The niño didn’t have the courage to scoop them up and run. He stood like a frozen article, a baby antelope at the Bronx Zoo, while Alyosha looked into the eyes of his enemy. It was Marianna Storm, clutching a wooden sword. His own little Grushenka had hacked at his hand.
“Alyosha,” she said, “let the boy go.”
“I aint stopping him … homey, get the hell out of here.”
“Mamá,” the niño said, then bowed to Marianna Storm and sidled past her with all his stuff.
“Take off that idiotic mask,” she said.
“It’s not so idiotic. My brother gave it to me … it belongs to his gang.”
“Well, I’ve had enough of masks, thank you.”
Alyosha removed the handkerchief mask and put it into his pocket. He kept staring at the sword. It was the hottest item he’d ever seen in the Bronx. A wooden sword tall as Marianna herself.
“Where’d you get the blade?”
“From my aikido class.”
Aikido hadn’t come to El Bronx, the home of Latin kung fu, where a kick in the groin was worth a hundred guns and knives. But Alyosha wasn’t much of a street fighter. He could only mark up walls.
“Marianna, I could use a quarter.”
“My hero, who robs groceries from little boys.”
“I was desperate. I’m looking for a piece of news, and I can’t find it without the telephone.”
“I never carry money. It’s useless. I wouldn’t be caught dead with a lot of nickels and dimes in my pocket. Money weighs you down.”
The chica was crazy, talking Manhattan near the Park Avenue trestle. “Then how did you get up here? Did you flap your wings or fly in Uncle Isaac’s iron bird?”
“I took a cab,” she said, “charged the ride to American Express.”
“Then your driver must have been a dummy. Because no one takes plastic in the Bronx … all the Jokers use plastic as playing cards.”
“But I still found you, Alyosha, thanks to American Express.”
“It wasn’t American Express. I came out of my hole to hunt for coins … and if you hadn’t stopped me, I would have made my call.”
“Silly,” she said. “It’s the easiest thing in the world to utilize the telephone.”
She crawled into the nearest booth with Alyosha, asked him for the number he wanted, sweet-talked the operator into dialing it for her, and charged the call to Clarice. And Alyosha got on the line with Gloria Guralnik, Richardson’s humpbacked secretary. “Gloria,” he said, “it’s me. Has Richardson gone to any funerals lately?”
“None that I know of.”
Then Paulito had to be alive. But there was a jerkiness in Gloria’s voice, like she was a girl who wanted to cry but couldn’t, because she’d been around Apaches too long and had lived with their cruelties. “Alyosha, you have my deepest sympathies.”
“Sympathies for what?”
“Paulito. He strangled himself. That’s what Brock says.”
Alyosha knew about such strangulations. It was an old Apache trick. “But when’s the funeral?”
“There isn’t any. Paul is lying in some icebox, while the police do their reports … Richardson’s in the field. I’ll beep him for you.”
And before Alyosha could hang up, he heard Richardson’s voice. “Homey, is that you?”
“You bitch, you did Paul.”
“Had to, homey. He was embarrassing me. I kept him alive in the hole. And our agreement was that he’d stay there, and I wouldn’t have to ruin his gang completely. But the fool borrows money from Martin Lima and walks right out of Rikers.”
“But it’s your fault, Richardson. You let the world know that I was one of your rats, and Paulie had to come looking for me …”
“And face his own funeral.”
“That’s the problem, Richardson. My brother can’t even get into the ground.”
“It’ll happen, homey. I’ll see to it. I’m just a soldier. I can’t order him out of that icebox, but I’ll take you to him. It’s the least I can do.”
“No,” Alyosha said. “I’ll blind you, Richardson, I’ll do worse.”
“Ah, I thought we were friends. Didn’t I encourage your art and introduce you to the Big Guy and little Marianna with the titties? Tell me where you are, homey, and I’ll bring you in.”
“You’ll never find me. And don’t turn your back to the wind. Because I’ll be there, Richardson, I’ll be there.”
Alyosha rushed out of that glass booth with Marianna Storm. He’d have to go underground, crawl into the trestle and keep to the caves until he could steal a Glock or jump on Richardson with a hot needle. But he couldn’t even get five feet from the booth. Richardson appeared with a couple of Apaches, including Birdy Towne. They all had field radios in their pockets.
