by Don Winslow
“Both our careers were swirling around the bowl in there,” she says. “I had to cut that bastard a deal to save us.”
Poor you, Malone thinks. I cut deals every damn day, a lot worse than this one. “You knew the score, so cut the Joan of Arc routine.”
“I never told you to commit perjury.”
“You don’t care what we do when you get convictions,” Malone says. “‘Do what you have to do.’ But let something go south, then you say, ‘Play by the rules.’ I’ll play by the rules when everyone else does.”
After all, he thinks as he walks out, they don’t call it the Criminal Courts for nothing.
Chapter 15
Malone meets his team up at Montefiore Square, which isn’t a square but a triangle formed by Broadway, Hamilton Place and 138th.
“What do we got?” Malone asks.
“Fat Teddy’s made thirty-seven calls to Georgia area codes in the past three days,” Levin says. “The shipment’s definitely coming.”
“Yeah, but coming where?” Malone asks.
“Teddy won’t give them an address until the last minute,” Levin says. “If he does it from the office, we might pick it up, but if he does it from the street, we’ll know when he makes the call, but not what he says.”
“Can we get a warrant on Teddy’s phones?” Monty asks.
“Based off what he heard off an illegal tap?” Malone says. “Not these days.”
Levin grins.
“What’s funny?” Russo asks.
“What if we take Teddy?” Levin asks.
“He’s not going to tell us shit,” Russo says, “I don’t care how many Ding Dongs we have.”
“No,” Levin says. “I have a better idea.”
He lays it out.
The three older cops look at one another.
Then Russo says, “See, this is the difference between City College and NYU.”
“Sit on it,” Malone tells Levin. “Let us know when it’s on.”
Malone sits down with Sykes in the captain’s office.
“I need buy money,” Malone says.
“For what?”
“Carter’s guns coming up on the Pipeline,” Malone says. “Mantell’s not going to sell them to Carter, he’s going to sell them to us.”
Sykes gives him a long look. “Mapp issues?”
“There won’t be any. We’re going to do it on the street.”
“Behind what?”
“A CI’s going to give us the meet,” Malone says. “We’ll take the CI’s place.”
“Did you file this CI?”
“Right after I leave your office.”
“How much?”
“Fifty thousand,” Malone says.
Sykes laughs. “You want me to go to McGivern for fifty thousand dollars based on something you heard that you shouldn’t have?”
“I’ll have a typed and sworn CI statement.”
“As soon as you leave my office.”
“McGivern will get it for you,” Malone says. It’s a risk but he has to take it. “If you tell him it’s me.”
That’s a turd for Sykes to swallow.
“When is this going down?” Sykes asks.
Malone shrugs. “Soon.”
“I’ll talk to the inspector,” Sykes says. “But this travels down the straight and narrow. You communicate, you keep me in touch every step of the way.”
“You got it.”
“And I want you to bring in another team when it goes down,” Sykes says. “Use Torres and his people.”
“Captain Sykes . . .”
“What?”
“Not Torres.”
“What’s wrong with Torres?”
“I need you to trust me on this one,” Malone says.
Sykes looks at him for several long seconds. “What are you trying to tell me, Sergeant?”
“Let my team handle the buy,” Malone says. “Bring the plainclothes and the uniforms in on the seller. You distribute the collars any way you want—the whole Task Force dines out.”
“Only not Torres.”
“Only not Torres.”
More silence.
More of a look.
Then Sykes says, “If you fuck me on this, Malone, I will set a fire up your ass that will never go out.”
“I love it when you talk dirty to me, boss.”
“Did you perjure yourself in the Rivera case?” Paz asks him.
“Who’d you have lunch with,” Malone asks, “Gerry Berger?”
She tosses a file on the table. “Answer my question.”
“This file was sealed,” Malone says. “How did Berger get it to give it to you?”
She doesn’t answer.
“You think that piece of shit wins all his cases because he’s so smart?” Malone asks. “Because all his clients are innocent? You don’t think he ever bought a ruling, got some evidence tossed with an envelope?”
“He didn’t need that to get your evidence tossed, did he?” Paz asks. “You manufactured probable cause and then committed perjury.”
“If you say so.”
“The record says so,” Paz says. “Does Mary Hinman normally countenance this kind of thing to make her cases?”
“You going after her now?”
“If she’s dirty.”
“She’s not,” Malone says. “Leave her alone.”
“Why? You fucking her?”
“Jesus Christ.”
“If you perjured yourself,” Paz says, “our deal is invalid.”
“Do it,” Malone says. He holds his hands out to be cuffed. “No, come on, right now. Do it.”
She keeps glaring at him.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He lowers his hands. “You know why you won’t? Brady versus Maryland—you have to notify defense attorneys if a cop involved in their cases ever knowingly lied under oath. Because if I told you I had, it would open up forty or fifty old cases of guys who are locked up and are going to want new trials. And it will open up questions of whether your buddy prosecutors knew I was lying and tolerated it to get those convictions. So don’t give me your sanctimonious, condescending bullshit because I’ll bet to get to where you are you did the same goddamn thing.”
Silence in the room.
