by Jason Starr
He didn’t suggest seeing her again on Sunday, figuring three days in a row might’ve made him seem too available, and a girl always wanted a guy to be a challenge even if she was dying to tear off his clothes. But they got together again on Monday, going to see a movie. He was hoping she’d ask him to pick her up at her place, so he’d have a chance to meet her father, but for some reason she insisted on meeting in front of the movie theater on Forty-second and Eighth. They saw a horror movie—her idea—which was perfect as far as he was concerned because they spent the whole time snuggled in the back, making out like teenagers, pawing at each other like they hadn’t gotten any in years. Yeah, right.
At one point she whispered in his ear, “God, I want to fuck you so bad.” He was surprised—she was a raunchy little thing; he didn’t expect that.
He knew he had to handle this right, and he whispered back, “I want to take it slow.”
He saw her again on Tuesday, for lunch at Dojo in the Village. Yeah, it was a cheap place to take a date, but that was the whole point. He had to play up this starving-artist thing because he knew that was what turned her on. If he was trying to scam a Paris Hilton type, he would’ve been wearing Armani and it would’ve been Le Cirque all the way. But with a wannabe bohemian chick like Marissa, talking about how he couldn’t pay his rent next month and how he’d been living on ramen noodles and macaroni and cheese was the way to go.
On Wednesday night something happened that nearly ruined everything. Johnny met Marissa in the East Village, and after a couple of drinks at a bar on Avenue A, they went to the Knitting Factory, where the Limons, some new retro Latin punk band she was into—she’d called them “the Ramones meet Ricky Martin”—were playing. They’d been in the place for only a few minutes when Johnny felt a tap on his shoulder and heard, “Frederick, is that you?”
Johnny looked over his shoulder and saw a woman—not so bad-looking, late twenties, maybe thirties, with straight brown hair and bangs. She didn’t look at all familiar, but he’d used the name Frederick with various pickups.
“Sorry,” he said, “you got the wrong guy.”
He turned back toward Marissa, rolling his eyes slightly, but he had a feeling the woman wouldn’t let it go.
She didn’t, saying, “Like hell you don’t, you son of a bitch. Where’s my fuckin’ money?”
He looked at her again and said, “Look, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Actually, she was starting to look familiar, but he couldn’t place her face yet.
As he started to turn away again, she grabbed his arm and said, “You took two hundred fucking dollars from my pocketbook and, oh, yeah, some jewelry, too, but it wasn’t worth shit.”
Now he remembered. A couple of months ago he’d picked her up at a bar, Max Fish on Ludlow, not far from where they were now, and he’d stolen some cash and some jewelry that had turned out to be gold plated; waste of his goddamn time. He usually didn’t like to return to neighborhoods where he’d scored for at least six months for this very reason.
“I’m telling you, you have the wrong guy,” he said, shaking his arm loose. He noticed that Marissa was starting to look a little worried, but he couldn’t tell if it was because he was being hassled or because she was starting to believe the woman’s story.
“Give me my money back or I’m calling the fuckin’ cops,” the woman said, flipping her cell phone open.
“You’re out of your mind,” Johnny said. Then he took Marissa by the hand and said, “Come on,” and led her toward the other end of the bar.
The woman followed them, shouting, “I want my money back, Frederick!” A bouncer came over and asked what was going on. Johnny calmly explained that he had no idea who the woman was. The woman continued to go on about how Frederick had stolen money from her, sounding more and more crazed and hysterical. At one point she shoved the bouncer, and he grabbed her and pulled her out of the bar. Then the bouncer apologized to Johnny and Marissa for the “inconvenience” and bought them a round on the house. Johnny, turning on his charm, bonded with the bouncer—they were both from Queens, around the same age—and after a few minutes they were like old buddies.
Johnny and Marissa bonded, too, talking about how “weird” it was that the woman had mistaken him for that other guy and flipped out like that. It turned into a big joke, and Johnny knew that Marissa couldn’t wait to tell her friends about it; he figured she’d probably blog about it, too. This was yet another example of how golden Johnny was, how he could do no wrong. Something that could’ve been a disaster and ruined his plans had turned into something that had scored more points with Marissa, bringing them even closer together.
Johnny was hoping that Marissa would invite him home with her tonight, but again she wanted to take the subway home alone. He insisted on going with her because it was past midnight and “you never know what kind of maniacs are on the subways at this time of night.” She agreed, but when he was walking her back to her house, she was acting uncomfortable, not talking very much, and when they got to her house she barely kissed him good-bye and rushed inside. He had no idea what the hell was going on. He knew she was into him— that was obvious—so there had to be some reason she wasn’t inviting him in. It wasn’t like she’d never taken a guy home with her before. She’d talked about a couple of guys she’d had over to her house since graduating from college, including that skinny little dork Darren. Johnny wanted to ask her if something was wrong, but he figured it was better if she brought it up herself. He didn’t want to push too hard and blow all of his plans.
