The Good Policeman (The Isaac Sidel Novels)

by Jerome Charyn

  “Suit yourself. But I wouldn’t carry all that cash around. Keep it in your room.”

  “A burglar might come.”

  “Well, then give the bundle to me. I’ll hold it.”

  “Do you pay interest, grandpa?”

  “What the hell for? I’m not borrowing from you.”

  “Then I’ll hold the bundle myself.”

  “All right,” Isaac growled. “But we’ll have to find you a school, Mr. McCardle. You’re twelve, aren’t you?”

  “Can’t be sure.”

  “But you told me twelve. That’s the one thing I remember from my trip to St. Louis.”

  “I could be fourteen. Uncle Sol wasn’t too reliable about dates.”

  “Don’t you have a birth certificate?”

  “Not that I can recollect.”

  “You don’t look fourteen to me. I’d say more like eleven. But we’ll have to get you a certificate and another name.”

  “What’s wrong with McCardle?”

  “Nothing. But the courts are looking for you. And we wouldn’t want to get the captain in trouble, would we?”

  “Pshaw,” McCardle said. “The captain can fix anything. He’s Mr. St. Louis.”

  “Well, we don’t have a Mr. New York. We have cardinals, mayors, and police chiefs.”

  “That ain’t much, grandpa.”

  Isaac was already fatigued by his new parenthood. He had to get out of the little box they were in and breathe some winter air. McCardle was driving him crazy. Isaac got his chauffeur on the horn. “Sergeant, will you bring my bus?” And Malone was downstairs in ten minutes. Isaac introduced the boy.

  “Sergeant Malone, this is my nephew, Kingsley McCardle.”

  McCardle stared at Isaac. “I thought I wasn’t Kingsley anymore?”

  “Don’t mind him,” Isaac muttered to Malone. “My nephew has bad manners.”

  The sergeant dropped them off at an abandoned stable where the Ivanhoes had established their new shop. McCardle loved the tall windows, the balconies, and the breadth of the stable, which reminded him of a ballpark without bleachers. The boy wasn’t much interested in Isaac’s men. He climbed up to the balconies and remained there like a wooden Indian.

  The Afrikaner noticed him first. He’d been busy plotting the destruction of Sal Rubino when he looked up and saw this strange boy on the lower balcony. “Isaac, is that one of your commissioners?”

  “I’ll need a birth certificate,” Isaac said. “A whole new legend.”

  “Ah, you brought me an illegal.”

  “Burt, I don’t have the time,” Isaac growled.

  “All right,” the Afrikaner said, reaching for a pad. “Name?”

  “Mortimer Sidel.”

  “Middle initial?”

  “None.”

  “Place of birth?”

  “St. Mary’s County, Maryland.”

  “Date of birth?”

  “December twenty-fifth, Nineteen hundred and sixty-seven.”

  “A Christmas baby.”

  “Why not? I’ll need report cards and stuff. Pick some rural school in Maryland no one’s heard about. And I’ll need death certificates for both his parents. Mother: Eva Gallant. Father: Samuel Sidel. Born and died in Maryland. I’ll leave the dates and cause of death to you.”

  “And when do you want this merchandise?”

  “By tomorrow.”

  “Impossible. I have seals to forge. I can’t ruin Sal and attend to this monkey business.”

  “The boy has to go to school.”

  “Let him wait over the bloody weekend.”

  “Monday morning then. First thing.”

  Isaac started to whistle for McCardle, but the boy was already at his side, as if he could sense Isaac’s own calendar and clock. They walked out of the stable and Sergeant Malone took them to Orchard Street. McCardle unfolded a twenty-dollar bill. “Sarge, thanks for the ride.”

  “You don’t have to pay him,” Isaac said. “The sergeant works for me.”

  “There’s more to life than wages. And it’s my dowry, grandpa, not yours.”

  Malone looked at the boy. “I appreciate it, Mr. McCardle. But the commissioner’s right. I couldn’t …” He saw that terrible wound in the boy’s eye, as if he, Malone, had delivered a slap. “I’ll make an exception this time, but promise me that you and the PC will come to dinner.”

  “No promises,” McCardle said, stepping out of the car. “But I’ll try.”

  The sergeant returned to One Police Plaza, and Isaac and the boy went into Abraham’s of Orchard Street to buy Kingsley McCardle some school clothes. But a fight started in the store. The boy was interested in blue jeans and neckerchiefs and belts with silver buckles.

