City on Fire (Danny Ryan, #1)

by Don Winslow

The woman comes out of the water, her skin glistening with sunshine and salt. Terri Ryan digs an elbow into her husband’s ribs. “What?” Danny asks, all mock-innocent. “I see you checking her out,” Terri says. They’re all checking her out—him, Pat and Jimmy, and the wives, too—Sheila, Angie, and Terri. “Can’t say I blame you,” Terri says. “That rack.”

Danny and Terri, Jimmy and Angie Mac, Pat and Sheila Murphy, Liam Murphy with his girl of the moment.

Danny, he used to go out to Block Island all the time, not on the ferry, but back before he was married when he was working the fishing boats. Sometimes, if Dick Sousa was in a good mood, they’d pull into New Harbor and grab a beer before making the run home.

He loves her like life. And not, like some people think, because she’s John Murphy’s daughter. John Murphy is an Irish king, like the O’Neills in the old country. Holds court in the back room of the Glocca Morra pub like it’s Tara. He’s been the boss of Dogtown since Danny’s dad, Marty, fell into the bottom of the bottle and the Murphy family took over from the Ryans.

He tries to do it at the bar or on the street so as not to embarrass them in front of their families, upset their wives, scare their kids, but there are times when he has to go to their homes, and Danny hates that. Usually a word to the wise is enough, and they work out some kind of payment plan, but some of them are just plain deadbeats and boozehounds who drink up the payments and the rent, and then Danny has to rough them up a little. He isn’t a leg-breaker, though. That stuff rarely happens anyway—a man with a broken stick can’t work and a man who can’t work can’t make any kind of payment at all, not on the vig, never mind the principal. So Danny might hurt them, but he doesn’t hurt them bad.

So Danny makes a living, but nothing like the Murphys, who get points from the dock bosses, the no-show wharf jobs, the loan-shark ops, the gambling, and the kickbacks that come from the Tenth Ward, which includes Dogtown. Danny gets some crumbs from all that, but he don’t sit at the big table in the back room with the Murphys. It’s embarrassing. Even Peter Moretti said something to him about it. They were walking down the beach together the other day when Peter said, “No offense, Danny, but, as your friend, I can’t help but wonder.” “Wonder what, Peter?” “With you marrying the daughter and all,” Peter said, “we all figured you’d get a little boost up, you know what I mean.”

Kids from Dogtown, they’ve been together forever—him and Pat and Jimmy. St. Brendan’s Elementary, then St. Brendan’s High School. They played hockey together, got slaughtered by the French-Canadian kids from Mount St. Charles. They played basketball together, got slaughtered by the Black kids at Southie. Didn’t matter they got slaughtered—they played tough and didn’t back down from nobody. They ate most suppers together, sometimes at Jimmy’s, mostly at Pat’s.

Danny was in love. But Terri, she didn’t want to be no fisherman’s girlfriend, no fisherman’s wife. “I can’t live all the way down here,” she said. “It’s a half hour,” Danny said. “Forty-five minutes,” Terri said. She was so attached to her family, her friends, her hairdresser, her church, her block, her neighborhood. Terri was a Dogtown girl and always would be, and Goshen was okay for a few weeks in the summer but she could never live there, especially with Danny gone for nights at a time and her worried whether he was coming back. And it was true, Danny knew, that boyfriends and husbands died out there, slipped off the deck into the icy water, got their brains beat out when a net boom swung wildly in the wind. Or drank themselves to death when the fishing was bad. And there was no money in it.

“You going to give her a ring?” Pat asked. “When I get enough money for something decent.” “Go see Solly Weiss.” Weiss had a jewelry store in downtown Providence. “I was thinking Zales,” Danny said. “And pay bust-out retail?” Pat said. “You go see Solly, tell him you’re with us, who it’s for, he’ll make you a price.” Not for nothing was the unofficial state motto “I know a guy.” “I don’t want to give Terri a diamond fell off a truck,” Danny said. Pat laughed. “They’re not stolen. Jesus, what kind of brother you think I am? We look after Solly. You ever heard of him getting robbed?” “No.” “Why do you think that is?” Pat asked.

