Ed McBain - Pusher

He saw the female fantail almost instantly.

She lay on the floor of the coop, and he knew at once that she was dead.

Gently, he bent down and picked her up, and he held her on his widespread hands, staring at her, as if staring would bring her back to life.

Everything seemed suddenly too much to bear. Everything seemed to have been leading to this ultimate, crushing defeat: the death of his fantail. He kept watching the bird, aware that his hands were trembling, but unable to stop them. He went out of the coop then, still holding the bird in his hands. He walked across the roof, and he sat with his back to one of the chimney pots. He put the bird down gently at his feet, and then—as if his hands were too idle now that they were empty—he picked up a loose brick and turned it over and over in his hands, like a potter working with wet clay. He was turning the brick, slowly, slowly, when the man came up onto the roof.

The man looked around for a moment and then walked directly to where he was sitting.

"Douglas Patt?" the man asked.

"Yes?" he answered. He looked up into the man's eyes. The eyes were very hard. The man stood with his shoulders hunched against the wind, his hands in his pockets.

"I'm Lieutenant Byrnes," the man said.

"Oh," Patt answered.

They looked at each other silently for a long time. Patt made no motion to rise. Slowly, he kept turning the brick over in his hands, the dead bird at his feet.

"How did you get to me?" he asked at last.

"Dickie Collins," Byrnes said.

"Mmm," Patt said. He didn't seem to care very much. He didn't seem at all interested in how the police had found him. "I figured he would be a weak link if you got onto him." Patt shook his head. "Too many people," he said. He looked down at the bird. He gripped the brick more tightly in one hand.

"What'd you hope to get out of this, Patt?" Byrnes asked.

"Me?" Patt said. He made a motion to rise, and Byrnes moved quickly and effortlessly, so that by the time Patt was squatting on his haunches he was looking into the level muzzle of Byrnes' pistol. But Patt seemed not to notice the gun. He seemed intent only on studying the dead bird at his feet. He moved the bird with one hand, holding the brick in the other hand. "Me? What did I want out of this? A chance, Lieutenant. Big time, Lieutenant."

"How?"

"This kid, Gonzo—you know about the Gonzo, don't you? Silly damn thing, isn't it? But sort of weird—this kid, Gonzo, he came to me and said, 'How do you like that? Annabelle tells me he's got a junkie friend whose old man runs the dicks at the 87th.' That's what Gonzo said to me, Lieutenant."

Byrnes watched him. Patt had lifted the brick slowly, and now he brought it down almost gently, but with a gentle force, smashing it against the body of the dead pigeon. He brought back the brick again, and again he hit the bird with it. There was blood on the brick now, and feathers. He brought it back unconsciously, and then down again, almost as if he were unaware of what he was doing to the bird.

"I figured this was it, Lieutenant. I figured I'd get your son into a setup that looked pretty bad, and then I'd come to you, Lieutenant, and lay my cards on the table and say, 'This is how it stands, Lieutenant. Your son's story gets blabbed all over the newspapers unless I get your cooperation.' I had your son rigged for a murder rap, Lieutenant. I was sure you'd cooperate."

He kept pounding with the brick. Byrnes pulled his eyes away from the disintegrating bird.

"What kind of cooperation did you expect?"

"I push," Patt said. "But I'm afraid. I could really expand if I didn't have to be afraid all the time. I didn't want to take a fall. I wanted you to help. I wanted hands off from you or any of your dicks. I wanted to be free to roam the precinct and push wherever I wanted to, without being afraid of getting pinched. That's what I wanted, Lieutenant."

"You'd never have got it," Byrnes said. "Not from me, and not from any cop."

"Maybe not from you. But, oh, it was sweet, Lieutenant. I sold this little Annabelle jerk a bill of goods. I told him all I wanted was a syringe with your son's prints on it. He dragged your son in and gave him a free fix, and then he switched syringes before your son left that night. I was waiting. When your son took off, I went in to see Annabelle. He was nodding, half blind. I loaded a syringe with enough H to knock the top of his head off. He didn't even know I was injecting it. Then I took your son's syringe out of Annabelle's pocket, and I laid it on the cot beside him."

"Why the rope?" Byrnes asked.

Patt kept hitting the bird, pulverizing it with the brick, spewing feathers and blood onto the tar of the roof. "That was an afterthought. It occurred to me—Jesus, suppose they think it is a suicide? Or suppose they think it was just an accidental overdose? Where does that leave my murder frame? So I put the rope around Annabelle's neck. I figured the police would be smart enough to know it was tied there after he was killed. I wanted them to know it was homicide, because I was measuring your son for the rap. Your son was my bargaining tool, Lieutenant. My bargaining tool for a free precinct."

"A free precinct," Byrnes repeated.

"Mmm, yes," Part said. "But it didn't work out, did it? And then Maria, and the old woman—how do these things get so complicated?"

He stopped pounding and looked down at the tar suddenly. The bird was a crushed mass of bloody pulp and feathers. The brick was stained with blood, as were Patt's hands. He looked at the pigeon, and then he looked at the brick and his hands as if he were seeing them for the first time. And then, quite suddenly, he began sobbing.

"You'd better come with me," Byrnes said gently.

They booked him at the 87th. They charged him with the murder of three people. And after he'd been booked, Byrnes went up to his office, and he stood looking out over the park, and then he saw the clock in the park tower, and the clock told him it was five minutes to midnight.

Five minutes to Christmas.

He went to his telephone.

"Yes?" the desk sergeant said.

"This is the Lieutenant," Byrnes said. "Can I have a line, please?"

"Yes, sir."

He waited for his dial tone, and then he dialed his Calm's Point number, and Harriet answered the phone.

"Hello, Harriet," he said.

"Hello, Peter."

"How is he?"

"I think he's going to be all right," she said.

"He's better?"

"Better than he was, Peter. He doesn't seem… he hasn't been vomiting or fidgeting or behaving like a wild man. I think he's licked it physically, Peter. The rest is up to him."

"Yes," Byrnes said. "Is he awake?"

"Yes, he is."

"May I talk to him?"

"Certainly, darling."

"Harriet?"

"Yes?"

"I know I've been chasing around, but I wanted you to know… I mean, all this running around these past few days…"

"Peter," she said gently, "I married a cop."

"I know you did. I'm grateful for it. Merry Christmas, Harriet."

"Come home as soon as you can, darling. I'll get Larry."

Byrnes waited. In a little while, his son came to the phone.

"Dad?"

"Hello, Larry. How are you feeling?"

"Much better, Dad."

"Good, good."

There was a long silence.

"Dad?"

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry for the way… for, you know, what I've done. It's going to be different."

"A lot of things are going to be different, Larry," Byrnes promised.

"Will you be coming home soon?"

"Well, I wanted to wind up…" Byrnes stopped. "Yes, I'll be home very soon. I want to stop off at the hospital, and then I'll be right home."

"We'll wait up, Dad."

"Fine, I'd like that." Byrnes paused. "You really feel all right, Larry?"

"Well, I'm getting there," Larry said, and Byrnes thought he detected a smile in his son's voice.