The Force

by Don Winslow

  You’re a criminal.

  A skel.

  The shower door slides open and Claudette gets in. She stands under the water with him and traces her finger down the fading scar on his leg, then the livid scar across his throat.

  “You’re really hurt,” she says.

  “I’m indestructible,” he says, wrapping his arms around her. The spray of the shower mingles with tears on her soft brown skin.

  “Life is trying to kill us,” she says.

  Life, Malone thinks, is trying to kill everyone.

  And it always succeeds.

  Sometimes before you die.

  He gets out of the shower and dresses. When she comes out, he says, “I can’t come back here for a while.”

  “Because I’m using again?”

  “No, that ain’t it.”

  “You’re going back to your wife, aren’t you?” she says. “The redheaded Irish Staten Island mother of your children. No, that’s good, baby, that’s where you belong.”

  “I’ll decide where I belong, ’Dette.”

  “I think you have.”

  “It’s not safe for you to have me here,” Malone says. “Some people are coming after me.”

  “I’m willing to risk it.”

  “I’m not.” He clips the Sig Sauer at his hip.

  The Beretta 8000D in an ankle holster.

  A 9 mm Glock in a shoulder holster.

  Then he slides an extra-large black T-shirt over all of it and slips the SOG knife into his boot.

  Claudette stares at him. “Jesus Christ, who’s coming after you?”

  “The City of New York,” Malone says.

  Chapter 26

  Ned Chandler lives on Barrow Street west of Bedford.

  He opens the door a crack and sees the badge. Then he doesn’t see anything because the door comes in and Denny Malone shoves him onto the sofa and sticks a gun into the side of his head.

  “Motherfucker,” Malone says.

  “What? What? Take it easy.”

  “Paz is the mayor’s girl, right?” Malone asks. “Spearheading his charge against the Job?”

  “If you want to put it that way,” Chandler says. “Jesus, Malone, can you put the gun down?”

  “No, I can’t,” Malone says. “Because people are trying to kill me. One hour after I tell Paz about payoffs to City Hall, someone wraps a wire around my throat. It was one of Castillo’s people, but Castillo is partnered up with the Ciminos and the Ciminos are partnered up with City Hall—”

  “I wouldn’t say ‘partnered’—”

  “I delivered the fucking envelopes!” Malone says, shoving the barrel harder into Chandler’s temple. “Who leaked my 302?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You believe in God, Ned?”

  “No. I don’t know . . .”

  “You don’t know the answers, right?”

  “Right.”

  “You want to learn all the answers,” Malone says, “tell me you don’t know again. Who leaked the 302?”

  “Paz.”

  Malone takes the gun from Chandler’s head. “Talk.”

  “We weren’t tracking her investigation,” Chandler says. “If you’d come to us earlier, Malone, we could have shut it down or at least redirected it. When we found out it was you, we knew it was going to be a . . . problem.”

  “A problem you thought the Ciminos would take care of for you.”

  Chandler doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to.

  “And when they missed,” Malone says, “Castillo took a shot.”

  Chandler says, “That was on him. You killed someone in his family, right?”

  “And you were all there to applaud when I did.” But they don’t know, Malone thinks. They don’t know about the rip. They don’t know their asshole buddies in the Cimino family handed fifty keys of smack to the Dominicans.

  There’s still a way out of this.

  “You made the payoff allegations in front of the feds,” Chandler says. “Not just Paz, but the FBI, Weintraub. You’ve put certain people in a very difficult position.”

  “Not if I’m dead and can’t testify.”

  Chandler shrugs. It’s true.

  “Which certain people?” Malone asks. “Who’s coming after me?”

  “Everyone,” Chandler says.

  Right, Malone thinks—Castillo, the Ciminos, Torres’s team, Sykes, IAB, the feds . . . City Hall.

  Yeah, that’s about everyone.

