The Good Policeman (The Isaac Sidel Novels)

by Jerome Charyn

  “I know.”

  And Henry started to cry. The sobbing was so terrific that the PC wasn’t sure what to do. “Can I help?”

  “Hold my hand.”

  And Isaac clutched the hand of that outlaw, Henry Lee. The sobbing stopped. “Been running from the FBIs,” Henry said. “Haven’t slept in nineteen days. I’m hungry and I’m cold. You wouldn’t have found me, Mr. Isaac, without your Mafia connections.”

  The outlaw was right. His runner had been selling hash on the street. Word of it got to Jerry DiAngelis. And Jerry dropped the dime on Henry Lee.

  Isaac walked out of the building with Henry in his women’s clothes, and the PC’s existence hadn’t been the same ever since. Isaac’s face was on the cover of New York magazine. “Megacop” they called him. A Dutch television crew arrived to chat with Isaac. They called him El Grande in Mexico and Madrid. He was Sidel, le Superflic, in Paris Match. But Isaac suffered a decline. His hero status separated him from most other men in the Department. He was Isaac the Untouchable. And he drifted toward the Ivanhoes….

  He had milk and Russian vodka at his fifth restaurant. The vodka was poison for him. He had a veal chop. He wasn’t even aware of the direction he was taking. But somehow he knew that he’d end up in Margaret’s company. The worm pulled him with a radar of its own. Isaac entered a steak house in the East Twenties. But he sensed something was wrong. No simple steak house would have had three doormen with walkietalkies and bulges in their coats that could only have meant shotguns with short barrels. His man, Coen, had favored a shotgun. Coen carried his shotgun in a shopping bag. He wouldn’t have worn it under his coat, like a bodyguard or button man. These were Sal’s soldiers. They didn’t mess with the Commish. They whispered into the walkie-talkies while Isaac went inside.

  She was sitting at a table with Sal. The tables around them were filled with button men. Sal had deepened the civil war. He’d sent a kid on a bike to give the melamed a bloody kiss. And he wasn’t taking chances. He surrounded himself with soldiers.

  Isaac stumbled from table to table. He’d had too much vodka and milk. But he didn’t take his eyes off Dracula’s Daughter. She was a babushka tonight. Her hair was swept back into a bun. Her eyes shone like puries in the dim light, those marbles Isaac had treasured as a kid.

  It wasn’t a Russian restaurant. And he couldn’t have his tea from a samovar. He thought of the generals she’d been with, the five hundred johns. Isaac had more than jealousy. It was hate. He wanted to harm this Margaret Tolstoy, even if the worm was in love with her.

  He ordered vodka and milk. He had some Mississippi mud pie. His lips were dark with chocolate. “Hey, Magda,” he shouted. He knocked on the table with his fist. “How are you, love?”

  It was Sal who answered him. “Isaac, we have witnesses. What the fuck do you want?”

  “Tell Magda to come to her favorite schoolboy.”

  “Isaac,” Sal said, “are you crazy or what? Who is Magda?”

  “He’s joking,” Margaret said, holding Sal’s hand. “I went to school with Isaac … for a little while.”

  “I never knew that.”

  “Oh, it’s a thirty-seven-year-old secret,” she said. “Let me say hello.”

  “Not a chance,” Sal said. “I’m not sharing you with the Commish. He has no business being here.” Sal stood up, his napkin sticking out of his belt like an obscene flag. “I haven’t broken a fucking law.”

  “Let me go to him, baby, for a minute,” Margaret said. “I’ll be right back.”

  “No. He can eat his lousy badge. I’m a citizen. I pay taxes.”

  Margaret got up and nuzzled Sal’s neck. “Baby, I’ll be back. I promise.”

  She started around the table and Sal slapped her with an open fist.

  Isaac saw the blood on her mouth and he leapt at Sal. He’d climbed over his table and nearly caught Sal’s throat. But one of the soldiers socked Isaac in the head with a sack of dimes. The sack exploded, and the restaurant bloomed with a miraculous blush of silver. But Isaac didn’t see the dimes. He’d landed on the floor. And the same soldier seized him by the collar and dragged Isaac into the men’s room.

  “Aw, don’t hurt him, Eddie,” Sal said. “He’s the Commish.”

