Elsinore (23 page)

“Paul Abruzzi.”

“Yes. The district attorney of Queens. And if such a man is on Hirsch's side, Hirsch can do whatever he wants. That's when I moved into the synagogue. But his voice comes through the walls. I can't forget how sweet it was. He's right. I am his choirboy. I always was. I never recovered from Hirsch. It was like having a terrible knock on the head. What a melodic line! He never dramatized, like the other cantors. He never wore his hair long. He didn't pretend to be some King David. He was Hirsch. His robes were linen, not silk. He hardly had a beard. He was song, pure song, without the coloratura of lesser cantors. Hirsch wouldn't entertain. He pleaded for our lives. He spoke for every sinner in the shul. That's what killed me. A bandit like him had God's ear … still does. And we have to crawl like mice. Holden, get out of here.”

“But I can't leave you like this. Abruzzi could come again, and he might not be so kind.”

“He wouldn't touch me, not in Hirsch's old house … What did you ever do to Hirsch?”

“Does it matter? I'm his enemy now. If there is trouble, Morton, go to Chappaquiddick and wait for me.”

“I'm not such a world traveler, Mr. Holden. Between here and Esterhazy, that's what I know.”

And Frog walked out of the shul.

He was the invisible man. Not because Phippsy seemed to want him dead, or his own uniform lent him some kind of a cloak. Frog had lost his contact points. He was a pariah with one particular talent. He went to the Algonquin, sat near Abruzzi's Round Table. The invisible man wasn't taking a chance. He hunched in his chair, with his service cap over one eye. He had a gin and tonic, and the waiters were amused to see a Salvation Army soldier guzzle gin. But they forgot the soldier after his second drink. Abruzzi's acolytes began to arrive, detectives who'd become his private enforcers, who would have done anything for Paul. And then Paul appeared with that handsome white hair, the prince of this hotel.

“Children, any word of the brat?”

“Paul, we've checked all his corridors, all his haunts. We've wired up Aladdin—”

“Not so loud,” Paul said. “He's flown the coop. That's a fact.”

“He wasn't on the ferry. He wasn't on a plane. We would have been down on him like a hawk.”

“Well, the old man has given this commission to me. I won't look silly, understand? Holden has to be found.”

Paul winked at a waiter and had his first Irish coffee. Then he started to hum and Holden became some trifle he could store in his pocket with petty cash and deposit slips and invitations to dinners he'd never attend. His boy Rex had won the Pulitzer Prize. His daughter-in-law was back with her family. And Paul would become a justice of the State Supreme Court as soon as there was a seat on the bench. He had years and years to go.

Petitioners approached him, the little men of his own county who came into Manhattan to beg personal favors from Paul. “Your Honor,” they called him, since he was already like a judge.

“Your Honor, what about that franchise at Cunningham Park?”

“Don't get greedy.”

“But we could triple our volume if we had one little nod from Howard Phipps.”

“Do you think he would bother with the likes of you? He has his foundation to run.”

Paul's bladder began to ache after the fifth Irish coffee. “I ought to go and tinkle … mind the store,” he said to his acolytes. And he trudged down the little crooked staircase to the Algonquin's toilet, his pockets thick with notes. But he never had the chance to pee. He felt something like a hammer on his head. It was only a fist. Paul dropped to his knees.”A hand pushed his face down into the elegant muck of the marble floor.

“Hello, Paul.”

“Who is it?”

“Your angel, Sidney Holden.”

“I should have figured you'd be in the toilet, waiting to get the drop on me. That's why you've been so scarce.”

“You're wrong, Paul. I've been dogging you day and night. You shouldn't talk about commissions from Howard. That wasn't nice. And I like the way you stuff pieces of paper in your pocket. How are things at Cunningham Park?”

“Holden, what do you want?”

“Can't you guess?”

“You wouldn't kill me. I'm not some barfly. I'm the D.A.”

“I have nothing to lose, Paul. I'm already a dead man.”

