The Good Kind of Bad

by Rita Brassington

  It was the last thing I’d expected, though it didn’t sound terrible. At least I’d have some company. The last thing I wanted was another long weekend conversing with a dog. After two weeks holed up between the four walls of the suite (I’d even paid for the Doggy Depot to walk Sybil), until I could venture out without sunglasses and full-on fedora, I’d been more than lonely, but worse, I’d let the beatings and threats overcome me. The more time I’d had to think, the more the PTSD had thrived.

  I was about to accept his invitation, when Evan continued.

  ‘I’ve started dating this girl, too. She’s a promotions chick who opens beer festivals and furniture stores, not Harvard Law School material or anything, but she’s something all right.’

  My eyes did at least one full rotation, in a hugely non-jealous way. ‘She sounds it.’

  ‘Her dad’s some Michelin-starred chef in Paris. She keeps begging me to cook for her. How about it? Saturday okay for you? I thought it’d take your mind off things. We can watch the rest of the city having fun from the window.’

  ‘But aren’t you seeing . . . what’s she called?’

  ‘Brandi. She’s called Brandi. Twenty-one, fresh out of community college . . . She’s in St. Louis on some Fourth of July road show with Budweiser. We’ve only been dating a week, officially, but I’ve known her a while.’

  A week. Huh. No wonder he’d stopped calling. And twenty-one? Evan had to be at least thirty-one.

  ‘Or we could call the whole thing off,’ Evan said, addressing my silence.

  ‘It’s not that, Evan. I’m not sure what . . . what people would think.’ I straightened up in my chair, glancing around as if my phone was on speaker.

  ‘What people?’

  ‘I’m married, technically, and you’ve got a girlfriend . . . plus you’re the detective in my husband’s assault case.’

  ‘Technically I only took your statement, and a guy and a girl can’t be friends? Come on, I’ll be the feminist here for both of us. What’s wrong with us hanging out?’

  ‘I . . .’

  ‘Why don’t I pick you up? It’ll save you the cab fare.’

  What better way to spend the holiday weekend? Eating pizza with a man I rejected, who had a new airhead, bimbo girlfriend, and while my own husband was in the casinos, drinking himself to death?

  EIGHTEEN

  Last time I checked, Stella McCartney didn’t make dog beds. With the shoulder detail on my cream dress Sybil’s new chew toy, it was like she was trying to scupper my plans. Joe must’ve left her instructions before taking off with his little suitcase: Rip the dress, muddy the carpet, take Mom the long way around the park so she’s late for her date with the new guy.

  Not that it was a date. Evan had a girlfriend and until I began divorce proceedings, I had a husband.

  With outstretched arms, I hurried Joe’s dog to the suite’s bathroom. Yelping at the sight of the water, Sybil tried scaling the bath’s slippery sides, though her escape attempt was futile. With a furrowed brow, she graciously accepted defeat, cowering to endure the clean water and dog shampoo.

  I didn’t have time to be washing dogs, and due to Sybil I was already behind schedule for Evan’s arrival.

  Joe’s clothes-out-the-window escapade had meant several online shopping sessions to restock my capsule wardrobe, and now my favourite Stella McCartney creation had become a bespoke dog basket, I’d plumped for a Herve Leger bandage dress in green. Yes, for pizza at Evan’s place.

  I didn’t want him getting the wrong idea, but I’d take any excuse to wear it. Who wouldn’t? In that dress I felt pretty again, I felt normal. I’d not ventured out much since getting kicked in the face and wanted to remember. I wanted to remember what it was like to wear beauty instead of shame.

  I thought about the old apartment; Joe elsewhere, the air musty, withered and untouched since the threats. I pondered how long it’d last him, that envelope of hundred dollar bills, or rather, how much it cost to drink yourself to death. Joe was supposed to be forgotten, that life remembered as a dream, though back between those walls in my mind’s eye, Joe was as real as ever. He was far from the ghost I’d made him out to be.

  The nightmare of the past month and the destruction of our future would be a long road to travel. That aside, I knew somewhere far ahead, I’d be okay.

  The concierge called. A Mr Thomasz was here to see me. On answering the door to my suite I found Evan grinning and grasping a bunch of white lilies. Although pretty, they didn’t detract from the dishevelled look he wore. His was the outfit of a man working since dawn, I assumed persuaded to work overtime, meaning he hadn’t found time to change. So much for the only working ’til one on a Saturday part.

