The Force: A Novel

by Don Winslow

  He goes looking for Nasty Ass.

  The snitch is in the world of Nowhere to Be Found.

  Malone checks all his usual haunts—Lenox Avenue in the Buck Twenties, Morningside Park, outside the 449.

  A white cop walking alone in Harlem in the middle of a race riot, it was anyone but Malone, he’d probably be dead. But there’s still his reputation, the fear, even the respect, and the people let him walk and leave him be.

  It may be on fire, but it’s still the Kingdom of Malone.

  He does find Oh No Henry.

  The man sees Malone and takes off like a freakin’ gazelle. Lucky for Malone, junkies ain’t exactly known for their proficiency in the hundred-yard dash, so Malone catches up with him and shoves him against an alley wall. “You run on me now, Henry?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “You just did.”

  “I thought you was a gorilla.”

  “Yeah, I want to steal your dope,” Malone says. “Where’s Nasty Ass?”

  “Can we take this somewhere private?” Henry asks. “If I get seen with you like this—”

  “Then you better start talking fast,” Malone says. “Tell me right now or I’ll get on a bullhorn and walk down Lenox announcing you’re my snitch.”

  Henry starts crying. He looks terrified. “Oh, no. Oh, no.”

  “Where is he?” Malone bounces him off the wall.

  Henry slides down and lies on the ground in a fetal position. Hands over his face, crying hard now. “The school, the playground.”

  “Which school?”

  “One Seventy-Five.” Henry curls up even tighter. “Oh, no. Oh, no.”

  Oh No Henry is full of shit.

  Oh No Henry was lying to him, because Malone can’t find Nasty Ass on the playground outside PS 175. And it’s weird—hot summer night, even during a riot, and the playground is empty, abandoned.

  Like it’s radioactive or something.

  Then Malone hears it.

  A moan, but not from something human.

  Some hurt mewling animal.

  Malone looks around, trying to find the source of the sound. It’s not coming from the basketball court or the chain-link fence.

  Then he sees Nasty leaning against a tree.

  No, not leaning against the tree.

  Nailed to the tree.

  Spikes in his hands instead of his arms.

  He’s stripped naked, his arms stretched up above him, one hand over the other, nailed into the trunk, his skinny legs stretched out, the feet crossed, nailed into the trunk. His chin is dropped onto his chest.

  They beat the fuck out of him.

  His face is hamburger, his eyes loll crazily in their sockets. His jaw is broken, his twisted teeth smashed, his lips dangle like strips.

  He’s shit himself.

  It’s caked on his legs and the tops of his feet.

  “Oh, God,” Malone says.

  Nasty Ass opens his eyes, as much as they can open. Sees Malone and whimpers. No words, just pain.

  Malone grabs the thick nail through Nasty’s feet and yanks it out. Then he reaches up and takes hold of the nail head embedded in Nasty’s hands. He wrenches it and pulls, wrenches and pulls and it finally comes out and Malone catches Nasty and eases him to the ground.

  “I got you, I got you,” Malone says.

  He radios, “I need a bus. Put a rush on it. One-Three-Five and Lenox.”

  “Malone?”

  “Send it.”

  “Go fuck yourself, rat. I hope you die.”

  The bus isn’t coming.

  No radio car is coming, either.

  Malone gets his arms under Nasty Ass and lifts. Carries him like a baby across Lenox to Harlem Hospital, to the E-room.

  “Who did this to you?” Malone asks. “Fat Teddy?”

  He can’t make out what Nasty says.

  “Where is he?” Malone asks. What he wanted to find out from Nasty in the first place, but he was too late.

  “St. Nick’s,” Nasty whispers. “Building Seven.”

  Then he smiles, if you can call what forms on what’s left of his mouth a smile, and says, “I heard something else, Malone.”

  “What did you hear?”

  “That we the same now, you and me,” Nasty Ass says. “We both snitches.”

  His head falls back into Malone’s arms.

  Malone carries him into the E-room.

  Claudette’s on duty.

