He walks in the door and the first words out of her mouth are “Are you ashamed to be seen with me?”
“The fuck did that come from?” he asks. He looks to see if her eyes are pinned but they aren’t. She hasn’t been using, she’s been hanging in there, jonesing, and he knows it’s tough as hell and she’s angry and now she’s going to take it out on him.
“I’ve been thinking about why I relapsed.”
You relapsed because you’re an addict, he thinks.
“Why haven’t I ever met your partners?” she asks. “You’ve met their mistresses, haven’t you?”
“You’re not my mistress.”
“What am I?”
Oh, fuck. “My girlfriend.”
“You haven’t introduced me because I’m black,” she says.
“Claudette, one of my partners is black.”
“And you don’t want him to know you’re doing a sister,” she says.
Yeah, that’s partially true, Malone thinks. He didn’t know how Monty would react, whether he’d be okay with it or if he’d be pissed. “Why do you want to meet them?”
“Why don’t you want me to meet them?” she asks back. “Is it because I’m black or because I’m an addict?”
“Nobody knew about that,” Malone says.
“Because nobody knew about me.”
“Well, they do now,” Malone says. “Why are my partners so important to you?”
“They’re your family,” she says. “They know your wife, your children. You know theirs. They know everyone important in your life, except me. Which makes me think I’m not.”
“I don’t know what more I can do to—”
“I’m your shadow life,” she says. “You hide me.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“We almost never go out,” she says.
That’s true. Between her schedule and his it’s a tough get and anyway, it’s awkward, even in 2017—a white man with a black woman in Harlem. When they do go out together—to a coffee shop or the grocery store—they get looks, sideways glances and sometimes outright stares.
And he’s not just a white man, he’s a white cop.
That causes hostility, or something worse, maybe some of the locals figuring Malone will cut them a break because he’s with a black woman.
“I’m not ashamed of you,” Malone said. “It’s just that . . .”
He goes on to explain his concern that the people in the neighborhood might think he’d slacken up. “But you wanna go out, we’ll go out. Let’s go out right now.”
“Look at me, I’m a mess,” she says. “I don’t want to go out.”
“Jesus Christ, you just said—”
“I mean, what is this, some kind of ‘brown sugar’ thing?” she asks. “Jungle fever? You just come over here and fuck me?”
“No.”
You fuck me back, baby, he thought, but was just smart enough not to say.
“Denny, did you ever think you might be one of the reasons I use?”
Jesus fucking Christ, Claudette—you ever think you’re one of the reasons I just turned fucking snitch, that I just turned fucking rat, that your fucking addiction, your fucking disease is what made me do that?!
“Fuck you,” he says.
“Fuck you right back.”
He gets up.
“Where are you going?” she asks.
“Somewhere that’s not here.”
“You mean somewhere away from me.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Go,” Claudette says. “Go away. You want to be with me, you treat me like a person. Not some junkie whore.”
He slams the door on his way out.
Chapter 14
Malone and Russo take in a Rangers game, tickets on the blue line comped by a guy from the Garden who still likes cops.
Which is, like, fewer and fewer people, Malone thinks.
Just last month, two plainclothes in an unmarked vehicle out near Ozone Park in Queens saw a guy standing next to a double-parked car with an open bottle of booze.
A bullshit C-summons, but when they went to front the guy, he ran.
You run on cops, they’re gonna chase, it’s the golden retriever mentality. They cornered him, he pulled a gun, the cops shot him thirteen times.
The family hired a lawyer who started litigating the case in the media. “A father of five young children was hit with thirteen bullets, including shots to the back and head, all because of an open container.”
First you had Garner killed over selling Luckys, then Michael Bennett, now you have a guy killed over a freakin’ open container.
Gotta hand it to the commissioner, though, he stood up. “The best way to not get shot by a New York City police officer is not carry a gun and not raise that gun toward them.”
Syntax and grammar aside, as Monty observed, it was a strong statement, especially when the commissioner added, “My cops go out there every day and put their lives at risk and the attorneys, the games they play.”
The lawyer fired back. “We certainly have empathy for good cops who risk their lives to protect our communities—who doesn’t? But as for ‘games’ being played . . . one needs to simply open up a newspaper any day of the week to learn of the lying, cheating and stealing committed by members of the NYPD, so you’ll excuse me if I don’t immediately take their word for what occurred.”
So the Job’s taking it from all sides.
The protesters are out, the activists are calling for action and the tension between the police and the community is worse than ever.
And still no call from the Bennett grand jury.
So when black guys aren’t shooting black people, the cops are shooting black people.
Either way, Malone thinks, black people die.
And he goes on being a cop.
New York goes on being New York.
The world goes on being the world.
Yeah, it does and it doesn’t. His world has changed.
He’s a rat.
The first time you do it, Malone thinks, it’s life changing.
The second time, it’s just life.
The third time, Malone thinks, it’s your life.
It’s who you are.
The first time he wore a wire he felt like everyone in the world could see it, like it was glued to his forehead. It felt like a thick scar on his skin, a cut that still stitched and pulled.
This last time it slipped on easier than his belt. He hardly noticed it was there.
O’Dell doesn’t call him a rat.
The FBI agent calls him a “rock star.”
Rock star.
By mid-May, Malone had given the feds four defense lawyers and three ADAs. Paz’s office is busy typing up sealed indictments. They’re not going to make arrests until they’re ready to spring the entire trap.
The fucked-up thing is that when he’s not trapping dirty lawyers, Malone just goes on being a cop.
Like none of this is really happening.
He goes to the Job, he works with his team, he monitors the surveillance on Carter, he deals with Sykes. He rides the streets, works his snitches, makes the busts that are there to be made.
He goes to the shooting scenes.
Two weeks after the Gillette/Williams killings a Trinitario up in Inwood was walking home from a club and took a round in the back of the head. Ten days later a Spade in north St. Nick’s got laced with a shotgun blast from a drive-by. He’s in Harlem Hospital but he ain’t going to make it.