The Force: A Novel

by Don Winslow

  So when Amadou Diallo looked like he was pulling a gun, one of the cops started firing and the others joined in.

  “Contagious shooting,” the experts call it.

  The infamous forty-one shots.

  SCU was disbanded.

  The four cops were indicted, all were acquitted. Something the community remembered when Michael Bennett was shot.

  But it’s complicated—the fact is that SCU was effective in getting guns off the street, so more black people were probably killed as a result of the unit being disbanded than were shot by cops.

  Ten years ago there was the predecessor to the Task Force—NMI, the Northern Manhattan Institute—forty-one detectives working narcotics in Harlem and Washington Heights. One of them ripped over $800,000 from dealers; his partner came in second with $740,000. The feds got them as collateral damage from a money-laundering sting. One of the cops got seven years, the other six. The unit commander got a year and change for taking his cut.

  Puts a chill on everyone, seeing cops led out in cuffs.

  But it doesn’t stop it.

  Seems about every twenty years there’s a corruption scandal and a new commission.

  So creating the Task Force was a hard sell.

  It took time, influence and lobbying, but the Manhattan North Special Task Force was created.

  The mission is simple—take back the streets.

  Malone knows the unspoken agenda—we don’t care what you do or how you do it (as long as it doesn’t make the papers), just keep the animals in their cage.

  “And what can I do for you, Denny?” McGivern asks now.

  “We got a UC named Callahan,” Malone says, “going down the rabbit hole. I’d like to get him pulled out before he hurts himself.”

  “Did you go to Sykes?”

  “I don’t want to hurt the kid,” Malone says. “He’s a good cop, he’s just been under too long.”

  McGivern takes a pen from his jacket pocket and draws a circle on a cocktail napkin.

  Then he put two dots inside the circle.

  “These two dots, Denny, that’s you and me. Inside the circle. You ask me to do a favor for you, that’s inside the circle. This Callahan . . .” He makes a dot outside the circle. “That’s him. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  “Why am I asking a favor for someone outside the circle.”

  “This once, Denny,” McGivern says. “But you need to understand that if it comes back on me, I drop it on you.”

  “Got it.”

  “There’s an opening in Anti-Crime in the Two-Five,” McGivern says. “I’ll call Johnny over there, he owes me a favor, he’ll take your kid.”

  “Thank you.”

  “We need more heroin arrests,” McGivern says, getting up. “The chief of Narcotics is all over me. Make it snow, Denny. Give us a white Christmas.”

  He makes his way through the crowded bar, glad-handing and slapping shoulders on his way out the door.

  Malone feels sad all of a sudden.

  Maybe it’s the adrenaline dump.

  Maybe it’s the Christmas blues.

  He gets up and goes over to the jukebox, drops in some quarters and finds what he’s looking for.

  The Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York.”

  A Christmas Eve tradition of Malone’s.

  It was Christmas Eve, babe, in the drunk tank,

  An old man said to me, “Won’t see another one.”

  Malone knows that Sykes is the bright-eyed boy down at Police Plaza, but he wonders exactly with who and how deep. Sykes is out to hurt him, no question.

  But I’m a hero, Malone thinks, mocking himself.

  Now at least half the cops in the bar start singing along with the chorus. They should be home with their families, those that still have them, but instead they’re here, with their booze, their memories, with each other.

  And the boys of the NYPD Choir were singing “Galway Bay”

  And the bells are ringing out for Christmas Day.

  It’s a freezing night in Harlem.

  Dumb cold.

  The kind of cold where the dirty snow crunches under your feet and you can see your breath. It’s after ten and not a lot of people on the street. Even most of the bodegas are closed, the heavy metal gates, graffiti-strewn, pulled down and the bars over the windows shut. A few cabs prowl for business, a couple of junkies move like ghosts.

  The unmarked Crown Vic rolls north on Amsterdam and now they’re not handing out turkeys, they’re about to dish out the pain. Pain’s nothing new to the people up here, it’s a condition of life.

  It’s Christmas Eve and cold and clean and quiet.

  Nobody’s expecting anything to happen.

