Чарли Стелла - Johnny Porno

“Do you?”

“When she start with you?”

Vento shrugged. “The guy was already inna’ joint I put her to work.”

“When’d you start fucking her?”

“Week or so after he was locked up. So?”

“It’s worth looking into is all.”

“You know this cunt is talking to the law or not?”

“I don’t, not officially. I’m just saying is all, you’d be smart to perform some due diligence of your own.”

“The fuck does that mean?”

“Maybe you should take a look-see around that apartment of yours and make sure there aren’t any electronic devices you didn’t put there yourself.”

Vento took a moment. “Okay,” he said. “I will.”

“As for the other thing,” Kelly said, “maybe your MIA saw an opportunity and took it. He was carrying a lot of cash, it had to be tempting. He have any roots?”

“A wife and kid. Ex-wife.”

“Then the kid is the one we should work through.”

“We don’t fuck with kids.”

“You can always farm it out. I don’t mind mercenary work.”

“No,” Vento said.

“You want the money back?”

Vento glared at Kelly.

“I’m just saying,” the detective said. “There’s a reward for this money, I’m not shy about getting things done. The guy gives a fuck about his kid, I’ll get to him.”

Vento remained silent.

Kelly said, “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Louis took the Garden State Parkway to exit 40, then the White Horse Pike East. He told Holly they would spend the night at one of the motels outside Atlantic City and go to the Boardwalk the next day for some saltwater taffy, maybe go on the rides on the Steel Pier.

He pulled into a motel parking lot with a view of the water three miles from the famous Boardwalk. The Wind Bay Inn featured a sad-looking swimming pool out front, color television and electric-fingers beds. He paid cash for the room and asked for three dollars in change for phone calls he might or might not make, depending on his mood after getting a few hours sleep.

Holly was still excited about their adventure. She pulled off her bell-bottoms and paraded around the room in her white panties and halter. Louis used the bathroom first, taking a shower after he was finished with the toilet. He wrapped a towel around his waist when he came out. It fell off when he went to lift the gym bag.

“You shaved yourself?” Holly asked.

Louis followed where she was looking and realized he’d exposed himself. “Had to,” he said. “Jock rash.”

Holly pointed. “What’s that white stuff?”

“Cream for the rash.”

Holly wasn’t convinced. “They made you shave for that?”

“It’s not VD,” Louis said, “if that’s what you think.”

“Okay, rash from what then? From where?”

Here we go, he thought.

“I don’t know what,” he said. “Running probably. I went for a jog last week and felt a cut there, a burn, and I didn’t take care of it.”

“You’re sure it’s not crabs?”

Louis set the gym bag on the bed. “Where would I get crabs?”

“From another woman.”

“I didn’t sleep with another woman.”

“Your ex-wife.”

He unzipped the bag. “Let’s not ruin this, okay?”

Holly put a hand across the gym bag.

“The rash is why we didn’t have sex this morning, isn’t it?”

“Partly. Move your hand.”

“No, tell me. Is it really a rash or something else?”

Louis pulled the bag away. “It’s a rash, Holly. That’s what it is, a rash. Men get those sometimes. It isn’t the end of the world. I went to the doctor and he gave me the cream, told me to shave myself and apply it.”

“Okay, if that’s the case, then we can fuck.”

“Don’t take it the wrong way, but right now I’d rather count this money.”

Holly reached behind her and undid the halter. It dropped from around her neck to her lap, exposing her breasts.

“And now?” she said.

Louis looked from her breasts to the bag and said, “Just a rough count first, but let me chain that door lock first.”

Nancy hadn’t been slapped that hard since the fifth grade when Sister Mary Michael caught her and two of her friends smoking in the lavatory at Holy Family during homeroom. She remembered she couldn’t even cry it had hurt so much.

It’s what she was thinking about after swallowing two Bayer aspirin at the kitchen sink. The tall one had pushed his way inside the house and then helped her up with one hand before slapping her across the face with the other. She remembered gasping from the slap and then there were bright lights she saw in her head just before she hit the floor.

She’d heard footsteps on the stairs behind her when she sat up, but the tall one was still standing there right in front of her, daring her to get up. She hadn’t moved.

When the short one had finished looking through the house, he stood over her, too, then pointed a threatening finger at her and said, “This shit you and your ex pulled today isn’t going away until the money turns up.”

She had been too scared to reply. She was thinking she had nodded and might’ve said, “Okay.”

Then the short one had kneeled down alongside her and reached a hand up her skirt and grabbed her there hard and she gasped again.

“I’ll pull them out one a time, your cunt hairs, I have to come back,” he had said.

After they left, Nancy had managed to crawl to the kitchen and use a chair to stand up again. She glanced at her reflection in the small mirror alongside the wall phone and could see the right side of her face was puffy.

Then she was sick and had to use the toilet. She was still dry-heaving when she heard the phone ring. Her ribs hurt too much to move. She ignored the call.

A few minutes later the phone rang again. Nancy had managed to make it back to the kitchen. She answered the phone in a weak, cracked voice.

“Hello?”

“Nan?”

She couldn’t speak.

“It’s John.”

“Oh, God!” she cried. “What have I done?”

John’s emotions ran the gamut from guilt to rage after Nancy told him what had happened. As much as she deserved the trouble she had brought on herself, he couldn’t deal with a woman being slapped around. He did his best to calm her down and walk her through what she had to do, but it wasn’t easy. Now that she was finally remorseful, it was getting in the way.

He told her to go upstairs and turn on the lights in her bathroom and bedroom and to try and peek out a window to see if the two goons that had been inside the house were gone. He was guessing they weren’t, and when she returned to the phone downstairs a few minutes later crying hysterically again, she confirmed his suspicion.

The next part was tougher. He had her go down to the basement and then out through the cellar stairs to the backyard. Then she was to climb the fence to their neighbor’s yard and walk out the driveway on the next street where he would pick her up. If she met anybody along the way, if one of the neighbors saw her or walked into her or whatever, she was to keep going until he picked her up.

He’d made the call from a telephone booth on Cross Bay Boulevard, close enough to be there in a few minutes, but also exposed enough to be seen from a passing car. “Don’t say anything to anybody,” he’d told her. “Just get out of that driveway and head up toward the far end of the block. We don’t want anyone spotting the car or they’ll give a description.”

“I won’t,” Nancy told him.

Five minutes later he positioned himself low behind the steering wheel of Melinda’s Valiant. He had parked half a block from the house directly around the block from Nancy’s. Six minutes later he spotted her in the middle of the street, not where he had told her to go. If one of Vento’s men were circling the block, they would spot her.