Johnny Porno

Chapter 15

Moon over Miami was playing on one of the local channels. Instead of taking her usual long walk up to the park, around it and back, Melinda Cogan ordered Chinese food for dinner and relaxed in front of her television set. It still saddened her that Betty Grable had died less than two months ago. The blonde bombshell, especially in the one-piece pose, her head glancing over her right shoulder with those million-dollar legs; that body with that face and hair was the total package.

Being a romantic, Melinda was a sucker for stories about true love trumping all.

It was something she had to maintain control of, being a romantic. It hadn’t worked out for her so far. Melinda’s only marriage had been an epic disaster. The only relationship she’d had afterwards was a two-month fling with a lawyer she’d met at the diner a few years ago. The lawyer, as it turned out, had been married.

That one had really stung. The guy had a furnished apartment she thought was his home but was really a fuck pad, what she’d been told men called such hideaways.

Melinda had been a fool for that guy the same way she’d been one for her husband. Sometimes she hated herself for being so gullible, which was why she was determined to play it extra safe with the new guy she’d met at the diner, although there was something honest about him and the way he had told her so much of himself. It was as if he was warning her not to expect too much because he was an honest working slob.

At least she hoped he was honest. She could deal without the frills if he was.

She decided to call him when the Betty Grable movie was over and the credits began rolling. John Albano answered on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“John?”

“Speaking.”

“It’s Melinda.”

“Hey, how are you?”

She liked the enthusiasm in his voice. “Good, and you?” she said.

“Okay, I guess. Better, now you called. I think I had a dream about you.”

“You think? I hope it was a good one?”

“I think it was. I know I woke up happy.”

“Okay, well, I’m not touching that.”

“Fair enough. What’s up?”

“I just finished watching a Betty Grable movie and I was thinking of you so I called.”

“Thinking of me is good. It’s not the same as a dream, but I’ll take it. Which movie?”

She smiled on her end of the line, hopeful he wasn’t playing along. “You know her movies?”

“Some of them,” he said, not very convincingly. “Which one was it?”

“Moon over Miami.”

“With Don Ameche, right?”

“I’m impressed.”

She was, too. It meant there was a chance he wasn’t another sports fanatic.

“I think the running back for the Colts when they beat the Giants in the overtime game was a distant cousin or something. Same name, anyway.”

“Really?” she said, not even trying to sound interested.

“I guess you don’t like sports,” he said.

“I don’t dislike them. Baseball I can handle. Sometimes.”

She didn’t want their first date to be a Mets game. Her last date back in early April had taken her to Shea Stadium and it had been so cold she shivered through eight innings before he finally noticed and they left.

“How about we go to a game?” John asked.

“Or maybe we start over and I call you back.”

“What’s that?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Let me ask you this, do you read much?”

It was her second criterion for a man. If they read it meant there was a chance they weren’t Neanderthals like her ex-husband, a guy who took pride in saying he never read a book that didn’t have pictures.

“Once in a while,” he said. “Last book I read was The Friends of Eddie Coyle. That was a good one.”

Melinda didn’t know the book but thought it was good he was a reader.

“The movie just came out back in June, I think,” he said. “Robert Mitchum and Peter Boyle.”

Or maybe he just saw the movie.

“Have you seen it yet?” she asked.

“No, wanna go? Unless you wanna read the book first. I have it here, if you want.”

Melinda smiled again. “Sure, John, that sounds great,” she said. “And let’s go see the movie, too.”

“What do you really think?” Detective Brice asked Detective Levin.

“He was scared enough,” Levin said. “But Berg held his water, there’s no denying that. Looks well schooled to me.”

“So what are we doing here tipping him off?”

“You were wondering about that, too, huh?”

They were discussing their very brief interrogation of George Berg earlier in the day. Levin had parked alongside Forest Park after dropping Kelly off a few minutes earlier. He was sweating from the humidity. He turned on the front seat to reach into the back and roll the rear windows down. The unmarked Plymouth Fury didn’t have air-conditioning.

Brice said, “I mean we’re out here to investigate what’s going on weekends, what the hell are we doing stirring things up the middle of the week? This guy, he’s involved, he’s gonna show the movie now?”

“I’d like to know where the tip came from,” Levin said. “George Berg obviously isn’t showing it at his house. How the hell would one of the neighbors know anything unless they were going to see the thing themselves?”

“I could see that,” Brice said. “Some people are envious that way. They see somebody has something going, making a few extra bucks, they get jealous and call it in.”

“You know that from experience?” Levin said.

“Kind of, yeah. My old man used to move swag off the docks out of our basement. Pillowcases, sheets, T-shirts, underwear, like that. Somebody on the block was envious gave him up.”

