found Gabriela’s apartment building.
It was past seven thirty- about five hours since the robbery. The cops, if they’d moved fast, could’ve already gotten to her. A good sign: Johnny looked around and didn’t see any police cars, marked or unmarked. Unmarked, that always cracked Johnny up. The cops always thought they were so undercover in their unmarked cars; meanwhile the unmarked cars were always black Impalas or Chargers that screamed “cop.” If they wanted to be unmarked, why didn’t they drive beat- up Chevys with Puerto Rican flags all over them? Sometimes Johnny thought cops had to be the biggest bunch of idiots in the world.
Johnny pressed the apartment with g. moreno on it- didn’t anybody ever tell her not to put her name on the buzzer?- and when she answered he said, “Police,” and she let him right up.
On the stairwell he stopped and attached the sound suppressor to the end of the barrel, then put the gun back in his inside jacket pocket and continued up to her apartment. He rang the bell, and she answered, looking scared, like she thought she was about to get busted. Well, she was about to get busted, just not the way she thought.
Johnny was surprised, though; she was actually a really good- looking woman. Yeah, overweight, but she had a pretty South American look and big light brown eyes. How had Carlos gotten a woman this hot?
“You Gabriela?” Johnny asked.
She nodded, and he shot her in the face. She fell back a little, then crumpled onto the floor, the blood puddle spreading around her mouth. He checked to make sure none of her blood was on him, and then he stood back and put a couple into her chest to make sure she was gone for good.
He took a quick look around, spotted her pocketbook. He took twentythree dollars, then tossed the pocketbook onto the floor and got the hell out of there.
Heading back toward the city on the 7 train- it was crowded with com muters- Johnny stood at the end of the car, facing his reflection in the door, replaying the shootings. He thought it had all gone pretty well. He didn’t think he’d been seen entering or leaving, and he’d been careful not to leave any evidence behind. He knew that because of Gabriela’s job the cops would try to make a connection between her shooting and the shooting and robbery in Forest Hills, but he didn’t see any way the police could get to him. There was no way that Gabriela and Carlos would’ve talked about the robbery with anybody else, and hopefully the purse on the floor would be enough to throw the stupid cops off.
It felt so good to finally be able to relax. Johnny had been on edge pretty much nonstop since meeting Carlos in Forest Hills, and he was looking forward to getting back to Brooklyn, maybe stopping at a diner for a big breakfast, and then getting into bed and sleeping for as long as possible.
But then, when he was switching for the F train at Thirty- fourth Street, he got all tensed up again, thinking, What if Carlos is still alive? Maybe Carlos was in a hospital, hooked up to machines, and the police were questioning him right now. Johnny didn’t think Carlos would talk to the cops- St. John’s brothers didn’t rat each other out- but then again you never know what a guy will do when the cops start hanging twenty- five to life over his ass.
In Brooklyn, Johnny realized he had lost his appetite and decided to skip the diner and head straight home. He turned on the TV to the local news station, and there it was, the top story, the robbery and shooting in Forest Hills. The reporter said Carlos Sanchez had been shot and killed by the owner of the house.
“Thank fucking God,” Johnny said, and he leaned back on his sofa and relaxed again.
He was totally in the clear. There was no way the cops would ever catch on to him. All he had to do was lie low for a while and everything would be okay.
On the TV, they were showing the guy, Dr. Adam Bloom. Johnny thought, Doctor? What kind of doctor is he? Johnny hated the way the guy was acting all smug and proud of himself, talking about how he did the right thing shooting Carlos, saying, “I’d do it all over again” and “I think anybody in my position would’ve done what I did.” Man, Johnny wished he’d just shot the guy last night, blown him away.
The report ended, and Johnny shut off the TV and got into bed. He tried to fall asleep, but he kept thinking about the time when he was fifteen years old and these gangbangers were kicking the shit out of him in a schoolyard and everybody was standing around letting it happen, except Carlos. He came right over, pulled a blade, put it up to the biggest guy’s face, and said, “Mess with my boy, you miss with this.” It wasn’t the only time Carlos had saved Johnny’s ass from a beating- Johnny might not’ve survived being a teenager if it wasn’t for Carlos. So now it just didn’t seem right that Carlos was going into a box in the ground, probably in Potter’s Field, where the city buried people who had no families, and that cocky bastard, Dr. Bloom, got to go on living with his happy family in his big, fancy house.
Yeah, Johnny knew he had to do what Carlos would’ve done for him.
He had to give that uppity son of a bitch some payback.
nine
Before the robbery and the shooting, Dana Bloom thought she had gotten back in control of her life. She’d told Tony that she wanted to end their fling and, although he didn’t take it very well, and it had been hard for her to let go, too, she’d made it three days without any contact with him and she felt like she’d made it over the hump, that she was ready to put the past four months with Tony behind her and rededicate herself to her marriage.
But now, suddenly, everything was falling apart again, and it was all because of that stupid gun. She had no idea why Adam had to go and shoot that guy- why couldn’t he listen to her for once in his life?- and now Gabriela was dead and she couldn’t help thinking that it was all Adam’s fault, too. That he wouldn’t take any responsibility or admit any fault for anything he’d done infuriated her more than anything. Why was it so hard for him to say I’m sorry?
After Detective Clements left, Dana felt completely helpless. Not only couldn’t she get through to her husband, but she felt like the police couldn’t protect them, and she didn’t feel safe in her own house.
They were walking along the hallway past Marissa’s room- she was in there blasting her stereo again, some god- awful music- and Dana was saying, “Let’s go to Florida, just to get out of the house for a few days or a week or whatever.”
Adam, heading into the bedroom, said, “That’s ridiculous. I’m not running away.”
Following him, Dana said, “Don’t call me ridiculous.”
“I’m not calling you ridiculous. I’m saying running away is ridiculous.” “Who’s talking about running away? I’m just saying I’d feel a lot safer if we weren’t here, in this house, while that killer’s still out there, that’s all.” “What killer?” Adam said. “Think about what you’re saying. It just doesn’t make any sense.”
“What doesn’t make any sense? What planet are you on? Gabriela was killed, and-”
“And that has absolutely nothing to do with us.” He was raising his voice to talk over her. She hated it when he did that; it was so demeaning and disrespectful. “You’re just making up stories, trying to scare yourself,” he added and turned away from her, changing into his sweatpants. Another thing she hated- when he gave her his back.
“I can’t believe you,” she said. “You really can’t be this stubborn. You’re just doing it to get a reaction from me.”
“Really? And why would I want to do that?”
“Because you like it, you like provoking me. You like the way it makes you feel.”
“That’s it, you have me figured out, all right. I woke up today and I said, You know what, I think I’ll provoke my wife today. That’ll be so much fun.” “That’s exactly what you do.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, stop it. Your problem is you just refuse to see anything any other way. You know everything. You have all the answers. You even know more than the police, apparently. I still love that, by the way, telling off the NYPD. That was just brilliant.”
“You’re doing it again,” she said.
“Doing what again?”
“Spinning everything I say into something I’m not saying instead of just listening to me.”
“I’ll listen to you if you start making some sense.”
She was so angry at him she couldn’t even remember what they were arguing about anymore. She took a
