Secret Isaac (26 page)

Mangen took the six thousand. “I could confiscate this money, tag it, and save it for my property clerk.”

“I know,” the king said. “But you won't.” He went out the door, and Mangen felt like an idiot, holding a bundle of whores' money in his hand. He called to Schapiro in the kitchen.

“You had to shove your Detective Special at him … never pull a gun on a man while you're sitting down. He could have chopped your nose off. Will you hurry up, Morton, and wiggle out of that skirt. Wipe the lipstick off, for shit's sake. They'll think we've been smooching on the stairs …”

Part

Seven

28

I
T
was the middle of October, and you couldn't find Sam in the streets. No one was alarmed. His Honor had won the primary. He didn't have to beg for votes. But where was the Old Man of City Hall? Was he on some kind of maneuvers in the countryside? Sammy would never leave town. Boys and girls from Dennis Mangen's office began to scuttle in and out of the Mayor's rooms. They didn't have a blemish on them. They arrived fresh from law school with pigskin briefcases and theories on the ways and means of smothering crime in the City of New York. The girl prosecutors were harsher than the boys. Mangen's girls wouldn't even smile at a deputy mayor.

They emerged from Sammy's rooms one morning, with the Old Man himself. He looked like a Mayor who was walking in his sleep. His eyes would focus on the ceiling and nothing else. He wore slippers rather than shoes. The slyness had gone out of him. Why was he captive to Mangen's girls, meek in their presence? The girls drew reporters out of their closet, and the Old Man held a news conference on the steps of City Hall. “Misery,” he said. “Lads, I'm in poor health. The Mayor can't have red meat. They give me grass to chew. I'll strangle on it if I have to run this City.”

The reporters looked at Sam and rocked on their toes, trying to fathom his gibberish about grass and red meat. “Your Honor, does this mean you're pulling out of the race?”

“That's the rotten truth.”

The reporters shoved a bit closer to Sam. “What will happen to the Democrats?”

“Ah,” the Mayor said, “they'll survive.”

The Democrats caucused on the same afternoon. Party chiefs spent an hour praising the Old Man. “Wonderful Mayor. The very best. We'll miss him dearly. We will.” Then they went scratching for a new candidate. They didn't have to caucus very hard. The candidate had come to them like a thunderbolt. It was Rebecca of the Rockaways.

She arrived at the old Police Headquarters and hugged Isaac the Brave. Isaac was chagrined. “Rebecca, I'll get out soon as I can clear my desk.”

“Stay,” she said. “The Cultural Committee can spare one little room … Isaac, we have to talk. I'll need a good cop. I want you to stick with the Police.”

Isaac grew more and more depressed. What Mayor renounces his candidacy a few weeks before November? Only Sam. The Board of Elections had to strike Sammy off the lists and print Rebecca's name. The Board was an old hippopotamus. It couldn't have roused itself. The Board must have known for a month that Rebecca would be on the ballot. That hippopotamus took its instructions from Sam.

Isaac dialed City Hall. It was a worthless occupation. You couldn't get Sammy on the phone. “What's your name, sir? Sidel, sir? We'll tell him that the First Deputy called.” Isaac understood that most of this malarkey wasn't Sam's. The great god Dennis was behind it all. Mangen had gotten Sam to close his shop. They must have been bargaining while the hippo went to the printer with its ballots. Whom had the Mayor offered up to Dennis? It had to be Tiger John.

But the Tiger was still issuing memos out of 1 Police Plaza. The memos could have been for the cops of Peoria, Illinois. The Tiger mentioned riot batons, gas masks, all-weather shoes. Isaac grabbed at the memos in disgust. Cops were dying, and the Tiger wanted gas masks and a certain kind of shoe.

It encouraged a madness in yourself to interpret every line. John was hysterical over something. Isaac didn't have to guess why: Mangen's grand jury was in harness again. Twice a month Dennis would imprison twenty-three ladies and gentlemen in a secret room at the World Trade Center. He wouldn't let them out until they produced bills of indictment for him. When the jury doors opened, a twitch would spread from judges to lawyers and cops. You couldn't be sure where Dennis would strike.

The man had no shame. He walked into 1 Police Plaza with those girl prosecutors of his and a pair of City marshals. They went up to the fourteenth floor and arrested Tiger John. The PC had to wear handcuffs in front of his lieutenants and clerks.