The next day, Thursday, Johnny called Marissa in the morning and asked her if she wanted to meet him for lunch in Brooklyn. She said she’d love to— not exactly a surprise—and he met her outside the Smith–Ninth Street subway station and rode the bus with her to Red Hook, where they went to some trendy coffee bar where Johnny had seen a lot of artsy types go. They talked for a while, holding hands the whole time, and then he took her back to his place. He’d been working hard to try to make his studio apartment look like a place where an artist would live. He’d picked up some more paintings from thrift shops and, a couple of days ago, had bought four paintings of bowls of fruit from some guy on Craigslist who lived about ten blocks away. He’d done a few more of his own paintings, too, in the Jackson Pollock style, and he thought they were at least as good as that shit in the Met.
On the way over to his place he gave her some BS about how “nervous” he was about her seeing “his work.” She told him how silly he was acting and said she was sure his paintings were amazing.
In the apartment, he watched her reaction closely as she looked around. He could tell she was seriously impressed.
“Wow,” she said. “You really have a lot of range, don’t you?” “Thanks,” he said.
“You use oils and acrylics, huh?”
He had no idea what he was talking about, but he said, “Yeah, I like to do a lot of everything. I mean, I don’t like to limit myself. I want to blow the whole thing wide open.”
Wasn’t that the line in Pollock? Eh, something like that.
Admiring the paintings he’d bought on Craigslist, Marissa said, “Do you do your portraits from real life or photographs?”
“Real life,” he said.
“Wow,” she said. “Impressive.”
She turned toward the wall where he’d hung up a couple of his own paintings and said, “So you’re into modern and abstract, too, huh?”
“Yeah,” he said. “You see the Pollock influence, right?”
Influence. He was on a roll, all right.
“They’re very Pollockesque,” she said. “You and Pollock have a very similar controlled freedom in your styles. I love the use of gray—very Jasper Johns. I also see the homage to Picasso in your use of blue.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I was going for,” he said. “Johns and Picasso. Yeah, I’m so glad you noticed that.”
She continued to admire the paintings while he was thinking about how thi
s whole art gig was so perfect for him. It was all about bullshitting, and nobody could bullshit better than Johnny Long.
When the love fest for his artwork ended, he cracked open a couple of Heinekens and sat with her on the couch.
A few minutes later, she was snuggled close, wrapping her leg over his legs, saying, “I’d love to watch you work sometime.”
“That would be great,” he said, “but nobody’s ever watched me before. I might get nervous, you know?”
“You don’t have to get nervous around me,” she said, and she put her beer on the coffee table. She kissed him, rubbing his chest with one hand, then said, “Maybe I can . . . help you.”
“What kind of help do you have in mind?” he asked, playing along.
“Maybe some of this,” she said, kissing his lips. “Or this.” She kissed his neck. After a while, she moved one hand over his crotch, then unsnapped his jeans and started to reach inside.
Naturally he was ready for her, but he shifted back a little and said, “I think we should wait.”
“Wait for what?” she gasped, wanting him so badly.
“Until we get to know each other better.” It was so hard to deliver these lines with a straight face. “I mean, we’ve only known each other for less than a week.”
“So you’ve never slept with somebody you’ve known less than a week?”
Only about four hundred and fifty before you, baby.
“But this feels . . . different,” he said. “It feels . . . special.”
She smiled, blushing. “You really mean that?” “Yeah,” he said. “Why? Doesn’t it feel special to you?”
“It feels very special to me,” she said. “I’m just not used to hearing guys say things like that to me. I’m used to guys trying to get into my pants.”
“I’m not most guys,” he said.
“You’re definitely not most guys,” she said.
They kissed for a while longer. He was glad, because if he’d had to talk right then, not laughing would’ve been impossible.
When he was sure he’d composed himself he said, “I guess I also feel a little uncomfortable.”
“Uncomfortable about what?” she asked.
“Well, you’re living at home with your parents. I feel like I should meet them first before we . . . you know.”
That was the way—make out like he was too shy to say “have sex.” That was him all right, Shy Johnny.
Marissa moved her leg off of him and shifted away a little and suddenly seemed upset. Johnny hoped he hadn’t taken this playing-hard-to-get routine too far.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “It’s not you, it’s just . . . I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” Johnny held her hand, squeezing it tightly to show how much he cared, then said, “I’m gonna have to meet them eventually, right? If my parents didn’t live so far away I would’ve already brought you to meet them.” The other night he’d
told her his parents lived in San Diego.
“It’s just really complicated,” she said. “God, I wish I wasn’t living at home.
It’s just so hard, especially with my father and his mood swings.” “Mood swings?”
“Not ‘mood swings,’ mood swings. I mean, he’s not manic-depressive. But one day he’s aloof, in his own world, and the next day he wants to be this involved father. Suddenly he has all these rules—I can’t drink in the house, even a glass of wine, and he made me throw out my pot even though I barely smoked at home. Then I came home the other day from the museum and my freaking bong was gone—it was handmade, from Guatemala, and he threw it in the garbage. Oh, and I have to let him know when I’m coming home at night, the exact time, like I’m a teenager again. He knows I’m dating you, so the other night he made this big stink about how I can’t bring you up to my room and you can’t stay over or anything until he meets you.”
“So let me meet him,” Johnny said. “What’s the problem?”
She had that concerned look again. “There’s something I haven’t told you,” she said.
