The Good Kind of Bad

by Rita Brassington

  The vodka I was supposed to see him drink. The post-kick Joe on the lounge floor, grimacing through his fake withdrawal. The carefully orchestrated escalation of violence. None of it was true.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ he asked after I realised I was laughing.

  ‘It’s an amazing plan, Evan, really. Apart from you having no way of anticipating what I’d do.’

  ‘It wasn’t anticipation, just careful planning and suggestion. Plus, I took cues from you. Like the night of the attack – I knew you wouldn’t call the hospital, but you’d probably call Nina, so Mickey hid her phone. I parked in an alley further down South Evergreen and waited for you to stagger onto the street. That evil bastard worked you over a little too well, didn’t he? I picked you up before anyone else had chance to find you. You called to someone across the street but they didn’t want to know. How do I know that? Because it was Frankie Petrozzi and I put him there, to call me when you emerged. If no one helped you I’d be ten times the hero. You’d be eternally grateful.’

  Frankie? Dead brother Frankie?

  ‘You all right, honey? You look like you’ve lost some colour.’

  ‘Maybe because I’m tied up on the back seat of a car?’ Maybe because Evan’s brilliant plan was making me want to throw up, more like.

  ‘Admit it, you were slumming with Joe. He’s a loser, I’m a detective, and you’re a snob. I have standing, I’ve got class; I was someone you aspired to be with. You wanted me to rescue you. Joe was nothing but a bully, only ever destined for receiving stolen goods and making macchiatos for made guys. Then, when Joe left to do the Kansas City Shuffle and disappeared off the face of your earth, you still wouldn’t let me in. You didn’t want my help.’

  ‘You made me think you’d murdered my husband! Why would I want your help?’

  ‘But you did,’ Evan confirmed. ‘You moved in with me.’

  ‘After you sent a guy to stalk me!’

  ‘Ah, yes. The mysterious Mr F. You know F stands for Frankie, right?’

  TC Guy. Mr F. Frankie. Again my eyes closed in weary disbelief, the ground under the tyres bumpier now, the car slower. Somewhere behind, Evan had turned off the highway. I had to lose my binds, and quick, though with Evan staring me out in the mirror, and with each new migraine-inducing revelation, it was hard to make any progress.

  ‘There was never any transfer to California. Joe’s brother never died and you never owed Mickey anything,’ I recounted, almost laughing. ‘I bet you didn’t even have an ex-wife.’

  ‘Jeopardy’s a wonderful thing, don’t you think? And, no, Stephanie never existed. I bought those clothes especially for you. Thought it’d be a nice touch. And as for Joe? He went to stay with his cousin in Kansas City so you wouldn’t run into him on the street when he was, oh, I don’t know, a rotting corpse? He was only supposed to return for the money. Fly in at eight, fly out at sunset. Is it so hard to sit your ass down and wait in a hotel room? No, Joe, the dumbbell, decides to go visit his father. Right before all this happened, Joe told the stupid old man he was going away for a while, assured me his father’s Alzheimer’s would mean he wouldn’t know he was gone, but instead his dad reports his son missing, before ringing the police to say he’s turned up at his goddamn nursing home! If Joe was dead to you, I had to ensure any mutual acquaintance thought he’d disappeared too. I didn’t bargain on his father reporting him missing, Zupansky launching an investigation, your ex-fiancé turning up out of the blue or you making friends with Nina, the one girl in the city who had a chance of discovering the truth. But there was one thing I could always count on: you believing every word I said. Fun plan, huh?’

  ‘You’re supposed to be a cop, Evan.’

  ‘Chicago may not have invented the dirty cop, but it perfected them. This town used to be seething with corruption. I’m in the goddamn perfect place! Okay, they’ve increased the IA budget, but you can’t get rid of . . .’

  ‘A disease?’ I suggested.

