Ed McBain - Pusher

"Yeah, but I copped big from him before he pulled the plug. I had enough to tide me."

"Oh," the boy said. "What I done, I've been shopping around, you know? I got some good stuff, but I also got a couple bum decks. I figure you got to do business with somebody you trust, don't you?"

"Sure, but how do you know you can trust this Gonzo?"

"I don't. What've I got to lose?"

"Well, hell, he may stick us with beat stuff."

"I'm willing to chance it. Annabelle's stuff was always good."

"Sure, it was. The best."

"He was a good kid, Annabelle. For a spic."

"Yeah," Carella said.

"Don't get me wrong," the boy said. "I got nothing against spics."

"Well, that's a good attitude," Carella said. "There are two things I can't stand, and that's bigots and spics."

"Huh?" the boy said.

"Why don't you go take a walk and look for Gonzo? Maybe he's coming down the path."

"I don't know him."

"Neither do I. You check now, and if he ain't here in five minutes, I'll check next time."

"Okay," the boy said. He rose and walked away from the bench, toward where the path angled down sharply alongside one wall of the lion house.

The things that happened next happened with remarkable rapidity and in almost comic succession. Later, when Carella had a chance to think about the events clearly, unhampered by the subjective viewpoint of having been caught in them while they were happening, he was able to put them in their right sequence. As they happened, they only succeeded in annoying him and in stunning him somewhat. But later, he was able to see them clearly as a pattern of unfortunate coincidence.

He first watched the boy walk up to the path, stand there for a moment, and then shake his head at Carella, indicating that Gonzo was nowhere in sight. Then the boy turned and looked up the other end of the path and, perhaps so that he could get a better view, climbed to a small knoll and walked several paces until he was hidden by one corner of the lion house where the path swung around it The instant the boy stepped out of sight, Carella was aware of someone approaching him from the opposite side of the lion house.

The someone approaching was a patrolman.

He walked briskly, and he wore ear muffs, and his face was very red, and he carried his night stick like a caveman's club. His direction was unmistakable. He was walking in a quick straight line that would take him directly to the bench upon which Carella was sitting. From the corner of his eye, Carella watched the turn in the path around which the boy had disappeared. The patrolman was closer now, walking purposefully and rapidly. He came up to the bench, stopped before Carella, and stared down at him. Carella glanced toward the path again. The boy had not yet returned into view.

"What're you doing?" the patrolman asked Carella.

Carella looked up. "Me?" he said. He cursed the fact that the park was not part of his own precinct territory, cursed the fact that he did not know this patrolman, cursed the stupidity of the man, and at the same time realized he could not show his credentials because the boy might return at any moment, and all he needed was for the boy to see him. And suppose Gonzo should arrive at this moment? Good God, suppose Gonzo should arrive?

"Yeah, you," the patrolman said. "There's only two of us here, ain't there?"

"I'm sitting," Carella said.

"You been sitting for a long time now."

"I like to sit in the fresh air," Carella said, and he weighted the possibility of quickly flashing his shield, and the possibility of the patrolman quickly grasping the situation and taking off without another word. But as if to squash that possibility, the boy suddenly reappeared around the corner of the lion house, then stopped dead in his tracks, seeing the cop, and then reversed his field. But he did not disappear completely this time. This time he took up a post at the corner of the lion house, peering around the brick of the building like an advancing street soldier looking for possible snipers.

"Kind of cold to be sitting out here in the open, ain't it?" the patrolman asked. Carella looked up at him, and he could still see the boy watching behind the patrolman's back. There was nothing he could do but try to talk himself out of this without revealing himself. That and pray that Gonzo would not arrive and be scared off by the sight of a uniform.

"Listen, is there any law against sitting on a bench and eating peanuts?" Carella asked.

"There might be."

"Like what? I'm not bothering anybody, am I?"

"You might. You might try to molest the first young schoolgirl who walks by."

"I'm not going to try to molest anybody," Carella said. "All I want to do is sit here and mind my own business and get some fresh air, that's all."

"You could be a vagrant," the patrolman said.

"Do I look like a vagrant?"

"Not exactly."

"Look, officer…"

"You'd better stand up," the patrolman said.

"Why?"

"Because I'll have to search you."

"What the hell for?" Carella said angrily, constantly aware of the boy's prying eyes at the corner of the building, aware too that a search would uncover the .38 Detective's Special tucked in its holster into his waistband, and the gun would require an explanation, and the explanation would necessitate the flashing of tin, and there would go the setup. The kid would know he was a cop, and the kid would take off, and if Gonzo showed at the same time…

"I got to search you," the patrolman said. "You may be a dope peddler or something."

"Oh, for Christ's sake!" Carella exploded. "Then go get a search warrant."

"I don't need one," the patrolman said calmly. "You're either going to get searched or I'm going to clout you on the head and drag you into the station house as a vagrant. Now, how about it?"

The patrolman didn't wait for Carella's answer. He began running his night stick over Carella's body, and the first thing he hit was the .38. He yanked up Carella's jacket.

"Hey!" he shouted. "What's this?"

His voice could easily have carried to the reptile house at the other end of the zoo. It certainly carried to the corner of the lion house not fifteen feet away, and Carella saw the boy's eyes open wide, and then the patrolman brandished the gun like a Carrie Nation hatchet, and the kid saw it, and his eyes narrowed suspiciously, and then his face vanished from the corner of the building.

"What is this?" the patrolman shouted again, holding Carella's arm now. Carella listened, and he heard footsteps beating a rapid retreat on the asphalt path. The boy was gone, and Gonzo hadn't shown either. In any case, the day was shot clear up the ass.

"I'm talking to you!" the patrolman shouted. "You got a permit for this gun?"

"My name," Carella said slowly and precisely, "is Stephen Carella. I'm a 2nd/Grade Detective, and I work out of the 87th Precinct, and you just prevented me from making a possible narcotics pinch." The patrolman's red face turned a little pale. Carella looked at him sourly and said, "Go ahead, panic. It'll serve you right."

Chapter Twelve

A feather.

It was only a feather, but it was perhaps the most meaningful bit of evidence turned up in the room where Maria Hernandez had been stabbed.

There are all kinds of feathers.

There are chicken feathers, and duck feathers, and quail feathers, and goose feathers, and flamingo feathers, and horse feathers, and even Leonard Feathers.

Feathers are divided into two groups, down feathers and contour feathers.

The feather found in the room was a down feather.

Now, when a kid in the 87th Precinct held another kid in high regard, considered this kid an all-right guy, a courageous fighter, a lover, a hero, he might very well refer to the boy as a "down cat." The cat signifying boy , and the down signifying all right .