“Dirty cops? They’re my brothers, my sisters. They may be dirty, they may be wrong, but they’re better than you. Any one of them is better than any one of you.”
Malone walks out the door, no one tries to stop him. He walks up Fifth to Central Park South, turns toward Columbus Circle and is halfway there before he looks over his shoulder and sees O’Dell coming behind him, his right hand inside his jacket. The agent is striding, fast, a man on a mission.
This is as good a place as any, Malone thinks.
He turns and waits.
O’Dell walks up to him, a little out of breath.
“Did you get it?” Malone asks him.
O’Dell opens his shirt, shows him the wire. “I’m on the next Acela to DC. They’ll be coming after you, you know.”
“I know. You too.”
“Maybe once people hear what’s on this tape . . .”
“Maybe,” Malone says. “I wouldn’t count on it, though. They got friends in DC, too. So take care of yourself, huh? Keep your head on a swivel.”
People walk past them like water around a rock, stillness an obstacle in this city of motion.
“What are you going to do now?” O’Dell asks.
Malone shrugs.
The only thing I know how to do, he thinks.
Chapter 38
New York, 4 a.m.
The city’s not sleeping, just taking a gasping spell after another night of rioting that broke out with renewed violence when the Bennett video hit the screens.
Rioters came down Broadway from Harlem, smashing windows, looting stores first around Columbia University and Barnard, then down into the Upper West Side, turning over cars, robbing cabs, beating any whites who hadn’t locked themselves in their buildings, setting fires until the National Guard formed a line on Seventy-Ninth and fired first rubber bullets and then live rounds.
Thirteen civilians, all of them black, were shot; two were killed.
And it wasn’t just New York.
Protests turned into riots in Newark, Camden, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, DC. By night—like embers flying in a ferocious wind—riots were touched off in Chicago, East St. Louis, Kansas City, New Orleans, Houston.
Los Angeles went up later.
Watts, South Central, Compton, Inglewood.
National Guard units were called in, federal troops sent to LA, New Orleans and Newark as the Michael Bennett riots turned into the worst since Rodney King, and the long hot summers of the ’60s.
Malone watched it from a barstool at the Dublin House.
Saw the president come on and plead for calm. When the president finished up, Malone went into the men’s room and chased the three Jamesons with four go-pills.
Going to need them.
He knew they’d be looking for him.
Probably already been to his apartment.
He left the bar and got into his car.
His own car, his beloved Camaro he bought when he was first promoted to sergeant.
Got the Bose cranked up now as he follows another car up Broadway.
The drive uptown is a trip through shattered dreams.
Decades of progress burned down in days of rage and nights of torment. Malone’s been cruising these streets for eighteen years, seen them when they were ghetto wasteland, seen them bloom and grow, now sees them going back to boarded windows and charred storefronts.
Inside, people still have the same hopes, the same disappointments, the love, the hate, the shame, but the dreams, the dreams are on hold.
Malone drives past Hamilton Fruits and Vegetables, the Big Brother Barber Shop, the Apollo Pharmacy, Trinity Church Cemetery and the mural of a raven on 155th. Past the Church of the Intercession—but it’s too late for intercession, Malone thinks—past the Wahi Diner and all the small gods of place, the personal shrines, the markers of his life on these streets that he loves like a husband loves a cheating wife, a father loves a wayward son.
He follows the car as it goes up Broadway.
Illmatic pumped up:
I never sleep ’cause sleep is the cousin of death Beyond the walls of intelligence, life is defined I think of crime when I’m in a New York state of mind.
Last time you drove uptown this time of the morning, Malone thinks, you were with your brothers, your partners—laughing, busting balls.
That was the night Billy O died.
Now Monty is as good as gone.
Russo, he ain’t your brother anymore.
Levin, the one you were supposed to protect, is dead.
And your family, who you told yourself you did it all for, they’re gone and don’t want to see you.
You got nothin’.
It’s 4 a.m. in New York.
The time for waking dreams.
The time to wake from dreams.
The car he’s following turns left on 177th and drives west past Fort Washington and Pinehurst Avenues until it takes another left onto Haven Avenue, crosses 176th and pulls over on the east side of Haven, just uptown from Wright Park. Malone watches Gallina, Tenelli and Ortiz get out, not even bothering to disguise the assault rifles—M4s and Ruger 14s—as they go into the building.
The Trini lookouts let them in.
Why not? Malone thinks. They’re on the same side now. Tenelli made the move and it was the smart bet.
He sees a black Navigator pull up in front of the building and Carlos Castillo get out of the backseat. Two shooters get out with him and flank him as he goes inside. Malone drives down the street, pulls off on Pinehurst Avenue and parks at the end of the cul-de-sac.
I lay puzzle as I backtrack to earlier times Nothing’s equivalent to the New York state of mind.
Malone has a Sig Sauer and a Beretta, the knife at his ankle, a flashbang grenade.
But no Billy O, no Russo or Monty, no Levin to take his back.
Climbing into his vest and Velcroing it tight, he wishes he could hear Big Monty bitch about the vest again. Tilt his trilby, roll his cigar.
He flips the lanyard with his shield over his chest. Then he grabs the Rabbit out of the trunk, walks through the park and into an alley beside Castillo’s building.
He climbs the fire escape to the edge of the roof.
The Trini lookout is looking out the other way, toward the street. And he’s not looking that hard—Malone can smell the weed.
Malone moves across the roof.
Wraps his left forearm around the Trini’s throat and pulls him up, close and tight so he doesn’t scream as Malone pumps two rounds from the Sig into his back. The body slumps and Malone lets it down easy.
No one is going to notice the shots—there’s sporadic gunfire all over the city, the sector cars have stopped responding to the 10-10s—and the die-hard Fourth of July partiers are still setting off fireworks.
Malone looks downtown and sees the eerie orange glow of fires burning and thick black smoke rising against the night sky.
Then he goes to the roof door.
It’s locked, so he jams the Rabbit in and squeezes. Wishes again that Monty were here because it’s hard, but he keeps pressing and the lock finally gives it up and the door swings open.
Malone goes down the stairs.
My last vertical, he thinks.
He holds the Sig in front of him.
Another door, but this one’s not locked.
It opens into a hallway.
A dim fluorescent light hanging from a rusty chain casts sick yellow light on the face of the surprised sentry outside the wooden door at the end of the hallway.