Ed McBain - Pusher

There was no comfort in the clock now, no comfort in the ordered, well-regulated spacing of its breathing. There was neither—and curiously—a sense of time attached to the clock. There was instead a desperate feeling of urgency, the hands advancing, the mechanism whirring, as if time-disconnected, separate and apart from the living universe, the clock would suddenly clasp its own hands and then explode into the hallway leaving Byrnes alone, waiting for his son.

The house creaked.

He had never before noticed how the house creaked.

There was sound everywhere around him, the sound of an old man with rheumatic joints. From the bedroom upstairs, he could hear Harriet deep in slumber, the sound of her even breathing superimposed on the dread tocking of the clock and the uneasy groaning of the house.

And then Byrnes heard a small sound that was like an ear-splitting thundercrack, the sound he had been waiting for and listening for all night long, the sound of a key being turned in the front-door latch. All other sounds vanished in that moment. He sat tensed and alert in his chair while the key twisted, and then the door swung wide, creaking a little, and he could hear the malicious gossip of the wind outside, and then the door quietly easing shut and snuggling into the jamb, and then the boards in the hallway creaking as feet fell upon them.

"Larry?" he called.

His voice reached out of the darkened living room, and fled into the hollows of the house. For a moment, there was complete silence, and then Byrnes was aware of the tocking of the grandfather clock again, his garden-variety clock complacently standing against the wall and watching life rush by, like an idler leaning against the plate-glass window of a corner drug store.

"Dad?" The voice was surprised, and the voice was young, and the voice was a little breathless, the way a voice will sound when its owner has come into a warm room after facing a sullen cold outside.

"In here, Larry," he said, and again the silence greeted him, a calculating silence this time, broken only by the steady punctuality of the clock.

"Sure," Larry said, and Byrnes listened to his footfalls as he came through the house and then paused outside the living-room door.

"Okay to put on a light?" Larry asked.

"Yes, go ahead," Byrnes said.

Larry came into the room, walking with the familiar skill of a person who has occupied a house for a long time, walking in the darkness directly to an end table and then turning on a lamp there.

He was a tall boy, much taller than his father. His hair was red, and his face was long and thin, with his father's craggy nose, and his mother's guileless gray eyes. His chin was weak, Byrnes noticed, nor would it ever be any stronger because adolescence had forged the boy's face, and it was set now for eternity. He wore a sports shirt and slacks, over which had been thrown a sports jacket. Byrnes wondered if he'd left his overcoat in the hallway.

"Doing some reading?" Larry asked. His voice was no longer the voice of a child. It sprang full-chested and deep from the long, reedy body, and somehow it sounded ludicrous in a boy so young, a boy hardly eighteen.

"No," Byrnes said. "I was waiting for you."

"Oh?" Byrnes watched his son, listening to him, amazed at how the single word "Oh?" could have conveyed so much sudden wariness and caution.

"Where were you, Larry?" Byrnes asked. He watched his son's face, hoping his son would not lie, telling himself a lie would shatter him now, a lie would destroy him.

"At school," Larry said, and Byrnes took the lie, and it did not hurt as much as he expected it would, and suddenly something inside the man took over, something alien to a father-son relationship, something he reserved for the squad room at the 87th. It came into his head and onto his tongue with the ready rapidity of years of familiarity. In the space of three seconds, Peter Byrnes became a cop questioning a suspect.

"The high school?"

"Yes, Dad."

"Calm's Point High, isn't it? Isn't that where you go?"

"Don't you know, Dad?"

"I'm asking you."

"Yes. Calm's Point."

"Late to be getting home, isn't it?"

"Is that what this is all about?" Larry asked.

"What kept you so late?"

"We're rehearsing, you know that."

"For what?"

"The senior play. Holy cow, Dad, we've only gone over this about a hundred times."

"Who else is in the play?"

"Lots of kids."

"Who's directing it?"

"Miss Kerry."

"What time did you start rehearsals?"

"Hey, what is this?"

"What time did you break up?"

"About one o'clock, I guess. Some of the kids stopped for a soda afterwards."

"The rehearsal broke up at ten thirty," Byrnes said clearly. "You weren't there. You're not in the play, Larry. You never were. Where did you spend the time between three thirty yesterday afternoon and two o'clock this morning?"

"Jesus!" Larry said.

"Don't swear in my house," Byrnes said.

"Well, for Christ's sake, you sound like a district attorney."

"Where were you, Larry?"

"Okay, I'm not in the play," Larry said. "Okay? I didn't want to tell Mom. I got kicked out after the first few rehearsals. I guess I'm not a good actor. I guess…"

"You're a terrible actor, and a bad listener. You were never in the play, Larry. I said that just a few seconds ago."

"Well…"

"Why'd you lie? What have you been doing?"

"Now what would I be doing?" Larry said. "Listen, Dad, I'm sleepy. If you don't mind, I'd like to get to bed."

He was starting from the room when Byrnes shouted, "I DO MIND! COME BACK HERE!"

Larry turned slowly to face his father. "This isn't your grubby squad room, Pop," he said. "Don't yell at me like one of your lackeys."

"This has been my squad room longer than the 87th has," Byrnes said tightly. "Wipe the sneer out of your voice, or I'll kick your ass all over the street."

Larry's mouth fell open. He stared at Byrnes for a moment, and then said, "Listen, Dad, I'm really…"

Byrnes came up out of the chair suddenly. He walked to his son and said, "Empty your pockets."

"What?"

"I said…"

"Oh now, let's just hold this a minute," Larry said heatedly. "Now, let's just slow down. What the hell is this, anyway? Don't you play cop enough hours a day, you have to come home…"

"Shut up, Larry, I'm warning you!"

"Shut up yourself! For Christ's sake, I don't have to take this kind of…"

Byrnes slapped his son suddenly and viciously. He slapped him with an opened, callused hand that had been working since its owner was twelve years old, and that hand slapped Larry hard enough to knock him off his feet.

"Get up!" Byrnes said.

"You better not hit me again," Larry muttered.

"Get up!" Byrnes reached down, catching his son's collar with his hand. He yanked him to his feet, and then pulled him close and then said through clenched teeth, "Are you a drug addict?"

Silence crowded into the room, filling every corner.

"Wh… what?" Larry asked.

"Are you a drug addict?" Byrnes repeated. He was whispering now, and the whisper was loud in the silent room. The clock in the hallway added its voice, commenting in a monotone.

"Who… who told you?" Larry said at last.

"Are you?"

"I… I fool around a little."

"Sit down," Byrnes said wearily.

"Dad, I…"

"Sit down," Byrnes said, "Please."

Larry sat in the chair his father had vacated. Byrnes paced the room for several moments, and then stopped before Larry and asked, "How bad is it?"

"Not too bad."

"Heroin?"

"Yes."

"How long?"

"I've been on for about four months now."

"Snorting?"

"No. No."

"Skin pops?"

"Dad, I…"

"Larry, Larry, are you mainlining?"