Killing Johnny Fry (17 page)

“You‘re not doing a very good sales job, Mr. Carmel,” Isabelle Thinnes said very seriously.

“That‘s not the sale, Ms. Thinnes. That‘s just the setup. You and I both know that this is business we‘re talking here. Art business, yes, but business still and all.

“I believe that Lucy Carmichael is one of the most important young photographers to hit the New York scene in the last decade, but that doesn‘t mean a thing if the pictures don‘t sell."

“You‘re blunt, Mr. Carmel,” the gallery owner said. “But I can‘t say that you‘re wrong."

“That‘s why,” I said, “I‘ve had Lucy form a nonprofit corporation that is to receive half the profits from the sale of these photographs. I know that the standard cost for the work of an unknown like Lucy would be twenty-five hundred dollars. But in this case I want to charge six thousand."

“Six thousand!"

“Yes. Because for every picture sold, three thousand dollars will be donated to the Lucy Carmichael Foundation for the Children of Darfur."

“So you‘re saying that these photographs will cause guilt in the people who see them—"

“And then offer them a way to assuage that guilt,” I said, finishing her thought.

Ms. Thinnes peered at a point above my head, her face devoid of any discernable emotion. Then, suddenly, she broke out into a smile.

After that, showing her the photographs was a mere formality; the sale was already made.

Within the next hour, she‘d agreed to represent Lucy for a fifty fifty split after the monies that had been deducted for Lucy‘s foundation. I would be paid by taking a percentage of Lucy‘s share. Ms. Thinnes promised to have the papers ready by Saturday. We shook hands on it.

As I was preparing to leave, she said, “Excuse me, Mr. Carmel."

“Yes, Ms. Thinnes?"

“Why haven‘t I heard
of
you before? I thought that I knew every photographers‘ agent in America."

“I‘ve worked with and for Brad for some years, ma‘am. It‘s only now that he‘s so busy that I‘m getting out in the field."

“You‘re very good at it,” she told me.

There was a look
of
real admiration in her eyes.

I‘d worked as a translator for twenty years and no one had ever shown me as much regard or respect.

“Thank you, Ms. Thinnes. I really appreciate that . . . more than you can know."

When I got to Jo‘s house, she was wearing a formfitting buttoned-up white blouse and lime-green cotton pants. Her fiery brown skin looked lovely against those light colors.

She looked at me with trepidation and suspicion.

I smiled and took her in my arms. I was excited from the moment I saw her. Her fear of my rejection was like gasoline on the flame.

From the hug I lifted her into my arms and carried her into the den.

The den was a narrow room with a big brown couch and a small TV and stereo system on shelves. I sat down on the sofa, positioning her between my knees. I unbuttoned her trousers and pulled her pants down to her ankles. She was wearing green thong panties. These I also pulled down.

“Shouldn‘t we talk about yesterday?” she asked.

I turned around and sat her on the sofa. Then I stood and let my pants drop.

When faced with my erection, Jo took it in her hand and lifted it. I thought she was going to take my testicles in her mouth as Sasha had done, but instead she put her nose into the crease between my hard shaft and loose balls. She breathed in deeply through her nostrils.

“I love the way you smell,” she said.

I took a condom from my pocket.

“Put this on me,” I said.

“Why?"

“It cuts the feeling a little, and I want to fuck you a long time."

Joelle grinned and did my bidding. Then I got behind her on the sofa and plunged right in. She was very wet and I think, judging from her song, she came right then.

With my injured right hand, I reached over and took both breasts into my grasp. Then I wound my left hand in her hair and pulled hard. The whole time I was sliding in and out of her at a very slow pace.

I waited for her second orgasm before speaking.

“Have you had any other lovers since we‘ve been together?” I asked, fucking her at the same slow pace.

“No,” she moaned.

“Never?"

“Never."

“Have you ever wanted to? Is there any man you wanted?"

“No."

“Never?"

She began pushing back against my cock. She didn‘t answer.

“Never?” I asked again.

“Once."

“When?"

“Six months ago."

“After your uncle died?"

