The gallery had precious little art. It looked like a Mafia laundering operation, an outfit that was meant to lose money. A couple of carved heads and a pudgy Don Quixote holding a pathetic lance.
“I’m not Dr. Bradstreet.”
“Yeah, and I suppose we never met.”
She had a glorious mouth, and if Isaac hadn’t been in love with Margaret Tolstoy, he might have had more of a crush on Monica Bradstreet.
“What are you doing here?”
“Having a look.” He pointed to the fire marshal. “Jonah, I smell a leak. Don’t you?”
“Definitely,” the fire marshal said. “The walls feel wet.”
Dr. Bradstreet picked up her telephone and started to dial.
“Monica dear, if it’s LeComte you’re calling, or the President of the United States, I have the same sad story. This is my town.”
She stopped dialing. “Where’s your warrant?”
“Wouldn’t want me to bother some judge or the district attorney, would you, dear? I’d have to arrest you, and it would be an embarrassment to the FBI. One of their agents charged with murder.”
“You’re out of your mind, Commissioner Sidel.”
“Ah, you remember my name … excuse me, have to follow that leak,” Isaac said, breaking into the gallery’s storeroom. He didn’t find any dolls, but there were plumed hats and decorative pieces of body armor. It was like a clothing shop for Peppinninus, a lost land beyond the ruinous doors of reality.
Isaac took everything.
Dr. Bradstreet taunted him. “You won’t be so eager tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, dear? Better give up your lease. Because I will be back with a warrant. Tell LeComte to strike Lucifer off his phantom books before I grab the whole fucking inventory.”
She turned to Barbarossa. “How is Montezuma’s Man?”
“Doing fine,” Isaac answered, and the three men strolled out of the gallery, their arms laden with metal furnishings.
“Boss, who’s Montezuma’s Man?” Barbarossa asked, under all the miniature gloves he had to carry.
“It’s not important.”
“Who’s Montezuma’s Man?”
“Ah, that’s your nickname in FBI circles … means nothing.”
“Montezuma’s Man,” Barbarossa said. He waited until the fire marshal emptied his load of armor into the trunk of Isaac’s car and started back to his own station. “I’m the patsy, boss, aint I?”
“No. They scheme. They use people. They build their scenarios. They tied you to me, that’s all. They remembered my attachment to Manfred Coen, and …”
“I’m not Coen,” Barbarossa said.
“Joey, you can’t let LeComte get your goat. We’ll fuck them, I promise. Body and soul.”
Isaac returned to Police Plaza, locked the armor in his own closet. He communed with both Giuseppinas and went to see his First Dep, bringing him a doll’s iron glove. But Sweets wasn’t in a welcoming mood.
“You were in Palermo, huh?”
“I left you a memo, Sweets.”
“You were out of communication for almost a week. That’s reckless and irresponsible and illegal. You’re the Commish. Your ass belongs to the City of New York. I’m only the First Dep. I can have a private life. But you’re the number-one public servant, after Rebecca Karp. And you follow your personal vendettas.”
“That’s some personal vendetta. A drug cartel run out of Grade Mansion.”
“LeComte’s casting a wide net. He’ll bring in all the big and little fish.”
“Has he bought you, Sweets? Has he bought the Department?”
“Don’t say that.”
“He’s not the PC. He can’t fish or fuck over our heads. I’m breaking up Rebecca’s detail, and don’t bother lecturing me about protocol and unwritten laws. Wig’s men were up on Indian Road, harassing my daughter. They laughed in Leo’s face, said how they were going to toss him out the window if he didn’t lick their shoes.”
“You should have told me that,” Sweets said.
“I’m telling you now. You can have the Department, but give me a week.”
“While you pile contraband in your office?”
“That’s not contraband. They’re my sisters. The two Giuseppinas.”
He left Sweets. He had an appointment with his Rasta lawyer, Marlon Fitzhugh. Isaac could tell from the look on his sergeants’ faces that Marlon had arrived. They couldn’t get used to dreadlocks on the commissioner’s floor.
Marlon was stooping over the dolls when Isaac opened his own door. “Magic mamas,” Marlon said. “Are they African?”
