Malone started the Turkey Run, what, five years ago, when the Task Force came into being and he thought they needed a little positive PR in the neighborhood.
Everyone up here knows the detectives from Da Force anyway, and it doesn’t hurt to spread a little love and goodwill toward men. You never know when some kid who ate turkey instead of going hungry on Christmas is going to decide to cut you a break, give you a tip.
It’s a point of pride with Malone that the turkeys come out of his own pocket. Lou Savino and the wiseguys over on Pleasant Avenue would cheerfully donate turkeys that fell off the backs of trucks, but Malone knows the community would get wind of that right away. So he accepts a discount on the turkeys from a food wholesaler whose double-parked trucks don’t get ticketed, but he pays the rest of the freight himself.
Shit, one decent bust more than makes up for it.
Malone doesn’t kid himself that the same people who take his turkeys won’t be dropping “airmail”—bottles, cans, dirty diapers—on him from the upper floors of the project buildings the day after tomorrow. One time someone dropped an entire air-conditioning unit from the nineteenth floor that missed Malone’s head by about an inch.
Malone knows the Turkey Run is just a truce.
Now he goes down to the locker room where Big Monty is getting into the Santa costume.
Malone laughs. “You look good.”
Well, actually ridiculous. A big black man, normally reserved and dignified, with a red Santa cap and a big beard. “A black Santa?”
“Diversity,” Malone says. “I read it on the Job’s website.”
“Anyway,” Russo says to Montague, “you’re not Santa Claus, you’re Crack Claus. Who would be black up here. And you got the belly.”
Montague says, “Ain’t my fault every time I fuck your wife she makes me a sandwich.”
Russo laughs. “More than she makes me.”
Used to be it was Billy O played Santa, even though he was skinnier than a rail. He freakin’ loved it, shoving a pillow under the suit, joking with the kids, handing out the turkeys. Now it’s fallen on Monty, even though he’s black.
Monty adjusts the beard and looks at Malone. “You know they sell those turkeys. We might as well just cut out the middleman and hand them crack.”
Malone knows every turkey ain’t gonna make it to the table, that a lot of them will go straight to the pipe or into arms or up noses. Those turkeys will go to the dealers, who’ll sell them to the bodegas, who’ll put them on the shelves and make a profit. But most of the turkeys will make it home, and life is a numbers game. Some kids will get Christmas dinner because of his turkeys, others won’t.
Has to be good enough.
DeVon Carter doesn’t think it’s even close to good enough. Carter, he laughed at Malone’s Christmas Turkey Run.
This was a month or so ago.
Malone, Russo and Monty were having lunch at Sylvia’s, each of them digging into some stewed turkey wings, when Monty looked up and said, “Guess who’s here.”
Malone glanced over at the bar and saw DeVon Carter.
Russo said, “You want to get the check and go?”
“No reason to be unfriendly,” Malone said. “I think I’ll slide over and say hello.”
As Malone got up, two of Carter’s guys moved to step in the way, but Carter waved them off. Malone took the stool next to Carter and said, “DeVon Carter, Denny Malone.”
“I know who you are,” Carter said. “Is there a problem?”
“Not unless you have one,” Malone said. “I just thought, hey, we’re in the same place, we might as well meet in person.”
Carter looked good, like he always does. Gray cashmere Brioni turtleneck sweater, charcoal Ralph Lauren slacks, large Gucci eyeglass frames.
It got a little quiet in the place. There was the biggest drug slinger in Harlem and the cop trying to bust him sitting down with each other. Carter said, “As a matter of fact, we were just laughing about you.”
“Yeah? What’s so funny about me?”
“Your ‘Turkey Run,’” Carter said. “You give the people drumsticks. I give them money and dope. Who do you think is going to win that one?”
“The real question,” Malone said, “is who’s going to win between you and the Domos?”
The Pena bust slowed the Dominicans down a little, but it was just a setback. Some of Carter’s gangs were starting to look at the Dominicans as an option. They’re afraid they’re outnumbered and outgunned and are going to lose the marijuana business.
So Carter is a polydrug merchandiser—he has to be. In addition to the smack that mostly leaves the city or at least goes to a mostly white customer base, he markets coke and marijuana as well, because to run his moneymaking heroin business he needs troops. He needs security, mules, communications people—he needs the gangs.
The gangs have to make money, they have to eat.
Carter doesn’t have a choice but to let “his” gangs deal weed—he has to, or the Dominicans will and they’ll take his business. They’ll either buy Carter’s gangs outright or just wipe them off the map, because without the weed money, the gangs couldn’t buy guns and they’d be helpless.
His pyramid would crumble from the bottom.
Malone wouldn’t care that much about the weed slinging except that 70 percent of the murders in Manhattan North are drug related.
So you have Latino gangs fighting each other, you have black gangs fighting each other and, increasingly, you have black gangs fighting Latino gangs as the battle between their big-money heroin bosses escalates.
“You took Pena off the count for me,” Carter said.
“And not as much as a muffin basket.”
“I heard you were well compensated.”
It sent a jolt up Malone’s spine but he didn’t flinch. “Every time there’s a big bust, the ‘community’ says the cops ripped some off the top.”
“That’s because every time they do.”
“Here’s what you don’t understand,” Malone said. “Young black men used to pick cotton—now you are the cotton. You’re the raw product that gets fed into the machine, thousands of you every day.”
“The prison-industrial complex,” Carter said. “I pay your salary.”
“Don’t think I’m not grateful,” Malone said. “But if it’s not you, it would be someone else. Why do you think they call you the ‘Soul Survivor’? Because you’re black and you’re isolated and you’re the last of your kind. Used to be, white politicians would come kiss your ass looking for your votes. You don’t see that so much anymore because they don’t need you. They’re sucking up to Latinos, Asians, the dotheads. Fuck, even the Muslims have more swag than you do. You’re on your way out.”
Carter smiled. “If I had a nickel for every time I heard that . . .”
“You been to Pleasant Avenue lately?” Malone asked. “It’s Chinese. Inwood and the Heights? More Latinos every day. Your people in the Ville and Grant are starting to buy from the Domos; you’re even going to lose the Nickel soon. The Domos, the Mexicans, the PRs—they speak the same language, eat the same food, listen to the same music. They’ll sell to you, but partner with you? Forget it. The Mexicans give the local spics a wholesale price they don’t give you, and you just can’t compete, because a junkie ain’t got no loyalty to nothin’ but his arm.”
“You betting on the Domos?” Carter asked.
“I’m betting on me,” Malone said. “You know why? Because the machine keeps grinding.”
Later that day a basket of muffins arrived at Manhattan North for Malone with a note saying that it cost $49.95, a nickel under the legal cost of a gift that a cop can accept.
Captain Sykes was not amused.
Now Malone rolls up Lenox, sitting in the back of a van with the doors open as Monty shouts, “Ho, ho, ho!,” while Malone tosses out turkeys with the benediction, “May Da Force be with you!”
The unit’s unofficial motto.
Which Sykes also don’t like because he thinks it’s “frivolous.” What the captain don’t understand is that being a cop up here is part show business. It’s not like they’re undercovers—they work with UCs, but undercovers don’t make busts.
We make busts, Malone thinks, and some of them get in the papers with our smiling faces and what Sykes don’t get is that we have to have a presence here. An image. And the image has to be that Da Force is with you, not against you.
Unless you’re slinging dope, assaulting people, raping women, doing drive-bys. Then Da Force is coming for your ass, and we’re going to get it.
One way or the other.
And the people up here know us anyway.
Yelling back, “Fuck Da Force,” “Give me my motherfucking turkey, motherfuckers,” “You pigs, why you ain’t giving out pork?” Malone just laughs, it’s just busting balls, and most of the people don’t say anything or just a quiet “Thank you.” Because most of the people here are good people, trying to make a living, raise their kids, like most everyone else.
Like Montague.
The big man carries too much on his shoulders, Malone thinks, living in the Savoy Apartments with a wife and three sons, the oldest almost that age when you keep him or lose him to the streets—and more and more Montague worries about spending too much time away from his boys. Like tonight, he wants to be home with his family on Christmas Eve, but instead he’s out making their college money, handling his business as a father.
