The Good Kind of Bad

by Rita Brassington

  ‘You mean that ugly mess on your head? I’m not a bad aim, even when I’m smashed, though it wasn’t quite the bullseye. Hope you’re not entered into any beauty pageants ’cause, I got to tell you, I may have ruined your chances.’

  I grabbed the nearest thing to hand, a dirty mug, and flung it at Joe, missing his smug bully-boy face and striking the doorframe instead.

  ‘Hey, hey!’ Joe sputtered, waving his arms like he was directing a 747. ‘What do you think you’re doing? That was my best coffee mug!’

  ‘The Finding Nemo one? Jesus, Joe, get a grip. Oh, and FYI? I want a divorce. That clear enough for you?’

  He stormed over and grabbed me by the jacket. I let out a scream as he wrestled with me, searching my pockets until he pulled loose my phone.

  ‘You won’t be needing this,’ he spat, throwing me aside.

  I was almost sick, his scent like I was breathing in cyanide. I reached for his hand, for my phone in his hand, but he was already heading for the bedroom doors, holding them shut until he could barricade them with the dresser.

  ‘Give me back my phone!’

  ‘We’re not getting a divorce and you’re staying in there until you’ve thought this through. Petrozzis don’t get divorces, if you know what I mean,’ he sneered before striding the kitchen, grabbing his blood-stained T-shirt from the counter and slamming the front door behind him.

  FIFTEEN

  Joe was supposed to have been locked up, and now I was the one trapped in the bedroom. Where had he gone, to get a gun? Was this it for me?

  I had to get out, before he came back, but my only options were a door barricaded with a dresser or the sash window behind me. After taking a few running jumps at the doors, hoping the dresser might miraculously topple over, I banged on the window, in the hope someone on the street would notice. It was useless. This early on a Saturday morning, there wasn’t a soul to be seen.

  Realising the window would open with a lot of brute force, I hauled up the sash pane and stuck my head out, checking how far up four floors really was. It was a sheer drop to the concrete, and unless I wanted my leg bones sticking out through my knees, I wasn’t making that jump anytime soon. Butting the frame with my fist, I imparted frustrated pleas for help to a still wind and empty city.

  I had to think. I had to focus. I first pulled off Stephanie’s clothes, at least allowing me room to breathe, and changed into chinos and a black vest top from the wardrobe, the perfect run-for-my-life outfit.

  After four long hours trapped in the bedroom, and after contemplating every macabre scenario Joe could have planned for me, I’d stuffed most of my belongings into my suitcase. Due to the minuscule dimensions of Joe’s apartment, and after living out of my case for most of my residency at Chez Petrozzi, most of what I owned was in the bedroom, including my all-important document wallet, secreted down the side of the bed for emergencies. I was thinking burglary or break in, not false imprisonment by Joe.

  As the hours passed and the neighbourhood bubbled to life, from the window I tried attracting the attention of a few passers-by ‒ a guy who, as he meandered down the road, looked like he was smacked off his face and an elderly man in striped pyjamas who held his walking stick aloft, shouting at me to quit my yelling. Like the bastardo on the street two nights before, nobody wanted to know; not that my two possible saviours were the greatest crack team ever assembled. Sybil would’ve been more help (I’ll come to her in a minute).

  Though I did have a plan, of sorts. I’d wait ’til Joe came back (if he ever did), accept his apologies and grovelling (depending on whether Jekyll or Hyde turned up) and then make a run for it/call the police/hit him with the frying pan on the stove and escape, with or without my things. I was even concocting a Lassie-style plan for Sybil to pull the cabinet aside with her bare paws, not that she’d moved from her basket the entire time.

  The only thing left was to try the barricaded doors again. Ahead, the dresser loomed like a colossus through the door slats. Maybe a few more shoulder barges would knock it off balance and I wouldn’t have to wait for Joe to rescue and/or kill me. I’d already tried kicking, pushing and shouldering the damn thing. Maybe I could try again.

  It was too late. Clunk, rattle, creak, he was back.

  My head snapped up as I watched Joe stumble into the kitchen from the hall. Through the door slats I kept him under wary surveillance as he removed his cumbersome boots. In his dirty hand he clutched a bottle of what looked like Everclear as on unsteady feet he headed towards me, my expression about to convey all the information he’d need.

