“That’s the way it works?”
“That’s the way it works.”
Levin picks the money up and counts it. “It’s short.”
“The hell you mean?” Russo asks.
“Fifteen thousand divided by four is three thousand seventy and change,” Levin says. “This is three thousand flat.”
They laugh. Russo says, “Well, we got us a real Jew on the team now.”
“One share goes to expenses,” Malone says.
“What expenses?” Levin asks.
“What,” Russo asks, “you want a line-item account?”
“Take Amy out to dinner,” Malone says, “don’t worry about it.”
“Buy her something nice,” Montague says.
“Not too nice,” says Malone.
Russo takes out a thick manila envelope and a pen. “Address this to yourself, mail it. That way you don’t have it on you.”
They get back in the car, swing by a post office, then drive up to Dyckman.
“What if Teddy warns them?” Levin asks.
“Then we’re fucked,” Malone says. But he gets on the horn to Sykes and advises him to get some backup units over to Highbridge Park. Gives him the make, model and registration of Fat Teddy’s car.
Levin is nervous as a whore in church.
Malone doesn’t blame the kid—it’s a huge score, a huge bust, the kind that makes careers, gets you a gold shield. And it was his motherfucking genius idea that put it together.
Teddy’s phone rings.
Monty answers. “Where you at?”
“Coming west on Dyckman.”
“I see you,” Monty says. “Yellow Penske truck?”
“That’s us.”
“Bring it on in.”
The rental truck pulls into the alley.
A biker type—long hair, beard, leather cut with an ECMF rocker—gets out the passenger side with a pump shotgun. Swastika tat on his neck and an 88—numeric code for the Nazi salute Heil Hitler.
Win-win for this motherfucker, Malone thinks—make some cash and hand the “mud people” tools to kill each other.
Monty gets out of the liquor truck with his left hand raised and a briefcase in his right hand. Malone and Russo come out behind him, standing in back and to the side for open shooting lanes.
Malone sees the biker get hinky. “I didn’t expect white.”
“We just wanted to make you comfortable,” Monty says.
“I don’t know about this.”
“Oh, there’s a lot of black around you,” Monty says. “You just don’t see them because it’s night.”
“Hold up.” The biker calls Teddy’s number. Hears it ring in Monty’s pocket and relaxes a little. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Monty says. “What you got for me?”
The driver gets out, walks around and opens the back of the truck. Malone follows Monty and looks inside as the biker starts to open crates. There are enough guns in there to keep Homicide busy for two years—revolvers, automatics, pump shotguns and automatic rifles—an AK, three AR-15s, including a Bushmaster.
“It’s all there,” the biker says.
Monty swings the briefcase onto the tailgate and opens it. “Fifty large. You want to count it?”
Yeah, he does—he counts the stacks of marked, registered bills. “On the money.”
Malone and Russo start to off-load the guns and carry them back to the liquor truck.
“Let Mantell know,” Monty says, “we’ll buy as much as he can send.”
The biker smiles. “As long as you’re using them on other ‘people of color.’”
Monty can’t help himself. “And maybe cops.”
“Works for me.”
Yeah, does that work for you? Malone thinks. We’ll see how it works for you when some CO is beating your kidneys into Jell-O, you meth-smoking, jerky-eating, cousin-fucking shitkicker. I’d do it right now for you if I didn’t want to hand this bust to Sykes and Da Force.
They finish off-loading.
“You need directions?” Monty asks the driver.
Monty thinks of everything. Sykes has the location covered from all compass points, but this will give him a heads-up on which way the truck is likely to head.
“Back the way we came, I guess,” the driver says.
“Or just go straight up Dyckman here to the Henry Hudson, south to the GW Bridge, then 95 back to Dixie.”
“We’ll find our own way,” the biker says.
“Motherfucker,” Monty says, shaking his head, “if we was going to rip you, we’d do it right here, not chasing you down the highway.”
“Mantell will be in touch.”
“Heil Hitler.”
The Penske truck backs out and true to paranoid form, turns right onto Dyckman to drive all the way across the city before it can get back on a highway.
Malone gets on the horn.
“Suspect is coming east on Dyckman.”
“We have a visual,” Sykes says.
Levin’s grinning.
“Wait for it,” Malone says.
Then it goes off—sirens, yelling. Malone and Levin walk out on the street and see the red flashers as the sector cars move in.
“Well,” Malone says, “there are two mothers, at least, who won’t be getting fucked tonight. Levin, that was some real police work you did.”
“Thanks.”
“Seriously,” Malone says. “You saved some lives tonight.”
A sector car comes down and Sykes gets out of the backseat. Full uniform, freshly shaved, camera-ready. “What do we have, Sergeant?”
“Come on.” He leads Sykes back to the truck.
Sykes looks at the weapons. “Jesus Christ.”
“You call McGivern?” Malone asks. Sykes doesn’t bring McGivern in on this from the jump, the inspector will cockblock his career until he pulls the pin.
“No, Sergeant, I’m an idiot,” Sykes says. “He’s on his way.”
He’s still looking at the guns.
Malone knows what it means to him. Sure, it’s great for his career, but it’s more than that. Like the rest of them, Sykes has seen the bodies, the blood, the families, the funerals.
For a few seconds, Malone almost likes the man.
And for himself, he feels like a cop again.
Instead of a rat.
A cop taking care of his business, taking care of his people. Because of tonight, there’ll be less death and suffering in the Kingdom of Malone.
Another car rolls up and McGivern gets out.
“This is fine work, gentlemen!” he hollers. “Fine work, Captain! It’s a great night to be a New York City police officer, isn’t it?!”
He walks up closer to Sykes. “You seized the buy money, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” Sykes says.
More cars roll in. Crime Scene people, Task Force guys. They start taking photographs and vouchering the seized weapons before they take them into the house, where they’ll be laid out for a morning press conference.
After the paperwork is done, Sykes surprises everyone by announcing that the first round down at the Dublin House is on him.
First implies second, which implies third and after that, who’s counting?
Somewhere between five and six Malone finds himself sitting next to Sykes at the bar.
“If someone asked me,” Sykes says, “to name the best and the worst cops I’ve ever worked with, I would answer Denny Malone.”
Malone lifts his glass to him.
Sykes lifts his and they toss them back.
“Never seen you out of uniform before,” Malone says.
“I did three years UC in the Seven-Eight,” Sykes says. “Would you believe that?”
“No. Can’t see it.”
“I had dreads.”