Best thing a man can do for his kids—handle his motherfucking business.
And they’re good boys, Montague’s boys, Malone thinks. Smart, polite, respectful.
Malone is their “Uncle Denny.”
And their named legal guardian. Him and Sheila are the guardians to Monty’s kids and Russo’s kids, should something happen. If the Montagues and the Russos go out to dinner together, like they sometimes do, Malone jokes they shouldn’t ride in the same car so he doesn’t inherit six more kids.
Phil and Donna Russo are the named guardians for the Malone children. Denny and Sheila go down in a plane crash or something—an increasingly unlikely scenario—John and Caitlin go live with the Russos.
It isn’t that Malone don’t trust Montague—Monty might be the best father he’s ever seen and the kids love him—but Phil is his brother. Another Staten Island boy, he’s not only Malone’s partner, he’s his best friend. They grew up together, went through the Academy together. The slick guinea has saved Malone’s life more times than he can count and Malone has returned the favor.
He’d take a bullet for Russo.
For Monty, too.
Now a little kid, maybe eight, is giving Monty a hard time. “Santa don’t smoke no motherfuckin’ cigar.”
“This one does. And watch your mouth.”
“How come?”
“You want a turkey or not?” Monty asks. “Quit busting balls.”
“Santa don’t say ‘balls.’”
“Let Santa be, take your turkey.” The Reverend Cornelius Hampton walks up to the van and the crowd parts for him like the Red Sea he’s always preaching about in his “let my people go” sermons.
Malone looks at the famous face, the conked silver hair, the placid expression. Hampton is a community activist, a civil rights leader, a frequent guest on television talk shows, CNN and MSNBC.
Reverend Hampton has never seen a camera he didn’t like, Malone thinks. Hampton gets more airtime than Judge Judy.
Monty hands him a turkey. “For the church, Reverend.”
“Not that turkey,” Malone says. “This one.”
He reaches back and selects a bird, hands it to Hampton. “It’s fatter.”
Heavier, too, with the stuffing.
Twenty large in cash stuck up the turkey’s ass, this courtesy of Lou Savino, the Harlem capo for the Cimino family and the boys on Pleasant Avenue.
“Thank you, Sergeant Malone,” Hampton says. “This will go to feed the poor and the homeless.”
Yeah, Malone thinks, maybe some of it.
“Merry Christmas,” Hampton says.
“Merry Christmas.”
Malone spots Nasty Ass.
Junkie-bopping at the edge of the little parade, his long skinny neck tucked into the collar of the North Face down jacket Malone bought him so he don’t freeze to death out in the streets.
Nasty Ass is one of Malone’s CIs, a “criminal informant,” his special snitch, although Malone’s never filed a folder on him. A junkie and a small-time dealer, his info is usually good. Nasty Ass got his street name because he always smells like he has a round in the chamber. If you can, you want to talk to Nasty Ass in the open air.
Now he comes up to the back of the van, his thin frame shivering, because he’s either cold or jonesing. Malone hands him a turkey, although where the hell Nasty is going to cook it is a mystery, because the man usually flops out in shooting galleries.
Nasty Ass says, “218 One-Eight-Four. About eleven.”
“What’s he doing there?” Malone asks.
“Gettin’ his dick wet.”
“You know this for sure.”
“Dead ass. He told me hisself.”
“This pans out, it’s a payday for you,” Malone says. “And find a fuckin’ toilet, for Chrissakes, huh?”
“Merry Christmas,” Nasty Ass says.
He walks away with the turkey. Maybe he can sell it, Malone thinks, score a fix-up shot.
A man on the sidewalk yells, “I don’t want no cop turkey! Michael Bennett, he can’t eat no fucking turkey, can he!?”
Well, that’s true, Malone thinks.
That’s the cold truth.
Then he sees Marcus Sayer.
The boy’s face is swollen and purple, his bottom lip cut open as he asks for a turkey.
Marcus’s mother, a fat lazy idiot, opens the door a crack and sees the gold shield.
“Let me in, Lavelle,” Malone says. “I have a turkey for you.”
He does, he has a turkey under his arm and eight-year-old Marcus by the hand.
She slides the chain lock off and opens the door. “Is he in trouble? Marcus, what you do?”
Malone nudges Marcus in front of him and steps inside. He sets the turkey on the kitchen counter, or what he can see of it under the empty bottles, ashtrays and general filth.
“Where’s Dante?” Malone asks.
“Sleepin’.”
Malone pulls up Marcus’s jacket and plaid shirt and shows her the welts on his back. “Dante do this?”
“What Marcus tell you?”
“He didn’t tell me nothin’,” Malone says.
Dante comes out of the bedroom. Lavelle’s newest man is brolic, has to go six seven, all of it muscle and mean. He’s drunk now, his eyes yellow and bloodshot, and he looms over Malone. “What you want?”
“What did I tell you I was going to do if you beat this boy again?”
“You was going to break my wrist.”
Malone has the nightstick out and twirls it like a baton, bringing it down on Dante’s right wrist, snapping it like a Popsicle stick. Dante bellows and swings with his left. Malone ducks, goes low and brings the stick across Dante’s shins. The man goes down like a felled tree.
“So there you go,” Malone says.
“This is police brutality.”
Malone steps on Dante’s neck and uses his other foot to kick him up the ass, hard, three times. “You see Al Sharpton here? Television crews? Lavelle here holding up a cell phone? There ain’t no police brutality if the cameras aren’t running.”
“The boy disrespected me,” Dante groans. “I disciplined him.”
Marcus stands there wide-eyed; he’s never seen big Dante get jacked up before and he kind of likes it. Lavelle, she just knows she’s in for another ass-kicking when the cop leaves.
Malone steps down harder. “I see him with bruises again, I see him with welts, I’m going to discipline you. I’m going to shove this stick up your ass and pull it out your mouth. Then Big Monty and me are going to set your feet in cement and dump you in Jamaica Bay. Now get out. You don’t live here anymore.”
“You can’t tell me where I can live!”
“I just did.” Malone lets his foot off Dante’s neck. “Why you still laying there, bitch?”
Dante gets up, holds his broken wrist and grimaces in pain.
Malone sees his coat and tosses it to him.
“What about my shoes?” Dante asks. “They in the bedroom.”
“You go barefoot,” Malone says. “You walk barefoot in the snow to the E-room and tell them what happens to grown men who beat up little boys.”
Dante stumbles out the door.
Malone knows everyone will be talking about it tonight. The word will get passed—maybe you beat little kids in Brooklyn, in Queens, but not in Manhattan North, not in the Kingdom of Malone.
He turns to Lavelle. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Don’t I need love, too?”
“Love your kid,” Malone says. “I see this again, you go to jail, he goes in the system. Is that what you want?”
“No.”
“Then straighten up.” He takes a twenty from his pocket. “This ain’t for Little Debbies. There’s still time for you to go shopping, put something under the tree.”
“Ain’t got a tree.”
“It’s an expression.”
Jesus Christ.
He squats down in front of Marcus. “Anybody hurts you, anybody threatens to hurt you—you come to me, to Monty, Russo, anyone on Da Force. Okay?”
Marcus nods.
Yeah, maybe, Malone thinks. Maybe there’s a chance the kid don’t grow up hating every cop.
Malone’s no fool—he knows he isn’t going to stop every child beating in Manhattan North or even most of them. Or most of any other crime. And it bothers him—it’s his turf, his responsibility. Everything that happens in Manhattan North is on him. He knows that isn’t realistic either, but it’s the way he feels.
Everything that happens in the kingdom is on the king.
He finds Lou Savino at D’Amore over on 116th in what they used to call Spanish Harlem.
Before that it was Italian Harlem.
Now it’s on the way to becoming Asian Harlem.
Malone edges his way back to the bar.
Savino is a capo in the Cimino family with a crew based on the old Pleasant Avenue turf. They’re into construction rackets, unions, shylocking, gambling—the usual mob shit—but Malone knows Lou also slings dope.
But not in Manhattan North.
