The Force

by Don Winslow

The people, they don’t know what it takes sometimes to keep them safe and it’s better that they don’t. They may think they want to know, they may say they want to know, but they don’t.

Malone’s crew laid their partner in the ground—bagpipes, folded flag, black ribbons over shields—and went right back to work because the slingers and the gangs and the robbers and the rapists and the wiseguys, they don’t take time off to grieve. You wanna keep your streets safe, you gotta be on those streets—days, nights, weekends, holidays, whatever it takes, and your wives, they knew what they signed up for, and your kids, they learn to understand that’s what Daddy does, he puts the bad guys behind bars.

When Malone was a kid, the nuns taught him that even before we’re born, God—and only God—knows the days of our lives and the day of our death and who and what we’ll become. Well, I wish he’d fucking shared it with me, Malone thinks.

No, he started with his eyes firmly on the guiding star, his feet planted on the path, but that’s the thing about the life you walk—you start out pointed true north, but you vary one degree off, it doesn’t matter for maybe one year, five years, but as the years stack up you’re just walking farther and farther away from where you started out to go, you don’t even know you’re lost until you’re so far from your original destination you can’t even see it anymore.

Dead gods don’t rise again except in fairy tales.

And a dog barking. Fuck, Malone thinks, all the narcos got ’em now. Just like every chick on the East Side has a yapping little Yorkie in her handbag these days, the slingers got pit bulls. It’s a good idea—the spooks are scared shitless of dogs and the chicas working in the mills won’t risk getting their faces chewed off for stealing.

She texts back, Xmas crazy but OK. Yeah, Christmas Crazy. Always crazy in New York, Malone thinks. If it ain’t Christmas Crazy, it’s New Year’s Eve Crazy (drunks), or Valentine’s Day Crazy (domestic disputes skyrocket and the gays get into bar fights), St. Paddy’s Crazy (drunk cops), Fourth of July Crazy, Labor Day Crazy. What we need is a holiday from the holidays. Just take a year off from any of them, see how it works out.

What the public at large doesn’t understand is that the city’s jails have become its de facto mental hospitals and detox centers. Three-quarters of the prisoners they check in test positive for drugs or are psychotic, or both. They belong in hospitals but don’t have the insurance.

the Times says there’s a “heroin epidemic,” Malone thinks. Which is only an epidemic, of course, because now white people are dying.

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.

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.

Not enough bad things can happen to Hizzoner to make Malone happy, and most of his brother and sister cops share this opinion because the motherfucker throws them under the bus every chance he gets. Didn’t back them on Garner, on Gurley, on Bennett. He knows where his votes come from, so he panders to the minority community and he’s done everything but toss Black Lives Matter’s collective salad.

now Hizzoner is running his own shakedown for campaign funds and he’s come out with an almost comical defense, offering to release a list of big donors that he didn’t do favors for. There’s talk of indictments, and of the 38,000 cops on the Job, about 37,999 have volunteered to show up with the cuffs.

When Sheila pissed two blue lines, it was Russo that Malone went to first, Russo who told him there were no questions, only one right answer and he wanted to be best man. “That’s old-school shit,” Malone said. “That was our parents, our grandparents, it don’t necessarily work that way anymore.” “The fuck it don’t,” Russo said. “We are old school, Denny, we’re East Shore Staten Island. You may think you’re modern and shit, but you ain’t. Neither is Sheila. What, don’t you love her?” “I dunno.” “You loved her enough to fuck her,” Russo said. “I know you, Denny, you can’t be one of them jackoff absentee father sperm donors. That’s not you.” So Russo was his best man.

Malone knows the East Coast Motherfuckers are a motorcycle club deep in weed and weapons. Affiliate charters in Georgia and the Carolinas. But they’re racist, white supremacists. “ECMF would do business with black?” “I guess black money spend the same.” Fat Teddy shrugs. “And they don’t mind helping black kill black.”

The prevailing attitude on Staten Island is that men can leave their wives, but only black men leave their kids. Which isn’t fair, Malone thinks—Bill Montague’s probably the best father he knows—but that’s what people think, that black men go around knockin’ they bitches up and then stick white people with the welfare bill.

“The fuck you been?” Phil asks. “You missed dinner.” “Got a late start.” “Bullshit,” Phil says, showing him in. “You been out doing that Irish brooding thing, you dumbass donkey. Come on, Donna will fix you a plate.”

