Fuckin' Lie Down Already Read Free Page A

prepared for anything.
    Clay’s wallet had been soaked through with blood and digestive juice, and the contents had dried together into a filthy lump. If he could just work the leather flaps open and get his badge out, maybe the ignorant cop would get back into his cruiser and go home and mow his lawn for the third time this week.
    But the flies started coming after Clay, and the wind shifted enough so that the kid finally glanced up and furrowed his brow.
    “What’s that smell?”
    “I don’t smell anything.” Clay tried pulling his wallet open again but flakes and chunks of his own shit fell to the ground. The flies kept after him-he hadn’t shut the car door all the way and the heat had roused the insects inside. They congregated now on the window, crawling over the glass. The buzzing grew louder.
    “Jesus…what…?” The kid said the name “Jesus” the same way that Clay’s mother and grandmother used to, with reverence and a hint of very real fear.
    “Okay, I lied,” Clay said. “That would be me. Peritonitis.” His fist was crusted with black blood from his seeping intestines.
    The young cop started to pick up on the fact that something bad was going on here that he’d never run into before. He took his ticket book and held it out in front of him as if it might help him to figure out exactly what was happening. He still thought all the answers were in the manual. The kid’s mother probably had a pumpkin pie waiting for him on the kitchen table, fresh out of the oven.
    A rush of rage and jealousy burst inside Clay. His mouth began to frame his son’s name but he couldn’t speak it aloud.
    “Jesus God,” the kid whispered as he started to choke, trying to hold down his puke. “The flies. Your car.”
    “Yeah, it’s getting pretty rank in there.”
    The kid spotted Kath in the passenger seat, her ashen face slack but inflexible, still beautiful in its own way. Clay watched the cop turning now, looking through the back window at Edward strapped into the car seat, lips black, and his once tiny face now bloated to three times its normal size. The crushed Chihuahua was lying near his lap, almost bent in two, with its muzzle frozen into a snarl. Edward’s eyes were half-open and somehow sharply focused into a bitter glare.
    “They’re…”
    “I’m a New York City Homicide Detective,” Clay said. He’d never sounded more ridiculous in his entire life.
    The young cop drew his gun and pointed it with a trembling hand at Clay’s chest. Finally a reaction that Clay could understand. It instantly relaxed and comforted him. Maybe he’d brought a little of Brooklyn along with him.
    “Why don’t you do your job, kid?” Clay said, holding his wet and slithery stomach, surprised at the frenzy in his own voice. He thought he’d been holding up pretty good until then, considering. “There’s a killer on the loose.”
    “What? Who?”
    The young cop tried to keep it together but he started to gag, lips quivering, eyes damn near popping out of his head. He covered his mouth with one palm and turned his face aside, trying to keep the gun steady, but his mother must’ve fed him a greasy breakfast with lots of bacon and juice, and it all came up in roaring waves.
    While the kid was barfing, Clay took three steps over, smacked him to get his attention, and took the gun away. Clay wasn’t moving too well, and he was weak as hell, but the last few days had given him a new resolve.
    Hey, you did what you had to do.
    “What’s your name?”
    The cop wiped ropy strands off his chin and said, “Officer Yahmi.”
    “What kind of name is that?”
    “My father’s from Indochina. You need medical attention. You’re going to keel over any second.”
    “I’ll make it long enough.”
    “To do what?”
    “What’s your first name?”
    “Thomas.”
    It stopped Clay. “Tommy?” he said. Then the laughter boiled up in him, a squealing acid that felt like it was tearing him in half, but still he couldn’t