He starts for the door.
“Stay where you are,” Paz says.
“You gonna fuckin’ stop me?!”
“If I have to,” Paz says. “There are two federal marshals in the hallway. You aren’t going anywhere. Use your head. Stevie Bruno is not going to send someone out to Staten Island to do anything to your wife in the middle of the afternoon. He’s trying to stay out of jail, not throw himself in it. We have some time here.”
“I want to see my family.”
“If you had told us about this,” Paz says, “you’d have been wired in that meeting and we’d have Bruno behind bars now. All right, blood under the bridge, you’re forgiven. But now you need to tell us—what did you do with the Ciminos?”
Malone doesn’t answer. He sits down and puts his head in his hands.
“The only way,” Paz says, “you can protect yourself and your family is to put Bruno away. Give me something I can get a warrant on.”
“I never met with him before.”
“Yes, you did,” Paz says.
Malone looks up, sees in her eyes that she’s perfectly willing—no, insistent—that he perjure himself.
O’Dell won’t meet his gaze. He looks away.
Weintraub shuffles more papers.
“We’ll put you and your family in the program,” she says. “You come out to testify—”
“Fuck that.”
“There is no choice here,” Paz says. “You have no choice.”
“Let me out of here,” Malone says. “I’ll take care of Bruno myself.”
“You know what?” Paz says. “Bring the marshals in, cuff him. I’m done with this dumb donkey.”
“What about my family?!” Malone asks.
“They’re on their own!” Paz yells. “What do you think I am, Social Services?! You put your loved ones in jeopardy! It’s on you, not me! Buy them a Rottweiler, an alarm system, I don’t know.”
“You fucking bitch,” Malone says.
“Why aren’t the marshals in here?” Paz asks.
Malone says, “You guys are dirtier than I ever thought of being.”
It’s quiet. There’s no answer to that.
“Okay,” Malone says. “Turn on the recorder.”
He started with the mob the way that most cops who go there do, taking a slim envelope to look the other way on gambling shops.
Nothing big, a hundred here or there.
He knew Lou Savino when the capo was a street guy who just got his button. One day Savino approached him up in Harlem, asked him if he wanted to earn.
Yeah, Malone wanted to earn.
One of Savino’s guys had a bullshit beef, shit, the guy was just protecting his sister, who this fucking dirtbag had beat up, but there was one fucking witness didn’t understand that. Maybe Malone could get a look at the 5, get the witness’s name and address, save the city the cost of a trial, everyone a lot of trouble.
No, Malone didn’t want no part of a witness getting beat up, maybe killed.
Savino laughed. No one was talking about anything like that, come on. They’re talking about sending the witness on a nice vacation, maybe even buying the guy a car.
A car? Malone asked. Must have been a hell of a beating.
No, it was just that Savino’s guy was on parole, so the assault conviction puts him back upstate for ten years. You call that justice? That isn’t justice. Shit, it makes you feel better about it, you can deliver the envelope yourself, make sure no one gets hurt. You take a taste for yourself, everyone comes out happy.
Malone was nervous about approaching the arresting officer but it turned out he had no reason to be. It was easy, a hundred to look at the 5, come back anytime. And the witness, he was delighted to drive down to Orlando, take the kids to Disneyworld. Win, win, win, everyone did come out happy except for the guy who got his jaw broke, but he had it coming anyway, hitting a woman.
Justice was served.
Malone served some more justice for the Ciminos, then Savino approached him about something else. He works in Harlem, right? Right. Knows the hood, knows the people. Sure. So he knows a ditzune preacher has a church on 137th and Lenox.
The Reverend Cornelius Hampton?
Everyone knew him.
He was leading a protest at a construction site for not hiring minority workers.
Savino handed Malone an envelope and asked him to bring it to Hampton. The reverend didn’t want to be seen around no guineas.
This to stop the protest? Malone asked.
No, you dumb fucking mick, it’s to keep the protest going. We got a double play here—the reverend starts a protest, shuts the site down. The contractor comes to us for protection. We take a share of the project, the protest ends.
We make, the reverend makes, the contractor makes.
So Malone went up to the church, found the reverend, who took the envelope like it was UPS.
Didn’t say a word.
That time, the next time or the time after that.
“The Reverend Cornelius Hampton,” Weintraub says now. “Human rights activist, man of the people.”
“Did you meet with Steven Bruno about any of this?” Paz asks. “Did he ever approach you?”
“I believe he was in your custody at the time,” Malone says.
“But your understanding was that Savino was working under his instructions,” Paz says.
“Hearsay,” says Weintraub.
“We’re not in court, Counselor,” Paz says.
“Yes,” Malone says, “it was definitely my understanding that Savino was acting as an agent of Bruno’s.”
“Did Savino tell you that?”
“Yes. Several times.”
Which we all know is a lie, Malone thinks.
But it’s the lie they want to hear.
He goes on.
The next payoffs he made for the Ciminos were a couple of years later, after Bruno got out of Lewisburg.
Who are they, Malone wanted to know.
More laughs from Savino.
City officials—the kind who award contract bids.
“Shut the recorder off,” Paz says.
Weintraub shuts it off.
“Did you say city officials?” Paz asks. “Did you mean City Hall?”
“The mayor’s office,” Malone says. “The comptroller’s, the Office of Operations . . . You want to turn the tape back on, I’ll repeat it.”
He stares at her.
“This just came home for you, huh?” Malone asks. “Maybe this is something you don’t want to know about.”
“I want to know about it,” O’Dell says.
“Shut up, John.”
“Don’t tell me to shut up,” O’Dell says. “You have a credible witness here who says that city officials are on the Cimino family pad. Maybe Southern District doesn’t want to know, but the bureau is very interested.”
“Ditto,” Weintraub says.
“‘Ditto’?”
“You opened this door, Isobel,” Weintraub says. “I have a right to walk through it.”
“Be my guest,” Paz says. She leans over, turns the recorder back on and looks at Malone, like go ahead. “Name names.”
She’s trapped, Malone knows.
He names names.
“Jesus Christ,” Weintraub says. “To coin a phrase.”
“Yeah,” Malone says. “I built a lot of houses in Westchester. Nantucket cottages, vacations in the Bahamas . . .”
He looks at Paz.