  “Jesus God,” she says, “what did they do to this poor soul?”

  They put Nasty on a gurney, start to roll him in.

  “You have blood all over you,” Claudette says to Malone.

  She holds Nasty’s hand as they roll him in.

  Malone walks down to the men’s room, wets a paper towel and does his best to get the blood and the shit off his clothes.

  Then he goes and sits in the waiting room.

  It’s crowded, busy from the riot casualties. Cuts from the broken glass of storefront windows, bruises from fights, burns from setting fires or getting caught in them. Swollen red eyes from tear gas, contusions from the beanbags fired from police shotguns—the more serious gunshot wounds are already in ER or on the wards in the recovery rooms, or in the morgue waiting for transfer to the funeral homes.

  “He’s gone, baby,” Claudette says.

  “I figured.”

  “I’m sorry,” Claudette says. “Was he your friend?”

  “He was my snitch,” Malone says reflexively. Then he reconsiders. “Yeah, he was my friend.”

  A violation of one of the first unwritten laws of police work: Never make friends with a snitch.

  But what else would you call a guy you shared the streets, the parks, the alleys with? Who you worked with, really, because he helped you make busts, take the really bad guys off the street, protect the neighborhood?

  Never make friends with a snitch or a junkie, so a junkie snitch . . .

  But yeah, Nasty was my friend and he always thought I was his. And look where that got him.

  Claudette asks, “Did he have family?”

  “Not that I know of.” Not that I ever bothered to find out, Malone thinks. But yeah, there’s probably a mother and father somewhere. Maybe even a wife, who knows, maybe even a kid or kids. Maybe someone is looking for him, or maybe they gave up on him, wrote him off . . .

  “So the body . . .”

  “Call Unity,” Malone says, naming the nearest funeral home. “I’ll pay for the burial.”

  “You’re a good friend,” she says.

  “I’m such a good friend,” he says, “I never even bothered to find out his real name.”

  “Benjamin,” Claudette says. “Benjamin Coombs.”

  She looks exhausted—the casualties from the riots have kept her on almost continual duty, with a few minutes for naps.

  “You have a minute?” Malone asks. “Go outside and talk?”

  She looks around and then says, “A minute. You know, it’s slammed. The riots . . .”

  They go out onto 136th.

  “I thought you were going to jail,” Claudette says.

  “I thought I was too,” Malone says. “I made a deal.”

  Maybe even dirtier than the last one.

  “You told me one time,” Malone says, “something about the weight of being black. You still feel that?”

  “Well, I’m still black, Denny,” she says.

  “Does it still wear you down?”

  “I’m not using,” she says, “if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “No, I just mean . . .”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I dunno.”

  She looks down and shuffles her shoe along the concrete of the sidewalk, then looks back up at him. “I need to get back in.”

  “Okay.”

  “You did a good thing, bringing him in. I couldn’t love you more.” She wraps her arms around him. Her cheek is wet against his neck. “Good-bye, baby.”

  Good-bye, Claudette.

>   Hot summer night, the air-conditioning don’t work, so the residents of St. Nick’s are outside in the courtyards. There’s no such thing as a white cop sneaking in, so he doesn’t even try to be subtle.

  Just marches in like he still owns the place.

  Like he’s still Denny Malone.

  The whistles, hoots, shouts and insults start, so by the time he hits Building Seven all of St. Nick’s knows he’s coming and ain’t no one thinking about no Christmas turkey giveaways.

  They’re just thinking about how much they hate cops.

  A crew of Get Money Boys stands outside the door of Building Seven.

  That don’t surprise Malone.

  It does surprise him that Tre is with them.

  The rap mogul walks up to Malone.

  “Slummin’, Tre?” Malone asks.

  “Just helping to protect my people.”

  “Me too.”

  “They think a brother kills a cop,” Tre says, “they turn the world upside down. Not the same when a cop kills a brother.”

  “You want to protect your people,” Malone says, “tell these guys to get out of my way.”

  “You have a warrant?”

