Johnny Porno

Chapter 32

He was up early to make sure the car was okay and found old man Elias waiting for him on the stoop.

“Don’t tell me you just got home,” John said.

“Alright, I don’t tell you.”

John remembered he owed the gas station money. “Can you lend me a few bucks?” he asked.

“How much?”

“Thirty’d probably do it.”

“How’s forty?”

“I don’t need forty.”

“Take it anyway.”

“I’ll have it for you tonight.”

“Did I ask when you’d have it?”

“I appreciate it.”

Elias had his wallet out. He pulled two twenties from inside. John saw the old man had left himself a few singles.

“You sure you’ll be alright? Don’t short yourself for me.”

“Take it,” said Elias, waving the money.

“Thanks,” John said. He took the cash, pocketed it and headed across the street to his car.

“Hold on,” Elias said.

John stopped to listen.

“I see somebody around here again. Somebody looking for you, I think.”

“Somebody who?” John said.

“I know his name I tell you. I don’t know.” The old man touched his chest. “I feel it, eh? Somebody drives by, is looking. Couple of times now. I see him. He sees me.”

“I have no idea,” John said.

Elias tapped his forehead. “Be careful,” he said. “Your head, eh?”

“I will,” John said.

“Make sure.”

John drove to the gas station, paid the balance he owed for the tires and filled his tank. He was determined to get an early start and went to Williamsburg to have breakfast around the corner from the bar. He would verify the Saturday counts as soon as Eugene opened the bar, then start on the new stops Vento had said he could finish before noon.

He thought about what had happened the night before, how things had started so great and then turned to crap so fast he still couldn’t believe it. One minute he was making love with a woman he genuinely felt for and an hour or two later it was over and he was on his way home alone.

Melinda was on his mind when he walked in the bar a few minutes after nine and saw Nick Santorra was wearing the whistle around his neck. John ignored the man and picked up the Saturday head count from the bartender. He was shocked when he saw the totals. If Sunday was anything close to Saturday, he would be carrying close to thirteen thousand dollars at the end of the day. The amount made him uncomfortable.

He left the bar before nine-thirty and used the BQE through Queens to the Grand Central Parkway. There was a Mets home game against the Giants that would generate traffic around the stadium later in the afternoon, but it was city-bound traffic returning from the Hamptons that would create problems later in the day.

It was a fast drive to the south shore where he collected from the new stops first. The films and cash were waiting at each location when he got there. He was finished before one o’clock. Then he started on his regular route and had to backtrack to the north shore.

The Meadowbrook Parkway was crowded heading towards Jones beach. John was grateful he was heading in the opposite direction. He thought about Nick Santorra and the whistle he had worn at the bar. Was it a threat of things to come? Was Santorra behind the assault the other night? It was more than possible, considering Santorra couldn’t handle his own dirty work. Fifty bucks to a guy desperate enough was all it would take to dole out a beating. Considering the situation, John figured Santorra had hired a goon to do the job he couldn’t do himself.

John also figured he’d have to be extra careful with the Buick when he parked it the next few nights. He was thinking he might pay the gas station where he’d bought the retread tires a few extra bucks to let him park there the next week or two.

He brought the windows all the way down and enjoyed the breeze as he took the exit for the Long Island Expressway. It was another hot, humid day. Although the weather forecast didn’t include rain, it felt as if a thunderstorm was imminent.

John passed a station wagon filled with kids wearing baseball uniforms and thought of his son. He remembered how enthused his boy had been about going to the Yankees game later in the month. He would have to bring a camera and take some pictures. It was to be the last year the Yankees played at the stadium before renovations began. He knew Little Jack would appreciate the history when he was older.

He made it to Kings Park with a few minutes to spare. He took Kings Park Boulevard to Old Dock Road and found the warehouse where he’d dropped the film off the day before. A group of men were exiting the warehouse doors in the rear. John pulled up behind a box truck parked in the loading dock. He saw three men carrying posters and then another man examining a pair of the white panties. He wondered if Nick Santorra had spelled Linda Lovelace’s name right on those.

A few minutes later, after finding his way through the loading dock, John spotted the guy in charge. Chris Cowans was disconnecting the projector while another man sold posters at the table where refreshments had been served. John saw there was beer, soda, potato chips, peanuts and sandwiches and wondered if Eddie Vento had a piece of the concession as well.

“Johnny Porno, right?” Cowans asked.

“The name’s Albano,” John said. “John Albano.”

“Sorry,” Cowans said. “The guy on the phone said….”

“What time you start?”

