The Force

by Don Winslow

  “Twelve years,” Malone says. “Confiscation. Fines.”

  “Fuck you, Denny,” Russo says. Then he asks, “When are they taking me?”

  “Tomorrow,” Malone says. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you until a few minutes before.”

  “That’s fucking big of you.”

  “You can run,” Malone says.

  “How am I gonna run?” Russo asks. “I have a family. Christ, when my kids see me . . .”

  “I’m sorry,” Malone says.

  “It’s not all on you,” Russo says. “We’re grown men. We knew what we were doing. We knew where it could go. But how the fuck did we get here?”

  “A step at a time,” Malone says. “We were good cops, once. Then . . . I dunno . . . but we just put fifty kilos of smack out on our own streets. That’s not what we started out to do. It’s the exact opposite of what we started out to do. It’s like you light a match, you don’t think it’s going to do any harm. Then the wind comes up and changes and it becomes a fire that burns down everything you love.”

  “I loved you, Denny,” Russo says, getting up. “Like a brother, I loved you.”

  Russo walks away and leaves him sitting there.

  Chapter 31

  Malone walks through the front door of what used to be his home on Staten Island to find O’Dell standing there waiting for him.

  “What are you doing in my house?” Malone asks.

  “Keeping your family safe,” O’Dell says. “The better question is, why aren’t you?”

  “Maybe you heard,” Malone says. “I had a couple of brothers shot. One’s dead, the other might as well be.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah?” Malone asks. “You have a piece of that, laying a rat tag on Levin.”

  “I was trying to save your ass.”

  “You were trying to save your investigation.”

  “I didn’t send him through the door,” O’Dell says. “You did.”

  “Keep telling yourself that.” He pushes past O’Dell and walks into the kitchen.

  Sheila sits at the breakfast bar with her head down.

  Two feds in suits stand against the wall, one looks out the kitchen-door window onto the backyard.

  Sheila’s been crying, he can see the red puffiness under her eyes.

  “You guys want to give us a minute?” Malone asks.

  The two agents look at each other.

  “Let me rephrase that,” Malone says. “Give us a fucking minute. Go help your boss guard the living room.”

  They leave the kitchen.

  Sheila looks up at him. “You got something you want to tell me, Denny?”

  “What have you heard?”

  “Don’t play me!” she yells. “I’m not some skel! I’m not IAB! I’m your wife! I deserve to know!”

  “Where are the kids?” Malone asks.

  “Oh, shit, it’s true,” Sheila says. “They’re at my mother’s. What happened, Denny? Are you in trouble?”

  A part of him wants to lie to her, keep playing it out. But he can’t do it—even if he wants to, she knows him too well, has always known when he’s lying. Part of which crashed their marriage—she always knew when he was trying to lie.

  So he tells her.

  All of it.

  “Jesus, Denny.”

  “I know.”

  “Are you going to jail?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about us?” she asks. “Me and the kids? What have you done to us?!”

  “I didn’t hear you complaining about the envelopes,” Malone says. “The new living room furniture, your restaurant tabs—”

  “Don’t put this on me!” she yells. “Don’t you dare put this on me!”

  No, it’s on me, Malone thinks.

  No one put us here but me.

  “I have cash put away,” Malone says, “where the feds can’t get to it. Whatever happens, you’ll be taken care of . . . the kids’ college . . .”

  She’s reeling. He can’t blame her.

  “Did you give them Phil?” she asks. “Monty?”

  He nods.

  “Jesus,” she says. “How am I ever going to face Donna again?”

  “It’s okay, Sheel.”

  “It’s okay?!” she asks. “We have federal agents in our house! Why are they here?”

  He puts his arm around her shoulder. “Listen. Don’t freak out on me. But we might have to go into the program.”

  “Witness protection?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What the fuck, Denny?!” Sheila says. “We’re supposed to take the kids out of school, away from their friends, family? Move to what, Arizona or someplace, we’re going to be cowboys or something?”

  “I don’t know, it might be a fresh start.”

  “I don’t want a fresh start,” Sheila says. “I have family here. My parents, my sister, my brothers . . .”

  “I know.”

  “The kids, they’re never supposed to see their cousins again?”

  “Let’s take this one step at a time, okay?”

  “What’s the next step?”

  “You and the kids,” he says, “you take a little vacation.”

  “We can’t pull them out of summer camp.”

  “Yeah, we can,” Malone says. “We’re going to. Soon as they come home. Go to, I don’t know, the Poconos, you’ve always wanted to go there, right? Or that place up in New Hampshire.”

  “For how long?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “I need you to be strong, Sheel,” Malone says. “I really need you to be strong right now. You have to trust me on this. To get this thing straightened out, take care of this for our family. Pack a few things. I’ll get the kids’ things together.”

  “That’s all you have to say.”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “I don’t know,” Sheila says. “‘I’m sorry’?”

  “I’m sorry, Sheila.” You don’t know how sorry I am. “A couple of days, the feds will bring me to where you are and—”

  “No, Denny.”

  “What do you mean, no?”

  “I don’t want to be with you anymore,” Sheila says. “I don’t want you around our kids.”