  ‘An idea. Is there any better way than having a badge to protect yourself? And it’s not like your family are strangers to corruption. Don’t get me started on your double standards. Look, guys have done a lot more for a lot less. And it worked, didn’t it? Frankie charted where you went and what you did so I could bump into you. Mickey didn’t send Frankie Petrozzi to follow you, I did. Backtrack through your entire Chicago history and Frankie is lurking somewhere out of eyeshot. Of course, The Principe was more hiding in plain view. Come on, the point was misdirection, spin; you know, they all look left and you go right? Then came stage four. The payoff. Once you were too scared to live alone and you’d moved in with me, I was going to drug you; you’d sign the money over to me, no problem. Then after I found your pills, I was going to switch those with PCP too, until I realised you might overdose. But the biggest surprise of all? You gave me Nina. You went and confessed to the perfect person. I didn’t have to invent a story for how Mickey discovered I’d killed Joe, you gave me one!’

  ‘Nina died for nothing,’ I stuttered, fighting back the sobs.

  ‘She died because she told you my real name. She never betrayed you, never told Mickey about me murdering Joe. After you made Bemo’s your favourite eating spot, my sister Shannon needed a job and George Bemo owed Joe a favour. When she smashed that bottle of wine by your feet, she planted a microphone underneath the table – with your usual booth taken she had to get it under yours. I got a live feed of every word of your confession, and thankfully Nina fought my corner, kind of. Even before the cinema when Nina told you I was Victor, the whole thing almost collapsed. You kept talking about leaving. I had to step up the jeopardy, introduce the blackmail story, so I thought: hide in plain view. Leaving the briefcase under the bed with your shoes meant you’d find the money and address and you did, leading you to The Principe. Frankie could tell you I was being blackmailed, and that Mickey was upping his demands.’

  One more cut. A couple of minutes more. ‘And you just assumed I’d have all of my father’s money?’

  ‘Yeah, that was a shitter. After all that effort, I find out the money’s not in your account but some super-secret cosignatory account I need your father for, Mr Heller. Nice alias. It took a while, but I’ve figured a way around it. Don’t you want to know what stage five is?’

  I didn’t need him to tell me. I’d already worked it out. ‘But who says there’s any money in the account?’

  ‘Come on, honey. I’m not stupid. We’re meeting Joe at the woods in, oh, t-minus five minutes,’ Evan announced, checking his watch. ‘He assures me he’ll have your daddy waiting on Skype. Of course, Joe doesn’t know it’s your father. He’s been on a need-to-know basis this whole time. For every refusal your dad makes to transfer the money into my account, you lose a finger. Then we can start on teeth, then limbs . . . Isn’t that super fun?’

  ‘You’re going to be disappointed.’ I tried to sound calm, even though my every fibre was shaking. ‘I mean, when you find out the money’s all gone. There’s nothing left.’

  ‘You can’t con a conman, bitch. I know you have the money. Look, I need to get out of Chicago. All my service to the community is catching up with me. I’m thinking Vegas. The money will set me up with a neat money lending enterprise, and there’s always room for dirty cops in the desert. Did you learn a lesson in all this, bitch? Don’t trust someone you knew was deceiving you. Don’t marry a guy you’ve done nothing but sleep and get drunk with for three weeks, and then imagine he’ll be your soulmate, or, better still, someone you’re remotely interested in once he can’t get it up any longer. So, there you have it. Comments? Questions? Marks out of ten for my machination?’

  The cable tie snapped, my wrists fell away and although they burned like I’d been rubbing them with sandpaper, it didn’t matter. I was free. Pulling myself up, I reached to the back of the seat for the bunch of cable ties.

  ‘You might’ve been more than my nameless mark, but deep down, it was just a scam. It was a . . .’

  There w
as an ear-piercing smash. The window glass exploded inward, before I felt the rush of air against my cheeks. I began sliding then falling into the door. The car flipped, until the sky was beneath us and the engine screamed for mercy. Falling onto the roof, my back hitting it with a crack, the car rolled again before, with a squeal, screech and crash, the vehicle came to a rest on its roof.

  I saw blood, metal and then darkness.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  My head was bleeding, the blood sliding down my face like hot butter.

  Looking down, I lay on the roof of the mangled car pinned between two twisted metal supports, a jagged piece of door cutting into my calf. The bolts of pain shot up and down my spine as I searched through the glassless window into the dark; another vehicle sat maybe fifteen metres away, steam escaping its crumpled front end as it sat skewed and unruly across the road, as still as the night surrounding it.