“But I could call off Howard's bloodhounds.”

“The hounds are yours.”

And Holden pushed a little harder, until Paul's face squeezed against the marble tiles and his mouth kissed the floor. He seemed to talk out of some great hollow. “Holden, Fay's been asking about you.”

“Stop it, Paul. She's on another planet.”

“But Fay—”

Holden pushed some more. And Abruzzi had the imprint of a tile on his forehead, like some fabulous mark of the Algonquin.

“Paul, does she remember her children?”

“Sometimes.”

“And you?”

“Hardly at all.”

“Now tell me where little Judith is?”

“I don't know.”

Holden pushed and pushed until Paul's mouth started to bleed. He was beginning to strangle on his own blood.

“Where's little Judith?”

“I … don't … know.” Each word Paul uttered cost him more blood. “Howard wouldn't … confide … in me.”

“Yet you'd kill for him. You had your shooflies wire up Aladdin so I'd pull my own trigger when I walked in. You're a sweetheart, Paul. You really are.”

Holden could have dispatched him with one more push. But he wanted Paul to come out of the toilet alive, to face his own detectives with dirt on his clothes, the nimble prince of Queens. Frog couldn't linger. A guest of the Algonquin might decide to use the facilities and discover Paul. Frog stepped over the district attorney, washed his hands, and walked out of the Algonquin.

He dialed Mrs. Church from the corner phone booth. He could have gone uptown to the Mimes, but he was sick of running around as God's little soldier. Frog needed some sleep. “It's Holden, Mrs. Church. Is Judith all right?”

“I can't talk,” she said. “Where are you?”

“Near Grand Central.”

“I'll meet you in half an hour. Under the clock.”

And Frog loped toward Grand Central Station. It was after the commuter hour. And the terminal was filled with homeless men and women, nighthawks, and religious soldiers like himself. Frog looked up at the barreled ceiling and caught a glimpse of paradise: all the monsters of the zodiac were nesting in a faint green field. They couldn't frighten the Frog. They were like lyrical children pinned to the sky. Taurus. Cancer. Capricorn. Aries with his horns and beard and big, big, eyes. What if Frog himself were some night sign? The lost brother of Aquarius. Scorpio's cousin. The monsters stared down at him with such warmth that Holden wanted to die. These were the only playmates he'd ever have.

He wouldn't budge when Mrs. Church arrived. He wasn't being cautious. He was dreaming of rams and lions. And then he watched the sheriffs drift into the terminal, one by one, blocking the exits, laughing at the homeless, and looking for Sidney Holden. At first he thought it was some accident that the sheriffs should appear so soon after Mrs. Church. He watched. He waited. The sheriffs buzzed around Mrs. Church. And then he realized that big Judith had managed the whole affair. Frog was in the middle of one more installation. But Mrs. Church hadn't counted on the terminal's peculiar traffic. She couldn't control that much malaise.

Frog drifted past red-faced men with fingerless gloves, starving children, and the sheriffs who clicked their teeth. Mrs. Church stood under the clock. And Frog fell asleep near a little caravan of crates that belonged to the men with fingerless gloves. No one harmed him. And when the cops arrived at curfew, marched down the terminal steps to kick out all the stragglers, anyone without a driver's license or some other proof of address, they didn't disturb him.

“Sorry, soldier,” they said as they tore apart the little caravan.

He stayed through the night. He didn't have any stratagems. He woke as the terminal began to fill. A woman removed a sandwich from her attaché case and offered it to him. Frog took the sandwich.

“You must be dreadfully tired,” she said, “working through the night, taking care of people. You're the kindest soldier I've ever seen.”

And suddenly Frog had his key. He walked to the Phipps Foundaton. He presented himself. The guards at the door wouldn't question a Salvation Army soldier. They must have figured he had an appointment to beg or borrow from one of Phipps' charities. He looked a little lonesome and he could use a shave. But he was harmless under his service cap. He walked through the metal detector the guards themselves had installed. Holden wasn't carrying. He'd lost his .22 while swimming in the Chappaquiddick creek.

