Чарли Стелла - Johnny Porno

“She’s a moron,” John said. “She did it to prove a point to her husband. Claims he always defends me. It had to do with him letting me in their house and making me a cup of coffee. She’s nuts. Apparently he figured it out too and left her.”

“She told you she made a bet and you believe her?”

“It’s what she said. It’s crazy, but so’s she.”

“You sure she isn’t involved?”

“What?”

“Your ex, John. You sure she isn’t part of it? I mean, it’s pretty crazy what she did, calling you like that, claiming your son was abducted.”

“She called the bar first. They’re the ones told me.”

“The bar where the money has to go,” Melinda said. “Doesn’t that make you look even worse now?”

“Was the only way for her to get in touch with me. I gave her the number in case of an emergency when I first started working weekends.”

“Something isn’t right,” Melinda said. “I can’t see a mother doing something like that. It’s vicious, John, and it’s calculated.”

“Nancy doesn’t know Santorra. This was him, I know it.”

“The guy you had trouble with?”

“Yeah, the guy robbed me. Same guy got loud in your diner. He’s the one broke the windshield. He probably sent the guy who hit me in front of your house.”

Melinda wasn’t buying it. Something wasn’t right about his ex-wife and the story he’d just told.

“You sure they don’t know each other, your ex and this other guy?” she said.

“What? No way.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

“Maybe it wasn’t him.”

“Had to be.”

“Maybe it wasn’t.”

“It wasn’t Nancy,” John said. “There’s no way. She’s not smart enough.”

“Unless she wasn’t depending on her smarts,” Melinda said. “Tell me again what happened when you got there? What did she say? What she do, your ex?”

John told her what had happened again. She could tell he was skipping some of it and slowed him down.

“I’m in a bind here,” he said. “I don’t know what to do next. I had any brains, I’d hop a train somewhere.”

“Let’s just figure this out,” she said. “Step by step, what happened? Go slow.”

He huffed a few times in frustration. Melinda coached him along. “She waved you inside, brought you to the back of a tent, then out to a parking lot and grabbed your arm?”

“I was furious when she told me it was a bet,” John said. “I told her she was crazy, then tried to head back to the car. She grabbed my arm and apologized.”

“What do you mean? Why?”

“I don’t know. She was trying to explain herself. She told me about Nathan and the bet she made with him.”

“Did you talk to him, to Nathan?”

“No, why would I? It’s not his fault she’s crazy. He’s a decent guy.”

“And then you went back out and the car was gone.”

“Yeah,” John said. “Why? I don’t get it.”

Melinda sighed.

“What?” John repeated.

“Think about it,” she said.

“I have. I did. What?”

“Unless I’m completely off, John, it sounds like your son being abducted was one big diversion. And your ex-wife getting you inside the tent and then out to the parking lot was the biggest part of it.”

John stared blankly.

Melinda huffed. “Think about it,” she said.

The note Kathleen had left him was a confirmation of Billy’s worst fears. No matter if the police suspected him, his wife always would. Her fear of being linked to his guilt was apparent. As much as he loved her, Billy couldn’t permit another betrayal.

The first thing he did after reading the note was search the yellow pages for a dog-eared page or pen or pencil mark Kathleen might’ve made. He found several at the top of a page with advertisements for hotels and motels.

Kathleen was beautiful but not very clever. He closed his eyes and imagined her searching the book he held open on his lap. She’d held a pen. Either she’d memorized the number or written it down. Billy stood up to look around the kitchen. He spotted the newspaper on one of the kitchen chairs and set it on the table. A piece had been torn off one corner of the cover page. He leaned over and could see the outline of the number on page three. He used a pencil and lightly brushed the tip over the number until he could read it. He checked the number against those in the telephone book and found a match.

“Bingo,” he said.

The motel was in Sheepshead Bay, less than a ten-minute drive from the house. He could call and ask for her name or make a quick pass with the car, but he preferred to give Kathleen one last chance. If she came home or called and agreed to meet him, they might be able to salvage their life together.

First, though, he needed to kill John Albano. For the sake of speed and efficiency, Billy had already equipped his .308 Savage 99 with a 2X-7X variable power scope. He would be able to make a kill shot from 100 yards.

When the phone rang, he was hopeful Kathleen was ready to come home, but their conversation became a cat-and-mouse game that could’ve been taped. The tone of her voice suggested she was convinced he had killed Victor Vasquez. The fear in her voice suggested she would give him up as the murderer or at least point the police in his direction.

Billy ended their conversation abruptly. He went down to the basement and added a few more weapons to his portable arsenal. Fifteen minutes after he finished packing, Billy made a pass through the Sheepshead Bay motel parking lot. He saw Kathleen’s car parked between a Dodge pickup truck and a recently washed Oldsomobile Toronado.

Nick found the bar was unusually crowded for a Sunday night. The atmosphere seemed tense. He recognized a lot of muscle from other crews in the neighborhood and wondered what it was about. Then he was told to see Eddie in his office right away.

He used the kitchen stairway down to the basement and saw the office door was slightly open. He knocked on it anyway.

“Eddie?” he said.

“Come in,” Vento said.

Nick sat in one of the two folding chairs across from the desk. “What’s up?” he asked.

“You tell me,” said Vento, staring hard into Nick’s eyes.

“I had a thing with the family, my sister-in-law,” Nick lied.

“Yeah, and?”

“It took a little longer than I expected.”

“Where’s John Albano?”

“What?”

“Albano. Johnny Porno. Isn’t that what you call him? Where is he?”

Nick shrugged. “No idea.”

“Yeah, well, he’s MIA right now. So’s my money.”

“You’re kidding?”

“I look like I’m telling jokes?”

Nick nearly choked trying to swallow. “What happened? He didn’t call?”

“No, he didn’t. Neither did you until half an hour ago.”

Nick understood. He held both his hands up. “Wait a minute. You don’t think I had something to do with him? I hate that fucking guy.”

Vento continued staring.

“I’ll be the first one to whack him, you want,” Nick added.

“So it wasn’t staged, that little beef you two had?”

“What? No fucking way. He japped me, just like I said.”

“Except everybody saw it said it wasn’t a jap shot. They said you asked for it and he gave it to you. You better live with that story because right now it’s the only reason I haven’t put your fucking legs through a meat grinder.”

Nick stuttered.

“Shut up,” Vento said. “There’s close to fourteen grand out there somewhere.”

“You really think he robbed us?”

“Me, cocksucker. If he robbed anybody it was me.”

“Sorry.”

“His wife called here with some cock-and-bull story about his kid being abducted or some shit. Then Gene upstairs passed the message to Albano and he called back later asking for you. Why’d he do that? He’s not here, you’re not here. All the bullshit between you two makes me wonder.”