Secret Isaac

by Jerome Charyn

  He didn’t knock on Jamey’s door. The crowbars bit under the metal plate. The sledgehammer demolished every hinge. The door gave with a scream that nearly sounded human. Isaac wouldn’t murder Jamey in his own house, God forbid. But if O’Toole was dumb enough to throw himself at six detectives, Isaac couldn’t swear what would happen. A shotgun might go off. And Isaac would have a lot of paperwork. He’d build a good story. Rogue cop, Jamey O’Toole, dies resisting arrest.

  Isaac didn’t crouch in back of his men. He was the first to climb over Jamey’s door.

  “O’Toole, come on out … it’s only Isaac.”

  Someone was crying in there. It wasn’t O’Toole. Isaac and his men trampled into all the rooms. The sobbing didn’t go away. They searched the closets next. Isaac found an old woman sitting behind a pile of brooms. They began to mock her, Isaac’s men. “Look at that. Jamey’s hiding one of his aunts.”

  “Shut up,” Isaac said.

  The men who’d watched that fucking house for Isaac didn’t, even know Jamey had a mother. Isaac brought her out of the closet. He sat her in the kitchen with a glass of water. He let her drink before he questioned her. He cursed himself for the shotguns and the big hammer. All he’d accomplished was to frighten an old woman. “Mrs. O’Toole, could you help us, please? Where’s that son of yours?”

  She couldn’t say. “He told me the cops was after him.”

  “Which cops?”

  Mrs. O’Toole shrugged at Isaac.

  “How long’s he been gone?”

  She counted on her fingers. “Thirteen days.”

  What cops could be after Jamey? Isaac’s own men hadn’t been chasing the big dunce. O’Toole ran from home while Isaac was in Dublin with the king. Why? Irishmen don’t abandon their mothers. What kind of trouble was the lad in? It’s hard to scare a donkey who’s six feet seven.

  Isaac left the kitchen. His men got in place behind him. They began to sicken Isaac. O’Toole’s neighbors peeked out of cracks of light in their doors. The detectives looked ridiculous lugging shotguns and crowbars in shopping bags. But they had their badges pinned to their chests. “Police,” they muttered, “police,” and the neighbors closed their doors. It was Isaac who should have calmed the neighbors, if only to cover himself. But those shopping bags tore at Isaac’s guts. The creature was stirring again. Isaac’s personal “angel,” Manfred Coen, used to carry his shotgun inside a shopping bag. He was a blue-eyed detective from the Bronx. Isaac appreciated a sad, beautiful, inarticulate boy around him. Blue Eyes. He was loyal to Isaac, and Isaac got him killed. The First Dep pushed Coen into his war with the Guzmanns. Coen didn’t have the cleverness to stay alive. Isaac destroyed the Guzmanns, but his trophies were pretty irregular: a live, live worm and a dead Coen.

  16

  HIS mind must have gone to rot. He didn’t understand the street anymore. He lived among pimps and dudes, but couldn’t get a word out of them. The “players” had been organizing in the past two years. They weren’t so vulnerable to the pussy patrol that Tiger John sent down on them. None of the “brides” would inform on her man. But the “players” were careful not to beat up on a girl. They’d come under the tutelage of Arthur Greer. Sweet Arthur didn’t belong to the brotherhood of pimps. He had no need for a wide-brimmed hat. He acted as a kind of magistrate for most Manhattan dudes. If a quarrel developed between pimps, they took it to Arthur. Arthur decided who was right and who was wrong. He was better than a bail bondsman. He always gave you walking money for any “bride” who got into trouble.

  What was his real profession? He owned boutiques, nightclubs, massage parlors, grocery stores, and a cab company. Arthur could afford to snub the Taxi Commission. He gave out his own “medallions” to all his gypsy cabs. They had meters and windows in their roofs. The “players” wouldn’t ride in any other cabs.

  The cops knew all about Sweet Arthur. They decided to leave him alone. Arthur held tight to his various enterprises and policed them by himself. He was something of a loanshark, but he wouldn’t touch any shit. No one bought dope in Arthur’s cabs. He warned the pimps to clean their stables of contaminated girls. Junkie whores were cast out of Arthur’s zones. They had to operate in the pigsties of Brooklyn.

