The Good Kind of Bad

by Rita Brassington

  ‘Goddamn filing system. Sorry, did you want that coffee?’ he asked, perching on the edge of his desk.

  I shuffled over the chair. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Wise move, Mrs Petrozzi. I think only cops can stomach this stuff.’

  ‘Please, Evan. Like you said, first names are fine.’ I wanted to remain friendly with a hint of distantly polite. He was a police officer, something I couldn’t forget. Maybe Evan could pull out Joe’s list of crimes and shed some light on my husband’s master criminal past. Oh, that’d be fun.

  ‘First names only. Got it, Mrs Petrozzi. Okay, the Faith robbery. There’s been some progress in the case. It’s nothing solid but we have a few leads, though the department’s only willing to assign me.’ As he took a sip from his mug, I noticed it had ‘I’m a douchebag’ printed on the bottom.

  I couldn’t help but smile.

  ‘How’s the clean-up operation going at Faith?’

  ‘It’s taking longer than they thought. We’ve been working from a makeshift office a few floors down for a while now.’

  ‘It was a nasty break in. Worst I’ve seen in a while.’

  ‘So, what’s the progress you’ve made? In the case, I mean.’

  ‘Some guy walking his dog by the lake handed a bunch of crap in. It’s always the dog walkers.’ Evan threw a muddy employment ID onto the desk and pointed at it. ‘That is yours, right? I mean, it’s your picture but it says A. Clarke, not Petrozzi.’

  It was mine; my pass to Faith’s offices and the one I thought Sybil had eaten. ‘It’s my maiden name. When I transferred from London it was easier to keep it all under Clarke. I only recently got married.’

  ‘How long has the pass been missing? Or was it taken in the robbery?’

  A ‘congratulations’ wouldn’t have hurt. ‘No, it’s been missing a while. I’d only had my pass for a couple of days before I lost it. My boss wasn’t too happy. I had to get a replacement and apparently they “cost”.’

  ‘So, did you lose it or was it stolen?’ Evan’s eyes narrowed as he chewed on the end of his pen.

  When I didn’t answer, not wanting to admit I’d thought the culprit was a dog, he continued. ‘You been anywhere near the lake recently, Mrs Petrozzi?’

  I was about to reply, until thinking better of it. Was Evan trying to catch me out? To confess my part in a conspiracy to defraud Faith as the inside woman? He stared again with unmatched vehemence, waiting for me to spill my guts.

  ‘Which lake?’ I asked.

  He looked at me like I’d gone insane. ‘The lake? As in, the one they call Michigan? You know of any others in Chicago?’

  ‘Oh. That lake. Not that I remember.’ Great going. Not suspicious at all. So this was Evan in detective mode. I was either terrible at geography, terribly naive or terrible at lying. But one thing was certain: Evan was stellar at his job. I was ready to give myself up for robbery and all I’d done was follow Quentin’s orders.

  Oh yeah, Quentin, he of the sweater vests. I bet Evan didn’t suspect him, though Quentin didn’t look like he could dress himself without assistance, never mind breathe the same air as a bunch of heist merchants. ‘You know it was Quentin Renaud who asked me to start work early that morning?’

  ‘Yeah, you said, on the morning of the break in? When you thought people were watching you?’

  Again he stared at me like my brain was in neutral. Maybe it was. Maybe Joe had stolen all power of reasoning from me.

  ‘I did a quick recon of the lakeside but there was nothing. Even had my snitches keep an ear out but it’s all quiet. I thought the goods would’ve travelled through every fence in Chicago by now but these master criminals know more than us, as per usual,’ the detective mused.

  An officer holding a mug emblazoned with a model in a half-vanishing bikini plonked himself down in Evan’s chair with a sigh. A young detective with a face hidden by stubble, I recognised him as Evan’s partner, the other detective from the morning of the robbery. What a cliché. I hoped this wasn’t their good-cop, bad-cop routine.

  The young detective took a gulp of coffee. ‘Heard you were in Whelan’s office this morning, Evan. Captain ask for your badge yet?’

  Evan pointed a sideways thumb at him. ‘Mrs Petrozzi, you remember Detective Reeve, my highly inappropriate partner?’