Brock whistled at Marianna’s wooden sword and pecked her on the hand. He was wearing his cowboy boots and mustard-colored pants.
“How are you, Miz Marianna?”
“Don’t talk to him,” Alyosha said. “He killed my brother and he’ll kill us.”
“How’s J. Michael’s only daughter? I hear Billy the Kid’s in love with you.”
“Who’s Billy the Kid?” Alyosha had to ask, curious and jealous at the same time.
“The next goddamn president of the United States.”
“Is he part of your gang?”
All the Apaches started to laugh. “If he aint,” Birdy said, “he will be.”
“Watch your mouth,” Richardson said. “You don’t want to give Miz Marianna grandiose notions about ourselves. We’re soldiers in the field. We don’t do politics.”
“But whose soldiers are you?” Marianna asked.
“Darling,” Birdy said, “we belong to the City of New York.”
“Uncle Isaac doesn’t think so. He says you’re outlaws, dealing for yourselves.”
“Well, you just ask your daddy about that … we’re a bunch of altruists, trying to build a better Bronx. And we don’t need the Big Guy. Our mandate is from Billy the Kid.”
“Birdy,” Richardson said, “didn’t I tell you to watch your mouth? You’ll confuse the little girl.”
“It’s not so confusing,” Alyosha said. “I was never out of your sight, not for a minute. You worked me like a magnet. When the Malay Warriors and the Freaks got close, you grabbed them off the street.”
“It’s like Birdy says. We’re building a better Bronx … I’ll take you to your brother.”
Richardson rasped into his radio, “The falcon’s on the ground, the falcon’s on the ground.” Three mustard colored Fords arrived, and Richardson invited Alyosha and Marianna Storm into the first car.
“We’re not going,” Alyosha said. “It’s a trap. You’ll glock us once we get in.”
“Homey,” Richardson said. “I could glock you right here. No one’s listening. There aren’t any echoes in the Bronx.”
“Good. But at least I won’t have to die with the stink of marijuana in my nose.”
“You hurt my feelings, homey. I enjoy lighting up with all my rats.”
He shoved Alyosha into the mustard-colored car. Marianna followed him inside. She could barely breathe. Richardson’s car was like an opium den. Alyosha whispered in her ear. “Did the Big Guy really say Richardson’s an outlaw?”
“No,” she whispered back. “I made it up. But I wasn’t wrong.”
The three cars drove away from the railroad tracks, with their sirens on, Alyosha sitting next to Birdy Towne, Richardson’s very own strangler. Marianna sat with the sword between her legs. None of the Apaches had even considered disarming her. She wasn’t Fordham Road and Featherbed Lane. She was a little rich girl from beyond the pale, who was now the property of the Bronx brigade, one more piece of body armor Richardson had collected to counter the Big Guy. Isaac couldn’t survive without Marianna’s cookies …
The mustard-colored Fords reached Bronx Municipal Hospital, and Birdy pinned on his gold shield and escorted Alyosha into the county morgue. Th
e assistant coroners treated Birdy like their own little brother. They fed him sandwiches, borrowed some of his stash to bake a marijuana meat loaf, drank slivovitz with him, while Alyosha sat with Paulie, who was in a metal case. Paul had marks on his neck, where the Apaches must have strangled him, because Birdy couldn’t have done Paulito on his own. And it was sort of insane. Paulito looked alive. Alyosha kept expecting him to say something, to curse the Apaches and Alyosha himself for betraying the Jokers to a brigade of thugs who weren’t even noble enough to merit the colors of a Bronx gang.
“Paulie,” Alyosha said, “I didn’t …”
Birdy pranced next to Alyosha with his cup of slivovitz. “Hey, you talking to the dead?”
“He’s got a soul, like David Six Fingers.”
“David’s dead, Paulie’s dead …”
“And there are no more gangs, just Dixie Cups who come from across the river with Martin Lima’s merchandise.”
“The best little fucking salesmen in the world.”
“And their clients are one step out of kindergarten.”
“It’s the Bronx, man. Anything goes. Didn’t Richardson turn you into a millionaire?”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Alyosha said. “My brushes and rags and spray cans chewed up all the blood money I ever got.”