  Which is what Malone’s counting on, that Fat Teddy Bailey is fat, happy and complacent. Malone’s been working for weeks with Nasty Ass to pin the midlevel smack dealer with shit on him when he’s not expecting it.

  Russo’s singing.

  You better not shout, you better not cry,

  You better not pout, I’m tellin’ you why.

  Santa Smack is coming to town.

  He turns right on 184th, where Nasty Ass said Fat Teddy would be coming to get his rocks off.

  “Too cold for the lookouts,” Malone says, because he doesn’t see the usual kids and no one starts whistling to let anyone interested know that Da Force is on the street.

  “Black people don’t do cold,” Monty says. “When’s the last time you saw a brother on a ski slope?”

  Fat Teddy’s Caddy is parked outside 218.

  “Nasty Ass, my man,” Malone says.

  He knows when you are sleeping.

  He knows when you’re awake.

  He knows when you’re just nodding out . . .

  “You want to take him now?” Monty asks.

  “Let the guy get laid,” Malone says. “It’s Christmas.”

  “Ahh, Christmas Eve,” Russo says as they sit in the car. “The eggnog spiked with rum, the presents under the tree, the wife just tipsy enough to give up la fica, and we sit here in the jungle freezing our asses off.”

  Malone pulls a flask out of his jacket pocket and hands it to him.

  “I’m on duty,” Russo says. He takes a long draw and hands the flask to the backseat. Big Monty takes a hit and passes it back to Malone.

  They wait.

  “How long can that fat fuck fuck?” Russo asks. “He take Viagra? I hope he didn’t have a heart attack.”

  Malone gets out of the car.

  Russo covers him as Malone squats beside Fat Teddy’s Caddy and lets the air out of his left rear tire. Then they go back into the Crown Vic and wait for fifty more cold minutes.

  Fat Teddy goes six three and two eighty. When he finally comes out, he looks like the Michelin man in his long North Face coat. He starts walking toward his car in his $2,600 LeBron Air Force One basketball shoes with the satisfied swagger of a man who just got his rocks off.

  Then he sees his tire. “Mothuh-fuckuh.”

  Fat Teddy opens the trunk, gets out the jack and bends over to start taking off the lug nuts.

  He doesn’t hear it coming.

  Malone puts his pistol barrel behind Fat Teddy’s ear. “Merry Christmas, Teddy. Ho, ho, motherfucking ho.”

  Russo holds his shotgun on the dealer as Monty starts to search the Caddy.

  “Y’all some thirsty motherfuckers,” Fat Teddy says. “Ain’t you ever take a day off?”

  “Does cancer take days off?” Malone pushes Fat Teddy up against the car and searches through the thick padding of the dealer’s coat, relieving him of a .25 ACP. The dope slingers do love these weird-caliber weapons.

  “Uh-oh,” Malone says. “Convicted felon in possession of a concealed firearm. That’s a pound zip-bit right there.”

  Five-year minimum sentence.

  “It ain’t mine,” Fat Teddy says. “Why you stop me for? Walking while black?”

  “Walking while Teddy,” Malone says. “I distinctly saw
a bulge in your jacket that appeared to be a handgun.”

  “You checkin’ out my bulge?” Fat Teddy asks. “You gone faggot on me right now, son?”

  In response, Malone finds Fat Teddy’s cell phone, tosses it to the sidewalk and stomps on it.

  “C’mon, son, that was a Six. You OD’d.”

  “You have twenty of them,” Malone says. “Hands behind your back.”

  “You ain’t takin’ me in,” Fat Teddy says tiredly, complying. “You ain’t gonna sit there filling out no DD-5’s on no Christmas fucking Eve. You got drinking to do, Irish. You got ‘ackahol’ to get to.”

  Malone asks Monty, “Why is it your people cannot pronounce ‘alcohol’?”

  “Don’t ‘acks’ me.” Monty reaches under the passenger seat and comes out with a sleeve of smack—a hundred glassine envelopes grouped in tens. “Oh, what have we here? Christmas at Rikers. You better bring mistletoe, Teddy, hope they let you kiss them on the mouth.”

  “You flaked me.”

