Johnny Porno

Epilogue

“I think I miss your ponytail,” Nancy said. “I’m not used to your hair short like this.”

Louis was watching the engine temperature gauge to the left of the odometer on the dashboard and getting nervous about the needle edging back toward hot. The Cadillac had already overheated once since they’d left New York.

“Then again, now it’ll match your balls,” Nancy said. “And I do like that look.”

They were heading south on the New Jersey turnpike and were less than thirty miles from Delaware. Half an hour after Jimmy’s Deep Throat enthusiast had turned down buying the Fleetwood Eldorado, Louis had stopped for a crew cut at a barbershop on Queens Boulevard and in walked Nancy. She’d followed him, she told him, from when he dropped off little Miss Ohio.

“Oklahoma,” Louis had told her. “And she was a runner up.”

Nancy didn’t have much money with her, but Louis knew she had some stashed in a bank she could get to in the morning. The problem was he couldn’t wait overnight, not with Jimmy and two bookies knowing he was flush with newfound money. Sooner or later word would get back to Eddie Vento’s crew.

Nancy said she could always sneak back to New York and withdraw the money another time, maybe when she visited her son. Louis wasn’t about to argue with her. All he wanted now was to get far enough away from New York so he could sell the bootlegged films he still had.

It was after one in the morning and they had been on the road since after sunset, stopping three times in total; once for dinner, once to fill the Cadillac’s huge gas tank and once to let the radiator cool down after it overheated outside Trenton.

“I’m excited about this,” Nancy said. “A new start and all. It’ll be good for us.”

Louis turned the radio on to drown out her overenthusiastic conversation. He wasn’t about to tell her about the money they didn’t have.

“And here’s a song that debuted back in June of this year,” the announcer said. “‘Manu Dibango, Soul Makossa’.”

“What the hell is that?” Nancy asked.

Louis listened to the repetitive lyrics and felt himself starting to relax.

“Mama what?” Nancy said. “What’s he saying?”

“I don’t know, but I like it,” Louis said.

“Sounds like jungle music.”

“It is. Guy’s from Africa somewhere.”

“You know this song?”

“I’ve heard it before. I like it.”

“Sounds like nonsense to me. I don’t get it.”

“I can’t hear it, you keep yapping.”

“Excuse me.”

She hadn’t shut up since they left the gas station in Brooklyn. Louis had just over a few grand in cash, what was left after he’d been scammed into paying off his gambling debts and buying a car he didn’t need. Nancy was potentially worth a lot more, but he wasn’t sure he could put up with her perky spirit another thousand miles, what was left before they reached Florida.

“I’ll bet this song is big in Bed-Stuy,” Nancy said.

Louis tried to ignore her commentary. He was thinking about the films he could sell once he was comfortable with the distance they’d traveled from New York. That would take at least another few hundred miles, but would mean some extra cash.

“Can I at least change stations when this shit is over?” Nancy said.

“Yeah, fine,” Louis said.

“Honestly, I don’t know how you stand it.”

“I can’t hear it.”

“What’s to hear. Mumbo jumbo. Mama bama Aunt Jemima.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Jungle music is all it is. What, are you into black now?”

“Go ’head, change it, you want.”

He had to keep her happy or she’d make it impossible for him to finish the trip with her. He’d already thought about leaving her when they made the last stop. He would’ve if he still had half the money he’d had before he tried to buy and sell the car. He didn’t, though. Not anymore.

Louis hadn’t doubted she’d leave the kid behind and was surprised about the note she’d left John.

“I wrote I’d come up to see Little Jack at least once a year and that he could always come and stay with us for the summer once school was out,” Nancy had said.

“The summer, huh?” Louis said.

“He is my son.”

She hadn’t even mentioned the note until they were through the Holland tunnel. He wondered if she’d even felt guilty about the kid.

Now she changed stations while he thought about it again, leaving her someplace.

“Yeah!” Nancy said when she found a song she liked.

She sang along to Three Dog Night’s “Shambala.”

Louis said, “You wanna explain the difference between this shit and what I was listening to?”

“I like this,” she said. “What’s wrong with it?”

“The fuck does it mean?”

“I don’t know. Shine the light, I think.”

“Shine the light, what?”

“I don’t know, Louis. What’s the difference, I like it.”

Louis rubbed his face with his free hand.

“At least it’s white music,” Nancy said. Then she was dancing in her seat, waving her arms, snapping her fingers and singing the next verse.

Louis saw the temperature gauge had touched the red spot. Then there was steam coming from under the long hood. He let off the gas pedal and coasted the Cadillac off the road.

