“When will I see you?”
“That depends,”
“On what?”
“If you’re nice to Joe.”
He was like a duck with a wet ass. He realized it when he turned the corner of Cropsey and Bay Thirteenth in Isaac’s Dodge. All of Bath Beach had arrived for Raoul’s homecoming party. People hissed at Joe. Sicilian grandmas made the Devil’s sign, wiggling their thumbs in preparation to scoop out his eyes. Grandpas shook their backsides and pretended to break wind. Jerry’s soldiers spat on the Dodge.
Barbarossa could have been on Nguyen Hue Street in downtown Saigon, with its population of spitters. Bath Beach looked a little like the low buildings along Ben Nghe Canal, where the Mafia was mostly Chinese and the drug lords were marines like himself, men of privilege who sold ounces of every kind of shit on earth. But Barbarossa could never seem to get rich. Wherever he was, he had bills to pay.
He got out of the car with Raoul. All the spitting stopped. The soldiers bowed to Raoul, their own little prince. His ambiguous birth gave him a special aura in their eyes. Raoul didn’t live with Jerry. He lived with them in Bath Beach. He and Jerry’s comare belonged to Brooklyn. Alicia was the uncrowned queen of Bath Avenue. No merchant would allow her to pay for any of their products. And none of the local stregas put a curse on Jerry’s Jewish wife. Bath Beach might lose Alicia and the little prince if Eileen happened to die.
Raoul held Barbarossa’s hand, and that qualified him as some holy personage, at least for a little while.
“Don Raoul,” the soldiers said, bowing to their prince. Barbarossa grasped the fortune he might have made off the kid. But he wouldn’t have taken advantage of Raoul. He was learning the laws of science. And one day he would disappear into his own private black hole.
Up the stairs he went with Raoul to the apartment near the roof. He didn’t have to knock. Alicia was waiting at the door. The little prince seemed embarrassed when his mama hugged him. He let go of Barbarossa’s hand.
“Thank you,” Alicia said to Joe, with the maddening eyes of a blond queen.
“Don’t thank him,” said a rough voice from inside the door. It belonged to the don of dons, Jerry DiAngelis. No one called him padrino. He was too young, too glamorous in the white coat he had around his shoulders. He was Jerry, that’s all. And whatever other Jerrys there might have been in the Maf simply lost their own name. It was “Jerry wants,” or “Jerry says,” or “talk to Jerry.” The melamed was the brains, the manipulator of Jerry’s war machine, but Izzy Wasser was always at the edge of things. The captains never had an audience with him. They offered presents to the little prince and made their appointments with Jerry DiAngelis, lord of the Rubino clan.
Barbarossa entered the apartment after Alicia and Raoul. Jerry stood inside without a bodyguard. He was close to fifty, but there were no signs of aging in his silver hair. He was shorter than Joe, but not even a possible descendant of the Nez Percé could compete with a don’s white coat, worn in every season of the year, as if Jerry’s coat could make the seasons.
Raoul ran out of his mother’s arms and into the lizardlike wings of Jerry’s coat. The don didn’t hide his happiness from Isaac’s Twin, the robber policeman who collected medals while he sold drugs. Jerry gathered up Raoul inside the coat, cradled him, swung him around, and dropped him gently on his feet.
“Mr. Black Stocking,” he said to Joe. “I don’t have a quarrel with you. You work for that stronzo, Isaac. But if you ever put on a mask again in one of my clubs, I’ll kill you with my own hands.”
“Ah,” Barbarossa said. “It’s Raoul’s homecoming party. You shouldn’t make threats.”
“It’s not a threat, Joey. It’s a little fact of life.”
“I’m a soldier,” Barbarossa said. “I do what Isaac says.”
“You’re a fucking cop.”
“And how many cops do you have on your payroll?”
“I despise every one of them.”
“Isaac too?”
“That stronzo was never on my payroll.”
“He was once your war chief.”
“But he didn’t take a dime.”
“That makes him dumb.”
“And dangerous. You can never tell where the stronzo will turn. Only a crazy man would kidnap Raoul.”
“The boss is like a baby. He wouldn’t harm Raoul.”
