El Bronx (The Isaac Sidel Novels)

by Jerome Charyn

  “You’ll have to give back Barbarossa.”

  “I will,” Richardson said. “Cross my heart.” He would strangle her even if she was carrying baby Isaac. But Richardson had a fucking thing about infanticide, particularly when the infant wasn’t even born. He was an assistant D.A., a doctor of laws, an academician who’d once taught alongside Isaac at the Police Academy, like some Renaissance man. The Big Guy should have left him alone. Richardson was smoking grass in the county courthouse, minding his own business as the D.A.’s white knight who put all the scumbags away, when Isaac kidnapped him, put him in charge of the Bronx brigade, bought him his first Glock.

  Candy kissed him on the cheek. “I’m counting on you, Brock.” And at half past midnight she marched off the terrace and into her bath, while Richardson stood near the sky, planning his war against Sidel. He’d pick up Marianna again, dismantle her sword, hold the Big Guy at bay, drown him in a million problems and wait for Billy the Kid. He might even run for congress. There would be books about Brock Richardson, the singular prosecutor who solved urban blight.

  “Falcon …”

  Birdy had sneaked up on him.

  “Moron, did you have to mention Barbarossa in front of my bitch?”

  “Well, there’s a crisis. Barbarossa won’t sit still. And Dave—”

  “Dave can carve him up.”

  “What about the Big Guy? I can’t do him until I have a whole knee.”

  “That dinosaur? He can’t even remember his own name.”

  But Brock would have to get rid of Birdy soon, distance himself from his own little reign of terror, scatter all the Apaches. He was waiting for Billy the Kid.

  “Boss, there was a brat at the door, a messenger boy. He brung this note, wouldn’t even say who it was from.”

  Richardson snatched at the sheet of brown paper, opened it, smiled at the telltale words. MICKEY MANTLE. He tore up the paper, let the bits fly into the wind, danced off the terrace, stole into the bath where Candida lay in the light of a blue candle, climbed into the tub with all his clothes on, and licked her body with more devotion than she’d ever met in Brock.

  22

  Isaac was in his chopper, watching the news. It was four A.M. J. Michael Storm, the players’ czar, had come to terms with the owners’ entire negotiation team. He’d defeated the whole idea of a salary cap, demanded and got a minimum wage. The clubs had capitulated to him. “It’s a happy day,” he told reporters. “Gentlemen, I’m tired. We’ve been fighting cheek to cheek.” He’d been locked in a room at the Mark Hopkins Hotel for eighteen hours, J. Michael and a team of the hardest hitters the owners could find, lawyers who should have eaten J. alive. But they couldn’t rankle the czar. He had stubble on his chin when he emerged from the room. His collar was wrinkled. But it was the other lawyers who had long, haggard faces, not the czar.

  Isaac caught J.’s act on his miniature screen. He couldn’t explain his own feeling of dread. It was almost dawn when he returned to his glass house. He met Clarice coming down the stairs.

  “A nocturnal visit, eh?”

  “I had to see Bernardo, and nobody could get in touch with you.”

  “Congratulations. J. ended the war. And you’ll be our new second lady, the first one to ever sleep with a president and his running mate.”

  Clarice walloped Isaac, and he twisted about on the stairs, almost fell, like some forlorn acrobat. But the Big Guy regained his footing, grabbed Clarice by the scruff of her neck, and dragged her back upstairs to Bernardo’s bedroom.

  “Bernardo,” Isaac shouted, “I have a present. The royal concubine. Did you know that Clarice has been romancing Billy the Kid?”

  But Bernardo wasn’t in bed. And Isaac felt a thump on his shoulder, as if some rabid monkey had climbed aboard, and he had to hurl that monkey off his back. It was Bernardo who’d hopped on Isaac from a chair but had exhausted all his energy. He lay on the floor, his bruised face like a black mask. “Fantômas,” Isaac muttered.

  “She had to sleep with the Gov,” Bernardo said. “She was doing it for J., to get him on the Democratic ticket … Billy was blackmailing her, said he’d lock her out of Sidereal, bring a special prosecutor down from Albany, and close the entire shop … I forgive her.”

  “And why did she sleep with Sidel?” Isaac almost had to beg.

  “Because you’re a pitiful son of a bitch with baggy pants,” Clarice said.

