The Force. Don Winslow
were patrolling the South Bronx, the senior man had been with the unit for only two years, the other three for three months. They had no supervisor with them, they didn’t know each other, they didn’t know the neighborhood.
So when Amadou Diallo looked like he was pulling a gun, one of the cops started firing and the others joined in.
“Contagious shooting,” the experts call it.
The infamous forty-one shots.
SCU was disbanded.
The four cops were indicted, all were acquitted. Something the community remembered when Michael Bennett was shot.
But it’s complicated—the fact is that SCU was effective in getting guns off the street, so more black people were probably killed as a result of the unit being disbanded than were shot by cops.
Ten years ago there was the predecessor to the Task Force—NMI, the Northern Manhattan Institute—forty-one detectives working narcotics in Harlem and Washington Heights. One of them ripped over $800,000 from dealers; his partner came in second with $740,000. The feds got them as collateral damage from a money-laundering sting. One of the cops got seven years, the other six. The unit commander got a year and change for taking his cut.
Puts a chill on everyone, seeing cops led out in cuffs.
But it doesn’t stop it.
Seems about every twenty years there’s a corruption scandal and a new commission.
So creating the Task Force was a hard sell.
It took time, influence and lobbying, but the Manhattan North Special Task Force was created.
The mission is simple—take back the streets.
Malone knows the unspoken agenda—we don’t care what you do or how you do it (as long as it doesn’t make the papers), just keep the animals in their cage.
“And what can I do for you, Denny?” McGivern asks now.
“We got a UC named Callahan,” Malone says, “going down the rabbit hole. I’d like to get him pulled out before he hurts himself.”
“Did you go to Sykes?”
“I don’t want to hurt the kid,” Malone says. “He’s a good cop, he’s just been under too long.”
McGivern takes a pen from his jacket pocket and draws a circle on a cocktail napkin.
Then he put two dots inside the circle.
“These two dots, Denny, that’s you and me. Inside the circle. You ask me to do a favor for you, that’s inside the circle. This Callahan …” He makes a dot outside the circle. “That’s him. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“Why am I asking a favor for someone outside the circle.”
“This once, Denny,” McGivern says. “But you need to understand that if it comes back on me, I drop it on you.”
“Got it.”
“There’s an opening in Anti-Crime in the Two-Five,” McGivern says. “I’ll call Johnny over there, he owes me a favor, he’ll take your kid.”
“Thank you.”
“We need more heroin arrests,” McGivern says, getting up. “The chief of Narcotics is all over me. Make it snow, Denny. Give us a white Christmas.”
He makes his way through the crowded bar, glad-handing and slapping shoulders on his way out the door.
Malone feels sad all of a sudden.
Maybe it’s the adrenaline dump.
Maybe it’s the Christmas blues.
He gets up and goes over to the jukebox, drops in some quarters and finds what he’s looking for.
The Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York.”
A Christmas Eve tradition of Malone’s.
It was Christmas Eve, babe, in the drunk tank,
An old man said to me, “Won’t see another one.”
Malone knows that Sykes is the bright-eyed boy down at Police Plaza, but he wonders exactly with who and how deep. Sykes is out to hurt him, no question.
But I’m a hero, Malone thinks, mocking himself.
Now at least half the cops in the bar start singing along with the chorus. They should be home with their families, those that still have them, but instead they’re here, with their booze, their memories, with each other.
And the boys of the NYPD Choir were singing “Galway Bay”
And the bells are ringing out for Christmas Day.
It’s a freezing night in Harlem.
Dumb cold.
The kind of cold where the dirty snow crunches under your feet and you can see your breath. It’s after ten and not a lot of people on the street. Even most of the bodegas are closed, the heavy metal gates, graffiti-strewn, pulled down and the bars over the windows shut. A few cabs prowl for business, a couple of junkies move like ghosts.
The unmarked Crown Vic rolls north on Amsterdam and now they’re not handing out turkeys, they’re about to dish out the pain. Pain’s nothing new to the people up here, it’s a condition of life.
It’s Christmas Eve and cold and clean and quiet.
Nobody’s expecting anything to happen.
Which is what Malone’s counting on, that Fat Teddy Bailey is fat, happy and complacent. Malone’s been working for weeks with Nasty Ass to pin the midlevel smack dealer with shit on him when he’s not expecting it.
Russo’s singing.
You better not shout, you better not cry,
You better not pout, I’m tellin’ you why.
Santa Smack is coming to town.
He turns right on 184th, where Nasty Ass said Fat Teddy would be coming to get his rocks off.
“Too cold for the lookouts,” Malone says, because he doesn’t see the usual kids and no one starts whistling to let anyone interested know that Da Force is on the street.
“Black people don’t do cold,” Monty says. “When’s the last time you saw a brother on a ski slope?”
Fat Teddy’s Caddy is parked outside 218.
“Nasty Ass, my man,” Malone says.
He knows when you are sleeping.
He knows when you’re awake.
He knows when you’re just nodding out …
“You want to take him now?” Monty asks.
“Let the guy get laid,” Malone says. “It’s Christmas.”
“Ahh, Christmas Eve,” Russo says as they sit in the car. “The eggnog spiked with rum, the presents under the tree, the wife just tipsy enough to give up la fica, and we sit here in the jungle freezing our asses off.”
Malone pulls a flask out of his jacket pocket and hands it to him.
“I’m on duty,” Russo says. He takes a long draw and hands the flask to the backseat. Big Monty takes a hit and passes it back to Malone.
They wait.
“How long can that fat fuck fuck?” Russo asks. “He take Viagra? I hope he didn’t have a heart attack.”
Malone gets out of the car.
Russo covers him as Malone squats beside Fat