He thought, Uh-oh, VD. Not that this really bothered him. He’d had crabs before, and he’d knocked out a case of gonorrhea last year. VD was part of the job when you wanted to be the next Casanova.
“I mean, you probably heard about it on the news,” she continued, “but maybe you didn’t make the connection.” She waited, as if trying to find the right words, then said, “Our house was robbed last week.”
“It was?” Johnny thought he sounded convincingly surprised.
“Yeah, it happened when we were all asleep in the middle of the night,” she said. “I heard the burglars in the house and woke up my parents, and then my father went and shot one of them.”
One of them, like he and Carlos had been what, two cockroaches? Isn’t that what people said when they were trying to squash bugs: I got one of them, but the other one got away?
“Oh, that’s right, yeah, yeah,” Johnny said, like it was all coming to him now. “I think I read something about that in the paper. Yeah, the shooting in Forest Hills by that shrink. Wow, that was really your father?”
“I’ve been afraid to tell you,” Marissa said, suddenly talking faster, full of nervous energy. “I’ve been afraid that you’d, I don’t know, judge me. Maybe I was just being crazy—I do that sometimes, get all neurotic and paranoid, overthink everything—but that’s what I thought. It’s not true, right? You won’t hold it against me, will you?”
“Relax, baby,” Johnny said, squeezing her hand, letting her know that he’d always be there for her. “You know I’d never do that to you.”
He held her and kissed her for a while; then she said, “I’m still so pissed off at my father for doing what he did. It was so stupid, so totally thoughtless, and the thing is I don’t even think he feels guilty about it.”
“Really?” Johnny asked.
“Yeah, he’s been in this weird denial phase or something,” she said. “I mean, even the morning after, he was just going about his life, acting like nothing happened. You would think a psychologist would be more in touch with his feelings, but with him it’s the total opposite. I don’t think he has any idea how he’s feeling, ever.”
Johnny remembered being in the car outside Bloom’s house, with the gun in his hand, seeing Bloom strutting down the block in his sweat suit, like he didn’t have a worry in the world.
Well, you have something to worry about now, asshole.
“So you think what they were saying in the news was true?” Johnny asked. “Your father wanted to kill the guy?”
“Between me and you,” Marissa said, “yes, I do. I think my dad just lost it, in that moment and wanted to shoot him. I don’t think he’s a crazy person—I mean, he’s not psychotic—but he holds stuff in, he’s wound up, you know? It was also the middle of the night, he was tired, so, yeah, maybe he wasn’t thinking rationally. He was angry that someone was in his house and he just went too far. He gets that way sometimes, does things without thinking.”
Johnny couldn’t wait to kill Adam Bloom, watch him die in pain. “That’s rough,” he said. “I’m sorry you had to go through all of that.”
“Yeah, I know, it was pretty scary and traumatic,” Marissa said. “But the most terrifying thing was there was somebody else in the house that night.”
“There was?” Johnny was acting shocked.
“Yeah, the cops think it was our maid. Did you hear about what happened to her?”
“No, I don’t think I . . . Wait, wait, I did hear something. She was hurt, too, wasn’t she?”
“She was killed, in her apartment.”
“Oh, man, that sucks,” Johnny said. He hoped Marissa didn’t start crying, get all gushy and girly about it.
“Yeah, it was incredibly sad,” she said, “but I don’t know, that just doesn’t make sense to me that our maid actually robbed our house. We were really, not like best friends, but really friendly, you know? Oh, and we got this note under our do
or, a kind of death threat.”
“Really? Who left it?”
“That’s the thing, nobody knows. My dad’s convinced it was a prank, but he’s constantly making up stories, trying to rationalize everything. He’s so screwed up, if you met him you’d never guess he was a psychologist. But maybe that’s the way it works—maybe if you want to cure people’s craziness, you have to be a little crazy yourself.”
Johnny put his arm around Marissa and said, “It sounds like your family’s going through a lot right now. If you don’t want to bring me home to meet them, I understand, but I guess I should meet them eventually . . . I mean, if we’re gonna be a couple.”
Her face brightened, and she said, “You really mean that?”
“Of course,” he said. “You think I’d want to go out every day and every night with every girl I meet?”
Finally he’d said something that wasn’t a total lie.
She said, “You’re the most amazing guy I’ve ever met.” He couldn’t argue with that.
The next morning, Marissa texted Johnny:
my parents want u to come 4 dinner tonite can you make it at 7??
Johnny waited about fifteen minutes, not wanting to seem overeager, then replied:
Id be honored
This was it—the big night. He wanted to clean up his look a little, but not too much, so he trimmed his sideburns, but he left his hair long and wild and greasy. He chose his outfit carefully—black jeans, a black turtleneck, Doc Martens. He loved the idea of going in all black. He looked perfect for the occasion—like an artist but also like an assassin.
He arrived at the house—what did rich people say?—fashionably late, at ten after seven. As he expected, there was no sign of any cops. The robbery had been over a week ago, and it probably wasn’t even a hot case anymore. He checked to make sure his .38 Special and his four-inch retractable switchblade were safely inside the inner pocket of his leather jacket, and then he rang the bell.