Marilyn the Wild Read Online Free PDF Page B

remained visionaries, and Isaac joined the police. He screamed for Pimloe, who ran the First Deputy’s rat squad whenever Isaac was away. Pimloe arrived with his clipboard and a goldnubbed fountain pen. He was wearing his Harvard Phi Beta Kappa key. Isaac despised Pimloe’s key. He’d had four miserable semesters at Columbia College, living in a monk’s closet on Momingside Heights.
    â€œWhere’s Coen?”
    â€œHe’s out tracking leads, like everybody else.” Pimloe waved the clipboard, which held a detailed map of lower Manhattan, with green boxes for City parks, and a blue star for Headquarters; the map was littered with marks from Pimloe’s fountain pen. “Isaac, they hit twenty places last week. Six between Essex and the Bowery, six in Chinatown, five in Little Italy, one in SoHo, and two on Hudson Street. Barney calls them the lollipop kids. Some old guinzo in Little Italy swears they came into his store sucking lollipops.”
    â€œHerbert, are you cooperating with Barney Rosenblatt?”
    â€œIsaac, you can’t shove Cowboy out of this. The PC is backing him up.”
    â€œI’ll shove when I have to shove. Herbert, there’s more than one gang working the streets. Could be your map is a little off, and we’ve got a whole bunch of lollipops on our hands.”
    â€œIsaac, it fits. They punch old people. They wear masks. They won’t take money.”
    â€œWhat’s your theory, Herbert? Tell me your thoughts.”
    â€œFreaks. Definitely freaks. They attack, hide, and attack. A fucking lollipop war.”
    â€œIs my mother included in your theory?”
    â€œIsaac, what do you mean? That was strictly random. It could have been any old woman in a store.”
    â€œRandom, my ass. Somebody’s sending me a kite, and I can’t figure why. Herbert, what have you got?”
    Pimloe led the Chief to his favored niche outside the interrogation room on the second floor. They stared through the one-way mirror at the suspects Pimloe, Barney Rosenblatt, and the “crows” had rounded up for Isaac: retards from an Eighth Avenue hotel, winos fresh from Chinatown, a black whore with scabs on her knees, runaways from a New Jersey mental hospital, and two Puerto Rican cops disguised as pimps, so that Isaac could have a spectacular lineup. He scanned the faces only once, his lip curling high. “Let ’em go.”
    Isaac went around the corner to Margedonna’s Bar and Grille. The barman wouldn’t grin. Isaac tried the back room, where the Chief of Detectives was sitting with his “crows,” their black leather coats humped against the wall on a line of pegs. Isaac approached Barney Rosenblatt’s long table. None of the “crows” stood up for him. They stuffed their cheeks with eggplant and watched.
    Barney Rosenblatt was the number-one Jew cop in the City of New York. He hated Isaac more than the Irish chiefs who surrounded him. Isaac undermined Barney’s detectives with his squad of rats and personal spies. Both of them were officers in the Hands of Esau, a police fraternity for Jews. They squabbled here as much as they did at Headquarters. The Hands of Esau was in constant jeopardy on account of them.
    Barney wore a Colt with his name and rank engraved right over the trigger, and a quick-draw holster with tassels at the bottom, like Buffalo Bill. Sliding out from the table, he gripped the holster’s beard to prevent the Colt from stabbing him in the belly. The “crows” had swallowed too many red peppers: their eyes watered at the vision of Barney embracing Isaac. Were these burly men or dancing bears?
    There was nothing sanctimonious about Cowboy’s embrace. He squeezed Isaac’s ribs with devotion. Barney wasn’t a piddling warrior; he shared the grief of his enemies.
    But Isaac hadn’t interrupted Cowboy’s lunch for a bear-hug, and the smell of Chianti in a bottle