The Force

by Don Winslow

  And guilty.

  Like a perp in the room ready to go.

  Levin will make a good cop, Malone thinks, but he’ll never be an undercover. Can’t keep the guilt off his face.

  “Bowling Night isn’t for pussies,” Malone says.

  “Just pussy,” Russo says. “But you already know that, don’t you?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Poor Emily,” Russo says.

  “Amy.”

  “As in ‘Don’t tell Amy,’” Monty says.

  “The fuck’s the difference?” Russo says. “Don’t worry, Dave—what happens in Manhattan North stays in Manhattan North. No, wait, that’s Vegas. What happens in Manhattan North, we tell everybody.”

  Malone goes in, takes a shower. Pops two go-pills, changes into a blue denim shirt and black jeans.

  When he gets out, Russo says, “Sykes wants to see you.”

  Malone goes up to the captain’s office.

  “You look like hell,” Sykes says. “Out celebrating?”

  “You should be, too,” Malone says. “You closed Gillette/Williams, the noose is off your neck, the Post and the News have woodies for you.”

  “The Amsterdam News is calling me an Oreo.”

  “You care?”

  “Not really,” Sykes says.

  But Malone knows he does.

  “I’m pleased about Gillette/Williams,” Sykes says, “but it doesn’t solve the bigger problem. In fact, it only makes it worse—if Carter gets those weapons, he’ll hit back hard.”

  “I talked to him,” Malone says.

  “You did what?”

  “I happened to bump into him,” Malone says. “So I took the opportunity to ask him to stand down.”

  “And?”

  “You’re right. He won’t.”

  More lies of omission. He doesn’t tell Sykes that he knows for a fact one of his detectives is on Carter’s pad, running interference, in fact, on the gun deal. Can’t tell him, because Sykes would slap Torres in cuffs. So instead, he says, “We’re on it.”

  “You want to be a little more specific?” Sykes asks.

  “We’re placing a visual surveillance on 3803 Broadway, where we believe Teddy Bailey is setting up the deal.”

  “Can that get us Carter?”

  “Probably not,” Malone says. “You want the guns or you want Carter?”

  “First the one, then the other.”

  “We get the guns,” Malone says, “Carter is going down anyway.”

  “I want him arrested,” Sykes says, “not killed by Carlos Castillo.”

  “Does it matter?” Malone asks.

  “I won’t have the Task Force perceived as operating on behalf of one drug operation versus another,” Sykes says. “This is New York, not Mexico.”

  “Jesus Christ, Captain,” Malone says. “You want these guns or you don’t? We both know DeVon Carter isn’t going anywhere near them. Just like we both know these homicide clearances are going to buy you a little time, but not a lot before One P is up your ass again.”

  “Get the guns,” Sykes says. “Just be aware that your team is serving as the point of the Task Force spear, not a loose cannon of your own.”

  “Don’t worry,” Malone says. “When the bust goes down, you’ll be in on it.”

  You’ll be there to spike the ball for the touchdown celebration.

  But you don’t want to know how I get you to the red zone.

  He walks downstairs into a nasty freakin’ ambush.

  It’s Claudette.

  Two uniforms have her by the elbows and try to move her gently out of the lobby, but she ain’t havin’ it.

  “Where is he?” she says. “Where’s Denny?! I want to see Denny!”

  Malone comes through the door to see this.

  She’s jonesing. She was high and now she’s jangling, her nerves starting to jump ugly at her.

  She sees him, too. “Where have you been? I looked for you last night. I called you. You didn’t answer. I came to your place, you weren’t there.”

  Most of the uniforms look appalled and scared. A couple smirk, until Monty turns his gaze on them.

  “I got this,” Malone says.

  He takes Claudette from the officers. “Let’s go outside.”

  But she has that strength that crazy gives a person and won’t budge. “Who is she? You smell like pussy, you motherfucker. White pussy, some ratchet?”

  The desk sergeant leans out from the counter. “Denny—”

  “I know! I got it!”

