The Good Kind of Bad

by Rita Brassington

  ‘A drink? Evan, you’re not listening to me. Joe said he’s heading out “on vacation”. He knew I was going to report him. You can’t let him leave the city. You’ll never find him again. He’ll get away.’

  ‘I’m not making light of what happened, but do you know how many people get murdered in this city, every day? I hate to break it to you, but you’re not the CMP’s number one priority. Best I can do is bring you back when the next shift parades on duty, put you at the front of the line. How’s that sound for you?’

  ‘It sounds like you don’t give a shit.’ Again, it just came out. I didn’t mean it, I could see Evan did care, but it felt like all his promises were coming to nothing.

  ‘Wait a minute, what?’ he hissed. ‘I don’t give a shit? Who just patched up your head, fed and clothed you, gave you a place to stay? You’re the one that snuck out the minute you could.’

  I glanced down at my boots. ‘All right, I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have gone back there, but I’ve done enough running, Evan. I need to report him. Can’t you take the report? I can’t sit here waiting.’

  He sighed, checking his Breitling. ‘All right, but it’ll be on my own time . . . which is no problem at all,’ he added after registering my disappointment, and with a gentle hand, I was turned back to the building.

  In a largely empty office, back at his desk and back in that same uncomfortable chair, I felt an utter failure. If I’d reported Joe had hit me that day at the station, maybe the bruises wouldn’t have multiplied. He would’ve been incarcerated, restraining-ordered up, unable to hurt me again.

  Then there was my life. With a wasted, violent husband, an AWOL best friend, a contemptuous mother who’d sent me packing and a white-collar crime father fretting over my mother’s hypertension, it didn’t bode well for my future, or that I only had Evan to turn to.

  Back at his cluttered desk (now almost amusing after his ordered apartment), Evan typed his way through my personal details, the questions routine and humdrum. Name, age, phone number, nationality (dual) . . . it felt like I was filling in a dating ad.

  ‘Detective Thomasz, you’re still here?’ An aged man with thinning white hair and a badged white shirt stopped by Evan’s desk. It wasn’t hard to guess who he was. ‘I could’ve sworn it was one thirty, unless my watch has stopped again.’

  Evan ceased typing, a sheepish look enveloping his face. ‘Uh, yes, Sir. Still here.’

  ‘Surely that begs the question.’

  Evan frowned. ‘About why I’m still behind my desk?’

  ‘That’d be the one,’ his superior replied with a raised finger.

  ‘I’m finishing up a witness statement. I’ll be thirty minutes, tops.’

  ‘On your own time, I presume.’

  Evan coughed. ‘Naturally.’

  ‘Very good then. Carry on,’ he concluded before striding away.

  ‘Is that your captain?’ I asked, surprised he’d not gawped at my face like everyone else.

  ‘How’d you guess? The comb-over’s more menacing than the man, don’t you think?’

  It was hardly the time for jokes, me sitting there like I’d lost a fight with a boxing glove, but maybe Evan had the right idea; lighten the mood, ignore the obvious.

  He cleared his throat. ‘All right, down to the nasty stuff.’

  Okay, maybe not.

  ‘Can you summarise your complaint before we run through your statement in detail?’

  I took a long breath in, sucking the air through my teeth. ‘After I found out he’d cheated on me, my husband slapped, punched and kicked me, tried to push me out of a window, stuck a knife called Charlie in my face before threatening to stab me . . . in every little hole.’

  He frowned sympathetically, his voice quiet. ‘That’s more than sufficient, thank you.’

  Fiddling with my bracelet, I glanced into my lap. ‘Look, Evan, will this be for something?’

  Again he stopped typing. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, I don’t want this filed away in some drawer. I’ve watched enough of Joe’s Law and Order to know that’s what happens. I know beat up women don’t report it or withdraw the charges because they’re scared, or because they feel loyalty, but Joe’s not talking me out of it. I’m not changing my mind.’

  ‘Any crimes with positive lines of enquiry are actively investigated.’

