City on Fire (Danny Ryan, #1)(50)

That was bad enough, but then he had to extend a hand to Sal Antonucci, because without Sal and his crew, the war with the Murphys was swirling the toilet. Truth was he needed Sal, he needed Tony. But Peter couldn’t go himself, he just couldn’t make himself do it, so he sent Chris.

Chris argued against sending anyone to see Sal. “It’s a mistake. He’s an egotistical motherfucker in the first place, and now we go begging him? It will only make his head swell up more. Anyway, believe me, he can’t help himself, he’ll get back in the fight.”

“Yeah, but on which side?” Peter asked.



They sit down across a table at Fiori’s, Chris and Frankie V on the one side, Sal and Tony on the other.

Technically Sal is the host, even though Chris asked for the meeting, because this is his turf and the restaurant is under his protection. So Sal orders a good bottle of wine, sips it for approval, and pours a glass for Chris.

Chris gets right down to it. “Peter is prepared to give you back the tax he took from the Manchester thing.”

“Why?” Sal asks. “Why is that?”

“C’mon, Sal, you going to make me suck your dick?”

“I promise I won’t come in your mouth.”

“Peter knows he was wrong,” Chris says. “He knows that and he’s sorry and he wants to make amends.”

“Then why isn’t he here?” Sal asks.

“I advised him not to,” Chris answers. “If he comes in person and you spurn his overture, he loses enormous face, you know that. If we can come to some kind of arrangement here tonight, if I can take that back to Peter, I know he’ll be eager to come over himself. I could hardly hold him back tonight.”

“But you managed,” Tony says.

Chris looks at Sal. “He talk for you now?”

“He’s free to speak his mind,” Sal says. “And let’s be honest—Peter didn’t have no ‘change of heart,’ he didn’t wake up one morning and it hit him, ‘I was a dick to Sal.’ You’re losing the war, you need me and my crew.”

Chris doesn’t answer, but he dips his head in a way that says this is the case.

Always the fucking diplomat, Sal thinks.

“You could take this money, buy your house,” Chris says, and then sees from the look on Sal’s face that this was a mistake.

“The house got sold,” Sal says, his voice low and angry.

“There are other houses,” Chris says, trying to recover.

“Not like that one,” Sal says.

“I wasn’t finished,” Chris says. “You come back, after this thing is over, you get the longshoremen’s union.”

It’s big—far more than the Manchester job was worth. A big chunk of the Murphy business, a big piece of Moretti’s potential income. It’s a real sacrifice by Peter—a real offer.

“I don’t want it,” Sal says.

“What?” Frankie V asks.

He sure as shit wants it.

“I’ve been thinking,” Sal says, “about this thing of ours. It’s changed, not like the old days. There used to be rules. Now? Peter can come in and jerk my money from me just like that? What says he couldn’t do it again? He ‘gives’ me the union? Fuck that, I took the union for him. He ‘gives’ me shit. And then he can just pull it away with the other hand when he feels like it?”

He lets that sit in the air for a second, then says, “Nah. I have businesses—the restaurant, the parking lot, the linen—my family eats. Maybe I just sit back now, be content with that. Because I’ll tell you? Looking around the last few years? Everyone ends up dead or in the joint. I’m thinking of dying at home.”

Frankie V goes old-school. “That’s not how it works. You took an oath. Until you die.”

“Who’s going to enforce that, Frankie?” Sal asks. “You?”

Frankie turns to Chris. “The fuck we wasting our breath for? He doesn’t give a shit his friends are getting killed. His family eats, right? Fuck this. I’m out of here.”

Chris looks across the table at Sal. “So what shall I tell Peter?”

“Finish your drink,” Sal says. “Then take Peter’s money, his union, and his ‘sorries,’ and tell him he can stick them up his ass.”

“What happens when the Murphys come for you, Sal?”

“Why should they come for me?”

“I wouldn’t leave you on the board.”

Well, thanks for telling me that, thinks Sal. If I don’t come back into the fold, you’re going to take me out. But he says, “They come after me I’ll deal with them. Until then, I got nothin’ against the two of you.”

Buy a little time, maybe get them debating if they really want to go up against him.

When they go out the door, Sal says, “The next time they come, they’re coming heavy. Chris will ask for a sit-down just between me and him; Frankie V will be there to take me out. Then you’ll be next.”

Tony asks, “So what do you want to do?”

“Make the meeting with Murphy,” Sal says. “Tell him I’ll take the deal. Go now.”

Because it’s urgent. Soon as Peter gets his “no” answer, he’s going to answer back, and it ain’t gonna be with words.