The Force

by Don Winslow

  Claudette smiles.

  A tranquil, Sunday-morning we-can-lay-around-in-bed smile.

  He says, “Last night—”

  “Was beautiful, baby,” she says. “Thank you again.”

  She doesn’t remember a fucking thing. She will, he thinks, when she really comes to and the jones start to kick in.

  He should stay with her, he knows it.

  But—

  “I have to go to work,” he says.

  “It’s Sunday.”

  “So go back to sleep.”

  “I think I will,” she says.

  La Luna is old school, Malone thinks.

  Kind of place Savino sees in his wet dreams. All the way down in the Village, they want me away from my turf.

  And the Ciminos have a crew down here.

  What he should have done was call Russo, maybe Monty, too. Have them back him up.

  Except the meeting is about him being a rat.

  Maybe O’Dell.

  That’s what he should have done, but he decided fuck that.

  Sciollo meets him at the door. “I have to pat you down, Denny.”

  “There’s a nine at my waist,” Malone says. “A Beretta at my back.”

  “Thanks.” Sciollo takes the weapons from him. “I’ll give them back on your way out.”

  Yeah, Malone thinks. If I’m coming out.

  Sciollo pats him down for a wire. Doesn’t find one and takes him to a booth in the back. The place is almost empty, a few guys at the bar, one couple making out.

  Savino sits in a booth with Stevie Bruno, who looks out of place in his all-L.L.Bean wardrobe—checked shirt, vest, tan corduroy slacks and Dockers. He even has a canvas man-bag on the seat beside him. He don’t look happy behind his cup of tea, the suburban godfather forced to come into the dirty city.

  He has four guys with him, within sight and out of earshot.

  Bruno nods to Malone to sit down in the booth. Malone does and Sciollo sits in a chair near the edge of the booth.

  They have him blocked in.

  “Denny Malone, Stevie Bruno,” Savino says. He has this nervous, edgy smile on his face.

  “The couple starting a family at the bar,” Malone says. “Which one’s the hitter, the boy or the girl?”

  “You seen too many movies,” Bruno says.

  “I just want to see a few more.”

  “You want a drink, Denny?” Savino asks.

  “No thanks.”

  “First for an Irish guy,” Savino says. “I never seen it before.”

  “You bring me down here to do jokes?”

  “It’s no joke,” Bruno says. “Word all over is you’re a CW for the feds.”

  Wiseguys don’t mind cops so much but they hate feds, viewing them as fascists and persecutors who pick on anyone with a vowel at the end of his name. They particularly hate Italian feds and rats who inform for the feds.

  Malone knows the distinction—an undercover cop playing a role isn’t a rat. A dirty cop who’s been in business with them and then flips is.

  “You believe that?” he asks.

  “I don’t want to believe it,” Savino says. “Tell us it isn’t true.”

  “It isn’t true.”

  “The dying words of a man to his wife,” Bruno says. “I tend to believe that.”

  “The feds had both me and Torres up,” Malone says. “I don’t know how. I can only tell you I wasn’t wearing a wire.”

  “Then why did they bring Torres in and not you?” Bruno asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s even worse.”

  “Torres didn’t know about my relationship with your family,” Malone says. “I never discussed it with him, so you can’t be on any tape they have of me and him.”

  “But if the feds bring you in,” Bruno says, “they’ll flip you about everything.”

  Savino looks at Malone anxiously. Malone knows what he’s thinking, what he don’t want him to say: If I was a CW for the feds, Savino here would have already been busted on a thirty-to-life heroin beef and he’d be trading up for you as we speak.

  Instead Malone says, “How much money have I made for the Cimino borgata? How many bags of cash have I taken to prosecutors, judges, city officials for contract bids? Over how many years with no problems?”

  “I don’t know,” Bruno says. “I was in Lewisburg.”

  Jesus fuck, Savino, say something.

  But Savino don’t.

  Malone says, “Fifteen years don’t mean anything?”