Malone won’t go on a pad. He’ll rip drug dealers, work the system with them, but he don’t want to be an employee or a wholly owned subsidiary. Still, he ain’t going to war with Torres. Life is good right now, and when life is good, you leave it the fuck alone.

“Levin here,” Russo says, “doesn’t know about the Easter Bunny.” “I know about the Easter Bunny,” Levin says. “What I mean is I don’t understand the connection between your savior being nailed to a cross and then resurrected, which is a doubtful premise to begin with, and a rabbit coming around and burying candy eggs, especially as a rabbit is a mammal that does live births.”

“Hey, check it out,” Russo says, pointing to the television bracketed to the wall. The mayor is standing out in front of St. Nick’s talking to the press. “My administration will not tolerate,” he’s saying, “and this city will not tolerate, violence in our public housing.” An old man sitting near the television laughs. The mayor says, “I have instructed our police force to spare no effort in finding the guilty party or parties, and I promise you, we will. The people of Harlem, the people of New York City can know, and can trust, that this administration believes that black lives matter.” “Bullshit!” the old man yells.

“The Post, the Daily News . . . the ‘community’ is all over us.” From two directions, Malone thinks. On the one hand, they want the violence in the projects to stop; on the other, they’re out there protesting against the police sweep of the gangs that’s been going on since the Gillette-Williams murders this morning. Well, which do they want, because they can’t have both.

Malone has known Ned Chandler for maybe forty seconds and already wants to smack the elitist asshole. Guy has to be in his early thirties, wears a checked shirt with a knit tie under a gray cardigan sweater and tan cords. Malone hates him just for that.

She stands at the counter and puts together the salad she has for lunch, carefully arranging the ingredients in a plastic container. “I get you think that only other cops can understand what you go through. Y’all feel aggrieved because you’re blamed for killing Freddie Gray or Michael Bennett. But you don’t know how it feels to be blamed because you are Freddie Gray or Michael Bennett. You think people hate you because of what you do, but you don’t have to think that people hate you because of what you are. You can take that blue jacket off, I live twenty-four seven in this skin. “Here’s what you can’t understand, Denny—what you can’t understand, because you’re a white man, is the sheer . . . weight . . . of being black in this country. The sheer exhausting weight that presses your shoulders down and tires your eyes and makes it hurt just to walk sometimes.” She presses the lid on. “And you were right last night—sometimes I do hate my patients and I’m tired, Denny, tired of cleaning up the things they do to each other, we do to each other, and sometimes I hate them because they’re black like me and because it makes me wonder about myself.” She puts the container in her bag. “So that’s what we go through, baby,” Claudette says. “Every damn day.

Those days, the Job sucked down black candidates like salt peanuts. You were AA, had two legs and could see beyond your thumbs, you were in. They didn’t expect a black candidate to have an IQ of 126, though, which is what Monty tested. Big, brilliant, black, he had “detective” written all over him from day one. Even the cops who hate blacks give him his props. He’s one of the most highly respected cops on the Job.

And on the rare occasion when a girl goes rogue and tries to blackmail one or more of the clients, Malone takes care of that, too. He pays her a visit, explains the legal ramifications of what she’s trying to do, and then describes what the women’s jail is like for a very attractive, spoiled girl like herself and explains that if he has to handcuff her it is likely the last bracelet she will ever receive from a man. She usually takes the proffered airline ticket instead.

Russo finally comes in with a brunette named Tawny who reminds Malone of Donna. Classic, Malone thinks, the guy cheats on his wife with a woman who looks like his wife.

“Who does she score from?” “Slinger named Frankie.” “White guy?” Malone asks. “Works Lincoln Playground?” “That’s him.” Malone gives him a twenty. “White people are cheap.” “That’s why we have the money,” Malone says. “Get out.”

the Job’s taking it from all sides. The protesters are out, the activists are calling for action and the tension between the police and the community is worse than ever. And still no call from the Bennett grand jury. So when black guys aren’t shooting black people, the cops are shooting black people. Either way, Malone thinks, black people die. And he goes on being a cop. New York goes on being New York. The world goes on being the world.

If the world played fair, he’d play fair. But the cards are stacked against the prosecutors and police. Miranda, Mapp, all the other Supreme Court decisions, give the advantage to the skels. It’s like the NFL these days—the league wants touchdown passes, so a defensive back can’t even touch a receiver. We’re the poor defensive backs, Malone thinks, trying to keep the bad guys from scoring.

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.”