  “It doesn’t have to go down this way,” Malone says. “I’ll take care of Castillo. I’ll deal with the Ciminos. You get me a sit-down with ‘certain people.’”

  “I don’t know if I can do that,” Chandler says. “No offense, Malone, but you’re poison.”

  “Oh, I know you can do that,” Malone says. “See, I have nothing to lose, Neddy, and I will put two right through your fucking head.”

  Chandler picks up the phone.

  They call Fifty-Seventh Street “Billionaires’ Row.”

  A doorman takes Malone up the private elevator to the penthouse at One57 and Bryce Anderson opens the door personally.

  “Sergeant Malone,” Anderson says, “please come in.”

  He ushers Malone into a living room with floor-to-ceiling windows, the view from which justifies the hundred-million-dollar price tag. All of Central Park stretches out beneath them, all of the West Side to the left, the East Side to the right. This is what rich people get to look at, Malone thinks, the city stretched out at their feet.

  The entire back wall of the room is a saltwater aquarium with its own coral reef.

  “Thanks for meeting me so early,” Malone says.

  “I don’t like the sun to find me sleeping,” Anderson says. He looks the part of a real estate mogul—tall, blond hair, hawk nose, piercing eyes. “Chandler indicated this wasn’t exactly a social call. Would you like coffee?”

  “No.”

  He stands by the window with dawn over New York as a backdrop.

  It’s deliberate.

  He’s showing Malone his kingdom.

  “Should we ‘pat each other down,’ Sergeant,” Anderson asks, “or can we do this like gentlemen?”

  “I’m not wired.”

  “Neither am I,” Anderson says. “So . . .”

  “I delivered a lot of envelopes for the Cimino family,” Malone says, “not a few of which found their way here.”

  “Maybe,” Anderson says. “Listen, Detective, if I took envelopes, they were chump change. I took them to get things done, to get things built, and that was the way to do it. Look out there . . . that building . . . that building . . . that one. Do you know how many jobs that meant? How much business? Tourism? You’re not naive, you know what it takes to rebuild a city. Do you want to go back to the bad old days? Unemployment? Crack vials like seashells under your feet?”

  “I just want to survive.”

  “And what’s that going to take, do you think?” Anderson says. “You still have a problem with at least two crime organizations that want you dead. You seem to make enemies, Malone, like Lay’s makes chips.”

  “Comes with the Job,” Malone says. “I can take care of the narcos and the wiseguys. The federal government’s too big for me. So is City Hall. When they’re lined up together . . . You’re going after the commissioner and the Job. I’m just one cop.”

  “You’re one cop who got in the way,” Anderson says. “And now you’ve put City Hall and other very powerful people, including me, in the crosshairs.”

  “You don’t need to be.”

  “How so?”

  “Shutting down a federal investigation,” Malone says, “would be a lot easier than killing me.”

  “Apparently,” Anderson says. “And if that investigation were to be shut down, would the people who rebuilt this city have a reason to worry about you?”

  “You think I give a shit,” Malone says, “who lines their pockets downtown? Who’s going to be mayor, who’s going to be governor? You’
re all the same cat to me.”

  “All cats are gray in the dark?” Anderson asks. “But why should we trust you, Malone?”

  “How’s your daughter?”

  “What does that mean?” Anderson asks. But he’s a smart man, and it comes to him quickly. “Of course, that was you. She’s doing well now, thank you. And I mean, literally, thanks to you. She’s back at Bennington. Dean’s list.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “So this is blackmail,” Anderson says. “You have a copy of her sex tape and you’ll release it unless I get the investigation shut down?”

  “I’m not you,” Malone says. “I never even looked at the tape, much less kept a copy. Maybe that’s why I don’t have a place like this. Maybe that’s why I’m just a working donkey in the city you rebuilt. There’s no blackmail—you’re smart enough to do the smart thing. But I’m telling you—if anyone comes after me, my family, my partners, I will come back and the next time I will kill you.”