  ‘Come on, Evan, don’t feed me the spiel. My husband is a bona fide psycho. A knife called Charlie lives in his pocket. He’s made death threats against me, and I’m scared. Don’t let me become one of those women. Please don’t let him . . .’ I relived every curt word and disgusted glance, every incidence of violence. All I’d done was believe in something better, and this was how I’d been repaid. ‘Please say you’ll find him, or at least try to.’

  I’d come to Chicago to escape, but this wasn’t the city I remembered, no longer the child I once was. My life sentence with Will had been quashed in search of something that didn’t exist. This place didn’t hold the answers, and all I’d achieved was a failed marriage and a bloodied face. I’d chosen Chicago over responsibility and to escape reality, but now found myself drowning in it. Lakeside apartments, career-affirming promotions and men bathed in mystery were all well and good, but daydreaming my life into something out of a movie would only ever end in disappointment.

  ‘I think it was a mistake coming here.’

  Evan raised his eyebrows. ‘To report this? You said . . .’

  ‘I meant coming to Chicago.’

  ‘Yeah, well, at least you can’t regret what you never did.’

  ‘Are you saying it’s good to regret?’

  ‘Of course. It comes with the satisfaction of knowing you made that leap. You took that chance. Even if it ends up being the wrong one. Anyway, this place is getting old for me, too. A transfer’s been posted to the LAPD, SIS in Robbery-Homicide. I’ve been thinking about it a while,’ he told me as he typed.

  ‘SIS?’

  ‘It’s the Special Investigation Section ‒ surveillance, intelligence, that kind of thing. I’m good at watching targets, anticipating their movements. There’s nothing here for me. I don’t want to live in a city where forty-five people don’t wake up the next morning, and for what?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘And hey, anything beats another polar vortex winter.’

  ‘It sounds exciting, though I’m sure there’re guns in LA too.’

  Evan turned away from the computer screen, his eyes glistening in the light of the monitor. ‘Promise me one thing. Know Joe will get what’s coming to him. He’s not beating the rap on this one. He’s never going to hurt you again. If I have to, I’ll see to the scumbag myself.’

  SEVENTEEN

  It’d been two weeks since Joe’s macabre threats.

  I was now resident of the Four Seasons on East Delaware again, uptown, and back where I started. The suite they found me wasn’t quite the Presidential but juxtaposed with my previous digs, it felt like the Palace of Versailles.

  After running through Joe’s abuse at the police station that day, Evan had kindly driven me to South Evergreen (checking the apartment first with his gun aloft, in case Joe sprang from the wardrobe with Charlie). He said they’d put out Joe’s description to all the transport hubs, airports, train stations, but I wasn’t holding my breath. Deep down, I knew he’d got away. From behind his glass of Jack, at whatever bar he found to drink dry, he was laughing at me.

  I’d spotted the Sun-Times on the bedside table, left open at the travel section. There was a phone number and flights circled to Atlantic City scribbled in Joe’s handwriting. Evan said he’d look into it, but at least I could breathe easy. He might not be paying for his crimes, but at least he wasn’t still hanging around. At least he couldn’t hurt me anymore.

  I’d collected my suitcase before Evan then drove me, and Sybil, to the hotel. Their pet policy was dogs under fifteen pounds in weight only and, luckily, they didn’t see Sybil and her tubby belly first.
I’d also donned my oversized sunglasses, careful to hide my face as best I could. There wasn’t a policy on barring beaten women, I didn’t think, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

  And in the suite I sat, reading, thinking, Googling Joe’s name – on a strict room service diet as I waited for my injuries to morph through livid blue, dirty yellow and back to ivory, by way of a pound of foundation. Only then did I dare to venture out and as of yesterday, view apartments. The nosy realtors enquired over my circumstances, but I wasn’t biting. I was the silent nodder, the hmm and yes, I see champion, and they hated it.

  The entire contents of Chanel’s make-up counter disguised what was visible, though I knew my other scar would take longer to heal. I tried the tough-girl act for a while, my tough-as-tree-pie scowl; a dash of denial, a pinch of obstinateness, I was fine, thick-skinned, strong, but it was for show.

  I’d been attacked, and not by some crack head on the street for my jewellery. I could be as strong as I wanted, as independent, though it wouldn’t erase what’d happened. The sooner I acknowledged that, the sooner I could move on.

