The Good Policeman (The Isaac Sidel Novels)

by Jerome Charyn

  She was so weak, this Margaret Tolstoy, Isaac had to carry her up the stairs. He didn’t have black tea to offer her. He wasn’t a collector of samovars. He prepared a broth with noodles. She wolfed it down, her hands trembling as she held the bowl. Not a word passed between them, not a smile, not a single grunt of hello.

  “Margaret,” he said.

  “You’ve been hearing rumors.”

  “Aren’t you Margaret Tolstoy?”

  “I’m Anastasia.”

  “But you’re living with the accountant. Crabbs.”

  “I’m still Anastasia.”

  “Please,” Isaac said. “I’m a cop. I had you traced. You call yourself Margaret Tolstoy.”

  “Mostly to strangers. It means nothing. It’s a professional name.”

  “What profession?” Isaac asked.

  She put down the bowl and pulled his ears. “Oh, Isaac. I’m Crabbs’ whore.” He wouldn’t listen, but the sound of her voice brought him back to the country of samovars and baked apples. He was that boy again, Anastasia’s slave.

  She was shivering. “Your clothes are wet.… I’ll give you something to put on.”

  The big bear searched his closets. Imbecile, he muttered. He let her have the pajamas he’d bought at Abraham’s. He surrounded her with slippers, socks, and a cashmere robe his wife Kathleen had given him when he graduated from the Police Academy. Anastasia undressed in front of Isaac. He closed his eyes. She laughed from deep inside her throat, like a growl that was half-liquid. “Still my beau, aren’t you, Isaac? My Jewish knight.”

  He opened his eyes. She stood in his pajamas and her rubber boots. “Then you do remember me,” he said.

  “How could I forget? You followed me home from school. Isaac, you were like glue.”

  “But we never kissed.”

  “We didn’t have to,” she said with a smile that broke onto her face. There was webbing under her eyes, pockets in her cheeks, but she hadn’t misappraised Isaac. He was her knight, and she was his mam’selle without mercy. All his accomplishments fell away. His commissioner’s status. His gold shield. He’d have killed for her and wouldn’t even have asked for a kiss.

  “You remembered me … all these years?”

  “I’m not a saint, Isaac. I remembered. I forgot. But you’re a famous man.”

  “And my lecture at the Christy Mathewson Club. Why did you come?”

  “Ah, I love Babe Ruth …”

  “But you’re Russian,” he said.

  “Roumanian.”

  “That icon,” Isaac said. “And your aunts.”

  “They weren’t my aunts. I was their little housekeeper.”

  “And then you disappeared.”

  “It happens when you’re an orphan. I moved around a lot.”

  “But you didn’t even say good-bye.”

  “Oh, the agency writes love poems every time they send you to one more aunt. Isaac, I didn’t even have the time to pee. I was a transient. What was the point of good-byes?”

  “But I would have known. It wouldn’t have been such a mystery.”

  “Isaac,” she said, pulling his ears again. “You thrive on mysteries.” She understood his nature. That’s why he’d loved her. She’d sensed the police chief in him when he was fourteen.

  “Your husband’s a Christy. Did he turn you on to the club?”

  “I told you,” she said. “I’m his whore. Or at least I was.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Now I have some kind of widows status. DiAngelis’ people took care of him. And they’d love to take care of me. That’s why I was at your lecture. I needed help, Isaac. I’m sorry if I’m not sentimental about our past. I had lots and lots of beaux. Some of them I kissed. Some of them I didn’t.”

  “But I saw Jerry DiAngelis. He promised me that he didn’t whack out your husband.”

  “It was one of his crews. Let him say what he wants. He can’t control them all.”

  “But he’s the Man, Anastasia.”

  “When he goes to the toilet. When he shakes hands. But not out in the street.”

  “Then what crew was it?” Don Isacco asked.

  “His brother’s.”

  “Teddy Boy? The Nose? He’s Jerry’s legman.”

  “Then he has some pair of legs. He’s been trying to put out my lights for a week.”

  It makes no sense, Isaac muttered. The Nose was LeComte’s spy. LeComte had caught him dealing drugs and had turned the Nose around. Ted had compromised his brother’s gang. He was the rat Jerry DiAngelis was looking for. But Isaac wasn’t allowed to tell. Isaac was the PC. He couldn’t snitch on LeComte and the Bureau. Nose was registered with the FBI. LeComte let him pull stickups and slap people around. Nose did his brother’s dirty deeds and was also bleeding him dry. He could afford to be a maverick and have mad fits. But who would have licensed him to kill Martin Crabbs? Not LeComte. It had to be Jerry. The Nose didn’t have to worry about any indictments. He was the rat prince.

