City on Fire (Danny Ryan, #1)(42)

“Back in?”

“When you first came in, the trauma guys took out the bullet and the bone fragments,” Rosen explains. “Lucky for you, they’re good and didn’t fuck you up permanently. But you have an infection going on—that’s why you’re feverish—that I have to clean up. When that looks good, I’m going to go in and give you a new ball joint. A couple of weeks after that, I go back in and repair the tendons. You’ll never be a threat for Olympic gold, but if you work hard in rehab, you’ll walk just fine.”

“I can’t pay for all that,” Danny says.

“Your mother is picking up the bill,” Rosen says.

“The hell she is.”

“You tell her that, chief,” Rosen says. “I don’t want to end up as my own patient.”



The first day or so, Danny goes in and out of consciousness. Madeleine is there by his bedside. Her or Terri or both. If Danny has a resentment against Madeleine, Terri doesn’t. She likes her, is grateful for what she’s done for her husband.

Danny doesn’t much care one way or the other that first day or so. He just goes in and out. Out is better, because his hip hurts like a motherfucker. The juice of the poppy is sweetness itself, sweet relief, sweet dreams. Floating in liquid warmth.

Yeah, but he comes out of it, sees her face, and it pisses him off. Now she wants to be part of my life, now she loves me? Now she cares? Where was she when . . . when . . . when . . .

So the first few days are a blur. He only wishes the next few were—they’re in all-too-sharp relief. The doctors don’t want him getting hooked, so they step down his morphine, let him feel pain that sets his teeth on edge. Then infection comes back, and fevers, and they have to leave the wound open to drain it and every minute in that bed feels like an hour. Nothing to do but lie there and worry: Am I going to fucking die? Am I going to be a cripple?

What he doesn’t have to worry about is the cops.

No detectives come in to smirk and harass him, get drug-induced statements that would take him from the hospital to the cell.

Danny Ryan was an innocent bystander in a drive-by shooting, end of story.

The Murphys didn’t arrange that.

His mother did.



When the infection subsides, Rosen goes in for the surgery to reconstruct the hip. The operation goes well, but Danny’s immobilized for long days and nights.

Jimmy Mac comes to see him.

“Thanks,” Danny says.

“For what?” Jimmy asks.

Danny lowers his voice. “Saving my fucking life.”

Jimmy blushes. He’s a little embarrassed because he panicked at first when Mick’s face got blown off, and he hit the gas to get out of there—like anyone would, Danny thinks—but he came back. He could have got away safe but he came back for Danny, right into Steve Giordo’s gunsights.

“You’d have done the same for me,” Jimmy says.

Danny nods.

It’s true.

“Your father come around?” Jimmy asks.

Danny shakes his head. “He won’t come. Says he won’t be in the same building as, you know . . .”

Jimmy grins. “Jesus, Danny, I saw her in the lobby. She’s a looker, your mom.”

“Work it out with Angie, it’s okay with me.”

“Hey, I didn’t mean—”

“I know.”

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.

He wakes up when he hears Terri saying, “—the hell are you doing here?”

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.”

“I don’t know why you’re being this way,” Peter says. “I had noth ing to do with what happened. You want to know what your husband was doing down there that night, ask him.”