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“Aw, damn, speakin’ of your wife”—Argi remembered something—“don’t you want me to drop ya off at her house now that we’re done here?”

Paulie shook his head, and took a bite of a cannoli they’d picked up at a local bakery. “Naw. Forgot to tell ya’s. I sent Marshie to Vegas—”

“Vegas?” Argi remarked. “Man, I love Vegas. The old days, we’d whack guys right and left. Leave their fuckin’ heads in the desert and shit.”

“Yeah. But Marshie, she was so down in the dumps about her father’s birthday, I thought I’d send her on a snappy little vacation. She’s waitin’ for me at the Bellagio—I’ll just grab a flight once we get back to Newark.” Paulie rubbed his hands together. “Yeah, when I tell her we did a special job on the family that whacked her father, she’ll fuck me in a big way.”

“Sounds like a good deal,” Argi commented. “But, damn, boss, what about your kid—you know, the girl? Since we’re here, don’t ya wanna stop by the house and check on her?”

Paulie winced at the suggestion. “‘Becca? Fuck, she ain’t
my
kid, she’s my
step-
kid. Got no idea who the father is, probably some redneck ’cos that’s when Marshie got knocked up with the little smart-ass, back in her redneck days before she got her father’s money. Shit, if I stopped by the house, ‘Becca’d probably hit me up for cash. Last time it was fifty bucks to have her fuckin’
bellybutton
pierced, and the time before that it was
two-fifty
for a goddamn tattoo. A fuckin’ butterfly or some shit, right above her ass. Kids these days, they’re all a bunch of selfish little assholes. And it just irks me, ya know?”

“What’s that, boss?” Cristo asked.

“I’ll wind up havin’ to pay for that kid’s college, and it wasn’t even my nut that knocked Marshie up with her. Just burns me up: spendin’ my hard-earned drug-and-porn cash raisin’ some
other dude’s
nut. Some redneck in a pickup truck gets the nut,
I
get the tuition.”

“Just ain’t right,” Argi remarked.

“Yeah, but what can I do?” Paulie conceded. “It’s my wife’s kid, and I love my wife.”

“An honorable burden you’ve taken upon yourself, sir,” Dr. Prouty said.

“Fuck…”

Argi stroked his chin. “But, boss, the kid’s just a teenager, ain’t she?”

“Yeah. The little smart-ass is sixteen.”

“And you and the wife give her the run of the house?”

“Naw, we got a servant looks after her.” He slapped his head, wincing further at the displeasure. “Oh, and I fuckin’ forgot! When ‘Becca turned sixteen,
what
did Paulie have to do? Had to buy the little shit a
car!
”

The topic was obviously eroding the boss’s mood, so Argi spoke up, “But, ya know, boss, that whore we fucked with back at the warehouse—Mama Lucretia! What a piece of ass!”

Cristo nodded. “Best fuck I had in a while, maybe even in years. Makes her pussy move kind of like a mouth.”

But the observation seemed to hinder Paulie’s spirit. He stared off…

“Somethin’ botherin’ ya, boss?” Argi asked.

“Indeed,” Dr. Prouty reflected. “Mr. Vinchetti seems to have become disquieted by an errant consideration.”

Cristo leaned his head up front. “Yeah, boss. All of a sudden ya look like someone shot your dog and—shit—you don’t even
have
a dog.”

“Fuck, fellas,” Paulie replied, eyes narrowed in self-ruminating concern. “I’ll be honest with ya. As hot-lookin’ as that whore was? My dick was harder watchin’ you guys stuff her head in Melda’s cunt than when I was actually
fuckin’
her.” He shook his head. “Been thinkin’ about shit like that lately. I mean, all these snuff flicks and torture shit we film for the underground market? I get hard as a rock lookin’ at that sick shit. Startin’ to think maybe there’s somethin’
wrong
with me.”

“Naw, boss,” Argi excused. “All men get their dicks up watchin’ flicks of women gettin’ raped, tortured, and murdered. It’s just that no one admits it.”

“Yeah, boss,” Cristo piped up.

But Paulie didn’t seem so sure. “Reminds me of a time long time ago—fuck, I was probably only fifteen. My dad… God rest his soul—”

He, Argi, and Cristo crossed themselves.

“My dad was showin’ me the ropes ’bout what goes on up in the compound—you know, givin’ me the ‘One day, son, all this will be yours’ speech—so he shows me how they snatched this gal who was married to some racketeering bigwig in the F.B.I., and my dad, see, he wanted to teach the guy a lesson. So, anyway, they got the guy’s wife stripped naked and hangin’ by her wrists in one of the snuff rooms, and then my dad’s major button at the time, Tony Guerini, he takes a boxcutter and he cuts a line around the bitch’s waist—you know, same place a belt wound be—and then he works his fingers around under the skin, and she’s screamin’ and flippin’ and floppin’, and you know what Tony did then?” Paulie’s eyes widened at the memory. “He starts
pullin’ down
on the skin, yankin’ it over her ass and legs just like he’s pullin’ off a pair of
pants!
”

“Oh, I remember Tony,” Argi said. “Hardest-core button I ever saw. One time he machine-gunned a busload of first graders because one of the kids on the bus was a judge’s grandson. Another time he snatched this chick who was cheatin’ on one of your dad’s crew-bosses and tourniqueted her neck till her eyeballs popped out and her face turned the color of a plum.”

