The pusher 87th precinct, p.10
The Pusher (87th Precinct), page 10
He knocked on his son’s door.
“Larry?”
“Dad? Open this, will you? For Christ’s sake, open it.”
Byrnes reached into his pocket and took out his key ring. He had locked Larry into his room only once that he could remember. The boy had broken a plate-glass window with a baseball and then flatly refused to pay for the damage out of his allowance. Byrnes had informed his son that he would then deduct the money from the meals Larry ate, and that all meals would stop as of that moment. He had put the boy in the room and locked the door from the outside, and Larry had capitulated shortly after dinner that night. The incident, at the time, had not seemed terribly important. A form of punishment and really, really now, if Larry had still refused, Byrnes would certainly have fed him. Byrnes had felt, at the time, that he was teaching his son a respect for other people’s property as well as a respect for money. But now, looking back, he wondered if he had not behaved wrongly. Had he isolated his son’s affection by punishing him in that way? Had his son automatically assumed there was no love for him in this house? Had his son assumed Byrnes was taking the side of the shopkeeper and not that of his own flesh and blood?
But what is a man supposed to do? Consult a psychology textbook before he says anything or does anything? And how many other small incidents were there, how many incidents over the years, how many incidents piling up, inconsequential in themselves, gathering force and power as they accumulated until, together, they conspired to force a boy into drug addiction? How many incidents, and for how many of them could a father be blamed? Was he a bad father? Didn’t he truly and honestly love his son, and hadn’t he always tried to do what was best for him, hadn’t he always tried to raise his son as a decent human being? What is a man supposed to do, what is a man supposed to do?
He unlocked the door, and then stepped into the room.
Larry stood just before the bed, his fists clenched.
“Why am I a prisoner?” he shouted.
“You’re not a prisoner,” Byrnes said calmly.
“No? Then what is it when the door’s locked? What the hell, am I a criminal or something?”
“To be technical, yes, you are.”
“Dad, listen, don’t play games with me today. I’m not in any goddamn mood to be playing games.”
“You were found by a law-enforcement officer to be carrying a hypodermic syringe. That’s against the law. That law-enforcement officer also found an eighth of an ounce of heroin in your dresser drawer, and that’s against the law. So you are, in effect, a criminal, and I am aiding and abetting you—so shut up, Larry.”
“Don’t tell me to shut up, Dad. What was that crap your friend gave me?”
“What?”
“Your big friend. Your big-shot doctor friend. He’s probably never seen an addict in his whole life. What’d you drag him in for? What makes you think I need him? I told you I could drop the stuff any time I wanted to, didn’t I? So what’d you have to call him in for? I hate that son of a bitch.”
“He happened to bring you into the world, Larry.”
“So what am I supposed to do? Give him a medal or something? He got paid for the delivery, didn’t he?”
“He’s a friend, Larry.”
“Then why’d he tell you to lock me in my room?”
“Because he doesn’t want you to leave this house. You’re sick.”
“Oh, Jesus, I’m sick. I’m sick, all right. I’m sick of everybody’s attitude around here. I told you I’m not hooked! Now what do I have to do to prove it?”
“You’re hooked, Larry,” Byrnes said quietly.
“I’m hooked, I’m hooked, I’m hooked, is that the only goddamn song you know? Is that the only one you and your big-shot doctor friend rehearsed? Jesus Christ, how’d I ever get such a goddamn square for a father?”
“I’m sorry I disappoint you,” Byrnes said.
“Oh boy, here we go. Here comes the martyred-fatherhood routine! I saw this in the movies ever since I was eight. Turn it off, Pop, it doesn’t reach me.”
“I’m not trying to reach you,” Byrnes said. “I’m trying to cure you.”
“How? With that crap your friend gave me? What was that crap, anyway?”
“A substitute drug of some sort.”
“Yeah? Well, it’s no damn good. I feel exactly the same. You could have saved your money. Listen, you want to do me a real favor? You really want to cure me?”
“You know I do.”
