Montezuma's Man (The Isaac Sidel Novels)

by Jerome Charyn

  “Who told you about us?” Isaac asked.

  “The FBIs. They have microphones in all the Mafia clubs. I won’t tolerate a private war between Jerry DiAngelis and the Commish. I’ll arrest you, Isaac. I’ll bag both Black Stocking Twins.”

  “Joe’s untouchable,” Isaac said. “He’s LeComte’s baby.”

  “LeComte deals his babies when he has to. I can embarrass Justice’s little commissar.”

  “Jerry started the war. I have to finish it.”

  “Then do it with a search warrant.”

  “LeComte’s indicted him four times. He couldn’t make any of his charges stick. Jerry’s like a diva in the courtroom. He can mesmerize a jury. The don who looks like a movie star.”

  “You were blood brothers once.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “End your new career, Isaac, or I’ll end it for you.”

  And Sweets climbed out of the car.

  “Boss,” Barbarossa said. “He’s not fooling around.”

  “He works for me,” Isaac said. “He’s my First Dep. I’m the Commish.”

  “He can still bust us.”

  “I’ve been to Riker’s. I’ve sat in jail. We have to go on stinging Jerry. We’re the Black Stocking Twins.”

  But Isaac didn’t steer him to a social club. They went to Ratner’s, a dairy restaurant on Delancey, where an elegant old man sat in a silk scarf. He was Izzy Wasser, the melamed, Jerry’s father-in-law and the brains of the clan. He’d suffered a stroke, but he was sharper than the Twins.

  “My favorite holdupniks,” he said. “Isaac, you’re prospering at our expense.”

  “Call it a contribution to the Delancey Giants.”

  “I have my own charities,” the melamed said. They sat around a table, while Barbarossa discovered dish after dish. Hot mashed carrots with prunes in the middle. Salmon cutlets. A cold potato pie.

  “Isaac, the nonsense has to stop. I can’t be responsible for Jerry. You have a daughter, Isaac. Don’t forget.”

  The color had gone out of Isaac’s eyes. He could have been a vampire. “Kill him, Joey.”

  “I can’t. He’s the melamed.”

  “Kill him.”

  “Isaac, it’s lunchtime. You’ll have two hundred witnesses. We’re in a cafeteria.”

  “Then I’ll kill him,” Isaac said. “I’ll tear off his face.”

  “Ah, you don’t mean it,” Barbarossa said.

  “He threatens my daughter … he doesn’t leave Ratner’s alive.”

  The melamed pulled on his silk scarf and swallowed a baked apple. “I didn’t threaten. I’m trying to tell you that Jerry is rash.”

  “I know all about it, Iz. He tried to waste me and Margaret at Chinaman’s Chance.”

  “He wanted Rubino, not you or Margaret. Margaret happened to be there.”

  The Chinaman’s was a bottle club in Spanish Harlem where a certain Delia St. John loved to dance. Joe had been her protector once. She was a “child” model who’d worked for Sal Rubino’s pornography mill. She’d slept with all the honchos of Manhattan, including Martin Malik. Delia married Papa Cassidy, a rat-bastard billionaire, and retired from the club. But she was giving a command performance for Sal when Jerry arrived with the melamed and his shooters. Jerry wasn’t quick enough. Isaac appeared like a magician, with his own squad of detectives, wearing bulletproof vests and waiting in the shadows. Barbarossa hadn’t been invited to this showdown at Chinaman’s Chance, but it was already part of the folklore at One PP.

  “Iz, I’m not lying down for Jerry or you … Jerry can go to his shooters, but I’ll cripple your organization. I don’t have to finagle with masks.”

  “Isaac, you’re a hothead. Just like Jerry. Sal has been meddling in our business. He has to go.”

  “He lives in a wheelchair. How much can he meddle?”

  “The man has a monopoly on cement. He’s been bribing our best contractors and our captains.”

  “He’s Sal Rubino. Half your captains used to be his.”

  “Mule,” the melamed said. “You won’t listen.”

  “I listened. I saved your Family from extinction. I made my bones with you, Iz. I was your Family. And you tossed me out.”

  “You’re the police commissioner. You went on the road for the FBI.”

  “I never betrayed you, Iz.”

  “You will.”

