“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 waistband. 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 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 figures 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. He wondered if Jeanine had seen him looking Jocko over. 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? Dig me, girls. I’m the Queen of the Roses, he thought
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 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 thinkin’ 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 fucking 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 he 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.
“Yeah?” he said.
“You okay in there?” Jeanine said.
“Yeah,” he said.
“All right to come in? I’ve got some clothes for you.”
“What?”
“You can’t leave here in your own clothes, all that blood on them.”
“Oh, sure. Come on in.”
The door opened. The shower curtain billowed in toward him, the plastic sticking to his legs. The water was dramming against his groin, his prick was standing up stiff with the water drilling it and the soap running off him in long white streams.
“I’ll put them here on the counter,” she said.
“Thanks.”
“I hope the pants fit you.”
“Yeah,” he said. He did not hear the door opening and closing again. “Jeanine?”
“Yeah?”
“You still in here?”
“I’m still in here,” she said.
“I’m coming out now,” he said.
“Come on out,” she said.
“Jeanine?”
“Yeah.”
“I want to come out now.”
“So come on,” she said.
He poked his head and one shoulder around the edge of toe shower curtain. Jeanine was leaning against the sink.
“Hey,” he said.
Her eyes met his.
“Get out of here,” he said.
“Why?”
“Jeanine, you’re looking for trouble,” he said, and realized all at once that they were both whispering.
“No,” she said, “I’m looking for consolation. I’m looking to be soothed, Colley. I’m looking to be comforted.”
He hesitated a moment, and then he pushed the curtain back on the rod, and stepped out of the tub. She did not move from the sink. She kept leaning against the sink, with her hands resting on her thighs, her legs stretched out in front of her, her shoulders back. Her eyes did not leave his face as he approached her. He stopped in front of her, and lifted the front of the T-shirt the way she had lifted it in the living room not ten minutes ago, took the bottom of it in both wet hands and pulled the shirt up over her breasts.
When he is committing a robbery, he sees every detail as if he is on dope, everything is slowed down, everything moves at a rhythmic pace slower than the beat of his heart. It is the same making love to her now. He tries to remember whether it has ever been like this before, whether everything ever slowed down for him with any other woman. He believes it is because Jocko is in the bedroom across the hall. The danger of Jocko across the ball — even though Jocko has a bullet wound in his and is lying bandaged and unconscious on the bed — the danger of Jocko is what makes this so exciting, causing time to hang suspended, forcing time to come to a near stop. Like on a job. The danger of going to prison again, the danger of someone like Kruger again, the gamble, the high excitement of going in there with a pistol, it is the same as this, the same as this with her in this steamy bathroom while Jocko lies across the hall unconscious.