  Arthur had a few comrades under him. It was a family of sorts, a loose confederacy. Killers, bondsmen, pornographers, loansharks, and head pimps. Such were the “blues” of Sugar Hill. But there wasn’t much of a Sugar Hill anymore. It was only a name, a manner of describing a certain sweetness among rich black thieves. They lived in co-ops throughout Manhattan and Queens. Arthur had a penthouse near Lincoln Center, whose windows took in half the cliffs of Jersey. Assemblymen showed up for dinner. Judges talked to Arthur at his penthouse. Actresses walked into his boutiques. So it wasn’t much of an honor when the First Deputy came to his door.

  Isaac had no one else. Whatever black Mafia there was began with Arthur Greer. The pimps hadn’t given any of their secrets to Isaac the bum. Black and white hookers shuttled in and out of jail. Money was collected. The king sat in his Dublin hotel. Isaac couldn’t put a dent into the traffic on Whores’ Row.

  Who were the lords of New York City? It was hard to tell. Sam won his primary. But mayors went cheap this year. His own clerks copied his signature behind the Mayor’s back. Tiger John Rathgar, Commissioner of Police, prowled the fourteenth floor at Headquarters and bullied cops who got in his way. He could demote you, give you some graveyard for a beat. He terrorized the whole Department, Tiger John. But he couldn’t have told you where any of his squads were placed. He didn’t have a cop’s sense of New York. Arthur Greer probably had more information about Tiger’s squads than Tiger did.

  “How’s my man?” he said to Isaac. Sweet Arthur had a sensitive face. He’d come out of the Bronx, the leader of a notorious gang, the Clay Avenue Devils. You could see the scars along his lips. Who knows how many times he fought with a knife? But he wouldn’t take on Isaac, scowl for scowl.

  “I hear you’ve been on the stroll, Mr. Isaac. Wearing funny pants and living at a pimp’s hotel. Why’d you wait so long to come to me? I can give you clues about the business. Would you like your own stable of girls? Then you can tell your class at the Police Academy all about the grubby life of a pimp.”

  “Arthur, your spies are sleeping on you. I teach at John Jay.”

  “One school’s good as another,” Arthur said, and he smiled.

  “What happened to Jamey O’Toole? His mother says he’s hiding from the cops. But I can’t figure that one. Jamey doesn’t have the smarts to hide from me.”

  “You can’t always believe what a mother says, Mr. Isaac. Maybe he got disgusted swiping pennies from whores and pimps, and he disappeared with a money bag under his arm.”

  “Not Jamey. He’s a loyal son of a bitch.”

  “Maybe he eloped with Annie Powell.”

  A rage was gathering in Isaac. He wanted to send Arthur out into the Jersey cliffs.

  “What’s Annie to you?”

  “Nothing. She’s out there with all the other dogs. Don’t look so sad. I’m tickling you, baby. Everybody knows you’re sweet on that girl.”

  “We were talking about O’Toole.”

  “That’s it, Mr. Isaac. Jamey’s sweet on her too.”

  “Then why did he bang her in the face?”

  Arthur laughed. “You ever meet an Irishman who wasn’t a little crazy?”

  “And Dermott? Would you call Dermott crazy?”

  “Man, he’s the craziest of them all.”

  “Is the king a friend of yours?”

  Arthur shook his head in disgust. “No wonder you got stuck in that pig hotel. You must be on the slide. Me and Dermott ran together. We were in the same gang.”

  Once upon a time Isaac was familiar with every boys’ gang in the Bronx. He was the cop who kept the peace. He didn’t have to work with the youth patrol. Isaac would walk into any cellar to settle a dispute. The Devils of Clay Avenue owned huge chunks of the Bronx. Their territo
ries took them from Castle Hill to Claremont Park. They were successful because they wouldn’t fight along racial lines. Sweet Arthur welcomed Negroes, Italians, Irishers, and Jews into his gang.

  “Shit,” Isaac said. “You mean Dermott was one of yours?”

  “The best I had. My minister of war.”

  “Then why can’t I remember him?”

  “Dermott, he didn’t like to stick out. He was smart, man. I got most of the glory and the cuts in my cheek. Dermott moved away from us. He went to college without a mark on him.”

  “Who made Dermott such a king?”

  “I did.”

  “But you said he didn’t fight. Dermott doesn’t have the scars …”

  “But he talks like a king. You ever listen to Dermott? He could swipe your beard with five words.”

  “I don’t have a beard,” Isaac said.

