City on Fire (Danny Ryan, #1)(10)

Pat puts his hand out to silence him. Danny recognizes the gesture. Seen it a hundred times from Old Man Murphy. Must be genetic.

“Who do you have selling down here?” Pat asks.

“You know Rocco Giannetti.”

Danny knows him—slick twenty-something, drives a freakin’ BMW. Now Danny knows how he makes the payments, the insurance.

“Rocco is showy,” Pat says. “Loud. He attracts attention.”

“What, you’re human resources now?” Paulie asks.

Peter asks, “You’d prefer someone else?”

“I’d prefer a grown-up,” Pat says.

“We can do that,” Peter answers. “How about Chris here?”

There it is, Danny thinks—that was the play all along, to set Chris Palumbo up to sell coke in here. And it wasn’t the Morettis’ idea, it was Chris’s; the red-haired guinea probably got the Morettis all jacked up about the tax, then suggested the coke deal as a compromise. He’ll make on the blow, then kick up to Peter and Paul.

Pat makes his ruling. “Twice a week, during the off-season. Nothing during the summer. Chris can meet his buyer inside, but he goes out to his car to move the dope. Nothing bigger than an ounce, ever.”

“We can’t do business in the summer?” Paulie complains. “What is that?”

“We don’t have to give you anything,” Liam says.

“The fuck you—”

“Okay,” Peter says, shutting his little brother up.

“Tim, you good with this?” Pat asks.

“I guess.”

He’s reluctant and Danny don’t blame him. But what are you gonna do? It’s the way of the world. Their world, anyway. Pat didn’t give away nothing that the Morettis couldn’t just take. It just makes good sense to be gracious about something you can’t prevent.

Besides, Pat is looking to the future. Pasco has been talking about retiring—Mashanuck in the summer, Florida in the winter. Someone is going to step up to take the number one job and Peter Moretti might be the guy. He’s young but already a captain and big earner, and if Moretti Senior wasn’t doing twenty in the Adult Correctional Institutions, he’d be the man, so Peter feels it’s his due. Pat Murphy knows down the line he’s going to be doing business with Peter and wants to keep a good relationship.

“You’ll square this with Pasco?” Pat asks Peter.

“We don’t need to burden him with this,” Peter answers.

A beat of silence and then they all burst out laughing. What the hell, they’re feeling their oats and their strength and their youth, knowing they’re taking over the world. Can do things without the old guys knowing, without their okay. Not that it isn’t serious fucking business, dealing dope in Pasco’s backyard without him knowing; it was just funny the way Peter said it is all, and for a few moments there they’re all friends, all boys having a laugh, putting one over.

“And Peter,” Pat says, “lay off the burgers a little, huh?”

“You worried about my waistline?”

“Pay for a sandwich, you cheap prick.”

That starts them laughing again.

It’s good, Danny thinks, being young in the sweet days of summer.

But, driving back, Danny can’t shake the feeling that Liam just set himself up to deal coke with the Moretti brothers.





Four


Danny gets back, Terri sends him right out again.

“Take the groceries to your father’s,” she says.

She went to Stop & Shop in the morning, got groceries for them and Marty, too. Picked up Marty’s bacon, eggs, coffee, milk, bread, his Luckies, his Bushmills, his Sam Adams, his Hormel corned beef hash, his lotto tickets. Now she has it all sitting out in two plastic bags for Danny to deliver.

It’s only fair, Danny thinks—she did the shopping. Stood in line Labor Day weekend, everyone buying stuff for their cookouts.

Danny picks up the bags and heads over to Marty’s, just up the gravel street, a cottage the old man insists on renting year-round. He knocks on the screen door, doesn’t wait for an answer, and nudges it open with his foot. “It’s me!”

Marty’s sitting in his chair, where he always is, sucking down a Lucky and a beer, listening to the Sox on the radio. Ned Egan sits on the couch by the window. You usually don’t have to look too far from Marty to find Ned.

“You bring my Hormel?” Marty asks.

“When does Terri forget your Hormel?” Danny asks, setting the bags down on the kitchen counter. “Hi, Ned.”

“Danny.”

“I thought maybe you shopped,” Marty says.

Ned gets up and starts to unpack the groceries, put them away on the shelves, in the refrigerator. Ned’s in his forties, has a body like a fire hydrant. Still lifts weights every other day. When he reaches up to put the cans away, the .38 in his shoulder holster shows.

You want to get to Marty, you gotta get through Ned, and no one is going to get through Ned. Marty Ryan’s not important enough anymore that anyone wants to kill him, but Ned ain’t taking chances. Anyway, Danny’s glad his old man has company, someone to heat up his hash for him, bitch about the Sox with.

“You get my scratchers?” Marty asks.