  ‘Baby,’ he snarled, falling against the dresser and then the door, his nose crushed against it like a boxer’s.

  I backed further into the bedroom. ‘You all right, Joe?’ I asked, my voice trembling in my throat.

  He was no longer a dribbling wreck. Hyde had returned, along with his strength, but I couldn’t let him know, know how scared I was.

  ‘I’ve never been better,’ he breathed.

  ‘What are you drinking?’ I tried in my best sing-song voice, pointing to the bottle as his breath pumped toxic fumes into my cell.

  ‘You mean this bad boy right here?’ He ran the bottle down the slats like a guiro. ‘Gas out of Satan’s ass. One hundred and ninety proof. Banned in Chicago no less. I got Uncle Tommy to bring back a bunch from KC.’

  ‘That’s where you’ve been? At Uncle Tommy’s?’

  ‘Do I have to tell you everything twenty freakin’ times?’ He stumbled sideways, kicking his boot into the wall and fashioning a dent in the plasterwork. ‘The pool hall, I’ve been at the pool hall. And since when do you care where I’ve been? You don’t look that bothered to me. Besides, Tommy kicked me out after ten minutes.’

  ‘I thought you’d been at the pool hall.’

  ‘Quit it about where I’ve been! You’re worse than my goddamn mother.’

  The whole thing was surreal, preposterous even; us, husband and wife, him drunk and me afraid, arguing through a door he’d barricaded. This was not how it was supposed to be.

  Throwing a hand to my forehead, I flinched upon touching the wound, much to Joe’s loathsome amusement.

  ‘That’s got to hurt,’ he chuckled.

  ‘Oh, go to hell, Joe,’ I snarled, looking up. ‘God, I wish I’d never met you.’

  ‘Then get out! I don’t want you here. I never wanted you here.’

  He dropped the bottle, moving forward before beginning to shift the dresser aside. I could sneak through, while his back was turned. He was drunk. It wasn’t like his reactions were en pointe. Witnessing my window of opportunity, I stealthily headed to my case, though I was never going to get it, and me, past him unnoticed. I’d have to make a run for it and hope for the best. Waiting for him to turn fully away, I moved like a whisper of wind, making it out of the room at least, but as I felt Joe’s hand grab my wrist, my heart sank.

  ‘Where you going so soon?’

  He pulled me in, the closeness recalling our last embrace and it was no secret how that turned out. I tried to scream but my throat burned like I’d been swigging the Everclear. I was dragged back into the bedroom, pulled behind his heavy boot-clumps as he reached the bed.

  ‘Get off me!’ I screamed as he threw me against the wall. My arm felt like it had jarred out of its socket.

  I was pinned beside the window while Joe rummaged through the clothes in my case. He held up my Dolce and Gabbana checked dress for size.

  ‘How about this one? Still think I’m a Friend of Dorothy? It’s just my colour. It must’ve cost a few bucks.’ He checked the label, enunciating the syllables like a child. ‘Dol-ce and Gab-ba-na? Never heard of them.’

  With that he promptly chucked the dress through the open window.

  ‘No!’ I screamed. ‘Why would you do that?’

  Joe wasn’t listening. He was reaching for my hallowed Jimmy Choo’s, carefully stowed inside the lid of the Tumi case. With the delight of a small child, he tossed them through the opening
too as I looked on in despair, my capsule wardrobe heading straight for a bag lady’s shopping trolley.

  Joe let the last shoe hit the floor before turning to me with a smile not out of place on Hannibal Lecter. Seizing my chance, I made for the door but his hands fell on my shoulders, yanking me back with such force I was sure my back was broken. His arms snaked and constricted my torso until I was barely breathing at all. Off the floor and in his arms, I flailed like a crab on its back. Then, with a determined grunt, he pushed me into the open window head on, my arm striking the frame as the city breeze cooled my cheeks.

  The window was small, but I still had a real chance of falling through it. I clung to the curtain rail above and hooked my ankles around the rear of the heater while Joe pinned me against the window. My muscles tired as I clung on for my life, as he pushed and shoved my back, though never enough to send me street-bound.

