The meeting breaks up.
The mayor’s rep comes over to Malone and hands him a card. “Detective Malone, Ned Chandler. Special assistant to the mayor.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
“Would you have a minute for me?” Chandler asks. “But maybe not here?”
“What about?” It’s fucking treacherous, being seen with a guy his captain just took on.
“Inspector McGivern thought you might be the person to talk to.”
So that’s that. “Yeah, okay. Where?”
“You know the Hotel NYLO?”
“Seventy-Seventh and Broadway.”
“I’ll meet you there,” Chandler says. “Soon as you’re done here?”
McGivern is standing next to Sykes, waving Malone over.
Chandler walks away.
“You just put your neck in the noose,” McGivern tells Sykes. “You think these Gracie Mansion sons of bitches will hesitate to pull the trap?”
“I’m under no such illusion,” Sykes says.
He isn’t under any illusion, either, Malone thinks, that if there’s a hanging, McGivern won’t be in the crowd cheering, glad it’s not him. That’s why he had Sykes running the meeting instead of himself. If things go right, McGivern will take the credit for his talented subordinate; if it goes sick and wrong, he’ll be in there whispering, “Well, I tried to tell him . . .”
Now McGivern says, “Sergeant Malone, we’re counting on you.”
“Yes, sir.”
McGivern nods and walks out.
“How’s Levin doing?” Sykes asks.
“I’ve had him for about seven hours,” Malone says, “but so far, fine.”
“He’s a good cop. He has a career in front of him.”
So don’t fuck him up, is what Sykes is saying.
“What progress have you made on the guns?” Sykes asks.
Malone fills him in on what he knows about Carter, Mantell and the ECMF deal. No shipment has come up yet, but negotiations are ongoing. Carter is fronting the deal through Teddy from an office over a nail shop on Broadway and 158th. But without a wiretap . . .
“We don’t have enough for a warrant,” Malone says.
Sykes looks at him. “Do what you need to do. But remember we’ll need probable cause.”
“Don’t worry,” Malone says. “If they hang you, I’ll pull on your legs.”
“I appreciate that, Sergeant.”
“My pleasure, Captain.”
The team is waiting for Malone out on the street.
“Levin,” Malone says. “Why don’t you go home and take a nap. The grown-ups need to talk.”
“Okay.” He’s a little miffed, but he walks away.
“What do you think?” Malone asks.
Russo says, “Seems like a good kid.”
“Can we trust him?”
“To do what?” Monty asks. “His job? Probably. Some of the other things? I don’t know.”
“Speaking of which,” Malone says, “I got the go for a wire on Carter.”
“Did you get a warrant with that?” Monty asks.
“Yeah, a nod warrant,” Malone says. “We’ll set it up after tomorrow’s op. I gotta go see this guy from the mayor’s office.”
“What about?” Russo asks.
Malone shrugs.
Malone sits in the bar of a trendy West Side boutique hotel called NYLO and sips a club soda. He’d have a real drink except the guy he’s there to meet is from the mayor’s office and you never know.
Ned Chandler bustles in a minute later, looks around, spots Malone and sits down at his table. “I’m sorry I’m late.”
“No problem,” Malone says. He’s annoyed. Chandler is the one with the ask, so he should be there on time if not early, he thinks. You don’t come for a favor and then make the guy you want something from wait for you.
But Chandler is from the mayor’s office, Malone thinks, so I guess the rules don’t apply to him. The guy tilts his chin at the waitress as if that’s going to get her immediate attention, which in fact it does.
“What do you have for single malt?” Chandler asks.
“We have a Laphroaig Quarter Cask.”
“Too smoky. What else?”
“A Caol Ila 12,” the waitress says. “Very light. Refreshing.”
“I’ll do that.”
Malone has known Ned Chandler for maybe forty seconds and already wants to smack the elitist asshole. Guy has to be in his early thirties, wears a checked shirt with a knit tie under a gray cardigan sweater and tan cords.
Malone hates him just for that.
“I know your time is precious,” Chandler says, “so I’ll get right at it.”
Anytime someone tells you that your time is precious, Malone thinks, what they really mean is that their time is precious.
“Bill McGivern recommended you,” Chandler said. “Of course, I know you by reputation—I’m impressed, by the way—but Bill said you were professional, competent and discreet.”
“If you’re looking for a spy in Sykes’s command, that’s not me.”
“I’m not looking for a spy, Detective,” Chandler says. “Do you know Bryce Anderson?”
No, Malone thinks, I don’t know a billionaire real estate developer on the city’s Development Commission. Fuck yes, I know who he is. He’s planning to inhabit Gracie Mansion once the current resident moves on to the governor’s office.
“I know the name, I don’t know him personally,” Malone says.
“Bryce has a problem,” Chandler says, “that requires discretion.”
He stops talking because the waitress comes over with his light and refreshing single malt.
“I’m sorry,” Chandler says to Malone. “I should have asked. Do you want—”
“No, I’m good.”
“On duty.”
“There you go.”
“Bryce has a daughter,” Chandler says. “Lyndsey. Nineteen, smart, beautiful, apple of her father’s eye, all that happy crap. Dropped out of Bennington to build her ‘lifestyle brand’ by being a YouTube celebrity.”
“What’s her lifestyle brand?”
“Damned if I know,” Chandler says. “She probably doesn’t, either. Anyway, little Lyndsey has a boyfriend, a real mook. Of course she goes for him to get back at Daddy for giving her everything.”
Malone hates it when civilians try to talk like cops. “What makes him a mook?”
“He’s a total loser,” Chandler says.
“Black?”
“No, she spared us that cliché, anyway,” Chandler says. “Kyle’s a white bridge-and-tunnel type who thinks he’s the next Scorsese. Except instead of making Mean Streets he has to shoot a sex tape with Bryce Anderson’s daughter.”
“And now he’s threatening to put it out,” Malone says. “How much does he want?”
“A hundred K,” Chandler says. “If that tape gets out, it will ruin this kid’s life.”
Not to mention her daddy’s chance at getting elected, Malone thinks. A law-and-order candidate who wants to come down on street gangs but can’t control his own kid. “This Kyle have a last name?”
“Havachek.”
“You have an address?”
Chandler slides a piece of paper across the table. Havachek lives up in Washington Heights.
“Is she living with him?” Malone asks.
“She was,” Chandler says. “Lyndsey moved back in with Mom and Dad and that’s when the blackmail threat came.”
“He lost his means of support and needs a new one,” Malone says.
“That’s my interpretation as well.”