Under the Eye of God (16 page)

The Big Guy gave no interviews. He rode into the Bronx with a caravan of bodyguards from the NYPD. The Secret Service sat at the rear of this caravan. Isaac stood in all the debris, like some King Kong on a mountain of rubble, while all the cameras clicked. There wasn’t much ambiguity. When it came to the Bronx, Isaac was king of the hill.

Then he rode downtown to NYU Medical Center, where Joe Barbarossa lay in a private room, having been flown in from a hospital in Laredo. His son-in-law had a fractured skull.

“Dad,” Joey said, “I’m sorry I let you down.”

“Come on,” Isaac said, “you rescued us. You stalled the Crusaders, let Bull Latham have a couple of extra minutes, so he could shoot the shit out of Trevor Welles.”

“But I should have been more alert to Trevor’s tricks.”

“Ah, it was Saigon all over again, a land of double-dealers.”

He discovered Marilyn in the waiting room. His only daughter had lost that wild, rebellious looks of hers. She was very pale. And the Big Guy couldn’t help himself. He was riven with a terrifying guilt. He’d been that way ever since Manfred Coen had died in a Ping-Pong parlor while Isaac was a lowly inspector who battled a family of pimps in the Bronx. Isaac had tossed Coen into the battle and got him killed. Manfred’s blue eyes still haunted him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have let you live with Blue Eyes. . . . ”

“Papa,” she said, “if you want absolution, you won’t get it from me.”

He almost grinned behind his tears. Marilyn’s wildness had come back. He didn’t want her to forgive him. The Big Guy preferred to suffer.

“Just take care of Joe,” she said. “And keep him away from your shenanigans.”

He pecked her on the cheek. That was the only kind of kiss she would accept from her embattled father. But something rubbed at him, remained raw. Joey had a broken head, and Martin Boyle was a ghost, because of some fucking land grab that involved Cottonwood, Michael, Sumner Mars, a fistful of generals and Texas tycoons, and David Pearl, with his gangsters and soldiers of fortune, like the Crusaders. But why hadn’t Bull Latham whacked the Crusaders before Martin Boyle was killed? Why didn’t he stop that yellow bus while it was stranded in some lost Texas town of black citizens? And couldn’t he have captured a couple of Crusaders without killing them all?

Bull Latham wasn’t at the Waldorf. Isaac had him get on an afternoon shuttle out of DC. They met at the Bull & Bear, sat at its magnificent eight-cornered mahogany bar, where businessmen could suck on their whiskey-and-water and watch the tiny ribbon of rising and falling stocks on the restaurant wall. Isaac had nothing to invest in the market.

Even as mayor, he paid no attention to its rise and fall. The city’s money managers had to deal behind his back.

Isaac sipped a glass of milk while Bull had his own bottle of Jameson whiskey. Isaac adored that green bottle with its tiny indented bell at the bottom.

He smiled his friendliest smile, clinked glasses, and said, “Bull, your whole fucking career depends on this discussion. Lie to me now, and you’ll walk into an endless shitstorm.”

The Bull humped his linebacker’s shoulders. “Mr. Mayor, are you threatening me?”

“Yes.”

And the Bull started to laugh. “Then I’d better not tape our little tête-à-tête.”

“How much did Pearl pay you to whack Trevor Welles and all his men?”

The Bull munched on some peanuts from a bowl. “Isaac, recall. I saved your ass.”

“But you could have prevented me from going on that trip.”

“I’m no Cassandra,” he said. “I can’t predict. I went with the flow.”

“You must have sensed how Trevor was choreographing things. Dragging us through one little nightmare of a town after the other, until the journalists and their camera crews dropped away. He had to prepare for our little accident. David Pearl wanted me dead.”

“Yeah, but I couldn’t pounce until Trevor made his move.”

“And you decided to do a little business,” Isaac said.

“But it didn’t change the complexion of things. The Crusaders had to go. I got the old man on the horn and asked him for a bonus.”

“A bonus? For whacking the vice president–elect?”

“Yeah, he would have liked that. But he couldn’t persuade me. Besides, there was a little hesitation in his voice—he’s fond of you, calls you his protégé. But if I was going to silence the Crusaders, he wanted it clean as a whistle. I probably would have done it anyway. I had to finish off Trevor and his little band. No one could have taken them alive. And they might have hurt Marilyn.”

