Hooting, hollering.
If the cameras weren’t there, the uniforms might charge them, clean their clocks, shut their fucking mouths.
Russo slips into the backseat of a black car.
Waves to Malone.
Then he’s gone.
Malone walks back into the house.
A few cops look at him sideways. No one talks to him.
Except Sykes.
“Clean out your locker,” he says. “Then come to my office.”
The desk sergeant looks down, cops turn their backs as Malone walks past.
He goes down to the Task Force locker room. Gallina is there with Tenelli and Ortiz, a couple of plainclothes sit on the bench, shooting the shit.
They shut up when Malone comes in.
Everyone finds a reason to look at the floor.
Malone opens his locker.
And sees a dead rat.
He hears suppressed laughs behind him and whirls around. Gallina is smirking at him, Ortiz coughs into his fist.
Tenelli just stares.
“Who did this?” Malone asks. “Which one of you assholes?”
Ortiz says, “This place has vermin. It needs an exterminator.”
Malone grabs him and slams him into the opposite lockers. “Is that you, huh? You the exterminator? You want to start now?”
“Get your hands off me.”
“Maybe you got something else you want to say.”
“Let go of him, Malone,” Gallina says.
“Stay out of this,” Malone says. He gets right into Ortiz’s face. “You got something to say to me?”
“No.”
“What I thought,” Malone says. He lets him go, cleans out his locker and walks out.
Hears laughter behind him.
Then he hears, “Dead man walking.”
Sykes doesn’t ask him to sit down.
Just says, “Your shield and your gun on my desk.”
Malone takes off his shield, sets it on the desk, then puts his duty weapon beside it.
“I guess I always knew that you were a dirty cop,” Sykes says, “but I didn’t think the legendary Denny Malone was a rat, too. I had some respect for you—not much, but some—but now I don’t have any. You’re a crook and a coward and you disgust me. The King of Manhattan North? You’re the king of nothing. Get out. I can’t stand to look at you.”
“If it helps, I can’t either.”
“It doesn’t,” Sykes says. “My replacement is on his way. My career is over. You took it from me, just like you stole the reputations of thousands of decent, honest cops. I know you made a deal, but I hope they put you under the jail anyway. I hope you rot there.”
“I won’t last long in prison,” Malone says.
“Oh, they’ll keep you safe,” Sykes says. “They store you at Fort Dix, haul you out to testify. You have three or four years of informing on your brothers before they put you in an actual facility. You’ll be fine, Malone. Rats always are.”
Malone walks out of his office and then out of the house.
Eyes follow him.
So does silence.
McGivern’s waiting for him out on the street.
“Did you give me up, too?” McGivern asks.
“Yeah.”
“What do they have?”
“Everything,” Malone says. “They have you on tape.”
“Your father would be ashamed,” McGivern says. “He’s rolling in his grave.”
They reach Eighth Avenue.
Malone waits for the light.
It turns green and he starts to cross. He hears McGivern behind him, yelling, “You’re going to hell, Malone! You’re going to hell!”
No question about it, Malone thinks.
It’s a slam dunk.
The receptionist remembers him.
“The last time I saw you,” she says, “you had a dog.”
“He pulled the pin.”
“Mr. Berger will be right with you,” she says. “If you’d like to have a seat.”
He sits down and leafs through GQ. It tells him what the well-dressed man is going to be wearing that fall. A few minutes later, the receptionist shows him into Berger’s office.
It’s bigger than Malone’s whole apartment. He sets the briefcase down by Berger’s desk. The lawyer will know what it is.
“Would you like a drink?” Berger asks. “I have some excellent brandy.”
“No, I’m good.”
“You don’t mind if I indulge,” Berger says. “It’s been a day. I understand that Russo is in federal custody.”
“That’s right.”
“And you felt it necessary to be present,” Berger says, pouring himself a drink from a crystal decanter. “Tell me, Malone, does your masochism know no bounds?”
“I guess not.”
“I’ve heard,” Berger said, “that something like two-thirds of the firefighters and police who ran into the Towers that day took Last Rites. I wonder if that’s true.”
“Probably.”
“If you are going to be a star witness,” Berger says, “you are going to have to be more prolix. That means—”
“I know what it means.”
“Better already.” Berger tosses down his drink. “I guaranteed O’Dell that I would surrender you by three o’clock. That leaves a couple of hours. Do you have any business to take care of? Anything you need?”
“I have my toothbrush, but we have some business,” Malone says. “There’s a woman named Debbie Phillips. She just had a baby, Billy O’Neill’s son. Share of that money needs to be doled out to her, a little at a time. All the information’s in there. Can you do that?”
“I can,” Berger says. “Anything else?”
“That’s it.”
“Well, no time like the present then.”
The receptionist sticks her head in. “Mr. Berger, you asked to be informed. They’re about to make an announcement on the Bennett investigation.”
Berger flicks on a television mounted to the wall. “Shall we?”
The DA appears behind a lectern, flanked by the commissioner and the chief of patrol.
“This was an unfortunate incident,” the DA reads into a microphone, “but the facts are clear. The deceased, Mr. Bennett, refused Officer Hayes’s lawful order to stop. He turned, advanced toward Officer Hayes while taking from his jacket what appeared to be a handgun. Officer Hayes discharged his weapon, fatally striking Mr. Bennett. Tragically, what Officer Hayes perceived to be a weapon was eventually determined to have been a cell phone. But Officer Hayes acted lawfully within the parameters of proper procedure. Had Mr. Bennett obeyed the lawful order, the tragic consequences would not have followed. That being the case, the grand jury has declined to press any charges against Officer Hayes.”
“Judicially correct,” Berger says, “but politically idiotic. Totally tone-deaf. The ghettos will be burning by sunset. Are you ready to go?”
Malone’s ready.
Berger’s driver takes them down to the FBI field office at 26 Federal Plaza. Who the fuck knew, Malone thinks, I’d go to hell in a chauffeured limo?
The building is a tower of glass and steel, cold as a dead heart. They go through the metal detectors, then up to O’Dell’s office on the fourteenth floor, sit on a bench in the hallway and wait.
O’Dell’s office door opens and Russo comes out.
Sees Malone sitting there.
“So you didn’t put one in your head,” Russo says.
“No.” Should have, maybe, he thinks.
Didn’t.
“That’s okay,” Russo says. “I did it for you.”
“The fuck you talking about, Phil?”