Secret Isaac (3 page)

Pears called Isaac a lackey of the Mayor, an instrument of repressive law. Isaac, he said, who drives prostitutes off the street at the Mayor's convenience, without considering the plight of these girls, or their histories. “I'll defend every prostitute you haul in,” Pears said. “His Honor always sweeps out before the primaries. You're Sammy's broom.”

Isaac growled inside his head. Sammy had enough trouble getting in and out of his pajamas. Isaac couldn't figure what was going on in the street. He had his spies. It wasn't the Civil Liberties Union that was keeping the girls hard at work. You couldn't hold them in a cage for more than half an hour. They had a league of bondsmen holding hands with their “players.” The whores multiplied with or without the Police. Inspectors at Isaac's office claimed to know every dude in town. They talked of a mysterious nigger gang that was organizing pimps into some kind of union. Black Mafia, they said. The “blues” of Sugar Hill. Only you couldn't find any of them. Where were the “blues” of Sugar Hill? It made no sense. Isaac's spies had nothing to sell. They shrugged their shoulders and swore some “heavy shit” was landing in the gutters. That's why Isaac had to go underground, become the old man of Forty-seventh Street. Isaac only trusted what he himself could sniff. And this Melvin Pears was babbling about whores' rights. Every bimbo in Manhattan had more rights and privileges than Rebecca Karp or Pears' green-eyed wife.

Pears had a bald spot, bigger than Isaac's. He was still chopping at the First Dep. “All the glory comes to you,” Pears said. “You solve the big murder, the big hit, and anonymous old men and women are afraid to go out at night.”

Isaac interrupted him. “Would you like us to keep every fourteen-year-old boy in a bullpen after six o'clock?”

Pears leapt on Isaac. “That's the smug answer you can always get from a cop. Arrest
everybody
and crime will go away.”

Isaac didn't have Melvin's courtroom wit. He shut his mouth and let the boy talk. His head drifted to Annie Powell. That “D” on her could sting a man's eyes. That girl's no goddamn hooker. She was being punished for something she did. Annie's sin.

Pears had stopped talking. What was Isaac supposed to do? Defend Mayor Sam? List Police accomplishments? Talk about the new Headquarters and that idiot, Tiger John? Promise an end to sodomy in the women's house of detention? Isaac talked about Oswald Spengler. Pears scratched his head. Rebecca Karp's admirers must have considered him a little cracked. “It's ungovernable,” Isaac said. “… this terrain. Psychosis is everywhere … in your armpit … under your shoe. You can smell it in the sweat of this room … we're all baby killers, repressed or not … how do you measure a man's rage? Either we behave like robots, or we kill. Why do you expect your Police Force to be any less crazy than you?”

There was laughter in the room, some hissing.

Pears shouted at him. “Sidel, you haven't gotten to the point at all. What do I care about your philosophies? Silly contrivances. Glib remarks. We do have a City, and it has to be governed. And the Mayor,
your friend
, is doing an invisible job.”

The debate was over. People were congratulating Melvin Pears. He'd gotten around the ignorant carp of a half-educated cop. Isaac only had one semester at Columbia College. He couldn't have told you about the theories of John Locke. He had bits of Nietzsche in him, Spengler, Hegel, and Marx. His readings were savagely curtailed.

Crowds formed close to the lawyer Pears. One old lady came up to Isaac. She was muttering something he couldn't understand. All Isaac could make out was the green in Mrs. Pears' eyes.

One of his own inspectors, Marvin Winch, was waiting for him on the curb. Isaac promised himself that he would manufacture several little talks before he entered another lounge. Pears had cut out Isaac's throat. The First Dep had only a skimpy sense of logic. His ideas came from the worm in his gut. He wasn't a civilized man.

“Well?” Isaac said to Inspector Winch. “Who's Martin McBride?”

“A lowlife. He runs with the nigger pimps.”

“Does he have a nephew?”

“Yes, a carload of them. Our Martin's got nephews everywhere.”

“How many of them have that big
D
I told you about?”

