“The cardinal’s awful fond of you,” Maria said.
“Yes. He married me at his cathedral … he said the Mass.”
“I told him I wanted to live with you.”
Her eyes widened, but she wouldn’t pull away from Maria. “What did he say?”
“He laughed. He said you were a big girl and could take care of yourself. And he could excommunicate me if I went too far … I always got along with Cardinal Jim. I hope he’ll marry us one day.”
“He wouldn’t marry any woman who was living in sin.”
“He’d make an exception for you.”
“No. He never marries people twice.”
“Let me handle Jim. I spent half my life being paddled by priests … ah, princess, you aren’t wearing my rings.”
“I intended to return them at the next meeting of the Monday Morning Club.”
“What’s the rush? I haven’t introduced you to my jeweler yet. He’s a remarkable man.”
And he spun Diana around among all the moguls of Manhattan until half the population must have thought she was Maria’s girl. Dee didn’t care but Papa Cassidy would be mad as hell. He couldn’t discharge a school superintendent, not even with all his millions. And Dee had her own millions to fight him off.
She was dancing with Maria Montalbán, his fingers playing on her ribs. And then she saw Caroll in his detective clothes. He hadn’t bothered to dress for the ball. He hadn’t combed his hair. His shoes were caked with mud. His eyes were very raw. He must have been drinking in Central Park. She couldn’t keep track of him anymore. She didn’t even know his schedule at Sherwood Forest. She had to ask her secretary to plot the lines of Caroll’s day. Susan must have told him about the ball.
“Caroll,” she said, when he was almost upon her. But he didn’t even go to her with his bloodshot eyes. He twisted Maria around and started to dance, clutching Maria’s fingers in his own policeman’s paws. Maria smiled. He was ready for Caroll Brent. He didn’t have the slightest look of bewilderment. He danced with Caroll. “Ah,” Maria said. “The husbands’waltz. One-two-three, one-two-three.” And Caroll stopped, almost as suddenly as he began. He let Maria’s fingers out of his paws and punched him. Blood flew from Maria’s mouth, but he continued to smile. “One-two-three, one-two-three,” he said, as he sank into the floor.
Diana screamed. “Caroll, don’t.” But Caroll leaned over Maria and punched him some more. The cardinal had to come. The cardinal and Alejo Tomás and Papa Cassidy and a couple of bankers. It took all five of them to free Maria Montalbán, who slid out from under Caroll, patted his swollen mouth, and walked away from the ball. Diana looked at Papa Cassidy and Cardinal Jim. She couldn’t meet Caroll’s eyes. She followed Maria out of the great hall.
14
No one, not even the Acting Commish, seemed to know what to do with Caroll. Sweets called Isaac at Beekman Downtown. Isaac was having his usual feast of lime jello and didn’t want to be disturbed. But he picked up the phone and growled, “Isaac here.”
“How are you, Commish?” Sweets said.
“I’m not the Commish. You are. I’m Citizen Sidel.”
“And I’m your decoy. Because your spooks are all over the place. I can’t control them. Neither can you. Caroll Brent just assaulted Maria Montalbán at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”
“What was Maria doing at the Metropolitan? Attending a smoker for superintendents who sell cocaine?”
“I hear he was rubbing his dick against Caroll’s wife. But that still doesn’t give him the right to assault a civilian. I told you to keep your vendettas out of my hair.”
“Where’s Caroll?”
“Inside the holding pen at Sherwood Forest.”
“You put him in the cage at his own precinct?”
“To teach him a lesson. We took his gun and his shield. But you can let him out of the cage.”
“Did you have to humiliate him?” Isaac said, outside the comforts of any lime jello.
“I could have done much worse.”
“What happens now?”
“We keep it in the house. He gets a departmental trial.”
Isaac groaned again. “He hits that son of a bitch and you crucify him?”
“Isaac, I saved his ass.”
“Your ass, you mean.”
“No, the Department’s. Not that you give a shit. You have your own agents. You shuffle them around from your hospital bed. And I have to clean up the mess … now run to Sherwood Forest like a good little boy. Should I get you a limousine?”
