Marilyn the Wild (10 page)

“Yes, that's Esther.”

Isaac stuffed the photograph into his pocket. Then he stole Rupert's junior-high-school graduation picture (the genius was frowning under a mortarboard hat) from a hook on the wall. The glass in the frame began to splinter as Isaac extracted the photograph.

“Where's Rupert now?”

“Isaac, he hasn't been home in a couple of weeks. He's with Esther, that much I know.”

“Philip, if you catch him, don't let him out of your sight. He's offended the biggest social club on Mulberry Street with his tactics. The Garibaldis are eager to break his shins. Philip, bring him to me.”

“They won't hurt him at the stationhouse, will they, Isaac? … he's a baby, fifteen.”

“Philip, I'd push him out a window, that boy wonder of yours, but I need him to sing. None of my men will lay a hand on him.”

Isaac called St. Bartholomew's from a phone booth in the street. “Inspector Pimloe,” he growled to the hospital receptionist. “Gimme Inspector Pimloe.” The receptionist growled back. There weren't any Pimloes registered at the hospital. “Lady, don't cause trouble. He should be roaming in the halls. Page him for me … tell him Isaac says he better get his ass on the wire.”

Isaac heard a sigh, and the clunking of shoes. Brodsky took the call. “Boss, it's me.”

“Brodsky, jump on somebody else's wire. I asked for Pimloe, not you.”

“Pimloe disappeared. Maybe he's cooping in the basement. Who knows? … boss, we're up shit's creek.”

“Why?” Isaac said, glaring with his teeth. “Has Stanley Chin bought wings for himself? Did he tie up that nigger nurse with his bandages and flap right out of the ward?”

“Isaac, Cowboy's here.”

Isaac hissed into the phone. “You dummy, how did he find you?”

“Isaac, he took me by surprise. His leather boys climbed all over me. He brought an army to the hospital. Shotguns and everything. Newgate must have snitched. Go trust the FBI!”

“Forget about Newgate. Pimloe's the man.”

“Isaac, are you crazy? Pimloe works for you.”

“But he's also taking care of himself. He thinks Barney Rosenblatt's armpit is the hottest place in New York City. Brodsky, use your head. It's Pimloe. It couldn't have been anybody else. Now what's Cowboy up to?”

“He's shoving us out of the picture, Isaac. You know Cowboy. He's a hog. The Chinaman is immobilized, right? So Barney kidnaps two assistant DAs, brings his camera, takes Polaroid shots of the kid, fingerprints him with his own fingerprint board, and makes a bedside arrest”

“Is Barney flaking kids these days? What the fuck does he have on Stanley Chin? Did he stick a ski mask under Stanley's pillow, or what?”

“Isaac, you can't worry him. Barney says he can produce a horde of Chinese grocers who'll swear on their lives that Stanley ripped them off. A judge is coming down tomorrow to arraign the kid.”

“Tell me one thing. How did he get around the nigger nurse?”

“He didn't have to. His leather boys stuffed a shotgun in her blouse and barricaded her behind her desk.”

It was idiotic to hound Brodsky for Cowboy's attack on St. Bartholomew's. Isaac hung up. He couldn't outgun the Chief of Detectives. Cowboy would yap to the Chief Inspector, the Chief Inspector would mumble to the PC, the PC would invite the First Dep into his private elevator, and the First Dep, who couldn't divorce himself from the Irish Mafia at Headquarters, would get back to Isaac. Isaac was cooked. He'd have to cooperate with Cowboy's investigation. He couldn't even hide his photographs of Rupert and Esther Rose. The credit would go to Cowboy. He'd set up a command post inside the hospital, with “crows” on every floor.

The Chief had one alternative. He could steal the boy out of St. Bartholomew's with the help of Brodsky and Coen, and keep him in a cellar. Then Cowboy would fall from grace. But Isaac risked internecine warfare at Headquarters. He'd have to match his “angels” against Barney's “crows.” The First Dep had a cancer in his throat. How long could he stay with Isaac? The Irish chiefs preferred Barney Rosenblatt. Cowboy wouldn't break ranks. He was willing to destroy any detective the PC disliked. Isaac had too much rapport with the cops in the street. He trafficked with Puerto Ricans and milk-white spades. His stoolpigeons were loyal to nobody but him. Isaac endangered the calm at Headquarters. The Irish chiefs were suspicious of him.

He waited for a Checker cab. Isaac was particular how he rode uptown. He wanted to sulk in a fat leather seat. He went to Coen. Coen would soften his misery with hot tea and a game of checkers. Isaac wouldn't play chess with Blue Eyes. Chess brought out the Chief's ferociousness, his yen for bullying weak bishops and a ragged line of pawns, and Isaac preferred not to reveal this to Coen. He had less of an appetite for checkers. He could execute double and triple jumps without relishing his victories. And Coen didn't seem to care who would win or lose.

Isaac kept away from the fire escape. He didn't have enough gusto today to climb in Coen's window. He was fond of visiting Blue Eyes at all hours. He tried Coen's doorbell. The Chief had trained ears; he heard swishing feet behind the door. “Manfred, let me in.” No bolts moved. So he picked Coen's lock “Manfred, what's doing?” He found Marilyn in Coen's foyer. She was glinting at him out of merciless eyes, with puffs on her face that had turned solid green.

Isaac backed away. He couldn't remember the last time he had trembles in his arms and knees. “I should have figured you'd be with Coen. That boy has a good heart. He'll take in anybody. Who marked up your cheeks? It wasn't Manfred.”

