Montezuma's Man (The Isaac Sidel Novels)

by Jerome Charyn

  It was a six-story brick and stone castle that had been put up on Valentine Avenue during the great building boom of the twenties. Terra-cotta “jewels” decorated the upper tiers of the building. There were goblins and heads of wild geese growing out of the walls. There was a fountain in the great sunken court that had stopped spitting water. The court itself was treacherous. There were holes in its concrete trails. An unwary boy could plunge into a pile of debris. Rats paraded near the fountain. Frannie’s boys would chase them with hunting knives and blackjacks. Rat bashing was part of their curriculum.

  There had been a hundred and ten apartments, but Frannie tore through the inner walls and now he had a maze of rooms for the boys and half a floor to himself. He wouldn’t allow prostitutes on the premises. The boys would meet their chicas at bottle clubs for coca babies like themselves. They’d carry shopping bags stuffed with money from their coca sales, leave the shopping bags behind some counter, and start to dance. But no matter who they were with, they always went to bed alone on Valentine Avenue in the Bronx.

  Isaac stood on a roof across from Crazy Corners with Barbarossa and a pair of binoculars. His musketeers were sitting below in that brown bus on the blind side of Frannie’s castle. They could have charged Crazy Corners in a minute and a half. They had sledgehammers and tear gas and explosive caps. They had armor-plated shields and shatterproof visors on their helmets. And Isaac had a band of sharpshooters behind the bus. If he had to, he would “levitate” them to the roofs.

  He could have invented a little fairy tale around Frannie Meyers and got himself a warrant, but he didn’t have the time or the patience. He could have falsified affidavits, manufactured evidence, but he wanted Frannie now.

  He’d wander into Frannie’s court in a fiberglass vest, provoke the little bastard and his babies, let them take a couple of shots before his musketeers broke into Crazy Corners and captured Fran.

  Looking through the portholes of his binoculars, he discovered some of the kids playing basketball in a narrow gym on the second floor. They weren’t wearing uniforms like his Delancey Giants. The kids played in their underpants. They weren’t cautious. They drove for the basket with all the concentration of young entrepreneurs.

  “Ah, shit,” Isaac said and screamed into his field radio. “Moses to Captain Blood, Moses to Captain Blood, sink the galleon, send it home.”

  He tossed the radio into his pocket.

  “I’m glad, boss. We can get to Fran without the musketeers. Should we go to our masks?”

  “I’m not in the mood,” Isaac said. “The kids will laugh at us.”

  He went down into the street with Joe, put on the commissioner’s badge he hardly ever wore, and walked into Crazy Corners. The concrete paths seemed to crumble under his shoes. It was like struggling against slightly hardened quicksand. One of his ankles got lost. He had to hug his own leg to find that ankle again. He hated the idea of mythological journeys. But he could have been entering the wormy regions of his own past. He might have hardened himself against the coca babies if he hadn’t seen them in short pants.

  “Frannie Meyers,” he shouted, “we have to talk.”

  Windows opened everywhere. Strange hammers began to hurtle down at him and Barbarossa. The hammers were bottles of ketchup distorted by their own velocity and the wind. Isaac and Barbarossa had to duck against the barrage of bottles, which landed with a kiss and a shower of ketchup and glass.

  Frannie appeared inside a window frame, with a kerchief around his head and a chorus of boys behind him.

  “The Black Stocking Twins … Sidel, you look a little naked without your mask.”

  Isaac displayed his badge. “Fran, I didn’t come as a policeman, I promise. Alejo Tomás deputized me. I’m the chancellor’s man.”

  “You and your badge are full of shit, Mr. Deputy Sidel. Tomás hates your guts.”

  Alejo Tomás was chancellor of all the public schools. Isaac had been battling with him for years over the selling of political favors, the negligence and the corruption, and the wholesale abandonment of schoolchildren. He’d attacked Alejo’s cousin, Carlos Maria Montalbán, superintendent of District One B on the Lower East Side. Montalbán had been stealing school supplies and Isaac had involved him in one of his own crusades and got Maria killed. Then he realized how devoted Maria had been to the little girls and boys of One B, how he’d fought against the chaos of the system. And Isaac began doing penance in the public schools. He’d lecture to Maria’s girls, attend sewing classes, and he began to make his own peace with Alejo Tomás.

