A Dark and Broken Heart Read Free

very moment—I am screwed. I am surprised every morning I wake up and find out someone hasn’t killed me. I can sell two different lies out of separate corners of my mouth at the same damned time. I saw a girl die three weeks ago. I knew she was ODing, and there was nothing I could do. I knew she wouldn’t make it to the hospital, and I knew I could never save her, and it’s things like that thatmake me wonder what the hell is going on in this world. No one gave a damn about her. Not her dealer, not her pimp, not her mom or dad or brothers or sisters, and sometimes I wonder if I am going to die that way—forgotten, unknown, irrelevant. It’s that kind of thing that gives me nightmares, and, like Tom Waits says, it takes a whole lot of whiskey to make the nightmares go away. And I have nightmares. A lot of nightmares. And they’re getting worse. I gotta do this thing with these three whackos tomorrow. I gotta get this money and get Sandià off my back. I gotta get the lawyers sorted with the alimony, and then we’re good to go. I’ll get cleaned up. I’ll get straight. I’ll drink carrot juice and take vitamins and slow down on the booze, and I’ll stop chugging bennies like they’re PEZ. I’ll get a girl, a nice girl, and things’ll be good. I’ll have some money in my pocket, and we’re all gonna be fine an’ dandy. That’s what we’ll be .
    I think all these things, and then I think: Who the hell are you kidding? You think you’re gonna fool anyone with this, most of all yourself? You’re a dumb son of a bitch. Hell, you couldn’t pour piss out of a shoe if the instructions were written on the heel. Five minutes in your company is the best argument anyone could ever get for compulsory sterilization .
    And then I take a couple of bennies, maybe a Adderall or Desoxyn—whatever I can get—and it all kicks into life. I see things in a different light, and I think: To hell with it; it’s all gonna be fine. Balance it all out with some Klonopin or a Xanax or two, and I start to make sense of things. Things start to look less fractured, more straightforward. Get some drinks. Maybe the Cedar Tavern where they have that old bar that was saved from the Susquehanna Hotel. Go down there and hang out with the ghosts of Ginsberg and Kerouac and Vincent O’Hara, and then drive down to the Bridge Café for soft-shelled crabs and a hanger steak . . . World sure looks seven shades of different after that .
    I’ll do that tonight, but I’ll keep Jack Daniel’s—great friend that he is—at arm’s length. For tomorrow I need my wits and my wisdom. Tomorrow is the day when it starts to turn around one eighty and go in the right damned direction .
    It has to .
    Just for once, it has to .

3
LIKE CALLING UP THUNDER
    T he inside of the Ford Econoline E-250 cargo van smells like a post-game locker room on a hot Sunday afternoon. Four men have sweated inside it for the better part of an hour, back and to the left across the junction, out of line of sight of the building. Vincent Madigan is up front, passenger side; Bobby Landry is behind the wheel; Laurence Fulton and Chuck Williams in back. Landry will stay in the vehicle, keep the motor running. Vincent Madigan will lead the assault, in through the back second-floor windows, coming at them like a tidal wave of shock and awe. That’s the ticket here. This is the free pass for the job. They’ll never expect it, and that element of surprise is the only damned thing they have. Madigan has a sawn-off three-inch Mossberg on a loop from his shoulder and under his overcoat. He has a .44 in back of his waistband. Williams has an M-16 in a canvas duffel. Fulton doesn’t like long-shooters, and has gone for a .45 and a .38. It’s going to be very noisy. And they plan to leave no witnesses.
    By reckoning, by past experience, trusting everything that has happened before, Madigan expects four men in the house. The rear of the house is not where they keep their eyes. Eyes are