“You want to know something about your friend Jocko?” she asked.
He shook his head. No, he did not want to know something about his friend Jocko. Jocko was his fall partner and you did not go around looking at your fall partner’s wife and thinking she had great knockers... had he said it out loud? No, he did not want to hear nothing more about Jocko, nor see him naked besides with his red crotch hair and his tiny little prick.
“Your friend Jocko beats me,” she said.
“No, no,” Colley said, and shook his head.
“Yes, yes,” Jeanine said. “He hasn’t missed a day since I came up to New York. How long’ve I been in New York now? When did I come up from Dallas?”
“I don’t know,” Colley said. “Two months ago? Five?”
“I came up on the twentieth of May. What’s today?”
“Saturday.”
“The date, I mean.”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“August sixteenth, ain’t it?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“That’s three months,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“Look at this,” she said, and seized the bottom of the T-shirt in both hands and pulled it up over her breasts. Her rib cage, her chest, the slopes and undersides of her breasts were covered with angry black-and-blue marks. “That’s your friend,” she said, and lowered the shirt again.
“Listen,” Colley said, “you shouldn’t be saying such things about Jocko.”
“Why not?”
“He’s my fall partner, we work together. It’s not right to say such things.”
“You still think you’ve got a little gang going, don’t you?” Jeanine said. “You killed a cop tonight...”
“No, no,” he said, and shook his head.
“Yes, yes, and for all you know, the other cop might die, too. But you still think you’ve got a little holdup gang going. Jesus!” she said.
“I just don’t want to hear nothing more about Jocko,” he said.
“Are you afraid of him?”
“No.”
“Sure you are.”
“No, I am not afraid of Jocko,” he said.
“Sure you are,” she said again, and smiled.
“Fine,” he said, “have it your way. Fine. You got something I can wear out of here? I think I better leave.”
“Are you drunk?” she asked suddenly.
“No, sir, I am not drunk,” he said.
“Jesus, how did you get so drunk?”
“I am not drunk,” he said.
“You’d better get in the shower,” she said.
“Wash off the blood,” he said.
“Wash off the booze. How’d you get so drunk, man? Go get in the shower. You know where the shower is?”
“Know where the shower is,” he said.
“Right down the hall there.”
“Right down the hall.”
“Go ahead now.”
“Thanks,” he said, and went down the hall to the bathroom. He was surprised to discover that he had a big pistol, big .38 Detective Special in his pocket. He pulled the gun out and placed it on top of the toilet tank and then was further surprised to learn that his pants, his jacket and his shirt were stained with blood, where’d he get all this blood on him? He took off his pants and saw that his undershorts were soaked with blood, too. There was dried and crusted blood on his left arm, and on both hands, and all over his face. He wondered if he should get in the shower with his clothes in his arms, and then dropped them in a bundle on the tile instead. He got into the shower, drew the curtain closed, opened it again to make sure his gun was still there on the toilet tank, and then closed the curtain and turned on the water and almost scalded himself. He backed away swearing, adjusted the water gingerly, and then looked around for the soap.
He soaped his crotch and the hair on his chest and under his arms and remembered that when he was in prison, first thing anybody soaped when they got in the shower was their crotch. Not that he looked. Guy in prison saw you looking, he figured you were ready to be turned out as his punk, next thing you knew he was making a heavy play for you. This was nice soap, it smelled, nice, he guessed it was Jeanine’s. Big guy like Jocko wouldn’t use sweet-smelling soap like this, pecker sure came as a surprise, though. He wondered if Jeanine had seen him looking at Jocko’s pecker. He didn’t want her to think he was, you know, looking at it. Nothing wrong with a little curiosity, though. Guy’s sitting there, nothing wrong with checking him out, see how you shape up in the world. Nothing wrong with using Jeanine’s soap, either. Besides, it was the only soap here in the bathroom, so what the hell. So he’d smell like a bed of roses, so what?
There was a guy in prison, his name was Kruger, he was as big as Jocko. They all called him the Kraut, he had a scar on his cheek, they said he’d been in the German army during World War II, before coming to New York, where he got busted. What he got busted for, he took a thirteen-year-old girl up to a hotel room, burned her with cigarettes, raped her, broke both arms and legs, dislocated her jaw, blackened her eyes, knocked out seven of her teeth. He left her for dead, she sure as hell looked dead. But the girl was still alive, and she identified him by name, the stupid bastard had given her his real name when he’d picked her up in Central Park. Why she’d gone up to that hotel with him was anybody’s guess, guy old enough to be her father, take one look at him you had to know he was a mean bastard. First time Colley saw him in prison...
Listen, how’d we get on this? he thought. Listen, let’s get off this, okay? You start thinking about that fuckin Kruger, you’ll take the nice fine edge off this fuckin high, who the hell wants to think about that bastard? Standing in the yard there, smoking his cigarette. Standing there. Cool gray eyes, that scar on his face. He turned his eyes to Colley, and he grinned, and a chill went up Colley’s spine. He came over then, and stuck out his hand, and Colley shrank away from him, terrified, and he grabbed Colley’s hand in his own and squeezed it, squeezed it so hard it felt like he was going to break all the bones in it, and he kept grinning all the time, grinning.
In the shower now, Colley shivered. The water was hot, the water was pouring down on him in a steady sobering hot stream, but he shivered thinking of Kruger. He hadn’t known what Kruger wanted from him then, and he still didn’t know. It wasn’t sex, Kruger had his steady punk, a slender blond kid who’d been busted for pushing dope and who Kruger had turned out two days after the kid drove up. So it wasn’t sex, he didn’t want sex from Colley, Colley didn’t know what the hell he wanted. Followed him around all over the joint. Colley’d get in the shower, he’d check six ways from tomorrow to make sure the Kraut wasn’t anywhere around. Then, minute he turned on the water and started soaping himself, the Kraut would suddenly appear, grinning, and he’d step behind Colley and grab his ass in both hands, and squeeze the cheeks so hard Colley thought he would faint from the pain. Rotten son of a bitch bastard! Three and a half years in prison, and the Kraut dogging him day and night, hurting him. Just hurting him for the sheer fuckin pleasure of it. Like Jocko, he supposed. Like Jocko putting those black-and-blue marks all over Jeanine, what the hell was wrong with a man like that? He thought of Jeanine. He thought of Jeanine lifting the T-shirt up over her breasts. He thought of her stripping for a roomful of men. He soaped himself and thought of her.
There was a knock on the bathroom door, he almost didn’t hear it over the sound of the water. His hand stopped.