  “Anastasia,” Isaac said, looking at the pajama lady. She was spectacular in prison stripes. His heart beat with such hunger, the Commish was beside himself. Would he ever kiss Anastasia? But he was still Sherlock Holmes, the subconscious detective. “It has to be more complicated than that. Did Teddy turn on to you?”

  “Isaac, I said I was Crabbs’ whore. I wouldn’t go near the Nose.”

  “I didn’t ask you if you liked him. Did the Nose like you?”

  “He wouldn’t have minded getting into my pants. But that didn’t stop him from sending his shooters after me.”

  “Are you sure it was the Nose? I mean, what if it was a mix-up, and another crew was trying to put the blame on Teddy Boy?”

  “It was the Nose. He was wearing Crabbs’ tie. He wanted to strangle me with it. But some neighbors happened to knock on the door. And Nose waltzed out the window. That’s when he started sending his shooters around.”

  “Did he give you a reason?”

  “Not really.”

  “And why are you convinced your husband is dead?”

  “Didn’t the Nose have his necktie? And he told me, ‘That bastard is sleeping for good. You’re next.’ … Hey, I’m cold in these pajamas. Can’t you offer a girl a simple glass of tea?”

  “Sorry,” Isaac said. “I don’t have a samovar.”

  “Who the hell does?” Anastasia asked him, and Isaac was perplexed. She didn’t talk like the old Anastasia. All that refinement was gone. And where was her French vocabulary? Crabbs’ whore. He had a touch of sympathy for the Nose. He would have finished Crabbs himself.

  He boiled the hot water, prepared little biscuits from the appetizing store, presented her with an apple he’d baked in his oven. He couldn’t eat in restaurants anymore. People would arrive from every corner, bend on their knees, and beg favors from the Pink Commish. It was embarrassing for Isaac, and he couldn’t digest his meal. So he gave Herbert, the appetizing man, an extra key. Herbert would stock Isaac’s refrigerator with whatever delicacies he’d prepared for that day. And Isaac would walk around with sturgeon in his coat and a bottle of milk. The worm had gotten used to Isaacs diet and didn’t writhe so much.

  Isaac discovered blinis in the fridge, prepared by Herbert’s own hands. He broiled them and served the blinis with sour cream and a split of, champagne. He had dark, crusty bread and pumpkin pie, even though Thanksgiving had come and gone without much notice. He still couldn’t believe Anastasia was in his own kitchen wearing Isaac’s pajamas, pajamas he’d never worn. He had no appetite. But Anastasia tore at the blinis like a Roumanian princess. She belched once and excused herself. She drank the champagne, her mouth moist with some secret pleasure. She rocked in her chair and sang a song in a language Isaac had never heard before. She didn’t seem scared. And it puzzled him. Her breasts heaved under the pajamas. He drank in her perfume.

  That’s when he noticed a shadow creeping up the kitchen wall. Isaac turned. A man stood on the fire escape with a scattergun. He wore a hood
with eyeholes. Isaac recognized the gun. It was a 12-gauge Mossberg Persuader with enough smack to tear off Isaac’s head. But the Mossberg wasn’t aimed at him. The man had come for Margaret Tolstoy. Isaac threw her under his table with as much force as he could. Her almond eyes clicked once at the Pink Commish. The gun went off. The table splintered like a huge wooden pie.

  Isaac leapt at the window, but the man in the hood had climbed down the ladder. Isaac returned to Margaret Tolstoy. She was lying on the floor in a great sea of wood and sour cream. He held her in his arms. Now it was Isaac who sang. It was a nonsense song his mother had taught him about a band of runaway dogs. A lullaby. He sang Crabbs widow to sleep.

  He was Don Isacco, and he could have caused a big stink. But he didn’t want his own Department tracking in the ruins of his kitchen, labmen with their latex gloves and little pincers, detectives in their rubber soles. He hired a carpenter and a glazier and had the kitchen redone. But the neighbors seemed less sure of his residency now. The godfather of One Police Plaza was as vulnerable as they were. No reporters came around. There was nothing on the six o’clock news. And meanwhile, Isaac’s brains were boiling. The Nose or one of his shooters had entered Isaac’s territories. And someone would have to pay. But first Isaac would have to find shelter for his old sweetheart.

