Wilmington Woman's Club Ch. 00

May, 1981 – Bayonne, New Jersey

Marty & Gloria

Gloria came home from work in tears. She had been laid off unexpectedly. She chucked her purse roughly on the table and kicked her shoes off before sitting down at the kitchen table. She began to sob. They needed the money she'd brought home. It wasn't much, but it helped pay some bills. Marty hadn't brought anything to the table for several months now, in fact, he'd used a great deal of their savings planning something that she knew was just a pipe dream. "A big score," he'd said.

'Huh,' she thought, 'another score like the last one. Big shot! He'd almost gotten killed... It was so stupid, him and Ray-Ray, robbing that jewelry store -- with its silent alarm they hadn't figured on.

"You're home early," a husky male voice said softly.

Gloria whirled around toward the voice. "Oh, Marty!"

He stood there bare to the waist and shoeless, his face marked with concern.

"What is it? What's the matter, Glow?"

"They...they let me go," she stammered.

He came to her, placed his big hands on her frail shoulders. The tears came then, carving a trail for her mascara to follow down her cheeks.

As sad and upset as she was, Gloria still felt a twinge in her stomach at the sight of him without a shirt.

"Honest, Marty, I didn't fuck up. They said... they said, they had to cut back and I had the least seniority."

Marty's hands massaged her back, trying to ease the tension and pain from what he knew had been a terrible experience.

Gloria felt her sorrow lifting and her desire growing under the skill of his wonderful hands. 'How does he do it?' she wondered.How does he manage to turn me on every time he touches me? No other guy ever managed it.

"Glow," he said, using his nickname for her, "I just showered. I gotta go and meet some guys. I'm real sorry you got laid off. But we'll be all right, you'll see. We're gonna be fine, and soon, baby, real soon."

"Do you gotta go?" Gloria said, hating herself for pleading with him to stay.

"Yeah, I gotta. But maybe I can help cheer you up before I go."

His words stirred the hair at the back of her neck, sent a tingle straight to her cunt.

"I can only stay a little while, Glow, you know? I mean, the guys are gonna be waiting...."

Marty's lips brushed her ear. She shuddered with anticipation, and reached between his legs.

"Now you're getting it," he said, and they both laughed lewdly.

Marty grabbed her shoulders, spun her around, and pushed her roughly against the refrigerator.

His hand closed on her chin, their eyes met, and each saw the heat in the others. Gloria pursed her lips; his mouth closed in on her lower lip.

She moaned.

He ran his tongue over both of hers, took her lower lip between his teeth, bit hard enough to draw blood and a loud moan from her.

"Sorry," he said.

"No, you're not. But do it again if you want," she groaned, shoving her pelvis into him.

He repeated the act, but failed to bite her lip again. He contented himself with sucking the blood and squeezing her left breast.

"You're a fuckin' vampire," she moaned when he released the lip to kiss her throat.

He felt her heart pulsing wildly under his lips.

"I vant your blood," he said, trying to imitate the old actor, Bela Lugosi.

She laughed, even though it was a terrible impersonation. She knew what was coming, felt herself growing wet between her legs. A second later, Marty tore her blouse open, popping the buttons all over the kitchen floor.

"You bastard! That was my best blouse!"

"Buy another," he said gruffly. "Tomorrow we'll be able to afford a new wardrobe."

Gloria was about to say something else, but his mouth closed over her nipple, tonguing the sensitive bud through the fabric of her bra, and she gave herself to the delectable thrill it caused.

Without another word, Marty slid the straps of the bra off her shoulders, reached into the cups of the bra and scooped out both breasts, captured one in his mouth and sucked it until it grew to its fullest. Gloria moaned contentedly, already having forgotten about getting laid off. For the moment all she cared about was the feel of his erection pressing into her belly, and the surety that she was about to get laid.

Then, with one muscular movement, Marty hoisted her up and sat her down on top of the refrigerator. A delighted Gloria slid around on it until one rounded corner fit into the cleft of her ass.

