Panic Attack

twenty- two

Johnny watched the couple get off the Coney Island- bound F train, and then he followed them down the long escalator and out to the street. The couple went past the convenience store at the corner and turned right. Johnny hung back for a block or two, until the couple reached an area that was darker and more deserted, and then he made his move.

He pulled down his black ski mask and started walking faster, until he was about twenty yards behind them; then, right when the guy looked back over his shoulder, Johnny sprinted toward them, holding his.38. Before the couple could run or yell for help or react at all, Johnny was pointing the gun at the guy’s face, saying, “Gimme the fuckin’ ring.”

Johnny had spotted the woman’s ring on the subway. It was a sparkly diamond engagement ring, looked like at least one carat. The woman was blond, blue- eyed, and, like most people in this part of Brooklyn nowadays, probably not a native New Yorker. She was probably from the Midwest, Kansas or some shit. No girl who grew up in the city would wear her engagement ring, diamond up, on the subway at eleven o’clock at night.

“Please… don’t shoot him,” the woman said.

Yeah, definitely not a New Yorker.

“Just gimme the fuckin’ ring, bitch,” Johnny said. He hated that he had to be so disrespectful, that he couldn’t talk like the charming woman- lover he normally was, but he knew that in a robbery situation it was a good idea to act as little like your normal self as possible.

“Take it easy,” the guy said. He was tall and thin and had the same bumpkin accent as the girl. “We don’t want any trouble, yo.”

Yo. Like he thought he was talking street and that would, what, save him?

Johnny pressed the gun into the guy’s cheek and said, “Tell the whore to gimme the fuckin’ ring.”

“Give him the ring,” the guy said to the woman.

“I can’t. It’s my grandmother’s.”

“Give it to him, goddamn it.”

“Please,” the woman said to Johnny, “take our money. I have two hundred dollars in my purse, and my fiancй has money, too. You can have it all, but please, I can’t give you the-”

Johnny pistol- whipped the guy across the side of his head. He fell to his knees, and then Johnny hit him with the gun again, on the front of his face, and heard something crunch. The woman started screaming. Jesus, what the hell was wrong with these people? Did they want to die?

Johnny grabbed the woman’s left hand and started to pull off the ring. Would you believe it, she was still trying to resist? She was screaming in Johnny’s ear, trying to break free. Johnny was ready to shoot her in the head and shut her up, but then the ring slid off.

“Thanks, guys,” Johnny said.

He’d got what he wanted. No reason not to be polite now, right?

He walked away quickly. After he turned the corner he jogged a few blocks, and then continued home at a normal pace.

He wished he could sell the ring right away. He knew he could get a thousand for it, maybe more, from any pawnshop, and he didn’t like to hold on to the things he stole, especially jewelry. Jewelry, especially rings, was the type of stuff that people wanted back. Sometimes he’d dump stolen jewelry for a fraction of what it was worth just to get rid of it. After all, he wasn’t an idiot. That was the difference between him and every other criminal in the world.

But he needed the ring, to give to Marissa when the time was right. Then when she was dead, like her parents, he could pawn it off and make his thousand bucks. Not that a thousand bucks would mean anything to him then.

Yeah, it would’ve been nice if Adam Bloom had come home on time and Johnny had killed him like he’d planned to, but everything else had gone so well since then that he couldn’t exactly complain. After he left the house on Monday evening, he dumped the stolen car in a supermarket parking lot way out in Flushing and got rid of the backpack and the sweatshirt that had gotten blood on it. Then he washed up in the bathroom of a gas station and hailed a livery cab and had the driver drop him off around the corner from the movie theater on Fifty- ninth at about eight o’clock. He was only about a half hour late, and he told Marissa the subways were running slow and he couldn’t call her from underground. She wasn’t upset, because she’d been running late, too, and had just gotten there. The movie was about to start, so they decided to go in and get something to eat afterward. Not that she seemed interested in actually watching the movie. While they were in the back of the movie theater, making out, he was replaying the murder in his head. Were there any loose ends? He couldn’t think of any. He’d gotten rid of all the evidence, and the cops had probably already arrested Tony. Hopefully Tony would go to jail for the rest of his life or get the death penalty. If Tony had an alibi, the cops might try to pin the murder on Adam. That would work out really well for Johnny, too. Johnny needed to get rid of Adam for the rest of his plan to work, and it didn’t really matter if Adam was rotting in a jail cell or six feet underground as long as he was gone for good.

