He stopped at a liquor store near Melinda’s place and picked up a bottle of red wine. He spotted a florist shop on his way out and crossed the street to buy a small bouquet of carnations. He presented them both when she answered her door wearing a white frilly blouse and tight hip-huggers.
“Ms. Cogan?” he said.
She ignored the gifts and gently touched the bruise on his forehead. “Should I make it better?”
“Yes.”
Melinda lightly kissed the bruise, then made her way down to his lips. She was looking into his eyes when she took the flowers. John was still holding the wine when she pressed against him and their kissing became more involved. They barely made it through the kitchen before they started shedding their clothes.
* * * *
It was getting more uncomfortable by the minute sitting in the Mustang all cramped up for hours on end in the relentless heat. Brice tried to stretch his legs and could feel they had gone numb. It took him a few minutes to get the blood flowing enough to get out of the car.
“I’m going for a walk,” he told Kelly.
Kelly looked at his watch. “Don’t get lost,” he said.
Brice was starting to think a lot more about what Levin had been hinting at since they began this investigation. Kelly appeared to have an agenda all his own, and although Brice couldn’t complain about the overtime or the ease of the work, he didn’t like being taken for a fool.
He thought about calling Levin from a pay phone to ask him directly whether or not Kelly was dirty, but decided to wait the day out. Kelly seemed determined to sit surveillance at Berg’s house, even though it didn’t seem to make any sense. Brice decided to see his way through it before making up his own mind.
It was five-thirty when he returned to the car. He cursed under his breath when he saw Kelly had moved from the passenger seat to behind the steering wheel. Uncomfortable with anyone sitting in his seat, Brice said he’d take the wheel again.
“Afraid I might touch something I shouldn’t?” Kelly said.
“Something like that,” Brice said.
Kelly got out of the car and walked around the front. He stopped to stretch before getting back in on the passenger side. Brice had to readjust his seat.
“Excuse me for having longer legs than you,” Kelly said.
“Why you should’ve stayed on your side,” Brice said.
“You take this car too serious, kid.”
“I love this car.”
“Yeah, I know. Maybe you should use it to get laid.”
Brice looked at his watch. “Maybe I do,” he said.
“I hope so. It’s not healthy a kid your age isn’t chasing gash. Car like this, you should have your way with the young ones. Unless you’re one of those whacko car buffs gets wood looking at racing magazines.”
Brice turned to Kelly, thought about what his lover would say and couldn’t help but smirk.
“You find me amusing, do you?” Kelly said.
Brice said, “We gonna be here much longer?”
“Another half hour or so. That okay with you?”
“Dandy.”
The two sat in silence another twenty minutes before a blue Pontiac pulled up in front of George Berg’s house.
“Here we go,” Kelly said.
“Here we go what?”
“This guy here. He’s the one with the films.”
“He is? How do we know that?”
“Informants.”
“What informants?”
“Mine,” said Kelly as he got out of the car.
Chapter 28
Even if she didn’t help him rip off John Albano the next day, Holly could still help Louis get away. It was one reason to let her cry on his shoulder today. It was what he was thinking when he parked near her dorm on LaGuardia Place.
The worst that might happen was a welcome afternoon fuck. Louis was tired of waiting for the rash to go away and had been teased beyond reason by both Sharon Dowell and his ex-wife. Holly wasn’t all that good in bed, nowhere near Nancy, but she seemed to give a little more effort when she was feeling guilty.
He met up with her at the dorm on University Place and could tell she had been crying. They started walking toward Washington Square Park when Louis remembered that was where Myra claimed she trolled for customers on her roller skates. He took Holly by the hand and turned her in the opposite direction.
“I’m not sure I should even be here,” he told her. “I feel kind of stupid, tell you the truth.”
“I’m grateful you came,” said Holly, squeezing his hand. “Really, I am. I was afraid to leave my room. He hasn’t stopped calling. I was afraid he’d be outside when I left.”
“Except you dumped me for the guy.”
“Don’t be angry with me, Louis, please. I made a mistake.”
“Because he turned out to be a pervert? Wasn’t for that, you’d be with him right now.”
“I was stupid about him. I didn’t realize it at the time.”
They walked in silence until they reached Houston Street. Louis guided her west toward Sixth Avenue.
“And don’t think I don’t know you wouldn’t have been interested in him unless you were bored with me,” he said.
“It was a mistake,” Holly repeated.
Louis put on the drama and sighed. “I thought about it, what you said on the phone, and I think he should pay, this perverted fuck.”
“I’d rather just forget it,” Holly said. “It’s too embarrassing.”
“He probably counts on that.”
“I don’t care.”
He was thinking there might be a few bucks in blackmailing the professor. At least it was worth a try.
“He probably does this to a dozen girls a year,” Louis said. “Gets them up to his apartment like that. He probably scores with most of them, too.”
“I don’t want to think about it. Please, Louis.”
