That’s over now. It’s all over.
Dogtown is gone.
He looks into the parking lot at the cars. At least one of them will be Moretti’s people, another one at least will be feds. He’ll know which in a minute. Then he hears the engine and sees Jimmy’s Charger roar out, making as much noise as possible.
A car pulls out and goes after it.
Then another.
Good, Danny thinks. If anyone can lose them, it’s Jimmy Mac, and if he can’t, well, Jimmy’s a good soldier. And he knows that I’ll take care of Angie.
He walks to the other side of the roof and goes down the fire escape.
Five minutes later, he’s on the road, headed for Mashanuck and the heroin.
Just let me get there, Danny thinks, before Jardine does.
Jardine shoves Liam into the passenger seat, then opens the trunk of his car.
A suitcase is sitting there. Jardine opens it and sees three bricks of heroin. He shuts the trunk, gets in behind the wheel. “You’re fucked.”
“Why are we taking my car?” Liam asks.
“Your vehicle,” Jardine says, “is confiscated and is now the property of the United States government. I’m using it to take you in.”
Liam figures this is his one shot. He talks fast. “You’re missing ten keys. The shipment we jacked was forty kilos. There are ten still out there. I can give them to you. I can give you Danny Ryan, too. He’s the top guy now, this was his play, he’s the one you want. I’ll testify against him, against my father, but I want immunity. Total immunity from prosecution. I go into the program, I get a new life.”
“What about Pam Davies?”
“Fuck her,” Liam says. “She already cut her deal, right?”
“If I promise you’ll never spend a day in prison,” Jardine says, “you’ll tell me where the ten keys are?”
“I can tell you where they were,” Liam says. “I don’t know if Danny’s gotten to them.”
“Okay. If we get the dope, you have a deal.”
Liam gives him the address. Jardine drives a little farther, then pulls off into a parking lot behind a bunch of warehouses.
“What are we doing?” Liam asks, suddenly scared.
“I’m a man of my word.” Jardine takes Liam’s revolver and shoots him in the head, then puts the gun in his hand.
He takes the three bricks of heroin from the trunk and gets out.
A car is waiting for him.
Pam is lying on the bed in her towel when the door opens.
“Hello, bitch.”
Paulie points the gun at her.
Danny drives.
He’s made this trip a thousand times, but this time it’s different. This time it’s one-way. He’s going to take the fucking heroin—Please, God, let it still be there—grab his father and his son, and never come back.
Sell the dope in Baltimore or Washington and then turn right.
Keep going until he hits the ocean.
California.
Use the money to put the whole crew on ice, wait a few years, and then start again, with something legitimate.
Danny drives.
Pulls off at a gas station and gets on the phone.
“What do you know?” he asks Bernie.
“They got Liam.”
“Who did?” Danny asks.
“That fed, Jardine,” Bernie says. “Pam called me, sobbing. Said that Jardine came to their motel room and took him away. I called our lawyers, but the feds say they can’t find him in the system, the lying bastards.”
Danny hangs up.
It’s over, he thinks.
Liam will give the location of the heroin up to Jardine to try to strike a plea bargain. Jardine and a crew of feds are probably already there.
But he has to take the chance, has to find out for sure.
He keeps driving south, turns onto the beach road and sees a pair of headlights blink at him.
Jimmy Mac.
Danny pulls over and gets out.
“Liam’s dead,” Jimmy says. “I just heard it on the radio. They found him in his car up in Lowell. They say it was suicide.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Danny says. He tells Jimmy what Bernie told him about Liam being arrested.
And Liam killing himself? No way.
Liam was the only person Liam ever loved.
Danny’s head is freakin’ reeling, trying to put it together. Jardine arrests Liam, now Liam is dead? What was it Pam told Bernie—Jardine came to their motel room . . .
That doesn’t make any sense, either.
When the feds make a bust, they come in battalions, lights flashing, making a Mongolian opera of it for show.