  Evan’s hair sat unruly, his white shirt was crumpled and a stain soiled the sleeve.

  I beckoned him closer. ‘Come in, come in.’

  ‘I bring gifts . . . flowers, and I had your dress dry cleaned. The blood-stained one? I’ve got to tell you, I think the guy in Randolph’s would’ve phoned the cops if he didn’t know I was one. Anyway, here.’

  He thrust the flowers and a blue bag, containing the dress, almost hesitantly towards me. The white lilies were beautiful, carrying a sweet scent that complemented my perfume. They were probably bought from a street vendor, though to an impersonal suite they were a welcome addition.

  ‘You didn’t have to get flowers, and it should be me thanking you. Besides, I thought tonight was a no effort thing.’

  ‘If it is, you didn’t get the memo.’

  I noticed him look me up and down as a hand travelled his hair. I pointed out the mark on his sleeve and he twisted the material to take a closer look.

  ‘Like I just crawled out of the gutter, huh? The stuff’s like toothpaste; damn tomato sauce from Earl’s hot dog stand.’

  ‘So, kill any bad guys today?’ I asked, after moving to the kitchen area and stuffing the dress in the cupboard below the sink. I could get rid of it later. As for the flowers, I didn’t have a vase so dumped them in the sink for the time being. Evan wouldn’t notice. He was too busy looking at something else: i.e., my arse. I was starting to regret my wardrobe choice and began pondering what this pizza-eating escapade was really about, if this really was a date.

  ‘Kill any bad guys? A few drug barons, a couple of Mafia bosses, nothing I couldn’t handle.’ He gave me a smile, then purposefully checked his watch. ‘Come on, we should make a move. Wouldn’t want to be late.’

  ‘Late for pizza?’

  ‘Can’t a guy be starving? And you won’t need your jacket,’ he warned, as I reached for it on the hat stand. ‘It looks like a nice night out.’

  ‘Sybil?’ I turned to her bed by the window where she lay dozing on her back. ‘Be a good girl. I’ll be a few hours, that’s all.’

  After heading through the hotel foyer downstairs and out onto East Walton, a warm night hit us ‒ that condensed, censored air of the Gold Coast.

  Evan signalled over the street with his hand. ‘I’m in the parking garage over there. Come on,’ he said, reaching for my hand as we negotiated the traffic.

  Once out of the parking lift, we were plunged into the depths of the garage and the pungent clamminess of below ground, the sound of my heels clattered against the walls as again Evan brushed my arm with his. With strip lights illuminating the grey-painted breezeblocks, the high-end automobiles sat crammed around us like some world record attempt for most cars per square foot. Venturing further into the depths, it wasn’t long before we passed a Chevrolet Chevelle, parked over two bays and skewed on the corner.

  I did a double take. It stuck out a mile, and not due to the lame parking attempt or it being the only car to roll off the production line last millennium. It was on Missouri plates, rusty with a hint of black and both wing mirrors were secured by tape.

  I developed instant rigor mortis, my feet cemented to where I stood.

  Evan had also stopped. He was pointing further into the garage. ‘Honey? The car’s this way.’ />
  ‘He’s here,’ I mouthed to Evan, my hushed words trembling. ‘He’s here.’

  ‘What do you mean? Who’s here?’

  ‘Joe Petrozzi, pleasure to meet you, man.’

  In the darkness beside me, Joe was slouched against a pillar with a face half buried in a smirk. He wore a crescent moon smile, baring his teeth like some villain of the week as he stared right through me, eyes left of centre. His forehead contained a fresh wound below the hairline, a beard had replaced the stubble and, dressed in a white vest, stained jeans and biker boots, from his shoulders his leather jacket hung dirty and creased.

  Joe was supposed to appear on page 27 of the Atlantic City Chronicle, a small footnote to a random act of violence: Chicago Man Found Dead in Park ‒ Small-Time Crook and Wife-Beater Savaged by Wild Dogs. Instead he staggered, swayed, teetered and tottered towards us before shooting a forceful hand at Evan, again repeating his moniker.

  Joe was the virus left lurking, the sleeper cell impervious to antibiotics, designed to resist and feed and multiply. I’d been so stupid. It wasn’t over. Atlantic City? He hadn’t left Chicago. He’d probably been stalking me the entire two weeks, creeping and lurking behind each shadow.

