Ah, it was Little Angel Street, where his own beloved, Anastasia, had lived with Odessa’s Roumanian prince, Antonescu. There were rats riding under the stones, a whole population of starving rats that formed herds around Isaac. He couldn’t avoid bumping into them with his shoes. They had long, bony bodies that were like some horrible gray armor. But Isaac got through the door, into Antonescu’s house. It was cluttered with rats.
“Anastasia,” he moaned.
“I’m right here.”
Isaac the Brave had to blink. He wasn’t in wartime Odessa. He was back in his tub, like a naked beast. And his darling wasn’t Little Orphan Annie in the clutches of a false Roumanian prince. She was Margaret Tolstoy, wearing a blond wig.
“I was dreaming,” he said. “About Little Angel Street … how did you get in?”
“Mr. Mayor, I still have your key. And I’m a resourceful girl. I could have picked your lock in my sleep. Do you like to bathe in the cold?… I remember. You’re a polar bear. What were you doing on Little Angel Street?”
“Looking for you.”
“Do you have to invade my privacy, Isaac? Odessa is the only past I had. And there was no Little Angel Street. It was called the Deribaskova. Uncle Ferdinand decided to rename the whole town.”
“He had the right. He was a prince.”
Anastasia laughed under the folds of blond hair. “You only say that because you’re another grand seignior. A king, in fact.”
“You shouldn’t have abandoned my bed.”
“Had to, dear.” She undressed, got into that dry tub with Isaac, and they kissed with a passion that seemed to pull at the roots of Isaac’s eyes. He was Little Orphan Annie. And she was LeComte’s little soldier …
He found himself in his own bed. He must have made love with Anastasia. He couldn’t recall a bloody thing. He was an amnesiac, always an amnesiac. But this Anastasia didn’t have a wig. She was bald and beautiful, like a wondrous mannequin with cropped gray hair.
“You left without a word. Packed your bags and boom! You’re Frederic’s toy again.”
“I’m not a toy,” she said. “I’m chasing a child trafficker, a mutt who sells blond, blue-eyed boys and girls from Roumania.”
“Ah, one of Ceausescu’s ministers.”
“Don’t laugh,” she said. “I was born in Roumania.”
“I thought you were a citizen of the world.”
“I am,” she said. “The KGB took away my country, and the FBI won’t give it back. But I still have Odessa, Isaac … and the Lower East Side. Let’s say I’m a sucker for blue-eyed orphans.”
“Who is this mutt?”
“He calls himself Quentin. He has massage parlors all over the place. He deals a little coke. And he has connections with the rich and the super rich. That’s where he finds his customers.”
“And LeComte sent you over to sleep with him, huh?”
Anastasia searched for her wig. She was that blond creature again, Margaret Tolstoy.
“LeComte’s your pimp.”
“He’s everybody’s pimp, darling. Didn’t you know that?”
“Not mine,” Isaac said.
“You went on the road for him, dear. You were his Hamilton Fellow, the Justice Department’s traveling man.”
“But I don’t travel anymore.”
“Well, I still do … I hear your namesake was killed. Geronimo Jones.”
“Ah, LeComte told you that. Justice already has a file on Geronimo.”
“You shouldn’t sleep in shelters, dear. It’s dangerous.”
“It wasn’t dangerous. The apartment has too many ghosts. I had to get away. And the Purple Gang offed the other Geronimo Jones.”
“There is no Purple Gang. You mean Wig.”
“Yeah, Sweets’ little deputy. He was running dope right out of Gracie Mansion. I suspend the mother, and Sweets brings him back.”
“He’s the best cop in New York City. He can walk Harlem, Isaac, and you can’t.”
“I’m a downtown man.”
“Then what were you doing in a Harlem shelter?”
“I told you. I was taking a rest.”
She kissed Isaac on the mouth. He began to moan. “Where can I find you? Give me a telephone number, Margaret.”
“No numbers. I’ll find you.”
And she was out of the king’s arms and out the door, and Isaac had to live with Margaret’s ghost and the memory of Little Angel Street.
4.
