“Actually, I’ve got a boyfriend, Joanna. Joey Kruger. He’s hung like a horse and he can hump all night. What more could I possibly ask from life?”
As usual, my words, no matter how crude, have no appreciable effect on Joanna. Instead, she opens a cabinet next to the refrigerator, withdraws a can of Colombian coffee (the one with the likeness of the grateful peasant), and fits it into an electric can opener. I note that her arms appear boneless, then turn away.
“I’m gonna go outside, take a look around.”
Ten minutes later, I’m back in the kitchen, hoisting a cup of coffee. “When did the fence go up?” I ask Joanna.
“Three months ago.”
“What about the outdoor lights? When were they installed?” “The same time.”
“And the window bars on the first floor?”
Joanna glances into my eyes, the gesture sly, then looks down at her coffee. “Me living here by myself, Uncle Mike thought it would be a good idea. For my security.” She rubs the back of her hand across her brow, as if to erase the lie. “It’s getting warm in here. Do you think I should turn on the air-conditioning?”
Instead of answering, I lower the metal blinds, then set tables and lamps in front of as many windows as possible. When I finish, I’m nearly certain that Paulie won’t be able to see into any room. Then I go back through the entire house, including the basement, checking every lock on every window and door. As I work, I become more and more pissed off by the obvious fact that Uncle Mike set this up months ago, that he knew Paulie was coming out, that he made his preparations well in advance.
When I reenter the kitchen, I find Joanna touching up her nail polish. I lay Uncle Mike’s taped .38 on the table, say, “If Paulie gets past me, you’re gonna have to use this.”
Without looking up, Joanna asks, “How’s he gonna get past you, Jill? I mean...”
What she means is that I’m a trained sniper, that there’s not a cop in the city who can shoot with me. What she means is that the way Uncle Mike arranged things, Paulie’s gonna have to come through the front door and he’s gonna make a lot of noise in the process. What she means is that if I do my job, if I decide, mercilessly and without warning, to execute Paulie Malone, she won’t need the .38.
Joanna inspects the nails on her right hand, then blows softly across the drying polish. Her fingers are as supple as her arms and shoulders. If she has knuckles, I can’t see them.
“From here on out,” I tell her, “I want you to stay upstairs as much as possible.”
“Fine by me. I was gonna go up and change for dinner anyway.”
“Joanna, it’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon.” I glance at the stove. “And you haven’t started cooking yet.”
The corners of her mouth pull down and she rolls her eyes. “I’m gonna take a bath,” she announces. “I need to calm my nerves.”
I wait until Joanna’s in the tub, then toss her room. Beneath a pair of lime-green panties in her second lingerie drawer, next to a .32 caliber automatic and a box of ammo, I find a small bundle of letters written on prison stationery.
It only takes me a few minutes to read through them. Like every wife beater, Paulie is both contrite and optimistic. He knows he’s done the wrong thing, but now he’s straightening himself out. He’s in therapy. He goes to Mass every Sunday. His shrink loves him. Father O’Neill loves him. Even the warden loves him.
None of this interests me very much because I saw a lot of domestic violence when I worked patrol. Once you put them in cuffs, wife beaters are always remorseful. But what does capture my attention is Paulie’s reference to a note sent by Joanna: Your letter gave me hope for the first time. I know I don’t deserve another chance, but when you wrote that you never stopped loving me...
I slip the .32 and the ammo into the pocket of my blazer, scatter the letters on Joanna’s bed where she’s sure to notice them, and finally go downstairs to open the blinds on a window in the living room. From a chair set back in the shadows, I can see most of the front yard. I note that there are no trees and no tall shrubs between the house and the seven-foot fence. The newly mown lawn is a killing zone.
By the time Paulie Malone opens the gate, steps inside, closes it behind him, I’m sure of only one thing: I’m not gonna whack him before I give him a chance to mend his ways.
I understand the implications. This means that I have to speak to Paulie close up. It means a dedicated knucklehead with two years in prison behind him might decide that I’m the enemy and beat me to a pulp. But as I rise from the chair and head for the front door, I know I’m just gonna have to take the chance. My one consolation is that if Paulie gets past me, he’ll probably murder Joanna, who’s still in the bathtub.
I meet Paulie just as he reaches the top step of the little porch. He jerks himself to a halt, but neither of us is willing to be the first to speak. I drop my gaze to the middle of his chest and wait. Two seconds, then three, then four, then ten, until there’s nothing left to us but violence. I watch his torso rotate slightly, then I grab his balls, drop to one knee, and yank down as hard as I can. When his body naturally follows his jewels, I snap my head up and catch him flush on the mouth.
He goes over backwards, slams his head into the porch railing, and drops, facedown, on the floorboards. I pull my Colt and jerk the slide back to draw his attention to the bottom line, his miserable life. He pulls himself to a sitting position, then leans against the railing and brings his hand up to his bloody mouth. Finally, he raises his eyes to look at me.
I have to blink twice before I can meet his gaze. Paulie Malone has the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen, a fact that a moment before completely escaped me. Now I remember him when times were better, at Christmas and Thanksgiving. Even in the best of moods, even laughing, the pain never left his eyes.
“You comin’ back here, Paulie? Huh?” I center the Colt on his forehead. “Because if you do, I’m gonna personally serve you with the only order of protection that really matters.”
But my words don’t penetrate the wall of his obsession, and Paulie responds by listing his grievances. Although he once made forty bucks an hour working the high steel at construction sites, Joanna spent every penny and more. She openly flirted with men, even with family members, even in his presence. She not only refused to cook, clean, or do laundry, she wouldn’t lift a finger to augment the work of a weekly housekeeper. Worst of all, though she’d known how much he wanted children, she’d had an abortion without his permission or knowledge.
Nice, right? But not relevant. I lower the Colt and shake my head. “Shut up for a minute, Paulie.” When he quiets down, I continue: “Look, I don’t like Joanna either. But I handle it by avoiding her as much as possible. Whereas you, Paulie, you keep comin’ back. What’s the point? You can’t win.”
I squat down about six feet away and lean against the front door. While it’s nearly 6 o’clock and the sun has dropped behind the house, the air is still warm enough to caress my neck and face. From down the block, I hear children arguing, the echoing clang of a basketball against a hoop. “What’s the point?” I repeat.
Paulie strips off his T-shirt, wads it up, and presses it to his mouth. “I can’t let her go.”
“Why not, Paulie? It’s not like she’s the only game in town.”
“I know she loves me, Jill. The letters she wrote... She always said she loved me.”
“The letters were a setup. You understand that? Joanna doesn’t love you because she doesn’t love anybody except herself.” When he doesn’t respond, I push his buttons again. “Joanna was your punching bag for eight years. You can’t get her back. You’ll never get her back. I’ll kill you first.”