The Force

by Don Winslow

  It’s a remarkable admission, no less for being true.

  “We’re not going to cover up,” Sykes says. “We’re not going to put up the barricades, huddle behind them and pull in on ourselves.”

  That’s exactly what we’re going to do, Malone thinks.

  “We will be open and transparent,” Sykes says, “and let the investigation go where it goes.”

  You do that, Malone thinks, it will go right up your ass. “Is that all, sir?”

  “Set the tone, Sergeant.”

  You got it, Malone thinks as he walks out. He signals Russo and Montague to come with him, goes back downstairs and walks up to the desk. “Sarge, can you get their attention for me?”

  “Yo, listen up!”

  It gets quiet.

  “All right,” Malone says, “we’re all hurting about Torres. Thoughts and prayers to his family. But right now we have to handle our business. If you talk to the media, here’s what you say: ‘Sergeant Torres was a beloved and respected officer and he will be missed.’ That’s it. Be polite but keep moving. I don’t believe there’s anyone here like this, but if one of you thinks you’re going to become a TV or social media star behind this—I will have your ass.”

  He pauses to let that set in and for Russo and Montague to back him up with their eyes. Then he says, “Look, there are going to be citizens on your beats celebrating. Do not respond. They’re going to try to goad you into getting stupid, but do not do it. I don’t want to see any of you get jammed up with a brutality beef. Stay cool, remember faces, and we’ll settle with them later—you have my word on that.

  “If IAB questions you, cooperate. Tell them the truth—that you don’t know anything. And that is the truth. Thinking you know something and actually knowing it are two very different things. You give rats any cheese, they just keep coming back. We keep our house clean, they go away. Questions.”

  There aren’t any.

  “All right,” Malone says. “We’re the freaking N-Y-P-D. Let’s go out and do our jobs.”

  It’s the talk the captain should have given but he didn’t. Malone goes back upstairs and sees Gallina, Torres’s partner, standing by his desk.

  “Let’s take a walk,” Malone says.

  They go out the back to avoid the media.

  “What the fuck happened?” Malone asks. If Torres talked to anyone, it was Jorge Gallina. Him and Torres were tight.

  “I don’t know,” Gallina says. He’s clearly shaken, afraid. “He was quiet yesterday. Something was wrong.”

  “But he didn’t say what?”

  “He phoned me from his car,” Gallina says, “and just said he wanted to say good-bye. I asked him, you know, ‘What the fuck, Raf?,’ and he said, ‘Nothing,’ and hung up.”

  Guy’s going to end his life, Malone thinks, and he calls his partner, not his wife, to say good-bye.

  Cops.

  “Did IAB have him up?” Malone asks, feeling like a fucking creep.

  “No,” Gallina says. “We’d have known. What are we going to do now, Malone?”

  “Shut it down,” Malone says. “I mean not as much as a fixed parking ticket. Stonewall IAB and keep our noses clean. The Rat Squad starts to paint Raf dirty, we’ll get the media all over them.”

  “Okay,” Gallina says.

  “Where’s Torres’s money?”

  “All over the place,” Gallina says. “I have about a hundred in a fund.”

  “Gloria know that?” Last thing you want is a widow worrying about money on top of everything else.

  “Yeah, but I’ll remind her.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  “She’s a mess,” Gallina says. “I mean, she was talking divorce, but she still loves him.”

  “Get to his gumars,” Malone says. “Lay some cash on them, tell them to shut their mouths. And for Chrissakes make sure they know that coming to the funeral is not a smart idea.”

  “Okay. Good.”

  “You need to chill out, Jorge,” Malone says. “The rats smell fear like sharks smell blood.”

  “I know. What if they want me to take a polygraph?”

  “You call your delegate, he tells them to go fuck themselves,” Malone says. “You’re in grief, you’re in shock, you’re in no condition for that.”

  But Gallina is scared. “You think IAB was on him, Malone? Jesus, you don’t think Raf was wearing a wire?”

  “Torres?” Malone asks. “No fucking way.”

