Panic Attack

by Jason Starr

  They had refills on the cappuccinos, and she had such a good time talking to him that they lost track of time. They were mostly talking about her—he was asking a lot of questions about school and her childhood and her plans for the future. It was so refreshing to be with a guy who was actually interested in her, a guy she had so much in common with. It didn’t hurt that he happened to be gorgeous, too. She felt like she’d hit the jackpot.

  It was getting late, so she checked her watch and yawned for effect and said, “I should be getting home soon.”

  She was hoping he’d ask for her number, but instead he said, “I’ll ride home with you.”

  “That’s crazy,” she said. “You said you live in Brooklyn, right?” “Yeah, so?”

  “But it’s so out of the way for you.”

  “There’s no way I’m letting you ride the subway home alone at this hour.”

  She said she took the subway home all the time, or could take the LIRR, which was safer, but he insisted on coming with her. She wasn’t exactly opposed. She thought he was very romantic and thoughtful, and she couldn’t remember a guy ever going out of his way to do something like that for her. Darren would’ve ditched her hours ago on some dark corner in Manhattan.

  When they got to the Forest Hills stop she thought that would be it, they’d say good night and he’d head back to Brooklyn. But, nope, he insisted on walking her all the way back to her house. This whole night had been reminding her of something, but she didn’t know what, and then it hit her—that old blackand-white movie she’d seen on TV a few weeks ago, Marty. This was just like Marty—meeting a guy at a club, him taking her home late at night. Except in Marty they didn’t kiss good night, and she was hoping Xan kissed her.

  On her block she suddenly got nervous, fearing everything was going to get all screwed up. The police car was there again, parked across the street. She didn’t know if Xan had heard about the shooting in the news or not, and she was afraid that he’d see the police car there and start asking her questions. She was afraid that if he knew she was the daughter of Adam Bloom, the crazed vigilante, he’d want nothing to do with her.

  She was relieved when Xan didn’t seem to even notice the police car. Maybe he was too nervous, distracted.

  “Well, this is it,” she said, and they stopped in front of the house.

  “Wow,” Xan said, admiring it. “It’s big. I bet you loved growing up here, huh?”

  “It was okay,” she said.

  Then he held both her hands and they stood facing each other. She’d already given him her number on the subway, and they’d talked about going out sometime.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said, and she said, “That’ll be great,” and then he was kissing her.

  Finally she pulled back and said, “I should really go.” “Okay, it was great meeting you, Rissa.”

  She told him it was great meeting him, too, and they said good night and waved good-bye to each other as he walked away, down the block.

  As she entered the house the alarm started beeping. She typed in the new code she had memorized and then rearmed the alarm and went upstairs.

  It was amazing the way life worked out sometimes—just when she thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse, something amazing and unexpected happened. If this wasn’t evidence that there had to be a God, or some higher power, what was?

  She rushed upstairs and posted a blog entry on this very topic.

  JOHNNY LONG had a chance to shoot Dr. Bloom right in the head. It was a little after two o’clock in the afternoon on Wednesday, the same day Johnny killed Gabriela, and he was waiting in a stolen Honda on the corner of Bloom’s block. Johnny had been in Forest Hills for about an hour, hour and a half. There were some people in front of the house, looked like reporters, but he didn’t see any cops. He didn’t know where Bloom was, if he was in the house or not, and he didn’t even know if he’d get a chance to shoot him today. It would suck if he couldn’t get it over with, because he was tired and just wanted to go home and crash.

  Then the asshole doctor came out, no, strutted out, like he thought he was hot shit, but that didn’t piss off Johnny as much as the way the guy was dressed— in sweats, sneakers, looking like he was what, going to the gym? About twelve hours ago the guy had shot Carlos in his house—no, not shot him, unloaded a whole clip into him at point-blank range, and the next day he’s going out to exercise?

  Johnny usually didn’t enjoy killing people. He’d only killed three people in his life, well, four including Gabriela, and he only did it when he absolutely had to, when he had to save his own ass. But killing Adam Bloom was going to be different. It was going to be a blast shooting him in the head, seeing him fall down on the sidewalk, his blood and brains spilling out.