“You fuckin’ feds,” Malone says. “You’d lie, cheat, sell your mother’s eyes to get a conviction. It’s only wrong when a cop does it.”
“Shut up, Denny,” O’Dell says.
“I’ve got you, what, six indictments now? Seven?” Malone asks. “When is this over? When is it enough?”
“It’s over when we tell you it’s over,” Paz says.
“When is that?” Malone asks. “How high up you want to go? You got balls, Paz, you got big enough balls to go after judges? How much you think they clear after taxes? Enough for the condo down in West Palm? How about when they go to Vegas, get comped? Lose a bundle and it gets written off, too? You interested in how that happens?”
“What are you,” Weintraub asks, “a crusader all of a sudden?”
Paz says, “If you know something—”
“Everybody knows it!” Malone says. “The fuckin’ Hindu at the newspaper stand knows it! A ten-year-old black kid on the corner knows it! What I’m asking is how come you don’t know it?”
Silence.
“Yeah, it gets real quiet now,” Malone says.
“We have to work from the bottom up,” O’Dell says.
“Well, that’s convenient, isn’t it,” Malone says. “That works out nice for you. You never have to lay your asses on the line.”
“I’m not going to sit here and be lectured by a crooked cop,” Paz says.
“You know what, you don’t have to,” Malone says.
He gets up.
“Sit down, Denny,” O’Dell says.
“You got your money’s worth from me,” Malone says. “I gave you all the lawyers I worked with. I’m done.”
“Then we charge you,” Paz says.
“Yea
h, put me on the stand,” Malone says. “See what names I name, see what happens to your careers then.”
“Any professional aspirations I may harbor,” Paz says, “have nothing to do with this.”
“And I’m the Easter Bunny.”
He walks toward the door.
“You know, you’re right, Malone,” Paz says. “You’ve taken us as far as you can with lawyers. Now I want cops.”
You dumb mick motherfucker, Malone thinks, the lawyers were just the come-along, to get you in. How many times have you used the same game on snitches? Once you get their cherry, they’re yours, you put them on the street and use them up.
But you thought you were different, dumb shit.
“I told you from the jump,” Malone says. “No cops.”
“You’re going to give me cops. Or when we unseal these indictments against the lawyers, I’ll put it out that it was you.” Paz lets that sit and then smiles at him. “Run, Denny, run.”
This bitch has you by the balls, Malone thinks. You’re trapped. If she puts out the word that you’re a rat, they’ll all come after you—the Job, the Ciminos, the motherfuckers in City Hall.
You’re dead.
Malone says, “You spic cunt.”
Paz smiles at him. “Spic cunt is famously good. That’s why everyone wants them some. Get me cops. On tape.”
She walks out.
For Malone the room is spinning. He controls himself enough to say to O’Dell, “We had a deal.”
“We’re not asking for your partners,” O’Dell says. “Just get us one or two other guys. There have to be cops even you think are over the line, Denny. Brutal cops. Cops we need to get off the street.”
“I won’t hurt my partners,” Malone says.
“This is you saving your partners,” O’Dell says. “Do you think we’re stupid? That we think you could pull off shit like Rivera by yourself? If we charge you with that, they go too—Russo and Montague.”
“They’re in your hands, Malone,” Weintraub says. “Don’t fumble.”
“Denny,” O’Dell says, “I like you. I don’t think you’re a bad guy. I think you’re a good guy who’s done some bad things. There’s a way out of this, for you and your partners. Work with us and we’ll work with you.”
“What about Paz?”
“You know she can’t be privy to a deal like that,” O’Dell says.
Weintraub asks, “Why do you think she left?”
“We have an understanding,” O’Dell says.
“If I give you one or two others,” Malone says, “I have your sacred word—on the eyes of your children—you don’t hurt my partners.”
“You have my word,” O’Dell says.
How do you cross the line?
Step by step.
Chapter 16
Fat Teddy is on the move.
Fast as Fat Teddy can move, anyway.
From across Broadway, in the liquor delivery truck, Malone watches him come down from the nail shop and hit the street and he’s still on the phone.
“It’s on,” Levin says, looking at his iPad screen.
Teddy has used three phones to call the same Georgia cell phone and now he’s walking downtown on Broadway.
“He just dialed a 212,” Levin says.
“That’s him telling Carter it’s going,” says Monty.
“Where do you want to take him?” Russo asks.
“Wait,” Malone says.
They stay parallel as Teddy crosses 158th. Then he turns right onto 157th and right again up Edward Morgan Place.
“If he’s going into Kennedy’s Chicken,” Monty says, “it’s too much of a stereotype for me.”
They turn behind him.
“Did he make us?” Russo asks.
“No,” Malone says. “Too much on his mind.”
“That’s his car,” Russo says. “Outside the coffee shop.”
“Let’s do it.” He dials Nasty Ass. “Do your thing.”
Nasty hadn’t wanted to be involved in this at all. Flat-ass balked at it. “Man, I could’ve got caught last time. I don’t want to have to go back to Baltimore again.”
“You won’t.”
Nasty tried another. “Ain’t Carter protected by Torres?”
Yeah, that’s the fucking idea, Nasty.