  ‘Hoof it, pal, and while you still have the chance to,’ Evan warned, jumping forward and swooping down an arm, protecting me behind his bulk.

  Joe’s widening eyes were almost hypnotic, like saucers of black bile. Transfixed, and with my thoughts tail spinning, I stepped back, lost my footing and stumbled in my heels, falling back onto a white Audi TT and sounding the shrieking alarm.

  ‘Hand her over,’ Joe yelled over the siren, now only two car lengths away.

  Evan reached down, and was helping me up from the floor before he turned and barked at Joe, ‘Leave, pal, and before I bounce your head on the floor.’

  Joe’s laugh was toxic. ‘Tough guy, right? Do you see me quivering, Mr Fifty Grand Suit? Whose wife is she? Yours, or mine?’ Joe stood firm and reached a hand behind his back. From his waistband he retrieved what looked like a handgun, a real handgun. It waited idly in his grasp, swinging like a pendulum. ‘I’ll say it again. Maybe this will make you listen. Give her to me,’ he ordered, raising the gun as the alarm silenced, the ticking of the hazard lights turning all our faces to ashen gold.

  I couldn’t tear my eyes from Joe’s hand, hyperventilating at the sight of the gun, and, moreover, that Joe held it. ‘Evan?’ I murmured through gritted teeth, both of us back on our feet. ‘We have to call the police.’

  ‘Po-lice? Come on,’ Joe interrupted. ‘Don’t get melodramatic on me here. It’s only a gun.’ Slowly Joe paced forward, until the gap between us was negligible. Then he was beside me, taking my wrist in his hand, in a grasp that’d bruised me before.

  I moved back, but he already had me, almost snapping my wrist as he pulled me from Evan’s arms. He was helpless to fight back, Joe’s gun gluing Evan to the bonnet of the Audi.

  ‘That’s it. Stay. Good boy.’

  With Joe gripping my elbow as he dragged me towards the Chevelle, my cloudy head created an unwanted compliance, though it was probably for the best. After witnessing his primitive instincts kick into overdrive, angering Joe was the last thing I wanted to do.

  ‘Come on, it’s late. We should be getting you home.’

  My heels stuttered across the garage floor before Joe opened the Chevelle door and stuffed me in through the passenger side. Fighting would’ve been useless, and I didn’t try, mostly due to the gun. After Joe locked the door and moved to the driver’s side, I banged on the window, gazing at Evan, still stuck on the car bonnet, and still with the gun on him. It was only after Joe screeched away and I glanced frantically behind that I saw Evan sprint for his car. Whatever Joe had planned for me, at least I wouldn’t be alone in trying to stop him.

  Joe glued his foot to the accelerator, the speedometer topping eighty on an empty North Lake Shore Drive.

  ‘God damn it, let me out!’ I screamed as we tore over the asphalt, my taut emotions releasing like a popped balloon. I wrenched at the door handle, reached for the wheel, grasped for the gear stick, anything to steer us off the highway to hell.

  ‘Are you crazy?’ he cried, pushing me off. ‘Get your hands off the damn wheel.’

  After exiting onto East Roosevelt by the aquarium and turning onto South Wabash, a flash of headlights illuminated the Chevelle’s interior as we narrowly avoided an oncoming SUV. I shook my head, refusing to believe any of it was happening. A few minutes earlier and the future had looked, well, promising. Now I wasn’t sure I had one.

  Then Joe reached for my hand, his eyes off the road. ‘Where’s your damn wedding ring? Did our sacred vows mean nothing to you? You knelt before God and promised yourself to me, and I sure as hell don’t remember the part where you could take that off and start sleeping around.’

  ‘Sacred vows? Joe, I want a divorce!’

  ‘A divorce, huh?’ Joe sneered, squashing my fingers in his iron grip before pushing me against the door. ‘Forget it, bitch.’

  My hand shook. I was sure he’d broken something.

  ‘And now you’re going with this guy? Mr Fancy Ass? How long ’til you drag him up the aisle and then divorce him?’ His eyes still hadn’t returned to the road, not that it would’ve made much difference if they did.

  ‘We’re just friends,’ I sneered.

  ‘No kidding. Real friendly it looked, too. You used to dress like that for me, you used to look at me like there was no one else in the room. Now you’re flaunting your flesh for some other dick. Do you know what that makes me, huh? Angry. Very angry.’

