Queens Noir

by Robert Knightly

  But I know that Joanna's comfort is a secondary concern to Uncle Mike. Far more important is getting to and from her bed without being spotted by anybody who knows them.

  Uncle Mike fancies himself the Kelly patriarch, and his authority goes unchallenged for the most part. Even as a Deputy Chief, he still has the ability to grant favors and deliver punishments. So the clan doesn't object to his relationship with Joanna, as long as he doesn't throw it in his wife's face.

  "Yes or no," Uncle Mike finally declares. "I need an answer."

  I take the .38 and shove it into my pocket. Though I haven't decided what, if anything, I plan to do, I don't have the cojones to refuse outright. I don't have the balls to seal my fate.

  "Yes," I tell him.

  Joanna has a right to her life, small and miserable though it may be. It's the only part of Uncle Mike's argument that holds up. It doesn't matter that a minute after I walk through the door, Joanna tells me I should let my hair grow out and change the color. Or that she wears a slinky jogging suit that cups her breasts and butt as though paying homage. Or that her arms and legs are firm without being muscular and she's so perfectly made up, the black-purple bruises on her face look as if they're part of the overall design. Joanna has a right to her life.

  After a perfunctory air-kiss, Joanna leads me into the kitchen, where she evaluates my potential as if I was a coat on a rack. "So, you seein' anybody?" she finally asks. When I don't respond, she says, "I could fix you up, but you scare the kind of guys I know."

  "Actually, I've got a boyfriend, Joanna. Joey Kruger. He's hung like a horse and he can hump all night. What more could I possibly ask from life?"

  As usual, my words, no matter how crude, have no appreciable effect on Joanna. Instead, she opens a cabinet next to the refrigerator, withdraws a can of Colombian coffee (the one with the likeness of the grateful peasant), and fits it into an electric can opener. I note that her arms appear boneless, then turn away.

  "I'm gonna go outside, take a look around."

  Ten minutes later, I'm back in the kitchen, hoisting a cup of coffee. "When did the fence go up?" I ask Joanna.

  "Three months ago."

  "What about the outdoor lights? When were they installed?"

  "The same time."

  "And the window bars on the first floor?"

  Joanna glances into my eyes, the gesture sly, then looks down at her coffee. "Me living here by myself, Uncle Mike thought it would be a good idea. For my security." She rubs the back of her hand across her brow, as if to erase the lie. "It's getting warm in here. Do you think I should turn on the air-conditioning?"

  Instead of answering, I lower the metal blinds, then set tables and lamps in front of as many windows as possible. When I finish, I'm nearly certain that Paulie won't be able to see into any room. Then I go back through the entire house, including the basement, checking every lock on every window and door. As I work, I become more and more pissed off by the obvious fact that Uncle Mike set this up months ago, that he knew Paulie was coming out, that he made his preparations well in advance.

  When I reenter the kitchen, I find Joanna touching up her nail polish. I lay Uncle Mike's taped .38 on the table, say, "If Paulie gets past me, you're gonna have to use this."

  Without looking up, Joanna asks, "How's he gonna get past you, Jill? I mean. . ."

  What she means is that I'm a trained sniper, that there's not a cop in the city who can shoot with me. What she means is that the way Uncle Mike arranged things, Paulie's gonna have to come through the front door and he's gonna make a lot of noise in the process. What she means is that if I do my job, if I decide, mercilessly and without warning, to execute Paulie Malone, she won't need the .38.

  Joanna inspects the nails on her right hand, then blows softly across the drying polish. Her fingers are as supple as her arms and shoulders. If she has knuckles, I can't see them.

  "From here on out," I tell her, "I want you to stay upstairs as much as possible."

  "Fine by me. I was gonna go up and change for dinner anyway.

  "Joanna, it's 3 o'clock in the afternoon." I glance at the stove. "And you haven't started cooking yet."

  The corners of her mouth pull down and she rolls her eyes. "I'm gonna take a bath," she announces. "I need to calm my nerves.

  I wait until Joanna's in the tub, then toss her room. Beneath a pair of lime -green panties in her second lingerie drawer, next to a .32 caliber automatic and a box of ammo, I find a small bundle of letters written on prison stationery.

