wrist to Edward’s strapped-in baby seat. The prick wasn’t going anywhere.
“Let me out!” he groaned, the beautiful panic contorting his features. “This is a charnel house!”
Clay started the car and eased out past the stunned folks lining the street. “It’s the fruits of your labor.”
“It’s a meat locker in here! I told you, none of this was my fault. This stupid cocksucker here was only supposed to scare you off.”
“How?”
Lips crawling, Chuckie remained quiet.
“I’ve been living in your garbage for four years now, taping every move you made, Chuckie, and I could never make anything stick. So why the sudden need for such an extreme move?”
“It’s not so sudden. You’ve been getting on my nerves. Between the attorney fees and the payoffs and the all the bribery, you know how much money you’ve been costing me?”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, you rotten bastard.”
It wasn’t much but it made Clay feel a bit better, like maybe it hadn’t all been a complete waste. He’d done the best he could at his job, and even if he didn’t win out in the end, at least he’d pissed these people off. That was something to cling to now, when he needed it most.
He slid into traffic on Central Park West just as the ambulances descended on the restaurant.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Not much farther to go.”
“Why didn’t you just firebomb my house like a normal person?”
“Ask my son.”
They drove uptown and took the transverse road at 86thstreet into the park. Traffic was heavy, as always, but Clay waited until there was a break between taxis and stomped the pedal, yanked the wheel hard to the right, hit the curb and jumped it.
“Stop this car!”
They drove across the park, tearing up the fields where Clay’s father used to take him to play ball on Saturday mornings, when nothing mattered but his hopes of being a cop like his old man. He’d done that much right.
The Caprice was skidding like crazy, Clay starting to laugh some. At last, Chuckie began whining, then begging, then really letting out these agonized sobs from deep in his body. Clay grinned and closed his eyes, took his hands off the wheel and just rolled with it.
They clipped a tree at the top of the hill and the Caprice became airborne. Clay couldn’t see anything and snuggled in his seat, enjoying the feel of lift-off. He counted three seconds and knew it would be bad when they came down. The explosive impact became a storm of anguish in his belly as his organs tore and rattled. Glass shattered and the shriek of twisting metal filled his head along. The diamond spear point of agony thrust into his brain, but it wasn’t enough to drown out Chuckie Fariente’s cries scattering across the tattered field as the Caprice came to an abruptly insane stop.
Smoke rose and the air conditioner kicked out.
The deluge of silence immersed the city.
Flies crept over Clay’s throat and zipped off when his Adam’s apple bobbed.
He heard the handcuffs rattling as Chuckie tried to free himself. Clay looked at his lap and saw nothing but a gaping black hole where his stomach had been, all of it ripped wide and emptied.
He opened the door and crawled out, pieces of himself slipping to one side and then the other. Blood gushed from his nose and mouth but he still wasn’t down. Not until Chuckie went first.
He leaned into the busted back window and saw Chuckie’s battered face.
“Still with me, Chuckie?”
“Just die, you bastard. Look at you! Just die!”
“In a minute.”
Clay gathered up the canisters of apple cinnamon air freshener and put them in Chuckie’s lap. He tilted down and kissed Edward on his black forehead and said, “Goodbye, my boy.”
Clay backed up a few steps dragging viscera in a lengthy line. He pulled out the.38, aimed at Chuckie’s seat, and pulled the trigger. Chuckie howled and the high-pressure canisters detonated and ignited the interior of the car. Clay watched as slick Chuckie Fariente’s face flamed up, the fire eating all that goddamn mousse in his hair, the double Windsor knot of his tie, and those uncool, petrified eyes.
The front of the Caprice had been completely buried in the crash, three tons of dirt splashing up like an colossal wave to encompass the hood and windshield. It was as good a grave as he was going to be able to offer them.
The overwhelming moonlight gave the park a beautiful silver glaze which only brightened the harder he stared.
Clay wandered down a hill a few steps, shuddering violently, maybe chuckling.
There, in the shimmering luster of night, Kathy did a cheer in her high school outfit. Smiling, welcoming the opportunity to help him set free his failures and grant him another chance to get it right. But first-first, she said, with a glint of love in her eyes, hand swaying over his ass as if they were about to embrace in a wonderfully slow dance, first he had to take a little rest.
So he laid down.
About the Author
www.tompiccirilli.com
www.thecoldspot.blogspot.com
Tom Piccirilli is the author of twenty novels including SHADOW SEASON, THE COLD SPOT, THE COLDEST MILE, and A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN. He's won two International Thriller Awards and four Bram Stoker Awards, as well as having been nominated for the Edgar, the World Fantasy Award, the Macavity, and Le Grand Prix de L'imagination.