  ‘How nice to see you again, Mrs Petrozzi. That’s a nice wrap thing you’re wearing.’ He fanned his hand over his chest before meeting my best ‘say-that-again-and-I’ll-kick-you-in-the-balls’ stare. As he cleared his throat and turned towards Evan, I knew he’d got the message. ‘I didn’t know you were still on the Faith case, Evan?’ Reeve slurped deliberately from his mug, the bikini now completely vanished with the heat.

  ‘That’s why Mrs Petrozzi is here,’ Evan retorted, signalling me with a hand.

  ‘Didn’t Whelan tell you to put that investigation to bed?’

  Evan leant back on the edge of the desk, folding his arms. ‘Did you want something, Reeve?’

  ‘Only to find out why you were put on report,’ he bellowed across the room, clearly for the benefit of everyone else’s ears as well as Evan’s.

  Evan pushed up his middle finger, grimacing at Reeve. ‘Beat it. I’m with a witness here, as if you hadn’t noticed.’

  Reeve frowned, placing down the mug and throwing his hands up in surrender as he jumped up and sauntered away.

  ‘Are you in trouble with your captain?’ I asked.

  ‘Ah, don’t listen to him. My captain’s on a permanent power trip is all – he is apparently god and we are his ever-obeying minions.’

  I gave a courteous laugh while standing. Both Evan and the station were beginning to unnerve me. It felt like I was being acutely watched by every trained observer in the room.

  ‘Well, that’s everything. Just needed you to ID the property. Thanks for your co-operation.’

  ‘You needed me to ID the ID?’

  He laughed, shoving his hands back in his pockets. ‘Yeah, with your name being different and all. Just checking you don’t have an evil twin who likes breaking into offices. And I guess you haven’t had much experience of the police? We just love paperwork.’

  At least that’s all it was. At least I wasn’t a suspect. But there was something else, another voice in my head I couldn’t silence. Confess Joe’s violence. Tell him. Report it. ‘Listen, Evan, there’s something . . .’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘It’s . . . well, it’s probably nothing.’

  He gave me a knowing look. ‘If you’re telling me then it’s probably something.’

  ‘I . . . It’s my husband.’

  ‘Mr Petrozzi?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Petrozzi.’

  ‘And . . . has Mr Petrozzi done something?’

  I imagined the cops at our door, the look on Joe’s face as he was handcuffed and dragged down the stairs; the look he’d give me. It could be his third strike. I’d have to live with that guilt. However bad the last week had been, whatever hurt I’d felt last night, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do that to him.

  Clutching my bag to my shoulder, I retreated to the doors. ‘You know what? It doesn’t matter,’ I called back.

  Evan pulled his hands from his pockets, hurrying after me. ‘Hey, wait up. Do you want to report something? Are you in danger?’

  ‘No, nothing like that,’ I tried in my best sing-song voice. ‘Forget I said anything.’

  I should’ve returned his smile, but I’d already pulled open the green double doors.

  ‘You’re back,’ Joe uttered after I closed the front door behind me.

  He was slouched against the lounge doorframe with his head half in the kitchen, watching me with a steely intensity from under the rim of his Stetson.

  I’d jumped a little when he’d spoken, but hid it with a cough. ‘You’re wasted in the courier business, Joe. With those powers of observation you should be trying out for spy school.’ I shot him a brief sideways glance while marching past into the lounge. After all the
worrying, fretting and agonising over Joe, the slap, and his criminal past, my fortitude surprised me, though he didn’t look much like Chicago’s most-wanted. His vest was caked in breakfast grease and he’d dug out that damn Stetson again.

  ‘I was worried about you, baby.’ Joe removed the hat like a mark of respect and matched my steps into the lounge like it was some lame party game. He stopped by the sofa, scratched his head and attempted his best apologetic grin, though it looked more like he was constipated.

  I threw my bag onto the TV chair with added vigour. ‘What’s going on, Joe? I’m sick of you dancing around the truth. Don’t you at least owe me an explanation?’

  ‘Huh?’ He looked like his memory had been wiped clean; instant retrograde amnesia.

  ‘Don’t huh me. Why are you flitting between Nice Guy Joe and Evil Psychopath Joe? Who’re you supposed to be now? I don’t want to be scared of you, but . . .’

