Chances Page 2

  Lucky frowned even more deeply. Fuck it. Gino. Her father. The only man alive who had ever told her what to do and got away with it. But she wasn’t a little girl any more, and Gino was just going to have to realize the fact that he was no longer boss, No sirree. She wasn’t about to give it all up. Power—the ultimate aphrodisiac. She was in control. She planned to stay in control. And he was just going to have to accept that fact.

  Steven Berkely did not even look up from his newspaper when Lucky got in the elevator. Eye contact was always a mistake, it led to mundane conversations like “Isn’t it hot today” or “Nice weather we’re having.” Elevator conversations were a total waste of time. Lucky took no notice of him either. She was thinking of the problems that lay ahead.

  Steven continued to read the paper, and Lucky was busy with her own thoughts, when, with a sudden stomach-lifting jolt, the elevator ground to a stop mid-floors, and the lights went out, plunging them both into inky blackness.

  Dario and the dark-haired boy moved at the same time. But Dario was quicker; he slid out of the bedroom and slammed the door shut in his adversary’s face. Fortunately the key was in the lock, and he turned it without hesitation. Now he had the boy locked in the bedroom. And the boy had him locked in the apartment. Dario cursed his ultra-safe security system. He had only thought in terms of keeping people out. It had never occurred to him that someone would be able to double-lock him into his own apartment. They were both trapped, damn it. What could he do, call the police? That would be a laugh. They would have to break the door down, and then what? The humiliation of having to admit that a crazy transient lay was locked in his bedroom with a knife—and worse, a male lay. They would know he was gay—and oh, God, if it got back to his father….

  No. Dario had no plans to call the police.

  Of course, Lucky would know exactly what to do in a situation like this. She knew exactly what to do in any situation. But how could he call upon her when she might have planted the boy in the first place? Screw Lucky. Cool. Calm. Assured. More balls than a tennis court. Screw Lucky.

  A vicious kick against the bedroom door spurred Dario into immediate action. He checked his desk and ascertained with horror that his .25 pistol was indeed missing. So not only did the boy have a knife, he had his gun, and it was possible that any second he would shoot the lock off the bedroom door and come walking out.

  He felt a shiver of fear run through his body. It was at that precise moment that all the lights in the apartment went off, and darkness enveloped everything. Dario was trapped, locked into deadly blackness with a maniac stranger.

  Carrie Berkely felt sure she was lost. The streets of Harlem—once so familiar—seemed harsh and remote. Locked into the air-conditioned comfort of her Cadillac, she looked out into streets of despair. Opened hydrants gushed water onto sweaty sidewalks, and lethargic groups of people slouched against walls or squatted on the steps of broken-down houses.

  The Cadillac had been a mistake. She should have taken a cab. But everyone knew cabs would no longer venture into the streets of Harlem—especially not in the midst of a heat wave when the natives were hot, angry, and restless.

  She spotted a supermarket and drew into the adjoining parking lot. Leave the car. Walk. After all, there were too many people on the street for it not to be safe. And besides which, she still possessed the best insurance of all—a black face. She could ask directions at the checkout counter. It was best to leave the car anyway, although she had taken the precaution of obscuring the plates.

  She parked the car and walked into the market. Black or not, she was getting stared at. Too late she realized she just didn’t blend in any more. She looked expensive, smelled expensive. The diamond clips in her hair, the diamond earrings, the diamond solitaire ring she had forgotten to remove.

  Two youths fell into step behind her. She quickened her pace. There was a girl at the checkout busying herself with picking her teeth.

  “Can you tell me—” Carrie began. She never finished her sentence. Before she could, the entire place was plunged into darkness.

  Air turbulence had never bothered Gino. In fact he rather enjoyed the feel of being buffeted around. If he shut his eyes he could imagine he was on a motorboat in rough seas or driving a pickup truck over rocky terrain. He could never understand people who were frightened of flying.