“Could be,” Isaac said. “Black brigandesses … I need advice. I have to take on LeComte, cut off his bases in Manhattan. He has Justice behind him. He has the edge. I have to invent affidavits, stretch a couple of warrants, make a few false arrests, steal private property, close a discotheque, wrestle with FBI agents, storm Gracie Mansion, kidnap Rebecca maybe. How much time do I have?”
“Until you’re arrested or killed?”
“Both.”
“Isaac, I’m not an oracle. I’m a Rasta who went to law school. I get the runs around white people.”
“I’m white people,” Isaac said.
“You’re the lion of Judah. A white boy with a black man’s heart.”
“How much time does this lion have?”
“That depends on whether he’s a candidate. A white boy can get away with a lot of crooked shit if he decides to declare.”
“I can storm Gracie Mansion if I agree to run for mayor?”
“That’s correct.”
“I can kick ass?”
“The mayor’s always the Man, even if he wears a skirt, like Rebecca. Mr. Lion, are you gonna run?”
“I’ll think about it, Marlon.”
“That’s not good enough. You’re out in voodoo land. They’ll triangulate you, brother. Catch you in a cross fire. Are you gonna run?”
“No … yes,” Isaac said.
Marlon clutched Isaac and kissed the future candidate. “Our king.”
“Christ, I’m a cop.”
But Marlon combed his dreadlocks with one long metal tooth and disappeared on Isaac, the loneliest lion of Judah.
29
He had thirty musketeers.
They rode behind Isaac in a green bus with wire dug into the windows. He went up to Frannie’s old fortress, with Barbarossa and Chancellor Tomás, who was a graduate of the Golden Gloves. Tomás could have been a professional boxer. He had the wind and the hand power and that sense of lightning in his legs, but he chose politics, and not palookaville. He’d married the Bronx Democratic machine. He presided over a system of graft. Isaac had feuded with Alejo, fought with him about the concerns of schoolchildren. They’d had a shoving war two years ago at the governor’s Manhattan Ball. But Isaac had to give up this vendetta if he wanted to get near the schools. He’d established a grudging alliance with Alejo. And Alejo could deliver the Bronx machine to Candidate Sidel, who was behaving like a reluctant bride. He’d announce, he said, but not until next week. He had to clear his plate at Police Plaza. Still, Alejo had agreed to accompany Isaac to the ghost school at Crazy Corners, where Fran’s brats had outlawed themselves from the Board of Ed.
“Isaac, it’s impossible. A whole tribe of children quitting public school at nine and ten.”
“Alejo, most of them quit long before that.”
“I have my own policemen,” Alejo said. “I would have heard about it.”
“Not from your castle on Livingston Street. This is Valentine Avenue.”
“Hombre,” Alejo said. “I grew up around Poe Park. I played stickball on Valentine Avenue.”
“That was another lifetime, Alejo.”
Isaac, Tomás, and Barbarossa entered that sinister, sunken courtyard of Crazy Corners, with thirty musketeers standing out on the street. No ketchup bottles fell from the windows. Nothing exploded on the concrete. There weren’t any war cries. Just a spooky silence as Isa
ac crossed that concrete ocean and entered the building with Joe and the chancellor. He never drew his gun. He discovered a few boys sleeping under the staircase, clutching the torn edges of a communal blanket. He climbed up the stairs, meeting dull-eyed boys, who did a slow dance around Isaac and the chancellor.
“Told you, Alejo. It’s a ghosts’ college.”
They continued to climb.
Alejo’s shoulders started to sag. He stopped a boy, spoke a few words of Spanish.
“Pappy,” the boy answered. “We all alone.”
Isaac couldn’t disguise his own pity. They were mean boys who would have kicked Frannie to death for his association with the FBI. But they were forlorn without Fran, little instruments without a family. Who had poisoned them against their president? It must have been LeComte … or his angel, Margaret Tolstoy. LeComte was always disrupting families he helped to build. Fran had become a liability to LeComte, and he sat in exile at the Palme Hotel.
The chancellor whispered into his portable telephone. And Isaac wondered if Alejo was buying school furniture at half price, or politicking with the Bronx machine. He got to Frannie’s throne room on the sixth floor. It reminded Isaac of a ravaged opium den. Children lay near the walls, sucking some kind of candy. Their eyes couldn’t focus. They’d withdrawn into their private moon.
