by Jason Starr
So when Carlos looked at Johnny seriously and said, “So the thing I got goin’ on . . .” Johnny knew he couldn’t say no right away even though he also knew this wasn’t going to lead to anything good. He had to at least listen to his old buddy, see what he had to say, give him a little respect.
Surprisingly, Carlos’s plan didn’t seem so bad—rob some fancy house in Forest Hills while the family was away in Florida. Carlos’s ex-girlfriend, the maid, had the keys and knew the code to the alarm system.
“Shit’s gonna be so easy,” Carlos said. “The house is gonna be empty and we gonna go in and out. Gabriela, my girl, she said the lady in the house got a diamond ring. It’s so expensive she doesn’t wear it, but she keeps it right out in her bedroom. My girl’s gonna tell us where everything’s at so we can go in, out, and then we got fifty thousand dollars, twenty-five each.”
“What about your girl?”
“That’s the funny shit.” Carlos was laughing.“She was on my ass the other day, sayin’ she wanted the money split three ways, going it gotta be equal and shit or she won’t give me the keys. So I was telling her, yeah, don’t worry, baby, it’ll be three ways, anything to shut her fat ass up, right? But when we get the money, that’s it, we gone. She never gonna see our asses again.”
Carlos was still laughing, wiping tears out of the corners of his eyes with his index finger.
Johnny had to admit the plan sounded good, but that’s what worried him. In his experience, when something sounded too good it usually meant it was bad.
“How do you know the family’ll be in Florida?” he asked.
“Because my girl works there,” Carlos said. “She knows everything.”
“And when we don’t give her a cut, how do you know she won’t rat us out?” “Why’d she rat us out and get her own ass sent to jail? The cops, they’re gonna know she got us the key and the code. Naw, trust me, the bitch is gonna
keep her mouth shut.”
Johnny had some more questions, but he couldn’t find any obvious holes in the plan, and he didn’t see how he could say no. Twenty-five G’s was some serious cash—beat the hell out of the kind of pocket change he’d been making lately, a few hundred bucks here and there on the good days. The summer was coming, and he could use a break. It would be nice to take a couple of months off, go to the beach down the shore, work on his tan. How hot would he look with a tan? How many women would want to screw him then? He’d pass that thousand mark in four years, no problem.
“So,” Carlos said, “you in or out?”
Johnny looked across the table at his old buddy and smiled.
The night of the robbery, Johnny and Carlos, wearing backpacks, met where Carlos had parked his car, outside a pizza place on Austin Street in Forest Hills. Johnny had come by subway, but Carlos had taken his car, a beat-up Impala. Not the best getaway ride, but if things went right they wouldn’t be in any rush. They’d just casually get in the car and drive away.
“Ready to do it?” Carlos asked.
“Hold up,” Johnny said, looking around. He didn’t like this at all. Yeah, it was better meeting here than in front of the house they were gonna rob, but it still felt too out in the open. It was 1:30 a.m., and almost all the stores were closed, but there were still cars passing by, and right across the street and down the block a little, there was a homeless-looking guy hanging out.
“What’s wrong?” Carlos asked.
“Maybe we should’ve met at the house,” Johnny said. “You told me to park here.”
“The car’s okay. I’m talking about us. It’s not good if somebody sees us together.”
“So what if somebody sees us?” Carlos said. “We’re just two people. What did we do?”
“I mean if somebody remembers,” Johnny said. “After.”
“After what? The people’re in Florida. It’s gonna be like a week before they find out the joint got robbed.”
Johnny didn’t care, he still felt uncomfortable. The homeless guy seemed to be looking right at them. Johnny still had a bad feeling about the whole thing. He’d been on a roll lately—picking pockets, picking up women, hustling a little pool. It wasn’t big money, but it was steady, and it was safe. Why was he getting in on a robbery with a drug addict?
He was ready to back out. He was going to say to Carlos, Sorry, man, I don’t like it, and go back to Brooklyn, but he knew he’d be letting Carlos, his brother, down, and was there really a reason to? Maybe he was just overthinking it, making it more complicated than it really was. Maybe it was like Carlos said, an easy twenty-five K. He’d go along with it, see how it went. If it didn’t feel right at the house, he could bail then.