  He glanced across the aisle at a thin blond woman traveling alone. She was desperately clutching a small hip flask, taking long gulps of whatever alcoholic beverage it held.

  He smiled comfortingly. “It’s only a summer storm, nothin’ to worry about. We’ll be landing before you know it.”

  The woman lowered her flask. She was middle-aged and well dressed. Probably quite a looker in her time. Gino prided himself on being an expert when it came to women’s looks—after all, he had had the best, the crème de la crème: movie stars, showgirls, society dames. Yes, he knew a thing or two about women.

  “I… I can’t take all this bumping about,” she confessed. “I absolutely hate it.”

  “Move over here and I’ll hold your hand if it’ll make you feel any better,” he suggested.

  The woman jumped at this chance of reassuring physical contact and undid her seat belt. She hesitated for only a moment, a tentative, “Are you sure?” And without waiting for an answer she was next to him, strapped in, digging long tense fingernails into the palm of his hand.

  He didn’t mind. Hell—if it made her feel better.

  “You must think I’m awfully stupid,” she said, “but just holding on to someone makes me feel so much more relaxed.”

  “Yeh, I know what you mean.” He looked out the window at the sea of lights spread out below. New York City. What a beautiful sight. “Hey!” he exclaimed suddenly.

  “What?” asked the woman tensely.

  “Nothin’.” Gino kept his voice nonchalant. He didn’t want her any more nervous than she already was. And Christ—would she be nervous if she’d just seen what he had!

  New York had vanished before his very eyes. One moment a dazzling fairy city of lights, the next—nothing. A sea of blackness. Jeeze! He had heard of homecomings, but this was ridiculous.

  Gino

  1921

  “Stop it!”

  “Why?”

  “You know why.”

  “Tell me again.”

  “Gino, no. I mean it—no.”

  “But you like it….”

  “I don’t, I don’t. Oh, Gino! Ooooh!”

  It was always the same story. No, Gino. Don’t do it, Gino. Don’t touch me there, Gino. And the story always had a happy ending. As soon as he found the magic button they stopped protesting, the legs opened, and they hardly noticed when he removed his finger and replaced it with his fine upstanding Italian prick.

  Gino the Ram was his nickname—and it was true that he had screwed more ass than any other boy on his block. Not bad for a fifteen-year-old.

  Gino Santangelo. A likable boy. A fast-talking boy now rooming with his twelfth foster family and looking to get out. He had arrived in New York at the age of three, in 1909. His parents, a young Italian couple, had heard reports of the fortunes to be made in America and decided to try their luck. His mother, Mira, a pretty eighteen-year-old. His father, Paolo, barely twenty but ready with innocent enthusiasm for all that America had to offer.

  Work was hard to find. Mira got a job in a garment factory. Paolo did whatever came his way—which wasn’t always legal.

  Gino gave no trouble to the various women who looked after him while his parents worked. Every evening at five thirty his mother would collect him. It was the moment he looked forward to all day.

  When he was five years old she failed to arrive. The woman who was caring for him got annoyed when nobody came. “Where’s ya momma? Eh? Eh?” She kept on screaming at him.

  As if he would know. He held his tears in check and waited patiently.

  At seven o’clock his father turned up. A worried, pinched-looking man, his
face white and older than his years.

  The babysitter was enraged by this time. “You pay extra, you hear me? Five thirty I want the kids out of here. No later.”

  There followed a short sharp argument between his father and the woman. Insults were exchanged, then money. Even at five Gino had observed that his father was not one of life’s winners.

  “Where is momma?” Gino asked.

  “I don’t know,” Paolo muttered, swinging his son onto his shoulders and hurrying to the one room they called home, where he fed him and put him to bed.

  The dark was not comforting. Gino wanted his mother desperately, but he knew he must not cry. If he didn’t cry she would be back before morning. If he did…

  Mira never returned. A manager at the factory where she worked disappeared also, an older man with three children—all girls. When Gino was of an age he sought those girls out, one by one, and systematically screwed them. It was the only form of justice he could think of, but it was an empty revenge.

