Johnny Porno

by Charlie Stella

  He parked half a block up from Santorra’s house and walked quickly and quietly back to the driveway. He used the bushes as a shield. The pain in his head throbbed as he dropped to all fours and crept toward the car. The house across the street posed the greatest threat, but the lights were off. John worked with speed, using duct tape to secure the whistle to the bottom of the tailpipe about a foot from the end so it wasn’t easy to spot. Then he crawled back out from under the Pontiac and hustled back to his car.

  When he finally made it home, there was no sign of Elias on the stoop again. Dizzy from what he suspected was a minor concussion at the least, John gingerly knocked on the old man’s apartment door to double-check on his friend. There was no answer. Too woozy to inquire with the super, John headed up to his apartment.

  He skipped his gin and tonic, turned on the air conditioner and stripped. He lay on his back and closed his eyes. He let the air conditioner’s hum ease him into a dream about Melinda and how close they had come to consummating their relationship. He could hear her moan when he grabbed her ass. He felt himself getting excited and thought he heard himself grunt a moment before he woke up in a cold sweat.

  John could feel a tingle below his waist. When he looked he saw the sheet was wet. Between the prank with the whistle and the wet dream, John wondered if he was going through a second adolescence.

  * * * *

  Billy shot Stanislaus Bartosz in the back as the big man was getting out of the car. He’d just parked on an abandoned strip of road intersecting Fountain Avenue in Brooklyn. The putrid smell from the sanitation dump was overwhelming. Billy lit a fresh cigarette before getting out of the car and finishing off Bartosz with two bullets behind the big man’s right ear.

  Earlier he’d been forced to pull his weapon and a replica of his old detective badge to keep the ape from beating John Albano to death, what it looked like might happen. Bartosz had caught Albano off guard with a solid punch to the solar plexus, then nailed him with a jackhammer right that sent the windless man face-first to kiss the concrete.

  Billy had spotted Bartosz’s tail to the house in Queens and was sure the big man was there to do some damage when he saw Bartosz waiting near Albano’s Buick. The rest was easy. Bartosz had to respect both the badge and the gun.

  Billy had made him sit up front. They rode in silence until Billy turned onto Linden Boulevard. Then Bartosz had wanted to know where they were going.

  “Have a talk,” Billy told him.

  “About what?”

  “About what you were doing beating on the man back where your car is.”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Whether or not I charge you with assault. How’s that for starters?”

  The big man had seemed to sulk.

  “What?” Billy asked.

  “It’s embarrassing.”

  “You can tell me or spend the night in lockup.”

  Billy had turned left off Linden Boulevard onto Eldert Lane. Bartosz said, “The fuck we going?”

  “Come on, fella, I got better things to do tonight myself. What was the beef? The broad he was with your sister or what?”

  “Where we going?”

  “I told you, for a talk. Or I can swing back to Linden, take you to the Seventy-fifth Precinct. Up to you, except personally I don’t recommend it, spending the night with however many smelly coons they have waiting for transport in the pen there tonight. Worst time inna world to go through lockup’s the summer. Something tells me you already know that.”

  “She was my ex,” Bartosz had said then.

  “Your ex what? Good-looking broad like that was letting you plow her? Why don’t I believe it?”

  “Believe what you want.”

  Billy found the area he’d been looking for, a dirt road that led to a hill behind a clump of trees. He stopped, put the car in park but left it running.

  “Okay,” he’d said then. “You can go now.”

  Bartosz did a double-take at the area. “You fucking kidding me?” he’d said. “It’s the fuckin’ jungle over here. I don’t know where I am.”

  “Brooklyn,” Billy said. “Fourth largest city in the world.”

  “The fuck I’m supposed to get back to my car from here?”

  “I look like I care?”

  “You really gonna make me get out here?”

  Billy had turned his gun on the big man then. “Or I could shoot you,” he’d said. “Then push you out, let the rats have a three-day feast, the size of your carcass.”

  The big man had opened the door and swung one leg out. He had to push himself the rest of the way using the door frame and the back of the seat for leverage. He had just planted his second foot on the ground when Billy shot him. The force of the bullet sent the big man sprawling forward. With the door open, the smell from the Fountain Avenue garbage dump was too strong to ignore. Billy had lit a cigarette to offset the fetid odor. He’d taken a few drags while Bartosz moaned a few feet from the car. When Billy felt he could hold his breath long enough, he got out of the car, walked around the back and approached the big man from the right. He leaned over and fired two shots behind the big man’s right ear.

  That had been earlier. Now Billy drove past the building on Rockaway Parkway in Canarsie where John Albano lived. Billy was searching for Albano’s car, but couldn’t find the Buick. He circled the block twice as he contemplated parking, going up the stairs, knocking on Albano’s apartment door and getting it over with already. He could kill him right there and still get home in time to have Kathleen read him a story.

  He started to yawn again and pulled to the curb. He had parked a full block away from Albano’s building. He could use another jolt, but was out of cocaine. He knew of two places he could get some, one back in Queens on Cross Bay Boulevard and the other further west on the Belt Parkway near Coney Island.