  Isaac walked out of Ratner’s with Barbarossa and dialed his daughter from the telephone in his car. Marilyn the Wild lived in Seattle with her ninth or tenth husband. No one could keep count, not even Marilyn. Isaac talked to her latest husband, a Legal Aid lawyer.

  “Mark, what happened?”

  He stared at the ceiling and started to groan. Then he turned silent. It was Barbarossa who had to hang up the phone and tuck him into his blanket. He sat like a teepee Indian, Chief Joseph of One Police Plaza.

  “She’s flown the coop again. Gone. She falls in love and marries the man, but she’s like her father. We weren’t made for marriages.”

  “Where is she, boss?”

  “That’s the problem. You can’t tell with Marilyn. She could be crisscrossing the United States. My daughter likes long bus rides.”

  “She’ll surface, boss.”

  “I’m not so sure. She could hide forever under a new married name.”

  They crossed into Brooklyn. Isaac stood on the esplanade in Brooklyn Heights, looking out at the lost horizons of lower Manhattan, crazy castles of stone and glass. People asked him for his autograph.

  “Your Honor,” they said, imagining Isaac as their mayor-king.

  “I haven’t declared,” he had to say. “I’m not a candidate.”

  “Our children are dying, Commissioner Sidel. The schools aren’t safe. Our old have to sit in the dark by themselves. Do you know how much it costs to hire a nurse?”

  “I’m a policeman,” Isaac said. “I can’t solve all the riddles of New York.”

  “Your Honor, this is Brooklyn, not New York.”

  He began to shiver. Barbarossa had to bring him back to the car. He sat up front in his blanket. “I’m restless, Joe. I have to hit one of Jerry’s clubs. It’s the only thing that will calm me down.”

  “It’s risky, boss. Sweets is on to us. So are Jerry’s people. There’ll be shooters at all the clubs.”

  “All right, all right, but I’m not retiring the Twins.”

  Part Two

  5

  He was losing his marbles, one by one. He couldn’t remember the names of his adjutants. He was struggling against some swollen thing that swallowed up his past. I’m Isaac Sidel, he had to tell himself. I’m the PC. My daughter’s name is Marilyn. My mother used to be Sophie Sidel. My dad is a portrait painter in Paris. He panicked. He couldn’t recall his brother’s name. Leo, he said. Like Count Leo Tolstoy, the father of War and Peace. But Leo Sidel wasn’t a count. His wife had rid herself of him. His children ran from Leo. He was in and out of alimony jail until Isaac settled a small allowance on him. Leo couldn’t seem to hold a job even while his brother was the Commish, a guy suffering from selective amnesia. What the hell was the name of Leo’s two kids? A boy and a girl. He could conjure up their faces, hear them call him “Uncle Isaac.”

  He’d forgotten to shave this morning. His shoes weren’t tied. He had a Band-Aid on his finger. He was a detective who couldn’t find his daughter or follow the clues of his own fucking life. Homicides were up in Manhattan. Handguns were everywhere. Hospitals were closing. There were crazies out on the street. The north woods of Central Park had become a private crib for crack babies. But he was the first Alexander Hamilton Fellow. He’d gone around the U.S. lecturing on crime. Justice and Frederic LeComte had sponsored Sidel, the Hebraic police commissioner who’d drawn Latinos and blacks into his Department, who had a Turkish chief judge, Chinese deputies, a Rastafarian lawyer. But he couldn’t remember most of their names.

  He was up on the fourteenth floor, where he could dream of crimes he might commit, wit
h or without a black mask. The phone started to buzz. Barbarossa was waiting for him. Isaac went into the bowels of One PP and rode out of the commissioner’s berth, with Barbarossa behind the wheel. Barbarossa was a vagabond who lived at the same pingpong club where Manfred Coen had died, and it was the ritual of pingpong that bound him to Isaac. Barbarossa was also LeComte’s little spy, but Isaac couldn’t have cared less. He enjoyed Barbarossa’s company. It was like riding with Blue Eyes’ ghost.

  “That actress,” Isaac growled, “what the hell was her name? She was a calendar girl. She married DiMaggio.”

  Barbarossa didn’t even prick up his ears. “Marilyn. Like your daughter … Marilyn Monroe. What’s the matter, boss?”

  “My fucking mind is going. I can’t remember the names of my nephew and niece.”

