“Where’s the gun he had on the job?” he asked her. “Did he have it when we carried him in here tonight?”
“I don’t think so,” Jeanine said.
“You think he dropped it in the store?” Colley said. “That’s bad if he did. Cause his prints’ll be on it. Do they have this address for him?”
“I don’t know,” Jeanine said. “Let’s just get out of here, okay?”
There was an edge to her voice, but she was packing unhurriedly, folding slips and panties and sweaters and putting them neatly into her suitcase. He thought of what had happened just a little while ago, Jocko caught in the threshing machine that had been Jeanine wielding a bread knife. Why hadn’t she fallen apart immediately afterwards? Why were they still in this apartment, for Christ’s sake, Jeanine moving to the dresser now to take out a stack of blouses, placing them squarely on the slips she had just folded and put into the suitcase. The clock ticking. When he found that clock, he would step on it, he would crush it beneath the heel of his foot.
“Maybe they don’t have this address,” he said. “Jocko moved around a lot, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” she said. She was at the closet now, stooping to pick up several pairs of shoes from the floor.
“Also, his parole was from Texas, isn’t that right?”
“That’s right, yes.”
“So the cops here wouldn’t have a sheet on him, except maybe he’s wanted for extradition. What I’m saying is, even if they did get some good prints from the gun, they could only get a make from the F.B.I. files, and even then it wouldn’t give them this address. So we got time.”
“Okay,” she said. “Fine.”
“I know he had some spare guns, he told me he had some spares. A Walther, I think, was one of them. Do you know where he kept them.”
“No, I don’t,” Jeanine said.
“You been here since April, and you don’t know where he kept his guns?”
“Why don’t you go ask him,” Jeanine said.
“You must have seen him take out the gun he used tonight, didn’t you? Where’d he take it from?”
“I don’t know,” Jeanine said.
“Well, I ain’t leaving this apartment without a gun in my belt.”
He went to the dresser and opened the top drawer, and began rummaging through Jocko’s underwear and socks and handkerchiefs. In the back of the drawer he found a box of 9mm Parabellum cartridges, which told him his memory had been right about the Walther. He also found a box of .38 Specials, which were the cartridges that fit the Colt Cobra that Jocko had used on the job tonight. And there was a third box of .32 Long cartridges. He was lifting the lid on this box to see how many cartridges were in it when the telephone rang, startling him. The box tilted in his hand, spilling cartridges onto the dresser top. The telephone shrilled into the apartment. Cartridges rolled off the dresser top and onto the floor. He saw his own startled image in the mirror and did not recognize himself for an instant, and again the phone rang. He looked swiftly at his watch. It was four-thirty in the morning, and the phone was ringing, ringing...
“Get it,” he said.
“Suppose it’s the police?”
“It won’t be the police, they don’t have an address...”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“Answer the fuckin thing!”
Jeanine picked up the receiver on the bedside table. “Hello?” she said. She listened. “Hello, Teddy,” she said.
Colley let out his breath.
“Yes, Teddy,” she said. “When was that? Um-huh. Um-huh. Um-huh. Well, he’s here, do you want to tell him yourself?” She handed the phone to Colley, and then walked over to the closet.
“Hello,” Colley said into the phone.
“Hey, how you doin?” Teddy said.
“Not so hot,” Colley said.
“They got a positive on you, huh?”
“How’d you know that?”
“I heard your name on the radio. I couldn’t sleep, I got up and went to make myself a sandwich. I turned on the radio low while I was eating, I didn’t want to wake the wife. The announcer gave your name, said the police were conducting a citywide search for you.”
“Yeah,” Colley said.
“How’d they get on to you?” Teddy asked.
“Son of a bitch recognized me.”
“Who do you mean?”
“The other cop in the store. From when I got busted four years ago.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I wish I was.”
“Boy,” Teddy said.
Both men were silent.
“How’s Jocko doing?” Teddy asked.
For a moment Colley did not know what to answer.
“Colley?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought we were cut off.”
“No, no, I’m here.”
“How’s Jocko doing?”
“He’s dead,” Colley said. Jeanine was taking a skirt from the closet; she turned to him sharply and looked directly into his face. Colley nodded assurance. “Jeanine couldn’t stop the blood,” he said into the phone. “I called here to see how everything was, she told me to get over here in a hurry.”
“Boy,” Teddy said.
“Teddy, I’m going to make a run for it.”
“Colley, am I in this yet?” Teddy asked.
“I don’t see how.”
“I keep trying to remember if Jocko had his gun with him when he came out of that store. Because if he didn’t, then maybe they’ll get prints from it and find out who he is and start asking around. There’s lots of people in this city seen me and Jocko together.”
“No, don’t worry about it,” Colley said.
“He had the gun then, huh? When he came out of the store?”
“No, Teddy.”
“He left it in there?”
“I think so.”
“Well,” Teddy said, “that don’t sound too good. Guy who took a couple of falls already, they’ll have a sheet on him in the F.B.I. files, next thing you know they’ll be knocking on my door.”
“How you figure that, Teddy?”
“Because when they ask around, they’ll find out him and Teddy Stein were pals, so next thing you know Good morning, Mr. Stein, we’d like a few words with you if you’ve got a minute.”
“No, I don’t think—”
“And also, Colley, what were them cops doing inside there? Were they waiting for us to show? Did somebody snitch that we were going to hit that store?”
“I don’t know about that. I been wondering that myself.”
“Cause if that’s the case, they know the whole fuckin gang, never mind just you.”
“What do you mean?”
“If somebody set us up, then he must’ve also told the cops who we were, don’t you think?”
“Maybe not. Look, Teddy, I’m in a hurry. Jocko’s dead in the fuckin kitchen, and the cops know—”
“Where?”
“What?”
“Where’d you say Jocko was?”
Colley did not immediately answer. Teddy was wondering how a man who was supposed to have bled to death had managed to do it in the kitchen. He knew the layout of the apartment, and he was wondering. The clock was ticking. The clock was a constant unseen reminder of itself, like Death.
“In the kitchen,” Colley said at last. “He’s in the kitchen.”
“How’d he get in the kitchen? You just told me—”
“Jeanine was in the kitchen. He yelled for her, and she didn’t hear him, so he went out after her.”
That was the truth. He had told Teddy the absolute truth. Now it was time to start lying.
“And that’s where he died, huh?” Teddy said.