  ‘But, what? You are?’ Joe visibly gulped. ‘Man.’

  I wanted to forget and move on, like he had, but I couldn’t. Of all the things I’d told myself ‒ all the truths about destiny and fate ‒ being confronted head on with Evan, the police station and Joe’s probable other life had hit home how much of a stranger Joe was. The hand he’d been dealt so far in life was one I knew nothing about.

  His tongue travelled his bottom lip before he glanced down, his head certainly bowed in false humiliation. ‘You need to know I’d never hurt you. That’s all.’

  I half laughed. ‘You already have.’

  ‘Don’t say that. Don’t make me feel worse than I already do here. Come on, it was a mistake. I was drunk!’

  ‘And what’ll happen the next time you’re drunk?’

  ‘Nothing. Things have been tough and I know I messed up.’

  ‘And you messed up for an entire week? Why would you do that? Why treat me like that?’

  ‘I’ve never lived with a woman before. Like I said, it’s new to me. I was freaking out. Jack makes me do stupid shit.’

  ‘You’ve never lived with a woman before, so it’s my fault? And that gives you the right to hit me?’ I faltered, almost choking. It didn’t give him the right. I wasn’t to blame for his attitude or actions.

  ‘No, no,’ Joe replied softly, motioning with his hands for me to shut the hell up. ‘That’s not what I mean, you know that. Getting wasted is the only way I know how to deal, but the last thing I want is to hurt you. You deserve better than this.’

  ‘You don’t say.’

  ‘Give me another chance. My cousin from KC mentioned some driving work. It’s a cash first, questions later kinda deal, but it’s money. I’ll prove it to you. I can be that guy.’

  ‘Joe, we don’t need the money, and we don’t need that kind of money.’

  ‘You can’t be the breadwinner, baby. That’s not how it works.’

  ‘I can if it means you don’t go to prison! This driving work, is that of the criminal or non-criminal variety?’

  ‘What? I’m no wheel man if that’s what you’re saying. Jesus Christ, baby. Non-criminal, of course. Look, I’ll get some cash together and as long as we wait a couple of months, I’ll get us a real nice place uptown. That Summer Bay place by the lake, like you said. We’ll have drapes and everything. I’d move in a heartbeat, I would. You know missing the junkies across the hall is bullshit.’ He threw himself onto the sofa, a pensive stare on the window. There was a new honesty about him. This time I could see the words hadn’t been through a rehearsal dinner first. ‘Conditions of my parole are I stay in my current employment and stay here, at this address. Why else would I turn down an expenses-paid apartment by the lake? Hell, I’d probably need my passport to live up there. That’s if I had one.’

  ‘Parole?’

  ‘Baby, let’s not talk about that now, huh? My dad used to say you can’t choose what you’re given, but you can still make the best of it. I don’t know if it’s good enough for you but this is Joe Petrozzi, right here. What you see is what you get. If you don’t like it, fine, but I’m not changing, not for you, and not for nobody.’

  This was what he’d been doing while Detective Thomasz was flirting with me. Rehearsing his little speech on how he was a loser made good, a genuine diamond in the rough I had to accept; criminal past and bitch-slapping present, and everything else in-between the excuses and errand-running and drinking at the altar. In my head, it was everything I could do without.

  But my head didn’t rule me. Even with the baggage and angst, I couldn’t give him up. It was the reason I’d wanted him in the first place. His was another world, free from rules and expectations. It’d been like looking through Harrods’ windows at Christmas, the scene so wondrous and new, a wonderland of style and swagger appealingly raucous. And now? It felt like I’d been thrust head-first through the glass. Though this had been my decision, and I had to live with the consequences.

  ‘What are you on parole for?’ I proposed.

  ‘What? Come on, don’t make me do this.’

  ‘I need to know. You can understand that. What were you arrested for?’

  ‘Espionage.’

  ‘Do you even know what that means?’

  ‘All right, it’s for fencing a little stolen merchandise. No life-or-death situations. Everybody does it.’

  ‘And your list of priors? The ones you freaked about when you thought I’d called the cops?’

  With hands clasped, he shot me a cautious glance. The scars of his past were etched like words on his face. Joe was twenty-nine but looked like he’d lived through triple that, and maybe a couple of world wars too. Probably the same ones as George Bemo.

