Secret Isaac (25 page)

The Devils couldn't smoke out his lineage for him. Dermott went to the history books. How do you look up
Irishman, Dark Hair
? He read about the Gaels, and the rude island that Caesar bypassed when he conquered the world. An island of savage people with bulls and cows. But where, where was the dark eyes? He read some more. The English conquerors, and the Pale they established around Dublin, where only Englishmen could tread. The Irish kings had to shiver in the booleys, with their cattle and their priests. And then little Dermott discovered his own history in the drowning of the Spanish Armada. A few of the ships were knocked into the coast of Ireland by a storm. It was 1588. Pockets of Anglo-Irish militia stood on the shore with clubs in their hands. The dark-haired sailors were beaten to death, one by one, as they crawled out of their ships. A handful escaped into the interior, and were hidden in some obscure Irish village beyond the Pale. Dermott's true fathers came from such a handful. He was a Spanish mick, an Irisher with eyebrows. He'd solved the obscurity of his line. It made no difference what his dad was doing in the Bronx. The boy was descended from Spanish-Irish pigherders, or something close to that. The McBrides had walked in pigshit for two hundred years. Dermott swore to himself that he'd climb out of the muck.

“Johnny, are you sleeping now?”

The king gave John a fright. The Tiger shut his eyes while little Dermott went creeping in the Jewish graveyard for his Anne, and Holy Mother ofGod, the lad returns before John could take a blink!

“Did you catch any harpies in the woods?”

“None at all.”

“Too bad,” the Tiger said. “If they pluck one eyebrow, it's supposed to charm you for a month. But harpies can be dangerous. God help you if they nest in your hair.”

“The harpies weren't out tonight.”

“It's the warmth,” Tiger John said. “They won't come to you in October.”

The Commissioner had an idiotic mythology for every beast that stirred in the woods. Let the harpies nest in Dermott's hair. He'd take them into Dublin and tickle them to sleep. Then he'd root them out with his knife.

“Did Isaac provide for the lady?”

“He did. A rag and a stick on a hump of dirt.”

“Ah, that's the Hebrew law. You go to lots of Jewish funerals when you're the Commish. We have sheenies in the Department, you know. Thousands of them. It's years and years before they put a stone on a grave. So it has to be a rag for Annie Powell.”

“I'll order a stone tomorrow,” the king said, sucking with his teeth.

“The Jews won't deliver it. Not for six years.”

“I'll hire my own deliverers.”

“The rabbis will run them out of the graveyard.”

“Then I'll buy rabbis to fight the rabbis of Esau Woods.”

The Tiger chuckled to himself. “That will be a sight. Rabbis clawing each other's holy shirt … boyo, you don't have the time. No playing with rabbis. Mangen's not a fool. He'll wonder why you're here. You might never get to Dublin with Mangen around. His grand juries are notorious for latching on to boyos like you, so they can't leave the country.”

“Dennis won't find me.”

“That's good news,” the Tiger said. “I'll pray for you.”

You're the lad that needs praying for, the king understood. Someone would have to take a fall. It wouldn't be Sam. The bankers might cry over the prospect of a Mayor in jail. It could eat into the worth of municipal paper. But a crooked Police Commissioner wasn't that much of a liability. You could always put another toad in his place.

This one, John the tiger-toad, looked out at Dermott with a strange compassion in his eyes. He winked and blew his nose. “I can calm the rabbis for you. I'm the PC … you'll get your stone for Annie Powell.”

The king nodded once. The old, dumb Commissioner meant no harm. Whose fault was it that he didn't have Sammy's wit or the Fisherman's brains? He could only bluster through Headquarters doing his Tiger dance. Dermott had already gone way, way into his Spanish skull. The bumping of the Mercury didn't register in his ears. The king despised himself. He was no better than a pimp who marks his woman for some small sin, like holding back five dollars, or daring to talk to one of the dudes at an after-hours club. The pimp would take a wire coat hanger and twist it into his main initial, heat it on the burner of his woman's stove, and stick it in her face. Dermott used a knife.

