Elsinore (20 page)

Frog journeyed up to the Phipps Foundation in three separate cabs. It was a habit he couldn't break. He had his own infernal geography. He had to double the distance, no matter what the destination. There were uniformed guards inside the foundation. Holden had to sing like a cantor to get upstairs.

Phipps' office was crowded with all kinds of sheriffs. The billionaire sat behind his desk in that old green cardigan of his. He was whispering to Paul Abruzzi. Then he looked up at Holden with his watery eyes.

“Where were you, Sid?”

“In Bilbao.”

“That's a laugh. I'm falling apart and my number one man has gone on an excursion into Basque country. You should have been more considerate. What were you doing in Bilbao?”

“I had a talk with Bibo.”

The billionaire started to cackle. The cackling turned into a cough. He clutched Paul Abruzzi's sleeve. “Did you hear that, Paul? He's as dumb as his own saintly dad … Sid, while you were sightseeing in Bilbao, Bibo snatched my little girl.”

“Judith?”

“What other little girl do I have? He got you out of the way and had a free hand.”

“It was my idea to meet with him.”

“Volunteered yourself, eh?”

“Yes, I was bargaining … to end your battles.”

“And what sort of bargain did you strike?”

“He wants his bonds and a million a month.”

The billionaire was cackling again. He coughed so hard, Paul Abruzzi had to reach inside his cardigan and stroke the knobs of his back.

“Sid, you are dumb. You really are … The bonds are mine, and Bibo knew he couldn't get a million out of me. He was stalling, playing for time, while his shitty little anarchists grabbed my girl.”

“Suppose it wasn't Bibo.”

“Go on, tell him, Paul. Educate the imbecile.”

“A certain Mr. Bronshtein got in touch after we discovered that Howard's daughter was missing.”

“Solomon Bronshtein,” Phipps said to the Frog. “Your partner in crime. You sold him Aladdin's goods while he was plotting against me.”

“And what did Bronshtein say?”

“He didn't have to say very much, Sid. ‘Mrs. Vanderwelle.' And then he hung up. But Paul will bring her back, won't you, Paul?”

“I'll deliver her myself. I promise.”

“And where is she?” Frog asked.

“Some warehouse, I imagine. In the South Bronx.”

“Or a bungalow in Queens.”

“What's he babbling about?” the billionaire asked, his eyes like two ferocious animals.

“It's nothing, Howard. Holden rescued my daughter-in-law from three crazy brothers.”

“The Pinzolos,” Howard Phipps said. “Rat and Red Mike. I wouldn't forget Holden's biggest gambit. But why's he interfering?”

“He wants to muddy the waters, Howard. That's all. I have my leads. Bronshtein is a novice in New York.”

“But novices often do unexpected things,” Holden said, walking away from Howard's sheriffs.

“Where are you going, Sid? Paul might need you in his investigations.”

“I'll do better on my own.”

“You work for me,” the billionaire said. “I'll decide. You draw on my bread and butter.”

“Then I'll stop drawing. Good-bye.”

And suddenly all that truculence was gone. “I'm helpless without you, Sid. You're like family.”

“No I'm not. I'm just the imbecile you hired in place of my dad. One more Holden in your treasure chest.”

“I could prevent you from leaving, Sid. I have guards everywhere. They could pull down your pants and spank you. All it takes is a word from me.”

“Howard,” Paul said. “I—”

“Shut up. I'm talking to Sid.”

“Let them try to spank me, mister.”

And Holden fled.

None of the guards tampered with him. He took his usual lopsided routes, north to south and north again, and landed at the Manhattan Mimes. Judith Church wasn't savage with him. She sat in her loft without the mummers. She wore a dark body stocking. She was like some phantom in black, with gray, gray hair. Her knees formed a perfect line.

Holden kneeled next to her. “Mrs. Church, I want to find Judith. But I'm in the dark. Help me.”

Holden gripped her hand. “Help me.”

“She's already dead, isn't she, Frog?”

