Canto for a Gypsy

  Isadore shrugged. “You know, Roman, I was just getting interested in it.”

  The detective left. Roman remained on the observation platform until the evening Mass was over. A crowd formed in front of St. Patrick’s to see the crown leave in its iron chest. Ambassador Nagy himself directed the security guards driving the cars from the Hungarian mission.

  Roman stepped into the observation souvenir stand and bought a cup of coffee. He took it out with him to the south side of the platform and put a dime of his change into a telescope. It came to life with the whirr of a time bomb.

  He sipped from the cup, then placed it on the wall.

  The telescope lens climbed the tinted windows of the Pan American Building to the roof. In a glass-enclosed terminal, Nagy pushed patrolmen out of the way. The terminal doors opened and the royal chest was carried out to the waiting helicopter.

  Roman watched the Hungarians enclose themselves in the helicopter as its jet-powered rotors began turning. Patrolmen clutched their hats, and the helicopter lurched clear, more as if it were falling upward rather than flying. Roman followed the helicopter until it vanished toward Flushing.

  * * *

  Kore and Dany were waiting when Roman got home.

  On the table were a newspaper article about the crown’s return and three boat tickets.

  “We leave tomorrow, Romano, unless you’ve decided to be a priest. In that case you don’t need either of us.”

  “We are going, aren’t we?” Dany asked.

  “A Yugoslavian freighter. Five thousand Long Island frozen turkeys and us. The Petulengro brothers have stolen a car that was just polished.”

  Roman detoured the conversation by praising Dany’s supper, a dish of “poor man’s caviar,” cold eggplant and garlic. “You ought to try some, Kore.”

  Dany poured Kore a beer. “Then we’re not going,” she said. “If that’s the case, some photographers called today and asked me to take some assignments. What should I tell them? That we’ve decided to stay?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Are we going tomorrow or not?” Kore demanded. “The Magyar crown goes back. What other reason is there to stay? You don’t even give reasons, you just wait another day. We’re not birds, you know. We don’t fly someplace just because you do or stay because you stay.”

  “Then go.” Roman pushed his plate away and stood up, a more astonishing act than Kore’s histrionics because Roman never lost his temper. “Go do your posing and your driving, the two of you. I’m not the King of the Gypsies.”

  When they didn’t go, Roman did.

  Left alone, Dany and Kore looked at each other. She pushed Roman’s plate over the table to the redheaded giant.

  “Here, it’ll just get warm.”

  After observing a period of offended righteousness, Kore unfolded his arms and picked up a fork. Dany found a pack of Roman’s cigarettes and smoked in silence.

  * * *

  Roman walked south through Central Park. Leaves rattled as a wind picked up and cooled the park’s nighttime population of muggers and bums. Roman passed through undisturbed. A light rain washed the air.

  The Gypsy had meant to walk until his anger at himself had cooled, but he found himself outside St. Patrick’s and the rain was coming down harder. He tried one of the cathedral’s front doors. It opened and he went in.

  There was no sign of maintenance men or of Reggel’s guards. It would be typical of the Hungarian, he decided, to put the men in confessionals. Next to the Chapel of the Holy Relics, a door to one of the gallery stairs was open. Nobody stopped Roman as he climbed them.

  Rain muffled his steps while intermittent lightning illuminated the nave. Columns emerged and fell back into the dark. The thunder that followed made chandeliers creak, and far above the altar sooty cardinals’ hats swayed. Roman moved to the organ loft more anxiously. The lightning was bright enough to reach into the confessionals and show him they were vacant.

  The Gypsy’s head snapped back as one arm went around his neck and another into his back.

  He hit the gallery rail at his waist and grabbed the stone with his fingertips. A forearm as powerful as a man-trap twisted his head back farther. As Roman’s fingers slipped off the rail, he kicked sideways and hooked one of the gallery’s slender columns. The arm around his neck yanked him away and the paving of the church floor sixty feet below bobbed into view. He flailed outward with nothing to grab hold of.

