He tried not to think about it as he stepped under the cool water. He stood there as long as he could take it, then turned the water from cold to hot and tilted his head back to let the spray soothe his scalp.
John was exhausted after another twenty-hour day. He wondered about the waitress and if she was just as tired being on her feet all day as he was sitting in a car. He wondered if she was showering now, too, and what she looked like naked and whether or not they’d be compatible in bed if he ever got that lucky.
When he was relaxed enough, John turned the shower off and stepped out of the tub. He saw his reflection in the mirror hanging from the back of the bathroom door and thought about his unwanted nickname, Johnny Porno. The thought made him frown.
He examined his reflection and noticed he was starting to gain weight. He’d never been close to two hundred pounds before, but was thinking he was already there or damn close to it. He had retained some muscle definition working construction, but there were love handles now he hadn’t noticed before. He turned sideways and saw it was worse than he’d thought. A small pouch had started above his waist.
He dried his head, chest and legs, then his arms and hair again as he made his way to the kitchen. He checked the fridge for something to snack on and enjoyed the cool he felt with the door open. There was leftover macaroni his mother had given him, a slice of cold pizza and half of a turkey sandwich.
He decided against eating and made a drink instead. He poured from a bottle of cheap gin, nearly filling a highball glass. He added a few ice cubes from the plastic tray he kept in the freezer. He used flat tonic water from a bottle he’d left open on the counter two days ago; there was hardly any fizz when he mixed the drink.
John sat at the kitchen table and did the math between his checking account and bills on the white margin space along the cover page of the Daily News. He added the figures twice each and frowned at the result. He had been right about the leftover sixteen dollars. If he got an advance for driving the next day, he could pay his backed-up child support and the life insurance and still have two, maybe three dollars until Wednesday.
He drank deep from the highball glass. Less than a year ago he could afford to pay for his life and still have a few extra bucks to take his son to a baseball game. Last year he’d had enough to buy the kid the bike with the banana seat he’d asked for.
So far this year all he’d done that was close to special was take his son to the official opening of the World Trade Center back in April. He had wanted to take him to the opening-day game at Yankee Stadium to see the first ever designated-hitter game, but April 6 had been a Friday and the same night he had started his job counting the number of men that showed up to see Deep Throat at theaters on Long Island.
In two months the kid would be ten. John felt guilty thinking about his son. Sometimes the guilt was overwhelming. He did his best to think of something else and glanced at the headlines about a plot to kill President Nixon. He read some of the article, saw it was an ex-cop the Secret Service suspected in New Orleans, a guy nicknamed Punchy. John thought about Nick Santorra and thought Punchy might be a good name for him, too.
He took another long drink, refilled the glass with gin, added another ice cube and stood up. He used his free hand to carry one of his two kitchen chairs into the bedroom. He set it down facing the stream of cold air blowing from the air conditioner, sat, closed his eyes and drank deep again.
Tomorrow was another day.
Louis fell asleep watching a World War II documentary. Holly woke him at two when she called from the Port Washington train station to tell him she was on her way. She called again a few minutes later to make sure he was still awake and Louis told her he was and that he would be waiting for her at the Woodhaven Boulevard subway stop. Then he put his head back down on the pillow and fell asleep.
He woke again nearly an hour later. He saw the time, threw on some clothes and rushed out to his car. He ran two lights to make up time, but a tow truck pulling a car away from an accident on Metropolitan Avenue cost him five minutes.
He was at least half an hour late when he spotted Holly standing at the curb on Woodhaven Boulevard with her arms folded across her chest. Louis beeped the horn and flashed his lights. Holly didn’t acknowledge him. He called to her after making a U-turn at the next light and she barely turned her head.
When he pulled up to the curb, Holly was glaring at him. He leaned across the bench seat and opened the passenger door. She ignored him another few seconds before finally getting in.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
He tried to kiss her and was rebuffed when she pulled away.
“I thought I turned the alarm clock on, but it didn’t go off,” he said. “You waiting long?”
Holly glared harder at him.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated.
“I’m out here alone at three-thirty in the morning,” she finally said. “And I called you this afternoon.”
“I wasn’t home.”
“Bullshit.”
“I wasn’t. I was out doing privates.”
“Yeah, your ex-wife’s probably.”
The problem with telling a new girlfriend too much about an ex-wife, even when accusing the ex of being a first-class bitch, was they gathered all that information and stored it. Louis had met Holly a few months ago, but she had already become suspicious of his relationship with Nancy.
“Don’t be like that,” he said. “I was working, I swear.”
Holly had turned in the seat so her back was flush against the door. She was a tall, thin girl with a pretty face, perky rump, long legs, blue eyes and long blonde hair. Model material, Louis had thought the first time he saw her.
“What?” he said. “I said I’m sorry. I overslept.”
“I thought the alarm didn’t go off?”
“What? Shit, Holly, gimme a break.”
Holly faced front again. “You working in the morning?”
“Yeah, but not windows. Something else.”
“Can I at least sleep in? I don’t have class until the afternoon.”
“What, I’m gonna throw you out?”
“I don’t know. You didn’t answer my call, you didn’t bother waking up, I know that much.”
It wasn’t going to be easy talking her into anything tonight. He might as well give it up and try again tomorrow, Louis was thinking, except he had to be ready at a moment’s notice if he intended to rob Nancy’s ex-husband of all that cash he was collecting from that porn movie. Louis was hoping to work Holly somewhere in his game plan.
“Look, I’m sorry. I really am, okay?”
“You’re saying that a lot tonight.”
And he’d keep saying it if it eventually got her to help him. Holly Nordstram was a former runner-up Miss Oklahoma, was from a good family and was a firm believer in hard work and education. In fact, it was Holly’s work ethic that first attracted her to Louis. When he showed up to clean the windows at an acting studio where she was attending a workshop and he complained bitterly about the job being neglected, she assumed the neglect was the fault of another window-cleaner. Rather than clearing up the misunderstanding, Louis got her number. That had been three months ago. Now that she’d been living in the big city and probably learning the ropes a lot faster than she ever could in Oklahoma, he was afraid of losing her confidence.
“I say it because I mean it,” he told her. “I’m sorry if I’m busy trying to make ends meet, Holly, but I don’t have a choice. I wasn’t smart like you. I didn’t take school seriously. I have to work for a living.”