connection.” She waited, as if trying to find the right words, then said, “Our house was robbed last week.”
“It was?” Johnny thought he sounded convincingly surprised.
“Yeah, it happened when we were all asleep in the middle of the night,” she said. “I heard the burglars in the house and woke up my parents, and then my father went and shot one of them.”
One of them, like he and Carlos had been what, two cockroaches? Isn’t that what people said when they were trying to squash bugs: I got one of them, but the other one got away?
“Oh, that’s right, yeah, yeah,” Johnny said, like it was all coming to him now. “I think I read something about that in the paper. Yeah, the shooting in Forest Hills by that shrink. Wow, that was really your father?”
“I’ve been afraid to tell you,” Marissa said, suddenly talking faster, full of nervous energy. “I’ve been afraid that you’d, I don’t know, judge me. Maybe I was just being crazy- I do that sometimes, get all neurotic and paranoid, overthink everything- but that’s what I thought. It’s not true, right? You won’t hold it against me, will you?”
“Relax, baby,” Johnny said, squeezing her hand, letting her know that he’d always be there for her. “You know I’d never do that to you.”
He held her and kissed her for a while; then she said, “I’m still so pissed off at my father for doing what he did. It was so stupid, so totally thoughtless, and the thing is I don’t even think he feels guilty about it.”
“Really?” Johnny asked.
“Yeah, he’s been in this weird denial phase or something,” she said. “I mean, even the morning after, he was just going about his life, acting like nothing happened. You would think a psychologist would be more in touch with his feelings, but with him it’s the total opposite. I don’t think he has any idea how he’s feeling, ever.”
Johnny remembered being in the car outside Bloom’s house, with the gun in his hand, seeing Bloom strutting down the block in his sweat suit, like he didn’t have a worry in the world.
Well, you have something to worry about now, asshole.
“So you think what they were saying in the news was true?” Johnny asked. “Your father wanted to kill the guy?”
“Between me and you,” Marissa said, “yes, I do. I think my dad just lost it, in that moment and wanted to shoot him. I don’t think he’s a crazy person- I mean, he’s not psychotic- but he holds stuff in, he’s wound up, you know? It was also the middle of the night, he was tired, so, yeah, maybe he wasn’t thinking rationally. He was angry that someone was in his house and he just went too far. He gets that way sometimes, does things without thinking.”
Johnny couldn’t wait to kill Adam Bloom, watch him die in pain.
“That’s rough,” he said. “I’m sorry you had to go through all of that.”
“Yeah, I know, it was pretty scary and traumatic,” Marissa said. “But the most terrifying thing was there was somebody else in the house that night.”
“There was?” Johnny was acting shocked.
“Yeah, the cops think it was our maid. Did you hear about what happened to her?”
“No, I don’t think I… Wait, wait, I did hear something. She was hurt too, wasn’tshe?”
“She was killed, in her apartment.”
“Oh, man, that sucks,” Johnny said. He hoped Marissa didn’t start crying, get all gushy and girly about it.
“Yeah, it was incredibly sad,” she said, “but I don’t know, that just doesn’t make sense to me that our maid actually robbed our house. We were really, not like best friends, but really friendly, you know? Oh, and we got this note under our door, a kind of death threat.”
“Really? Who left it?”
“That’s the thing, nobody knows. My dad’s convinced it was a prank, but he’s constantly making up stories, trying to rationalize everything. He’s so screwed up, if you met him you’d never guess he was a psychologist. But maybe that’s the way it works- maybe if you want to cure people’s craziness, you have to be a little crazy yourself.”
Johnny put his arm around Marissa and said, “It sounds like your family’s going through a lot right now. If you don’t want to bring me home to meet them, I understand, but I guess I should meet them eventually… I mean, if we’re gonna be a couple.”
Her face brightened, and she said, “You really mean that?”
“Of course,” he said. “You think I’d want to go out every day and every night with every girl I meet?”
Finally he’d said something that wasn’t a total lie.
She said, “You’re the most amazing guy I’ve ever met.”
He couldn’t argue with that.
The next morning, Marissa texted Johnny: my parents want u to come 4 dinner tonite can you make it at 7??
Johnny waited about fifteen minutes, not wanting to seem overeager, then replied:
Id be honored This was it- the big night. He wanted to clean up his look a little, but not too much, so he trimmed his sideburns, but he left his hair long and wild and greasy. He chose his outfit carefully- black jeans, a black turtleneck, Doc Martens. He loved the idea of going in all black. He looked perfect for the occasion- like an artist but also like an assassin.
He arrived at the house- what did rich people say?- fashionably late, at ten after seven. As he expected, there was no sign of any cops. The robbery had been over a week ago, and it probably wasn’t even a hot case anymore. He checked to make sure his.38 Special and his four- inch retractable switchblade were safely inside the inner pocket of his leather jacket, and then he rang the bell.
Several seconds later the door opened, and Marissa was there in a red dress, with a big scoop neck giving a nice view of her cleavage, and black leggings and black boots with heels that made her at least two inches taller. She was wearing more makeup than usual, including a bright red lipstick that she must’ve picked to match her dress.
She kissed him hello, lightly on the lips, and said, “It’s so good to see you,” and he said, “Yeah, you too.”
“Can I take your coat?” she asked.
“Sure,” he said, and he took it off, watching her put it away in the hallway closet.
“Come on, I’ll give you the tour,” she said.
She led him straight ahead, saying, “Back here’s the kitchen…,” but Johnny was looking over at the staircase, at the spot where Bloom had killed Carlos. It looked normal, like nothing had happened there. There was no damage on the stairs, no bloodstains or bullet holes in the wall. This was what rich people did, Johnny figured- they killed people in their houses and then did a little wall repair, a little paint job, and went on with their rich, happy lives. Yeah, they didn’t care about scum like Johnny and Carlos. They thought they were so high and above everybody else, but now look who was in charge. They thought they’d gotten rid of their problem, they were safe, protected, but now Johnny was back in the house- even better, he’d been invited back to the house. Who else but Johnny Long could’ve pulled off a stunt like this? He’d already thought he was the greatest Casanova on the planet and the modern- day Jackson Pollock, but now he felt like there was nothing he couldn’t do.
Johnny followed Marissa into the kitchen, then into the dining room. She made some joke about how he should “try to ignore” her parents’ decorating. Meanwhile, the house looked like a palace compared to the shitholes where Johnny had lived. The kitchen had all stainless steel appliances, with one of those refrigerators with an ice dispenser on the door. Johnny had always dreamed of having one of those, being able to have a Coke with ice whenever he wanted. Like it could be the middle of the night, whenever, and he wanted ice, and it would be there. He wouldn’t have to deal with pouring water in trays, having to bend the tray to get the cubes out, and all that bullshit. The ice would just be there all the time, waiting for him. Yeah, he would’ve killed to grow up in a place like this and have half of what Marissa had. Didn’t she know how lucky she was?
Well, it didn’t matter because she was going to be dead soon anyway. After dinner Johnny planned to go up to her room with her and fuck her and then kill her. Then he was going to kill her parents- maybe torture them with the switchblade a little first just for the hell of it- and then rob the house and go on with his life.
As she went on, saying in that bored tone, “And this is the living room…,” Johnny was looking around for things to steal. Those vases looked like they had to be worth something, and he had to remember to find that silverware Carlos had mentioned, and of course the diamond ring. It was too bad Johnny could only take things he