  He watched Bloom talking to the reporters, holding court. Man, look at that guy, acting so proud of himself, using his hands to get a point across. Johnny could tell the guy was loving every second of this; he was getting off on it. Well, soon he was going to get a bullet in his head, too.

  Finally Bloom stopped yapping and walked away alone toward the corner. Johnny waited several seconds, then started his car and drove slowly up the block. Bloom turned the corner, and then Johnny turned and saw Bloom about twenty yards ahead. Johnny had bought a clean .38 Special from his gun man, Reynaldo, and he had it in his right hand with the passenger-side window already open. There didn’t seem to be any people around. When Bloom got to that space up ahead where there were no parked cars in the way, Johnny would speed up a little, then slow down again and get a clear shot at Bloom’s head. Maybe, just for fun, he’d call out, “What’s up, doc?” right before he shot him.

  Bloom was in the perfect spot, and Johnny hit the gas harder and was almost alongside him. He had the gun raised, aiming right at Bloom’s left ear, but then he thought, Why kill him now? Yeah, he’d be dead, and Carlos would be able to rest in peace, but would it really be getting revenge? Killing wasn’t revenge. Making a guy feel pain and then killing him was revenge.

  Johnny continued tailing Bloom, staying about half a block behind him, trying to decide what to do—shoot him now, just get it over with, or fuck up his life first, and maybe make a few bucks at the same time? Johnny figured the guy had that big house and all that jewelry and that diamond ring. He probably had a lot of cash in there, too. It would still be nice to be able to kick back this summer, hit the beach down the shore for a month or two.

  Then an idea came to Johnny—a way to get revenge, real revenge on Dr. Bloom, and get the biggest score of his life at the same time. It was so obvious he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it sooner.

  He left Forest Hills, going down Queens Boulevard, the plan getting better and better.

  Oh, yeah, this was gonna be fucking beautiful.

  After he ditched the Honda on a side street in Kew Gardens, he rode the subway to Brooklyn—lifting a wallet from a guy in a suit along the way, making a cool hundred and eighty-six bucks—and went to a Burger King with Internet terminals and started finding out as much as he could about Marissa Bloom.

  The TV news reports had mentioned that it had been Adam Bloom’s twenty-two-year-old daughter, Marissa, who had woken her parents up last night, telling them that their house was being robbed. Johnny was looking for pictures of this girl to see what he was dealing with, and he found a picture of a Marissa Bloom right away, but this had to be a different Marissa Bloom, because she looked like she was about forty and worked at some company in San Francisco. Another Marissa Bloom was too young, played goalie on a Little League soccer team in Parsippany, New Jersey, but holy shit, here we go—Marissa Bloom with some friends at a party at some uppity-looking college called Vassar. She wouldn’t be the most beautiful woman Johnny had ever scored with, but compared to most of the women he’d been screwing lately she was a knockout—nice enough face, slim arms. The picture didn’t show her legs, but usually if a girl’s arms were fit it meant her legs were, too. If this Marissa Bloom was the ri
ght Marissa Bloom, he was in business.

  He found some more pictures of her taken at Vassar. In a couple she had long hair; then her hair was shorter. In one her hair was spikier and she had a punk-type look. He was already starting to get an idea of who this girl was, imagining the guy he’d have to be to win her over.

  But how did he know this was the right girl? He did a search for “Marissa Bloom Forest Hills,” checked out a few results, and found nothing, but hold up, what was this, a blog called Artist Girl? There was a picture of the Marissa Bloom from Vassar in the upper left corner, and then he scrolled down and there it was, the title of a blog entry from only a few weeks ago: ten things i hate about forest hills.

  He felt like he’d hit the jackpot, like the goddamn stars were aligning. This was almost going to be too easy—everything he needed to know about her was right here in her blog. And she didn’t have one of those blogs that went on and on, talking about shit in the news. This blog was all about her, like a freaking diary. She posted almost every day, and the archives seemed to go back for years, to when she was in high school. All Johnny had to do was read this whole blog a few times and he’d be the Marissa Bloom expert of the whole goddamn world.

