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Peter Moretti has to eat serious rations of shit. He knows he’s starting to lose the war and has to make moves to turn things around. Painful, humiliating moves. First he had to give Solly Weiss his stones back, and the old prick was so sanctimonious about it Peter would have liked to shoot him in the face. But he had to go, hat in hand, apologize, and hand over the stones. Not before he had to take that necklace off his gumar’s neck, which didn’t exactly make her horny for him.
Tony opens the door and gets into the front seat. He looks out the window, sees Sal looking, smiles, pleased to be watched, his teeth white as new snow, and turns the key. The car erupts in flame. Sal sees Tony open the door and lurch screaming out into the street. He’s on fire, arms in front of him like a blind man. He takes two steps, then twirls, then falls. The irony is that Tony had always said he wanted to be cremated when his time came, and the joke (although no one repeats it to Sal) is that he sure as shit was. Anyway, they put what’s left of him in an urn and they have a mass and a
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Fuckin’ Irish, always looking forward to our next defeat. We can’t get out of our own way. That old saying, “If it was raining soup, the Irish would run outside with forks.” Pretty much what happens now. Danny would think about it in years to come. The “what if” of it. What if Tony had his own car with him. What if Danny could have persuaded Pat to sit down with Sal. But none of that happened. God’s way of fucking with you.
“You guys fucked up,” Jardine says, “turning Tony into the Olympic torch.” Danny loves it when feds try to talk like mobsters. They think it makes them legit, when it really makes them look like assholes. He says, “I don’t know nothing about it.” “One wiseguy more or less, I don’t give a fuck,” Jardine says. “I’m trying to tell you, you’re in trouble, Aer Lingus is going down, and I’m offering you a parachute.” “Jesus, can you just talk like a person?”
Marty makes the call to his old friend. “How did this ever get this far?” Pasco asks. “Pasco, can you help us out here?” Pasco puts in the call to Sal. At first Sal stonewalls. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t sorry the cocksucker’s dead, but I hear it was some moolies.” “We’re not animals,” Pasco says. “They just want to bury their son.”
What can you say, Danny thinks, about John eating his pride, going personally to Sal Antonucci, hat in hand, to the man who killed his son to ask what he did with the body? What does that take? What does that do to a man? An old man who’s lost his son? Danny is amazed. Awestruck. Realizes for the first time why Murphy runs the docks and his own father doesn’t. It takes a strong, strong man to do what he did.
Can smell the booze on his breath when Liam says, “I know what you’re thinking.” “Yeah? What am I thinking?” “You’re thinking it should have been me,” Liam says, like he’s throwing down a glove. Danny’s in no mood for his bullshit. “It should have been.” “Well, we agree on something,” Liam says, then shoulders his way past. At the end of the hall, Jimmy has seen the exchange. “We should have done him when we had the chance.” “I wish the hell I had,” Danny says.
Pat taking it all so serious, talked about maybe becoming a priest until he started dating Sheila in high school and then that was that, Danny asked him what happened to the seminary and Pat just said, “Tits.”
Danny understands: If New York or Boston decide we’re too much trouble, they’ll come in. It will be a hostile takeover, and their first move will be to put both me and Peter in the dirt. So there’s a breather, a gasping spell of sorts.
There’s no August beach vacation that year, of course. No Dogtown by the Sea, those days are over. Danny misses them, misses those hot lazy days when they were all still friends. Before we started killing each other, he thinks.
The Top Hat Club is mostly empty about two in the afternoon, except for Marvin and his guys sitting in a booth in the back. Danny is pretty aware that he’s about the only white guy ever to walk in there, if you don’t count the cops coming to get their monthly envelopes, and one of Marvin’s guys gets right into his face. “What do you want?”
“He’s a good kid, Danny,” Pasco says. “He’s not a kid,” Madeleine says. “He has a child of his own now.” “I heard. Every happiness.” Madeleine shrugs. “I haven’t seen my grandson.” “Danny’s like his old man,” Pasco says. “Stubborn. You heard about Irish Alzheimer’s? They forget everything but the grudges.”
“Even the moolies know Sal is a fag,” Paulie says, sitting at the office. “Everyone’s laughing at us now.” “They don’t know anything,” Peter says, looking at the box of fudge on the table. “They only know what they’ve heard.” “That’s what I mean,” Paulie says. “Everyone hears. And how is that going to play in Peoria?” “What?” “It’s an expression,” Paulie says. “Like, what are people going to think. ‘How is that going to play in Peoria?’” “Where the fuck is Peoria?” “I dunno,” Paulie says. “The fuck difference does it make?” “Because why the fuck would we care what people there think?” Peter
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Paulie takes a piece of the fudge. “The fuck,” Peter says. “What?” “You gonna eat that?” “Why not?” Paulie says, shoving it into his mouth. “It’s good.”
Danny attends Marvin’s homegoing. Seems like the right thing to do. The cops wasted no time in deciding that Marvin’s murder was a drive-by gang thing and said they were pursuing leads. They rounded up a bunch of rival gang members and put them through the wringer, but none of them knew anything and they all had alibis. Marvin’s own people didn’t know anything either, and none of the guys at the scene saw shit. So as far as the police are concerned, this was simply garbage taking out garbage and they waited for the inevitable retaliation with more garbage taking out more garbage.