  Sal sat down again, and he was so involved with the glory of the moment, he hadn’t remembered that Margaret wasn’t there. She’d followed Eddie to the men’s room. She opened the door. He was leaning over Isaac, strangling him a little. And Margaret struck him twice behind the ear with the flat of her hand. Eddie’s eyes glazed, and he toppled over.

  “You are a fool,” she said to Isaac, who was coughing from his seat on the floor of the men’s room. “Why did you come here?”

  “I wanted to learn about Odessa.”

  There was the narrowest smile on Margaret’s lips. And Isaac wondered if she’d crack him too, like she’d done to Eddie.

  “You were never afraid of the Nose. It was all an act.”

  “Isaac, I don’t have the time. Sal’s little helpers will be here any minute.”

  “Tell me one thing. Were you in Odessa during the war … with Uncle Ferdinand?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Isaac, there’s another entrance. Turn right when you get out of the toilet. You’ll find a door.”

  “Margaret?”

  “Good-bye.”

  She climbed over Eddie, wiped the blood from her mouth, and returned to Sal’s table. He was still rejoicing. “Did you see that whack? Eddie told it to Isaac.” He turned to Margaret. “Where were you?”

  “In the ladies’ room, Sal. I had to fix my face. Don’t you want me to look decent?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “But don’t crawl away like that. I get lonely for you, Margaret.”

  “I know that, baby. I won’t leave you again.”

  He stumbled home, a wild man, with thoughts of how he could destroy Sal Rubino’s little army. But it wasn’t Sal. He couldn’t clear his mind of Margaret Tolstoy. She’d saved him from the muck of a men’s room, cracked Rubino’s soldier in the head like a bionic gal, Margaret of Roumania, graduate of a Russian kindergarten and LeComte’s own little school for spies. Isaac was too sore to bathe. His phone rang. “Fuck it,” he said. The ringing would stop and start again. Isaac grabbed the receiver. “Who is it?” he growled.

  “Friar Tuck.”

  The fucking world had gone insane. It was filled with freaks from Sherwood Forest. Isaac hung up on the guy. He plunged his head into a sinkful of water. And then he groaned. Friar Tuck was the recognition name and signal he’d given to the Afrikaner, Burton Bortelsman. Now Burt would think that Isaac had been sabotaged in some way and couldn’t talk. And God knows when Isaac would hear from his Ivanhoes.

  “Come on, Burt, try me, will you?”

  Isaac got into his flannel pajamas. They smelled of Margaret Tolstoy and he began to cry. He pictured her as a woman-child in that country Ferdinand Antonescu had ruled in the Ukraine. Antonescu had kidnapped a twelve-year-old girl and sat her down in Odessa. Somebody would have to pay, but Ferdinand was dead. And so was Roumanian Odessa. The phone rang. Isaac kept his wits about him.

  “Hello, Friar.”

  “Don’t get kinky.”

  It was Margaret Tolstoy. She asked Isaac if he was okay. The beast in his belly started to purr. “Margaret, when can I see you?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Couldn’t you get away from Sal?”

  “Isaac, I’m risking my ass already with this call. The man has me on a twenty-four-hour leash.”

  “But you could break his neck.”

  She started to laugh. “I gotta go.” He heard voices in the background, and the phone went dead. Isaac stepped out of his pajamas and ran water in his kitchen tub. The conversation with Margaret had revived the Commish and he felt like soaking for half an hour. Soon as he sat down in the tub his phone rang.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  He climbed out in his bare feet to answer the phone, wishing it wa
s Margaret calling to tell him she could shake Sal Rubino and come over to Isaac’s flat. But it was the First Dep.

  “Be downstairs in five minutes. I’m coming to collect you.”

  Isaac couldn’t even get a hello out of Sweets and it was four o’clock in the morning. He dried himself, got dressed. He didn’t even have time to yawn. Sweets was waiting for him in one of the Department’s green Chevrolets.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Isaac, get in.”

  They drove across the Brooklyn Bridge, with the barges below them pulling, pulling into the night. They stopped at a warehouse across from Gravesend. The warehouse belonged to an outfit that fronted for DiAngelis and laundered his money. The melamed arranged most of Jerry’s deals, and none of Sweet’s task forces could tie DiAngelis directly to the laundering operation. Sweets and Isaac entered the warehouse. A police sergeant was stationed behind the door. He looked like a pixie in his uniform. Isaac’s eyes wandered over the pixie’s head.