“Stuff it, Bull. You got your bonus, and I won’t even ask how much it is. But don’t start acting like some morality king. You’re a bigger son of a bitch than I’ll ever be.”

The Bull poured from his green bottle. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“But if you ever side with that old man again, if you so much as wink at him, I’ll whisper in Cottonwood’s ear. And he’ll collapse your whole tent. I have him by the balls. And all your bugs and million-dollar mikes aren’t going to save Pearl. It’s total war, Bull. Keep out of my way.”

Isaac left him there with his green bottle and marched right out of the Waldorf.

* * *

He was haunted in his very own house. His only solace at Gracie Mansion was Marianna Storm. And yet the mansion was full of spies—it was crawling with Secret Service men, and there was also that star clerk, Amanda Wilde. So he kidnapped Marianna out of the kitchen and went up with her to his own heart of darkness, that wasteland of the Bronx. The Big Guy drove her in his sedan. Why should he be so fond of a twelve-year-old girl? Marianna was like a fellow conspirator. She would have been a fabulous secretary of state. And both of them had that sad demean of orphans. It almost seemed worse for Marianna that her parents were still alive. They were ruthless beyond repair. Isaac and Marianna would both suffer with Michael and Clarice in the White House.

Marianna was in love with her delinquent from the Bronx, Angel Carpenteros, who was much too controversial for the Democrats. He’d disappeared from her life, and now Marianna blamed the Big Guy.

“Uncle Isaac, will I ever see Angel again?”

“Not until your father’s in the White House, or the DNC will have our heads.”

“Papa doesn’t belong there,” she muttered. “And why should Angel have to suffer because of lunatics like him and Clarice?”

Ah, it’s politics,
Isaac wanted to say. But he had no answer, and he wouldn’t lie to Marianna Storm. They stopped at Claremont Village, a monolithic world of housing projects that was one more moonscape in the Bronx. And yet Isaac felt comfortable in this outland. He was frightened that it wouldn’t survive. The Pentagon wanted to build its own moonscape, an Indian reservation without Indians and without a heart.

They got out of the car. A local gang surrounded them. Its members had little interest in Isaac or his Glock, since they had Glocks of their own. They were intrigued by Marianna.

“Little Mama, ain’t we seen you before? You’re Angel Carpenteros’ old lady.”

“I only wish,” Marianna said, glaring at Isaac. She had to sign her name on their silk blouses. And then they scattered. Isaac was guilty as hell. But he couldn’t free up Angel Carpenteros.

Another car appeared in these endless dunes. He recognized David’s gunsels. But they couldn’t whack him and Marianna right in front of Claremont Village’s own little gangland. They wouldn’t have left the Bronx alive. But Isaac looked closer into the car. It was carrying a passenger—Inez.

She stepped out of the car. The boldness of her beauty shivered Isaac’s spine. Marianna couldn’t take her eyes off Inez, who could have been the queen of chaos in her silver helmet. Marianna had never been so intimidated by another woman.

“Uncle Isaac,” she growled, “aren’t you going to introduce me to your lady, or will you leave me stranded?”

Inez smiled with that sensuous mouth of hers. “I’m only half his lady,” she said.

“But that half is more than he’s ever had.”

And both of them laughed while Isaac tottered in the wind. They whispered to one another, and then Inez took Isaac’s arm and led him deeper into that moonscape, far from David’s gunsels.

“Darling,” she said, “I had a hard time tracking you.”

Isaac started to groan. He wished Inez would track him for the rest of his life. He’d wait another hundred years for it to happen.

“You ordered me to leave you alone,” he blabbered like some Bronx attorney.

She continued to smile at him. “Darling, you know me. I’m a fickle girl.”

Sidel couldn’t help himself. He started to bawl under the watchful eyes of Marianna and the gunsels. He held Inez in his arms, could feel the thunder of his own heart. He danced with her in the dunes, floated like Fred Astaire. But he couldn’t shut up.

“Inez, you talked about your children, said they were in danger.”

Her heart beat within the Big Guy’s embrace.

“They still are. But I missed your bald spot and your big ears.”

His bitterness crept back. “Missed me so much that you brought your own death squad.”

She was silent for a moment, but that vagabond of vagabonds could no longer read her smile. She slipped out of his embrace.

“Silly boy, the best way of fooling David is to perform right in front of his spies.”

