Johnny Porno

by Charlie Stella

  Billy put up a pot of coffee. He was finished with his first cup when Kathleen joined him in the kitchen. She put four slices of bread in the toaster and set out a stick of butter on a plate while Billy retrieved the mail and newspaper from the stoop. She had the toast buttered when he returned. They sat across from one another at the table and sipped their coffees.

  After a while Kathleen pointed at his newspaper with her butter knife. “Anything interesting?”

  “Not really,” Billy said. He was paging through the New York Post, scanning the articles it looked like.

  “What time you get in last night?”

  “Pretty late. After two, I think.”

  “Closer to three.”

  He looked up from the newspaper. “Then what you ask for?”

  Kathleen was surprised at his tone. When she looked up, Billy was glaring at her.

  “There’s nothing new in the world,” he said. “Lots and lots of bullshit is all.”

  She nervously dipped one end of a piece of toast into her coffee and took a bite. She wiped her mouth with a napkin before looking up at him again.

  “Maybe we should call a realtor,” she said.

  It was something she had been thinking about, selling their house and starting over someplace else. Now that he wasn’t a cop anymore, they had options.

  “Sure,” Billy said, “except I have something to do later.”

  “When?”

  “Around three.”

  “Then I should call soon. At least to get an idea of the market value.”

  “I already know that. One-twenty, tops, this neighborhood. Probably more like one-five or one flat.”

  “You looked into it?”

  “Not directly, no. I have an idea, though.”

  “One-twenty would give us close to a hundred to buy someplace else,” Kathleen said. “We could get a lot more for our money outside New York.”

  Billy nodded but wasn’t paying attention. He seemed to be reading something.

  “I’d still like to get an estimate,” Kathleen said. “You think they’d come today? I’d have to clean up some.”

  “They aren’t gonna care if the dishes are done, Kathleen.”

  “I don’t want somebody coming in with the place a mess.”

  She was waiting for his attention, but Billy was focused on whatever he was reading.

  “Billy?”

  “It’s not a mess,” he said. “If we’re just looking for an appraisal, you don’t need to scrub the joint.”

  It bothered her that he was so preoccupied. She knew he wasn’t looking for a job. It was something else and it made her uneasy.

  “Or we could borrow off it until you find work,” she said.

  “Re-mortgage? I’d rather not go that route.”

  “Then I should work.”

  “No.”

  “I’m getting bored anyway. I’m at the gym five days a week, mostly from boredom. I need something to do. I might as well get paid for it.”

  Billy stared at her again.

  “You’re bored, are you?” he said.

  “I’m just saying.”

  “Just saying what?”

  “I can help with the bills.”

  “And then you wouldn’t be bored.”

  “What?”

  “Maybe you just need to get out and about,” he said. “A change of scenery, make your day more exciting.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “No, you didn’t, did you?”

  Billy was back to staring at her. This time she felt a chill.

  “You’re not working,” he said. “Not ever.”

  Kathleen looked away.

  “Money’s fine,” he said. “Stop worrying about it.”

  She picked up her coffee and sipped again. She had been suspicious of Billy’s whereabouts the last few times he left the house. He used to tell her he couldn’t say where he was going because of his undercover work, but now that he was a civilian again she had hoped the secrecy would end and it hadn’t.

  “I’ve been thinking about someplace warm,” she said. “To live, I mean. Someplace where it doesn’t snow.”

  “But not Florida, right?”

  “No, definitely not Florida.”

  He folded the newspaper in half and leaned both elbows on the table. “Where then? Where warm?”

  “I don’t know. California? Arizona? New Mexico, maybe.”

  “Somewhere west, huh?”

  “Why not?”

  “Might be okay,” Billy said. “Certainly lots of hard bodies out there, young guys looking to pick up good-looking divorcees off the beaches in California.”

  Either he was picking a fight or providing the outline for a new sex story. Sometimes he did that, suggested something that turned him on and then she’d have to fictionalize it so he could get off.

  She wasn’t in the mood, though, and pointed to the newspaper he’d been reading. “You done with that?”

  Billy pushed the Post across the table.

  Kathleen unfolded it, licked her right thumb and index fingers to turn the first page.

  “I’ll bet they’d love that, the lifeguards on a beach out there,” Billy said. “Seeing that red patch of yours through the white bikini I like.”

  He had become a voyeur over time. First it was through her retelling her sexual past that had turned him on. Then he asked her to act out what she had done with other men, sometimes using vibrators and sometimes, like the other day, using nothing at all. Over time, whether real or imagined, it became obvious that it was the image of his wife being turned on that excited Billy most.

  She was still looking through the newspaper when she saw a name she recognized, Victor Vasquez. She picked up the paper and brought it closer to read the article.

  “What’s up?” Billy asked.

  Kathleen didn’t hear him. She read about a funeral mass taking place at a church near Starrett City in Brooklyn. Victor Vasquez, devoted husband and father of three girls, had been killed a few days ago in a park in Canarsie.