“Fantasmas,” the chancellor said. “Isaac, I don’t have the finances to deal with ghosts.”
“Alejo, we can’t leave them here.”
The chancellor stooped over several children and scribbled on a pad until a man in a red cape arrived. It was Cardinal Jim with a small colony of monsignors.
“’Lo, Isaac,” the cardinal said, with a runty cigarette in his mouth. Isaac wouldn’t answer.
“I had to call Jim,” the chancellor said.
The cardinal pleaded with the Pink Commish. “I’m not a leper. This is my parish.”
The monsignors began administering to the moon children. They reached into the military bags they were carrying and removed bits of nourishment.
“You could have warned us, son,” the cardinal said to Isaac.
“Jim, they were ordinary bandits until a week ago.”
“Bandits without a bloody soul.”
“They might not have agreed with you … they lost their president.”
“I’d love to meet that man,” the cardinal said. “I’d sock him in the nose, do much worse.”
“He provided a home, Jim. They were wandering the streets.”
“Then it’s a shame on all of us. I’ll have to go into the till and get us an emergency fund. I’ll send the lads to one of our retreats. And then we’ll worry about their schooling … by the by, do you think there’s a second baseman among them? Your own lads are in trouble.”
Isaac stared at the cardinal with an angry grin. “Haven’t had time to consider the Delancey Giants.”
“They’re battling my lads next month.”
“Forgive me, Jim, but I’m getting fucked by the FBI.”
“Bite that tongue of yours. You’re around children.”
“They’ll teach you a thing or two, Jim, when they recover from their moon sickness.”
“You’re the one that’s moon sick. Running for mayor.”
“I’m the people’s candidate,” Isaac said.
“Well, you’re not mine. You don’t belong at Gracie. You’re a policeman. The mayor has to bend. You don’t have a political bone in your body.”
“You shouldn’t discourage him, Jim,” the chancellor said. “He’s our choice.”
“Then the Bronx is daft,” the cardinal said, chewing his cigarette. “Joey, will you escort your chief out of the building? I’ll swallow him the minute he’s mayor.”
Isaac had to laugh. “You’re my rabbi, Jim. I’m counting on you to deliver the religious vote.”
“I’ll deliver you to hell … get out of here, Isaac, or we’ll never cure the hearts of these children.”
Isaac whistled on the ride down to Rebecca’s mansion. Battling the cardinal always seemed to rouse him, put him in the mood for another fight. He had thirty musketeers behind him. He intended to crash the gate.
The guard was gloomy inside his shallow box. “Commissioner, sir, I have orders from the Green Room not to let anyone in.”
The Green Room, the Green Room, Isaac muttered to himself. Mario had established his own headquarters inside the mansion’s walls.
“Officer, you happen to work for me.”
“I work for the City, sir. The mayor says no visitors.”
“The mayor … or Mario?”
“Sir, it’s pretty much the same thing.”
“Surrender your badge,” Isaac said.
“I can’t, sir. I’m sworn to protect the mayor and all her people.”
“Joey, arrest the son of a bitch. He’s breaking the law.”
Barbarossa had to whisper in Isaac’s ear. “Boss, he’s right. Besides, he controls the gate.”
A woman walked down from the mansion with half of Rebecca’s detail. She was wearing high heels and a light-skinned holster. It was Monica Bradstreet, who must have gone to the FBI’s ghost college at Quantico.
She shouted at Isaac. “You’re a pest, Commissioner Sidel.”
Wig was with her, and the seven cops who’d deviled Leo and Marilyn on Indian Road.
“These men are no longer peace officers, Dr. Bradstreet.”
“Commissioner, I’ve deputized them. They’re temporary marshals. And I told you, I’m not Dr. Bradstreet. I’m Special Agent Smith of the Atlanta field office, on assignment.”
“To fucking Frederic LeComte.”
“I’m not allowed to discuss that, Commissioner. And you are trespassing. I’ve been empowered to seize property at moments of crisis. You’re standing on federal grounds. And you’re congregating in an unlawful manner, violating the civil rights of the mayor and persons in her employ.”
“Joey,’ Isaac said. “I can’t keep up with all that crap.”
“Boss,” Barbarossa said.
