He wrenches his arm away. “I’m fine.”
“Yeah, you’re fine!” she yells after him. “You’re an asshole, Denny! You’re a real asshole!”
He raises his middle finger as he walks away.
If Pirus and Crips all got along They’d probably gun me down by the end of this song Seem like the whole city go against me . . .
Malone has the sound system pounding Kendrick Lamar as he takes 95 back up to the city.
They know, he thinks.
Russo and Monty, they fucking know.
Jesus Christ.
He’s doing ninety now.
Thinks about just steering into a light pole. It would be so easy. Drunk driving fatality, no skid marks. No one could ever prove it wasn’t. Out fast and hard, the tape of your friends goes up in flames with the car.
With you.
Viking funeral right at the crash.
One-stop shopping.
Scatter my ashes over Manhattan North.
That would piss ’em off, I’m still there. Denny Malone, blowing around with the garbage.
Getting in people’s eyes, their noses.
Snort me like coke, like smack.
Black Irish tar.
Do it, ace, don’t be a pussy. Hit the gas pedal, not the brake. Jerk the wheel to the right and this is over.
For everyone.
Like Eminem says:
So while you’re in it, try to get as much shit as you can And when your run is over just admit when it’s at its end.
Malone tightens his grip on the wheel.
Do it, bitch.
Do it, rat motherfucker.
Judas.
He jerks the wheel.
The Camaro goes flying across four lanes. Horns blare, brakes shriek, the steel posts of the sign come large in the windshield.
At the last second he swerves back.
The Camaro goes into spins, crazy 360s that whip his head around, the Manhattan skyline flashing off and on in his face.
Then the car slows and steadies, Malone hits the gas, steers back into a lane and heads into the city.
YAWK, YAWK, YAWK, YAWK
Malone rips the medical tape off his stomach and slams the recorder on the table. “Here it is. Fuck you. Here’s my partners’ blood.”
“Are you drunk?” O’Dell asks.
“I’m high on Dex and beer,” Malone says. “Add it to the charges. Pile the fuck on.”
Weintraub says, “I have to leave the Hamptons to come in and listen to this shit?”
Malone yells, “My partners know!”
“Know what?” O’Dell asks.
“That I’m the rat!”
He tells them about the swimming pool incident.
“That’s it?” Weintraub asks. “You wouldn’t get in a fucking pool?”
“They’re cops,” Malone says. “They were born suspicious. They can smell guilt. They know.”
O’Dell says, “It doesn’t matter. If you have them cold on this tape, we take them tomorrow, anyway.”
They listen to the tape.
“They’re black, they’ll get a scholarship.”
“They have a scholarship. The Pena Scholarship.”
“The Pena Scholarship. I like that.”
“We have to move on Castillo. If he gets busted before we get to him, he’s going to say there was fifty kilos of heroin missing from the Pena voucher.”
“You think they’d believe him?”
“You want to take the chance? Fifteen to thirty, federal time? We have to take him out.”
“In the words of the immortal Tony Soprano, ‘Some people gotta go.’”
“I have no problem putting two in Castillo’s head.”
“You’ll have to testify to corroborate,” Weintraub says.
“I know.”
“But it’s good,” Weintraub says. “You did a good job, Malone.”
He turns the tape back on.
“You ever feel bad about it?”
“Pena? I took that baby killer’s money and made something good out of it? My kids have a future? They’re not going to carry loans around on their backs their whole lives. They get out of college free and clear. Fuck Pena, I’m glad what we did.”
“Concur.”
“Well, that’s that,” O’Dell says.
“I’ll get indictments started on Russo and Montague,” Weintraub says.
“You can’t wait, can you,” Malone says.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” Weintraub says. “You’re not Serpico, Malone! You were taking with both hands, everything you could grab. Fuck you.”
“Fuck you, too, asshole!”
“Let’s go for a walk,” O’Dell says. “Get some air.”
They go down in the service elevator and walk out onto Fifth Avenue.
“You want to know what I think, Denny? I think you’re feeling guilty. I think you feel guilty about everything that you’ve done, and I think now you’re feeling guilty about betraying other cops. But you can’t go both ways—if you’re truly sorry for what you’ve done, then you’ll help us put a stop to it.”
“The fuck are you, my priest?”
“Sort of,” O’Dell says. “I’m just trying to help you get past your own emotions and see this thing clearly.”
“I’ve got a rat tag on me,” Malone says. “I’m done. I’m no good to you anymore, anyway—you think any cop is going to talk with me now? Any lawyer?”
Malone stops walking. Leans against a wall.
“You’ve done a great thing,” O’Dell says. “You’re helping to clean up this city—the court system, the police department . . . we’re grateful. You’ve quit protecting the ‘brotherhood’ that’s out there shielding dope dealers, selling drugs themselves but who won’t do anything to protect the people out there dying from overdoses, kids getting killed in drive-bys, babies dying from—”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“This city’s about to explode,” O’Dell says, “and half the reason is dirty cops, brutal cops, racist cops. There aren’t many of them, but they cover all the good ones with their shit.”
“I can’t stand it!”
“What you can’t stand is the shame, Denny,” O’Dell says. “It’s not informing on other cops—what you can’t bear is that you betrayed yourself. I get it, we both come from the same church, the catechism classes. You’re not a bad person, but you’ve done bad things and the only way, the only way you’re going to feel all right is if you come clean.”
“I can’t.”
“Because of your partners?” O’Dell asks. “Do you think if they were in this jam, they wouldn’t give you up?”
“You don’t know those guys,” Malone says. “They won’t talk to you.”
“Maybe you don’t know them as well as you think.”
“I don’t know them?” Malone says. “I put my lives in their hands every damn day. I sit for hours with them on stakeouts, I eat shitty food with them, I sleep on cots next to them in the locker room. I’m the godfather of their children, they’re the godfathers of mine, you think I don’t know them?!
“Here’s what I know about them—they’re the best people I’ve ever known. They’re better than me.”
He walks away.
His phone rings.
It’s Russo.
He wants to meet.
Chapter 30
Morningside Park.
The tension like barbed wire across Malone’s chest.
At least he isn’t wearing a wire. O’Dell wanted him to, but Malone told him to go fuck himself.
O’Dell didn’t want him to go at all. “If you’re right about their suspicions, they could kill you.”
“They won’t.”