  “It means a lot,” Bruno says. “But I don’t know you at all, because I was away most of that time.”

  Malone stares at Savino, who finally says, “He’s good people, Stevie.”

  “You’d bet your life on that?” Bruno asks, giving Savino the death stare. “Because that’s what you’re doing.”

  Savino takes a second to answer.

  It’s a long goddamn second.

  “I would, Stevie,” he says. “I vouch for him.”

  Bruno takes this in and then asks, “What are you going to tell the feds?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You can do four to eight?”

  “It’ll be closer to four,” Malone says. “Your guys will keep the brothers from making me their bitch, right?”

  “Stand-up guys,” Bruno says, “don’t get bent over.”

  “I’m a stand-up guy,” Malone says.

  “Here’s the problem,” Bruno says. “You’re looking at four, but I get popped for as much as littering, I die in the joint. So the big question for me right now is, can I take the risk? If you’re a rat, tell the truth now, we’ll make it quick and painless, I’ll make sure your wife gets her envelope. Otherwise . . . if I have to drag the truth out of you . . . it’s going to be ugly, and your missus is on her own.”

  Malone feels anger rising inside him like boiling water and he can’t turn the flame off under it. And he knows they’re testing him, giving him the out just like a pair of cops in the room would do.

  Any sign of weakness, he’s dead.

  So he goes the other way with it.

  “Never threaten me,” Malone says. “Never threaten my money. Never threaten my wife.”

  “Take it easy, Denny,” Savino says.

  Bruno says, “We just want the truth.”

  “I told you the truth,” Malone says.

  “Okay,” Bruno says. He reaches into his man-bag and comes out with a stack of paper and lays it on the table. “What’s the truth about this, stand-up guy?”

  Malone sees his 302.

  He grabs Sciollo by the hair, slams his face into the table and kicks the chair out from under him. Then Malone reaches into his boot, comes out with the SOG knife, grabs Savino by the head and puts the blade to his neck.

  Two guys, one of them the guy who was kissing the girl, pull guns.

  “I’ll cut his guinea throat,” Malone says.

  “Get out of his way,” Savino groans.

  They look to Bruno, who nods.

  He’d do a clean hit in the place, but he ain’t gonna allow a bloodbath that ends up on the front page of the Post.

  Malone drags Savino out of the booth and backs toward the door, holding Savino as a shield, the blade along his throat. He says to Bruno, “You want me to go O.J. on him, threaten my wife again. Go on, open your mouth to me about her again.”

  “He’s a dead man anyway,” Bruno says. “So are you. Enjoy your last day on earth, rat motherfucker.”

  Malone reaches backward for the door handle, pushes Savino down and goes out the door.

  Trots to his car down the block.

  “He had my 302!” Malone yells.

  “All right,” O’Dell says. But he’s shook.

  “‘It’s secure,’ you told me,” Malone yells, pacing around the room. “In a safe . . . only the people in this room—”

  “Settle down,” Paz says. “You’re alive.”

  “No thanks to you!” Malone says. “They have my
302! They have proof! You’re so busy trying to hurt dirty cops, and you don’t see them in your own operation!”

  “We don’t know that,” O’Dell says.

  “Then how did they get it?!” Malone says. “They didn’t get it from me!”

  “We have a problem,” Weintraub says.

  “No shit!” Malone punches the wall.

  Weintraub is looking through the 302. “Where in here is anything about you and the Ciminos?”

  “It isn’t,” Malone says.

  “Full disclosure,” Paz says. “That was our agreement.”

  Then it hits him. “God . . . Sheila . . .”

  “We have agents on the way,” O’Dell says.

  “Fuck that,” Malone says. “I’m going myself.”

  He starts for the door.

  “Stay where you are,” Paz says.

  “You gonna fuckin’ stop me?!”

  “If I have to,” Paz says. “There are two federal marshals in the hallway. You aren’t going anywhere. Use your head. Stevie Bruno is not going to send someone out to Staten Island to do anything to your wife in the middle of the afternoon. He’s trying to stay out of jail, not throw himself in it. We have some time here.”