“I hear rumors,” McGivern says, “that it isn’t IAB, it’s the feds.” “Which feds?” “Southern District,” McGivern says. “That Spanish bitch. She has ambitions, Denny.” McGivern makes it sound dirty. Ambitions, like she has crabs. Like being ambitious makes her a whore.

Malone looks across the river at Jersey. Only good thing about living there, he thinks, is you have a view of New York.

“You’re famous, Sergeant Malone,” Rubenstein says. They’re sitting upstairs at the Landmark Tavern. “Nah,” Malone says. Malone can’t tell if Rubenstein’s gay or not, like Russo thought, but Russo thinks all journalists are gay, even the women.

“I heard on the street he was practically DeVon Carter’s bodyguard.” “I hear all kinds of shit on the street,” Malone says. “Did you know Jack Kennedy is managing an Applebee’s on Mars? Trump is the love child of reptilians who live under Madison Square Garden? In the current environment, the ‘community’ will believe anything bad about cops, and repeat it, and it becomes ‘truth.’”

“North Carolina,” Russo says. “You don’t want to stay in the city?” “The boys,” Monty says, “especially the two older ones, are getting to that mouthy age. They don’t want to do what they’re told, they want to talk back. The truth of it is, I don’t want them talking smack to the wrong cop and getting shot.” “The fuck, Monty?” Russo says. So this is what it’s come to, Malone thinks—a black cop is afraid another cop is going to shoot his kid. “It’s not something the two of you have to think about,” Monty says. “Your kids are white, but it’s something Yo and I have to think about. Scares her half to death; if it isn’t a cop, it’s some banger.” “Black kids get shot in the South,” Malone says. “Not like up here,” Monty says.

Like all the other cops at the funeral, Malone is in full dress. His blue jacket, white gloves, a black band over his gold shield, his other medals. Malone doesn’t have a lot—he don’t like medals because you have to put yourself up for them, and that strikes him as pussy. He knows what he’s done. So does everyone who matters.

And then there’s Rafael Ramos. It doesn’t seem like two years have gone by since he and another cop, Wenjian Liu, were shot as they sat in their radio car in Bed-Stuy. The whack job who did it said it was revenge for Eric Garner and Michael Brown. Said he was putting “Wings on Pigs.” Had the sense to blow his own brains out before the NYPD got to him. The gun he used came through the Iron Pipeline. Where were the fucking demonstrations then? Malone wonders. Where were the signs that said “Blue Lives Matter”?

“Yes or no?” “Deal,” Savino says. “Only because I don’t feel like standing out in a graveyard any longer. Gives me the creeps.” Yeah, Malone thinks. Nothing like a graveyard to bring it home someday you’ll have to pay, answer for what you’ve done. Fuckin’ nuns.

She starts laying out candy bars, packages of cookies and granola bars. Then apples and bananas and juice boxes. “Some of the mothers want us to have kale. How the hell we supposed to put out kale?” “What’s kale?” “Exactly, huh?” I guess, Malone thinks. He really doesn’t know what kale is.

His old priests might have told him that there are sins of commission and sins of omission, that it’s not always the things you do, but the things you don’t that cost you your soul. That sometimes it’s not the spoken lie but the unspoken truth that opens the door to betrayal.

he looks at him like he don’t know if he believes him. But he says, “Thanks, huh? For handling that thing.” “Go fuck yourself.” On Staten Island, it’s an expression of affection.

He goes into the bathroom, strips and steps into the shower. His body aches. Malone scrubs his skin until it hurts. Can’t scrub off the welt, can’t scrub off the filth he feels on his skin, in his soul. His old man used to come home from the Job and step right into the shower—now he knows why. The street stays with you. It sinks into your pores and then your blood. And your soul? Malone asks himself. You gonna blame that on the street, too?

Malone walks over to the window. “It is a beautiful fucking city, isn’t it? I used to love it like my life.”

Berger says, “You’ve always hated defense attorneys. Thought we were the scum of the earth, helping guilty people to escape justice. Now you know, Denny, why we exist. When the small guy gets caught in the system—if he has a vowel at the end of his name, or God help him he’s black or Hispanic, or even a cop—the machine just grinds him down. It’s not a fair fight. Lady Justice has a blindfold over her eyes because she just can’t bear to watch what happens.”

Claudette stands in the doorway of her apartment, not letting him in. She’s clean, newly clean, her sobriety delicate, fragile, a porcelain cup that would shatter at a harsh sound.