  As I felt my hold about to slip, I turned and hollered in Joe’s ear and he pulled me back into the room. I was sent tumbling to the floor with a smack while Joe curled himself into a ball, clutching his head like an ape. I may have been winded, but at least I was alive.

  Behind, the doorway was clear, my path unobstructed. I scrambled to my feet, the gateway to freedom again there for the taking.

  Joe unfurled, releasing his ears. ‘You’re not leaving. Come back here, bitch. Charlie wants to talk to you.’

  I was almost through the doors when he grabbed my ankle, I lost my balance, fell forward and smacked the floor face on. With my head spinning, I kicked to free myself from his hooks, like a pit bull tore at my trouser leg. He’d wanted me to fall through that window. He’d left me bleeding on the street. This time, he wouldn’t let me go. Joe, my darling husband, was going to kill me, or he was at least going to try.

  Panting and breathless and with my fight beginning to wane, Joe pulled me up and stood me at arm’s length against the wardrobe. My body went from slack to arrow straight as what I could only assume was Charlie appeared from his pocket; a large enough switchblade knife that twisted between his thumb and forefinger. He flicked it open with a dramatic gasp and flurry of hand, like some sick, depraved magic trick.

  Without an ounce of self-control, he wielded it mindlessly in my face. I pulled back, my cheek flush against the wardrobe door, wincing as the blade came within inches of taking a chunk out of my cheek.

  A knife called Charlie, the next logical step along Joe’s yellow brick road. What’d be next? Kalashnikovs at ten paces?

  Stepping away, but with the pig sticker on me to ensure compliance, he retrieved his battered suitcase from the bottom of the wardrobe. In it he threw a couple of bottles of Jack from the bookshelf, a pair of underpants and the envelope of hundred dollar bills I’d noticed in the top drawer a few days before, all with the knife still aimed at my eye.

  Twisting, he grabbed my arm and pulled me close, the liquor on his breath almost throttling me.

  ‘I’m heading out on vacation. The second you get chance you’re calling the cops, right? Telling them what I’ve done? Whether they believe you or not, it doesn’t matter. When I get back, we’re having a party. We’ll take Charlie here and stab you while you sleep; stick you all over, in every little hole.’

  As the cool blade of the knife travelled my cheek I trembled uncontrollably, shutting my eyes and praying for him to cease, begging him to leave.

  ‘Don’t think I won’t stab you up.’

  Giving me one last shove against the wardrobe, he stepped backwards, snatched his biker jacket off the bed, collected his suitcase and sauntered through the kitchen before slamming the door.

  Only then was I safe to release my captured breath and collapse. Clutching at the wall, I cried in relief, terror . . . in every emotion I could bear to feel. It took ten minutes before I could think straight, before I realised: I’d survived.

  Now I prayed wherever Joe and Charlie were going, to dodge Chicago’s finest and drink the nights away, would be where they’d stay forever. Though I knew it wasn’t the last I’d see of him; he’d scheduled in a return visit, for our party. There was one thing left to do. I had to report him, and before he could escape.

  SIXTEEN

  Above my head, the police station flagpoles clunked in the afternoon breeze. It was time to massacre Joe’s life like he had mine.

  A slap across my cheek, a punch to the jaw, the boot in my face and the city before me from four storeys high; I was going to tell them everything, his beloved Chicago Metropolitan Police.

  I ran the ten blocks to the nearest police station, the only one I knew, the cop shop on South State where I’d been summoned over the robbery at Faith. With my phone in Joe’s pocket and the apartment landline dead, I wasn’t taking another taxi ride from hell. The only thing left to do was run.

  Joe couldn’t be left to continue his machination, to stalk the next pretty girl with promises of living on a whim. To drop to his knees, take her hand, use some cheesy line to profess her beauty and cement his charm. To gain and maintain control, vent his anger when he felt like it or when he’d had a bad day, or when the liquor flowed and the megalomaniac came out to play.

  This was my legacy, to stand up and be counted, to say, yeah, I made a mistake, but that was as far as it went. It was time for Joe to pay for his betrayal.

  Still panting after my frantic run, I headed for the doors of District 31 on South State while straightening out my facts and running through the dates: May 12th, wedding day, June 9th, slap in face. June 16th? D-Day.

  I was so preoccupied with my calendar, it wasn’t until my face sat half planted in a suited chest that I saw him.

