Johnny Porno

by Charlie Stella

  John wondered if the builder’s union problems had anything to do with the two flat tires. He thanked the man for looking out for him and told him he should call if something changed. He finished out the day and had to wonder if his luck had already turned back in the wrong direction.

  He put a call in to the car service and told them he was available the next day if they needed him.

  “The hell you think you’re doing us a favor?” the dispatcher said. “You come around when you feel like it, tell us you can’t work when you find something better. What are we supposed to do, check with you first?”

  There was no point in arguing with the guy. Dispatchers could be assholes when it came to flexing the little power they could wield during the course of a day. Most of them were decent enough, but every once in a while you ran into one that got his rocks off treating drivers like dirt and John wasn’t in the mood for it then. He told the guy to go fuck himself and regretted it two seconds later when the guy said, “Okay, buddy, fine, I’ll do that. And you make sure to give me a call again next time you need work.”

  Then the dispatcher had hung up and John was left feeling stupid for letting the guy get under his skin.

  It reminded him of how he’d handled Nick Santorra. Thoughts of that near disaster reminded him of the flat tires again. There was something petty about slashing tires he couldn’t separate from the loudmouth at the bar.

  Or it could be some union muscle cracking down on scabs working a construction site they were looking to shake down. Maybe one of them had followed him from the job and slashed the tires to teach him a lesson.

  John decided there was no point in making himself crazy trying to figure it out. There were other, more pressing issues to worry about, like whether or not to work for Eddie Vento and maybe turn his life around, at least financially. It wasn’t as easy a decision as it seemed. There were serious downsides working for a wiseguy.

  He called his mother from a pay phone and couldn’t tell her his bad news about losing more construction work. He avoided discussing his weekend work and learned she had made a novena for later the same night. John’s only brother would have been thirty-eight this year. The career marine was killed during the first major offensive of the war at Ia Drang. Paul Albano had been thirty years old at the time of his death.

  John felt bad telling his mother he couldn’t attend the novena and then lied about why. Although he understood religion was how his mother continued to cope with the loss of her son, that Paul had moved on to a better place, John couldn’t forgive a God that would let his only brother die.

  He promised his mother he’d say a prayer for his brother, kissed her through the phone and headed home. He reexamined his car when he got there and decided to leave the tires the way they were until the morning. Whether the vandalism was personal or it had to do with his being a scab, John wasn’t about to give whoever had done it a second shot so easily.

  What he did was pick up a container of Chinese food and a six pack of beer before he went up to his apartment. Old man Elias still wasn’t around, but John wasn’t in the mood for company then anyway. He’d check in with the old man in the morning, just to make sure he was okay. Without anyplace to go, John realized he’d be able to sleep in tomorrow. It was a bittersweet irony he’d have to do something about soon.

  * * * *

  Nancy was sitting up in Louis’s bed chain-smoking while he talked on the phone in the next room. She had removed her blouse and pants when she first got there, telling him she was glad he had called and that she needed to get fucked before her period started. The phone rang and he told her it was his doctor calling about the rash. He waved her into the bedroom and turned up the air conditioner to drown out his conversation. That had been thirty-five minutes ago.

  Now she was chilly. She pulled the sheets up to cover her legs and glanced at her watch. In five minutes she was going in there and whoever he was talking to was going to know about it. Four minutes later Louis walked in the bedroom holding a beer.

  “You want?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “It took you long enough.”

  “It was my doctor.”

  “Right. So, what he have to say?”

  “I have a rash.”

  “You said. What kind of rash?”

  “A bad one. I can’t have sex for a few days.”

  Nancy’s face tightened. “Are you kidding me?”

  He sat on the edge of the bed. “Afraid not,” he said. “It’s a bad jock itch and it’ll spread if I’m not careful.”

  Nancy reached for him. He leaned away.

  “Let me see,” she said.

  “Just leave it,” Louis said. “I had to shave my hair. Looks weird.”

  “You shaved your balls?”

  “Had to.”

  She reached for him again. “I wanna see. Show me.”

  “No, damn it. Leave it alone.” He got up off the bed.

  “You sure it’s not VD or something? I’ll call and ask, you know, so don’t lie.”

  “It’s not VD,” he said. “It’s a rash.”

  “No sex? Great. Thanks, Louis. It’s a perfect day now. First Nathan gives me shit about making a fool of him and now I can’t even do it.”

  Louis thumbed over his shoulder. “You could always stop back at the bar and get fucked there, you want.”

  Nancy put both hands up. “Don’t even think about it, Louis, giving me shit too now. I came here to get fucked. I came here the other day for the same thing, but you never came home. I’m gonna have my period any minute and all you ever do is call me for favors and now you have some mysterious rash.”

  “Can you get your ex to show up Sunday?”

  Nancy couldn’t believe it the way he could go from one thing to another as if she wasn’t in the room. It was all about him. It had always been that way. She should know better and she did but here she was anyway.

  “Well?” he said.

  She closed her eyes and huffed. “I told you, he came by last night.”