Lesson: Don’t hold on to something’s going to pull you into a trap. If you’re going to let go, let go early. Better yet, don’t take the bait at all.

Rhode Island likes things difficult, hard to find. The other unofficial state motto—“If you were supposed to know, you’d know.”

Peter Moretti looks like your classic wiseguy—thick, slicked-back black hair, black shirt rolled up at the sleeves to show off the Rolex, designer jeans over loafers. Paulie Moretti is a skinny guinea, maybe five-seven, with caramel skin, his light brown hair highlighted and permed into tight curls. Permed, Danny thinks, which is the style now but nothing Danny can get down with. Danny thinks Paulie’s always looked a little Puerto Rican, although he ain’t gonna say it. Chris Palumbo’s something else. Red hair like he came from freakin’ Galway, but otherwise he’s as Italian as Sunday gravy. Danny remembers what old Bernie Hughes said about him—“Never trust a redheaded wop. They’re the worst of the breed.” Yeah, Peter is smart, but as smart as he is, Chris is smarter. Peter don’t make a move without him, and if Peter does make the big step up, Chris will be his consigliere, no question.

Ned don’t say anything. Ned rarely does. One hard case, Ned Egan. When he was a kid at St. Michael’s, the priests and nuns beat him half to death trying to straighten him out. The sister would make Ned stretch his hand out on the desk, then slam the edge of a ruler down on his fingers, and he’d just look at her and smile. He’d get home, his old man would see the welt on his hand and figure that Ned had done something to piss off the sister, so he’d lay Ned down on the bed and bring a razor strap down on the backs of his legs until Ned cried. Problem was, Ned wouldn’t cry and his old man wouldn’t give up. Those days, no one had heard of Child Protective Services, it wasn’t even a concept, so Ned took some ferocious beatings. He’d go to school the next morning with blood leaking through the backs of his pants legs, which would stick to the seat of his chair whenever he went to get up. The teachers learned not to call him to the blackboard those days so as not to embarrass the boy. When Ned was fourteen, his old man picked up the strap and told him to lie down but Ned swung on him instead, put him on the floor, then ran out and tried to join the merchant marine. They laughed at him and told him to come back in four years. So Ned lived on the streets for a while, until Marty Ryan had a cot put in the storage closet at the Gloc, let the lad sweep up the place for a bowl of lamb stew or shepherd’s pie or whatever was left over at night.

One afternoon, Ned’s old man came into the pub with a ball bat in his hand and announced he was going to teach his no-good son a lesson he’d never forget. Marty was sitting in his booth and quietly said, “Billy Egan, unless that lesson is how to hit a curveball, I’d suggest you turn around and walk back through that door. I’m a bit short of cash now to have a mass said for you.” Ned’s old man turned milk white and walked back through the door. He knew just what Ryan was telling him, and he never stepped into the Gloc again.

“Hi, Danny.” “Cassie, hi,” Danny says. “I didn’t know you were home from . . .” “Treatment?” she says. “You can say it, Danny.” It was like her, what, second or even third time in rehab or the psych ward? Cassie is the unlikely black sheep of the Murphy family, and John barely bothers to hide his shame of her. She was the angel once, daddy’s little girl—Terri once admitted to Danny that she was jealous of her big sister—a fine singer of the old folk music, a dancer who won awards at céilís, but then she started drinking, and then it was grass, and then it was all kinds of dope. She was on the street for a while after the Murphys went the “tough love” route and kicked her out of the house, and then Danny heard she’d agreed to go back to this place in Connecticut.

“Liam’s a sweetie,” Mary says. “He just needs the right woman.” “He had the right woman,” Terri says, “and he blew it.” Danny knows she’s referring to Liam’s ex-girlfriend Karen. A trauma nurse at Rhode Island Hospital, she had it all—beauty, brains, and a good heart. They all really liked her. And she really loved Liam, but he had to fuck it up by fucking around. Liam is Kennedy handsome—curly black hair, striking brown eyes—he’s cut a sexual swath through Rhode Island, not so easy to do in a mostly Catholic state where most girls have older brothers.

