by Don Winslow
“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” O’Dell says. “You’re going to be ashamed, you should be ashamed of what you were doing, not what you’re doing now.”
“I didn’t come here looking for your fucking absolution.”
“No?” O’Dell asks. “I kind of think you did. I think some part of you wanted to get caught, Denny.”
“Is that what you think?” Malone asks. “Then you’re an even bigger asshole than I thought you were.”
“You want to get coffee, a drink?” O’Dell asks.
Malone whirls on him.
“Don’t handle me, O’Dell.” You know how many informers I’ve handled, coddled, seduced, told them they were doing the right thing? I give them heroin, not coffee, and I know the cardinal rule of dealing with them—you can’t think of them as people, they’re snitches. You start falling in love with them, caring about them, thinking of them as anything but what they are, they’ll end up killing you.
I’m your snitch, O’Dell.
Don’t fuck up by trying to treat me like a person.
Claudette says pretty much the same thing to him when he goes to check in on her.
He walks in the door and the first words out of her mouth are “Are you ashamed to be seen with me?”
“The fuck did that come from?” he asks. He looks to see if her eyes are pinned but they aren’t. She hasn’t been using, she’s been hanging in there, jonesing, and he knows it’s tough as hell and she’s angry and now she’s going to take it out on him.
“I’ve been thinking about why I relapsed.”
You relapsed because you’re an addict, he thinks.
“Why haven’t I ever met your partners?” she asks. “You’ve met their mistresses, haven’t you?”
“You’re not my mistress.”
“What am I?”
Oh, fuck. “My girlfriend.”
“You haven’t introduced me because I’m black,” she says.
“Claudette, one of my partners is black.”
“And you don’t want him to know you’re doing a sister,” she says.
Yeah, that’s partially true, Malone thinks. He didn’t know how Monty would react, whether he’d be okay with it or if he’d be pissed. “Why do you want to meet them?”
“Why don’t you want me to meet them?” she asks back. “Is it because I’m black or because I’m an addict?”
“Nobody knew about that,” Malone says.
“Because nobody knew about me.”
“Well, they do now,” Malone says. “Why are my partners so important to you?”
“They’re your family,” she says. “They know your wife, your children. You know theirs. They know everyone important in your life, except me. Which makes me think I’m not.”
“I don’t know what more I can do to—”
“I’m your shadow life,” she says. “You hide me.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“We almost never go out,” she says.
That’s true. Between her schedule and his it’s a tough get and anyway, it’s awkward, even in 2017—a white man with a black woman in Harlem. When they do go out together—to a coffee shop or the grocery store—they get looks, sideways glances and sometimes outright stares.
And he’s not just a white man, he’s a white cop.
That causes hostility, or something worse, maybe some of the locals figuring Malone will cut them a break because he’s with a black woman.
“I’m not ashamed of you,” Malone said. “It’s just that . . .”
He goes on to explain his concern that the people in the neighborhood might think he’d slacken up. “But you wanna go out, we’ll go out. Let’s go out right now.”
“Look at me, I’m a mess,” she says. “I don’t want to go out.”
“Jesus Christ, you just said—”
“I mean, what is this, some kind of ‘brown sugar’ thing?” she asks. “Jungle fever? You just come over here and fuck me?”
“No.”
You fuck me back, baby, he thought, but was just smart enough not to say.
“Denny, did you ever think you might be one of the reasons I use?”
Jesus fucking Christ, Claudette—you ever think you’re one of the reasons I just turned fucking snitch, that I just turned fucking rat, that your fucking addiction, your fucking disease is what made me do that?!
“Fuck you,” he says.
“Fuck you right back.”
He gets up.
“Where are you going?” she asks.
“Somewhere that’s not here.”
“You mean somewhere away from me.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Go,” Claudette says. “Go away. You want to be with me, you treat me like a person. Not some junkie whore.”
He slams the door on his way out.
Chapter 14
Malone and Russo take in a Rangers game, tickets on the blue line comped by a guy from the Garden who still likes cops.
Which is, like, fewer and fewer people, Malone thinks.
Just last month, two plainclothes in an unmarked vehicle out near Ozone Park in Queens saw a guy standing next to a double-parked car with an open bottle of booze.
A bullshit C-summons, but when they went to front the guy, he ran.
You run on cops, they’re gonna chase, it’s the golden retriever mentality. They cornered him, he pulled a gun, the cops shot him thirteen times.
The family hired a lawyer who started litigating the case in the media. “A father of five young children was hit with thirteen bullets, including shots to the back and head, all because of an open container.”
First you had Garner killed over selling Luckys, then Michael Bennett, now you have a guy killed over a freakin’ open container.
Gotta hand it to the commissioner, though, he stood up. “The best way to not get shot by a New York City police officer is not carry a gun and not raise that gun toward them.”
Syntax and grammar aside, as Monty observed, it was a strong statement, especially when the commissioner added, “My cops go out there every day and put their lives at risk and the attorneys, the games they play.”
