Nick Di Carlo
Joe Loves Mary. Mary Loves—Perfume?
I’m thinking how my partner, Joe Morgan, is the best homicide detective I’ve known. He’s got quirks, but mostly they’re personal things that he never lets interfere with the job. “Compartmentalizing,” he calls it. I can’t do that. Stuff is always rumbling around in my head. “Neurotic,” Joe calls it. But tonight? Tonight, it’s Joe who’s acting bug-fuck-nuts. I’ve chased him three blocks, up six flights of a six-story walk-up and onto the roof where he’s about to toss some guy over the edge.
“Joe, what the hell? Watcha doin’? Who is this guy? Joe!” I jump onto Joe’s back and throw a sleeper on him, shouting, “Knock it off or I’ll put your lights out. What the hell’s wrong wichyu?”
I yank Joe off the guy who gets up and starts running, making me chase and bring him down. I cuff him, grab him by his belt and drag hm to where I left Joe spitting and swearing, calling the guy names worse than any longshoreman ever imagined.
Joe lunges toward the guy, but I block him and knock him down again. “Cut the crap and talk to me, tell me what’s got you acting like a lunatic.”
“Mary.”
“Mary—you’re wife? That Mary?”
“She’s been banging that scum.”
I’ve known Mary as long as I’ve known Joe. She’s a sweetheart. Kind. Loving. Loyal. Joe’s off his rocker. “That can’t be right.”
“It’s right. She’s in his apartment. 6B.”
“No way.”
“Wanna bet?”
I ask the guy, “You live in 6B?”
He nods his head.
“Gimme the key.”
We go downstairs, first Joe, then the guy with me holding him by the collar. I unlock the door, and what the hell—Mary’s pacing the floor, a lit cigarette in her left hand and a half-glass of red wine in her right.
Joe goes for her, and I’m referee again, breaking up the clinch.
“Mary,” I ask, “What the hell?”
“You wouldn’t understand, Sol.” She calls me Sol ‘cause my name’s Ben Solomon.
“Try me.”
Mary goes on a while about how I know nothing about Joe, what a real shit he is, how he treats her like a prisoner and servant, not a wife. How when people are around, he puts on a great show and she goes along with it, otherwise there’s hell to pay.
Maybe that’s true. I never saw it. But now she’s with this Schmoe. And Joe’s homicidal.
“He’s a good man. He loves me,” Mary proclaims. “His name’s Shemar.”
Shemar? I think—the Samaritan? Geesh!
“He’s a fucking pimp. A dead pimp,” Joe spits.
“Nobody’s dying here tonight,” I say. “You kill him, then what?”
“She’s next. After she watches the motherfucker bleed out.”
Not sure what to do, I tell Mary to wait in the bedroom. I take Joe’s cuffs and shove the Samaritan into the bathroom where I chain his hands to the radiator and cuff an ankle to a water pipe. “Relax, asshole. I’ll figure this out.”
“Joe, pour yourself a drink. Have a seat. But—one step toward the bathroom and I’ll duct tape you to the chair.” I search the apartment, finding two pieces—a .22 revolver and a .38 snub nose. I pocket the .22 and shove the .38 under my belt.
“Joe, so far, all this is manageable. Mary just wants out and Shemar won’t press charges. Why not just let things go?”
“I earn my living, risk my life stopping bad people from doing bad things. These are bad people. They’re up to something. Maybe to do me in.”
“They haven’t broken any laws. Tonight, you have.”
“Ain’t about law. It’s about justice.”
“Vengeance.”
“Tomato, potato. I call it justice.”
“How’re you gonna do it?”
“I’m takin’ asshole back to the roof. He’s gonna slip and fall.”
“Then?”
“Mary’s grief compels her to press the muzzle of that .38 upon her ample breast and bang.”
“What about me?”
“I hope you’re gonna leave the hardware behind, walk down the block, knock back a few bourbons before heading home to bed. Once you’re gone, I set the scene, so nobody ever knows we were here.”
“I can’t do that.”
“I think I can take you,” Joe says. “Take your service piece, plus Shalimar’s hardware you’re storing. I do what needs doin’ and afterwards you do what you gotta do. Turn me in, take me in, put me down.”
“Shemar,” I say.
“Huh?”
“You said ‘Shalimar’ like the perfume.”
“Screw off.”
“Joe, you’re talkin’ like a friggin’ crazy man.”
“Will you testify that in court?”
Mary calls from the bedroom, “Sol?”
I open the bedroom door and Mary’s pointing an S&W .357 at me, center mass.
“Mary?”
“Sol. Shemar and I are leaving. I’d like your help. I don’t want nobody hurt. Not even Joe.”
Staring at the .357, I think three-pistola Shemar ain’t quite the Samaritan Mary claims. I wonder if him and Mary ain’t up to something nefarious? I’m having doubts now about Joe—but I’ve gotta compartmentalize here.
“I’ll help.”
“Toss your pistol and Shemar’s guns onto the bed.”
I do that.
“Now, we’re going to unchain Shemar and cuff Joe instead.”
We walk into the living room. Joe leaps from his seat.
Mary shows him the .357.
“Joe,” I say, “She’s got us. Let it go.”
Joe looks puzzled. I nod. He looks again. I nod. Then—he nods and sits down.
Mary and I unchain Shemar. They step from the bathroom and Joe takes Shemar down. I wrench the revolver from Mary.
In the living room, Mary and Shemar sit on the couch. Joe and I don nitrile gloves. Joe rounds up the guns, unloads them, wipes them clean. Hands the .38 to Mary and the .357 to Shemar. Joe takes them back, reloads them.
I pour two glasses of wine, tell the couple to drink and set the glasses down again.
I help Mary hold the .38 to her ample bosom. Joe guides Shemar’s hand with the .357 to the Schmoe’s temple.
END
Nick Di Carlo has taught writing and literature in traditional and nontraditional settings, including maximum security correctional facilities where Lawrence R. Reis, author of Wolf Masks: Violence in Contemporary Poetry, noted: “Dr. Di Carlo quickly gained the respect and cooperation of the inmates. The men in his classes recognized many similarities between their experiences and his. Those experiences, often dark and sometimes violent, inform and power Dr. Di Carlo’s own writing.”