by Don Winslow
Then there was the birthday party.
Malone don’t even remember which kid’s birthday it was—some friend of Caitlin’s maybe—and it was another one of those backyard parties and they had a piñata strung from the clothesline and Malone was sitting there watching them whack the thing and he’d spent all week in court on a heroin dealer named Bobby Jones and the jury came back not guilty because they just wouldn’t believe that Malone had seen “Bobby Bones” slinging smack from across the street. So Malone was sitting there and the kids were swinging this stick at the donkey over and over and over again and they couldn’t break it and finally Malone got up, took the stick from a kid, smashed the fucking donkey into smithereens and candy came flying out all over the place.
Everything stopped.
The whole party stared at him.
“Eat your candy,” Malone said.
He was embarrassed and went into the bathroom and Sheila followed him in and said, “Jesus, Denny, what the fuck?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” she asked. “You embarrass us in front of all our friends and you don’t know?”
No, you don’t know, Malone thought.
And I don’t know how to tell you.
I can’t do this anymore.
Go from one life to another, and this life, this life, feels . . .
Stupid.
Phony.
This is not who I am.
Sorry, Sheila, but it’s not who I am.
So this Christmas morning a sleepy Sheila meets Malone at the door in a blue flannel robe, her hair disheveled, no makeup on yet, and a coffee cup in her hand.
Still, he thinks she’s beautiful.
He always has.
“Are the kids up?” Malone asks.
“No, I slipped them some Benadryl last night.” Seeing the look on his face, she says, “That was a joke, Denny.”
Malone follows her into the kitchen, where she pours him a cup of coffee and then sits down on a stool at the breakfast bar.
He asks, “How was Christmas Eve?”
“Great,” she says. “The kids argued over which movie to watch and we settled on Home Alone and then Frozen. What did you do?”
He says, “A tour.”
Sheila looks at him like she doesn’t believe him, her expression accusing him of being with “huh.”
“You on today?” she asks.
“No.”
“We’re going to Mary’s for dinner,” she says. “I’d invite you, but, you know, they fucking hate you.”
Same old Sheila—the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Actually, it’s one of the things he’s always liked about her. She’s black and white, you always know where you stand with her. And she’s right—her sister Mary and her whole family hate him since the separation.
“That’s okay,” he says. “I might swing by Phil’s. So how are the kids?”
“You’re going to have to have ‘the talk’ with John soon.”
“He’s eleven.”
“He’ll be going into middle school,” Sheila says. “You wouldn’t believe what goes on these days. The girls are giving blow jobs in seventh grade.”
Malone works Harlem, Inwood, Washington Heights.
Seventh grade is late.
“I’ll talk to him.”
“Not today, though.”
“No, not today.”
They hear voices from upstairs.
“Game time,” Malone says.
He’s standing at the bottom of the stairs when his kids come pounding down, their eyes lit up at the sight of the presents under the tree.
“Looks like Santa came,” Malone says. He isn’t hurt that they squeeze past him to get to the loot. They’re kids, and anyway, they come by it honest.
“PlayStation 4!” John screams.
Well, there goes my present, Malone thinks, knowing no kid needs two PlayStations.
How could they have grown so much in two weeks, he wonders. Sheila, she probably don’t notice because she’s with them every day, but John is shooting up, just starting to get a little gangly. Caitlin has her mother’s red hair, although it’s still really curly, and those green eyes. I’m going to have to build a guard tower on the house, keep the boys away.
His heart hurts.
Shit, he thinks, I’m missing my kids growing up.
He sits down in the same easy chair he used to every Christmas when they were still together and Sheila sits on the same cushion on the sofa.
Traditions are important, he thinks. Habits are important; they give the kids a measure of stability. So he and Sheila sit and try to establish some order and make the kids take turns so their Christmas isn’t over in thirty seconds, and Sheila enforces a torturous break for cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate before they go back to the presents.
John opens Malone’s gift and feigns enthusiasm. “Oh, wow, Dad!”
He’s a kind kid, Malone thinks. Sensitive. Can’t let him go into the family trade, it would eat him alive.
“I didn’t know Santa was handling this,” Malone says, a subtle dig at Sheila.
“No, it’s great,” John says, improvising. “I can have one upstairs and one downstairs.”
“I’ll take it back,” Malone says. “Get you something different.”
John springs up and wraps his arms around Malone.
It means everything.
Gotta keep this boy off the Job, he thinks.
Caitlin loves her Barbie set. Comes over and gives her dad a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you, Daddy.”
“You’re welcome, honey.”
She still has that kid smell.
That sweet innocence.
Sheila is a great mom.
Then Caitlin breaks his heart. “Are you staying, Daddy?”
Crack.
John’s looking up at him like he didn’t even know this was a possibility but now he’s hopeful.
“Not today,” Malone says, “I have to work.”
“Catching the bad guys,” John says.
“Catching the bad guys.”
You’re not going to be me, Malone thinks. You’re not going to be me.