  “Alejo doesn’t have to love me,” Isaac said, pointing to the badge. “I’m still his deputy. And so is Barbarossa. We have to talk about the schoolchildren you’re hiding in this castle. Fran, I’m coming upstairs.”

  “Maricón,” Frannie said. “I’ll scratch your eyes out.”

  “Scratch,” Isaac said and he ran across the crumbling paths with Barbarossa, while the bottles started to fly.

  “It’s raining ketchup,” Barbarossa said. “I can’t believe it.”

  “What do you expect?” Isaac growled. “This is Crazy Corners. Anything goes.”

  They galloped across the broken concrete, passed the fountain, and entered the fucking castle. There were no guards at the door. Frannie wouldn’t keep any Glocks in the house. He’d never leave himself vulnerable to a police raid. LeComte was his rabbi and his coach. LeComte had helped him memorize all the briar patches in the penal code. The castle was clean. And if there ever was a sudden assault from a rival gang, Frannie would go to the stash of weapons on the roof adjoining his. He owned the entire block, which served as an elaborate tunnel for Frannie and the boys, who could hop from roof to roof. Frannie didn’t advertise his status as a real-estate mogul. He was the master of Crazy Corners, and that was enough.

  “Boss, you can’t reason with Fran. I wear that glove on account of him. He’s the guy who crippled my hand.”

  “I’ll remember that,” Isaac said. “Come on.”

  They climbed flights of stairs that were strewn with candy wrappers and articles of children’s clothing.

  “Joey, are there other dormitories like this in the Bronx?”

  “Yeah, boss.”

  “I must be asleep. I’d better get my ass away from the fourteenth floor.”

  “Ah, all the commissioners are like you. They think the whole world is Manhattan.”

  “I travel,” Isaac said. “I move around.”

  “When was the last time you visited Poe Cottage?”

  But Isaac wouldn’t answer. He climbed and climbed. Boys stood on the landings, watching him as if he were an extraterrestrial who’d arrived on their own planet of the Bronx. But they winked at Joe. They were already involved in Frannie’s war with Barbarossa.

  “Hey Joey, how you been?”

  “Surviving,” Barbarossa said.

  Isaac wasn’t so sure about their national boundaries. Some were Newyoricans, like the late Maria Montalbán. Others were dark- and light-skinned babies from Panama and the Dominican Republic. A few were refugees from Harlem. He saw black kids with blue eyes, blondies with nigger lips, Chinese with Peruvian cheeks.

  He got to the top of the stairs. Frannie was sitting on some kind of throne in a very long room. It was the only chair around. Isaac didn’t enjoy the room. It was like visiting Mussolini … or Charlemagne. This Charlemagne wore a kerchief, and he had fourteen “peers,” boys who stood behind the throne. They wore gold chains around their necks. They had silver bracelets and complicated rings. They carried a Bronx shillelagh, a broom handle with a very sharp nail sticking out of one end. Isaac had never encountered such devoted, heartless boys. His legs dipped a trifle. I’m winded, he muttered to himself. It’s only the climb. But he could imagine the boys marking him with their Bronx shillelaghs.

  “Hiya, Joe,” Frannie said, like some Charlemagne in his chair. “How’s the Commish?”

  “We’re fine, Frannie, fine.”

  “He wants to
arrest my boys with some fucking writ from the Board of Education. They dropped out of school. There were no books. There wasn’t even an apple in the lunchroom. I educate them, Mr. Bullshit Deputy Sidel. I teach them how to save.”

  “And to step on an old man in Little Italy.”

  “What is this?” Frannie asked. “I thought he was being friendly. First he says he didn’t come as a cop. And then he calls me a homicidal?”

  “Hearts and flowers, Fran. Why did you kill Don Roberto?”

  “Joey, will you please remind the imbecile that I can have him thrown down six flights of stairs. This is my house.” Frannie squinted with one eye. “Who’s Don Roberto?”

  “A puppet master,” Isaac said. “Fran, don’t play with me.”

  “I been playing all my life. I played with Joe, and he wears a white glove. And if I play with you, Mr. Deputy, you won’t need a glove.”

  “But I have a gun, Fran. And I can glock you before any of your children put a nail in my head.”

  “Don’t say children. They’re my associates … young adults. And you can glock me, Isaac. See if I care. You’re on a suicide mission. Aint that right, Joey? Because only a suicidal would walk into my house.”