It was an old Bronx ritual that existed long before the Devils got their start. Girls didn't have an independent status in any gang, no matter how tough or beautiful they were. A girl was property, like an ice pick, or a tamed pigeon. And if she “wounded” you, if she roused your jealousy, if she shamed you in the eyes of the gang, you cut her with a knife, to show her and everyone else in the Bronx where the lines of your property ought to begin and end.

That was a dumb ritual for a king to follow. He'd been away from the Devils for sixteen years. He should have curbed his jealousies. Annie Powell. He'd left her alone in Dublin with those ancient bodyguards, while he sat in Connemara with the Fisherman, and established how many pieces they could get from a whore's pie, and where the pieces would go. What did he expect from Anne? Coote had pulled Jamey out of Ireland. She didn't have the king's donkey to watch over her anymore. It's a brave lad who gives his wife a scar and sends her back to Ameriky. Prick that he was, he should have cut his own face.

A noise blasted through the king. It was Tiger John's radiotelephone. It rang and rang from a niche in the upholstery. “Answer it,” the king said. “Go on, Johnny. Scream your hello.”

Dermott picked up the receiver and clapped it to the left side of John's head. John mumbled, “Yes … no … yes …”

Then he put the receiver into its place. But he didn't offer any information to little Dermott.

“Who was that?… Coote?”

“No.” Tiger John took to whispering in the rear of his car. “It was Mayor Sam.”

“Why didn't he talk to me?”

“Jesus, you're poison to Sam. The Mayor wants you out of the country on the next aeroplane.”

“The Mayor can go fuck himself. I'm not leaving until I pay my respects to the mother of O'Toole.”

John was certain the king had a draft in his head. “Mangen is closing in, and you can't leave until you kiss the mother of O'Toole? We'll send flowers in your name to that old hag.”

“Don't send shit. The Fisherman killed my man.”

“Swear to God, Dermott. It was sink or swim. Your man grew a beard and went crazy. He was going to run to Isaac and snitch on us all.”

Coote was right about little Dermott. The king had lost his grip. A man with a nose for business wouldn't have come to New York to buy tombstones for an Irish bitch. Where's the value of it? The girl was already in the ground.

“John, are you driving me to the old woman, or not? If I have to walk to Chelsea, I won't be in Dublin until the day after tomorrow.”

God forbid
. “Hold your horses,” the Tiger said. “I didn't say I wasn't driving you, did I now?” He'd have to get himself a castle, just like Coote. Then he could give the Mercury back, and retire to Kerry and Dingle Bay.

27

T
HE
king had never been a shylock, a
gombeen-man
, like Arthur Greer. He didn't have a countinghouse in Dublin or New York. His bagmen collected a fee from the pimps of Manhattan and the Bronx, and the king took this pimping money and scrubbed it the best way he could. He threw it into restaurants, bowling alleys, limousine services, and rare books. A good portion of it was churned back, so the king could stock a yellow lake with salmon for Coote McNeill, provide a secret pension fund for the Mayor, create bankbooks for Handsome John.

It was smooth and lovely work. The pimps would swagger in their long coats, because Mr. Dermott Bride had arranged a charter of principles for them with the Police. They were shrewd enough not to ask about the details of this charter. The sweetest mack always gave a dumb picture of himself. He had a harem to protect, a stable of “brides,” little snow queens, and all his number-one ladies who broke their humps in his behalf. The macks realized that some of their nickels and dimes were going to the Police Commissioner. If Tiger John Rathgar lived off their bounty, what could happen to them?

