Betting Slips
Robert Bee

When I took my garbage out to the curb my eyes glanced over my neighbors' trash. Fat Walt in 318 had the remains of a Big Mac squatting on top of an old Playboy. Melinda, the would be model from 340, had bills, papers and female things stewing in rain soaked cans. The new people down the hall in 319 had paper forms spilling from their closed lid. I glanced at the handwritten, scrawled-on forms. Jimmy K $300 bucks on the Chargers. F.B. 500 on the Steelers. Now really interested, I lifted the lid and started sifting: Gee the man 160 on the Jets; the same hand had written in parenthesis (Sucker Bet!). 
I shoved some of the slips in my pocket and then dragged the can into the basement to make sure the garbage trucks wouldn't pick it up. My new neighbor was a bookie, sloppy and stupid enough to throw out the betting forms in the regular trash. But there was nothing for me to do about it: I wasn't a cop anymore.
That thought made the bitterness come back. I was thrown off the force a year and a half ago because I wouldn't stop investigating public officials connected with the DiFalcano Mafia. The powers made up an excuse, a trumped up bribery charge, and I was handed a pension and a PI career. I could name but not prove which men were responsible: the racketeers, Franky DiFalcano and Larry DiFalcano, Chief of police Keast and even Mayor Cox.
According to the ground floor mail box, C. Carlucci lived in 319, just four doors down from my humble abode in 315. The name Carlucci sounded familiar, like someone who had been busted for something petty. I could find out easily enough -- there were still guys on the force who owed me favors -- but I didn't want to call in favors on this.
Ice bucket in hand, I found myself passing 319, where no one moved in the living room behind the half open curtains. My luck was improving: as I stood at the ice machine, someone walked out of the apartment. Was this C. Carlucci? I looked in the polished metal of the ice machine expecting a man. Instead, all I saw was legs, sensuous firm legs running up to a woman's neck. I gawked into the reflection as the legs traveled down the metal and became hips, tight waist, breasts and a beautiful face framed by curls of blond hair.
"You're making a mess," she said.
Ice shot out of the machine and bounced out of my overflowing bucket, some of it rolling against my running shoes. "Damn," I muttered and released the handle. I brushed ice out of the top of the bucket and glanced at her legs.
"I don't need a cheap rent-a-cop staring at my legs," she told me.
"I'm a PI, not a rent-a-cop."
She smirked as if it made no difference to her. I got a closer look, and was a bit disappointed. Her face had too much makeup and hickeys stood out on her neck. She looked unnecessarily cheap and tough, with a tight and knowing mouth. Her lips opened a bit, as if being stared at aroused her.
I went with the flow and said: "I don't need a cheap broad telling me what to look at."
"You got some mouth on you, buddy."
"You got some full lips yourself, sister. Are those real?" I asked pointing at her breasts.
"Hell no, they cost me a couple of thou."
We both laughed.
"I'm Dennis Mulnick."
"I'm Belinda, and I know who you are."
I wasn't sure whether I liked her to know who I was or not. My business depended on secrecy -- then again some women found the work sexy.
"Maybe you should skip over to my place for a couple of drinks," I suggested.
"My old man wouldn't like that. Maybe some other time. I know where to find you."
*
I lay on the couch watching TV, wondering how she knew about me. I would like to think she noticed me around the complex, found me sexy, then checked up on me, but I doubted it. I wasn't Prince Charming in the looks department. I was paunchy in the gut, my hair thinned a bit, my face too rugged to be called handsome.
She had all the goods in the looks department. Her limitations, such as the overdone makeup, was a getup to please a cheap hood, Mr. C. Carlucci. She was probably a mobster girlfriend. Women like criminals -- at least until they get to know them. In some circles, sleeping with a don was an ambition. They start off with a small time family member and work their way up.
Someone ran to my front door, I heard heels, then someone banging on the door. "Let me in," I heard Belinda say through the door, "quick, before he gets here."
Maybe my luck really was improving, I thought, and let her in. "I think I'd like that drink now," she said. She pressed the door closed with her back, and boy was she a mess. She had a big shiner on her left eye, a trickle of blood trailed from her lip, mascara ran from her eyes where she had been crying.
I touched her under the chin gently and raised her head looking at the eye. "Did your boyfriend hit you?"
"Yeah," she responded, sobbing a bit in her throat.
"Are you all right?"
"I'm OK. You know, you have gentle and soft hands, not hard and rough like I expected."
I touched my thumb to her chin. She was quite a looker, even like this. Her blue eyes swam with sorrow. "Come into the kitchen with me. I'll get some ice for that."
I led her into the kitchen and fixed her a drink -- bourbon with lots of ice -- then I gave her an ice pack for the eye. I turned my back, so she couldn't see I just drank coke. I wanted to keep my wits about me. "Do you want to call the police?" She shook her head no. "Maybe you should. Has this happened before?"