  “Boss, she was protecting me. She thought you might take away my shield, because of what I was doing in the Bronx … I told her everything.”

  “What happens now, children? J. kicked ass, humbled every baseball owner …”

  “It was on the radio,” Bernardo said from the floor. Isaac took him in his arms, carried him to his quilt.

  “That doesn’t change anything,” Clarice said. “I can’t divorce the bastard. I’ll play the candidate’s wife … but I’m not giving up Bernardo.”

  There was a tap on Isaac’s shoulder. He started to howl, turned around, recognized Harvey, his valet.

  “I’m having an important conversation, Harve. Life and death. Did you have to interrupt?”

  “It’s Marilyn, Your Honor. She’s been calling all night. She’s on line six …”

  Isaac picked up the phone. His hand was shaking.

  “Isaac,” his daughter said. “If you wanted to hide so much, you should have sent me Joe.”

  “Marilyn, I …”

  “He’s been missing for two days … something’s bad. He never goes to bed without me. Find him, Dad. You’re responsible. He’s out on one of your suicide patrols.”

  She hung up on Isaac the Brave.

  “What’s the matter, boss?” Bernardo asked from under his quilt.

  “Barbarossa didn’t get back from the Bronx.”

  “Apaches … lemme come with you. I know all their tricks.”

  “Great,” Isaac said. “I’ll carry you in a papoose.”

  He bolted from the room, but he was like a prisoner in his glass house. Isaac’s deputies began to arrive, one by one. J. Michael was flying in from Frisco, they said. Billy the Kid had called a press conference at Yankee Stadium in the afternoon.

  “I can still shoot up to the Bronx, search for my son-in-law.”

  “Your Honor,” said Nicholas Bright. “We have to strategize, or the Gov will get all the glory, and knock you out of the box in your own town.”

  They pawed at him, screamed, and Nicholas threatened to take his chopper away.

  “I can do it, Isaac. Just zero your gas and oil allowance, put all your pilots on permanent sick leave.”

  “And I can fire you.”

  “But my instructions will still go into effect. That’s the privilege of a first deputy mayor … you’ll strategize with us until the conference, or we’ll resign, and Billy the Kid can add City Hall to his other addresses.”

  He didn’t want to go to the conference. He wasn’t afraid of Billy. It was that chorus of Democrats—Seligman and Wooster and Porter Endicott. They had their own little war games.

  His deputies sniffed at him. He’d been groping around for three days, living in his chopper with containers of Singapore noodles and vegetable dumplings, and he’d begun to stink. Martha Dime and Candy Cortez peeled off his clothes, sat him down in his tub, while Harvey selected his wardrobe with Nicholas Bright. He had to look like somebody who could pilot New York’s bumpy ship of state. But Harve began to panic. The Big Guy had clinkers in his closet, rags that couldn’t stand up to Billy the Kid’s Armani suits. One of Harvey’s pals appeared, a drunken tailor who’d dressed the Rockefellers forty years ago. He built a suit right on Isaac’s back, banker’s gray, with long pleats that made the Big Guy feel that he was trapped inside a kilt.

  “Jesus,” Isaac said, “everybody will laugh at me.”

  “Your Honor, it’s beautiful,” said Martha Dime. “It matches the color of your sideburns.”

  They read position papers to him. Isaac had a light lunch. “You can’
t let the Gov co-opt you,” said Nicholas, who had a spy in Billy the Kid’s camp. “He’ll offer himself to the people once he declares how he helped settle the strike. He’ll pose as the savior of the Bronx.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Isaac said. “Billy wouldn’t even lend us a nickel.”

  “It doesn’t matter. He’ll be at Yankee Stadium, in front of TV cameras, with half the planet watching him.”

  “He’ll talk Bronx,” said Martha Dime, “and he’ll ass you right out of the picture.”

  “Then what can we do?”

  “Give our support to the Bronx’s internal programs.”

  “Like Sidereal,” Isaac said, staring at Candida Cortez. “Fuck Billy the Kid.”

  They rode up to Yankee Stadium in the mayor’s black sedan. Isaac sat between Candida and Dottie Dreamer, a political columnist for Newsday.

  “Mr. Mayor,” Dottie said, “there’s been talk that you might move out of your mansion and into D.C.”