Birdy pushed the refrigerated box back into the wall, and Alyosha lost Paulito again. He was heartsore. What was the point of having a cappuccino machine if he could never share it with Paul? Birdy led him out of the morgue and into the hospital cafeteria, where Richardson’s men had captured their own table. Marianna sat beside them, eating a salad with a plastic knife and fork, while the Apaches stared at her artistry. Only Richardson himself could wield a knife and fork like that. They had to eat on the run, always looking behind them, gobbling food with their hands. Brock had gone to make a couple of phone calls. He was constantly calling people. Princes, governors, baseball czars …
“Lemme see that sword,” Birdy said, the slivovitz slowing his speech. He took Marianna’s sword out of the scabbard, whirled it over his head. But he couldn’t seem to find any rhythm. He clutched it like a baseball bat.
“Birdy,” Alyosha said, “is Richardson having a telephone conference with his other pirates?”
“Probably.”
“Is he going to sell us to Martin Lima?”
“Not Marianna. No way. We’ve never had our own cookie baker.”
“And what about me?”
“You’ll sweep the floor … and keep her company. The governor’s gonna give us a medal, I think. And then we might consider selling the darling to her dad. But you don’t have much of a future, little man. We could exhibit you in a cage as the last Latin Joker. Or let you draw your own mural. ‘Angel Carpenteros, known as Alyosha, Registered Rat. Rest in Peace, Homey. Paid for by Birdy Towne and the Bronx Brigade’…”
Marianna put down her knife and fork. “I’ll show you,” she said.
Birdy stared at her through the slivovitz that seemed to have settled in the pockets under his eyes. “What?”
“I’ll show you.” She took the sword out of his hands, swayed at the hips, and shattered Birdy’s kneecap with one flawless, fluid line. He howled and sank to the floor. The other Apaches rose up from the table and Marianna tapped their Adam’s apples, as if she were initiating them into some Bronx knighthood. They clutched their throats and fell out of their chairs.
“Come,” Marianna said, grabbing Alyosha’s hand. They ran out of the cafeteria, past two security guards, and onto a crooked street called Seminole Avenue. Alyosha had never been to this part of the Bronx. It was like its own Indian country. He had to chart their route. He chose Choctaw Place. They ran deeper and deeper into Indian country, and Alyosha had no idea where he was. It distressed him. He’d lived under the illusion that he could master any neighborhood, and now he realized for the first time that there was a borough beyond all his expectations, that he wasn’t a voyager at all, only a hermit who inhabited Mt. Eden Avenue, and had placed his murals in lonely, isolated spots, and how could he immortalize Paulie, record him forever on some great enormous mother of a wall?
21
The City had its own clockwork, with or without Isaac Sidel. Nicholas Bright, first deputy mayor, didn’t have to sit in Isaac’s chair. He operated out of a cubbyhole that had once been the mayor’s broom closet at City Hall. He would confer with Candida Cortez, move billions of dollars around in his head. It was Candida who was afraid, who needed a palpable Sidel. “Nick, what if we goof?”
“Candy, the mayor’s rotten in math. He doesn’t even know long division. He can’t help us.”
“But I wish he wouldn’t disappear like that.”
Candy Cortez had her own dilemma. Brock Richardson was camping out at her penthouse on the Grand Concourse. It was an apartment that Brock himself had refurbished with Sidereal funds. Candida had six rooms and three baths in an Art Deco palace that had risen out of the ruins. She could play badminton on her terrace and watch the complicated crystal world of the Chrysler Building. She slept with Brock, but she wouldn’t spy on Isaac for him. She was two months pregnant, and she tried to imagine the father Brock might be. Could she ever settle in with that chief of the Bronx Apaches?
She didn’t get home until midnight, and she hadn’t seen Brock or heard from him in several days. He never called. He would arrive alone, or with his Apaches, and they’d roost on the terrace in their mustard-colored pants, roast a chicken on Candida’s grill, drink her wine, smoke grass until their eyes were bloodshot, and then Brock would disappear into the bedroom and crawl on top of her, ride Candida in the dark, and she’d have to beg him to take off his Glock. But he wasn’t like the other guerreros she knew. He had his gentle ways under all that mustard-colored camouflage.