He stood there, hands cupping her ass, preventing her from falling helplessly to the floor, and began to lap at her as if she were an ice cream cone in danger of melting away. She raised a leg giving him better access to her body, only to jerk against him when several of his fingers dug into the cleft of her ass.

His tongue slipped between her labia, garnering a taste from deep within. She bucked against his mouth, crying out at how good it felt. He pressed harder, pinching her clit roughly for a second before stroking it in slow, light circles.

She grabbed the back of his head, writhed under him and held on for dear life.

"Look at you," he said, "soaking wet already."

He sent a finger into her.

She moaned. Her head lolled back, and she had to contain a primal scream from exploding from her throat as his mouth came down upon a rigid nipple at the same time he added another finger to the first.

Several moments passed. Gloria found her voice long enough to whimper, "Oh, yes," and with the mere crook of his finger he sent her reeling with sensations that throttled her body.

"Yes what?" Marty inquired.

She looked down at him, but couldn't make her voice work.

His hands ran up the backs of her calves, caressing the sensitive skin behind her knee.

A moment later he began licking her from the bottom of her sopping pussy to the top, where he sucked a full minute on her throbbing clit.

When she came, and that took several more seconds, he helped her slide off the refrigerator and slid his cock into her, waltzed her into the bedroom and dropped her on the bed. She wriggled underneath him, so close to climaxing that she was unable to lie still.

Still, she managed to grab his backside and pull him tight as she wrapped her legs around him so as to cradle his body with her own. His cock surged deep within until tapping against her cervix.

"Yessss," Marty hissed in satisfaction, and that put Gloria over the edge that she had been clinging too for several minutes.

"Yeah, come for me," he groaned, and lifted his head and watched her face as she shook violently with her orgasm.

"I love you," he murmured.

"Marty, for God's sake be careful. Don't let anything happen to you."

"I won't, you know me."

"Yeah, I do know you, Marty.

She wept for an hour after he left to join the others.

It was a four-man job. The rule of thumb for this type thing had always been the smaller the crew, the better.

The four men sat in the empty garage going over the details of the robbery for what seemed the ten-thousandth time. Marty Piatkowski and Ray-Ray Randino were sticklers for detail. They agreed that it had saved their respective asses more than once and had no problem examining each and every step again and again, until almost certain they had it right. Both men knew that there was always something that could go wrong. The repetition was to anticipate that possibility, to address it and to eliminate it. If elimination proved impossible, they looked for an alternative. They performed this ritual for each and every step of the operation.

Conrad Gentner, who had grown up with Marty, was bored by it all, and made no pretension of it. The fourth member, Johnny Boy Stampanato, was working with the others for the first time, having been recommended by another crony, Sammy Pardo.

Marty liked to live large, and he stole cars, hijacked trucks, robbed high-stakes poker games, and lifted payrolls to support his lifestyle. Whenever he was flush with cash, he hoovered up cocaine for breakfast and Maker's Mark for lunch. He was usually so jittery from dope and hung over from booze that he seldom bothered to eat.

Ray-Ray had always watched his back when he was like this, shepherding him back home safely, and had done so for years. But when Ray-Ray had lost his wife to breast cancer three months earlier, it had been Marty who forswore the coke and the booze to look after his friend in his time of need.

Marty jumped out of the Chevy with a gun in one hand and the packet of explosives in the other. Conrad was out and running toward the backdoor, and Johnny Boy stayed hunched over the wheel, his foot racing the engine. The armored car lay on its side, its wheels still spinning, and smoke pouring out of its engine. Ray-Ray was at the front door of the armored car, trying the door handles without success.

Marty ran to the rear door of the armored car and had to shove Conrad away in order to slap the explosive against the metal near the lock so that the suction cup adhered. He pulled the cord and stepped back out of sight. Conrad, although highly agitated, had the presence of mind to join him. The explosion was short and flat, with a little puff of gray smoke that lifted into the air.