  We stared at each other for a good minute. His wounded puppy dog eyes worked overtime on me before, eventually, I left my annoyance at the door and joined him on the sofa.

  ‘What’s so scary about your past?’ I asked eventually.

  ‘I have one.’

  ‘Doesn’t everybody?’

  ‘Not like mine.’

  It took him a moment, searching my face with his beautiful brown eyes for what felt like forever before he began.

  ‘We used to run riot around the neighbourhood, Frankie and me. We were kids. Then Frankie fell in with these guys, testa di cazzos who stuck guns in people’s faces for their cash. It was funny to them, ’til they killed a guy who fought back, a guy who happened to be a cop. I told him he couldn’t do that nonsense anymore, but when Frankie got shot everyone knew who killed him. To the cops my brother was another headline, one they didn’t need. You know they didn’t suspend the officer that shot him? They’d got their revenge, but I still needed mine. Frankie deserved more than being a dirty secret. He was my brother.’

  Joe’s voice broke as a cleared throat delayed the tears, though it was the single man tear that made me feel like a bitch.

  ‘Thing is, when I went looking for revenge I tried to kill Anton, the dick who got Frankie involved straight off. The pigs dragged me in a couple of times but they never had anything on me. But it wasn’t an accident, and it wasn’t a warning. I shot him in the arm instead of the chest. I guess I’m a lousy shot.’ Joe glanced up. ‘You must hate me for everything I’ve done; to you, to us.’

  ‘I don’t hate you,’ I replied, my voice tiny against Joe’s.

  ‘Yeah, you do. I see it, in your eyes. It’s there, like you’re embarrassed of me. Like my clothes are wrong, how I talk’s wrong. I’m nothing like you thought I’d be. This life isn’t what you wanted. You wanted Summer Bay.’

  ‘Summer Pier.’

  He laughed a little, glancing down at his hands. ‘Exactly.’

  Reaching out, I tilted his head so his eyes looked into mine. ‘I don’t know what I thought, what I thought any of this would be, but I wish you’d let me know what’s going on in that head of yours. What you’ve just told me . . . that’s the kind of stuff you tell your wife, and before they’re your wife.’

  I waited for his reply but it never came. Instead he grabbed his packet of cigar
ettes, slipped into his biker boots and left the apartment without so much as a grunt. Sybil barked after him, wagging her tail, but he was gone.

  Joe’s brushes with the law hadn’t been minor at all. Joe owned a gun, or at least he used to. He’d tried to shoot someone, tried to kill this Anton. A desire for revenge had tainted his world in a different light, sure, but this really was assault with a deadly weapon and attempted murder. Slaps and shots and cops and hate. Maybe this was the real Joe.

  ELEVEN

  It was Thursday, and Nina was already half an hour late for our catch-up, not that I minded. I was more than content to snuggle up in my favourite booth at Bemo’s by the window, my shoeless feet stretched out under the table while the storm swirled outside.

  In full-on forgiving mode after Nina’s slap five days ago, and born out of a need to mull over the Joe situation (he’d barely said a word to me all week), a catch-up at Bemo’s had been arranged for tonight with Nina. All week she’d been a no-show at the newly-refurbished work (Mickey whisking her away on another mini-break, no doubt), but after one phone call she was eager to see me, and apologise. She was up to fifty-nine ‘I’m sorrys’ already.

  How did she get away with not turning up to work whenever she felt like it? Quentin letting her get away with murder had something to do with it.

  After our fallout, and with Nina absent from work on Monday, I’d experimented with widening my social circle. Cherry had always seemed nice enough, and although she wasn’t queen of the witty one-liner, it was high time I included some nice girls in my life. After all, I was one, or so I’d been reliably informed.

  I’d met Cherry and her three best girlfriends, Lauren, Tina and Mariella at some cookie-cutter place over on Ryecroft Terrace ‒ fairy lights strung from bare beams, picnic tables for seating and corrugated iron in place of wallpaper to give it that ‘salvaged from the scrap heap’ vibe. It was okay. They mostly talked about how every guy in Chicago was either gay or a commitment-phobe, though I was more concerned about splinters from all the unvarnished wood.