  “Then why did he do it?” Gallina asks.

  Because I gave him up, Malone thinks. Because I dropped him in the jackpot, put the gun in his hand.

  “Who the fuck knows?” Malone says.

  He goes back into the house. McGivern is waiting for him.

  “This is bad, Denny,” McGivern says.

  No shit, this is bad, Malone thinks. Worse maybe than he thought, because Bill McGivern, an NYPD police inspector with more connections than an alderman, looks scared.

  Old, all of a sudden.

  His pale skin looks like paper, his white hair like the top of an aspirin bottle, the ruddiness of his cheeks now looks like just broken veins.

  McGivern says, “If IAB had Torres—”

  “They didn’t.”

  “But what if they did?” McGivern asks. “What did he tell them? What did he know? Did he know about me?”

  “I’m the only one who brought you envelopes,” Malone says. For all Manhattan North.

  But shit yes, Torres knew.

  Everyone knows how it works.

  “Do you think Torres was wearing a wire?” McGivern asks.

  “Even if he was, you have nothing to worry about,” Malone says. “You didn’t talk business with him, did you?”

  “No, that’s right.”

  “Has IAB called you in?” Malone asks.

  “They don’t have the nerve,” McGivern says. “But if someone talks . . .”

  “They won’t.”

  “The Task Force is solid, Denny? Stand-up guys?”

  “Totally,” Malone says. At least I fuckin’ hope so.

  “I hear rumors,” McGivern says, “that it isn’t IAB, it’s the feds.”

  “Which feds?”

  “Southern District,” McGivern says. “That Spanish bitch. She has ambitions, Denny.”

  McGivern makes it sound dirty. Ambitions, like she has crabs. Like being ambitious makes her a whore.

  Malone hates the buchiach, too, but not for that.

  “She wants to hurt the Job,” McGivern says. “We can’t let her do that.”

  “We don’t even know it’s her,” Malone says.

  McGivern ain’t listening. He says, “I’m two years away from pulling the pin. Jeannie and I have a cabin up in Vermont.”

  And a condo on Sanibel Island, Malone thinks.

  “I want to spend time in that cabin,” McGivern says. “Not behind bars. Jeannie isn’t well, you know.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “She needs me,” McGivern says. “Whatever time we have left . . . I’m counting on you, Denny. I’m counting on you to shut this down. Do what you have to do.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I trust you, Denny,” McGivern says, putting his hand on Malone’s shoulder. “You’re a good man.”

  Yeah, Malone thinks, walking away.

  I’m a king.

  It’s going to be brutal, Malone thinks, to keep this tied down.

  For one thing, the street is going to be talking. Every half-ass low-level dope slinger Torres ever ripped or beat on is going to come forward to tell the story now that they don’t have to be afraid of him.

  Then the guys he put away are going to start to chirp from their cells. Hey, Torres was a dirty cop. He lied on the stand. I want a retrial, no, I want my conviction tossed out.

  It comes out that Torres was dirty, it’s full-employment act for the criminal defense bar. Those assholes will reopen every case Torres ever touched; shit, that the whole Task Force ever touched.


  And it could come out. It takes only one guy to break. Gallina’s already shaken. If he goes, he’s not only going to flip on his own team, but on everyone.

  The dominos tumble.

  We have to shut it down.

  Not we, motherfucker. You.

  You started the ball rolling.

  Malone’s the last on his team to go talk with IAB.

  His guys did what they needed to do and Russo told him, “They got nothing. They know shit.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Buliosi and Henderson.”

  Henderson, Malone thinks. We finally catch a break.

  He goes into the room.

  “Have a seat, Sergeant Malone,” Buliosi says.

  Lieutenant Richard Buliosi is a typical IAB prick. Maybe it’s the acne scars that made him a rat, Malone thinks, but the guy definitely has a beef with the world to work out.

  Malone sits down.

  “What can you tell us,” Buliosi asks, “about the apparent suicide of Sergeant Torres?”

  “Not much,” Malone says. “I didn’t know him all that well.”