  He brought her to the Ivanhoes. Burt was out on a mission. And Isaac entrusted her to Allan Locksley, his chief cryptologist. Locksley had been a professor of Greek and Latin at one of the inner-city colleges. But when Latin and Greek were dropped from the curriculum, Locksley resigned, gave up his tenure, and joined the Ivanhoes. He loved secret languages and had a passion for breaking codes. He brewed that dark tea Anastasia adored.

  “Allan,” Isaac said, “when Burt comes back, I want you to go uptown to the Christy Mathewson Club. They have some kind of fucking code on the walls. They use portraits of baseball players as flags. That’s how they signal to themselves. I want you to break that code. I think they’re hiding Maurie Goodstein.… Anastasia, did you ever meet Maurie?”

  “Nose’s lawyer? Of course. He’s a little guy.”

  “Did he tell you anything?”

  “That faigele? He didn’t even flirt.”

  “What about Crabbs? Did they ever huddle?”

  “Crabbs and Maurice? Was there anything between them? I doubt it. I never saw them kiss.”

  “Business, I mean. Did they do business together?”

  “Yes. They had to. Crabbs was the Family accountant.”

  “And did your husband ever mention Maurie?”

  “Once or twice.”

  “Did he give you any of Maurie’s papers to hide? Think, Anastasia. It’s important.”

  “No. I didn’t like to mingle in his affairs.… Isaac, when are you coming back?”

  “Soon.”

  “It’s dark here. Like a factory.”

  “It is a factory. That’s why it’s safe.”

  And Anastasia pulled Isaac’s ears in front of Allan Locksley. She kissed Isaac on the mouth. Forty years. That’s all Isaac could think about. Took him forty years to accomplish that kiss. He might have sucked harder on her lips if Locksley hadn’t been around. He couldn’t let his feelings “surface” among the Ivanhoes.

  He walked down to Cleveland Place, next to the old Police Headquarters, where Jerry DiAngelis lived in a modest house with a brittle front porch. DiAngelis had been poor most of his life. He had a wife, a melamed, and an older brother to support. He’d sat in jail six or seven years. His rise to power had been mercilessly slow and then very, very swift. He’d been the captain of his own crew. Other dons had tried to kill him. But he’d stepped over their bodies. And now the Family was his. He was forty-seven years old. He didn’t have tiny button eyes like his brother, Teddy Boy, who’d never married and lived under the same roof, a bachelor who was Isaac’s age.

  Bodyguards lingered near the porch and Isaac had to announce himself, step in front of DiAngelis’ closed circuit TV, the same high-tech model the Israelis used at their consulate. “Jerry,” Isaac said, standing there like a fool. “It’s me.”

  “I know it’s you,” a voice crackled from inside the circuitry. “I’m not fucking blind.”

  “Can I come in?”

  “Don Isacco, I think I’ve had enough of you for one week.… I’m with my wife, you motherfucker. We’re celebrating Christinas.”

  “Shouldn’t curse,” Isaac said.

  “Don’t lecture me.”

  “My mother was trampled to death by a bunch of wild kids.”

  “That breaks my heart.’”

  “It should, Jerry. It really should. And nobody celebrates Christmas on December ninth.”

  “Jewish Christmas,” the same voice croaked. “My father-in-law was a Hebrew teacher. And my wife’s a Yid. What’s the matter, Isaac? Did you lose your religion?”

  “Ah, bless all the saints, it’s Hanukkah time. Thanks for reminding me. But I need to come upstairs.”

  Isaac heard the tiniest of clicks. The front door opened. It was plated with steel and had once belonged to an icebox. No sledgehammer could have solved that door. It would take a cannon to get in. Isaac climbed the stairs. The melamed was waiting for him on the landing. Isadore Wasser. There was nothing religious about the old man. He wore one of Jerry’s old jackets and a pair of slippers that resembled snowshoes. His hair was marvelously white. He’d aged like some golden child.

  “Shalom, Iz,” Isaac said.

  The melamed hugged him. “How is my favorite Stalinist?”

  “Not so good, Izzy. Not so good.”

  DiAngelis appeared. “You don’t have to kiss him, Dad, for God’s sake. He’s the fucking police commissioner.”