Malone has assured him that if any of his shit ever shows up in the hood, all bets are off—it will blow back on his other businesses. It’s pretty much always been the police deal with the mob—the wiseguys wanted to run hookers, to run gambling—card games, backroom casinos, the numbers racket before the state took it over, called it the lottery and made it a civic virtue—they gave a monthly envelope to the cops.
It was called the “pad.”
Usually one cop from every precinct was the bagman—he’d collect the payoff and distribute it out to his fellow officers. The patrolmen would kick up to the sergeants, the sergeants to the lieutenants, the lieutenants to the captains, the captains to the inspectors, the inspectors to the chiefs.
Everyone got a taste.
And most everybody considered it “clean money.”
Cops in those days (shit, Malone thinks, cops in these days) made a distinction between “clean money” and “dirty money.” Clean money was mostly from gambling; dirty money was from drugs and violent crimes—the rare occasions when a wiseguy would try to buy off a murder, an armed robbery, a rape or a violent assault. While almost every cop would take clean money, it was the rare one who took money that had drugs or blood on it.
Even the wiseguys knew the difference and accepted the fact that the same cop who’d take gambling money on Tuesday would arrest the same gangster on Thursday for dealing smack or committing a murder.
Everyone knew the rules.
Lou Savino is one of those mob guys who thinks he’s at a wedding and doesn’t realize it’s actually a wake.
He prays at the altar of dead false gods.
Tries to hold up an image of what he thinks used to be but in fact didn’t exist except maybe in the movies. The fuckin’ guy wants so bad to be something that never was, even the ghost image of which is now fading into black.
The guys of Savino’s generation liked what they saw in the movies and wanted to be that. So Lou ain’t trying to be Lefty Ruggiero, he’s trying to be Al Pacino being Lefty Ruggiero. He ain’t trying to be Tommy DeSimone, he’s going for Joe Pesci being Tommy DeSimone, not being Jake Amari but James Gandolfini.
Those were good shows, Malone thinks, but Jesus, Lou, they were shows. But people point to the spot a couple of blocks away from here where Sonny Corleone beat up Carlo Rizzi with a trash can lid like it really happened, not to the spot where Francis Ford Coppola filmed James Caan pretending to beat up Gianni Russo.
Yeah well, Malone thinks, every institution survives on its own mythology, the NYPD included.
Savino wears a black silk shirt under a pearl-gray Armani jacket and sits sipping a Seven and Seven. Why the hell anyone would dump soda into good whiskey is a mystery to Malone, but to each his own.
“Hey, it’s the cop di tutti cops!” Savino gets up and hugs him. The envelope slides effortlessly from Savino’s jacket into Malone’s. “Merry Christmas, Denny.”
Christmas is an important time in the wiseguy community—it’s when everyone gets their yearly bonuses, often in the tens of thousands of dollars. And the weight of the envelope is a barometer as to your standing in the crew—the heavier the envelope, the higher your status.
Malone’s envelope has nothing to do with that.
It’s for his services as a bagman.
Easy money—just meet a person here and there—a bar, a diner, the playground in Riverside Park—slip them an envelope. They already know what it’s for, it’s all been worked out; Malone is just the delivery guy because these good citizens don’t want to take a chance they’re seen with a known wiseguy.
They’re city officials—the kind who award contract bids.
That’s where the Cimino profit center is.
The Cimino borgata gets a piece of everything—a kickback from the contractor for getting him the bid, then the concrete, the rebar, the electrical, the plumbing. Otherwise, these unions find a problem and shut the project down.
Everyone thought the mob was done after RICO, Giuliani, the Commission case, the Windows case.
And they were.
Then the Towers came down.
Overnight, the feds shifted three-quarters of their personnel into antiterrorism and the mob made a comeback. Shit, they even made a fortune overcharging for debris removal from Ground Zero. Louie used to brag they took in sixty-three million.
Nine/eleven saved the Mafia.
It’s not clear now who’s in charge of the Cimino family, but the smart money is on Stevie Bruno. Did ten years on a RICO case, been out three now and is moving up fast. Very insulated, lives out in Jersey, rarely comes into the city, even for a meal.
So they’re back, although they’ll never be what they were.
Savino signals the bartender to get Malone a drink. The bartender already knows it’s a Jameson’s straight up.
They sit back down and go through the ritual dance—how’s the family, fine, how’s yours, all good, how’s business, you know another day another dollar behind, the usual bullshit.
“You touch the good reverend?” Savino asks.
“He got his turkey,” Malone says. “A couple of your people tuned up a bar owner on Lenox the other night, guy named Osborne.”
“What, you got a monopoly on beating up moolies?”
“Yeah, I do,” Malone says.
“He came up light on his vig,” Savino says. “Two weeks in a row.”
“Don’t show me up and do it on the street, where everyone sees,” Malone says. “Things are tense enough in the ‘community.’”
“Hey, just because one of your guys capped a kid means I gotta issue some kind of hall pass?” Savino asks. “This dumb shit bets on the Knicks. The Knicks, Denny. Then he don’t pay me my money. What am I supposed to do?”
“Just don’t do it on my beat.”
“Jesus fuck, Merry Christmas, I’m glad you came in tonight,” Savino says. “Anything else squeezing your shoes?”
“No, that’s it.”
“Thank you, St. Anthony.”
“You get a good envelope?”
Savino shrugs. “You want to know something . . . you and me? The bosses these days, they’re cheap cocksuckers. This guy, he has a house in Jersey overlooks the river, a tennis court . . . He barely comes into the city anymore. He did ten inside, okay, I get it . . . but he thinks that means he gets to eat with both hands, no one minds. You know something? I mind.”
“Lou, shit, there are ears in here.”
“Fuck them,” Savino says. He orders another drink. “Here’s something might interest you, you know what I heard? I heard that maybe all the smack from that Pena bust made you a rock star didn’t make it to the evidence locker.”
Jesus Christ, is everyone talking about this? “Bullshit.”
“Yeah, probably,” Savino says. “Because it would have shown up on the street already, and it hasn’t. Someone went French Connection, I guess they’re sitting on it.”
“Yeah, well, don’t guess.”
“You’re fucking sensitive tonight,” Savino says. “I’m just saying, someone’s sitting on some weight, looking to lay it off . . .”
Malone sets down his glass. “I gotta go.”
“Places to be, people to see,” Savino says. “Buon Natale, Malone.”
“Yeah, you too.”
Malone walks out onto the street. Jesus, what has Savino heard about the Pena bust? Was he just fishing, or did he know something? It’s not good, it’s going to have to be dealt with.
Anyway, Malone thinks, the wops won’t be beating up any deadbeat ditzunes out on Lenox.
So that’s something.
Next.
Debbie Phillips was three months pregnant when Billy O went down.
Because they weren’t married (yet—Monty and Russo were all over the kid to do the right thing and he was headed in that direction), the Job wouldn’t do shit for her. Didn’t give her any recognition at Billy’s funeral—the fucking Catholic department wouldn’t give the unwed mother the folded flag, the kind words, sure as shit no survivor’s benefits, no medical. She’d wanted to do a paternity test and then sue the Job, but Malone talked her out of it.
You don’t turn the Job over to lawyers.
“That’s not the way we do things,” he told her. “We’ll take care of you, the baby.”
“How?” Debbie asked.
“You let me worry about that,” Malone said. “Anything you need, you call me. If it’s a woman thing—Sheila, Donna Russo, Yolanda Montague.”
Debbie never reached out.
She was an independent type anyway, not really that attached to Billy, never mind his extended family. It was a one-night stand that went permanent, despite Malone’s constant warnings that Billy should double-wrap the groceries.
“I pulled out,” Billy told him when Debbie called with the news.
“What are you, in high school?” Malone asked.
Monty cuffed him in the head. “Idiot.”
“You going to marry her?” Russo asked.
“She don’t want to get married.”
“It doesn’t matter what you or she wants,” Monty said. “It only matters what that child needs—two parents.”
But Debbie, she’s one of those modern women doesn’t think she needs a man to raise a baby. Told Billy they should wait and see how their “relationship developed.”
Then they didn’t get the chance.
