Late on a Saturday afternoon, Malone has a pretty good idea where to find Lou Savino.
The old Italian coffee shops where Lou would like to hang out on the sidewalk sipping espresso like Tony Soprano don’t exist anymore, so Savino likes to go into Starbucks, get an espresso and sit outside in the little fenced-in patio off 117th Street.
It’s pathetic, Malone thinks. There’s Lou sitting out there in his dumbass tracksuit with one of his soldiers, an unmade wannabe named Mike Sciollo, holding forth and checking out the ass strolling by.
Don’t underestimate him, though, Malone tells himself. You did that last night and it could have gotten you killed. Lou Savino didn’t become a capo by being stupid. He’s a smart, ruthless motherfucker, Malone thinks as he goes in.
Even smart ruthless motherfuckers have to piss. Savino lives all the way up in Yonkers, so he’s going to use the john before he gets back in the car. Sure enough, Malone sees Lou get up and come inside and times his approach just as Savino steps into the john and starts to close the door.
Malone sticks his foot inside, pushes it open and shuts it behind him.
“Denny,” Savino says, “I was going to give you a call.”
It’s tight in there, close.
“You were going to give me a call?” Malone asks. “Did you think about maybe giving me a freakin’ call before you turned me over to Castillo?”
“It was business, Denny.”
“Don’t give me that Sollozzo bullshit,” Malone says. “You and I have business, too. You should have told me, Lou. You gave me your word you’d take that smack away from my turf.”
“You’re right. You are,” Savino says. “But you were wrong, doing Pena like that. You know that, Denny. You should have let him walk away.”
“Where do I find Castillo?”
“You don’t want to find him,” Savino says. “He wants to cut off your fucking head.”
“I’m going to shrink his and put it in my pocket,” Malone says, “so his smart mouth is always sucking my balls. Where is he, Lou?”
Savino laughs. “What are you going to do? Pistol-whip me like I’m one of your moolies? Come on.”
Savino looks over Malone’s shoulder, like he’s expecting Sciollo to bang on the door, ask if he’s okay. “We’re hearing things about you. Some people are very concerned.”
Malone knows “some people” means Stevie Bruno. And he’s “concerned” that I’m a rat because I have a lot to give up on the Cimino borgata.
“Tell those people they got nothing to worry about,” Malone says.
“I vouched for you,” Savino says. “I’m responsible for what you do. They’ll kill me, too. I’ve been invited to a sit-down, you know what that means.”
“I wouldn’t go if I were you.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve been invited too, asshole,” Savino says. “Half past twelve tomorrow. La Luna. Attendance is not optional. Come alone.”
“And get a bullet in the back of the head?” Or something worse, Malone thinks. A knife in the spine, a wire around the throat, my dick stuffed in my mouth. “Pass.”
“Look,” Savino says, “I’ll vouch for you if you keep me covered on the heroin.”
“You didn’t tell Bruno about that?”
“It must have slipped my mind,” Savino says. “The greedy fuck would want twenty points. You and me, we take each other’s backs, we can both walk out of this meeting, Denny.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“See you tomorrow.”
Sciollo knocks on the door. “What, Lou, you drown in there?”
“Get the fuck outta here!” He looks at Malone. “You think you can take on the whole world?”
Yeah, I do, Malone thinks.
The whole fucking world, it comes to that.
He’s driving back downtown, all of a sudden he feels like he can’t breathe.
Like the car is closing in on him.
Fuck, like the whole world is closing in on him—Castillo and the Dominicans, the Ciminos, the feds, IAB, the Job, the mayor’s office, God only knows who else. He feels this tightening in his chest and wonders if he’s having a heart attack. He pulls the car over, reaches into the glove compartment, takes out a Xanax and pops it down.
This ain’t you, he thinks.
A fucking, what, a panic attack?
It ain’t you.
You’re Denny freakin’ Malone.
Malone puts the car back in drive and heads down Broadway. But he knows there are eyes on him. From the sidewalks, the windows, the buildings, the cars. Eyes in black faces, brown faces. Old eyes, young eyes, sad eyes, angry eyes, accusing eyes, junkie eyes, skel eyes, the eyes of children.
There are eyes on him.
He drives to Claudette’s.
She’s high.
Not neck-drooping, head-lolling high, but grooving to the music high. Cécile McLorin Salvant, someone like that. Claudette opens the door and dances away from it, waving him in with her fingers.
Smiling like the world is a bowl of cream.
“Come on, baby, don’t be a drag. Dance with me.”
“You’re high.”
“You’re right,” Claudette says, turning around to look at him. “I’m high. You want to climb up here where I am, baby?”
“I’m good.”
And it’s never going to be any better, he thinks. She’s never going to get any better. But you can’t always be there and the smack can.
The smack you just put on the street.
She moves back across the room and wraps her arms around him. “C’mon, baby, I want you to dance with me. Don’t you want to dance with me?”
The trouble is he does.
He starts to sway with her.
She feels warm against him.
He could stay like this forever but they don’t dance for long because the heroin starts to take hold and she starts to nod. But as she does, she murmurs, “You didn’t answer when I called.”
There’s that old saying about being “crazy about” someone. And I am, he thinks, I’m crazy about this woman. It’s crazy to love her, crazy to stay with her, but I do and I will.
Crazy love.
He carries her to bed.
Chapter 24
Sunday comes like it always does for Malone, with a vague childhood unease at not going to Mass.
Malone dozed more than slept, his waking thoughts about Claudette.
Now he makes two coffees, goes back into the bedroom and wakes her up. She opens her eyes and he sees it takes a second or two for her to recognize him. “Good morning, baby.”
Claudette smiles.
A tranquil, Sunday-morning we-can-lay-around-in-bed smile.
He says, “Last night—”
“Was beautiful, baby,” she says. “Thank you again.”
She doesn’t remember a fucking thing. She will, he thinks, when she really comes to and the jones start to kick in.
He should stay with her, he knows it.
But—
“I have to go to work,” he says.
“It’s Sunday.”
“So go back to sleep.”
“I think I will,” she says.
La Luna is old school, Malone thinks.
Kind of place Savino sees in his wet dreams. All the way down in the Village, they want me away from my turf.
And the Ciminos have a crew down here.
What he should have done was call Russo, maybe Monty, too. Have them back him up.
Except the meeting is about him being a rat.
Maybe O’Dell.