“His cousin’s.” He gives them the address.
Malone takes him back to get on the bus to Central Booking. “We’ll get in touch with your PD.”
“Whatever.”
They put him on the chain and load him on the bus.
“You want in on this collar?” Minelli asks Malone.
“No,” he says. “Too much ink makes us targets. Do me a solid, though. Give Levin an assist and bring Sykes in on it before you go pick him up.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, why not?”
As any good wiseguy knows, you want to eat, you don’t eat alone. You kick up, and there’s all kinds of coin.
He goes down to the locker room and finds Russo, Montague and Levin.
“If it makes you feel any better, newbie,” Malone says, “Jackson gave up the Williams shooter. You get an assist.”
It helps but it doesn’t fix it. He sees it in Levin’s eyes—the first time you give up a little bit of yourself to the street, it hurts. The scar tissue hasn’t formed yet, and you feel it.
“I think,” Malone says, “we’ve earned a Bowling Night.”
Chapter 8
Bowling Night is a Task Force institution.
A mandatory attendance, no-excuses-accepted night when the men tell their wives and girlfriends that they’re going bowling with the guys.
It’s the team leader’s privilege—some would call it his duty—to call Bowling Nights as a way of letting off steam, and when a cop gets shot at, that’s a lot of steam.
A brother cop gets killed, you don’t talk about it; a cop has a near miss, you have to talk about it—get it out, laugh about it, because tomorrow or the next day you’re going to have to go down another stairwell.
They do 10-13s frequently—the name comes from the radio code for “officer needs assistance”—where they coop up somewhere and party, but Bowling Night is something different: dress sharp, no wives, girlfriends, or even gumars, none of the usual cop bars.
Bowling Night is strictly first class, all the way.
Sheila, with the perspicacity of a Staten Island cop wife, once said, “You don’t go bowling. That’s just a cover to pig out, get drunk and fuck cheap whores.”
That isn’t true, Malone thought as he walked out the door that night. It’s a cover to dine out, get drunk and fuck expensive whores.
Levin doesn’t want to come.
“I’m beat,” he says. “I think I’ll just go home and chill.”
“This is not an invitation,” Malone says, “it’s a summons.”
“You’re coming,” Russo says.
“You’re part of the team,” Monty said, “you make Bowling Night.”
“What do I tell Amy?”
“You tell her you’re going out with your crew, don’t wait up,” Malone says. “Now go home, clean up, dress nice. Meet us at Gallaghers at seven.”
Corner table at Gallaghers on Fifty-Second.
Russo looks extra sharp tonight—slate-gray suit, custom-tailored white shirt, French cuffs, pearl cuff links.
“You hear the shot?” Russo asks.
“Not until later,” Levin says. “That’s the funny thing. I didn’t hear it until later.”
“Man, you fucking tackled that asshole,” Russo says. “Sign this guy up for the Jets.”
“The Jets tackle?” Malone asks.
It goes on like that, making Levin talk, making him take some credit for being brave, for surviving.
“Thing is,” Malone says, “you’re probably good for life now.”
“What do you mean?” Levin asks.
Montague explains, “Most cops don’t get shot at their entire careers. You did, and it missed. Odds are you never take another shot, you walk away unscathed after twenty, pull your pension.”
Malone fills their glasses. “Here’s to that!”
Russo asks, “Remember Harry Lemlin?”
Malone and Monty start to laugh.
“Who was Harry Lemlin?” Levin asks. He loves these old stories, and he’s not even pissed that they fined him a hundred bucks for wearing a shirt with buttons on the cuffs.
“French cuffs,” Malone told him. “When the team goes out, we go out in style. We make an impression. French cuffs, cuff links.”
“I don’t own any cuff links.”
“Buy some,” Malone says, taking a hundred out of Levin’s wallet.
Now Levin asks again, “Who was Harry Lemlin? Tell me the story.”
“Harry Lemlin—”
“Never Say Die Harry,” Monty says.
“Never Say Die Harry,” Russo says, “was a comptroller in the mayor’s office in charge of making the budget look somewhat legit. And he was hung. Those stallions they put out to stud? They look at Harry, they hang their heads in shame. Harry’s dick arrived at meetings two minutes before the rest of him did. Okay, so Harry is a regular at Madeleine’s, this is back in the day she does most of her business at the house.”
Malone smiles. Russo is going into storytelling mode.
“Anyway, back then it was, what, Sixty-Fourth and Park. So Harry, he starts taking Viagra. Best thing that ever happened according to him. Penicillin, polio vaccine, fuck that—Harry is in love with the blue pill.”
“How old was he?” Levin asks.
“You gonna let me tell the story?” Russo asks, “or keep interrupting me? Kids these days.”
“I blame the parents,” Monty says.
“That’s another hundred,” Malone says.
“Harry was sixtysomething, I dunno,” Russo says, “but fucking like he’s nineteen. Two girls at a time, three, he’s a steam engine. Girls are tag-teaming, he’s wearing them out. Madeleine, she doesn’t care, she’s making money, and the girls, they love him, he’s a big tipper.”
“Tipped by the inch,” Monty says.
“How come Monty doesn’t get fined?” Levin asks.
“That’s another hundred.”
“So this one night,” Russo says, warming up to the story, “the three of us are out doing a stakeout on this coke dealer’s place, and we get a call on Malone’s private phone from Madeleine. All upset, crying, ‘Harry’s dead.’ We go running over there and sure enough, there’s Harry, in the sack, hookers standing around him weeping like he’s Jesus or something, and Madeleine says, ‘You have to get him out of here.’
“No shit, we think, because this is going to be a major embarrassment, the comptroller found naked at one in the morning in the rack with a brace of call girls. We gotta move the body. First problem is getting Harry dressed, because he had to go two eighty and there is, shall we say, an obstacle in the way.”
“An obstacle?” Levin asks.
“Harry’s soldier is still standing at attention,” Russo says, “ready for duty. We’re trying to get his boxers on, never mind his trousers, which are a little tight to begin with, and there’s this flagpole to contend with . . . and it ain’t going down, whether it’s the pill or rigor mortis, we don’t know, but . . .”
Russo starts laughing.
Malone and Monty start laughing, too, and Levin, he’s having a great time. “So what did you do?”