  “No,” Roman tried to say, but the arm choked off his throat. Something new, cold as rain but hard, dug into his neck. The hammer of a gun cocked dryly beside his ear. As the barrel burrowed deeper under his jaw, the arm drew out of the way.

  “It’s me,” Roman whispered. He grasped the molding along the top of the gallery to stop his plunge forward. “It’s me.”

  He felt indecision, but the man’s weight kept bending him forward.

  “Pull me back, Reggel. You don’t want to kill me.”

  The hammer slid by centimeters back into its bed. The other arm lifted Roman inside the rail and let go. He dropped on the gallery and rolled on his back. The first thing he saw was the gun still pointed at him.

  Reggel appeared like the dark angel. His hair and clothes were black from crawling into the church’s most inaccessible reaches, the wings of his cheekbones smudged moons under red eyes.

  “What are you doing?” Roman demanded.

  “Waiting to kill him.”

  “In the church?”

  A bolt of lightning hit Madison Avenue behind the Lady Chapel’s blue windows. Reggel’s gun jumped at the flash and swung back to Roman.

  “What you said about the Holy Crown itself being a fake—was that true or a lie?”

  Roman watched the gun. Between the end of the barrel and the carapace was the molding like a wrinkle of flesh. He waited for the revealing flame. After a minute, the gun dropped and Reggel backed against the wall.

  “I’ve decided you lied,” Reggel told him.

  Roman got to his feet. Blood that had been collecting with the immediate prospect of death flowed into his hands.

  “Call it a theory, if you want,” he said.

  Reggel leaned farther into shadow.

  “I did think you were Odrich at first.”

  “Then you realized you’d like to kill me, too. I know. The Magyar will out.”

  Lightning crossed Fifth Avenue and its thunder cut off Roman’s words. During the pause he saw in Reggel an animal conserving its strength.

  “Why are you alone?”

  “Why not? In Hungary when they built a castle they used to leave a man imprisoned in its walls. This church claims me. As long as the Holy Crown is here I have to stay. Only I can’t find the crown. I’ve looked everywhere. And if the crown is not here, the church still claims me.”

  “It could claim better.”

  “Ah.” A note of rationality appeared in Reggel’s voice. “You for one must be relieved.”

  “Churches don’t claim Gypsies.”

  Someone else came in from the storm. It was a man without a raincoat. He propped himself against the fount of holy water and coughed violently until his lungs had wrung themselves out. From the fount, he moved to a bank of votive candles to warm his hands. The candles swarmed around him as a pyre and light reflected from him lit the chapel’s mourning statues. Reggel was poised at the gallery rail as if he were going to launch himself out.

  “When was the last time you slept?” Roman asked. “You’re seeing things that aren’t there.”

  “I’ll see Odrich.”

  “If you happen to be raving at the right door. He has all the keys you do, he has four men and he knows where he’s going. You’ll be the lone protector of the Holy Crown, and they’ll run right over you. If they have to,” Roman added. “At the rate you’re going, you’ll be firing at ghos
ts.”

  “I’m not as crazy as you think. The church has to be empty so they can lead me to the crown. I’ll kill Odrich, and the others will run.”

  Roman sat on the rail, making sure his back was firm against a column.

  “You, Reggel, are a romantic.”

  The man below, no romantic, shook the poor box. Roman couldn’t hear the box’s report over the rain, but the assailant was discouraged. He wandered to the pamphlet rack and took pamphlets down with the zeal of a convert. When he had an armful, he carried his booty to a pew and pulled his trouser legs up. Two pamphlets went inside each sock, half a dozen inside his pants and the rest strategically placed within his shirt.

  “For the warmth,” Reggel explained. “We did exactly the same thing with religious books in Russia. A good Bible could stop a bullet.”

  Holding his armor in place, the visitor made a running start for his dash from St. Patrick’s. They heard his footsteps in the vestibule, the door opening and the rush of rain inside.