  “I’m fond of suicides,” Isaac said.

  Barbarossa started to shake. Suicide talk reminded him of his sister.

  “Is it the malaria, Joe?” Frannie asked with a sudden sweetness in his eyes. “Is it catching up with you, kid? I get the shivers every other week … and the shits. My associates have to feed me soup.”

  “I’ll cry for you,” Isaac said. “I will. But who hired you to whack that old man and steal his dolls?”

  “Joey, I’m getting cross with the maricón. He comes here without a hello. He doesn’t bring me presents. He plays the truant officer, puts on a phony badge.”

  “It isn’t phony,” Isaac said. “It has gold points.”

  “I’ve seen better badges in the five-and-ten.”

  “Kiss my ass,” Isaac said. “I’ll close all your crack houses, I’ll put your little partners in a State farm. I’ll shut all the water pipes on Valentine Avenue. I can do it.”

  Barbarossa nudged Isaac’s arm. “Boss, slow down.”

  “I’m not slowing down. He loses his castle if he can’t give me what I want.”

  The boys behind Fran wet their fingers and stroked the nails on their Bronx shillelaghs. Barbarossa turned around. Other boys had entered the throne room with their shillelaghs. They surrounded Isaac and Barbarossa.

  “Boss,” Barbarossa whispered, “I’ll waste Fran, but I’m not shooting at a kindergarten.”

  “What kindergarten? You said they were fourteen.”

  Barbarossa watched the glint of nails as the kids edged closer and closer. He was sad. He didn’t want Rosalind to be alone in this world. He shouldn’t have brought the Commish to Crazy Corners. Isaac couldn’t understand the dynamics of a dormitory.

  A door opened behind the throne. A woman emerged with an enormous “hat” of orange hair. It was Margaret Tolstoy. Isaac lost his desire for battle. Margaret was right in the middle of Don Roberto’s death. It was one more FBI caper.

  She fondled Frannie, looking at Isaac with her almond eyes.

  “He has to behave,” Frannie said. “He’s in my house.”

  She approached Isaac, kissed him on the mouth. He couldn’t even say “Anastasia.” She kissed Barbarossa too, but he could only taste the salt on her lip. She grasped both men by their arms.

  “I’m not leaving,” Isaac said. “I’m interrogating Fran.”

  “Isaac,” she nibbled into his ear. “I can keep you alive for five minutes, no more … Joey, explain the situation to your boss.”

  “Margaret,” Isaac said, “who were you entertaining in that back room? LeComte or Sal Rubino?”

  Anastasia shoved Isaac gently to the stairs, walked him down six flights, with Barbarossa behind them, while the coca babies sneered from the landings.

  They got to the courtyard, crossed that concrete ocean, and arrived at the cracked cement of Valentine Avenue.

  “It’s LeComte’s party, isn’t it? I love you, Margaret, but I’ll hunt you down if I have to.”

  “Promises, promises,” she said.

  “Where are you going?” Isaac asked, like a jealous husband.

  “Darling, I have to work.”

  She stepped into a limo that was parked across the street and disappeared from Crazy Corners.

  Isaac fell into Barbarossa’s arms.

  “Boss,” Barbarossa said, “boss.”

  Isaac opened his eyes. “It’s nothing. I have fainting fits. I black out. The whole world spins. I feel better now.”

  But Isaac was as morose as he could remember. He had an echo in his ear. Margaret is a murderess, Margaret is a murderess. And for the only time in his career as a cop he was frightened of the case he had to solve.

  19

  The whole town had turned into Crazy Corners.

  He couldn’t find LeComte, he couldn’t find Sal. He was living in a castle where every door was closed. LeComte wasn’t at his office on St. Andrews Plaza. He wasn’t at his usual cribs. Isaac rang the Justice Department in D.C. But LeComte’s secretary kept saying he was out on the green somewhere, putting with a group of generals from the CIA. And Sal Rubino wasn’t in his Manhattan roost. Isaac couldn’t even get to Papa Cassidy, the Mafia’s own billionaire and the broker of whatever deal was going down for the dolls. Papa was on some professional junket that never seemed to end. “He’s shooting lions in the Sahara,” Papa’s assistant said. But there were no lions in the Sahara, none that Isaac knew of.