  I’d been back at work for two days, spending my lunch hours trawling rental websites. There were condos and town houses, wrap-around terraces, five and a half baths and chef’s kitchens. Five and a half baths? I’d made do with barely one at South Evergreen.

  Passing over Quentin’s disapproving remarks, asking why I wasn’t working through my lunch, I distracted myself with the empty lives of the Summer Pier show homes ‒ laid tables where only ghosts dined, beds never creased, not one pillow or thread out of place.

  It was the shrouded dream of other people’s lives, the flawlessness of a house sans owner. It was a life before the dishes were dirtied and skin shed, before realising it was nothing but a shell; trinkets and art, candelabras and mirrors, an existence designed for show.

  Actors may have beamed out from my computer screen, child models and families doing their smug little thing, but I wanted it. Other people’s lives. They looked happy. There were smiles. Little Archie balanced on Dad’s shoulders at their family barbeque by the lake. There were no bloodied faces, no bottles of Jack. These people had it all figured out. For that moment in time, that click of the camera, they were forever in their happy, gleeful bubble.

  The suite would do, for now. Most Gold Coast condos weren’t available for at least a month, well, the ones I’d set my heart on. Now Joe was gone, I’d decided to stay. There was nothing left back in England but whispers and stares, but if Chicago was to be home again, I decided the next time I moved, the next apartment, had to be for keeps.

  Okay, there was an alternative, but I wasn’t taking Evan up on his offer. While kindly ferrying me across Chicago, he’d mentioned the guest room again. He’d been great, he had, but I needed solitude, to shut the door on the world and shout cut. I still had my self-respect. Surely I had a smidgen left somewhere. Another man was not the solution. I was better off at the hotel, quaffing champagne in my whirlpool Jacuzzi while watching the city lights from the right side of town.

  I needed a clean break. It was on to Plan B, a new home and a quickie divorce. I’d known Joe such a short time, I wasn’t sure I missed him at all ‒ Joe Version 1.0, not the psychopath, though there was still zero news on him.

  After assurances I’d be kept informed of any Joe-shaped developments, Evan first called the suite every day, to check in, to be nice, to offer the guest room again and again, but for the last week radio silence had descended. I’d barely heard a word. He just stopped calling.

  Now back at work, I blamed my absence on illness. What was one white lie among distant business associates? Now my injuries had healed, they didn’t need the truth. After insisting I’d suffered a bad case of laryngitis, there was no more to be said.

  Faith’s revamped interior was so pristine, I was afraid to touch anything. I regretted my absence at the re-launch party, speculating with work colleagues over the perpetrator of the crime, but the burglary now seemed largely forgotten. Order had been restored and it was all anybody wanted. Whoever the thieves were, they’d got away with it.

  Back at Faith I worked hard, stopping only once to gaze over the Chicago skyline. A thin layer of cloud veiled the skyscraper summits, so high they bathed in the sunshine above. Resting my chin on my hand, I again reluctantly thought of Joe. For all my not thinking of him, in almost two weeks he hadn’t left me.

  Work could wait. Leaving my pile of paperwork, I moved onto Nina and how much I missed her. I hadn’t seen or heard from her since the 14th June, the night of our Bemo’s meal and Joe’s attack. It was now June 29th. Her number was in my phone, the one Joe had likely dumped in the lake, and no one else at Faith seemed to have her personal details. There was a social media blackout, too.

  Though most shocking of all, I broke my silence and called them. I called my parents. Even I wasn’t expecting that one. My father answered, thank god. I gave him my new number and explained the other phone was somewhere in the toilet u-bend. At least they didn’t have my address, not that I’d ever have told them I was living in Armanti Square, though I did tentatively mention I was now staying at the Four Seasons, temporarily, but begged my father not to ask why. He didn’t say, but he must’ve known something was wrong.

  Everything was good at home. Normal. Mother had refused to talk about me, Will had called round to return some wedding ‘paraphernalia’ and Ma and Pa were helping on the jam stall at the Appleford village fete on Sunday. It all sounded rather dull. On the other side of the Atlantic, Joe had turned into a wife-beating scumbag, I’d been nursed to health by a handsome police detective, and my friend – engaged to a dirty cop, no less – was now either sipping cocktails on a sandy beach before noon or slowly bleeding to death in an alley, if Victor’s threats were real. I’d even taken a trip to Springwood Avenue and buzzed Nina’s apartment, but there’d been no reply. Now anticipating our reunion at work, Nina’s usual chair sat empty.

