The Force: A Novel Read online

  Carter looked good, like he always does. Gray cashmere Brioni turtleneck sweater, charcoal Ralph Lauren slacks, large Gucci eyeglass frames.

  It got a little quiet in the place. There was the biggest drug slinger in Harlem and the cop trying to bust him sitting down with each other. Carter said, “As a matter of fact, we were just laughing about you.”

  “Yeah? What’s so funny about me?”

  “Your ‘Turkey Run,’” Carter said. “You give the people drumsticks. I give them money and dope. Who do you think is going to win that one?”

  “The real question,” Malone said, “is who’s going to win between you and the Domos?”

  The Pena bust slowed the Dominicans down a little, but it was just a setback. Some of Carter’s gangs were starting to look at the Dominicans as an option. They’re afraid they’re outnumbered and outgunned and are going to lose the marijuana business.

  So Carter is a polydrug merchandiser—he has to be. In addition to the smack that mostly leaves the city or at least goes to a mostly white customer base, he markets coke and marijuana as well, because to run his moneymaking heroin business he needs troops. He needs security, mules, communications people—he needs the gangs.

  The gangs have to make money, they have to eat.

  Carter doesn’t have a choice but to let “his” gangs deal weed—he has to, or the Dominicans will and they’ll take his business. They’ll either buy Carter’s gangs outright or just wipe them off the map, because without the weed money, the gangs couldn’t buy guns and they’d be helpless.

  His pyramid would crumble from the bottom.

  Malone wouldn’t care that much about the weed slinging except that 70 percent of the murders in Manhattan North are drug related.

  So you have Latino gangs fighting each other, you have black gangs fighting each other and, increasingly, you have black gangs fighting Latino gangs as the battle between their big-money heroin bosses escalates.

  “You took Pena off the count for me,” Carter said.

  “And not as much as a muffin basket.”

  “I heard you were well compensated.”

  It sent a jolt up Malone’s spine but he didn’t flinch. “Every time there’s a big bust, the ‘community’ says the cops ripped some off the top.”

  “That’s because every time they do.”

  “Here’s what you don’t understand,” Malone said. “Young black men used to pick cotton—now you are the cotton. You’re the raw product that gets fed into the machine, thousands of you every day.”

  “The prison-industrial complex,” Carter said. “I pay your salary.”

  “Don’t think I’m not grateful,” Malone said. “But if it’s not you, it would be someone else. Why do you think they call you the ‘Soul Survivor’? Because you’re black and you’re isolated and you’re the last of your kind. Used to be, white politicians would come kiss your ass looking for your votes. You don’t see that so much anymore because they don’t need you. They’re sucking up to Latinos, Asians, the dotheads. Fuck, even the Muslims have more swag than you do. You’re on your way out.”

  Carter smiled. “If I had a nickel for every time I heard that . . .”

  “You been to Pleasant Avenue lately?” Malone asked. “It’s Chinese. Inwood and the Heights? More Latinos every day. Your people in the Ville and Grant are starting to buy from the Domos; you’re even going to lose the Nickel soon. The Domos, the Mexicans, the PRs—they speak the same language, eat the same food, listen to the same music. They’ll sell to you, but partner with you? Forget it. The Mexicans give the local spics a wholesale price they don’t give you, and you just can’t compete, because a junkie ain’t got no loyalty to nothin’ but his arm.”

  “You betting on the Domos?” Carter asked.

  “I’m betting on me,” Malone said. “You know why? Because the machine keeps grinding.”

  Later that day a basket of muffins arrived at Manhattan North for Malone with a note saying that it cost $49.95, a nickel under the legal cost of a gift that a cop can accept.

  Captain Sykes was not amused.

  Now Malone rolls up Lenox, sitting in the back of a van with the doors open as Monty shouts, “Ho, ho, ho!,” while Malone tosses out turkeys with the benediction, “May Da Force be with you!”

  The unit’s unofficial motto.

  Which Sykes also don’t like because he thinks it’s “frivolous.” What the captain don’t understand is that being a cop up here is part show business. It’s not like they’re undercovers—they work with UCs, but undercovers don’t make busts.

