, but what was Inez doing in a strange cafeteria, with a silver hat that some conquistador might have worn? This wasn’t Lindy’s, where Legs Diamond walked from front to rear, as a warning to anyone who welshed on a bet with the Brain or forgot the interest on a loan. Isaac couldn’t even sample some sauerkraut.
Inez heard his stomach growl. She bent over him like one of those colossal ladies in the signboards and patted his eyes with a napkin. He was certain that Inez would sit him on her lap and feed him something from the counter, which was very far away, or at least whistle at a waiter. But the dream always ended with Inez stuffing the napkin—a rag, really—into his mouth until Isaac could no longer breathe.
And he’d wake out of this nightmare in some no-man’s-land between Texas and the Ansonia, wishing he’d never, never agreed to become the nation’s VP.
* * *
It wasn’t that much better during the day. He was tied to a yellow bus on a pilgrimage he didn’t believe in. He had to protect his loved ones, who traveled with him on a sinister route.
The villages and hamlets they visited along the Gulf had been half-destroyed by some hurricane; the restaurants were shuttered; the gas stations had no gas. Children stared at them from cardboard windows. They could have been born in the Bronx. “Jesus,” Isaac said to Michael. “Will you take some notes? We’ll have to come back here after the inauguration and help these forgotten people.”
“There won’t be an inauguration,” Michael moaned. He had fallen into a drunken stupor since their first day on the road. Isaac cursed himself. He had to swallow dust and drink alligator piss just because the Constitution had neglected to deal with a president-elect who ran from his own election before Congress and the Electoral College could ratify him. But the College did convene in all fifty states while the yellow bus approached the wetlands of some lost lagoon. And the votes cast by the College with its own strange mystique would be sent on to the Capitol in DC and remain unanswered and unopened until Congress itself convened in January to count the electoral votes and declare who had really won the election. Until then, the Big Guy and Michael would have to diddle around in the wetlands and backwoods.
But suddenly, their yellow bus had become the Little White House. Senators and congressmen arrived in that lost lagoon, Democrats and Republicans alike, to pay homage to the new powerhouse, Isaac Sidel. Michael wasn’t even mentioned. A clique of senators wanted Isaac’s opinion on a particular appropriations bill. Others asked him whether he might consider having a woman as secretary of state. Isaac was saddled with a transition team, in spite of himself. He tried to defer all questions to the president-elect, but no one wanted Michael.
Isaac had to pose with his own first family. None of the reporters had ever seen Marilyn before. She wasn’t shy in front of the cameras. She said that her father was a little too free with his Glock. And Isaac sulked over his son-in-law. All of Joey’s dealing in Saigon would soon come out. But the Big Guy posed with Marilyn, Joe, and the Little First Lady, while Michael sat like some deranged Ajax in his “tent,” which was the very last seat of the bus.
Isaac always mentioned Michael first, kept insisting on “Storm-Sidel,” but the reporters only heard his name. He had already been crowned by them, right in the middle of the bayous. And then Mr. Death, Trevor Welles, drifted through all of Isaac’s bodyguards and brought the secretary of defense onto the bus, Mr. Sumner Mars of Idaho. He was one of the richest men in America and had his own ranch near Bald Mountain. He wore a western string tie and a rancher’s boots. Mars was forty-five years old, with the rugged looks of a mountaineer. He nearly crushed one of Isaac’s knuckles with his iron grip. The Big Guy had to struggle to get his hand back.
“Mr. President, there’s been a terrible blunder. I blame myself. Some ambitious officers in San Antone and elsewhere have been trawling around for the Pentagon, looking for new reservoirs of land. But they trawled behind my back. We have no business in the Bronx. We wouldn’t build one of our bases in your backyard.”
Now Isaac was deeply suspicious. Secretary Mars didn’t have to make his own pilgrimage to the Democrats’ Little White House in the middle of nowhere. He’d be returning to his ranch in a couple of weeks. What had possessed him to board the yellow bus? He’d never really been attached to the Republican Party or Texas financiers.
“Then I have your word?” Isaac said, offering Mars his last cold Dr Pepper. “Because if there is a sudden land grab, Mr. Secretary, I’ll ruffle every fucking feather you have.”
Mars never blinked. “I’ll ruin the man who dispossesses one Latino family in the Bronx.”
The Big Guy was troubled more than ever. His left arm began to twitch. He let Mars pump his hand again, said good-bye, and sought out his son-in-law. “Joey, something stinks. If the cap pistols start going off, grab Marilyn and Marianna and run for the hills.”
“Dad, there aren’t any hills.”
“I have this funny feeling. I think we’re all sitting ducks.”
“So do I.”
“Are the Crusaders dealing against us?”
“If they are, Dad, then it’s my fault. But Colonel Welles didn’t ever let me down, not even once.”
“He’s still Mr. Death.”
Meanwhile, Isaac’s wagon train grew smaller and smaller. TV stations recalled their crews. Reporters disappeared one by one, having been pulled onto meatier assignments. Not even Isaac and Marianna could entertain America after their first week on the road. And ten minutes after he told Trevor Welles to break up this entourage and abandon the tour of Texas, the bus had two flat tires. They were stranded in Zapata County, ten miles from the Mexican border, in some strange foothill that overlooked a field of mesquite. Was this a momentary reprieve? Would they drag him to El Paso and snuff him out in one of the back alleys, where gangs from Tijuana with Glocks of their own were waiting for him? Would it be like having a taste of Saigon?