  Another car. We’d been T-boned by another car. We were at a crossroads, somewhere, lit by one ancient streetlight resting on a shabby timber pole. The rest of the world could’ve ceased to exist. Apart from the occasional rustle of corn and chirping of crickets, there was nothing – no traffic, no Old Cracker Barrel or opportunely placed motel. I couldn’t run for help. There was nowhere to run to.

  Evan. The gun. His plan. Blearily, I glanced at the front seats. Glass and metal and yet more glass lay strewn about, like a submachine gun had pummelled the windscreen. It appeared the whole front end of the car had caved in after we’d flipped over, but the driver’s door was open, and next to it lay an arm, a moving arm.

  I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. Maybe he’d think I was dead and leave me in the wreckage to rot, but faking people’s deaths was Evan’s speciality, not mine. I glanced around, searching for something I could smash Evan over the head with, though all I had were the cable ties.

  ‘Honey, you alive back there? I think we crashed.’ From the coughs punctuating his words and his fingers barely moving, he’d thankfully come off worse, injury-wise.

  I had to move. Creeping my fingers down to my phone, it was gone. It could’ve come loose in the crash, but on patting my inside jacket pocket I found my survival kit missing too. The money, phone, my documents . . . He’d found them. Evan must’ve taken them while I was unconscious.

  Even if I did make it out alive, I was in the middle of Illinois farmland. I had no phone, no compass, and a multitude of bleeding to contend with. I didn’t even know which way east was.

  Through the window, the other car had stopped steaming. It looked black. It looked old. It looked like a Chevrolet Chevelle, with both wing mirrors secured by tape.

  Then I heard a crunch. Tentatively turning, and holding my breath to save the metal from creaking below me, I blinked away the blood and squinted out through the claret.

  I soon realised the crunch was the sound of the Chevelle’s door opening, Joe now emerging, grasping his head in one hand and a gun in the other, and I wasn’t the only one to notice. In front of me, from the driver’s seat, there was an explosion of laughter.

  ‘The dead man’s here. The dead man’s got a gun,’ Evan sang. ‘The dead man crashed into my fucking car!’ He continued cackling until it faded to coughs.

  Joe’s staggering was purposeful, the road the deck of a ship in a storm. I could only look on as his uneven steps closed the gap. Joe’s gun was grasped tight. He had come to kill someone. The only question was who.

  As he neared the car, the gun began to climb.

  ‘What’s with the lady gun, Joe? What’s with the car wreck? We were supposed to meet at the hole, remember?’ Evan chuckled, every word punctuated with pain and irony. ‘You were supposed to get Mr Heller on Skype. Did you get Mr Heller on Skype?’

  Joe said nothing, his wiry frame now metres from the car. He was looking at Evan, not me.

  ‘Is she alive back there? Yo, bitch? You still breathing?’

  Joe pointed the gun at Evan, his eyes still and calm, before turning to me and shooting a smile and wink.

  ‘She’s alive, isn’t she?’ Evan asked Joe. ‘That bitch is alive!’

  He didn’t reply.

  ‘Joe, put the gun down and get her . . . get her out of the car. Bring her here. Get Howard . . . get Mr Heller . . . on the phone. Come on, Joe, there’s still the three hundred grand I promised you in the trunk,’ he breathed. ‘I know you want it, sweet cheeks. Just do this one thing and I’ll give it to you, huh? Hell, I’ll give you more. How much do you want?’ Evan grunted through a barrage of coughs.

  My breaths passed a hundred a minute as I saw a bloodied hand, then two, clawing at the asphalt. Evan was crawling out through the open door. There was a gash on his arm that cut right to the bone and his head was choked with blood. He looked like Halloween.

  ‘There you are,’ he managed, panting as he turned his head to where I lay pinned inside the car roof. ‘You did make it. Jesus . . . you look like shit. Doesn’t she look like shit, Joe? All the better for Howard’s Skype call. Joe? Get your phone. Man, I’m going to enjoy seeing Howard’s face when you lose a pretty little finger or . . .’

  Then Joe fired once into the back of Evan’s head.

  I heard a scream, until I realised it was my own; Evan’s body flopping forward before his lifeless face smacked the road and cold eyes stared me out until I realised, finally, he was gone.