He went up to Phipps' office. It was cluttered with shooflies and sheriffs. Frog smiled at the receptionist. He invented a persona for himself, picked it out of the blue.

“I have an appointment with Mrs. Vanderwelle,” he said. “I'm Colonel Baxter's aide-de-camp … Baxter of the Eastern Territory.”

“I'm sorry,” the receptionist said. “Mrs. Vanderwelle is ill.”

“Then I'd like to see Howard Phipps.”

“We never disturb Mr. Phipps while he's having lunch. What's the nature of your appointment?”

“Soup kitchens,” Frog said. “Soup kitchens in the Eastern Territory.”

“Then I'll direct you to Mr. Atwood. He's handling Mrs. Vanderwelle's affairs … third door to the left. His secretary will see you.”

And she buzzed Frog into the foundation. He had a kind of merry murder in his blood. He moved toward Phipps' private elevator car. A sheriff stopped him.

“Hey, you with the hat, no one's allowed in that elevator.”

Frog socked the sheriff between the eyes and shoved him into a closet. He got into Phippsy's elevator and rode upstairs to the Supper Club. He nodded his head, winked at strangers, and saw Howard having lunch all alone in the middle of that enormous room.

Frog sat down at the next table. Bodyguards, waiters, and the maître d' descended upon him. “Sorry, but we're not open to the public … you can't sit here.”

“Sure I can,” Frog said. “I'm Phippsy's guest.”

“Your name, sir?”

“Marcus Reims.”

And the old billionaire started to laugh. “It's Holden, can't you tell?”

The waiters drew pistols out of their tight coats. But the billionaire warned them off. “Invite him to my table, Mr. Charles,” he said to the maître d'. “And then take a walk. All of you. Scram.”

Holden joined the billionaire.

“I recognized you right away. Sid, I never look at coats.”

“That's because you have some imagination.”

“No. It's the opposite. Markings don't interest me much. Would you care for some curry? I hired a new chef.”

“I'll have what you're having.”

“You're a growing boy. You can't nibble on crackers and cheese.”

“Why not?”

And the billionaire screamed across the length of the Supper Club. “Mr. Charles …”

“I don't want another setting, Phippsy. We'll share.”

Charles had come running with his cavalry of waiters. Howard had to dismiss him again. And Holden sat under the murals of that fictitious New York, where each traveler had his own bicycle with wings, and he ate a rat's portion of cheese.

“Go on,” Phipps said. “Why don't you strangle me?”

“I don't do mercy killings.”

“Mercy killings, huh? You're a regular mortality machine. Do you know how much you cost me this week in damages alone?”

“You can afford it.”

“That's not the issue. I'm talking dollars and cents … I've been waiting for you, Sid.”

“And wishing me dead.”

“It comes to the same thing. I set up a little obstacle course. You passed the test.”

“Hirschele, you had my grave prepared on Chappaquiddick. I got lucky, that's all. You made up with the Swisser, didn't you?”

“Had to, Sid. Or he would have run me into the ground.”

“Bronshtein was the fall guy. He never had a chance.”

“He shouldn't have run around with thieves. The man doomed himself when he kidnapped my daughter.”

“Kidnapped? You knew all along she was on the island. That's why you let Paul Abruzzi pish around. Everyone's a player in Phippsy's Supper Club. You were going to arrive with your magic ambulance, rescue Judith, finish off Bronshtein and the whole Cardinale clan.”

“You shouldn't have meddled.”

“I was trying to save your little girl.”

“You shouldn't have meddled. You went to Bilbao. You talked to Bibo. You weren't my Sid.”

“Old man, you've had me ticketed for years. I was your sleeper. I killed Red Mike for you. I knocked off the Cuban Maf. And I went into retirement with Fay Abruzzi. But Paul was your man. You took Fay from me, like you took the twig. And then you woke the little sleeper. Why?”