“Not if she's part of this insane struggle. There's nothing to bargain with unless she's alive. But I can't hold all the pieces in my head. Help me. I have to know. Why did you work for Howard after all he did?”

“I started the Mimes on my own. I think every unemployed actor in New York must have auditioned for me. I didn't know it then, but Howard brought them up to Vermont on a special bus. It gave me a feeling of power … to pick and choose. And to have a team of actors without words. Because I had stopped speaking at Elsinore. We trained very hard. It was all so serious. And then we began to speak, like children in a fable. I had to discover every word all over again. That's what got me out of Elsinore. The Mimes. Howard watched us perform somewhere. He knew I despised him, but he sent an emissary, a sweet man.”

Frog moaned to himself. “Howard sent my dad to you.”

“Yes. Micklejohn. He came with a proposition from Howard to put on little events … for a handsome price. It was fun at first. We were only swindling other swindlers.”

“And every time Howard needed something, he sent my dad.”

“Yes. Nothing could have been accomplished without your father. He was the go-between. He was the glue. He argued for Howard. He was an eloquent man.”

“That's funny. My dad never said a word to me.”

Frog recalled those long, terrible silences between them. He couldn't bear to think about his dad.

“Tell me, Mrs. Church, is Judith Howard's daughter?”

“Yes.”

“And you invented that fable of other men.”

“To hurt Howard. His minions would never have dared sleep with me. They were frightened of his every move. And I wasn't sane enough to seduce the local woodcutter … Howard would come up to Elsinore, blindfold me, and make love to a madwoman.”

“And you bit him on the mouth.”

“I clawed his eyes. I left scars on his back. He has arthritis from the wounds I made. It's been like that ever since we met. I run from Howard. He chases me. He's cruel. I punish him. He couldn't buy me with his Supper Club or the Manhattan Mimes. And I took away his own daughter. Now he loves her twice as much. That's why she was stolen. I'm sure of it. Howard will have to surrender … if it's not too late.”

“She's alive, Mrs. Church. Trust me. I've been in my own battles.”

“And you'll bring her back?”

“I'll try,” Holden said.

Kronstadt was some kind of key. He felt it in his bones. That uptown heiress would lead him to little Judith. Frog only had to follow her tracks. It didn't matter that Kronstadt wasn't in the neighborhood. Frog knew how to deal with the dead.

“Mrs. Church, tell me about Marcus Reims.”

“Marcus Reims was a fiction, one of Howard's invented names.”

“Did he ever use it at the Supper Club?”

“He didn't have to. He'd changed hats. He was Howard Phipps.”

“And did he talk of Frieda Kronstadt?”

“Of course not. He'd killed her. He wouldn't mention Kronstadt to me.”

“And Reims was her partner?”

“And her pimp.”

“But they did have other partners?”

“Hundreds. Howard was very enterprising.”

“But think, Mrs. Church. Did you hear a name?”

“Do you know how hard we had to dig? It took us years to locate Morton Katz. And there could have been other Kronstadts. Howard was very efficient at burying his past.”

“Did you stumble onto some gang … like the Westies?”

“Mr. Holden, we weren't looking for gangs.… I want my child. I can lend you the Mimes. They've been searching for Bronshtein. I think he's in France.”

“No. Bronshtein wouldn't return to his nest. Howard could pick him off.”

“Then where is he?”

“Squirreled away … with your daughter.”

“Mr. Holden,” she said, her hand still in his. “We can mount whatever installation you wish.”

“Installations won't get me to that furrier or little Judith. I don't need fables … like that afternoon in Queens when I met Dr. Garden, and all the Mimes were in masquerade. That wasn't you I saw, pretending to be Fay.”

“No.”

“I'm glad,” Holden said. “It always bothered me. I mean, you're a wonderful actress. But I would have known. Fay is Fay. You borrowed her from Abruzzi, didn't you?”

“Yes.”

“And you were coaching her from behind a curtain. You got her to play herself.”