  Malone walks over to the window. “It is a beautiful fucking city, isn’t it? I used to love it like my life.”

  Isobel Paz takes her early-morning jog in Central Park up by the reservoir.

  Malone falls in behind her.

  Her hair is tied back in a long ponytail.

  “Isobel,” Malone says, “I don’t suppose you’ve ever been shot in the back. Neither have I, but I’ve seen it a few times and it isn’t pretty. Looks like it hurts, too. A lot. So if you turn around, or yell for help, or do anything, I’m going to put one in your kidney. Do you believe me?”

  “Yes.”

  “You leaked my 302 to the Ciminos,” Malone says. “Don’t bother to deny it, I already know it, I don’t even much care anymore.”

  “So now you’re going to kill me?” She’s trying to sound tough, but she’s scared, her voice is quivering.

  “Only a few lunch bucket lawyers and cops get it in the neck, right?” Malone says. “The trust fund babies get a walk. A cop takes a bribe, he’s a criminal; a city official does it and it’s just business as usual.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I already got what I want,” Malone says. “The guy with the view of the park agreed to it. I just came to tell you how it’s going to work. I walk. All charges. No jail time. I resign from the force, I go away.”

  “We can’t put you in the program unless you testify,” Paz says.

  “I don’t want the program,” Malone says. “I can take care of myself, my family.”

  “How?”

  Malone says, “You don’t need to worry about how. You’re right—it isn’t your problem.”

  “What else?”

  “My partners,” Malone says, “keep their jobs, their badges, their pensions.”

  “Are you telling me that your partners are complicit?” Paz asks.

  “I’m telling you that if you try to hurt them,” Malone says, “I’ll pull this whole city down on top of you. But I don’t see certain people letting that happen.”

  Paz stops running and turns to look at him. “I underestimated you.”

  “Yeah, you did,” Malone says. “But no hard feelings.”

  He peels off and goes to kill Lou Savino.

  Savino’s car isn’t in his driveway up in Scarsdale.

  Malone watches the house for a few minutes, then drives back to the city, to Savino’s gumar’s apartment on 113th, a second-floor walk-up.

  Putting his 9 mm behind his back, Malone rings the bell.

  He hears footsteps inside, then a woman’s voice saying, “Lou, what, did you lose your key again?”

  Malone holds his badge up to the peephole. “Ms. Grinelli? NYPD. I’d like to talk with you.”

  She opens the door a chain width. “Is it Lou? Is he okay?”

  “When did you last see him?”

  “Oh my God.” Then she remembers who she is, where she lives. “I don’t talk to cops.”

  “Is he inside, Ms. Grinelli?”

  “No.”

  “May I come in and look?” Malone asks.

  “Do you have a warrant?”

  He kicks the door open and goes in. Savino’s gumar holds her face. “I’m bleeding, you asshole!”

  His gun ready, Malone walks through the living room, then checks the bathroom and the bedroom, the bedroom closet, the kitchen. The bedroom window is closed. He walks back into the living room.

  “When did you last see Lou?” Malone asks.

  “Fuck you.”

  Malone sticks the gun in her face. “I’m not playing with you. When did you last see him?”

  She’s trembling. “Couple of days ago. He came over for a booty call and left. He was supposed to come over last night but he didn’t show. Didn’t even call, the asshole. Now this. Please . . . don’t shoot me . . . please . . .”

  Mike Sciollo is just getting home.

  He’s taking the keys out of his jeans pocket and opening the door to his building when Malone hits him in the back of the head with the pistol butt and pushes him inside, into the little foyer.

  Malone shoves him against the mailboxes and sticks the pistol barrel behind his ear. “Where’s your boss?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Say good night, Mike.”

  “I haven’t seen him!”

  “Since when?”

  “This morning,” Sciollo says. “We had coffee, checked in, I haven’t seen him since.”

  “You call him?”