  “Sheel—”

  “No, Denny,” she says. “You talk a great game—family, brotherhood, loyalty. Honesty. Honesty, Denny? You want honesty? You’re empty. You’re an empty person. I knew you took money, I knew you were a crooked cop. But I didn’t know you were a killer. And I didn’t know you were a rat. But that’s who you are, and I don’t want my son growing up to be his father.”

  “You’d take my kids from me?”

  “You already threw them away,” Sheila says. “Like you threw everything else in your life away. Why wasn’t I enough for you, Denny? Why weren’t we enough for you? I knew the deal, shit, I grew up with the deal. You marry a cop, he’s distant, he’s removed, maybe he drinks too much, okay, maybe he fucks around a little. But he comes home. He comes home and he stays. I took that deal. I thought you did, too. Say good-bye to the kids. You owe them that. And then you owe it to them to stay away from them, let them forget about you.”

  It goes tough with the kids.

  Harder even than Malone thought.

  Shit, when he was a kid his old man said he was going to take him out of school he’d have pissed his pants with joy, but John and Caitlin were all about they had dance class, Little League, day camp.

  And the feds frightened them.

  Now they stand in the living room, looking out the window at the feds Malone told to wait out in the street, for Chrissakes.

  “Who are they, Daddy?” Caitlin asks.

  “Cop friends.”

  “How come we’ve never met them before?”

  “They’re new.”

  “How come they’re driving us?”

  “Because I have to go back to work,” Malone says.

  “Catching bad guys,” John s
ays, although this time he doesn’t sound so sure.

  “Why can’t Uncle Phil take us?” Caitlin asks.

  He puts his arms around both of them, draws them close. “Listen, I need you two to keep a big secret. Can you?”

  They both nod, pleased.

  “Me and Uncle Phil are working on a very big case,” Malone says. “Top secret.”

  “I saw that on TV,” John says.

  “Well, that’s what we’re doing,” Malone says. “We’re pretending to be bad guys, do you understand? So if you hear someone say that we are, you have to pretend to go along with it. Don’t say anything.”

  “Is that why we have to hide?” Caitlin asks.

  “That’s right,” says Malone. “We’re fooling the bad guys.”

  “Are the bad guys going to try to find us?” John asks.

  “Nooooo, no.”

  “Then why are the new police going with us?”

  “It’s just part of the game,” Malone says. “Now give me a big hug and promise me you’re going to be good and take care of Mommy, okay?”

  They hug him so tight he wants to cry. He whispers into John’s ear. “Johnny.”

  “Yeah, Dad.”

  “You gotta promise me something.”

  “Okay.”

  “You gotta know,” Malone says, choking back tears. “You’re a good kid. And you’re gonna be a good man. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.”

  Then O’Dell comes in and tells them they have to get going.

  Malone kisses Sheila on the cheek.

  It’s a show for the kids.

  She doesn’t say anything to him.

  She already had her say.

  He opens the car door and helps her in.

  Watches his family drive away.

  Donna Russo answers the door.

  She’s been crying. “Go away, Denny. You’re not welcome.”

  “I’m sorry, Donna.”

  “You’re sorry?” she asks. “You sat at our table, on Christmas Day. With my family. Did you know then? Did you sit there with us knowing you were going to destroy my family?”

  “No.”

  “What did you come here for?” Donna asks. “So I could tell you I understand? I forgive you? So you could feel better about yourself?”

  No, Malone thinks. So I could feel worse.

  He hears Russo yell, “Is that Denny? Let him in!”

  “No,” Donna says. “Not in this house. He doesn’t set foot in this house ever again.”

  Russo comes to the door. Looks like he’s been crying, too. “Sheila and the kids, they’re pretty busted up?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah,” Russo says, “They don’t know they’re the lucky ones yet. This is my last night with my family, so unless you got something to say . . .”

  “I just wanted to make sure—”

  “I didn’t eat my gun?” Russo asks. “Irish do that, not Italians. Us guineas think about living, not dying. We just think about doing what we have to do.”

  “I wish Monty had put one in my head.”

  “Suicide by cop?” Russo asks. “Too easy, Denny. Way too easy. If you don’t have the balls to do it yourself, you live with what you did. You live with being a rat. Now, you don’t mind, I’m going to go hug my kids while I can.”

  Donna closes the door.

  Claudette stands in the doorway of her apartment, not letting him in.

  She’s clean, newly clean, her sobriety delicate, fragile, a porcelain cup that would shatter at a harsh sound.

  “Go back to your wife,” she says, not unkindly.

  Malone says, “She doesn’t want me.”

  “So you come back to me?” Claudette asks.

  “No,” Malone says. “I came to say good-bye.”

  Claudette looks surprised, but says, “That’s probably for the best. We’re no good for each other, Denny. I’ve been hitting the meetings.”

  “That’s good.”

  “I have to get clean,” she says. “I’m going to get clean, and I can’t do that and love you at the same time.”

  She’s right.

  He knows that she’s right.

  They’re two drowning people who grab on to each other, won’t let go, and sink together into the cold darkness of their shared sorrow.

  “I just wanted you to know,” Malone says. “You were never ‘some whore I fucked.’ I loved you. I still do.”