  “It’s public housing,” Malone says. “I don’t need a warrant. Man with a law degree like you, I thought you’d know that.”

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” Tre says. “Montague was cool.”

  “He still is,” Malone says.

  “This is not what I’ve heard,” says Tre. “I’ve heard he’s going to need a helper monkey.”

  “You volunteering?” Malone asks.

  The GMBs think it’s enough to go, move toward Malone with the intent to fuck him up good. They already know, the whole street knows, that no backup is coming in for him.

  Tre gestures for them to be cool, then turns back to Malone. “What do you want here?”

  “I need to talk with Fat Teddy.”

  Tre says, “You know Fat Teddy will let you beat him to death before he gives anything up. He has a mama, a sister and three cousins in St. Nick’s and Grant’s.”

  “We’ll protect them.”

  “You can’t even protect yourselves,” Tre says.

  “You’re obstructing a police investigation, Tre,” Malone says. “Get out of my way or go out in cuffs.”

  “See, I think what I’m obstructing is some private business between you and Carter,” Tre says. “But if you want to play the obstruction card, put me in bracelets and let a fresh round of riots ensue.”

  He turns around and offers his hands.

  “You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” Malone says. “Deposit some needed street cred into your account.”

  “Do what you’re going to do,” Tre says. “I don’t have all night.”

  Then Fat Teddy walks out the front door with his hands up. “My lawyer’s on his way. What you want with me?”

  “You’re under arrest.”

  “I heard you weren’t police no more.”

  “You heard wrong,” Malone says. “Put your hands behind your back before I bust your fat head open.”

  “You don’t have to do that, Teddy,” Tre says.

  “Shut your fuckin’ mouth.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or I’ll shut it,” Malone says. “Don’t test me.”

  “Don’t you test me,” Tre says. “You see anything but brothers around here? You call for backup, Malone, what I hear is no one’s going to come. You’d be the one dead cop they don’t care about.”

  “But you won’t live to see it,” Malone says. Has to be twenty people holding their cell phones up on this. Looks like a rock concert, Malone thinks. He turns back to Teddy. “Hands behind your back. If I pull my gun, I will shoot you, then Tre here. What you all need to know is, I just don’t give a fuck anymore.”

  Teddy must believe him, because he puts his hands behind his back. Malone walks him away from the door a few steps, pushes him against the wall and cuffs him. “You’re under arrest for homicide.”

  “Who I kill?” Teddy asks.

  “Nasty Ass.”

  Teddy lowers his voice. “I ain’t kill him.”

  “No?” Malone asks. “Who did?”

  “You did.”

  Malone feels the truth of it, but asks, “How’s that?”

  “Them guns,” Teddy says. “Carter killed him because Nasty snitched on them guns.”

  “Carter nailed him to a tree.”

  “Ain’t I know it?” Teddy says. “Why you think I tell you? That ain’t right, what Carter did. Kill a brother, yes, if you feel you got to. But do that to him? He ain’t gotta do that to a man.”

  “Where’s Carter now?”

  Teddy shouts it real loud, so it bounces off walls in the whole project. “I ain’t know where Carter at!”

  Malone leans close to Fat Teddy and whispers, “When I tell Carter you ratted him on the guns, he is going to kill you, your cousins, your sister and your mother.”

  “You do me that way, man?” Fat Teddy asks. “You do my family that way? That beneath you, Malone.”

  “I ain’t got no bottom, Teddy,” Malone says. “Not anymore. Where is he?”

  The bottles start flying.

  Airmail.

  Bottles, cans, then burning garbage.

  Fire fluttering from the sky.

  Sirens go off, the uniformed bluecoat cavalry riding up urban canyons. Not to rescue Malone, God knows, but to kick some black ass before it pours out of the projects again.

  “What’s it gonna be, Teddy?” Malone says. “We ain’t got a lot of time here.”

  “Four West 122,” Teddy says. “Top floor. And Malone? I hope they do kill you. I hope your brother cops put two right in your face so you see it coming.”