  ‘Baby, it’s all right,’ Joe soothed, extending his arms as he approached. ‘He’s dead.’

  My breaths dropped to zero as I scrabbled up the inside of the car, trying in vain to reach my feet.

  ‘Stop! It’s okay! I killed the son of a bitch. He’s dead. Look.’ Joe’s biker boot kicked at Evan’s suited arm, Evan’s stocky body rolling back like a sack of meat until his still eyes peered skyward and the blood began pouring out over the street.

  ‘Joe . . . will you put the gun down, please?’

  He stopped and looked down at the revolver still waving wildly in front of him.

  ‘Shit. Sorry, baby. Didn’t mean to scare you.’ Like a hammer throw, he launched the gun far into the undergrowth. ‘Are you hurt? Here, let me help you out.’

  He left Evan’s side and reached forward into the car for me.

  ‘No!’ I shouted. ‘No. You have to leave me where I am. I could’ve broken something.’

  ‘Damn, I just . . . I’ve missed you. It’s good to see you.’ He crouched down, resting his hands on his knees as he looked to me through the mangled car. ‘There’s so much I need to tell you. So much I have to explain. You need to know why, why I did this.’

  Joe turned and spat on the floor beside Evan. ‘Every night I sat in my cousin’s bar in KC thinking about you, about you with this piece of shit. It wasn’t long before I knew what I’d done wasn’t worth the money he’d promised.’

  Not able to look at Joe, I eyed Evan’s lifeless corpse again until I couldn’t bear to look at either of them.

  ‘Joe . . . I, I wasn’t with Evan. We weren’t together. You know that, right?’ There was so much more to say, yet it was the only thing that came out.

  ‘I know. I know you wouldn’t do that to me, even if you did think I was dead. You need to know, this was all Vic’s idea. It was his plan. He said he had this personal beef with you, something I was better off in the dark about. I didn’t ask who Mr Heller was, why he needed my brother to follow you night and day . . . He promised me five hundred grand – half a million – to treat you “like shit”. I thought it’d be some name-calling. I didn’t think it meant I’d have to . . . It was just one more punch, one more slap, and then I’d get the money. We’d get the money. He was watching, the whole time. He said he bugged the apartment, hid cameras everywhere. Don’t you see? I did this for us. When it was over, when I had the five hundred grand, I could provide for you, put a down payment on your Summer Bay apartment; hell, with half a mil I could buy you a whole damn house. I knew you’d understand when I explained, or maybe I was just hoping you’d forgive me. I kept thinking, kept convincing m
yself, no more Armanti. It kept me focused, that and the Dutch courage. I knew in the end we’d be rich, like you always wanted. But I had to make it convincing. I’m sorry, but I had to. Like I said, he was watching.’

  I looked skyward, the tears collecting. I almost smiled at the irony. If only I’d told Joe about the money, none of this would have happened. If only I’d been happy with Armanti Square and not so desperate to change Joe, or maybe, if he’d never dropped to one knee in Galvin’s I wouldn’t be staring at the husband who’d abused me for money. Money we already had.

  ‘Please. Forgive me. I love you. I know that now. I have since the first moment I saw you. You were too good for me. I felt . . . like I had to make something more of myself, just to be around you. Now I can. Now I can take you to K2 every night. They won’t have to give me a jacket; I can buy a whole closetful. What do you say, wifey? Can we start over?’ His smile was weak, testing the water.

  I’d already seen it, when Evan was telling me how much of a bitch I was. It was in the foot well, where it must’ve landed during the crash. All it needed was one leap forward, one calculated reach, and I could grab it.

  ‘Here, let me help you out of the car,’ Joe soothed. ‘Then we can get back to how things were, before Vic ruined our lives. You and me, together; you, me and the money. We never had chance to see what we could be. Now the future can be anything we want.’

  Joe grinned wildly, his face bloody and jacket torn as he staggered on the spot, method acting his way through what he wanted me to hear; even if his words didn’t, his greedy eyes told me all I needed to know, all I already knew. His hand hadn’t been forced. From day one, Evan had said punch and Joe had asked how hard.

  As Joe stepped towards me, I jumped forward, wrapped my fingers around Evan’s gun, pointed it at Joe and fired once, right between the eyes.

  One bullet. One. And it was done.