“But he comes into Bath Beach with his masks, frightens Alicia. The longer you stay with Isaac, the faster you’ll go down. I’ll see to that.”
“Ah,” Barbarossa said, “you’d disappoint the kid. I’m studying science with him. And I haven’t finished the course.”
He went downstairs to Isaac’s Dodge. The car had been caked with mud, the windows marked with children’s crayons. Barbarossa couldn’t read all the hieroglyphics. Were they calling him “kidnapper” in some Bath Beach dialect, with borrowings from Sicily? He drove to Cropsey Avenue and got the car cleaned.
The men at the car wash winked. They read the hieroglyphics. And they knew that the little prince was fond of this robber policeman.
He went up to Riverdale, rode along Palisade Avenue to his sister’s nursery, the walled mansion that wouldn’t give out its name. He’d promised to take Roz on a little shopping spree. There weren’t any rules at Macabee’s. The sanitarium entertained Roz and kept her alive.
Barbarossa met an odd couple on the road. Two octogenarians in bathrobes, a husband and wife. They were trying to escape from the Hebrew Home for the Aged, which was one hill beyond Macabee’s. They were treading on the road with such determination that Barbarossa didn’t have the heart to capture them.
“Can I give you a lift?”
“Never mind,” the woman said. “We’re running away.”
The Hebrew Home was like a privileged colony with hundreds of celebrated guests: retired musicians, opera singers, actors, professors, and impresarios. The waiting list was immense.
“What’s wrong?” Barbarossa asked.
The man kept marching, but the woman turned to Joe.
“The food stinks.”
Barbarossa tried to reason with them. “It’s an institution. What do you expect?”
“They put us in separate rooms,” the man said, without looking back at Joe. “I didn’t live this long to become a bachelor. I want to share a room with my wife.”
“Ah, it’s the bureaucracy,” Barbarossa said, driving as slow as he could. “They’ll sort it out.”
“We have to walk half a mile a day to the dining room. And sometimes we never meet.”
Barbarossa was in a hurry to get to Roz, but he couldn’t desert this couple. He followed them for a quarter of a mile. They stopped abruptly on the road and wept in each other’s arms.
“We’re lost,” the man said.
Barbarossa returned them to the Hebrew Home. And then he collected Roz. She wouldn’t leave Macabee’s without adding some color to her face. It troubled him to watch her, because he could remember Roz and her mirror when she was preparing for a date, marking her eyes with a black pencil.
“Sis, it’s not the king’s breakfast. We’re going to Fordham.”
“I wouldn’t want to embarrass you, Joey. I don’t look like your sister. I could be your maiden aunt.”
“Ah, you’re a knockout.”
She started to cry. “You never used to flatter me. That’s why I loved you so much. You told the truth, even when you were five.”
“I’m a policeman,” he said. “I have to lie a little.”
She laughed, and all the grayness of a shut-in seemed to go out of Roz. It’s a fucking miracle, Barbarossa thought. Smiling. It cures the face.
They walked out of Macabee’s holding hands. A dope-dealing cop who had to squire his big sister to Fordham Road, where Leo Sidel had lived for half a day in the belly of a department store.
“You look different,” Roz said.
“Ah, I met a girl … just for an hour. Nothing happened. We stood in front of a pingpong tabl
e and talked.”
“That’s not very romantic.”
“Sis, it’s more romantic than you think. Her boyfriend died at that table maybe nine years ago. That’s why we met. She was making a pilgrimage to the table.”
“I’m wrong. It is romantic … what’s her name?”
“Marilyn Daggers … don’t giggle. Daggers was the name of her last husband.”
“How many husbands has she had?”
“Nine or ten.”
“Is she Mrs. Bluebeard?”
“Ah, the husbands don’t count. She was in love with Manfred Coen … the cop who died at the pingpong table.”
“And now she’s in love with you.”
“I never said that. She’s the boss’s daughter. She belongs to Isaac.”
“Poor Joey,” Roz said. “If there’s anyone Marilyn Daggers doesn’t belong to it’s her dad.”