“Only one. Dermott.”

“Dermott McBride?”

“No. He took the Irish out of his name. He shortened it to Bride.”

“Bring that cocksucker to me. I'd like to have a chat with Dermott Bride. We have a girlfriend in common.”

“Isaac, I can't. Nobody knows where Dermott is.”

“Then plug into your computer and find him for me.”

Oh, they could laugh and call him Sammy's dunce, but Tiger John Rathgar had eyes and ears, like any man, and a mouth to bark with and eat cigarette paper when he was in the mood. A year ago “Hizzoner” had said, “Johnny, the pimps have to live like the rest of us. What's the point of chasing nigger girls off the street? They'll be strolling again in twenty-four hours.” So John throttled his pussy patrol, yanked out most of its teeth, and then the bankbooks began coming in. With the Irish names inside. Simon Dedalus, Molly Bloom, and all. John didn't perform one crooked act to earn his
Molly Blooms
. He promised nothing to the pimps of Whores' Row. Could he help it if Jamey O'Toole tossed bankbooks in his lap?

Now it was an election year, and “Hizzoner” wanted the Black Marias out, wagons to hold nigger prostitutes. John had to activate the pussy patrol. But the Mayor warned him, “No white girls. We can't afford a mistake. If your lads pick up a housewife, the papers will crucify us. I'm depending on you, Johnny boy.”

John went along with the pussy patrol. His chauffeur, Christianson, put him in front of the Black Marias, which were ancient green wagons with dented roofs. John decided what whores would go into the wagons. He picked the fattest girls, girls with low midriffs and pockmarks on their thighs. The wagons filled up in less than an hour. The girls sat in them and bitched. They couldn't get away from the heat of their own bodies. They tore at their midriffs to cool themselves, and they took long bites of air. John signaled to his chauffeur. “Christie, I've had enough. Come on.”

“Where are we going, boss?”

“To the Mayor's house.”

Christianson flipped his sirens on and shot across town, ahead of ambulances and fire trucks, and brought the “Commish” to Carl Schurz Park. The policeman came out of his sentry box to salute Tiger John and open the gate for him. John walked under the blue canopy at the side of the house. He loved to visit Gracie Mansion. It was a grand old house with black shutters on the windows and white porch rails. Sam had three bedrooms for himself. He was the first bachelor Mayor to occupy the house.

Through the front door Johnny went, under the fanlight, with Sammy's live-in maid to smile at him and ask about his health. “Thank you, Sarah, I'm tiptop.”

“That's good, Commissioner John.”

“And how is the Man today?”

“He's bristling,” she said. “It's them straw ballots. Everybody's picking Rebecca to win.”

“It's meaningless stuff,” John said. “He'll pull through.”

He walked up the winding stairs on the Mayor's green carpet. It was almost three o'clock, but the Mayor hadn't risen yet. John stood outside the master bedroom and knocked on the door.

“Come in, for God's sake.”

Sam was in his underwear. He put pajamas on for his Police Commissioner and returned to bed. He lay under the covers until Sarah arrived with a pot of coffee and sweet rolls for the two bachelor men. He winked at John when Sarah left. An enormous black accounting book poked out of the covers. It was the Mayor's budget for the coming fiscal year. Sam kicked at the book with both his feet. “Becky Karp says I can't add or subtract. But it doesn't take more than ten fingers to know that the City is sinking in shit. Some wizard in the Comptroller's office is always finding a million here and there … then he loses it the next day … did you run the girlies into the precinct, John?”

“I did.”

Sam fell silent and munched on a sweet roll.

Christ, how do you talk to a Mayor? John finished his coffee, taking care not to break the cup. “Ah,” he said, “you'll murder Rebecca at the polls.”

But the Mayor wasn't listening to him. His jaws churned while he stared into the great mirror alongside his bed. Poor old man.
Hizzoner can't sustain a conversation. His memory is on the blink
.