  “I want to see my family.”

  “If you had told us about this,” Paz says, “you’d have been wired in that meeting and we’d have Bruno behind bars now. All right, blood under the bridge, you’re forgiven. But now you need to tell us—what did you do with the Ciminos?”

  Malone doesn’t answer. He sits down and puts his head in his hands.

  “The only way,” Paz says, “you can protect yourself and your family is to put Bruno away. Give me something I can get a warrant on.”

  “I never met with him before.”

  “Yes, you did,” Paz says.

  Malone looks up, sees in her eyes that she’s perfectly willing—no, insistent—that he perjure himself.

  O’Dell won’t meet his gaze. He looks away.

  Weintraub shuffles more papers.

  “We’ll put you and your family in the program,” she says. “You come out to testify—”

  “Fuck that.”

  “There is no choice here,” Paz says. “You have no choice.”

  “Let me out of here,” Malone says. “I’ll take care of Bruno myself.”

  “You know what?” Paz says. “Bring the marshals in, cuff him. I’m done with this dumb donkey.”

  “What about my family?!” Malone asks.

  “They’re on their own!” Paz yells. “What do you think I am, Social Services?! You put your loved ones in jeopardy! It’s on you, not me! Buy them a Rottweiler, an alarm system, I don’t know.”

  “You fucking bitch,” Malone says.

  “Why aren’t the marshals in here?” Paz asks.

  Malone says, “You guys are dirtier than I ever thought of being.”

  It’s quiet. There’s no answer to that.

  “Okay,” Malone says. “Turn on the recorder.”

  He started with the mob the way that most cops who go there do, taking a slim envelope to look the other way on gambling shops.

  Nothing big, a hundred here or there.

  He knew Lou Savino when the capo was a street guy who just got his button. One day Savino approached him up in Harlem, asked him if he wanted to earn.

  Yeah, Malone wanted to earn.

  One of Savino’s guys had a bullshit beef, shit, the guy was just protecting his sister, who this fucking dirtbag had beat up, but there was one fucking witness didn’t understand that. Maybe Malone could get a look at the 5, get the witness’s name and address, save the city the cost of a trial, everyone a lot of trouble.

  No, Malone didn’t want no part of a witness getting beat up, maybe killed.

  Savino laughed. No one was talking about anything like that, come on. They’re talking about sending the witness on a nice vacation, maybe even buying the guy a car.

  A car? Malone asked. Must have been a hell of a beating.

  No, it was just that Savino’s guy was on parole, so the assault conviction puts him back upstate for ten years. You call that justice? That isn’t justice. Shit, it makes you feel better about it, you can deliver the envelope yourself, make sure no one gets hurt. You take a taste for yourself, everyone comes out happy.

  Malone was nervous about approaching the arresting officer but it turned out he had no reason to be. It was easy, a hundred to look at the 5, come back anytime. And the witness, he was delighted to drive down to Orlando, take the kids to Disneyworld. Win, win, win, everyone did come out happy except for the guy who got his jaw broke, but he had it coming anyway, hitting a woman.

  Justice was served.

  Malone served some more justice for the Ciminos, then Savino approached him about something else. He works in Harlem, right? Right. Knows the hood, knows the people. Sure. So he knows a ditzune preacher has a church on 137th and Lenox.

  The Reverend Cornelius Hampton?

  Everyone knew him.

  He was leading a protest at a construction site for not hiring minority workers.

  Savino handed Malone an envelope and asked him to bring it to Hampton. The reverend didn’t want to be seen around no guineas.

  This to stop the protest? Malone asked.

  No, you dumb fucking mick, it’s to keep the protest going. We got a double play here—the reverend starts a protest, shuts the site down. The contractor comes to us for protection. We take a share of the project, the protest ends.

  We make, the reverend makes, the contractor makes.

  So Malone went up to the church, found the reverend, who took the envelope like it was UPS.

  Didn’t say a word.

