The Force

by Don Winslow

  “Are you out of your fucking mind?” Paz asks. “They’re about to sell the Torres investigation.”

  “Or not,” O’Dell says.

  “If we bring them in now,” Weintraub says, “they just throw Henderson under the bus and shut it down. They’re not going to do anything beyond that to embarrass the commissioner.”

  “They’ll just circle the wagons,” Paz says. “Shut us down.”

  “And then the mayor doesn’t get to be governor,” Malone says, “and you don’t get to be mayor. That’s what this is about. Spare me the song-and-dance about stopping the corruption. You are the corruption.”

  “And you’re white as snow,” Paz says.

  “New York snow,” Malone says.

  Dirty, gritty, hard.

  Paz turns back to O’Dell. “We pay Buliosi.”

  O’Dell asks, “Do we even have a hundred thousand? In cash?”

  No one answers.

  “It’s okay,” Malone says. “I got it.”

  And I got you.

  I might even have a way out of this.

  “You’re famous, Sergeant Malone,” Rubenstein says.

  They’re sitting upstairs at the Landmark Tavern.

  “Nah,” Malone says.

  Malone can’t tell if Rubenstein’s gay or not, like Russo thought, but Russo thinks all journalists are gay, even the women. One thing Malone can tell about Rubenstein is that he’s dangerous. A predator always recognizes another predator.

  “No, come on,” Rubenstein says. “The biggest drug bust in history—you’re as close to a celebrity cop as this city has.”

  “Don’t tell my captain that, okay?” Malone says.

  “The word on the street is that you run Manhattan North,” Rubenstein says, smiling.

  Dangerous.

  “Don’t write that or we’re done,” Malone says. “Look, all this needs to be on . . . what do you guys call it . . .”

  Malone knows full well what they call it.

  “Deep background,” Rubenstein says.

  “That’s it,” Malone says. “No one can know I’m giving you information. I’m trusting you here.”

  “You can.”

  Yeah, right I can. You trust a reporter like you trust a dog. You got a bone in your hand, you’re feeding him, you’re good. Your hand’s empty, don’t turn your back. You either feed the media or it eats you.

  “You had a case against Pena before, didn’t you?” Rubenstein asks.

  Jesus fuck, who’s this guy been talking to? “That’s right.”

  “Did that affect the way you handled it?” Rubenstein asks.

  “Do you know about Irish Alzheimer’s?” Malone asks.

  “No.”

  “You forget everything but the grudges,” Malone says. “Look, we didn’t know what we were going to come up against when we went into that building. As it happened, bad guys with guns wanted to slug it out. One of them was Pena. Am I glad that we won and they didn’t? Yes. Do I enjoy killing people? No.”

  “But it must have an effect on you.”

  “‘The tortured cop,’” Malone says. “That’s a stereotype. I sleep fine, thanks for your concern.”

  “How do you think the inner-city community views police these days?” Rubenstein asks.

  “With mistrust,” Malone says. “Look, there has been a long history of racism and brutality in the NYPD. No serious person could deny that. But things have changed. People don’t want to believe that, but it’s true.”

  “The Michael Bennett shooting would seem to indicate otherwise.”

  “Why don’t we wait until the facts are in?” Malone says.

  “Why does it take so long to complete an investigation?”

  “Ask the grand jury.”

  “I’m asking you,” Rubenstein says. “You’ve been involved in a number of shooting incidents.”

  “And each one has been determined to have been justified,” Malone says.

  “Maybe that’s my point.”

  “I didn’t come here to debate,” Malone says.

  “What did you come here for?” Rubenstein asks.

  “Rafael Torres,” Malone says. “There’s been a lot of speculation in the media . . .”

  “That he was a crooked cop,” Rubenstein says. “Protecting drug dealers.”

  “It’s bullshit.”

  “You have to agree,” Rubenstein says, “that it’s not an outrageous idea. I mean, there’s ample precedent.”

  “The ‘Dirty Thirty,’ Michael Dowd,” Malone says. “Ancient history.”

  “Is it?”

