by Don Winslow
Then again, he won’t have to, because it’s fundamentally an unsustainable situation, a matter of time before one wall or the other closes in on him. In his police life, the word is already out on Bobby Cirello. Nobody says anything, but that’s the point. Other cops avoid him, cut him out of the intelligence loop, don’t want to be seen hanging with him. One night he walks into a bar near One Police and every cop in the place suddenly finds a reason to look into their drink.
There’s this sense out there that Cirello, “Mullen’s pet,” just isn’t right. Police precincts are hothouses and One Police Plaza is that times ten. Rumors spread faster than head colds, and Cirello’s name just keeps coming up—Cirello has a gambling problem, Cirello’s in deep to loan sharks, hey, plainclothes guys in the One Four saw Bobby Cirello hanging out with Mike Andrea in a bar on Staten Island.
He knows that IAB will come sniffing around, because the Internal Affairs guys are like dogs in a park, they just can’t keep their noses out of the shit. If they aren’t on him already, they will be.
And there’s always the chance that someone, one of the Italians, one of the blacks, will get busted and, looking at serious drug time, will try to sell him. He almost hopes it happens, because then Mullen will have to step in and shut the thing down.
But it isn’t just IAB or NYPD Cirello has to worry about. There’s the New York State Police and there’s DEA. The feds have a major, generational hard-on for the Cozzos; what if they have Jay Cozzo up? Shit, the New York families have more rats than an abandoned pier; what if Andrea or even Cozzo is already a cooperating witness?
Mullen tries to reassure him. “We have federal protection on this operation, from the highest level.”
Yeah, that’s great, Cirello thinks. What about the midlevels, the lower levels? Did they get a hands-off order on him? And if they did, it would only take one actually dirty fed to slip a word to the Italians or to Darnell to get him killed.
Because that was the other wall moving in on him. Again, just a matter of time before he fucks up, or someone fucks up, and blows his cover. A matter of time before Darnell asks him to do something he just can’t do and then will want to know why he won’t do it. It keeps Cirello up at night . . . well, a lot of things keep him up at night . . . that Darnell would want him to reveal an undercover, name a snitch, and get someone killed.
Or even worse, that Darnell would tell him to do it.
Darnell hinted at it one time. “You double-oh-seven.”
“What does that mean?”
“You got a license to kill,” Darnell said.
Yeah, Darnell is the one with the license.
Cirello knows this because he’s the guy who drives back down to Brighton Beach, where this Russian wiseguy hands a duffel bag to Cirello and says, “There’s a hundred thousand in there. Please tell Mr. Darnell that we’re sorry, it was a mistake, and the people responsible have been punished.”
Someone scared the living shit out of the Russians, someone got the word to them that Darius Darnell was not to be fucked with, and Cirello figures that it has to be certain people in Mexico who had the weight to do that.
He delivers the bag to Darnell at one of his co-ops in East New York. Darnell opens the bag, looks inside, and then hands Cirello a wrapped stack of hundred-dollar bills as a “service charge.”
That’s the way it works. Cirello’s on Darnell’s payroll, but it’s not like he gets a weekly check and a 401(k) contribution. How it works is he does a job for Darnell and the man gives him a random amount of cash.
Which Cirello brings to Mullen, and they carefully log and document all the money, which goes into a safe.
Well, most of it.
Some of it he has to spend to sell himself as a dirty cop. He buys some clothes, for instance, he takes Libby out for some expensive dinners, he makes a few bets. Has to, otherwise Darnell would get suspicious. The dealer even asks him one time, straight up, “What you do with the money I give you?” Cirello explains that he puts most of it away, saving it for when he pulls the pin, because if he starts spending like a Kardashian now, it would attract attention from IAB, who look for cops living above their pay grade.
Darnell buys that, it makes sense.
But undercover operations are never sales, they’re always rentals. The whole idea is to eventually get out and move on and Cirello can’t wait to do that. But to do that, he has to get the name of Darnell’s suppliers.