  Buliosi looks at him with a show of incredulity. “You were in the same unit.”

  “Torres mostly worked the Heights and Inwood,” Malone says. “My team is mostly in Harlem.”

  “Hardly worlds apart.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Malone says. “That is, if you worked the streets.”

  He regrets the dig instantly but Buliosi lets it go. “Was Torres depressed?”

  “I guess so, huh.”

  “I mean,” Buliosi says, starting to get irritated, “did he show signs of depression?”

  “I’m not a shrink,” Malone answers, “but as far as I observed, Torres was his usual prick self.”

  “You didn’t get along?”

  “We got along fine,” Malone says. “One prick to another.”

  You gonna get in on this, Henderson? Malone wonders, looking at him. I need to remind you you got skin in this game? Henderson gets the message. “My understanding is that Torres had a reputation as a hard-ass up here. Is that accurate, Malone?”

  “If you don’t have a rep as a hard-ass ‘up here,’” Malone says, “you’re not going to last long ‘up here.’”

  “Is it accurate to say,” Henderson asks, “that detectives were selected for the Task Force somewhat based on that quality?”

  “I’d say that’s accurate, yes.”

  “That’s the problem with the Task Force,” Buliosi says. “It’s almost designed for trouble.”

  “Was that a question, sir?”

  “I’ll tell you what the questions are, Sergeant,” Buliosi says.

  You think so, Malone thinks, but right now we’re talking about what I want to talk about, aren’t we?

  Buliosi asks, “Do you know if Torres was doing anything that might have caused him concern for his job or his future?”

  “That’s more your business, isn’t it?”

  “We’re asking you.”

  “Like I said,” Malone says, “I don’t know what Torres was doing or what he wasn’t doing.”

  “You haven’t heard rumors,” Buliosi asks, “around the house?”

  “No.”

  “Was he taking money?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Ripping drug dealers?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Buliosi asks, “Are you?”

  “No.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “I think I’d know,” Malone says, meeting his stare.

  “You’re aware,” Buliosi says, “of the consequences of lying to IAB in the course of an investigation.”

  Malone says, “That would involve intradepartmental discipline, potential dismissal from the job as well as possible criminal charges for obstructing justice.”

  “That’s right,” Buliosi says. “Sadly, Torres is dead. You don’t have to protect him.”

  Malone feels his temper coming up out of his gut. Like he wants to smash this motherfucker’s face in for him, shut his smarmy fucking mouth. “Are you sad about it, Lieutenant? Because I don’t read that on your face.”

  “As you said, you’re not a shrink.”

  “Yeah, but reading assholes’ faces is kind of my job.”

  Henderson jumps in. “That’s enough, Malone. I know you’re hurting about the loss of a brother officer, but—”

  “The next time I see an IAB guy eat his gun will be the first time,” Malone says. “You don’t do that, lawyers don’t, wiseguys don’t. You know who does? Cops. Only cops. Real cops, that is.”

  Henderson says, “I think that will be all for now, Sergeant. Why don’t you take a little personal time, get yourself together.”

  “We reserve the right to reinterview,” Buliosi says.

  Malone gets up. “Let me tell you both something. I don’t know why Torres did what he did. I didn’t even like the guy. But he was a cop. The Job takes a toll. Sometimes it’s sudden, a skel tosses a lucky shot at you and that’s it. Other times it’s slow, builds so slow you don’t even notice it, but then one day you wake up and you can’t take it anymore. Torres didn’t kill himself—one way or the other, the Job killed him.”

  “Do you need to see a departmental shrink?” Buliosi asks. “I can arrange an appointment for you.”

  “No,” Malone says. “What I need is to go back to work.”

  He meets Henderson in Riverside Park by the softball fields.

  “Thanks for all your help in the room,” Malone says.

  “You didn’t help with your attitude,” Henderson says. “Now Buliosi has a hard-on for you.”

  “Like IAB didn’t before,” Malone says. “You guys have wood for every real cop.”

  “Gee, thanks, Denny.”