  He stayed at Burger King for three or four hours, reading Marissa Bloom’s blog, finding out all about her, starting to feel like he’d known her all his life. He found out all about her past boyfriends, all the gossip with her friends, the classes she’d taken in school, her junior year abroad in London, her favorite artists and paintings. Usually when he was picking up a woman he had to get information as he was going along, try to figure out how to use it to his advantage on the spot. But in this case he had all the information he needed about her in advance, and he could think through every last detail, make sure there was no way he could slip up at all. This was almost going to be too easy.

  He found more pictures of her on her blog and on her MySpace page, which she hadn’t made private. In a couple of the pictures she was in a bikini, and she wasn’t bad-looking at all. Her legs were as thin as he expected, and she had surprisingly nice tits. He had to rein it in—he was starting to get a hard-on, not a thing you want to do in a crowded Burger King—but, yeah, he could already imagine seducing this girl, making love to her, giving her mind-blowing orgasms.

  He read more blog entries, trying to decide who he should be—a musician or an artist. He knew he could pull off either one, so it was only a matter of which one she’d be more likely to fall for. He’d used the “I’m in a band” line lots of times to pick up women—he had a rock-star look to him, which helped, and any girl was a sucker for a hot guy with a guitar—but then he read that Marissa was into some band called Tone Def and had “hooked up with” the bass player for the band. That KO’d the musician idea. He figured she’d want somebody different, somebody fresh. She’d never had an artist boyfriend, so that definitely seemed like the way to go.

  He went to Wikipedia and read about the artists and paintings she’d mentioned on her blog. He didn’t know shit about art, but after a while he knew enough buzzwords and basic facts to get the gist of what it was all about. Nobody could bullshit better than Johnny Long. All he needed was to know ten percent about something and he could fill in the other ninety and sound like an expert about anything.

  He took in as much information as he could, then went home and crashed. In the morning, he got to work right away, knowing that this Marissa Bloom thing would be a lot more complicated than his usual pickup. If he wanted to do this thing right, really pull it off the way he wanted to, he’d need a whole new ID. For one-night stands he could make up any story about himself that he wanted because the girl never had a chance to check out any of it. But with Marissa he was going to have to build up her trust in him, get her to really like him and know him, or at least believe that she knew him. He might have to actually date her, even bring her back to his place, so everything would have to add up.

  He went to Brighton Beach and met with this guy Slav who sold dead Russians’ IDs. For three hundred bucks Johnny got a Social Security card and a driver’s license and a brand-new identity: Alexander Evonov. Although Johnny was Irish-Italian, he had dark features and figured he could easily pull off the Russian story, say his grandfather was from Moscow or wherever.

  Next, if he was going to say he was an artist, he was going to need some art stuff around his apartment. Made sense, right? He stopped at an art supply store and bought paint, an easel, a smock, and a bunch of drop cloths to spread around. He figured he’d need some art around the house, too, so he went to a Salvation Army and a couple of thrift shops and picked up whatever paintings he could find. Some were of mountains, others were of people and street scenes, and some were just shapes and colors and looked like they were by that guy Marissa had mentioned in her blog, something Polish-sounding, something-sky? Kalinsky, Kazinsky, no, Kandinsky. Yeah, that was it. Of course, the paintings Johnny bought didn’t look like the same person had painted them, but he already had a story ready to explain that. He’d say he was into a lot of different—what was that word he’d seen in Wikipedia?—movements. Yeah, he’d say he was into a lot of different movements.

