“Call a bus!” Russo yells. “One officer dead, two wounded, one critical!”
More cars are coming in, then an ambulance. The EMTs take over from Malone.
“Is he going to make it?” Malone asks, standing up. Monty’s blood is all over him.
“Too soon to tell.”
One of the EMTs goes over to Russo. “Let’s get you help.”
Russo shakes him off.
“Take care of Montague first,” Russo says. “Go!”
The ambulance takes off.
A uniform sergeant walks up to Malone. “What the fuck happened here?”
“One dead officer inside,” Malone says. “Five dead suspects down.”
“Any of the perps alive?”
“I dunno. Maybe.”
A uniform walks out of the warehouse. “Three DOA. Two bleeding out. One’s shot in the femoral, the other’s skull is bashed in.”
“You want to talk to any of these fuckers?” the sergeant asks Malone.
Malone shakes his head.
“Wait ten,” the sergeant tells the uniform. “Then call in five perps DOA. And get another bus here, let’s recover that officer’s body.”
Malone sits down and leans against the wall. Suddenly he’s exhausted, the adrenaline dump dropping him into the black hole. Then Sykes is there, bending over him. “What the fuck, Malone? What the fuck did you do?”
Malone shakes his head.
Russo stumbles over. “Denny?”
“Yeah?”
“This is fucked up.”
Malone gets up, lifts Russo by the elbow and walks him to a car.
A cop’s doorbell rings at four in the morning there’s only one reason.
Yolanda knows it.
Malone sees it on her face the second she opens the door. “Oh, no.”
“Yolanda—”
“Oh, God no, Denny. Is he—”
“He’s hurt,” Malone says. “It’s serious.”
Yolanda looks down at his shirt—he’d forgotten that it has Monty’s blood all over it. She stifles a cry, swallows it down and then straightens her neck. “Let me throw some clothes on.”
“There’s a sector car waiting for you,” Malone says. “I have to go notify Levin’s girlfriend.”
“Levin?”
“He’s gone.”
Monty’s oldest boy appears behind her.
Looks like a skinny version of his father.
Malone sees the fear in his eyes.
Yolanda turns to him. “Daddy’s been hurt. I’m going to the hospital and you need to look after your brothers until Grandma Janet gets here. I’ll call her on my way to the hospital.”
“Is Dad going to be all right?” the boy asks, his voice trembling.
“We don’t know yet,” Yolanda says. “We need to be strong for him now. We need to pray and be strong, baby.”
She turns back to Malone.
“Thank you for coming, Denny.”
All he can do is nod.
He starts speaking, he’ll start crying, and that’s not what she needs.
Amy thinks it’s another Bowling Night.
Comes to the door annoyed as shit, then sees that Malone’s by himself. “Where’s Dave?”
“Amy—”
“Where is he? Malone, where the fuck is he?”
“He’s gone, Amy.”
She doesn’t get it at first. “Gone? Where?”
“There was a shooting,” Malone says. “Dave got shot . . . He didn’t make it, Amy. I’m sorry.”
“Oh.”
How many people has he had to tell that their loved ones aren’t coming home. Some scream, or faint, others take it like this.
Stunned.
She repeats, “Oh.”
“I’ll drive you to the hospital,” Malone says.
“Why?” Amy asks. “He’s dead.”
“The ME has to do an autopsy,” Malone says, “in a homicide.”
“Got it.”
“You want to change real quick?”
“Right. Sure. Okay.”
“I’ll wait.”
“You have blood on you,” Amy says. “Is it—”
“No.”
Maybe some of it, but he ain’t going to tell her that. She changes quickly. Comes out in jeans and a light blue hoodie.
In the car she says, “You know why David transferred into your unit?”
“He wanted action.”
“He wanted to work with you,” Amy says. “You were his hero. You were all he talked about—Denny Malone this, Denny Malone that. I got sick of hearing about you. He’d come home talking about all the things he learned, all the things you taught him.”
“I didn’t teach him enough.”
“It was a macho thing,” Amy says. “He didn’t want anyone thinking he was just another college-educated jewboy.”
“Nobody thought that.”
“Sure they did,” Amy says. “He wanted so much to be one of you. A real cop. And now he’s dead. And it’s such a waste. I was perfectly happy with the college-educated jewboy.”
“Amy, you and Levin weren’t married,” Malone says, “so you don’t get his pension.”
“I work,” she says. “I’m good.”
“The Job will bury him.”
“Letting the irony of that statement slide for the time being,” she says. “I’ll tell his parents.”
“I’ll reach out to them,” Malone says.
“No, don’t. They’ll blame you.”
“So do I.”
Amy says, “Don’t look to me for sympathy. I blame you, too.”
She stares out the window.
At the life she knew passing by her.
The hospital is chaos.
Usually is this time of the morning in Harlem.
A young Puerto Rican mother holds a coughing baby. An old homeless man with bandaged swollen feet rocks back and forth. A psychotic man, young, holds an intense conversation with the people in his head. Then there are the broken arms, the cuts, the stomach pains, the sinus infections, the flu, the DTs.
Donna Russo sits with Yolanda Montague, holding her hand.
McGivern and Sykes stand in the corner of the room, by the door, quietly conferring. They got a lot to talk about, Malone knows. One detective dead, another on the fence. Just days after a third detective from the same unit killed himself.
Less than a year after another one, Billy O, was killed in a similar raid.
Two uniforms from the Three-Two stand behind them, blocking the door from the horde of media outside.
More cops wait out there.
McGivern breaks away from Sykes and walks over to Malone. “A word with you, Sergeant?”
Malone follows McGivern down the hall.
Sykes walks after them. “One officer killed, another possibly dying. Five suspects, all minorities, dead. No backup, no support from Emergency Services, no operational plan, you don’t bother to notify or inform your captain—”
“Now?” Malone asks. “You’re going to start this now, with Monty lying in there—”
“You put him in there, Malone! And Levin—”
Malone goes for him.
McGivern gets between them. “Enough! This is a disgrace!”
Malone backs off.
“What happened, Denny?” McGivern asks. “There were no drugs in that warehouse. Just shooters geared out for combat.”
“The Dominicans wanted revenge for Pena,” Malone says. “They made threats on the Task Force. We followed them, it was a setup. I didn’t see it, it was my fault, this is on me.”