There were generals at the soirée and Obersturmführer Kleist of the Service Juif and Lieutenant Lodl, who was her favorite policeman. Lodl didn’t have a uniform. He looked like a boy who might have stepped out of her dollhouse with an eagle’s eyes. He would dance with Magda, do funny faces, and mimic Ferdinand and all the other kommissars.
He let her have a sip of champagne.
“Lodl,” she said, “do you know the admiral who lives in our building on the boulevard Edgar Quinet? Why does he wear a yellow star?”
“Because he’s a pest. He doesn’t have one Jewish aunt. And he wants to embarrass the Service Juif. But I’d rather dance than talk about Admiral Gabriel.”
They were in the ballroom on the first floor, which looked out upon the Bon Marché, where Uncle had found the rocking horse, stealing it right out of the store window. She danced with Lodl and Führer Kleist and policemen from the Service Juif. No one questioned her relationship with Ferdinand, who was going to govern Bessarabia and deliver all the wealth of the Ukraine. He’d been one of the first Roumanian Nazis, the Butcher of Bucharest, who beat up all the gypsy Jews.
The generals drank and drank. Lodl fell down once. Führer Kleist collected him and walked with Lodl into another room. She could hear them from outside the door. She’d been around so many Germans, she could dream like a Nazi and talk their talk. She didn’t really listen until they mentioned “der jüdische Admiral.”
—Lodl, I’m sick of police stations. I’m sick of warnings. I’m sick of having our own tailor destroy the yellow stars. I want him to disappear.
—When, Herr Obersturmführer?
—Tonight. Collect him after curfew. Take him to the cemetery. I’ve left the gate open for you. Put a cloth around his head and kick his brains out. Let the gardien find him in the morning. We’ll round up some hooligans and blame it on them.
—But he was a war hero, Herr Obersturmführer. If he’s found with the yellow star on his chest, it will make a martyr out of him.
—Then tear off the star after you kick him to death. Lodl, I leave it to you.
She didn’t say a word. Uncle Ferdinand brought her back to the boulevard Edgar Quinet in a Nazi limousine.
“I’m proud of you,” he said. “You were the queen of the ball. The Fritzies couldn’t take their eyes off you. You had the whole Paris Kommando at your feet.”
“They’re going to kill the admiral,” she said.
“Keep quiet.”
“They’re going to murder him in the cimetière.”
“That’s none of our business. If he wears the star, he has to pay a price.”
Ferdinand made love to her without taking off his silk pajamas. It wasn’t a very long ride. Magda felt more like a camel than a rocking horse. Ferdinand fell asleep. Magda searched for her clothes. The moon was out, and it lit the bedroom like a lantern. Magda wore her nightshirt, her slippers, and her winter coat.
The moon came down to meet her as she crossed the boulevard. The gate was unlocked. She entered the cimetière and watched for Lodl. The dollhouses couldn’t seem to comfort her in all that moonlight. She’d been born in a hospital for bastard children. She’d been raised like a bastard in a little crèche. Her keepers watched her dance naked when she was five or six. A Roumanian Nazi like Ferdinand had to steal her from the State. He was much more kind than all her keepers. He wouldn’t touch her privates without saying “please.” He lent her his name. Antonescu. He got her to Paris where she could study with the best ballet masters. He wasn’t cruel. He kissed her and bought her a dollhouse that was large enough to live in.
She kept counting her own fingers in the cimetière. “Un, deux, trois …” The gate started to creak, and there was Lodl and a Gestapo stooge, dragging the admiral along the frozen grass. She could see his yellow star in that crazy, mellow moon.
“Admiral Scheisse,” Lodl said, “you have a little time to repent. Sing us a nice Christian song.”
Magda jumped out from behind a tree.
“Lodl, how are you?”
She looked like an ordinary ghost who’d dropped off the moon.
“Herr Leutnant,” shouted the stooge, “is this a Französiche elf?”
“No. She’s Herr Antonescu’s niece.”
“Dracula’s little daughter. She comes here to drink blood.”
“Idiot,” Lodl said. “This is a cemetery. There is no blood.”
And he stared at Magda with his eagle’s eyes. “Mädchen, I will take you home.”
“Not without the admiral,” she said.