“No thanks. I don’t want Oliver Cromwell biting Caroll’s back.”
“You appointed Malik, I didn’t.”
Martin Malik, aka Oliver Cromwell, was trials commissioner of the NYPD. He headed the Department’s internal system of justice. Malik had his own courtroom on the fourth floor of One PP. Malik was a Moslem and a Turk. He’d been an assistant D.A. in the badlands of the Bronx when Isaac picked him up. A trials commissioner was almost always a member of the “minorities.” He had to judge other policemen. And the Department would be a little more immune to charges of racism if the chief judge was Latino or black or Chinese. Isaac chose a Turk. He liked Malik’s aggressive style in the Bronx. And Malik reminded him of Turhan Bey, a lost movie star out of World War II. Turhan Bey had appeared with Maria Montez in version after version of Scheherazade. Isaac wanted his own Arabian Nights at One PP. He was hopelessly romantic. But Malik was no lost movie star. He carried a Glock in his pants. He was the darling of Internal Affairs. Captains and deputy chief inspectors trembled around Martin Malik, who could deprive you of your pension for the least infidelity.
“Malik doesn’t like Caroll,” Isaac said. “He thinks Caroll’s a pretty boy.”
“He’s a pretty boy himself.”
“But that won’t make him any fairer to Caroll.”
“Isaac, you can always convince Malik to resign … after you return to the Department.”
“I don’t want Malik to resign. But couldn’t we just stop the proceedings? I’ll talk to Caroll. I’ll get him to apologize.”
“Isaac, no one interferes with Malik. He’d break my hump for tampering with his court … go and collect Caroll, will you, please?”
But Isaac was dreaming of Martin Malik. He’d have to blackmail Malik, but he didn’t know how. Former chief judges at the NYPD had become foundation presidents, district attorneys, lieutenant governors, partners in the biggest law firms. And Malik could become Oliver Cromwell to all the United States.
Isaac barely had the heart to shave himself. He put on his baseball suit, trudged downstairs, hailed a police car out on the street, and rode up to Sherwood Forest. He’d have to get to Malik somehow. Malik could topple Isaac’s own little Monday Morning Club. Caroll was like a child in the thick of a dream. Isaac would have to extricate him and build a case against Maria Montalbán.
He entered the precinct. Weiss, the old duty sergeant, was part of Isaac’s club. Weiss should have retired. But where would Isaac get another folklorist of Central Park? Folklorists were hard to find. Sherwood Forest’s own history would die with Sergeant Weiss.
“Hello, Sarge.”
The old sergeant saluted him. And Isaac was mortified. Because he could remember when Weiss didn’t have such wrinkled skin. Isaac began his career as a cop at Sherwood Forest. And Weiss had been the first partner Isaac ever had. It was a glorious six months with the squirrel patrol. Isaac could read Kafka and Kant while he toured the Ramble, with that incredible light coming off the snow. The Park became Isaac’s cloister. There was no crime, except for an occasional bandit who drove through the park to avoid a bit of traffic. Isaac preferred the north woods, where he could step off into Harlem, attend a rent party, or eat a bowl of ice cream at Swallow’s, on a Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street. But the first deputy commissioner, Ned O’Roarke, picked him out of the Park, and Isaac joined the Irish Mafia at NYPD. Weiss had been there before Ned O’Roarke, Weiss had been his own fucking Virgil, his par
ticular guide. Isaac could have gotten him a job at One PP, but Weiss preferred the big desk at Sherwood Forest.
“How’s Caroll?”
“He won’t talk to anybody … or let us buy him lunch. Isaac, it’s criminal to lock him in there.”
Isaac went to the holding pen. Caroll stood against the bars, which were painted blue. His coat was torn. One of his shoulder pads hung out like a mottled piece of intestines. His face was scratched.
“Did they hurt you, kid?”
Caroll didn’t answer. There was nothing in his eyes for Isaac, no gift of remembrance, no anger. Weiss opened the cage. And Caroll stepped out into that little cluttered world of the Central Park Precinct. Isaac led him toward the captain’s office. “Cap,” he shouted, and Captain White came out of the office in a dark pullover, looking scared. His eyes couldn’t seem to focus on the Pink Commish.
