JOHNNY HEARTBREAK
By Jesse Sublett
When the fire started nobody knows
But they suspected a redhead in an overcoat
A malicious smile, a rumble below
The walls are shaking, she’s starting to blowA shot rang out, a young girl cried
It’s a force of nature, it can’t be denied
It’s a full moon howl, a hoot owl screech
If I said I loved you,
I said it in a dream
I was standing in the alley where I shot the kid in the mouth. Over there was the place where his teeth sprayed against the wall like tiny dice, here was the spot where his head smacked the pavement like a ripe melon. The blood and brains pooled and left a dark stain that lasted for weeks, despite the rain and grease and late spring snow. Months later, Girogio, the Greek who owned the little market on the corner, sprinkled lye on the stain and scrubbed it down. The spot was gone, but I kept coming back.
I wished I hadn’t shot the kid in the mouth, but as the old gunfighters
used to say, he didn’t gimme no selection. Five years ago, but the memory
still fresh. I could run it over again in my mind, just like one of the new
talking picture films: The movie would begin with flickering images of a day
pretty much like today, the air crisp and cool, the streets muddy from snow
and slush. The shrimp boats going out from the wharf, freighters blowing their
horns as they cleared the shoals outside the bay. Mailmen walking their routes,
being chased by dogs, dogs and cats being pecked on the ass by mockingbirds
guarding their nests. It’s all about territory, where you belong, where
you don’t, and how you navigate it.
Back then, I was just getting established, and people still called me by my
real name, John X. Turner. I had an office over on 10th Street downtown and
a license that said I was a private investigator. I even took a legitimate
case or two now and then, but most of my income came from a small fleet of
trucks I owned, and drivers who didn’t ask questions about the cargo
they hauled. I also managed a few lounge singers and booked the talent at
a couple of clubs.
It was early evening and I was walking down Salt Street on my way over to the
Alibi Lounge on 13th Street. The corner of 12th and Salt marked the dividing
line between the part of town run by Alex the Greek, and the south side,
ruled by Mal Fortunado. I always took extra care when I was in Mal’s
part of town. Mal’s boys tended to be on the aggressive side, just
like their boss. Alex was tough, too, but he was a guy you could talk to.
I did business with both guys -- I worked at keeping things in balance. It
was one of the keys to surviving as an independent. It also kept things interesting.
Tina Bellaire was singing a happy hour set at the Alibi Lounge that night.
Tina sang just like Billie Holliday and she was a knockout goddess. If Tina
and the Queen of England both jumped in my bed at the same time, and the
Queen of England was the second hottest babe in the world, I’d still
kick the Queen out on her ass. I didn’t want anything coming between
me and Tina.
I heard the off-key echo to my footsteps as I crossed 10th Street. I took the
.45 automatic from the shoulder holster and slipped it down the front of
my pants and buttoned my coat to keep it hidden. Just before the alley near
12th and Salt, I picked up the pace a little. The kid rushed to keep up.
If I hadn’t already suspected he was an amateur, he sold the notion
by the way he initiated the fight. First he snatched a hunk of my coat, then
he made some weird noise down the back of my collar. I didn’t know
whether to take it as a threat or worry about him puking down my neck.
“Step into the alley, Turner,” he snarled. “We got bidness
to take care of.”
“Sure,” I said, and ducked to my right and whirled around.
Bum luck, the kid was a lefty and whacked my right elbow with a gun before
I had a chance to adjust to the situation. Then he jammed the barrel of an
old German Mauser machine pistol into my gut and steered us into the alley,
nudging me against the brick wall. I’d taken a few of those Mausers
off dead Germans in France during the Great War. I made a few bucks selling
them stateside, too.
The kid couldn’t have been a day over nineteen, but was a good six feet
tall and shaped like a beer barrel. He jabbed me with the pistol a couple more
times and got in my face, breathing heavy. His breath stunk like cheap beer
and rotten teeth.
“You trying to kiss me?” I said. “Get the fuck outta my face.”
“Asshole,” he sad, gritting his gums like a bad dog. But he did move
back a few inches.
“Thanks,” I said. The extra room was all I needed. I’d wait
to hear his spiel before making my move.