“What’s the matter?” Nancy asked.

Louis pointed to the steam.

“Oh,” she said. “That again. Where’d you get this piece of shit anyway?”

Louis turned the engine off and rubbed his face again, this time using both hands.

“Whadda we do?” Nancy said.

“Wait.”

“For what?”

“Until it cools again, same as we did last time.”

“Then what? Won’t it heat up again?”

Louis felt his teeth clench.

Nancy said, “Now what are you mad for?”

“Nothing,” Louis said. “Just leave it alone.”

“I’m sorry, baby,” Nancy said. She rubbed his right leg with her left hand. “Want a blow job until the engine cools?”

“Jesus Christ.”

“What? You don’t want a blow job?”

“That mouth,” Louis said. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not in the mood.”

“Since when?”

Louis glared at his ex-wife.

Nancy drew her hand back. “Excuse me,” she said. “Let’s just sit here and do nothing. That’ll be fun.”

Eddie Vento was buried at the Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn on Friday, August 31. Angela had gone to the two-day wake but had skipped the burial. Nick had used the opportunity to skip both the wake and the funeral as a sign he was retired from the life.

The afternoon of the burial the Santorras took a ten-thousand-dollar home equity loan. One thousand would cover the legal fees for an illegal gun possession charge, but leaving the life would also mean losing his no-show union truck driving job.

For the first time in five years Nick was forced to consider his employment options. Walking home from the bank, his heavily bandaged face a road map of bruises, Nick argued against working for his brother-in-law in the used car business.

“The fuck do I know about cars?” he said. “I can drive one, that’s it.”

“Neither did Larry know anything,” Angela said. “He was a shoe salesman, for God’s sake. He learned on the job. That’s what you’d do.”

“I’m not standing around a used car lot like some jerkoff needs to sell somebody a lemon, okay? Forgetaboutit.”

Angela knew better than to get into it with him now. It was his pride getting in the way. It had been hard for him to accept losing his dream of being a gangster, but after Eddie Vento was killed, Nick had said his chances had been flushed down the toilet along with all the other bullshit he’d been taking the last few years, that it was a blessing in disguise. Angela agreed.

She was grateful he was finished with that life and anxious for him to find work doing something more normal. She had never really bought into it anyway, the Mafia. All those wiseguys and goodfellas or whatever it was they called themselves. All she knew was her husband had been abused and for not much more money than he might make selling used cars and probably with a lot less aggravation, not to mention the risk.

“There’s plenty things I can do besides that,” Nick said after a while.

“Such as?”

“Business. I can go into my own, for one thing. Not work for somebody like some schmuck.”

“What kind of business?”

“I don’t know… something. Maybe we’ll open a store or something. A bagel joint or a pizza parlor. Something the kids can get into, they can help out they get older. We can leave them a store they can leave to their kids.”

Angela knew Nick was trying to be optimistic. It was one of the good things about him and she loved him for it now more than ever.

Melinda had learned about her best friend’s murder at the hospital where John had been taken after the shootout in Eddie Vento’s bar. Grief-stricken and overwhelmed with guilt, she spent the night at the local police precinct, where she stayed until Jill’s body was removed. The next day Melinda listed her house for sale with a local realtor.

John had tried to contact her after he was released from the hospital, but the police relayed her message that she needed time. When he finally tracked her down at a motel five days later, he was told she had just checked out and hadn’t left a forwarding phone number.

It was the Labor Day weekend and John’s mother had planned a Saturday barbecue. Last night he had taken his son to the Yankees game against the Orioles. Although the boy was still questioning where his mother had gone, he’d enjoyed himself at the game, especially after securing a few autographs on a baseball one of the players had tossed into the stands. The fact the Yankees had won was an added bonus. Today Little Jack was still excited as he played running bases in the driveway with a couple of other boys that lived on the same block as his grandmother.

Old man Elias, Nathan, John and his mother sat on beach chairs spread around Marie Albano’s yard. A cooler half filled with beer and soda was set against the house in the shade. A large serving tray with sandwiches, potato salad and coleslaw was centered on a portable folding table. Plastic Tupperware bowls filled with potato chips, pretzels and popcorn were spread across a small wooden picnic table.

The grown-ups could hear the boys laughing in the driveway. It was close to game time for the Yankees, but Little Jack was having too much fun to remind him.

“I never seen him so happy,” Marie said. “He’s got Jim Palmer and Brooks Robinson’s autographs, whoever they are. He must’ve told me two dozen times.”

