That’s what he should have done, but he decided fuck that.
Sciollo meets him at the door. “I have to pat you down, Denny.”
“There’s a nine at my waist,” Malone says. “A Beretta at my back.”
“Thanks.” Sciollo takes the weapons from him. “I’ll give them back on your way out.”
Yeah, Malone thinks. If I’m coming out.
Sciollo pats him down for a wire. Doesn’t find one and takes him to a booth in the back. The place is almost empty, a few guys at the bar, one couple making out.
Savino sits in a booth with Stevie Bruno, who looks out of place in his all-L.L.Bean wardrobe—checked shirt, vest, tan corduroy slacks and Dockers. He even has a canvas man-bag on the seat beside him. He don’t look happy behind his cup of tea, the suburban godfather forced to come into the dirty city.
He has four guys with him, within sight and out of earshot.
Bruno nods to Malone to sit down in the booth. Malone does and Sciollo sits in a chair near the edge of the booth.
They have him blocked in.
“Denny Malone, Stevie Bruno,” Savino says. He has this nervous, edgy smile on his face.
“The couple starting a family at the bar,” Malone says. “Which one’s the hitter, the boy or the girl?”
“You seen too many movies,” Bruno says.
“I just want to see a few more.”
“You want a drink, Denny?” Savino asks.
“No thanks.”
“First for an Irish guy,” Savino says. “I never seen it before.”
“You bring me down here to do jokes?”
“It’s no joke,” Bruno says. “Word all over is you’re a CW for the feds.”
Wiseguys don’t mind cops so much but they hate feds, viewing them as fascists and persecutors who pick on anyone with a vowel at the end of his name. They particularly hate Italian feds and rats who inform for the feds.
Malone knows the distinction—an undercover cop playing a role isn’t a rat. A dirty cop who’s been in business with them and then flips is.
“You believe that?” he asks.
“I don’t want to believe it,” Savino says. “Tell us it isn’t true.”
“It isn’t true.”
“The dying words of a man to his wife,” Bruno says. “I tend to believe that.”
“The feds had both me and Torres up,” Malone says. “I don’t know how. I can only tell you I wasn’t wearing a wire.”
“Then why did they bring Torres in and not you?” Bruno asks.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s even worse.”
“Torres didn’t know about my relationship with your family,” Malone says. “I never discussed it with him, so you can’t be on any tape they have of me and him.”
“But if the feds bring you in,” Bruno says, “they’ll flip you about everything.”
Savino looks at Malone anxiously. Malone knows what he’s thinking, what he don’t want him to say: If I was a CW for the feds, Savino here would have already been busted on a thirty-to-life heroin beef and he’d be trading up for you as we speak.
Instead Malone says, “How much money have I made for the Cimino borgata? How many bags of cash have I taken to prosecutors, judges, city officials for contract bids? Over how many years with no problems?”
“I don’t know,” Bruno says. “I was in Lewisburg.”
Jesus fuck, Savino, say something.
But Savino don’t.
Malone says, “Fifteen years don’t mean anything?”
“It means a lot,” Bruno says. “But I don’t know you at all, because I was away most of that time.”
Malone stares at Savino, who finally says, “He’s good people, Stevie.”
“You’d bet your life on that?” Bruno asks, giving Savino the death stare. “Because that’s what you’re doing.”
Savino takes a second to answer.
It’s a long goddamn second.
“I would, Stevie,” he says. “I vouch for him.”
Bruno takes this in and then asks, “What are you going to tell the feds?”
“Nothing.”
“You can do four to eight?”
“It’ll be closer to four,” Malone says. “Your guys will keep the brothers from making me their bitch, right?”
“Stand-up guys,” Bruno says, “don’t get bent over.”
“I’m a stand-up guy,” Malone says.
“Here’s the problem,” Bruno says. “You’re looking at four, but I get popped for as much as littering, I die in the joint. So the big question for me right now is, can I take the risk? If you’re a rat, tell the truth now, we’ll make it quick and painless, I’ll make sure your wife gets her envelope. Otherwise . . . if I have to drag the truth out of you . . . it’s going to be ugly, and your missus is on her own.”
Malone feels anger rising inside him like boiling water and he can’t turn the flame off under it. And he knows they’re testing him, giving him the out just like a pair of cops in the room would do.
Any sign of weakness, he’s dead.
So he goes the other way with it.
“Never threaten me,” Malone says. “Never threaten my money. Never threaten my wife.”
“Take it easy, Denny,” Savino says.
Bruno says, “We just want the truth.”
“I told you the truth,” Malone says.
“Okay,” Bruno says. He reaches into his man-bag and comes out with a stack of paper and lays it on the table. “What’s the truth about this, stand-up guy?”
Malone sees his 302.
He grabs Sciollo by the hair, slams his face into the table and kicks the chair out from under him. Then Malone reaches into his boot, comes out with the SOG knife, grabs Savino by the head and puts the blade to his neck.
Two guys, one of them the guy who was kissing the girl, pull guns.
“I’ll cut his guinea throat,” Malone says.
“Get out of his way,” Savino groans.
They look to Bruno, who nods.
He’d do a clean hit in the place, but he ain’t gonna allow a bloodbath that ends up on the front page of the Post.
Malone drags Savino out of the booth and backs toward the door, holding Savino as a shield, the blade along his throat. He says to Bruno, “You want me to go O.J. on him, threaten my wife again. Go on, open your mouth to me about her again.”
“He’s a dead man anyway,” Bruno says. “So are you. Enjoy your last day on earth, rat motherfucker.”
Malone reaches backward for the door handle, pushes Savino down and goes out the door.
Trots to his car down the block.
“He had my 302!” Malone yells.
“All right,” O’Dell says. But he’s shook.
“‘It’s secure,’ you told me,” Malone yells, pacing around the room. “In a safe . . . only the people in this room—”
“Settle down,” Paz says. “You’re alive.”
“No thanks to you!” Malone says. “They have my 302! They have proof! You’re so busy trying to hurt dirty cops, and you don’t see them in your own operation!”
“We don’t know that,” O’Dell says.
“Then how did they get it?!” Malone says. “They didn’t get it from me!”
“We have a problem,” Weintraub says.
“No shit!” Malone punches the wall.
Weintraub is looking through the 302. “Where in here is anything about you and the Ciminos?”
“It isn’t,” Malone says.
“Full disclosure,” Paz says. “That was our agreement.”
Then it hits him. “God . . . Sheila . . .”
“We have agents on the way,” O’Dell says.
“Fuck that,” Malone says. “I’m going myself.”