After an extensive period of rehab and strengthening, the shattered Vinnie is determined to pick up his weapon of choice, A Browning pistol, and return to the glory and privilege of his former world.
He is also not exactly an outsider. As an an insider and operative in the shady world of finance and extortion, he owes people and is obliged to do their biddings. If he is ready; and Vinnie is in the process of getting ready.
Bored with the tedium of reconstructing cars, he meets a very hot and sweet, but “married to the mob” young lady named Elizabeth. This slowly and inexorably develops into a “relationship” for them, but in the process of getting involved with Elizabeth, Vinnie meets and greets women in various places—forest, city and bar—and has some very steamy, and somewhat psychotic, sexual encounters.
Vinnie and Alan conspire in a plot that is recreated about four times. Each job is a work of art, and that is Vinnie’s approach to his work. There is an interesting dynamic to their friendship, since they’re kind of bonded in the blood and iron of their work—organized criminal activity that is ruthless and business like, with violence and violent language a big part of their argot.
Finally, the job is completed , and Vinnie, in the final scene in the novel, realizes a fractured dream of completion that is simply a continuation of the bizarre life he cannot seem to extricate himself from, no matter how hard he tries.