Under the Eye of God Read Online Free PDF Page B

Wilde.
    “What’s your name?” Isaac asked.
    “The wife is sick. She has dizzy spells. I can’t afford to take her to a heart doctor.”
    “What’s your name?”
    “Archibald Stearns.”
    Isaac had to be quick. He didn’t want Martin Boyle to reappear with a gaggle of Secret Service men. Isaac would be stuck with a permanent shadow.
    “Well, Archie, I’m the mayor, or did you forget? No one’s gonna drive you out of the Ansonia. Trust me.”
    “Like I’d trust my mother,” Archibald said, his fishy eyes wandering around with a rapid, lunatic rhythm. Isaac plucked the gun out of his hand and tossed it into the stairwell.
    “That’s better, Archie. Shouldn’t point a gun. I’m only human.”
    Archibald Stearns ran down the stairs, and Isaac would have chased after him, but the sun got in his eyes, blinded him for an instant, and Stearns was already gone. Isaac went back to his apartment like a sleepwalker and said to his Secret Service man, “Call Columbia Presbyterian and ask for the biggest heart specialist. Have him come to the Ansonia.”
    “Are you having palpitations, sir?”
    “No, no. It’s not for me. It’s for Archie’s wife.”
    “Who’s Archie?”
    “The guy on the stairs. Archibald Stearns. Find out where he lives . . . in the Ansonia. And charge the doctor’s visit to my election fund.”
    Isaac dismissed Boyle and got Seligman on the horn. “Tim, will you tell me who owns this goddamn white elephant, huh?”
    “An admirer.”
    “That’s grand. Will ya give me his name?”
    “I can’t disclose that. I’m sworn to secrecy. But he’s contributed to your campaign in a big way.”
    “Then Archie’s right,” Isaac muttered. “I am driving people out of the Ansonia. I am the villain of this little piece. . . . Do I have to start digging, Tim? I’ll find the fucker and break his neck. Should I call the Village Voice , tell them that the Democratic National Committee is pro-landlord? That will really make us the hit of Manhattan.”
    “Isaac, I still can’t deliver him. But if you’re that suicidal, we might as well let the Prez piss in the Rose Garden forever. Good-bye.”
    Isaac had a dead phone in his fist. Fuck the Democrats. He’d have to do a little “detectiving” at the Ansonia, but where to begin? And then he noticed an envelope on his desk. It contained the lease for subtenant Isaac Sidel, c/o the Democratic National Committee and a certain Inez Corporation. Isaac was a dope. Inez . Rothstein’s beautiful blond mistress with legs as silky as an ostrich feather. David Pearl hadn’t fled the Ansonia. He’d exiled himself to his eagle’s roost on the sixteenth floor.
    Isaac climbed up one flight, slid along the Ansonia’s carpets, and knocked on David’s door. But he’d misfired. An opera singer now lived in David’s old roost. And by chance, on a sudden whim, he climbed up to the seventeenth floor. The maids of rich men had once been shelved here. That’s what David had told him. The ceilings were low, the rooms were tiny, and comprised a labyrinth of cubicles, a rat’s maze.
    Isaac could only find one door. He wasn’t shy.
    “Open,” he said. “I have my lock picks, David. And I could ask the Secret Service to lend me a battering ram.”
    “Who is it?” someone growled from inside the door.
    “The Citizen. Isaac Sidel.”
    “Are you still wearing short pants?”
    “I’ve outgrown them lately.”
    The door opened, and Isaac recognized David Pearl’s big brown eyes. The boy banker hadn’t aged, like the Citizen himself. His hair was white, but his beautiful features hadn’t coarsened a bit. Isaac perused David’s labyrinth—the tiny, rattish rooms, cluttered with cardboard boxes and books. Isaac had to duck his head before he could enter. That’s how low the ceilings were. He felt like some loutish Gulliver in the land of the small.
    “Why did you move into this maze?” Isaac growled.
    “It fits my temperament. I’m a recluse.”
    Isaac