City on Fire (Danny Ryan, #1)(100)

Get it over with, Danny thinks. Just say it, short and sharp. “I dumped the heroin, Jimmy.”

Jimmy’s shock is plain on his bland, friendly face. “The hell, Danny? That was our shot! We risked our lives for that dope!”

And we shouldn’t have, Danny thinks.

Because it was a setup.

From the get-go.

A Moretti captain named Frankie Vecchio had come to them with the proverbial offer you can’t refuse. He was in charge of a forty-kilo shipment of heroin that Peter Moretti bought from the Mexicans on the come. Frankie thought the Morettis were going to have him whacked, so he came to ask Danny to hijack the shipment.

Danny saw it as a chance to cripple the Morettis and end the war.

So I went for it, Danny thinks now.

They jacked the forty keys, it was easy.

Too freakin’ easy, that was the problem.

A fed named Phillip Jardine was in bed with the Italians. The whole plan was to have the Murphys hijack the shipment, then bust them. Most of the heroin would find its way back to the Morettis.

It was all a trap to finish off the Irish.

And it worked.

We fell for it, Danny thinks, hook, line, and sinker.

The Murphys got busted and the Morettis got the dope.

Except for the ten kilos that Danny had stashed away.

It was their safety net, the getaway money, the funds that would let them go off the radar until things cooled off.

Except now Danny has given it to the ocean, to the sea god.

Jimmy is just staring at him.

Ned Egan walks up. Marty’s longtime bodyguard, he’s in his fifties now. Built like a fire hydrant but a hell of a lot tougher. You don’t fuck with Ned Egan, you don’t even joke about fucking with him, because Ned Egan has killed more guys than cholesterol.

Marty stays in the car because he isn’t going to get out in the cold. Back in the day, you said the name Marty Ryan, grown men would piss their pants, but that was a lot of days ago. Now he’s an old man, more often drunk than not, half-blind with cataracts.

Two other guys come over.

Sean South couldn’t look more Irish if you stuck a pipe in his mouth and shoved him into a green leprechaun suit. With his bright-red hair, freckles, and clean-cut appearance, Sean looks about as dangerous as a day-old kitten, but give him a reason and he’d shoot you in the face and then go out for a burger and a beer.

Kevin Coombs has his hands jammed into the black leather jacket he’s worn since Danny first met him. Long, unkempt brown hair down to his shoulders, three days’ growth of beard, Kevin looks like the stereotypical East Coast punk. Add his boozing to that and you have the whole Irish Catholic?alcoholic combo plate. But if you need some serious work done, Kevin is your man.

Collectively, Sean and Kevin are known as “the Altar Boys.” They like to go around saying that they serve “Last Communion.”

“What are we doing, boss?” Sean asks.

“I dumped the heroin,” Danny says.

Kevin blinks. He can’t believe it. Then his face twists into an angry snarl. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Watch your mouth,” Ned says. “You’re talking to the boss.”

“That was millions of dollars there,” Kevin says.

Danny can smell the booze on his breath.

“If we could even lay it off,” Danny says. “I didn’t even know who to approach.”

“Liam did,” Kevin says.

“Liam’s dead,” Danny says. “That shit brought us nothing but bad. We probably have indictments chasing us, never mind the Morettis.”

“That’s why we needed the money, Danny,” Sean says.

Jimmy says, “They’ll all be coming after us. The Italians, the feds . . .”

“I know,” Danny says. But not Jardine, he thinks. Maybe other feds, but not that one. He doesn’t tell the others this—no point in giving them guilty knowledge, both for their protection and his. “But the heroin was evidence. I got rid of it.”

“I can’t believe you did us like that,” Kevin says.

Danny sees Kevin’s wrist move a little above his jacket pocket and knows the gun is in his hand.

If Kevin thinks he can do it, he will.

Sean, too.

They’re a pair, the Altar Boys.

But Danny doesn’t go for his own gun. He doesn’t need to. Ned Egan already has his out.

Pointed at Kevin’s head.

“Kevin,” Danny says, “don’t make me drop you in the ocean with the dope. Because I will.”

It’s right on the edge.

It can go either way.

Then Kevin laughs. Throws his head up and howls. “Throwing two mill in the water?! The feds after us?! The Italians?! The whole freakin’ world?! That’s wicked pisser! I love it! I’m with you, man! I’m with the Danny Ryan crew! Cradle to the freakin’ grave!”

Ned lowers his gun.

A little.

Danny relaxes. A little. The good thing about the Altar Boys is that they’re crazy. The bad thing about the Altar Boys is that they’re crazy.

“Okay, we don’t need a parade here,” Danny says. “Spread out. We’ll stay in touch through Bernie.”

Bernie Hughes, the organization’s old accountant, is holed up in New Hampshire, safe—for the time being, anyway—from the feds and the Morettis.