“Who they are?” Elias asked. His mouth was still sore from the stitches along his gums and a slight fracture of the jawbone. Although he could speak, it was painful to do so.

“Orioles,” John said.

“It’s baseball, Mr. Elias,” Nathan Ackerman said. “They’re baseball players.”

He had returned to orchestral practice with the Philharmonic upon their return from Boston. He had come to visit Little Jack, but was waiting for a private moment to speak with John.

“He mention Boog Powell?” John asked his mother.

“Probably. Who’s he?”

“First base,” Nathan said.

“He got three hits but the Yankees still won,” John said. “Robinson didn’t play. I don’t know why.”

“He was so happy,” Marie said. “Thank God they won.”

“You hear anything from Nancy?” John asked Nathan.

“Me? Not a word.”

“Unbelievable, that woman,” Marie said. “Good riddance.”

Elias stood up, took Marie’s right hand and helped her up. “Come,” he said. “We prepare coffee I brought. I show you.” He stopped and turned to Nathan. “Greek coffee. The best.”

“I know it’s very strong,” Nathan said.

“Puts hairs on your chest.”

“Just what I need,” Marie said.

“On you they look beautiful, I’m sure.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” John said. “Watch yourself, old man.”

Elias waved him off as he followed Marie up the back steps to the kitchen.

Nathan used the opportunity to talk privately with John.

“How’s the shoulder?” he asked.

“Not too bad,” John said. “I’m almost used to the sling. Should be fine in a few weeks.”

“Good, because I have a job offer.”

John’s eyebrows furrowed. “Not cleaning your yard, I hope. I’m already driving for a car service here in Queens. I have to take the sling off, but at least it’s something. You’re a great guy, Nathan, but I’m not looking for charity.”

“No, it’s nothing like that,” Nathan said. “This is real. The Metropolitan Opera has a carpentry staff. Men who build the sets they use for the operas.”

“Really?”

“A dear friend from the old days has some clout there. He can put you on.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes. The pay is union scale, whatever that is.”

“I don’t have a union card anymore, Nathan. I lost it.”

“He’ll get it back.”

“How?”

“These are very influential people, John. They do whatever they want, trust me.”

“I’m talking about a delegate got me tossed,” John said. “I had a fight with his brother was a foreman on the job I was working and they had me out like that.” He snapped his fingers for effect. “The guy killed a stray dog for the fun of it and I hit him.”

“My God, that’s terrible,” Nathan said. “Good for you, you hit him.”

“Except it cost me my union card.”

“The people behind the Met are old money. They have lots of clout.”

“That’d be great. Is it steady?”

“You’d be on staff. Unless the Metropolitan Opera goes out of business, you’ll have a job.”

“Won’t they want me to apprentice or something? I’d be coming in cold.”

“You were a union carpenter how many years?”

“Ten.”

“I told them eight, what Nancy told me once. You’ll be fine.”

“Jesus, Nathan, I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you’ll take it?”

“Of course I’ll take it. I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You just did.”

John grabbed Nathan’s right hand and shook it. “Nancy really blew it with you,” he said.

“And you,” Nathan said.

One of the boys in the driveway yelled out the Yankee game was starting. Little Jack ran into the yard to ask his father if they could watch it inside in the living room.

“Ask Grandma,” John told him.

The boy ran up the back stairs and inside the house. He was back a few seconds later calling to his friends. Two boys entered the yard, said hello to John and Nathan and headed up the stairs and followed Jack inside.

“He look happy or what?” John said. “Which reminds me. Thanks for those tickets.”

“No problem,” Nathan said. “Now can I ask you a favor?”

“Anything,” John said.

“Can I teach him to play an instrument?”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously.”

“Sure, why not. Is he interested? He never mentioned anything to me.”

“Honestly, I don’t know. I thought I’d give it a try.”

“This about visiting him? Because you can always do that, Nathan. Forever as far as I’m concerned.”

“Thank you, John. I appreciate that. May I teach him?”

“Only if I can pay.”

“If you insist.”

“Can I afford it?”

“We’ll work something out.”

John took Nathan’s hand, shook it again, then leaned over and half-hugged the musician. “Thank you,” he said, “for everything.”

Detective Sean Kelly woke from the sting of cold water against his face. He coughed a few times before sitting up and acknowledging the short wiry man with cold blue eyes standing at the foot of his bed, a Colt Python .357 Magnum in his right hand. Kelly immediately recognized the gun. It was his.

“Name’s Tommy,” the man said. “Tommy Burns.”

“Am I supposed to know you?” Kelly said.

