Sunday comes like it always does for Malone, with a vague childhood unease at not going to Mass.
Malone dozed more than slept, his waking thoughts about Claudette.
Now he makes two coffees, goes back into the bedroom and wakes her up. She opens her eyes and he sees it takes a second or two for her to recognize him. “Good morning, baby.”
Claudette smiles.
A tranquil, Sunday-morning we-can-lay-around-in-bed smile.
He says, “Last night—”
“Was beautiful, baby,” she says. “Thank you again.”
She doesn’t remember a fucking thing. She will, he thinks, when she really comes to and the jones start to kick in.
He should stay with her, he knows it.
But—
“I have to go to work,” he says.
“It’s Sunday.”
“So go back to sleep.”
“I think I will,” she says.
La Luna is old school, Malone thinks.
Kind of place Savino sees in his wet dreams. All the way down in the Village, they want me away from my turf.
And the Ciminos have a crew down here.
What he should have done was call Russo, maybe Monty, too. Have them back him up.
Except the meeting is about him being a rat.
Maybe O’Dell.
That’s what he should have done, but he decided fuck that.
Sciollo meets him at the door. “I have to pat you down, Denny.”
“There’s a nine at my waist,” Malone says. “A Beretta at my back.”
“Thanks.” Sciollo takes the weapons from him. “I’ll give them back on your way out.”
Yeah, Malone thinks. If I’m coming out.
Sciollo pats him down for a wire. Doesn’t find one and takes him to a booth in the back. The place is almost empty, a few guys at the bar, one couple making out.
Savino sits in a booth with Stevie Bruno, who looks out of place in his all-L.L.Bean wardrobe—checked shirt, vest, tan corduroy slacks and Dockers. He even has a canvas man-bag on the seat beside him. He don’t look happy behind his cup of tea, the suburban godfather forced to come into the dirty city.
He has four guys with him, within sight and out of earshot.
Bruno nods to Malone to sit down in the booth. Malone does and Sciollo sits in a chair near the edge of the booth.
They have him blocked in.
“Denny Malone, Stevie Bruno,” Savino says. He has this nervous, edgy smile on his face.
“The couple starting a family at the bar,” Malone says. “Which one’s the hitter, the boy or the girl?”
“You seen too many movies,” Bruno says.
“I just want to see a few more.”
“You want a drink, Denny?” Savino asks.
“No thanks.”
“First for an Irish guy,” Savino says. “I never seen it before.”
“You bring me down here to do jokes?”
“It’s no joke,” Bruno says. “Word all over is you’re a CW for the feds.”
Wiseguys don’t mind cops so much but they hate feds, viewing them as fascists and persecutors who pick on anyone with a vowel at the end of his name. They particularly hate Italian feds and rats who inform for the feds.
Malone knows the distinction—an undercover cop playing a role isn’t a rat. A dirty cop who’s been in business with them and then flips is.
“You believe that?” he asks.
“I don’t want to believe it,” Savino says. “Tell us it isn’t true.”
“It isn’t true.”
“The dying words of a man to his wife,” Bruno says. “I tend to believe that.”
“The feds had both me and Torres up,” Malone says. “I don’t know how. I can only tell you I wasn’t wearing a wire.”
“Then why did they bring Torres in and not you?” Bruno asks.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s even worse.”
“Torres didn’t know about my relationship with your family,” Malone says. “I never discussed it with him, so you can’t be on any tape they have of me and him.”
“But if the feds bring you in,” Bruno says, “they’ll flip you about everything.”
Savino looks at Malone anxiously. Malone knows what he’s thinking, what he don’t want him to say: If I was a CW for the feds, Savino here would have already been busted on a thirty-to-life heroin beef and he’d be trading up for you as we speak.
Instead Malone says, “How much money have I made for the Cimino borgata? How many bags of cash have I taken to prosecutors, judges, city officials for contract bids? Over how many years with no problems?”
“I don’t know,” Bruno says. “I was in Lewisburg.”
Jesus fuck, Savino, say something.
But Savino don’t.
Malone says, “Fifteen years don’t mean anything?”
“It means a lot,” Bruno says. “But I don’t know you at all, because I was away most of that time.”