  Johnny stopped at Blockbuster and took out Frida and Pollock. After he watched the movies he figured he’d be all set as far as art was concerned, but something about the name, Alexander Evonov, was bugging him. It just didn’t sound cool enough. It was no Johnny Long, that was for sure, but he couldn’t expect to come up with a fake name as cool as his real name. He was stuck with Evonov but figured he could fiddle with Alexander, come up with something more hip. Alex? No, there were a million Alexes in the world. Al? Nah, sounded like an old man. He thought about Xander, then thought, Why not just Xan? Yeah, Marissa Bloom, a girl who lived in an uppity house in Forest Hills but who was trying so hard to look cool with that jewelry and the pink streaks in her hair was going to love meeting a guy named Xan.

  On his way back to his apartment he passed a newsstand so he checked out the papers and saw the headlines trigger happy and gun crazy. Reading the articles at the newsstand, Johnny couldn’t help cracking up. At one point he had to catch his breath, he was laughing so hard. Adam Bloom was the joke of the city; they were comparing him to Bernie Goetz, for chrissake. Was this too beautiful or what? He was so glad he hadn’t shot Bloom yesterday. If he had it would’ve been like doing the guy a favor, putting him out of his misery. But little did the guy know, his misery was only beginning.

  Man, Johnny was loving this, imagining that cocky rich shrink, reading the papers today, feeling like the world’s biggest idiot, probably wishing he’d never been born. Well, it was going to be like he’d never been born very soon, but first Johnny wanted to make that asshole really sweat, and he knew exactly what to do next.

  He took the subway to Forest Hills. He walked right up to the Blooms’ door and slid a note he’d written underneath. He loved this, being so close to the house, like he was rubbing it in the guy’s face, showing the guy, I don’t give a shit, I can get as close to you as I want. I can even screw your daughter, you son of a bitch, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.

  There was nothing he liked more than screwing with people’s heads, and this was going to be his biggest mindfuck ever.

  Back at his apartment, he watched Frida and Pollock, fast-forwarding through the boring parts—okay, most of both movies—but he picked up some more good info. He spent the rest of the evening setting up his apartment to make it look like an artist lived there. He hung a few paintings on the walls, spread a drop cloth on the floor, and set up the easel with a canvas on it. He put the paints on the palette and then, trying to do what that guy Pollack did, spread some paint around, just kind of winged it at the canvas, letting it clump and drip. He used blue and yellow mostly, then threw in a little green and why not some red and black in the corners? He stood back and looked at it. Hey, he didn’t think it looked so bad, at least as good as Pollock’s shit.

  Although he still felt like he
had to work out a few details in his head, he didn’t think he’d have any trouble convincing Marissa he was Xan Evonov, the up-and-coming artist.

  In the morning he walked several blocks to a coffee bar that had Internet terminals. He wanted to read more about Marissa, see if she mentioned where she was going to be over the next few days, but he started to panic when he saw a new entry up: i’m moving to prague. He thought she was moving now, which would’ve screwed up all his big plans, but he relaxed when he realized that it was just something she was talking about doing. Then, toward the bottom of the page, he saw the heading where i’ll be tonight, and underneath it Marissa had written: I’ll be checking out the greatest band in the world, Tone Def. They’re on at ten o’clock at Kenny’s Castaways! Everybody should come!

  Could she have possibly made things any easier for him? Not only did he know where she was going to be, he knew the exact time, no less.

  For the next hour or two, Johnny read more of Marissa’s blog, working out in his head things he’d say to her and his plans for what would happen after. He was so prepared and had so much more information than he had for his usual pickups that he was afraid he’d overdone it. He had to be careful to let stuff come out naturally, not to say anything to her or about her that he wasn’t supposed to know.

  At around ten, he showed up at the club, paid the five-dollar cover, and went inside. He looked around near the bar and didn’t see Marissa, and then he went farther in toward where the band was playing. Man, what shitty music. Was she serious with that “best band in the world” crap? Johnny knew if she wasn’t screwing the bass player there was no way in hell she would’ve liked this garbage, and when Johnny saw the bass player up there, strangling the bass, trying to look like Kurt Cobain, burnt-out with the hair over his eyes, he couldn’t help smiling. If that was the guy she went for, some wannabe like that guy, there was no way she’d be able to resist Johnny Long, the real deal.