  “Not a chance,” Isaac said. “There are too many mosquitoes in the Capital.”

  “But you’re already a marked man,” Dottie said, “the biggest vote getter in the Democratic arsenal.”

  “Come on, Dot. You can’t have a president and vice-president from the same fucking state.”

  “Who knows? The Gov might not go down so well with the Party or the people.”

  Isaac had an anxiety attack. He should have stayed in the Bronx. Candida clutched his hand, whispered in his ear. “Brock has Barbarossa, but he’s promised to give him back.”

  “Brock can’t promise anything without consulting Billy the Kid.”

  They arrived at Yankee Stadium, climbed upstairs to the owners’ box, which was cluttered with reporters and TV cameras and pols who stared at Isaac, admired his banker’s gray. He shook hands with Billy the Kid and Michael Storm, who still had stubble on his face. Clarice was with him. The Yankees began to distribute champagne. The Bronx historian, Abner Gumm, moved about with his box camera. Isaac had to fight his own inclination to hurl Ab through the window. But the blue vein in his forehead began to pulse when he saw Brock Richardson. He sailed across the room to Brock.

  “Where’s Barbarossa?”

  “Safe,” Richardson said.

  “I’ll glock you the minute this conference is over.”

  “Glock Billy the Kid’s personal guest? You can’t touch me, Isaac. Stay out of my yard and you’ll get Joey … in one piece.”

  “I’m closing Sidereal.”

  “Then you might as well close the Bronx … hey, I don’t have time for this shit.”

  And Richardson pulled away from Isaac.

  Billy the Kid held out his arms in front of the cameras, embraced Richardson and J. Michael Storm. “My two champions,” he said, “my two courageous boys … ladies and gentlemen, what an afternoon for New York. J. Michael has given Yankee Stadium and every other ballpark in the land back to the people.”

  “What about us?” said Marvin Hatter, the Yankee president. “We deserve a little credit too.”

  “Shhh, Marvin. It’s the people’s day … the owners can start collecting tickets.”

  The pols clapped, and Billy gripped the microphone like some sexy crooner. “What about Richardson? He hasn’t been locked up in any hotel room. He’s made war on the worst gangs the City has ever seen, a prosecutor who doesn’t sit on his fanny in some dark office, shining his shoes while the cases begin to pile up on his desk. Brock Richardson doesn’t have a desk. His office is in the streets of the Bronx. He was appointed by our former police commissioner, Isaac Sidel, to win the Bronx back from those gangs, and win he did. But we’re no primitive ward, ladies and gentlemen. Vengeance isn’t our thing. I pledge myself to work with your mayor and Mr. Richardson to rebuild the Bronx …”

  Isaac grew more and more morose. He walked out of Yankee Stadium in the middle of Billy’s presidential speech.

  23

  It wasn’t much fun to starve, particularly when Marianna could have ordered a whole duck with American Express. But she had to be loyal to Alyosha. And she had to endure all kinds of hissing.

  —Hey, homey, how’s the puta, huh? You like her fruta bomba?

  He led her across the hills of a mangy park, where she almost slipped on a mama rat nursing her brood.

  “Alyosha, take me out of here.”

  But he had nowhere to take her, just other streets, other parks, and when some lunatic leapt out of the dusk, Marianna had to whack him with her sword. The hissing multiplied.

  —Hey, maricón, you need downtown protection, huh? Can’t even fight fair.

  Why couldn’t they hail a cab with her American Express card and get out of this inferno of hills and rat babies? But Alyosha had his pride. He wouldn’t abandon his native ground. Homey they called him. Marianna had lived in Houston and Dallas, but no one had ever said homey to her. She didn’t have a native ground, wouldn’t have known what it was. She had a lot of recipes, her aikido classes, and her pony, Lord Charles, who was on a ranch near Fort Worth, getting ancient without her. Lord Charles would probably grow a beard. She’d cried and cried, but Clarice said Manhattan wasn’t a proper place for a horse. Marianna would need a bodyguard every time she rode Charles in Central Park. Charles was a sensitive beast. He might get stung by a wasp or develop asthma or get stolen by one of the Fantômases who lived in the park. But that wasn’t the real reason. Clarice was selfish. She wouldn’t pay to keep a horse in Manhattan.

