Чарли Стелла - Johnny Porno

Billy turned toward the car thinking he might be able to shoot the tires out, but yelling from the Albano house distracted him. He could see an older woman on the stoop. He flashed his phony badge with his free hand and told her he was police. Then he saw the girlfriend heading for the Valiant and Billy rushed up the driveway, opened the driver’s side door and showed her the Walther. He told her to move over.

He saw the key was in the ignition and started the car. He shifted into reverse and quickly backed out of the driveway. As he straightened out the car in the street, Billy saw someone holding up a hand in his rearview mirror. On his right the old woman had started down the stoop and was yelling something when Billy turned to Albano’s girlfriend.

“Don’t get nervous,” he told her.

He leaned to his right and extended his right arm out across her chest. He leveled the Walther at the house and fired one shot at the stoop behind the old lady. Then he shot at one of the tires of a parked car at the curb. As he drove away, Billy turned to his left and swore he saw Sean Kelly lying on the street in front of somebody holding a gun.

Brice had been watching Kelly sitting in his car more than twenty minutes before the lieutenant detective finally got out of his car. Kelly walked to the far corner, turned as if he’d forgotten something, then turned again and continued walking until he was standing alongside the passenger side of the Riviera parked off the corner. Kelly spent the next five minutes in a crouch talking to the driver through the Riviera’s passenger window. When a dark sedan pulled up at the curb directly across the street from the Albano house, Kelly stood up and headed back toward his car.

Brice could see Levin approaching the van in the right side view mirror. He leaned out and motioned toward the street. “Kelly,” he said. “He’s coming this way.”

“Cuffs,” Levin said.

“You’re busting him?”

“Right now.”

Brice handed Levin his handcuffs, then saw the scuffle going on in front of the Albano home. John Albano was being half led, half dragged across the street by two goons.

“What’s this about?” he said.

Levin had pulled his service revolver from his ankle holster. “Two-to-one they’re Vento’s goons,” he said.

Brice watched Albano being shoved into the back of a navy blue Mercury Marquis. One of the two goons sat in back with him; the other sat up front.

“We gonna sit here and watch?” Brice said.

“That’s OC, kid. I’m not. Now excuse me a minute.”

Levin stepped out in front of the van to block Kelly.

“And I’m not you,” Brice said.

He removed his weapon from its ankle holster, got out of the van and crossed the street in a low crouch. The Marquis had already pulled away. Brice was about to fire a warning shot when he saw a white compact car backing out of the Albano driveway. He put up a hand for it to stop when a shot was fired from inside the car.

Brice dropped to the ground. A second shot had him roll toward a parked car for cover. When he looked up again, he saw the white car was headed in the same direction as the Marquis. Then he saw the old woman clutching her chest at the curb and ran to give assistance.

Kelly had already stopped in his tracks when he saw Levin holding the department issued .38 in one hand and handcuffs in the other.

“The fuck is this?” he said.

“Your buddy killed the girl, but you’re mentioned on a tape,” Levin said.

“Excuse me?”

Levin was about to explain when the first shot rang out from somewhere across the street. He crouched at the knees, but continued to hold his weapon on Kelly. A second shot sounded a moment before a white car raced passed them. Both men hit the pavement.

Kelly, on his stomach now, glanced to his right.

Levin said, “I’ll shoot as soon as cuff you.”

Kelly motioned toward Brice as the junior detective was getting inside a car parked at the curb.

“He a rat, too?”

Levin heard the engine start and then tires screech when Brice pulled away.

“He had nothing to do with this,” Levin said. “You wanna blame somebody, look to your ex-sister-in-law. She’s the one tipped off IA about you a long time ago. Something to do with a safe-deposit box?”

Kelly’s eyes narrowed. “You two’re gonna have a great future with the department after this, Jew-boy.”

“I’m fine with what I’m about,” Levin said. “And Brice’ll always have you he ever needs an excuse to join IA.”

“You think so, huh?” Kelly said.

“Sure,” Levin said. “A piece of shit like you? No problem. Now, extend your hands before I break them.”

Nancy knew little Miss Oklahoma lived at one of the NYU dorms on Bleecker Street from following Louis there one night last month. She had parked off the corner of Bleecker and LaGuardia Place more than an hour ago and was feeling antsy when she spotted Louis’s car in her rearview mirror. It had just turned onto Bleecker Street. Nancy ducked behind her steering wheel as Louis pulled up to the curb across the street from the dorm.

Her teeth clenched when she saw the blonde getting out of the Cutlass holding a beach bag. The blonde took a step away from the car, then turned back to say something to Louis. Nancy’s eyes opened wide when he flipped the blonde the bird.

Nancy heard the blonde yell, “Fuck you, too!” before she slammed the car door shut.

Louis was still holding his middle finger up. Another few seconds passed before he brought his hand down and pulled away from the curb.

Nancy was smiling. The lovebirds had obviously had a fight. She wondered if Louis had shorted the bimbo on her end of the robbery or if he had outright cheated her.

Or maybe it was something else.

Nancy wasn’t taking any chances. She pulled out of her spot and followed Louis.

He’d already reconfirmed the car would be there when they stopped for gas. Sharon Dowell had said it was parked in her driveway. Louis still wasn’t sure what the car looked like, he hadn’t actually watched the movie yet, but Jimmy had a sucker willing to buy it for five thousand dollars above the original sticker price. Louis needed to find out what the original sticker price was before he agreed to buy the car from Sharon.

The night he’d gone down on her, Louis had asked why the director of the porn movie was being so generous.

“Two things,” Sharon Dowell had said. “One, I gave him something he never had before or pro’bly since. And two, he needs to get rid of everything has anything to do with that movie. Government wants his ass now. Lawyers probably want him to get rid of any connections he has to Deep Throat, the car included.”

“Too bad for him,” Louis said. “But good for us.”

“I guess so,” Sharon had said. “Or just luck. Right place at the right time.”

Louis had liked the idea of it having been luck, then remembered she had said something else he wasn’t clear on. “What was one again?” he’d asked. “What you say?”

“Gave him a back-to-backer,” Sharon had said.

“One after another?”

“Without coming up for air. You didn’t have crabs, I might’ve treated you.”

“Wow,” Louis had said, genuinely impressed at the time.

Now he was thinking about Florida again. He remembered when the Jackie Gleason show had first moved to Miami in 1964 and he was introduced to one of the original June Taylor dancers, a long-legged bisexual woman with a live-in bisexual girlfriend. After a night of smoking dope and drinking, they had formed a threesome that lasted through a long weekend and might’ve gone on longer except for a huge professional football player with the newly formed Miami Dolphins—the dancer’s girlfriend’s boyfriend. Louis had been intimidated by the burly competition and had opted out of the relationships.