Torres says, “So?”
It’s not too late, Malone thinks. Not too late to back off from hurting a brother cop, even a low motherfucker like Torres. Until he takes the money, they got nothing on Raf, just him talking some bullshit.
You cross this line, there’s no going back.
“Yo, Malone?” Torres is asking. “You got something for me, or what?”
Yeah, I got something for you, Malone thinks. He slides him the envelope. “Here’s your money.”
Torres puts the envelope in his pocket. “Do me a favor? Jerk yourself off, lose this hard-on you got for Carter. Believe me, Castillo is worse.”
“Carter is history,” Malone says. “He just don’t know it yet.”
“Don’t cross me again, Denny.”
“Kiss my skinny Irish ass.”
Torres gets out of the car.
Malone opens his shirt and checks the recording device. It’s on, it got the exchange, Torres is a walking dead man.
And so are you, Malone thinks.
The man you used to be doesn’t exist anymore.
Then he drives downtown to deliver the tape to O’Dell. Fifteen, twenty times on the way he thinks about just dumping the tape and driving away. But if I do, he thinks, I just drop Russo and Monty into my shit. So if it’s a choice between them and Torres . . .
Weintraub pops it into the machine right away and Malone listens to— “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. 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. What’s it going to take to make this right? What was your piece?”
“Way to be, Malone,” Weintraub says. “You’re getting the hang of this.”
“Fifteen. Plus the three Carter’s not paying me this month now that we fucked him.”
“You want the sweat off my dick, too?”
“Nice touch,” Weintraub says.
“No, you can keep that. When do I get my money?”
“Did you give him the designated bills?” Weintraub asks.
“Yeah.”
“We got him,” Weintraub says.
O’Dell says, “Good job, Malone.”
“Fuck you.”
“Our boy’s feeling all guilty because he flipped on a drug-dealing cop,” Weintraub says. “Torres deserves everything he gets.”
“Which is what?” Malone asks.
“We’re going to take him to a nice farm in the country where he’ll be happy playing with all the other crooked cops,” Weintraub says. “The hell you think is going to happen?”
“That’s enough,” O’Dell says. “Denny—”
“Don’t open your mouth to me.”
“I know how you’re feeling.”
“No, you don’t.”
Malone walks out of the room. His footsteps echo in the empty hallway.
Jesus Christ, he thinks, you just did it.
You hurt a brother cop.
You can tell yourself you didn’t have a choice. You had to do it, right? For your family, for Claudette, for your partners. Yeah, you can tell yourself that and it’s all true, but none of it changes the fact that you just hurt a brother cop.
Then the hallway starts tilting, his legs feel unsteady and all of a sudden he’s leaning against the wall, grabbing at it as if it can keep him from falling. Then he bends over and puts his face in his hands.
For the first time since his brother died, he sobs.
Chapter 18
Claudette looks lovely.
White on black.
A tight sheath of a white dress shows off her figure and her dark skin. Gold hoop earrings, red lipstick, her hair up in a 1940s retro do with her white flower.
Stunning.
Heart-cracking, blood-heating, eye-popping beautiful.
Malone falls in love with her anew.
They’re having a real date.
She was right, he decided. For whatever fucked-up reason, he’d been hiding her. Leaving her alone with her doubt and her addiction.
Fuck everyone.
If the rednecks on the Job don’t like it, fuck them. And if the brothuhs think it means he’s going to cut them some slack, they’ll learn quickly enough they’re wrong.
And there’s something else.
He needs her.
After setting up a brother cop, even an asshole like Torres, he needs her.
So he picked up the phone and called. Was a little surprised she didn’t just hang up on him when he said, “This is Sergeant Malone of Manhattan North.”
There was a little pause before she said, “What can I do for you, Detective?”
He could tell from her voice she was clean.
“I know this is last minute,” he said, “but I have reservations tonight at Jean-Georges and no one merciful enough to have dinner with an insensitive, neglectful jerk like myself, and while I’m pretty sure a woman such as yourself already has plans, I thought I’d take a chance and ask if there’s any possibility you would have dinner with me.”
He endured a long silence before she said, “A table at Jean-Georges is hard to get.”
Fuckin’ A, he thought. He’d had to remind the ma?tre d’ of a certain incident he’d quieted down before it made Page Six. “I just told them there was a chance—just a chance—that the most beautiful and charming lady in New York might grace their establishment, and they fell all over themselves.”
“You’re laying it on thick.”
“Subtlety is not my strong suit,” Malone said. “How about it?”
Another long silence before she said, “I’d be delighted.”
He takes her to Jean-Georges because she likes French things.
Zagat rated, three Michelin stars, expensive, impossible to get a reservation unless you’re a celebrity detective. But it’s Malone, even though he’s dressed in a nice suit, who’s a little nervous in the fancy place, not Claudette.
She looks like she was born there.
The waiter thinks so, too, addresses most of his questions and comments to her, and she handles it like she’s been doing it her whole life. She quietly suggests wines and dishes and Malone goes with them.
“How do you know all this?” he asks her, picking his way through the toasted egg yolk with caviar and herbs, which is actually a lot better than he’d thought it would be.
“Believe it or not,” she says, “you’re not the first man I ever dated. I’ve been south of 110th, gosh, five or six times, maybe even seven.”
He feels like a fucking idiot. “Go ahead, squeeze my shoes. I deserve it.”
“Yes, you do,” she says. “But I’m having a wonderful time, baby. Thank you for bringing me here. It’s beautiful.”
“You’re beautiful.”
“See, you’re doing better already.”
Malone picks the Maine lobster, Claudette the smoked squab.
“Isn’t that a pigeon?” Malone asks.
“It is a pigeon,” she says. “Didn’t you ever want revenge?”
They don’t talk about the smack, her “slip,” her jonesing. She’s feeling better now, looking better. He thinks maybe she’s over it. For dessert they take a sampling of chocolate “tastings,” during which Claudette says, “So this is our first real date in a long time.”