  “Ah, shit,” he muttered.

  A boy was hanging from one of the window bars, the bent spokes of a bicycle tied around his neck. He might have been older, but he looked about twelve. His ears had turned blue, and his tongue filled his mouth.

  “Jesus, cut him down,” Isaac said.

  “I’d like to wait for the pathology people,” the First Dep said. “And there could be prints on the wire.”

  “Then cover his face.”

  Sweets stood on a chair and tied his handkerchief around the boy’s face like a bandanna. Then he climbed down and dismissed the sergeant.

  “That’s one handsome family you’re involved with, Isaac … I know it’s the brat who got to Isadore, one of Sal Rubino’s geeps. And maybe he deserved a spanking, but not this.”

  “Why are you sure it’s Jerry’s work? I know the melamed. He wouldn’t have sanctioned it.”

  “But Jerry would. He’s not as refined as his father-in-law.”

  “But it doesn’t have Jerry’s mark. It’s too fancy, Sweets. Too poetic.”

  “Poetic, huh? His chin wrapped in wire.”

  “It stinks of Sal Rubino. He hires a kid on a bicycle to pop the old man, and then he offs the kid with bicycle wire, so we think Jerry’s involved. And it’s a genuine civil war … no, this isn’t Jerry’s work. I don’t give a damn what the pathologist tells us.”

  “What’s in it for Sal?”

  “Sympathy. When the killing starts, he’ll play the fucking martyr. The FBIs will shut Jerry down and Sal will get his uncles’ family back. He’s the executioner, Sweets.”

  “Aren’t you a little partial, Isaac? You celebrate Christmas with Jerry. And you help the melamed light up his Chanukah bush. Sometimes I think you’re closer to them than the Department. You’re in trouble, Isaac. You know that. We have an awful lot of shit on tape between you and Jerry. Internal Affairs has a big fat dossier. And Becky’s corruptions commissioner keeps whistling whenever he hears your name.”

  “You mean Michaelson, that little prick? He wants to hop on my head, grab his own future, and become king of Manhattan.”

  “Isaac, cover your ass. Keep away from the melamed, or I won’t be able to help you.”

  “I don’t turn from my friends, Sweets. You know me.”

  “But you’re also the Commish.”

  “Ah,” Isaac said. “I’ll remember that.”

  He was snoring hard, and Margaret crept out from under the covers. Sal had this rotten habit of chewing the blankets in his sleep. His mouth was wet and a kind of crust had formed under his nose. She got dressed, but she didn’t put her boots on. She carried them to the door. He wouldn’t wake up until noon, when one of his bodyguards would draw the curtains and hand him his caffelatte and a slice of Milanese cake and the reports of what his captains had taken in last night. Sal would bitch over every lost penny. He had a cement company, a couple of building crews, but it was his loan-sharking that he cared about. He liked to have money circulating on the street. He would tally the slips of paper himself while he drank the caffelatte. And then he’d want to make love. The idea of money aroused him more than Margaret ever did.

  She had to get past the bodyguard, Eddie, whom she’d clipped in the toilet while Isaac lay on the floor of Sal’s favorite restaurant. Eddie was convinced that one of Isaac’s angels had socked him, an angel like Manfred Coen, but this Manfred was supposed to be dead. Eddie wore a bandage over his ear. He was a little doped up, but Margaret knew she’d never get past him without a couple of feels. He was afraid to invite her into his bed, but he loved to talk to Margaret with his hands.

  “Where do you think you’re going, bitch?”

  “Out for a walk,” she said. “I’m not sleepy.”

  “What about Jerry and the old Jew. Sal wouldn’t like it much if they copped you off the street. He’d cry into his coffee.”

  “The Jew’s in the hospital,” Margaret said. “And Jerry doesn’t like the dark.”

  “So what?” Eddie said. And he pinned Margaret against the door. She could have ruined his kidneys with a couple of rabbit punches, but she stood still while his hands marched clumsily under her coat and went inside her blouse. “Nice,” he said. “Very nice.” He closed his eyes for a second as he fondled her breasts.

  She whispered into his bandaged ear. “What if I told Sal?”

  His yellowish eyes opened. “You wouldn’t,” he said. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Then get your hands off my tits.”

  And while he fumbled with her coat, Margaret arrived at the door.