"A couple of times. No cops, I don't trust them. I can handle him." She jerked her thumb toward 319. She stalked back and forth across the apartment. The way she walked, with those long legs shimmering, reminded me of a big cat, a panther, definitely not a cowering waif.
When I was a cop, I'd dealt with battered women, and she didn't fit the bill. I'd been trained to be sympathetic, understanding and sensitive, all of which she didn't need.
I wondered what was really going on. How much of a connection did she have with those betting slips?
"Stop looking at my legs," she said.
I wasn't even looking at her legs. What game did kitty want to play?
"The way they move I couldn't help myself."
"Shut up, you men are all alike."
"How's that?"
"Always concerned with my legs."
"Not true, I like your breasts, your ass." She smiled. "Maybe you should hang out with me," I told her. "I promise not to punch you like the prize you got down the hall."
"How do you know I don't like getting socked on the jaw?"
Someone banged on the door. She shot me a glance, perspiration gleaming on her forehead. We both knew who it was, but I couldn't tell whether her expression was fear or something else. I thought about my gun in the bedroom, and told her, "Hold off on opening the door." I dashed to the bedroom and slid my gun into the rear waistband of my jeans.
"Open the door," I could hear her boyfriend yelling. "Open it now, or I'll break it in." I glanced through the peephole at a burly salt and pepper haired man in his early 40s, who kept slamming his fists against my door. Dark red cheeks dominated a sharply angled face. "Belinda honey," he moaned, his voice changing to soothing when he laid the palm of his hands against the door. "Let me in."
He was calming down, so I decided to reason with him. "Back away from the door, and I'll open it." His jaw clenched when he heard a male voice, but he stepped back. I opened the door, thrusting one hand out to ward him off while clutching the grip of the .38 with the other.
"I want Belinda!" he snarled.
"Calm down. This is my house; you don't demand anything."
He looked past me and told me, "I'm going to talk to her!"
"I don't think she wants to talk to you. Why don't you go home and calm down?" Thinking he wasn't armed, I released the grip of my gun, and used both hands to stop him from shoving past me.
"Why is she here with you anyway?" His hand ripped a gun from under his sport coat. He shoved it against my face and spit through gritted teeth. "Walk back into the room careful."
I backed into the room, cursing my stupidity. He was packing a Saturday night special, probably untraceable. Pressed along my nose it grew to the size of a shotgun, every inch of gleaming metal expanding toward me.
"Don't do anything rash Charlie," I told him. "Murder one's life in prison."
He didn't like that. His face shaped into a snarl. "Shut up. I''ll plug you one and like it." He glanced at Belinda. "Come back to me honey! I love you. I want you to come home." How could the man shift from insanity to apparent love so quickly?
"I'm not coming home with you right now."
Let him down easy, I thought. The most dangerous, unpredictable situations were domestic conflicts. I'd learned that during my years on the force. Just a couple of years ago a husband blew away two uniforms with a shotgun when they showed up to break up a domestic quarrel.
"Why don't you want to go home? Is this the guy you've been screwing? It is, isn't it!?"
Christ, I thought, this is escalating. "Calm down Charlie," I said in a calm voice. "I've never met her before now."
"It's not him Charlie. Come home with me, and we'll talk it out."
"I don't trust him!" he growled, glaring in my eye and shoving the gun against my face.
His eyes had a look that told me he was thinking about pulling the trigger. My knees softened in my body. "Turn around," he ordered, grabbing my shirt collar and wrenching me around. Before I could react the gun barrel slammed against my skull like a hammer.
Pain split the top of my head and knifed through my body. I fell, clutching my head. Voices came at me from a great distance, her scared voice soothing, his angry voice commanding.
"All right," she said, "I'll go with you."
The door shut. "Goodbye," I told them. I wanted to sleep, but I knew that was a bad idea. I touched my head, and my hand came away sticky. I forced myself to sit on the coffee table, dizzy and nauseous before stumbling over to the trash can in the corner. After I threw up, I felt better. My head had swollen to eight times its normal size; I pictured myself as a cartoon holding an oversized head upright.
I stood, unsteady, but able to walk, or at least weave. Although it was probably a stupid idea, I stumbled out the door, bracing myself against surfaces. Rationally, I should have called the police, but my head hurt too much to be rational.
Gunshots roared from across the hall. One, two, three.
I pulled my gun, which I wasn't in good shape to use, and stumbled over to 319. I envisioned her beautiful face blasted to pulp and shattered bone. Mastering the pounding in my head, I peered through the half open curtain. Belinda stood above her boyfriend, gun in hand. He lay flat on his back, blood pumping from his chest.
I entered carefully. "Everything's going to be fine. Drop the gun, Belinda," I said soothingly. She let Charlie's Saturday Night special fall and hugged herself, her face streaked with tears. I closed the door and locked it on the neighbors, who milled about outside.
Blood was smeared across her face, and her lip was split. One hand trembled and touched her bleeding gums. "He put his gun on the table before he started hitting me. I couldn't take it anymore. I ran for the gun and shot him."