  Kathleen had been involved with Vasquez for a short time three years earlier. It was the first affair she had confessed to Billy and was also the first she’d recorded in the notebook.

  “What?” Billy asked.

  “Somebody killed Victor Vasquez.”

  “Your Victor Vasquez?”

  Kathleen looked up. “Yes.”

  “Don’t look at me,” Billy said. “I didn’t do it.”

  She was searching for a sign that he was lying or telling the truth, but couldn’t find one.

  Then Billy said, “And if I did? Would you leave me, Kathleen? Would you betray me ... again?”

  She wasn’t sure anymore so she didn’t answer.

  “Did you?” she asked instead.

  “You want that other slice of toast?” Billy said.

  Chapter 25

  Elias was sipping coffee on the stoop when John ran into him on his way out of the building. He tried to duck past him but the old man put a hand out to stop him.

  “Good morning, Mr. Criminal,” Elias said.

  “Mister MIA,” John said. “Where you been?”

  “What this is, MIA?”

  “Missing in action. Everybody thought you got married.”

  Elias hadn’t been looking at John. He sipped his coffee, saw the bruise on John’s forehead and pointed to it.

  “What happened?”

  “I fell.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I did.”

  The old man motioned toward the street. “I see car outside last night. Looks like somebody watching here, this building.”

  “Maybe it was a guy waiting for his date.”

  “Maybe he’s waiting for you.”

  “Yeah, what makes you think that?”

  The two men stared at each other until Elias waved John off.

  “You okay?” John asked.

  “How do I look?”

  “Like you didn’t get laid l
ast night.”

  “I didn’t, but is beside the point. Maybe this is Mafia friends waiting for you. You don’t know it’s not.”

  John sighed. “You’re seeing things,” he said. “I hear you’re spending a lot of time around the corner.”

  “She’s nice lady, but crazy. Madame Hortense, eh?”

  “Who?”

  “You should read more.”

  “Soon’s I find the time.”

  Elias waved him off. “Pff,” he said.

  “See you later,” John said.

  The old man bowed. “I thank you for the warning.”

  Elias headed inside the building; John went to his car. The seven extra stops were mostly on the south shore of Long Island with five located between Freeport and Bayshore and the other two north off the Southern State Parkway in Uniondale and Hicksville. Although some of the new stops were Saturday showings only, coordinating them with his regulars located on the north shore proved to be a challenge.

  He had arranged his route according to the first showing at each location. He made his first few stops without a problem, picking up the extra film reels at stop four. Then traffic slowed him down before one of his regular stops in West Islip and he was fifteen minutes late to the garage on Union Boulevard. When he showed the men waiting there the movie paraphernalia he had brought, three autographed posters of Linda Lovelace and two pair of the panties were sold on the spot.

  John had been told to stop at George Berg’s house instead of the Knights of Columbus. Although he wouldn’t be leaving the film, the stop was supposed to throw off police surveillance. He’d been nervous the police were watching Berg. The last thing he needed was an arrest he couldn’t afford.

  Once he had started his route, he remained focused on the reward; he stood to double his weekend pay. He stopped at Berg’s house and played the game with one eye on the time.

  “I guess you didn’t get Linda Lovelace to make the drive with you today, huh?” Berg said.

  “Would you believe me if I told you I have a shitload of autographed posters in the trunk?”

  “I’d believe it if I saw them. And then I’d be pissed for not getting any royalties on the idea. The hell happened your forehead?”

  “I fell.”

  “Head first?”

  “George, gimme a break here.”

  “Sorry,” Berg said.

  “I also have signed panties,” John told him. “And I’ll give you a little inside info, just because I like you and hate to see you get upset over our inability to do business this weekend.”

  “What’s that?” Berg asked. “It’s not really her signature?”

  John looked in both directions before winking at Berg. “But you never heard that from me,” he said.

  Berg motioned with his head for John to look up the street. “Yellow Mustang about halfway up the block,” he said. “There’re two of them in it, two of the three came here the other day, knocked on my door, wanted to know if I knew anybody peddling a porno. The other one didn’t show yet had the balls the other day to walk inside my house, use the toilet. He even took a soda from the fridge before he left.”

  “Sounds like a warning to me,” John said. “Or they wouldn’t’ve knocked, right?”

  “Somebody’s getting greased. Except today I’m the fall guy. No movie, no money.”

  “Word is there’s another one about to hit the market. You can run a double feature.”

  “What, she make a sequel already?”

  “Something from the Coast they’re bootlegging here now. Behind the Green Door?”

  “The Ivory Snow girl,” Berg said. “She’s a cutie alright.”

  “She is?”

  “Marilyn Chambers. You haven’t seen her?”

  “I don’t have time to watch movies, George. Maybe some day when I’m retired.”

  “I hear that.”

  “Okay, I guess I’ll see you next week again.”

  “Hopefully under better circumstances.”

  John shook Berg’s hand, pulled away from the curb and glanced up at the rearview mirror. He saw the yellow Mustang hadn’t moved. He glanced at his watch and saw he’d burned an extra five minutes he didn’t have to spare.