Caitlin, she ain’t giving up. “When all the bad guys are caught, will you come home?”
“We’ll see, honey.”
“‘We’ll see’ means no,” Caitlin says, giving her mother a sharp look.
“Don’t you guys have presents for us?” Sheila says.
The excitement deflects them and they hustle to get their gifts from under the tree. John gives Malone a New York Rangers knit cap, Caitlin has a coffee mug she decorated in art class.
“This goes on my desk,” Malone says. “And this goes on my head. I love them, guys, thanks. Oh, and this is for you.”
He hands Sheila a box.
“I didn’t get you anything,” she says.
“Good.”
“Macy’s.” She holds up the scarf for the kids to see. “This is beautiful. And it will keep my neck so warm. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Then it gets awkward. He knows she needs to start the kids getting dressed to go over to her family’s, the kids know it too. But they also know that if they move, he’ll leave and the family will be broken again, so they sit still as statues.
Malone looks at his watch. “Oh, wow. I can’t keep the bad guys waiting.”
“That’s funny, Daddy,” Caitlin says.
Except her eyes are all teary.
Malone gets up. “You guys be good for Mom, okay?”
“We will,” John says, already adopting the role of the man of the family.
Malone pulls both of them to his legs. “I love you.”
“Love you, too.” Sadly. In chorus.
He and Sheila don’t hug because they don’t want to give the kids false hope.
Malone goes out the door thinking that Christmas was invented to torture divorced parents and their children.
Fuck Christmas.
He wants to time his arrival for after dinner to avoid the death-by-pasta ordeal that Donna is planning. The idea is to get there just for the cannoli and the pumpkin pie and some laced coffee.
Malone parks in a lot across the road from the beach and sits in the car with the motor running and the heat on. He’s tempted to go for a walk but it’s too cold out.
Taking a pint bottle out of the glove compartment, he sips on it. Malone is a heavy drinker but nowhere near being an alcoholic and normally wouldn’t drink this early except the whiskey warms him up.
Maybe I would be an alkie, Malone thinks, except I have too big an ego to be a stereotype.
The alcoholic divorced Irish cop.
Who was it, yeah, Jerry McNab, drove out here one Christmas afternoon and put the gun under his chin. His off-duty weapon. Alcoholic divorced Irish cop blows his own brains out.
Another stereotype.
The guys from the One-Oh-One made sure it went down he was cleaning his gun so there’d be no problem with the insurance or the pension and the claims guy knew better than to fuck with them so he pretended to believe a guy was cleaning his gun at the beach on Christmas.
Except McNab, he was scared of going to jail, doing time. They had him, too, dead to rights, on video taking money from a crack dealer in Brooklyn. They were going to take his shield, his gun, his pension, put him behind bars, and he couldn’t face it. Couldn’t face the shame his family would go through, his ex-wife and kids seeing him in handcuffs, so he ate the gun.
Russo had a different interpretation. They were discussing it in the car one night, killing time on a surveillance, and Russo said, “You stunatzes got it all wrong. He did it to save his pension, for his family.”
“Didn’t he put anything away?” Malone asked.
“He was in a sector car,” Russo said. “He couldn’t have been making that much, even in the Seven-Five. He dies in an accident, his family keeps the pension and the benefits. McNab did the right thing.”
Except he didn’t save, Malone thinks.
Malone does.
He has cash stowed away, investments, bank accounts where the feds can never lay their paws on it.
And he has another account, over on Pleasant Avenue with the guineas, what’s left of the old Cimino family crew in East Harlem. Those guys are better than banks. They won’t rob you or throw your money away on bad mortgage loans.
I’ll take an honest mobster over those Wall Street cocksuckers any day, Malone thinks. What the general public doesn’t get—they think the Mafia are crooks? The guineas only wish they could steal like the hedge fund guys, the politicians, the judges, the lawyers.
And Congress?
Forget about it.
A cop takes a ham sandwich to look the other way, he loses his job. Congressman Butthole takes a few million from a defense contractor for his vote, he’s a patriot. The next time a politician blows his brains out to save his pension will be the first time.
And I’ll pop a champagne bottle, Malone thinks.
But I ain’t going the way of Jerry McNab.
Malone, he knows he’s not the suicide type.
I’m going to make them shoot me, he thinks, looking out at the dune grass and the weathered hurricane fence. Hurricane Sandy did a number on Staten Island. Malone made sure to be home that night, sat with Sheila and the kids in the basement and played Go Fish. Went out the next day and did what he could to help.
They nail me, I’ll do my time and fuck you and your pension.
I can take care of my family.
Sheila don’t even have to go up to Pleasant Avenue, they’ll come to her. A fat envelope every month.
They will do the right thing.
Because they’re not in Congress.
He gets on the phone and calls Claudette.
“You up?” he asks when she answers.
“Just,” she says. “Thank you for my earrings, baby. They’re beautiful. I have something for you.”
“You gave me my present last night.”
“That was for us,” she says. “I have the four to midnight. You want to come through after?”