  “No one wants heroin off the streets more than cops do,” Malone says. “We deal with the violence, the crime, the suffering, the overdoses, the bodies. We go to the morgues. We go tell the families. Not the New York Times.”

  “This seems to make you angry, Sergeant.”

  “Goddamn right it makes me angry,” Malone says, pissed for letting himself get taunted. “People throwing around careless accusations. Who have you guys been talking to?”

  “Do you give up your sources, Sergeant?” Rubenstein asks.

  “All right, that’s fair,” Malone says. “Look, I came here to tell you the real reason Torres killed himself.”

  He slides an envelope across the table, material that his tame doctor on the West Side provided after complaining that it was medical malpractice.

  Rubenstein opens it and looks at the X-ray and doctor’s report. “Pancreatic cancer?”

  “He didn’t want to go out that way.”

  “Why didn’t he leave a note?” Rubenstein asks.

  “Raf wasn’t that kind of guy.”

  “And he wasn’t the dirty cop kind of guy either?”

  Fuck you, Rubenstein. “Look, would Torres take a free cup of coffee, a sandwich? Okay, sure. But that’s as far as it went.”

  “I heard on the street he was practically DeVon Carter’s bodyguard.”

  “I hear all kinds of shit on the street,” Malone says. “Did you know Jack Kennedy is managing an Applebee’s on Mars? Trump is the love child of reptilians who live under Madison Square Garden? In the current environment, the ‘community’ will believe anything bad about cops, and repeat it, and it becomes ‘truth.’”

  “Here’s the funny thing,” Rubenstein says. “People in ‘the community’ were talking to me about Torres, and then they stopped. They don’t return my calls, they walk away from me. It’s almost like someone put some pressure on them.”

  “You guys are fuckin’ unbelievable,” Malone says. “I just gave you the real reason Torres took Exit 38, but you want to get on the grassy knoll anyway. I guess it makes a better story, huh?”

  “The truth makes the best story, Sergeant.”

  “And now you have it.”

  “Did your bosses send you?”

  “You see me on a bicycle?” Malone says. “I came here on my own to protect a brother officer’s reputation.”

  “And the Task Force’s.”

  “Yeah, that too.”

  “Why’d you come to me?” Rubenstein asks. “The Post will usually whore for the department.”

  “I read your heroin articles,” Malone says. “They were good, you got it right. And you’re the fuckin’ Times.”

  Rubenstein thinks for a few seconds and then says, “What if I write that a confidential but reliable source revealed that Torres was suffering from a painful and terminal illness.”

  “You’d have my gratitude.”

  “What does that get me?”

  Malone gets up. “I don’t fuck on the first date. Dinner, maybe a movie, we’ll see what happens.”

  “You have my number.”

  Yeah, I do, Malone thinks, walking out onto the street.

  I got your number.

  He meets Russo and Monty at the co-op.

  Where they usually go to relax, chill out, but nothing’s chill in there now. The air is close and tight, and Russo and Monty, two tough sons of bitches, are rattled.
Russo doesn’t have that smile on his face, Monty looks positively grim, the cigar in his mouth cold and out.

  And Levin’s not even there.

  “Where’s the newbie?” Malone asks.

  “He went home,” Russo says.

  “He okay?”

  “He’s shook, but he’s okay,” Russo says. He gets up from the sofa and paces around the room. Looks out the window and then back to Malone. “Jesus Christ. You think Torres gave us up?”

  “If he did, we’d be in cuffs already,” Monty says. “Raf Torres was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a rat.”

  It goes into Malone like a blade.

  Because Big Monty’s right. Raf Torres was a drug slinger, a whoremonger and a woman beater, Malone thinks, but he wasn’t me. He wasn’t a rat and he didn’t look his partners in the eye and lie to them, like I’m about to do.

  “Still, the fucking heat’s coming down,” Russo says.

  “It wasn’t IAB,” Malone says, feeling like shit. “At least not as far as Henderson knows. He’s moving to shut them down on it. It’s going to cost us a hundred K from the slush fund.”

