He says good-bye to Russo on his way out.
“She bust balls about you and Sheila?” Russo asks.
“Of course.”
“Listen, she busts my balls about you and Sheila,” Russo says.
“Thanks for having me.”
“Fuck you, thanks.”
Malone puts the food in the backseat and calls Mark Piccone. “You got time now?”
“For you, always. Where?”
Malone has a wild hair. “How about the Boardwalk?”
“It’s freezing.”
“All the better.” Won’t be a lot of people out there.
It’s empty, all right. The day has turned gray and a fierce wind is coming off the bay. Piccone’s black Mercedes is already there, a couple of cars, people escaping their family dinners, an old van looks like it was dumped there.
He pulls up alongside Piccone’s driver’s side from the opposite direction and rolls down the window. Malone don’t know why every lawyer has to drive a Mercedes, but they do.
Piccone hands him an envelope. “Your finder’s fee on Fat Teddy.”
“Thank you.”
The way it works—you bust a guy, you give him a defense lawyer’s card. If he goes ahead and hires that lawyer, the lawyer owes you a taste.
But it gets better.
“Can you straighten it out?” Piccone asks.
“Who’s riding?”
“Justin Michaels.”
Malone knows Michaels is a player. Most ADAs—assistant district attorneys—aren’t, but enough are that a cop who’s well connected, and Malone is, can get two licks at the spoon. “Yeah, I can probably straighten that out.”
By slipping an envelope to ADA Michaels, who will find that the chain of evidence got jacked up.
“How much?” Piccone asks.
“Are we talking a reduction or a nol pros?” Malone asks.
“A walk.”
“Ten to twenty K.”
“And that includes your cut, right?”
Why is Piccone busting balls? Malone wonders. He knows as well as I do that I take my taste from Michaels. It’s what I get for being the cutout, so two fucking lawyers don’t have to embarrass themselves by acknowledging to each other they’re for sale. Also, it’s safer for them, because a cop talking to a prosecutor in the hallway is a daily event and doesn’t look suspicious. “Yeah, of course.”
“Make the deal.”
New York, New York, Malone thinks—the town so nice they pay you twice.
And anyway, he owes Teddy for the tips on the gun source.
Malone pulls out of the parking lot.
He’s gone three blocks when he sees the car tailing him.
It ain’t Piccone.
Fuck, is it IAB?
The car gets closer and Malone sees it’s Raf Torres. Malone pulls over and gets out. Torres pulls in behind him and they meet on the sidewalk.
“The fuck, Torres?” Malone asks. “It’s Christmas. Shouldn’t you be with your family, or your whores or something?”
“You get this straightened out with Piccone?” he asks.
“Your boy will be okay,” Malone says.
“That bust should have been over the second he mentioned my name,” Torres says.
“He didn’t mention your fucking name,” Malone says. “And what makes you think you can provide cover for one of Carter’s people?”
“Three grand a month,” Torres says. “Carter isn’t happy. He wants his money back.”
“The fuck I care he’s happy?” Malone says.
“You have to let other people eat.”
“Help yourself,” Malone says. “Just dine outside Harlem.”
“You’re a royal prick, Malone, you know that?”
“The question is, do you know that?”
Torres laughs. “Piccone kicking to you?”
Malone don’t answer.
“I should get a taste of that,” Torres says.
Malone reaches to his crotch. “You can have a taste of this.”
“Nice,” Torres says. “Nice talk on Christmas.”
“You want to take Carter’s money, that’s your business,” Malone says. “Knock yourself out. But he needs to know he’s bought you, not me. He slings on my turf, he’s open season.”
“If that’s how you want it, brother.”
“And you’re betting on the wrong horse,” Malone says. “If I don’t bring Carter down, the Domos will.”
“Even after losing a hundred keys of smack?” Torres asks.
“Fifty,” Malone says.
Torres smirks. “Whatever you say.”
It’s fucking freezing out.
Malone gets back in his car and pulls out.
Torres doesn’t follow him.
On the drive back to Manhattan, Malone puts Nas on and pumps it up loud. Sings along—
I’m out for presidents to represent me / Say what?
I’m out for presidents to represent me / Say what?
I’m out for dead presidents to represent me.
Whose world is this?
The world is yours.
It’s mine, it’s mine, it’s mine.
If I can hold on to it, Malone thinks.
If DeVon Carter taps into the Iron Pipeline, he’s going to leave Domo bodies strewn all over Manhattan North. The Domos will retaliate and we’ll be freaking Chicago before we know it.
That ain’t all.
Carter was talking about the Pena rip, then Lou Savino, and now Torres is making noise about it?
It’s too risky now to try to move the Pena shit.
And the Pena shit could put you right where Jerry McNab was.
Maybe you’ll luck out and go sudden from a heart attack or a stroke or an aneurysm, but if not, when the time comes you can’t take care of yourself . . .
Jesus, you’re a morbid piece of shit today.
Man the fuck up.
You got a job you love.
Money.
Friends.
An apartment in the city.
A beautiful sexy woman who loves you.
You own Manhattan North.
So they can’t touch you.
No one can touch you.
Dwellin’ in the Rotten Apple
You get tackled or caught by the devil’s lasso . . .
Part 2
The Easter Bunny
Over my forty-year career as a defense attorney, I regularly came into contact with people who lied, cheated, and tried to bend the system so that they would come out on top.
Most of them worked for the government.
—Oscar Goodman, Being Oscar
Chapter 6
Harlem, New York City
March
A dead kid kills an old lady.
The woman is ninety-one and small.
Smaller yet in death.
The entry wound, like most entry wounds, is neat and in the center of her left cheek, below the eye. The exit wound, like most exit wounds, isn’t small or neat—blood, brains and white hair are blown onto the back of a plastic-covered wingback chair.
“They shouldn’t look out the window when they hear shit,” Ron Minelli says. “But that was probably her whole life. She probably spent her whole day looking out the window.”
Fourth floor of Building Six in the Nickel, the elderly lady catches a stray round. Malone walks over to the window and looks down. The shooter is in the courtyard, his gun hand outstretched, finger still on the trigger as it was when he fell backward and squeezed off a shot. He was probably already croaked and it was an automatic muscle reaction.
“Thanks for the call,” Malone says.
“I figured it was drug related,” Minelli says.