  After Mira’s defection, life changed. Gradually Paolo became bitter and violent, and Gino was the butt of his violence. By the age of seven he had been in the hospital five times, but he was a tough little kid who knew his way around. He became adept at hiding from Paolo when it seemed a beating was on the way—and because there was no child to vent his anger on, Paolo took to beating his girl friends, of whom there were many. This little practice landed him in prison—and Gino saw the inside of his first foster home. By comparison, life with his father had been paradise.

  Paolo soon decided that crime paid, and he was an easy recruit for any job going. Jail became his second home, and Gino spent more and more time in foster homes.

  When Paolo was not in prison, women were his main interest. He called them “the bitches.” “All they want is sex,” he confided to his son, “an’ that’s all they’re good for.”

  Gino—sometimes trapped in the same room—would watch his father go at them like a bull. It disgusted him. At the same time it excited him. When he was eleven he tried it for himself with a raddled old whore who grabbed twenty cents and muttered curses throughout.

  Gino, watched by a circle of admiring friends, shrugged as he climbed off. “It ain’t bad,” he admitted. “Beats jerkin’ off!”

  “Come back again, sonny,” the whore cackled. Even at eleven his manhood was a prize.

  At fifteen he was street-wise, a bright sharp boy who knew how to keep his mouth shut. He was admired and looked up to by the kids on the street. Sought out by the older boys when they could make good use of him on one of their minor jobs, and idolized by the girls.

  Grown-ups were suspicious of him: a fifteen-year-old boy with the bleak hard eyes of a man. Somehow, in spite of his ready smile, there was something almost threatening about him.

  He was not very tall—five foot six inches, a fact which bothered him—and religiously he worked on his body, running, playing baseball, doing knee bends, pushups, stretch-outs.

  He had black curly hair, another physical fact he didn’t like, so he plastered on the grease to smooth it down. His complexion was dark and clear and he was not bothered by the unsightly acne which seemed to plague his friends—a definite plus. He was not good-looking in the conventional sense—his nose too big, his lips too fleshy—but he had a wonderful smile and great teeth.

  The combination worked. Gino Santangelo had style.

  “Gino—no!”

  “Aw, c’mon, Susie. Let me just put it there, just next to you. I won’t put it in, I swear I won’t!”

  “But Gino…”

  “There. I told you. Doesn’t that feel good?”

  “Mmmm, I guess… But don’t move, promise you won’t move.”

  “’Course not. I just want to be next to you, that’s all.” Gently he eased his prick inside her.

  “What are you doing?” she squealed.

  “Just gettin’ comfortable,” he replied, easing his hand down between her legs, feeling for the magic button. Susie gave a little sigh. He had found it.

  “Feel nice?” he inquired solicitously.

  “Oh, yes, Gino. Oh, yes.”

  All set. No problem. Keeping his fingers on target, he started to screw her properly.

  She did not object. He knew how to please. He had been taught at the tender age of twelve by his fourth foster mother how to find the magic button. It was a lesson he was forever grateful for. It gave him the edge over the other boys, who thought all there was to screwing was a fast shove. Gino knew it was just as important to make the girl like it—want it—even beg for it. He never revealed his secret to his friends, who were forever envious of his success rate.

  Susie was becoming agitated, wriggling and gasping alarmingly. He increased his stroke.

  God but he loved the feel of pussy.

  God but he wished he could find a girl who would say no.

  “Ooooh, Gino!”

  He climaxed. Withdrew. Pulled on his pants.

  “We shouldn’t have done that,” Susie stated gravely. But her cheeks were glowing with pleasure, her small nipples extended and pert.

  “Why not? It was good, wasn’t it?”

  She giggled her agreement.

  Gino was now dressed and ready to beat a hasty retreat from the disused garage, where it was cold and murky. “Gotta meet the boys,” he excused himself.

  “Will I see you soon?”

  “Yeh, I’m always around.”