The joke is that Liam didn’t kiss the Blarney Stone—it kissed him. Kissed him? Danny thinks. It fucking blew him.

Beautiful women have their burdens, too, he realizes—other women’s jealousy is one of them.

“Where did you move here from?” Terri asks Pam. She’s starting to get the lowdown, Danny thinks. The wives will pounce on Pam like fresh meat and get her whole life’s story, it’s so rare a guy other than Liam brings anyone new. They’ve all known each other forever and never even dated outside their own high school. They know each other’s stories too well, and they’re the same freakin’ story anyway. “Connecticut,” Pam said. “I do real estate, and Rhode Island seemed to offer more opportunities.” Another first, Danny thought—someone using “opportunities” and “Rhode Island” in the same sentence.

Danny’s out cold when he hears the shouting down the beach. Pam’s voice, not so deep but still throaty. “He grabbed me!” Danny looks up and sees her, pretty drunk, staggering in the deep sand, coming toward him, walking back toward the fire that’s dim now. He zips his fly, gets up and, still groggy, asks, “What’s the matter? What’s going on?!” It’s like a weird, bad dream. “He grabbed me! That son of a bitch grabbed my boob!” Now Danny sees Liam walking up behind her, this stupid grin on his face, his hands spread in mock innocence. “It was an accident. A misunderstanding.”

“Did he hurt you?” Paulie asks. “He grabbed my breast.” “The fuck, Liam!” Peter yells. Sal starts to move in. That’s Sal, Danny thinks, he takes care of things for the Morettis. Pat steps between them. “Take it easy.” “A mistake.” Liam smirks. “I was trying to find my way in the fog, I reached out and . . . tit. Oops.” “Shut your stupid mouth,” Pat snaps.

Jimmy looks as Irish as corned beef. Curly red hair, pale skin with freckles, a face as open as a book. He’s stocky leaning toward chubby, and Danny knows sometimes his softness makes people think he’s weak. It’s a big mistake. Jimmy’s a gearhead, maybe the best wheelman in New England. What he can’t do with a car can’t be done. He’ll get you in and he’ll get you out. But he’s more than that—you get into a beef, you want Jimmy with you. He’ll go with his hands, with a knife, or with a gun, that’s what it takes. Angie bosses him around like he’s a cocker spaniel, but that’s because he loves her and he lets her. Jimmy Mac has balls.

Pat walks up to Paulie and Pam. “I’m sorry. I apologize for my brother.” “He’s an asshole,” Paulie says. “I can’t disagree.” “What he did is not acceptable,” Peter says. “He’s drunk.” “No excuse.” “No, it’s not,” Pat says. “I’ll talk with him. We’ll deal with it.”

Terri, she looks sad. “I can’t help feeling bad for him.” “What for?” “It’s his way of getting attention,” Terri says. “It’s not easy being Pat’s younger brother. Pat the hockey star, Pat the basketball star, Pat the star student . . . the star son. His whole life, Liam’s been in Pat’s shadow. Now Dad relies more and more on Pat in the business . . . that will be Pat’s. Liam just wants something that’s his, you know.”

He pushes himself up off the sand to go back to his cottage. Sleep this off, deal with the hangover, and then figure it out. He walks up the beach and is almost to the road when he sees four figures in the fog. Peter, Paulie, Sal, and Tony. “Hello, motherfucker,” Paulie says. He raises the baseball bat. Liam smiles and says, “I guess the coke deal’s off, huh?” Paulie swings the bat.

Pasco is furious. Everything we spent years putting together, keeping together, is going to fall apart over a piece of ass?! If this horny Irish fuck taps out, I’ll have to give John something, maybe even Paulie Moretti, or go to war with him. And if I do that, I might lose a whole wing of the family, hard to know how Paulie’s old man will react from inside the ACI. Hard to know which way the Antonuccis and Palumbos of the world would go. I don’t know, maybe John would settle for one of them. If I go to war against John, I’ll win. But at what cost, in blood and money?

Loses his spleen and needs plastic surgery to repair the broken orbital bone under his eye. But his brain is okay. Well, as okay as Liam’s brain can be, Danny thinks.

