The Good Kind of Bad (9 page)

‘Then what’s the matter?’

He laughed, throwing down his hands. ‘I guess I’m not used to all this.’

‘All what?’

‘Domestic bliss?’ he admitted, shooting me a strained smile.

‘Let me do something to help, then.’

Joe eyes widened, the dirty smile emerging. ‘Are you talking a back massage? Or an any-other-place massage?’

‘You know what I mean. We need a new place. We need a fresh start. There’re some great buildings going up not too far from the lake. We could go and see the show apartment.’ I knew how precious he was about the Armanti Square abode, but he surely couldn’t argue with an en-suite and decor from this side of the millennium.

‘You know what? I remembered I have to go meet a guy.’ He threw off my legs and jumped up like he was sitting on a spring. ‘Why don’t you fetch some beers while I’m out and we’ll have a night in for once, if you know what I mean?’

Sitting in a shocked stupor, before I could utter a word he’d pushed a bunch of folded notes into my palm, kissed me on the forehead and sauntered out the door.

As the alarm shocked me from my early morning coma, I realised I wasn’t alone in the bed.

It was early, before-the-dawn early; the time of gangs in the shadows, of taxis and police and the odd drunk or hermit rifling the restaurant scraps. It was the moment before waking, when the city
did
still sleep, and Joe was here, not yet called to his messenger duties, to his clan of brothers in brown. Not yet.

In the cool bedroom air, Joe lay flat on his back. His gaze was on the ceiling as I watched his eyes flinch, like an unseen knife jabbed at his torso. Concerned, I reached out, though when I touched his arm it was like my fingers carried ten thousand volts. Shooting from the bed, he tripped over his work boots before careering sideways through the doors with a crash.

Disorientated and groggy with sleep, I moved from the covers and fumbled for my robe before creeping towards the sliding bedroom doors. There, I squinted through the crack in the opening before drawing slightly back from the piercing spotlight of the table lamp, the kitchen now a stage set for opening night.

There he stood, resting his weight against the kitchen counter as he poured what looked like vodka into a hi-ball glass. He took a gulp, then another, and then another. His breathing was shallow, his body looked weak and the weighty bottle was far beyond his meagre control. The might of Joe had waned, poured out like the liquor as clumsy fingers again grabbed the glass and the liquid trickled down his throat.

As he reached an arm to the counter to steady himself, I gasped too loudly.

A frost descended, my hand moving to my mouth as if cocooned in ice. As I paced back from the door, Joe’s head turned like something out of
The Exorcist
. Through the parting he was wholly unreal, silhouetted in the sharp glare of the kitchen lamp with the glass still in hand.

Unsure if he’d seen me, I was already back between the covers, trying to forget what I should never have seen.

My husband, Joe Petrozzi: the secret alcoholic.

Like the unyielding landscape before me on the train, in the fake splendour of the city
before
the Loop, I dissected the scenarios, prettied them up and cloaked their true visage. It had either been a vivid dream, a simple trick of the light, or I had a husband who drank in the dark to keep his sordid secret,
secret
.

Frankie dying, the tragic death of his parents . . . they were memories and recollections, facts too raw to discuss, but this was deception; his legal poison cloaked with tales of early starts and a boss who was a real stickler for timekeeping. Beer, wine, whisky, champagne . . . it’d been acceptable at K2 and lauded at Galvin’s. He’d revelled in his addiction right under my nose while laughing at my ignorance. All this time, all those nights, he’d been a regular drunken Joe.

Alighting the early train at LaSalle, I was positively dawdling through the breezy daybreak, lost in the dream of a glittering city and drunk on my thoughts; of the bottle and vodka and death-stare I felt sure he’d given me. But more than anything, I pondered what it meant ‒ for me, for Joe and for us.

Pushing the revolving door to my building off the blustery LaSalle, the knot in my stomach refused to budge.

It could’ve been the result of my so far less-than-stellar morning, but I swore someone was standing in the lobby, in the far corner. It must’ve been a shadow; one of those human-shaped ones, though looking again only a blank space remained.

If Quentin hadn’t asked me to come in early and prepare the Lucassen account, I would’ve still been asleep. I wouldn’t have seen him. Joe’s morning floss, toast and vodka routine would’ve remained buried, like it was supposed to.

After journeying to the thirty-first floor, I dug my replacement pass out of my cerise tote, swiped it against the plate, trotted down the corridor and swung open the double doors to the workspace.

I swallowed a shocked gulp of air, glass from the shattered windows not only littering the carpets but cutting my throat too. Most of the computer equipment was gone; televisions and their entrails dangled like dead animals from the walls and the chairs were splinters of wood, their stuffing strewn beside them.

With stuttering breaths I began my pensive journey forward, the glass crunching with each step to the room’s far side. With the crackling underfoot, it was like I walked through a dense forest, the ground indistinguishable for twigs and leaves and moss. Standing before a series of windows, all missing, the wind bit at my cheeks and blew at my tartan dress, and as I peered toward the building’s edge with my heart in my mouth, I was almost sucked into the chasm below.

An hour later I was no longer alone and no longer hyperventilating. With the holes safely boarded by maintenance (the first guys to arrive), colleagues and co-workers had been confined to a taped-off space by the door, the chatter now growing to a crescendo. They could’ve been waiting for some celebrity to show, if not for the sea of immaculately coiffured heads shaking in disbelief.

I’d never been to a crime scene before, never mind discovered one. First Joe and now this? I couldn’t wait to see what delights post-noon would bring.

It was the police who arrived next; detectives of the Chicago Metropolitan kind assigned to discover how a business on the thirty-first floor of a security-laden building could’ve been ransacked.