Now, she opens the door for Malone, she’s eight months and looks it. She’s not getting any help from her family out in western Pennsylvania and she don’t have anyone in New York. Yolanda Montague lives the closest so she checks in, brings groceries, goes to the doctor’s appointments when Debbie will let her, but she don’t deal with the money.
The wives never deal with the money.
“Merry Christmas, Debbie,” Malone says.
“Yeah, okay.”
She lets him in.
Debbie is pretty and petite, so her stomach looks huge on her. Her blond hair is stringy and dirty, the apartment is a mess. She sits down on the old sofa; the television is on to the evening news.
It’s hot in the apartment, and stuffy, but it’s always either too hot or too cold in these old apartments—no one can figure out the radiators. One of them hisses now, as if to tell Malone to fuck off if he doesn’t like it.
He lays an envelope on the coffee table.
Five grand.
The decision was a no-brainer—Billy keeps drawing a full share, and when they lay off the Pena smack, he gets his share of that, too. Malone is the executor, he’ll lay it out to Debbie as he sees she needs it and can handle it. The rest will go into a college fund for Billy’s kid.
His son won’t want for anything.
His mom can stay at home, take care of him.
Debbie fought him on this. “You can pay for day care. I need to work.”
“No, you don’t.”
“It isn’t just the money,” she said. “I’d go crazy, all day here alone with a kid.”
“You’ll feel different once he’s born.”
“That’s what they say.”
Now she looks at the envelope and then up at him. “White welfare.”
“It’s not charity,” Malone says. “It’s Billy’s money.”
“Then give it to me,” she says. “Instead of doling it out like Social Services.”
“We take care of our own,” Malone says. He looks around the small apartment. “Are you ready for this baby? You got, I dunno, a bassinette, diapers, a changing table?”
“Listen to you.”
“Yolanda can take you shopping,” Malone says. “Or if you want, we can just bring the stuff by.”
“If Yolanda takes me shopping,” Debbie says, “I’ll look like some rich West Side bitch with a nanny. Maybe I can get her to speak in a Jamaican accent, or are they all Haitian now?”
She’s bitter.
Malone don’t blame her.
She has a fling with a cop, gets knocked up, the cop gets killed and there she is—alone with her life totally fucked up. Cops and their wives telling her what to do, giving her an allowance like she’s a kid. But she is a kid, he thinks, and if I gave her Billy’s full share in one whack, she’d blow it and where would Billy’s son be?
“You have plans for tomorrow?” he asks.
“It’s a Wonderful Life,” she says. “The Montagues asked me, so did the Russos, but I don’t want to intrude.”
“They were sincere.”
“I know.” She puts her feet up on the table. “I miss him, Malone. Is that crazy?”
“No,” Malone says. “It’s not crazy.”
I miss him, too.
I loved him, too.
The Dublin House, Seventy-Ninth and Broadway.
You go into an Irish bar on Christmas Eve, Malone thinks, what you’re going to find are Irish drunks and Irish cops or some combination thereof.
He sees Bill McGivern standing at the crowded bar, knocking one back.
“Inspector?”
“Malone,” McGivern says, “I was hoping to see you tonight. What are you drinking?”
“Same as you.”
“Another Jameson’s,” McGivern says to the bartender. The inspector’s cheeks are flushed, making his full head of white hair look even whiter. McGivern’s one of those ruddy, full-faced, glad-handing, smiling Irishmen. A big player in the Emerald Society and Catholic Guardians. If he weren’t a cop, he’d have been a ward healer, and a damn good one.
“You wanna get a booth?” Malone asks when the drink comes. They find one in the back and sit down.
“Merry Christmas, Malone.”
“Merry Christmas, Inspector.”
They touch glasses.
McGivern is Malone’s “hook”—his mentor, protector, sponsor. Every cop with any kind of career has one—the guy who runs interference, gets you plum assignments, looks out for you.
And McGivern is a powerful hook. An NYPD inspector is two ranks higher than a captain and just below the chiefs. A well-placed inspector—and McGivern is—can kill a captain’s career, and Sykes knows that.
Malone’s known McGivern since he was a little boy. The inspector and Malone’s father were in uniform together in the Six back in the day. It was McGivern talked to him a few years after his dad passed, explained a few things to him.
“John Malone was a great cop,” McGivern said.
“He drank,” Malone said. Yeah, he was sixteen, knew fucking everything.
“He did,” McGivern said. “Your father and I, back in the Six, we caught eight murdered kids, all under four years of age, inside two weeks.”
One of the children had all these little burn marks on his body, and McGivern and his dad couldn’t figure out what they were until they finally realized they matched up exactly with the mouth of a crack pipe.
The child had been tortured and bitten his tongue off in pain.
“So, yes,” McGivern said, “your father drank.”
Now Malone takes an envelope from his jacket and slides it across the table. McGivern hefts the heavy envelope and says, “Merry Christmas, indeed.”
“I had a good year.”
McGivern shoves the envelope into his wool coat. “How’s life treating you?”
Malone takes a sip of his whiskey and says, “Sykes is busting my hump.”
“I can’t get him transferred,” McGivern says. “He’s the darling of the Puzzle Palace.”
One Police Plaza.
NYPD headquarters.
Which has troubles of its own right now, Malone thinks.
An FBI investigation of high-ranking officers taking gifts in exchange for favors.
Stupid shit like trips, Super Bowl tickets, gourmet meals at trendy restaurants in exchange for getting tickets fixed, building citations squashed, even guarding assholes bringing diamonds in from overseas. One of these rich fucks got one of the marine commanders to bring his friends out to Long Island on a police boat, and an air unit guy to fly his guests to a Hamptons party in a police chopper.
Then there’s the thing with the gun licenses.
It’s hard to get a gun permit in New York, especially a concealed carry license. It generally requires deep background checks and personal interviews. Unless you’re rich and can lay out twenty grand to a “broker” and the “broker” bribes high-ranking cops to shortcut the process.
The feds have one of these brokers by the nuts and he’s talking, naming names.
Indictments pending.
As it is, five chiefs have been relieved of duty already.
And one killed himself.
Drove to a street by a golf course near his house on Long Island and shot himself.
No note.
Genuine grief and shock waves have blasted through the upper rank of the NYPD, McGivern included.
They don’t know who’s next—to be arrested, to swallow the gun.
The media’s humping it like a blind dog on a sofa leg, mostly because the mayor and the commissioner are at war.
Yeah, maybe not so much a war, Malone thinks, more like two guys on a sinking ship fighting for the last seat in the lifeboat. They’re each facing down major scandals, and their one play is to throw each other to the media sharks and hope the feeding frenzy lasts long enough to paddle away.
Not enough bad things can happen to Hizzoner to make Malone happy, and most of his brother and sister cops share this opinion because the motherfucker throws them under the bus every chance he gets. Didn’t back them on Garner, on Gurley, on Bennett. He knows where his votes come from, so he panders to the minority community and he’s done everything but toss Black Lives Matter’s collective salad.
But now his own ass is in a sling.
Turns out his administration has done some favors for major political donors. There’s a shocker, Malone thinks. There’s something new in this world, except the allegations claim that the mayor and his people took it a little further—threatening to actively harm potential donors who didn’t contribute, and the New York state investigators pushing the case had an ugly word for it—extortion.
A lawyer word for “shakedown,” which is an old New York tradition.
The mob did it for generations—probably still do in the few neighborhoods they still control—forcing shopkeepers and bar owners to make a weekly payment for “protection” against the theft and vandalism that would otherwise come.
The Job did it, too. Back in the day, every business owner on the block knew he’d better have an envelope ready for the beat cop on Friday, or, failing that, free sandwiches, free coffee, free drinks. From the hookers, free blow jobs, for that matter. In exchange, the cop took care of his block—checked the locks at night, moved the corner boys along.
The system worked.
And now Hizzoner is running his own shakedown for campaign funds and he’s come out with an almost comical defense, offering to release a list of big donors that he didn’t do favors for. There’s talk of indictments, and of the 38,000 cops on the Job, about 37,999 have volunteered to show up with the cuffs.
Hizzoner would fire the commish, except it would look like what it is, so he needs an excuse, and any shit the mayor can throw on the Job, he’s going to shovel with both hands.