Malone stares at Savino, who finally says, “He’s good people, Stevie.”
“You’d bet your life on that?” Bruno asks, giving Savino the death stare. “Because that’s what you’re doing.”
Savino takes a second to answer.
It’s a long goddamn second.
“I would, Stevie,” he says. “I vouch for him.”
Bruno takes this in and then asks, “What are you going to tell the feds?”
“Nothing.”
“You can do four to eight?”
“It’ll be closer to four,” Malone says. “Your guys will keep the brothers from making me their bitch, right?”
“Stand-up guys,” Bruno says, “don’t get bent over.”
“I’m a stand-up guy,” Malone says.
“Here’s the problem,” Bruno says. “You’re looking at four, but I get popped for as much as littering, I die in the joint. So the big question for me right now is, can I take the risk? If you’re a rat, tell the truth now, we’ll make it quick and painless, I’ll make sure your wife gets her envelope. Otherwise . . . if I have to drag the truth out of you . . . it’s going to be ugly, and your missus is on her own.”
Malone feels anger rising inside him like boiling water and he can’t turn the flame off under it. And he knows they’re testing him, giving him the out just like a pair of cops in the room would do.
Any sign of weakness, he’s dead.
So he goes the other way with it.
“Never threaten me,” Malone says. “Never threaten my money. Never threaten my wife.”
“Take it easy, Denny,” Savino says.
Bruno says, “We just want the truth.”
“I told you the truth,” Malone says.
“Okay,” Bruno says. He reaches into his man-bag and comes out with a stack of paper and lays it on the table. “What’s the truth about this, stand-up guy?”
Malone sees his 302.
He grabs Sciollo by the hair, slams his face into the table and kicks the chair out from under him. Then Malone reaches into his boot, comes out with the SOG knife, grabs Savino by the head and puts the blade to his neck.
Two guys, one of them the guy who was kissing the girl, pull guns.
“I’ll cut his guinea throat,” Malone says.
“Get out of his way,” Savino groans.
They look to Bruno, who nods.
He’d do a clean hit in the place, but he ain’t gonna allow a bloodbath that ends up on the front page of the Post.
Malone drags Savino out of the booth and backs toward the door, holding Savino as a shield, the blade along his throat. He says to Bruno, “You want me to go O.J. on him, threaten my wife again. Go on, open your mouth to me about her again.”
“He’s a dead man anyway,” Bruno says. “So are you. Enjoy your last day on earth, rat motherfucker.”
Malone reaches backward for the door handle, pushes Savino down and goes out the door.
Trots to his car down the block.
“He had my 302!” Malone yells.
“All right,” O’Dell says. But he’s shook.
“‘It’s secure,’ you told me,” Malone yells, pacing around the room. “In a safe . . . only the people in this room—”
“Settle down,” Paz says. “You’re alive.”
“No thanks to you!” Malone says. “They have my 302! They have proof! You’re so busy trying to hurt dirty cops, and you don’t see them in your own operation!”
“We don’t know that,” O’Dell says.
“Then how did they get it?!” Malone says. “They didn’t get it from me!”
“We have a problem,” Weintraub says.
“No shit!” Malone punches the wall.
Weintraub is looking through the 302. “Where in here is anything about you and the Ciminos?”
“It isn’t,” Malone says.
“Full disclosure,” Paz says. “That was our agreement.”
Then it hits him. “God . . . Sheila . . .”
“We have agents on the way,” O’Dell says.
“Fuck that,” Malone says. “I’m going myself.”
He starts for the door.
“Stay where you are,” Paz says.
“You gonna fuckin’ stop me?!”
“If I have to,” Paz says. “There are two federal marshals in the hallway. You aren’t going anywhere. Use your head. Stevie Bruno is not going to send someone out to Staten Island to do anything to your wife in the middle of the afternoon. He’s trying to stay out of jail, not throw himself in it. We have some time here.”
“I want to see my family.”
“If you had told us about this,” Paz says, “you’d have been wired in that meeting and we’d have Bruno behind bars now. All right, blood under the bridge, you’re forgiven. But now you need to tell us—what did you do with the Ciminos?”
Malone doesn’t answer. He sits down and puts his head in his hands.
