And ninety times out of that hundred it worked.
Malone comes to Central Park South and turns west toward Broadway, past what used to be the Plaza Hotel. One of the best moonlighting security gigs he ever had—guarding some film equipment that arrived before the crew. They paid him to sit in a suite at the Plaza ordering room service, watching TV and looking out the window at the beautiful women.
Midmorning now, springtime, the tourists are out in force and he hears the babel of language—Asian, European, New Yawk—that’s one of the sounds of the city to him. It feels weird, strange—his whole life has changed in the last two hours but the city goes on around him, people walk to where they’re going, they have conversations, they sit at sidewalk cafés, take rides in the horse-drawn carriages, as if Denny Malone’s world hadn’t just come down around him.
He makes himself suck in some of the spring air.
Realizes that the feds made a mistake.
They let him go, let him out of the room, let him get into the world and get a little perspective. I would never let a skel out of the room unless he lawyered up, Malone thinks, and even then I’d try to keep him there and not let him see that there was any other world except my face, no other possibilities than what I was holding in my hand.
But they did, so take advantage of it.
Think.
Okay, they have you for a four-to-five federal time, but you don’t know you’re going away, he tells himself. You have money stashed just for this emergency.
One of the first things he learned, one of the first things he told his guys, is put the first $50K away—in cash where you can get to it—in case you get popped. That way you always have bail money and a down payment on a lawyer.
You might be able to beat this, you draw the right prosecutor, the right judge. It’s a dogshit charge anyway. Half the judges in the system would want to shut this investigation down, they knew about it. Even if you don’t beat it, you can probably plead it down to two.
But suppose you get the whole four, Malone thinks. Those are four critical years for John, the years he goes one way or the other. And Caitlin? Malone’s heard all the stories about girls without fathers, how they go looking for that love with the first guy who comes along.
No. Sheila’s a great mom, and there’s always Uncle Phil, Uncle Monty and Aunt Donna.
They’ll keep the kids straight.
They’ll be hurt but they’ll be all right. They’re Malones, they’re tough, and they come from a neighborhood where sometimes fathers “go away.” The other kids won’t pick on them for that.
And college, I’ve got that covered already.
A man handles his business.
The kids’ tuition is in a trap under the shower.
The guys will take care of Sheila, she’ll still get her envelope. So fuck your food stamps.
They took an oath. If the worst happens, Russo will be at his house with an envelope every month, will take his son to ball games, straighten him out if he has to, make sure he does the right thing.
Wiseguys take the same oath, but nowadays they rarely follow up past a few months. One of theirs is in prison or the dirt, his wife has to go to work, his kids look like ragamuffins. Didn’t used to be that way—now it’s a big reason wiseguys turn rat.
It’s not that way with this crew—Monty and Russo know who to go see to get Malone’s stashed money, and every penny of it would go to keep Sheila comfortable.
And he’d keep earning a full share in the joint.
So you don’t have to worry about your family.
Claudette, you can always get money to her she needs it. But as long as she’s off the shit, she’s okay. She’s been clean for almost a year now, has her job, her family, some friends. Maybe she waits for you, maybe not, but she’ll be all right.
He reaches the southwest edge of the park and walks around Columbus Circle onto Broadway.
Malone loves walking Broadway, always has.
Lincoln Center is always beautiful, and now he’s back on his beat, his turf, his territory.
His streets.
Manhattan North.
Goddamn, he loves this street. Has since his stint in the Two-Four. The old Astoria building, Sherman Square, which they used to call “Needle Park,” Gray’s Papaya. Then the old Beacon Theater, the Hotel Belleclaire and the spot where Nick’s Burger Joint used to be. Zabar’s, the old Thalia, the long gentle slope uptown.
He ain’t afraid of doing the time. Sure, there’ll be cons in there looking to even scores, and they’re tough guys, but I’m a tougher guy. And I won’t go in unprepared—the Ciminos will make sure there’s a welcome committee at whatever prison they send me to. No one jacks with mobbed-up guys.
If I even do any time.
Any which way, you lose your job. If the criminal charges don’t take you out, the Departmental Disciplinary Hearing will. It’s a rigged court—the commissioner never loses. If he wants you out, you’re out.
No gun, no badge, no pension, no job and no other department in the country will touch you.
What the hell am I going to do?
He doesn’t know how to do anything else. Being a cop is the only job he’s ever had, the only job he’s ever wanted.
And now it’s over.
It hits him like a punch in the face. I’m done being a cop.
Thanks to one stupid, careless, jackass moment on a Christmas afternoon, I’m done being a cop.
Maybe I can pick up with a security company or an investigative firm, he thinks. Then he rejects that. He don’t want to be a fake cop, a has-been, and that kind of job would always put him in contact with real cops who’d pity him, or look down on him, or at least remind him of what he used to be and isn’t anymore.
Better to have a clean break, do something totally different.
He has money in the bank, a lot more money when they flip the Pena rip.
I can start a business, he thinks. Not a bar—every retired cop does that—but something else.
Like what, Malone? he asks himself.
Like freakin’ what?
Like nothin’, he thinks.
All you know how to do is be a cop.
So he goes to work.
Chapter 10
“Where you been?” Russo asks him.
Malone looks at his watch. “Noon tour, I’m on time.”
He’s on time, but his head is fucking reeling. Booze hangover, drug hangover, sex hangover, fear hangover.
They’ve got him by the fucking balls and he doesn’t know what to do.
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Russo says. “You haven’t changed your clothes. You smell like booze, weed and pussy. Expensive pussy, but still . . .”
“I been at my girlfriend’s,” Malone says. “That okay with you?”
It’s the first lie.
To his partner, his best friend, his brother.
Tell him, Malone thinks. Take him and Monty out into the alley and tell them. You got your dick caught in the Piccone thing, you’re going to work it out, they got nothing to worry about.
But he doesn’t.
“You went to your girlfriend’s?” Russo laughs. “Looking like that? How’d that go?”