Эд Макбейн - Guns

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 arm. Colley caught his breath when she exposed the wound. There was only a small hole where the bullet had gone in, but on the other side of Jocko’s arm, just behind the biceps, the exit hole was enormous. Colley could see a bone inside the arm. He turned away.

“This is bad,” Jeanine whispered.

He nodded. He did not look at the wound again. He had not expected the damage to be this bad, in spite of all the blood, in spite of the fact that the cops had been carrying .38-caliber pistols.

“Take off his shoes and socks,” Jeanine said.

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. 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, blood on the bulging pectorals, tiny contradictory prick. He was still unconscious, but he twitched now, and grunted something.

“You going to need me?” Teddy said. “I want to get rid of the car. Hot car sitting out there with blood all over the front seat.”

“Go ahead,” Jeanine said.

“Okay to call my wife? She’s gonna be wondering.”

“Phone’s in the bedroom,” Jeanine said, and went to the sink, and put a stopper in it, and let the water run. Teddy went down the hall to the bedroom. Jeanine soaped a sponge, and then went to where Jocko was sitting on the toilet bowl, and began washing the wound. Down the hall, Teddy was dialing the phone. The apartment was silent except for the clicking of the phone dial and the tiny splashing sounds Jeanine made when she dipped the sponge into the sink and lifted it from the water. There was blood on her white shorts. Blood on her thigh, too. Down the hall, they could hear Teddy’s muffled voice. Jeanine pulled the stopper from the sink, and then turned on the hot-and cold-water faucets and tested the stream of water with her hand. With a clean washcloth she began rinsing off Jocko.

Teddy came back up the hallway and leaned in the bathroom doorway. “I’m gonna split,” he said. “Get rid of the car.” He hesitated. “Were they both dead, Colley?”

“I don’t know,” Colley said. “Two cops sitting the store,” he explained to Jeanine. “In the back room there.”

“Him and Jocko walked into a stakeout,” Teddy said.

“Minute Jocko threw down on the old man, the two of them came out the back yelling fuzz.”

“You shot two cops?” Jeanine said.

“I only shot one of them. Jocko...”

“Never mind who shot them,” Jeanine said. “I’m asking—”

“Yeah, two cops got shot.”

“They both looked dead,” Teddy said. “Colley, they really looked dead to me. That one laying closest to the door, his brains were all over the floor.”

“Great,” Jeanine said.

“They surprised us,” Colley said.

“Great,” she said again. “Two dead cops.”

“I ain’t so sure about them being dead,” Colley said. “I ain’t even sure about the one Teddy says had his brains...”

“It’ll be on television later,” Teddy said. “I’ll bet it’s on television. Two cops getting killed.”

“Look, we don’t know for sure...”

“They’re dead all right,” Teddy said. He looked very owlish and wise and sad behind his glasses. He also looked exhausted. He had been busy since early that morning, boosting the car in Brooklyn, and he still had to get rid of it. Before the holdup it had only been a stolen car. Now it was a car that had been used in a felony murder... Well, Colley wasn’t sure either one of them was dead. Man could look dead without being dead.

“I’ll call you in the morning,” Teddy said.

“You going outside like that?” Colley said.

“Huh?”

“All that blood on your clothes?”

“Shit,” Teddy said. “You got something I can put on, Jeanine? Just something to...”

“Jocko’s clothes’d be too big for you,” Colley said.

“There’s some stuff from when Bobby was here,” Jeanine said. “His brother.”

“All I need’s a raincoat or something,” Teddy said.

Together they went out of the bathroom. Colley could hear them rummaging around in one of the closets. Jocko mumbled something, and then fell silent. Colley heard them in the hallway again, heard the front door opening and closing, heard Jeanine relocking it. Teddy had left without saying goodnight. He heard Jeanine padding barefooted toward the bathroom again. She came in and took a big white towel from the towel bar. Jocko was still unconscious; his head lolled to one side as Jeanine began drying him. Watching her, Colley was reminded of something — he couldn’t place what. He was completely absorbed, watching her. Down the hallway, he could hear a clock ticking someplace. He kept watching her. The wound had stopped bleeding completely. She patted it dry carefully, and then took some stuff from the medicine cabinet over the sink, and squeezed something from a tube onto the wound, and then put a gauze pad over it, and wrapped it with bandage and adhesive tape.

“Help me get him in the bedroom,” she said.

Colley took him from behind, and Jeanine lifted his legs, and they carried him down the hall to the bedroom. He got heavier each time they moved him; Colley was beginning to think this was what hell must be like — lifting and carrying Jocko through eternity.

In the bedroom, Jeanine let his legs go while she pulled back the spread and then the blanket. Colley stood there supporting Jocko, the weight of the man pulling on his arms and his shoulders and his back. His own legs were beginning to tremble.

“Come on,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, and nodded.

He had the feeling she wasn’t even talking to him. She had pulled the blanket to the foot of the bed and was coming around to where Colley stood with Jocko collapsed against him. She seemed completely involved with her own thoughts. She picked up Jocko’s legs as if she were picking up the handles of a wheelbarrow. Together they moved him onto the bed.

“You better cover him,” Colley said.

She pulled the sheet up over his waist, and stood there looking down at him for a moment. He was breathing evenly and regularly. In the hallway outside, a light was burning; they turned it off before they went into the living room. There was a television set against one wall. Colley instantly looked at his watch. It was ten-thirty. If either of those cops was dead, the eleven o’clock news would surely carry the story.

“Place looks like a slaughterhouse,” Jeanine said, and shook her head. “Do we have to worry about cleaning up right this minute?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you expecting company is what I mean.”

“Cops, you mean?”

“Cops, I mean.”

“No, no.”

“You sure?”

“Well, I’m not sure. But even if the old guy...”

“What old guy?”

“Behind the counter.”

“Great, did you shoot him, too?”

“No, no. Come on, Jeanine, it couldn’t be helped.”

“What about him?”

“I’m saying even if he gives them a good description of us, well, it takes time, you know, to check files, you know, and come up with mug shots and fingerprints and like that. They might never get to us. I mean, even if the old guy remembers what we look like...”