"Hurry the fuck up," Conrad barked, waving his Uzi around carelessly.

"I'm going as fast as I can. Now watch where the fuck you point that thing." Marty snarled, "We ain't killed nobody, so don't unless we really have to."

"Yeah, yeah," Conrad replied and sniffed, and Marty knew Conrad had been doing coke while waiting for the armored car to show.

The door to the armored car was hanging open. Smoke and blackness was all that he could see inside. Ray-Ray sidled up to Conrad and Marty. "Fucker's on the phone in there. I can't get at him."

There were no sirens yet. They were in an isolated spot, but still within the city, but there were no private homes or businesses in sight. He made a mental note not to work with Conrad again, and rapped his gun against the armored car.

"C'mon the fuck out, all's we want is the money. We don't want to kill nobody."

There was no response.

"At the count of five, I'm droppin' a grenade in there. Should be some money left, but won't be much of you," Marty rasped.

"Wait, wait!" a voice called out. "My partner's hurt. I gotta drag him out."

"C'mon out, motherfucker!" Conrad shouted the elation in his voice evident to everybody there.

They heard a shuffling sound, and in seconds a guard backed out, bent over and pulling his buddy by the armpits. The partner was unconscious and bleeding from the scalp.

Johnny Boy ran from the car carrying a satchel and gave it to Marty who climbed into the armored car. He knew what he wanted and moved fast in the semi-darkness. Outside, he heard Johnny Boy tell the guard to hold his partner's head up in case he was bleeding and swallowing the blood. It made no sense to Marty, who never stopped working except to shake his head in wonder at the idiotic suggestion coming from their driver.

A siren filled the air.Not all that far away,Marty thought, and decided he had enough: he closed the satchel and climbed out of the armored car. The conscious guard was kneeling over his buddy like it was a battle scene. But then it was one, of sorts.

Marty tapped the satchel as a signal to get back to the car, and they all ran to the Chevy and got in. Johnny Boy stood on the gas pedal and the Chevy roared away, wheels spinning as the car slued its rear end to the left and then the right.

"Take it easy!" Conrad yelled. He knew Johnny Boy was a second-rate driver, but he was the best they could do for this job, and he did know the city better than any of them.

Johnny Boy finally eased up on the gas, allowing the tires to grab, and they started to make their getaway. Off in the distance they saw the dot of a flashing red light.

Johnny Boy turned to the men in the back seat and hollered, "I'll have to take the second choice route."

"Do it!" Marty told him, wanting to kill him for his ineptitude in driving the getaway car.

They'd worked out three ways of leaving the scene, depending on circumstances. Johnny Boy should just have taken the route and not fooled around telling them what he was doing or going to do.

They were well ahead of the game. The flashing red lights were over a mile away, but for some reason Johnny Boy was flooring the accelerator again. There was no justification for it, and Conrad slapped the back of his head, and told him to slow down.

Instead of slowing down, Johnny Boy turned his head to look back at him, saying, "The fuck you do that for?"

Suddenly they were off the road. The Chevy rolled over four times before winding up on its right side against a chain-link fence next to a nearly empty parking lot. Conrad was thrown around in the back seat, but not knocked out. He did a rapid assessment of things. Johnny Boy had a huge sliver of glass through his right eye, and was obviously dead, or dying. Ray-Ray's neck was broken, so there was no helping him, and Marty lay next to Conrad, unconscious.

Conrad searched for, and found the satchel with the money, and shoved the door open. It kept wanting to slam shut again, but he finally got it open to where it caught. He threw the satchel out, and followed it, making sure to slam the door shut behind him.

"Sayonara, guys," he said casually, and ran across the parking lot, putting as much distance as possible between himself and the approaching police car. A second set of flashing red lights could be seen less than a half mile away, and that caused Conrad to keep running until he thought he was safe.