“Who scratched the kid’s face?”
“Isaac, it wasn’t my idea to put Caroll in the cage.”
“Who scratched the kid’s face?”
“We did.”
“Get out of here. I’m borrowing your office.”
White walked into the hallway, shuffled around like some feckless creature. He was a stray dog in his own precinct. Worse than a dog. Isaac walked into the captain’s office with Caroll and shut the door. He sat in the captain’s chair. But Caroll wouldn’t sit.
“Caroll, I did my first tours in Central Park, I ever tell you that? With old man Weiss. We were the original Batman and Robin. Weiss would run his ass off and fly down from the trees. And I was the boy wonder who could chase a lousy pickpocket for miles. Batman and Robin. I’d wear a mask sometimes. I ever tell you that? … you been drinking, kid? Had a tough night?”
Caroll knocked the baseball cap off Isaac’s brains. It was worse than a declaration of war. Isaac picked up the cap.
“Wheelchair,” Caroll said.
“What?”
“Rubino’s wheelchair. I met Sal in the Park and he told me about your Monday Morning Club. It has nothing to do with books. It’s one more blind for your secret service. Did you have to become Maria Montalbán’s pimp, with my own wife as the bait? Couldn’t you get another chippy?”
“I had to use Diana. I didn’t have a choice. Montalbán’s crazy about her. Dee will draw him out. Don’t worry. I picked all the meeting places.”
Caroll knocked the baseball cap out of Isaac’s hand.
“Punch me, kid,” Isaac said. “I can take it.”
“You’d love it too much … good-bye, Isaac.”
“We have to talk,” Isaac said.
“Like you talked to Blue Eyes before he got killed?”
Isaac started to blink. “Malik,” he said. “Malik will go for your pension. Internal Affairs will dance on your head. They’ll tie up Fabiano Rice and Sal Rubino and the vig.”
“You’re jealous because Sal is on my side.”
“Yeah, I love the way he whistles in your ear. There’s a rat in my organization, otherwise Sal wouldn’t know all my moves.”
“Maybe there’s a whole bunch of rats, nibbling on your toes.”
“Then I’ll nibble all the nibblers. But that won’t save your pension.”
“I’ll join the Marines.”
“The Marines wouldn’t take a bent cop. Malik has a fucking echo. That echo never ends.”
“That’s what you’re worried about,” Caroll said with a little smile. “You’ll have to sit down with your Monday Morning Club in Malik’s court. And Montalbán will slip away … Isaac, you’re a rat bastard motherfucker. You’re the shit at the bottom of my shoe. You’re a skel with a baseball hat. You’re Whitey Lockman’s grandma. You’re the scumbag in Becky Karp’s toilet bowl.”
“You’re delirious, kid. Go to bed.”
“Make me, Mr. Isaac.”
“Ah, don’t talk like that,” Isaac said.
“I’d like to meet that phantom who tried to whack you out. I’d give him a couple of pointers. He should have shot you in the ear.”
“The phantom could have been a she,” Isaac said.
“Let me finish. Your brains would have started to leak. You wouldn’t have made it to the hospital.”
“You would have saved me, kid. You would have covered my ear with your own hand.”
“You’re wrong, Mr. Isaac. I would have shook your rotten head until your blood and brains leaked out. Because you deserve to die.”
“You had your chance,” Isaac said. “You found me under the bridge.”
“I’m almost as dumb as Blue Eyes. I should have walked away and sung myself a happy song.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I’ll know better next time … you shouldn’t have recruited Dee. You should have left her alone, you son of a bitch.”
Caroll walked out of the captain’s office, with Isaac hopping behind him. But Isaac had no wind. His heart was like a broken black pump that could barely deliver blood. His lips turned pale. He managed to clutch Caroll’s coat in that corridor between the captain’s office and the holding pen. Caroll spun away from him. “Don’t you ever touch me again.”
