Johnny Porno

Chapter 34

The Buick made the turn onto Main Street in Northport and was slowing down when Nick Santorra pulled out of the gas station less than a block away. He had been waiting for John Albano to make the Northport stop since one-thirty.

He had borrowed a two-year-old brown and beige Chevy Monte Carlo from Mike DiBella at the bar. Nick had claimed he had a family emergency and that his wife had taken their car. He kept his eyes focused ahead as he slowly reached for the ball peen hammer he had slid under the driver’s seat earlier.

Nick placed the hammer between his legs as Albano parked at the curb and got out of the Buick carrying a small gym bag. There was a large office building at the corner. Albano walked around the corner toward the loading dock. Nick glanced at the time and saw it was two-thirty.

He figured he had ten, maybe fifteen minutes before Albano would return. He drove past the Buick and made a U-turn at the next corner. He took his time driving back, slowing down to stop alongside a fire hydrant half a block from the office building in case Albano had forgotten something and returned to his car prematurely.

Nick double-checked the people traffic on both sides of the street. Except for one kid playing stoopball, there were mostly older people passing on Main Street. He pulled on the red baseball cap he’d taken from his son and jerked down on the front brim. The cap was too tight and hurt his forehead where the bump he’d received from Albano was still showing. He cursed from the pain, then grabbed the hammer, wrapped it with a towel and slid out of the Monte Carlo.

He had left himself three possible escape routes: a left or right at the immediate corner, or the most direct route back to the highway, a straight drive back down Main Street. There were several lights he’d have to negotiate, but there were other cross streets he could use in the event he was chased.

He took one last look at the people traffic on Main Street before approaching the Buick. He had brought the towel to muffle the sound and intended to break both windshields and at least one of the passenger windows. As he reached out over the hood of the Buick, the towel came loose and slipped off the end of the hammer.

“Shit,” he said.

He reached for the towel but the wind blew it off the hood.

Nick glanced over his right shoulder, then brought the hammer down hard. The noise stunned him; it was like a gunshot. A giant spider web formed from the middle of the windshield, but the glass didn’t break. Panicked at the sound the hammer had made, he ignored the other windows and ran back to the Monte Carlo. He started the engine, checked his side view mirror for traffic, then raced away from the curb.

As he turned right at the corner, Nick saw the kid that had been playing stoopball staring at him. He drove another few blocks before turning left for Main Street. It should’ve been one block over, but wasn’t there. He turned right at the next corner and drove another block before turning left once more.

“Fuck,” he yelled when he couldn’t find his way back.

Her former mother-in-law was in rare form when Nancy picked up Little Jack a few minutes before three o’clock. The boy had just run out to the car when Marie Albano waved Nancy closer to her front door to give her a piece of her mind.

“You should quit saying nasty things about John in front of his son,” the old lady said. “It’s not right. Some day that boy will figure it out, what you’re doing.”

“Why don’t you mind your own business?” Nancy had told her.

They had never gotten along, even before Nancy married John, but Marie Albano was Little Jack’s favorite grandparent. Nancy figured it was because of the way the old lady doted on her only grandchild. Nancy’s mother had remarried several years ago and was living in Florida. She sent birthday and holiday cards when she remembered, but hardly ever called.

“You’re not fooling anybody,” Marie Albano had said. “No wonder Nathan left you. Good for him.”

Nancy had flipped the old lady the bird.

She had arranged to drop Little Jack off at a house in Lynbrook where one of his classmates was having a pool party that started at three o’clock. Nancy had wrapped a model airplane as a gift.

Louis wanted her at the bazaar no later than five o’clock, but she was already running late. It was close to three when she stopped at an ice cream parlor on Merrick Boulevard in Valley Stream. Six tables with umbrellas dotted the area alongside a small parking lot. Nancy ordered her son a vanilla malted while he talked with two kids sitting with their mother at one of three occupied tables. Nancy waited, paid for the malted, then asked the woman watching her kids if she’d mind watching Little Jack while she made a few phone calls.

She used a pay phone alongside the wall of the ice cream parlor facing the small parking lot and called the bar in Williamsburg. Nancy feigned panic when someone answered.

“Is John Albano there?”

“Excuse me?”

“Is John there? John Albano. This is his ex-wife. It’s an emergency. I think our son was kidnapped.”

“Jesus, lady, you sure?”

“I don’t know. He was there and some guy took him I think. I can’t find him.”

“I’ll get him the message. Where are you?”

“I’m not home. Let me give you this number but I don’t know if I’ll be here when he calls.”

She gave the pay phone number.

“Alright, lady, I’ll find him.”

“Thank you,” Nancy said. “Please, hurry.”

Then she hung up, rolled her eyes and looked at her watch. She was supposed to call Louis at another pay phone, but decided to call Nathan first. She had to look up her sister-in-law’s phone number in her address book before she dialed.

“It’s me,” she said when Nathan answered.

“Nancy?”

“I just said.”

“What are you calling here for?”

“To let you know I did it.”

“Did what?”

“Called John’s bluff. Now we’ll see how much he cares about his son.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What I told you yesterday. What I wanted to bet you yesterday but you were too cheap.”

“Excuse me?”

“I told him Little Jack was abducted.”

“What!”

“That’s right. A few minutes ago and now it’ll be all day before he gets back to me. His son will be sleeping in bed before we hear from his father.”

“You told the man his son was kidnapped? What’s wrong with you?”

“Don’t be a sucker all your life, Nathan. It’s the only way to prove to you I was right.”

“You can’t do that to a person. He’ll be frantic.”

“I’ll win the bet is all that’ll happen.”

“Call him back and tell him what you did,” Nathan said. “Don’t make the man suffer.”

“You see what I mean, how you are? He’s more important than me. Why don’t you call him?”

“I will. Give me his number.”

“Oh, you’re such a dope sometimes.”

The operator interrupted the call for another dime. Nancy deposited two nickels and said, “You still there?”

“You have to call John and tell him what you did,” Nathan said. “Please, Nancy.”

“Jesus Christ, Nathan, why can’t you side with me on this? Just once, why don’t you?”

“Because it’s crazy. I don’t know why you did it, but it’s wrong.”

“Maybe I did it for us,” Nancy said. “Ever think about that? To see if you would side with me for a change instead of defending John all the time. Maybe I wanted to see if you’d care about me for a change.”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“Nathan?” she said.

“You’re full of shit,” he said. “I don’t know what this is about, but I know when you’re full of shit. I hope you didn’t do something you’ll regret. For your son’s sake, I hope you didn’t.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Nancy said.

She slammed the receiver down hard and had to walk off her anger before going back to the phone to make the call to Louis. She went through her purse to find another dime while Little Jack sat with the woman and her kids.

It took her a few minutes before Nancy found a dime and when she did it was between two five-dollar bills. The cash reminded her about John and that he’d be getting robbed by Louis sometime after she made the call. It made her stomach queasy to think she would be responsible if anything bad happened.

She glanced at her watch and realized she had wasted too much time thinking about it. Either she went ahead with Louis on this and they had something to start over with or he’d cut her off once and for all and find somebody else. It was a big move, he had told her, but one they could build off of once they had the money.

Nancy dropped the dime into the coin slot and dialed Louis’s number. He answered on the first ring.