Consolation

Ed McBain Consolation

“Consolation,” by Ed McBain. Copyright © 1976 by Ed McBain. First published in Mystery Monthly.

They were worried that the lady in the basement had seen the blood.

They had parked the car behind Jocko’s building, and then had come in through the back door, into the basement, carrying Jocko between them. There was a lady there, near the washing machines, but she was busy putting in detergent and they went right by her, hoping she’d think it was some guys bringing home a drunken buddy. She hardly looked at them as they went past her to the elevator. But now they were worrying she had maybe seen the blood.

Jocko was still bleeding.

The blood had slowed to a steady seep, but it was still coming from under the sleeve of his poplin windbreaker and dropping onto the floor of the elevator. There was no one in the elevator with them; they were grateful for that. They had driven past the front stoop of the building first, and had almost lost heart when they saw all those people sitting there on the steps talking; this was ten o’clock on a hot night in August, and nobody was eager to go upstairs to apartments like furnaces. It was Teddy who got the idea to drive around to the big, open parking lot behind the building, then go in the door to the basement. The sleeve of Jocko’s jacket was covered with blood, and his pants were covered with blood, and there was almost as much blood on Teddy and Colley from carrying him.

“You think she seen the blood?” Teddy asked again.

“No,” Colley said, “she didn’t see it, stop worrying about it, will you?” But he was worried himself.

The elevator stopped on the fifth floor, and they eased Jocko out into the hallway, and then belatedly looked around to see if anybody was there. Without a word they turned to their right and started toward the end of the hall. Behind them, the doors to the elevator closed, and it began whining down the shaft again. Outside apartment 5G, Colley rang the doorbell.

“Just like Jeanine to have gone to a movie,” Teddy said.

“No, she’ll be home. Night of a job, she’ll be home,” Colley said, and rang the bell again. They could hear chimes sounding inside the apartment. Colley thought he heard a television set going, but that might have been in the apartment next door. He pressed the bell button again. The peephole flap suddenly went up, and then fell again an instant later. They heard the door being unlocked — first the deadbolt, then the Fox lock, then the night chain. The door opened wide.

Jeanine stood slightly to the side to let them past. She didn’t scream, she didn’t say a word. She’d already seen them through the peephole, so she knew something had gone wrong. She just watched them silently now as they moved past her into the living room, and then she closed and locked the door behind them — first the deadbolt, then the Fox lock, and then the chain. They were standing in the middle of the living room waiting for her to tell them where to take her husband, who was dripping blood all over the rag. She didn’t ask what happened, she didn’t ask how bad it was, she didn’t say a word. She began walking toward the rear of the apartment instead, they followed her without being told to follow her. Jocko was beginning to weigh a ton. He was a big man to begin with, and now they were practically dragging him across the floor, his feet trailing, his two hundred and twenty pounds multiplying with each step they took.

“In the bathroom,” Jeanine said.

They managed to squeeze him through the narrow bath-room door by going through it sideways, and then they sat him down on the toilet bowl, and Jeanine began undressing him. She was wearing white shorts cut high on the leg, an orange halter top, no shoes. Her long, blond hair was hanging loose around her face as she took off the blue windbreaker and then began unbuttoning the white shirt under it. Both the shirt and the jacket were soaked with blood, and each time she brushed her hair away from her face, she got blood on her cheek and in the hair itself.

She had good features going a bit fleshy; Colley guessed she was in her late thirties, maybe closer to forty. Her eyes were dark green, not that pale jade you saw on most light-complexioned women, but a deeper green — like an emerald a burglar had once showed him, thing big enough to choke a horse. She had a good, sensible nose with a tiny scar on the bridge that made it look like she’d lived with the nose a long time, had sniffed around with it a little, had maybe stuck it in places where it didn’t belong, and had it broken or slashed. The nose and the eyes and the mouth, those were what gave her face definition. The mouth was full, the upper lip lifting gently away from her teeth, so that you always saw a flash of white and got the impression she was parting her lips and about to say something. Her skin was very white; he imagined she turned lobster red in the sun. Years ago, she’d been a stripper down in Dallas, Jocko told him, and she still had a stripper’s body, heavy breasts in the halter top, generous hips, good legs showing below the brief shorts, thighs a bit fleshy like her face, but the calves firm, tapering to slender ankles. Her feet were big. Her feet were peasant’s feet. They didn’t seem to go with that face and that body.

She lowered Jocko’s shirt off one shoulder and then gently tugged the sodden material away from the wound, and slid the sleeve off his. Colley caught his breath as she exposed the wound, but it wasn’t all that bad, the slug seemed to have ripped away only a small piece of flesh just below the biceps, hadn’t even entered the really. Colley’d been expecting something much worse; the cops had both been carrying .38-caliber pistols.

He realizes all at once that both of them are left-handed, they are holding their pieces in their left hands as they come down a narrow aisle formed by two standing racks. The racks are made of metal, they are green, they are maybe eight or ten feet high, and they are neatly stacked with whiskey bottles. The detectives are each at least six feet tall, they come charging down the narrow aisle like bulls coming into an arena. At the far end of the aisle, Colley sees an open door. There’s a room back there, he can see cartons piled on the floor. That’s where the cops were staked out, in the room back there...

“...shoes and socks,” Jeanine said.

“What?”

“Where the hell are you?” she said.

“I’m sorry, I—”

“Take off his shoes and socks. Teddy, ran the tub.”

Colley stooped at Jocko’s feet and began unlacing his shoes. There was blood even on the shoes — Jesus, what a mess! He got off the shoes and socks and then he helped Jeanine pull down Jocko’s pants and take off his undershorts. Jocko had red crotch hair, same as the hair on his head. He had a very small pecker. Colley was surprised. Big man like that, you expected...

“Help me lift him,” Jeanine said.

Together, the three of them lifted him over the edge of the tub and lowered him gently into the water. The water immediately turned a murky pink. “Could stand it a trifle hotter,” Jeanine said, and turned the hot water tap open full. Jocko looked enormous lying there in the water. Massive head, red hair curling on it, eyelids closed over those pale blue eyes, menacing eyes hidden now by the closed lids; his face looked almost cherubic except for the curl of his lip betraying the meanness, even when he was unconscious. Power in the wide shoulders and huge chest — must’ve lifted weights as a kid. Pink water rippling over bulging pectorals, tiny contradictory penis hidden now, just a blush of deeper red where his crotch hair peeked through the pink water. He was still unconscious, but he twitched now, and grunted something, and Jeanine giggled unexpectedly.

“What is it?” she said. “Don’t you want your Saturday-night bath?” and giggled again.