He could hear the blades of a whirlybird. He thought the Prez had come to visit him on Marine One. But it wasn’t Calder Cottonwood. This bird didn’t have the seal of the United States. It was a Chinook that had no markings and had been painted black. A dozen men scrambled out of the bird before it hit the ground. They wore combat boots and night-fighter paint, were dressed in black and carried machine pistols or deer slayers—Mossberg Mountaineers. Isaac groaned to himself as he recogni
zed Billy Bob Archer under that paint.
“Run,” he whispered to Joey. “With the two girls.”
“Dad, it’s too late.”
The Big Guy’s bodyguards had drawn their Glocks.
“Children,” he said, “put your toys away. They’ll tear us to pieces.”
But Martin Boyle stood in front of Isaac and Marianna, and aimed his .22 Magnum at Trevor Welles.
“Boyle,” Isaac said, “will you put it down, for fuck’s sake? You’re trying to get the drop on Mr. Death.”
“I don’t care,” Boyle said. But he never had the chance to say another word. Billy Bob shot him between the eyes with his deer slayer. Marianna stifled a scream. But she couldn’t take her eyes off Martin Boyle, who died without twitching once.
“That’s enough,” Isaac said while Joe Barbarossa whispered in his ear.
“Dad, let me negotiate with these mothers.”
Isaac started to blubber. “You can’t negotiate with Mr. Death. They’ll do the same to you.”
But Vietnam Joe pinched his father-in-law and glanced at Mr. Death.
“You shouldn’t have lied to me, Colonel Trevor.”
“Joey, did I have a choice? You would have skinned us alive if we didn’t get you out into the open with the Big Guy. We’d never have gotten past your white glove.”
“What do you want?”
“That depends. You wore the Crusaders’ badge. You were one of us. It would grieve me to pop out your lights. You can walk away with the Big Guy’s daughter, but you have to promise not to tattle on us.”
“Stop it,” Joey said. “We wouldn’t get very far, not while your freelancers are carrying half a dozen deer slayers.
“Freelancers?” said Trevor Welles. “That wounds me to the quick. We’re patriots. We protect the president of the United States and all his interests.”
“There is no fucking United States while you and your lunatics roam around in your Chinook,” Isaac said. “Why don’t you protect Michael? Isn’t he the president-elect?”
“We are protecting him. Aren’t we, Mikey?”
The wounded warrior stepped out of the yellow bus. This is the Michael that Isaac should have remembered, the double-dealer of double-dealers. There was no pain in his eyes, no remorse.
“Michael,” Isaac said. “Forget about me. They’ll kill your own daughter.”
“No, they won’t. We’ll keep her in storage, hide her in some ranch.”
“Yeah,” Isaac said, “some ranch in Idaho, right under Bald Mountain. . . . It’s all about Sidereal, isn’t it? You were always Pearl’s partner. And you brought in the Prez. He’s as moral as a cockroach—a Texas cockroach. You and your Texas partners will make a killing.”
“Without me,” said the Little First Lady, who leapt on Michael and bit his arm. He howled, but Marianna clung to him until Trevor Welles tossed her into the mesquite. Isaac picked her out of the gnarled branches, rocked her in his arms, and scowled at Michael.
“Jesus, you’re the one who’s the real Mr. Death. The others are just paid clerks.”
“Are you calling me a clerk, Mr. Fancy Pants?” asked Billy Bob, who licked the barrel of his Mossberg Mountaineer, like some madcap Davy Crockett.
“No, Billy Bob. But I doubt that you’re God’s eye. You don’t even have the dignity of a little devil.”
“Colonel Trevor,” Billy Bob said, “are you gonna let Mr. Fancy Pants insult me? Then I’ll do his daughter first.”
“Shut up, Billy Bob.”
“Then let me do Vietnam Joe. . . . I’m hungry to do it.”
“Come on,” Joe said, edging toward Michael. “I’ll rip this Judas off at the neck before you get near me.”
But Billy Bob hit him with the butt of his deer slayer before he could lunge at Michael. Joey spun around once and fell into Isaac’s arms. “Dad,” he said, “I’m sorry,” and drifted into his own dark dream. Isaac sang the mourner’s song deep inside his head. He didn’t mind taking a bullet. But he didn’t want Marilyn and Joey to die. And he refused to imagine a world where Marianna couldn’t grow up. They’d give her a horse to ride on at Sumner Mars’ ranch. And then they’d realize she was too dangerous to have around. First they’d put her in some cage in the ground, and they’d strangle her soon enough.
But his mind began to explode. He had an erection while the slaughter was about to begin. He couldn’t stop thinking of Inez’s silver crown. He was getting delirious with the aroma of her armpits. She’d tried to warn him in Houston after David had planned his caper with Mr. Death. The Big Guy hadn’t listened, hadn’t even caressed her silver hair. Would they hurl the yellow bus down a ravine and swear it was an unholy accident? And Michael would mourn the death of his running mate.