After the movie, Johnny took a leak, and when he met Marissa back in the lobby and saw her looking so upset, talking to somebody on her cell, he knew she’d heard the news. Johnny lived for moments like these. He got to play a role, be another person and, even better, be this great guy everybody loved.

Johnny knew that Marissa needed him to take charge, and he handled it beautifully, putting her in the cab, telling her all the right things. At the house, Adam was totally buying into his shit, too, and Johnny played it just right, hugging him, literally giving him a shoulder to cry on about three hours after killing his wife. Seriously, did it get any better than that?

While Adam and Marissa were hugging and slobbering like babies, Johnny was listening in on a conversation between a gray- haired detective- later he’d find out his name was Clements- and some other cop. Although Johnny was only catching bits and pieces, it sounded like they weren’t sold on the idea that Tony had killed Dana Bloom. Johnny didn’t know why this was, but he didn’t waste a second and started working on his backup plan. See, this was what set Johnny apart from the two- bit criminals who were crammed into jails all over the country- he never got complacent; his mind was always working, thinking ahead.

Naturally Marissa asked him to sit next to her while Clements was questioning her. She needed him so badly now, she couldn’t bear to be without him for even a few minutes. Johnny loved it when Clements asked Adam if he could “wait in the other room;” the look on his face was priceless, like he already knew what was about to go down and how screwed he was and how there was nothing he could do to stop it. Then Clements asked Marissa about Adam, if she’d ever seen him threaten Dana, and it was beautiful how Marissa mentioned Adam had pushed Dana that one time and knocked her down. Now Clements was really starting to believe that Adam was his man.

When Johnny finally got alone with Marissa in her room, and she was telling him how lucky she was to have him and saying she wanted to feel him inside her, Johnny knew she was officially his. He’d hooked her so good, there was no way she was getting away now. He made love to her, slowly and passionately, the way only Johnny Long could, and then he picked up where Clements had left off, trying to get her to believe that her father had killed her mother. He knew he had to handle this carefully, not come on too strong, blaming her father. He had to let her think that it was her idea, that she’d come up with it on her own. It worked, and it was incredible- he felt like he was in total control of this girl, like he could get her to do or think anything he wanted her to. And with Adam’s own daughter believing he was guilty, who would he have to defend him?

When Adam was gone, Johnny would ask Marissa to marry him, and, come on, at this point how could she not say yes? She was already dependent on him, and when both her parents were gone she’d be desperate to start a new family. When they were married- and the way things were going, that could only be a few months from now- he’d make sure he was in her will, as her sole beneficiary, because who else would there be? She sure as hell wouldn’t want her father, that murderer, to get anything. Then Marissa would die in some “unfortunate accident”- the poor Blooms, they’d had so much tragedy in their lives- and Johnny would have everything he’d ever wanted.

Marissa was so convinced that her father was guilty, she was afraid to be in the house with him alone. Johnny said he would stay with her for as long she wanted him to-“forever if I have to”- but then her grandmother, Adam’s mother, arrived, and Johnny wanted out. He got a bad vibe from the old lady from the get- go and knew she wouldn’t be as easy to win over as the other Blooms.

“I think she hates me,” Johnny had said to Marissa. “No, that’s just the way she’s been with all my boyfriends,” Marissa said. “It’s because you’re a shagetz.”

“A what?”

“Because you’re not Jewish. My grandmother has always had this stupid thing in her head about me having to marry a Jewish guy someday even though we’re not at all religious.”

“How does she know I’m not Jewish?”

“She knows,” Marissa said, and that was exactly what Johnny was worried about. If the old lady could tell he wasn’t Jewish, what else could she tell? Johnny didn’t want to take any chances, especially when everything was going so well.

With her grandma staying in the guest room next door, Marissa didn’t seem as worried about being in the same house with her father, so Johnny came up with a good excuse to go back to his apartment- he needed to get his suit for the funeral. Marissa wanted to go with him but decided she should probably stay and be with her family.

