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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 murder, 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.
They’re city officials—the kind who award contract bids.
That’s where the Cimino profit center is.
The Cimino borgata gets a piece of everything—a kickback from the contractor for getting him the bid, then the concrete, the rebar, the electrical, the plumbing. Otherwise, these unions find a problem and shut the project down.
Everyone thought the mob was done after RICO, Giuliani, the Commission case, the Windows case.
And they were.
Then the Towers came down.
Overnight, the feds shifted three-quarters of their personnel into antiterrorism and the mob made a comeback. Shit, they even made a fortune overcharging for debris removal from Ground Zero. Louie used to brag they took in sixty-three million.
Nine/eleven saved the Mafia.
It’s not clear now who’s in charge of the Cimino family, but the smart money is on Stevie Bruno. Did ten years on a RICO case, been out three now and is moving up fast. Very insulated, lives out in Jersey, rarely comes into the city, even for a meal.
So they’re back, although they’ll never be what they were.
Savino signals the bartender to get Malone a drink. The bartender already knows it’s a Jameson’s straight up.
They sit back down and go through the ritual dance—how’s the family, fine, how’s yours, all good, how’s business, you know another day another dollar behind, the usual bullshit.
“You touch the good reverend?” Savino asks.
“He got his turkey,” Malone says. “A couple of your people tuned up a bar owner on Lenox the other night, guy named Osborne.”
“What, you got a monopoly on beating up moolies?”
“Yeah, I do,” Malone says.
“He came up light on his vig,” Savino says. “Two weeks in a row.”
“Don’t show me up and do it on the street, where everyone sees,” Malone says. “Things are tense enough in the ‘community.’”
“Hey, just because one of your guys capped a kid means I gotta issue some kind of hall pass?” Savino asks. “This dumb shit bets on the Knicks. The Knicks, Denny. Then he don’t pay me my money. What am I supposed to do?”
“Just don’t do it on my beat.”
“Jesus fuck, Merry Christmas, I’m glad you came in tonight,” Savino says. “Anything else squeezing your shoes?”
“No, that’s it.”
“Thank you, St. Anthony.”
“You get a good envelope?”
Savino shrugs. “You want to know something … you and me? The bosses these days, they’re cheap cocksuckers. This guy, he has a house in Jersey overlooks the river, a tennis court … He barely comes into the city anymore. He did ten inside, okay, I get it … but he thinks that means he gets to eat with both hands, no one minds. You know something? I mind.”
“Lou, shit, there are ears in here.”
“Fuck them,” Savino says. He orders another drink. “Here’s something might interest you, you know what I heard? I heard that maybe all the smack from that Pena bust made you a rock star didn’t make it to the evidence locker.”
Jesus Christ, is everyone talking about this? “Bullshit.”
“Yeah, probably,” Savino says. “Because it would have shown up on the street already, and it hasn’t. Someone went French Connection, I guess they’re sitting on it.”
“Yeah, well, don’t guess.”
“You’re fucking sensitive tonight,” Savino says. “I’m just saying, someone’s sitting on some weight, looking to lay it off …”
Malone sets down his glass. “I gotta go.”
“Places to be, people to see,” Savino says. “Buon Natale, Malone.”
“Yeah, you too.”
Malone walks out onto the street. Jesus, what has Savino heard about the Pena bust? Was he just fishing, or did he know something? It’s not good, it’s going to have to be dealt with.
Anyway, Malone thinks, the wops won’t be beating up any deadbeat ditzunes out on Lenox.
So that’s something.
Next.
Debbie Phillips was three months pregnant when Billy O went down.
Because they weren’t married (yet—Monty and Russo were all over the kid to do the right thing and he was headed in that direction), the Job wouldn’t do shit for her. Didn’t give her any recognition at Billy’s funeral—the fucking Catholic department wouldn’t give the unwed mother the folded flag, the kind words, sure as shit no survivor’s benefits, no medical. She’d wanted to do a paternity test and then sue the Job, but Malone talked her out of it.
You don’t turn the Job over to lawyers.
“That’s not the way we do things,” he told her. “We’ll take care of you, the baby.”
“How?” Debbie asked.
“You let me worry about that,” Malone said. “Anything you need, you call me. If it’s a woman thing—Sheila, Donna Russo, Yolanda Montague.”
Debbie never reached out.
She was an independent type anyway, not really that attached to Billy, never mind his extended family. It was a one-night stand that went permanent, despite Malone’s constant warnings that Billy should double-wrap the groceries.
“I pulled out,” Billy told him when Debbie called with the news.
“What are you, in high school?” Malone asked.
Monty cuffed him in the head. “Idiot.”
“You going to marry her?” Russo asked.
“She don’t want to get married.”
“It doesn’t matter what you or she wants,” Monty said. “It only matters what that child needs—two parents.”
But Debbie, she’s one of those modern women doesn’t think she needs a man to raise a baby. Told Billy they should wait and see how their “relationship developed.”
Then they didn’t get the chance.
Now, she opens the door for Malone, she’s eight months and looks it. She’s not getting any help from her family out in western Pennsylvania and she don’t have anyone in New York. Yolanda Montague lives the closest so she checks in, brings groceries, goes to the doctor’s appointments when Debbie will let her, but she don’t deal with the money.
The wives never deal with the money.
“Merry Christmas, Debbie,” Malone says.
“Yeah, okay.”
She lets him in.
Debbie is pretty and petite, so her stomach looks huge on her. Her blond hair is stringy and dirty, the apartment is a mess. She sits down on the old sofa; the television is on to the evening news.
It’s hot in the apartment, and stuffy, but it’s always either too hot or too cold in these old apartments—no one can figure out the radiators. One of them hisses now, as if to tell Malone to fuck off if he doesn’t like it.
He lays an envelope on the coffee table.
Five grand.
The decision was a no-brainer—Billy keeps drawing a full share, and when they lay off the Pena smack, he gets his share of that, too. Malone is the executor, he’ll lay it out to Debbie as he sees she needs it and can handle it. The rest will go into a college fund for Billy’s kid.
His son won’t want for anything.
His mom can stay at home, take care of him.
Debbie fought him on this. “You can pay for day care. I need to work.”
“No, you don’t.”
“It isn’t just the money,” she said. “I’d go crazy, all day here alone with a kid.”