Ah, but at least Marilyn had settled in with a man. That was one consolation. She’d been in love with Isaac’s adjutant, Manfred Coen, and he’d driven Manfred toward his own slaughter. Marilyn’s many marriages had been her own revenge against her dad. But she loved Joey, perhaps because he reminded her of Coen. They both had the shyness of born killers, even if Manfred had never killed anyone.
He wouldn’t shut his eyes. He wanted to drift through hell with his eyes open.
But he was startled when Billy Bob’s head split like a pumpkin and his brains splattered all over Isaac. He didn’t even hear the noise of a gun. The Crusaders never had a chance to hide behind the bus. Trevor Welles was the last to fall. He lay with all his freelancers dressed in black. Aside from the bits of brain all over him, Isaac didn’t see much blood. But he could have been misled. All that sudden commotion had created a dust storm in a matter of minutes. Then the dust cleared, and Bull Latham came down off the foothills, with a scatter of agents in field jackets right behind him. He wasn’t even carrying a firearm.
“Sharpshooters, huh? Isaac, those guys weren’t shit.”
“You bugged the bus, didn’t you, Bull?”
“Mr. President, how could I leave a baby like you all alone in the desert? Should I cuff that son of a bitch, J. Michael Storm? He’s the Bureau’s biggest catch.”
“No,” Isaac said. “Michael is mine.”
He hugged Marilyn and Marianna and started to cry. “Will you cover up Martin Boyle, huh, Bull? I don’t want him to rot like that. And call an ambulance for my son-in-law. He’s hurt. Jesus, does a guy have to do everything for himself?”
Part Five
20
HE HADN’T RETURNED WHOLE FROM the hinterland. Texas had scratched him in some fundamental way. His brow was pierced with dark lines. He could have been Manhattan’s own Mr. Hyde. All he wanted to do was hit and hit and hit. But Isaac couldn’t create another constitutional crisis. Those who had survived the shootout near Zapata, Texas, had been sworn to secrecy. He wanted to knock on Inez’s door, howl until she heard him. He almost did. But Isaac seemed to harm whoever was near. He had to maneuver beneath his fierce brow.
He left Secretary Mars in place. But he still chopped at the Pentagon. Bull Latham said that a maverick society of elite troops, under the cover of the medical center at Fort Sam Houston, had plotted to murder the president-elect and his running mate. The plotters had worked alone. Several of them were patients or former patients at Fort Sam’s psychiatric wing.
Reporters pounced on the story and wouldn’t let it lie dead. They kept looking for possible coconspirators, but they couldn’t even get near the president-elect. He was locked inside his suite at the Waldorf and never even left the hotel. The Big Guy would have him in handcuffs if he ever walked out onto the street. President Cottonwood had a memorial service for Martin Boyle in the Rose Garden, with a marine honor guard and a coffin draped in an American flag. “That’s the least I can do for one of my own boys who fell in the line of duty.”
But Isaac wouldn’t attend the memorial for his own Secret Service man. He boycotted the Rose Garden and President Cottonwood. Reporters could smell a feud between the United States and New York. Isaac held his own memorial outside Gracie Man
sion, with an honor guard from the NYPD. The president’s chopper interrupted the service. Marine One landed on the winter grass, and Cottonwood climbed out. The Big Guy wouldn’t shake his hand. Reporters realized that Cottonwood meant very little in the fiefdom of Manhattan. He was one more superfluous man.
Isaac wept during the service. Martin Boyle hadn’t been a bad man. He was caught up in the president’s own intrigue and died because of it, in some crazy battle for broken land in the Bronx. After the service, the Prez followed Isaac like a puppy onto the back porch of the mansion.
The Big Guy wouldn’t even offer him a cupcake or a butternut cookie—Marianna had again become the mistress of Gracie Mansion. No one talked about Lolita. It was better that the Big Guy wasn’t alone. And Marianna did have a chaperone, Amanda Wilde, even though Isaac knew she wasn’t worth shit.
“Son,” Cottonwood said, “what can I do to make amends?”
“As a starter, you can stay out of Manhattan and the Bronx. And if you meddle one more time, I’ll collar you myself the moment you vacate the White House.”
“Understood,” said the Prez, still the same puppy dog.
“There’s no more Sidereal, no more dream of a gigantic circus tent in the Bronx. You’ll give up whatever holdings you have. You’ll pluck all the generals out of the air force base in San Antone and have them retire before you leave office. And you’ll bring in an entirely new team at the Fort Sam medical center. If there’s one more deal under the table, I’ll march right into the Oval Office and rip your heart out.”
“Understood.”
“Now get your ass back onto your whirlybird, and keep the fuck away from me.”
Reporters watched Calder lean into the wind of Marine One and vanish into the sky. They realized that there was a new leader of the Western World, and he had no rivals. The president of France wanted to meet with Sidel. “I’m flattered,” Isaac told the reporters stationed in Room Nine at City Hall. “But I’m only Michael Storm’s running mate. I have a city to run, and I shouldn’t be climbing onto a bigger stage.”
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