  It only takes me a few minutes to read through them. Like every wife beater, Paulie is both contrite and optimistic. He knows he's done the wrong thing, but now he's straightening himself out. He's in therapy. He goes to Mass every Sunday. His shrink loves him. Father O'Neill loves him. Even the warden loves him.

  None of this interests me very much because I saw a lot of domestic violence when I worked patrol. Once you put them in cuffs, wife beaters are always remorseful. But what does capture my attention is Paulie's reference to a note sent by Joanna: Your letter gave me hope for the first time. I know I don't deserve another chance, but when you wrote that you never stopped loving me ...

  I slip the .32 and the ammo into the pocket of my blazer, scatter the letters on Joanna's bed where she's sure to notice them, and finally go downstairs to open the blinds on a window in the living room. From a chair set back in the shadows, I can see most of the front yard. I note that there are no trees and no tall shrubs between the house and the seven-foot fence. The newly mown lawn is a killing zone.

  By the time Paulie Malone opens the gate, steps inside, closes it behind him, I'm sure of only one thing: I'm not gonna whack him before I give him a chance to mend his ways.

  I understand the implications. This means that I have to speak to Paulie close up. It means a dedicated knucklehead with two years in prison behind him might decide that I'm the enemy and beat me to a pulp. But as I rise from the chair and head for the front door, I know I'm just gonna have to take the chance. My one consolation is that if Paulie gets past me, he'll probably murder Joanna, who's still in the bathtub.

  I meet Paulie just as he reaches the top step of the little porch. He jerks himself to a halt, but neither of its is willing to be the first to speak. I drop my gaze to the middle of his chest and wait. Two seconds, then three, then four, then ten, until there's nothing left to its but violence. I watch his torso rotate slightly, then I grab his balls, drop to one knee, and yank down as hard as I can. When his body naturally follows his jewels, I snap my head up and catch him flush on the mouth.

  He goes over backwards, slams his head into the porch railing, and drops, facedown, on the floorboards. I pull my Colt and jerk the slide back to draw his attention to the bottom line, his miserable life. He pulls himself to a sitting position, then leans against the railing and brings his hand up to his bloody mouth. Finally, he raises his eyes to look at me.

  I have to blink twice before I can meet his gaze. Paulie Malone has the saddest eyes I've ever seen, a fact that a moment before completely escaped me. Now I remember him when times were better, at Christmas and Thanksgiving. Even in the best of moods, even laughing, the pain never left his eyes.

  "You comin' back here, Paulie? Huh?" I center the Colt on his forehead. "Because if you do, I'm gonna personally serve you with the only order of protection that really matters."

  But my words don't penetrate the wall of his obsession, and Paulie responds by listing his grievances. Although he once made forty bucks an hour working the high steel at construction sites, Joanna spent every penny and more. She openly flirted with men, even with family members, even in his presence. She not only refused to cook, clean, or do laundry, she wouldn't lift a finger to augment the work of a weekly housekeeper. Worst of all, though she'd known how much he wanted children, she'd had an abortion without his permission or knowledge.

  Nice, right? But not relevant. I lower the Colt and shake my head. "Shut up for a minute, Paulie." When he qui
ets down, I continue: "Look, I don't like Joanna either. But I handle it by avoiding her as much as possible. Whereas you, Paulie, you keep comin' back. What's the point? You can't win."

  I squat down about six feet away and lean against the front door. While it's nearly 6 o'clock and the sun has dropped behind the house, the air is still warm enough to caress my neck and face. From down the block, I hear children arguing, the echoing clang of a basketball against a hoop. "What's the point?" I repeat.

  Paulie strips off his T-shirt, wads it up, and presses it to his mouth. "I can't let her go."

  "Why not, Paulie? It's not like she's the only game in town."

  "I know she loves me, Jill. The letters she wrote ... She always said she loved me."

  "The letters were a setup. You understand that? Joanna doesn't love you because she doesn't love anybody except herself." When he doesn't respond, I push his buttons again. "Joanna was your punching bag for eight years. You can't get her back. You'll never get her back. I'll kill you first."