  “So what. He’d make you believe you had one, and then he’d cop it from you. That’s why he was minister of war. We battled it out with those other gangs right at the table. They didn’t have any crooners on their side. We had Dermott. The king would trade them blind. Maybe I’d back him up with my knife … and maybe not. It depended on how much Dermott could steal with his tongue.”

  “Strange,” Isaac said. “I saw the king in Dublin. He didn’t open his mouth once. Arthur, what’s he doing at the Shelbourne Hotel?”

  “Living with his ancestors. The king’s got Irish blood.”

  “What happened between Annie and him?”

  “They had a love spat,” Arthur said. He couldn’t stop smiling at Isaac. The First Dep was forlorn. He’d lost his strength somewhere, dropped it in the street the day he’d met Annie Powell. He’d never shake loose of that girl. He went to kill a man for Annie. He would have done the same to Arthur Greer.

  “That mark on her came from a knife, didn’t it?”

  Isaac was muttering now.

  “He put a perfect D on her. Dermott loved to croon, you said. A talking man. How did he get to be so handy with a knife?”

  “Ask the king. Maybe he did some practicing at college.” The smile on Arthur had already turned brittle. “… Isaac, I’m getting busy. You’ll have to go.”

  A white maid had come in to dust all the pillows. A boy left with a grocery wagon. Isaac saw a plumber walking on his knees in one of the toilets. Arthur had a functioning army to serve him, but he didn’t offer Isaac one small piece of cake.

  Isaac had a touch of amnesia. He couldn’t remember what his next appointment was. Then his intuition caught hold: he had no more appointments today. He’d grown invisible hiding in that nameless hotel, and it was hard to get his coloring back. He’d thrown himself into too many capers. Now he couldn’t solve the riddle of his own existence. Had Annie become Isaac’s sphinx? Who was she? Why should Annie’s mark have maimed him so?

  He went up to Morningside Heights and visited that old school of his, Columbia College. Isaac didn’t really have an Alma Mater. Only four months under Marshall Berkowitz. The school year was about to begin. Trunks were being carried into the dormitories. It gave Isaac a scare, reminded him of his own meager education. He shouldn’t have stopped reading Ulysses.

  He didn’t wait on line with the other freshmen in the corridors of Hamilton Hall. Isaac crashed into Marshall’s office. The dean of freshmen was annoyed with him.

  “Isaac, I have a mob of kids outside. Couldn’t you telephone?”

  “No,” Isaac said.

  Marshall’s desk was littered with folders pierced in every corner with a silver pin. The pins must have represented a kind of system to Marsh. He seemed much skinnier in New York. What had happened to that Dublin rump of his? His ass was gone. Was he still crying over Bloom’s dismantled house? Isaac was a pragmatist. He couldn’t mourn Number 7 Eccles Street. He had the living to contend with. Specific scars and the king.

  “I want that recommendation I wrote for little Dermott.”

  Marshall trembled over the silver pins. “You see the condition of this place. I couldn’t find it in a thousand years.”

  “Marsh, I’ll help you look.”

  They stood over Marshall’s filing cabinets and searched the drawers. Sheets of paper crumbled in Isaac’s hand. Folders ripped at the edge. Students were knocking on the door. Marshall wouldn’t open up. It took an hour to dig out Isaac’s ancient memorandum. It was typed on Police stationery. Isaac had to glimpse at his own language before he could believe a word.

  … Marshall, I know you’re going to think this one is a sweetfaced hood. He wears saddlestiched pants. He has sideburns and a duck’s ass. He’s “Bronx” up to his eyebrows. I could identify the streets he walked on, the rocks he must have thrown into windows. But he has a head on him. The boy can think. It’s saved him from those deathtraps of Southern Boulevard and Boston Road. Forget the shitty grades. High school must have been a bore from beginning to end. I don’t know if Silas Marner put him to sleep. But talk to him about Hamlet. Dermott can tell you about hysteria, idiocy, and revenge. Don’t let the kid get away. It would be a shame for Columbia to lose him.

  “Isaac, I can Xerox that for you,” Marshall said. The search through his files had gentled him.