He was the Purple Gang, alias Albert Wiggens. He’d been shot in the head, and he’d never really recovered. He could have had a disability pension, retired at thirty-three, but he wouldn’t retire. He’d hidden a few medical reports, faked a couple of others. He had tiny fragments of lead in his skull, and he had crippling headaches that not even his doctor knew about. He’d fainted several times in the middle of the street. No one molested him. His Seventh Avenue “cousins” would sit beside him until he woke. He was Wig. Seventh Avenue might have become Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard to the mapmakers and tourists who wanted a glimpse of “darktown,” but Adam’s boulevard belonged to Wig.
He was at the Seventh Avenue Armory with Brother William, the night manager, in William’s glass cage. His head had begun to throb. A steel ribbon snaked above his eyes like some terrible screw. He had to keep one hand on William’s desk. “Geronimo Jones.”
“Aw, Wiggy, it was nothin’ but a joke on the big Jew. Parks his ass in our dormitory. I had to take revenge.”
“But how did that stiff get into Isaac’s bed?”
“I put him there, Wiggy. Carried him in my arms.”
Wig slapped the night manager across the face with his free hand and almost fell. William blew his nose and started to cry.
“Have I ever threatened you, Brother William?”
“No,” William said, sulking like a penitent.
“Have I ever hurt you or your sister?”
“No, Wiggy. Not once.”
“But I’ll kill you, William. And it won’t be with a knife in the neck. Didn’t you realize that when you fucked with Isaac, you were fucking me?”
“How’s that, Wig?”
“I’m responsible for that little king. I’m his black angel.”
“But you hate him, Wiggy, and he hates you.”
“That don’t matter none. I’m his angel.”
“Nobody took the time to tell me that.”
“You’re my beacon, William. You’re my early-warning system. And you play a fool trick. Where did the corpse come from?”
“Midtown,” William said.
“It was your sister’s doing.”
“Rita Mae wasn’t involved, Wiggy.”
Wig took out his Glock and held it between William’s eyes. “What happens when people lie to me, William?”
“They don’t ever get no second chance.” The night manager was blubbering now. “He was just a john who died on Rita.”
“She robbed him, right?”
“Wig, he wanted pussy and he couldn’t pay. He tried to strangle Rita and take her money. She had to defend herself.”
“With a pigsticker she put in his neck.”
“That’s Rita’s way. She has her habits, Wig. She’s too old to change. But there’s nothin’ to worry about. The john didn’t have any address.”
“A homeless man from out of town visits your slut of a sister with the intent to rip her off?”
“Aw, don’t call her a slut, Wiggy. Rita’s wild about you.”
“Quentin has him brought uptown in one of his wagons and you accept the delivery, right?”
“I had to, Wig. She’s my sister.”
“I warned you, William. No more deliveries. The shelter’s no dumping ground for other people’s corpses. The fat days are over. I’m not living at Grade Mansion anymore. I can’t supply morgue space. The tit is gettin’ tight.”
“I’ll behave, Wiggy. I swear.”
Wig had to put his Glock away. He wasn’t going to off Brother Wil
liam.
He rode down to Times Square in the commissioner’s black Dodge. He hated these streets. It had become a camping ground for young bloods who had nowhere else to breathe. The poorest of them had metal chains around their necks. Homeboys without a home. He was a cop, and it didn’t matter how many bloods were in the Department. All cops—brown, red, yellow, and blue—were white. They had to protect white power. And that’s why he hadn’t severed himself from the myth of the Purple Gang. Black assassins rising from the ruins of Harlem …
He entered the Ali Baba, a porno mill on Eighth Avenue, near the New York Times. It was a multimillion-dollar show, the biggest sex supermarket in Manhattan, its own indoor red-light district. The Ali Baba had no rivals. It was run by the Maf and Quentin Kahn, a slumlord, a psychopath, and a master pimp. Quentin’s trademark was a yellow condom that his hostesses supplied to all the johns. He wouldn’t allow buggering at his dream palace. He was some kind of crazy Puritan. Girls could be beaten or whipped, but not sodomized. And the johns had to have their peters inspected by a nurse.
