Free Mad Dog Justice by Mark Rubinstein Page A

something.”
    “Yeah? Like what?” Danny whispers back through a mucous plug in his chest. “What’re we gonna do,
tough
guy? Kill more people? And who the
fuck
are we gonna kill? What’re we? Back in Brooklyn? Huh? Back in that shithole by Sheepshead Bay? You wanna know something, Roddy? I’m looking at you right now, right here today, and you know what? You look just like you did back then—like a goddamned mad dog. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think we slipped back in some fuckin’ time machine.”
    Danny snorts and exhales loudly. His nose starts running; clear liquid dribbles down from both nostrils.
    “We gotta do something?” Danny says. “Like what? What the fuck’re we gonna do? Huh? Who goes down
this
time? The Russian mafia? The fucking Italians? The Fontana brothers? Maybe John Gotti … oh, I forgot. He’s already dead. How ’bout Vladimir fuckin’ Putin? Huh? Maybe we can get to him. Why not the KGB? Or how ’bout the CIA? Jesus, let’s face it. We’re toast.”
    Roddy feels every blood vessel in his body overheating. Amomentary thought glimmers in his brain about Danny and the distance that’s grown between them, how he gets the feeling Dan’s been avoiding him. Jesus, it’s so goddamned tempting to call him on it—to unload and let Danny know how he feels. But before he says anything, another thought comes to him: talking about their relationship right now is a useless diversion. It’s a road trip to no place good. It’s potentially more destructive than anything it might possibly reveal. And it’ll solve nothing.
    Roddy inhales deeply and lets the swirl of thoughts slow down. He feels the muscle tension begin dissipating in a system cooldown.
    Keep your cool. Don’t get sidetracked into accusatory cul-desacs that’ll do nothing but flame resentment. Neither of you needs that right now. You need to be on the same page and figure this out
.
    “All I know, Danny, is this: soon as you’re out of the hospital, you gotta get lost. Me, too. And we gotta convince Angie and Tracy to take the kids and leave.”
    “How’re we gonna do that?”
    “Let’s dope it out.”
    “Yeah … for how long do we
vacate
?”
    “Until we solve this thing,” Roddy says, aware his heart rate is decelerating.
    They fall quiet for a moment. Dan inhales deeply and seems to catch his breath. Roddy listens for squeaks or mucous coming from Dan’s chest but hears nothing. The room seems very still.
    “What’re we gonna solve, Roddy?”
    “We gotta learn who’s coming after us and why.”
    “What about our practices?”
    “You have people working for you. I have my partner. He’ll cover for me.”
    “So what do we tell the girls?”
    “C’mon, Dan, we’re smart guys. We can figure something out.”
    “Yeah, like we figured out how to handle Grange and Kenny?”
    A half hour later, Roddy sits in his car outside St. Joseph’s Hospital. Workers are streaming into the place for the morning shift. It’s nearly eight a.m. It’s a work-a-day world. And he’s not going to be part of it much longer. No, he’s going to
vacate
.
    The key is in the ignition, but Roddy doesn’t turn it. He closes his eyes, and the strangest thing happens: it feels like he’s back in the Sequoia—that huge, forest-green SUV with its rear storage area packed with shovels, a pick, his toolbox, plastic wrap, and that old army .45. Danny’s sitting in the front passenger seat, to his right. They’re on the West Side Highway heading north through Manhattan. Grange is in the backseat snoring like a boiler factory; Kenny’s back there with him, wearing his maître d’ tuxedo.
    They’d hauled the loan shark’s fat ass out to West 46th Street, where the Sequoia was parked. Roddy’s thoughts fast-forward. In a moment, it feels like they’re on the Taconic with its dark tree line on either side of the deserted parkway. Kenny’s going through his insane, drug-fueled rant, punching the sleeping Grange, rifling