  “Thanks, Marsh, but that’s okay. I won’t forget it now …”

  Marshall returned to his desk. He was staring at the walls, surrounded by folders and pins. Isaac came out of his reverie to notice Marsh’s fish eyes, that dead, abstracted look.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Sylvia’s left me …”

  Isaac didn’t have to hear why Sylvia Berkowitz fled from Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. How long can you coexist with James Joyce under the blanket with you? But he couldn’t utterly abandon Marsh. “How did it happen?”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t take a thing with her … no panties. Not even her books.”

  It wasn’t a hopeless case. Isaac had the resources to track a dean’s missing wife. He could descend on 1 Police Plaza, the official home of the First Dep, and organize a search party. Isaac was famous for his ability to climb into the roots of any borough and come up with a handful of runaways.

  “Marsh, I’ll see what I can do.”

  The freshmen outside Marshall’s office looked surly. Isaac couldn’t blame them. They probably had to skip lunch on account of him. Isaac also remembered waiting for Marsh. The freshman with the bull neck. Isaac Sidel. He should have been champion of the wrestling team. Isaac was a devil at a hundred and forty-eight pounds. He’d gone out for wrestling because it was the one sport at college that suited his temperament. Football was for the grubs. You needed stamina, psychology, and strong, slippery arms to wrestle. And Isaac’s neck. No one could pin Isaac when his neck was bridged on the mat. He would suck oranges before a match, stare at his opponent, and do warm-ups in his beautiful Columbia leggings. He traveled to Yale with the freshman team. The Yalie he wrestled was disqualified for gouging. It was the first and last Columbia win. He stopped going to practice. He didn’t have the time. James Joyce had already bitten Isaac in the ass.

  He couldn’t get out from under Marshall’s influence. He idolized the dean. Wrestling was nothing compared to the music of words. The team dropped Isaac Sidel. He had to give those beautiful leggings back to the college. Language was all. He was jealous of other boys who occupied Marsh. He would catch the dean going in and out of his office. There was always some question to ask. “Why does Joyce say that an Irishman’s house is his coffin?”

  Had little Dermott behaved like that? Did he follow Marsh around, beg audiences with the dean? Goggle at him over cups of coffee? The romance was shortlived for both of them. Dermott went off to Yale, and Isaac disappeared from college. Were they still votaries of Marsh? Was Dermott writing songs about the Liffey from his hotel room? Is that all his exile meant? A crook returning to scholarship in his middle years? Isaac was the fool of fools. It was business, business, business that was holding the king. And Isaac was a man without a clue. He should have stayed an ordi
nary Police inspector. He didn’t have much resiliency as the First Dep. When a cop falls, he isn’t supposed to lie flat.

  Marshall must have followed him across South Campus. He ran after Isaac with his tie trailing down the back of his neck. They were like two gaunt, hurt creatures chasing one another. “Isaac,” the dean said. “Sylvia told me about you and her … she has a habit of confessing her love affairs. But she didn’t have to tell. It makes sense. You were her Dublin beau.”

  “I’m sorry, Marsh … it happened. We were going downhill from Eccles Street. We landed in a deserted lane and …”

  “Stop that. She would have gone after Dermott if you hadn’t arrived … Isaac, please find her for me.”

  17

  ISAAC thought and thought of Sylvia, and came to Jennifer Pears. He had his men shop for two women at a time. He wouldn’t go near that ugly red fortress at 1 Police Plaza. He took a ride to Centre Street and sat in his old rooms. He shouldn’t have fucked his mentor’s wife. Now he owed Marsh. His deputies were going gray in the head. Who were these two cunts that belonged to Isaac? Sylvia Berkowitz was on the loose. They didn’t mind scrambling for her. But why did they have to shadow this Jennifer lady? Isaac demanded all her moves. The First Dep was reluctant to get Mrs. Pears on the phone. She might hang up on a prick like him. Isaac was a terrible suitor. He would snake in and out of a woman’s life. No one could stand him for very long. He was an uncivilized boy, fifty-one years old.

  His deputies had no “buys” on Sylvia Berkowitz. She must have shrunk into the ground, like that big Irish ape, O’Toole. Not the green-eyed one. Jennifer Pears was a piece of cake. Soon as she said goodbye to her doormen, Isaac’s deputies had her under control. These weren’t dummy cops. They knew how to fatten a page for Isaac. Takes her boy to the Little Red Schoolhouse. (They posed as fire chiefs to follow Jennifer inside.) Plays with him up on the roof with his kindergarten class. She usually stays an hour. Then she goes to Fourth Avenue. The lady likes to buy old books …