  Malone looks across the river at Jersey. Only good thing about living there, he thinks, is you have a view of New York. “Did you guys have Torres up?”

  “No.”

  “You sure?”

  “To quote the immortal Denny Malone,” Henderson says, “‘I think I would have known.’ It wasn’t us. Maybe it was the feds. Southern District has it out for the commissioner.”

  Jesus, Malone thinks. Fucking radar. “Well, IAB’s on it now. How much is it going to cost?”

  “It’s headline news, Denny,” Henderson says. “The News, the Post, even the Times. On top of this fucking Bennett thing—”

  “All the more reason for shutting it down,” Malone says. “You really think the commissioner wants you digging up skeletons in Torres’s closet? Scandals don’t last, but the boys at One P do. And they have long memories. They’ll wait for this to die down and then they’ll fuck you. You’ll retire the same rank you are now, if you even make it that far.”

  “You’re right.”

  “I already know that,” Malone says. “What I want to know is how much?”

  “I’ll have to take it to Buliosi.”

  “Then why are you still standing here?” Malone asks.

  “Jesus, Malone, if I swing and miss, I go to jail.”

  “Where do you think you’ll go if Gallina flips?” Malone asks. “Larry, I’m telling you—we go, you go with us.”

  He walks away and leaves Henderson standing there looking at New Jersey.

  “Oh, this is beautiful,” Paz says. “Are you seriously telling us that IAB is on the pad? You were tossing bones to the watchdogs?”

  “Not all of them,” Malone says.

  “What do they do for you?” O’Dell asks.

  “Tip us off,” Malone says. Then he adds, “You wanted cops.”

  “A thing of beauty,” Paz says. “On a certain sick level, it’s almost admirable—he’s going to rat out the Rat Squad.”

  “How high up in IAB does it go?” Weintraub asks.

  “I pay a lieutenant,” Malone says. “What he does with the money after that, I have no idea.”

  “You can get this on camera?” Weintraub asks. “An IAB lieutenan
t taking a bribe.”

  “What did I just say?”

  They all look at Paz.

  She nods.

  “No,” Malone says. “I want to hear you say it, boss lady. ‘Sergeant Malone, go after Internal Affairs.’”

  “You have my authorization.”

  Good, Malone thinks.

  Turn the rats against each other, let them chew each other’s rat faces off.

  Weintraub asks him, “Do you think your guy can move Buliosi?”

  “He’s not my guy.”

  “Sure he is,” Weintraub says. “You own him.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We need to shut down IAB,” Paz says. “A premature disclosure would threaten our investigation.”

  “You mean steal your thunder,” Malone says.

  “I mean,” Paz says, “that if IAB is dirty, it will suppress the evidence and seal its leaks. We’ll be left with just Henderson.”

  Right, Malone thinks. What they’re really afraid of is the commissioner will beat the mayor to the punch, announce the corruption, own it, and come out a hero.

  “This fucking Torres,” Paz says. “Who knew he was such a pussy?”

  “So you’re not going to move on IAB?” Malone asks.

  “The hell we’re not, just not yet,” Paz says. She walks over to Malone, her perfume reaching him before she does. “Sergeant Malone, you beautiful dirty cop, you may have single-handedly brought down corruption in the defense bar, the prosecutor’s office, IAB and the entire NYPD.”

  “It’s bigger than Serpico,” Weintraub says, “Bob Leuci, Michael Dowd, Eppolito, any of those guys.”

  Malone’s phone rings.

  O’Dell nods for him to take it.

  It’s Henderson.

  He has an answer.

  A hundred thousand dollars buys Buliosi.

  “It could be a countersting,” O’Dell says.

  “The fuck do I have to lose?” Malone asks.

  “Our entire investigation,” Weintraub says. “If you pay Buliosi and he’s playing you, IAB will take down the Task Force and then we’re fucked.”

  “And you’ll give us up, won’t you?” Paz asks.

  “In a heartbeat.”

  “Maybe it’s time,” O’Dell says, “we coordinated with IAB. If they are clean, our investigations are going to start tripping over each other, anyway.”