“The next day or, or maybe the day after that."

“Who was it?"

“A man,” she said, and then she gasped as I pulled on her hair. “George Leland."

“The Italian tie importer?"

“Yes."

“He wanted you too?"

“Yes."

“Tell me,” I said, pushing all the way inside.

She grunted twice and then said, “I was there one night, talking to him about presentation,” she said all in one breath. “It was late. We had two drinks. And he, and he, he kissed me."

“On the cheek?” I said on a slender breath.

She shook her head and said, “Down my throat."

“Did you like that?"

She nodded and pressed back against me. Her thighs began to quiver.

“What happened then?” I asked.

“I kissed him for a while and then I pulled away. But he grabbed my hand . . ."

“Why did he do that?"

“To show me how hard he was."

“Did you hold on to it?” I asked. My breath was coming faster.

“It was very, very big, long and thick. He asked me, he asked me if I wanted to see it."

“Is that what you were thinking about while I was talking to you about the man standing behind you?” I asked.

She nodded, pulling her own hair as she did so.

I was fucking her faster now, with short punctuated strokes.

“Did you want to?"

She nodded.

“Did he take it out?"

She shook her head, no.

“No?” I asked, both relieved and disappointed.

“No, I . . . I got down on my knees and unzipped him."

“Did you suck it?"

“No. I told him I wouldn‘t."

“What happened then?"

“He made me lie down on top of him fully dressed. I even had my stockings on. I squeezed his thing between my thighs and he moved it back and forth."

“Like I‘m doing to you right now."

“No,” she said. “He wasn‘t inside me. He was too big."

“What happened?” I asked.

“He came doing that. It was all over the back of my dress and in my hair."

I pulled her hair again.

“And did you come?” I asked.

She went silent, and I began moving in and out very hard and fast.

“Did you come?"

“Yes,” she shouted, and she came then too. “I came and came and came."

And I did too, so hard that we fell off the couch and onto the floor. I couldn‘t stop humping her. I was pulling mightily on her hair and yelling out, “Like this, like this, like this?"

“Yes,” she said. “He kept coming and every time I felt his cock pulse against my clit, I came too."

My orgasm had run its cycle, but I couldn‘t stop humping her. My half-hard erection came out, but I kept rubbing it against her ass. She pushed back against me and reached behind to caress my head.

Then she stood up and pulled me to my feet. She got down on her knees and took my penis in her two hands. The condom came off, and she wrapped the dick between her palms.

“He was still excited after all that, and so I got down like this and started jerking him off.” She held on to me and moved her whole body in a slow and rhythmic rocking manner. “It had a big purple head that was so shiny that I could almost see my reflection.” She worked faster. “He kept begging me to let him inside me, but the more he begged, the harder I pulled. Finally he put his hands on my shoulders and I knew he was going to come. I held his shaft next to my ear, and when he came, I could feel the come splashing down on my ankles."

I came again even though I didn‘t expect to; I didn‘t even want it. But from force of will she made me.

I sank down on the floor beside her and we hugged, two tired comrades after a rough journey over treacherous and uncharted terrain.

When I woke up, it was three minutes after midnight. I didn‘t remember climbing up onto the couch with Jo, but there we were, wrapped in the same embrace. I sat up and looked at her face, thinking that I had never known her, but that she was the only friend I had.

As I stood, Jo turned over and began to snore. She was always a heavy sleeper, and once she began snoring, I knew she would stay out till sunrise.

I lumbered into her kitchen, turned on the light, and sat in a chair by the window, thinking of everything that had passed.

It was as if I were adrift—but not yet dying—on a lone raft in the middle of a tranquil and treacherous sea. There was no one coming to save me. There was no land in sight. But I wasn‘t yet thirsty or hungry. I was just fine there but also on the verge of death.

It was a silly image that I couldn‘t shake. There was no saving me. But, I told myself, there was Lucy and Sasha, Cynthia, and my new profession as an art agent. I had a life spread out before me. I had hope, and Jo obviously loved me. She was afraid to tell me about her indiscretions with Johnny Fry, but that was Under-standable.