  “Mr. McCardle, they don’t have much room for cowpunchers at St. Paul’s.”

  Isaac planned to hide the boy in one of Cardinal Jim’s parochial schools. He didn’t care what kind of waiting list the school had. He’d pressure Cardinal Jim. He wouldn’t lend his boy to those lazy madmen at the Board of Ed, not while Alejo was still chancellor.

  “All right,” Isaac said, “blue jeans and regular pants and a jacket.”

  “I’m not paying for regular pants.”

  “Then we’ll call it a gift from your grandpa.”

  “Meshuga,” Abraham’s black assistant said, laughing at the commissioner with gray sideburns and the grim, gray-looking boy.

  “What’s he laughing at?” McCardle asked.

  “You and me.” And Isaac paid for McCardle’s pants.

  They left the store with Kingsley carrying his new wardrobe in a big shopping bag. He paused in the middle of the street. “Grandpa, someone’s been following us.”

  “I know.”

  “Following us for a long time. I don’t like it.”

  Kingsley had spotted a man in a London Fog coat and a Donegal button-down cap.

  “He’s only doing his job,” Isaac said.

  “I still don’t like it.”

  Isaac called out to the man. “Sergeant Hayes, will you come here a minute?”

  The man in the button-down cap crossed over to Isaac and shrugged like a huge, awkward infant. “Commissioner, I’m sorry …”

  “Mr. McCardle, this is Sergeant Hayes of Internal Affairs. He’s sort of my shadow … when he can find me.”

  Hayes took off his cap and shook McCardle’s hand. Then he drifted to another block.

  “That’s better,” McCardle said. “Now we can walk in peace.”

  Isaac, who was walking along his own doom line, trailed by Justice and Internal Affairs and Becky’s corruptions commissioner, liked being McCardle’s grandpa, the secret Santa Claus. He could have taken the boy up to the Christys, shown him all the batters and pitchers on the wall, but the Bomber would have interpreted it as a ruse, a means of spying on Maurie and the club. He wondered how much clout he had left. Would the Yankee management invite him and McCardle up to the Stadium on Opening Day to sit in the owner’s box and drink champagne? The last time he’d seen Maurie as a sane man was Opening Day, 1981. Maurie had come like a king. Politicians of both parties gripped his hand. Even the governor and Cardinal Jim wanted to have a word with Maurie Goodstein, the mob lawyer.

  But Isaac couldn’t afford to dream until he turned McCardle into Mortimer Sidel, with report cards and fake parents and a seat in St. Paul’s parochial school. They had Peking duck and red-bean ice cream in Chinatown. McCardle rolled the skin and meat of the duck into tiny pancakes, which he devoured. “Beats the shit out of St. Louis,” he said. “I’m never going back.”

  “But you’ll miss Stan Musial Day.”

  “I won’t cry.”

  “And what about Captain Cole?”

  “I’ll send him a card,” Kingsley said. “Grandpa, could you pass me the duck?”

  They were sitting at a booth in one of Isaac’s hideaways. And when Isaac looked up to offer McCardle some Peking duck, he saw the carcass of his first deputy commissioner. Sweets had slid into the booth
, next to the boy, as if he were part of the family.

  “I don’t think you’ve met,” Isaac muttered. “This is—”

  “I know who it is, Isaac. Do us a favor.”

  “Us?” Isaac asked.

  “Yes. I decided to bring a little war party.”

  And Isaac discovered three of his own detectives standing near the door of the restaurant with uncomfortable grins on their faces.

  “Isaac, will you tell the young man to take a little stroll. Perhaps the cook will give him a tour of the kitchen.”

  “You could act civilized, Sweets, and say hello to the boy.”

  “I don’t have the time, Isaac. I have a department to run. My boss has gone off into Indian country all on his own. He’s a renegade now.”

  “Say hello to the boy.”

  “Hello, Kingsley,” Sweets said, shaking the boy’s hand with his own enormous paw.

  “Grandpa, whose hand am I shaking?”

  “It’s all right, Mr. McCardle. This is Carlton Montgomery the Third. We call him Sweets. He’s one of my deputy commissioners.”

  “I wouldn’t want a commissioner like that.”