And the commissioner, he’d be winning his fight against the mayor on points going away, if it weren’t for this scandal ripping through One P. So he needs better news, he needs headlines.
Heroin busts and lower crime rates.
“The mission of the Manhattan North Special Task Force hasn’t changed,” McGivern is saying. “I don’t care what Sykes tells you, you run the zoo any way you need to. I wouldn’t want to be quoted on that, of course.”
When Malone first went to McGivern and proposed a task force that would simultaneously address the guns and the violence, he didn’t get as much resistance as he expected.
Homicide and Narcotics are separate units. Narcotics is its own division, run directly from One Police, and they usually don’t mix. But with almost three-quarters of homicides being drug related, that didn’t make sense, Malone argued. Same with a separate Gangs unit, because most of the drug violence was also gang violence.
Create a single force, he said, to attack them simultaneously.
Narcotics, Homicide, and Gangs screamed like stuck pigs. And it was true that elite units have stink on them in the NYPD.
Mostly because they’ve been prone to corruption and over-the-top violence.
The old Plainclothes Division back in the ’60s and ’70s gave rise to the Knapp Commission, which damn near destroyed the department. Frank Serpico was a naive asshole, Malone thinks—everyone knew you took money in Plainclothes. He went into the division anyway. He knew what he was getting into.
Guy had a Jesus complex.
No wonder that not a single officer in the NYPD donated blood after he was shot. Damn near destroyed the city, too. For twenty years after Knapp, the Job’s priority was fighting corruption instead of crime.
Then it was the SIU—the Special Investigative Unit—given a free hand to operate at will throughout the city. Made some good busts, too, and made a lot of good money, ripping off dealers. They got caught, of course, and things cleaned up for a while.
The next elite unit was SCU—the Street Crimes Unit—whose principal task was to get the guns off the street that the Knapp Commission had allowed to get there in the first place. One hundred and thirty-eight cops, all white, so good at what they did that the Job expanded the unit by a factor of four and did it too fast.
The result was that on the night of February 4, 1999, when four SCU officers were patrolling the South Bronx, the senior man had been with the unit for only two years, the other three for three months. They had no supervisor with them, they didn’t know each other, they didn’t know the neighborhood.
So when Amadou Diallo looked like he was pulling a gun, one of the cops started firing and the others joined in.
“Contagious shooting,” the experts call it.
The infamous forty-one shots.
SCU was disbanded.
The four cops were indicted, all were acquitted. Something the community remembered when Michael Bennett was shot.
But it’s complicated—the fact is that SCU was effective in getting guns off the street, so more black people were probably killed as a result of the unit being disbanded than were shot by cops.
Ten years ago there was the predecessor to the Task Force—NMI, the Northern Manhattan Institute—forty-one detectives working narcotics in Harlem and Washington Heights. One of them ripped over $800,000 from dealers; his partner came in second with $740,000. The feds got them as collateral damage from a money-laundering sting. One of the cops got seven years, the other six. The unit commander got a year and change for taking his cut.
Puts a chill on everyone, seeing cops led out in cuffs.
But it doesn’t stop it.
Seems about every twenty years there’s a corruption scandal and a new commission.
So creating the Task Force was a hard sell.
It took time, influence and lobbying, but the Manhattan North Special Task Force was created.
The mission is simple—take back the streets.
Malone knows the unspoken agenda—we don’t care what you do or how you do it (as long as it doesn’t make the papers), just keep the animals in their cage.
“And what can I do for you, Denny?” McGivern asks now.
“We got a UC named Callahan,” Malone says, “going down the rabbit hole. I’d like to get him pulled out before he hurts himself.”
“Did you go to Sykes?”
“I don’t want to hurt the kid,” Malone says. “He’s a good cop, he’s just been under too long.”
McGivern takes a pen from his jacket pocket and draws a circle on a cocktail napkin.
Then he put two dots inside the circle.
“These two dots, Denny, that’s you and me. Inside the circle. You ask me to do a favor for you, that’s inside the circle. This Callahan . . .” He makes a dot outside the circle. “That’s him. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“Why am I asking a favor for someone outside the circle.”
“This once, Denny,” McGivern says. “But you need to understand that if it comes back on me, I drop it on you.”
“Got it.”
“There’s an opening in Anti-Crime in the Two-Five,” McGivern says. “I’ll call Johnny over there, he owes me a favor, he’ll take your kid.”
“Thank you.”
“We need more heroin arrests,” McGivern says, getting up. “The chief of Narcotics is all over me. Make it snow, Denny. Give us a white Christmas.”
He makes his way through the crowded bar, glad-handing and slapping shoulders on his way out the door.
Malone feels sad all of a sudden.
Maybe it’s the adrenaline dump.
Maybe it’s the Christmas blues.
He gets up and goes over to the jukebox, drops in some quarters and finds what he’s looking for.
The Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York.”
A Christmas Eve tradition of Malone’s.
It was Christmas Eve, babe, in the drunk tank,
An old man said to me, “Won’t see another one.”
Malone knows that Sykes is the bright-eyed boy down at Police Plaza, but he wonders exactly with who and how deep. Sykes is out to hurt him, no question.
But I’m a hero, Malone thinks, mocking himself.
Now at least half the cops in the bar start singing along with the chorus. They should be home with their families, those that still have them, but instead they’re here, with their booze, their memories, with each other.
And the boys of the NYPD Choir were singing “Galway Bay”
And the bells are ringing out for Christmas Day.
It’s a freezing night in Harlem.
Dumb cold.
The kind of cold where the dirty snow crunches under your feet and you can see your breath. It’s after ten and not a lot of people on the street. Even most of the bodegas are closed, the heavy metal gates, graffiti-strewn, pulled down and the bars over the windows shut. A few cabs prowl for business, a couple of junkies move like ghosts.
The unmarked Crown Vic rolls north on Amsterdam and now they’re not handing out turkeys, they’re about to dish out the pain. Pain’s nothing new to the people up here, it’s a condition of life.
It’s Christmas Eve and cold and clean and quiet.
Nobody’s expecting anything to happen.
Which is what Malone’s counting on, that Fat Teddy Bailey is fat, happy and complacent. Malone’s been working for weeks with Nasty Ass to pin the midlevel smack dealer with shit on him when he’s not expecting it.
Russo’s singing.
You better not shout, you better not cry,
You better not pout, I’m tellin’ you why.
Santa Smack is coming to town.
He turns right on 184th, where Nasty Ass said Fat Teddy would be coming to get his rocks off.
“Too cold for the lookouts,” Malone says, because he doesn’t see the usual kids and no one starts whistling to let anyone interested know that Da Force is on the street.
“Black people don’t do cold,” Monty says. “When’s the last time you saw a brother on a ski slope?”
Fat Teddy’s Caddy is parked outside 218.
“Nasty Ass, my man,” Malone says.
He knows when you are sleeping.
He knows when you’re awake.
He knows when you’re just nodding out . . .
“You want to take him now?” Monty asks.
“Let the guy get laid,” Malone says. “It’s Christmas.”
“Ahh, Christmas Eve,” Russo says as they sit in the car. “The eggnog spiked with rum, the presents under the tree, the wife just tipsy enough to give up la fica, and we sit here in the jungle freezing our asses off.”
Malone pulls a flask out of his jacket pocket and hands it to him.
“I’m on duty,” Russo says. He takes a long draw and hands the flask to the backseat. Big Monty takes a hit and passes it back to Malone.
They wait.
“How long can that fat fuck fuck?” Russo asks. “He take Viagra? I hope he didn’t have a heart attack.”
Malone gets out of the car.
Russo covers him as Malone squats beside Fat Teddy’s Caddy and lets the air out of his left rear tire. Then they go back into the Crown Vic and wait for fifty more cold minutes.
Fat Teddy goes six three and two eighty. When he finally comes out, he looks like the Michelin man in his long North Face coat. He starts walking toward his car in his $2,600 LeBron Air Force One basketball shoes with the satisfied swagger of a man who just got his rocks off.
Then he sees his tire. “Mothuh-fuckuh.”
Fat Teddy opens the trunk, gets out the jack and bends over to start taking off the lug nuts.