Isaac pressed against the gate. “Go on, shoot me, Dr. Bradstreet. Frederic will love you for it.”
“Boss,” Barbarossa said.
“Joey, I have thirty sharpshooters. She has shit.”
“Boss,” Barbarossa whispered. “It will never go down. Massacring an FBI agent and your own cops.”
“They’re not my cops. I suspended them. And LeComte can’t improvise his own laws.”
“Boss, he can.”
“Come on. We’ll put on our masks. We’ll surprise Dr. Bradstreet.”
“Boss.”
Isaac stood frozen. He was like a disenfranchised puppet, a wooden knight without the gift of intelligence, or a human heart.
A tall man suddenly appeared. It was Alejo Tomás.
“Wig,” he said, in a gentle voice. “Will you get Mario, please?”
Wig dialed Mario from the telephone in the guard’s box. He uttered two or three words. And Mario arrived in slippers and a bathrobe, nursing another cold.
“Mario,” the chancellor said, ignoring Special Agent Smith. “You’ll have to let Isaac in.”
“I don’t get it,” Mario said. “I’m preparing papers, Chancellor Tomás. Rebecca is asking him to resign. He’ll lose everything if he opens his mouth. The mayor’s prepared to fire him.”
“Mario, you’ll have to destroy those papers.”
“Why?”
“He’s our king.”
“Sidel a king? He carries a gun in his pants like a hoodlum.”
“But that hoodlum will be the next mayor of New York. He’s our king.”
Mario Klein sneezed into a red handkerchief, rolled the handkerchief into a ball, stepped around Wig and the special agent, shivered once, and opened the gate for Isaac Sidel.
30
He didn’t stay very long. He scattered Wig and all his men, called Police Plaza and invited Lieutenant Larry Quinn to form his own detail once again. He couldn’t really puni
sh Mario. But he could surround him with detectives who were loyal to the Pink Commish. The special agent picked up her handbag, tightened her holster, and left those grounds she’d anointed for the FBI. Isaac admired the pull of her calves. He couldn’t seem to get angry at Monica Bradstreet Smith. He was grateful to Chancellor Tomás, but he had to ponder Tomás’ roll in this palace putsch. Was Alejo Tomás Frederic’s new man in the Bronx, an FBI sleeper? Half the world was FBI. But Isaac didn’t care. He was a wooden knight with his own fucking heart, and it ripped at the sad picture of Rebecca Karp. She’d grown worse since his last visit. She’d become a chronic rocking-chair case.
“Becky, Becky,” he said. “We’ll repaint the master bedroom. This is your home for life.”
There was a fleeting warmth in her eye, then it passed. “Cocksucker,” she said in her cracked voice, which was like a pale song with a lot of static. “You could still lose the election.”
“Yeah, and the moon could run to Mars … Rebecca, take care. It’s Mario who’s the cocksucker, not me.”
He marched into Mario’s office. “You’ll close shop, understand? No dolls, no heroin, no cocaine.”
“Isaac, I have my own habit.”
“Then sniff airplane glue. I don’t want the mansion involved in LeComte’s drug capers. Mario, we’re starting a new marriage. Me and you. I won’t bother searching the basement. But get rid of all your stock. Don’t disappoint me, Mario.”
Isaac walked out of the mansion with Alejo Tomás. He was still suspicious of the chancellor. Mario was a dwarf. Tomás was the kingmaker.
“Don’t want to sound surly, Alejo, but I’m the police commissioner, and I can’t get through the gate until you come along. Did you follow me from Poe Park? Did a sparrow land in your ear?”
“It’s no mystery, Isaac. The sparrow was Cardinal Jim.”
“Should have figured. He has the best spies in town.”
“You’re wrong. Jim worries about you. But he can’t meddle. He realized you were locking horns with that little shit.”
“Alejo, honest to God, are you FBI?”
“I’m schools chancellor, Isaac, and boss of the Bronx. I don’t need LeComte’s special agents.”
Alejo ran out of Carl Schurz Park like some Golden Glover, and Isaac stood there, watching the rise and fall of a chancellor’s shadow. He’d never get far in the universe of Manhattan, no matter who called him king.
Montezuma's Man (The Isaac Sidel Novels) Page 18