  “He don’t pick up.”

  “You tellin’ me the truth, Mike?” Malone asks. “Or are you helping Lou fly under the radar? If you’re lying to me, your neighbors are going to find pieces of you on their electric bills.”

  “I don’t know where he is.”

  “Then what are you still doing out on the street?” Malone asks. “If Bruno had Lou whacked, you’re next on the endangered species list.”

  “I was just picking up a few things,” Sciollo says. “Then I’m headed out.”

  “I fucking see you again, Mikey,” Malone says, “I’m going to assume hostile intent and act accordingly. Capisce?”

  He shoves Sciollo into the wall and walks back to his car.

  Lou Savino ain’t comin’ back, Malone thinks as he drives uptown. Savino is in the river, or a landfill. They’ll find his car out at Kennedy as if he took off somewhere, but he never left New York and never will.

  Bruno will bury the 302.

  Paz will bury the rest.

  Anderson will see to it.

  I’ll take care of Castillo.

  He goes home to get some sleep.

  It’s over.

  You beat them.

  Chapter 27

  He’s sound asleep when the door comes in.

  Hands push his face against the wall.

  More hands take his weapons.

  His arms are twisted behind him, his wrists cuffed.

  “You’re under arrest,” O’Dell says. “Malfeasance of duty, bribery, extortion, obstruction of justice—”

  He’s confused, disoriented. “You got this wrong, O’Dell! Talk to Paz.”

  “She’s not in charge anymore,” O’Dell says. “In fact, she’s under indictment. So is Anderson. It was a nice play, Malone. Nice try. You’re also under arrest for possession of narcotics with intent to sell, conspiracy to sell and/or distribute narcotics, and armed robbery.”

  “The fuck you talking about?” Malone asks.

  O’Dell grabs him and turns him around.

  “Savino turned himself in, Denny,” O’Dell says. “He flipped. He told us all about Pena, about the smack you ripped and sold to him.”

  “I want a lawyer,” Malone says.

  “We’ll even call him for you,” O’Dell says. “What’s his name?”

  “Gerard Berger,” Malone says.

  Maybe there is a God, Malone thinks.

  And maybe there’s a hell.

  But there’s sure as shit no Easter Bunny.

  Part 3

  Fo
urth of July, the Fire This Time

  But I will send a fire on the wall of Tyrus, which shall devour the palaces thereof.

  —Amos 1:10

  Let freedom ring, let the white dove sing,

  Let the whole world know that today

  Is a day of reckoning.

  —Gretchen Peters, “Independence Day”

  Chapter 28

  Gerard Berger interlocks his fingers, lays his hands on the table and says, “Of all the many thousands of phone calls that might have awoken me from sleep this morning, I must say that the last I expected was from you.”

  They’re sitting in an interview room at the FBI offices at 26 Federal Plaza.

  “So why did you come?” Malone asks.

  “Given the source, I’ll accept that as an expression of gratitude,” Berger says. “And to answer the question, I suppose that I was intrigued. Not surprised, mind you; I knew that your more unfortunate dispositions would eventually land you in deep, scalding water, but I am surprised that it was me you would call to throw you a life preserver.”

  “I need the best,” Malone says.

  “My God, what it must have cost you to say that,” Berger says, smiling. “Which brings up our first and most important topic of substance—do you have the funds to pay my fees? That is a threshold question—without a satisfactory answer we do not walk through the door together.”

  “How much do you charge?” Malone asks.

  “A thousand dollars an hour,” Berger says.

  A thousand an hour, Malone thinks. An average patrol officer makes thirty.

  “If you can let me walk out of here today,” Malone says, “I can get your first fifty hours in cash.”

  “And after that?”

  “I can buy another two hundred,” Malone says.

  “It’s a start,” Berger says. “You have a house, a car, perhaps a story sufficiently interesting to attract a book or film purchase. All right, Sergeant Malone, you have a lawyer.”