“But you could be his biggest spy,” Isaac had to protest. He was confused, in love with a witch who was wound up in the ancient material of a museum. But she wasn’t a witch. She was another one of David Pearl’s casualties.

“Come back with me,” Isaac said. “I don’t care what pact you have with David. I’ll keep you at Gracie Mansion.”

“As your little love doll?”

“No,” he said. “I won’t even kiss you. Just stay with me—and Marianna.”

“And David will hold my two babies as his hostages. It’s not a deal I can live with.”

“Then why did you come here?”

“I had to see you one last time. I’ve never been in love with such a crazy man. David will let you live—he promised—if you award the Bronx to him. He’ll get you the White House. Just give him the Bronx.”

Isaac’s face darkened in the brutal sunlight. He wanted to run howling into that endless plain of projects.

“Then you are his agent. You’re reading me his terms.”

“He has no terms,” she said. “I’m just trying to protect your sweet face.”

And she brushed her hand against his cheek. The Big Guy trembled. His knees nearly collapsed out from under him. He started to sway like some kind of magic rabbi—the source of his magic was Inez.

“I’ll break him,” Isaac mumbled.

“And if you do, darling, you’ll also break me. I’m wired up to that old man. . . . Couldn’t you forget about the Bronx?”

“And have the generals force every living soul out from under their giant teepee? I’m the mayor. They can’t rob my grocery store.”

She was sobbing now. It wounded Isaac. He’d never seen tears in her eyes.

“Then I’ll just have to mourn you while you’re still alive.”

She wandered toward the gunsels’ car.

“Wait,” he said. But she was gone. She drove away with that little, murderous band. Isaac drifted back to his own car like a dead man.

Marianna was bewildered. “Uncle, what did the beautiful lady want?”

“The Bronx.”

“Then why didn’t you give it to her?”

Isaac couldn’t even explain. David had thrown Inez at him, or perhaps she’d thrown herself. She couldn’t understand what these badlands meant. He’d watched the borough die and die. He’d rather see the worst housing project in creation, with all the mayhem and the drug wars, then that dead village the Pentagon imagined. And David must have realized how bitter it would be for Isaac. That’s why he brought Inez into the equation. He wanted Inez to suck Isaac into some black hole. Perhaps she did love Isaac. He’d have leapt into a black hole with her, have abandoned politics, and whatever little pomp he had, including his own baseball team of stragglers and orphans. But he couldn’t abandon the Bronx. He’d have to find a way to fight for Inez.

H
E WOULDN’T INVADE THE ANSONIA
with his bodyguards. It was a landmark, and half of Isaac’s history was tied to that limestone castle. AR and the first Inez haunted his life. The second Inez haunted him much, much more. He went upstairs to that little museum. Isaac knocked and knocked. He searched for his little bundle of picks. The picks had never failed him, but he tried the Ansonia’s brass knob. The door wasn’t even locked. The Big Guy stole inside and began to whimper. The whole apartment had been picked. There was nothing but barren walls. Even the lampshades and lightbulbs were gone. The Big Guy felt he had been violated. He could almost hear the murmur of his heart.

He strode up to the seventeenth floor. But he couldn’t even get beyond the stairwell. It was thick with David’s own thugs. They couldn’t have been lads from DC. They didn’t have that usual government patina. Yet Isaac recalled none of them. They weren’t part of Manhattan’s modern Maf. They must have come from an old school Isaac couldn’t remember.

“Hey, Big Guy, what do ya want?”

“I’m here to see Mr. Pearl,” Isaac said.

“But Davey don’t wanna see ya.”

“Ask him again,” Isaac said. “As a personal favor.”

The thugs withdrew and came back to the stairwell. They didn’t even pat Isaac down. They let him keep his Glock. That’s how little they feared Isaac Sidel. They followed him into David’s apartment, ducking their heads under the low ceiling, as Isaac did. David was there in his slippers and mangled sweater, but he wore an orange scarf, like one of the Tammany Hall tigers.

“David, why did you get rid of your museum?”

“To eat your heart out. . . . No, I put it all in a warehouse in the Bronx, right next to Robert Moses’ highway. I have to lock horns with a crazy man like you, and you might have stolen all my treasures, out of spite.”

“Stop it,” Isaac said. “I never harmed you.”

David began to cackle. He was performing for his thugs, who could have been phantoms out of AR’s own era.

“Harmed me? You took my livelihood away. The Bronx was my centerpiece. That’s why I bought and bought . . . ”