“Not until I pass out.”
“You make me sad, Danny.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “You are with your friends, though. They always take care of you—”
“Hey! Chiquita! Where’s our shots.”
Danny slowly pushed his chair back a little farther from the table—but as he did, Josefina shook her head. “Danny, it’s okay.” More loudly, she said, “Coming. I bring them right out—”
“You better, or I’m calling INS—”
Danny was up on his feet in a heartbeat. “What did you say.”
Instantly, the other fifty people in the bar cut their chatter, nothing but the music filling the background. The yachtsman with the mouth didn’t seem to catch that drift, though. The Brad smiled, flashing a perfect set of bright, pearly whites.
“I told her”—he emphasized each word—“to bring me our shots or I was going to get her deported.”
A thick arm shot around Danny’s pecs, and Moose’s voice was low in his ear. “Sit down. We’ll wait until they leave and catch ’em in the alley. No witnesses that way.”
“Danny, it’s okay,” Josefina said. “It’s not bothering me—”
“Apologize to her.” Danny nodded at the door. “And then get the fuck out of here.”
“Do you own this place?” The rich guy looked at his buddies. “Your father must be so proud. Then again, he was probably a lawn guy. Garbageman. Oh, wait—was he a mason? ’Cuz maybe you could get him to work on that wall we need in this country?”
As the man nodded at Josefina, Danny lunged forward with such force, he snapped even Moose’s hold.
The next thing he knew, he had the kid down on top of the pool table, his hands around that throat, his pumping arms driving the back of the asshole’s head into the hard felted surface over and over and over again.
“You’re going to kill him!” someone was yelling.
“Stop!”
And then Moose’s more reasonable tone: “Christ, Danny, I told you—wait until we got them in the alley. It’s cleaner that way.”
* * *
Vic Rizzo hadn’t even ordered his beer before the fight broke out, and as he looked over, he was not surprised that Dannyboy Maguire had mounted some yacht club member’s son like the bastard was a sofa during Monday night football. And yeah, Danny was teaching the one-percenter about concussions firsthand.
Meanwhile, Moose, that fat fucker, wasn’t doing a damn thing on the sidelines. Neither was the pretty boy Duff. Nope, those two geniuses were just going to let their buddy kill a guy in front of a bunch of cops—
“Yo, Italian.”
He glanced over. Speak of the devil. “How you, Greek?”
Officer Peter Andropolis thumbed over his shoulder. “You going to let this go on over there?”
“Why it is my problem?”
“It’s your boy.”
“These are my boys.” He nodded at the three from the 617 he’d come in with. “You know that’s four-nine-nine over there.”
“Whatever, Rizzo. We’re going to have to arrest him if this isn’t taken care of. As a professional courtesy, we’re willing to let you handle it if you act now. Otherwise, we’re going to take him in. Gotta be like that.”
Officer Mikey Lange came over. “Well? What’s it going to be, sparkers? And by the way, that’s my favorite pool table. He’s going to ruin the felt with the back of that asshole’s head if he hasn’t already.”
As all eyes settled on him, Rizzo wondered why he was always the one who got called in when someone needed a babysitter. He despised children—especially the kind who had driver’s licenses and problems with impulse control and alcohol.
“Goddamn it.”
Rizzo slid out of the booth and plowed through the other patrons of the bar, all of whom were front and center with the fight. Given the money that was being exchanged, clearly there were bets being laid down, but not on whether sailor boy was going to make a comeback. Nah, more like whether or not there were going to be manslaughter charges or a simple felony assault with grievous bodily harm.
As he passed Moose, he glared at the diesel, who was planted in front of a trio of tight-asses in Polo merch. “You should be dealing with this.”
“I am.”
Yeah, by keeping those anemic reinforcements from helping their Walking Dead candidate buddy. Or from calling 9-1-1 was more like it.
Rizzo didn’t waste time presenting the legal and rational arguments for Danny to release the hold. He just wrapped his arms around the man’s upper stomach, made a fist of his left hand, and wrapped that in the palm of his right.
The Heimlich maneuver was the treatment of choice primarily in cases of stage IV steak-or pork-sphyxia. But it was handy in other situations.
Rizzo contracted his biceps, that reinforced fist of his driving in and up under Dannyboy’s rib cage, expelling all breath, shocking the heart into a brief arrhythmia. The surprise of it made the lock on that throat ease up, and Rizzo step-two’d his evacuation plan with a backward yank that pissed off his bad shoulder.
Danny came off yacht boy and the table like a barnacle pried from the hull of a trawler. Momentum being what it was, they both pinwheeled. Balance-to-booze ratio being what it was, Rizzo recovered his footing. Danny not so much. The 499’s firebrand landed on his ass.
But sure as alchies rallied during a bender, he didn’t stay there. He was up like out of a toaster and he made as though he was just going to hop right back on his victim.
Rizzo stepped in the way. “No.”
“Get out of my—”
“Time for an Uber, Maguire.”
“Fuck you, Rizzo.”
Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnd that was when the next fight started.
chapter
14
It was after ten p.m. when Anne’s cell phone rang. The old-fashioned ding-a-ling pulled her head up out of her laptop, but what she had been studying stayed with her both in her mind and on the screen as she answered.
“Hello?”
“Anne?”
She frowned. “Yes? Wait, Moose?”
“Yeah. It’s me. Long time, no talk, right?”
“It’s been a while.” She cleared her throat. “Ah, how are you? How’s Deandra?”
“Oh, she’s great, we’re great, I’m great. We moved into the house, you know. I got a new Charger, and I’m working on the engine already. You know, getting more horses under that hood. Guess I haven’t changed, huh?”
“Guess not.” She swung her eyes around the enclosed porch and wondered how she could end things without being rude. “So, um . . . what else is new?”
“So, yeah, so Deandra’s really great. She got a job at Avento Salon? It’s that fancy place in the center of town. Did you know that Reese Witherspoon showed up there for highlights last week? She was a good tipper. I think she’s working on a movie somewhere around here. Deandra’s just manning the front desk, but she’s going to be a stylist soon. Did you know that she’s gotten her cosmetology degree?”
Anne’s looked back at the laptop screen. The map that she’d been studying was of the old part of downtown New Brunswick, far from the center, or Centre, where Moose’s wife worked. The latter was Disneyland clean with almost Rodeo Drive kinds of high-end shops and restaurants. The former was where she had been earlier in the day on Harbor Street. Where the dead buildings were.
Where people started fires sometimes for reasons. Like they wanted to, oh, say, get rid of some office equipment that maybe they didn’t want anyone else to see or find?
“That’s great. Hey, Moose?” She hit print and her wireless Brother started chattering on the corner of her desk. “I’m actually working right now. Was there something you needed?”
“Oh, that’s right. You’re a fire inspector. How’s that going?”
“Today was my first day.” And it was rocky, thanks, Moose. “What can I do for you?”
“Hey, is Don Marshall your boss?”
“Yes, he is.”
“Did you know that he used to play college ball for Syracuse—”
“Why was it that you called, Moose?” As the connection went quiet, her heart beat a little faster. “Moose?”
“Yeah.” The long, slow exhale did not inspire confidence. “Listen . . . it’s about Danny.”