The same people who could tell the Russians they had to get on their knees and suck Darnell’s dick.
Those are heavy people.
The people killing kids on Staten Island.
So Cirello hangs in there.
It plays hell on his relationship with Libby. Normal police work is hard enough on relationships, but undercover work is sheer murder. He does his nine-to-five at One Police—but he’s on call, having to bop out whenever Darnell needs him. Tough to explain to Libby why his phone rings at one in the morning, he has to go out, and he can’t tell her where he’s going or why.
“It’s the job,” he says one time.
“I know that.”
“It’s not another woman,” he says.
“I know that, too.”
Yeah, she probably does, Cirello thinks. She knows she’s beautiful, she’s smart, any man would be lucky to have her and wouldn’t even think about looking for something on the side.
No, she knows it’s the job, she just hates the job.
Hates that he can’t share that part of his life with her.
And she sees the changes in him—the Zegna suits, the Battistoni shirts, Gucci ties and Ferragamo shoes. “What is this, wiseguy chic?”
“You don’t like it?”
“I don’t dislike it,” she says. “It’s just, you know, different.”
And she wonders where the money comes from. The Bobby Cirello she knew was frugal, knew where every dollar was. He always dressed well, but always looked at the price tag. And now he’s dropping thousands on his wardrobe? It doesn’t seem like him.
It isn’t just externals like clothes.
Bobby is changing.
It seems like he’s tense all the time. Will get up at night and go into another room; she can hear the television on low volume. He’s drinking more—he doesn’t get drunk, but he’s definitely drinking more.
And talking less—long periods of almost sullen silence.
Then there are the times he just goes away somewhere. Leaves without explanation, comes back without explanation, usually geared up, angry, spoiling for a fight she won’t give him.
Libby loves Bobby, she’s in love with Bobby, but this can’t go on.
She’s close to leaving him.
He knows it.
Libby doesn’t say anything, doesn’t make threats or issue ultimatums, but he knows she has one foot out the door.
Cirello can’t blame her.
Shit, I’d leave me if I had a choice, he thinks.
He thinks he loves her, he thinks he’s in love with her, but until he gets out from under he’s not even going to think about shopping for a ring. In his upside-down world, he’s growing distant from Libby and closer to Darnell. That’s a well-known danger to undercover work; everyone knows that you tend to start identifying with your targets—it’s almost a prerequisite for success—but Cirello finds that he’s actually starting to like Darius Darnell.
Which doesn’t make sense, because he fucking hates Darnell.
But they’re starting to get tight.
One night they’re driving down from Inwood, past Grant’s Tomb, and Darnell says, “I read a book about him in V-Ville.”
“Oh yeah?”
“That man won the war.”
Turns out Darnell read a lot of books in the joint, probably more books than Cirello has ever read, and is pretty knowledgeable about American history.
And opinionated.
“Ain’t no white man,” he says one time, “in the history of this country ever did anything for a black man exce
pt there was something in it for him.”
I saved your life, motherfucker, Cirello thinks, but he says, “What about your man Grant?”
“Made him president.”
“Okay, how about Lincoln?” Cirello asks.
“Racist.”
“He freed the slaves.”
“Just to save the Union,” Darnell says.
“You a hard man, Darius.”
“You know it.”
Another time Darnell opens up about his time in prison. “You know what the criminal justice system is, Bobby Cirello? Niggers in cages.”
“There are white guys in prison,” Cirello says.
“Po’ white guys,” Darnell says. “Po’ black guys, po’ brown guys. They’d be po’ yellow guys except there ain’t no such thing.”
“So the issue isn’t race,” Cirello says. “It’s class.”
They’re standing on the roof up at Linden, sipping beer and watching the sunset. Darnell says, “No, it’s race. You got a white man running for president admits to grabbing women by they pussies. What you think happen if Obama said he grab a white woman by the pussy? They bring back lynching.”
“Probably.”
“Ain’t no probably about it,” Darnell says. “They lynch him and then they lynch half the brothers in DC just to make sure. You ain’t never heard of Emmett Till?”