  Billy yawned one more time before he decided he needed the jolt tonight more than he needed to kill John Albano. Then he pulled away from the curb, turned left on Rockaway Parkway and headed for the Belt. He was thinking he might pick up a jelly apple for Kathleen in Coney Island. Or some saltwater taffy. She had a sweet tooth and liked that stuff, too.

  Chapter 22

  “He did what?” Louis asked.

  He had answered the phone in a daze and wasn’t sure he had heard Holly right. Something about a guy exposing himself and then going to her dorm. Louis looked at his watch and saw it was two o’clock in the morning.

  Now she was crying.

  “What happened?” he said. “Calm down and tell me from the beginning.”

  Holly told him what had happened and that she didn’t know what to do. She admitted to being infatuated with her professor, but she had been conflicted about having sex with him so long as she was still attending one of his classes.

  “In other words, if you weren’t in his class you would’ve banged him,” Louis said. “Very nice.”

  “I’m trying to be honest,” she said. “Yes, I think so. But then he did that, held himself like that in his kitchen... and what he said to me... now I don’t know what to do.”

  She was sniffling again. Louis saw an opening and took it. “And now you come to me for advice. The student comes to the window cleaner because her professor turns out to be like most men, just interested in a piece of ass.”

  “Don’t say that. I feel bad enough.”

  “You’re a smart girl, Holly. Probably a lot smarter than I’ll ever be, but sometimes you’re naïve to no end. Your professor isn’t interested in you the way you’d like to think. He’s interesting in getting laid.”

  Holly was crying again.

  “Hey, it’s your life,” he said. “You’re the one has to make the decisions.”

  “I can’t turn him in,” she said. “I can’t do that. I was just as responsible as he was.”

  “Because you’re pretty and he couldn’t control himself?”

  “Because I’m at fault, too. I wanted to be there. I went about it the w
rong way, but it’s just as much my fault. He could lose his tenure.”

  Louis grinned on his end of the phone. “And now it doesn’t even bother you to hurt me, telling me all this. Thanks a lot. It’s the first time you’ve called me in a few days, you didn’t bother returning my calls and now you tell me how you wanted to screw some other guy. Great. Thanks, Holly. Sleep tight.”

  He hung up the phone and looked at the television. The credits were rolling from the Hercules movie he’d been watching earlier. The phone rang again. He let it ring a few times before deciding to answer.

  “I’m sorry if I hurt you,” Holly said.

  “Yeah, well, why the hell you calling me anyway?”

  “I’m sorry,” Holly said. “I’m so sorry.”

  She sobbed some more before she was able to control herself.

  “I feel like an idiot,” she said.

  “You’re not an idiot. You’re young is all.”

  “I’m sorry I hurt you, Louis. I am.”

  “You’re damn straight I’m hurt,” he said with a smirk on his face.

  “I’m a dope.”

  “You really want my advice?”

  “Yes. I do. Please.”

  “Don’t file charges. Don’t go to his boss. Let the guy wiggle. I’m sure he’s all fucked up about it anyway.”

  “He’s been trying to talk to me all day.”

  “He’s probably afraid he lost his job.”

  “I can’t do that. I wouldn’t.”

  “It’d be just as bad for you if you did. There’s that to consider. He can’t see that, though. He’s probably scared shitless. Not that he shouldn’t be, the fucking pervert.”

  “I wish I hadn’t gone there.”

  “Here I am fighting your war against porn and you go and watch one with your professor. How’s that for ironic?”

  “It wasn’t porn, Louis. Last Tango isn’t porn.”

  “Except it gave your professor a hard-on he couldn’t control.”

  He faced the mirror over his dresser, curled his free hand and stroked the air with it. “I’ll bet he’s nailed a couple dozen kids from his classes. How old you say he was?”

  “I didn’t say. He’s in his forties, maybe fifty.”

  “And you like him. Enough so you would’ve slept with him.”

  “I don’t know anymore,” she said. “The way he looked, what he said. I don’t know.”

  “Well, there’s not much I can do,” Louis said. “And I have to get some sleep. I have things to do tomorrow and Sunday that require I’m alert.”

  “Can I see you?”

  “Why, so you can cry about your professor some more? No thanks.”

  “Please, Louis.”

  “I don’t have time. Not this weekend.”

  “I can help you.”

  “I don’t see how. Not while you’re all broken up over your perverted professor.”

  “Please?”

  Louis didn’t answer.

  “Please, Louis?”

  “I don’t know,” he said dismissively. “Let me think about it. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Will you?”

  “I’ll call. I’m not making any guarantees, though.”

  “I don’t want to be here this weekend. Not at the dorm.”

  “You come here, you’ll be alone most the weekend anyway. I have that thing to do.”

  “I don’t care. I just don’t want to be here.”

  “I’ll let you know in the morning.”

  “Promise you’ll call.”

  “Hey, I’m not the one ignores phone calls.”

  “I’m sorry about that. Please call me.”

  “I’ll see. Good night, Holly.”

  “Good night.”

  He hung up, turned to the mirror and mimicked Holly’s pleading. “‘Promise you’ll call,’” he said. “‘Please, Louis.’”

  The phone rang again. He knew it was Holly. He picked it up without answering.