  “He coming Sunday, Nan? That’s what I just asked.”

  “To see his son, yeah, I think so. Why?”

  “None of your business. How’s that?”

  “Fuck you, Louis. You better be careful with John. He’s not a total idiot.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not the one driving car service,” Louis said. “He’s doing that he’s no Einstein. And don’t go mentioning me to him, either.”

  “I never say anything to John about you. He hates you.”

  Louis finished his beer and sat back on the bed. He put a hand out and rubbed Nancy’s legs through the sheets.

  “I’m sorry about today,” he said. “I would’ve liked going a few rounds myself.”

  “Except for your phone calls,” she said. “Now it’s supposed to be your doctor. Like I believe that one.”

  “That wasn’t my girlfriend,” Louis said.

  “I hate her.”

  “I know.”

  “Good.”

  “Let me ask you something else?”

  “About John? Why don’t I give you his number and you can ask him?”

  “Not about him, no. You mentioned something the other day about the guy did the movie, Deep Throat, you know somebody knows him or something.”

  “I already told you, a woman at the beauty parlor. What about her? She’s older than me, in case you’re wondering.”

  Louis sighed. She couldn’t help herself with the jealousy.

  “Well?” she said.

  “I was gonna ask you how she knows the guy did the movie.”

  “I told you. He used to do her hair. That’s what he was, the director, before he became one, a hairdresser.”

  “She know this guy or what?”

  “Why?”

  Louis rubbed his face to keep from slapping hers. “I’m just asking you a question, Nan, okay? Lay off the interrogation.”

  “She used to get her hair done by the guy,” Nancy said. “Was probab
ly banging him, too. She banged everybody else.”

  “She have a name?”

  “Why, you want to join the parade now, too?”

  “Jesus Christ, can you answer a fucking question without being a jealous bitch about it? No, I don’t wanna bang her. I wanna get in touch with the guy did the movie.”

  “Her name’s Sharon Dowell,” Nancy said. “I don’t have her number. I can probably get it from the beauty parlor.”

  “The one you go to in Great Neck?”

  “Yes. Is this really about contacting the movie guy?”

  “I said it was.”

  “I want you to myself, Louis. At least for a day or two.”

  “I know that, but you gotta lighten up sometimes. I’m not the whoremaster you think.”

  “She’s not going to stay with you,” she said. “Your young one. Not for long. She’ll get bored.”

  “I know that. I don’t care. We’re not serious anyway.”

  “What about me? You serious with me?”

  “It’s been how many years now?”

  “We were married in nineteen-sixty.”

  “And screwing two years before that.”

  “Dating, Louis. It’s called dating.”

  “Whatever. And here we are, still dating.”

  “Now we’re screwing. We were supposed to be.”

  “Well, what does that tell you? I think it’s serious.”

  Nancy stared at him a long moment.

  “What?” Louis said.

  “I may lose Nathan,” Nancy said.

  “You told me. So?”

  Nancy knew he was right about Nathan. She had never loved him to begin with, not really. Still, there was security in the marriage she could never have with Louis.

  “You could be a little more sympathetic,” she said.

  “How’s that?”

  She pushed the sheets off with her feet. “You could take care of me for a change.”

  “It’ll cost you,” he whispered.

  Nancy barely heard him above the hum of the air conditioner. “What?” she said as she pulled her panties down.

  “Nothing,” Louis said.

  Nancy kicked the underwear off her right foot and bit her lower lip as Louis slid across the bed, then between her legs to get into position. At least she was getting this today, she thought. After the morning she’d had, it was a lot better than nothing.

  Chapter 15

  Moon over Miami was playing on one of the local channels. Instead of taking her usual long walk up to the park, around it and back, Melinda Cogan ordered Chinese food for dinner and relaxed in front of her television set. It still saddened her that Betty Grable had died less than two months ago. The blonde bombshell, especially in the one-piece pose, her head glancing over her right shoulder with those million-dollar legs; that body with that face and hair was the total package.

  Being a romantic, Melinda was a sucker for stories about true love trumping all.

  It was something she had to maintain control of, being a romantic. It hadn’t worked out for her so far. Melinda’s only marriage had been an epic disaster. The only relationship she’d had afterwards was a two-month fling with a lawyer she’d met at the diner a few years ago. The lawyer, as it turned out, had been married.

  That one had really stung. The guy had a furnished apartment she thought was his home but was really a fuck pad, what she’d been told men called such hideaways.

  Melinda had been a fool for that guy the same way she’d been one for her husband. Sometimes she hated herself for being so gullible, which was why she was determined to play it extra safe with the new guy she’d met at the diner, although there was something honest about him and the way he had told her so much of himself. It was as if he was warning her not to expect too much because he was an honest working slob.

  At least she hoped he was honest. She could deal without the frills if he was.

  She decided to call him when the Betty Grable movie was over and the credits began rolling. John Albano answered on the second ring.

  “Hello?”

  “John?”

  “Speaking.”

  “It’s Melinda.”

