Fuckin' Lie Down Already Read Free Page B

stop. “Tommy Yahmi?”
    It hurt the kid’s feelings, laughing at him like that. He chewed his lower lip, trying to get tough inside, deal with everything the way he knew he should’ve been able to, but he came up short. Could bench press 350 easily but this took his breath away.
    Clay kept guffawing for another ten seconds and then the reality of the situation came pouring back in, and his laughter stopped as if someone had cut his throat.
    Tommy Yahmi was doing a few things right at least. He hadn’t panicked yet and he was trying to keep Clay talking. “You really with the NYPD?”
    “Yeah.”
    “What are you doing this for?”
    “There’s no way to make this sound hip, really, but you just wouldn’t understand. You would’ve had to be there, and you’d better thank Christ that you weren’t.”
    “Thank you, Jesus,” he said, and he meant it too.
    “Do that later.” Clay checked the kid’s service .38. “I need your extra ammo.”
    “Please, mister…I haven’t done anything to you… please …”
    “Relax, only scumbags kill a man with his own gun.” Clay grabbed the cop’s extra clip, stunned to see it was a speed-loader. Something else that made the rookies feel slick. “I don’t suppose you have a throwaway or a back-up piece.”
    “A what?”
    “Forget it. Give me your cuffs.”
    “In the cruiser.”
    “You dumbass. Always keep them on your belt.”
    Clay used his pocket knife to cut the radio cord in the cruiser and snatched up the cuffs. He jammed Tommy Yahmi’s night stick through the steering wheel and braced it against the column, threw the car into drive and let it slowly arc to the right and roll down the embankment.
    The police car hit the end of the slope, went over into a ravine and was out of sight among the brush in two seconds. He couldn’t help wondering how many bodies might be hidden there as well. You never knew where Chuckie Fariente’s crew might be burying them.
    So far, he and the young cop had been out here for fifteen minutes already and not another vehicle had passed. Clay looked up and down the highway and saw nothing.
    “Is that your family?” Tommy Yahmi asked, still hoping to get the conversation moving a little.
    “Yeah.”
    “What happened to them?”
    “It’s a little too long for me to get into right now.”
    “What are you doing?”
    “Finishing what somebody else started.”
    “You need-”
    “Get lost Tommy Yahmi,” Clay said, waving him away with the two pistols. The kid just kept staring. “Start walking. Go home and eat your pie and ice cream. Tell Mom I said hello.”
    “Let me help you.”
    “Got a man I need to see first.”
    A wave of dizziness washed over Clay as he climbed back into his ’89 Caprice and got behind the wheel. He’d always hated the cramped space before, but now he welcomed it, feeling closer to Kath and Edward than he had in months. Protected on all sides.
    He drove for about three miles before he saw a pile of roadkill on the shoulder. Clay had no idea what the animal had been, but he pulled over, pried its smashed furry body up with the toe of his shoe, grabbed the thing and tossed it onto the floor of the back seat.
    There now. He got back in and started hunting for Rocco Tucci again, while his liver slid another inch to the left.
     

CHAPTER TWO

    Sometimes you can surprise the hell out of yourself, stepping into a scene like this and still not losing all your cool.
    So he’d walked in the door to see Kath lying there on the couch with a pink scrunchie tied tightly around her arm, the syringe on the floor but the broken needle still jabbed in a vein.
    Her chest was covered in vomit, one thickly encrusted breast exposed. Legs wide open, knees bent and propped with her feet wedged into the corner cushions. The torn panties had been thrown across the room and hung off one of her high school cheerleading trophies on the mantel. Clay could tell she was dead by the effortless, smooth look of serenity and