“I highly doubt it,” Burns said.

It was early in the morning. Kelly had been alone in the house since his wife and three daughters left to visit family on Long Island the day before. He tried bluffing the short man with a warning about waking his daughters.

“Not home,” Burns said. “Labor Day weekend and all.”

“You’re sure of that, are you?” Kelly said.

Burns flung the basin he’d used for the water against an armoire to the left of the bed. Kelly jumped from the crash.

“Nervous?” Burns said.

“The fuck you want?” Kelly said.

“It’s not what I want. I don’t know you from Adam.”

“Who sent you? Can’t be Vento, he’s dead.”

“You’re warm.”

“Who?”

“What’s the difference?”

“You’re gonna shoot a cop in his bed in his house? A detective with rank?”

“A disgraced detective.”

“Except I’m not dealing with the feds yet, am I? Or what am I doing in my bed? I’d be guarded at some military fort the middle of the fuckin’ country I cut a deal. Whoever sent you take the time to think about that?”

Burns was smiling.

“Fuck you and your mother,” Kelly said.

“You ever see Kiss of Death?” Burns said. “Guy’s my fucking hero, Tommy Udo.”

“You wanna tie me up first, put me in a wheelchair?”

Burns smiled again.

“You’re a sick one alright, but you’re no guinea,” Kelly said. “You’re a mick same as me. How’s that make you feel?”

Burns stopped to light a Camel filterless cigarette. “My old man said I had two choices this life. Work the docks, be another donkey, or I could be a cop. I chose the streets. You’re working a hook the docks, there’s too many people you gotta answer to. Way too many of ’em Italian.”

“Except you’re working for one now, right? Unless you’re with those crazy bastards on the West Side.”

“I’m no Westie, pal.”

“Then who? You’re here to whack me, at least gimme that.”

Burns grabbed the single chair in the room from in front of the secretary. He moved it to the side of the bed and sat.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Kelly said.

Burns said, “Except for the uniform and chain of command, fuckers like you are just as dirty as me. Dirty as a nigger’s outhouse, my old man used to say about cops on the take.”

“He was a philosopher was he, your old man?”

“Was a drunken longshoreman with a spiteful mean streak used to beat my mother the same night he’d fuck her sister lived with us. That’s what he was, my old man.”

“Your hero, no doubt.”

“You’re looking to push my buttons, but it won’t work. I’ll kill you when I’m ready.”

Kelly tried to swallow, but couldn’t.

“Not being a dago myself,” Burns continued, “one of their rank and file, I don’t have a chain of command. There’s people I answer to, yeah, but only after I’m retained, money up front. I work for the dagos this way, Eddie Vento included when he was still around, but it’s for proper wages. Those I set up front.”

“And that makes you proud, killing your own kind for greaseballs like Vento?”

“That’s funny comin’ from a piece of shit like yourself. How long you on his payroll was it? Five years? Ten? The problem with guys like you, thieves in uniform, you get soft playing make-believe. Can’t handle the pressure when it comes.”

“Says you,” Kelly said.

“Or what the fuck am I doing here?”

Kelly exchanged a long hard stare with Burns. He said, “You’re gonna kill me, get it over with. I don’t enjoy conversing with bog Irish.”

“First things first,” Burns said. “The safe combination.”

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah, I know, except I’m getting inside it with or without your help. Without, I might have to bend your wife over a table first, give her a little Roto-Rooter through the back door. Supposed to work wonders for the incontinent.”

“She don’t know the combination. What do you take me for?”

“Then she’d be getting all that action for nothing.”

“Those the terms you set up front, you fuckin’ genius? You kill me but then you gotta rob my house? There’s nothing in the house, you moron. I keep mine in the bank.”

“I’ve already been down the basement. There’s a safe and you’re going to give me the combination.”

“I’m gonna do that, I might as well open it.”

“And reach for the piece inside? I don’t think so.”

“Then I guess you’re fucked once you shoot me,” he said. “That’s too bad.”

“Let me ask you this then,” Burns said. “You have three daughters, correct?”

“Stebenow’s lucky you went back inside,” Captain Edward Kaprowski said, “now Kelly’s dead anyway.”

“I almost didn’t,” Lieutenant Detective Neil Levin said. “We had that beef with Stebenow’s SAC outside and then Brice wanted a soda. I wound up having another one after the first. We just made it back down the subbasement in time.”

They had been eating Nathan’s hot dogs in Kaprowski’s Catalina parked near the ramp leading to the Coney Island boardwalk on Stillwell Avenue. Levin licked a dangling onion from his frankfurter bun, then bit off the end of the hot dog.