  “I love you, too.”

  “I’m dirty,” Malone says.

  “A lot of cops—”

  “No, I’m dirty,” Malone says. He has to tell her—it’s time to come clean. “I put heroin on the street.”

  “Oh,” she says.

  Just that, “Oh,” but it says everything.

  “I’m sorry,” Malone says.

  “What happens now?” she asks. “Are you going to jail?”

  “I made a deal.”

  “What kind of a deal?”

  The kind that puts me on the other side forever. The kind I couldn’t look at you in the morning.

  “I’m going away,” he says.

  “One of those programs? Like in the movies?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Baby, I’m sorry.”

  “Me too.”

  I am so, so sorry.

  The heavy bag jumps.

  Pops on its chain and drops back as Malone cocks his left again and then lets go with a brutal body shot.

  Again and again and again.

  Sweat flies off his face onto the bag. He comes over the top with a right cross and then follows with a left to the liver.

  It feels good.

  Feels good to hurt.

  The sweat, the burn in his lungs, even his raw and bruised knuckles as he works out bare fisted against the bag’s rough canvas, flecked now with his blood. Malone’s taking it out on the bag, taking it out on himself, they both deserve the pain, the hurt, the rage.

  Malone sucks in some air and goes at it again, his heavy punches aimed at O’Dell, Weintraub, Paz, Anderson, Chandler, Savino, Castillo, Bruno . . . but mostly at Denny Malone.

  Sergeant Denny Malone.

  Hero cop.

  Rat.

  He finishes with a punch to the heart.

  The bag jumps and then settles back down on its chain, swings gently like something that’s dead but don’t know it yet.

  Chapter 32

  In the morning, Malone walks down Broadway past a newsstand on the corner.

  He sees his face on the cover of the New York Post with a screaming headline, TWO HEROES SHOT, a picture of Malone standing with Russo and Monty in the aftermath of Pena.

  Monty’s image is highlighted in a white oval like a halo.

  The Daily News shouts ONE ELITE COP KILLED, ANOTHER WOUNDED and has a slightly different photo of Malone, and a photo of Malone from the Pena bust with a subline reading DIRTY DENNY? DID HE FEEL LUCKY?

  The front page of the New York Times doesn’t have his picture but a headline reads WITH LATEST BLOODBATH, IS IT TIME TO RECONSIDER ELITE POLICE UNITS?

  The byline is Mark Rubenstein.

  Malone hails a taxi and goes to Manhattan North.

  Russo looks sharp.

  Pressed Armani suit, white monogrammed shirt with cuff links, red Zegna tie, Magli shoes shined to a high polish. Summer, he ain’t wearing the retro overcoat but he has it draped over his arm, making it awkward for O’Dell to cuff him.

  At least he does it in front, not behind his back.

  Malone lays the overcoat over the cuffs.

  The media’s outside Manhattan North. TV trucks, radio, print guys with their photographers.

  “You have to do that?” Malone asks O’Dell. “Make him do the perp walk?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Someone did.”

  “Well, it wasn’t me.”

  “And you had to do it here,” Malone says, “in front of other cops.”

  “Did you want me
to do it at his house, in front of his kids?” O’Dell looks angry, tense. He should be—every cop in the station is eye-fucking him and the other feds.

  Eye-fucking Malone, too.

  He could have skipped this—O’Dell told him to—but Malone thought he had to be there.

  Deserved to be there.

  To watch them put bracelets on his brother.

  Russo keeps his head up.

  “Good-bye, you fucking donkeys,” Russo says. “Have fun waiting out your pensions!”

  The feds take him out.

  Malone walks with him.

  Cameras click like machine guns.

  Reporters press forward but the uniforms keep them back. The guys in the bags are in no mood to take any shit. Seeing another cop go out in cuffs makes them sick and scared.

  And angry.

  After the cop shootings, the Blue went into the projects in waves and with bad intent.

  The uniforms disabled the dash-cam systems on their cars so the video cameras wouldn’t work and then went to town.

  You had a warrant, a no-show parole date, a complaint for littering—you were going. You had as much as a roach on you, an old needle, a pipe with a grain of old rock in it, you’re going. You resisted arrest, you talked smack, you as much as looked at a cop sideways, you caught a bad beating and then you got thrown in the car with your hands cuffed behind your back but your seat belt unfastened and the cops would speed up and then hit the brakes so your face smashed into the security screen.

  The Three-Two went through St. Nick’s twice—looking for weapons, dope, most of all information, trying to get someone to snitch, to drop a dime, to sell a name.

  Da Force—what’s left of the motherfuckers anyway—came in right behind and they weren’t looking for collars, they were looking for payback, and the only way to stay out of the equation was to give them information and then you were stuck in a jam between Da Force and DeVon Carter and the thing is, Da Force is going to come and go.

  DeVon Carter stays.

  You got to catch a beating, you catch it with your mouth shut like it’s wired, which it might well be by the time Da Force and their plainclothes dogs got done with you.

  The people in St. Nick’s were wondering why they were catching the shit when everyone knew it was the Domos who massacred those cops, all the way over on the other side of Harlem.