  “Hey, how are you?”

  She liked the enthusiasm in his voice. “Good, and you?” she said.

  “Okay, I guess. Better, now you called. I think I had a dream about you.”

  “You think? I hope it was a good one?”

  “I think it was. I know I woke up happy.”

  “Okay, well, I’m not touching that.”

  “Fair enough. What’s up?”

  “I just finished watching a Betty Grable movie and I was thinking of you so I called.”

  “Thinking of me is good. It’s not the same as a dream, but I’ll take it. Which movie?”

  She smiled on her end of the line, hopeful he wasn’t playing along. “You know her movies?”

  “Some of them,” he said, not very convincingly. “Which one was it?”

  “Moon over Miami.”

  “With Don Ameche, right?”

  “I’m impressed.”

  She was, too. It meant there was a chance he wasn’t another sports fanatic.

  “I think the running back for the Colts when they beat the Giants in the overtime game was a distant cousin or something. Same name, anyway.”

  “Really?” she said, not even trying to sound interested.

  “I guess you don’t like sports,” he said.

  “I don’t dislike them. Baseball I can handle. Sometimes.”

  She didn’t want their first date to be a Mets game. Her last date back in early April had taken her to Shea Stadium and it had been so cold she shivered through eight innings before he finally noticed and they left.

  “How about we go to a game?” John asked.

  “Or maybe we start over and I call you back.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “Let me ask you this, do you read much?”

  It was her second criterion for a man. If they read it meant there was a chance they weren’t Neanderthals like her ex-husband, a guy who took pride in saying he never read a book that didn’t have pictures.

  “Once in a while,” he said. “Last book I read was The Friends of Eddie Coyle. That was a good one.”

  Melinda didn’t know the book but thought it was good he was a reader.

  “The movie just came out back in June, I think,” he said. “Robert Mitchum and Peter Boyle.”

  Or maybe he just saw the movie.

  “Have you seen it yet?” she asked.

  “No, wanna go? Unless you wanna read the book first. I have it here, if you want.”

  Melinda smiled again. “Sure, John, that sounds great,” she said. “And let’s go see the movie, too.”

  * * * *

  “What do you really think?” Detective Brice asked Detective Levin.

  “He was scared enough,” Levin said. “But Berg held his water, there’s no denying that. Looks well schooled to me.”

  “So what are we doing here tipping him off?”

  “You were wondering about that, too, huh?”

  They were discussing their very brief interrogation of George Berg earlier in the day. Levin had parked alongside Forest Park after dropping Kelly off a few minutes earlier. He was sweating from the humidity. He turned on the front seat to reach into the back and roll the rear windows down. The unmarked Plymouth Fury didn’t have air-conditioning.

  Brice said, “I mean we’re out here to investigate what’s going on weekends, what the hell are we doing stirring things up the middle of the week? This guy, he’s involved, he’s gonna show the movie now?”

  “I’d like to know where the tip came from,” Levin said. “George Berg obviously isn’t showing it at his house. How the hell would one of the neighbors know anything unless they were going to see the thing themselves?”

  “I could see that,” Brice said. “Some people are envious that way. They see somebody has somethi
ng going, making a few extra bucks, they get jealous and call it in.”

  “You know that from experience?” Levin said.

  “Kind of, yeah. My old man used to move swag off the docks out of our basement. Pillowcases, sheets, T-shirts, underwear, like that. Somebody on the block was envious gave him up.”

  “He get in trouble?”

  Brice waved it off. “He greased the cop rang the bell. Gave him a package of T-shirts or something. Wife-beaters, I think they were.”

  “New York’s finest,” Levin said.

  Brice lit a cigarette. “The other thing, don’t Nassau cops have a vice squad?”

  “Why they call us a task force, my son.”

  “It’s bullshit,” Brice said. “Big waste of time dicking around out here like this. Berg probably stopped at the first pay phone on his way home and called our hassling him in. He’ll probably spend the weekend playing cards in his basement and drive whichever neighbor gave him up crazy.”

  Levin’s eyebrows furrowed. “You believe that crock?”

  “What?”

  “Look, this mope Berg was showing the film alright,” Levin said, “so why didn’t we catch him in the act? Sit on him Saturday morning and see who brings him the movie, where he goes next and so on. It’s bullshit. This entire detail is bullshit. There’s gotta be a more efficient way to nail the wiseguys behind porn than hanging around guys like George Berg.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Think about it.”

  “You’re humoring me.”

  “Well, think about it.”

  “Think about what? Maybe Kelly’s got a plan.”

  The kid wasn’t getting it, Levin realized. “You’re too philosophical,” he said.

  “It’s my one year in college,” Brice said. “Three C’s and a D.”

  “They let you take four gym classes?”

  “No, but listen to this,” Brice said. He lifted his ass off the seat and farted.

  “You’re an infant,” Levin said.

  “It’s the eggs,” Brice said. “God bless America, my old man used to say.”

  The smell was overwhelming. Levin got out of the car.