Maria's Girls (The Isaac Sidel Novels)

by Jerome Charyn

  “Watch your language,” Isaac said. And he started to smile.

  “That’s better. I thought I could get you to grin if I worked hard enough … boyo, any word about the blackguard who shot you? Or is it much too secret for a cardinal’s ears?”

  “I have no secrets,” Isaac said, still smiling.

  “Bloody hell you don’t. You’d sabotage my team if you had half the chance. Have to watch you like a hawk.”

  “Shhh, Jim. Your blood pressure will go up.”

  “Never mind my blood pressure. But who’d be dumb enough to shoot a police commissioner? That’s like asking for a holy war.”

  “Maybe it is a holy war,” Isaac said.

  “Boyo, you’d better go back to sleep.”

  And Cardinal Jim left the big bear to hibernate. But the bear wouldn’t sleep. He was ambivalent about having Harry manage his Giants. What if the kids fell in love with the Bomber? Isaac would have to remain on the sidelines, an assistant coach. He couldn’t lead his Giants onto the field.

  Isaac was in the middle of an anxiety attack. He called to the police sergeant who was outside his door.

  “Adam, be a good boy and get Caroll Brent on the horn. Tell him I’m lonely for my card collection. I’d like him to fetch the cards for me. I wouldn’t want any burglars to get at my collection.”

  His flat on Rivington Street was a firetrap. He worried that the cards might burn. Or squatters might break into the flat and consider the cards as fancy toilet paper.

  So he waited for Caroll Brent. He drank his lime jello. He had his swimming lessons in that idiotic pool. He had more jello, sucking at the lime with his teeth. Lime jello had become the focus of his life. Forget assassins. Forget Sal. Forget Harry Lieberman and the Delancey Street Giants.

  And just as he’d given up waiting for Caroll, Caroll arrived with the cards in a manila envelope. The Commish turned white. Jesus, he does look like Coen. The boy had that same kind of sad and savage stare. But he didn’t play ping-pong. And his eyes weren’t blue. The big bear needed an adjutant. And if it hadn’t been for Whitey Lockman, Isaac might never have found Caroll. It wasn’t his fault that both of them had such an odd Christian name. Caroll. Like a boy king. This Caroll had a wife. He wouldn’t fall in love with Marilyn the Wild. And then the bear remembered that Blue Eyes had also had a wife. Her name was Stephanie. And she broke with Manfred because Isaac was always there. He was like a marriage on top of their marriage. Isaac wouldn’t leave Blue Eyes alone.

  “I brought your cards,” this Blue Eyes said.

  “Thanks, kid.”

  “But I had to pick a couple of locks.”

  “It’s nothing. I do it all the time. I’m a habitual lock-picker … kid, you probably think something is going down between your Diana and me. It’s not true. I like Dee, but I’m in love with Anastasia.”

  “Who’s Anastasia?”

  “Margaret Tolstoy. That’s what she called herself in junior high … I’m sorry I was so secretive about the wife. I asked her not to tell you anything. I didn’t want you to get involved. You’re a cop. You’re attached to me. I’m trying to mount a campaign to cure the libraries. I call it the Monday Morning Club. Because the libraries are closed on Monday mornings. It’s a scandal. Little kids can’t even find a fucking book. But I don’t dare complain. I’m the PC. So I asked Diana to be my stalking horse and start the Monday Morning Club.”

  “And she agreed?”

  “Not yet. I’ve been wooing her … you know what I mean. We had lunch in Chinatown before I got zapped. I showed her the reports I’d been preparing.”

  “Who was helping you, Isaac? Your Intelligence Division?”

  “Don’t be crazy. I can’t involve the police. A couple of retired detectives are freelancing for me. But it’s innocent, Caroll. It’s nothing at all.”

  “As innocent as my going after Maria Montalbán?”

  “Montalbán’s a thief … how’s life?”

  “I’m back in Sherwood Forest, thanks to Sweets.”

  “Don’t be so quick to thank him. Did he bother you a lot?”

  “About what?”

  “About finding me under the Williamsburg Bridge. Sweets thinks you might have staged the whole affair.”

  Caroll was silent. His brown eyes were as fierce as Coen’s.

  “Not to worry,” Isaac said. “I told him to stuff his theories.”

