Johnny Blade

  JOHNNY BLADE

  By

  Phillip Tomasso

  Published by

  PGR Press

  Rochester, NY

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2002, 2011 by Phillip Tomasso III

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  Other e-books by Phillip Tomasso:

  Convicted

  Adverse Impact

  Third Ring

  Tenth House

  Mind Play

  Available in trade paperback under the pen name Thomas Phillips:

  The Molech Prophecy

  Prologue

  Rochester, New York—One Week Before Christmas

  The city resembled a freezer in desperate need of defrosting. Ice and snow spotted the walls of buildings, homes, cars and anything else unfortunate enough to be outside. The chalky white build-up on everything made the city look dingy and dirty. Several inches had accumulated in the last few hours and the snow falling from the bleak sky showed no sign of letting up. The temperature felt frigid at fifteen degrees. The wind blew hard, strong and constant. Anyone outside would swear it felt more like fifteen below.

  City salt and plow trucks could not keep up with the weather dump and the roads looked neglected because of it. Cars parked on the street became more and more buried with each pass the plows made.

  Martin Wringer saw, barely visible in the slate sky, the Kodak tower with the Kodak name in red lights. He felt warm and secure in his white conversion van as he drove north on State Street, and right by Kodak without as much as a second glance. The tower was as commonplace in Rochester as snow during the winter.

  Along side the tower stood Manson Chemical Technologies. He once worked for MCT, but they decided to terminate his employment two months earlier. He had punched his supervisor and broken the man’s nose. The fight was provoked. For nearly a year the supervisor had hounded, teased and harassed Wringer.

  At the beginning of a night shift, when Wringer showed up late for work, the supervisor accused him of being drunk. Things were said, names called. It became a heated argument. Wringer could not take anymore and threw a punch that connected with his supervisor’s face, knowing instantaneously that he had just jeopardized his job. Satisfaction, however, had filled him.

  It was the loss of his job, though, that wound up costing him the rest of his life.

  But that did not matter right now. It was all in the past. All of it. His wife—soon to be ex-wife—his kids, his home . . . all of it was in the past where it belonged.

  The bottle of vodka was in the coffee cup holder on the center console. He had already swallowed a fifth of the contents. His throat felt raw. His stomach burned. His head, he knew—his mind—reeled in a whirlwind full of neurotic, obsessive-compulsive thoughts; all having to do with his planned destination.

  He continued north toward Lyell Avenue, a road that intersects State. Once he crossed over Lyell, State became Lake Avenue. The difference between State and Lake could easily be compared to night and day. While prestige lines the banks of State, poverty and depravity lines those along Lake.

  His vehicle was equipped with a twin-size bed, a stocked college refrigerator and a complete entertainment system that was his home on wheels, literally. His wife lived in the house with everything that had been his. She would wind up keeping it all, too, but not the van. His attorney fought to keep the van. Now he lived in it, spending nights in vacant parking lots. No one bothered him. Only once had he receive a parking violation. He paid the fine and nothing ever came of it.

  Jack’s Joint was before the next light, on the right. The place was a hole. He had never eaten there. The thought of some dirty cook making meals disgusted him. However, he had been there one other time. Not for the food, though. He had gone there for a woman. There was a part of him—the controlling part of most men—which desired satisfaction, pulsing and throbbing in anticipation of release.

  The whore who called herself Casey stood in front of Jack’s. Her long blond hair with its black highlights hung over her shoulders. It was her trademark, he supposed. Tonight she wore a knitted cap.

  He stopped at the curb and lowered the passenger window from the control on his door. He took another long swig from the bottle of vodka.

  Casey came over, stuck her head in the van. “I remember you. Back again, huh?” she said, snapping on chewing gum. She wore too much make-up. He hated that, but liked the heavy application of lip-gloss. She looked stoned. Her eyes were barely open. Two slits stared intently at him. Stoned, but not too wasted to work.

  “Can hardly get enough,” he said, smiling. “Hop in?”

  “Sure.” She opened the door and sat in the captain’s chair. “Same thing as last time?”

  “You remember what we did last time?” he asked.

  “You were a big, um, tipper. I remember the big tippers.”

  “Then I’ll drive while you go to work.”

  She swiveled her chair to face him as he pulled away from the curb. Slowly she undressed. He took as many chances to glance at her while attempting to concentrate on the road. She was being naughty, undressing while he drove, and this excited him, but not nearly as much as the rest of his plans for the evening.

  _____________________________

  Wringer parked the van in a semi-vacant lot, farther north up Lake Avenue. Casey giggled as they went to the back of the van. Wringer closed curtains that hung directly behind the captain chairs and switched on a small desk lamp.

  Casey crawled like a panther onto and across the twin-size bed. She kept her rear high in the air and craned her head over her shoulders watching for Wringer’s reaction.

  Wringer stripped and stood on his knees. He could not help but smile. He had spent many hours planning for this. Once the idea came to him, he saw no other way around it. He liked to think he felt inspired.

