long as he got away cleanly, he had almost no chance of getting caught. Theresa had no real information about him, and she probably wouldn’t even report the crime to the police. Johnny wasn’t sure why the women he screwed and robbed almost never tried to rat him out. Part of it probably was that they felt so ashamed and embarrassed about what had happened that they didn’t want their friends and family to find out about it, but Johnny liked to think that it was mainly because he’d left them so satisfied, giving them the best sex of their lives, so that in the morning they’d decided that, yeah, losing their money and other valuables sucked, but what did they really have to complain about?
He was about to leave the bedroom when he noticed, on the night table, the gold crucifix Theresa had been wearing at the bar. He snatched it and, on his way out, smiled, thinking how he’d have to go to church later and confess. He was still giggling about that one as he left the building and headed toward the subway station.
eight
“Johnny Long. That you?” The voice came from behind Johnny as he was entering the Astoria Boulevard subway station. He was surprised to hear his name spoken at three in the morning in Astoria, where he didn’t think he knew anyone.
For a moment he worried it was a cop. Just in case, he started reaching into the pocket of his jacket where he had a Kel- Tec.380.
But then he looked over his shoulder and actually had to blink, doing a double take.
“Carlos?” he asked.
He hadn’t seen Carlos Sanchez, his old friend from St. John’s, in how long? Eight, nine years? Nine years, but Carlos looked like he’d aged twenty. He was only four or five years older than Johnny, but he looked fifty with all of that gray in his hair, and his face looked old and drawn, too. Johnny had heard through Rayo, another guy from St. John’s, that Carlos had been away for dealing.
Carlos came over and gave Johnny a big hug. He reeked of booze and pot smoke, and Johnny couldn’t wait for the hug to end.
“It’s been a long time, bro,” Carlos said, finally letting go. “Been a long, long time. The hell you doin’ ’round here?”
“I should be asking you that question,” Johnny said. “I thought you were away.”
“Naw, man, that’s ancient history,” Carlos said. “Got out six months ago, and I’m livin’ here now, bro. Well, not here, here, I mean Queens, Bayside. I’m just here in Astoria on some business, know what I’m sayin’?”
Johnny wasn’t surprised Carlos was dealing again; the guy had been dealing since he was thirteen. Johnny had never touched drugs, not even pot, which was the main reason why he’d only been away one time. When you weren’t whacked out on drugs and could think clearly, it was easy to stay one step ahead of the cops.
“Where you living now?” Carlos asked.
“Still in Brooklyn,” Johnny said. “Got a little place out in Red Hook.”
“Yeah, how you gettin’ by?”
“I’m doing okay.”
“Yeah, you still a pretty boy. I bet you gettin’ all the ladies, right?”
“I can’t complain.”
“Can’t complain? Yeah, I remember the times, we’d point to any girl in the schoolyard or wherever, pay you twenty bucks or whatever and bet you couldn’t go pick her up, and you’d take our money every time.”
“Not every time,” Johnny said.
“Not every time,” Carlos said. “Check this guy out. You still got that sense of humor goin’ on. You still make me laugh.”
Johnny heard a subway pulling into the station above them. “Well, that’s my ride,” he said. “It was really great seeing you again, man.”
“Come on, hang out,” Carlos said. “Where you rushin’ to at three in the morning?”
“Long day,” Johnny said. “Gotta crash.”
“Come on, man. You ain’t seen your ol’ bro in how many years and you can’t sit down and have a drink?”
Johnny really wanted to get home and away from Astoria. It was unlikely that Theresa would call the cops, but after he hustled a woman he didn’t like to stay in her neighborhood.
“I don’t drink,” Johnny said.
“Johnny Clean, that’s right,” Carlos said. “Remember everybody used to call you that shit? Never drank, never did nothin’. That’s how you stayed a pretty boy, right?”
The train was pulling into the station, the brakes screeching.
“Hey, I’ve got an idea,” Johnny said. “Why don’t you give me your cell? We’ll hang out some time.”
“Nah, come on, sit down with me right now,” Carlos said. “We can get some coffee and cake. I got something I gotta talk to you about anyway, somethin’ where you can make some serious cash, know what I mean?”
Johnny wasn’t interested in hearing Carlos’s idea, but he knew he couldn’t just blow him off. You didn’t do that to a guy from St. John’s. Growing up, those guys had been Johnny’s whole family. He’d spent every Christmas with them, every Thanksgiving.
“Okay, let’s go,” Johnny said, “but I can’t stay out long.”
They went to the corner, to the Neptune Diner, and sat in a booth by a window with a view of the Grand Central Parkway, still a lot of traffic this time of night. Johnny was starving- a night of hustling and sex had built up quite an appetite- and he ordered a bacon cheeseburger with everything on it. After a couple of bites, he realized it wouldn’t fill him up, so he ordered another one.
Carlos caught Johnny up on guys from the old neighborhood. Everybody, it seemed, had gotten into some kind of trouble. Pedro was doing fifteen for manslaughter. Delano was at Attica for dealing. DeShawn had been stabbed to death in a fight outside a bar in Philly. Eddie had OD’d on smack.
“Sounds like me and you are the big winners, huh?” Johnny said, smiling.
“Yeah, I’m doing okay,” Carlos said. “Not in jail anyway, and I got my HIV under control.”
“Oh, shit,” Johnny said. “Sorry to hear that, man.”
“Eh, it’s okay,” Carlos asked. “The fuck you gonna do, right? And with the medicines they got, I’m gonna live longer than you.”
Carlos was sobering up, and Johnny started to have a good time bullshitting with him about the old days at St. John’s. Johnny had forgotten how much he’d needed Carlos back then. The courts had sent Johnny to St. John’s when he was nine years old after his mother was killed. They’d told Johnny she went in a car accident, which hadn’t made sense to him because she didn’t own a car, and then he found out a few years later that her mother wasn’t really a secretary, she was a hooker, and she’d been stabbed to death by one of her clients. Johnny felt like an outcast at St. John’s because all the other kids were a lot tougher than him and had known each other all their lives. He got picked on a lot- it seemed like every day somebody wanted to kick his ass- and Carlos had been the only one who always had his back.
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,