The lawyer fired back. “We certainly have empathy for good cops who risk their lives to protect our communities—who doesn’t? But as for ‘games’ being played . . . one needs to simply open up a newspaper any day of the week to learn of the lying, cheating and stealing committed by members of the NYPD, so you’ll excuse me if I don’t immediately take their word for what occurred.”
So the Job’s taking it from all sides.
The protesters are out, the activists are calling for action and the tension between the police and the community is worse than ever.
And still no call from the Bennett grand jury.
So when black guys aren’t shooting black people, the cops are shooting black people.
Either way, Malone thinks, black people die.
And he goes on being a cop.
New York goes on being New York.
The world goes on being the world.
Yeah, it does and it doesn’t. His world has changed.
He’s a rat.
The first time you do it, Malone thinks, it’s life changing.
The second time, it’s just life.
The third time, Malone thinks, it’s your life.
It’s who you are.
The first time he wore a wire he felt like everyone in the world could see it, like it was glued to his forehead. It felt like a thick scar on his skin, a cut that still stitched and pulled.
This last time it slipped on easier than his belt. He hardly noticed it was there.
O’Dell doesn’t call him a rat.
The FBI agent calls him a “rock star.”
Rock star.
By mid-May, Malone had given the feds four defense lawyers and three ADAs. Paz’s office is busy typing up sealed indictments. They’re not going to make arrests until they’re ready to spring the entire trap.
&
nbsp; The fucked-up thing is that when he’s not trapping dirty lawyers, Malone just goes on being a cop.
Like none of this is really happening.
He goes to the Job, he works with his team, he monitors the surveillance on Carter, he deals with Sykes. He rides the streets, works his snitches, makes the busts that are there to be made.
He goes to the shooting scenes.
Two weeks after the Gillette/Williams killings a Trinitario up in Inwood was walking home from a club and took a round in the back of the head. Ten days later a Spade in north St. Nick’s got laced with a shotgun blast from a drive-by. He’s in Harlem Hospital but he ain’t going to make it.
And as Malone predicted, the goodwill from the Williams arrest lasted about an hour and a half. Now Sykes is catching it at the CompStat meeting, the commissioner’s catching it from the mayor, the mayor from the media.
Sykes is all up Malone’s ass for progress on the guns.
He’s up everyone’s ass.
Got Malone working Carter, Torres on Castillo, has the plainclothes out trying to get guns off the street, the undercovers trying to buy them.
Yeah, shit flows downhill.
It’s Levin that gets them the break.
Fuckin’ Levin, he showed up one day with his iPad and sat in the liquor store closet banging away. Russo and Monty, they figured the kid was just screwing around online, watching Netflix, they didn’t care, it’s a monotonous gig and you gotta do something, but one day he came out looking prouder than a fourteen-year-old who just got his first tit and he opened up the iPad and said, “Look at this.”
“The fuck you do?”
“I hacked his phones,” Levin said. “I mean, not the voice, we can’t hear the other half of the conversations, but every time he makes or receives a call, it comes on the screen.”
“Levin,” Monty said, “you may have actually justified your existence on this earth.”
No shit.
Now they know who Fat Teddy’s talking to, and he’s talking to Mantell a lot.
“Volume analysis,” Levin said. “As they get closer to a delivery, the traffic will pick up.”
“But how do we know where they’re going to exchange?” Malone asked.
“We don’t yet,” Levin said. “But we will.”
“Carter won’t go near the exchange,” Monty said. “He’s not even on the phone now, has Fat Teddy handling everything.”
“We don’t care about Carter,” Malone said. “Just the guns.”
Maybe stop a bloodbath.
So Malone’s trying to be a real cop, do real police work, restore the peace in his kingdom.
Peace of mind, that he can’t restore.
The shooting war going on inside his own head.
Monty wasn’t interested in coming to the Rangers game. “Black folk don’t go near ice.”
“There are black hockey players,” Malone said.
“Race traitors.”
They’d have taken Levin, but you can’t get him off the Fat Teddy surveillance with a crowbar and a hand grenade. So it’s just Malone and Phil there to watch the Penguins wipe the Rangers out of the playoffs. They’re sitting with beers and Russo says, “The fuck’s going on with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“When’s the last time you saw your kids?”
“Who are you, my priest right now?” Malone asks. “You want to fuck me in the ass, Father?”
“Drink your beer. Sorry I asked.”
“I’ll come out this weekend.”
“Do what you want,” Russo says. Then he asks, “What about the black woman, you deal with that?”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Phil.”
“Okay, okay.”
“Can we watch the fucking game?”
They watch the fucking game as the Rangers do what the Rangers do, blow a lead in the third period and then get beat in OT.
Malone and Russo go to the bar at Jack Doyle’s after the game for a nightcap, the TV news is on and Reverend Cornelius is talking about the Ozone Park “police killing.”
Fucking lawyer-looking fuck in a suit standing at the bar, his tie loosened around his neck, starts shooting his mouth off. “Cops executed that guy.”
Russo sees the look in Malone’s eyes.
Seen that look before, and now Malone’s had a few beers and three Jamesons back to back to back.