  The melamed was furious. He shook his entire head of silver hair. “Sonny boy, he’s also our guest.” And he invited Don Isacco into the living room. And Isaac understood Jerry’s reluctance to have him in the house. A pair of soundmen were sweeping the room for bugging devices. One of them had a long electronic sleeve that he used to suck at the ceiling. The other carried a little pipe in his ear and listened to the walls, as if he were looking for some lost fragile heartbeat. And Isaac felt a little guilty. LeComte had “needle” mikes planted in the walls of the buildings on both sides of Jerry, who was caught between a kind of powerful parabolic sandwich. Isaac knew which of Jerry’s rooms were “live,” and which were “dead.” He’d come like a robber with nothing to steal.

  Jerry started to rant. “LeComte, you cocksucker, you hear me, LeComte? I hope you die of measles on your ass.”

  “Sonny,” the old man said, “it’s not so smart, talking to a wall.”

  “He’s crucifying me, Dad. And Isaac works for him, that piece of dreck.”

  “LeComte isn’t my boss,” Isaac muttered.

  “Sure,” Jerry said. “He sends you out on the road, like a fucking comedian … you hear me, LeComte?”

  The melamed ushered Isaac and Jerry into the kitchen, while the soundmen probed for mikes they’d never catch.

  The kitchen was larger than Isaac’s whole apartment. Eileen DiAngelis stood around the stove with Teddy, the bachelor boy who was being run by LeComte. The Nose was a great big giant. He couldn’t meet Isaac’s eye. He was homicidal, but he lived like a baby in his brother’s house. He never missed a meal. He’d earned his nickname because he’d had a constant erection while he was a boy, and kids would laugh at the “schnozzola” inside Teddy’s pants. He’d bullied his younger brother until Jerry grew bulky enough to absorb all his brother’s blows, and then he went after him with a hammer. Ted was underboss of the Family. He ruled whenever Jerry sat in Green Haven or the Metropolitan Correctional Center during one of LeComte’s searches and seizures. It made terrific sense that LeComte didn’t want Jerry around. He could have a crime family of his own to play with.

  “How are you, Nose?” Isaac asked.

  “Shut up and sit down,” Eileen said. “And don’t pick on the kid.”

  They sat a
t the table and ate spaghettini puttanesca, stabbing black olives with their forks. They ate in silence except for the old man. “Tell me again, Isaac, how Stalin was such a genius he had to murder twenty million of his own people.”

  “He was no worse than any of the czars,” Isaac said. “The ultimate paranoiac in a paranoid world.”

  “Poisoned his own wife,” the melamed said. “Lovely man.”

  “But he survived, Izzy, that’s the point. I’m not congratulating him.”

  “Got rid of all his generals and the best poets the world had ever seen. He was a ratty-eyed seminarian, a police informer.”

  “But Trotsky had the whole Red Army and it couldn’t help him.”

  “Jesus Christ, you’re giving me a headache,” Jerry said.

  “Sonny,” the melamed said, “it’s our conversation. Keep out.” Isaac adored the old man. Izzy Wasser had had a career long before he was a melamed. Isaac had read his rap sheet. Izzy graduated from burglary to Hebrew schools. His son-in-law would never have become a don without him. The melamed was Jerry’s private consiglieri and tactician, a teacher of crime.

  “Trotsky wouldn’t have touched the poets,” Izzy said. “There was your genius. He liked the company of educated men. You wouldn’t have had the show trials and the pogroms.”

  “You would have had worse,” Isaac said. “Philosophers tearing at each other’s throat while the country starved. Your poets would have had to scribble with their own blood. And Hitler would have sat in the Kremlin if it hadn’t been for Uncle Joe.”

  “The Little Father of his people,” the old man said. “The perfect policeman. Like yourself.”

  “I’m going crazy,” Jerry said. “Dad, Dad.”

  “I’m finished,” the old man announced. And Eileen laughed. She’d been Jerry’s sweetheart since junior high. The melamed had encouraged their romance. He admired Jerry’s persistence, his ardor over Eileen. He was an anarchist, and he didn’t care about kosher things. He was moved by strong-willed men. It didn’t matter that he lost several pupils, their parents angry at the melamed for bringing Jerry DiAngelis into a Jewish house. He spat at the money that flew out of his fingers. He was Isadore Wasser, the best melamed in town.