The second time Carlucci arrested Bobby involved a tire he''d stolen from his Uncle Jimmy''s wheel balancing and alignment shop. About twenty yards from his mother''s house, Bobby accidentally rolled the tire over a crushed Pepsi bottle which sent it bouncing into the marigolds in the front yard of their next-door neighbor, Mrs. Ambrose. She''d been pulling weeds when the tire wobbled past her. She thought Bobby bouncing the tire past her was a distraction so an accomplice could slip around to her back door and rob her. She whacked Bobby with her hand-hoe, causing a nasty gash on the back of his thumb. His mother witnessed this from the bathroom on her second-floor where she was standing trying to wipe herself after having an attack of "loose bowels." That''s what she''d told the first responder, rookie Patrolman Allan Lukosh, recently discharged back into civilian life after three years in the Army, most of it with the military police in Germany.

During his time there, he''d never had to calm two women, one middle aged and the other elderly, who sounded and looked like they wanted to kill each other. He called for backup. Carlucci was getting ready to bite into a meatball hoagie when the dispatcher responded to Lukosh''s call by asking if anybody was available to back him up. Carlucci''s hoagie was getting soggier by the minute; he told the dispatcher he was on his way. When he got on scene he couldn''t hear Lukosh over the women shouting, so he led Lukosh aside. Lukosh said he knew he needed help when the women threatened to vomit on each other''s grave--or crap on it, he wasn''t sure which. He also wasn''t sure how many times each one swore God would strike the other one dead before morning. Carlucci told Lukosh okay, he got it, then went and stood between the women and said he wasn''t going to allow any killing that day, with or without God''s help.

Mrs. Ambrose wanted Carlucci to arrest "these Goddamn Gypsies trying to rob me." Mrs. Caluso wanted him to arrest Mrs. Ambrose for aggravated assault. "Mother of God, if you''d get your cackeracks fixed, you could see we ain''t Gypsies, we live next door." "You don''t even know how to say what''sa wrong with my eyes, so shut up, you. I know Gypsies when I see ''em.

" Carlucci said if everybody would stop talking for a couple minutes, he wouldn''t have to arrest either one of them, but then Mrs. Ambrose tried to spit on Bobby, blowing her top denture half out of her mouth. Then Mrs. Caluso picked up the tire and tried to heave it at Mrs. Ambrose. She missed by two feet, stumbled backwards from the effort, fell on her hip, and immediately started screaming. She pulled her hand out from under her hip, held it up, screaming louder when she saw her little finger was bent backward toward her elbow and swelling fast. The tire came to a stop against Mrs.

Ambrose''s downspout, snapping a bracket and popping it away from the house. "Now look what youns did. Youns busted my gutter. Who''s gonna pay for that?" Carlucci told Lukosh to push the downspout back against the house, which he did easily, but as soon as he let go, the whole pipe clattered down in three pieces. "Youns know how much them plumbers charge? Just to park their truck? I ain''t paying for that." "Think you''re probably gonna want a roofer, not a plumber." "You, police, you, you shut up." Carlucci told Lukosh to write it up and send a copy to the city engineer.

"Make sure she gets a copy," he said, nodding toward Mrs. Ambrose, "and try to make her understand the city''ll pay for it, but don''t give it more than five, six minutes, okay?" Turning to Mrs. Caluso and Bobby, he said, "You and you, get in the back of my car and I don''t wanna hear nothing outta either one of you." He drove them to the Conemaugh Hospital ER, where, after they''d been treated, he had to listen to Mrs. Caluso say the city better pay their ER bill because Carlucci couldn''t tell attempted murder from aggravated assault. "Apples and oranges." "What?" "Whether the city pays your bill or not has nothing to do with whatever I write you up for." "Oh no, wait, wait, the city gotta pay.

I can''t pay those bills cause the bastards at public welfare, they suspendered my Medicaid. They said I was cheating them. I don''t know how to cheat them--I only finished ninth grade. And anyways, I don''t even know who it was that turned me in." "Doesn''t matter who it was, you''re still talking apples and oranges." "What is it with you--apples and oranges? What they gotta do with anything?" "I''m trying to tell you you''re putting two things together that don''t have anything to do with one another, that''s all." "Well why don''t you just say that?" "Next time it comes up, Mrs. Caluso, I will.

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