  In his idleness he began to plot the destruction of Crazy Corners. Helicopters. He’d attack from the sky. With dumdum bullets and a little Manhattan napalm that could set any castle on fire. He could cajole the Bronx D.A. into lending Isaac some of his subpoena powers. But he’d move without the D.A. He’d clamp Frannie Meyers into leg irons and round up the coca babies, send them to a farm where they’d have to pick vegetables or starve. He’d make them into pioneers. Then he’d look for his Rasta lawyer, Marlon Fitzhugh, to protect him from Frannie’s own lawyers and the FBI. They’d scream commissioner’s conspiracy, false arrest, and Isaac could advise them to scratch themselves. They could lock him out of One PP. He was a jailbird. He’d already sat in the clink.

  His phone rang. It was Mario Klein, the mayor’s personal secretary. He ran the City of New York on most days, when Lady Rebecca was on a shopping binge or sleeping with one of her fire chiefs. She’d lost her appetite for the rough-and-tumble encounters with her constituents. She’d stopped calling people “cocksucker.” She’d abandoned her abrasive style. Rebecca Karp had no style. She was becoming catatonic. She’d withdrawn inside the whitewashed walls of Gracie Mansion and wouldn’t come out. She saw no one besides her secretary.

  “Isaac,” Mario said, “Rebecca wants to see you.”

  “Come on, I’m the last person she’d ever want to see. Becky thinks I’m trying to steal her job. Mario, it isn’t true.”

  Isaac liked the little secretary. He was devoted to Becky Karp. He would select the wallpaper at the mansion, prepare the menus with Becky’s cook, make her bank deposits, pencil in the time slots for her fire chiefs.

  “Isaac,” the secretary said, “Rebecca is in too much of a funk to worry about the truth. She’s in a black hole, and she asked for you. The woman hasn’t talked in a week.”

  “I’ll collect my driver.”

  “That won’t be necessary. I have a car waiting for you at the bottom of Police Plaza.”

  And so Isaac was driven up to Carl Schurz park in the mayor’s battleship, a blue Chrysler with black leather cushions. He had a tray attached to his seat, with a sandwich and a cup of soup, compliments of the Rebecca Karp Reelection Committee. Now he grasped this summons to Gracie Mansion. It was another of Becky’s tricks. Trying to gather Isaac’s support in the conspiracy to reelect Rebecca Karp.

  H
e ate the sandwich and drank the soup and was delivered to the mansion’s steps. He’d made love to Rebecca in five different bedrooms during the period of their romance, when he’d been her Commish and would have his secret sessions with Rebecca twice a month. It was like comfortable incest, brother and sister taking exercise together. But the exercise had stopped. He wouldn’t visit the mayor after Margaret reappeared.

  Mario Klein welcomed him at the door. The secretary had a cold. He sneezed into a handkerchief. He was wrapped up in a flannel robe. He lived at the mansion with Rebecca, who couldn’t bear to be alone. He was in his forties, with a slight bald spot. He had muscular arms and a white mustache. He worked out with Rebecca in the little gym he’d assembled in the attic. He’d become Rebecca’s powerbroker, but he could no longer sell her to the City.

  “Mario,” Issac said, “who’s the chairman of Rebecca’s reelection committee?”

  “I am.”

  “And whose idea was it for this Cinderella ride?”

  “Mine, Isaac. Rebecca is in no condition to have ideas.”

  “And you’re hoping I won’t sink her administration.”

  “That’s not asking much. You’re her police chief.”

  “Not to worry,” Isaac said. “I wouldn’t knock Rebecca out of the box. I don’t intend to run.”

  “We know that.”

  “Then why’d you bring me here?”

  “I told you on the telephone. Rebecca wants to see you.”

  He led Isaac outside to the porch, where Rebecca sat in a rocking chair, watching a school of swallows dive over the growling waters of Hell Gate. Her eyes had fastened on a particular wing of birds that moved like the little dark points of one perfect creature. She had a blanket around her shoulders. She’d been a beauty queen, Miss Rockaway of 1947, but she looked eighty years old. The texture had gone out of her face. She was beyond the turmoil of any election.

  Isaac crouched beside her rocking chair. “Becky, what’s wrong?”

  Her eyes went off the birds, but they couldn’t seem to absorb Isaac, to take him in. He was like a benign stranger who’d come to her porch.