“What Liam did wasn’t right,” Pasco says before Pat can get a word out. Pat says, “But he didn’t deserve that.” “They beat him half to death,” Danny says. “He almost died.” “He touched a made guy’s woman,” Pasco says, adjusting the tension on one of the lines. “If that girl and Paulie were married, Paulie would have been within his rights to kill your brother.” “Liam was drunk,” Pat said. “We all were.” Pasco shrugs. Drunk or sober, Liam had disrespected Paulie Moretti in a very personal way. The beating got out of hand, no question, but the Murphy kid had taken his chances.

You think—even if I give the nod—you can take all four of them?” “I think we can,” Pat says. Pasco smiles. “Patdannyjimmy.” “Just fists, I swear,” Pat says. “Where do you think you are, high school?” Pasco asks. “Let it go. Your brother is alive, God bless, I made Paulie cover the bills, let it pass. What does your father say?” “I haven’t talked to him about it.” “When you do,” Pasco says, “he’ll tell you what I’m telling you and what I told Peter and Paulie: We worked too hard to put this thing together. I’m not going to let it fall apart because your brother got drunk and felt some tette.”

Except it isn’t. It might all have died down and blown over like a summer squall, but a week later Danny goes to visit Liam in the hospital, and when he gets up to the room, she’s there. Pam. Smiling, looking gorgeous in a white summer dress, holding Liam’s hand, and he’s smiling back, weakly but bravely. Danny, he don’t know what to say, but Liam says, “Danny, I think you know Pam.” You think I know Pam, you dumb fuck? You think I know Pam?

Dumbass Brendan Handrigan touches it off. Handrigan is a minor player—like Danny, a collector for the Murphy loan-shark operations. Early October, he and Danny are sitting in a bar after doing a job, tossing a few back, and Brendan says, “Liam’s cock is like the Starship Enterprise, boldly going where no man has gone before. A good two inches past Paulie, anyway, what I hear.”

The two of them came to get the three-dollar lunch special before going to visit this deadbeat over on Hope Street. The irony isn’t lost on Danny that a degenerate gambler lives on Hope Street. Where the hell else would he live?

The funeral is wicked sad. Brendan didn’t have a lot of friends, no wife, no girl. His father died when Brendan was, what, twelve, so there’s just two sisters and the mother. The whole Murphy clan and associates show up, though. Murphy didn’t have to tell them, either. Respect is respect. But Liam isn’t there.

Brendan’s mother is resentful as hell at the Murphys, but not so resentful she don’t let them lay out the spread. What’s she going to do? She don’t have any money, and it’s the least the Murphys could do, after her son took a bullet for theirs. So there’s a spread laid out, open bar, of course, and people stand around trying to think of good things to say about Brendan until the liquor kicks in, and the food, and it winds down into just another party. Then Liam walks in. With Pam. Classic in-your-face, fuck-the-world, I-do-what-I-want Liam Murphy.

Her freshman year, she fled home almost every weekend, holed up in her room, variously crying, reading her books, and dreading Sunday nights, when her parents would drive her back to Farmington, lecturing all the while on the importance of making friends and participating in the social life of the school. Pam didn’t tell them about the taunts. She was too ashamed. Pam thought about running away from school, running away from home, killing herself. Something happened between Pam’s sophomore and junior years. She blossomed.

After college, she got a job with a high-end real estate firm in Westport and did very well, spending weekends at the family house in Watch Hill. Watch Hill is either New England money so old it needs a walker to circulate, or “new” New York money, meaning the families have owned homes there for less than two hundred years. Westerly is a granite quarry town settled by Italian immigrant stonemasons who made beautiful churches and big Sunday dinners. In Watch Hill, money works for people, and in Westerly, people work for money. If people in Watch Hill go to Westerly, it’s usually for pizza, but Pam went slumming there one night at a local bar, where Paulie Moretti started flirting with her because why not take a shot?