He doesn’t hear it coming.
Malone puts his pistol barrel behind Fat Teddy’s ear. “Merry Christmas, Teddy. Ho, ho, motherfucking ho.”
Russo holds his shotgun on the dealer as Monty starts to search the Caddy.
“Y’all some thirsty motherfuckers,” Fat Teddy says. “Ain’t you ever take a day off?”
“Does cancer take days off?” Malone pushes Fat Teddy up against the car and searches through the thick padding of the dealer’s coat, relieving him of a .25 ACP. The dope slingers do love these weird-caliber weapons.
“Uh-oh,” Malone says. “Convicted felon in possession of a concealed firearm. That’s a pound zip-bit right there.”
Five-year minimum sentence.
“It ain’t mine,” Fat Teddy says. “Why you stop me for? Walking while black?”
“Walking while Teddy,” Malone says. “I distinctly saw a bulge in your jacket that appeared to be a handgun.”
“You checkin’ out my bulge?” Fat Teddy asks. “You gone faggot on me right now, son?”
In response, Malone finds Fat Teddy’s cell phone, tosses it to the sidewalk and stomps on it.
“C’mon, son, that was a Six. You OD’d.”
“You have twenty of them,” Malone says. “Hands behind your back.”
“You ain’t takin’ me in,” Fat Teddy says tiredly, complying. “You ain’t gonna sit there filling out no DD-5’s on no Christmas fucking Eve. You got drinking to do, Irish. You got ‘ackahol’ to get to.”
Malone asks Monty, “Why is it your people cannot pronounce ‘alcohol’?”
“Don’t ‘acks’ me.” Monty reaches under the passenger seat and comes out with a sleeve of smack—a hundred glassine envelopes grouped in tens. “Oh, what have we here? Christmas at Rikers. You better bring mistletoe, Teddy, hope they let you kiss them on the mouth.”
“You flaked me.”
“I flaked your ass,” Malone says. “This is DeVon Carter’s heroin. He ain’t gonna be happy you lost it.”
“You need to talk to your people,” Fat Teddy says.
“Which people?” Malone slaps him in the face. “Who?”
Fat Teddy shuts up.
Malone says, “I’ll hang a snitch tag on you at Central Booking. You won’t make it out of Rikers.”
“You do that to me, man?” Fat Teddy asks.
“You’re either on my bus or under it.”
“All I know,” Fat Teddy says, “is that Carter said he had protection in Manhattan North. I thought it was you guys.”
“Well, it ain’t.”
Malone is pissed. Either Teddy is blowing smoke or someone in Manhattan North is on Carter’s pad. “What else you got on you?”
“Nothin’.”
Malone digs into his coat and comes out with rolls of cash wrapped in elastic bands. “This nothin’? Has to be thirty grand here, that’s some serious guap. Loyal customer rebate from Mickey D’s?”
“I eat Five Guys, motherfucker. Mickey D’s.”
“Well, you’re eating bologna tonight.”
“Come on, Malone,” Fat Teddy says.
“Tell you what,” Malone says, “we’ll just confiscate the contraband, cut you loose. Call it a Christmas present.”
It ain’t an offer, it’s a threat.
Teddy says, “You take my shit, you gotta arrest me, give me a five!”
Fat Teddy needs the arrest report to show Carter as proof the cops took it and he didn’t just rip him off. SOP—you get busted, you better have a DD-5 to show or you’re gonna get your fingers cut off.
Carter has done it.
The legend is he has one of those office paper cutters, and slingers who don’t have his dope, his money or a 5 get their hand laid in there and then whomp—no fingers.
Except it ain’t a rumor.
Malone found a guy staggering on the street one night, dripping blood all over the sidewalk. Carter left him with his thumb, though, so when he pointed the blame, he had no one to point at but himself.
They leave Teddy sitting against his car and go back to the Crown Vic. Malone cuts the cash up five ways, one for each of them, one share for expenses, and one piece for Billy O. Each guy puts his cash in a self-addressed envelope they always carry.
Then they go back and get Teddy.
“What about my ride, man?” Fat Teddy asks as they haul him to his feet. “You ain’t gonna take that, are you?”
“You had smack in it, asshole,” Russo says. “It is now property of the NYPD.”
“You mean property of Russo,” Fat Teddy says. “You ain’t drivin’ my Caddy out the Jersey Shore with that smelly guinea fish in it.”
“I wouldn’t be caught dead in this coonmobile,” Russo says. “It’s going to the pound.”
“It’s Christmas!” Fat Teddy whines.
Malone juts his chin toward the building. “What’s her number?”
Fat Teddy tells him. Malone punches the number and holds his phone up to Fat Teddy’s mouth.
“Baby, get down here,” Fat Teddy says. “Take care my car. And it better be here when I get out. And detailed.”
Russo leaves Fat Teddy’s keys on the hood and they haul him toward their car.
“Who dimed me?” Fat Teddy asks. “It was that grimy little bitch Nasty Ass?”
“You wanna be one of those Christmas Eve suicides?” Malone asks. “Jumps off the GW Bridge? Because we can make that happen for you.”
Fat Teddy starts in on Monty. “Workin’ for the man, brothuh? You they house nigger?”
Monty slaps him across the face. Fat Teddy is big, but his head snaps back like a tetherball. “I’m a black man, you grape-soda-drinking, bitch-beating, smack-slinging projects monkey.”
“Motherfucker, I didn’t have these cuffs on—”
“You want to take it there?” Monty says. He drops his cigar in the street and grinds it with his heel. “Come on, just you and me.”
Fat Teddy don’t say nothin’.
“That’s what I thought,” Monty says.
On the way to the Three-Two they stop at a mailbox and put in the envelopes. Then they take Fat Teddy in and book him on the gun and the heroin. The desk sergeant is less than thrilled. “It’s Christmas Eve. Task Force assholes.”
“May Da Force be with you,” Malone says.
I’m dreaming of a white Christmas,
Just like the ones I used to know . . .
Russo drives down Broadway toward the Upper West Side.
“Who was Fat Teddy talking about?” Russo asks. “Was he just mouthing, or does Carter have someone on the pad?”
“Has to be Torres.”
Torres is a wrong guy.
Does rips, sells cases, even runs whores, low-end crack addicts, mostly, and runaways. He works them hard. Keeps them in line with a car radio antenna—Malone has seen the welts.
The sergeant’s a real thumper, has a well-earned reputation for brutality, even by Manhattan North standards. Malone does what he can to keep Torres sweet. They’re all Task Force, after all, and have to get along.
But Malone can’t have lowlifes like Fat Teddy Bailey telling him he’s protected, so he’s going to have to work something out with Torres.
If it’s even true.
If it’s even Torres.
Russo pulls off at Eighty-Seventh and finds a parking space across the street from a brownstone at 349.
Malone rents the apartment from a Realtor they protect.
The rent is zero.
It’s a small pied-à-terre, but it suits their purposes. A bedroom to crash in or take a girl, a sitting room and a little kitchen, a place to take a shower.
Or hide dope, because in the shower stall there’s a false platform with a loose tile under which they stored the fifty kilos they ripped from the late, unlamented Diego Pena.
They’re waiting to lay it off. Fifty kilos is enough to make an impact on the street, cause a stir, even lower prices, so they have to let the Pena rip fade before they bring it out. The heroin has a street value of five million dollars, but the cops will have to lay it off at a discount to a trusted fence. Still, it’s a huge score, even split four ways.
Malone has no problem letting it all sit.
The largest score they’ve ever made or are ever likely to make, it’s their security, their 401(k)’s, their futures. It’s their kids’ college tuitions, a wall against catastrophic illness, the difference between retiring in a Tucson trailer park or a West Palm condo. They cut up the three million in cash right away, with Malone’s warning that no one should go out on a spending spree—buy a new car, a lot of jewelry for the wife, a boat, a trip to the Bahamas.
That’s what the Internal Affairs pricks look for—a change in lifestyle, work habits, attitude. Put the money away, Malone told his guys. Stash at least $50K where you can lay your hands on it inside an hour, in case IAB comes and you have to go on the lam. Another fifty for bail money if you didn’t get out in time. Otherwise, spend a little, put the rest away, do your twenty, pull the pin, have a life.