  That time, the next time or the time after that.

  “The Reverend Cornelius Hampton,” Weintraub says now. “Human rights activist, man of the people.”

  “Did you meet with Steven Bruno about any of this?” Paz asks. “Did he ever approach you?”

  “I believe he was in your custody at the time,” Malone says.

  “But your understanding was that Savino was working under his instructions,” Paz says.

  “Hearsay,” says Weintraub.

  “We’re not in court, Counselor,” Paz says.

  “Yes,” Malone says, “it was definitely my understanding that Savino was acting as an agent of Bruno’s.”

  “Did Savino tell you that?”

  “Yes. Several times.”

  Which we all know is a lie, Malone thinks.

  But it’s the lie they want to hear.

  He goes on.

  The next payoffs he made for the Ciminos were a couple of years later, after Bruno got out of Lewisburg.

  Who are they, Malone wanted to know.

  More laughs from Savino.

  City officials—the kind who award contract bids.

  “Shut the recorder off,” Paz says.

  Weintraub shuts it off.

  “Did you say city officials?” Paz asks. “Did you mean City Hall?”

  “The mayor’s office,” Malone says. “The comptroller’s, the Office of Operations . . . You want to turn the tape back on, I’ll repeat it.”

  He stares at her.

  “This just came home for you, huh?” Malone asks. “Maybe this is something you don’t want to know about.”

  “I want to know about it,” O’Dell says.

  “Shut up, John.”

  “Don’t tell me to shut up,” O’Dell says. “You have a credible witness here who says that city officials are on the Cimino family pad. Maybe Southern District doesn’t want to know, but the bureau is very interested.”

  “Ditto,” Weintraub says.

  “‘Ditto’?”

  “You opened this door, Isobel,” Weintraub says. “I have a right to walk through it.”

  “Be my guest,” Paz says. She leans over, turns the recorder back on and looks at Malone, like go ahead. “Name names.”

  She’s trapped, Malone knows.

 
; He names names.

  “Jesus Christ,” Weintraub says. “To coin a phrase.”

  “Yeah,” Malone says. “I built a lot of houses in Westchester. Nantucket cottages, vacations in the Bahamas . . .”

  He looks at Paz.

  They both know this is enough to bring down the administration, ruin careers and aspirations, including hers. But she’s got no choice now, and she guts it out. “Who in the Cimino family did you meet with to arrange these payoffs?”

  “Lou Savino,” he says, staring at her. He waits a second, and then adds, “And Steven Bruno.”

  “You met with Mr. Bruno personally.”

  “On several occasions.”

  He makes up some likely dates and locations.

  “Let’s be clear,” Paz says. “Are you saying that on several occasions, as noted, Steven Bruno gave you money and instructed you to deliver it to city officials for the purpose of rigging construction bids?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  “This is unbelievable,” Weintraub says.

  “Perhaps literally,” Paz says.

  She’s a slick piece of shit, Malone thinks. She’s trying to have it both ways, preserving her options until she figures out her play, sees how the chips fall.

  Weintraub sees it, tries to pin her down. “Are you saying you don’t find him credible?”

  “I’m saying I don’t know,” Paz says. “Malone is a demonstrated liar.”

  “You really want to open that door?” Weintraub asks.

  “I want to see my family,” Malone says.

  “Not yet,” Paz says. “Is that it, Sergeant Malone? Obstructing justice? Bribing public officials?”

  “That’s it,” Malone says.

  I’m not going to tell you about the drug connection.

  Or Pena.

  Right now it’s four to eight.

  Pena’s the death penalty.

  Paz says, “You just confessed to a handful of felonies not included in our original agreement, which is now, of course, voided.”

  Malone can almost smell her brain burning, she’s working so hard. He presses, “You going to arrest me or not?”

  “Not now,” she says. “Not yet. I want to confer with my colleagues.”

  “Confer,” Malone says. “Maybe you can confer about the rat in your operation.”

  “It’s not safe for you on the street,” O’Dell says.