His bumper's instincts hadn't failed him.

Big Judith started to cry. Ah, she
was
as beautiful as his dad's black mistress, this dark lady of Elsinore, who'd borne a child in the middle of a forest. And Holden started thinking of woods. Paul Abruzzi was caught in his own maze. He loved Manhattan too much. That was disastrous for a Queens D.A. Little Judith wasn't in any of the five boroughs. Holden would bet his life on that, though it wasn't worth very much. He was the president of a laundering operation called Aladdin, a retired bumper who was good at writing checks. The money in Aladdin's account was almost as lyrical as the great Hirsch. Liquid gold.

He'd had his network of rats, but no rat could help him now. He could have gone to that encyclopedist, Tosh, and gathered up lists of gangs that might have surrounded the mythical Marcus Reims, but he didn't want encyclopedias. Some kind of crazy string had been pulling Holden all along. He'd been lied to, cozened, duped, hurled down flights of stairs, swindled out of his darling, but he was like a sleepwalker on his way to Mrs. Vanderwelle. He unearthed a .22 long from his bedroom-office. He didn't trust package men anymore. He rented a Plymouth, signed for it as S. Holden. He was sick of aliases. And he wasn't going to turn his life into one long installation.

Frog was on a dream ride. He stopped in New Haven, but he didn't have lunch at Phippsy's Italian restaurant, because the waiters might have recognized him and Frog wasn't sure whose side they were on. He bought a hundred pounds of steak and went to Woods Hole, where he took the ferry. He sat inside the carwell with his treasure of meat and arrived on Martha's Vineyard in a thick black fog that obscured the ferry slip. He couldn't see a face. If there was a shotgun party waiting for Frog, he would have broken through in his Plymouth. He had the luck of a sleepwalker.

He crossed over to Chappaquiddick on the little open ferry. The water seemed to boil under Holden. The fog began to lift. He could see the ferryman's face. The smile was enormous, as if the ferryman had been expecting Frog. He wore an orange bib that looked like a bolt of dried blood. Holden couldn't take a chance. When he reached the other side of the channel, he got out of his car and socked the ferryman in the head. The ferryman had the startled look of a baby as he sank into Holden's arms. Holden locked him in the trunk.

He drove to the Cardinales' junkyard and took out the meat. The same pack of dogs appeared. They had blood in their eyes. None of them barked. Holden could have poisoned the steaks. But it would have distressed him to watch so many dogs writhing on the ground. He tossed the steaks into the air, one after the other, and the dogs leapt up as fast as they could, their fat bodies wobbling for a moment. It tormented them that they couldn't catch all the steaks. They looked like rats with big ears. Holden was the candy man. The dogs started to grovel near his legs. They couldn't decide whether to eat the steaks or lick Holden's hand. He didn't want them in that kind of frenzy. He kneeled with them for a while. He scratched their necks. He was the candy man.

Soon they ignored him and gobbled the meat. Holden got up and went toward Ethan Coleridge's orange house. It was Rockaway all over again. Now he was rescuing a new darling. He could never retire.

Minot, Ethan's youngest boy, who had to be in his mid seventies, emerged from behind an ancient toilet commode. Frog was astounded by his quickness. Minot was holding a shotgun that seemed like a toy in his gigantic paws. It was a bumper's paradise on Chappaquiddick. Holden was the amateur here.

“You shouldn't have come, little Sid. This is our island.”

“Minot, how's your dad and your brother Paul?”

“Don't distract me. I never bothered you off-island. We left you and Phippsy alone.”

Holden shot him between the eyes. Minot collapsed with spittle in his mouth and died without giving up his gun. But Holden had advertised himself with a pop that echoed off toilet commodes and rusted weather vanes and traveled like some swollen arc across the fields and slapped the orange house with an incredible din.

Holden hiked toward the house and Paul came rushing out to greet him like some lovesick cavalier. He had nothing but a shovel in his hands. Holden had to admire his crazy courage.