  He picks Claudette up by the waist and carries her to the door as she kicks and screams, “You don’t want your friends to see me, asshole?! You’re ashamed of me in front of your cops?! He fucks me, y’all! I let him fuck me in the ass when he wants! In my black ass!”

  Sykes is standing on the stairs.

  Watching this.

  Malone wrestles Claudette out the door into the street. Plainclothes guys coming in stare at them.

  “Get in the car,” Malone tells her.

  “Fuck you.”

  “Get in the fucking car!”

  He shoves her through the passenger door, slams it, walks around and gets in. Hits the lock button, rolls up her sleeves and sees the needle mark.

  “Jesus, Claudette.”

  “Am I under arrest, Officer?” Claudette asks. “Gosh, Officer, is there something I can do to avoid going to jail?”

  She unzips his fly and bends over.

  He straightens her up. “Knock it off.”

  “Can’t get it up? Your whore wear you out?”

  He takes her chin between his left thumb and forefinger. “Listen to me. Listen to me. I cannot be having this. You cannot come here.”

  “Because you’re ashamed of me.”

  “Because it is my place of work.”

  Claudette breaks down. “I’m sorry, Denny. I got so desperate. You left me alone. You left me all alone.”

  It’s an explanation and an accusation.

  He gets it.

  A junkie goes into the alley alone with the disease, it’s the disease that walks out.

  “How much did you shoot?” he asks.

  He’s scared because it’s a new world out there—the dealers are mixing fentanyl with the smack—it’s forty times stronger and if she got a dose of that she could OD. Junkies are dropping out there, dying like gays back in the worst of the AIDS days.

  “Enough, I guess,” she says. And repeats, “You left me alone, baby, and I couldn’t take it so I went out and scored.”

  “Who fixed you?”

  She shakes her head. “You’ll hurt him.”

  “I promise, I won’t. Who?”

  “What difference does it make?” she asks. “You think you can threaten every dealer in New York?”

  “You think I can’t find out?”

  “Then find out,” she says. “I’m hurting, baby.”

  He drives her home. Grabs a get-well bag from under the dashboard and brings it up with him.

  “Go into the bedroom and shoot,” he says. “I don’t want to watch.”

  “It’s my last, baby,” she says. “They’ll give me some come-down shit at the hospital, I know a doctor. I’ll step it down, I promise.”

  He sits on the sofa.

  If I go to jail, he thinks, she dies.

  She’ll never make it alone.

  Claudette comes out a few minutes later. “Tired now. Sleepy.”

  Malone lays her on the sofa, goes into the bathroom, kneels down and pukes into the toilet. He’s violently sick until there’s nothing left to throw up and he dry heaves. Then he sits on the black-and-white tile floor, reaches up to the sink for a hand towel and wipes the sweat off his face. After a couple of minutes, he gets up, splashes cold water on his face and the back of his neck.

  He brushes his teeth until the vomit smell is gone.

  Then he takes his phone and punches in the number.

  Hears “Hello.”

&nbs
p; O’Dell must have been sitting by the phone, the smug bastard, waiting. Knowing I was going to cave.

  Malone says, “I’ll give you lawyers. But no cops, you hear me?”

  I will never give you brother cops.

  Chapter 11

  Sykes waves him upstairs the second he walks into the house.

  He gets up to the office, Sykes asks, “Have you ever heard of ‘rape under the color of authority’?”

  “No.”

  “For example,” Sykes says, “if a person in a position of power, say a police detective, has a sexual relationship with a person under that power, say a criminal informant, that is rape under the color of authority. It’s a felony—ten years to life.”

  “She’s not a CI.”

  “She was high.”

  “She’s not a CI,” Malone repeats.

  “Then who is she?” Sykes asks.

  “That’s not your business,” Malone says.

  “When a woman causes a tawdry scene in the lobby of my station house,” Sykes says, “it is very much my business. I cannot have one of my detectives’ personal lives embarrassing the Job in public. You’re married, aren’t you, Sergeant Malone?”