“You think he would’ve done it?” Kaprowski asked. “Killed him, I mean.”

Levin nodded as he finished chewing. He swallowed, wiped his mouth with a napkin and nodded again. “The look in his eyes? Oh, yeah.”

“You think it was him farmed it out?” Kaprowski said.

“Could’ve been with copies of the same tapes he gave us.”

“Lord forgive me, there is one, I like to think it was the mob cleaning up their own mess,” said Kaprowski before taking a bite from his frankfurter. He wiped his mouth with a napkin, then took a sip of Coke through a straw. He set the soda on the console and forced a belch. He excused himself and wiped his mouth again, this time with the back of his right hand.

Kaprowski had come to inform Levin of his promotion and the fact that Detective Steven Brice’s sexuality had been exposed in a separate Internal Affairs investigation.

“Conducted at the behest of Lieutenant Detective Sean Kelly,” he explained, “back when Brice was first assigned to him. Claimed he wanted his new guys vetted.”

“I’m glad he’s dead,” Levin said.

“Kelly had an issue with Brice’s car. Thought he shoulda been using it to chase tail.”

“Mach One.”

“What?”

“Nothing. What do they have?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, but it’s an easy bet there are pictures involved. Nothing naked, unless they’re doin’ it in some park someplace, but they probably have whatever was public between them. The boyfriends’n advertising. Apparently they weren’t as careful up in Connecticut, where the guy lives, they were down here.”

Kaprowski started on his fries. He stopped after a few. Levin took a long drink of Rheingold beer from a can.

“There anything we can do for him?” he asked.

“Bring him over to us,” Kaprowski said. “I can expedite that, but it’s only a matter of time before some asshole lets it out, whatever they have. Kid’s in for hell when that happens.”

Levin set his fries on the console. “What if I team up with him?”

“He’s still the one’s gonna have to deal with this, my friend. It isn’t going away.”

“Kid has balls,” Levin said. “How he went after Hastings. Could’ve walked into the middle of that shootout. Shots fired and he went down those stairs anyway. Didn’t wait for backup or anything else.”

“Nobody’ll doubt his courage, but speaking of that bar, guess who took it over, Fast Eddie’s?”

Levin shrugged.

“Jimmy Wigs.”

“Valentine?”

“The same,” Kaprowski said. “Him and Vento were friends going back to forever. Probably robbed hubcaps together, the other kids were in kindergarten. Either the bosses figure Valentine is going places or Jimmy was already in on what Vento was doing, figured he’d grab it before somebody else did. Word is he’s being upped, but there’s no confirmation of yet.”

“Which is another possible explanation for Kelly,” Levin said. “Valentine cutting all loose ends.”

Kaprowski nodded. “I like it better that way than it was Stebenow.”

“Me, too. And if Valentine gets his stripe, he’ll be branching out and fast. He’s got a good sized crew in Canarsie. He gets a piece of Williamsburg, he’ll be in position for one of the top spots down the road.”

“Then we’ll set our sights on him.”

“Think he’ll spend time in Williamsburg?”

“Pro’bly, yeah, at first. That bartender Hastings shot survived, he used to run the place for Vento. Very low-key, he is. Not saying a word about what happened, except some cop used to shake him down shot him in the chest. Great publicity for NYPD, Hastings was.”

Kaprowski had dropped a string of sauerkraut on his lap. He picked it up with two fingers, held it up to his mouth and dropped it on his tongue.

“What’s next for me?” Levin asked.

“Canarsie, I’m thinking.”

“The stolen cars?”

“We got a name now. Confirmed. Roy DeMeo.”

“Feds on it?”

“I don’t know, nor do I care. You’ll be straight surveillance to start, until you’re familiar with the players. Supposedly DeMeo’s got a crew of kids working for him. Canarsie locals, but there’s a bar they work from over to Flatlands, the Gemini, I want to keep an eye on it.”

“Sounds exciting, watching a bar. I hope it’s not from some roof.”

“We can get an apartment we will, but you’ll start on a roof so get yourself a parka for when it rains.”

Levin tossed the rest of his fries out the window. A flock of sea-gulls descended on them. A few seconds later, the fries were gone.

“I guess I owe Brice,” Levin said.

“Yeah, you probably do,” Kaprowski said.

Levin took one of Kaprowski’s fries and tossed it to the pigeons. “Sometimes I hate this job,” he said.

Kaprowski offered him the rest of his fries. “Yeah,” he said. “Sometimes I do, too.”