Liam pours some coke onto the glass coffee table. “They all treat me like dogshit.” “Who does?” Pam asks, tired of her husband’s self-pitying harangues. “Danny, for one,” Liam says. “All the guys at the Gloc. Even my own father thinks I’m worthless.” I wonder why? Pam thinks, although she knows better than to say anything. Maybe it’s because you started this whole thing, kept it going when you had a chance to end it? Maybe because you’ve sworn revenge for your brother—loudly, to whoever would listen—and haven’t done a damn thing except lie around and get high. Maybe because everyone—Danny, the
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“Here’s the deal,” Chris says to Alex. “I’d like to let you go, but you set up a made guy, and there are rules about these things.” “Please. I’ll do anything. I’ll suck both your cocks.” “As appealing as that sounds,” Chris says, “we have a boss to answer to, so—” “On the other hand,” Frankie says. “What other hand?” “If we put the guy on a bus, and he promised never to come back,” Frankie says, “we could just say we did him. Who would know?” “Save us digging a grave,” Chris says. “What do you think, Alex? Would you be willing to do that? Get on a bus, disappear?” “I’d . . . I’d need to change
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Frankie has a sit-down with Peter. “Do you know what history is?” Peter asks. “History?” “Yeah.” “I dunno,” Frankie says, “it’s things that happened.” “No,” Peter says, “it’s what people say happened. So let me tell you the history on Sal. He wasn’t queer, he was a loving father and husband, the moolies killed him in revenge for Marvin Jones.” “Liam killed him.” “See, that’s you not understanding history,” Peter says.
Danny says all the things you’re supposed to say. “We’re going to beat this thing.” “They’re coming up with newer treatments all the time.” Everyone says what they’re supposed to, the usual clichés like “She’s a fighter.”
Danny recalls the first moment he saw her, walking out of the ocean. So beautiful, so golden. Not so much now.
The nuns used to say that the devil comes disguised as an angel. That the worst things you’ll do, you’ll do for the best reasons. The most hateful things you’ll do, you’ll do for the ones you love most. Danny tells Liam to make the deal.
He takes a long sip of the tea. “And for pragmatic reasons as well,” Bernie says. “We have good working relationships with the police, the judges, and the politicians, who are reasonable about the way the world works. But they draw the line at drugs, and we would lose those relationships.” “Don Corleone over there,” Liam mutters. “For these reasons,” Bernie says, “I strongly oppose the arrangement you’ve made with Vecchio, and I urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to reconsider. Danny Ryan, you know better.” “This is a one-time thing,” Danny says. “Your soul is never a rental,” Bernie
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He and Jimmy jack the crates open, throw the tools out and start grabbing the plastic-wrapped bricks of heroin, Danny counting them out loud as he does and shoving them into the garbage bags. “Two minutes in!” Jimmy yells. Danny has given them three minutes, max, to do this thing. What they don’t get in three they don’t get, and that’s just part of the discipline of this kind of work. Better to get away light than get caught heavy.
“I’m telling you,” Danny says, “let it sit. It’s not going to be worth any less in a month or two.” Sell the dope off slow, Danny thinks, let the money cool out, then use it to take his family, get out of Dogtown, and start over somewhere. In some clean business. His take should be in excess of a million dollars, more than enough to buy a fresh start. You’re a hypocrite, he tells himself, using dirty dope money to get yourself clean, using other people’s suffering to relieve your own, committing a mortal sin to save your soul. But if that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes, because Ian is
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“What’s the big hurry?” Danny asks. “Because we got millions of dollars sitting down in the basement,” Liam says, “and the sooner we convert it to cash, the better.” Yeah, Danny thinks, Liam likes his cash. But the last thing we need is Liam flashing a roll, going out and buying a new car, watches, jewelry for Pam. Or a freakin’ house on the beach, which would be just like him. The only thing worse than Liam with coke up his nose is Liam with money in his pocket. They both burn a hole.
Ronny twists and squirms. “Let me ask it this way,” Jardine says. “If Liam Murphy was looking at dying behind bars, and his out was giving you up, what do you think he’d do?” Ronny knows the answer. He tells Jardine about the safe house in Lincoln.
Terri’s gone and he can’t find the woman he knew. Danny don’t know if it’s real or he imagined it, but he could swear that she opens her eyes for a second and says, “Take care of our son.” “I will.” “Promise.” “I promise,” he says. “I swear.”
And Liam killing himself? No way. Liam was the only person Liam ever loved.
How many keys did Jardine say on television they seized? Twelve? You gave Vecchio five keys, you kept ten. Liam took twenty-five kilos with him to the Gloc, but then took three to sell. So there were twenty-two kilos in the Gloc when it was raided. Twenty-two, not twelve like Jardine said in the press conference. So he took ten for himself. He’s probably got Vecchio’s five, too.
“I didn’t think it was possible,” Marty says. “Think what was possible?” “That you were as dumb as you look,” Marty says. “I have one son, and he throws two million bucks into Block Island Sound.” “You raised me.” “Your bitch of a mother told me you were mine,” Marty says. “I’ve always had my doubts.” “Your lips to God’s ears.”
Danny Ryan drives up the beach road for the last time, his back to the cold sea, his face toward a warmer shore.