“You run the Task Force now?” Malone asked. “They replaced Sykes with an Ichabod Crane–looking black junkie motherfucker, no one sent me the memo? I’ll decide where I work, asshole.”
“I’m just sayin’ . . .”
“Don’t be sayin’ anything except you gonna do what I ask you to do.”
So now Nasty’s out on the street and he calls 911. “I see a man with a gun.”
Gives the address.
It hits the radio and Russo answers it. “Manhattan North Unit there. We got it.”
They jump out of the truck, walk up behind Teddy and mug him just before he gets to his car.
Teddy ain’t joking around this time, he got no mouth to give.
This is serious business.
Monty puts him against the car.
Levin takes his phone.
Malone says to Teddy, “I swear to God, one fuckin’ word . . .”
They hustle him back into the truck.
“You have some shitkicker friends coming up from the South?” Malone asks him.
Teddy doesn’t say anything.
Monty climbs into the truck with a briefcase. “Look what I found.”
He opens the case. Stacks of hundreds, fifties, twenties. “Save me the trouble, Teddy. How much?”
“Sixty-five,” Teddy says.
Malone laughs. “Did you tell Carter sixty-five? What’s the real number?”
“Fifty, motherfucker.”
Russo takes fifteen out of the case. “It’s a sad, corrupt world.”
“Have you ever met Mantell,” Malone asks, “or just talked to him over the phone?”
“Why you wanna know?”
“Here’s how it’s going to go,” Malone says. He holds up a sheaf of papers, the CI file he placed for Teddy. “Either you become my CI right now, or this paperwork gets leaked to Raf Torres, who sells it to Carter.”
“You’d do that to me, Malone?”
“Oh hell yes,” Malone says. “I’m doing it to you now, dumbfuck. Now what are you gonna do, because I don’t want your cracker friends getting hinky.”
“I ain’t never met Mantell.”
“Sign here, here and here,” Malone says, offering him a pen.
Teddy signs.
“Where were you going to make the exchange?” Malone asks.
“Up by Highbridge Park.”
“The crackers know that?”
“Not yet.”
Teddy’s phone rings.
Levin looks at Malone. “Georgia.”
“You have a shutdown code?” Malone asks.
“No.”
Malone gestures to Levin, who holds the phone up to Teddy.
“Where are you?” Teddy asks.
“Harlem River Drive. Where am I going?”
Teddy looks to Malone, who holds up a pad.
“Dyckman east of Broadway,” Teddy says. “There’s a car service garage on the uptown side. Pull into the alley.”
“You got our money?”
“The fuck you think?” Teddy asks.
Levin clicks off.
“Very good, Teddy,” Malone says. “Now call Carter, tell him everything is copacetic.”
“What?”
“Good,” Monty says.
Teddy dials as Malone holds the CI statement up to remind him of the stakes.
“Yeah, it’s me,” Teddy says into the phone. “S’all good. . . . Twenty minutes, half hour maybe. . . . All right.”
He clicks off.
“An Oscar-winning performance,” says Russo.
“You got boys waiting at Highbridge Park?” Malone asks.
“What you think?”
“So you’re gonna drive
your fat ass up there,” Malone says. “You’re gonna wait for these hillbillies, except they’re not going to show up.”
“You don’t need me to make the buy?”
“Nah,” Malone says. “We have our own fat black man. I can hear you thinking, Teddy, so you think about this—if your new white friends don’t show up at Dyckman, I file your paperwork with Carter.”
“What I tell him?”
“Tell him to watch the news,” Malone says. “And then tell him he shouldn’t be doing business on my turf.”
Teddy gets out of the truck.
Russo cuts up Teddy’s $15K, hands Levin his share.
Levin puts his hand up. “You guys do what you want. I didn’t see anything. It’s just . . . I don’t do that.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Russo says. “You’re either in or you’re out.”
“If you don’t take it,” Montague says, “we don’t know that we can trust you to keep your mouth shut.”
“I’m not a rat,” Levin says.
Malone feels a twinge in his gut.
“No one said you were,” Montague says. “It’s just that you got to have skin in the game, you feel me?”
“Take the money,” Russo says.
“Give it to charity if you want,” Montague says. “Drop it in the poor box.”
“Send it to St. Jude’s,” Malone says.
“Is that what you do?” Levin asks.
“Sometimes.”
Levin asks, “What happens if I don’t take the money?”
Russo grabs him by the shirt. “You with IAB, Levin? You a ‘field associate’?”
“Get your hands off me.”
Russo does, but he says, “Take your shirt off.”
“What?”
“Take your shirt off,” Montague says.
Levin looks to Malone.
Malone nods.
“Jesus Christ.” Levin unbuttons his shirt, opens it for them. “Happy now?”
“Maybe it’s under his balls,” Russo says. “Remember Leuci?”
“If you have anything under your balls but your taint,” Montague says, “you’d better tell us now.”
“Peel them,” Malone says.
Levin shakes his head, unbuckles his belt and slides his jeans down to his knees. “Would you like to look up my asshole, too?”
“Would you like us to?” Russo asks.
Levin pulls his jeans back up. “This is demeaning.”