  ‘Daydreaming, are we?’ came Quentin’s monotone. I could almost hear the slime dripping off it.

  Oh yeah, Quentin. I’d forgotten about Quentin, apart from those unwanted advances, and I’d been so sure he was gay. I’d also never known one man to sweat so much. Maybe if he gave those sweater vests a rest in summer, he’d lose his Mr Perspiration moniker.

  ‘I’m just brainstorming,’ I muttered, hoping his salacious tongue would go and bother one of the interns.

  ‘We have a tight deadline, you know. Staring out the window won’t secure the Apple Rosenbaum account, unless you’d like some help with that?’ he suggested, lurching in my direction.

  ‘I think I’ll manage,’ I replied with an eye roll. As he scurried away I pulled a puerile face, the approaching Cherry giggling. ‘I’ve worked non-stop for him this morning and the second I take a break I find him slithering behind me, Cherry.’

  ‘We’re going to have to deal with him a while longer. Renaud will never fire his nephew. Hey, I heard you were sick and all? The girls were asking about you and then Mark mentioned you had some super-contagious disease or something? I started worrying. Like, you came for drinks with us at Carter’s. I’d taken a sip of your Margarita! I’ve made an appointment with Doctor Green.’

  ‘Good to know.’ I combed down my makeshift fringe, disguising my scar while taking another glance at Nina’s chair. ‘Hey, have you seen Nina around? I haven’t had chance to catch up with her yet.’

  ‘She was in the design meeting last week. I don’t know, maybe Mickey’s whisked her away on a “surprise vacation”.’ Jazz hands accompanied the ‘surprise vacation’ from Cherry, always the optimist. And hypochondriac.

  As she examined her bare left hand, I looked to my own. I still wore my blood diamonds, at least for work I did. I’d wanted to rip off my ring, confess what’d happened and show the world my marriage, and husband, were a sham, but I couldn’t. There’d be too many questions, too many stares. Instead I chatted a little longer to Cherry before she left to flirt with Mark i
n accounts.

  My concern for Nina’s safety grew. General consensus confirmed the Caribbean as her likely whereabouts, though even little Tyler, the gun-toting toddler, could put two and two together. Maybe Nina was telling the truth over everything I’d doubted.

  Nina’s graphic tales of Mickey and Victor had made The Wire look like Sesame Street, at least in my head. Events could’ve taken an even worse turn for the worse, Nina meeting her fate at the hands of Victor. It was ludicrous of course. Nina and Mickey were probably in Barbados, though it didn’t stop me worrying.

  I signed Nina’s name over and over on my doodle pad, until it was nothing but alphabet soup, though when my new phone vibrated its way across the page, the lead in my pencil snapped.

  Quelle surprise. It was Evan.

  ‘Good afternoon, stranger,’ I said.

  ‘That time already, huh? What’re you doing on such a fine day?’ His voice was smooth, calm. Interested.

  ‘Being leered at by highly paid, wildly under-qualified executives? Your average uneventful Wednesday, Evan.’

  ‘On second thought, forget I asked. I’m calling ’cause I have some info. On Joe.’

  Finally, they’d found him; hopefully dead in a ditch somewhere.

  ‘We think he’s still in Atlantic City, judging by what you said about the newspaper. With any luck, he’ll have the pleasure of dealing with New Jersey’s finest, then we can extradite him back here to face charges.’

  That was hardly news. After being promised Joe would get what was coming to him, that Evan would deal with him personally, they were obviously still no closer to finding him. And now he’d called, why?

  ‘So the Fourth of July weekend’s coming up and I had this barbeque idea for Oak Street Beach; let off some fireworks, invite a bunch of people, that type of thing.’

  That’s why he’d called. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘No,’ Evan laughed. ‘That sounds like way too much trouble. How about pizza at my place? No drama, no Joe, just cheesy goodness and crappy movies.’