“So you’re not going to move on IAB?” Malone asks.
“The hell we’re not, just not yet,” Paz says. She walks over to Malone, her perfume reaching him before she does. “Sergeant Malone, you beautiful dirty cop, you may have single-handedly brought down corruption in the defense bar, the prosecutor’s office, IAB and the entire NYPD.”
“It’s bigger than Serpico,” Weintraub says, “Bob Leuci, Michael Dowd, Eppolito, any of those guys.”
Malone’s phone rings.
O’Dell nods for him to take it.
It’s Henderson.
He has an answer.
A hundred thousand dollars buys Buliosi.
“It could be a countersting,” O’Dell says.
“The fuck do I have to lose?” Malone asks.
“Our entire investigation,” Weintraub says. “If you pay Buliosi and he’s playing you, IAB will take down the Task Force and then we’re fucked.”
“And you’ll give us up, won’t you?” Paz asks.
“In a heartbeat.”
“Maybe it’s time,” O’Dell says, “we coordinated with IAB. If they are clean, our investigations are going to start tripping over each other, anyway.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Paz asks. “They’re about to sell the Torres investigation.”
“Or not,” O’Dell says.
“If we bring them in now,” Weintraub says, “they just throw Henderson under the bus and shut it down. They’re not going to do anything beyond that to embarrass the commissioner.”
“They’ll just circle the wagons,” Paz says. “Shut us down.”
“And then the mayor doesn’t get to be governor,” Malone says, “and you don’t get to be mayor. That’s what this is about. Spare me the song-and-dance about stopping the corruption. You are the corruption.”
“And you’re white as snow,” Paz says.
“New York snow,” Malone says.
Dirty, gritty, hard.
Paz turns back to O’Dell. “We pay Buliosi.”
O’Dell asks, “Do we even have a hundred thousand? In cash?”
No one answers.
“It’s okay,” Malone says. “I got it.”
And I got you.
I might even have a way out of this.
“You’re famous, Sergeant Malone,” Rubenstein says.
They’re sitting upstairs at the Landmark Tavern.
“Nah,” Malone says.
Malone can’t tell if Rubenstein’s gay or not, like Russo thought, but Russo thinks all journalists are gay, even the women. One thing Malone can tell about Rubenstein is that he’s dangerous. A predator always recognizes another predator.
“No, come on,” Rubenstein says. “The biggest drug bust in history—you’re as close to a celebrity cop as this city has.”
“Don’t tell my captain that, okay?” Malone says.
“The word on the street is that you run Manhattan North,” Rubenstein says, smiling.
Dangerous.
“Don’t write that or we’re done,” Malone says. “Look, all this needs to be on . . . what do you guys call it . . .”
Malone knows full well what they call it.
“Deep background,” Rubenstein says.
“That’s it,” Malone says. “No one can know I’m giving you information. I’m trusting you here.”
“You can.”
Yeah, right I can. You trust a reporter like you trust a dog. You got a bone in your hand, you’re feeding him, you’re good. Your hand’s empty, don’t turn your back. You either feed the media or it eats you.
“You had a case against Pena before, didn’t you?” Rubenstein asks.
Jesus fuck, who’s this guy been talking to? “That’s right.”
“Did that affect the way you handled it?” Rubenstein asks.
“Do you know about Irish Alzheimer’s?” Malone asks.
“No.”
“You forget everything but the grudges,” Malone says. “Look, we didn’t know what we were going to come up against when we went into that building. As it happened, bad guys with guns wanted to slug it out. One of them was Pena. Am I glad that we won and they didn’t? Yes. Do I enjoy killing people? No.”
“But it must have an effect on you.”
“‘The tortured cop,’” Malone says. “That’s a stereotype. I sleep fine, thanks for your concern.”
“How do you think the inner-city community views police these days?” Rubenstein asks.
“With mistrust,” Malone says. “Look, there has been a long history of racism and brutality in the NYPD. No serious person could deny that. But things have changed. People don’t want to believe that, but it’s true.”
“The Michael Bennett shooting would seem to indicate otherwise.”
“Why don’t we wait until the facts are in?” Malone says.
“Why does it take so long to complete an investigation?”
“Ask the grand jury.”
“I’m asking you,” Rubenstein says. “You’ve been involved in a number of shooting incidents.”
“And each one has been determined to have been justified,” Malone says.
“Maybe that’s my point.”
“I didn’t come here to debate,” Malone says.
“What did you come here for?” Rubenstein asks.
“Rafael Torres,” Malone says. “There’s been a lot of speculation in the media . . .”
“That he was a crooked cop,” Rubenstein says. “Protecting drug dealers.”
“It’s bullshit.”
“You have to agree,” Rubenstein says, “that it’s not an outrageous idea. I mean, there’s ample precedent.”
“The ‘Dirty Thirty,’ Michael Dowd,” Malone says. “Ancient history.”
“Is it?”
“No one wants heroin off the streets more than cops do,” Malone says. “We deal with the violence, the crime, the suffering, the overdoses, the bodies. We go to the morgues. We go tell the families. Not the New York Times.”
“This seems to make you angry, Sergeant.”
“Goddamn right it makes me angry,” Malone says, pissed for letting himself get taunted. “People throwing around careless accusations. Who have you guys been talking to?”
“Do you give up your sources, Sergeant?” Rubenstein asks.
“All right, that’s fair,” Malone says. “Look, I came here to tell you the real reason Torres killed himself.”
He slides an envelope across the table, material that his tame doctor on the West Side provided after complaining that it was medical malpractice.
Rubenstein opens it and looks at the X-ray and doctor’s report. “Pancreatic cancer?”
“He didn’t want to go out that way.”
“Why didn’t he leave a note?” Rubenstein asks.
“Raf wasn’t that kind of guy.”
“And he wasn’t the dirty cop kind of guy either?”
Fuck you, Rubenstein. “Look, would Torres take a free cup of coffee, a sandwich? Okay, sure. But that’s as far as it went.”
“I heard on the street he was practically DeVon Carter’s bodyguard.”
“I hear all kinds of shit on the street,” Malone says. “Did you know Jack Kennedy is managing an Applebee’s on Mars? Trump is the love child of reptilians who live under Madison Square Garden? In the current environment, the ‘community’ will believe anything bad about cops, and repeat it, and it becomes ‘truth.’”