But the Ali Baba was mostly a boulevard where out-of-town johns mingled and watched the different attractions. The entrance fee was five dollars. And once they passed through the Ali Baba’s golden gate, they could watch as long as they liked. Quentin’s girls stood behind glass booths, wearing negligees or nothing at all. A john could enter a booth, but there was always a window between him and the girl. He could talk dirty, undress himself, or make a date with the girl, meet her at some bedroom closet or tiny sauna in Quentin’s labyrinthian upstairs rooms. He had to be careful. The Ali Baba wasn’t a house of prostitution. It was a lonely hearts club, according to Quentin Kahn. And his “researchers,” who stood behind one-way mirrors, could almost smell an undercover cop.
But Wig was always welcome at the Ali Baba. He had his own “touch,” a tiny percentage of the profits that he shared with Mario Klein, the mayor’s secretary. That “touch” might end after Isaac became the one and only king. But Wig had other “touches” here and there. He wasn’t rich, but he could also find a bed at the Seventh Avenue Armory, become the new Geronimo Jones.
Quentin’s boulevard had glaring blue lights, and Wig had to create a little visor with his hand or he wouldn’t have discovered Rita Mae’s booth. She sat behind her window, looking bored. She was wearing a white negligee. Wig entered the booth.
Rita Mae yawned, then cupped her breasts without looking up at him.
“Honey,” she said, “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
He’d lived with Rita once upon a time. She’d been his old lady, but he was a wild man, filled with coke. He fell off a roof. He had other old ladies, and Rita drifted down to the Ali Baba. He could have bombed that lonely hearts club, set it on fire, offed Quentin if he had to. But Rita was already gone.
“Show me yours,” she said, and Wig knew she’d been smoking crack. She was a girl with incredible cheekbones and hazel eyes. He peered into her glass wall until she noticed him.
“Wig, honey, I thought you was a john.”
“I am a john,” he said. “Take off your little housecoat.”
“No,” she said. “I’m naked enough.”
“Where’s your pigsticker?”
“What you talking about?”
“Your knife, Rita. Where’s your knife?”
“That old thing, I lost it, Wig.”
“In some poor sucker’s neck.”
“Who told you that?”
“William. He buried that sucker in one of his own beds at the armory.”
“He’s lyin’. The last time I had to stick a john was two years ago. Quentin called the doctor, and they put him on a bus.”
“Yeah. He bled to death on the way to Miami.”
“It’s not my fault, Wig, if Quentin’s doctor couldn’t stop the blood.”
“Take off the housecoat. I want to look at you.”
Rita stood up and wiggled out of her negligee. Her breasts had fallen a tiny bit. Her pubic hair was like a brown diamond. Her nipples were larger than he’d remembered. Her knees were slightly bowed. His headache got worse and worse. He wanted Rita. She was his fox even if she slaved for Quentin Kahn.
“I’m gonna buy up your contract, Rita.”
“What for? So you can put me in your own glass house? I’ll stay where I am, Mr. Albert Wiggens. It’s Ali Baba,” she said. “The land of yellow condoms.”
Wig raised his arm. Was it to break through the window? That metal ribbon in his skull pressed against his eyes. Wig was going blind. A whole world of colors began to bleed around him as he fell to the floor …
He woke in Rita’s arms. He was in a closet behind the glass booth. Rita was rocking him, singing some Christmas song about a red-nosed reindeer. Fuck Christmas. He’d have banned reindeer from Harlem if he could.
“Honey,” she said, “I have to get back to my booth. Quentin will …”
“Yeah, he’ll kill you, Rita Mae. And I’ll off him. But that won’t bring you back.”
She was thirty-one years old, with a runny nose. She’d had a child when she was seventeen. The boy, Harwood, lived with her on Lenox Avenue. He’d dropped out of school, spent his time in several crack houses. He was taller than Wig, with his mama’s hazel eyes. He couldn’t write a sentence. But he’d read like a little devil when Wig had been around. Fucking Harwood! Wig loved the boy, but he hated to admit it.
“Rita, I’m all right.”
“Those blackouts are getting real bad.”
“I’m all right.”