He was booked at the precinct on Ericson Place. Officers had to search through his pockets and fingerprint the PC! They photographed him with his gray support hose dragging around his calves. He wasn't put in a separate holding bin. He sat with all the thieves. They were trundled over to Manhattan Supreme Court in a little truck, and he was arraigned before a judge who stared at the Commissioner with a crooked mouth. Tiger John was charged with extorting money from prostitutes and lending “his office, his title, and his good name” to help pimps and other vermin of the City. Bail was denied. The judge wouldn't set a vulture out in the street. John had to go to Riker's Island.

His Honor, Sammy Dunne, would permit no confusion among the Police. He stood before television cameras inside the rotunda of City Hall. The Mayor wore a dark green suit. His cuff links shimmered against the cameras and the lamps in powerful hues. He seemed recovered from his recent spell of witlessness. “I won't talk about Johnny Rathgar,” he said. “If he's clean, we'll find out … and if he's guilty, we'll send him to the dogs!”

“Your Honor, who's the next Commish?”

“Only one lad could take on that job … with so much corruption smacking us in the face. Isaac Sidel.”

The reporters were eager to know where Isaac was.

“Ah, he'll be here soon enough.”

Isaac couldn't escape Sammy's call to become the next “Commish.” Old shots of Sam and him, bumbling from synagogue to synagogue last June, appeared in the
Times
, the
Post
, and the
Daily News
. Television interviewers began to converge on Centre Street. The Mayor's office was phoning the boy every fifteen minutes. New York was still without a Police Commissioner. The Mayor had to swear Isaac in. Sammy's aides purred at Isaac on the phone. “Commish, His Honor needs you in the Blue Room.”

The “Commish” had to run to Rivington Street for a tie, a shirt, and a handkerchief. The worm tugged at him while he changed his underwear. Isaac crossed the Bowery, cut through Chinatown, and showed at City Hall. The worm ate pieces of him. He might have swooned if the press hadn't come out of its closet to catch him in time. He blamed it on a lunch of bananas and cream. It was a big lie. Isaac hated bananas and cream.

The Mayor was in the Blue Room, near the portrait of Martin Van Buren. Isaac whispered into Sam's lapel. “You're a cocksucker in your heart, Sammy Dunne.”

“Later,” Sammy growled under his breath. “Laddie, why are you sweating so much?”

“Because I have a worm in me that says I shouldn't be your Commissioner.”

“Wipe your forehead. You can't always listen to a worm.”

Isaac took his oath of allegiance, muttering after Sam. The little Mayor had Tiger John's old badge, with its blue enameled face, and an eagle crouching on five gold stars. He pinned the badge on Isaac, and invested him as Police Commissioner. The press corps stood around Commissioner Isaac.

“Commish, what happens when Becky takes over from Sam? Will you be out of a job?”

“Probably,” Isaac said with a moan. He could feel the worm gorging under his heart. “She has to win the election first.” His mouth tightened. “Then we'll know. I serve at the Mayor's convenience.”

“Are you going to help prosecute Tiger John?”

“Speak to Dennis. He hasn't asked me to cooperate yet.”

“Commish, will you shut down Whores' Row?”

“I'm only a cop,” Isaac said. “I don't make the laws.” Isaac nodded once or twice and walked out of the Blue Room with Sammy Dunne. His Honor was quiet in the halls. Isaac shook Sammy's arm. “You made a deal with Mangen, didn't you?”

“You've got bats in your ear.”

He followed the little Mayor into his private office. “Pretty work,” Isaac said. “Pretty work. You fed Tiger John to Mangen, just like that. What did you promise the idiot boy? That he could hold on to his precious bankbooks in jail? They'll tear his eyes out at Riker's, don't you know? They've got lads over there that aren't too enchanted with Police Commissioners. Sam, couldn't you have fixed a better bail hearing for little Johnny? Or did you conspire with Dennis and the judge to get him out of the way? Prick, I campaigned for you. I told lies in the shuls … and Becky gets it all.”

“Ah, shit,” Sam said. “A Mayor has to live … did you want me to go waltzing with John under the judge's bench?”

“No,” Isaac said. “You're too dignified for that. But how did you get involved with Dermott Bride?”

“That crow with the black hair? He aint even an Irishman. I wouldn't touch Dermott Bride.”

“But you took his whore money.”

“Not from him. You saw the press I had a year ago. My own Party was anxious to throw me in the river. Get rid of the old guy. He has a bad smell. I had to take care of myself. I don't have me a wife. I wasn't going to crawl on my knees with a pension from the City.”

