CARTER: Nobody demanded you screw yourself up with women and booze and lying and pretending—

VINNIE: LYING!

Long pause.

CARTER: I’ve gotta go.

VINNIE: You should. The kids’ll be late for school!

Pause.

CARTER: I can’t keep this up, Vinnie. It’s a dead end. Every time it’s a dead end.

VINNIE: Kinda like marriage, isn’t it?

CARTER: Worse.

VINNIE: Well—

CARTER: I get this—sickening feeling that it’ll never end.

VINNIE: It’s a lot like marriage.

CARTER: We just go around and around and around—

VINNIE: It has been going on for a spell, hasn’t it? Old pal, old buddy, old friend of mine.

Pause.

CARTER: What do you want from me, Vinnie? I’ve tried to take care of you. I really have.

VINNIE: Yeah. I guess you have.

CARTER: I mean, I don’t know what else to do except give you more money. Buy you stuff. Move you to a different place. What else do you want me to do?

VINNIE: Come clean, Carter. It’s real simple.

Pause.

CARTER: Look—I’ve got a proposition to make you.

VINNIE: A proposition!

CARTER: I’m prepared to make you an offer. You name me a price. Just name me a price—a realistic price and I’ll pay you cash for all the stuff you’ve got on me. All the negatives, letters, tapes, whatever you’ve got. We’ll clean this whole mess up, once and for all, and be done with it.

VINNIE: But then we’d never see each other again, Carter.

CARTER: I’m serious, Vinnie! I want to end this thing!

Pause.

VINNIE: You’re the only friend I’ve got, Carter. I mean—this girl—This girl isn’t gonna work out. I can tell she’s not gonna work out.

CARTER: You don’t know that. All you’ve got to do is go talk to her. I mean if you’ve got that much feeling for her—

VINNIE: SHE WON’T TALK TO ME! She had me arrested! It wasn’t any fun being arrested. I mean I’m not a criminal!

CARTER: No, you’re not.

VINNIE: I’m not a criminal in the common sense!

CARTER: Of course not.

VINNIE: Not like you. I mean, I’m basically innocent. I’m an intrinsically innocent person, Carter!

CARTER: Try to calm down.

VINNIE: All I was doing was trying to impress her. That’s all. I might have gone a little overboard with the gun and the handcuffs but I wasn’t trying to hurt her. She had no reason to arrest me, Carter!

CARTER: No, she didn’t.

Pause.

VINNIE: It’s a terrible thing—trying to replace someone—You know? Trying to find someone to take the place—I mean—see, after Rosie ran off I just kinda—(Takes a drink.)

CARTER: She didn’t “run off”

VINNIE: She didn’t?

CARTER: No.