  Susie scuttled off in one direction. Gino—hands dug deep into his trouser pockets—strode jauntily the other way.

  The boys were waiting for him, a seedy group of misfits hanging around outside a run-down drugstore. His best friend was a wiry boy named Catto, who worked with his father on the garbage dumps so there was always a vague stink to him. “Not my fault,” Catto would shrug cheerfully. There was no bath in his house, and to use the public ones on 109th Street usually meant a two-hour wait. Catto’s ambition was to find a girl with a bathroom.

  Another close friend was Pinky Banana Kassari, a tall boy given to flashing his large penis, which did indeed resemble a pink banana—thus the nickname.

  “Get any gash?” asked Pinky.

  “Naw, I struck out,” Gino replied with a grin.

  “Lying fucker…” mumbled Catto.

  They all knew the day that Gino Santangelo failed to score would be an unusual day indeed.

  “So what we gonna do tonight?” Gino inquired.

  The boys mumbled among themselves, coming up with suggestions, then turning to their leader and uttering the usual “Whatever ya say.”

  “I say we have some fun,” Gino asserted. It was Saturday night, he had just gotten laid, and he felt good. It didn’t matter that he had no more than ten cents to his name, that his shoes had holes in them, that the foster parents he was living with hated the sight of him. He wanted some fun. He was entitled, wasn’t he?

  They set off downtown like a pack of rats, Gino in the lead. He walked with an exaggerated swagger, bouncing softly on the balls of his feet, rocking and weaving from side to side. There were eight of them hissing and catcalling at passing girls: “Hey, honey, wanna little my honey?” “Wow-wow, Pretty Baby, I could go to jail for what I’m thinking!”

  Gino was the first to spot the car: a long sleek white-and-brown job parked casually with—he could hardly believe their luck—the keys in! It took only seconds for the boys to somehow jam and squeeze themselves in, and quick as a flash, Gino—in the driver’s seat, naturally—shot away from the curb. Since leaving school the previous month he had been working as an auto mechanic and had picked up a good knowledge of cars. He realized at once that driving came naturally to him, and after an initial clashing of gears they were off and running smoothly, all the way to Coney Island.

  The boardwalk was deserted, and an icy wind was blasting in from the sea. But it didn’t matter. They ran riot along the beach, screaming and laughing, scooping up clumps of sand, which they flung at each other.

  The
y were easy pickings for the patrolman who waited patiently by the stolen car, gun in hand.

  It was the first time Gino had been in trouble with the police. As the driver of the car—a fact he readily admitted—the brunt of the punishment came down on him. He was given one year at the New York Protectory for Boys, a tough home in the Bronx for orphans and first-time offenders.

  Gino had never been shut up before. He felt immediately threatened and hemmed in. The brothers in charge of the place were a hard bunch of men. Discipline was the order of the day, and messing with the young boys was sometimes the order of the night. Gino was disgusted. The little kids didn’t have a chance.

  He was given a job in the tailor shop which he hated. Brother Philippe ran the shop with a rod of steel, and any boy caught slacking off got a beating with his yardstick. When Gino’s turn came, Brother Philippe offered him an alternative. Gino spat in his face. From that day on he never went more than three days without a beating.

  When he had been there six months, a skinny little orphan not yet thirteen arrived. The boy—named Costa—was easy meat for Brother Philippe, who wasted no time in going after him. The kid objected but it did him no good. The other boys watched blankly as Brother Philippe would frogmarch Costa into the back room and do things to him that caused the small boy to scream out in agony.

  Gino, along with the others, did nothing. Six weeks went by. Costa shrunk before their eyes. If thin and undernourished when he came in, he was now a stick. Gino tried to stay out of it. Survival meant keeping to yourself.

  The next time Costa was singled out, Gino felt himself tense up. The small boy was whimpering and objecting, but Brother Philippe dragged him by the arm and slammed the door of the back room shut anyway. The painracked cries and screams started almost immediately.