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come home and found her wearing the cheerleader outfit. Once she was laughing and horny and they’d gone at it on the floor, rough and angry and having a hell of a good bout. Another time she was sitting in the center of the bed with the pom poms at her feet, both of their high school yearbooks torn to shreds and flung all over the mattress. She was crying so hard that he had to get a paper bag from the kitchen and shove it over her face before she hyperventilated.
    “Rocco, you prick, you still hanging in?”
    “…”
    “You still alive?”
    “…aah…”
    Leaning down, Clay had to spit another mouthful of blood onto the floor mat. He went into a coughing fit for a minute while his vision filled with streamers of gold and orange. He tightened his fists on the wheel until his knuckles cracked and the massive knot in his chest eased up. “Good, I got a question to ask-”
    “Yaaah?”
    “Did you screw my wife before or after she was dead?”
    “Aww…”
    Suddenly, it became important to know. “Come on, level with me, I’m trying to work through this as best I can.”
    “…it…”
    “Say again?”
    “…”
    “Hey, you can tell me.”
    “I liked it…”
    “What?”
    Even with the H boiling his few remaining brain cells, Rocco nodded back into the world for a few seconds. “I really dug…”
    “What’d you dig?”
    “…her ass.”
    “Yeah?”
    “…and I had fun…fucking her and…”
    “And?”
    “…shooting you…killing you, man.”
    “Fair enough.”
    Clay had to wait five minutes before there was enough room on the shoulder for him to pull over. He took another two packets of heroin and tore them open, reached into Rocco’s mouth, got hold of his bloated tongue, pulled, and poured the skag down his throat. “Here, enjoy.”
    Rocco immediately began convulsing and choking and pissing himself, kicking the passenger seat so hard that Kathy flopped wildly and her chin wagged back and forth the way she sometimes did during sex.
    The wailing traffic tore by. He counted two police cruisers but neither cop so much as turned his head to look at the side of the road. Sometimes apathy was its own reward.
    Clay got back into his car. He sprayed the apple cinnamon freshener all over the inside of the Caprice, and the flies buzzed and spun in the fragrant mist.
     

CHAPTER FIVE

    It took six hours to get to the Tri-borough Bridge and back into Manhattan. Lights of the city seared into his eyes. Clay had blacked out twice at the wheel for a couple of seconds each time. Now it was 7 PM, right around the time Chuckie liked to start his antipasto. Clay had about twenty hours of video of Chuckie chomping calamari, stuffed artichoke leaves, prosciutto, and thinly sliced Capacola sausage. He made soft humming noises of delight while he ate.
    Clay drove over to 73 rd Street and circled the neighborhood a few times until he found the Experience-L'Esperienza Bella-right off Central Park West. He double-parked out front and left the engine running.
    The agony had become so total now that he had somehow gone beyond it, detached but still hurting, making peace with his own slaughter. Clay could feel himself winding down, the heavy fist tightening around him even as his heart slammed in his chest, lungs struggling to keep his nearly dead, poisoned body going.
    Not much time left, and none to waste on subtlety. He had his .38, the throwaway .32, and the service revolver he took off Tommy Yahmi. Plus the two sets of handcuffs. Clay didn’t much like the feel of Tommy Yahmi’s piece so he stuffed it into the glove compartment, carefully maneuvered the guns in his jacket pockets and kept his finger on the triggers, hands out of sight.
    Clay walked into the restaurant and immediately spotted Chuckie Fariente in the back at the VIP table with Big Frankie Merullo, Roma Bartone, Fabrizio Allegante-the main players in the Merullo crew. Sure enough, they were all forking the shit out of a plate of calamari and red