  We make busts, Malone thinks, and some of them get in the papers with our smiling faces and what Sykes don’t get is that we have to have a presence here. An image. And the image has to be that Da Force is with you, not against you.

  Unless you’re slinging dope, assaulting people, raping women, doing drive-bys. Then Da Force is coming for your ass, and we’re going to get it.

  One way or the other.

  And the people up here know us anyway.

  Yelling back, “Fuck Da Force,” “Give me my motherfucking turkey, motherfuckers,” “You pigs, why you ain’t giving out pork?” Malone just laughs, it’s just busting balls, and most of the people don’t say anything or just a quiet “Thank you.” Because most of the people here are good people, trying to make a living, raise their kids, like most everyone else.

  Like Montague.

  The big man carries too much on his shoulders, Malone thinks, living in the Savoy Apartments with a wife and three sons, the oldest almost that age when you keep him or lose him to the streets—and more and more Montague worries about spending too much time away from his boys. Like tonight, he wants to be home with his family on Christmas Eve, but instead he’s out making their college money, handling his business as a father.

  Best thing a man can do for his kids—handle his motherfucking business.

  And they’re good boys, Montague’s boys, Malone thinks. Smart, polite, respectful.

  Malone is their “Uncle Denny.”

  And their named legal guardian. Him and Sheila are the guardians to Monty’s kids and Russo’s kids, should something happen. If the Montagues and the Russos go out to dinner together, like they sometimes do, Malone jokes they shouldn’t ride in the same car so he doesn’t inherit six more kids.

  Phil and Donna Russo are the named guardians for the Malone children. Denny and Sheila go down in a plane crash or something—an increasingly unlikely scenario—John and Caitlin go live with the Russos.

  It isn’t that Malone don’t trust Montague—Monty might be the best father he’s ever seen and the kids love him—but Phil is his brother. Another Staten Island boy, he’s not only Malone’s partner, he’s his best friend. They grew up together, went through the Academy together. The slick guinea has saved Malone’s life more times than he can count and Malone has returned the favor.

  He’d take a bullet for Russo.

  For Monty, too.

  Now a little kid, maybe eight, is giving Monty a hard time. “Santa don’t smoke no motherfuckin’ cigar.”

  “This one does. And watch your mouth.”

  “How come?”

  “You want a turkey or not?” Monty asks. “Quit busting balls.”

  “Santa don’t say ‘balls.’”

  “Let Santa be, take your turkey.” The Reverend Cornelius Hampton walks up to the van and the crowd parts for him like the Red Sea he’s always preaching about in his “let my people go” sermons.

  Malone looks at the famous face, the conked silver hair, the placid expression. Hampton is a community activist, a civil rights leader, a frequent guest on television talk shows, CNN and MSNBC.

  Reverend Hampton has never seen a camera he didn’t like, Malone thinks. Hampton gets more airtime than Judge Judy.

  Monty hands him a turkey. “For the church, Reverend.”

  “Not that turkey,” Malone says. “This one.”

  He reaches back and selects a bird, hand
s it to Hampton. “It’s fatter.”

  Heavier, too, with the stuffing.

  Twenty large in cash stuck up the turkey’s ass, this courtesy of Lou Savino, the Harlem capo for the Cimino family and the boys on Pleasant Avenue.

  “Thank you, Sergeant Malone,” Hampton says. “This will go to feed the poor and the homeless.”

  Yeah, Malone thinks, maybe some of it.

  “Merry Christmas,” Hampton says.

  “Merry Christmas.”

  Malone spots Nasty Ass.

  Junkie-bopping at the edge of the little parade, his long skinny neck tucked into the collar of the North Face down jacket Malone bought him so he don’t freeze to death out in the streets.

  Nasty Ass is one of Malone’s CIs, a “criminal informant,” his special snitch, although Malone’s never filed a folder on him. A junkie and a small-time dealer, his info is usually good. Nasty Ass got his street name because he always smells like he has a round in the chamber. If you can, you want to talk to Nasty Ass in the open air.

  Now he comes up to the back of the van, his thin frame shivering, because he’s either cold or jonesing. Malone hands him a turkey, although where the hell Nasty is going to cook it is a mystery, because the man usually flops out in shooting galleries.

  Nasty Ass says, “218 One-Eight-Four. About eleven.”