“Who’s that?”
“He was fourteen years old,” Darnell says, “and they lynched that boy because a white woman say he whistled at her. Fourteen years old, Bobby Cirello.”
Cirello looks over and thinks he sees a tear roll down Darnell’s cheek.
“You crying, Darius?”
“I ain’t cry since the doctor slap my black ass.”
“Okay.”
“I heard men cry, though,” Darnell says. “I heard men cry at night in they cells.”
“I’ll bet.”
Darnell laughs. “That’s what you shouldn’t do, Bobby Cirello. You shouldn’t bet. On nothin’. That’s how you got in this mess the first place. How you doin’ with that?”
“I’ve dialed it down.”
“That’s good,” Darnell says. “You go to meetings? Like some of the addicts go?”
“I’m not much of a meeting guy.”
Another time Cirello is taking him home and Darnell tells him to turn down Ninety-First Street.
“Where are we going?” Cirello asks.
“Pick up my kid.”
“I didn’t know you had a kid.”
“He at that school, right over there.”
Cirello knows Trinity, a private school with a hefty annual tuition. Darnell’s son is standing outside in his school blazer and gray slacks, a book bag over his back, and holding a lacrosse stick.
Cute kid, about thirteen years old.
“DeVon,” Darnell says, “say hello to Mr. Cirello.”
“Bobby,” Cirello says.
“No, Mr. Cirello,” Darnell says. “The boy has manners.”
The boy is shy. “Hello.”
“How was practice?” Darnell asks.
“I scored a goal.”
“Good for you.”
They drive him to his mother’s place on 123rd and Amsterdam. Cirello waits while Darnell walks his son inside.
“Nice kid,” Cirello says when Darnell gets back in the car.
“That’s his mama,” Darnell says. “I was gone most of his growing up.”
“Hey, now he’s in Trinity, right?”
“Then he goin’ to college. You got kids?”
“No,” Cirello says.
“You missin’ out.”
“I figure I got time.”
“We all figure we got time,” Darnell says. “Ain’t true. Time got us. Time undefeated, man. You never beat it. You wanna know about time, ask a convict. We experts on the subject of time.”
It was after that Cirello takes a theory to Mullen. They sit at his breakfast table when Cirello lays it out. “Darius Darnell did eight years in federal lockup. Prior to going in, he was a low- to midlevel Brooklyn coke slinger. Within six months of getting out, he’s moving major weights of high-grade heroin. What does that tell you? He made his connection in Victorville.”
“Black and brown don’t mix in the joint.”
“But we know he’s slinging Mexican smack,” Cirello says, “so they mixed somewhere. Look, we know that the Mexicans usually do their East Coast deals through their own, or other Latinos—Dominicans and Puerto Ricans. That’s their MO. But this supplier deals with black, which means there’s a new player in the game who either doesn’t care about tradition or who couldn’t go through the normal channels.”
“A Mexican outlier.”
“It’s a theory.”
Yeah, okay, Cirello thinks, a “Mexican outlier.”
He knows a little something about being an outlier.
Eddie Ruiz stayed in the witness protection program for about thirty-seven minutes.
Which is about the time it took him to scope out St. George, Utah, and say, “I don’t think so.”
It was an open question of whether his relocation to St. George, in the heart of Mormon polygamist country, was the DOJ’s sly joke on Eddie’s ambiguous marital status—his having one family by a woman he married in the US as a teenager, and another he married in Mexico somewhat later—but the Department of Justice only recognized his first family and therefore was only willing to move them.
The first wife, Teresa, a former Texas high school cheerleader, was not thrilled with the privilege. “There’s nothing here.”
The two kids dutifully echoed the sentiment. “There’s nothing here.”
But Eddie was playing the deep game. “What do you mean? They have everything here. Costco, Target, McDonald’s, Yogurt Barn . . .”
“It’s all Mormons,” Teresa said.
“Mormons.”