“All right, go out and scare me up some junk. There must be plenty of it down at the station house. Listen, I got a better idea. Give me back that eighth you took from my dresser.”
“No.”
“Why not? Damnit, you just said you wanted to help me! Okay, so why won’t you help me? Don’t you want to help me?”
“I want to help you.”
“Then get me the stuff.”
“No.”
“You big son of a bitch,” Larry said, and the tears suddenly started on his face. “Why don’t you help me? Get out of here! Get out of here! Get out of here, you lousy…” and the last sentence dissolved into a series of animal sobs.
“Larry…”
“Get out!” Larry shrieked.
“Son…”
“Don’t call me your son! Don’t call me that! What the hell do you care about me? You’re just afraid you’ll lose your cushy job because I’m a junkie, that’s all.”
“That’s not true, Larry.”
“It is true! You’re scared crap because you think somebody’ll find out about my habit and about those fingerprints on the syringe! Okay, you bastard, okay, you just wait ’til I get to a telephone.”
“You’re not getting to a phone until you’re cured, Larry.”
“That’s what you think! When I get to a phone, I’m gonna call the newspapers, and I’m gonna tell them all about it. Now, how about that? How about it, Dad? HOW ABOUT IT? Do I get that eighth?”
“You’re not getting the heroin, and you’re not getting near a phone, either. Now relax, son.”
“I don’t want to relax!” Larry shouted. “I can’t relax! Listen, you! Now listen to me, you! Now you just listen to me!” He stood facing his father, his face streaked with tears, his eyes red, pointing his finger up at his father’s face, shaking the finger as if it were a dagger. “Now listen to me! I want that stuff, do you hear me? Now you get that stuff for me, do you hear?”
“I hear you. You’re not getting any heroin. If you want me to, I’ll call John again.”
“I don’t want your snotnose doctor here again!”
“He’s going to keep treating you until you’re cured, Larry.”
“Cured of what? Can’t you get it through your head that I’m not sick? What’s he going to cure?”
“If you’re not sick, why do you want a shot?”
“To tide me over, you damn jerk!”
“Over what?”
“Until I’m okay again. Damnit, do I have to spell everything out? What’s the matter, are you stupid? I thought you were a cop, I thought cops were supposed to be smart!”
“I’ll call Johnny,” Byrnes said. He turned and started for the door.
“No!” Larry screamed. “I don’t want him here again! That’s it! That’s final! Now that’s it!”
“He might be able to lessen your pain.”
“What pain? Don’t talk to me about pain. What do you know about pain? You’ve been living all your stupid life, and you don’t know half the pain I know. I’m eighteen, and I know more pain than you’ll ever know. So don’t tell me about pain. You don’t know pain, you bastard!”
“Larry, do you want me to knock you down?” Byrnes asked quietly.
“What? What? You going to hit me? Okay, go ahead. Be a big muscle man, what the hell will that get you? You going to beat me out of this?”
“Out of what?”
“Out of what, out of what, I don’t know what! Oh, you’re a tricky bastard. You’re trying to get me to say I’m sick, ain’t you? You’re trying to get me to say I’m hooked, I know. I know. Well, I’m not!”
“I’m not trying to get you to say anything.”
“No, huh? Well then, go ahead, why don’t you beat me? Why don’t you make believe this is your squadroom, go ahead, start using your fists, start beating me up. You can take me easy. You can—” He stopped suddenly and clutched at his stomach. He stood doubled over, his arm crossing his middle. Byrnes watched him helplessly.
“Larry—”
“Shhh,” Larry said softly.
“Son, what—?”
“Shhhh, shhhh.” He stood rocking on his heels, back and forth, clutching his stomach, and then finally he lifted his head, and his eyes were wet, and this time the tears coursed down his face, and he said, “Dad, I’m sick, I’m very sick.”
Byrnes went to him and put his arm around his shoulder. He tried to think of something comforting to say, but nothing would come to his tongue.