  ‘Hey, whoa there. You okay, ma’am?’

  ‘I . . .’

  ‘Wait, it’s Mrs Petrozzi, right? What happened to your face?’

  I’d collided head on with the fast-exiting Detective Reeve, Evan’s partner, causing his paperwork to take flight on a sharp gust of wind. ‘God, I’m sorry.’ I reached out for a sheet of paper caught on the breeze.

  With a smile, Reeve waved a dismissive hand. ‘Ah, that’s just my tax return. It’s better off down the street. You sure you’re all right? Jesus, you look like you were hit by a truck.’

  I bowed my head, hoping my tousled hair would hide most of the damage. ‘I, I fell down the stairs.’ It just came out. I was here to report what Joe had done, to give up my husband as the scumbag he was, and I couldn’t say it. Not to Reeve, anyway. Maybe it’d be easier confessing to some generic uniformed cop, someone who didn’t know my name.

  A deep frown crept across Reeve’s forehead. Like he hadn’t heard the stairs line a million times before. Placing a discreet hand on my shoulder, he continued with, ‘Plus you look kind of red, and sweaty. I guess you’re here to see Evan? Uh, I mean, Detective Thomasz? He was right behind me coming down the stairs. Short shift on a Saturday, you almost missed him.’ Reeve looked over the concourse, back to the station doors.

  After nearly falling out of the window, I’d quite forgotten Evan would be here, that this was his station and that he’d probably be angry I’d ditched him to go hang out with my psycho ex-husband.

  After a moment, there he came, Mr Overly Concerned, emerging from the revolving doors in a tightfitting blue T-shirt embellished with the letters CMP, on his face the black Clark Kent frames. He rushed over, quickly forcing Reeve aside with a pointed elbow.

  ‘Mrs Petrozzi, what are you doing here? Are you all right?’ He almost looked surprised at my face. Ten out of ten for improv.

  ‘I already asked that, asshole,’ Reeve muttered.

  ‘You look like you’ve been running.’ Evan’s powers of observation were working overtime today.

  ‘Dude, not to mention her face,’ Reeve added bluntly.

  Evan planted another elbow in his partner’s ribcage and shot him a less-than-discreet death stare. ‘Detective Reeve, I think I can take it from here.’

  Again Reeve surrendered, hands aloft. ‘All right, you take care of yourself, ma’am
.’

  Evan waited until Reeve was safely behind us before pulling me to the side of the building. Something told me this would be anything but a cosy chat.

  ‘What’s the deal? I come out of the shower to find you’ve bailed? We had an agreement. You were supposed to stay in the apartment.’

  I didn’t feel myself stagger backwards, but Evan soon caught me by the shoulders and returned me to standing, and anything but gently.

  ‘What happened to you? Where have you been? Or do I need to ask?’

  ‘Do you think you could let go of me?’ He now had me by the wrists, and a passing mother with a buggy noticed, meeting my gaze.

  ‘I mean, you sure know how to scare a guy.’ Apparently thinking better of his annoyance, Evan released me, dropped the frown and reached a hand to my flushed face. I pulled away, uncomfortable hardly the word as I smarted from his lecture.

  ‘Joe was there, at the apartment. Ted was wrong. He wasn’t locked up.’

  After a half laugh, Evan began pacing, throwing both hands to his head and running those long fingers through his hair. ‘Jesus, what did I say? I told you, don’t go back there. What the hell happened?’

  ‘What do you think happened? He tried to kill me! Joe tried to . . .’

  He glanced around, as if checking for eavesdroppers. ‘Try to stay calm, all right?’

  ‘I don’t want to stay calm! I want to report him.’ Standing around talking would solve nothing fast. Evan had to mobilise the troops. The minute Joe left the city, he’d win.

  ‘I’m off duty, but I can take you inside and get an officer to come talk to you. It may be a couple of hours, though.’

  ‘Hours? I have to talk to somebody now, before Joe gets away. He’s probably on his way out of the city. You need to stop him.’

  Evan stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. ‘Look, I’d take the statement myself but overtime’s a dirty word around here. My captain acts like he’s the one paying our salaries. Why don’t I take you back to mine and fix you a drink? At least you can get your breath back.’