New York Dead

stool, opened it, and took out a large scalpel. “Don’t worry, I’m very good at this; it’ll be absolutely painless, I promise.” Stone had thought about dying before, but never in such close proximity to the event. Would his whole life flash before his eyes? Would it be less painful if he just relaxed and let it happen? He discovered he could not give in to it; he would go down fighting, with what meager resources he had left. “Wait a minute, Herb!” he said. “There’s something I have to tell you.” “You can tell me at the dinner table,” Van Fleet said, sliding his hand under Stone’s chin and pulling it up to extend his neck.
    Stone jerked his head free. “It’s about Sasha!” he said, and watched Van Fleet’s face.
    Van Fleet showed interest. “What about Sasha?”
    “Something you don’t know about her, something important. I wouldn’t want to say this in front of her at the table.”
    “What is it?”
    “You like guys, don’t you, Herb?”
    “What do you mean?” Van Fleet replied indignantly. “I’m no queer. I like women.”
    “What about your relationship with the men at the table?” Stone asked.
    “You have a filthy mind,” Van Fleet said. “I have no kind of
relationship
with anybody at the table. Except Sasha, of course. We have a perfectly normal sex life.”
    Perfectly normal? Stone laughed aloud. “Come on, Herb, you’re as queer as a three-dollar bill.” Words were all Stone had left to fight with, and he was at least going to get in a few punches before this maniac slaughtered him.
    “That’s a lie!”
    “Then why do you think you like fucking Sasha so much?”
    “Sasha’s a woman, you idiot,” Van Fleet said. “We have a heterosexual relationship!”
    “Sasha’s not a woman, Herbert. I found out. When she was born in Russia, her parents named her Vladimir, because she was a boy. They raised her as a girl, though, and, when she was twelve, she had a sex-change operation in Morocco!” “You’re insane!” Van Fleet cried.
    “You’re fucking a guy, Herbert, you goddamned faggot!” Stone screamed. “All this time you’ve been fucking a guy’s corpse, a dead guy, Herbert!”
    Van Fleet was making animal noises now, and spittle had formed on his lips. He raised the scalpel over his head, and his voice became a howl.
    Stone braced himself, baring his teeth. He’d bite the bastard’s arm off, if he could.
    Then a huge noise filled the room, echoing off the tile walls, and, simultaneously, a hole appeared in Van Fleet’s throat; a moment later, the noise came again, and another hole appeared under his right eye. Van Fleet reeled backward and disappeared from Stone’s view.
    Stone was nearly deaf from the noise, which was now settling into a constant ringing in his ears.
    Then Dino walked into Stone’s view and looked down at him. “Jesus, Stone,” he said, shaking his head. “How do you get yourself into these situations?”

Chapter
50

    “Well, I always told you Van Fleet was dirty, didn’t I?” Dino said. He and Stone were sitting facing each other on the sofas in front of Herbert Van Fleet’s fireplace.
    Stone was dressed again and was rubbing his ankles where they had been bound. “Jesus, Dino, I guess I should have just listened to you all along,” he said sourly. He took a large swig of Van Fleet’s bourbon.
    “I wouldn’t have recognized this place,” Dino said. “He’s sure done a lot to it since we were here before.”
    “I didn’t recognize it either,” Stone said. “I didn’t remember the garage door in the building. I had no idea where I was. How did you figure it out?”
    “You mentioned Van Fleet; that was all I had to go on. I had to take a tire iron to the downstairs door, or I would have been up here sooner.”
    “How much of my conversation with Van Fleet did you hear?”
    “Most of it, I guess. I had to duck out when Van Fleet came back to the kitchen to get his tools.”
    “Well, why did you wait so fucking long to stop the bastard?”
    “I wanted to hear it all. Anyway, you were in no trouble; I wasn’t going to let him carve you up.”
    “I wish I’d known that. He gave me about the worst hour of my life.”
    Dino picked up the phone on the coffee table. “I guess I’d better call it in.”
    “No!” Stone said, snatching the phone away from him.
    “Look, Stone, I’m beat. Between screwing Mary Ann twice a day and shooting craps all night every night, I’m coming apart. Let’s get this