  After copulating, Martin Wringer stayed on top of Casey. He outweighed her by over one hundred pounds. She could try, but he did not believe she would succeed in throwing him off.

  After a few moments of silence and no activity, Casey’s smile faded. “You can get off me now.”

  “Where’s the smile, doll?” Wringer asked, showing her his grin.

  “We’re done.” She looked suddenly nervous, scared maybe. Wringer loved it.

  “In a manner of speaking. I think, you’re done.”

  “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” She raised her arms, trying to use her elbows and forearms to push him away. He stopped her, pressing his own forearms onto hers, pinning them to the mattress.

  Wringer had the blade between the mattress and the plywood he used for a box spring. He slid his hand in to retrieve it. “When you’re a whore,” Wringer said, “people don’t expect much from you. Do they?”

  Casey’s eyes, wide open, stared intently into his face. The fear in her expression spoke volumes. “You want me to answer that?” Casey finally asked.

  “Do you think I’m talking to you to answer my own questions, whore?” Wringer screamed at the top of his voice. His body was pressed flat against hers. He knew he had to be crushing her.

  “I forgot your question,” she said in a whisper. She did not cry. Wringer knew she wanted to. He could see the tears brimming. Somehow Casey managed to contain them. Strong whore, but I’ll b
reak you, he thought.

  “People don’t expect much from a whore, do they?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” Casey said.

  He continued to keep the knife his secret—for now, anyway. “Let me put it to you another way. If you had to wager a guess, what might be the one thing people expect most from you? Huh? Can you figure that one out?”

  “Discreetness?” Casey asked. She sounded as if she might be gasping for air. It had to be hard to breathe with Wringer’s weight on top of her.

  “Good. Damned good. But no, wrong answer. Try again,” Wringer demanded.

  “Great sex?”

  Laughing, Wringer said: “Not even close. I don’t think anyone expects great sex from a street corner slut. John’s like me are just looking for a release and a tramp like you is where we find it. Try again.”

  The tears started. Her lips quivered. “I don’t know,” Casey said. “I don’t know what you want. What do you want from me?”

  “See, you’re almost on the right path,” Wringer informed her. “You’re this close to the answer, but can’t see it.”

  She started to cough. Breathing had to be getting more and more difficult the longer he stayed on top of her. He pictured her ribs snapping under his weight. She did not struggle—perhaps knew better—though Wringer was surprised at her passivity, disappointed. He expected her to fight, to try and gouge out his eyes. He had prepared himself for that kind of scene. In a way, he wanted her to fight back.

  “See it’s not, what do I want from you, as much as what you gave to me.” He showed her the knife.

  “Ah dear God, help me,” Casey said, crying suddenly. “Don’t do this to me. Please. Please, don’t do this.”

  “It felt refreshing when I pulled up tonight and you remembered me. I was afraid I might have to remind you of who I was. So if you remember me, and you remember the last time we were together, then you must remember giving me a freaking venereal disease. So in answer to my initial question: What do you think people expect from a whore more than anything else? The answer would be—as long as you don’t mind me jumping in here with the answer—for them to be clean of diseases!”

  Wringer raised himself up like a walrus, then stuck the blade into Casey’s belly. He knew his behavior was highly psychotic. Shooting someone would be far less personal, less intimate and deranged than physically driving a blade into another human. It felt weird, yet riveting. Her flesh, though soft to the touch, resisted the sharp point of the blade when he pressed it against her skin. Only when he pushed hard, did the knife pierce the thick layers. It had a distinct sound, too, one Wringer would never forget. It sounded like a knife plunged into a crisp head of lettuce. Once inserted though, the blade slid and sliced smoothly, reminding him of cutting open a summer-ripe watermelon.

  With her free hand, Casey clawed for Wringer’s face. One fingernail scratched under his right eye, drawing blood. So Wringer twisted the blade in her gut. She arched her back, as if attempting to buck him off her, but Wringer knew it was only intense pain from the blade making her spasm with such strength. She reminded him of a Bronco and this caused him to laugh at her. Aside from that futile movement, there was no fight in her. He removed the blade, and stuck her one more time.

  He pulled the blade out and lay back on top of her. The warmth of her blood spilling from the wound excited him. He felt it, warm against his fleshy middle.

  When she started gasping and moaning, he punched her in the head, knocking her out cold—that—or she passed out. Then, using the blade like a finger, he touched all of her, traced every curve and explored every orifice, leaving a blazing trail of split flesh as he did so.

  Chapter 1

  Thursday, January 10

  Michael Buzzelli watched Jack Murphy look over the completed job application he had just handed in. Murphy, who owned Jack’s Joint, kept an unlit cigarette between his lips. Michael thought Murphy might be the exact opposite of everything he was. While Murphy looked to be in his early sixties, Michael was just twenty-five. Murphy seemed to tower at six-one, since Michael was merely five-eight. Compared to Murphy's two hundred and forty pounds of fat, Michael weighed in at a lean one-eighty. Whereas Murphy’s balding head was lined with wisps of thin gray hair, Michael wore his almond-colored hair closely shaved to his head, with a little extra at the bangs.

