“Linda Lovelace,” Vento said. “It’s the broad does the sword-swallowing in the fuck movie. I was thinking we put ‘Head Nurse’ right below the signature. What do you think?”
“Makes sense, I guess,” John said. “That really her signature?”
“As far as the jerkoffs buying it goes it is. We’re gonna distribute them to the guys showing the movie and squeeze some extra cash out of the thing before it dies. Receipts are starting to slow up. Business needs a boost.”
John was thinking about George in Massapequa and his idea about having Linda Lovelace show up to sign autographs.
“I kind of like it, the ‘head nurse’ thing,” Vento said. “Nick did the signatures. He’s not gonna be happy he has to add that, though, not after this. Said his hand was all cramped when he finished. Probably why he’s so cranky upstairs before.”
John took pleasure at the thought of Santorra having to sign the posters. Then he took a closer look at the handwriting and noticed something wrong. He pointed to it.
“What?” Vento said.
“Lovelace,” John said. “He spelled it with an ‘s.’ I’m pretty sure it’s a ‘c.’”
Billy Hastings saw his eyes were bloodshot in the mirror’s reflection and splashed cold water on his face. He’d been up nearly forty-eight hours. To supplement his adrenaline as it faded, Billy had used amphetamines, heroin and cocaine. Twelve hours ago, hopped up on a speedball he’d injected under his tongue, Billy had killed a man.
Now that he was crashing, Billy popped the cap from a small vial of cocaine and poured some onto the edge of the bathroom sink. He flushed the toilet to drown out his snorting and the adrenaline-induced gasp that followed. A few seconds later, his energy magically restored, Billy put his stash and equipment away. He returned to the kitchen where his wife was still sitting at the table. Earlier she’d been reading aloud to him from a notebook half filled with her handwritten confessions to several extramarital affairs. Billy motioned at her to continue.
“You sure?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Billy said.
Kathleen Hastings used a finger to find her place before she picked up where she had left off.
“‘He drove inside the garage and we went up the ramps until he got to his space and then he parked,’” she read. “‘He let the car run and put on the radio. Then he lit a joint.’”
Billy sniffled as he pinched the tip of his nose through a tissue. The rush was already fading. He wet his lips and leaned against the refrigerator.
“You sure you’re okay?” Kathleen asked.
“Yeah,” Billy said. “Go ’head. Then what?”
“‘He gave me the joint and I smoked it,’” Kathleen read. “‘I held it in my lungs a long time and while I did that he leaned over and felt my breasts.’”
“What were you wearing?”
Kathleen looked up from the notebook. “My green halter.”
“No bra, right?”
“No bra.”
“Keep reading.”
“‘I let him kiss me on the mouth and then he untied my halter and kissed my tits. He sucked one of them and then put a hand between my legs.’”
Billy moaned. Hearing her tell the story again excited him. He grabbed himself through his sweatpants.
“Keep going,” he said.
“‘I had my jeans on and told him it was too hard to take them off in the car and that there were other cars that might pass and see us. He told me I couldn’t leave him like that and put my hand between his legs. He made me rub him there until he was hard. Then he opened his pants and pushed my head down.’”
Billy knew his wife’s confessions were partial truths, but what was left to his imagination always proved electric. The images of Kathleen with other men had become continuous loops in Billy’s head; pure carnal passion caught in a series of snapshots that both enraged and excited him.
The man he’d killed last night had been the first one listed in the same notebook, a thirty-four-year-old building superintendent Kathleen claimed to have met at a bowling alley more than three years ago. Although, over time, Billy had adapted to the sexually deviant lifestyle they currently engaged in, he continued to blame Victor Vasquez for his wife’s initial betrayal.
With Vasquez erased from the slate, Billy was anxious to eliminate the other man responsible for dishonoring his pride. First, though, he needed to see the man defiling Kathleen.
“Inside,” he told her.
Kathleen pushed her chair back from the table, stood up and walked to their bedroom. Billy followed her up to the doorway, then stopped to watch as she sat on the edge of the bed. She removed her pants first, then underwear.
“Show me,” he said.
Kathleen turned on the bed to face him and slowly spread her legs. Billy was touching himself through the sweatpants.
“Do it,” he said.
Kathleen closed her eyes and licked her lips as she slowly gyrated her pelvis.
“That’s it,” Billy said.
Kathleen moaned.
Billy watched a while, then said, “Yeah. Do it.”
“Yes,” Kathleen said.
“Fuck that guy.”
“I am.”
Billy licked his lips. “Is it good?”
“Yes.”
“Is it?”
Kathleen moaned again, louder this time.
“Who is it?” Billy said.
Kathleen continued moaning.
“Who?” Billy said.
“You know.”
“Say his name.”
“No.”
“Say it.”
“You say it.”
“Please, baby.”
“No.”
“Say his name.”
Kathleen rolled over, raised her ass and continued gyrating her hips.
Billy was worked up to tears. They began to flow down his cheeks. “Oh, God!” he cried. “Say his name for me. Please!”
“Johnny,” she said.
“Johnny who?”
“Johnny Albano.”
“Oh, God, baby. Oh, fucking God. What’s he… what’s he… tell him to fuck you.”
“Yes.”
“Tell him.”
“I will.”
Billy was close to orgasm. He slapped the open door with his free hand. “Tell him!”
“Fuck me, Johnny!” Kathleen yelled. “Fuck me!”
A growl erupted from the bottom of Billy’s throat as his release began. His hips bucked a few times as he grunted from somewhere deep in his chest. Then he felt light-headed and needed to brace his back against the doorframe.
Kathleen had turned on the bed and was sitting on the edge. She crossed her legs and watched as her husband slid down the bottom half of the door to the floor. He was breathing hard. She waited until his breathing relaxed, then got up off the bed.
“You want pancakes?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Billy managed to say.
“Bacon?”
“Yeah.”
Kathleen had to step over him. “Don’t move,” she said as she did so.
Billy watched his wife heading toward the kitchen. “I love you,” he told her.
“I know,” she said. “I love you, too.”
John saw there were lights on in the windows of the apartment building where he lived and breathed a sigh of relief. Last night he’d barely slept from the heat and humidity and couldn’t imagine another night without air-conditioning.
He parked the Buick across the street, grabbed his cigarettes off the passenger seat and pulled one from the pack before getting out of the car.
Old man Elias was sitting on the stoop smoking a cigarette of his own. John tapped his front pants pocket for his matches as he crossed the street but didn’t feel them. He tapped his rear pockets and was about to backtrack to the car when Elias called to him.
“What you are doing, some kind of dance?”