When Johnny left, the reporters, who’d been camped out there all day, swarmed him, shouting questions. Johnny told them he was just “a friend of the family,” and he didn’t stop to talk to them. At the subway station, he bought the Post and News. Marissa had already told him that Tony had an alibi for the murder and might be off the hook and that Adam was the main suspect now, but even the papers that had come out early this morning were slamming Adam. Each paper had about two or three pages on the story, focusing on how Adam Bloom, the crazed vigilante who had shot and killed an intruder in his house less than two weeks ago, was now a suspect in his wife’s murder. While the articles focused on Tony as a suspect, the Post called the Blooms “the philandering couple” and said that the Blooms’ marriage had been “in crisis” since the break- in and that Adam Bloom might have “snapped again” and killed his wife. And Johnny loved that Clements had called Adam “a person of interest” in the case. Reading this on the subway to Brooklyn, he couldn’t help laughing out loud. For years, Johnny had been running away from the cops, and now, in a weird way, a cop was actually helping him get the biggest score of his life. He almost felt like Clements deserved a cut of the action.

Later on during the subway ride, Johnny spotted the couple with the engagement ring. He wouldn’t need the ring for a while, but he’d learned a long time ago that when an opportunity comes along to get what you want, go for it, because you don’t know when you’ll get that chance again.

At his apartment, he was checking out the ring- it didn’t have any noticeable flaws; maybe it was worth more than he’d thought- when he got a text from Marissa:

I miss you so so much!!

Man, Johnny loved his life. In the morning, Johnny met Marissa outside the funeral home in Forest Hills. She was already a mess- dark circles under her bloodshot eyes, streaks of mascara on her cheeks- so he had to shift right into supportive boyfriend mode. This might’ve been hard to pull off for some guys, but not for Johnny. He even managed to squeeze out some tears.

The funeral seemed to take forever, the rabbi going on about what a wonderful, caring person Dana had been and how much she’d be missed. At one point the rabbi called her “a loving wife.” And Johnny- probably like everybody else in the chapel- was thinking, Yeah, but loving to who?

Everyone was sobbing, especially Marissa and Adam. But Adam was almost crying too much. It seemed to Johnny that a lot of Adam’s crying was for show, not because he was faking it- he was probably actually upset- but because he knew other people, including Marissa and any reporters who’d gotten into the chapel, were watching him to make sure he was crying as much as a grieving husband should be. A couple of times Johnny saw Marissa look over at her father, and Adam would immediately start crying or blow his nose extra loud or do something to prove how upset he was.

Johnny rode with Adam, Marissa, and Marissa’s grandmother- Grandma Ann- to the cemetery. Johnny was doing a great job with the whole grieving act, but, man, it took a lot of work. In the back of the limo, the old biddy kept looking over at him, giving him the evil eye, glaring through her Coke- bottle glasses. He knew it wasn’t just because he wasn’t Jewish; there was more to it than that.

At the grave, Johnny actually felt sad for the first time all day. It was a shame that Dana had died before Johnny had a chance to screw her, before she had a chance to experience the orgasms that you could only experience with Johnny Long. Talk about tragedy.

Johnny had to continue to console Marissa, and he was running out of bullshit to say to make her feel better. How many times could he tell her “I know” and “She’s in a better place” and “It’s gonna be okay?” Meanwhile, Adam was still overdoing it. When they lowered the coffin into the ground he collapsed, crying, but then he started beating the ground with his fists, like a baby having a fit. Johnny was thinking, Fists? Come on, gimme a break. At one point, Johnny even saw Marissa look over at her father and roll her eyes slightly.

During the ride back to the Blooms’ house, Marissa looked away the whole time, staring blankly out the window. Johnny left her alone, giving her her space.

Marissa didn’t say a word until they got back to the house. She took him up to her room, shut the door, and said, “I think you were right- he definitely did it.”

“I never said I thought he actually did it,” Johnny said.

“But that’s what you thought, that was your first instinct, and first instincts are usually right.”

Johnny wasn’t going to argue with this. He blinked once, very slowly, to show her how concerned he was, and squeezed her hand tightly.

She continued, “Everything about him today was so fucking fake. Did you see the way he was punching the ground? He thinks he’s gonna get away with it, but he won’t because I’m not gonna let him. If he did this he’s gonna pay for it. He’s not just gonna go on with his life while my mother’s rotting away underground.”

Johnny loved how she was ready to turn on her father, to, well, bury him.