Bleep-bleep.

It was an odd sound but familiar too. While I sat there trying to remember what it was, it sounded again.

Bleep-bleep.

I walked down the long hall, past my snoring lover, into the small room, closet really, that she used as an office. There her computer sat alight. Her Internet connection was on. There was an instant message from JF1223.

Are you there?
The first message read. It was posted at 7:25.

i”
ache for you, JJ,
the next message read at 8:14.
These days apart have shown me how much you mean to me. Bettye means nothing now. I‘ll never see her again.

At 10:47 JF1223 wrote,
Have you thought over meeting me in Baltimore? You don‘t have to worry. I won‘t let Cordell know what we‘re doing. I know you need to be with him too. I respect that.

The second-to-last message said,
My cock is aching for you too. I haven‘t even masturbated since the last time. I still remember how you strained and choked to hold it down.

Finally, contrite, he wrote,
I‘m sorry about that last message. It‘s just that I sit here every night waiting for your decision. I think about your skin and your touch. I think about you bringing me to your home that night we met at Brad‘s party. I have never been so overwhelmed by a woman. I think I would die without you.

I sat there in front of Jo‘s computer, wondering what it all meant.

I remembered the night she‘d first met Johnny Fry at Brad Mettleman‘s Brooklyn apartment. He had said something flirtatious to Jo when he didn‘t know that she was with me. She laughed him off, and he asked her what she was drinking.

I told him that I‘d get her drink and I supposed that that had ended his attempt. But a while later, Brad asked me to come to his den. He‘d received a letter from a Spanish photographer that he needed to get the gist of. I read it over twice, no more, and told Brad that the artist, Miguel Rios, was willing to have Brad be his only representative in the U.S. The whole exchange between Brad and me could not have lasted more than twelve minutes.

Twelve minutes. When I came Out, Jo came to me and said that she had a migraine coming on.

“ I ‘m feeling it in the center of my head,” she‘d said, pointing at the place where her third eye would have been.

Twelve minutes. Seven hundred twenty seconds, and a man she‘d never known before had convinced her to get me to put her in a cab so that she could rush home to give him better sex than I had ever known.

The next thing I knew, I was standing in the kitchen with a butcher knife clenched in my fist. I don‘t to this day remember walking there or pulling open the drawer.

Then I was standing over Jo with the knife gripped tightly in my hand. Her pants were off but she still wore the white blouse.

I worried for a moment over the bloodstains that wouldn‘t come out of her shirt. Then I raised the blade. But the thought of those stains stayed with me—blood on her shirt and carpeting.
Blood never washes clean;
that‘s what my mother, when she was still clearheaded, used to say.

Then I was standing in the bathroom in front of the open medicine cabinet. There was a small prescription bottle in my hand.

Jo took the popular sleeping pill now and again when she had to work late. Something about staying up after midnight made her wired, and she needed sleep aids.

I took two of the oval tablets and then went to lie beside her.

I lay there next to her, staring at her face. At first I felt nothing, not hatred or jealousy or betrayal. But then I remembered JF1223 talking about her choking to keep him down. I rose up on one arm, intent on strangling her in her sleep. But the sleeping pills hit me, and I fell back, trying to rise up out of the black pit that was engulfing me.

I awoke to the sound of Jo making noise somewhere in the house. The events of the night before came back to me in snatches and glimpses. I remembered the knife and the sleeping pills. I remembered—

“L?” Jo said. She was standing in the doorway with the butcher knife in her hand.

“Hey."

“I found this in the bathroom,” she said holding the knife out to me with open palm held upward.

“I, I couldn‘t get to sleep,” I said. “So I was going to take your cough medicine. But the bottle wasn‘t open and I couldn‘t twist it off, so I got the knife to pry it. But then I saw the sleeping pills."

She looked at me with curiosity but no Suspicion in her eyes.

“I sure didn‘t have that problem. I went to sleep without even turning off my computer."

“So that was all that bleeping,” I said.

“You heard it?"

“Yeah. I heard something but I didn‘t know what it was. I tried to wake you up but you were dead to the world."