  “What’s he doing there?” Malone asks.

  “Gettin’ his dick wet.”

  “You know this for sure.”

  “Dead ass. He told me hisself.”

  “This pans out, it’s a payday for you,” Malone says. “And find a fuckin’ toilet, for Chrissakes, huh?”

  “Merry Christmas,” Nasty Ass says.

  He walks away with the turkey. Maybe he can sell it, Malone thinks, score a fix-up shot.

  A man on the sidewalk yells, “I don’t want no cop turkey! Michael Bennett, he can’t eat no fucking turkey, can he!?”

  Well, that’s true, Malone thinks.

  That’s the cold truth.

  Then he sees Marcus Sayer.

  The boy’s face is swollen and purple, his bottom lip cut open as he asks for a turkey.

  Marcus’s mother, a fat lazy idiot, opens the door a crack and sees the gold shield.

  “Let me in, Lavelle,” Malone says. “I have a turkey for you.”

  He does, he has a turkey under his arm and eight-year-old Marcus by the hand.

  She slides the chain lock off and opens the door. “Is he in trouble? Marcus, what you do?”

  Malone nudges Marcus in front of him and steps inside. He sets the turkey on the kitchen counter, or what he can see of it under the empty bottles, ashtrays and general filth.

  “Where’s Dante?” Malone asks.

  “Sleepin’.”

  Malone pulls up Marcus’s jacket and plaid shirt and shows her the welts on his back. “Dante do this?”

  “What Marcus tell you?”

  “He didn’t tell me nothin’,” Malone says.

  Dante comes out of the bedroom. Lavelle’s newest man is brolic, has to go six seven, all of it muscle and mean. He’s drunk now, his eyes yellow and bloodshot, and he looms over Malone. “What you want?”

  “What did I tell you I was going to do if you beat this boy again?”

  “You was going to break my wrist.”

  Malone has the nightstick out and twirls it like a baton, bringing it down on Dante’s right wrist, snapping it like a Popsicle stick. Dante bellows and swings with his left. Malone ducks, goes low and brings the stick across Dante’s shins. The man goes down like a felled tree.

  “So there you go,” Malone says.

  “This is police brutality.”

  Malone steps on Dante’s neck and uses his other foot to kick him up the ass, hard, three times. “You see Al Sharpton here? Television crews? Lavelle here holding up a cell phone? There ain’t no police brutality if the cameras aren’t running.”

  “The boy disrespected me,” Dante groans. “I disciplined him.”

  Marcus stands there wide-eyed; he’s never seen big Dante get jacked up before and he kind of likes it. Lavelle, she just knows she’s in for another ass-kicking when the cop leaves.

  Malone steps down harder. “I see him with bruises again, I see him with welts, I’m going to discipline you. I’m going to shove this stick up your ass and pull it out your mouth. Then Big Monty and me are going to set your feet in cement and dump you in Jamaica Bay. Now get out. You don’t live here anymore.”

  “You can’t tell me where I can live!”

  “I just did.” Malone lets his foot off Dante’s neck. “Why you still laying there, bitch?”

  Dante gets up, holds his broken wrist and grimaces in pain.

  Malone sees his coat and tosses it to him.

  “What about my shoes?” Dante asks. “They in the bedroom.”

  “You go barefoot,” Malone says. “You walk barefoot in the snow to the E-room and tell them what happens to grown men who beat up little boys.”

  Dante stumbles out the door.

  Malone knows everyone will be talking about it tonight. The word will get passed—maybe you beat little kids in Brooklyn, in Queens, but not in Manhattan North, not in the Kingdom of Malone.

  He turns to Lavelle. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Don’t I need love, too?”

  “Love your kid,” Malone says. “I see this again, you go to jail, he goes in the system. Is that what you want?”

  “No.”

  “Then straighten up.” He takes a twenty from his pocket. “This ain’t for Little Debbies. There’s still time for you to go shopping, put something under the tree.”

  “Ain’t got a tree.”

  “It’s an expression.”

  Jesus Christ.

  He squats down in front of Marcus. “Anybody hurts you, anybody threatens to hurt you—you come to me, to Monty, Russo, anyone on Da Force. Okay?”

  Marcus nods.