  “Separated.”

  “Does this woman reside in Manhattan North?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you carrying on with a woman who lives in your jurisdiction,” Sykes says, “is conduct unbecoming an officer. At the very least.”

  “Bring charges.”

  “I will.”

  “No, you won’t,” Malone says. “Because I just cleared your big fucking case, your career is back on track and you’re not going to do anything to put a negative light on your command.”

  Sykes stares at him and Malone knows he’s right.

  “Keep your personal messes out of my station house,” Sykes says.

  Malone and Russo cruise up Broadway north of 158th.

  “You want to talk about it?” Russo asks.

  “No,” Malone says. “But you do, and you’re going to, so go ahead.”

  “A black woman with a drug problem?” Russo asks. “It’s not good, Denny, particularly given the current, shall we say, sensitive racial environment.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “By which you mean you’ll end it?”

  “By which I mean I’ll take care of it,” Malone says. “Subject closed.”

  Broadway up here is broken into north and south lanes with a strip of trees in the center, and the nail shop below Carter’s safe house is on the west side.

  “It’s a second-floor walk-up,” Russo says. “Fat Teddy can’t be liking that.”

  Russo pulls over by an ATM on the east side of the street, they get out and pretend to take out money but instead watch Babyface walk into the liquor store next to the nail shop.

  Five minutes later he comes out with a six-pack of Colt 45, which he passes to Montague.

  Malone and Russo cross Broadway and go into a diner. Fifteen minutes later Montague comes in and sits down across from Malone.

  “Go on,” Malone says. “Say it.”

  “What am I going to say?” Monty asks. His eyes have mischief in them, but Malone sees the seriousness underneath. “I prefer black women, too.”

  “That was some scene,” Russo says.

  “I admire your taste in women,” Monty says. “I truly do. But with all the heat on us right now, the last thing we need is more attention.”

  “I told Russo I’ll take care of it.”

  “And I heard you,” Monty says. “On more pressing matters, the Chaldean gentleman wants to keep his liquor license. I explained that he just sold alcohol to a minor. He doesn’t seem to know Carter, and I told him we just wanted to use his back storeroom for a few weeks and all is forgiven.”

  Malone gets up. “We better get the fuck out of here.”

  They get back into the car and watch as Levin goes in. It takes him forty-five minutes, then he comes out, gets into the car, and Russo drives them out of there.

  “We can punch a hole in the drywall,” Levin says, “push a wire up to the second floor and we’ve got ears on Carter’s little office.”

  “What about shifts?” Russo asks. “Teddy knows me, Malone and Monty, and you can’t do twenty-four seven.”

  “You guys are techno Neanderthals,” Levin says. “Once we get the wire in, I can monitor it on my laptop anywhere close with Wi-Fi. Which is, like, everywhere. And we don’t do twenty-four seven, just when Teddy comes in.”

  “Nasty Ass can give us that,” Malone says. “Levin, you sure you’re good with this? No warrant, it’s illegal as shit. We get caught, you lose your shield, maybe go to jail.”

  Levin smiles. “Just don’t tell Amy.”

  “You coming back to the house?” Russo asks Malone.

  “No, I have to go downtown,” Malone says. “Prep for Fat Teddy’s Mapp hearing.”

  “Good luck with that,” Russo says.

  “Yeah.” It’s the stupid fucking irony of this whole thing. To make the gun case, they have to keep Fat Teddy out of jail and on the street, and if they’d known that then, they could have gotten him a walk without buying the case.

  And none of this federal bullshit would have happened.

  Now he has to buy the case to keep his own ass out of jail.

  He feels like he’s going to puke.

  Quit feeling sorry for yourself, Malone thinks.

  Man up and do what you got to do.

  Malone finds Nasty Ass junkie-bopping up Amsterdam at 133rd and pulls over. “Get in.”

  He’d forgotten how bad the snitch smells. “Jesus, Nasty.”