“The only way,” Paz says, “you can protect yourself and your family is to put Bruno away. Give me something I can get a warrant on.”
“I never met with him before.”
“Yes, you did,” Paz says.
Malone looks up, sees in her eyes that she’s perfectly willing—no, insistent—that he perjure himself.
O’Dell won’t meet his gaze. He looks away.
Weintraub shuffles more papers.
“We’ll put you and your family in the program,” she says. “You come out to testify—”
“Fuck that.”
“There is no choice here,” Paz says. “You have no choice.”
“Let me out of here,” Malone says. “I’ll take care of Bruno myself.”
“You know what?” Paz says. “Bring the marshals in, cuff him. I’m done with this dumb donkey.”
“What about my family?!” Malone asks.
“They’re on their own!” Paz yells. “What do you think I am, Social Services?! You put your loved ones in jeopardy! It’s on you, not me! Buy them a Rottweiler, an alarm system, I don’t know.”
“You fucking bitch,” Malone says.
“Why aren’t the marshals in here?” Paz asks.
Malone says, “You guys are dirtier than I ever thought of being.”
It’s quiet. There’s no answer to that.
“Okay,” Malone says. “Turn on the recorder.”
He started with the mob the way that most cops who go there do, taking a slim envelope to look the other way on gambling shops.
Nothing big, a hundred here or there.
He knew Lou Savino when the capo was a street guy who just got his button. One day Savino approached him up in Harlem, asked him if he wanted to earn.
Yeah, Malone wanted to earn.
One of Savino’s guys had a bullshit beef, shit, the guy was just protecting his sister, who this fucking dirtbag had beat up, but there was one fucking witness didn’t understand that. Maybe Malone could get a look at the 5, get the witness’s name and address, save the city the cost of a trial, everyone a lot of trouble.
No, Malone didn’t want no part of a witness getting beat up, maybe killed.
Savino laughed. No one was talking about anything like that, come on. They’re talking about sending the witness on a nice vacation, maybe even buying the guy a car.
A car? Malone asked. Must have been a hell of a beating.
No, it was just that Savino’s guy was on parole, so the assault conviction puts him back upstate for ten years. You call that justice? That isn’t justice. Shit, it makes you feel better about it, you can deliver the envelope yourself, make sure no one gets hurt. You take a taste for yourself, everyone comes out happy.
Malone was nervous about approaching the arresting officer but it turned out he had no reason to be. It was easy, a hundred to look at the 5, come back anytime. And the witness, he was delighted to drive down to Orlando, take the kids to Disneyworld. Win, win, win, everyone did come out happy except for the guy who got his jaw broke, but he had it coming anyway, hitting a woman.
Justice was served.
Malone served some more justice for the Ciminos, then Savino approached him about something else. He works in Harlem, right? Right. Knows the hood, knows the people. Sure. So he knows a ditzune preacher has a church on 137th and Lenox.
The Reverend Cornelius Hampton?
Everyone knew him.
He was leading a protest at a construction site for not hiring minority workers.
Savino handed Malone an envelope and asked him to bring it to Hampton. The reverend didn’t want to be seen around no guineas.
This to stop the protest? Malone asked.
No, you dumb fucking mick, it’s to keep the protest going. We got a double play here—the reverend starts a protest, shuts the site down. The contractor comes to us for protection. We take a share of the project, the protest ends.
We make, the reverend makes, the contractor makes.
So Malone went up to the church, found the reverend, who took the envelope like it was UPS.
Didn’t say a word.
That time, the next time or the time after that.
“The Reverend Cornelius Hampton,” Weintraub says now. “Human rights activist, man of the people.”
“Did you meet with Steven Bruno about any of this?” Paz asks. “Did he ever approach you?”
“I believe he was in your custody at the time,” Malone says.
“But your understanding was that Savino was working under his instructions,” Paz says.
“Hearsay,” says Weintraub.
“We’re not in court, Counselor,” Paz says.
“Yes,” Malone says, “it was definitely my understanding that Savino was acting as an agent of Bruno’s.”
“Did Savino tell you that?”
“Yes. Several times.”
Which we all know is a lie, Malone thinks.
But it’s the lie they want to hear.
He goes on.