  “That’s right, you dumb fuck!” Malone yells. “Keep those fat lips glued together, see what it gets you!”

  The crowd starts to move in on Malone. He backs off and retreats toward the car. It’s not something he would have done, let the Jamaals chase him out of the projects, but he’s never coming back anyway.

  Chapter 36

  It’s the old Mount Morris neighborhood.

  The old Harlem of graceful brownstones that once housed the doctors, the lawyers, the musicians, artists and poets.

  The riots haven’t touched this neighborhood.

  Now Malone knows why.

  DeVon Carter ain’t having it.

  Malone pulls up across the street from his building. Carter’s sentries make him as soon as he gets out of the car. One of them says, “You got balls, white cop coming up here.”

  Malone says. “Tell Carter I want to see him.”

  “Why?”

  “Why are you asking why?” Malone says. “All you have to do is go tell Carter that Denny Malone wants to talk.”

  The bouncer eye-fucks him for pride and then goes in. He takes about ten minutes, comes back and says, “Come on.”

  He leads them upstairs.

  DeVon Carter is waiting in his living room. The apartment is large, open and spare. Bone-white walls feature large black-and-white photos of Miles Davis, Sonny Stitt, Art Blakey, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Thelonious Monk. A floor-to-ceiling bookcase, painted gloss black, holds volumes of mostly art books—Benny Andrews, Norman Lewis, Kerry James Marshall, Hughie Lee-Smith.

  Carter wears a black denim shirt, black jeans, black loafers with no socks. He sees Malone glance at the book spines. “You know African American art? Oh, that’s right, you have a black girlfriend. Maybe she taught you something.”

  “She taught me a lot,” Malone says.

  “I just bought a Lewis at auction,” Carter says. “A hundred fifty K for an untitled work.”

  “You’d think for that kind of money they’d slap a title on it,” Malone says.

  “It’s upstairs if you want to see it.”

  “I didn’t come here to admire your art collection.”

  “What are you doing here?” Carter asks. “I heard you were behind
bars. Something about you selling a large weight of heroin to the Dominicans. And here I thought we were friends, Malone.”

  “We’re not.”

  “I would have paid you more,” Carter says.

  “You needed it more,” Malone says. “Now you don’t have the heroin and you don’t have the guns, so you don’t have the money and you don’t have the people. Castillo is going to hose you off the street like the garbage you are.”

  “I got cops.”

  “The old Torres crew?” Malone asks. “If they haven’t already gone over to the Domos, they will.”

  It won’t be Gallina, Malone thinks. He doesn’t have the brains or the guts.

  It’ll be Tenelli.

  Carter knows he’s right. He asks, “So what are you offering me? Your crew, or what’s left of them? No, thanks.”

  “I’m offering you the whole fucking department,” Malone says. “Manhattan North, the Borough, Narcotics, the Detective Division. I’ll throw in the mayor’s office and half the motherfuckers on Billionaires’ Row.”

  “In exchange for what?”

  “The Bennett video clip.”

  Carter smiles. Now it all makes sense to him. “So your bosses let their nigger out of his cage to come fetch it.”

  “That’s me.”

  “What makes you think I have it?”

  “You’re DeVon Carter.”

  He has it.

  Malone can see it in his eyes.

  “So you want me to sell out my people,” Carter says, “to buy whites’ protection.”

  “You’ve been selling out your people since you put your first dime bag on the street,” Malone says.

  “This from a dirty, dope-slinging cop.”

  “That’s how I know,” Malone says. “We’re the same, you and me. We’re both dinosaurs, just trying to buy ourselves a little more time before we go extinct.”

  “Human nature,” Carter says. “A man wants to breathe for as long as he can. A king, he wants to stay on the throne. We were kings, Malone.”

  “We were that.”

  “We should have worked together,” Carter says. “We’d still be kings.”

  “We still can.”

  “If I give you that tape.”

  “It’s that simple,” Malone says. “You give me that tape, we’ll run Manhattan North together. Nobody can touch us.”