They went past Austin Street under the Long Island Rail Road tracks and through the big gates into Forest Hills Gardens. Johnny had only been to this neighborhood once or twice, driving by, and he’d forgotten how fancy all the houses were. They were like mini mansions, with front lawns and backyards and driveways, and they had to go for, what, three, four million dollars, maybe even more nowadays. It reminded him of the houses in Rockaway in Brooklyn. One summer, when Johnny was eleven or twelve years old, he stole a bicycle, and every day he biked all the way to the beach. He’d pass all the fancy houses out there, watch all the families—the dads playing catch with their kids in the street, or the kids playing on their front yards and shooting hoops in their backyards. He’d wonder what it would feel like to be one of those kids, just for one day, to have everything instead of nothing.
As they walked, they didn’t talk at all. This had been Johnny’s rule—no talking. They went about three blocks, made a left, and there was the house. Jesus, it was one of the nicest ones on the block—three stories, brick, front lawn. When Johnny was a kid he would’ve killed to live in a place like this. He hoped the people appreciated what they had, that it wasn’t just all normal to them and they didn’t give a shit.
Johnny and Carlos looked around to make sure the coast was clear, then nodded to each other and walked up the driveway to the backyard. One thing struck Johnny as wrong, and he’d kick himself about it later: A shiny black Mercedes was in the driveway. There was a garage in the back, so if the people were away, out of town, wouldn’t they put the car in the garage? Or why not drive it to the airport and leave it there? Johnny was going to say something to Carlos, even suggest they go back to their car, but then he thought maybe there was nothing so strange about it at all. Lot of rich people have two or even three cars. Maybe the other cars were in the garage and the people had left the Merc in the driveway. Maybe they’d taken a limo to the airport. There were a lot of reasons why the Merc could be there.
At the end of the driveway, it was dark, just like Carlos had said it would be. They opened their backpacks and put on their ski masks and gloves and took out their flashlights. Then they went around to the back door. Carlos turned on his flashlight and opened the door with the keys. So far so good, but now they had to disarm the alarm. Carlos went right to the keypad and punched in the numbers, but the red light was still blinking. Fuck, in maybe a minute or less the alarm would start blaring, and they’d have to run as fast as they could back to the car and get the hell out of Forest Hills.
“Come on,” Johnny stage-whispered. He was holding the door open, ready to take off.
“Wait,” Carlos said, and he started punching the numbers in again.
Jesus, Johnny knew he should’ve made Carlos write the code down, but he swore he had it memorized. Carlos typed in several numbers, then hesitated, as if thinking, using all his concentration, then punched in the last two.
The red light turned green.
Carlos smiled widely, and Johnny wondered, Had the guy been fucking with me all along? It was the type of prank Carlos would’ve pulled at St. John’s, trying to scare the shit out of somebody and getting a big kick out of it.
But they were in the house, that was the important thing. Now they had to get what they needed and get the hell out.
Shining their flashli
ghts ahead of them, they went through the kitchen—it was huge, with brand new-looking stainless steel appliances—and into some kind of big pantry. Then they went into the living room—man, these people were loaded; they had a plasma TV on the wall, looked like a sixty-incher—and entered the dining room, where Carlos started coughing. He bent over for a few seconds, like he was trying to prevent a full-blown coughing fit. Then he straightened up and said in a loud whisper that was almost like his normal speaking voice, “Gotta stop smoking, man.”
“Shhhh,” Johnny said, shining his flashlight at his own face to show Carlos how serious he was.
Carlos smiled, and Johnny wondered if the cough was just for show, too, to get a reaction.
Carlos’s attitude was starting to piss Johnny off. He’d been cool on the way to the house, but now that they were inside he was acting like this was all a big game or something.