  —Homey, when you gettin’ married, huh?

  Marianna’s arms grew weary of whacking so many lunatics.

  “Couldn’t we have a little vacation, homey?” she said to Alyosha.

  “Vacation where?”

  “You’re the expert. We could picnic in the zoo, talk to the tigers.”

  “The Jokers would capture us and collect the reward money … I’ll find you a gypsy cab.”

  “And leave you here in the woods?”

  “Woods?” Alyosha said. “There aint no woods. We got the wilds, but that’s different. The wilds is where tin cans and weeds can grow.”

  “Then I’ll enjoy the wilds with you.”

  “We gotta run. The Dixie Cups are coming.”

  She carried the wooden sword in a sling around her shoulder and she couldn’t run very far or very fast. Alyosha started to grab her hand when he saw Mouse’s cousin, Felipe. And all of a sudden Alyosha didn’t want to run. Felipe had surrounded himself with Dixie Cups, dreaming of rewards.

  Alyosha twisted on his heels, pulled the sword out of Marianna’s scabbard, and charged the Dixie Cups, who were terrified. They bit into their blackened pipes and disappeared, leaving Mouse’s cousin all alone.

  “I aint scared of you, bitch,” Felipe shouted, but his eyes were wandering around in his head. Alyosha struck him across the chest, and Felipe collapsed, crumpled onto the ground.

  “Don’t kill, don’t kill … I’m your homey.”

  Alyosha struck him again. Marianna didn’t interfere. He wasn’t robbing a five-year-old kid. He was attacking his own attackers.

  “You aint my homey, and you never was.”

  Alyosha wanted to be a crusader and chop Felipe’s head off, dismember him, fingers and all, but he could only smack with Marianna’s wood, make Felipe black and blue. And after the third or fourth blow, he didn’t have the same desire to punish. He wasn’t a warrior. He was a runt who sprayed with cans and scratched with soft sticks.

  “Felipe, if you’d treated me better at Spofford, the Mouse and my brother would still be alive. I gave your cousin to the Apaches, hear?… who am I, huh?”

  “The mightiest little man in the Bronx.”

  All the vengeance had gone out of Alyosha. He wanted his brother back, he wanted Paul. He dropped the sword and Felipe ran away, returned to whatever wildland he’d come out of, a wildland that was and wasn’t the Bronx, because a wind blew inside Alyosha’s head that was much more savage than any borough. He was sick to death of Dixie Cups and blacken
ed pipes and the little torches that warmed up white coal. He’d never be another Rembrandt. He could only draw dunes.

  Marianna picked up the sword and thrust it into her scabbard, while Alyosha wandered into the middle of the street. He was like a sleepwalker who couldn’t find his way home. He didn’t have a home without Paulito. Marianna had to bump him out of the path of ambulances and a bus that had no passengers. A gypsy cab stopped for them. Marianna got into the cab with her artist. “Sutton Place South,” she said.

  The driver wore dark glasses and carried a Glock inside his waistband. “Where’s that, little mama?”

  “Over the bridge.” That’s the only knowledge she had about the line between Manhattan and the Bronx. The driver knew that gypsies weren’t welcome in Manhattan, that the other hacks would scream at him and smash his windows if he didn’t get in and out. But he liked the little mama and her sword and the catatonic boy she was with. He delivered them to Sutton Place South.

  “Do you take American Express?” Marianna asked the driver.

  “Not lately,” he said. “But I’ll tell you what … lend me your sword. I’ll give it back in a month. What’s your name?”

  “Marianna.”

  “Good. I’ll leave it with the doorman.”

  She gave up her sword and hustled Alyosha out of the cab, brought him upstairs. Clarice was having dinner on the terrace. Vodka and cold potato pie. “Lovely,” she said. “My two favorite Merlins … what’s wrong with him? He looks like he fell off a ship.”

  “Mother, haven’t you noticed? I’ve been gone for three days.”

  “Impossible,” Clarice said. “Didn’t I see you brushing your teeth last night?”

  “No,” Marianna said. “It must have been Fantômas.”

  “How dare you run away and not even tell your mother.”

  “I didn’t run away. I collected Alyosha.”

  “He isn’t collectable. Does he look like a toy?”