“Your drivers have been picking up booze down at Deadeye Point,” he
said. “It’s a sweet deal. Your boats bring it in, your trucks pick
it up, and you slip through the back door.”
Deadeye was a little inlet on the south end of the bay. It was hemmed in by
flooded marshland, alligator and snake country, so perfect for smuggling
we called it the back door into town. A few of us knew about an old Indian
trail through the marsh. The trail hooked up with a farm road that sneaked
into town on the southwest side. The marsh was beyond jurisdiction of the
city cops, and the sheriff’s department came cheap, so it was a sweet
deal all the way around.
But last week a certain wharf rat named Filthy Phil sent some punks over to
my office. They were under the impression that Phil was entitled to ten percent
of my last run.
“You look too young to understand business, kid,” I said. “I
tip waitresses and such when they’re entitled to it, but I don’t
pay any extra taxes to anybody.”
“Haven’t you heard?,” said the kid. “The Deadeye is a
toll road these days, and everybody has to pay.”
“Your boss sent two boys the last time,” I said. “I laughed
in their faces and threw ‘em down the stairs. Normally I don’t strike
children, but you’re starting to irritate me.”
“Go ahead on, Turner,” he said. “You’re just making me
look forward to doing what I came to do.” He flicked his wrist and a shiny
six inch blade dropped into his right hand.
“Better be careful, kid,” I said. “You might accidentally fall
on that thing and end up carrying your guts home in a bucket.”
He warped his upper lip and showed me the gap between his teeth. “You
gotta pay Phil, or else you can’t use the road. Wasn’t but a jungle
rat’s trail through that swamp till us and Phil scraped and cleared it.”
“You did a lousy job,” I said. “My trucks busted more than
one axle bouncing down that piece of shit. And if you’re gonna cut me,
you better just kill me, because if you don’t, I’ll damn sure kill
you.”
The kid made his angry baby face again and gave the gun barrel another twist. “You
don’t scare me, Turner,” he said. “Mr. Fortunado’s
looking out for Phil and his guys. You’re not gonna risk pissing off
Mr. Fortunado.”
“Bullshit, kiddo” I said. “Mal wouldn’t hire a geek like
you to carry out his trash, or Phil, either. If Phil told you he and Mal are
hooked up, he’s lying.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said, leaning in close again. “You’re
just trying to talk your way out of the cuttin’ up you got coming.”
“There’s one thing you should hear first,” I said. “You’ll
get a bang out of
“No, you’re gettin’ cut, Turner,” he said. “I’ve
had enough of your---“
I fired the 45 through my coat, aiming for his gun hand. I felt the Mauser
recoil sideways as his trigger finger jerked and a jolt of white heat seared
my belly. The kid grunted and reeled back. The knife clattered on the ground.
Cinders flew from my coat. One of the gunshots, probably his, had set it
on fire.
I must’ve banged my head in his face, because he toppled backward as
I slid down the wall. The next thing I knew he was looming over me with that
pistol in my gut again, blood running down the back of his hand and down the
gun barrel, acrid smoke billowing from the burnt fabric and flesh, blood oozing
between his teeth and split lip, and the muzzle of my 45 at the side of his
mouth as I swung it up and fired.
His teeth sprayed out as he tumbled over, head whiplashing back and pulling
his body down like a dropped anchor, skull smacking hard and bouncing. Then
he lay there twitching, bloody gums flapping against each other, eyes staring
up at nothing, blood and brains oozing out, crotch of his pants darkening
as a broad lake formed between his legs and ran toward the sidewalk. It was
the free and voluminous discharge of a dead man’s piss.
“How ya doin’, Turner?” said Girogio. The fat little Greek had his apron tied round his fat little waist, standing a respectful distance away in the mouth of the alley. He was one of the few people I knew who called me by my real name.
“How you doing yourself, Giro?” I said. A native of Athens, Greece,
Giorgio Antony Anapolis came over in steerage aboard the Mauretania in 1910.
When he landed on Ellis Island, an astigmatic clerk misspelled Giorgio’s
name on his immigration card. Giorgio didn’t mind. If America welcomed
him to her shores as Girogio, then so be it, that was his name.