They continued to the foyer, to the staircase. The plan was Carlos would go up and get the jewelry and whatever cash there was, and Johnny would be the lookout. Johnny knew he was putting a lot of trust in Carlos. Carlos could come down and say he couldn’t find the jewelry, and meanwhile pocket all of it, but Johnny didn’t want to believe Carlos would ever do that to him. They were brothers for life, and they’d never rip each other off. They had a bond that nothing could break.
Or did they?
Carlos started upstairs. The stairs were creaking, more than Johnny liked, and then they heard the noise. Johnny knew Carlos had heard it, too, because he suddenly stood still and cut off his flashlight. Johnny did the same and immediately stuck his hand in his pocket and gripped his piece.
Johnny tried to convince himself that it was just the wind, the house settling, but he knew exactly what he’d heard: footsteps. Somebody was up there.
Carlos wasn’t packing. Johnny had wanted him to, but Carlos had said, “Why do I need a piece when there’s gonna be nobody in the house to shoot?”
Johnny was aiming his gun toward the top of the staircase. His eyes hadn’t adjusted yet, and he could barely see. If he saw someone, anything, and had a clear shot, he was going to take it.
The only light in the room was coming from the streetlights outside and maybe some dim light from a night-light or something upstairs. Now Johnny could see the front door, the windows, and the outline of the staircase. He couldn’t see anything upstairs yet, but he was just starting to see Carlos, standing there, about halfway up the stairs.
Then Carlos started heading up again.
Johnny wanted to scream, What the fuck’re you doing? The guy wasn’t carrying, and somebody was up there. He had to know somebody was up there.
Then Johnny heard movement, maybe the floor creaking. Shit.
Carlos said, “Please don’t shoot me,” and then the shots came. Two first, then a bunch all at once. Jesus, the shooter was opening up on Carlos, the fuck was going on? Johnny saw Carlos fall back a little, trying to steady himself by grabbing the railing, but then he lost his balance and fell to the bottom of the stairwell.
The whole thing had happened so fast, maybe like three seconds total, that Johnny didn’t have any time to think about what to do. He was about to fire at the staircase—he saw somebody there now, looked like a guy in a T-shirt and boxers—but did he really want to get into a shootout?
He took a couple of steps toward the door then heard, “Get the hell outta here or I’ll shoot!”
It sounded like some rich, middle-aged white guy trying to be tough. Johnny would’ve bet any amount the guy was full of shit; he’d probably spent his whole round and was standing there shitting bricks with nothing but a handful of metal. If Johnny had taken a few seconds to think it over, he would’ve blown the guy away, but his instincts told him to get the hell out before this thing went from bad to worse.
Instead of going all the way back through the house to the back door and then having to go through the backyard, all the way around to the driveway, he went toward the front door. His eyes had adjusted more, and there was enough light there from the streetlights outside to see what he was doing as he unbolted two locks and unchained the door. He wasn’t afraid the guy would shoot him in the back because he knew, he just knew, the guy had been bullshitting.
A few seconds later Johnny was sprinting down the block, and then he turned onto the main street and ran toward the Forest Hills gates. He heard sirens and immediately slowed, taking off his ski mask and gloves and walking at a normal pace as a police car sped by in the opposite direction.
Johnny felt like shit for ditching Carlos. Yeah, it looked like those bullets got him, probably got shot in the head the way he fell back, but what if he was wrong and Carlos had just gotten hit in the arm or something? Maybe if Johnny hadn’t taken off, if he’d opened up on the middle-aged guy instead, he could’ve pulled Carlos out. Instead Johnny had saved his own ass instead of trying to help his brother, a guy who’d helped him so many times before.
Johnny went down to the subway. The platform was pretty much empty— just a homeless guy, sleeping sprawled out on a bench. It wasn’t the same homeless guy he’d seen earlier on the street, though. Johnny was going to take the first train that came, but at this time of night, past two in the morning, he had no idea how long that would take. He listened for a rumbling in the tunnels, but there was nothing. He had to get the hell out of Forest Hills. The cops were definitely at the house now; how long would it be before they checked the subway station? Johnny figured he had five, ten minutes, if that.
