Joanna Kelly embodies the concept of slender. Her fingernails are slender, her elbows, her teeth. On those rare occasions when I’m with her, I feel like the Incredible Hulk.
“It wouldn’t be so bad, Uncle Mike, if she didn’t wear those dresses.”
He nods agreement, his narrow smile widening slightly to indicate genuine amusement. “Ah, the dresses.”
Joanna likes plunging, short-skirted designer frocks. When she attends family gatherings, male attention drifts her way like dust to a vacuum cleaner.
“So what about Joanna?”
“Paulie assaulted her last night.”
“I thought Paulie was in prison?”
“He was paroled a week ago.”
“So pick him up and violate him. What’s the big deal?”
Paulie Malone is Joanna’s ex-husband. He’s an all-around knucklehead and he pretty much beat Joanna from the earliest days of their marriage until she finally called down the wrath of Uncle Mike and the rest of the Kelly clan. Then, within hours, Paulie was off the street, his bail denied, his lawyer made to understand that no plea bargain would be forthcoming. A short trial was followed by a conviction and a three-year sentence, the max for second-degree assault.
“I could have him picked up eventually,” Uncle Mike concedes, “but I’ll tell ya, Jill, if he hasn’t gotten the message by now, he’ll never get it. He’s incorrigible.”
“So what exactly do you want from me?” The words have an air of defiance, but my tone is resigned. Do it, or else: That’s how I understand the offer.
“Your cousin needs protection.”
“Only if you let Paulie stay on the street.”
“Okay, I won’t argue. Joanna needs protection until Paulie is taken into custody.”
“You’re telling me Paulie’s not to be found?”
“He never reported to his halfway house or his parole officer. His whereabouts, as we in the policing business like to say, are unknown.”
I look out the window at a nondescript street in a nondescript neighborhood. The stores on the other side of Pitkin Avenue survive from month to month. A barber who makes book, a candy store that hawks cigarettes smuggled in from Virginia, a cop bar named Melvin’s Hideaway.
“Jill?”
“I’m still listening, Uncle Mike.”
“Then I’m still insisting. Joanna needs twenty-four-hour protection.”
“And you want me to do the protecting.”
“I think Joanna would be more comfortable with a woman, and you’re the only woman I trust to do the job.”
The rumor in the Kelly family is that Uncle Mike continued to offer Joanna his support long after Paulie went to prison, that Joanna found a suitable way to express her gratitude. I’d never cared enough to check it out, but now it begins to make sense. Under no circumstances would Uncle Mike allow his main squeeze to be locked in, 24/7, with a male cop.
“Am I gonna do this in uniform?”
“Sad to say, the job doesn’t provide bodyguard protection to battered women.” He shakes his head. “I’ve arranged for you to take your vacation. Later, I’ll make it up to you.”
I’ve got a big mouth and I say the first thing to enter my mind. “Ya know, I really wanna tell you to go fuck yourself.”
Uncle Mike leans forward, his blue eyes twinkling, “Well, darlin’,” he croaks, “don’t waste your breath. If I could, I’d already have done so.” He gets up, comes around the desk, and offers me his hand. “Let’s take a walk, Jill. I feel the need of some fresh air.”
He’s right about the fresh air. Spring has penetrated the steel-and-concrete heart of the city. Tight buds crown every twig, and weeds push up through cracks in the sidewalk. For a few minutes, I keep pace with Uncle Mike, who walks with his hands behind his back as if pondering some weighty matter. Then, mostly because I’m getting bored, I decide to give him a break.
“You want me to kill him, Uncle Mike? That what you want?”
“That’s harsh, Jill.”
“If you were gonna bust him, send him back to the joint, you could just make Joanna disappear until Paulie surfaces.”
He bares his teeth and grips my shoulder, stopping me in my tracks. “The Kellys don’t run,” he announces. “Never.”
The effort to raise his voice makes him sound like a spooked chicken, but the point is clear enough. Paulie Malone has defied the Kelly family for the second time and he’s not gonna get another warning. The other part, about taking him into custody, was pure bullshit.
“That makes Joanna the bait.” When he doesn’t respond, I add, “And me the executioner.”
“Well, it won’t be the first time, will it?” That said, Uncle Mike shifts gears. “Sooner or later, Paulie’s going to kill her. We both know that, Jill. You may not like Joanna, but you can’t deny that she has a right to her life.” He takes a deliberate step, then another. “The sad truth is that I wouldn’t trust anyone else in the family to handle this.”
I ignore the flattery. “What if he shows up without a weapon, Uncle Mike? You want me to shoot him down, maybe go to prison for the next fifteen years?”
“Last thing on my mind.” He reaches into his pocket, comes out with a battered .38, holds it up for my inspection. The grip, hammer, and trigger guard are wrapped with cloth tape. “I’ll be able to control the post-shooting investigation. You just make sure this is laying on the ground next to Paulie and that you call me first.” Suddenly, he takes my hand and grips it hard. His fingers are bony and cold. “Do this for the Kellys, Jill. Do it for us.”
Repulsed, I pull my hand away. “So where’s Joanna living these days?”
“She has a little house in College Point.”
Again, it makes sense. I got to know the small neighborhood of College Point well in the two years I worked at the 109th Precinct in Queens, my first assignment out of the Academy. The Point’s white working-class population is protected on one side by the East River, on the others by a solid wall of industry. The Asian explosion in Flushing, only a few miles away, has barely made a dent in the community’s ethnic makeup. To Joanna, who was raised in Howard Beach, the mix of Irish, Germans, Italians, and Jews must seem like home.
But I know that Joanna’s comfort is a secondary concern to Uncle Mike. Far more important is getting to and from her bed without being spotted by anybody who knows them.
Uncle Mike fancies himself the Kelly patriarch, and his authority goes unchallenged for the most part. Even as a Deputy Chief, he still has the ability to grant favors and deliver punishments. So the clan doesn’t object to his relationship with Joanna, as long as he doesn’t throw it in his wife’s face.
“Yes or no,” Uncle Mike finally declares. “I need an answer.”
I take the .38 and shove it into my pocket. Though I haven’t decided what, if anything, I plan to do, I don’t have the cojones to refuse outright. I don’t have the balls to seal my fate.
“Yes,” I tell him.
Joanna has a right to her life, small and miserable though it may be. It’s the only part of Uncle Mike’s argument that holds up. It doesn’t matter that a minute after I walk through the door, Joanna tells me I should let my hair grow out and change the color. Or that she wears a slinky jogging suit that cups her breasts and butt as though paying homage. Or that her arms and legs are firm without being muscular and she’s so perfectly made up, the black-purple bruises on her face look as if they’re part of the overall design. Joanna has a right to her life.
After a perfunctory air-kiss, Joanna leads me into the kitchen, where she evaluates my potential as if I was a coat on a rack. “So, you seein’ anybody?” she finally asks. When I don’t respond, she says, “I could fix you up, but you scare the kind of guys I know.”