“So you went to Coote McNeill. The grand old tyrant of the Force. And he unleashed Dermott's money … nickel-and-dime shit. You're the Mayor. Why didn't you fiddle with the budget?”

“Jesus, man. I'm not a thief.”

“Oh, you're too smart to grab with your own two fists. You found yourself a buffer, a go-between, Tiger John. He was your bagman, your messenger, your boy Friday. Then Mangen came along, and you got scared. McNeill had to dismantle his operation. He sent the king into exile. He killed Arthur Greer.”

The Mayor had an ugly notch around his eye. “Don't talk murder to me. I never met this Arthur Greer.”

“Of course,” Isaac said. “His Honor doesn't mingle with nigger pimps. You're the good Irishman. But why didn't Mangen arrest Coote McNeill? It won't be much fun bringing Tiger John to trial.”

“McNeill's gone,” the Mayor said.

Isaac looked into that notch over Sammy's eye.

“Coote retired last week. He bought himself a house in the Old Country.”

“The Old Country,” Isaac muttered. “Everybody lands in the Old Country. But it doesn't make sense. Dennis could reach into Ireland if he wants … He'd rather have the idiot boy. He'll go the easy way and carve Tiger John.”

Isaac developed a leer that dug into his chin. “Don't take me for granted. I'm not your suck. I don't exist to cradle City Hall. You cornered me into this job. You blabbed to the papers that I was your man … but you might get a little sorry.”

Isaac walked out of City Hall. Clerks and typists stared at him. The new “Commish” didn't have a slouch like Tiger John. You could listen to the crunch of his body. He didn't patter away from the Mayor's office, as if he were a man without shoes. He went across the road to Police Headquarters. The cops had a plaza to themselves, a hub of concrete with terraces and rails, and a huge shithouse on top of it, a mausoleum of red brick.

They swarmed over Isaac soon as he entered the building. “Commish, Commish.” No one had seen his hide for months. Now they had a Commissioner, all right. Not that pussyface, Tiger John, who had screaming fits in the halls, and would punish a borough commander for looking at him the wrong way. (What was the right way to look at Tiger John?) The State Prosecutor caught him with his pants down. They handcuffed the pussyface in front of a thousand cops. Disgraced the Department he did. Mangen made a home for him on Riker's Island. There he'll sit, without a postcard from the boyos at 1 Police Plaza. The pussyface can write his memoirs, describe how he stuck his fingers in a whore's pocket. But let Mangen come for Isaac the Brave! You couldn't drive the new “Commish” out of Headquarters. Never in your life.

He didn't go in to claim the territories of a Commissioner. He went to the First Dep's office on the thirteenth floor. The hair crawled on Isaac's head. Something was horribly wrong. He had an office choked with strangers. He walked from room to room; captains and clerks looked away from Isaac and stared at the walls. Who were these miserable people? “Where's Havisham? Where's Brodsky? Where's Marvin Winch?” The captains heard that roar out of Isaac. He picked on one of them. “What's your name?”

“Smiley. Captain Smiley.”

“Who put you here?”

Isaac burrowed into the captain with his eyes. “Are you deaf, man? Who put you here?”

“The Chief Inspector.”

“You worked for Coote, you prick and a half?”

Smiley must have seen the devil in Isaac's face. His jaw dropped out from under his chin.

“And what did you lads do when I called this office?”

“We took the message upstairs. To the McNeill.”

Isaac flailed the air with both his arms. “Out,” he said. “All of you. Get the hell out of here.”

Captains and clerks ran from him. They didn't know how to please the new “Commish.” They stood in the hall, with their pencils, holsters, and gum erasers. Coote had smuggled a whole team into the First Dep's office. McNeill got rid of Isaac's men a bundle at a time. They were probably licking dust off fingerprint cards in the five boroughs.

One flight up and he was in the Chief Inspector's office. Coote's people hunched behind their desks. Isaac studied the walls. Then he cursed himself. He was stupid as a cow. McNeill had fishing paraphernalia tacked up all over the place: thin, beautiful rods that could whip into a perfect fisherman's arc, trophies with such tiny lettering, it would burn your eyes to read, fishhooks, maps of a hidden trout stream, photos of amazing salmon catches, pieces off an ancient lucky boot. Isaac had seen the bloody things before. McNeill had the same paraphernalia up in his old rooms at Centre Street. Isaac had to look at this shit on the wall to give his head a little shake.
Coote
was the Fisherman Annie had told him about. Coote, Coote the Fisherman. God, he might have saved that girl, if he could have remembered those hooks, salmon, and trout.