“Business OK?” I said.
“It’s OK,” he said. “Family OK, everything OK. You OK?”
“Couldn’t be better,” I said, slapping him on the back as I
stepped out on the sidewalk.
“That’s what you say all the time,” he said. His thick black
eyebrows met in the middle as he frowned.
“You don’t stay alive in this town by telling people your sorrows,
Giro,” I said.
He nodded sadly. “Sure,” he said. “You let the music do it
for you, don’t you, Johnny?”
“You know me too well, Giro,” I said. I gave him a couple of my business
cards with “admission & two cocktails” scribbled on the back
under my signature. “I got Ria Quatro at the Tropicale this week, and Lola
Delio at the Haute ‘n Taut Room Tuesday and Thursday. Check ‘em out
if the wife will let you out of the house.”
He smiled and took the cards, patting me on the back with a brotherly cluck
and a shake of his head. “Everything’s not OK, is it?”
“You haven’t seen Lola today, have you?”
“No,” he said. “I’ll tell her you’re looking for
her if I do.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Be careful, Turner,” he said. “You know Alex, he’s got
a terrible temper. It’s not healthy.”
“No,” I said. “Not for anybody.”
Girogio was frowning when I walked away. The little man had the blackest eyebrows
I’d ever seen.
Ria Quatro had the happy hour crowd lulled into submission with her smoky voice and see-through outfit. It was a wild, exotic thing that tied up her breasts in black mesh and made jeweled volcanoes of her nipples, while more strategic rhinestones made a thundercloud sprouting silver lightning of her pussy, and more shiny costume jewelry dribbled from her wrists and fingers. The Tropicale was a dark little speakeasy just off Salt Street, around the corner from the place where the Alibi Lounge used to be. After the Alibi burned down, a retired Quaker whaling captain put up an apartment building where he ran chippies and put up his old salty brothers on the cheap.
I managed Ria but I didn’t know her that well. She knew me well enough
that after seeing me come in, she bumped the set list around and sang my song.
I’d never requested it, but all the girls sang it for my sake anyway.
When the fire started nobody knows
But they suspected a redhead in an overcoat
A malicious smile, a rumble below
The walls are shaking, she’s starting to blowA shot rang out, a young girl cried
It’s a force of nature, it can’t be denied
It’s a full moon howl, a hoot owl screech
If I said I loved you,
I said it in a dream
The story was, the song came out on an RCA Victor 78 by Johnny Lang and the Heartbreakers. They said Lang wrote the lyric in 1929, after his girlfriend was killed walking down Broadway in New York the day of the stock market crash. Some banker jumped out the window of his tenth floor office and landed on the poor girl like a ton of bricks. According to rumors, Lang recorded the song and then one night a couple of weeks later he went backstage after a gig and ate his gun. The title he gave the arrangement was “If I Told You Something,” but nobody called it by that name. “Johnny Heartbreak” was a lot easier to remember and that was the name that stuck.
The reason they called me by that name was a little more complicated.
I liked Ria’s singing but I liked Lola’s better. As Ria sang and
I nursed my beer I pictured Lola in my mind, her plump lips and looming eyes
and wonderful breasts, her voice soaring slow and graceful as a big bird on
an updraft spiral into the sun. I remembered last night watching Lola cradle
the microphone and pull it closer to her lips, and thinking about her putting
me inside her mouth and driving me insane. Nights with Tina had been that,
too, like running mad through some dark jungle, tap dancing on alligators’ backs,
playing jump music on a trumpet for a basket full of cobras. Watching Ria made
me think of Lola, and being with Lola made me think of Tina. It was a vicious
cycle, but it was a workable relationship, and a guy could do a whole lot worse.
Lola almost never spent the night at my place. It wasn’t safe. She was
Alex’s mistress, and even though Alex had a good Greek wife and five
kids, a gang boss couldn’t stand for anybody screwing his mistress. Some
kid he hired for a driver happened to remark one day that Lola had nice hips.
The kid woke up in an alley with broken hands and feet.