“Dad, I’m asking you, please. Please, Dad, would you please get me something? Dad, please, I’m very sick, and I need a fix. So please, Dad, please, I’m begging you, get me something. Please get me something, just a little bit to tide me over, please, Dad, please. I’ll never, never ask you for anything else as long as I live. I’ll leave home, I’ll do whatever you say, but please get me something, Dad. If you love me, please get me something.”
“I’ll call Johnny,” Byrnes said.
“No, Dad, please, please, that stuff he gave me is no good, it doesn’t help.”
“He’ll try something else.”
“No, please, please, please, please—”
“Larry, Larry, son—”
“Dad, if you love me—”
“I love you, Larry,” Brynes said, and he held his son’s shoulder tightly, and there were tears on his own face now, and his son shuddered and then said, “I have to go to the bathroom. I have to…Dad, help me, help me.”
And Byrnes took his son to the bathroom across the hall, and Larry was very sick. At the foot of the stairs, Harriet stood with her hands wrung together, and after a while her husband and her son crossed the hall again, and then Byrnes came out of Larry’s bedroom and locked the door on the outside and went down the steps to his wife.
“Call Johnny again,” he said. “Tell him to get right over.”
Harriet hesitated, and her eyes were on Byrnes’s face, and Byrnes said, “He’s very sick, Harriet. He’s really very sick.”
Harriet, with the wisdom of a wife and mother, knew that this was not what Byrnes wanted to say at all. She nodded and went to the telephone.
The lions were really kicking it up.
Maybe they’re hungry, Carella thought. Maybe they’d like a nice fat detective for dinner. It’s a pity I’m not a fat detective, but maybe they’re not very choosy lions, maybe they’ll settle for a lean detective.
I am certainly a lean detective.
I have been leaning against this stupid cage since 2:00 P.M., and waiting for a man named Gonzo whom I have never seen in my life. I have been leaning and leaning, and the lions are roaring inside the building, and it is now 4:37, and my good friend Gonzo or anything resembling my good friend Gonzo has still not appeared.
And even when he does appear, he may not be very important at all. Except for the fact that he’s a pusher, and it’s always nice to grab another pusher. But he may not be important in the Hernandez case, even though he seems to have inherited at least some of the boy’s customers. God, the girl! God, the job somebody did on that poor girl! Was it because of her brother?
What, what?
What is it? What’s behind such a fishy goddamn suicide? It looks like a suicide setup, but it’s obviously not a suicide setup, and whoever killed that boy knew that, whoever killed that boy wanted us to know it was not a suicide! He wanted us to dig deeper, and he wanted us to come up with a homicide, but why? And whose fingerprints are on that syringe? Do they belong to this Gonzo character I’m now waiting for, a nice grubby pusher who hasn’t got a record? Are they his prints and will we find out what this whole goddamn mess is about the minute we get him? And is he the one who slashed the girl to ribbons or was that something separate and apart, something that just happened to a prostitute, an occupational hazard, something not at all connected with the earlier death of her brother?
Will Gonzo know the answers?
And if you know the answers, Mr. Gonzo, or Gonzo Mr., because I don’t know whether Gonzo is your first name or your last name, you certainly have kept yourself well hidden in this precinct, you certainly have operated on a small quiet scale, but if you know the answers where the hell are you now?
Have you been operating before this, Gonzo?
Or did you suddenly inherit a nice business the night you knocked off Aníbal Hernandez? Was that why you killed him?
But what kind of a business did the kid have, when you really examined it closely? Kling beat that whole neighborhood with his feet, and he scared up a handful of Hernandez’s erstwhile customers. A mule, pure and simple, shoving only enough stuff to keep him in the junk himself. So is a business of such miniscule size a reason for murder? Do people kill for a handful of pennies?
Well, yes, people do kill for a handful of pennies sometimes.
But usually the pennies are in plain sight, and the pennies are the temptation. Hernandez’s business was a non-tangible thing, and if he were killed for that business then why, why in Christ’s holy name, had the killer gone out of his way to indicate homicide?
