The Force

by Don Winslow

  So when the word got out that a cop from Da Force was heading out in cuffs, an eager crowd gathered out on the street.

  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?”

  “I told you last night,” Russo says, “I was going to do what I had to do.”

  Malone doesn’t get it.

  Russo leans over, speaks right into his face. �
��You gave me up to save your family. I don’t blame you. I’d have done the same thing. So I just did, Denny.”

  Then it hits him—Russo had only one card to play, and he’d laid it down.

  “Yeah, Pena,” Russo says. “I told them you murdered him. Shot that spic motherfucker in cold blood. Now I testify, I’m the star fucking witness at your trial, I walk, I go sell aluminum siding in Utah and you get the life without parole.”

  A fed comes out of the office, takes Russo by the wrist and starts to lead him away.

  “No hard feelings, Denny,” Russo says. “We each did what we had to do.”

  O’Dell opens the door and gestures for Malone to come in.

  “Our deal is off,” O’Dell says. “Your client will be charged with capital murder. His testimony will no longer be required as we have Phil Russo for everything we need. And Sergeant Malone will have to find new legal representation, as you will no longer be able to function in that role.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You’ll be conflicted out,” Weintraub says. “We’ll call you as a prosecution witness to testify as to Malone’s considerable personal animus against Diego Pena.”

  O’Dell cuffs Malone and takes him to the Metro Correctional Center down on Park Row and puts him in a holding cell.

  The door shuts and just like that Malone is on the other side.

  “Why did you have to kill him?” O’Dell asks.

  Chapter 33

  It was Nasty Ass who tipped Malone that something was wrong at 673 West 156th. This was back in the early days of the Task Force, a fetid August night, and the snitch didn’t even want to be paid for it, not in cash or smack, and he looked shaken as he said, “I heard it’s bad, Malone, really bad.”

  Malone’s team went to check it out.

  You go through a lot of doors on the Job. Most of them are forgettable, indistinguishable.

  Malone would never forget this one.

  The whole family was dead.

  Father, mother, three young kids ranging in age from seven down to three. Two boys and a girl. The kids had been shot in the back of the head; same with the two adults, although they’d been chopped up with machetes first—arterial blood had sprayed all over the walls.

  Russo crossed himself.

  Montague just stared—the murdered kids were black and Malone knew he was thinking about his own children.

  Billy O cried.

  Malone called it in—five homicides, all AA—adult male, adult female, three minors. And step the fuck on it. It took maybe five minutes for Minelli from Task Force Homicide to get there—the ME right behind him with the Crime Scene people.

  “Jesus Christ,” Minelli said, staring. Then he shook it off and said, “Okay, thanks, we got it from here.”

  “We stay with it,” Malone said. “It’s drug related.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The adult vic is DeMarcus Cleveland,” Malone says. “That’s his wife, Janelle. They were midlevel smack slingers for DeVon Carter. This wasn’t a robbery—the place hasn’t been tossed. They just came in and executed them.”

  “For what?”

  “Slinging on the wrong corners.”

  Minelli wasn’t going to get into a border skirmish on this one, not with three dead kids. Even the Crime Scene people were shook—no one made the usual jokes or looked around for something to put in their pockets.

  “You have an idea who did it?” Minelli asked.

  “Yeah, I do,” Malone said. “Diego Pena.”

  Pena was a midlevel manager in the Dominicans’ NYC operation. His job was to stabilize the otherwise chaotic retail business in the neighborhood, get the low-level blacks under control or move them out. Briefly put, you buy from us or you don’t buy.

  Malone’s hunch was that the Clevelands had refused to get in line and pay the franchise fee. He’d heard DeMarcus Cleveland proclaim his resistance on a corner one night: “This is our motherfucking hood, Carter’s motherfucking hood. We black, not Spanish. You see tacos around here? Brothers doing the fuckin’ merengue?”

  It got laughs on the corner, but no one was laughing now.

  Or talking.

  Malone and his team canvassed the building and no one heard anything. And it wasn’t just the usual “fuck the cops, they won’t do anything anyway” or the gangbanger “we take care of our own business” attitude.

  It was fear.

  Malone understood—you kill a dealer in a turf dispute it’s just another day in the neighborhood. You kill the dealer and his whole family—his kids—you’re sending a message to everybody.

  Pónganse a la cola.

  Get in line.

  Malone wasn’t taking “I don’t know” for an answer.

