Under the Eye of God (6 page)

The reporters and Democrats in the ballroom were delighted with Michael’s little war cry. But they kept asking about the Big Guy while they purred at Marianna.

“Mr. President, why isn’t the mayor here with you?”

Michael smiled and spun closer to the Little First Lady. “Don’t jinx me. I’m only president-elect. And I didn’t want to intrude upon the mayor’s time. He has to run this town and prepare for the vice presidency. And Isaac has a will of his own. That’s why we love him.”

“But didn’t he rescue you once, sir, while you were a student radical at Columbia?”

Michael leaned toward the gallery of reporters like some coconspirator. “He didn’t rescue me. He saved my life. I wouldn’t be here with you if he hadn’t knocked some sense into me. That’s why I had to have him on the ticket. If I’m rash again, he’ll knock some sense into me for the next eight years.”

The reporters clapped, but they wouldn’t let him off the podium without questioning the Little First Lady.

“Miss Storm, is it true that you have a swain of your own, a little bandit from the Bronx?”

There was blood in Marianna’s eyes, but she didn’t want to ruin her father’s press conference, so she held back her rage.

“Angel Carpenteros isn’t a bandit. He’s an artist and a Merliner, like me. He decorates the walls of broken buildings. But he had to move upstate.”

Angel had commemorated the fallen warriors of the Bronx’s worst gangs, but he’d also been a rat for the NYPD; everyone wanted Angel dead—the cops, the gangs, and probably the Democrats, who couldn’t afford to have him involved in the Little First Lady’s affairs. If he’d gone back to Spofford, the Bronx’s notorious jail for juveniles, his throat would have been cut within a week. So Isaac hid him upstate. He had brought Angel into the Merliners and then whisked him away.

But the reporters didn’t know that much about Angel Carpen­teros. Suddenly, they had Shakespeare in Manhattan, Romeo and Juliet in the South Bronx. There’d been no daughter of a president-­elect quite like Marianna Storm. They could imagine all the other swains she’d have in DC. They have enough copy for a lifetime.

“Miss Storm, Miss Storm, what will you do on your first day in the White House?”

“Run to Uncle Isaac’s office in the West Wing with a batch of butternut cookies. He can barely survive without them. And I’ll have to alert the White House cook. I’m mistress of whatever kitchen I enter. Papa’s new mansion won’t make much of a difference.”

Everyone was excited again about the White House of J. Michael Storm. But Clarice bristled in front of the reporters. She’d worn her silver lamé dress, could have been Manhattan’s own Cleopatra, and not a soul in the ballroom glanced at her. Reporters heard Clarice mutter “little bitch” under her breath. But she couldn’t ruin Michael’s press conference. She’d never capture the imagination of America. She was part of Michael’s entourage, that’s all. America had a new First Lady, and it wasn’t Clarice.

* * *

The Dems considered Michael’s performance a masterpiece. Their man had triumphed, but the Big Guy wasn’t so sure.
Something stinks,
he muttered to himself. Isaac wondered if a smokescreen was coming directly from the White House. Justice had J. Michael dancing on a stick, and somebody would have to fall. He had his own mavens at Finance rifle through their dossier on Sidereal Ventures, but there were no officers listed other than Michael, Clarice, and the Little First Lady. Sidereal wasn’t in arrears; it paid all its tax bills on time.

But who had asked little Dennis to smoke Isaac
after
the election? Somehow, it was tied up with Sidereal, with Michael’s own dealings. And what about Billy Bob, the maniac in San Antone? That little adventure in the cattlemen’s bar was disguised as a deep Texas plot of far right fanatics. Another smokescreen. And what did Calder have to gain? Isaac was about to dial the White House. But the world had its own fucking magic. The mayor’s phone rang in his empty office at the Ansonia. It sounded like the scream of a bat.

The Prez himself was on the horn. “Isaac, I’m in the neighborhood. Can you meet me at Carl Schurz Park in half an hour?”

“Calder, why Carl Schurz Park?”

“I just landed on your lawn.”

Calder wouldn’t let J. Michael steal Manhattan from him; election or no election, he was still the Prez. And he’d been hovering over the town on board
Marine One
, after a dash to the Rockaways and Jones Beach; his one pinch of popularity was in the outer boroughs. And Isaac had to race up to Gracie Mansion with Calder’s Secret Service. The Prez was still inside his chopper, a hundred yards from the mayor’s mansion;
Marine One
had the nose of an eagle.

Isaac had to have special clearance before he could climb aboard; one of the Prez’s own wild boys patted him down. He had to leave his Glock outside the bird. The inside of
Marine One
was like the bedroom of a trailer, with leather cushions and a rocking chair. Calder was wearing a Stetson and boots from Abilene. He was born and raised in Arizona, but he’d modeled himself after Lyndon Johnson, the most tenacious and successful senator the southland had ever had. Like Lyndon, Cottonwood was a very tall man. He’d come roaring out of the Senate with Lyndon’s own panache. He’d grab you by the lapels, the way Lyndon would, and lift you right up to his nose. It didn’t matter to him that Lyndon was a Democrat and a damn New Dealer. He could spit at you like a snake. And Texas had always been his buffer. It was another country, where men and boys carried guns and would ride two hundred miles for a steak. It had its own music, its own literature, its own profound civility. It was no accident that the official residence of Calder and J. Michael was Houston. It had become America’s new center of gravity.