  “I still care about you,” she said. “I want you to know that.”

  He hung up again.

  “Where do they grow people that stupid?” he asked his reflection.

  * * * *

  Special Agent Stebenow was wearing gym shorts, a Miami Dolphins T-shirt and carrying his sneakers in one hand as he crossed the sand toward the water’s edge. He had been following Bridget Malone since she left the apartment above Fast Eddie’s a few hours ago. Twenty minutes earlier Bridget and two girlfriends she met in Park Slope had spread a towel on the sand near the water. A few minutes later the girlfriends left Bridget to join a group of young couples sitting around a small fire near the fishing dock. Stebenow watched as Bridget stripped out of her clothes and couldn’t tell if she was wearing a bikini or her underwear when she ran off toward the surf.

  There was a full moon. Stebenow noticed at least two other couples on blankets close to the water as he made his way from the boardwalk to the surf. The sand was cool against his feet.

  He could see Bridget body surfing toward the shore when he made it to her blanket. He observed how neatly the blanket had been spread on the sand and how a towel was folded under a small radio. A pair of cut-off shorts and a sweatshirt lay on the towel alongside a beach bag.

  Stebenow looked up and saw Bridget trying to balance herself against the tug of the receding water around her feet. She stepped out of the surf and jogged a few feet before she saw him. She smiled as she drew closer. He could see through her white panties and bra. When he spotted her triangle of dark pubic hair, he turned away.

  “Agent Stebenow?” Bridget said. “I almost didn’t recognize you without your sunglasses.”

  “It’s too dark for those now,” he said. “Speaking of which, isn’t it a little dangerous swimming this late?”

  He grabbed the towel from the beach bag and held it out to her without looking.

  “Dangerous how?” she said. “You mean sharks or black men?”

  Stebenow pointed at her face. “That’s a nasty bruise.”

  “Yeah, well, sometimes Eddie can get nasty.”

  “You okay?”

  “You really care?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I take that for a sexual advance?”

  “No.”

  “Because I’m white?”

  “No, because I’m married.”

  “Separated.”

  “I’m not divorced.”

  Bridget finished drying her legs and stepped inside the cut-off shorts.

  “Did you get it on tape?” Stebenow asked.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I wasn’t expecting it,” Bridget said. She removed her bra and Stebenow turned away again. “The tape was full from the night before. I didn’t get a chance to change it. I’d look a lot worse if he caught me doing that.”

  “You don’t have to take being hit.”

  Bridget pulled the sweatshirt over her head. “And here I thought you’d appreciate the extra drama.”

  “We want to put him away. Nobody wants to see anything happen to you.”

  “I might believe you, but I know that prosecutor could care less. He’d be fine if I were killed so long as it was on tape.”

  Stebenow read the script on the sweatshirt. “Mrs. Jay’s Beer Garden.”

  “In Asbury Park. I went there to see a friend play drums. He’s in a new band.”

  “Somebody your own age?”

  “That bothers you, huh, Eddie and me?”

  “On so many levels you can’t imagine.”

  “You could always save me from him. It be a first for me, a black man. How ‘bout you? Ever been with a white girl before?”

  Stebenow ignored the question. “Can you take a walk?”

  Bridget squatted down over the beach bag. She pulled a cassette from a pocket inside the bag and held it out.

  “Don’t you want this first?”

  Stebenow pocketed the tape. “I wish you were a little more careful,” he
said.

  Bridget giggled, waved to her friends and then yelled she’d be right back. She followed Stebenow to the boardwalk, across it and down the ramp to the sidewalk and his car. He unlocked her door and held it open.

  “Thank you,” she said before getting in.

  He walked around the back of the car and could see she had turned the rearview mirror to look at herself. He got in and waited until she was finished before readjusting the mirror.

  “You need to keep a fresh tape in the recorder,” he told her. “Just in case he does something like that again.”

  She took his right hand and held it against her bruised cheek.

  He looked away from her. “Does it hurt?”

  “I think you could make it better,” she said.

  She moved his hand across her mouth and kissed it.

  Stebenow slowly pulled his hand away.

  “I wouldn’t tell if you wanted to have sex with me,” Bridget said. “I’m of age. It would be of my own free will.”

  “I’m married, Bridget.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  Stebenow opened his window.

  “You’re too much,” Bridget said. “You’re like the one square cop I ever met.”

  “You meet many cops, do you?”

  “That one visited Eddie would’ve pushed my head into his lap already, we were ever this close.”

  “Which one was that?”

  “I don’t know his name. Eddie calls him Mr. Horse. I’m supposed to believe he’s a bookie but I know he’s not.”

  “And how’s that?”

  “Red hair, freckles? He isn’t an Irish cop, I’m a nun.”

  “Kelly,” Stebenow said. “He is a cop, so be careful. Be extra careful. He might be watching you for Eddie.”

  “You know that, why don’t you bust him?”

  “He’s peripheral to the investigation. He’ll go down when the time comes, but he’s not our focus. Eddie is.”

  “Well, he showed up the other night while I was on my way home, the Irish cop. He let me borrow his hanky.”

  Stebenow lit a cigarette. “What was that about?”