The next payoffs he made for the Ciminos were a couple of years later, after Bruno got out of Lewisburg.
Who are they, Malone wanted to know.
More laughs from Savino.
City officials—the kind who award contract bids.
“Shut the recorder off,” Paz says.
Weintraub shuts it off.
“Did you say city officials?” Paz asks. “Did you mean City Hall?”
“The mayor’s office,” Malone says. “The comptroller’s, the Office of Operations . . . You want to turn the tape back on, I’ll repeat it.”
He stares at her.
“This just came home for you, huh?” Malone asks. “Maybe this is something you don’t want to know about.”
“I want to know about it,” O’Dell says.
“Shut up, John.”
“Don’t tell me to shut up,” O’Dell says. “You have a credible witness here who says that city officials are on the Cimino family pad. Maybe Southern District doesn’t want to know, but the bureau is very interested.”
“Ditto,” Weintraub says.
“‘Ditto’?”
“You opened this door, Isobel,” Weintraub says. “I have a right to walk through it.”
“Be my guest,” Paz says. She leans over, turns the recorder back on and looks at Malone, like go ahead. “Name names.”
She’s trapped, Malone knows.
He names names.
“Jesus Christ,” Weintraub says. “To coin a phrase.”
“Yeah,” Malone says. “I built a lot of houses in Westchester. Nantucket cottages, vacations in the Bahamas . . .”
He looks at Paz.
They both know this is enough to bring down the administration, ruin careers and aspirations, including hers. But she’s got no choice now, and she guts it out. “Who in the Cimino family did you meet with to arrange these payoffs?”
“Lou Savino,” he says, staring at her. He waits a second, and then adds, “And Steven Bruno.”
“You met with Mr. Bruno personally.”
“On several occasions.”
He makes up some likely dates and locations.
“Let’s be clear,” Paz says. “Are you saying that on several occasions, as noted, Steven Bruno gave you money and instructed you to deliver it to city officials for the purpose of rigging construction bids?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“This is unbelievable,” Weintraub says.
“Perhaps literally,” Paz says.
She’s a slick piece of shit, Malone thinks. She’s trying to have it both ways, preserving her options until she figures out her play, sees how the chips fall.
Weintraub sees it, tries to pin her down. “Are you saying you don’t find him credible?”
“I’m saying I don’t know,” Paz says. “Malone is a demonstrated liar.”
“You really want to open that door?” Weintraub asks.
“I want to see my family,” Malone says.
“Not yet,” Paz says. “Is that it, Sergeant Malone? Obstructing justice? Bribing public officials?”
“That’s it,” Malone says.
I’m not going to tell you about the drug connection.
Or Pena.
Right now it’s four to eight.
Pena’s the death penalty.
Paz says, “You just confessed to a handful of felonies not included in our original agreement, which is now, of course, voided.”
Malone can almost smell her brain burning, she’s working so hard. He presses, “You going to arrest me or not?”
“Not now,” she says. “Not yet. I want to confer with my colleagues.”
“Confer,” Malone says. “Maybe you can confer about the rat in your operation.”
“It’s not safe for you on the street,” O’Dell says.
Malone laughs. “Now you worry about that? I’ve been shot, stabbed—I’ve been down a hundred stairways and alleys, through a thousand doors with God knows what on the other side, and now you’re worried about me? After you just almost got me killed? Fuck you all.”
He walks out.
“We whack them all now,” Russo says. “Bruno, Savino, Sciollo, all the fucking Ciminos if we have to.”
“We can’t do that,” Malone says.
They’re in the co-op.
“It’s out on the street already,” Monty says. “Denny Malone had an armed confrontation with three wiseguys in a known mob hangout. It’s only a matter of time before IAB comes asking what you were doing there.”
“You don’t think I fucking know that?”
Monty asks, “Why did they want to meet?”
“They heard Torres’s bullshit,” Malone said. “I guess they believed it, I dunno.”
“Why didn’t you call us for backup?” Russo asks.
“I thought I could handle it,” Malone says. “I did handle it.”
“If we had been there,” Monty says, “there would have been no confrontation. No noise on the street, no IAB. Then you go off the radar for three hours. That, considered with what Torres’s people have been saying—”
“What are you saying, Monty?”