And he started to choke the Pink Commish, grabbing the collar of Isaac’s jersey, until half the precinct fell on top of Caroll—Captain White, old man Weiss, an anti-crime girl, and Joe Barbarossa, who’d arrived with his white glove and managed to extricate Isaac. Caroll was still struggling. Isaac coughed and coughed. Caroll flung old man Weiss into the women’s lockers. Barbarossa and the captain drove Carroll back inside the cage like a mad lion. The captain was a little delirious. Barbarossa had to do most of the work. He handcuffed Caroll to the bars of the cage, helped old man Weiss to his feet, and found a bottle of Coke for Isaac the Brave.
“Ah, don’t lock him in there,” Isaac said. “It hurts me to see him like that.”
“He’ll survive,” Barbarossa said.
And Isaac had to wonder if it was Barbarossa who’d socked him under the bridge. Joe was a tracker in Vietnam. He could have followed Isaac into the dark, or waited for him in the shadows of Sheriff Street. Perhaps he was in league with Wilson and McSwain, his two favorite dykes. Perhaps there was a club inside the Monday Morning Club. Joe could have been on Sal Rubino’s payroll. It was logical. It made sense. Rut would Barbarossa have socked him without saying hello?
Isaac felt like a wounded baby. He started to cry. He missed his worm. The worm had been his best companion.
Barbarossa grabbed Isaac with his gloved hand. “It’s all right, chief.”
Isaac kept bawling. “I shouldn’t have punished you, Joe. You could have made captain by now. You could have been with the First Dep … and I exiled you to Sherwood Forest.”
“You had to, Isaac. I was a bad boy. And it could have been worse. You never gave me to Malik. Malik would have closed the door on me. I don’t have any regrets.”
“Will you look after the kid?”
“I’ll diaper him for you.”
“I’m the bad boy. I messed with his wife.”
“It was the only way to Maria Montalbán.”
Barbarossa put Isaac in a police car and had a rookie drive him to Gold Street. Then he got Caroll a cup of coffee and a candy bar.
“Either you eat, or I stuff it down your throat.”
He went into the cage with Caroll and removed the handcuffs. But Caroll couldn’t seem to hold the coffee cup. And Barbarossa had to feed him with that white glove.
“You saw her with Maria in his fucking café.”
“Yeah,” Caroll said.
“And you watched his handkissing routine.”
“More than that. He gave her some jewelry.”
“Two rings,” Barbarossa said.
“And a necklace.”
“No, it was a bracelet.”
“You’re right … you listened to their conversation.”
“Every word.”
“I know. I bugged the place for Isaac. I planted the mikes.”
“It was Rub
ino who told you about Maria and the wife, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, Isaac has a rat in his Monday Morning Club. The rat tells Rubino everything.”
“And you think I’m the rat.”
“You or Weiss. Or Wilson. Or McSwain. Or the Cap. But why doesn’t Isaac disband his Monday Morning Club?”
“That’s not his style … he has to leave us in place. He can’t get to Montalbán all on his own.”
“So he’ll risk another round of bullets under the bridge. Joe, did you glock the Commish?”
“Yeah, I’m the phantom. I hit him with all I had. Then I kissed him on the mouth … don’t be stupid, Caroll. Isaac’s our general. I wouldn’t whack him out. And I wouldn’t rat on him.”
“But you’d let him borrow my wife.”
“That’s none of my business.”
“You were my partner, Joe. You ate at my fucking dinner table. I took you in for weeks at a time when you had the blues. I covered for you when you started to hallucinate.”
“I don’t hallucinate. I have a touch of malaria. It comes, it goes. You can never get rid of tropical fever … I’m sorry about the wife. But it’s not my shit. It’s Isaac’s. I’m only following orders.”
“While I follow my wife.”
“And go crazy. You should hit her once or twice.”
“I can’t,” Caroll said.
“It could do wonders for you. She’d get into line and drop the Monday Morning Club.”
“I can’t.”
They were both whispering. The captain had gone back to his office and Weiss was behind his desk, but Caroll and Barbarossa couldn’t stop whispering. It was a habit they’d picked up at Sherwood Forest.
“You started drinking, didn’t you? After you saw her with Montalbán. And you wanted to run into the café and waste the bastard. But you started to drink.”
“I had ten whiskeys. More than ten.”
Maria's Girls (The Isaac Sidel Novels) Page 10