Calder couldn’t even stand in his own castle. He was nearly eight feet tall in his Stetson, and he would have been inches from the roof of
Marine One
. His boots were hand-carved, a gift from Lady Bird Johnson. He felt like a stranger on Pennsylvania Avenue, in a town that couldn’t even make a decent po’boy or a quesadilla. He’d had to fire half a dozen chefs. He insisted that Isaac drink a root beer with him.

“Mr. President, what the fuck is going on? You could have crucified J., and you’re letting him waltz right into the White House.”

“J. is nothing. You’re the man I feared.”

“Come on,” Isaac said, trying not to belch from the root beer. “The Bull could have hammered me into oblivion. I’ve killed people, I’ve been in bed with the Maf.”

“But folks love that. It’s the Wild West. Besides, you’re a poor man. I had the Treasury boys check your bank account. Isaac, you’ll have to feed on ham sandwiches for the rest of your life. You give your money away to beggars and children in baseball caps.”

“Then how come you tried to have me whacked?”

Calder wasn’t even embarrassed. He’d sent half a dozen hitters after Isaac during the campaign, and all of them failed.

“Son, I was jealous, filled with bile—Isaac, if you’re wearing a wire, I’ll kill you right in this tent.”

“Jesus,” Isaac said, “your own desperados patted me down and took my Glock. I’m naked without it.”

Calder began to cry. “I had the Bull put Margaret in that nursing home. Did she recognize you? I visited with her this afternoon. That’s why I’m here. I choppered right down on the roof of her sanitarium. I held her hand. She looked in my eyes and called me Mr. Death. What kind of name is that?”

“I won’t discuss Margaret with you,” Isaac said.

“Then what else do we have to discuss?”

“Billy Bob Archer and Dennis Cohen.”

The Prez seemed hurt by Isaac’s remark. “I didn’t hire those shooters. Lord, the election is over and done.”

“But Amanda Wilde says that Dennis Cohen once worked for you?”

“And you believed that whore? . . . I did have him on the payroll. But that was a while ago. Besides, I enjoy jousting with you. J.’s a sissy, a lawyer in knee pants who represents millionaire baseball players.”

“Did Dennis work for Sidereal?”

Calder barked like a seal, but it didn’t sound like the laugh of a sane man. “We all work for Sidereal.”

“Yeah,” Isaac said, “and I suppose we’re all star clerks. But Sidereal isn’t in the stars. It’s eating up the Bronx, block by block.”

“That’s J.’s business, not mine.”

“J. doesn’t know shit. He and Clarice are a couple of clerks.”

Something was bothering the Prez, or he wouldn’t have bothered to whirl out of the sky and sit on Isaac’s lawn at Carl Schurz Park. The visit itself was a smokescreen. Calder was frightened of a Bronx corporation that had never even earned a dime. Sidereal. Was Houston money behind the whole plot? Was there some sun god hovering over the Houston Ship Channel with a morbid interest in the Bronx? And had that sun god himself dispatched Calder Cottonwood? The Prez had visited the badlands of the Bronx three times this year. And it couldn’t have been part of his strategy to lure the Latino vote. The Latinos flocked to J., who posed with Puerto Rican and Dominican baseball stars. No, that Texan in the tall hat had been scouring the badlands for something else.

“Mr. President, help me, please. Who the fuck are you afraid of?”

“Son,” Calder said, “I’m afraid of God and the devil, just like everybody else.”

Something still bothered the Big Guy.
Sidereal, Sidereal
.

“Calder, did you send a bunch of army engineers into Claremont Park to survey the badlands of the Bronx?”

The Prez wrinkled his nose. “Isaac, I’ve never been near an army surveyor in my life.”

He snapped his fingers once and turned away from Sidel, who was tossed out of
Marine One
and landed on his ass. And before Isaac could blink, the blades began to whirl and Calder rose into the sky again. Winter dust flew across the lawn. And Isaac felt like some embittered child, beaten in a game he’d never get.

T
HE BIG GUY NO LONGER
cared what embargoes had been placed upon him. He ran to Clarice’s apartment on Sutton Place South. Marianna’s own Secret Service man, Joe Montaigne, wasn’t that eager to let him in. Montaigne was a sharpshooter from Missouri who could have shot out Isaac’s lights.

“Jesus, Joe, I’m not here to see the Little First Lady. I need Marianna’s nurse.”

“She doesn’t have a nurse,” said Joe Montaigne.

