It has the stench of truth, Malone thinks.
“Because we have IAB on the pad and they know it,” Russo says. “What the fuck you think you know about anything, newbie?”
“I don’t,” Levin says.
“You calmed down?” Monty asks Malone.
“Yeah.”
Monty lets go of him.
It’s happened in one minute, Malone thinks. One minute after the accusation and Monty’s become the leader and I’m damaged goods. He don’t blame Monty, he’s doing what he needs to do, but Malone can’t let that happen.
He says to Monty and Russo, “Go tell them—Charles Young Park, ten o’clock tonight. Everyone comes.”
Monty walks away through the headstones.
“That’s good,” Levin says. “We’ll get this straightened out.”
“You sit this one out,” Malone says.
“Why?”
“There’s shit you don’t need to know,” Malone says.
“Look, either I’m on the team or I’m—”
“I’m looking out for you,” Malone says. “One day you might have to take a polygraph and it would be good for you to say ‘I don’t know’ without ringing the bells.”
Levin stares at him. “Jesus Christ, what are you guys into?”
“Shit I’m trying to keep you out of.”
“I already took money,” Levin says. “Am I jammed up here?”
“You have a career in front of you,” Malone says. “I’m trying to protect that. None of this concerns you—be somewhere else tonight.”
Russo and Monty come back.
The meeting is set up.
“This is over!” Malone yells. “This is fucking over!”
“Calm down,” Paz says.
“You calm the fuck down!” Malone yells. “This rumor will be all over the Task Force—shit, all over the Job—by this afternoon! I’m a marked man! I have a bull’s-eye on my fucking back!”
“Deny it,” Paz says.
She leans back in her chair and looks at him calmly.
They’re up in the “safe house” on Thirty-Sixth Street, which Malone don’t think is so safe anymore.
“‘Deny it’?” Malone asks. “Torres told his wife.”
“That’s what she told you,” Paz says. “They might be just trying to flush you out.”
“And they recruited Gloria to do it?” Malone asks.
Paz shrugs. “Gloria Torres is hardly the grieving widow. And she has a rooting interest in making sure the flow of dirty money keeps coming in.”
Malone looks at O’Dell. “Did you give me up to Torres?”
“We played him the tape of the two of you,” O’Dell says. “But we told him we had the entire Task Force up.”
“So they know you fucking have me!” Malone says. “You goddamn fucking idiots! You goddamn fucking Southern District empty-suit morons! Jesus Christ . . .”
“Sit down, Malone,” Paz says. “I said sit down.”
Malone sits heavily on one of the metal chairs.
“We always knew,” Paz says, “that at some point in time you’d be exposed. But I’m not sure we’re there yet. As far as Torres’s people know, it could be anyone on the Task Force or no one. So, yes, deny it.”
“They won’t believe me.”
“Convince them,” Paz says. “And stop the whining. We didn’t put you in this situation—you did it to yourself. I advise you to remember that.”
“Save your advice for your girlfriends.”
“I don’t have any,” Paz says. “I’m too busy dealing with dirtbags like you and the late Rafael Torres. He was dirty—his team is dirty. You’re dirty and your whole team is dirty.”
“I will not—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Paz says. “You won’t do anything to hurt your partners. We heard you the fifteenth time. You want to protect your partners, Malone? You suck it up, you stay on the Job, you keep bringing us indictments.”
“We’re going to get him killed,” O’Dell says.
Paz shrugs again. “People die.”
“Nice,” says Weintraub.
Paz asks Malone, “What’s your play?”
“We have a meet tonight,” Malone says. “My team and Torres’s.”
“One-stop shopping,” Paz says. “You’re going wired.”
“Fuck that,” Malone says. “You don’t think the first thing they’re going to do is pat me down?”
“Don’t let them.”
“Then they’ll know for sure.”
“You know what I don’t like about, you, Malone?” Paz asks. “In addition to everything? You think I’m stupid. The real reason you don’t want to wear a wire to this meeting is that it will incriminate your partners. I have already assured you, I have put it on the record—if your precious partners have committed no other crimes than we already know about or can reasonably infer from your personal involvement, they get a walk, courtesy of your cooperation.”
O’Dell steps up. “If he goes to this meeting wired, and they pat him down, we will have succeeded in getting him killed. If that doesn’t matter to you, Isobel, it will also mean that he won’t be available to corroborate any of the recordings.”
“There’s always that,” Weintraub says.
Paz says, “I want a full, truthful, signed affidavit from Malone detailing the meeting.”
“Do you want backup?” O’Dell asks Malone.
“What?”
“In case you get in trouble,” O’Dell says. “We can have people there to pull you out.”
Malone laughs. “Yeah—some feds are going to go into that hood and not get made by cops or the community. Fuck, you’d get me killed.”
“If you get yourself killed,” Paz says, “the deal is off.”
Malone can’t tell if she’s kidding.
Malone sticks the SOG knife in his boot.
The Sig Sauer is in a holster at his waist, the Beretta at the small of his back, and he’s taped extra clips to his ankles.
To meet with other cops, Malone thinks.
To meet with other cops.
Yeah, but they’re cops who want to kill me.
The Colonel Charles Young Playground is four baseball diamonds scraped out of the dirt between 143rd and 145th, east of Malcolm X and west of Harlem River Drive where the 145th Street Bridge comes off the Deegan. The 145th Street subway station is across Malcolm X, giving Malone another way out if he needs it.
As arranged, he meets the team on the southwest corner of 143rd and Malcolm and they walk into the playground together.
Russo’s wearing his leather overcoat and Malone knows he’s carrying the shotgun underneath. Monty has a Harris tweed jacket—the .38 bulge visible at his hip.
“It’s Runnymede,” Monty says as they cross 143rd toward the baseball diamonds.
“Runny who?”
“Runnymede,” Monty says. “The barons are challenging the king.”
Malone don’t know what Monty’s talking about—he only knows that Monty knows what he’s talking about, and that’s good enough. Anyway, he gets the gist—knows who the king is and who the barons are.
A couple of kids and a few junkies get the fuck out of the park when they see the cops coming.
Malone’s phone buzzes and he looks at the number.
It’s Claudette.
He should take it but he can’t, not right now. He feels a twinge of guilt—he should have gone over there or called her, but with everything that’s been happening he hasn’t had the time.
Fuck, he thinks, maybe I should take a second and call back.
Then he sees the Torres people come from the uptown side of the playground. They’ve been waiting, Malone knows, to see if we came alone.