John walked out of the master bedroom as quietly as he could. He said goodbye to Sarah and thanked her for the coffee and the sweet rolls. Christie was parked near the gate. He had an envelope for Tiger John.

“Who gave you this?”

Christianson held out his hands to indicate the overwhelming breadth of a giant. “It was that rogue cop, O'Toole.”

“O'Toole? How could he tell I was coming to the Mayor's house?”

Christianson shrugged and pursed his lips.

The PC glared at him, “The Special Prosecutor is on our heels, and you monkey with that whoreboy outside Gracie Mansion?… come on. Take me to the Dingle.”

He opened the envelope, and a bankbook spilled out. John didn't bother with the sums in the book. Five or six thousand, it was the same to him. They were getting cheeky with the “Commish,” these messenger boys. The giant had followed him to Sammy's gate! He shielded the bankbook in his palm, so he could peek at that mother of a name.
Anna Livia Plurabelle
. Go figure out O'Toole and that king of his in Dublin town. John got his bankbooks if he went after whores or not. What in hell were they paying him for? Would the bankbooks come faster and faster, the more Black Marias he sent out?
Anna Livia and Molly Bloom
.

“The Dingle,” John said, “when do we get to the Dingle?” Then he noticed that the car had stopped.

“Boss, we've been sitting here for five minutes.”

“Oh,” John said. He got out of the car, knocked three times, muttered his name, and crept inside with the Dingle Bay boys.

4

H
E
was that bum again, but he didn't have a dirty neck, or so much stubble on his face. His cheeks were lean, and he had the suffering look of a suitor. Annie Powell didn't like it at all. The bum was wearing cologne, an after-shave lotion it was. He would scare anybody away with the dark hollows in his eyes. “Jesus,” she said, laughing at him. “How am I going to earn my keep? Buy me for half an hour, but don't feed me another lunch. I can't work on a full stomach.”

Isaac stole her from Forty-third Street before she could complain. He had the grip of a large monkey. She couldn't free her hand. The pimps and the young black whores laughed at the image of Annie and Isaac trundling along. You would have thought the bum had himself a wife. They went to the Vinaigrette. Isaac bought her little bottles of champagne. His tactics seemed more aggressive today. Annie preferred white wine and green beans. But those little bottles didn't soften the bum. “I can take you off that corner,” he said. “I can make it so you won't have a foot of space to prowl on.”

“God, you really are a priest … if you'd like to buy a share of me, you'll have to ask Martin McBride.”

“Fuck McBride,” Isaac said. “I want you to live with me.”

She didn't laugh at his proposal. Her eyes began to sink into her skull.

“I have a place downtown. On Rivington Street. Don't worry. You can have your men. I won't interfere. I'll mix drinks for them. Go out for bottles of wine. But I don't want you on the damn streets.”

“Mister,” she said, “I don't need an uncle, thanks. I already have a pimp.”

Could he tell Annie Powell that she was torturing him and his rotten worm? That he'd bump any john who went near her corner? He was jealous, stupidly jealous, of a girl he hadn't even slept with. That scar had gotten him crazy.

“Who's Dermott?” he said.

She ate a mouthful of fish.

“I asked you about Dermott Bride.”

She got up from the table, put her napkin down, and walked out of the restaurant. Isaac was left with three corks and his little bottles of champagne. He phoned his office. A limousine was outside the Vinaigrette in seven minutes. The waiters at the restaurant saw the bum get into that big car. They were wise men. They understood that strange things existed in this world. The very rich often preferred to dress like
cloches
. They wouldn't forget this bum with the scarred beauty, the limousine, and the splits of champagne.

Isaac's deputies had located Martin McBride, who lived with a fat wife in eight rooms near Marble Hill. Martin had emphysema. But he had to suffer August in New York. He collected money from the pimps of Manhattan and heard their complaints. He was known in mid-town as “Bagman Martin.” He'd been a petty crook for over half his life. Poor Martin didn't have much of a record: arrested as a vagrant two or three times. Short spills in the Tombs. But that was twenty years ago. He'd prospered in his old age.