"Laughin', hah? Funny?" He lifted her slightly off the ground by the hair, caught her with a murderous slap along the jaw. Her head bounced hard against the floor. Chubby still heard the laughing. Pulled her unconscious to her feet, her head bobbing backward as if her neck were a broken hinge. Laughing. Chubby bellowed as he punched her in the chest. She sank to the floor, knocking over a dinette chair. Chubby lunged after her but his feet got tangled in the legs of the upended chair. He sailed into the living room wall, smacking his head. He sat up in front of the TV like a six-year-old, watched Lassie for thirty seconds, holding his forehead and rocking in a circular motion. Far away he heard fists pounding on the door. Squinting, his eyes focused on Phyllis' impossibly twisted body. He reached forward to straighten her out, decided to turn off the television first and dropped on his face out cold.

***

Early Sunday morning Tommy and Marie sat in Cresthaven Hospital staring in shock at the centerfold of the Sunday Daily News.

VIOLENCE IN CO-OP CITY

Louis V. De Coco (49) (c) is being led handcuffed from 100-12 Kennedy Place, Co-op City by Ptl. Lucius Packard (r) and Ptl. Frank McConnachie (1) after severely beating his wife Phyllis De Coco (45).

De Coco sees wife on stretcher emerging from building entrance, begins to break loose from Packard and McConnachie.

De Coco on knees, crying in front of stretcher as Packard and McConnachie take him back into custody.

Responding to complaints of screams from apartment 11 A, Patrolmen McConnachie and Packard broke into the De Coco residence at 9:15 p.m. yesterday evening, found the apartment in shambles. Both Louis and Phyllis De Coco were unconscious on the living room floor. Phyllis De Coco is in fair condition at Cresthaven Hospital suffering from a broken nose, a broken jaw, a fractured wrist, a cracked sternum and numerous contusions and lacerations. Louis De Coco suffered a mild concussion, was treated, booked and is being held for psychiatric observation at Jacobi Hospital. The cause of the fight is unknown.

Tommy and Marie sat pale and numb like battered refugees on a long wooden bench in the waiting area outside of surgery.

"Mr. De Coco?" A black cop knelt in front of them, supporting his weight on the balls of his feet. "I'm Officer Packard." He glanced down at the newspaper. "Do you have any idea what that whole thing was all about?" He produced a thick, black, paper-stuffed worn leather notebook from his rear pocket.

"You tell me." Tommy was impassive.

"Mrs. De Coco?"

Marie nodded dumbly.

"Has your brother ever had any history of any kind of... ah, disorder? Has he ever been hospitalized?"

Tommy thought of last week at Roosevelt Hospital. "No way."

"How's Phyllis?" Marie asked.

"She's pretty busted up. But she'll be O.K. She's not pressing charges."

"What's that mean?"

"That means we can't hold him. He's over at Jacobi. He'll probably be out in a day or two. They got him out on sedatives. He had a concussion."