  Isaac smiled. “Oh, it’s not his fault. I’ve become the great rogue elephant of the Police Department.”

  McCardle scrutinized Isaac. “Grandpa, you don’t look like an elephant to me.”

  “That’s awful kind, Mr. McCardle. But grab a little duck and ice cream and I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  McCardle jumped around Sweets’ tall knees like a giant grasshopper, clutching a dish of Peking duck and a bowl of ice cream. And then he was gone.

  “Isaac, you’re fucking out of your mind. You harbor a fugitive.”

  “He’s a kid, Sweets, can’t you see?”

  “He happened to kill a man. And he’s the property of St. Louis. I don’t care if the courts make him a king. But it’s not for you to decide.”

  “Now I understand how you got to me so fast. The Justice Department was singing in your ear. It was LeComte who snitched on the boy, LeComte who got the courts to reopen the boy’s file, LeComte who had him followed to Manhattan, LeComte who told you where to find him.”

  “Blame yourself, Isaac. You’ve pissed him off. He’s moving to indict DiAngelis again and you get in his way. Damn you, did you have to send your Ivanhoes after Sal? Couldn’t you keep them in their closet?”

  “I told you. I didn’t like Rubino strangling that little bicycle boy.”

  “It wasn’t Sal, Isaac. It wasn’t Sal. We have two witnesses. It was Jerry’s brother, Nose, who put the make on the kid.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “A couple of old warehousemen saw him at the scene, carrying a big duffel bag. I’d bet my life the boy was in that bag.”

  “Then why the fuck aren’t you arresting the Nose?”

  “Because the old men are scared shitless. They’d never testify in court.”

  “Why don’t you dig a little and see if your old men are FBI informants?”

  “And suppose they are.”

  “It’s a plant, Sweets. LeComte will do anything to nail Jerry. It was Sal who killed the boy. Forget LeComte’s magic witnesses.”

  “But I can’t forget Kingsley McCardle. I’m putting him on a plane to St. Louis.”

  “You’ll have to kill me first.”

  “Isaac … you saw the detectives. We could shackle your hands and feet.”

  “I don’t care. You’ll have to kill me.”

  The First Dep began to eat Isaac’s ice cream.

  “Sweets,” Isaac said. “Give me one more day. And I’ll surrender Mr. McCardle. I promise. But let me do the arrangements.”

  “Isaac, you are a rogue elephant. You’re capable of putting that boy in deep cover. And we’ll never find him.”

  “Here,” Isaac said, clutching a ballpoint pen. “I’ll write you a fucking affidavit on the menu. I’ll resign tomorrow if I don’t deliver the boy. And you can hold my badge.”

  Sweets looked in Isaac’s face. “I don’t want your badge.” He freed both his kneecaps from the confines of the booth and limped out of the restaurant.

  19

  LeComte.

  Isaac had been playing Ivanhoe in Alexander Hamilton’s clothes. And LeComte was the magician … and puppeteer. Justice owned the Commish. LeComte had broken Maurie, had used Margaret Tolstoy as a love doll in the war between the old Rubino captains and Jerry DiAngelis, had manipulated Isaac, sent him into the provinces to sing and dance and talk about Henry Armstrong Lee. But Isaac had discovered America on that trip, had visited orphanages and penal colonies, worked in the fields with convicts under a raw, terrifying sun, his lips parched, his throat burning, but he wouldn’t drink water until the convicts were allowed to drink. The jailors were a little scared of Isaac. He’d come to them with the imprimatur of the Justice Department. How could they have known that Isaac himself was like a love doll, LeComte’s little geisha boy who performed for whole populations of police chiefs?

  And now LeComte had brought Kingsley McCardle into his fucking circus, had jeopardized the boy to get at Ivanhoe, and Ivanhoe didn’t like it. He couldn’t run to the mayor. He’d been shut out of City Hall. And the governor would have nothing to do with Isaac Sidel. But neither of them would have taken on LeComte. Isaac had to go to the Powerhouse.

  He called St. Patrick’s Cathedral. But the cardinal was on the road, visiting parishes in the Bronx. “It’s urgent,’ he told the cardinal’s secretary, and Isaac’s call was switched to Jim’s car telephone.

  “Ah, it’s the hairy boy himself. How are you, Isaac?” the cardinal asked.

  “Not good.”

  “I’ve been hearing about your troubles … from all sorts of people. Isaac, I can’t interfere. I have my own sheep to protect.”