“Do not complicate my life, little one. You’re trespassing. This graveyard is the property of the Reich.”
“Herr Leutnant, I could strangle Dracula’s daughter for you,” said the stooge.
Another figure leapt into the light. It was Uncle Ferdinand in a bathrobe and his boots.
Lodl bowed to the new lord of the Black Sea. “Herr Antonescu, please take the little one. We have to finish something.”
“Not tonight,” Ferdinand said. “It’s unwise to murder a French admiral during a full moon.”
“Do we have to discuss this in front of the child?”
“You’ve already discussed it. That’s why I’m here. And don’t make me remind you, Lodl, that I’m attached to the SS. You might end up in Bessarabia, working for me.”
Uncle Ferdinand was holding a black pistol in his hand. It was a toy he’d borrowed from Magda’s own dollhouse. But it seemed real enough in the light. Lodl left with his Gestapo stooge.
Uncle Ferdinand lifted the admiral off the grass and wiped some blood from his mouth.
“You’re a Nazi like the others. Why did you help me?”
“Because of her,” Uncle Ferdinand said, pointing to Magda.
“Ah,” the admiral said, “ma petite reine nazie.”
“Call her what you like,” Uncle Ferdinand said. “I couldn’t care less. And if I were you, Admiral, I’d get out of Paris. I’d wear all my medals day and night. And I’d forget about yellow stars. They’re unbecoming to an admiral.”
“I don’t agree,” the admiral said, and he walked out of the cimetière with Ferdinand and Magda, who grabbed Uncle’s gun and pretended to fire at a very fat moon.
Margaret heard a funny sound on that crumbling bridge between the palazzos. It was the light peck of a man’s feet. The young maestro had never visited her until now. He had crimson marks on his cheeks. Robert was in a homicidal mood. But he was secretive with Margaret.
“You look pale,” he said. “You never go outside.”
“I’m in mourning,” she told him.
He laughed like a wounded monkey. “Mourning, dottoressa?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m Sal’s widow.”
“You were his nurse. And he was hoarding my dolls, dottoressa. He was dancing with the FBI.”
“That’s not the reason, Robert. You’d come to kill him, that’s all. You’d have killed the melamed and Jerry too … anything and everything to do with the dolls.”
“They took advantage. I was their little prodigy, someone to pet and stroke. I wanted my Peppinninus back.”
“Stop it,” she said. “You carved them on command.”
“It’s still my collection, dottoressa.”
“Yes, the prodigy speaks. Don’t give me that nonsense about the grieving artist. You grew up. You discovered that the dolls were more valuable as museum pieces than heroin boats. It’s ironic, isn’t it? La eroïna isn’t as powerful as the world of art. You began building other boats. But you never told Sal or Jerry D.”
“Dottoressa, they had the same idea. Sal and Montezuma and the FBI man were overwhelmed by the success of their own story. But I got there first …”
“You don’t have all the dolls.”
“I can manufacture replacements, dottoressa. And the little kings are on my side. Suddenly they love the art market.”
“They love their pocketbooks, Robert. You would have killed Jerry’s little boy, wouldn’
t you?”
“Why not? Anything to scare him. He’ll have to withdraw. The Peppinninus are all mine … dottoressa, your cavalier is in Palermo. At the Palme.”
“Robert, I have so many cavaliers, I can’t count.”
“It’s not a game, dottoressa. The policeman is here … with his shadow. I won’t give you up.”
“Robert, we’re neighbors, you and I, nothing more.”
“I won’t give you up. And I warned that fucker not to come here again.”
“That’s Isaac,” Margaret said. “He’s always following me. But I’ll send him away.”
“I don’t think so, dottoressa.” He clutched that carving knife of his, the knife he would employ to cut a man’s throat or create his Peppinninus. She’d lived with assassins all her life. Robert was the most curious. He was cruel and he wasn’t. He was one more character on this island of exquisite corpses.
He didn’t threaten Margaret with his knife. He ran the blade across his cheek, drew a narrow line of blood. He had all these tiny scars crisscrossing his face, like his own dolls, who were another kind of exquisite corpse.