“He get in trouble?”

Brice waved it off. “He greased the cop rang the bell. Gave him a package of T-shirts or something. Wife-beaters, I think they were.”

“New York’s finest,” Levin said.

Brice lit a cigarette. “The other thing, don’t Nassau cops have a vice squad?”

“Why they call us a task force, my son.”

“It’s bullshit,” Brice said. “Big waste of time dicking around out here like this. Berg probably stopped at the first pay phone on his way home and called our hassling him in. He’ll probably spend the weekend playing cards in his basement and drive whichever neighbor gave him up crazy.”

Levin’s eyebrows furrowed. “You believe that crock?”

“What?”

“Look, this mope Berg was showing the film alright,” Levin said, “so why didn’t we catch him in the act? Sit on him Saturday morning and see who brings him the movie, where he goes next and so on. It’s bullshit. This entire detail is bullshit. There’s gotta be a more efficient way to nail the wiseguys behind porn than hanging around guys like George Berg.”

“What are you saying?”

“Think about it.”

“You’re humoring me.”

“Well, think about it.”

“Think about what? Maybe Kelly’s got a plan.”

The kid wasn’t getting it, Levin realized. “You’re too philosophical,” he said.

“It’s my one year in college,” Brice said. “Three C’s and a D.”

“They let you take four gym classes?”

“No, but listen to this,” Brice said. He lifted his ass off the seat and farted.

“You’re an infant,” Levin said.

“It’s the eggs,” Brice said. “God bless America, my old man used to say.”

The smell was overwhelming. Levin got out of the car.

Brice let his window down. “This mean I get to drive now?”

Nancy was gone before seven-thirty. Louis used the White Pages to look up the name she had given him, Sharon Dowell, but now he wasn’t sure how to spell it. There were two listings. He tried the second number first.

“Hello,” a man answered.

“May I please speak to Sharon?”

“Who’s calling?”

“Tom,” Louis said. “I work at the beauty parlor.”

“What beauty parlor?”

Louis didn’t know the name of the place.

“Yes, where Sharon gets her hair done,” he said. “Do you know when she’ll be back?”

“This some kind of joke? My mother’s in the hospital.”

“I must have the wrong number.”

The guy called him an asshole before hanging up.

Louis tried the second number. This time a woman answered.

“Mrs. Dowell?” Louis said. “Sharon?”

“Who’s this?”

“I’m calling for a friend of yours from the beauty parlor. Nancy Ackerman.”

“Ackerman?”

“You might know her as Albano. Nancy Albano.”

“I know a Nancy from the salon where I go, but I’m not sure I know her last name. What’s this about?”

“I’m her ex-husband. My name is Louis and I’m calling to ask a favor.”

“You the first or the second ex? If I have the right Nancy, I mean.”

“The first,” said Louis through a forced chuckle. “I’m Louis.”

“The one she always talks about, okay. You’re the stud with the ponytail.”

“Thanks, but I doubt I qualify as a stud. Actually, Nancy had mentioned something about your knowing the guy who directed the porn movie Deep Throat. Something about he used to be your hairdresser or something.”

“Jerry Damiano,” Sharon said. “Yeah, he was. He used a different name in the film credits. Gerry Gerard, I think it was. He’s even in the movie, plays a fag in one scene.”

“A fag?”

“He just talks like one. Trust me, he’s straight.”

“So, you know him pretty well?”

“Well enough. Why?”

“I was wondering if I could maybe meet him.”

“You want a part in one of his movies? You must be a hung stud, you want that.”

“No, not that. Just some information is all. And maybe a business proposition.”

“I haven’t seen him in a while, but I’m sure I can get in touch with somebody knows where he is. What’s it about?”

“A car.”

“A what?”

“Just something I want to propose to the man. Can you hook me up with him?”

“Yeah, sure. Why not?”

“That would be great.”

“There something in it for me, Louis? I don’t accept checks.”

“Hey, whatever you want.”

“A date for now, but you can’t tell your ex. I don’t need the aggravation.”

Louis winked at himself in the mirror. “Say when.”

“When.”

“Excuse me?”

“When,” Sharon said, “but we’ll have to meet someplace. I’m expecting someone.”

“Someone who?”

“Does it make a difference?”

“No, not really, except it’s pretty late already.”

“We have about three hours.”

“You sure?”

“I’m not gonna beg you, honey.”

“You might not even like me.”

“You’re the guy your ex describes, if she’s the right ex, I’m sure I will, although I have a few years on you.”

Louis made a face.

“Not to worry,” she said. “I’m not ancient. I’m no throwaway.”

Louis pulled the receiver away a second time before he asked where it was they should meet.