  “The cost of doing business,” Monty says.

  “So it’s who, the feds?” Russo asks.

  “We don’t know,” Malone says. “Could be nobody. For all we know, Torres just got tired of being a worthless piece of shit and put an end to it. I put out a cover story he was sick.”

  A silence as Monty and Russo look at each other. They’d been talking to each other before he got there, and Malone wants to know what they have on their minds. Fuck, are they wondering about me?

  “What?” Malone asks, his fucking heart stopped.

  Russo starts, “Denny, we’ve been talking . . .”

  “Jesus Christ, just say it,” Malone says. “You got something on your mind, let it come out your fucking mouth.”

  Russo says, “We think it’s time to move the Pena smack.”

  “Now?” Malone asks. “With all this heat?”

  “Because of all this heat,” Russo says. “What if we need to take off, or money for lawyers? If we wait, we might be in a situation we can’t lay it off.”

  Malone looks to Monty. “Where are you with this?”

  Monty rolls his cigar, carefully lighting it. “I’m just not getting any younger, and Yolanda’s been on me to spend more time with the family.”

  “You talking about leaving Da Force?” Malone asks.

  “The Job,” Monty says. “I have my twenty coming up in a few months. I’m not so sure I don’t want to finish out at some desk in the outer boroughs, pull the pin, take my pension and move the family to North Carolina.”

  “If that’s what you want to do, Monty,” Malone says, “you should do it.”

  “North Carolina,” Russo says. “You don’t want to stay in the city?”

  “The boys,” Monty says, “especially the two older ones, are getting to that mouthy age. They don’t want to do what they’re told, they want to talk back. The truth of it is, I don’t want them talking smack to the wrong cop and getting shot.”

  “The fuck, Monty?” Russo says.

  So this is what it’s come to, Malone thinks—a black cop is afraid another cop is going to shoot his kid.

  “It’s not something the two of you have to think about,” Monty says. “Your kids are white, but it’s something Yo and I have to think about. Scares her half to death; if it isn’t a cop, it’s some banger.”

  “Black kids get shot in the South,” Malone says.

  “Not like up here,” Monty says. “Do you think I want to leave? Shit, I don’t even like getting a meal outside of New York. But Yo has family down near Durham, there are good schools, I can get a good position at one of the colleges . . . Look, we’ve had a good run. But everything comes to an end. Maybe this whole Torres thing is trying to tell us to walk away with the house money. So, yes, I think I want to cash out.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Malone says. “I’m thinking Savino. He’ll take it up to New England somewhere. Keep it off our turf.”

  Russo says, “So we’ll meet with him.”

  “Not us,” Malone says. “Me.”

  “The fuck?”

  So if it comes to it, I can swear into a polygraph you weren’t there, Malone thinks. “The fewer of us the better.”

  “He’s right,” Monty says.

  “All right, let’s get Raf in the dirt, and then I’ll set it up,” Malone says. “In the meantime, let’s all chill, let this blow over.”

  Chapter 20

  Detective Sergeant Rafael Torres receives an inspector’s funeral.

  The Job’s way of letting the world know it has nothing to hide, Malone thinks, nothing to be ashamed of.

  The Times helped.

  Rubenstein’s article was “wood”—a top-of-the-fold front-page story with his sole byline under HERO COP SUCCUMBS.

  And artistic, Malone thinks.

  “No one really knows why Rafael Torres did what he did. Whether it was accidental or intentional, whether it was the terminal agonizing illness or the decades of waging the interminable war on drugs. All we know is that he pulled the trigger on a life full of pain . . .”

  Well, that much is true. Torres did inflict a lot of pain.

  His wife, his family, his whores, his gumars, his arrestees, pretty much anyone he ever came into contact with. Yeah, maybe himself, although Malone doubts it. Raf Torres was a sociopath, incapable of feeling anyone else’s pain.

  But he did pull the trigger, Malone thinks.

  You have to give him credit for that.