  “I know that, Jim. But I have a child in my custody. He needs help.”

  “A lad, you say?” The cardinal was as fond of children as Isaac was. They both piloted baseball teams for the Police Athletic League. The cardinal was a cruel, efficient manager. Jim’s teams always won. “The lad, what’s his name?”

  “Kingsley McCardle. An orphan from St. Louis.”

  “Bring him along then, will you, Isaac? I’m in a rush. Meet me at Fox Street in half an hour.”

  Isaac didn’t want to be late for Cardinal Jim. But he had to slick the boy’s hair down and tighten his neckerchief and get Sergeant Malone. The three of them drove across the Willis Avenue Bridge and entered that Indian country of the South Bronx with the sergeant’s siren on. The boy gazed out the window like a stricken child. He’d seen the slums of St. Louis. But not mountains of rubble with a church in the middle. Rats played in the rubble. They looked like little crocodiles. He could almost see into their eyes.

  Isaac arrived at Fox Street a minute early. The cardinal was waiting in his black Lincoln. The boy had to smile. A big shiny bus like that seemed impractical around all the rats.

  “Don’t dawdle,” Isaac said. “And be polite to Cardinal Jim.”

  Isaac and the boy got out of the Dodge and climbed into the cardinal’s car. Jim was wearing a skullcap and a pectoral cross and a red sash around his middle. He sat smoking a cigarette. There was tobacco on his fingers when he shook the boy’s hand. “Ah, it’s a rotten habit,” he said. “But I can’t function without five cigarettes a day.”

  “Hello, Father,” the boy said.

  “Kingsley,” Isaac muttered, “you’re talking to the cardinal.”

  “He’s still a priest, ain’t he?” the boy said.

  “Isaac, leave him alone. He argues like a Jesuit. I like your Mr. McCardle.”

  Kingsley McCardle kept staring. He couldn’t reconcile that skullcap and the pectoral cross. He wasn’t idiotic about religions. But he wondered if the cardinal was a rabbi too. “Father, do you ever think of girls?”

  “What kind of question is that?” Isaac said, feeling his chances to enlist the cardinal fall out of his grasp. He should have let
McCardle remain in the Dodge.

  But Jim ignored Isaac and turned to the boy. “You mean in a carnal fashion?”

  “Yes, Father. I do.”

  “Well,” Jim said, devouring half the cigarette while tobacco spilled onto the skirts of his robe. “I wasn’t celibate when I was a boy.”

  “But now, Father?”

  “I’m not a eunuch, Mr. McCardle. I dance with the prettiest ladies I can find. That’s my deviltry.… Isaac, what can I do for the lad?”

  “Get him home on the qt.”

  “I ain’t goin’,” the boy said. “I like it here.”

  “Shhh, Mr. McCardle,” Jim said. “Isaac, what’s preventing you?”

  “The courts will pounce all over him. They’ll eat him alive. It’s LeComte. He’s getting back at me by sabotaging Mr. McCardle.”

  “Well, what’s the boy done?”

  “Killed his uncle.”

  “Shite,” the cardinal said.

  “It was self-defense. The uncle was a brute.”

  “How old was the boy when it happened?”

  “Seven or eight.”

  The cardinal maneuvered the cigarette in his mouth like a worm with one eye; an enormous piece of ash dangled at its edge. “Isaac, no court in the land would touch a boy who committed a crime at the age of seven.”

  “But they’ll publicize the event. They’ll get jurisdiction over Mr. McCardle. And he’ll be a ward of St. Louis for life.”

  “Isaac, I have the Church to consider. And you want me to make an enemy of LeComte.… Mr. McCardle, are you a Christian lad?”

  “I think so, Father. Uncle never took me to church.”

  “A bit of a heathen, eh? And you had to protect your own life?”

  “It was him or me, Father. Him or me.”

  “I believe you,” Jim said, the ash still jutting from his mouth. He knocked on the partition that separated him from his black chauffeur. “Charles, be a good man and get me the White House, will you?”

  Kingsley was suspicious about some guy in a skullcap calling the White House. He heard buttons being punched behind the glass wall. Then a slot opened in the wall and the black chauffeur handed Cardinal Jim a telephone.

  “Edith, hello. How’s the president? Will you ask him if he can spare a minute for old Jim?”