While Adam and Marissa were hugging and slobbering like babies, Johnny was listening in on a conversation between a gray- haired detective- later he’d find out his name was Clements- and some other cop. Although Johnny was only catching bits and pieces, it sounded like they weren’t sold on the idea that Tony had killed Dana Bloom. Johnny didn’t know why this was, but he didn’t waste a second and started working on his backup plan. See, this was what set Johnny apart from the two- bit criminals who were crammed into jails all over the country- he never got complacent; his mind was always working, thinking ahead.
Naturally Marissa asked him to sit next to her while Clements was questioning her. She needed him so badly now, she couldn’t bear to be without him for even a few minutes. Johnny loved it when Clements asked Adam if he could “wait in the other room;” the look on his face was priceless, like he already knew what was about to go down and how screwed he was and how there was nothing he could do to stop it. Then Clements asked Marissa about Adam, if she’d ever seen him threaten Dana, and it was beautiful how Marissa mentioned Adam had pushed Dana that one time and knocked her down. Now Clements was really starting to believe that Adam was his man.
When Johnny finally got alone with Marissa in her room, and she was telling him how lucky she was to have him and saying she wanted to feel him inside her, Johnny knew she was officially his. He’d hooked her so good, there was no way she was getting away now. He made love to her, slowly and passionately, the way only Johnny Long could, and then he picked up where Clements had left off, trying to get her to believe that her father had killed her mother. He knew he had to handle this carefully, not come on too strong, blaming her father. He had to let her think that it was her idea, that she’d come up with it on her own. It worked, and it was incredible- he felt like he was in total control of this girl, like he could get her to do or think anything he wanted her to. And with Adam’s own daughter believing he was guilty, who would he have to defend him?
When Adam was gone, Johnny would ask Marissa to marry him, and, come on, at this point how could she not say yes? She was already dependent on him, and when both her parents were gone she’d be desperate to start a new family. When they were married- and the way things were going, that could only be a few months from now- he’d make sure he was in her will, as her sole beneficiary, because who else would there be? She sure as hell wouldn’t want her father, that murderer, to get anything. Then Marissa would die in some “unfortunate accident”- the poor Blooms, they’d had so much tragedy in their lives- and Johnny would have everything he’d ever wanted.
Marissa was so convinced that her father was guilty, she was afraid to be in the house with him alone. Johnny said he would stay with her for as long she wanted him to-“forever if I have to”- but then her grandmother, Adam’s mother, arrived, and Johnny wanted out. He got a bad vibe from the old lady from the get- go and knew she wouldn’t be as easy to win over as the other Blooms.
“I think she hates me,” Johnny had said to Marissa. “No, that’s just the way she’s been with all my boyfriends,” Marissa said. “It’s because you’re a shagetz.”
“A what?”
“Because you’re not Jewish. My grandmother has always had this stupid thing in her head about me having to marry a Jewish guy someday even though we’re not at all religious.”
“How does she know I’m not Jewish?”
“She knows,” Marissa said, and that was exactly what Johnny was worried about. If the old lady could tell he wasn’t Jewish, what else could she tell? Johnny didn’t want to take any chances, especially when everything was going so well.
With her grandma staying in the guest room next door, Marissa didn’t seem as worried about being in the same house with her father, so Johnny came up with a good excuse to go back to his apartment- he needed to get his suit for the funeral. Marissa wanted to go with him but decided she should probably stay and be with her family.
When Johnny left, the reporters, who’d been camped out there all day, swarmed him, shouting questions. Johnny told them he was just “a friend of the family,” and he didn’t stop to talk to them. At the subway station, he bought the Post and News. Marissa had already told him that Tony had an alibi for the murder and might be off the hook and that Adam was the main suspect now, but even the papers that had come out early this morning were slamming Adam. Each paper had about two or three pages on the story, focusing on how Adam Bloom, the crazed vigilante who had shot and killed an intruder in his house less than two weeks ago, was now a suspect in his wife’s murder. While the articles focused on Tony as a suspect, the Post called the Blooms “the philandering couple” and said that the Blooms’ marriage had been “in crisis” since the break- in and that Adam Bloom might have “snapped again” and killed his wife. And Johnny loved that Clements had called Adam “a person of interest” in the case. Reading this on the subway to Brooklyn, he couldn’t help laughing out loud. For years, Johnny had been running away from the cops, and now, in a weird way, a cop was actually helping him get the biggest score of his life. He almost felt like Clements deserved a cut of the action.
Later on during the subway ride, Johnny spotted the couple with the engagement ring. He wouldn’t need the ring for a while, but he’d learned a long time ago that when an opportunity comes along to get what you want, go for it, because you don’t know when you’ll get that chance again.
At his apartment, he was checking out the ring- it didn’t have any noticeable flaws; maybe it was worth more than he’d thought- when he got a text from Marissa:
I miss you so so much!!
Man, Johnny loved his life. In the morning, Johnny met Marissa outside the funeral home in Forest Hills. She was already a mess- dark circles under her bloodshot eyes, streaks of mascara on her cheeks- so he had to shift right into supportive boyfriend mode. This might’ve been hard to pull off for some guys, but not for Johnny. He even managed to squeeze out some tears.
The funeral seemed to take forever, the rabbi going on about what a wonderful, caring person Dana had been and how much she’d be missed. At one point the rabbi called her “a loving wife.” And Johnny- probably like everybody else in the chapel- was thinking, Yeah, but loving to who?
Everyone was sobbing, especially Marissa and Adam. But Adam was almost crying too much. It seemed to Johnny that a lot of Adam’s crying was for show, not because he was faking it- he was probably actually upset- but because he knew other people, including Marissa and any reporters who’d gotten into the chapel, were watching him to make sure he was crying as much as a grieving husband should be. A couple of times Johnny saw Marissa look over at her father, and Adam would immediately start crying or blow his nose extra loud or do something to prove how upset he was.
Johnny rode with Adam, Marissa, and Marissa’s grandmother- Grandma Ann- to the cemetery. Johnny was doing a great job with the whole grieving act, but, man, it took a lot of work. In the back of the limo, the old biddy kept looking over at him, giving him the evil eye, glaring through her Coke- bottle glasses. He knew it wasn’t just because he wasn’t Jewish; there was more to it than that.
At the grave, Johnny actually felt sad for the first time all day. It was a shame that Dana had died before Johnny had a chance to screw her, before she had a chance to experience the orgasms that you could only experience with Johnny Long. Talk about tragedy.
Johnny had to continue to console Marissa, and he was running out of bullshit to say to make her feel better. How many times could he tell her “I know” and “She’s in a better place” and “It’s gonna be okay?” Meanwhile, Adam was still overdoing it. When they lowered the coffin into the ground he collapsed, crying, but then he started beating the ground with his fists, like a baby having a fit. Johnny was thinking, Fists? Come on, gimme a break. At one point, Johnny even saw Marissa look over at her father and roll her eyes slightly.