  The brown eyes didn’t go off Isaac. “Why didn’t Sweets haul my ass in? He’s the Acting Commish.”

  “Forget Sweets. Just tell me what happened.”

  “Happened? I went to a meet. It was dark. I looked down. There you were, Isaac.”

  “But did you notice anything? … come on, kid. Give me a fucking detail.”

  “There were no details, Isaac. It was dark.”

  “Caroll, I may be romantic, but I’m not a stupid pig. You held the only key to our meeting ground. I never talked to another person under that bridge … could someone have been tailing you?”

  “Someone like Sal’s soldiers? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “For starters. But it didn’t have to be Sal. It could have been Maria Montalbán. He must wish me dead a couple thousand times a day.”

  “I’ve wished you dead, Isaac.”

  “But you’re not Montalbán. You don’t steal from schoolchildren.”

  Jesus, Isaac thought, it was like a goddamn marriage. Love and hate, love and hate.

  “Isaac, suppose someone followed you under the bridge.”

  “I’m not that easy to tail, kid.”

  Isaac took his thickened penny and dropped it into Caroll’s hand.

  “What’s that?”

  “A souvenir. All that’s left of a bullet that went through me.”

  “A copper jacket,” Caroll said.

  “Exactly. Sweets figures I might have been glocked. So do I.”

  “Sal’s soldiers wouldn’t play around with a plastic gun. People might laugh at them.”

  “Not unless Sal wanted to make it look like the phantom hitter was a cop.”

  Caroll returned the penny. “I don’t have a plastic gun.”

  “But you’re a cop. Don’t you get it? Sal makes his debut as a fucking live man in front of Caroll Brent. He cancels your vig. He asks you to whack me out as a family favor. The next thing that happens is I get hit … Sal’s been pulling your chain. Or else someone’s making a monkey out of me, you, and Sal.”

  “That leaves Montalbán.”

  “Ah, there’s others. I’ve got enemies all over the place.”

  “That leaves Montalbán. So stop fucking with me, Isaac. Tell me about your plan to close Montalbán’s shop. How many cops are in the picture? Barbarossa and who else?”

  “Five or six.”

  “And where’s your command post?”

  “Sherwood Forest.”

  The brown eyes seemed to shove into some pale country. “Holy shit.”

  “I had to pick a quiet precinct,” Isaac said. “That’s why I got you out of there. So people wouldn’t get suspicious.”

  “Holy shit.”

  Ah, it was Blue Eyes all over again, because Isaac could sniff that anger in Caroll, the anger of a disappointed bride.

  “Come on, kid. I wouldn’t let you down.”

  “I almost got my ass shot off, you son of a bitch.”

  “Barbarossa was right behind you … you couldn’t see him, but you always had Joe. He’s the best we have in a firefight. The man has two combat crosses and the medal of honor.”

  “That’s why you banished him to Sherwood Forest. He was another submariner, a cop you were holding in reserve.”

  “No. I busted his ass for good reason. He was ripping off drug dealers in Manhattan North. He was freelancing a lot. I didn’t want Internal Affairs to sink him. So I lent Joey to the squirrels in Central Park. But I never forgot about Joe.”

  “And who are your other commandos at Sherwood Forest? Is Captain White involved in your caper?�
��

  “A little. I’d never sneak around the Cap in his own yard.”

  “Who else?”

  “Wilson and McSwain.”

  “They’re auxiliary policewomen. Joe is banging them left and right.”

  “That’s his business. But they’re not auxies. They’re regular cops. I borrowed them from One PP. Wilson was with Public Information. McSwain was with Community Affairs.”

  “Who else?”

  “Sergeant Weiss.”

  “He’s a grandpa,” Caroll said. “Been in Central Park so long, the squirrels gave him his own tree.”

  “Perfect camouflage. No one would believe Weiss was involved in any intrigue.”

  “Who else?”

  “That’s my team. Barbarossa. White. Wilson. McSwain. And Weiss. I don’t have subpoena powers. I have to go with what I can get.”

  “And walk a shaky line between legal and illegal.”

  “That’s the kind of PC I am,” Isaac said. “If the law protects Montalbán, then I have to bend it a little.”

