It chills things out.
If the white cops are good with Tre, they’re good.
“You know Tre?” Niki asks, impressed.
“Yeah, a little bit.”
The last time the Job wanted to talk with Tre, Malone brought him in personally. No handcuffs, no perp walk, no cameras.
Tre appreciated the respect.
Started to throw some security work to Malone, who does it himself or with Monty if it’s important. The more routine stuff he passes to other cops in Manhattan North, who are grateful for the money.
And Tre gets off on having racist cops as employees. Was sending them out for coffees and cheesecake and shit until Malone got wind of it and put a stop to it. “They are New York City police officers, there to protect your ass. You want a snack, send one of your flunkies.”
Now Tre comes down and slides in next to Malone.
“Welcome to the jungle,” he says.
“I live here,” Malone says. “You live in the fucking Hamptons.”
“You should come out sometime.”
“I will, I will.”
“Party with us,” Tre says. “The missus likes you.”
His black leather jacket has to go a couple of grand, the Piaget watch a lot more.
There’s money in the music, in the clubs.
“Black or white,” Tre says, “all money spends green.”
Now he asks Malone, “Who’s going to protect me from the police? Young black man can’t walk the streets anymore without getting shot by a cop, usually in the back.”
“Michael Bennett got shot in the chest.”
Tre says, “I hear different.”
“You want to play Jesse Jackson,” Malone says, “have a ball. You have some evidence, bring it on in.”
“To the NYPD?” Tre asks. “That’s what we would call a whitewash.”
“What do you want me to do, Tre?”
“Nothin’,” Tre says. “I’m just giving you a heads-up, is all.”
“You know where to find me.”
“I do.” Tre goes into his pocket, comes out with a cigar-sized blunt. “In the meantime, let this make you well.”
Gives him the blunt and leaves.
Malone takes a sniff. “Jesus fuck.”
“Light up,” Niki says.
Malone lights up, takes a hit and passes it to Niki. It’s primo shit, Malone thinks. Then again, coming from Tre, what else would it be? A sweet, mellow high—energizing—more sativa than indica. The blunt gets passed around the table until it hits Levin.
He looks at Malone.
“What,” Malone says. “You never smoked weed?”
“Not since I came on the Job.”
“Well, we’re not telling anyone.”
“What if I get tested?”
They laugh at him.
“No one told you about the Designated Pisser?” Russo asks.
“What’s that?”
“Not what,” Monty says. “Who. Officer Brian Mulholland.”
“That guy who sweeps up the locker room?” Levin asks. “The House Mouse?”
Most precincts have one—a cop who’s not fit for street duty but shy of retirement. They keep him inside, cleaning up, running errands. Mulholland was a good cop until he answered a call and found a baby who’d been “dipped”—held in a bathtub of scalding water. After that, he hit the bottle but it hit him back harder. Malone persuaded the captain at the Three-Two to keep him on the Job, hide him as the House Mouse.
“He’s not just the House Mouse,” Russo says, “he’s also the Designated Pisser. You get notice of a Doyle, Mulholland pisses into a baggie for you. Your piss is a hundred proof, but you test clean for dope.”
Levin takes a hit and passes it.
“Brings up another story,” Malone says, looking at Monty.
“Fuck all of you,” Monty says.
“Montague here,” Malone says, “had his PT coming up. And he isn’t exactly, shall we say, ‘undernourished.’”
“And your mamas,” Monty says.
“I mean, Monty can’t walk a mile,” Malone says, “never mind run one in the required time. So what he does is, he—”
Monty holds up a hand. “There was a rookie, a handsome and distinguished young African American gentleman, who shall go nameless—”
“Grant Davis,” Russo says.
“—who had been a track-and-field standout at Syracuse University,” Monty says.
“He had a tryout with the Dolphins,” Malone says.
“This was a double opportunity,” Monty says. “One, for me to pass the PT, and two, to prove that the Job cannot tell one black man from another, and furthermore, doesn’t care to.”
Malone says, “So Monty uses his big-dick gold-shield swag to convince this rookie to take Monty’s ID and run the test for him. The kid was scared shitless, which apparently made him run faster because . . . he broke the departmental record for the mile.”
“I didn’t think I needed to tell him to slack off a little,” Monty says.
“But no one catches on,” Malone says.
“Proving my point,” says Monty.
“Until,” Malone says, “some genius at One P decides he’s going to improve the relationship between the Fire Department and the Job by holding a friendly little . . . track meet.”
Levin looks at Monty and grins.
Monty nods.
“This commander has the records pulled and sees that Detective William Montague has a time in the mile akin to an Olympic athlete and figures he has his man,” Malone says. “The brass at One P start laying down money with their brethren of the Fire Department.”
“Those knuckle draggers take the bets,” Russo says, “because a few of them know the real William J. Montague and figure they have a sure thing.”
“Which they do,” Malone says. “Because there’s no way we can sub the fake Monty for the real Monty in front of all those cops and firemen who know him. Monty goes into training—which means one less cigar a day and easy on the barbecue sauce, and the big day rolls around. We show up in Central Park and the Fire Department has a ringer—a probie from Iowa who was the Big Ten champion in the mile. I mean, this kid—”
“White boy,” Monty says.
“—looks like a freakin’ god,” Malone says. “He looks like a Greek sculpture, and Monty, he shows up in plaid Bermuda shorts, a T-shirt hanging over his gut and a cigar in his mouth. The commander takes one look at him and about shits himself. He’s all, like, ‘What the fuck did you do? How much could you fucking eat in one month?’ The brass have thousands on this race, and they are pissed.
“They go to the starting line. The pistol goes off and for a second I think the commander shot Monty. Monty, he takes off—”
“If you can call it that,” Russo says.
“—gets five strides,” Malone says, “and topples over.”
“Hamstring,” Monty says.
“The Fire baboons start jumping up and down,” Malone says, “cops are cursing, handing their money over. Monty’s on the ground holding his leg, we’re laughing our asses off.”
“But didn’t you guys lose a lot of money?” Levin asks.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Russo asks. “I got my cousin Ralphie on the Fire Department to lay our money down against Usain Bolt-Down-His-Food over here, so we cleaned up. And the commander walks away totally disgusted, I hear him say, ‘One slow nigger in Harlem, and he’s mine.’”
Levin looks at Monty to see how he takes “nigger.”
“What?” Monty asks him.