New Year’s Eve, fuck it, they don’t do anything. Danny and Terri only see the ball drop because they’re up with Ian.
Then it’s January, nineteen-freakin’-eighty-eight, and the war starts again.
Twenty-Six
It’s nothing dramatic, but the Morettis start chipping away at the edges. Not doing any hits, not taking guys off the count, but little shit. First they muscle a Murphy loan shark off his turf, scaring him out of a bar where he did business.
Danny doesn’t respond.
Then they put one of their own guys up for an office in the longshoremen’s union. He doesn’t win, but it sends a message.
Danny doesn’t respond.
Then Peter sends guys to intimidate bars and clubs that are under the Murphy umbrella, extorting them to pay the Italians instead.
Gang wars, like any wars, are largely economic.
They cost money to fight, and guys still have to live, pay mortgages and rent, put food on the table. Guys didn’t get into this thing to join the army, they got in to make money, and if you take the money away, you take the soldiers away.
The Morettis apply more and more pressure, slowly strangling the Irish to death.
They’re like those snakes, Danny thinks—what-do-you-call-’em, pythons—around our necks, squeezing and squeezing until we run out of air.
Then they’ll eat us.
“They’re testing you,” Liam tells Danny at the Gloc. “They think you’re weak. And are we ever going to hit back for Pat?”
“Not yet.”
“That should be your nickname,” Liam says. “‘Not Yet’ Danny Ryan.”
For once, Danny sort of agrees with Liam. He has to do something, so he dispatches Ned Egan to become a presence at the places that have been threatened, to be a deterrent, which Ned certainly is.
That’s a defensive move, but Danny knows he also has to go on the offensive.
Hit the Moretti money.
The Capricorn Hotel on Washington Street is a dump.
But it’s a dump that makes money for the Moretti family. Downstairs is a nightclub that books local bands and serves watered-down drinks; upstairs is a five-bedroom whorehouse. So the johns can meet the women at the bar or just skip the prelims and go straight up the stairs.
One-stop shopping.
The Altar Boys know it well.
Danny warns them, “We only rob the johns, not the girls. Cash, watches, jewelry, no credit cards. And no violence.”
This is important.
So far, the Morettis haven’t hurt anyone, and Danny don’t want to be the first to spill blood.
Jimmy parks in the alley out back and Danny, Kevin, and Sean go up the fire escape. Guns tucked inside their leather jackets, they kick in the rickety door and burst in yelling.
This ain’t your movie brothel. No overstuffed Edwardian furniture, erotic tapestries, no madam with a voice of brass and a heart of gold, just a tired male manager behind a counter and five working girls in cheap lingerie.
While Danny holds a gun on the manager, the Altar Boys walk down the hallway, kick in doors and rob the johns of their cash and jewelry. A couple of the men think this is a raid and try to scramble into their trousers, but they all give it up without a fight.
The manager quietly says to Danny, “You know whose place this is?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“And you’re doing this anyway.” The manager shakes his head.
“Shut up.”
They’re in and out in ten minutes with a haul worth maybe a couple of grand, but that’s not really the point.
The point is to hit back.
They didn’t even wear masks, because none of the victims are going to go to the cops.
No one’s watch costs as much as alimony.
The next place they hit is a Chinese restaurant downtown.
The place has been there since dinosaurs roamed the earth, and since that time everyone who knows anything knows about the carved booth.
Most booths in the restaurant have plain pillars, but one booth has one that’s ornately carved with faces like Chinese opera masks. And the cognoscenti know that if you sit in that booth, you’re not really interested in the moo goo gai pan or the pu pu platter. In fact, you’re not interested in ordering from the menu at all.
What you want is upstairs.
So when Danny and the Altar Boys come in and sit at that booth, the hostess, a Chinese woman in her forties, comes over and asks, “Are you looking for some nice girls?”
“Not nice girls,” Kevin says.
She’s heard this one before.
She walks them upstairs.
This brothel is more elaborate, with red velvet sofas and cushioned chairs. The girls are all Chinese, dressed in Asian gowns.