  “And use me as your bait. I was the screen for your fucking commandos.”

  “That’s all over now.”

  “Yeah, Isaac. I have to live around your conspirators at Sherwood Forest.”

  “I could move you to a different precinct.”

  “You can’t do shit. You’re a civilian in a hospital bed. It’s Sweets’ show. I’ll do my tours at Sherwood Forest while you convalesce. But the day you’re back in harness, that’s the day I resign.”

  Caroll walked out of the room, and the big bear was left with his thickened penny and all the cards in his baseball collection.

  10

  It should have been a lazy day at Sherwood Forest. The wind howled through the old horse stable. Caroll could have napped in the detectives’ squad room. No one interfered with him. He’d found the PC in the ruins of Sheriff Street. Only the phantom hitter or Caroll could have gotten that close to Isaac. Sweets had put him back on the chart. But he was like a goodwill ambassador who talked to movie stars or the mayor’s people. Caroll didn’t feel like climbing up a tree to return the lost cat of some deputy mayor. He wasn’t Blue Eyes, who was always on loan to the Bureau of Special Services … until he got killed. Caroll was still a submariner, no matter whose chart he was on.

  He knocked on the CO’s door. Captain White had been taking a leak in his private toilet. White had a mournful, yellow face. His eyes were a little crazy. He was cautious around Caroll. He zipped his pants and invited him into the office.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I had a powwow with the chief.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Yes, you do,” Caroll said. “Isaac told me about his little command post in Central Park.”

  “I’m forty-six. I’m a police captain. What the fuck do you want?”

  “You’ve been monitoring Maria Montalbán for the PC. You’re his new secret service.”

  “I could toss you out of this precinct. I don’t have to tell you shit … I’m sorry. Yeah, Isaac recruited me. He’s an eloquent man. But Internal Affairs might be looking up my ass. We have a Commish who writes his own book of rules. Sit down, Caroll, and close the door.”

  The captain came out from behind his desk to pat Caroll’s clothes.

  “I’m not wearing,” Caroll said.

  “Who says? You could work for Isaac and still be a rat.”

  “Believe me, I’m not wearing a wire.”

  “I have three kids. I have a mortgage. And I’m catching for Isaac the Brave.”

  “You should have declined his offer, Cap.”

  “Fat chance. He’s a vindictive son of a bitch. He’d start flying me to other precincts. I’d be a permanent relief man. You know what happens when you’re a flier? Everybody pisses on you. They call you Captain Midnight. No, Caroll, I’m staying here.”

  “With Isaac’s team? Old man Weiss, the two babes, and Vietnam Joe Barbarossa … relax, Cap. I’m not the head ghee. You are. What do you have on Montalbán?”

  “Plenty if you count all the illegal wiretaps. But if we move on the cocksucker, he could laugh us out of court.”

  “So you’re in Zeroville, right where I began. Some commandos you are.”

  And Caroll walked out of the captain’s office. Weiss was behind the sergeant’s desk. He looked like a lost cavalry man. He was sixty years old and would have earned almost as much by sitting home with his pension. But Weiss couldn’t retire. He was the precinct’s own historian.

  “We’re carrying a dead man on our roster,” he said. “Mulrooney died a year ago, but he’s still collecting his paycheck. That’s the kind of Department we have,” he said, winking at Caroll.

  “You’re right, Sarge. Aint it a bitch.”

  Caroll couldn’t remember this Mulrooney, but the sergeant was never wrong. There had to be a dead man on the roster. He didn’t say a word to Weiss about Isaac’s commandos. What was the point? Half of Sherwood Forest believed Caroll was the particular phantom who had shot the Pink Commish. And Caroll liked the old sergeant, who knew every detail about the Park’s first hundred and twenty years. A camel from the Menagerie had mowed the grass in 1861, according to Weiss. Red deer roamed the North End in the 1920s. So did enormous schools of bats. These bats had colonized the Park, knocking birds off trees with their incredible radar, tangling themselves in the scalps of little girls and boys, until they were declared a menace and their caves were sealed off. Every single school died within the caves. But now there was a new menace. The Norway rat.

