He carried both glasses out into the kitchen. The Scotch bottle was almost empty. He poured some of what was left into Jeanine’s glass and the remainder in his, and then he added a little water to both glasses and carried them back into the living room.
“What it is,” he said, handing Jeanine her glass, “you get lots of cops, they’re trigger-happy. They’ll shoot little kids carrying water pistols, you know that? Not that we were carrying water pistols,” he said, and laughed, and then took a long swallow of the drink. The booze was beginning to reach him. This was his third, and he’d poured all of them with a heavy hand, just the way he’d have poured them if the job had gone off okay. Always drank after a job, man had to celebrate, didn’t he? This one hadn’t come off, but it was the first one that hadn’t since they’d been working together, so what the hell, have a little drink anyway. He was beginning to feel a little hazy, and very comfortable and cozy here in the living room. Safe. He was beginning to feel safe.
“Thing I’m worried about...” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Is I hope we won’t need a doctor for him.”
“I don’t think we’ll need a doctor.”
“You know anybody?”
“No.”
“Who’d come, I mean. If we needed him.”
“I don’t know anybody.”
“So what do we do if he starts bleeding again?”
“I don’t know. I think he’ll be okay, though. He’s a strong guy”
“Oh, yeah, he’s strong, all right,” she said. “Take more’n bullet to kill old Jocko. Take a stake in his heart, you want to know,” she said, and laughed, and then sobered immediately and glanced past Colley toward the hallway, as though afraid the laughter might have disturbed Jocko.
“How long you been married?” Colley asked.
“Three years.”
“You were a stripper when you met him, huh?”
“No, who told you that?”
“Jocko said you used to be a stripper.”
“Yeah, but that was before I met him. I haven’t been stripping for seven, eight years now. This is August, ain’t it?”
“Yeah, August.”
“I quit stripping eight years ago November.”
“I didn’t realize that.”
“Yeah, I’ve been out of it a long time.”
“How come you quit?”
“Getting old, sonny,” she said, and smiled.
“Yeah, sure,” he said.
“How old do you think I am?”
“Thirty-two, thirty-three.”
“Come on,” she said.
“Okay, thirty-seven, okay?”
“I’m forty-four,” she said. “I was thirty-six when I quit. Girl gets to be thirty-six, even if she takes good care of herself, she starts looking it, you know what I mean? Starts getting a little flabby.”
“You don’t look flabby to me,” Colley said.
“Thanks. Guys coming to strip joints, they don’t want to look at somebody who’s over the hill, they want to see firm young bodies.”
“You got a great body,” Colley said.
“Thanks.”
“I mean it.”
“I said thanks. Also, I was getting static from my husband. Not Jocko, this was my first husband. He said it was wrong what I was doing, shaking my ass and getting guys all hot and bothered. He turned out to be a junkie with a habit long as Southern California, but he was always bugging me about being a stripper, can you imagine? Those were the days, all right,” she said, and rolled her eyes and sighed.
“Did you like being a stripper?” he asked.
“It wasn’t bad,” she said. “Actually, it was exciting sometimes.”
“How do you mean?”
“Turning guys on,” she said. “I’d go out there, you know, and the drums’d be banging, and the lights’d be on me, and I’d start throwing myself around, and it would reach me sometimes.” She shrugged. “You know what I mean?”
“Sure,” he said.
She shrugged again, tossed her head slightly, and then took another cigarette from the box on the table. He watched her while she lighted it. She shook out the match, and he watched her breasts moving under the T-shirt, and then she walked to the window and he watched the motion of her hips in the tight blue jeans, and he kept watching her as she stood by the window with one hand cradling her elbow, hip jutting, the other hand holding the cigarette and bringing it to her mouth. The sky outside was filled with stars. There wasn’t a chance of it raining anytime soon, not with all those stars in the sky. Heat would probably last another day or two. He kept watching her.
“They’re all the same, actually,” she said. “I told Jocko I was thinking about taking a job in a massage parlor, they get good money those girls. He hit the ceiling, said that was nothing but whoring. I don’t happen to think it’s whoring. A massage ain’t the same as whoring.”
“Well, lots of massage parlors, it’s more than just a massage,” Colley said.
“You ever been in one of those massage parlors?”
“Oh, sure.”
“What do they do in there?”
“Well, they do a lot more than just massage a man.”
“What do they do?”
“Let’s just say I can see why Jocko hit the ceiling. If you were my wife, I wouldn’t like the idea of you working in a massage parlor.”
“How about my being a stripper?”
“That might be different,” Colley said. “I don’t know how I’d feel about that.”
“Uh-huh,” Jeanine said, and nodded.
“You’re thinking I’d hit the ceiling, right?”
“How’d you guess?” she said.
“Maybe I would. Good-looking woman like you,” he said, and quickly picked up his glass, and discovered it was empty, booze sure went fast around here. He tried to remember whether the bottle in the kitchen was Scotch or bourbon, the bottle that hadn’t been opened yet; he suspected it was bourbon, wasn’t good to mix Scotch with bourbon. He was feeling exceedingly content now, sitting there in the living room watching Jeanine. The job had gone wrong, true enough, but there was something very pleasant about being here with Jeanine, something reassuring about her standing there at the window looking out, though he wondered just what the hell she found so fascinating out there.
He debated complimenting her on her body again, woman didn’t tell you how old she was unless she wanted you to say she looked terrific. But just then another train went by outside, and she turned toward the sound of it, probably wanted to read all that terribly interesting graffiti sprayed on the sides of the cars, “Spider 107” or “Shadow 49” or “Spic 32,” dumb bastards scribbling all over the city. If she ever turned away from that window, maybe he’d look her straight in the eye and tell her she had great knockers. You’ve got great knockers, Jeanine, did you realize that? No, of course she didn’t realize it. She’d only been a stripper for Christ knew how long, only had guys yelling and hollering every time she took off her bra and twirled it in the air, but no, she didn’t realize she had great knockers. I’m stoned, he thought. I killed a fuckin cop, this is my third drink, my fourth drink, who the hell’s counting, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, and don’t give a shit besides.
“You’ve got great knockers,” he said.
“Thanks,” she said.
“What are you doing there by the window?”
“I was just thinking,” she said.
“What about?”
“I was wishing something, actually.”
“What were you wishing?”
“That Jocko would die.”
He was not sure he had heard her correctly. He reasoned that she could not have said what she’d just said because he’d seen her a little while ago giving tender loving care to Jocko, even though Jocko had a very small pecker, very tender loving care indeed, washing out his wound and gentling him, yes. You did not wash away a man’s wound and then wish he was... wish he was dead.