Fuckin' Lie Down Already Read Online Free PDF

offer all the insight he’d gained in his career, compact everything into a short but meaningful course that would matter when it counted. In retrospect, Clay thought they were both probably too drunk and pissed off about slow horses to ever really get down to it. Pity.
    The Merullos had a motel a couple miles away where they did some business on occasion. They held the big card games there, hid the guys who were on the run, and set the old timers up with teenage whores after they’d done their eight-count in Sing-Sing. Some of those ancient fucks bounced back pretty good after a week in Saratoga.
    The place was called The Ten-Spot Motel and the red neon “No Vacancy” light was always lit. Only a few cars in the parking lot, most at the other end of the building. The Feds had quit tapping the rooms after spending about a million bucks in tax money to plant wires in sixteen rooms. All they ever got on tape were giggling girls and, once, Don Carlo Gasticalli going into seizures when somebody fucked up and brought in a pre-op tranny hooker named Juan Munez. Clay heard Juan had double D tits and a nine inch schlong that had sent the Don into conniption fits.
    Two thug soldiers were behind the counter doing a really bad job of keeping up appearances. They were watching a porno DVD on a seventeen inch television and listening to the commentary track. The director droned on about camera angles and how he inspired the best performances from his actresses.
    Jesus frickin’ Christ, these were some bored wiseguy sons of bitches.
    Clay walked in trying to stand straight enough to appear normal without his entrails slipping out beneath his belt.
    The thugs could’ve been brothers straight off the boat from Naples. Stony, round but small faces squeezed out of dark flesh, smeared onto the heavy skull, with the thick black hair this close to being a pompadour. Five o’clock shadow at eleven a.m. On occasion, when Clay had to testify in a trial, he’d take the stand and have to point out some mobster. He’d lift his hand and get confused for a second, looking around the courtroom and seeing that same guinea face staring back at him from fifty seats.
    One guy paused the DVD-didn’t want to miss any of the remarks on the best way to light sweaty asses-came up to the counter with both hands clenching his pot belly. “We ain’t got no vacancies.”
    “Hey, Jo Jo,” Clay said.
    “Jo Jo? My name’s Mel.”
    “Mel, that’s what I meant. You seen Chuckie around today?”
    “Who are you?”
    “I’m looking for Chuckie Fariente.”
    “He ain’t here.”
    “You sure?”
    “’course I’m sure.”
    “So where is he?”
    “You got a beef about somethin’, pal?”
    “Where’s Chuckie?”
    “I told you.”
    “You haven’t told me anything.”
    “You startin’ somethin’?”
    “I want to see Chuckie.”
    “Go on, get outta here, if you-”
    “You’re irking the shit out of me, Mel.” Clay raised the .38 and shot him twice in the face. Mel’s occipital ridge bounced off the far wall but his eyebrows clung there about chest high, body wheeling backwards into the television set.
    Clay spun on the other one. “Hey, how’re you doing?”
    “Listen-I’m Frank Merullo.”
    “Seen Chuckie today?” He motioned the bastard forward, stepped up and placed the barrel against the middle of the guy’s upper lip. “Careful how you answer. I pride myself on my natural repose, but I gotta admit, Frank, the last few days have left me a little irritable.”
    “He’s in the city!”
    “Which city?”
    “The city, man. New York. Manhattan.”
    “You gotta be kiddin’ me.”
    “No, it’s true. He was here, had a party with a few whores, but he left this morning. I swear!”
    “I believe you. Where in the city?”
    “His club.”
    That stopped Clay and took him back a bit. He thought he knew just about everything there was to know about the Merullo business. “Chuckie’s got a club?”
    “A new place he opened on the