The Force. Don Winslow

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СКАЧАТЬ to ride the #2 train, the one they called “The Beast” back then.

      Now it’s Black Star Music, the Mormon Church, African American Best Food. When they get to the end of Lenox, Malone says, “Go around the block.”

      Phil Russo, behind the wheel, turns left onto 147th and drives around the block, down Seventh Avenue and then another left onto 146th, and cruises past an abandoned tenement the owner gave back to the rats and the roaches, chasing the people out in the hope that some junkie cooking up will burn it down and he can collect the insurance and then sell the lot.

      Win-win.

      Malone scans for sentries or some cops cooping in a radio car, bagging a little sleep on the graveyard shift. A sole lookout stands outside the door. Green bandanna, green Nikes with green shoelaces make him a Trinitario.

      Malone’s crew has been watching the heroin mill on the second floor all summer. The Mexicans truck the smack up and deliver it to Diego Pena, the Dominican in charge of NYC. Pena breaks it down from kilos into dime bags and distributes it to the Domo gangs, the Trinitarios and DDP (Dominicans Don’t Play), and then to the black and PR gangs in the projects.

      The mill is fat tonight.

      Fat with money.

      Fat with dope.

      “Gear up,” Malone says, checking the Sig Sauer P226 in the holster on his hip. A Beretta 8000D Mini-Cougar rests in a second holster in the small of his back just below the new ceramic-plate vest.

      He makes the whole crew wear vests on a job. Big Monty complains his is too tight, but Malone tells him it’s a looser fit than a coffin. Bill Montague, a.k.a. Big Monty, is old school. On his head, even in summer, is his trademark trilby, with its stingy brim and a red feather on the left side. His concession to the heat is an XXXL guayabera shirt over khaki slacks. An unlit Montecristo cigar perches in the corner of his mouth.

      A Mossberg 590 pump-action 12-gauge shotgun with a twenty-inch barrel loaded with powdered ceramic rounds sits at Phil Russo’s feet by his high-polished red leather shoes with the skinny guinea toes. The shoes match his hair—Russo is that rare redheaded Italian and Malone jokes that there must have been a bogtrotter in the woodpile. Russo answers that’s impossible because he isn’t an alcoholic and he don’t need a magnifying glass to find his own dick.

      Billy O’Neill carries an HK MP5 submachine gun, two flashbang grenades and a roll of duct tape. Billy O’s the youngest of the crew, but he has talent, street smarts and moves.

      Guts, too.

      Malone knows Billy ain’t gonna cut and run, ain’t gonna freeze or hesitate to pull the trigger, if he needs to. If anything, it’s the opposite—Billy might be a little too quick to go. Got that Irish temper along with the Kennedy good looks. Got some other Kennedy-esque attributes, too. The kid likes women and women like him back.

      Tonight, the crew is going in heavy.

      And high.

      You go up against narcos who are jacked on coke or speed, it helps to be pharmacologically even with them, so Malone pops two “go-pills”—Dexedrine. Then he slips on a blue windbreaker with NYPD stenciled in white and flips the lanyard with his shield over his chest.

      Russo orbits the block again. Coming back around on 146th, he hits the gas, races up to the mill and slams the brakes. The lookout hears the tires squeal but turns around too late—Malone’s out the door before the car stops. He shoves the lookout face-first into the wall and sticks the barrel of the Sig against his head.

      “Cállate, pendejo,” Malone says. “One sound, I’ll splatter you.”

      He kicks the lookout’s feet out from under him and puts him on the ground. Billy is already there—he duct-tapes the lookout’s hands behind him and then slaps a strip over his mouth.

      Malone’s crew press themselves against the wall of the building. “We all stay sharp,” Malone says, “we all go home tonight.”

      The Dex starts to kick in—Malone feels his heart race and his blood get hot.

      It feels good.

      He sends Billy O up to the roof to come down the fire escape and cover the window. The rest go in and head up the stairs. Malone first, the Sig in front of him, ready. Russo behind him with the shotgun, then Monty.

      Malone don’t worry about his back.

      A wooden door blocks the top of the stairs.

      Malone nods at Monty.

      The big man steps up, jams the Rabbit between the door and the sill. Sweat pops on his forehead and runs down his dark skin as he presses the handles of the tool together and cracks the door open.

      Malone steps through, swings his pistol in an arc, but no one’s in the hallway. Looking to the right, he sees the new steel door at the end of the hall. Machata music plays from a radio inside, voices in Spanish, the whir of coffee grinders, the clack of a money counter.

      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.

      Malone worries about Billy O because the kid loves dogs, even pit bulls. Malone learned this back in April when they hit a warehouse over by the river and three pit bulls were trying to jump through the chain-link fence to rip their throats out but Billy O, he just couldn’t bring himself to pop them or let anyone else do it, so they had to go all the way around the back of the building, up the fire escape to the roof and then down the stairs.

      It was a pain in the ass.

      Anyway, the pit bull has made them but the Domos haven’t. Malone hears one of them yell, “Cállate!” and then a sharp whack and the dog shuts up.

      But the Hi-Guard steel security door is a problem.

      The Rabbit ain’t gonna crack it.

      Malone gets on the radio. “Billy, you in place?”

      “Born in place, bro.”

      “We’re gonna blow the door,” Malone says. “When it goes, you toss in a flashbang.”

      “You got it, D.”

      Malone nods to Russo, who aims at the door’s hinges and fires two blasts. The ceramic powder explodes faster than the speed of sound and the door comes down.

      Women, naked save for plastic gloves and hairnets, bolt for the window. Others crouch under tables as money-counting machines spit cash onto the floor like slot machines paying off with paper.

      Malone yells, “NYPD!”

      He sees Billy through the window to his left.

      Doing exactly shit, just staring through the window. Jesus Christ, throw the grenade.

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