Belinda would end up walking for this. The battered woman defense had precedence in our courts. I wasn't a lawyer, but he beat her up, assaulted me, and then beat her up again -- no jury would convict her.
*
I wanted to talk to her, but at headquarters the cops interviewed me and took my statement before shoving me out the door. They would take her to a hotel or home, wherever she wanted to go. I wasn't a cop anymore, not one of them, and they wanted me to know that.
On the taxi ride home, I felt the betting slips in my pocket. A nagging suspicion nagged my aching head.
I sat in my apartment with the lights out, watching for her through the window. I ate aspirin but stayed away from the whiskey -- drinking would put me to sleep. Two uniforms I used to know, Hal and Leonard, brought her home, and she thanked them, still weeping, yet holding herself together. I thought about going over, but no -- I wanted to wait.
As she fumbled with her keys, Hal and Leonard stood behind her. I thought: look toward my apartment. Lust clouded my brain. She unlocked the door and went in.
I drank coffee, keeping myself awake and nursing my head with an icepack, invisible behind my darkened window as she moved behind half open curtains, not going to bed. She raised the window an inch and let in the night air.
Two hours later it happened. A tall man in a tailored gray suit came up the steps and paused before her door. A careful man, he looked in both directions. I recognized his sharp beady eyes and square chin: Larry DiFalcano. One of the bastards that got me tossed off the force. Coming to collect his debts. That's what they called him, "The Collector". He ran a racketeering operation, forcing bookies to pay protection money. He collected debts for them as well. Larry had handed out many a broken arm for late payments.
He knocked on the door. She opened it and let him in. My heart sank. I was tired of losing to these bastards.
Keeping to the shadows, I crossed to 319 and crouched outside her partially open window, hearing her voice high and frantic. "I killed him just like you said."
"Yeah, honey, and you did it real smart. Now hand over his book. I want all the numbers and addresses. Is that it?"
"You made me kill him. You said I could move up in the family."
"We had some good times honey, but I don't need you anymore. We can't let it get out you killed a family member and got away with it, even one as stupid as Charlie."
I lifted my eyes over the rim of the window. He stood in front of her, flipping through a black leather book with the tip of a .45. The gun she killed Carlucci with was at police headquarters. She didn't have any protection. "This is what I need," he told her smirking. "We wouldn't want to lose your boyfriend's clients. When they find your body they'll think damn, she was so distraught she shot herself in the head." He grabbed her wrists and held them together with one gloved hand. He wrestled her to her knees and pressed the gun against her temple.
Still crouching, I ran to the door and gently tried the knob. He hadn't locked it behind him. I swung the door open and rushed in. "Drop it, DiFalcano."
He let go of her hands and swiveled around. I shot him twice in the shoulder, and he dropped the gun. He fell to the ground screaming, his eyes rolling back into his head. "Two gunshots at close range, Larry, that's gotta hurt."
She trembled, still on her knees, both hands pressed against her face. She was scared now, big time scared. She thought she had it all figured out. A perfect murder -- but then DiFalcano double crossed her. Who knew how far ahead she had planned this. Had she had an affair just to make him crazy jealous? She screwed DiFalcano.
"All right Belinda," I told her, "you'd better start thinking fast. The neighbors are calling the cops right now. You could be going to jail for a long time."
"What do you mean? He tried to kill me. I didn't do anything." She grabbed my hand still on her knees, tears, real tears this time pouring down her cheeks.
"Sure you did. I heard you talking to him through the window. The two of you conspired to kill Charlie. Your only chance is to turn state's evidence and give all the information you have on the DiFalcano family over to the cops."
DiFalcano bled fast; he could barely move his arms, but he could still bully. "You rat on me bitch, and you'll be taken care of."
She looked from him to me, trapped. "You can't tell the cops what you heard. The family'll kill me if I turn him in. They won't convict me on a conversation you overheard."
"Maybe not, but the Mafia will kill you regardless. You'll never be safe. They may be a small time mob, but they'll come for you wherever you go. Your only chance is to turn state's witness. Tell them about this scumbag's shakedown program, and how he tried to kill you. Everything you have, or the police won't protect you."
She nodded her hand.
"You bitch," DiFalcano said. "I'll fix you."
No, I'll fix you DiFalcano, I thought. I went to the next room and dialed 911, then a friend of mine in the FBI. Even if the locals didn't want to touch this one, the Feds would.

Robert Bee is a freelance writer and teacher of writing at Rutgers University. He has published over twenty short stories of mystery, horror, fantasy and science fiction in a variety of publications, such as Blue Murder <http://www.bluemurder.com>, Outer Darkness, The Black Lily, Midnight Gallery, Eternity, E-scape, 69 Flavors of Paranoia, Altered Perceptions, Cabal Asylum, Welcome to Nod, Gauntlet and Parchment Symbols