  “I can work weekends,” Michael blurted, not wanting to miss this opportunity. He thought Murphy might be losing interest. This job was important to him and he wanted Murphy to understand as much.

  “That’s good, kid. I need someone weekends. Nights mostly. See, but I’m talking about every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. Not just when you feel like coming in, know what I mean?” Murphy asked. “I had a guy here, lasted less than a month. He told me he could work weekends. I think he worked one Friday night, then called in sick all the other times.”

  “I wouldn’t do that, sir,” Michael said.

  “Sir?” Murphy snorted and looked at a fat man sitting at the counter. “Sir,” he repeated for the fat man’s benefit. They both laughed.

  Michael ignored them. “I can work all weekend long. All night.”

  “What about during the day?” Murphy asked.

  “I can work Saturdays and Sundays during the day. Other than that, I can’t.” He had a day job at The Rochester City Chronicle. He had it listed on the application.

  “Says here you have experience—four years?”

  “In college, I worked thirty hours a week at a diner. I was the night manager within the first six months. I have my supervisor’s number there as a reference, you can give him a call,” Michael said.

  “I just might do that,” Murphy said without conviction. “I’m getting old, Michael. Too old for the kind of crap I have to put up with running this place at night, know what I mean? I can stomach it during the day, but I’m too tired to have to put up with it long into the night, every night, as well,” Murphy said. He pulled a lighter out of his apron. He lit his cigarette. “Man’s got to relax a little. I’ve been working hard all my life, and I’m ready to do a little relaxing.”

  “I can’t blame you,” Michael said.

  “You can’t blame me? Hell, boy, you don’t have any idea what I’m even talking about,” Murphy said. “What are you? Twenty, twenty-one?”

  “Twenty-five, sir,” Michael said, and again ignored the snickering exchanged between Murphy and the fat guy at the counter.

  “Twenty, twenty-five, huh? Makes little difference.”

  Next came a long silence while Murphy smoked his cigarette and continued to stare at the application. “Well?” Michael finally asked.

  “Job pays a dollar more than minimum wage, for starters, and seeing as tomorrow’s Friday, I expect you to be here by ten.” Murphy kept the cigarette between his lips, allowing the smoke to billow into his eyes. The man did not blink away the smoke, as if his eyes were callused to it.

  Michael held out his hand, and they shook on the deal. When he left, he felt good. Jack's Joint was a small diner on Lake Avenue, on the bottom floor of a vacant building. The structure resembled a plain, dark red brick version of the hotel pieces found in the board game Monopoly, very nondescript. It was the fire engine red awning over the sidewalk with Jack's Joint scrawled in white cursive letters that brought attention to the place.

  The thought of spending his weekends earning next to nothing did not bother Michael Buzzelli as much as it bothered his girlfriend, Ellen. They both worked more than forty hours a week now; seeing each other was difficult enough already. Taking this second job, they both knew, would make seeing each other next to impossible.

  Chapter 2

  Friday, January 11

  Murphy told Michael a few things before going home for the evening: Be consistent. If you cook a burger and put two pickle slices on it, be damned sure every burger you make thereafter has two pickle slices on it. The menu ain’t complicated. Most of the regulars order the same thing night after night, anyways. S
oon enough, you won’t even have to ask them what they want. Some of them you’ll be able to set your watch by. I never have been robbed. There ain’t no safe. Someone tries to rob the place, give them the cash out of the register. No big deal there, know what I mean?

  Michael knew what he meant. He found it hard to believe that Jack’s Joint had never been robbed. The place has been around for as long as Michael could remember. The area was never considered a good or safe neighborhood.

  Standing behind the counter, Michael tied a white apron around his waist while taking in everything around him. The counter was L-shaped. It ran longest from east to west, then rounded at the front door, and went south some. There were eight booths along the wall with orange Formica seats, and brown tables. Shabby green curtains hung over each of the three windows along the row of booths. Four tables, each with four chairs, separated the counter from the booths. In the one corner, near the door, stood a silent jukebox. In the other corner, at the end of the shorter run of counter length, sat two pinball machines next to a large window. They made noise, sounds to attract potential players. Murphy assured Michael he would get used to the games and not hear their constant rings and bells, but the sound of the pinball machines did not bother Michael in the least.

  The fat guy who had been at the counter the other night was still sitting at the counter this evening, as if a permanent fixture. Michael lit a cigarette while watching the man sip his coffee and read the paper.

  “Anything interesting in there?” Michael asked.

  The man shrugged. “Hardly ever is.”

  “You think?” Michael asked. “I usually find some good stuff.”

  The fat guy set down his paper and stared at the new cook. “You read this today?”