  There were at least a million “Norways” in Central Park. They bit into the sewer pipes under Sherwood Forest and caused a terrific flood. They would jump into baby carriages like a new breed of flying fish. They had sheet-metal stomachs that could tolerate whatever poison the Parks Department prepared for them. They were supposed to die of internal bleeding after seven days. Blood would drip from their entrails, but the rats didn’t die. They continued to eat the sewer pipes. And Sherwood Forest had to endure the periodic storms they produced.

  But Caroll learned to admire these Norway rats. They were the healthiest population in the Park. He wondered about the very first rat who had arrived from Norway on a tall ship hundreds of years ago. This rat must have been older than the United States. Caroll considered him as some kind of pilgrim.

  He could have sought out Joe Barbarossa at the other end of the stable. But what could Joe tell him about Isaac’s commandos? Joe was a maverick with lots of medals. He had to do whatever Isaac wanted or he would have lost his pension and his perch as the robber policeman. Joe was probably wearing his white glove and fondling Wilson and McSwain, Isaac’s undercover girls who were posing as auxiliaries. Caroll was willing to bet that their crush on Barbarossa was part of Isaac’s game plan. Wilson and McSwain were more interested in each other than in Vietnam Joe.

  They didn’t curse or spit like the other lady cops at CPP. They were a little too refined to live around a locker room. Isaac had a fondness for soft-spoken dykes who could eat his heart out with their handsomeness. He seemed to trust their minds and their sensibilities. But Caroll was a bit more guarded. Perhaps it was because he had a residual attraction for McSwain, with her high bosoms and short, curly hair, her dark little hands that burrowed out of her sleeves. McSwain bothered Caroll.

  He walked around the bow of the Reservoir, crossed the bridle path near Mariners Gate, and stopped at a secluded lawn. A man was sitting in a wheelchair, with a blanket around his middle. Caroll recognized his injured face, his pocked hands, and the one eye that wandered off the landscape. It was Sal Rubino. None of his soldiers were in the neighborhood. A Norway rat scurried under the footrest of the chair.

  Caroll started to chase the rat.

  “Leave the little guy,” Sal Rubino said. He’s my friend. He keeps all his brothers and sisters from biting my toes.”

  “You shouldn’t be here all by yourself. You could get clobbered. The Park’s not a n
ursing home.”

  “Sure it is. It’s my own winter garden. I like to hear the leaves. Caroll, when I was a kid the cops wouldn’t let a downtown macaroni like me near the nurses and their baby carriages. I didn’t have the stink of Manhattan. I didn’t dress like Park Avenue.”

  “Neither did I.”

  “But you’re a cop. You can go anywhere. And I’m a haunted man. I gave up my ghost in New Orleans.”

  “You got it back.”

  “It aint that easy, kid. I’m in some fucking purgatory, waiting for Isaac to clean all my wounds.”

  “You tried to have him killed.”

  “Under the bridge? That wasn’t Sal.”

  “But someone in your Family pulled the trigger.”

  “I’m not a two-timer. I have a contract with you. I wouldn’t ruin your gig.”

  Caroll almost believed him. But it couldn’t have been an accident that Rubino had placed himself in Caroll’s favorite corner of the Park. The don was dogging him.

  “You’re a little crazy, Sal. I don’t intend to sock Isaac for you.”

  “Oh, you’ll sock him. Not for me. But for yourself.”

  “I don’t care about Isaac’s commandos. He can run his own army againt Maria Montalbán. I’m finished with the schools. I don’t chase pianos anymore. I don’t chase Montalbán’s mules. He can do as much dope as he wants.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of dope. I was thinking of your wife.”

  And Sal withdrew into his blanket like some pockmarked Buddha. Caroll felt like spilling him onto the bridle path, under a horse’s hoof.

  “Go on, Sal. Tell me the truth. The Pink Commish is banging Diana.”

  “I didn’t say that. I don’t fuck around with bedroom stories. I respect all women, even Margaret Tolstoy, who sort of broke my heart if I ever had a heart. But your Diana, she is some hell of a lady.”

  “How would you know that, Sal?”

  “I talked to her for a minute at a cocktail party.”

  “Which party was that? The Robbers’ Ball?”

  “Don’t get cute. I’m a big giver to the Police Athletic League. I have my own fucking team, same as Isaac and the cardinal. I mix in a lot of different circles. You ought to know that.”