The tall, bald-headed man named Mick dealt the cards. They were playing five-card draw. There was approximately seven hundred dollars in the pot and three men were still playing, hoping to rake the pot in for themselves. To the left, and facing the clock on the wall sat Fats Callahan, who was fronting the game. To his right, one chair removed was the swarthy, Sammy Pardo, a small-time muscle man, who broke people's arms and legs when they failed to pay the local loan shark his due. Sitting directly opposite Fats, was Roger Toughey, who was respected by all in attendance for his audacity under pressure, and his honesty, even among this group of thieves and criminals.

Zits, whose last name was unknown to those present, stood behind Roger, watching silently, rooting for Roger to take the pot.

Conrad Gentner stood behind Fat's at an angle so that when Pardo looked up he could see his face. When Fat's spread his cards apart just enough for Gentner to see the three tens that he held, Gentner raised his eyebrows in a signal to Pardo, telling him to fold his cards.

Toughey bet fifty dollars and Pardo folded. Fats paused for over a minute, and then raised a hundred. Toughey called, and cursed when Fat's laid his three tens down. Fats raked in the money and Mick shuffled the cards, preparing to deal the next hand.

Just then, Denny, a vertically challenged man, entered the room, waited until he was recognized and accepted by the others, and then said, "I don't guess you guys have heard. They just came in with a verdict on Marty."

Play halted, and all eyes turned to the short man who was holding his hat in hand, more out of fear than respect for those in the room. He didn't know it, but all the players were fond of him to a degree, for he had never to their knowledge harmed another human being.

"So tell us already," Fat's said, and coughed into his hand.

"It's not good. They give him twenty-five."

"Jesus Christ, Twenty-five!" Gentner exclaimed. "I mean, how the fuck could he get that stiff a sentence? They didn't have enough evidence...."

"He was in the car with the others," Toughey said sadly. "They were dead, or dying. He lived. He didn't tell them where the money was. They didn't like it that the money wasn't recovered, so Marty, being a stand-up guy and all... got stiffed 'cause he didn't give up the money."

"Yeah," Conrad interjected, "he's a stand-up guy all right."

All eyes were on Gentner; to a man they knew he was the only one to get away from the heist that went wrong. And he had the money, although exactly how much that was only Gentner knew for certain.

As if he could read their minds, Gentner said, "And I'm sure he'll get his share when he gets out."

That was as close as he could, or would come to telling the others that he had participated in the robbery without admitting it and making himself vulnerable to arrest, should one of those present find it necessary to inform on him.

Roger Toughey visited Marty Piatkowski at the Rahway State Prison on the 12th of the month. He would be the only one to visit Marty during his incarceration.

"So what brings you to this dismal place?" Marty inquired, knowing it would be news.

"Gentner says... well what he said was, um, he'll take care of you when you get out."

"How did he tell you?"

"We were playing cards at Fats', and Denny come by to tell us that you got twenty-five hard. And while the guys made the usual comments, Conrad says, and I quote: "I'm sure he'll get his share when he gets out."

"Who else was there... heard this?"

Pardo, Zit's, Fats of course... let's see... Mick, and Denny... I told you that."

"Anyone else?"

"I don't think so. A coupla guys had already left. No, Covelski was there, but he ain't into any of that shit. You know that."

Marty nodded. "So it looks like I'll be a rich son-of-a-bitch when I get out, all the interest on that dough adds up over time, you know."

Roger laughed, and then grew serious. "So... you'll let me know you need anything?"

"Yeah, thanks, Roger. I appreciate your coming out. This ain't the best place to visit anytime. So thanks. And I'll let you know I need anything. But Roger..."

"Yeah, Marty?"

"Don't come by again. They'll think you were in on the heist and bother you no end. You don't need the heat."

Roger nodded and gave Marty a wan smile. They shook hands and Roger left, glad to be out of the prison and its unpleasant memories.

Marty returned to his cell and sat on his cot, thinking,Conrad you mother, you had better keep that dough for me. Knowing its waiting will make this time pass a lot easier. But I know how fast money goes through those slimy fingers of yours.