  “Now that you’re here, stay. Keep me awake like the ci­ganyi who played soldiers into battle.”

  Roman cocked his head. “Are you sure you aren’t talking about cannibals?”

  But Roman stayed. He and Reggel passed the rest of the night talking on and off about the Gypsy’s trip. Reggel grew enthusiastic, as if he were going along.

  “I will treat you to Budapest and we will stay on the Buda side of the river.” His face twisted with reminiscence of the city. While he spoke, lightning danced from Rockefeller Center up Fiftieth Street. Roman couldn’t help glancing at the son et lumière of the colored windows. On Saint Elizabeth’s skirt of roses the black outline of a linden leaf pressed against the glass abruptly, upside down in the shape of a spade. It was gone with the next gust of rain.

  “What’s the matter, Romano?”

  “Nothing. What were you saying?”

  Before Reggel could say, the church door opened again. Kore walked in to the back of the pews, shaking rain off his hat. Dany followed him.

  “I’m going, Reggel,” Roman said quietly. “So, tell me, what will you do about your threat? What about the Rom in Hungary?”

  “There’s nothing I can do anymore. The orders go through. It would be different if I had the crown.”

  “I’ll give you the Holy Crown for the Rom.”

  Dany and Kore looked around but failed to see the men on the gallery.

  “You’re bluffing, Gypsy. You don’t have the crown.”

  “But I know where it is. The ushers will be here soon. You can leave now and call Budapest from the mission. It will be an hour or so before the experts in Hungary know they have a fake. Retract the order and leave the rest to me.”

  “How will you know I do what you say?”

  “I’ll know. And if I’m wrong about the crown, you can always carry out your threat.”

  Dany was at the door. Kore uttered some exasperated grunts and joined her.

  “Gypsy, tell me the truth. I want to believe you. When did you find out where the crown was?”

  “You showed me, Captain. When you tried to kill me.”

  20

  At Kennedy airport, Csonka took no chances about delivering his former chief to Budapest. Until their flight left he kept Reggel in the men’s room sitting in a toilet cubicle. Csonka held a gun on him from the sinks and another security guard turned away interruptions at the door.

  Two boys pushed their way into the lavatory nevertheless. They were too busy fighting to pay attention to the Hungarians and their guns. Both boys were dark and as alike as brothers, but one was taller and he soon had his opponent on the floor. The one on the bottom screamed as if his life were in danger, although neither of Reggel’s guards understood what was said.

  In a superhuman effort, the smaller boy threw the larger one off. Locked together, they staggered into the guard at the door and accidentally knocked the gun from his hand. A foot kicked the gun through the door into the hall. The guard scrambled for it on all fours. He backed slowly into the lavatory, still on his hands and knees, as Roman brought the gun in. Reggel took Csonka’s gun away.

  “Do we get a gun?” Racki Petulengro asked.

  “You get to drive the Magyar’s car,” Roman answered. “And this time he doesn’t complain.”

  * * *

  It was afternoon and young people were already bringing their blankets into Central Park for a music festival. Until it began they listened to rock on their radios. Nothing was said about a Hungarian crown on the news reports. The warm day turned into a clear night, and by the time the festival began there were 20,000 kids, hippies and what glossy magazines called “career couples” spread out over the grass. In Times Square, theatergoers of another generation sidestepped prostitutes and sneaked looks at peep shows. On the Harlem River boys swung on a new rope from the Highbridge.

  In an office in the Saks Building across from St. Patrick’s the phone rang. The detective at the desk turned down the second inning of the Mets against the Phillies on the radio and picked up the receiver. After a second, he turned the ball game off entirely.

  His partner sitting in a dark adjoining office with a rifle and binoculars waited impatiently for the ballplayers to resume life.

  The cop at the desk hung up.

  “How do you like that? That was the Hungarian mission. They want us to arrest their security chief.”

  “What for?” A response came from the dark office. “Anyway, he’s got diplomatic immunity.”