They’ve even talked about retiring right now. Spacing it a few months apart, but quitting while they’re ahead. Maybe we should, Malone thinks now, but coming so close after the Pena rip, it would raise suspicions.
He can see the headline now: hero cops quit after biggest bust.
IAB would come for sure.
Malone and Russo go into the sitting room and Malone grabs a bottle of Jameson’s from behind the little bar and pours each of them two fingers into squat whiskey glasses.
Red hair, tall, wiry, Russo looks about as Italian as a ham sandwich with mayonnaise. Malone looks more Italian, and they used to joke when they were kids that maybe they got switched at the hospital.
And the truth is Malone probably knows Russo better than he knows himself, mostly because he keeps everything to himself and Russo don’t. If it’s on Russo’s mind, it’s going to come out his mouth—not to everybody, just to his brother cops.
First time he had sex with Donna, classic prom night shit, Russo didn’t even have to say it the next day, it was written all over his goofy face, just like his heart was on his sleeve.
“I love her, Denny,” he said. “I’m gonna marry her.”
“The fuck are you, Irish?” Denny asked. “You guys don’t have to get married just because you did it.”
“No, I want to,” Russo said.
Russo’s always known who he was. A lot of guys, they wanted to get out of Staten Island, be something else. Not Russo, he knew he was going to marry Donna, have kids, live in the old neighborhood, and he was happy with being an East Shore stereotype—cop in the city, wife, kids, three-bedroom house, one and a half baths, cookouts on the holidays.
They took the exam together, joined the department together, went to the Academy together. Malone, he had to help Russo gain five pounds to make the minimum weight—force-fed him milkshakes, beer and hoagies.
Even still, Russo wouldn’t have gotten through without Malone. Russo could hit anything on the target range but he couldn’t fight for shit. He was always that way, even when they were playing hockey, Russo had soft hands that could tip a puck into the net, and he’d drop the gloves but then it was a catastrophe, even with his long arms, and Malone would have to come in and bail him out. So in the hand-to-hand PT at the Academy, they usually worked it out to get partnered up and Malone would let Russo flip him, get him into wristlocks and choke holds.
The day they graduated—will Malone ever forget the day they graduated?—Russo, he had this shit-eating grin he couldn’t wipe off his face for nothing, and they looked at each other and knew what their lives were going to be.
When Sheila pissed two blue lines, it was Russo that Malone went to first, Russo who told him there were no questions, only one right answer and he wanted to be best man.
“That’s old-school shit,” Malone said. “That was our parents, our grandparents, it don’t necessarily work that way anymore.”
“The fuck it don’t,” Russo said. “We are old school, Denny, we’re East Shore Staten Island. You may think you’re modern and shit, but you ain’t. Neither is Sheila. What, don’t you love her?”
“I dunno.”
“You loved her enough to fuck her,” Russo said. “I know you, Denny, you can’t be one of them jackoff absentee father sperm donors. That’s not you.”
So Russo was his best man.
Malone learned to love Sheila.
It wasn’t so hard—she was pretty, funny, smart in her way, it was good for a long time.
He and Russo were still in bags—uniforms—when the Towers came down. Russo, he ran toward those buildings, not away, because he knew who he was. And that night, when Malone learned Liam was under Tower Two and was never coming back up, it was Russo who sat with him all night.
Just like Malone sat with Russo when Donna miscarried.
Russo cried.
When Russo’s daughter, Sophia, was born premature, two pounds something and the doctors said it was touch-and-go, Malone sat in the hospital with him all night, saying nothing, just sitting, until Sophia was out of the woods.
The night Malone was stupid enough to get himself shot, running too far out in front to tackle a B&E perp, if it wasn’t for Russo that night, the Job would have given Malone an inspector’s funeral and Sheila a folded flag. They’d have played the bagpipes and had a wake and Sheila could have been a widow instead of a divorcée, if Russo hadn’t shot the perp and driven the car to the E-room like he stole it, because Malone was bleeding out internally.
No, Phil put two in the perp’s chest and a third in the head because that’s the code—a cop shooter dies on the scene or in the “bus” on a slow ride to the hospital, with detours if necessary and the most possible potholes.
Doctors take the Hippocratic oath—EMTs don’t. They know that if they take extraordinary measures to save a cop shooter’s life, the next time they call for backup it might be slow getting there.
But Russo hadn’t waited for the EMTs that night. He raced Malone to the hospital and carried him in like a baby.
Saved his life.
But that’s Russo.
Stand-up, old-school guy with a Grill Master apron, an unaccountable taste for Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Nine Inch Nails, smarter than shit, clanging fucking balls, loyal like a dog, be there for you anywhere anytime Phil Russo.
A cop’s cop.
A brother.
“You ever think we should quit?” Malone asks.
“The Job?”
Malone shakes his head. “The other shit. I mean, how much more do we need to earn?”
“I have three kids,” Russo says. “You have two, Monty three. All smart. You know what college costs these days? They’re worse than the Gambinos, they get their hooks in you. I don’t know about you, I need to keep earning.”
So do you, Malone tells himself.
You need the money, the cash flow, but it’s more than that, admit it. You love the game. The thrill, the taking off the bad guys, even the danger, the idea that you might get caught.
You’re a sick bastard.
“Maybe it’s time we moved the Pena smack,” Russo is saying.
“What, you need money?”
“No, I’m good,” Russo says. “It’s just that, you know, things have cooled down, it’s just sitting there not earning. That’s retirement money, Denny. That’s ‘fuck you I’m out of here’ money. Survival money, anything should happen.”
“You expecting something to happen, Phil?” Malone asks. “You know something I don’t?”
“No.”
“It’s a big step,” Malone says. “We took money before, we never dealt.”
“Then why did we take it if we weren’t going to sell it?”
“It makes us dope slingers,” Malone says. “We been fighting these guys our whole careers, now we’ll be just like them.”
“If we’d turned it all in,” Russo says, “someone else would have taken it.”
“I know.”
“Why not us?” Russo asks. “Why does everyone else get rich? The wiseguys, the dope dealers, the politicians? Why not us for a change? When is it our turn?”
“I hear you,” Malone says.
They sit quietly and drink.
“Something else bothering you?” Russo asks him.
“I dunno,” Malone says. “Maybe it’s just Christmas, you know?”
“You going over there?” Russo asks.
“In the morning, open presents.”
“Well, that’ll be good.”
“Yeah, that’ll be good,” Malone says.
“Swing by the house, you get a chance,” Russo says. “Donna’s going full guinea—macaroni with gravy, the baccalata, then the turkey.”
“Thanks, I’ll try.”
Malone drives up to Manhattan North, asks the desk sergeant, “Fat Teddy get on the bus yet?”
“It’s Christmas Eve, Malone,” the sergeant says. “Things are backed up.”
Malone goes down to the holding cells where Teddy sits on a bench. If there’s any place more depressing on Christmas Eve than a holding cell, Malone doesn’t know about it. Fat Teddy looks up when he sees Malone. “You gotta do something for me, bruvah.”
“What are you going to do for me?”
“Like what?”
“Tell me who’s on Carter’s pad.”
Teddy laughs. “Like you don’t know.”
“Torres?”
“I ain’t know nothin’.”
There it is, Malone thinks. Fat Teddy is scared to rat on a cop.
“Okay,” Malone says. “Teddy, you’re not an idiot, you only play one on the street. You know with two convictions on your sheet, the gun alone, you’re going to do five. We trace it back to some straw purchase in Gooberville, the judge is going to be pissed, could throw you a double. Ten years, that’s a long time, but look, I’ll come visit, bring you ribs from Sweet Mama’s.”
“Don’t be clowning me, Malone.”
“Dead-ass serious,” Malone says. “What if I could get you a walk?”
“What if you had a dick ’stead of what you got?”
“You’re the one wanted to be serious, Teddy,” Malone says. “If you don’t . . .”
“What you want?”
Malone says, “I’m hearing that Carter has been negotiating for some serious weaponry. What I want to know is, who is he negotiating with.”
“You think I’m stupid?”
“Not at all.”
