Ed McBain - Pusher

"Sure. Put the gun up. I'll forget you ever had it."

"What's the matter, cop? You scared?"

"Why should I be scared?" Carella asked, watching the boy's eyes. "I don't think you'd be silly enough to shoot me here in the park."

"No, huh? You got any idea how many people are shot in this park every day?"

"How many, son?" Carella asked, stalling for time, wondering how he could get the .38 out of his pocket, divert the kid for an instant while he drew and fired.

"Plenty. Why are you following me, cop?"

"You won't believe this…" Carella started.

"Then don't waste it. Give me the real story the first time around."

"I was after your pal."

"Yeah? Which pal? I got lots of pals."

"The one you met by the cobra cage."

"Why him?"

"I've got some questions to ask him."

"About what?"

"That's my business."

"Where's your piece, cop? Tell me that first."

Carella hesitated. He saw the boy's eyes tighten almost imperceptibly. "My right-hand coat pocket," he said quickly.

"Turn around," the boy said.

Carella turned.

"Put the hands up. Don't try any tricks, cop, I'm warning you. You feel this? It's the muzzle of this piece. It'll be right up against your spine all the while I'm reaching into your pocket. You start to turn, you start to run, you even start to breathe crooked, and you've got a broken spinal cord. I ain't afraid to pull this trigger, so don't test me. You got that?"

"I've got it," Carella said.

He felt the boy's hand move quickly into his pocket. In an instant, the reassuring weight of the .38 was gone.

"All right," the boy said, "turn around again."

Carella turned to face him. He had not, up to that moment, really believed the situation to be a serious one. He had talked himself out of similar situations before, and he had been fairly certain—up to now—that he could either talk his way out of this one, or somehow get to the gun in his coat pocket. But the gun was no longer in his coat pocket, and the boy's eyes were hard and bright, and he had the peculiar feeling that he was staring sudden death in the face.

"You'd be stupid," he heard himself say, but the words sounded hollow and insincere. "You'd be shooting me for no reason. I told you I'm not after you."

"Then why were you asking me all those questions yesterday? You thought you were playing it real cool, didn't you, cop? Sounding me out about the meet. I was sounding you at the same time. It ain't easy, you know, not when you don't know what faces are gonna be at a meet. It ain't easy at all. I let you think I was stepping right into your pitches, but I saw your curves coming a mile off. That patrolman clinched it for me. When he dug that piece out of your pants, I knew for sure you were a bull. Up to then, I could only smell it on you."

"I'm still not after you," Carella said patiently. They were standing on loose rock in the shadow of the big boulder. Carella weighed the possibility of lunging at the boy suddenly, throwing him off balance on the loose rock, getting the gun away from him. The possibility seemed extremely remote.

"No, huh? Look, cop, don't snow me. I've been snowed by the best. You think you're going to tie me in to something big, don't you? You think you're gonna get me in your cozy little precinct house and beat the crap out of me until I'll confess to having raped my own mother. Well, you're wrong, cop."

"Goddammit, what do I want with a two-bit junkie?" Carella said.

"Me? A junkie? Come off it, will you? This time I'm not taking the pitches, cop. Don't try to sell me a new line of spitballs."

"What's with you, anyway?" Carella asked. "I've seen junkies panic before, but you're the uneasiest. Are you so scared of taking a fall? Damnit, I was only going to ask some questions about the guy you met. Can't you get that through your head? I don't want you. I want him."

"I thought you weren't interested in two-bit junkies," the boy said.

"I'm not."

"Then why bother with him? He's eighteen years old, and he's been hooked since he was fourteen. He goes to bed with H. You're inconsistent, cop."

"He's a pusher, isn't he?" Carella asked, puzzled.

"Him?" The boy began laughing. "Cop, you're a riot."

"What's…"

"All right, listen to me," the boy said. "You were tailing me yesterday, and you were tailing me today. I'm carrying enough junk on me right now to make a pinch pretty much worth your while. I'm also violating the Sullivan Act because I ain't got a license for this piece. You've got me on resisting an officer, and there's probably some kind of law against taking a cop's gun from him, too. You got me, cop. You can throw the book at me. And if I cut out now, you'll grab me tomorrow, and then it's your word against mine."

"Listen, take off. Put up the gun and take off," Carella said. "I'm not looking for a slug, and I'm not looking for trouble with you. I told you once. I want your pal." Carella paused. "I want Gonzo."

"I know," the boy said, his eyes tightening. " I'm Gonzo."

The only warning was the tightening of Gonzo's eyes. Carella saw them squinch up, and he tried to move sideways, but the gun was already speaking. He did not see it buck in the boy's fist. He felt searing pain lash at his chest, and he heard the shocking declaration of three explosions and then he was falling, and he felt very warm, and he also felt very ridiculous because his legs simply would not hold him up, how silly, how very silly, and his chest was on fire, and the sky was tilting to meet the earth, and then his face struck the ground. He did not put out his arms to stop his fall because his arms were somehow powerless. His face struck the loose stones, and his body crumpled behind it, and he shuddered and felt a warm stickiness beneath him, and only then did he try to move and then he realized he was lying in a spreading pool of his own blood. He wanted to laugh and he wanted to cry at the same time. He opened his mouth, but no sound came from it. And then the waves of blackness came at him, and he fought to keep them away, unaware that Gonzo was running off through the trees, aware only of the engulfing blackness, and suddenly sure that he was about to die.

It is to the credit of the 87th that it worked faster than either of the two precincts that reigned over Grover Park. Carella was not found by a patrolman until almost a half hour later, at which time the blood around him resembled a small swimming pool.

But another act of violence had been done in the 87th at about the same time Carella was being shot outside his precinct, and the results of that violence were discovered not ten minutes later.

The patrolman who called it in said, "She's an old woman. Her neighbors tell me her name is Dolores Faured."

"What's the story?" the desk sergeant asked.

The patrolman said, "Her neck is broken. She either fell or was pushed down an airshaft from the second floor."

Chapter Fourteen

In the heart of the city, the shoppers went about their business. The store fronts glowed like hot pot-belly stoves, inviting the cold citizens to come in and toast awhile, come in and browse awhile, come in and buy a little. The swank shops lining plush Hall Avenue were decked not in holly but in an austerely shrieking display of Christmas white and red and green electrical wizardry. The front of one department store was covered with a two-story-high display of blue angels, and the outdoor gardens across the street picked up the theme, multiplied it by a hundred, splashed the concrete with ethereal winged messengers of the Lord, escorting the passers-by to the giant Christmas tree near the skating rink. The tree climbed to the sky, ablaze with red and blue and yellow globes as big as a man's head, competing with the stiff formality of the giant office buildings around it.