He returned to his palace. Margaret put on the hottest lipstick she had. She’d have to play Mamma Mafia, or she couldn’t get Isaac and Barbarossa out alive. The little kings had their own network of grandmas at the Palme. She started to walk down the steps. Why was she so dizzy? She hadn’t starved herself. But one foot wouldn’t follow the other. And then she realized the significance of that old witch who fetched Margaret’s food. Giovanna was bleeding Margaret little by little. That paradiso of wine and peppers was a poison kit. But Margaret disciplined herself, counted “un, deux, trois,” grasped a wet wall, and descended the palace’s winding stairs. Un, deux, trois, un, deux, trois. She’d become a paradox of arms and legs that had forgotten how to walk in the womb of her palazzo.
She started to cry. “Little Angel Street.” Home is where the heart is. That’s the first maxim she’d memorized at Isaac’s public school. But the heart didn’t have a home. Uncle had his own palace on Little Angel Street. The palace was very cold. She had a new rocking horse called Sasha. She would have orgasms on that horse. Sasha could make her into a music box.
Margaret arrived at the bottom of the stairs. The old witch was waiting for her with the round eyes of a lupara under her shawl, that dreaded shotgun of these little people.
“Witch,” Margaret said, “out of my way.”
“No, dottoressa.”
“Sì,” Margaret said.
But this Giovanna struck her on the forehead with the shotgun’s lip, and Margaret fell to the palazzo’s earthen floor. She didn’t float into some lousy dreamland. She felt the puzzle of words. Home is where … home is where … And some kind of storybook seemed to take over her senses. She had a liquid voyage inside her own head. She’d gone back to Little Angel Street. The ground was covered with crocodiles. The crocodiles were eating her legs. They had disgusting pink snouts. But they couldn’t handle Margaret. They were all toothless wonders. Margaret laughed.
“Silenzio,” the old witch said, and struck her with the lupara again and again.
34
He wasn’t Charlie Chan. He didn’t have a fucking prayer of finding Margaret without Frannie Meyers, and Fran wasn’t registered at the Palme Hotel. The little kings would descend upon him, that much Isaac knew. He needed some lightning act of imagination, but the lightning wouldn’t come. He had a Sicilian fruit salad with Joe. And then he conjured up Margaret’s tale about that island of lost women, the Isola delle Fémmine. Montezuma had taught that tale to her. Pregnant women and Norman knights.
And Isaac went down to the port with Joe. He stumbled upon a marina. But none of the locals would take him to the Isola delle Fémmine. It was a haunted island. They didn’t want Isaac’s money. He offered a fucking fabulous sum. A fortune in traveler’s checks. The more he persisted, the more they withdrew. And Isaac was growing into Charlie Chan again. It was I’Onorata Società, the Sicilian Maf, that these mothers were afraid of.
He found a Yankee captain on a little yacht who was bumming around from sea to sea. The captain wouldn’t hear of Isaacs check’s. “Put your money away. The pleasure is all mine.”
And Isaac cruised out of the harbor on a boat called the Appomattox, with Joe and a captain who could have been a CIA plant from Palermo Station. He didn’t care. He’d sell his stinking body and soul for a ride to the Isola delle Fémmine.
The captain had a beard, and called himself Beard. Isaac didn’t like the metaphoric jungle between a name and a face. Beard’s beard. But he had to trust the son of a bitch. There wasn’t even a skeleton crew on the yacht, not one galley slave. Captain Beard was his own pilot and cook. That should have signaled something, rang a fucking bell, but the Pink Commish was desperate. He kept one eye on Beard and also watched the receding roofs of Palermo. The boat rocked in its own blue cradle, and the whole town sank into the Tyrrhenian Sea. Isaac was the sailor now, his own Sinbad, with the water pulling him toward that little island.
It was a rocky scrub of land, good for goats. Sinbad Sidel was standing near the prow, while Captain Beard searched for some tooth between the rocks, a cove where he could park the Appomattox and wait for Sinbad and Barbarossa. He didn’t ask them what they were doing on a deserted island. And Sinbad had never properly introduced himself.
“I’m Sidel,” he said. “Police commissioner of New York. And this is my deputy. His—”
“Keep it simple,” Beard said. “I’m not much for names. I have a rifle in the hold. I could lend it to you.”