  “You don’t have a niece. You have two nephews. Davey and Michael. We visited them last month.”

  “That’s impossible. I know I have a niece. I can picture her face.”

  “That’s Caroline. Davey’s girlfriend.”

  “Girlfriend? The kid’s in kneepants.”

  “He’s going to college, boss.”

  “I’m telling you, Joe. Time is fucking with my head. I wake up and I can’t remember who I am.”

  “You’re the PC. Your ass is always on the line. Somebody suffers, you suffer with them. It’s hard to pull back … boss, a call came in while you were coming down. It’s your brother.”

  “Brother?” Isaac said.

  “Yeah, he was caught shoplifting. They’re holding him in a dinky lockup at a department store. The store dick won’t release him.”

  “Does that department store know who he is?”

  “Yeah, boss. But the detective is a ballbreaker. He won’t release Leo until you come for him.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “The dispatcher didn’t say.”

  “And the store?”

  “It’s a big shoebox on Fordham Road. Fashion Town.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “No one shops there.”

  “Except my brother Leo … what’s my schedule like?”

  “You have a three o’clock with Cardinal Jim on Gun Hill Road. Should I cancel?”

  “No,” Isaac said. “Let Leo sit. It will do him some good. The cardinal doesn’t like cancellations. We’ll go to him first. Then we’ll collect fucking Leo.”

  Jim O’Bannon, the cardinal archbishop of New York, liked to rendezvous with Isaac in distant streets where he wouldn’t be noticed. Isaac enjoyed these little cabals. And it gave him a chance to ride through the City like a random voyager. Joe would pick the most “scenic” route, where Isaac could observe one wasteland after the other.

  They crossed into the Bronx, rode up the Grand Concourse, the borough’s own blasted Champs Élysées, with broken courtyards, blighted trees, Art Deco palaces with ghostly, crumbling roofs. Isaac must have found some of his marbles. His mind started to flash. He had an image of Leo in short pants. The image was forty years old. Isaac had been a bandit long before he became police commissioner. He robbed ration stamps in the middle of World War II. Leo was his courier, little Leo, who could run across lines of policemen with contraband in the pockets of his short pants so Isaac could buy silk stockings for his sweetheart, Anastasia, better known as Margaret Tolstoy. Leo had been the fuel of Isaac’s romance …

  They got to Gun Hill Road. The cardinal stood outside his big black Lincoln in an ancient shirt. He loved old clothes. He took a walk with Isaac, tore at the cigarette in his hand and toyed with the tobacco. But Isaac was spooked by that picture of Leo in short pants.

  “There’s a bit of a crisis, love.”

  “Tell me about it, Jim.”

  “I have a problem priest. He’s been undressing little boys. And now we’re being blackmailed.”

  “Who’s the blackmailer?”

  “One of your lads.”

  “A cop?” Isaac said. “I can’t believe it.”

  “I didn’t say ‘cop,’ did I? A lab technician. Broderick Swirl. He’s one of your Crime Scene boys.”

  “I’ll cripple him.”

  “Aint that easy. I met the lad. Mentioned your name. He didn’t blink. He’d like a monthly stipend from the Church. He has photographs, Isaac.”

  “Is he Catholic?”

  “Indeed. A former friend of my priest. Our lawyers are against any sort of scandal. They’ve set up a discretionary fund. We wouldn’t be involved. And we can always pounce on him at a later date.”

  “Don’t,” Isaac said. “Once you pay him, that’s it. Lemme have a go at him.”

  “He’s a devil. He won’t scare.”

  “I’ll run over to Crime Scene and nail him to a door.”

  “The lad’s convalescing. He broke his leg. He lives right around the corner. That’s why I brought you up here. Shall we visit him together? Sort of good cop, bad cop, eh? I could bash him around the ears.”

  “I’d have to arrest you for aggravated assault.”

  “You’re a bloody civilian, like me.”

  “But I wear a badge with five gold stars. Good-bye, Jim.”

  The cardinal scribbled Swirl’s address and the name and parish of the problem priest. Isaac hugged the old man. “Jim,” he said, adopting his policeman’s brogue, “I’ll expect a bit of compensation.”

  The cardinal smiled. “Ah, now I have two blackmailers. What is it, Isaac?”

  “I’m short a third baseman. I’d like to borrow one of yours.”