“I do. You going to your sister’s today, right?”
“I can’t think of a way out of it,” Claudette says. “It will be nice to see the children, though.”
He’s glad she’s going, he worries about her being alone.
The last time she used, he gave her a choice—you get into a car with me and I take you to rehab or I put you in bracelets and you can detox in Rikers. She was furious at him but got in the car and he drove her up to the Berkshires in Connecticut, this place his West Side doctor found for him.
Sixty grand for the rehab, but it was worth it.
She’s been clean since.
“I’d like to meet your family sometime,” he says now.
She laughs softly. “I’m not sure we’re ready for that, baby.”
Which is code for she’s not ready to bring a white cop home to her family in Harlem. Be about as welcome as a Klan member at a black home in Mississippi.
“Sometime, though,” Malone says.
“We’ll see. I need to hop in the shower.”
“Hop,” he says. “I’ll see you later.”
He pulls the Rangers cap over his head, zips up his jacket and shuts the motor off. The car will stay warm for a few minutes. He sits back and closes his eyes, knows the Dexedrine won’t let him drop off, but his eyes are sore.
Perfect timing at Phil’s.
They’re just clearing the dinner plates, the house is Italian-American chaos with about fifty-seven cousins running around, the men gossiping by the television, the women chattering in the kitchen, and Phil’s dad somehow managing to sleep through all of it in the big easy chair in the den.
“The fuck you been?” Phil asks. “You missed dinner.”
“Got a late start.”
“Bullshit,” Phil says, showing him in. “You been out doing that Irish brooding thing, you dumbass donkey. Come on, Donna will fix you a plate.”
“I’m saving room for the cannoli.”
“Yeah, well, you’re going home with Tupperware, don’t even try.”
Phil’s twin boys, Paul and Mark, come up to say hello to their uncle Denny. They’re typical South Staten Island Italian teenage boys with the gelled haircuts and the muscle shirts and the attitude.
“They’re spoiled assholes is what they are,” Russo once said to Malone. “Spend half their time in the mall, the other half playing video games.”
Malone knows that isn’t true, that Donna spends all her time chauffeuring them around to hockey and soccer and baseball. The boys are good athletes, maybe scholarship good, but Russo won’t brag about them.
Maybe because he misses so many of their games.
Their daughter, Sophia, is something else. Russo has even talked about moving across the river because she wouldn’t have a chance of winning Miss New York, but she might have a crack at Miss New Jersey.
Seventeen, she looks like Donna, tall and leggy and with charcoal-black hair and surprising blue eyes.
Freakin’ gorgeous.
And she knows it. She’s a sweet kid, though, Malone thinks, not as conceited as she could be, and she adores her dad.
Russo downplays it. His line is “I just gotta keep her off the stripper pole.”
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s a concern,” Malone said.
“And not knocked up,” Russo said. “It’s easier with a boy, you just got one dick to worry about.”
Sophia comes up and gives Malone a kiss on the cheek and with a disarming show of maturity asks, “How are Sheila and the kids?”
“They’re good, thanks for asking.”
She gives his hand a sympathetic squeeze to show she’s a woman and understands his pain, then she goes into the kitchen to help her mother.
“It go okay this morning?” Russo as
ks.
“Yeah.”
“We should grab a minute to talk.” Russo shouts, “Hey, Donna! I’m taking Denny down to the basement, show him that tool kit you got me!”
“Don’t be long! Dessert’s coming out!”
The cellar’s as clean as an operating room, a place for everything and everything in its place, although Malone doesn’t know when Russo finds the time to actually be down here.
“It’s Torres,” Russo says. “On Carter’s pad.”
“How do you know?”
“He called this morning.”
“To wish you a Merry Christmas?” Malone asks.
“To bitch about Fat Teddy,” Russo says. “I’m betting that fat pig went crying to Carter, who jerked Torres’s chain. Torres says we need to let him eat.”
“We don’t keep him from earning,” Malone says.
If a guy earns outside the borough, he keeps 100 percent. But if he or his team earn inside Manhattan North, they kick ten points into a fund that everyone shares.
Kind of like the NFL.
Any of the teams can range anywhere, but as a matter of practicality, Washington Heights and Inwood are Torres’s team’s profit center.
But now it looks like he’s on Carter’s pad.
Malone won’t go on a pad. He’ll rip drug dealers, work the system with them, but he don’t want to be an employee or a wholly owned subsidiary.
Still, he ain’t going to war with Torres. Life is good right now, and when life is good, you leave it the fuck alone.
Malone says, “Piccone will take care of Fat Teddy. I’m meeting him later.”
Malone has this random thought that Torres is setting them up, wearing a wire, but tosses it out of his head. They could squeeze his shoes until his bones break and Torres wouldn’t give up a brother officer. He’s a wrong, brutal cop and a greedy prick, but he’s not a rat.
A rat is the worst thing in the world.
They’re quiet for a second, then Russo says, “Christmas, it don’t feel the same without Billy, does it.”