“Simply this,” Monty says. “In less than sixty days now I’m leaving the Job. I’m taking my family and leaving the city. And I am not going to let anything, or anyone, get in the way of that. So if there’s something we need to take care of, Denny, then let’s take care of it.”
Malone walks down to his car and gets in.
A wire loop comes over his neck.
The wire pulls back and tightens.
Reflexively, Malone grabs at the cord but it’s too tight against his throat and he can’t rip it off or even dig his fingers in to create any breathing space. He reaches for the gun he set on the passenger seat but his hand can’t grip the handle and then drops it.
Malone flings his elbows back, trying to strike his assailant, but he can’t twist enough to get any leverage. His lungs ache for air, he feels himself blacking out, his legs start to kick out spasmodically, what awareness he has left tells him he’s dying and in his mind his voice starts to chant a childhood prayer—
Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee.
And I detest all my sins . . .
He hears his throat croaking.
The pain is awful.
And I detest all my sins . . .
And I detest all my sins . . .
all my sins . . .
my sins . . .
sins . . .
And then he’s dead and there is no blinding white light only darkness and there’s no music just shouting and he sees Russo and wonders if Phil is dead, too; they say you see everyone you love in heaven but he doesn’t see Liam or his dad only Russo grabbing him by the shoulder, grabbing him and throwing him onto the hard asphalt of the street and then he’s coughing and gagging and spitting as Russo picks him up and walks him toward another car and then Malone is in the passenger seat with Russo behind the wheel where he belongs in this land of the living and not of the dead and the car pulls out.
“My car,” Malone croaks.
“Monty has it,” Russo says. “He’s behind us.”
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere we can have a private chat with the backseat driver.”
They go up the West Side Highway and pull off into Fort Washington Park, near the GW Bridge.
Malone gets out. His legs feel unsteady under him as he sees Monty drag the guy out of the car onto an island of grass between two branches of the Hudson River Greenway.
Staggering over, Malone looks down at him.
The guy is already beat up, half-conscious. His head looks like the butt of a .38 smashed into it—hair mixed with caked blood. He’s maybe in his midthirties, black hair, olive skin. He could be Italian or Puerto Rican or, shit, Dominican.
Malone kicks him in the ribs. “Who are you?”
The guy shakes his head.
“Who sent you?” Malone asks.
Guy shakes his head again.
Monty grabs the guy’s arm and lays his hand in the car door. “The man asked you a question.”
He kicks the door shut.
The guy screams.
Monty opens the door and pulls him out.
The guy’s fingers are shattered, pointing off in all directions, bones poking through the skin. He holds his wrist with his other hand and stares, then howls again and looks up at Monty.
“Now we do the other hand,” Monty says. “Or you can tell us who you are and who sent you.”
“Los Trinitarios.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” the guy says. “They just told me . . . be in the car . . . if you came out . . .”
“What?” Malone asks.
“Do you. Bring them your head. For Castillo.”
Russo asks, “Where’s Castillo now?”
“I don’t know,” the guy says. “I didn’t meet with him. I just got orders.”
“Put your other hand in the door,” Monty says.
“Please . . .”
Monty pulls his .38 and points it at his head. “Put your other hand in the door.”
Crying, the guy sets his hand in the door.
He’s shaking from head to toe.
“Where’s Castillo?” Monty asks.
“I have a family.”
“I don’t?” Malone asks. “Where is he?”
Monty starts to kick the door.
“Park Terrace! The penthouse!”
“What do we do with this guy?” Monty asks.
“The Hudson’s right there,” says Russo.
“No, please.”
Russo leans over him. “You tried to kill a New York police detective. Take his head off. What the fuck do you think we’re going to do with you?”
The man whimpers, holds his hand. He curls into a fetal position, giving up, and starts to chant. “Baron Samedi . . .”
“What’s he gibbering about?” Russo asks.
“He’s praying to Baron Samedi,” Monty says. “The god of death in Dominican voodoo.”
“Good choice,” Russo says, pulling his off-duty weapon. “Finish up. You need a chicken or something, you’re SOL.”
“No,” Malone says.
“‘No’?”