  After a moment, Paulie opens up. "I don't understand it," he admits. "When I was with my counselor or with Father O'Neill, it always seemed easy. Turn my back, start over, there's a new life right around the corner. But at night, af ter the final count, Joanna would march into my brain like a storm trooper. It was an invasion, Jill. I'd try to throw her out, think about something else, but she stuck to me like a leech. You ever get so mad you felt as if you were gonna fly apart?"

  "Recently, Paulie. In fact, just this afternoon, when I saw what you did to Joanna's face."

  He pulls the T-shirt away from his mouth and stares down at his own blood. "Something's wrong with me," he says, "and I can't fix it. When I think about losing Joanna, I feel like my heart's gonna fall out." He probes his ribs, as if checking for leaks. "I came here yesterday sure that Joanna really wanted me back. I thought she was gonna give me another chance. When she wouldn't let me in the house, I was just blown out of the water. I asked her about the letters, what she'd written, and she told me she wrote them because she was bored. She said, `I shouldn't have done it. Like I'm sorry, all right?' Jill, I went nuts. I couldn't help it."

  Any sympathy I might have felt dropped away with the last bit: I couldn't help it. That's what all the wife beaters say. I couldn't help it. She made me do it. It's not my fault.

  "There's still a way out, Paulie. Go to your parole officer, tell him what you just told me, get yourself violated. That way you'll have some time to think it over." I'm wasting my breath. I can see it in his eyes, see the pain marching back through a hundred lifetimes.

  After a struggle, Paulie manages to stand upright. He limps across the yard, through the gate, and out into the street. When he releases the gate, it snaps back into place so hard the fence quivers on either side. "I came," he calls back over his shoulder, "to tell Joanna how sorry I am. I came to make it up to her."

  Joanna comes down at 6 o'clock to throw a pair of frozen dinners into the oven. She's wearing navy slacks over a pale blue top, an outfit that not only complements her jewelry and her eyes, but the sheen in her inky-black hair. She keeps her back to me as she unwraps the dinners and sets the timer on the stove. "You want a drink?" she asks.

  "I want," I tell her, "to get so drunk I aspirate my own vomit."

  "Does that mean yes?"

  "It means no."

  She fixes herself a stiff one, three fingers of Wild Turkey and a splash of ginger ale. "Are you gonna tell Uncle Mike about the letters?"

  "He doesn't know?" It's the first time Joanna has ever surprised me. Before this moment, I'd always assumed that her brain and body were equally free of angles.

  "Uh-uh."

  "Tell me why you wrote him, Joanna, if Uncle Mike didn't ask you to. Make me understand."

  "I don't know. Paulie sent me a couple of letters and, like, I was bored."

  "Then why'd Uncle Mike secure the house? If he didn't know about the letters?"

  "Uncle Mike knows about some of Paulie's letters because I showed them to him."

  "But not all of them?"

  "Not the ones that said about me writing back."

  "And if he finds out, he'll make you wish you were still living with Paulie. That about right?"

  Joanna's crimson lips fold into a childish pout. The effect is nearly pornographic. "I'm not like you, Jill. You can't expect other women to be like you."

  "Yeah? Well, answer me this, Joanna. How come Uncle Mike didn't arrange for your protection before Paulie knocked on the door yesterday? How come he waited until after you took a beating? You think maybe he used you to set Paulie up? Or do you think he forgot to check his calendar?"

  That night, long after Joanna has gone to bed, I'm lying awake on the living room couch. I'm not worried about Paulie getting past me. By the time he breaks through the door, I'll be ready. No, it's Joanna who keeps me awake, Joanna and Michael Xavier Kelly.

  I slip into a T-shirt and jeans, then walk out onto the porch. The quiet eases over me, comfortable as an old sweater, the one you only wear in the house. A few fireflies, the first of the year, dance above the lawn, and I can smell, very faintly, the lilacs blooming in a neighbor's yard. There are no nightclubs in College Point, no theaters, no after-hours bars. The locals are committed to work and church, to the small, neat yards that surround their small, carefully maintained homes. There's not a lit window anywhere.