Cristo reflected. “You know, I think I heard of him. Is that the same guy made porn up the Pennelville House and filmed it while he’d stick a knife in a chick’s belly and fuck her stomach?”

“Naw, naw,” Argi said. “That was Rocco… God rest his soul.”

They all crossed themselves.

“Tony was the guy used to feed kids of cops to the pitbulls,” Argi corrected.

“Yeah, yeah,” Paulie agreed. “Same Tony, all right, but you’re missin’ my point. See, when he was yankin’ this gal’s skin off like it was a
pair of fuckin’ PANTS,
I’m standin’ there watchin’ it and thinkin’ ‘Man, this is some over-the—top fucked-up
shit,
and then I look over at my dad, and you know what he’s doin’?” Paulie stared off. “He’s got his cock out, and he’s
beatin’
off!
”

Argi chuckled. “Yeah, boss, your dad was a character, all right.
Loved
the hardcore vendetta shit.”

“Sure, sure, Argi, but I mean, he was beatin’ off watchin’ a girl get her skin yanked off her ass and legs! And what I thought first is I thought, ‘Holy shit, my old man’s a sick pup jerkin’ off to all this torture, he must be sick in the head, and since he’s my dad…maybe that sickness’ll get passed on to
me!
’ But you know what? The
second
I thought that, I realized somethin’ else…” Paulie gulped. “My dick was rock-hard too…”

“Such are the rites of passage of industrious young men destined to become Mafia bosses,” Prouty offered. “The arrival of self-actualization amid such…axiomatic environs are no doubt quite common.”

Paulie smirked at the spiel. “No, no, Doc, what I mean is… If my dick gets hard watchin’ murder and torture and snuff-flicks and all that..doesn’t that mean I’m mentally fucked up? Doesn’t that mean I’m
abnormal?
”

Dr. Prouty stifled a gag, knowing that a negative response would only exacerbate his employer’s already negative mood, the result of which might have
very
negative effects on Prouty. Why? Because Paul Vinchetti was more than likely
the most sexually sociopathic and bloodthirsty individual
the good doctor had ever observed. “Abnormal, sir? I should think not. For normalcy and abnormalcy are
subjective
terms and therefore cannot be defined
ob
jectively. The primal human mind is incalculably intricate, and tags such as normal and abnormal, moral and immoral, good and bad, etc., are all subject to interpretation. One’s life-experiences and learned behavior most indubitably make subconscious impressions via observation: a
normal
function of the brain. Hence, sexual paraphilias and/or fetishes are derived quite
naturally.
So to answer your query,
no,
sir. You are not abnormal.”

Paulie relaxed in the plush forward seat, a hand to his heart. “Damn, I feel much better now.”

Prouty sighed in relief.

Argi looked down the road ahead. “Okay, so it’s back to Newark. Road out of town’s comin’ up.” He looked to Paulie with a smile. “Hey, boss. Ya feel like callin’ those rednecks back up on the cell and razzin’ ’em a little more?”

“Naw, best to let ’em stew.”

Cristo leaned forward. “But what if…”

“What if
what,
Cristo?”

“I mean, these crackers who live in the hills—ain’t they got a reputation for fuedin’?”

“Fuedin’?”

“Well, sure. Like maybe they’re so pissed off about what we did to that redneck kid…they’ll try to get us
back.
”

Paulie laughed. “Shit, man. These people are
hillbillies.
They eat woodchucks and shit in the woods. What the
fuck
could a bunch of piss-poor backwoods hillbillies do to
us?
”

— | — | —

Chapter 6

(I)

“Bumpity-bump-bump, look at Frosty go…,” the cheerful Christmas song thrummed through the store. Veronica—jacket on, backpack packed—tapped her foot unconsciously to the tune, casting a dreamy smile out the store’s massive front window. The town’s Christmas lights blinked down the main drag in a wondrous holiday vanishing point.

This’ll be my first Christmas with Mike,
she mused.

Footsteps snapped behind her. “Veronica. What are you still doing here? No point both of us staying on duty—we’re not going to have many customers this late.” It was Archie.

“Oh, I already clocked out. I’m just waiting for Mike to get done in the office so I can say goodnight to him.”

Archie paused. “Mike left an hour ago—”

“
What?
”

“Yeah.”

Veronica noticed only now that very few employees remained on duty. Even the Greeter was gone.

“Well, the Greeter should be here,” she said for no reason she understood.

Did Archie stall? “Oh, no, I cut her an hour ago—”

Veronica tensed up. “You just said
Mike
left an hour ago… Mike didn’t leave with
her,
did he?”

Archie laughed but, you know what? It was a forced laugh. “Jesus, Veronica. Get your head out of the sewer. She’s
sixteen.
You’re not implying that she and Mike got something going on, are you?”

Veronica slumped.
I’m overreacting again.
“You’re right. I’m sorry. Don’t know what came over me, that’s all.”

“Mike’s really stressed now; that’s why he left without saying goodnight,” Archie offered. “His job’s not easy, you know.”

Now Veronica felt selfish and stupid.
I need to have more consideration.
“Yeah, and he told me about all that year-end accounting he has to do.” She shuffled away. “See ya tomorrow,” but then she snapped around. “Do you think I should call him?”

Archie made a face. “Well, you probably shouldn’t. I mean, he’s neck-deep in that paperwork.”