The Force. Don Winslow

cause.

      Malone doesn’t bother saying this. Sykes already knows.

      “Intel,” Sykes says, “indicates that Carter is negotiating a major firearms purchase. Serious weapons—assault rifles, automatic pistols, even rocket launchers.”

      “Where are you getting this?”

      “Despite your opinion,” Sykes says, “you’re not the only one who does police work out of this building. If Carter is looking for that kind of weaponry, it means he’s going to war against the Dominicans.”

      “I agree.”

      “Good,” Sykes says. “I don’t want that war fought on my turf. I don’t want to see that level of bloodshed. I want that shipment stopped.”

      Yeah, Malone thinks, you want it stopped, but you want it stopped your way—“no cowboy bullshit, no illegal wires, no booming, no dropping your own dime.” He’s heard the whole speech before.

      “I grew up in Brooklyn,” Sykes says. “In the Marcy projects.”

      Malone knows the story—it’s been in the papers, paraded on the Job’s website: “From the projects to the precinct—black officer fights his way from the gangs to the upper echelon of the NYPD.” How Sykes turned his life around, got a scholarship to Brown, came home to “make a difference.”

      Malone ain’t about to burst into tears.

      But it has to be tough, being a black cop in a high position. Everyone looks at you different—to the people in the precinct you ain’t quite black, to the cops in the house you ain’t quite blue. Malone wonders which Sykes is to himself, or if he even knows. So, it’s gotta be tough, especially these days, all the racial shit going down.

      “I know what you think of me,” Sykes says. “Empty suit. Token black careerist. ‘Move on and move up’?”

      “Pretty much, we’re being honest, sir.”

      “The suits want to make Manhattan North safe for white money,” Sykes says. “I want to make it safe for black people. Is that honest enough for you?”

      “Yeah, that’ll do.”

      “I know you think you’re protected by the Pena bust, your other heroics, by McGivern and the Irish-Italian Club downtown at One Police,” Sykes says. “But let me tell you something, Malone; you have enemies down there just waiting for you to slip on the banana peel so they can walk all over you.”

      “And you’re not.”

      “Right now I need you,” Sykes says. “I need you and your team to keep DeVon Carter from turning my streets into a slaughterhouse. You do that for me, I’ll, yes, move on and move up and leave you with your little kingdom here. You don’t do that for me, you’re just a white pain in my black ass and I will have you moved so far from Manhattan North you’ll be wearing a fucking sombrero to work.”

      Try it, motherfucker, Malone thinks.

      Try it, see what happens.

      The fucked-up part, though, is they both want the same thing. They don’t want those guns getting on the streets.

      And they’re my streets, Malone thinks, not yours.

      He says, “I can stop that shipment. I don’t know if I can stop that shipment by the book.”

      So how bad do you want them stopped, Captain Sykes?

      He sits there and watches Sykes consider his own deal with the devil.

      Then Sykes says, “I want reports, Sergeant. And everything you report to me had better be by the book. I want to know where you are and what you’re doing there. Do we understand each other?”

      Perfectly, Malone thinks.

      We’re all corrupt.

      Just each in our own way.

      And it’s a peace offering—if this turns into a big bust, I bring you with me this time. You star in the movie, get your picture in the Post, a boost in your career. And no one gives a fuck about Manhattan North’s numbers until you’re up and out.

      “Merry Christmas, Captain,” Malone says.

      “Merry Christmas, Malone.”

       CHAPTER 4

      Malone started the Turkey Run, what, five years ago, when the Task Force came into being and he thought they needed a little positive PR in the neighborhood.

      Everyone up here knows the detectives from Da Force anyway, and it doesn’t hurt to spread a little love and goodwill toward men. You never know when some kid who ate turkey instead of going hungry on Christmas is going to decide to cut you a break, give you a tip.

      It’s a point of pride with Malone that the turkeys come out of his own pocket. Lou Savino and the wiseguys over on Pleasant Avenue would cheerfully donate turkeys that fell off the backs of trucks, but Malone knows the community would get wind of that right away. So he accepts a discount on the turkeys from a food wholesaler whose double-parked trucks don’t get ticketed, but he pays the rest of the freight himself.

      Shit, one decent bust more than makes up for it.

      Malone doesn’t kid himself that the same people who take his turkeys won’t be dropping “airmail”—bottles, cans, dirty diapers—on him from the upper floors of the project buildings the day after tomorrow. One time someone dropped an entire air-conditioning unit from the nineteenth floor that missed Malone’s head by about an inch.

      Malone knows the Turkey Run is just a truce.

      Now he goes down to the locker room where Big Monty is getting into the Santa costume.

      Malone laughs. “You look good.”

      Well, actually ridiculous. A big black man, normally reserved and dignified, with a red Santa cap and a big beard. “A black Santa?”

      “Diversity,” Malone says. “I read it on the Job’s website.”

      “Anyway,” Russo says to Montague, “you’re not Santa Claus, you’re Crack Claus. Who would be black up here. And you got the belly.”

      Montague says, “Ain’t my fault every time I fuck your wife she makes me a sandwich.”

      Russo laughs. “More than she makes me.”

      Used to be it was Billy O played Santa, even though he was skinnier than a rail. He freakin’ loved it, shoving a pillow under the suit, joking with the kids, handing out the turkeys. Now it’s fallen on Monty, even though he’s black.

      Monty adjusts the beard and looks at Malone. “You know they sell those turkeys. We might as well just cut out the middleman and hand them crack.”

      Malone knows every turkey ain’t gonna make it to the table, that a lot of them will go straight to the pipe or into arms or up noses. Those turkeys will go to the dealers, who’ll sell them to the bodegas, who’ll put them on the shelves and make a profit. But most of the turkeys will make it home, and life is a numbers game. Some kids will get Christmas dinner because of his turkeys, others won’t.

      Has to be good enough.

      DeVon Carter doesn’t think it’s even close to good enough. Carter, he laughed at Malone’s Christmas Turkey Run.

      This was a month or so ago.

      Malone, Russo and Monty were having lunch at Sylvia’s, each of them digging into some stewed turkey wings, when Monty looked up and said, “Guess who’s here.”

      Malone glanced over at the bar and saw DeVon Carter.

      Russo said, “You want to get the check and go?”

      “No