  Both of them managed teams for the PAL.

  “That’s robbery,” the cardinal said. But he loved to barter with Isaac. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  The cardinal left and Isaac rode around the corner.

  “Joe, gimme my mask.”

  “Does Jerry have a club on the Grand Concourse? I wouldn’t mess with his black captains, boss.”

  “I’m not.” Isaac pointed to a private house. “I’m going in there. Just sit where you are.”

  “What about your brother Leo?”

  “Leo will have to wait.”

  He should have gone through the files at Crime Scene and kidnapped Swirl’s folder, but he was feeling reckless, like the Black Stocking Kid. He stepped out of the car, pranced onto a lawn, put on the mask, climbed a crooked porch, knocked on the door, and entered Broderick’s house.

  The blackmailer was waiting for him in a miserable armchair. His right leg was in a cast. He looked about thirty years old. He was wearing a gold chain around his neck. His eyes didn’t seem to startle at the sight of the mask. Where did a lousy lab technician get such a big pair of balls?

  “Fuck it,” Isaac said, and he tore off the mask.

  “That’s better,” Broderick said. “That’s much, much better. I work for you. Are you gonna waste me, chief?”

  “No. Not right now.”

  “I’m a pretty good photographer. Did the cardinal show you my snaps of Father Tom?”

  Ah, Father Tom of St. Anne’s parish. He’d already forgotten the name of the priest on Jim’s slip of paper.

  “You have a pension, Mr. Swirl. I can bring Internal Affairs right down on your back. Have you ever met Martin Malik? He’s my trials commissioner. He’ll tear your heart out. He’s a Turk.”

  “I’m not a cop. You can fuck me or fire me, but you can’t give me a departmental trial.”

  “Sonny, I can turn every one of your days into a living hell.”

  “I’ve already been there, Commissioner Isaac.”

  He had a cat’s crazy grin.

  Isaac heard an echo behind him. Barbarossa had come into the house with his white glove. The grin disappeared from Swirl’s face.

  “You know each other?”

  “Sure, boss,” Barbarossa said. “Brod’s one of my customers. He buys dope from me. I recognized his fucking bungalow. I’ve been here before … right, Brod?”

  The blackmailer shook his head like a little boy.

  “And what happens to
people who cross Uncle Joe?”

  “They get lost,” the blackmailer said. “I swear, Joey. I didn’t know you were with the Commish.”

  “Haven’t you heard of the Black Stocking Twins?” Barbarossa said, dangling his mask.

  “I’ve been sick,” the blackmailer said. “I haven’t been out of the house.”

  “You’re entitled to a mistake, Brod. But only one … don’t worry, boss. He likes to do a little blackmail on the side. He’s got a thing about priests. But it’s all finished. Just go outside for a minute.”

  Isaac was like a drugged man. He walked out and stood on the porch. Barbarossa appeared with a thick envelope. “It’s his whole inventory.”

  “Tear up the pictures. I don’t want to look.”

  He sulked in the car. His own driver had more sway in the City of New York. He’d have to retire to an old people’s home. He was fifty-six. But he was still a fox. He’d have a new third baseman for the Delancey Giants. And Cardinal Jim would have to hide his problem priest.

  He started to dream. He’d become a priest, Father Isaac. And his parish was a baseball field with broken red grass. The bleachers were filled with boys and girls. The girls all looked like Isaac, the boys like Margaret Tolstoy. He couldn’t tell what position he was meant to play. He was lost in that sea of red grass.

  “Boss?”

  Barbarossa had his hand on Isaac’s shoulder. “Boss, we’re here.”

  Isaac couldn’t rouse himself from his own murderous sleep. Margaret. “Here?” he said.

  “At the shoebox on Fordham Road.”

  “Why’d you wake me?”

  “Boss, we have to get Leo.”

  It was a shoebox, like Barbarossa said. A bargain basement three floors high. Fashion Town. The clothier of Leo Sidel. The dummies in the window had a maddening, sunburnt look. Bronzed men who could have been white, black, Latino, or Native American. Their nostrils, their eyes and ears looked like the holes of a mask. But the dummies were draped in shirts and vests that mocked Isaac, who had his own bargain basements on Orchard Street. Isaac loved to wear Orchard Street’s best.

  “Come with me, Joe.”