  A few blocks away, MacNeil Park leans out into the East River. I ate more than a few meals in the park when I was stationed at the 109. I liked the sullen odor of the sea on summer nights and the slap of the waves against the bulkhead. The view, on the other hand, is less than spectacular. No glittering skyline. No ladder of bridges. Across the river, the South Bronx is a jumble of low-rise warehouses and isolated tenements. To the left, the many jails of Rikers Island rise into the night. They do glitter, those jails, because the lights are on 24/7. But they somehow lack the panache of Manhattan.

  Suddenly I find myself wondering what, if anything, Joanna feels when she undresses for Uncle Mike. Does she pretend she's somewhere else? With someone else? Uncle Mike is past sixty and Joanna's still four years short of thirty.

  Maybe, I think, I've got it all wrong. Maybe she basks in his approval. Maybe she can see it all in his eyes: admiration, gratitude, even worship. Maybe she likes what she sees.

  But what I can't imagine is Joanna being aroused in any way, and I know that sex is a chore that brings out the actress in her. I know that she squeals in the right places, urges him on, groans with delight, screams when he comes. And then she defends herself by saying, I can't be like you, Jill.

  So what am I gonna do? I'm as bad as Paulie now. I can't get Joanna Kelly out of my mind.

  I fall asleep somewhere in the early morning hours and wake up at 8 o'clock when Joanna comes down. She's wearing a gray terry cloth robe and plaid, down-at-the-heels slippers. No makeup, no jewelry. Maybe this means she's in a sober mood. For her sake, I hope so.

  Without a word, I rise, head upstairs to the bathroom. When I come back down, Joanna's sitting with her elbows on the table and her chin cupped in her palms. Her eyes flick toward me, then back to the tabletop. "What a mess," she announces.

  The coffeemaker emits a final burst of steam, then goes quiet. I fumble through the cabinets until I find cups and saucers, spoons, and sugar, then set the table. Joanna leans back in the chair and crosses her legs.

  "You think about what I told you last night?" I ask as I fill the cups. "That Uncle Mike's risking your life? Because one of these times, Paulie's gonna come to kill you. It's just pure luck that it didn't happen the last time."

  "Well, that's what I mean," Joanna explains, "it's gotta stop."

  "Maybe it's gotta stop," I say, letting the words drop like wet sponges into a dirty sink, "but I'm not gonna be the one to stop it."

  Joanna nods, as if at something she figured out a long time ago. "Tell me what to do."

  I reach down into my pocket for Uncle Mike's throwaway and Jo
anna's .32. I put the throwaway on the table, then eject the .32's magazine and the round in the chamber. Finally, I hold up the .32.

  "Did Uncle Mike give you this weapon?"

  "Yeah, for protection."

  "He show you how to use it?"

  She takes the .32 from my hand, grasping the butt with two fingers like the weapon is a shit-filled diaper she wants to be rid of in a hurry. "First, you push this thingy here ..."

  Suddenly, I'm tempted to reach across the table, grab a handful of Joanna's hair, slam my fist into her mouth. Suddenly, I'm Paulie Malone.

  "Jill?" Joanna's lower jaw is hanging open. "It scares me when your face gets like that."

  "Yeah." I force my shoulders down, take a deep breath. "I was just trying to demonstrate what happens when you get emotional." I press the automatic's grip into her palm, force her to grab the handle, flip the safety, curl her index finger through the trigger guard. "I scared you, right?"

  "Yeah," she admits.

  "Good. Now point the gun at the center of my chest."

  "What?"

  "Do it, Joanna. Point the gun at the center of my chest and pull the trigger."

  She wouldn't be Joanna if her hand didn't tremble, if she didn't say in her precious little-girl voice, "Jill, I can't."

  "You better. Because if you don't, I'm gonna kick your Slinky ass from one end of the house to the other."

  Joanna's pupils go flat, as if they've suddenly decided to absorb instead of reflect light. Her mouth tightens into a sneer and she yanks on the trigger.

  Clack.

  The principle established, I take the .32 back and hold it up for her inspection. "Now, this gun, it's really small, Joanna. That's good because it won't jump out of your hand when you pull the trigger." My goal is to keep it simple, and I wait until she nods her head. "But it's bad, too, because one shot won't necessarily stop a grown man. So what you have to do is center the gun on Paulie's chest and keep pulling the trigger until it's empty."