“Take it easy.”
“Fuck him.”
“Let it slide, Denny.”
But the loudmouth won’t let it go, starts lecturing the whole bar about the “militarization of our police forces” and the funny thing is Malone don’t even disagree with him, it’s just he’s not in the mood for this shit.
He’s staring at the guy, the guy sees it and looks back at him and Malone says, “What are you looking at?”
The guy wants to back down. “Nothing.”
Malone slides off the stool. “No, what the fuck you looking at, mouth?”
Russo gets behind him, puts his hand on his shoulder. “Come on, Denny. Chill.”
Malone shoves his hand off. “You fucking chill.”
The guy’s buddies, they’re trying to move him out of the bar and Russo is all in agreement with that, he says, “Why don’t you take your friend home?”
“What are you, a lawyer?” Malone asks the guy.
“Yeah, as a matter of fact.”
“Well, I’m a cop,” Malone says. “I’m a New York City fucking police detective!”
“Enough, Denny.”
“I’ll have your badge,” the guy says. “What’s your name?”
“Denny Malone! Sergeant Dennis John Malone! Manhattan motherfucking North!”
Russo lays a couple of twenties on the bar. Says to the bartender, “It’s okay, we’re getting out of here.”
“After I kick this pussy’s ass,” Malone says.
Russo gets between them, shoves Malone back and hands the guy his card. “Look, he’s had a tough week, a few too many. Take this, you need a favor sometime, a ticket fixed, whatever, you call.”
“Your buddy’s an asshole.”
“Tonight I can’t argue,” Russo says. He grabs Malone and hauls him out of the bar and shoves him onto Eighth Avenue.
“Denny, what the fuck?!”
“Guy pissed me off.”
“You want to get IAB up our ass?!” Russo asks. “Give Sykes more of a hard-on for you than he already has? Jesus.”
“Let’s go get a drink.”
“Let’s put you to bed.”
“I’m a New York City police detective.”
“Yeah, I heard that,” Russo says. “Everybody did.”
“New York’s finest.”
“Okay, champ.”
They walk to the parking lot and Russo drives him home. Takes him upstairs. “Denny, do yourself a favor. Stay here. Don’t go out anymore tonight.”
“I won’t. I got court tomorrow.”
“Yeah, you’re going to look great,” Russo says. “You going to set an alarm or should I call you?”
“Alarm.”
“I’ll call you. Get some sleep.”
Drunk dreams are the worst dreams.
Maybe because your brain is already fucked over and ready to give up to the sickest shit you got running around in there.
Tonight he dreams about the Cleveland family.
Two adults, three kids dead in their apartment.
Executed.
The kids ask him for help but he can’t help them.
He can’t help them, he just stands there and cries and cries and cries.
Malone gets up in the morning and downs five glasses of water.
Head hurts like a motherfucker.
Whiskey with a beer chaser is good; beer with a whiskey chaser is a catastrophe. He pops three aspirin, two Dexies, showers and shaves and then gets dressed. His court costume today is a white shirt with a red tie, blue blazer, gray slacks and polished black shoes.
You don’t wear a
suit to court unless you’re at least a lieutenant or above because you don’t want to show up the lawyers and you want the jury to see you as an honest working stiff.
No cuff links today.
No Armani, no Boss.
Straight-up Jos. A. Banks.
Mary Hinman sees him and laughs. “That your schoolboy costume?”
Red hair, freckled pale skin, the special prosecutor for Narcotics could be out of the cast of Riverdance if she were taller.
But Hinman is small, a description she rejects.
“I’m not small,” she says when the topic comes up. “I’m concentrated.”
Which is no-shit true, Malone thinks now, sitting across the table from her. Hinman is ferocious, a five-four little ball of rage who came up the traditional way—Catholic all-girls school, Fordham University, then NYU law. Hinman’s feet can’t touch the floor from the barstool but she can drink you under the table. Malone knows. He went shot for shot with her the night she got a verdict against a dealer named Corey Gaines for killing his girlfriend.
Malone lost.
Hinman put him in a cab.
She comes by it honest—her father was an alcoholic cop, her mother an alcoholic cop’s wife.
Hinman knows cops—she knows how it works. Nevertheless, when she was a rookie ADA, Malone had to teach her a few things her father hadn’t. It was her first major drug case—long before she’d elbowed past her male counterparts to become special prosecutor—and Malone was in plainclothes in Anti-Crime.
But it was a whole kilo of coke Malone and his then partner Billy Foster made in a tenement on 148th. They got a tip from a snitch, but not enough to get a warrant. Malone wasn’t about to hand it over to Narcotics—he wanted the collar—so he and Foster went in on a gunshot warrant, arrested the dealer and then called it in.
It got him a chewing out from his sergeant and Narcotics, but it also got him attention. Normally he wouldn’t care if it also got a conviction, but he wanted this scalp on his belt and was worried that a rookie ADA—a woman, to boot—would jack up his case.
When she called him in for witness preparation, Hinman said, “Just tell the truth and get the conviction.”
