“I think you just did,” Madeleine answered.
They’ve been friends and business associates ever since. He protects her and sends business her way; in return she comps him and his team and lets him look at her black book to see if she has any clients who might be useful. Madeleine Howe’s house is never raided, her girls never threatened or harassed—at least not for long and never twice—and never stiffed.
And on the rare occasion when a girl goes rogue and tries to blackmail one or more of the clients, Malone takes care of that, too. He pays her a visit, explains the legal ramifications of what she’s trying to do, and then describes what the women’s jail is like for a very attractive, spoiled girl like herself and explains that if he has to handcuff her it is likely the last bracelet she will ever receive from a man. She usually takes the proffered airline ticket instead.
So the men in Madeleine’s black book—the high-roller businessmen, the politicians, the judges—whether they’re aware of it or not, also get protection from Da Force. They don’t see their names splashed across the front page of the Daily News and they also don’t get stupid. More than once, Malone and Russo have had to go talk to some hedge fund manager or rising political star who’s fallen in love with one of Madeleine’s escorts and tell him that’s just not the way it works.
“But I love her,” one would-be gubernatorial candidate told them. “And she loves me.”
He was going to leave his wife and kids—and career—to start a coffee roasting business in Costa Rica with a woman whose name he thought was Brooke.
“She’s paid to make you feel that way,” Russo told the guy. “That’s her job.”
“No, this is different,” the guy insisted. “It’s the real thing.”
“Don’t embarrass yourself,” Malone said. “Man up here—you have a wife and kids. You have a family.”
Don’t make me put her on the phone and tell you you have a dick like a golf pencil and bad breath, and that she tried to get Madeleine to send someone else the last time.
Now Madeleine welcomes them in and they take the little elevator upstairs to a tastefully furnished apartment.
The women are gorgeous.
Which they should be, at two thousand dollars a date.
Levin, his eyes bug out of his head.
“Easy there, College,” Russo says.
“I’ve selected your dates,” Madeleine says, “based on your previous preferences. But for the new guy, I had to guess. I hope Tara will make you happy. If not, we can go back to the book.”
“She’s beautiful,” Levin says, “but I’m not . . . partaking.”
“We can just have a couple of drinks and a good conversation,” Tara says to Levin.
“That sounds great.”
She leads him over to the bar.
Malone’s date calls herself Niki. She’s tall and leggy with a throwback Veronica Lake hairstyle and ice-blue eyes. He sits with her, has a scotch alongside her dirty martini, talks for a few minutes and then she takes him into one of the bedrooms.
Niki wears a tight black dress with a deep décolletage. She peels the dress down and off, revealing the black lingerie that Madeleine knows he likes without him asking for it.
“You want anything special?” she asks.
“You’re already special.”
“Maddy said you were a charmer.”
She starts to take off her stiletto heels but Malone says, “Keep them on.”
“You want me to undress you, or—”
“I’ll do it myself.” He gets out of his clothes and puts them on the hangers that Madeleine has provided so her married clients don’t go home with wrinkled suits. He takes his pistol and puts it under the pillow.
Niki gives him a look.
“You never know who’s going to come through the door,” Malone says. “It’s not a kink. If it bothers you, I’ll ask for someone else.”
“No, I like it.”
She gives him a two-thousand-dollar fuck.
Around the world in eighty minutes.
Afterward, Malone gets dressed, puts the gun back into its holster, and leaves five one-hundred-dollar bills on the side table. Niki puts her dress back on, takes the money and asks, “Buy you a drink?”
“Sure.”
They go back out into the living room. Monty is there with his date, an impossibly tall black woman. Russo isn’t finished yet, but that’s Russo.
“I eat slow, I drink slow and I make love slow,” he’s said. “Savor.”
Levin isn’t at the bar.
“Did the newbie bail on us?” Malone asks.
“He went to a room with Tara,” Monty says. “In the words of Oscar Wilde, ‘I can resist everything but temptation.’”
Russo finally comes in with a brunette named Tawny who reminds Malone of Donna. Classic, Malone thinks, the guy cheats on his wife with a woman who looks like his wife.
A few minutes later Levin comes in looking a little drunk, a lot sheepish and totally fucked out.
“Don’t tell Amy, okay?” he says.
They crack up.
“‘Don’t tell Amy’!” Russo says, wrapping his arm around Levin’s shoulder. “This kid, this fucking kid, he goes Batman on a Jamaal in a vertical and misses a bullet. Then he breaks the gym set out on him. Then he goes to cuff Lou Savino in front of his women and his crew in the middle of Gallaghers, then he wets his dick in thousand-dollar pussy, comes out and says, ‘Don’t tell Amy’!”
They all crack up again.
Russo kisses Levin on the cheek. “This kid! I love this fucking kid!”
“Welcome to the team,” Malone says.
They have another drink and then it’s time to go.
The women come with them up to 127th and Lenox.
A club called the Cove Lounge.
“Why do you listen to that moolie music?” Russo asks Malone on the way up there.
“Because we work with moolies,” Malone says. “Anyway, I like it.”
“Monty,” Russo asks, “you like this hip-hop shit?”
“Hate it,” Monty says. “Give me some Buddy Guy, BB, Evelyn ‘Champagne’ King.”
“How old are you guys?” Levin asks.
“Yeah, who do you listen to?” Malone asks. “Matisyahu?”
They pull up outside the Cove. The line outside sees the limo and looks for who gets out, expecting a hip-hop star. They see two white guys get out and they don’t like it.
Then one of them recognizes Malone.
“It’s the cops!” he yells. “Hey, Malone! Motherfucker!”
The doormen let them right in. The Cove is done in blue and purple light pulsing in beat with the music.
The other color is black.
Counting Malone, Russo, Levin and their dates, there are exactly eight people in the club who aren’t black.
They get stares.
But they get a table.
The hostess, a beyond beautiful black woman, leads them straight to the raised VIP section and sits them down.
Four bottles of Cristal come a minute later.
“Compliments of Tre,” the hostess says. “He said to tell you your money doesn’t spend here.”
“Tell him thank you,” Malone says.
Tre doesn’t officially own the club. The twice-convicted rapper/record producer couldn’t get a liquor license with a rocket launcher, but he owns the club. Now he literally looks down at Malone from a raised platform in the VIP section and raises his glass.
Malone raises his back.
People see it.