The anchorman came on just then to give a quick summary of the news. They both turned to watch the screen, Jeanine standing to Colley’s left, the drink in one hand, the other hand still on her hip. The anchorman was saying something about a demonstration outside the U.N. Building. Jeanine sipped at the drink, her eyes on the screen. Now the anchorman was talking about a three-alarm fire in the Wall Street area. Colley was hoping there wouldn’t be anything about the robbery. If they didn’t report it on television, that would mean neither of the two cops had been hurt bad. But then the anchorman said, “In the Bronx tonight one detective was killed and another seriously injured when a pair of armed men attempted to hold up a liquor store on White Plains Avenue. And in...”
“There it is,” Jeanine said.
“Shhh,” Colley said.
“...the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, a three-hour traffic jam caused tempers to flare while temperatures soared. Details on these in a moment.”
“One of them’s dead,” Jeanine said.
“I heard.”
“Great,” she said.
“Shhh, I want to hear if they...”
“Just great.”
She seemed about to say something more, but instead she angrily plucked a cigarette from the box on the coffee table, and struck a match with the same angry, impatient motion, and then walked to the easy chair across from the sofa and was about to sit in it when she saw she still had the burnt match in her hand. She pulled a face and came back to the coffee table and put the burnt match in the ashtray there. Then, instead of going back to the easy chair, she sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the couch, and silently and sulkily watched the screen. The commercial was over, the news team came back to elaborate on the events the anchorman had earlier summarized. Jeanine dragged on the cigarette and let out a stream of smoke. They were showing footage of the Wall Street fire now; it was really fascinating, fires fascinated Colley. They began interviewing a fireman, he was telling all about the people they’d rescued from the top floor of the office building. Then, suddenly, the liquor store appeared on the screen.
There it was, all right, it was really funny seeing it there on a television screen. Earlier tonight Colley had felt the job itself was like a goddamn movie, and now it really was a movie, right there on television. Only thing missing was the actors. Camera was roving around outside the store, showing the lettering on the plate-glass window, Carlisle Liquors, and the bottles in the window, focusing on a sign that was advertising something for $3.99, and then moving away to the front door, the door was opening, the camera moving into the store itself, going in through the door, showing the bloodstains on the floor, and then continuing to move deeper into the store, toward the cash register, to show where the second cop had been shot.
It was just like all the newsreel movies Colley had ever seen on television, with bad lighting, most of the scene dark except for the area right near the lights, camera jogging and bouncing, reporter explaining what had happened earlier and hoping the audience would be able to reconstruct the action. This time Colley had no trouble at all reconstructing the action; Colley had been part of the action. The reporter finished by saying the second cop had been taken to Fordham Hospital. Then he smiled and said, “What’s the weather for tomorrow, Frank?”
Colley got up and turned off the set just as the weatherman appeared in front of his map. He went back to the sofa then, picked up his drink, drained the glass, and set it down on the coffee table.
“Now what?” Jeanine said.
“I don’t know what.”
“He’s dead, you killed a cop.”
“I ain’t so sure I’m the one who killed him,” Colley said.
“You just heard...”
“It could’ve been Jocko. It could’ve been the one he shot.”
“What difference does it make?” Jeanine said. “You were in there together, you’re accomplices...”
“All right.”
“...you killed a man!”
“All right, I said!”
“Great,” Jeanine said.
“I want another drink,” he said, and went out into the kitchen. As he mixed the drink he thought what a lousy break it was, the cop dying. He was beginning to convince himself the cop had really fired first, that if only the cop had played it cool, if only everybody had kept their heads inside the store there, the cop would still be alive. As he took ice cubes from where they were melting in the tray, he became aware of how hot the apartment was. He’d been so busy carrying Jocko in, and then watching the news, he hadn’t had time to concentrate on anything else. But now he felt the heat, and felt the bloodstained clothing sticking to his flesh, and called from the kitchen, “What’s the matter with the air conditioner?”
“Nothing,” she said.
“Whyn’t you turn it on?” he said.
“What for?”
“Cause it’s hot as hell in here.”
“I don’t feel hot,” she said, and he remembered Jocko telling him how much she liked the heat, how she’d been born in Florida someplace — where had he said? He went back into the living room and said, “Where you from in Florida?”
“Fort Myers.”
“Yeah, Fort Myers, that’s what Jocko said. You like it when it’s suffocating like this, huh?”
“Right, let’s talk about the weather,” she said. “We just heard the cop is dead...”
“Yeah, that’s a lousy break,” Colley said.
“But let’s talk about the weather, okay? You think it’s going to rain tomorrow? Maybe if it rains the cops won’t come looking for you.”
“They probably won’t come looking for us anyway,” Colley said. “I doubt the old man will finger us.” He drank from his glass, nodded thoughtfully, and then said, “He was scared, you know. When Jocko threw down on him. He might figure if he fingers us, we’ll go back and hurt him.”
“He might also figure you won’t be able to go back and hurt him,” Jeanine said.
“What do you mean?”
“He might figure you’ll be in jail a long, long time.”
“Well, you always get out of jail, you know.”
“They bust Jocko for this one, it’s his third offense. They’ll throw away the key.”
“Yeah. But, you see, the old man don’t know that. The old man in the liquor store. He don’t know us from a hole in the wall. So he’ll be afraid to finger us, you see.”
“You hope,” Jeanine said.
“Well, sure, I hope. I mean, who the hell can say for sure what anybody’ll do nowadays? Who can figure that cop starting to shoot there in the liquor store? Comes running at me holding out his badge and shooting before he hardly has the words out of his mouth.”
“What words?”
“He yells ‘Police officers!’ and starts shooting.”
They were silent for several moments, drinking. Outside, another train roared past. The windows were wide open, but not a breeze came through into the apartment. Colley debated asking her again to turn on the air conditioner. Instead he finished his drink, sucked on one of the ice cubes for a moment, and then said, “You mind if I fix myself another one of these?”
“Go ahead,” she said.
“You want another one?”
“Just freshen this a little,” she said, and handed him her glass.