  “I flaked your ass,” Malone says. “This is DeVon Carter’s heroin. He ain’t gonna be happy you lost it.”

  “You need to talk to your people,” Fat Teddy says.

  “Which people?” Malone slaps him in the face. “Who?”

  Fat Teddy shuts up.

  Malone says, “I’ll hang a snitch tag on you at Central Booking. You won’t make it out of Rikers.”

  “You do that to me, man?” Fat Teddy asks.

  “You’re either on my bus or under it.”

  “All I know,” Fat Teddy says, “is that Carter said he had protection in Manhattan North. I thought it was you guys.”

  “Well, it ain’t.”

  Malone is pissed. Either Teddy is blowing smoke or someone in Manhattan North is on Carter’s pad. “What else you got on you?”

  “Nothin’.”

  Malone digs into his coat and comes out with rolls of cash wrapped in elastic bands. “This nothin’? Has to be thirty grand here, that’s some serious guap. Loyal customer rebate from Mickey D’s?”

  “I eat Five Guys, motherfucker. Mickey D’s.”

  “Well, you’re eating bologna tonight.”

  “Come on, Malone,” Fat Teddy says.

  “Tell you what,” Malone says, “we’ll just confiscate the contraband, cut you loose. Call it a Christmas present.”

  It ain’t an offer, it’s a threat.

  Teddy says, “You take my shit, you gotta arrest me, give me a five!”

  Fat Teddy needs the arrest report to show Carter as proof the cops took it and he didn’t just rip him off. SOP—you get busted, you better have a DD-5 to show or you’re gonna get your fingers cut off.

  Carter has done it.

  The legend is he has one of those office paper cutters, and slingers who don’t have his dope, his money or a 5 get their hand laid in there and then whomp—no fingers.

  Except it ain’t a rumor.

  Malone found a guy staggering on the street one night, dripping blood all over the sidewalk. Carter left him with his thumb, though, so when he pointed the blame, he had no one to point at but himself.

  They leave Teddy sitting against his car and go back to the Crown Vic. Malone cuts the cash up five ways, one for each of them, one share for expenses, and one piece for Billy O. Each guy puts his cash in a self-addressed envelope they always carry.

  Then they go back and get Teddy.

  “What about my ride, man?” Fat Teddy asks as they haul him to his feet. “You ain’t gonna take that, are you?”

  “You had smack in it, asshole,” Russo says. “It is now property of the NYPD.”

  “You mean property of Russo,” Fat Teddy says. “You ain’t drivin’ my Caddy out the Jersey Shore with that smelly guinea fish in it.”

  “I wouldn’t be caught dead in this coonmobile,” Russo says. “It’s going to the pound.”

  “It’s Christmas!” Fat Teddy whines.

  Malone juts his chin toward the building. “What’s her number?”

  Fat Teddy tells him. Malone punches the number and holds his phone up to Fat Teddy’s mouth.

  “Baby, get down here,” Fat Teddy says. “Take care my car. And it better be here when I get out. And detailed.”

  Russo leaves Fat Teddy’s keys on the hood and they haul him toward their car.

  “Who dimed me?” Fat Teddy asks. “It was that grimy little bitch Nasty Ass?”

  “You wanna be one of those Christmas Eve suicides?” Malone asks. “Jumps off the GW Bridge? Because we can make that happen for you.”

  Fat Teddy starts in on Monty. “Workin’ for the man, brothuh? You they house nigger?”

  Monty slaps him across the face. Fat Teddy is big, but his head snaps back like a tetherball. “I’m a black man, you grape-soda-drinking, bitch-beating, smack-slinging projects monkey.”

  “Motherfucker, I didn’t have these cuffs on—”

  “You want to take it there?” Monty says. He drops his cigar in the street and grinds it with his heel. “Come on, just you and me.”

  Fat Teddy don’t say nothin’.

  “That’s what I thought,” Monty says.

  On the way to the Three-Two they stop at a mailbox and put in the envelopes. Then they take Fat Teddy in and book him on the gun and the heroin. The desk sergeant is less than thrilled. “It’s Christmas Eve. Task Force assholes.”

  “May Da Force be with you,” Malone says.