The Blooms were having some Jewish thing called a shiver sitting, something like that, where all their friends and relatives were going to come over with food and drinks and sit around and mourn with the whole family. It sounded like hell; Even worse, it was going to last a whole week. What was it with Jews anyway? Did they want to drag out their misery for as long as they possibly could?

Maybe people were staying away because of the “rumors” about Adam in the news, because only about ten people showed up at the house all day even though there had been at least a hundred people at the funeral. Adam seemed out of it, wandering in and out of the living room, occasionally checking his BlackBerry, shaking his head and mumbling to himself. Grandma Ann continued to give Johnny dirty looks. Johnny tried to start a couple of conversations with her, asking her about Florida, but the old lady wouldn’t even make eye contact with him. Later, Johnny saw her go over and whisper something to Adam; then Adam looked over at Johnny, trying to be casual about it. Johnny didn’t care what Marissa said; he knew that the old lady wasn’t only treating him like this because he wasn’t Jewish.

Marissa wanted Johnny to spend the night with her, and he couldn’t turn her down, could he? In bed, she told him that she loved him, and he said he loved her, too, “more than anything in the world.” He knew it was way too early to ask her to marry him, but he thought the timing was right to test the waters, to see if she was as primed as he thought she was, so he asked, “Do you want kids someday?”

“Someday,” she said. “Definitely. What about you?”

“Yeah,” Johnny said. Then he added, “And I think you and me could make great- looking babies.”

If she seemed at all freaked out by this, he would’ve backed off, changed the subject, said he was only joking.

Instead she said, “I know, I was thinking about that today actually.”

“You were?”

“Yeah. I mean, I know it’s early, but I definitely feel strongly about you.”

Wow, Johnny was impressed with himself. He knew Marissa would be especially vulnerable today, on the day of her mother’s funeral, but she was about as attached to him as a person could possibly get.

“I want to show you something,” he said.

He went over to his suit jacket, which he’d laid over the chair at her desk, and took the diamond ring out of the inside pocket.

“I know this isn’t the right time to do this,” he said. “And I’m not sure you’ll even want me to do it, but if you do… someday… look at what I have.”

He opened his hand and watched her eyes widen. It was amazing the way women shit themselves over diamonds.

“Wow, it’s beautiful,” she said.

“My grandmother gave it to me when she was dying of cancer. She told me to propose to the girl I love someday.”

Marissa was smiling, and Johnny knew she was thinking, Please let that girl be me. Please let me be Mrs. Xan Evonov.

Then her expression changed and she said, “It was your grandmother’s ring?”

“Yeah,” Johnny said.

“Oh,” she said, “that’s weird. It doesn’t look like a very old setting.”

“That’s because I had it reset. Yeah, I wanted it to look more modern, and it’s the stone that’s really important to me.”

Good thing Johnny was a fast thinker.

“That’s so sweet,” she said, “and the stone is so beautiful.”

He could tell she wanted to try the ring on, but he took it away, thinking, Always leave them wanting more.

He was kissing her tenderly when there was a knock at the door.

“Yes?” Marissa said.

“Dinner’s on the table.” It was Grandma Ann.

“Okay, coming,” Marissa said.

“It’s getting cold.”

“We’ll be right down.”

Johnny didn’t hear Grandma Ann’s footsteps. He pictured her at the door, trying to listen in.

“Maybe I should go,” Johnny said, talking low, almost whispering.

“Why?” Marissa asked, concerned but talking very quietly, matching Johnny’s tone.

“I just think your family needs some time alone.”

“Please don’t go. I need you here tonight.”

Johnny decided he would electrocute Marissa. It wouldn’t happen for a long time, for months, and he’d have to work out the details, but when the time was right, that was how he’d get rid of her.

Moving a few strands of hair away from her eyes, Johnny said, “I really think your grandmother doesn’t want me here.”

“I’m telling you that’s just the way she is.”

Now Johnny heard Grandma Ann walking away down the hallway. Johnny gave Marissa a look that said, See what I mean?

“She’s totally harmless, I’m telling you.”

Johnny didn’t believe her, but he decided to focus on the positives. Dana was dead, and Marissa was in love with him and, even better, was practically ready to marry him. Everything was falling into place. It was time to move ahead with the next phase of the plan, and this would be the most enjoyable phase, the part that would give him the biggest rush.

Yeah, it was time to kill Adam Bloom.