He climbed up onto his own feet. He was dizzy. “Girl,” he said, “you go back to your booth. You have a line of customers big as a block.”
But there was no one on line outside Rita Mae’s booth. There was only that boulevard of stragglers. Wig joined those stragglers under the blue light. It was almost paradise.
He walked into Quentin Kahn’s corporate headquarters, passing a pair of bodyguards. Quentin Kahn sat behind a desk that had been part of Cornelius Vanderbilt’s railroad car. He was older than Wig. He’d made his fortune as a slumlord and then took over a failing pornography shop and turned it into the Ali Baba. He’d been buying and selling buildings since he was seventeen. He had a kind of bold handsomeness, with light brown hair. He was a pingpong player, like Barbarossa and Sidel’s dead angel, Manfred Coen. He had a table in his office and he would fly in champions from Roumania and Portugal to hit the ball with him for half an hour. These foreign champions were always coming into or out of his office. Quentin had his own magazine, Pingpong Power. He was wearing a red jersey from some forgotten pingpong club.
He wasn’t alone. Sidel’s Roumanian murderess was with him, Margaret Tolstoy.
“Hello, Wig,” she said. She had purple lipstick that looked like a magical wound over her mouth.
“Ah, you kids know each other,” Quentin said. He liked to talk with the gruffness of a landlord.
“Yeah, we met,” Wig said.
“Before or after the king’s campaign?”
“A little before,” Wig said. “I’ll come back later, Quent.”
“No, no. Margaret was about to leave.”
She kissed Quentin on the cheek, traveled across the room, and disappeared.
“You are a dumb motherfucker, Quent. That is Dracula’s daughter. She only has one kind of kiss. She poisons you and sucks out your blood.”
“Relax,” Quentin said. “I’m alive, aint I?”
“Not for long. If she’s around, Quent, it means the Feds have you under surveillance and are moving to indict.”
“I’m always under surveillance. So what? I’m a registered Republican. I can’t be touched.”
“LeComte must have microphones in every little corner.”
“I’ll laugh him out of court.”
“Quent, what the hell was she doing here?”
“She’s close to Isaac, aint she? And I’ll need some favors from the king. I own too many buildings. I have to get on his good
side.”
“With Margaret Tolstoy?”
“Who else? It’s like having your own lobbyist in the Sidel administration.”
“A lobbyist who’s a vampire.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll pay you to off her when the time’s ripe.”
Wig rolled his eyes and Quentin started to laugh. “Come on. We’ll go to my living room. The FBI can’t disturb us.”
They went out a door behind Cornelius Vanderbilt’s old desk and landed on a fire escape with a ladder that looked like metal vines. Wig had a view of the battered fields between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. It was a dead garden. Wig saw abandoned refrigerators, rotting motors, collapsed tents. Then he realized that people were living in the garden. It was a haven for the homeless, much more appealing than the Seventh Avenue Armory, even if you risked freezing your ass.
“Quent, you’ve been reviving your ambulance. I can’t afford to have another stiff at the Seventh Avenue Armory. Try Brooklyn or the Bronx.”
“Wig, I was doing you a favor. Your little mama knifed a john. I had to get rid of him.”
“Rita swears she didn’t use her pigsticker.”
“Would you like to have some witnesses? Her knife was in his neck.”
“Who was the john?”
“Nameless. No ID. There’s nothing to link him to us or Rita Mae. I wiped the handle of her pigsticker.”
“That’s considerate of you, Quent. I work for the police commissioner. I can’t feed him a fucking fairy tale.”
“There’s no ID.”
“He’ll send in a team of homicide boys.”
“They can’t find shit. We’ll pin it on the competition. I’ll pay a couple of kids to swear the john was knifed at the Stardust Palace.”
“Quent, you’re a businessman. Don’t play cop. The Stardust Palace will lead those homicide boys back to Ali Baba.”
“I could offer Rita a little vacation.”
“No. She’s more anonymous in a glass booth. I’ll invent a story. But it’s the last time.”
Wig started to prance down the fire escape. His headache was gone.
Little Angel Street (The Isaac Sidel Novels) Page 3