  Yeah, maybe, Malone thinks. Maybe there’s a chance the kid don’t grow up hating every cop.

  Malone’s no fool—he knows he isn’t going to stop every child beating in Manhattan North or even most of them. Or most of any other crime. And it bothers him—it’s his turf, his responsibility. Everything that happens in Manhattan North is on him. He knows that isn’t realistic either, but it’s the way he feels.

  Everything that happens in the kingdom is on the king.

  He finds Lou Savino at D’Amore over on 116th in what they used to call Spanish Harlem.

  Before that it was Italian Harlem.

  Now it’s on the way to becoming Asian Harlem.

  Malone edges his way back to the bar.

  Savino is a capo in the Cimino family with a crew based on the old Pleasant Avenue turf. They’re into construction rackets, unions, shylocking, gambling—the usual mob shit—but Malone knows Lou also slings dope.

  But not in Manhattan North.

  Malone has assured him that if any of his shit ever shows up in the hood, all bets are off—it will blow back on his other businesses. It’s pretty much always been the police deal with the mob—the wiseguys wanted to run hookers, to run gambling—card games, backroom casinos, the numbers racket before the state took it over, called it the lottery and made it a civic virtue—they gave a monthly envelope to the cops.

  It was called the “pad.”

  Usually one cop from every precinct was the bagman—he’d collect the payoff and distribute it out to his fellow officers. The patrolmen would kick up to the sergeants, the sergeants to the lieutenants, the lieutenants to the captains, the captains to the inspectors, the inspectors to the chiefs.

  Everyone got a taste.

  And most everybody considered it “clean money.”

  Cops in those days (shit, Malone thinks, cops in these days) made a distinction between “clean money” and “dirty money.” Clean money was mostly from gambling; dirty money was from drugs and violent crimes—the rare occasions when a wiseguy would try to buy off a mu
rder, an armed robbery, a rape or a violent assault. While almost every cop would take clean money, it was the rare one who took money that had drugs or blood on it.

  Even the wiseguys knew the difference and accepted the fact that the same cop who’d take gambling money on Tuesday would arrest the same gangster on Thursday for dealing smack or committing a murder.

  Everyone knew the rules.

  Lou Savino is one of those mob guys who thinks he’s at a wedding and doesn’t realize it’s actually a wake.

  He prays at the altar of dead false gods.

  Tries to hold up an image of what he thinks used to be but in fact didn’t exist except maybe in the movies. The fuckin’ guy wants so bad to be something that never was, even the ghost image of which is now fading into black.

  The guys of Savino’s generation liked what they saw in the movies and wanted to be that. So Lou ain’t trying to be Lefty Ruggiero, he’s trying to be Al Pacino being Lefty Ruggiero. He ain’t trying to be Tommy DeSimone, he’s going for Joe Pesci being Tommy DeSimone, not being Jake Amari but James Gandolfini.

  Those were good shows, Malone thinks, but Jesus, Lou, they were shows. But people point to the spot a couple of blocks away from here where Sonny Corleone beat up Carlo Rizzi with a trash can lid like it really happened, not to the spot where Francis Ford Coppola filmed James Caan pretending to beat up Gianni Russo.

  Yeah well, Malone thinks, every institution survives on its own mythology, the NYPD included.

  Savino wears a black silk shirt under a pearl-gray Armani jacket and sits sipping a Seven and Seven. Why the hell anyone would dump soda into good whiskey is a mystery to Malone, but to each his own.

  “Hey, it’s the cop di tutti cops!” Savino gets up and hugs him. The envelope slides effortlessly from Savino’s jacket into Malone’s. “Merry Christmas, Denny.”

  Christmas is an important time in the wiseguy community—it’s when everyone gets their yearly bonuses, often in the tens of thousands of dollars. And the weight of the envelope is a barometer as to your standing in the crew—the heavier the envelope, the higher your status.

  Malone’s envelope has nothing to do with that.

  It’s for his services as a bagman.

  Easy money—just meet a person here and there—a bar, a diner, the playground in Riverside Park—slip them an envelope. They already know what it’s for, it’s all been worked out; Malone is just the delivery guy because these good citizens don’t want to take a chance they’re seen with a known wiseguy.