Anza-Borrego Desert, California
April 1991
At last the day was breaking, the morning star on the rise . . .
Virgil
The Aeneid
Book II
Danny should have killed them all.
He knows that now.
Should have known it then—you rip forty million in cash from people in an armed robbery, you shouldn’t leave them alive to come after you.
You should take their money and their lives.
But that ain’t Danny Ryan.
It’s always been his problem—he still believes in God. Heaven and hell and all that happy crap. He’s pushed the button on a few guys, but it was always a him-or-them situation.
The robbery wasn’t. Danny had them all zip-tied, flat on the floor or the ground, helpless, and his guys wanted to put bullets in the backs of their heads.
Execution style, like they say.
“They’d do it to us,” Kevin Coombs said to him.
Yeah, they would, Danny thought.
Popeye Abbarca was notorious for killing not only the people who ripped him off but their entire families, too. Popeye’s head guy had even told Danny that. Looked up from the floor, smiled, and said, “You and all your families. Muerte. And not fast, either.”
We came for the money, not a massacre, Danny thought. Tens of millions of dollars in cash to start new lives, not keep reliving the old ones.
The killing had to stop.
So he took their money and left them their lives.
Now he knows it was a mistake.
He’s on his knees with a gun to his head. The others are tied, bound wrist and ankle, stretched on poles, looking down at him with pleading, terrified eyes.
The desert air is cold at dawn and Danny shivers as he kneels in the sand with the sun coming up and the moon a fading memory. A dream. Maybe that’s all life is, Danny thinks, a dream.
Or a nightmare.
Because even in dreams, Danny thinks, you pay for your sins.
An acrid smell pierces the crisp, fresh air.
Gasoline.
Then Danny hears, “You watch while we burn them alive. Then you.”
So this is how I die, he thinks.
The dream fades.
The long night is over.
The day is breaking.
They leave a little after dawn.
A cold northeast wind—is there any other kind? Danny thinks—blows off the ocean like it’s giving them the bum’s rush. He and his family—or what’s left of it—with his crew in cars behind him, spread out so they don’t look like the refugee convoy they are.
Danny’s old man, Marty, is singing—
Farewell to Prince’s landing stage,
River Mersey fare thee well
I’m bound for California . . .
Danny Ryan’s not sure where they’re going, just that they have to get the hell out of Rhode Island.
It’s not the leaving of Liverpool that grieves me . . .
It’s not Liverpool they’re leaving, it’s freakin’ Providence. They have to put a lot of miles between them and the Moretti crime family, the city cops, the state troopers, the feds . . . just about everybody.
What happens when you lose a war.
Danny’s not grieving, either.
Even though his wife, Terri, died just hours ago now—the cancer took her like a slow-moving but relentless storm—Danny doesn’t have the time for heartbreak, not with an eighteen-month-old child asleep in the back seat.
But my darlin’, when I think of thee . . .
There’ll be a mass, Danny thinks, there’ll be a funeral and a wake, but I won’t be there for any of it. If the cops or the feds didn’t get me, the Morettis would, and then Ian would be an orphan.
The boy sleeps through his grandfather’s caterwauling. I dunno, Danny thinks, maybe the old Irish song is a lullaby.
Danny’s in no hurry for him to wake up.
How am I going to tell him that he isn’t going to see his mommy anymore, that “she’s with God”?
If you believe that stuff.
Danny’s not sure he does anymore.
If there is a God, he thinks, he’s a cruel, vengeful prick who made my wife and my little boy pay for the things I did. I thought Jesus died for my sins, that’s what the nuns said anyway.
Maybe my sins just maxed out Christ’s credit card.
You’ve robbed, Danny thinks, you’ve beaten people. You’ve killed three men. Left the last one dead on a frozen beach just an hour or so ago. He tried to kill you first, though.
Yeah, tell yourself that. The guy is still dead. You still killed him. You have a lot to answer for.
You’re a drug dealer; you were going to put ten kilos of heroin out on the street.
Danny wishes he’d never touched the shit.
You 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 would be 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 t
hrew 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 made that happen. 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 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 brot
her—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 Pam 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 week or so, 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?”
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 down.
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 forties 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’ll shoot you in the face and then go out for a burger and a beer.
Kevin Coombs has his hands jammed into the black l
eather jacket he’s worn since Danny first met him. 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 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, for both 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 mil 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 c
razy.
“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.
“You got it, boss,” Sean says.
Kevin nods.
They all get back in their cars and head out.
We’re refugees, Danny thinks as he drives.
Freakin’ refugees.
Fugitives.
Exiles.
Peter Moretti is freaking the fuck out.
Waiting for Chris Palumbo.
Sitting in the office of American Vending Machine on Atwells Avenue in Providence, Peter’s tapping his right foot like a rabbit on speed. The office is decorated like a mother, because his brother Paulie goes nuts at the holidays and because this was supposed to have been a very good Christmas, what with the heroin money coming in and the Irish going out. Wreaths and shit festoon the walls and a big artificial silver tree stands in the corner with wrapped presents underneath, ready for the annual party.
Maybe I should take some of the presents back, Peter thinks, because if Palumbo doesn’t show up, we’re all going to be broke. Last thing he heard from his consigliere, Chris, he was headed down to the shore to get the ten kilos of horse Danny Ryan had tucked away in a stash house. That was three hours ago and there isn’t anywhere in Rhode Island it takes three hours to get to and get back.
But Chris hasn’t come back, hasn’t called.
So ten keys of horse is in the wind with him.
