Joe Victim

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Melissa tenses up when she sees Joe. Her heart quickens. Last time she saw him for real was the Sunday morning he walked out of her apartment. They’d spent Friday night and all of Saturday and Saturday night in bed together. They had ordered pizza and watched romantic comedies on TV, and she hated romantic comedies, but with Joe they were funny. He liked them. He laughed. She laughed. Joe was a romantic guy. He was supposed to come back that afternoon. He was only going home to feed his cat. He even left his briefcase with her. It had some knives in it. He left and didn’t come back and she was angry at him. She felt used. Angry. Angry enough to go looking for him and maybe take a knife to him. But she didn’t. If Joe didn’t want her, then fuck him. It was his loss. Only that’s not what happened. She saw Joe again on TV that night. He’d been arrested.

Right now Joe is on his feet. He doesn’t look good. He looks pale. What have the prison people been doing to him? Any second now the plan will either work or it won’t. It all depends on how good a shot Raphael is under pressure.

Joe collapses.

He falls into a ball on the ground. Yet there wasn’t a gunshot, was there?

The people who were in the van with Joe stand around him, then help him to his feet, and they’re not panicking, so no, there’s been no shot. They move Joe toward the courthouse, half carrying, half dragging him, and she knows from Raphael’s viewpoint there is no way he can get an accurate aim on him.

Joe is whisked away into the courthouse. No screams and no blood.

“Why are we here?” the paramedic asks. “I mean, why did you want to come along?”

“Shut up,” Melissa says. “I’m trying to think.”

“Do you know him? The Carver? Listen, I understand if you’re here to kill him, I do, and Jimmy, he’ll understand too. Please just don’t hurt my kids. I’ll do what you ask.”

Melissa stares at her. She’s never killed a woman before, but she’s starting to think it’d be worth it just for the life experience. It would be character building. “I said shut up.”

“Please, please, you have to let us go.”

Melissa turns and points the gun at her. “Listen, if you don’t shut the fuck up I’m going to stick a hole in you. Okay?”

The woman nods.

Melissa pulls out her cell phone. Calls Raphael. He answers after one ring.

“There was no clear shot,” he says, and he sounds panicky. “No shot.”

“I know,” she says. “Listen to me carefully,” she says. “You need to stay calm. We still have time. In fact we have all day. They’ll be bringing him back out. I’m not sure when, but it will happen later this afternoon. It has to. Just stay calm and stay put.”

“You want me to wait around until then?” he asks, sounding incredulous. “Up here in my police uniform?”

“Yes,” she says.

“What? Up here in the office?”

“Where else would you wait?”

“What if somebody comes in?” he asks.

“Nobody is going to. Listen to me, you need to stay calm. It’s going to work out, I promise you.”

“You promise? How the hell-”

She interrupts him. “I’ll stay down here the entire time,” she says. “Don’t overthink it. Just stay calm and do what needs doing.”

She hears him sigh. She can imagine him up there in his police uniform, running his hands through his hair, maybe covering his face with his hands.

“Raphael,” she says.

“Suddenly all of this is seeming like a bad idea,” he says.

“It’s not a bad idea. It was just a small piece of bad luck. Or bad timing, really. There’s something wrong with him. He’s sick. For all we know they might bring him right back out. For all we know you’ll get another chance in five minutes.”

He doesn’t respond. She can hear him breathing into the phone. Can hear him wondering if this may end up being true. Trish is staring at her. Within the last minute the crowd outside the back of the courthouse has swelled as people have figured out Joe came this way. The signs don’t mess around-Die fucker die is a good litmus test for how the crowd is feeling. And what the hell is it with all these stupid outfits some of them are wearing?

“Are you still there?” she asks.

“I’m here,” he says.

“We can do this. If not now then at the end of the day when Joe comes back out. It’ll be just as good then. Maybe even better,” she says, not really believing that last bit. Better would be if Raphael had taken a successful shot already.

“Okay,” he says, “I’ll wait and get him on the way back out. I promise,” he says, and he hangs up and Melissa stares at the back door of the court building and tries to figure out how long is too long when it comes to waiting for a guy like Raphael, and hopes he can keep his nerve long enough to stay where he is.