Ed McBain - Pusher

"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 squad room, 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," Byrnes 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' 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' 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' 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 $25.00 for lounging pajamas. Still, they would look beautiful on her, everything looked beautiful on her, why shouldn't a man be allowed to spend $25.00 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 $15.00 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 $10.00 when you got right down to it? How many people threw away $10.00 every day of the week without giving it a second thought.