She could sniff the marijuana when she got to the door. And it pleased Candida that her own guerrero was waiting for her, that he’d come to the apartment before she did. But he’d brought his Apaches and he was in a foul mood. The meanest of them, Birdy Towne, stood in his underwear, with a plastic kneecap covering his own knee, like a football player might wear.
“Hey, boss,” Birdy said, “tell your fox what happened.”
“Nothing happened,” Richardson said. “You let two fucking infants escape from you and smash your knee.”
“But it was one of them magic swords …”
“Magic, Birdy? I’d call it a pip-squeak practitioner of martial arts … now shut up and show off your new knee to somebody else. Candida’s been working like a dog for Uncle Isaac. How is the Big Guy, dear?”
“Nobody knows,” Candida said. “He’s vanished again.”
“That’s his nature,” Richardson said. “Always hanging out on the rim. The Big Guy is eternally alone.”
Richardson shoved past Birdy and the other Apaches, who were lying on Candida’s carpet with their roaches, watching reruns of Miami Vice, and he followed Candida out onto the terrace. He didn’t have a roach in his mouth. He leaned over the railing, into the lights of Manhattan.
“Candy, you ought to charge admission with a view like that. I mean, you can’t really do Manhattan, conjure up the skyline, until you’re in the Bronx.”
“Brock, what’s wrong?”
“Wrong?” he said. “I’ll need six hundred dollars, dear. I’m short on currency at the moment. A guy can have a million in assets, be the lord of almost everything that’s around this roof, and can’t even afford a new pair of pants.”
“I’ll give you the six hundred, Brock, but what about your paycheck?”
“It’s garnisheed, the whole damn thing. I have more creditors than Beau Brummell.”
“Who’s Beau Brummell?”
“Some lord who lived around princes and thought he owned the world. Half of England dressed like Beau Brummell. He died in an insane asylum without a penny … or a proper coat.”
“But you could stay with me, Brock. I’ll feed you.”
“And will you feed m
y army, dear?”
Candida laughed. “A band of Apaches with garnisheed paychecks?”
“Worse,” Richardson said. “They sank all their money into my corporation. Can’t even afford a pinch of grass. They’ve been robbing people, just to stay alive.”
“And your Apaches are supposed to protect the Bronx.”
“Have you had one burglary in this building? Name me one.”
Candida heard the crackle of a field radio. She couldn’t comprehend the language. Something about a falcon, a falcon in flight. Birdy had hopped out onto the terrace with his extra kneecap. “Hiya, Miz Candy,” he said, clutching his radio. “Boss, do you want to speak to the son-in-law?”
“Shut your mouth,” Richardson said.
“Dave says—”
“I don’t care what Dave says.”
“Well, I aint the falcon. If Barbarossa—”
Richardson tossed an ashtray at Birdy. It spun over Birdy’s head and sailed off the roof, into the dead of the Bronx, on the dark side of the terrace. Birdy smiled and hopped back into the living room, and Richardson wondered if he’d have to strangle his sweetheart. Birdy shouldn’t have mentioned Barbarossa. Candy was devoted to the Big Guy, Candy might give all of them away.
“I’m pregnant,” she said, and Richardson didn’t even have to blink. He had her now. She was one more piece of his body armor. “Well, we’ll name him Isaac if it’s a boy … after the Big Guy.”
“You’re not sorry … you don’t think I tricked you, Brock?”
“Or Sophie if she’s a girl … after Isaac’s mom. Did you know that she was kicked to death? A gang of young hoods did Sophie Sidel. That’s why we have to get tough out on the street. Or the wild dogs will return, and nobody will want to live in the Bronx.”
“But we’ll have our baby here …”
“In the heartland. Didn’t I find you six rooms? Who ripped out all the old pipes? Daddy Brock.”
“What happened to Barbarossa?”
The bitch was too clever for him. Isaac’s own accountant. She did all of the Big Guy’s books. “We won’t hurt him … I promise. But I had to grab the pest, take him off the street. He was trampling in our yard, like a mad dog. And now I can bargain with the Big Guy, keep him off our ass … until the baseball war is over. Then we’ll all be guzzling pink champagne, and Isaac will have a godson.”
El Bronx (The Isaac Sidel Novels) Page 13