  I’m dreaming of a white Christmas,

  Just like the ones I used to know . . .

  Russo drives down Broadway toward the Upper West Side.

  “Who was Fat Teddy talking about?” Russo asks. “Was he just mouthing, or does Carter have someone on the pad?”

  “Has to be Torres.”

  Torres is a wrong guy.

  Does rips, sells cases, even runs whores, low-end crack addicts, mostly, and runaways. He works them hard. Keeps them in line with a car radio antenna—Malone has seen the welts.

  The sergeant’s a real thumper, has a well-earned reputation for brutality, even by Manhattan North standards. Malone does what he can to keep Torres sweet. They’re all Task Force, after all, and have to get along.

  But Malone can’t have lowlifes like Fat Teddy Bailey telling him he’s protected, so he’s going to have to work something out with Torres.

  If it’s even true.

  If it’s even Torres.

  Russo pulls off at Eighty-Seventh and finds a parking space across the street from a brownstone at 349.

  Malone rents the apartment from a Realtor they protect.

  The rent is zero.

  It’s a small pied-à-terre, but it suits their purposes. A bedroom to crash in or take a girl, a sitting room and a little kitchen, a place to take a shower.

  Or hide dope, because in the shower stall there’s a false platform with a loose tile under which they stored the fifty kilos they ripped from the late, unlamented Diego Pena.

  They’re waiting to lay it off. Fifty kilos is enough to make an impact on the street, cause a stir, even lower prices, so they have to let the Pena rip fade before they bring it out. The heroin has a street value of five million dollars, but the cops will have to lay it off at a discount to a trusted fence. Still, it’s a huge score, even split four ways.

  Malone has no problem letting it all sit.

  The largest score they’ve ever made or are ever likely to make, it’s their security, their 401(k)’s, their futures. It’s their kids’ college tuitions, a wall against catastrophic illness, the difference between retiring in a Tucson trailer park or a West Palm condo. They cut up the three million in cash right away, with Malone’s warning that no one should go out on a spending spree—buy a new car, a lot of jewelry for the wife, a boat, a trip to the Bahamas.

  That’s what the Internal Affairs pricks look for—a change in lifestyle, work habits, attitude. Put the money away, Malone told his guys. Stash at least $50K where you can lay your hands on it inside an hour, in case IAB comes and you have
to go on the lam. Another fifty for bail money if you didn’t get out in time. Otherwise, spend a little, put the rest away, do your twenty, pull the pin, have a life.

  They’ve even talked about retiring right now. Spacing it a few months apart, but quitting while they’re ahead. Maybe we should, Malone thinks now, but coming so close after the Pena rip, it would raise suspicions.

  He can see the headline now: HERO COPS QUIT AFTER BIGGEST BUST.

  IAB would come for sure.

  Malone and Russo go into the sitting room and Malone grabs a bottle of Jameson’s from behind the little bar and pours each of them two fingers into squat whiskey glasses.

  Red hair, tall, wiry, Russo looks about as Italian as a ham sandwich with mayonnaise. Malone looks more Italian, and they used to joke when they were kids that maybe they got switched at the hospital.

  And the truth is Malone probably knows Russo better than he knows himself, mostly because he keeps everything to himself and Russo don’t. If it’s on Russo’s mind, it’s going to come out his mouth—not to everybody, just to his brother cops.

  First time he had sex with Donna, classic prom night shit, Russo didn’t even have to say it the next day, it was written all over his goofy face, just like his heart was on his sleeve.

  “I love her, Denny,” he said. “I’m gonna marry her.”

  “The fuck are you, Irish?” Denny asked. “You guys don’t have to get married just because you did it.”

  “No, I want to,” Russo said.

  Russo’s always known who he was. A lot of guys, they wanted to get out of Staten Island, be something else. Not Russo, he knew he was going to marry Donna, have kids, live in the old neighborhood, and he was happy with being an East Shore stereotype—cop in the city, wife, kids, three-bedroom house, one and a half baths, cookouts on the holidays.

  They took the exam together, joined the department together, went to the Academy together. Malone, he had to help Russo gain five pounds to make the minimum weight—force-fed him milkshakes, beer and hoagies.