He wasn’t going to take any chances. He jogged to the end of the platform, then jumped onto the tracks and headed into the tunnel. He hadn’t been in a subway tunnel in years, but as kids he and his friends used to walk the tracks all the time. One New Year’s Eve, he and Carlos and a couple of other guys from St. John’s had walked along the 6 train tracks from Grand Central to Union Square. When trains came they’d stood in the space between the tracks and the wall.
Johnny walked along the tracks as fast as he could, occasionally jogging and even running. There was enough light to see anyway, but to make his path even more visible he shined his flashlight ahead of him, scaring away rats here and there.
It only took him about ten minutes or so to reach the Sixty-seventh Avenue station. He was going to continue through the tunnel to the next station, but he heard a train coming from behind him and climbed onto the platform. It was an R—heading toward Manhattan and Brooklyn. Johnny got on and sat in a seat in the corner, finally able to catch his breath.
Less than an hour later, he arrived at his tiny studio apartment in a walk-up tenement on Van Brunt Street in Red Hook, all the way out near the river. He still felt bad about ditching Carlos, but he kept telling himself that he’d done the right thing. Even if Carlos had been alive he would’ve been seriously injured, bleeding like hell, and it would’ve been impossible to get him out of the house. But no matter how hard Johnny tried to rationalize and reassure himself, he couldn’t help feeling like a big wimp.
He took a long shower, thinking about all the ifs. If it hadn’t started to rain that night in the city, if he hadn’t gone into the Molly Wee Pub, if he hadn’t picked up that girl Theresa, if he hadn’t gone to the diner with Carlos, if he’d just said “No thanks” at any point. He felt like a total idiot, but now his biggest concern was not messing up his life even more. He knew that with his prettyboy looks he couldn’t survive jail again—especially a long stretch. He’d kill himself before he had to be a sissy for all those guys again.
Johnny didn’t think the cops would find a connection between him and Carlos. Before running into each other in Astoria that night, they hadn’t seen each other in years, and Johnny had been careful to not talk to Carlos on his cell or any other way that could be traced. Assuming Carlos had been smart enough not to shoot his mouth off about the robbery—and Johnny didn’t think he had—the only one Johnny had to worry about was Carlos’s girlfriend, Gabriela. What had Carlos said her last name was? He’d mentioned it the other n
ight, when they got together in the city, on that bench in Battery Park, and went over the robbery plans for the final time. Was it Madena? Madano? Madeno? With the hot water beating down on his head, Johnny racked his brain, trying to remember the name, and then he thought, Moreno. Yeah, that was definitely it. There were probably dozens of ways the cops could connect Gabriela to Carlos. Carlos had sworn to Johnny that Gabriela didn’t know anything about Johnny, that she didn’t even know his name, but what if Carlos had been bullshitting just to get Johnny to go along with the robbery? Was Johnny supposed to take Carlos’s word for it now, when he’d been wrong about the house being empty tonight, when Johnny’s ass, literally, was on the line? And if Gabriela did know about Johnny, what was to stop her from ratting him out to the cops, making some kind of deal with them?
Johnny got out of the shower and, with a towel around his waist, called 411 and got the address of Gabriela Moreno in Jackson Heights. That was easy. He put on his usual outfit, the Johnny Long uniform—dark jeans, skintight black tee, worn black leather jacket—tucked his piece under his jeans, safety on— didn’t want to blow his dick off; what would he do without it?—and was out the door.
The sun was starting to rise when Johnny stood on the subway platform, waiting for an F train. To get to Jackson Heights in Queens, he had to change trains twice in the city. It would’ve been faster to steal a car or take a livery cab, but as always Johnny played the percentages. Getting busted for grand theft auto or having a cabdriver finger him in the courtroom would have been the stupidest ways to go down. He figured he had a little time to play with anyway. The cops would have to ID Carlos, figure out exactly who he was, then make the connection to Gabriela. Johnny had told Carlos to be careful, not to talk to Gabriela on his cell, et cetera, so hopefully the guy had listened.