Barbarossa parked on Fordham Road, with the PC’s card in the window. Not even Her Honor, Becky Karp, would have dared tow Isaac’s Dodge away. He walked into Alexander’s with Roz. It was the Macy’s of Fordham Road. Roz went from counter to counter. She tried on dresses, sniffed perfumes, chatted with sales clerks, reminisced with a clerk she might have recalled from a previous outing. The sadness seemed to depart from her body. She had a rhythm at Alexander’s, a melodic move that was like dancing. Joe would become a crybaby if he watched her much longer. That’s what she lived for. A stroll in Alexander’s.
She wouldn’t let him buy her anything but the simplest garments she might need at Macabee’s.
“Clothes have one language, Joey. Seduction. And who am I going to seduce?”
“Ah, that’s just a speech. You love colors. You’ll feel good, Roz, in a purple dress.”
“I’m driving you into the ground. I know how expensive Macabee’s is …”
His pager began to sing. It was like an alarm clock. He was waking up all of Alexander’s. He saw Schiller’s telephone number in the tiny blue screen. He showed his badge to a sales clerk and dialed the pingpong club from her telephone.
Barbarossa heard a familiar growl. “Sidel here. Who is this?”
“Barbarossa.”
“Get your ass over to the club. Schiller’s hurt.”
“Is he at the hospital?”
“No. I’m feeding him soup. He had a visit from Jerry’s people. They totaled the place. It looks like an atomic bomb.”
11
He had to bring Roz home to Macabee’s and try not to alarm her. His hand was twitching under the glove.
“Tell me, Joey.”
“Ah, some big don wrecked Schiller’s club.”
“He must have had a reason. What did you do?”
“Borrow his son.”
It took Joe half an hour to soothe his sister and another twenty minutes to bump through traffic and arrive at Schiller’s.
The pingpong tables had been reduced to firewood. The nets were all gone. The gate of Schiller’s gallery had been sprung from its moorings and hurled across the room. Coen’s table, which Barbarossa grew to love in spite of a history that could pain him, was a pile of green splinters.
Schiller’s was swollen with dust. Barbarossa had to search for Isaac and the old man. Detectives from Isaac’s own elite squad were all over the place. They wore black leather coats and carried shotguns under their arms. Their faces seemed to float across that dust bowl.
Schiller was lying on a blanket in the broken remains of his back room. Isaac leaned over Schiller, fed him with a spoon.
“He hates me, this old man.”
“I don’t hate you,” Schiller said. “You’re a murderer, that’s all.”
“Joey’s a murderer too.”
“But he doesn’t kill his own kind.”
Barbarossa couldn’t even see Schiller’s wounds in all the dust.
“Isaac, Schiller’s a vegetarian. He wouldn’t step on an ant. Why would Jerry’s people touch him?”
“Because I wanted to protect Coen’s table, that’s why. I’m attached to it. The gangsters gave me a push. It’s nothing.”
“Nothing? The boss is right. They turned the club into a black storm.”
“But they were polite. They allowed all the kibitzers to leave.”
“Isaac, we have to go to the masks,” Barbarossa said.
“Shhh,” Isaac told him. “Not in front of the old man.”
“You think I’m an ignorant?” Schiller said. “The Black Stocking Twins. You stole the boy from his father, brought him to my club, kept him a prisoner, and you have to bear the responsibility.”
“The Department will pay for all the damages,” Isaac said.
“I’m not talking about damages, Mr. Sidel.”
Barbarossa heard a brouhaha in the front room. Isaac’s detectives were bumping into each other. “Where is he, where is he? Where’s the son of a bitch?”
A white package walked through the dust. It was Jerry D., with Raoul inside the skirts of his coat.
“Mr. Schiller, I have to apologize for my men. They’re animals. They weren’t acting on orders from me. They found out that Raoul had been hiding here, and one of my captains got ambitious. I’ve already punished him. But I make no excuses. The entire club will be restored, piece by piece. Raoul would like to say something.”
The little princes head emerged from inside the coat.
“Schiller, when will the world end?”
“On a Tuesday,” Schiller said from his blanket. “Because it’s the one day when all the planets tilt too far. And that’s when they’re likely to collide.”
“Jerry,” Isaac said.
