City on Fire (Danny Ryan, #1)(54)

“You’re the field commander,” Liam says. “Just tell me where to go and I’ll march.”

“You could start by showing up at the Gloc.”

“Yeah,” Liam says. He finishes his drink. “Just let me get my shoes on, my gear, and I’ll drive right down.”

“Shave first.”

“Yes, sir.” Liam salutes him, sets the glass down, waves behind him, and walks back into the bedroom.

“You want a drink or something?” Pam asks Pat.

“No, thanks,” Pat says. “I need to go see my wife. Hurry this guy along, huh? Don’t let him go back to bed.”

“You want me to tell him I won’t fuck him unless he goes out and pretends to be a man?” Pam asks. “Sort of Lysistrata in reverse?”

“I don’t know what that means,” Pat says.

“Doesn’t matter,” Pam says. “Hey, Pat? For whatever it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” Pat says.

We’re all sorry.

So what?

Sheila isn’t home when he gets there. There’s a note on the kitchen table that she’s gone grocery shopping and taken the baby with her. Pat goes to find her but when he gets out there, she’s walking back up the street pushing a stroller.

Pat reaches down to lift up his son.

The baby screams so loud it’s funny, and both Pat and Sheila laugh.

“He doesn’t know you,” Sheila says.

“I haven’t been around enough,” Pat says, handing the boy back to her.

Sheila doesn’t argue with him. She holds the baby to her chest, makes cooing noises, and the crying stops.

“It’ll be over soon,” Pat says.

He sees tears well up in her eyes. Strong Sheila, tough Sheila, hard-ass Sheila, it’s wearing her down, all this.

Then it comes out.

“Pat, let’s leave. Get out of here.”

“I can’t do that, Sheel,” Pat says. “I have to think about the rest of the guys.”

“You think more about them than your own family?” she asks. “Your own wife? If you won’t think about me, think about your son. Do you want Johnny to grow up without a father?”

“No, of course not.”

“Well?”

“Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

“What, because you’re invulnerable?” she asks. “You’re the Man of Steel, leap tall buildings in a single bound—”

“Stop it.”

“No, you stop it,” she says. “Before it’s too late.”

“I’m trying to.”

“No, you’re trying to keep it going,” Sheila says. “They kill one of ours, we kill one of theirs . . . I don’t want to be a widow, Pat. I don’t want to raise our son by myself.”

“You won’t.”

“Let’s just go,” she says. “Go upstairs, throw a few things in the car, and drive away from this place.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It’s exactly that simple.” Tears stream down her face now.

It’s hard for him to look at her. “Sheila . . . I have to go . . .”

“So go,” she says. “Go to your guys.”

“Don’t be mad, okay?”

“Just go.”

“I love you.”

“Do you?” She rolls the stroller to the stoop, starts to take out the grocery bags.

“Let me carry those up,” Pat says.

“I can do it.”

“I know you can, but—”

“Just go!”

Pat walks away.



Danny’s on the street for five goddamn minutes before Jardine drives up behind him, rolls down the window and says, “Get in.”

“You crazy? I’m going to be seen with you.” Danny keeps walking.

“Get in,” Jardine says. “Or do you want to do this in the Federal Building?”

Danny gets in. “Drive. Far.”

Jardine does, pulls out onto 95 and then across the Red Bridge toward Fox Point, where it’s mostly Portuguese.

“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?”

“Okay,” Jardine says. “Without rhetorical flourish, the Italians are really pissed now. The car bombing has brought New York fully behind them, Boston, Hartford, even Springfield. They’re bringing manpower you can’t hope to match. You’re going to die, Danny, unless you take the hand I’m offering you. Is that plain enough English for you?”

“Yeah.” Danny knows the son of a bitch is right.

“We can go right now,” Jardine says. “We swing by, pick up Terri, we don’t even stop for gas. You and I sit down with a tape recorder, and you get a new life.”