Eddie, having been away, didn’t know when his fifteen-year-old girl and twelve-year-old boy had turned into Donnie and Marie (speaking of Mormons), but he quickly changed the subject. “This is where the government assigned Daddy to, you know, do his secret work.”
Eddie Jr., having only recently abandoned Santa, still believed this “Daddy is a secret agent” story, but Angela was too internet hip and had read all about her daddy having been a big-time drug dealer. She also knew that if the government was moving them somewhere, it was because her dad ratted someone out.
“Where did you learn about that?” Eddie asked when she confronted him about it.
“Mob Wives,” Angela said. “It’s a TV show. One of the wives’ father is Sonny Gravanno, and he went into the witness protection program because he was a rat.”
“I’m not a rat.”
“Whatever,” she said. “But why did they have to call us ‘Martin’? We’re Hispanic, we don’t look like Martins.”
“Ricky Martin is Hispanic, and his name is Martin,” Eddie said, savoring this small victory because even small victories are few and far between with fifteen-year-old daughters.
When Eddie was in the joint, he heard countless guys endlessly moan, “I just want to be back with my kids, I just want to be back with my kids.” In all fairness, he did pretty much the same, but now that he was back with his kids he realized that it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
His son was a walking orthodontist bill, always at the dentist when he wasn’t locked in his room jerking off, and his daughter was resentful about having to leave her friends back in Glendora, mostly a boy named Travis who Eddie was pretty sure she was blowing.
“Oral sex isn’t sex,” Angela said one night on the drive up to Utah. “A president said so.”
“Then why do they call it sex?” Teresa asked.
“I’ll bet you saw lots of oral sex in prison,” she said to Eddie.
“Prison?” Eddie Jr. asked.
“Daddy was undercover in a prison for a while,” Eddie said.
“Wow.”
Eddie was a little sad that
his son and namesake was a moron.
“She was blowing him,” Teresa said in bed that night. “I know it.”
“Well, she won’t be blowing boys in Utah.”
“How do you know?”
“Because those are Mormon boys,” Eddie said, “and blow jobs are big sins. Plus, they wear that underwear.”
“What are you talking about?”
“They wear this underwear,” Eddie said, tired from the drive and listening to his kids whine. “It’s hard to get off.”
“Leave it to you to know about getting men’s underwear off.”
“Nice,” Eddie said. “See, this is where she gets it.”
Anyway, Eddie got Family Number One settled into the nice three-bedroom at the end of a cul-de-sac in suburban St. George and reported to his job as an assistant manager at a NAPA Auto Parts Store, which is where the thirty-seven minutes came in.
He managed to stay in the job for thirty-six minutes, and it was just after his new boss, Dennis, asked him and the family over that night for a rousing game or two of Uno and his special ice cream sundaes (“Walnuts are the key”) that Eddie walked down the street, paid cash for a Chevy Camaro and drove south on the 15 to Las Vegas.
Eddie checked into the Mandalay Bay, ordered a fifth of vodka and a call girl and finally celebrated his release from Victorville. He celebrated for three days, then got back in the car and drove all the way to San Diego, where he had stored Family Number Two.
Priscilla was pissed. “You’ve been out a week and now you come see us?”
“Baby, I had business.”
“You didn’t miss me?” Priscilla asked. “You didn’t miss your daughter, your son?”
“Of course I did.”
Yeah, in reality not so much. His little girl was five and a half now and the boy was three and a half and they were already certified brats. Spoiled because Priscilla gave them everything and was unapologetic about it. Well, they didn’t have a daddy, did they?
Eddie never ceased to be amazed that his wives could cheerfully take his drug money and then self-righteously bitch about him spending time in prison. He knew guys who did thirty years and their wives kept their mouths shut about it.
And their thighs, too.
He had a deep suspicion that Priscilla was fucking some guy while he was away because she always seemed happier than she should have. When Teresa came to visit, she looked properly frustrated and miserable, but Priscilla usually had this fresh I-just-got-laid look about her.