“Oh, my God!” she screamed, putting her hand to her mouth. “Please, stop! Why are you doing this?”

“Why?” I screamed. “You want to know fucking why? Well, I’ll tell you fucking why! I’m James fucking Bond looking for microfilm! That’s fucking why!”

She looked at me with her mouth agape and her eyes wide open. “You need help,” she said tonelessly. “You’re a sick man.”

Her very words enraged me. “Oh, fuck you, Nadine! Who the fuck are you to tell me I’m sick? What are you gonna do—try to take a swing at me? Well, come over and see what happens!”

All at once a terrible pain in my back!Someone was pushing me to the floor! Now my wrist was being crushed. “Oww, fuck!” I screamed. I looked up and Dave Beall was on top of me. He squeezed my wrist until the butcher knife fell to the ground.

He looked up at Nadine. “Go back inside,” he said calmly. “I’ll take care of him. Everything’s gonna be fine.”

Nadine ran back into the master bedroom and slammed the door. A second later I heard the lock click.

Dave was still on top of me, and I turned my head around to face him and started laughing. “All right,” I said, “you can let me up now. I was only kidding. I wasn’t gonna hurt her. I was just trying to show her who’s boss.”

Clutching my right biceps with his enormous hand, Dave led me over to a seating area on the other side of the house—one of the few I hadn’t destroyed. He placed me in an overstuffed club chair, looked up at Scott, and said, “Go get the vial of Xanax.”

The last thing I remember was Dave handing me a glass of water and a few Xanax.

I woke up and it was nighttime, the following day. I was back in my office in Old Brookville, sitting behind my mahogany desk. Just how I got here I wasn’t quite sure, but I did remember saying, “Thank you, Rocco!” to Rocco Day, for pulling me out of the car after I’d smashed it into the stone pillar at the edge of the estate on my way home from Southampton. Or had it been Rocco Night I’d thanked? Well…who really gave a shit? They were loyal to Bo, and Bo was loyal to me, and the Duchess didn’t say much to either of them—so she hadn’t crawled inside their minds yet. I would be on alert, though.

Where was the Doleful Duchess? I wondered. I hadn’t seen her since the butcher-knife episode. She was home, but she was hiding somewhere in the mansion—hiding from me! Was she in the master bedroom? No matter. The important thing was my children; at least I was a good father. In the end, that’s how I would be remembered: He was a good father, a family man at heart, and a wonderful provider!

I reached into my desk drawer and pulled out my Ziploc bag with nearly a pound of coke in it. I dumped it on my desktop and dropped my head into the pile and snorted with both nostrils simultaneously. Two seconds later I jerked my head up and muttered, “Holy fucking Christ! Oh, my God!” and then I slumped back in my chair and started breathing heavily.

At that moment the TV volume seemed to increase dramatically, and I heard a gruff, accusing voice say: “Do you know what time it is right now? Where’s your family? Is this your idea of fun—sitting in front of a television set at this hour of the morning—alone? Drunk, high, strung out? Look at your watch for a second, if you still have one.”

What the fuck? I looked at my watch: a $22,000 gold Bulgari. Of course I still had one! I focused back on the TV. What a face! Christ!It was a man in his early fifties, enormous head, huge neck, menacingly handsome features, perfectly coiffed gray hair. In that very instant the name Fred Flintstone came bubbling up into my brain.

Fred Flintstone plowed on: “You want to get rid of me right now? How about getting rid of your disease right now! Alcoholism and addiction are killing you. Seafield has the answers. Call us today; we can help.”

Unbelievable! I thought. How very fucking intrusive! I started muttering at the TV. “You motherfucking Fred Flintstone head—I’ll kick your fucking caveman ass from here to Timbuktu!”

Flintstone kept talking. “Remember: There’s no shame in being an alcoholic or an addict; the only shame is doing nothing about it. So call right now and take…”

I looked around the room… there!…a Remington sculpture on a green marble pedestal. It was two feet tall, made of solid brass—a cowboy riding a bucking bronco. I picked it up and ran toward the TV screen. With all the strength I could muster, I winged it at Fred Flintstone and… CRASH!

No more Fred Flintstone.

I addressed the shattered TV: “You motherfucker! I warned you! Coming into my fucking house and telling me I got a fucking problem. Look at you now, motherfucker!”

I walked back to my desk and sat down, then I dropped my bleeding nose into the pile of coke. But rather than snorting it, I simply rested my face in it, using it as a pillow.

I felt a slight twinge of guilt that my children were upstairs, but since I was such a wonderful provider all the doors were solid mahogany. There was no way anyone had heard a thing. Or that was what I’d thought until I heard heavy footsteps on the stairs. A second later came the voice of the Duchess: “Oh, my God! What are you doing?”

I lifted my head, fully aware that my face was completely covered in coke, and not giving a shit. I looked at the Duchess, and she was stark naked—trying to manipulate me with the possibility of sex.

I said, “Fred Flintstone was trying to come through the TV. But don’t worry—I got him. You can go back to sleep now. It’s safe.”

She stared at me with her mouth open. She had arms crossed underneath her breasts, and I couldn’t help but stare at her nipples. What a shame the woman had turned on me.She would be difficult to replace—not impossible, but difficult.

“Your nose is gushing blood,” she said softly.

I shook my head in disgust. “Stop exaggerating, Nadine. It’s barely even bleeding, and it’s only because it’s allergy season.”

She started to cry. “I can’t stay here anymore unless you go to rehab. I love you too much to watch you kill yourself. I’ve always loved you; don’t ever forget that.” And then she left the room, closing the door behind her but not slamming it.

“Fuck you!” I screamed at the door. “I don’t got a fucking problem! I could stop anytime I want!” I took a deep breath and used my T-shirt to wipe the blood off my nose and chin. What did she think, that she could bluff me into rehab? Please! I felt another warm gush under my nose. I lifted the bottom of my T-shirt again and wiped away more blood. Christ!If I only had ether, I could make the cocaine into crack. Then I could just smoke the coke and avoid all these nasal problems. But, wait!There were other ways to make crack, weren’t there? Yes, there were homespun recipes…something having to do with baking soda. There had to be a recipe for making crack on the Internet!

Five minutes later I had my answer. I stumbled to the kitchen, grabbed the ingredients, and dropped them on the granite countertop. I filled a copper pot with water and dumped in the cocaine and baking soda, then turned the burner on high and put a cover on it. I placed a ceramic cookie jar on top of the lid.

I sat down on a stool next to the stove and rested my head on the countertop. I started feeling dizzy, so I shut my eyes and tried to relax. I was drifting…drifting… KABOOM!I nearly jumped out of my own skin as my homespun recipe exploded all over the kitchen. There was crack everywhere—on the ceiling, floor, and walls.

A minute later the Duchess came running in. “Oh, my God! What happened? What was that explosion?” She was out of breath, almost panic-stricken.

“Nothing,” I muttered. “I was baking a cake and fell asleep.”

The last thing I remember her saying was: “I’m going to my mother’s tomorrow morning.”

And the last thing I remember thinking was: The sooner the better.