After you step on it like Godzilla on Bambi, ten kilos of heroin has a street value of over two million dollars.
Peter needs that money.
Because he owes that money.
Sort of.
Peter had bought forty kilos of smack from the Mexicans at a hundred thousand a key because he was desperate to get into the drug business. Guys like Gotti in New York were making money hand over clenched fist with dope, and Peter wanted in on the windfall.
But no way did Peter have four million in cash, so he and his brother went out to half the wiseguys in New England, generously letting them in on the investment opportunity. Some guys bought into it because they liked the potential, others because they were afraid to say no to the boss, but for whatever reason a lot of people had a piece of the shipment.
It would have been fine, but then Peter let Chris Palumbo talk him into doing a very risky thing.
“We send Frankie V to the Irish,” Chris said, “and let him pretend that he’s flipping on us. He tips them off to the heroin shipment and gets Danny Ryan to boost it.”
“The fuck, Chris?” Peter asked, because what the fuck kind of idea was it to get your own dope boosted, especially by a gang you’ve been at war with? Christ, was Chris high himself?
Chris explained that he had a fed, Phillip Jardine, on the arm. The Irish take the heroin and Jardine busts them, effectively ending the long war between the Moretti family and the Irish.
“Four mil is too high a price tag,” Peter said.
“That’s the beauty part,” Chris said.
He explained that Jardine would keep some of the heroin to make it look legit, but the bulk of it would come straight back to them. They’d have to give Jardine a big cut, but by the time they cut up the drugs, there’d be more than enough in street value to make up for the loss.
“Win-win,” Chris said.
Peter went for it.
Yeah, and it all went according to plan.
Officially, Jardine seized twelve kilos from the Irish in a highly publicized raid. John Murphy, the Irish boss, got popped on thirty-to-life federal charges.
Good.
His son Liam got dead.
Even better.
Okay, twenty-eight keys is a fucking fortune and everybody gets paid.
Except—
Danny and take his ten kilos.
Fine.
But—
No one’s heard from either of them since. And Jardine supposedly has the other eighteen keys.
Peter does more math.
There were forty kilos of dope.
Jardine officially busted twelve.
Liam had three keys on him when Jardine caught him.
Danny Ryan had another ten.
Frankie Vecchio took five.
That leaves ten kilos.
Peter ain’t too worried about that. Jardine claimed twelve to satisfy the government and didn’t report the other ten. Probably gave a few of the cops on the raid a taste and will show up with the rest.
If he fucking shows up.
Ryan’s gone, too. Left the hospital where his wife was dying, somehow got around Peter’s guys, and no one’s seen him since, either.
Billy Battaglia comes through the door.
He looks shaken.
“What?” Peter asks.
“Me and some other guys went with Chris to get that dope from Ryan,” Billy says. “Chris goes in, comes out ten minutes later—without the dope—tells us to go home.”
“What the fuck?” Peter’s heart feels like it’s going to jump out of his chest.
“Ryan had shooters outside Chris’s house,” Billy says. “Said he’d have them kill Chris’s whole family if he didn’t back off.”
“Why isn’t Chris here telling me that?”
“Chris hasn’t come?”
“You think you needed to tell me this if Chris already came?” Peter asks. “Where is he now?”
“I dunno. He just drove away.”
The phone rings and Peter jumps.
It’s Paulie. “I just got a call from a Gilead cop. They found a body on the beach.”
Peter feels like he could throw up. Is it Ryan? Chris?
“It’s Jardine,” Paulie says. “One in the chest. Had his gun in his hand.”
“What about Chris?”
“Nothin’.”
Peter hangs up.
The news about Jardine is devastating. The fed was supposed to deliver the rest of the heroin to them. And why did Chris take off? Shit, could he and Ryan have cooked up some deal? That redheaded guinea Chris triple-crossed everyone? It would be just like him.
Merry fuckin’ Christmas, Peter thinks.
We won the war but
t lost our money.
All of it—the years of fighting, the killings, the funerals—all for what?
Nothing.
Unless we find Danny Ryan.
Danny ain’t figuring on being found.
He drives at night, all night. Pulls into a motel in the morning and sleeps most of the day, or as much as Ian will let him. Every day or so, he and Jimmy boost a couple cars and plates, switch them around, smear mud on the plates. Drive them for a few hundred miles and then dump them.
Rinse and repeat.
It’s stressful as hell, always checking the rearview mirror, holding his breath every time he passes a cop car on the highway, praying he doesn’t spot the cruiser pull out and come after him. Tense, too, at gas stations—does he see something in the clerk’s eyes, a small extra glance, a flick of fear?
He chooses motels on the outskirts of town, those places where people don’t ask a lot of questions, where they see nothing and remember less.
Funny thing of it is, this is a trip Danny’s always wanted to make. Never having been out of New England, he’s dreamed about driving cross-country with Terri and Ian, seeing new stuff, experiencing new things.
But in the daytime, like a real person.
Not running at night, like an animal.
Yet the romance of the road is there.
Danny gets this thrill seeing the highway exit signs with the new names—Baltimore, Washington, DC, Lynchburg, Bristol—as the road rolls under his tires, the radio stations change, the distance stacks up.
It’s the freakin’ American dream, Danny thinks as he drives. The road trip, the migration west. This wagon train of theirs, spread out over miles, stopping at phone booths to check in with Bernie to coordinate. Meeting every couple of days in some cheap motel, safety in numbers in case the Italian Apaches show up.
Not easy, what with a baby’s needs and an old man’s bladder. Too many stops,...
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