“Get the fuck out of here.”
“Hand to God,” Sykes says. “That was good work tonight, Malone. I hate to think what would happen if those guns hit the street.”
“DeVon Carter ain’t gonna be happy.”
“Fuck Carter.”
Malone starts to laugh.
“What?” Sykes asks.
“I was just thinking about this time,” Malone says, “Monty and Russo and Billy O and me and about six other off-duty detectives are sitting at this bar and this black kid . . . no offense . . . walks through the door with a gun, yells it’s a holdup. World’s dumbest stickup guy, right? Must have been a first-timer because he looked about nineteen and he’s scared to death. So he points the gun and Mike, behind the bar, just looks at him, and all of a sudden this poor kid has probably twelve guns pointed back at him and all these cops are laughing and yelling ‘Get the fuck outta here’ and the kid spins like he’s in a cartoon and runs out the door, we don’t even follow him. We just go back to our drinks.”
“But you didn’t shoot.”
“He was a kid,” Malone says. “I mean, what kind of dumbass sticks up a cop bar?”
“A desperate one.”
“I guess.”
“Difference between you and me?” Sykes says. “I’d have gone after him.”
A party is going on around them. Monty is dancing to the music all on his own, Russo and Emma Flynn are trading shots, Levin is table-surfing, Babyface is trashing a bunch of plainclothes at beer pong.
Malone’s heart is breaking.
He’s going to betray these people.
He’s going to give them cops.
Laying a twenty on the bar, Malone says, “I’d better go.”
“Denny ‘Last Call’ Malone?” Sykes asks.
“Yeah.”
I’d better go before I get any drunker, start talking, spilling my guilty guts, slobbering all over the bar and telling everyone what a piece of shit I am.
Levin sees him get up. “Malone! You can’t leave yet!”
Malone waves to him.
“Malone!” Levin yells. He raises his beer mug. “Everyone. Everybody. Hey, y’all motherfuckers! Listen up!”
“He’s going to feel this tomorrow,” Sykes says.
“Jews can’t drink,” Malone says.
Levin looks like the freakin’ Statue of Liberty with his mug raised above his head like a torch. “Ladies and gentlemen of Da Force! I give you Sergeant Denny Malone! The best motherfucking, ball-breaking, perp-busting badass on the streets of our fair city! The King of Manhattan North! Long Live the King!”
The cops take up the chanting, yell, “Long Live the King! Long Live the King! Long Live the King!”
Sykes smiles at Malone.
“You’re an all right guy, Captain,” Malone says. “I don’t like you very much, but you’re an all right guy. Take care of these people, okay?”
“That’s my job,” Sykes says, looking around the bar. “I love these fucking people.”
Me too, Malone thinks.
He walks out.
He doesn’t belong there anymore.
Doesn’t belong at Claudette’s either.
He goes back to his apartment, polishes off what’s left of a bottle of Jameson’s by himself.
Chapter 17
The press conference looks like Open Mike Night at the Chuckle Hut.
Classic, Malone thinks.
The weapons are laid out on tables, carefully labeled, looking lethal and beautiful. A line of suits and brass stand on the dais waiting their turn at the microphone. In addition to Sykes, who doesn’t even look hungover, and McGivern, you got Neely, the chief of detectives; Isadore, the chief of patrol; Police Commissioner Brady; the deputy commissioner; the mayor; and for reasons that passeth Malone’s understanding, the Reverend Cornelius.
McGivern says a few words of departmental self-congratulations and then introduces Sykes, who speaks in technical terms about the operation, the weapons seized and how proud he is of the many Task Force personnel who worked together to achieve this outcome.
He yields the mike to the commissioner, who broadens the congratulations to include the entire department and makes a point of going on for a while just to make the mayor wait.
When Hizzoner finally gets the mike, he stretches the credit out to include every suit in or around City Hall, especially and including himself, and talks about how the department and the administration working together makes this a safer city for everybody, and then he introduces the good reverend.
Malone already felt like throwing up, but now he really feels like throwing up as Cornelius preaches about the community, nonviolence and the root economic causes of said violence and how the community needs “programs not pogroms” (and nobody knows what the fuck that means) and then dances a tightrope as he tries to urge the police to do more while warning them not to do too much.
All in all, Malone thinks, it’s a great performance.
Even U.S. Attorney Isobel Paz, representing the Southern District of New York, which has done so much to combat interstate weapons trafficking, seems to enjoy the show.
When Malone’s phone rings, it’s Paz, and he can see her across the crowded lobby. “Don’t think this is going to help you, shitbird. I still want cops.”
“Now more than ever, right?” Malone asks, looking at her. “The commissioner was looking very mayoral, I thought.”
“Cops. On tape. Now.”
Click.
Torres confronts him in the locker room at Manhattan North.
“You and me need to talk,” Torres says.
“Okay,” says Malone.
“Not here.”
They walk outside and across the street, into the treed courtyard outside St. Mary’s.
“You motherfucker,” Torres says.
Good, Malone thinks, the angrier the better. Anger makes Torres careless, he makes mistakes. He gets right up on Malone.
“Get out of my face,” Malone says.
“I should kick your fucking ass.”
“I’m not one of your girls.”
Torres’s voice goes to a rasp. “The fuck you doing, hitting that shipment? On Dyckman? That’s my turf. You were supposed to stay out of the Heights.”
“Carter made the deal from my turf.”
“You just gave your turf to Castillo, asshole,” Torres says. “What’s Carter supposed to do without guns?”
“Die?”
“I had a piece of that deal, Malone. A finder’s fee.”
“What, we give refunds now?”
“You don’t fuck with my money, Malone.”
“Okay, okay,” Malone says. Then, feeling like a piece of shit, he makes his pitch. Get Paz what she wants. “What’s it going to take to make this right? What was your piece?”
Torres calms down a little. Then he sticks his neck in the noose. “Fifteen. Plus the three Carter’s not paying me this month now that we fucked him.”
“You want the sweat off my dick, too?”
“No, you can keep that,” Torres says. “When do I get my money?”
“Meet me in the parking lot,” Malone says.
Malone goes back there, takes $18K out of the console and puts it in an envelope. Torres shows up a few minutes later and slides into the passenger seat. In the closeness of the car, Malone can smell the man—the stale coffee breath, the cigarette smoke on his clothes, the too-strong cologne.