“Stronzo, I’m here to pay my respects. I’ll deal with you another time.”
“But I’ll tell my detectives to let you out of the club.”
“I don’t need permission from your detectives.”
“But they’re trigger-happy. And there’s so much dust. They might bother the boy.”
“Stronzo, they’ll never bother Raoul.”
Jerry D. gathered in the skirts of his coat, hugged Raoul to his chest, and walked back into the dust.
“What’s a stronzo?” Schiller asked.
“A piece of shit,” Isaac said.
“A long, unlucky piece of shit,” said Barbarossa.
Schiller closed his eyes and waited for the dust to disappear.
Part Four
12
Strange firemen arrived with a huge vacuum cleaner that was like a pregnant python. It took six men to maneuver the machine. The mouth of the python sucked up all the dust. Schiller moaned when he saw the entire field of destruction. Nothing in the club had been spared. The lockers, his private burner, the benches, pictures on the wall, the walls themselves, which looked like cotton candy. This was no ordinary gambit in one of Isaac’s wars it was like the horrifying aftermath of Coen’s death that had been building, building for years, the final piece of chaos in Isaac’s calendar of chaos.
Schiller decided to sell the club, or rather, the ruins of it. He couldn’t bear this address without Coen’s table. But Schiller had visits from several foremen of the building trades, personal friends of Jerry D. They took no measurements. They kibitzed with Schiller, smoking black cigars and strong cigarettes. And while Schiller met with landlords who were ready to pounce on his lease and turn the club into a supermarket, painters and carpenters showed up, an entire company of men, who camped out in the ruins. No one ordered them about. They didn’t seem to have a master plan. But they had their own cassettes. They listened to Caruso while they hammered and sawed.
Schiller wasn’t impressed. He was preparing to sign with one of the landlords when he noticed a pingpong table in the far corner. It had a familiar tilt. The legs were wobbly, as they should have been. The green surface was chipped, and the entire top of the table was like a small, scratchy ocean.
Schiller started to shake. He muttered to himself. “Coen’s table.” He was a vegetarian who didn’t believe in visions. He decided not to s
ell his club. He badgered the chief carpenter.
“Who taught you how to build that table?”
“Ah,” the carpenter said, with Caruso in his eyes. “It was Jerry.”
“What Jerry?” Schiller asked.
“Jerry,” the carpenter said. “Jerry D.”
“The Mafia king with his white coat? He gave you the measurements?”
“He didn’t have to measure. He had a drawing. I learnt it by heart.”
“Impossible,” Schiller said.
“Hey,” the carpenter said. “We do quality work.”
He and his company finished in less than a week. Schiller had his four tables, his spectators’ gallery, his burner, his back room. The club stank of fresh paint. The floors didn’t have their old gravelly look. The burner was brand new. But he did have Coen’s table, or some marvelous rebirth. It wasn’t a forgery. Schiller was very sensitive to fakes.
The kibitzers couldn’t contain their own wonder. They all flocked back to the club. “It’s Manfred’s ghost,” they said. “He supervised the building of the table.”
“Shush,” Schiller said. “Coen was a good boy. He wouldn’t haunt us like that.”
“But you told us yourself. Sometimes you could see him at night … near the table. With his short pants and his badge.”
“Only when I’m tired,” Schiller said. “Then I start to dream. And dreams don’t build tables.”
“Look,” the kibitzers said. “That’s Spinoza talking. The philosopher with a rope around his belly. He raises vegetables with the wax inside his ears.”
Barbarossa walked into the club. He’d been living at the Prince Regent Hotel. All his check stubs had been lost in the ruins, all his memorabilia, his pingpong paddles, his handcuffs, his extra shirts, his off-duty gun, his extra gloves. He gravitated toward Coen’s table. He’d have to off a couple of dealers pretty soon. He was behind in his sister’s rent. He’d have to visit the bursar at Macabee’s, do a little dance.
“That’s Coen’s table,” Schiller said.
“I’m not blind.”
“That’s Coen’s table.”
“Aint it a bitch,” Barbarossa said.
Montezuma's Man (The Isaac Sidel Novels) Page 7