  “What?” Nasty is relaxed, happy. He must have scored.

  “You ever use a toilet?”

  “I don’t have no toilet.”

  “Borrow one,” Malone says. He rolls the windows down. “You know a nurse who used to score around here? Name is Claudette?”

  “A sister? Real pretty?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I seen her.”

  “Who does she score from?”

  “Slinger named Frankie.”

  “White guy?” Malone asks. “Works Lincoln Playground?”

  “That’s him.”

  Malone gives him a twenty.

  “White people are cheap.”

  “That’s why we have the money,” Malone says. “Get out.”

  “White people rude, too.”

  “Now I have to turn this car in, get a fresh one,” Malone says.

  “You hurtful, man. You a hurtful motherfucker.”

  “Call me.”

  “Cheap, rude and hurtful.”

  “Out.”

  Nasty Ass gets out of the car.

  Frankie sits on the steel bench in the holding cell at the end of the hall.

  Malone picked him up and took him to Three-Two, not Manhattan North. Then let him sit for a while to get him jacked up. The cell stinks of piss, shit, vomit, sweat, fear, desperation, hopelessness and a heavy dose of Axe cologne that Frankie probably lifted from Duane Reade.

  Malone opens the door and walks in. “No, don’t get up.”

  Frankie’s in his early thirties, his head is shaved, he has tattoo sleeves and more tats on his neck.

  Malone rolls up his own sleeves.

  Frankie sees it. “You gonna beat me up?”

  “You remember a woman named Claudette?” Malone asks. “You sold her some shit today?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You guess,” Malone says. “You knew she was clean, because you hadn’t seen her for a while, right?”

  “Or she went somewhere else,” Frankie says.

  “You a junkie, too?”

  “I use.”

  “So you deal to pay for your own shit,” Malone says.

  “Pretty much.” He’s trembling.

  “You know why they put you in this particular cell?” Malone asks. “The video camera doesn’t reach. And you know how it is these days; if it’s not
on camera, it didn’t happen.”

  “Oh, Jesus.”

  “Jesus isn’t here,” Malone says. “What you got is me. And the difference between him and me is that he’s a forgiving kind of guy, and I don’t have an ounce of forgiveness in my entire body.”

  “Oh, God, did she OD?”

  “No,” Malone says. “If she had, you’d have never made it to the house. Listen to me. Frankie, look up at me and listen—”

  Frankie looks up at him.

  Malone says, “I promised her I wouldn’t hurt you. So they’re going to cut you loose after I leave. But—listen to me, Frankie—next time you see her, you run, don’t walk, in the other direction. If you ever sell her dope again, I will find you, and I will beat you to death. And now you know that I keep my promises.”

  He walks out of the cell.

  Chapter 12

  Isobel Paz, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, is a killer.

  A fucking killer, Malone thinks.

  Caramel skin, jet-black hair, red lipstick over a wide mouth and thin lips. Probably in her early forties but looks younger. Comes into the room in a black business jacket over a tight skirt and high heels.

  Dressed to kill.

  They’re back at the fucking Waldorf.

  Paz made sure to arrive last.

  Same thing with mob guys, Malone thinks. The boss is always the last to arrive at a meeting. Make the other people wait, establish the pecking order. These fucks are no different.

  Old school, Malone stands up.

  Paz doesn’t offer her hand. Just says, “Isobel Paz, U.S. attorney.”

  “Denny Malone. NYPD detective.”

  She doesn’t smile, either. Just smoothes her skirt and sits down across from him. “Have a seat, Sergeant Malone.”

  He sits down. Weintraub starts up a digital recorder. O’Dell presents her with a cup of coffee like it’s his balls he’s offering up, then he sits down.

  So we’re all at the fucking table, Malone thinks.

  Now what?

  Paz says, “Sergeant Malone, let me be clear. I don’t think you’re a hero. I think you’re a criminal who takes bribes from other criminals. Just so we understand each other.”

  Malone doesn’t answer.