  The funeral is at Woodlawn Cemetery, in the Bronx. Malone had forgotten Torres was from up here. The place is huge, hundreds of acres, with enormous cedar and pine trees, full of ornate mausoleums. Malone has only been here once before, when Claudette dragged him out to lay flowers on Miles Davis’s grave.

  Like all the other cops at the funeral, Malone is in full dress. His blue jacket, white gloves, a black band over his gold shield, his other medals. Malone doesn’t have a lot—he don’t like medals because you have to put yourself up for them, and that strikes him as pussy.

  He knows what he’s done.

  So does everyone who matters.

  The funeral is a painful reminder of Billy’s.

  The formation, the bagpipes, the gun salute, the color guard . . .

  Except Billy didn’t have kids, and Torres does, two girls and a boy standing bravely beside their mother, and Malone feels an icy stab of guilt—you did this to them, you left them without a father.

  The wives are there too, not just from Torres’s team but from the whole force. It’s expected, and they’re lined up in their black funeral dresses that they wear too often. Like crows on a phone line, Malone thinks unkindly, and he knows what they’re feeling, too—sad for Gloria Torres and guilty they’re relieved it’s not them.

  Sheila’s lost a few pounds, no question.

  She looks good.

  Even looks a little tearful, although she despised Torres and hated when they had to socialize with him.

  The mayor is saying a few words, but Malone don’t know what they are because he ain’t listening and what the fuck difference does it make? Most of the cops are making at least a subtle show of not paying attention because they hate his guts, think he’s betrayed them every chance he’s had and is going to do it again with the Michael Bennett shooting.

  Hizzoner is smart enough to keep it short and turn it over to the commissioner, and Malone figures the only reason they don’t just gut each other right there and save everyone the trouble of coming out for another funeral is that they’re afraid of a standing ovation.

  The cops do listen to the commissioner, who, although a total dick, does have their backs on the Bennett shooting and the rest of the brutality shit. Also, they’re afraid not to, because the chief of patrol and chief of D’s are watching and taking names. Mayors and PCs come and go, but those guys stay in their jobs forever.

  Next
comes the priest, another guy Malone don’t listen to. Hears the fuckin’ parasite say something about Torres being in heaven, which only shows he never knew Torres.

  The Job had to jack the Church into doing a full funeral anyway and burying him in consecrated ground, seeing as how Torres was a suicide, which is a mortal sin, and he didn’t get Last Rites.

  Fuckin’ clowns.

  Do the right thing, see the man off in front of his family and let him go to hell. He was goin’ anyway, if there even is such a place. But the Job is a repeat customer and donates a lot of money, so the Church yielded, and Malone can’t help but observe that the priest is Asian.

  The fuck, they couldn’t sober up an Irish priest long enough to do a cop funeral? Or a PR who wasn’t too busy diddling a little boy? They had to get some, what is he, Filipino, or whatever the fuck he is? He’d heard the Church was running out of white priests and now he guesses that’s true. The Flip pygmy finally shuts up, the bagpipes start in, and Malone thinks about Liam.

  Him and all those other funerals back then.

  Those goddamn bagpipes.

  The music stops, the rifles crack, the folded flag is delivered, the formation breaks.

  Malone walks over to Sheila. “Hell of a thing, huh?”

  “It’s the kids I feel for.”

  “They’ll be okay.”

  Gloria is a good-looking woman, still young and attractive. Lustrous black hair, good figure, she’ll have no problem replacing Raf, she wants to.

  And truth is, Gloria Torres might just have won the fucking lottery. She was about to divorce her husband when he canceled his reservation, and now she gets both his official and unofficial pensions.

  Malone made sure Gloria got her fat envelope and that the system’s in place for monthly payments.

  Torres will keep earning.

  “What about the hookers?” Gallina had asked him.

  “You’re out of the whore business.”

  “Who the fuck are you to—”

  “I’m the guy pulled IAB off your ass,” Malone said. “That’s who the fuck I am. Your team wants to go off the reservation, see what happens.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “It’s reality, Jorge,” Malone said. “The reality is you’re not smart enough to handle your own shit. Those girls are on buses back to where they came from and that’s an end to it.”