Marilyn realized what her father might do to that old boyfriend of hers from Inwood Park. Isaac was liable to make a corpse out of Brian Connell, or destroy him in a more subtle way: he could pull Brian out of his stationhouse in the name of the First Dep and bounce him through all five boroughs until the boy lost his mind from dizziness and fatigue. Marilyn swore she'd been mugged. She knew about her father's passion for details, his eye for inconsistencies. She had to invent a full scenario for him.

“Where did it happen?”

“Midtown,” she said.

“East or west?”

“Isaac, will you stop bothering me, for Christ's sake. I suppose you keep a file on every mugger in Manhattan.”

She had her mother's Irish temper, that crisp, beautiful frown of Kathleen's.

“Can't you call me dad?”

“Oh God,” she said. “Are we going to start that all over again? Everybody calls you Isaac. Why should I be different?”

Isaac felt his strength coming back. His fingers began to claw. “Pack your bags. You're moving in with me.”

“Bullshit.”

He could have dragged her to his flat on Rivington Street, made the bumps in her face go from green to pure violet, but he didn't. He would take her from Blue Eyes by persuasion alone, and he would find her no more architects to marry. The girl was miserable in a married state. She scattered husbands around her, fell from man to man. Isaac would tolerate the itch in her thighs. But she couldn't have Coen. He didn't want her craziness with Blue Eyes to follow him into Headquarters. Coen belonged to him.

“Marilyn, if you stay, I'm staying too. Manfred can fix us hot chocolate … he can lull us to sleep in separate rooms. We'll keep a chart on the wall about who bathes first. Manfred must be good at scrubbing backs. You understand me, Marilyn? I'm not going without you.”

“Isaac, how did you ever get to be such a son-of-a-bitch?”

“It took learning,” he said. “Now pack up.”

She didn't prepare to leave. She watched the pinched line under Isaac's nose, pitying her father's enemies and friends; nobody could ride over Isaac.

“Marilyn, if he sees us together, he'll be the one to suffer, not you … don't make me bury Coen. I can turn him into a glorified clerk. Would you like him to file cards in a commissioner's basement for the rest of his life? Then cooperate with me.”

“You wouldn't,” she said. “You can't get by without Coen.”

“I'll teach myself. Marilyn, don't misjudge your old father. Affection means nothing in my business. I'd cripple Manfred if it would take me where I have to go.”

“Daddy Isaac,” she said, with her nostrils smoking, “you don't have to tell me that” And she located her underwear, those mesh panties of hers, in yellow, red, and blue, and stuffed them into her suitcase. She flung a sweater at Isaac. “Fold it, for Christ's sake. How many hands do I have?”

“Should I leave a note for Manfred?”

“No. He'll figure out the plot. Who else would bother to kidnap me?”

Suddenly Isaac turned shy. He couldn't adjust to victories over his daughter. “Marilyn, you can still invite him down to my place.… I didn't say you have to avoid him altogether.”

“Isaac, drop dead.”

She bit her lip to keep from crying. Isaac saw the blood. He was too timid to swipe at the blood with his handkerchief. He could thank Kathleen's bloody Jesus he didn't have another child. Two Marilyns would have wrecked him. He'd rather duel with Barney Rosenblatt outside the PC's office than contemplate his skinny daughter. Isaac was a wretched man. He couldn't tuck away his love for Marilyn. She was part of his own thick flesh. Her shoulders came together, and she began to cry with little blubbering noises that tore into Isaac's throat. He touched her hair with a finger. She didn't move. He held her in a bearish grip. “Baby, it'll be all right”

They went down Coen's stairs, with Isaac managing the suitcase, and clutching Marilyn with one hand. He would have killed for the right to hold his daughter. Rupert, Stanley, and St. Bartholomew's tumbled out of his head.

Part Two

8.

“M
R.
Weil, Mr. Philip Weil.”

The reporter crouched under Philip's doorknob, his eye against the keyhole, waiting for the darkness to subside. He was a clever young man, fresh out of journalism school, with a flair for identifying the peccadilloes of his own generation. He'd received encouragement from a fistful of magazines: nothing firm, nothing really bankable, but if he could interview the father of Rupert Weil, the monster with baby fat on his chin, no magazine could deny him for long. His thighs burned. He wasn't used to crouching so much. And the blackness in the keyhole had smogged his eye.

“I've got fifty dollars for you, Mr. Weil … conversation money,” he said, with a torn dollar bill and two subway tokens in his pocket. He would lure the monster's father out, this recluse this failed chess player, this Essex Street clown who had once been the friend of the great Isaac Sidel, or bluff his way into the apartment. “You're not talking to a sharp, Mr. Weil. I would never degrade your boy. This is Tony Brill, the journalist. I have connections, Mr. Weil. … I can cream the police and make Rupert come out like a hero … it's up to you.”

Philip was hiding in the kitchen, immune to the imprecations of Tony Brill. He wouldn't sell Rupert's story, no matter what figure the journalist could name. He'd been besieged with phone calls, telegrams, knocks on his door. The newspapers had Rupert's face smeared in their centerfolds, with captions about derangement and banditry. The Lollipop Gang and the Urban Blitz. Rupert Weil, Teenage Ghoul. Esther Rose, Temptress, Evil Saint, Dropout from the JDL, and Mama to the Lollipops. And Stanley Chin, Hong Kong Bully Boy. A fat detective, Cowboy Rosenblatt, haunted Philip's television screen. Cowboy spit warnings to potential lollipops from Stanley's hospital bed, which had been turned into a compact prison, and he hogged every channel with profiles of Rupert and Esther Rose, self-congratulations, and anecdotes about his police career. Philip couldn't find Isaac in any of the programs and news reports featuring Cowboy Rosenblatt; none of the detectives who badgered him over the phone came from Isaac's office.