Carter smiled. “If I had a nickel for every time I heard that . . .”
“You been to Pleasant Avenue lately?” Malone asked. “It’s Chinese. Inwood and the Heights? More Latinos every day. Your people in the Ville and Grant are starting to buy from the Domos; you’re even going to lose the Nickel soon. The Domos, the Mexicans, the PRs—they speak the same language, eat the same food, listen to the same music. They’ll sell to you, but partner with you? Forget it. The Mexicans give the local spics a wholesale price they don’t give you, and you just can’t compete, because a junkie ain’t got no loyalty to nothin’ but his arm.”
“You betting on the Domos?” Carter asked.
“I’m betting on me,” Malone said. “You know why? Because the machine keeps grinding.”
Later that day a basket of muffins arrived at Manhattan North for Malone with a note saying that it cost $49.95, a nickel under the legal cost of a gift that a cop can accept.
Captain Sykes was not amused.
Now Malone rolls up Lenox, sitting in the back of a van with the doors open as Monty shouts, “Ho, ho, ho!,” while Malone tosses out turkeys with the benediction, “May Da Force be with you!”
The unit’s unofficial motto.
Which Sykes also don’t like because he thinks it’s “frivolous.” What the captain don’t understand is that being a cop up here is part show business. It’s not like they’re undercovers—they work with UCs, but undercovers don’t make busts.
We make busts, Malone thinks, and some of them get in the papers with our smiling faces and what Sykes don’t get is that we have to have a presence here. An image. And the image has to be that Da Force is with you, not against you.
Unless you’re slinging dope, assaulting people, raping women, doing drive-bys. Then Da Force is coming for your ass, and we’re going to get it.
One way or the other.
And the people up here know us anyway.
Yelling back, “Fuck Da Force,” “Give me my motherfucking turkey, motherfuckers,” “You pigs, why you ain’t giving out pork?” Malone just laughs, it’s just busting balls, and most of the people don’t say anything or just a quiet “Thank you.” Because most of the people here are good people, trying to make a living, raise their kids, like most everyone else.
Like Montague.
The big man carries too much on his shoulders, Malone thinks, living in the Savoy Apartments with a wife and three sons, the oldest almost that age when you keep him or lose him to the streets—and more and more Montague worries about spending too much time away from his boys. Like tonight, he wants to be home with his family on Christmas Eve, but instead he’s out making their college money, handling his business as a father.
Best thing a man can do for his kids—handle his motherfucking business.
And they’re good boys, Montague’s boys, Malone thinks. Smart, polite, respectful.
Malone is their “Uncle Denny.”
And their named legal guardian. Him and Sheila are the guardians to Monty’s kids and Russo’s kids, should something happen. If the Montagues and the Russos go out to dinner together, like they sometimes do, Malone jokes they shouldn’t ride in the same car so he doesn’t inherit six more kids.
Phil and Donna Russo are the named guardians for the Malone children. Denny and Sheila go down in a plane crash or something—an increasingly unlikely scenario—John and Caitlin go live with the Russos.
It isn’t that Malone don’t trust Montague—Monty might be the best father he’s ever seen and the kids love him—but Phil is his brother. Another Staten Island boy, he’s not only Malone’s partner, he’s his best friend. They grew up together, went through the Academy together. The slick guinea has saved Malone’s life more times than he can count and Malone has returned the favor.
He’d take a bullet for Russo.
For Monty, too.
Now a little kid, maybe eight, is giving Monty a hard time. “Santa don’t smoke no motherfuckin’ cigar.”
“This one does. And watch your mouth.”
“How come?”
“You want a turkey or not?” Monty asks. “Quit busting balls.”
“Santa don’t say ‘balls.’”
“Let Santa be, take your turkey.” The Reverend Cornelius Hampton walks up to the van and the crowd parts for him like the Red Sea he’s always preaching about in his “let my people go” sermons.
Malone looks at the famous face, the conked silver hair, the placid expression. Hampton is a community activist, a civil rights leader, a frequent guest on television talk shows, CNN and MSNBC.
Reverend Hampton has never seen a camera he didn’t like, Malone thinks. Hampton gets more airtime than Judge Judy.
Monty hands him a turkey. “For the church, Reverend.”
“Not that turkey,” Malone says. “This one.”
He reaches back and selects a bird, hands it to Hampton. “It’s fatter.”
Heavier, too, with the stuffing.
Twenty large in cash stuck up the turkey’s ass, this courtesy of Lou Savino, the Harlem capo for the Cimino family and the boys on Pleasant Avenue.
“Thank you, Sergeant Malone,” Hampton says. “This will go to feed the poor and the homeless.”
Yeah, Malone thinks, maybe some of it.
“Merry Christmas,” Hampton says.
“Merry Christmas.”
Malone spots Nasty Ass.
Junkie-bopping at the edge of the little parade, his long skinny neck tucked into the collar of the North Face down jacket Malone bought him so he don’t freeze to death out in the streets.
Nasty Ass is one of Malone’s CIs, a “criminal informant,” his special snitch, although Malone’s never filed a folder on him. A junkie and a small-time dealer, his info is usually good. Nasty Ass got his street name because he always smells like he has a round in the chamber. If you can, you want to talk to Nasty Ass in the open air.
Now he comes up to the back of the van, his thin frame shivering, because he’s either cold or jonesing. Malone hands him a turkey, although where the hell Nasty is going to cook it is a mystery, because the man usually flops out in shooting galleries.
Nasty Ass says, “218 One-Eight-Four. About eleven.”
“What’s he doing there?” Malone asks.
“Gettin’ his dick wet.”
“You know this for sure.”
“Dead ass. He told me hisself.”
“This pans out, it’s a payday for you,” Malone says. “And find a fuckin’ toilet, for Chrissakes, huh?”
“Merry Christmas,” Nasty Ass says.
He walks away with the turkey. Maybe he can sell it, Malone thinks, score a fix-up shot.
A man on the sidewalk yells, “I don’t want no cop turkey! Michael Bennett, he can’t eat no fucking turkey, can he!?”
Well, that’s true, Malone thinks.
That’s the cold truth.
Then he sees Marcus Sayer.
The boy’s face is swollen and purple, his bottom lip cut open as he asks for a turkey.
Marcus’s mother, a fat lazy idiot, opens the door a crack and sees the gold shield.
“Let me in, Lavelle,” Malone says. “I have a turkey for you.”
He does, he has a turkey under his arm and eight-year-old Marcus by the hand.