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tips of his fingers.
    “Makes Helen’a fuckin’ Troy look like a pack’a zits on a monkey’s ass,” Cristo said.
    Paulie nodded. “Right. See, I only married her two-three years ago but every year this time she gets all depressed and—just like a fuckin’ woman—she never told me why. So I think it’s ’cos of the kid, even though that was, like six, eight months ago.”
    “The kid?” Case Piece inquired.
    “Aw, yeah, I guess you don’t know about that. See, me’n Marshie, we wanted a kid, so I knocked her up and, bam, nine months later, out pops the kid. Beautiful baby girl. But, shit, see, the kid wasn’t but three months old before it kicks off. Some…kid disease, right, doc?”
    “Quite a despairing and heretofore unexplained syndrome knows as SIDS,” said the tall doctor solemnly. “The acronym for Sudden Infant Death.”
    “Yeah, that shit—”
    “Aw, Paulie, man,” Case Piece offered his condolences. “That be some fucked up shit. Sorry to hear it.”
    Paulie flapped a hand. “So anyway, like I was sayin’, I thought that’s what the wife was all in the blues about but it turns out it was somethin’ else too. See, her fuckin’ father’s birthday is in December, and, see, her father got whacked, like, fifteen years ago. He was white trash who got rich on a land deal, so then a couple crackers jealous of his money killed the old guy. Now, Marshie wouldn’t tell me how these fuckers whacked her father but she said it was more awful than anything I could ever think of, but then I think, oh, yeah? Well, fuck, I decided that a little vendetta was in order, and it had to be a real gore-house job, ya know?”
    “Oh, so you put the drop on the dudes who whacked the old man,” Case Piece assumed.
    “Naw, naw, see, funny thing is, them two crackers? They wound up gettin’ capped by a cop the same day. But just ’cos they’re dead don’t mean it’s all over.” Paulie shrugged. “It was the only thing I could do. My wife wanted revenge so I thought, shit, I’ll show ’em revenge.”
    Case Piece wasn’t getting the jibe. “But if the two crackers got capped, who’s left?”
    “Who’s left?” Paulie jested, then Argi and Cristo laughed.
    “The family, ” Argi answered.
    Paulie smiled. “Like I said, vendetta. It wasn’t good enough the two guys got whacked by someone else.”
    Case Piece grimly eyed the stump-grinder. “So you come here to pick up that thing’n figure on snatchin’ the family and stump-grindin’ ’em, huh?”
    Paulie grinned. “Naw, naw. Somethin’ worse. ”
    “Shit, man, that some captown groaty shit. What could be worse than gettin’ stump-grinded?”
    Paulie, Argi, and Cristo all laughed. “Somethin’ that all them crackers would never forget. To let ’em know that no one fucks with Paulie Vinchetti’s wife. No one. ”
    Case Piece blinked. “Oh, I dig.” He blinked again. “So…what’cha do, man? What be tricker than the grinder? ”
    “Somethin’ so bad, so off-the-wall gore-show,” Paulie replied, grinning, “that you don’t wanna know. What’cha think, Doc? Ya think I ought to tell Case Piece about the job?”
    Prouty cleared his throat. “Actually, sir, if you happen to hold Mr. Piece in any esteem at all, you’d be doing him a service by not telling him.”
    Yet, again, the mafiosos laughed.
    “Man, you white guys are fucked up,”Case Piece said, “but, shit, that’s cool.” The black man paused. “Wait, Paulie, what the fuck’s any’a this got to do with you guys drivin’ ’round in something half the size of this warehouse?”
    “’Cos for this job?” Paulie kept grinning. “We need somethin’ big.”
    “Solid,” Case Piece muttered, and even as the narrative becomes more and more muddled, it was clear that Case Piece didn’t want to know.
    Dr. Prouty looked behind the beaten couch and alerted the others. “There seems to be a..damsel in distress here.”
    Case Piece chuckled. “Oh, that just