“No, you must, Malone,” Teddy says, “because if I get a walk and you bust them guns, Carter he puts that together and I end up facedown.”
“You think I’m stupid, Teddy? I work out the walk so it looks like business as usual.”
Fat Teddy hesitates.
“Fuck you,” Malone says. “I have a beautiful woman waiting, I’m sitting here with an ugly fat guy.”
“His name is Mantell.”
“Whose name is Mantell?”
“Cracker runs guns for the ECMF.”
Malone knows the East Coast Motherfuckers are a motorcycle club deep in weed and weapons. Affiliate charters in Georgia and the Carolinas. But they’re racist, white supremacists. “ECMF would do business with black?”
“I guess black money spend the same.” Fat Teddy shrugs. “And they don’t mind helping black kill black.”
What Malone is more surprised about is Carter doing business with white. He has to be desperate. “What can the bikers offer him?”
“AKs, ARs, MAC-10s, you name it,” Teddy says. “S’all I know, son.”
“Carter didn’t get you a lawyer?”
“Can’t get hold of Carter,” Teddy says. “He in the Bahamas.”
“Call this guy,” Malone says, handing him a card. “Mark Piccone. He’ll get it squared away for you.”
Teddy takes the card.
Malone gets up. “We’re doing something wrong, aren’t we, Teddy? You and me freezing our asses off, Carter sipping piña coladas on the beach?”
“Trill.”
Trill.
True and real.
Malone cruises in his unmarked work car.
There’s only so many places the snitch can be. Nasty prefers the area just north of Columbia but below 125th Street and Malone finds him skulking along the east side of Broadway, doing the junkie bop.
Pulling over, Malone rolls down the passenger window and says, “In.”
Nasty Ass looks around nervously and then gets in. He’s a little surprised, because normally Malone don’t let him in his car because he says he stinks, although Nasty don’t smell it.
He’s jonesing hard.
Nose running, hands trembling as he hugs himself and rocks back and forth. And Nasty tells him, “I’m hurtin’. Can’t find no one. You gotta help me, man.”
His thin face is drawn, his brown skin sallow. His two upper front teeth stick out like a squirrel’s in a bad cartoon, and if it weren’t for his smell, he’d be called Nasty Mouth.
Now the man is sick. “Please, Malone.”
Malone reaches under the dash to a metal box attached with a magnet. He opens the box and hands Nasty an envelope, enough to fix and get well.
Nasty opens the door.
“No, stay in the car,” Malone says.
“I can fix in here?”
“Yeah, what the fuck. It’s Christmas.”
Malone takes a left and then heads south down Broadway as Nasty Ass shakes the heroin into a spoon, uses a lighter to cook it, then draws it into a syringe.
“That thing clean?” Malone asks.
“As a newborn baby.”
Nasty Ass sticks the needle in his vein and pushes the plunger. His head snaps back and then he sighs.
He’s well again. “Where we goin’?”
“Port Authority,” Malone says. “You’re getting out of town for a while.”
Nasty’s scared. Alarmed. “Why?!”
“It’s for your own good.” Just in case Fat Teddy is pissed enough to track him down and do him.
“I can’t leave town,” Nasty Ass says. “I got no hookups out of town.”
“Well, you’re going.”
“Please don’t make me,” Nasty Ass says. He actually starts crying. “I can’t jones out of town. I’ll die out there.”
“You want to jones at Rikers?” Malone asks. “Because that’s your other choice.”
“Why are you being a dick, Malone?”
“It’s my nature.”
“Never used to was,” Nasty Ass says.
“Yeah, well, this ain’t the used to was.”
“Where should I go?”
“I don’t know. Philly. Baltimore.”
“I got a cousin in Baltimore.”
“Go there, then,” Malone says. He peels out five hundred-dollar bills and hands them to Nasty Ass. “Do not spend all of this on junk. Get the fuck out of New York and stay there awhile.”
“How long I gotta stay?” He looks desperate, really scared. Malone doubts that Nasty Ass has ever been to the East Side, never mind out of town.
“Call me in a week or so and I’ll let you know,” Malone says. He pulls up in front of Port Authority and lets Nasty out. “I see you in New York, I am going to be mad, Nasty Ass.”
“Thought we was friends, Malone.”
“No, we’re not friends,” Malone says. “We’re not going to be friends. You’re my informer. A snitch. That’s all.”
Driving back uptown, Malone leaves the windows open.
Claudette opens the door.
“Merry Christmas, baby,” she says.
Malone loves her voice.
It was her voice, low and soft, even more than her looks, that first drew him to her.
A voice full of promises and reassurance.
You’ll find comfort here.
And pleasure.
In my arms, in my mouth, in my pussy.
He walks in and sits down on her little couch—she has a different word for it he can never remember—and says, “Sorry I’m so late.”
“I just got home myself,” she says.
Even though she’s wearing a white kimono and her perfume smells like heaven, Malone thinks.
She just got home and she got herself ready for me.
Claudette sits on the couch beside him, opens a carved wooden box on the coffee table and takes out a thin joint. She lights it, takes a hit and hands it to him.
Malone sucks down a hit and says, “I thought you were four to twelve.”
“I thought I was, too.”
“Tough shift?” he asks.
“Fights, suicide attempts, ODs,” Claudette says, taking the joint back from him. “Man came in barefoot with a broken wrist, said he knows you.”
An E-room nurse usually on the night or the graveyard shift, so she’s seen it all. She and Malone met when he drove a junkie CI who had accidentally shot half his foot off straight to the hospital.
“Why didn’t you call an ambulance?” she’d asked him.
“In Harlem?” Malone asked. “He’d have bled out while the EMTs were at Starbucks. Instead he bled all over my interior. I just got the thing detailed, too.”
“You’re a cop.”
“Guilty.”
Now she leans back and stretches her legs across his. The kimono slides up to reveal her thighs. There’s a spot just below her pussy that Malone thinks is the softest place on earth.
“Tonight,” she says, “we had an abandoned crack baby. Left right on the front steps.”
“Wrapped in swaddling clothes?”
“I get the irony, Malone,” she says. “How was your day?”
“Yeah, good.”
Malone likes that she doesn’t press him, that she’s satisfied with what he tells her. A lot of women aren’t, they want him to “share,” they want details he’d rather forget than recount. Claudette gets it—she has her own horrors.
He strokes that soft spot. “You’re tired. You probably want to sleep.”
“No, baby, I want to fuck.”
They finish their drinks and go into her bedroom.
Claudette undresses him, kissing skin as she bares it. She goes to her knees and takes him into her mouth and even in the dark bedroom, with light coming in only from the street, he loves the look of her full red lips on his cock.
She’s not high tonight, it’s just the weed, although it’s very good weed, and he loves that, too. He reaches down and feels her hair, then slides his hand down into the kimono and feels her breast, teases it and feels her moan.
Malone puts his hands on her shoulders to stop her. “I want to be in you.”
She gets up, goes to the bed and lies down. Draws her knees up like an invitation and then issues one. “Come here, then, baby.”
She’s wet and warm.
He slides back and forth across her body, across the full breasts and the dark brown skin and reaches down with a finger to feel that soft spot as outside sirens blare and people shout and he doesn’t care, doesn’t have to care right now, only has to slide in and out of her and hear her say, “I love that, baby, I love that.”
When he feels himself about to come, he grabs her ass—Claudette says she has no ass for a black girl—but he grabs her small tight ass and pulls her close and pushes himself as deep in her as he can go until he feels that little pocket in her and she grabs his shoulder and she bucks up and comes just before he does.
He comes like he always does with her, from the tips of his toes through the top of his head, and maybe that’s the dope but he thinks it’s her, with that low soft voice and warm brown skin, slick and sweaty now, mixing with his, and maybe it’s a minute or maybe it’s an hour when he hears her say, “Oh, baby, I’m tired.”
“Yeah, me too.”
He rolls off her.
She sleepily squeezes his hand and then she’s out.
He lies on his back. Across the street the liquor store owner must have forgotten to turn off his lights, and their reflection blinks red on Claudette’s ceiling.
It’s Christmas in the jungle and for this short time, at least, Malone is at peace.