  We continued veering over the road before the flashing lights of a car behind dazzled the interior. Glancing back, I saw a pewter Lincoln MKS swerving dangerously close to Joe’s bumper. It had to be Evan.

  The city was a sparkly blur, each corner taken at forty plus as Evan matched Joe move for move.

  ‘Who does this dick think he is? Get the hell out of my ass!’ Joe grunted at the mirror.

  ‘Maybe he thinks he’s a cop?’ Judging by Joe’s alarmed expression, I’d secured his attention.

  ‘Tell me you’re joking.’

  ‘He’s a detective, with the Chicago Police. After this little game’s over, you’re going nowhere but jail. They’ve been looking for you, they’ve been . . .’ I bit my tongue, thinking better of my taunts. He did still have the gun. He was still the same man who beat my face in.

  The Chevelle’s engine roared as we headed into a gangway, Evan still in hot pursuit as we raced between the buildings, all sense of feeling departing right around when I collapsed.

  ‘You want me to let you go, is that it?’ Joe asked.

  ‘Yes. Let me out, let me go!’ I screamed with my fingers tugging at the handle.

  As the vehicle slowed, Joe reached across, unlocked the door and pushed me out.

  I felt myself close to the wheels before I bounced onto the floor, the fall setting my body alight with pain as the growl of Joe’s engine faded. Alone and aching, I allowed myself a whimper of pain as I looked down. My dress was split and soiled, my arm was cut and my head pounded, though an aching body was the sum of my injuries, a discarded mattress breaking my fall.

  Soon another car approached and the sound of footsteps drew near while I lay still, staring at the blackened sky, searching for the stars.

  ‘Hey, hey! You okay? Oh my god, don’t be dead.’

  ‘I’m fine, you idiot.’

  It was Evan, crouching to help me up as I managed to hook an arm around his neck.

  ‘You look far from fine. It’s all right, I’ve got you. I’ve got you,’ he soothed, while helping me to his car. ‘So that’s Joe, huh?’

  ‘This dress cost two thousand dollars!’ I yelled into the sky, to Joe, who was probably halfway to the county line already.

  ‘You’re right. The guy is a psycho. He threw you out of a car!’ Reaching the Lincoln, Evan opened the passenger door and slid me in before rushing t
o his side and taking a seat behind the wheel. ‘Where does it hurt? Any broken bones? You need the ER, and now.’

  From the security of Evan’s car, the panic surged through me like an electric current. ‘No. I can’t go to any hospital. We have to find Joe. Do whatever you have to, kill him. I don’t care!’ I spat the words with venom. After all Joe’s party tricks, inane banter and bleeding knuckles, this was the last straw. Pulling down the visor to examine my reflection, it wasn’t my dragged-through-a-hedge-backwards look I noticed, but something else. It had slipped away, my naivety and youth. I no longer looked like the me from a few months before.

  ‘I know where he is,’ Evan assured after a time, his words bereft of feeling. ‘He doesn’t seem like the most complex man in the world. He likes taunting you. He’s always dying to view his handy work, to watch your reaction. I bet he torched your apartment to get you over there. I think he’s waiting for you. He’s not boarding a train, he’s not escaping; he’s gone back to your apartment, back where you can find him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You heard what he said, back in the parking garage? He wanted to take you home.’

  I laughed. Evan looked at me like I’d lost it, but it was funny. Joe wanted to play happy families. Truthfully, there was nothing left to do but laugh.

  Turning over the engine and showering the world in light, Evan’s screeching tyres secreted a trail of rubber on the ground as in an instant, we were out of the alley and heading for Joe.

  Evan drove like the devil was on his heels. Sure enough, we soon stood outside the apartment block on South Evergreen, Joe’s car outside in need of a trip to the scrap yard. As the Fourth of July fireworks exploded overhead I glanced up at the apartment window, thin strips of light escaping through the blinds. Evan was right. He was home.

  We climbed the dank stairs with haste, Evan refusing to let my injuries slow our progress, before we stormed through the ajar door and into the apartment like the opening titles of a bad cop show. Glancing around, returning to the old apartment was more unsettling than I’d imagined, the kitchen where he’d drunk to excess, the bedroom where I’d been incarcerated and the lounge, our haven, where Joe had done that most terrible of things. It felt wrong. I didn’t care about revenge. The place held too many secrets. I wanted to leave, leave and never look back.