But the Special Prosecutor arrived on Whores' Row. Mangen dropped a fucking siege around Headquarters. Cops bit their fingers and ran from him like a galaxy of cockroaches. Mangen had the power to subpoena bishops, whores, mayors, and pimps. The king couldn't peddle charters any more. He moved to a fancy hotel in Dublin town, and the cops began to pull entire harems off the street. Bail money was getting hard to find. The macks' own gombeen-man, Sweet Arthur Greer, fell off a roof. The king had to hide his old uncle Martin, or the bagman would have been dead. But he couldn't save his Irish bitch …

He got to Chelsea in Tiger John's car. Dermott was bringing a packet of money for Mrs. O'Toole, blood money it was, because he'd made a dirty bargain with Chief Inspector McNeill. The king had killed Jamey boy by sending him back to New York. There were no bugaboos in the hall, no cops from the First Deputy's office.
You're a gorgeous man, Dermott McBride, with your black hair and your knife. You can cut your name into a woman, give her your mark for other men to be wary of.
He was the fool of fools.
A thief shouldn't marry. He's like any businessman who has to neglect his wife for the silly bickerings of trade … Shouldn't have left her in Dublin with Coote's people … Prick that I am, playing Moses the punisher
. It wasn't the absence of her flesh that rankled the king. He could have bought and sold a hundred look-alikes to Annie Powell. Get another doll of a girl. But he loved that dumb banter she had, the way she could mourn a cow. His childy woman.

The mother of O'Toole had a metal plate on her door. It was open. The king walked in. Mrs. O'Toole sat in a rocking chair with a kind of bonnet on her head. She had big ears for an old lady. But the king hadn't come to criticize her looks.

He took out his packet of money, six thousand in hundred-dollar bills. “I'm Dermott Bride,” he said. “I used to employ your son.”

The old woman was made up like a whore, with lipstick that spread onto her cheeks in an impasto of purple moons. The knuckles in her lap were hairy and thick. Her feet stuck out of the brogans she wore. She had muscular ankles, this mother of O'Toole. Dermott picked the bonnet off her head. It was a curious scalp she had, with short white bristles on top. A Detective Special appeared from under her blouse.

“I'm Captain Schapiro,” she said. “Stay where you are, you lousy crook.”

The king didn't have to shiver. He had a blade on him that could carve up this beauty in the rocking chair. He heard the voice of a man behind him.

“Dermott, please don't go for the knife …”

The man had a coat with a fur collar. He wasn't carrying a weapon, like Mother O'Toole. “I'm the Special Pros.” He sent Schapiro into the kitchen, so he could be alone with the king.

“Where's the mother of O'Toole?”

“She's all right,” Mangen said. “We figured you wouldn't leave the country without laying some gelt on her. You're not a careless man … we put her in a home on Charles Street.

“That's kind of you. Too bad I can't produce Jamey's ghost. He'd give you a shake of the hand for shuffling his ma around … Mangen, why did you dress Schapiro in women's clothes? Was it to entertain a Bronx boy like me? You needn't have bothered, you know. I would have liked Schapiro without his bonnet …”

“Forget that little trick of mine. I didn't want you to wrestle with an army of cops. You might have scratched them all, and I'd have to pay the bill … how could I thank you if we didn't have a talk?”

Dermott stared at this maniac in the fur collar. “Thank me for what?”

“For those names you put in Tiger John's bankbooks.”

“Ah, it was nothing. A bit of fun. I was hoping John would enjoy it.”

“He did,” Mangen said. “And so did I … I couldn't have traced his phony signatures without your
Molly Blooms
and your
Gertrude MacDowells
. I thought you were trying to tell me something … that you were fed up with McNeill and the whole rotten bunch.”

“Hey Mangen … Molly Bloom wasn't any signal to you. It's a name, that's all.”

He had a sad face for a boy millionaire. The king was stuck in two milieus. He was a hoodlum with a love for books. What could money get for him? He didn't belong anywhere. Not with Isaac, not with Marsh, not with Coote McNeill.

“Dermott, you don't have to go to Dublin. I could give you a suite in a good hotel … with bodyguards and everything.”

“Sure, and then I'd be your canary. Thank you, but I'll take Stephen's Green.” He bowed to the Special Pros and held out the packet of money. “You could do me a favor though, and give this bundle to Mrs. O'Toole … and my regrets for the life of her son.”