“Early. First showing was ten. Then another at noon. Yesterday we had five, though. Was a good night.”

“They hitting you for the concession?”

Cowans motioned at the table. “Just the beverages,” he said. “We have to buy from some distributor in Valley Stream. It’s a few cents more than I could probably get it here, but we’re making out alright.”

“Good for you,” John said.

Cowans handed John two stacks of cash bound with rubber bands. “We called in seven-fifty yesterday and had another two hundred today. Total should be nine-fifty.”

John removed the rubber band from the larger bundle and began counting.

“Help yourself to whatever you want from the concession,” Cowans said.

“Thanks. I might grab a soda.”

“We sold a few posters, too. And two pair of the panties.”

John stopped counting. “Give me a minute here,” he said.

“Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” John said. He continued counting.

Nathan had never met John Albano’s mother before last night when he dropped his stepson off and this morning he wanted to call her to see how the kid was doing, but felt it wasn’t his place, not since he’d left Nancy the night before.

It was an ugly fight Nancy had started in front of her son, and when Nathan lost his temper and called her a bitch, he’d felt rotten the kid had heard him. It had to do with the way she had been badmouthing the kid’s father from the night before, claiming he was selfish and didn’t care about his son or anybody else and that she was sick and tired of everyone coming to his defense when she was the one responsible for everything and everybody.

It was all nonsense, but Nathan felt guilty about maybe setting her off in the first place the afternoon she came home and found her ex-husband playing with his son in the basement. Maybe if he hadn’t let the kid’s father in she would’ve spared the boy some of her verbal poison.

There was no telling what her story was anymore. Nancy seemed to be playing a new angle since he first mentioned he might go to a lawyer. Nathan wasn’t sure if it was an act or desperation. Nancy had grown accustomed to her lifestyle and wouldn’t adjust well to change in a more practical direction.

When she brought it up the day before, how he better not think just because he divorced her she would move out of the house, Nathan had told her she could stay until he sold it.

“And then half is mine,” she had declared.

“After the mortgage is paid,” he’d told her.

“You pay that,” she’d said. “I want half the value.”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“We’ll see what my lawyer says.”

“Fine,” he had told her, “but the more we spend on lawyers, the less there’ll be for either of us. And there’s Jack to consider, too. You don’t want to uproot him while some lawyer takes the lion’s share of whatever there is.”

“Don’t you dare bring up my son to me,” Nancy had raged. “That boy is no concern of yours. You try to spoil him to get him to like you, but he’s my son. You’re no different than his father. You do the fun things and I have to be the parent.”

It was then Nathan lost it. “That’s not true and you know it,” he’d yelled. “His father is a good man. He does what he can and all you do is make it impossible for him.”

Then she tried to make a bet with him Nathan still didn’t understand. Something about how John wouldn’t even respond if she called and told him his kid was in trouble, serious trouble, like if he was abducted or some nonsense.

Nathan had looked at her as if she were crazy. Then she put her hand out with her pinky extended like some twelve-year-old and said, “Make a bet, you’re so sure. Come on, bet me.”

He thought she had lost her mind and told her so.

“Oh, yeah?” she said. “I’m telling you right now if I called him up tomorrow while he’s doing whatever he does all day with that dirty film and the people at that bar, John wouldn’t even consider coming here to see what was wrong.”

“You’re wrong,” Nathan had told her. “One-hundred-percent wrong.”

“If I called and said Jack was kidnapped he wouldn’t do a thing, that’s how much he cares about his son.”

Nathan had felt his face flush red. He pointed a threatening finger at her and spoke through clenched teeth as low as he could so the boy didn’t hear him.

“You selfish bitch,” he’d said. “Don’t you ever say something like that again where your son could hear you. Show some decency. For God’s sake, show some decency.”

Nancy had been shocked at his outburst and had taken a few steps back. At least he thought so until she started in all over again. Then Nathan saw she wouldn’t shut up unless he left. He asked if she was staying home or going out and did she want him to drop her son off at her ex-mother-in-law’s.

“You know what?” Nancy had said. “Yes, I do. Take him there and today I’m going out for myself for a change and maybe tomorrow we’ll see how much of a father John is after all.”

Nathan didn’t know what she had meant, but he was anxious to get the kid out of hearing distance as soon as possible. First he brought his stepson to McDonald’s and tried to get him to talk about the Yankees, but Little Jack was clearly upset at his mother’s tirade earlier. The boy wouldn’t speak.

Then Nathan brought his stepson to John’s mother and felt terrible when he had to shake hands with the boy before he left. He still didn’t know if he’d ever see him again.