“Who was it? At least tell me that. The guy you left me standing in the park alone for the other night? That one?”
She blushed before shaking her head and Louis knew he had guessed right.
“He really a history teacher? What’d you say it was again, the Inquisition you had to study for?”
“I lied,” Holly said. “Sociology, he teaches that.”
“What’s his name?”
“Please forget it,” Holly said. “I’m glad you came. I feel a lot better you’re here now.”
“So will that pervert feel better if you don’t do anything.”
“What can I do? I’ll look just as bad as him. It’s too embarrassing.”
“There are other ways he can pay, Holly.”
She stopped walking. “What are you talking about?”
“Money.”
“I don’t want any.”
“So give it to your organization. That’d teach him.”
“No, I’m not doing that. It’s blackmail.”
Louis took her hand again. They continued walking until they reached Sixth Avenue.
“Can I go home with you tonight?” she asked.
“I’m not sure we should do that.”
“Please?”
He didn’t really want her spending the night at his place. He decided to downplay the idea. “It still doesn’t feel right,” he said. “Not after this. Not so soon.”
Holly sniffled. “You must hate me now.”
“I could never hate you. I think I love you. I think I did, but you have to admit I have a right to think things over. You did dump me.”
“I don’t want to go back to the dorm tonight,” she said.
“I can back the guy off. At least let me do that.”
“I don’t want to involve you, Louis. This was my fault.”
“He shouldn’t get away with it. I’ll just tell him to leave you alone, to stay the fuck away.”
Holly went silent.
“It isn’t easy knowing the girl you might’ve been in love with dumped you for some smooth-talking coll
ege prick, never mind he almost raped her.”
Holly sniffled again.
“A guy is supposed to walk away from that without an ounce of satisfaction? Not this guy.”
Holly avoided his eyes.
“Alright,” Louis said, “have it your way.”
He started to walk away, but she grabbed one of his hands. “You promise not to hit him? He didn’t touch me, I swear.”
Louis made her wait for his answer.
“I don’t want you to get in trouble,” she said.
“I promise I won’t hit him,” Louis said.
“You mean it?”
“There’s no winning with you, is there?”
He started to turn away again when Holly pulled him back in the direction of the dorm.
* * * *
Kelly examined the four reels of film they found in the trunk of the Pontiac. He held one up and turned to the driver.
“What’s this?” he asked.
The driver shook his head. “Beats me,” he said.
“Loops,” Brice said.
“What’s a loop?”
“A short. An eight-to-ten minute film they use in the sex joints in the city. The ones where the slime balls drop a quarter in the slot and jerk off.”
“How you know so much about it?” Kelly said.
“They gave a class on the various forms of pornography when I transferred in,” Brice said. “They covered the loop thing.”
Kelly turned to the driver again. “Where’s the movie?”
“What movie?”
“Don’t jerk my chain, asshole.”
“I don’t know nothing about a movie.”
Brice looked to George Berg to see if he was smiling.
Kelly frisked the driver behind the car. The trunk was open.
Brice read from the driver’s license: “Nicholas Michael Santorra. What are you doing out here, Nicholas?”
“Stopping to see a guy for a friend,” Santorra said.
“George here the guy you’re stopping to see or the friend?”
“I know a guy he knows,” Berg said.
“And the mutual friend’s name is?” Brice asked.
Santorra shook his head. “I forget,” he said.
“Me, too,” Berg said.
Kelly had unwound one of the reels of film and was holding it up to the light. “Two broads,” he said. “All they do is kiss. They don’t even take their clothes off.” He turned to Santorra. “They all like this?”
“I have no idea,” Santorra said. “I didn’t even know they were in there.”
“Yeah, right,” Kelly said. He turned to Berg. “This what you were waiting for all day?”
“I don’t know anything about that stuff,” Berg said.
“You’re full of shit,” Kelly said. “The both of you are.”
Brice rolled his eyes. He couldn’t believe this was what he had wasted two days waiting for. He thought about Levin again and how he was probably enjoying a nice cool drink in an air-conditioned bar somewhere.
“Am I under arrest?” Santorra asked.
“Shut the fuck up,” Kelly said.
“Am I?” Berg said.
Kelly gathered the four reels of film together and headed back toward Brice’s car.
“Detective?” Berg said to Brice.
Brice tossed Santorra’s wallet inside the trunk.
“Brice!” Kelly yelled.
“Can we go?” Santorra asked. “I don’t want to be accused of fleeing the scene.”
Brice gave Santorra a hard stare.
“Detective?” Berg repeated.
Brice ignored Berg and headed back to his car.
Chapter 29
They had gone at it a few times before they both collapsed and fell asleep. When John woke up, it was from his stomach growling. He saw it was a few minutes before eight o’clock and nudged Melinda from her sleep.
“Hey,” she said, “I was dreaming.”
“Sorry,” John said. “It’s getting late. We should order something or go out.”
“Dinner?”
“I’m pretty hungry.”