When she finished the song, Ria smiled at the applause, reaping it with a scythe-like
sweep of her red fingernails and sarcastic little bow, hugging her breasts
winking into the microphone.
“Me and the band’ll be back after a pause for the cause, a tweak
of the beak and a leak in the creek,” she cooed into the mike. “Don’t
go ‘way, now. OK?”
She came over to my table and waved at Butterfly Cash to bring us a couple.
She kissed me on the lips, raking her chest jewels against me before letting
go.
“Johnny Heartbreak,” she said. “Thanks for dropping in.”
“You sound good and look good and smell good,” I said. “Have
you seen Lola?”
“Thanks for the preamble, Johnny, but it’d be nice if you’d
beat around the bush just a teeny bit more,” she said. “You can beat
around my bush any time you feel like it. You know that, don’t you, babe?”
“Thanks for the offer, Ria. Seen her?”
“Not since you left with her last night,” she said, feigning a pout.
Butterfly set our drinks down and waved her hand, magically making our bar tab
disappear. “Been to her place?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Nobody there except the cat and he seemed
lonely.”
“Look who’s talking, Johnny Heartbreak.”
“How about Lola’s pals, like Minkie Meyer, Bonnie Everest, or Boni
Maroni?”
“Those are all working girls, Johnny.”
“Seen them?”
“They’re probably working.” She sipped her drink. “They
haven’t been in here, babe, that’s all I know.”
“What about Sally Twist?”
She gave me a hard stare, then looked down at her drink. “She’s
not in circulation anymore. You know that, don’t you?”
I nodded. Sally Twist was Mal Fortunado’s girl on the side. Like Alex
the Greek, Mal had a wife and kids. Mal also had Sally, nicely tucked away
in a top floor apartment downtown. “Seen her?”
Ria shook her head. “You sure sucked down that drink fast. Long day?”
“Long and strange,” I said, “as a two-headed snake.”
“Care to share it with me?” she said, her nipples glistening like
tiny silver porcupines with quills made of light.
“Something would get lost in the translation,” I said. “But
thanks anyway.”
After downing another drink, I left the Tropicale and went down the street
to hail a cab. I walked just as far as the place where the Alibi used to
be. The place burned down a week after I shot the kid in the mouth.
My coat was still smoldering when I drove down to the docks and braced Filthy Phil. He was in a corner of his shed sorting out scrap metal. He ran a salvage operation.
He looked up at me and his mouth dropped open and funny little yelp came out.
He looked even more alarmed when the smell hit him. It was just a flesh wound,
but the heat had charcoaled a couple of square inches of my belly.
“Damn, Turner, you look like shit,” he said.
“You fucked up, Phil,” I said. “You sent a boy to do a man’s
job.”
“Oh, fuck a duck,” he drawled. His skin was oily, his complexion
a greenish gray. “Maxey was supposed to take a couple of guys with him.
But you do owe me money. You can’t blame a guy for trying to collect.”
“You’re not gonna collect shit from me,” I said. “Not
ever.”
“Hey, my boys scraped out that road and it took plenty of muscle, believe
me,” he said. “Snake bit, mosquito bit, alligator bit, and terminal
shits. Cost me near five hundred bucks scraping out that trail, and now everybody’s
making money off it.”
“Tough shit,” I said. “You gonna eat that five hundred. I don’t
wanna hear about it ever again, and if you fuck with me again, you’re gonna
eat something else, too. Just like the boy you sent after me.”
Phil scratched his greasy head for a second. “Maxey, is he gonna be OK?”
“He’ll be fine,” I said. “Just say a prayer he doesn’t
start some shit with St. Pete when he sees him, and maybe he’ll get a pass
through pearly gates after all.”
“Huh?” he said, his dark face wrinkled like an old boot.
“Here,” I said, taking Phil’s hand and pouring the kid’s
teeth into his palm. “See that his mother gets these so she can put them
in with what’s left of him.”
He looked down at his hand and it was trembling as if I’d dropped a chunk
of ice into it. He ducked his head down low and stepped back from me, into
the shadows. “He ain’t g-g-got no mother,” he stuttered. “Just
got a sis-sis-sister.”