“Thanks. We’ll do without the rifle.”
Isaac and Joe climbed down a little ladder and leapt onto the rocks.
“Boss, you should have taken the rifle.”
“Come on, Joe. It could have been a booby trap. We’d look ridiculous with a gun exploding in our faces. You’re the soldier. You’ve been to Nam.”
“I never soldiered,” Barbarossa said. “I played pingpong at the American Embassy, I dealt drugs, but I never soldiered.”
“Ah,” Isaac said, “you know what I mean.”
And they scampered off the rocks and shoved toward the heart of the island, which contained that mythological tower where all the women had wept. Only the tower was much more than a myth. It was strewn with rubble from Norman times. Isaac and Joe were two dusty knights searching for human signs. They discovered a condom on the ground, a wine bottle dug into a hole, toilet paper lying there like the scattered wings of a scarf. Furtive lovers, Isaac imagined, or modern pirates moving their bowels in complete isolation.
But the tower was a little too picturesque.
Isaac could live without a leap of imagination. The Isola delle Fémmine was a drug colony posing as a deserted island. It was a fucking heroin farm, with a lab for the production of “la morte bianca,” the little white death.
The Black Stocking Twins went to their masks.
Isaac screamed, “Mamma Morte!”
A man with a machine pistol jumped at Isaac from the tower door, stared at the masks, and ran back inside the tower.
Isaac and Barbarossa ran after him. They’d entered a cave with a very high roof. The machine pistol had disappeared. Little men hopped around in the irregular light. They looked like Turks. Isaac saw bottles and jars and vats in this distillery. Frannie Meyers sat on a stool near the “kitchen,” the cooking works. He didn’t respond to the masks.
“Frannie,” Isaac said. “It’s me.”
Frannie was crying now. “I can’t move,” he said. “Montezuma put me here. I can’t move. Where’s Joey?”
“Jesus,” Isaac said, “you hate each other.”
Barbarossa touched Fran’s shoulder. He was still wearing his mask. “It’s all right, Fran.”
“Joey, will you take me back to Saigon?”
“Sure,” Barbarossa said. He picked up Fran and carried him out of the cave.
The Twins took off their masks.
“I can wal
k,” Frannie said. “I can walk.”
Barbarossa let him down.
Fran was wearing a poncho. He had a bitter smile. “Crazies,” he said, “run for your life. This is holy ground. It belongs to the cavalieri.”
“Don’t rush me,” Isaac said. “Didn’t Montezuma make you the principal of a ghost college?”
“He did,” Frannie said. “You’re standing on it.”
“Where are the pupils?” Isaac asked.
“On vacation. Hombres, how did you get to this island?”
“A captain brought us,” Barbarossa said.
“With a beard?”
“Yeah,” Isaac said. “Captain Beard … he has a little yacht.”
“He’s the cavalieri’s boatman,” Fran said. “He hauls their junk. And he didn’t even shoot your eyes out. He’s a retired secret-service agent from Malta. The cavalieri love to use Brits.”
“He’s an American,” Isaac said. “His yacht’s the Appomattox. That’s where Lee surrendered to General Grant. At Appomattox.”
“Don’t teach me history,” Fran said. “Beard is a Brit.” And he led the Black Stocking Twins away from the captain’s little cove. The three of them marched across the island. Isaac cursed the stark vegetation. He had stones in his shoe. He couldn’t see the walls of Palermo from this miserable spot. It was like the fucking end of creation. A volcanic island without a volcano.
They arrived at another cove, far from the Appomattox, where Fran had his own tiny boat. But a pirate stepped out from behind the rocks with a very long rifle. Captain Beard.
“Steady, lads,” he said. He’d lost his Civil War accent.
“Malta man,” Isaac muttered.
“Tosh,” the captain said. “A police commissioner on Fran’s little island. That’s a bleeding shame … you’re our warden, Mr. Meyers. You’re not entitled to your own private guests.”
“True,” Fran said.
Isaac heard three quick claps from under Fran’s poncho. Beard fell off the rocks and landed belly-down in the sea. But Fran had set his poncho on fire. Barbarossa slapped at the fire with his white glove. The glove turned black.
Montezuma's Man (The Isaac Sidel Novels) Page 21
