Johnny Porno

Chapter 14

“I thought you guys worked in pairs?” George Berg said.

The detectives had formed a semicircle at the bottom of the stoop. All three presented their badges. Berg had just stepped out of the house and was still holding onto the screen door. He gradually let the door go and it closed behind him.

“It’s a special task force,” Kelly said. “I’m Kelly.” He stood between Brice and Levin. He motioned at each with his head. “Detectives Brice and Levin.”

“What’s a task force?” Berg said.

“A shit storm, you get caught in it,” Brice said.

Berg looked confused. “What’s it about?”

“A dirty movie,” Kelly said.

“Dirty how?”

The detectives looked at one another.

“What?” Berg said.

“Dirty like the kind perverts spank their monkey to,” Kelly said. “Except this one made headlines when the court declared it illegal. This one carries more than a smack on the wrist.”

“Deep Throat,” Levin said. “No doubt you never heard of it.”

“Never,” Berg said. “Deep what?”

“Throat,” Levin said. “As in giving a flagpole a blow job.”

Berg squinted. “A flagpole?”

“You rehearse this routine?” Kelly said. “Because we have routines we rehearse, too. One is when we cuff your hands behind your back.”

“Another is when we take you to a warehouse and beat you until we’re tired,” Levin said.

Kelly glared at Levin.

“You do know about the guy they found in a Queens dumpster, right?” Brice said. “Tommy DeLuca his name was.”

“Chopped his hands off,” Levin said. “Probably for stealing from the mob, but he was hustling the same movie we think you’re showing.”

Berg forced a laugh. “Buddy,” he said, “I wish I had a clue what you’re talking about, but I don’t. None whatsoever.”

“You’re not gonna talk to us, we could always spread a rumor you are,” Levin said. “The guys killed DeLuca might get antsy, think the wrong thing and fit you for a dumpster, too.”

Kelly’s eyes narrowed. He turned to Brice. “Take Levin for a walk around the block a minute.”

“Huh?” Brice said.

“Take Levin for a walk.”

Detectives Brice and Levin stepped away from the stoop. They walked out to the curb and then toward Brice’s car parked at the far corner. Kelly watched until they were out of view from the stoop.

Berg said, “The fuck was his problem?”

Kelly motioned toward the door. “Come on,” he said, “I gotta piss like a racehorse.”

The builder didn’t have work the next week and probably wouldn’t for another two weeks at least, he told John. There were problems with a union delegate about using scabs. He’d been threatened over the phone the night before. The bonus, the builder had said, was there wouldn’t be any work after today because he’d had to give in and hire union help for Friday, even though he didn’t expect the guy the union would send would be worth fifty cents an hour, never mind the fourteen-dollar-an-hour scale he’d have to pay.

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 probably 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.