And as Malone predicted, the goodwill from the Williams arrest lasted about an hour and a half. Now Sykes is catching it at the CompStat meeting, the commissioner’s catching it from the mayor, the mayor from the media.
Sykes is all up Malone’s ass for progress on the guns.
He’s up everyone’s ass.
Got Malone working Carter, Torres on Castillo, has the plainclothes out trying to get guns off the street, the undercovers trying to buy them.
Yeah, shit flows downhill.
It’s Levin that gets them the break.
Fuckin’ Levin, he showed up one day with his iPad and sat in the liquor store closet banging away. Russo and Monty, they figured the kid was just screwing around online, watching Netflix, they didn’t care, it’s a monotonous gig and you gotta do something, but one day he came out looking prouder than a fourteen-year-old who just got his first tit and he opened up the iPad and said, “Look at this.”
“The fuck you do?”
“I hacked his phones,” Levin said. “I mean, not the voice, we can’t hear the other half of the conversations, but every time he makes or receives a call, it comes on the screen.”
“Levin,” Monty said, “you may have actually justified your existence on this earth.”
No shit.
Now they know who Fat Teddy’s talking to, and he’s talking to Mantell a lot.
“Volume analysis,” Levin said. “As they get closer to a delivery, the traffic will pick up.”
“But how do we know where they’re going to exchange?” Malone asked.
“We don’t yet,” Levin said. “But we will.”
“Carter won’t go near the exchange,” Monty said. “He’s not even on the phone now, has Fat Teddy handling everything.”
“We don’t care about Carter,” Malone said. “Just the guns.”
Maybe stop a bloodbath.
So Malone’s trying to be a real cop, do real police work, restore the peace in his kingdom.
Peace of mind, that he can’t restore.
The shooting war going on inside his own head.
Monty wasn’t interested in coming to the Rangers game. “Black folk don’t go near ice.”
“There are black hockey players,” Malone said.
“Race traitors.”
They’d have taken Levin, but you can’t get him off the Fat Teddy surveillance with a crowbar and a hand grenade. So it’s just Malone and Phil there to watch the Penguins wipe the Rangers out of the playoffs. They’re sitting with beers and Russo says, “The fuck’s going on with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“When’s the last time you saw your kids?”
“Who are you, my priest right now?” Malone asks. “You want to fuck me in the ass, Father?”
“Drink your beer. Sorry I asked.”
“I’ll come out this weekend.”
“Do what you want,” Russo says. Then he asks, “What about the black woman, you deal with that?”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Phil.”
“Okay, okay.”
“Can we watch the fucking game?”
They watch the fucking game as the Rangers do what the Rangers do, blow a lead in the third period and then get beat in OT.
Malone and Russo go to the bar at Jack Doyle’s after the game for a nightcap, the TV news is on and Reverend Cornelius is talking about the Ozone Park “police killing.”
Fucking lawyer-looking fuck in a suit standing at the bar, his tie loosened around his neck, starts shooting his mouth off. “Cops executed that guy.”
Russo sees the look in Malone’s eyes.
Seen that look before, and now Malone’s had a few beers and three Jamesons back to back to back.
“Take it easy.”
“Fuck him.”
“Let it slide, Denny.”
But the loudmouth won’t let it go, starts lecturing the whole bar about the “militarization of our police forces” and the funny thing is Malone don’t even disagree with him, it’s just he’s not in the mood for this shit.
He’s staring at the guy, the guy sees it and looks back at him and Malone says, “What are you looking at?”
The guy wants to back down. “Nothing.”
Malone slides off the stool. “No, what the fuck you looking at, mouth?”
Russo gets behind him, puts his hand on his shoulder. “Come on, Denny. Chill.”
Malone shoves his hand off. “You fucking chill.”
The guy’s buddies, they’re trying to move him out of the bar and Russo is all in agreement with that, he says, “Why don’t you take your friend home?”
“What are you, a lawyer?” Malone asks the guy.
“Yeah, as a matter of fact.”
“Well, I’m a cop,” Malone says. “I’m a New York City fucking police detective!”
“Enough, Denny.”
“I’ll have your badge,” the guy says. “What’s your name?”
“Denny Malone! Sergeant Dennis John Malone! Manhattan motherfucking North!”
Russo lays a couple of twenties on the bar. Says to the bartender, “It’s okay, we’re getting out of here.”
“After I kick this pussy’s ass,” Malone says.
Russo gets between them, shoves Malone back and hands the guy his card. “Look, he’s had a tough week, a few too many. Take this, you need a favor sometime, a ticket fixed, whatever, you call.”
“Your buddy’s an asshole.”
“Tonight I can’t argue,” Russo says. He grabs Malone and hauls him out of the bar and shoves him onto Eighth Avenue.
“Denny, what the fuck?!”
“Guy pissed me off.”
“You want to get IAB up our ass?!” Russo asks. “Give Sykes more of a hard-on for you than he already has? Jesus.”
“Let’s go get a drink.”
“Let’s put you to bed.”
“I’m a New York City police detective.”
“Yeah, I heard that,” Russo says. “Everybody did.”
“New York’s finest.”
“Okay, champ.”
They walk to the parking lot and Russo drives him home. Takes him upstairs. “Denny, do yourself a favor. Stay here. Don’t go out anymore tonight.”
“I won’t. I got court tomorrow.”
“Yeah, you’re going to look great,” Russo says. “You going to set an alarm or should I call you?”
“Alarm.”
“I’ll call you. Get some sleep.”
Drunk dreams are the worst dreams.
Maybe because your brain is already fucked over and ready to give up to the sickest shit you got running around in there.
Tonight he dreams about the Cleveland family.
Two adults, three kids dead in their apartment.
Executed.
The kids ask him for help but he can’t help them.
He can’t help them, he just stands there and cries and cries and cries.
Malone gets up in the morning and downs five glasses of water.
Head hurts like a motherfucker.
Whiskey with a beer chaser is good; beer with a whiskey chaser is a catastrophe. He pops three aspirin, two Dexies, showers and shaves and then gets dressed. His court costume today is a white shirt with a red tie, blue blazer, gray slacks and polished black shoes.
You don’t wear a suit to court unless you’re at least a lieutenant or above because you don’t want to show up the lawyers and you want the jury to see you as an honest working stiff.
No cuff links today.
No Armani, no Boss.
Straight-up Jos. A. Banks.
Mary Hinman sees him and laughs. “That your schoolboy costume?”
Red hair, freckled pale skin, the special prosecutor for Narcotics could be out of the cast of Riverdance if she were taller.
But Hinman is small, a description she rejects.