  * * * *

  Bridget jammed a worn paperback novel under the front end of the projector to adjust the height of the picture on her living room wall. She had set the projector on the end table beside her couch while Eddie Vento, his feet up on the cocktail table, snored on the opposite end of the couch. Half an hour ago, they had watched the new film he said his crew would be pushing, Behind the Green Door, but when the scene with the black guy began, Vento made her turn the projector off.

  Last night he’d come back to the apartment drunk after playing cards through the night and wouldn’t talk. Bridget had let him sleep until noon, but now he was grumpy with a hangover. She needed to get him out of the way for a few minutes while she changed the tape in the recorder hidden under the couch.

  She flipped a switch and the projector whirred to life. Vento woke from the noise and quickly covered his eyes from the flashing spots on the living room wall.

  “Again?” he said.

  “This is the other one,” she said. “I wanna show you something.”

  Vento removed his legs from the table and leaned forward with his right hand still shading his eyes as the music began.

  “Show me what?” he said.

  “How much better-looking I am than this woman.”

  The music from the movie started.

  “Turn it down,” Vento said. “God damn noise.”

  Bridget turned the volume down. Vento started for the bathroom.

  “Wait, don’t go yet,” she said. “Watch.”

  Vento was halfway across the living room. “Watch my ass,” he said.

  Bridget stopped the projector.

  “You could’ve waited,” she said. “It would’ve taken you all of two seconds.”

  “What?” he yelled.

  She was about to repeat herself when she heard him peeing. “At least close the door,” she said. “Asshole,” she whispered.

  She quickly retrieved the recorder from under the couch and replaced the used tape with a blank one. She rushed back to the projector and slid the tape in the end-table drawer.

  Vento was drying his face when he returned a few minutes later. Bridget turned on the projector again, then turned up the volume. The music from the start of Deep Throat began.

  “Turn that fucking thing off,” he said. “I know she’s a dog. Nobody cares. She can swallow a telephone pole.”

  “Maybe it takes practice,” she said.

  Vento sat on the couch again. He stared at Bridget until she turned the projector off.

  “I know I can make money doing that,” she said. “All I need is the connections. I wouldn’t mind driving that car she had in the movie, that Cadillac.”

  “Trust me,” Vento said, “it wasn’t hers.”

  “I’ll bet she can afford one.”

  “Not in this life.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Fine, bullshit. You know everything. Go make some coffee.”

  “In a minute. You’re telling me she’s not making money?”

  “I’m telling you it’s not half what you think, if that much. And the car belongs to the guy made the movie, the director. If not him, it’s somebody works with him. The guys made that movie, backed it, didn’t go for spit.”

  “You know him, the guy made it?”

  “Which one, the director or the guy backed it?”

  “Either.”

  “Yeah, I know the guy backed it. He already moved his operation down there where they made the thing, Florida.”

  Bridget set her hands on her hips. “And?”

  “And what?” Vento said. “Enough with you and these movies already. I’m tired of hearing it.”

  “Thanks a lot, Eddie. First you make promises and then you ignore me.”

  “Promises about w
hat?”

  “The movies. You know the guy who made that movie or not?”

  “What guy?”

  “The one with the car.”

  “Jesus Christ, I just said. I know of him. I know who he’s around. I know the guy backed it, him and his sons.”

  “Well?”

  “I thought you needed to know I might tell you.”

  “Great. You know what it all sounds like to me? Bullshit, that’s what.”

  “Sorry you don’t approve.”

  “What I shouldn’t approve of is this ... us ... you, Eddie. I’m gonna be an old maid, maybe I should find me a sucker instead of being one for you.”

  Vento motioned at her to come to him. “Don’t go off half cocked,” he said. “Take it easy with this. I’m tryin’ to look out for you here.”

  Bridget was standing in front of him. He reached for her, but she stepped back. “I mean it,” she said. “What’s the point. I ask you for something and you blow me off. Thanks, but no thanks.”

  “And maybe I’m trying to save you from a life you don’t know about,” Vento said. “You’d do a lot better married to some guy someday.”

  “If you really know somebody can help me, then do it. How’s that? Otherwise, I’m done with being your gumarra. I can tend bar anywhere.”

  Vento rubbed his head with both hands. “Alright, fine,” he said. “I’ll make the call, but you go make the coffee, please already.” He huffed, picked up the phone and dialed a number.

  Bridget stood staring at him from across the room with her arms folded. Vento looked her off when someone answered on the other end of the line. She waited until she heard him talking before heading to the kitchen to make his coffee.

  Chapter 26

  Detective Kelly was more than two hours late, but had brought them corned beef and pastrami sandwiches, coleslaw, pickles, French fries and sodas.

  “How many’ve showed so far?” he asked.

  Levin bit into a pastrami on rye smothered with mustard he had spread from a Gulden’s packet.

  “Six,” said Brice, using a plastic fork to spread coleslaw on his sandwich.