Because surely the killer must have known that death by overdose could have been suicide. Had he left the body where it lay, syringe on the cot next to it, chances are a suicide verdict would have been delivered. The coroner would have examined the boy and said, Yes, death by overdose, as he had in fact said. Aníbal Hernandez would have been chalked off as a careless junkie. But the killer had affixed that rope to the kid’s neck, and the rope had been placed there after the boy was dead, and surely the killer knew this would draw suspicion, surely the killer knew that. He had wanted suspicion of homicide.
Why?
And where is Gonzo?
Carella took a bag of peanuts out of his pocket. He was wearing gray corduroy slacks, and a gray suede jacket. He wore, too, black loafers and bright red socks. The socks were a mistake. He realized that after he’d left the house. The socks stood out like lights on a Christmas tree, God, what was he going to get Teddy for Christmas? He had seen some nice lounging pajamas, but she’d murder him if he spent $25 for lounging pajamas. Still, they would look beautiful on her, everything looked beautiful on her, why shouldn’t a man be allowed to spend $25 on the woman he loved? She had told him with her lips that his love was enough, that he himself was the biggest and best Christmas present she had ever received, and that anything in excess of $15 worth of merchandise would be the silliest sort of extravagance for a girl who already had the nicest gift in the world. She had told him this, and he had held her close, but damnit, those lounging pajamas were still very pretty, and he could visualize her wearing them, so what the devil was an additional $10 when you got right down to it? How many people threw away $10 every day of the week without giving it a second thought.
Carella popped a peanut into his mouth.
Where was Gonzo?
Probably doing Christmas shopping, Carella thought. Do pushers have wives and mothers, too? Of course they do. And of course they exchange Christmas gifts and they go to baptisms and bar mitzvahs and weddings and funerals just like everybody else. So maybe Gonzo is doing his Christmas shopping, the idea isn’t such a farfetched one at that. I wish I were doing my Christmas shopping right now instead of munching on stale peanuts in this bitter cold outside the lion house. Besides, I don’t like working outside my own precinct. All right, that’s an idiosyncrasy, and I’m a crazy cop, but there’s no place like home, and this park belongs to two other precincts, none of which is the 87th, and I like the 87th, and that makes me a crazier cop, have another peanut, idiot.
Come on, Gonzo.
I’m dying to make your acquaintance, Gonzo. I’ve heard so much about you that I feel I actually know you, and really, hasn’t our meeting been postponed for just an unbearably long time? Come on, Gonzo. I am beginning to resemble the brass monkeys, Gonzo. I’d like very much to go inside and look at the lions—how come they’re so quiet now? Feeding time already—and toast myself by their cages rather than stand out here where even my red socks are turning blue from the cold. So how about it, Gonzo? Give a flatfoot a break, will you? Give a poor honest cop a dime for a cup of coffee, willya? Oh brother, would I love a hot cup of coffee right this minute, mamma.
I’ll bet you’re having a cup of coffee in some department-store restaurant right now, Gonzo. I’ll bet you don’t even know I’m here waiting for you.
Hell, I sure hope you don’t know I’m waiting for you.
Carella cracked open another peanut and then glanced casually at a young boy who turned the corner of the lion house. The boy looked at Carella and then walked past. Carella seemingly ignored him, munching happily and idiotically on his peanuts. When the boy was gone, Carella moved to one of the benches and sat, waiting. He glanced at his watch. He cracked open another peanut. He glanced at his watch again.
In three minutes, the boy was back. He was no older than nineteen. He walked with a quick, birdlike tempo. He wore a sports jacket, the collar turned up against the cold, and a pair of shabby gray flannel slacks. His head was bare, and his blond hair danced in the wind. He looked at Carella again, and then went to stand near the outdoor cages of the lion house. Carella seemed interested only in cracking open and eating his peanuts. He barely gave the boy a glance, but the boy was never out of his sight.
The boy was pacing now. He looked at his wrist, and then seemingly remembered he didn’t have a watch. He pulled a grimace, glanced up the path, and then began pacing in front of the cages again. Carella went on eating his peanuts.