Or how about the degenerate gambler who thought Jacky was an asshole he didn’t have to pay, and Jacky ripped him out of the lobby of the jai alai fronton in Newport, took him out into the parking lot, opened his car door, and asked him which hand he used to take out his wallet. “What?” the terrified guy asked. “When you go to buy a jai alai ticket, which hand do you use to take out your wallet?” “My right.” Jacky made him stick his right hand into the car door and then kicked it shut. Then, with the guy’s hand still in the door, he drove the car around the parking lot.

But mostly they tell the story about Jacky and Rocky Ferraro. Pasco had put out a ban on selling or using heroin because it brought down so much heat from the feds. Rocky Ferraro, one of Jacky’s crew, ignored it on both counts, first selling to the moolies in South Providence and then starting to use his own product. It was a problem, and Jacky said he’d take care of it. He and one of his guys picked Rocky up one night to go to a Reds hockey game, except they never made it there. Jacky pulled over, then pulled his gun, stuck it in Rocky’s mouth, and pulled the trigger several times. What made the story extraordinary was that Rocky was Jacky’s half brother. Which made the next Thanksgiving dinner, well, awkward. And also apparently really offended both the judge and the jury when—six years later—Jacky’s guy flipped and put him in the jackpot for the murder. “He embarrassed the family,” Jacky said at his sentencing hearing. “So you killed your own brother,” the judge said. “Half brother,” Jacky said. “What, maybe I should have only half killed him?” The judge maxed him out. Even then Jacky had a chance to save himself. The feds offered him the complete package—immunity, the program, the whole nine yards—to go rat on Pasco Ferri, but Jacky told them they could line up and suck his dick. So now a series of punks perform that service for him as he resides in the North Wing of the old stone house, plays cards, and cooks pasta for the guys on Sundays.

Danny does the odds in his head. They have ten, maybe fifteen guys who can be counted on in a fight; the Morettis have at least twice that number. The Irish have no resources outside Dogtown to call on; the Morettis can bring in shooters from other Mafia families. The Irish have a few councilmen from the Tenth and some of the police; the Morettis have the mayor, a handful of state legislators, and a bunch of cops, including two detectives from Homicide—O’Neill and Viola. The money battle is lopsided: the Irish have the longshoremen’s union, the docks, and some small gambling and loan-sharking; the Morettis have the Teamsters, the construction unions, the vending machines, cigarettes and alcohol, major gambling, major money on the street, strip clubs and prostitution. That’s the problem with a war: you have the challenge of trying to stay alive and at the same time make a living. Hard, when you’re being hunted, to go out and make your collections, or make a score, or even get back and forth from work. You need a bankroll, a war chest, to last you while you bunker up and fight it out, and not many of the Dogtown Irish—Danny included—have a lot in the savings account.

Danny gets up and goes into the kitchen, finds a Coke in the fridge, comes back into the living room and stands behind Liam, who seems absorbed with the horror movie. This is the time, Danny thinks. Right now. He grabs the gun inside his right jacket pocket and takes it out. Eases the hammer back, hopes that Liam don’t hear the click. He don’t. He’s devouring the fucking hamburger, laughing at the cheesy monster that’s crossing the screen toward the little fake Japanese city. Not a care in the world, Liam. It’s his fucking universe and the rest of us are just renting space. Danny holds the gun low, behind the back of the couch where Liam can’t see it if he turns around. “Hey, Liam?”

“How’s he doing?” “He got a fucking bullet hole through his leg,” Peter says, his temper flaring. He takes a breath and says, “But he’s going to be okay.” “That’s good.” “Fucking A, that’s good,” Peter says. “Listen, Danny, I wanted to have a word with you, tell you that we got no beef with the Ryans. We already know you had nothing to do with the disgraceful action that occurred this afternoon.” “Peter, the Murphys didn’t—” Peter holds up his hand. “Don’t even bother. That train has left the station. There is no possibility of a peace with the Murphys, even if they dangle that little piece of shit motherfucker from the flagpole at the statehouse. What I came to tell you is the Ryan faction can sit this one out. The Murphys put you in a very difficult position; you have every right, on the basis of that, to opt out of this war.”