I distracted myself by watching the detectives scour the trashed workspace for DNA traces. As the scene was dusted with fingerprint powder, I heard only glove marks were found on the overturned tables. Forensic cop shows had been Will’s guilty pleasure, but was there anything worse than procedural cop shows? Hell, maybe.

Cherry Aherne, my colleague from the Fashionista campaign, had found me among the commotion. She too was visibly shaken by the state of our pristine offices, not that the devastation stopped her searching for an upside.

‘Will you be on NBC Chicago?’ Cherry asked, like she couldn’t get the words out quick enough. ‘They always interview the eyewitnesses. You’ll be asked for sure.’

‘You make it sound like I saw them do it.’ The police couldn’t think I was in on it, negotiating my cut for the thieves’ passage into the building. Could they?

‘Sure, Officer, she’s over here. She’s the blond one in that tartan dress thing.’

The distinct murmur of Quentin Renaud approached. Perfect. In his mauve Tuesday sweater vest Quentin strode the office floor, flanked by two towering police detectives. The pride and pomposity seeped out of him like rancid oil, his twitching mouth unable to decide which expression to try for next. Stopping short of Cherry and I, he looked up and grinned manically at the officers.

‘Excuse me, ma’am? I’m Detective Thomasz and this is Detective Reeve from South Area, District 31,’ the officer said as a strong hand indicated his suited partner. ‘We have some questions for you, if that’s all right?’

‘Questions?’ Oh, god.

He shot me a megawatt smile. ‘Don’t look so alarmed, Miss . . .’

‘It’s Mrs, actually. Petrozzi.’ I couldn’t be sure, but a flicker of surprise looked like it crossed his lips.

‘You were first here this morning, right? You found the place like this?’

His suit was sharp, Ted Baker or something suitably stylish, paired with a deep scarlet tie. The hair was a dirty blond, almost my shade if I didn’t make my monthly salon pilgrimage. Appearing a little rough around the edges, it more than suited him, the first hint of stubble grazing his chin like he’d woken late and forgotten to shave. He was . . . handsome, a guy who wouldn’t look out of place advertising Men’s Health while walking his Labrador in the park.

‘It’s you,’ I said, like I’d disregarded the last twenty-six years of learned normal behaviour.

Shooting me a smile, he instructed his colleague to go and statement Cherry and for Quentin to go and make himself useful. So, Mr Blond now had a name, and a rank.

‘I’m sorry,’ I muttered. ‘I just meant you’re the guy from the park. Granter Park? I saw you, with your dog.’

‘Granter?’ Blondie paused, stroking his stubble. ‘Oh yeah. You’re Lobster Girl.’

Whether he was trying for humour or straight humiliation I was already formulating my escape plan, though before I could make a run for it, the detective retrieved a notebook from his inside jacket pocket.

He jabbed his pen back at Quentin before glancing down at his pad. ‘Mr Renaud over there informed me you were first here this morning.’

His speech was quick like Nina’s. There was energy to it, and a hint of an accent. New York? Brooklyn?

‘Yeah, he asked me to come in early,’ I replied, highly unconvincingly, even though I was telling the truth.

‘And why’s that?’

‘We’re behind on one of the accounts,’ I stuttered. If he wasn’t suspicious before, he had to be now. I could barely get my words out.

‘Anything different about today?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Like, anything out of the ordinary. Anything out of place.’

His eyes fell on me again, intense in an unsettling, intriguing way.

I folded my arms, pursing my lips, unsure whether to tell him. ‘I guess something weird happened in the lobby.’

‘Weird? Weird how?’

‘It felt like someone was watching me. You know, like
people
were watching me.’

Perfectly normal in my head, out of my mouth the words made me sound like a crazy person. As Detective Thomasz eagerly scribbled my ramblings, I was still devising an excuse to get me the hell out of there. I need to collect my dry cleaning? My masseuse called and I’m long overdue my shiatsu? I have to confront my husband about being a secret alcoholic?

‘You think they were in the building when you arrived? The perps, I mean,’ the detective asked, I’m sure noticing my inability to focus on anything in the here and now.

‘I’m not sure; maybe it only
felt
like people were watching me.’ I tried to peer over the top of the notepad, but he noticed and angled it towards himself. ‘Do you really have to write all this down?’

‘What about disgruntled clients? Can you think of anyone that’d want to target Faith?’ he enquired, ignoring me.

As he juggled his pen between his forefingers, like a tell, I shook my head. I hadn’t been at Faith long enough to learn everyone’s name, never mind uncover any unscrupulous dealings.

‘Look, I have to get back to the station, but you think of anything else Mrs Petrozzi and you give me a call, however unimportant it might be. Deal?’

Our fingertips connected as I took his card from him, a shot of lighting dancing up my arm.

Evan Thomasz

Detective, Second Grade

Bureau of Detectives

South Area, 31
st
District

As I looked down at the card,
Evan
re-joined his partner.

Cherry then approached from the coffee machine, her auburn curls swinging like she was auditioning for a shampoo commercial. ‘Do you
know
him?’ she asked, playfully slapping me on the arm.

I gently ran my fingers over the edges of the card. ‘I’ve seen him around.’

‘Don’t tell me Mr Gorgeous Detective is turning your head . . .’

He’s Mr Blond, Cherry.

‘. . . and he is gorgeous in case you hadn’t noticed. There was definite chemistry, but then how couldn’t there be? He’s gorgeous, you’re gorgeous . . . it’s like a whole bunch of gorgeousness. Just let me know if you don’t want him.’

‘Cherry?’ I grabbed her by the shoulders and moved her aside. ‘You need help.’

A smear of engine grease ran the length of Joe’s T-shirt as he emerged in the darkened apartment later that afternoon, slouched against the doorframe. He enjoyed slouching and leaning and anything else involving minimal effort. It made his toned torso even more astonishing, avoidance of physical exertion almost a game to him.