“We already have Pena on our score sheet,” Malone says. “We don’t need another homicide beef to worry about.”
“He’s right,” Monty says. “It’s not like our friend here is going to be handling any more garrotes.”
“If we leave him alive,” Russo says, “it sends the wrong message.”
“I’m kind of losing my interest in messages,” Malone says. He squats beside his would-be killer. “Go back to the DR. If I see you in New York again, I will kill you.”
They get in the cars and drive up to Inwood.
Park Terrace Gardens is a castle.
The condo buildings sit on a hill near the tip of the peninsula that is the northern end of Manhattan, the far outer reaches of the Kingdom of Malone.
The peninsula is defined by the Hudson River to the west and Spuyten Duyvil Creek to the north and east, which separates Manhattan from the Bronx. Three bridges span the Spuyten Duyvil—a railway bridge that edges the river, then the Henry Hudson Bridge, and farther to the east, where the creek bends south, the Broadway Bridge.
“The Gardens,” as the residents call it, is a complex of five eight-story gray stone buildings constructed in 1940, now all co-ops, set in a wooded block between West 215th and West 217th.
To the south is Northeastern Academy and the small Isham Park; to the west, the much larger Inwood Hill Park buffers the Gardens from Route 9 and the river. North of the Gardens, one residential block yields to public buildings—Columbia University’s athletic complex, a soccer stadium and a branch of New York Presbyterian Hospital—between it and the creek.
The Muscota Marsh lies to the northwest.
The views from the top floors of the Gardens’ units are spectacular—the Manhattan skyline, the Hudson, the oak slopes of Inwood Hill, the Broadway Bridge. You can see a long way.
You can see someone coming.
The team drives in two cars up Broadway, Inwood’s central artery. A small side street runs west onto Park Terrace East and they take this north to 217th, pull over and look at the building where Castillo lives in the penthouse on the north side.
It just confirms what Malone already knew.
They can’t get to Castillo here.
The heroin dealer, the man who ordered a New York detective to be decapitated, is protected not so much by the stone towers or the moat around them as by the law. This isn’t a project, a tenement or a ghetto. It has a co-op board, a homeowners’ association, its own website. Most of all, it has rich white people, so you can’t just storm in there and haul Castillo out. The law-and-order residents of the Gardens would be on the phone to the mayor, the city council, the commissioner in five seconds, protesting “storm trooper” tactics.
They need a warrant to go in there, which they’re not going to get.
And be honest, Malone tells himself, you can’t go get a warrant because you’re dirty. The last thing in the world you can do is arrest Carlos Castillo and he knows it. So he can sit up in his castle and move his heroin and arrange to kill you.
Suck it up.
What’s your play?
Sooner or later, Castillo is going to put the Dark Horse out on the street. He’ll supervise it personally, that’s his job.
When he does, you can take him there.
So what you have to be is patient.
Back off now, put Castillo under surveillance and wait for him to move. Contact Carter, give him Castillo’s whereabouts.
Play the cards you have, don’t worry about the ones you don’t. A pair of jacks is as good as a straight flush if you know how to manage them. And you have better than jacks.
Russo has his binoculars out and is looking at the penthouse terrace.
“What are we looking at?” Levin asks. He’s still pissy about the 2 a.m. roust at his place.
“Don’t take it personal,” Russo told him. “We had to check you out, see if you’re clean.”
“See if I’m dirty, you mean.”
“The fuck did you just say?” Malone asked.
Levin was smart enough to keep his mouth shut about that. He just said, “Amy was pretty mad.”
“She ask you about the money?” Russo asked.
“Sure.”
“What did you tell her?” Monty asked.
“To mind her own business.”
“Our boy is growing up,” Russo said. “Now you have to marry her. So she can’t testify.”
“I’m giving that money to charity,” Levin said.
Now Malone says to him, “This is Carlos Castillo’s safe house. We’re going to put it up.”
“A wire?”
“Not yet,” Malone says. “Right now just a visual.”
“Hey,” Russo says, handing Malone the binoculars.
Malone sees Castillo himself come out with a morning cup of coffee to enjoy the sunrise.
The king surveying his kingdom.
Not yet, Malone thinks.
It ain’t your kingdom yet, motherfucker.