“I can make something,” she said through a yawn. “Oh, excuse me.”
“I remember something about steaks, but we should probably order out now.”
She pulled the covers off. “Let me wash up first.”
John waited for her to finish in the bathroom, then used it himself while she brewed a fresh pot of coffee. They had agreed on Chinese. She was calling the order in when he joined her in the kitchen.
Melinda wore an open terry cloth robe. John was in his boxers. She poured the coffee at the table and sat across from him.
“This was a first for me,” she said. “I’m serious.”
“Me, too,” John said. “I mean going more than once so soon after. I usually need a couple of hours to recover.”
He sipped his coffee.
“You can stay the night if you’d like,” she said.
“I don’t have a change of clothes.”
“I can wash those.”
“That’d be great. It’ll give me a head start in the morning.”
“To go to work, which is no longer driving for a car service, but might still be a construction job you had this week, but you never really told me yet.”
John looked at her a moment, trying to phrase what he was about to say so she wouldn’t ask anything else about his job. “A different form of driving,” he finally said.
“Except you had to think about it first. Why’s that?”
So much for careful phrasing, he thought.
“Uh-oh,” Melinda said. “I’d rather know up front, John, before we’re anymore involved than we already are.”
He was embarrassed to tell her, yet he knew he had to. Melinda wasn’t the type of woman to ignore lies. He sipped his coffee, but couldn’t speak.
“John?” she said. “What’s it about?”
There it was. He took a deep breath, looked into her eyes and told her.
He could tell she was upset by her expressions. The doorbell rang and she closed her robe to answer it. He saw it was the food delivery and passed her a five-dollar bill.
After retrieving their meal from the delivery man, Melinda set the table. They ate in silence. John wondered if she would ask him to leave when they were finished. He wouldn’t blame her if she did. She was clearing the table when he asked her what she thought.
“Does it have to do with what happened outside the other night when you were jumped?”
“What? Oh, no, no way. I don’t know what that was about.”
“Because there was a guy there with a gun that stopped it, except we don’t know what happened after that, do we?”
“I have no idea what that was about. I swear.”
“Well, then I think you made a mistake.”
“Yeah, and?”
“You lied to me.”
“About borrowing money. I apologize.”
“I don’t like liars, John. I hate them.”
He waited. After a pause, Melinda asked, “Is there anything else you lied about?”
“No.”
There was a long pause of silence before Melinda said, “You need to get yourself out of this.”
“How?”
“Get a new job, for one thing. As soon as possible.”
“It’s not that easy. I can’t walk away before I have something to replace the money I’m making now.”
“Suppose it takes a while before you find one?”
“Then I’ll have to wait. I have responsibilities I can’t ignore.”
“Suppose it takes a year?”
“It won’t.”
“Suppose it does.”
“Then it’ll take a year. I don’t have other options right now. I have to make a living.”
Melinda bit into an egg roll.
“I guess you’ll hold it against me,” he said.
“Your poor judgment or what you’re doing on weekends?”
John didn’t answer.
Melinda said, “I don’t think we can go forward like this.”
“We can try.”
“I think you’re a good guy. Maybe one of the really good ones, but I also think you should’ve run away from those people instead of going to work for them.”
“I did that and I wouldn’t have met you.”
“That’s not close to being funny.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
“I guess I’m disappointed,” she said. “I don’t have a right to be, but I am. I hate to see a good guy get dragged down and I certainly wouldn’t want to get dragged down with him. Then again, we’re not there yet, so....”
She was being vague. He needed clarity. “So what comes next? You throw me out, you let me stay, what?”
“Tonight? You can stay if you want. I’ll have to think about us some more, though, I won’t lie to you about that. I don’t want to get involved with somebody destined for jail or an early death.”
“Nobody is going to kill me,” John said. “And I have no intention of going to jail.”
“You get caught driving those films around with all that money you’ll have tomorrow, it won’t make a difference what your intentions are. I mean, those people....”
John knew her concerns were genuine, but he had bills to pay and a kid to support. He couldn’t leave the one job without another.
“Maybe I should go,” he said.
“Yeah,” Melinda said. “I think maybe you should.”
* * * *
Billy Hastings had decided against the sound suppressor and left it in the basement. He still had the .38 he had used to kill two men and had to get rid of it. He pulled off the parkway a few hundred yards short of the first bridge past the Rockaway Parkway exit and spent a few minutes covering the gun with black electric tape. When it was fully covered and then some, he got out of the car, walked to the crest of the bridge and let the gun drop into the middle of Spring Creek.
Five minutes later he drove to the Cross Bay Boulevard exit, made one left turn, then drove a few lights before he could make a U-turn and head back toward the exit for the Belt Parkway heading west.
This time he got off at the exit and drove the length of Rockaway Parkway until he passed the building where John Albano lived. The old man he had spotted sitting on the stoop a few nights ago was there again now. Billy looked away from the geezer as he turned the near corner.
Johnny Porno Page 24