City on Fire (Danny Ryan, #1)(99)

I knew better, he thinks now as he drives. You can make all the excuses you want for yourself—you were doing it to survive, for your kid, for a better life, you’d make up for it somehow down the road—but the truth is that you still did it.

Danny knew it was freakin’ wrong, that he was putting evil and suffering out into a world that already had too much of both. Was doing it even as he was watching his wife die of cancer with a tube of the same shit running into her arm.

The money he would have made was blood money.

So minutes before he killed the dirty cop, Danny Ryan threw two million dollars’ worth of heroin into the ocean.



The war had started over a woman.

At least that’s how most people tell it: they blame Pam.

Danny was there that day when she walked out of the water onto the beach like a goddess. No one knew this WASP ice maiden was Paulie Moretti’s girlfriend, no one knew he really loved her.

If Liam Murphy knew, he didn’t care.

Then again, Liam never cared about anything but himself. What he thought was that she was a beautiful woman and he was a beautiful man and so they belonged together. He took her like a trophy he’d won just for being him.

And Pam?

Danny never understood what she saw in Liam, or why she stayed with him as long as she did. He’d always liked Pam; she was smart, she was funny, she seemed to care about other people.

Paulie couldn’t get past it—losing Pam, getting cuckolded by some Irish charmer.

Thing of it was, the Irish and Italians had been friends before that. Allies for generations. Danny’s own father, Marty—who’s now thankfully dozed off, snoring instead of singing—was one of the men who put that together. The Irish had the docks, the Italians had the gambling, and they shared the unions. They ran New England together. They were all at the same beach party when Liam made his move on Pam.

Forty years of friendship came apart in one night.

The Italians beat Liam half to death.

Pam came to the hospital and left with Liam.

The war was on.

Sure, most people lay it on Pam, Danny thinks, but Peter Moretti had been wanting to make a move on the docks for years, and he used his brother’s embarrassment as an excuse.

Doesn’t matter now, Danny thinks.

Whatever started the war, it’s over.

We lost.

The losses were more than the docks, the unions.

They were personal, too.

Danny wasn’t a Murphy, he’d married into the family that ruled the Irish mob. Even then he was just pretty much just a soldier. John Murphy and his two sons, Pat and Liam, ran things.

But now John’s in a federal lockup awaiting heroin charges that will put him away for life.

Liam is dead, shot by the same cop that Danny killed.

And Pat, Danny’s best friend—his brother-in-law but more like his brother—was killed. Run over by a car, his body dragged through the streets, flayed almost beyond recognition.

It broke Danny’s heart.

And Terri . . .

She wasn’t killed in the war, Danny thinks. Not directly, anyway, but the cancer started after Pat, her beloved brother, was killed, and sometimes Danny wonders if that was where it began. Like the grief grew from her heart and spread through her chest.

God, Danny loved her.

In a world where most of the guys fucked around, had mistresses or gumars, Danny never cheated. He was as faithful as a golden retriever, and Terri even teased him about it, although she expected nothing less.

She and Danny were there that day Pam showed up, they were lying on the beach together when she came out of the water, her skin glistening from sunshine and salt. Terri saw him looking, gave him a sharp elbow, then they went back to their cottage and made frantic love.

The sex between them—delayed so long because they were Irish Catholics and she was Pat’s sister—was always good. Danny never needed to look outside the marriage, not even when Terri was sick.

Especially not when she was sick.

Her last words to him, before she slipped into the morphine-induced terminal coma— “Take care of our son.”

“I will.”

“Promise.”

“I promise,” he said. “I swear.”



Driving through New Haven on Route 95, Danny notices that buildings are decorated with giant wreaths. The lights in the windows are red and green. A giant Christmas tree pokes up from an office plaza.

Christmas, Danny thinks.

Merry freakin’ Christmas.

He’d forgotten all about it, forgotten Liam’s sick stupid heroin joke about dreaming of a white Christmas. It’s in a few days, right? Danny thinks. The hell difference does it make? Ian’s too young to know or care. Maybe next year . . . if there is a next year.

So do it now, he thinks.

No point in putting it off, it’s not going to get any better with time.

He gets off the highway at Bridgeport, follows a street east until it takes him to the ocean. Or Long Island Sound, anyway. He pulls into a dirt parking lot by a little beach.

Within a few minutes, the others pull in behind him.

Danny gets out of the car. He pulls the collar of his peacoat up around his neck, but the sharp winter air feels good.

Jimmy Mac rolls down his window. His friend since they were in freakin’ kindergarten, Jimmy gets a little chubbier with every year, has a body like a laundry bag, but he’s the best wheelman in the business. He asks, “What’s up? Why did you pull off?”