“All right,” Pat says. “Here it is and it’s not good . . .” Brian Young, Howie Moran, Kenny Meagher, all dead. Young and Moran shot from long range—single bullets to the head or heart. Meagher gunned down at close range coming out of an after-hours club. No wonder John looks like an old man now. Danny ain’t feeling so young himself. Brian and Kenny—both friends, guys he went to school with or knew from the neighborhood. Parties, pickup hockey games, weddings. Now it will be wakes and funerals.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Pat asks. “Steve Giordo?” Steve “the Sniper” Giordo supposedly got his nickname because he’d been a marksman in the army, but Danny thinks it was more from the fact that a sniper rifle is his weapon of choice. Giordo is out of Hartford and takes jobs for both Boston and New York. Bad news on a couple of fronts—Giordo is very good, and Boston and New York would have to have given their nods for him to do a job in Providence. It’s a grim situation—Boston and New York backing the Morettis, Sal Antonucci and Steve Giordo out in front, and three of the guys who might have matched up against them are already dead. It was well planned, Danny thinks. So was Peter’s move to try to take the Ryan faction out of the lineup. Even while he was talking to me, his soldiers were out killing people. Planned, timed, and coordinated—nothing he could have done in the space of time since the “peace” meeting. The Morettis were going to move anyway, use the peace to lull us to sleep, and then hit us.

Darlene’s family was poor, even by the modest standards of Barstow, California. Her father, Alvin, never met a job he couldn’t lose, but at the same time insisted that “no wife of mine is going to work.” Outside the home, anyway—Alvin had ample spare time to knock Dorothy up and fill the revolving-door rental homes and trailers with five kids, Darlene being the oldest.

Just about drove a high-stakes poker player out of his mind one night in his comped suite when she wouldn’t give it up. “I don’t want to get pregnant,” Madeleine said. “Jesus,” he said, “haven’t you ever heard of rubbers?” “They’re only ninety percent effective.” “I’ll stop before ninety times, how about that?” he asked. “If you think that’s how odds work,” she said, “you should find another profession.”

The next day Pat comes to visit. “You took one for the team,” he says. “Sorry it didn’t work out like we’d planned.” “Giordo’s on the sidelines for a while,” Pat says. “Well, that’s good.” “Yeah, that’s good.” It’s awkward between them, like it never has been before. Pat doesn’t know quite what to say and Danny doesn’t know how to deal with his silence. They do the usual bullshit—the families, the kids—and they’re both relieved when the nurse comes in and kicks Pat’s ass out of there so Danny can get his rest.

Peter Moretti is standing there with flowers in his hand. Smile smooth as his silk tie. Terri glaring at him, Madeleine fixing him with a calm, hard look. “I came to see my friend Danny,” Peter says. Terri spits, “Get out.” “It’s all right,” Danny says. Peter comes over to the bed, sets the flowers down on the side table, leans in and, still smiling, whispers, “You’re dead, Danny. Soon as you get out, you’re a dead man.” They all know that a hospital is off-limits. Last thing in the world you want to do in a war is piss off doctors and nurses, because you might be seeing them in a trauma ward, and they let you bleed out because you’ve exposed them to gunfire at their place of work. Ditto with priests, who might be giving you last rites. You don’t want them to be nervous and fuck up the words that stand between you and hell. Peter straightens up and turns to Terri. “Anything I can do, anything you need, please let me know.” “Get out.”

“If you brought them in from overseas and you didn’t declare them, that’s not my problem,” Peter says. Then he gets to the point. “Anyway, I thought you were under the Murphys’ protection. If you was with us, this wouldn’t have happened.” “I want my rocks back.” “I want a twelve-inch dick,” Peter says. “I got shorted by an inch, what can I tell you.”

Danny says, “Get word to Sal that if he decides to go for the corner office, we’ll back him. If he takes the crown on Monday, we make peace on Tuesday.” “He killed three of our friends, Danny.” “I know,” Danny says, but he also knows that at the end of the day you don’t make peace with your friends, you make peace with your enemies. Let the dead bury the dead.

“I want to help you.” Yeah, right, Danny thinks. Famous first words. I want to help you fuck your friends, become a rat, go into the Witness Protection Program and sell chicken feed in East Bumfuck somewhere. What feds mean by “I want to help you” is “I want to help you help me.”