  “There was something about him refusing to go back to Hungary. His own men are afraid to make the collar, so they want us to. That’s a hell of a situation.”

  The partner finally appeared at the doorway with his rifle and a blank expression.

  “They say he’s in there”—the detective at the desk pointed through the blinds at St. Patrick’s—“with Isadore. Isadore told us not to set foot in the church unless something popped. Now, are we supposed to take orders from the officer in charge or from some Hungarians?”

  “Call the commissioner and find out.”

  * * *

  It was then 10 P.M., six hours after Roman had rescued Reggel.

  Lynch was on Long Island for his daughter’s wedding so that he could use the mayor’s summer cottage for a reception while the mayor was still in South America. The maid who answered the phone said the reception was over and the Lynches had gone with friends to a restaurant. The detectives took down the restaurant’s number. It was standard procedure for the commissioner never to be out of reach of a phone, but Lynch was not at the restaurant.

  Chief of Detectives Alvan Meyer answered his bedside phone at once. He was a big man with panda-sized worry circles under his eyes, and he told the detectives in Saks to stay where they were until he joined them. His wife helped him dress, but he lived on Staten Island and failed to arrive at Saks until midnight. With him was the commander of the Seventeenth Precinct. No one had been able to locate Lynch.

  “Some time for him to disappear,” Meyer observed.

  Everyone knew the chief had been passed over for commissioner. He shuffled to a street map on the office corkboard. Eight red and blue tacks surrounded the block occupied by St. Patrick’s.

  “I thought the crown was back in Hungary.”

  “It is, but Isadore swears this German gang is going to hit tonight.”

  “Hit what?” Meyer picked up the Odrich fact sheet and read it through.

  “Blue’s surveillance around the church and reds are cars, unmarked with plainclothes.” From nervous habit the detective explained the tacks on the map.

  Meyer put the fact sheet down.

  “Isadore thinks he’s a goddamn historian. A gang is going to hit an empty church? Why isn’t Isadore here if this is the command post?”

  “I don’t know. He wouldn’t even take a radio wi
th him.”

  “Sixteen detectives around an empty church.” Meyer thrust his hands in his pockets. “And the Hungarian. What kind of trap is that?”

  Meyer went into the darkened office and stared out the window. His first instinct was to go into St. Patrick’s, apprehend the Hungarian and bawl out Harry Isadore. Not that he had anything against Isadore, but this was Meyer’s first chance to embarrass Lynch. What held him back was in the corner of his eye, the little white palace of the cardinal. Killane could be the only reason Lynch would assign so many men for a futile surveillance, and there was a difference between embarrassing a commissioner and attacking a cardinal. The solution was to take personal command, make sure the Hungarian didn’t escape and let the Times learn how many detectives were misassigned behind the back of their own chief.

  “Shouldn’t we at least try to reach the assistant commissioner?” the precinct commander inquired when Meyer returned. The chain of command went from Lynch to his assistant, and no one was more aware of the fact than Meyer.

  “This is a plainclothes operation no matter who set it up,” Meyer maintained. “If you want to help, you can sweep the area.”

  By 2 A.M. the only suspicious character picked up by the sweep was as officer from BOSSI. The Bureau of Special Services and Investigation had been watching Reggel on its own to update its own Hungarian-American file.

  “Look,” Meyer pleaded, “the Hungarian mission is phoning us every ten minutes to march in there and pick up their captain because he didn’t take a plane today. What do you know about it?”

  The man from BOSSI asked permission to call his headquarters before he answered. It took two minutes.

  “Okay. We followed Reggel to the airport. He had a seat on Czechoslovak Airlines with a connecting flight to Budapest. He changed his mind, I guess, because he came back in town with some Gypsies and holed up in an abandoned apartment house on Houston Street. But why ask me? Detective Isadore was the one who picked up Reggel on Houston Street and brought him to the church. Ask Isadore.”

  “Isadore! That’s why he didn’t take a radio—so we couldn’t ask him,” Meyer burst out.