  The two bodyguards in the street never even questioned her. They worried about incoming traffic, not Margaret Tolstoy. She walked a couple of blocks and then took a cab uptown to one of LeComte’s cribs. He was waiting for her in bed, wearing a robe Margaret herself had gotten for him at Saks: sort of a Christmas present he didn’t deserve. But Margaret had to soothe the snake in him.

  “Frederic,” she said. “I hope you appreciate this. It’s getting harder and harder to arrange these little séances. Sal’s a light sleeper.”

  “Fuck Sal.”

  “I always do.”

  “I’ll bet,” LeComte told her.

  Margaret undressed slowly, slowly, his snake eyes watching the curves of her flesh. She was fifty and she had to play the danseuse. She’d be swindling men until she died in some forgotten grave. LeComte was as big a thief as Sal or Jerry, but his game wasn’t gelt. Justice supplied him with whatever capital he needed. LeComte liked to grab at your soul. She was his whore, his soldier, his slave, and his spy. He could deport her in five minutes, or send her floating out into deep space. Because she had no real identity without him. Sometimes she’d wake up without knowing which name she had to wear. Margaret Tolstoy, Margaret Tolstoy, she’d have to repeat to herself. Margaret Tolstoy. But it was better that way. She didn’t have to toy with the illusion that she was some kind of being, some walking, talking self. She was a mechanical doll with the gift of skin.

  “Tell me about Sal.”

  “He’s terrific in bed.”

  “And me, Margaret?” His snake eyes closed and opened again.

  “You, you’re the worst lay in town.”

  He smiled. “I’m glad to hear that. It means we’re like a married couple. What about the crusader himself, Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe?”

  “Who?”

  “Isaac. What about Isaac?”

  “That’s not your business.”

  “Everything’s my business,” LeComte said.

  “He’s like a boy … he loves me.”

  “I know that. But how is he in bed?”

  “Gentle. Sweet. He makes me want to cry. He’s as lonely as I am.”

  “Lonely? You have Sal. You had Jerry DiAngelis. You have me. And Isaac has his worm.”

  “Why did you tell him about Ferdinand?”

  “Had to,” LeComte said. “He has his Syrian connection. King Farouk. And Farouk told him about your nights and days in Odessa. I couldn�
��t deny it all. He would only have dug further.”

  “He followed me to the restaurant. He started calling me Magda. I had to get him out of there before Sal got suspicious.”

  “Fucking Ivanhoe. He’ll ruin our gig. I’ll have to keep the little man busy for a while. But it’s your fault, Margaret. Why did you go to that baseball club?”

  “I was curious. Isaac’s the only history I have. He’s like a lost relative, a cousin who followed me home from school. I wanted to make him, even then. But he was so fucking shy. His hands would tremble the minute he saw me. And I was sleeping with the janitor of the building. And one of my teachers.”

  “You’ve always been a busy girl. But what if I took you out of circulation … after we fix the Rubino clan? There’s been too much exposure. We can’t keep dying your hair. The bad boys from Chicago might start to connect with Jerry DiAngelis.”

  “I’m invisible,” she said. “Men only see what they want to see. I could go for another fifty years. But my tits might sag after seventy. You’d have to pump me with hormones. Who can tell? I might grow a third tit?”

  “No. We’re retiring you, Margaret. It’s too risky.”

  “And then what happens?”

  “I’ll set you up in a little house on G Street. I’ll visit twice a week. I could even marry you. Off the books, of course. But you could still be Mrs. Frederic LeComte.”

  “I’d look like your momma in another ten years. You’re the man who grows younger. That’s because you have microchips instead of a heart. You piss lemon soda and you never bleed.”

  “Should I cut my finger for you, Margaret?”

  “Forget it.”

  And he started to bite her lips.

  He fell asleep like a baby after straddling her for twenty minutes. Margaret crouched in the dark, gathering her clothes. She’d get back to Sal before six.

  Part Four

  17

  He couldn’t release himself from that image of the bicycle boy’s tongue thick in his mouth. The blue eyes of strangulation. And for some crazy reason the boy reminded him of Coen. He’d tossed Manfred into his own war with the Guzmanns, Peruvian pimps who were upsetting Isaac’s borough in the years when he considered the whole of New York as his personal country. And Manfred got killed because of him, Manfred who’d been sleeping with Isaac’s daughter, Marilyn the Wild. And Isaac inherited the worm, who haunted his body the way Coen haunted his head.