  Three dead children, shot in their beds, he went full Task Force on it. You don’t want to be a witness? Cool, you can be a defendant. He and his team rousted every junkie, dealer and hooker in the hood. They popped guys for just standing there—loitering, littering, looking at them wrong. You didn’t hear nothing, see nothing, you don’t know nothing? That’s okay, don’t worry about it, we’ll give you some time in Rikers to think about it, maybe something will come to mind.

  The team filled up booking in the Three-Two, the Three-Four and the Two-Five. Their captain back then was Art Fisher—he had street brains and balls, and didn’t give them any shit about it.

  Torres did. He and Malone about got into it in the locker room when Torres asked him, “What are you busting your ass for on this thing? It’s NHI.”

  No Humans Involved.

  “Three dead kids?”

  “If you do the math,” Torres said, “that saves the city, what, about eighteen illegitimate grandkids on welfare?”

  “Shut your stupid mouth or you won’t be giving blow jobs for a month,” Malone said.

  Monty had to get between them. You don’t go around Big Monty to get into a beef. He said to Malone, “Why do you let him get to you?” Meaning, I don’t, why should you?

  Who worked the case hard was Nasty Ass.

  When he wasn’t whacked out, the snitch worked the streets like he was cop. (Malone had to warn him more than once that he wasn’t.) He went out of his way, took chances, asked questions of people he shouldn’t have been asking questions. For some reason this got to him, and Malone, who had long since decided that junkies didn’t have souls, had to reconsider his opinion.

  But it turned up nothing they could use to get to Pena.

  He just kept pushing the heroin—a product labeled Dark Horse—onto the street, and everyone was too afraid of him to get in his way.

  “We have to go after him more direct,” Malone said one night as they sat in the Carmansville Playground tossing back a few beers.

  “Why don’t we kill him?” Monty asked.

  “Worth going to the joint for you?” Malone asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “You got kids,” Russo said. “A family. We all do.”

  “It isn’t murder if he tries to kill us first,” Malone said.

  That’s how it began, Malone’s campaign to goad Pena into trying to kill a cop.

  They started with a club in Spanish Harlem, a real nice salsa place Pena had a piece of, maybe laundered money through. They waited for a Friday night when the place was packed and went in like storm troopers on crack.

  The security guys at the door tried to jump ugly when Malone and team walked right past the line, showed their badges and said they were coming in.

  “You got a warrant?”

  “The fuck are you, Johnnie Cochran?” Malone asked. “I saw a guy with a gun run over here. Hey, maybe it was you. Was it you, Counselor? Turn around, put your hands behind your back.”

  “I got my constitutional rights!”

  Monty and Russo grabbed him by the back of the shirt and threw him through the plate glass window.

  One woman had her phone on video and held it up. “I have everything right here, what you did!”

  Malone w
alked over, knocked the phone out of her hand and crushed it under his Doc Marten. “Anyone else had their constitutional rights violated? I want to know right now so that we can rectify the situation.”

  No one spoke. Most people looked down.

  “Now get out of here while you have the chance.”

  The team went into the club and busted that shit up. Monty took an aluminum baseball bat to the glass tables, chairs. Russo kicked in speakers. Customers scrambled to get out of the way. It sounded like a rainstorm on a tin roof as people dropped guns on the floor.

  Malone went behind the bar and swept bottles off. Then he told one of the bartenders, “Open the register.”

  “I don’t know if—”

  “I saw you put coke in there. Open it up.”

  She opened it and Malone took out handfuls of bills and tossed them over the bar like leaves.

  A big guy in an expensive silk shirt, a real crema, came up to him. “You can’t—”

  Malone grabbed him by the back of the neck and slammed his face onto the bar. “Why don’t you tell me again what I can’t do? You the manager?”

  “Yes.”

  He took a handful of bills and shoved them into the man’s mouth. “Eat these. Come on, jefe, eat. No? Then maybe you keep your fucking mouth shut, except to tell me where Pena is. Is he here? Is he in the back room?”

  “He left.”

  “He left?” Malone asked. “If I go back into the VIP room and he is there, you and I are going to have a problem. Well, you’re going to have a problem—I’m just going to go Riverdance on your face.”

  “Toss everybody!” Malone shouted as he walked to the stairs. “Call the uniforms! Tell them to bring a bus! Everyone goes!”

  He went up the stairs to the VIP room.

  The security guy at the door seemed unsure, so Malone made up his mind for him. “I’m a VIP. I’m the most important person in your world right now because I’m the guy who decides if you get thrown into a cage with a crew of spic-hating mallates. So let me through.”

  The guy let him through.

  Four men sat in a banquette with their ladies, gorgeous Latinas in full makeup, big hair and beautiful expensive short dresses.

  Guns lay on the floor at the men’s feet.