“Then her shopping companion, her diction coach—Amanda Wilde.”

Clarice was in the living room with an enormous tumbler of Scotch. She was shivering, and Isaac had to take the tumbler out of her hand.

“Fuck J.,” she said. “Fuck the White House. J. can live there with that little bitch. I’m not moving out of Manhattan.”

“Ah, Clarice,” the Big Guy said. “It’s the media. Those mothers are the real ghouls. Once you occupy the White House, they’ll be mad about you.”

“Shut up,” she said. Her gray eyes had gone all glassy. She fell into Isaac’s arms, and he sat her down on the sofa, while Marianna spied at him from her own playroom, which was larger than the flat Isaac had once had on Rivington Street. Like some blond femme fatale with a little baby fat, she was wearing lipstick and mascara at twelve. Marianna could throw him into immediate despair. She herself had a wistful look, but Isaac wouldn’t give her a chance to say a word.

“I didn’t break our pact. I’m here to see the star clerk—Amanda Wilde.”

And then Amanda appeared; she was no longer roly-poly. She wore lipstick, like Marianna, and was dressed in a perversely seductive black. The Little First Lady must have groomed her. Isaac clutched the star clerk and went out on the terrace with her.

“Amanda, I’m in the dark. What the hell is Calder afraid of? Why does he hover over Manhattan on
Marine One
?”

“He isn’t hovering,” she said. “He’s marking time.”

“I’m slow,” Isaac said. “I don’t get it. He has to bump around in the sky?”

“He’s waiting for Cassandra’s Wall to open.”

Isaac was more confused than ever. “What is Cassandra’s Wall?”

“A very exclusive private club. Even Calder had a hard time getting in. He’s still on probation.”

“The president of the United States has to audition for a club like some college freshman? He’s the one who can kick ass. Cassandra’s Wall should be auditioning for him. But how come I never heard of it? I’m the mayor.”

“Mayors don’t count,” she said. And Isaac was more aggrieved than ever.

“I’ll close it down.”

“You couldn’t get near Cassandra’s Wall . . . without an escort.”

Amanda winked at him. They went back inside the apartment, where Amanda found a sleek winter cape she must have borrowed from Marianna or Clarice. Isaac was wearing a World War II infantryman’s foul-weather coat that he’d swiped from a barrel on Orchard Street. The Big Guy was always searching for bargains. He looked like a refugee from a Manhattan gulag. Amanda went to hug Marianna.

“Baby, I’ll be back.”

“You needn’t rush,” Marianna said, wiggling out of Amanda’s embrace. “I’ll have some whiskey with Clarice.”

“Don’t you dare,” the star clerk said, and began to giggle on the elevator. But she stopped giggling when she saw Martin Boyle in Isaac’s sedan.

“You can’t take him with us to Cassandra’s Wall. The Secret Service isn’t allowed inside.”

“Mr. President,” Boyle said, ruffling his Oklahoman’s nose. “What is Cassandra’s Wall? It isn’t on our itinerary. I’ll have to search the premises.”

“Boyle,” Isaac said. “I’m on a caper. You’ll spoil my fun. . . . I’ll wear my button mike. You can knock the door down if I’m in trouble.”

* * *

Isaac grew bitter when he discovered the home of Cassandra’s Wall. It was right in the basement of the Ansonia, where Plato’s Retreat had once been, and before that the Continental Baths. Isaac had crusaded against the porno mills and sex clubs, and had shut down Plato’s Retreat, the most extravagant of all the clubs, a bathhouse and bordello where most of the “whores” were dentists’ wives from New Jersey.

The Big Guy was outraged. “The bathhouse reopens and no one bothers to tell me? I’ll murder all my building inspectors.”

But Isaac remembered the Ansonia’s basement before it housed the Continental Baths or Plato’s Retreat. It was a swimming hole for retirees when Isaac had visited David Pearl as a woolly boy from the Lower East Side. Part of the basement had also been a Ping-Pong club, when Ping-Pong was a sport to be reckoned with, and there were tournaments in every town across America. Manhattan had its own young champions, Marty Reisman and Dick Miles, who dominated the sport and played epic three-hour matches in Madison Square Garden, held Ping-Pong aficionados in their thrall. And David would accompany Isaac into the bowels of the Ansonia, where Isaac could watch distinguished old men paddle around in bathrobes at their private Polar Bear Club, then turn left, into a ragged Ping-Pong parlor, right under the Ansonia’s steam pipes. David himself would commandeer Reisman, demand a twenty-point spot in a game of twenty-one points, hurl a hundred dollars under the table, clutch his racquet with the stubbornness of a demented man, and lose all the time, while Reisman stood in a red gypsy shirt, with very wide sleeves, and flicked the ball back at David. He was like some half-blind avatar in thick eyeglasses, but Marty Reisman didn’t even have to look at the table. He could attack David’s shots with his eyes closed, hit the ball from some perch behind his back, and still spot David twenty points.