The Pusher

Chapter Eleven

Because the room in which Maria Hernandez kept her fatal assignation with a person or persons unknown was the last known place to have enclosed her murderer, it was open to particular scrutiny by the police.

This scrutiny was of a non-theoretical nature. The laboratory technicians who descended upon the premises were not interested in exercising their imaginations. They were interested solely in clues that might lead to the identity of the person or persons who had wantonly slashed and murdered the Hernandez girl. They were looking for facts. And so, after the room had been sketched and photographed, they got down to business, and their business was a slow and laborious one.

Chance impressions are, of course, fingerprints.

The three kinds of chance impressions are:

Latent prints—these are invisible. Sometimes they can be picked up with the naked eye unaided, provided they are on a smooth surface and provided indirect lighting is used.

Visible prints—which happen to be visible only because the person who left them behind was a slob. And, being a slob, he'd allowed his fingers to become smeared with something containing color. The color was usually provided by dirt or blood.

Plastic prints—which, as the definition implies, are left in some sort of a plastic material like putty, wax, tar, clay, or the inside of a banana peel.

Naturally, plastic prints and visible prints are the nicest kinds of chance impressions to find. At least, they entail the least amount of location work. But chance impressions being what they are—that is, fingerprints inadvertently and unconsciously left behind—the person leaving them is not always so considerate as to leave the easiest kind to find. Most chance impressions are latent prints, and latent prints must be made visible through the use of fine-grained, lumpless powders before they can be photographed or transferred on foils. This takes time. The lab boys had a lot of time, and they also had a lot of latents to play around with. The room in which Maria Hernandez had been slashed, you see, was a room used to the steady going and coming of men. Patiently, slowly, the lab boys dusted and dusted, and photographed and transferred, coming up with a total of ten different men who had left good clear latents around the room.

They did not know that none of these men was the one who'd killed Maria. They could not have known that Maria's murderer had worn gloves until he'd climbed into bed with her that night. They did not know, and so they passed the prints on to the detectives, who checked them through I.E. and then indulged in a time-consuming round-up of available possible killers, all of whom had readily accessible (and generally true) alibis. Some of the prints had been left by persons who had never had a brush with the police. The I.E. could not identify those prints. Those men were never pulled in for questioning.

Considering the nature of the murder room, the lab boys were not surprised to find a good many naked footprints here and there, especially in the dust-covered corners near the bed. Unfortunately, the I.E. did not keep an active footprint file. These footprints then were simply put away for possible comparison with suspects later on. One of the footprints, unsurprisingly, had been left by Maria Hernandez.

The lab boys could find no usable shoe impressions in the room.

They found many head hairs and several pubic hairs on the bloodstained sheets of the bed. They also found semen stains. The blanket that had been on the bed was vacuumed, and the dust collected on filter paper. The dust was then examined and analyzed carefully. The technicians found nothing in the dust that proved helpful to them.

They found one thing in the room that was of possible real value.

A feather.

Now, the work they performed in that room may sound very simple and very unstrenuous, especially when all they could turn up was a lousy little feather, a handful of unimportant latents, and a few soleprints, and some hairs, and some blood, and some semen.

Really now! How much work could all that have involved?

Well, a semen stain looks like a geographical map and has the feel of a starched area. Unfortunately, looks alone are not enough for the purposes of identification. The suspected stain had to be packed. It had to be packed so that no friction ensued, because semen stains are brittle and can fracture into tiny, easily lost pieces. Friction could also break the spermatozoa. In other words, the stain could not be rolled, and it could not be folded, and it could not be haphazardly tossed into a bag of old clothes. It had to be packed so that its sides were absolutely free of friction of any sort, and this took time and trouble.

When the suspect stain reached the laboratory, its real examination began.

The first microchemical test it underwent was called the Florence reaction test, wherein a small part of the stain was dissolved in a solution of 1.56 grains of iodide of potassium, 2.54 grams of pure crystalline iodine and 30 cc. of distilled water. The test showed only that there was a probability of semen in the stain. It showed this because brown and rhombic-shaped Florence semen crystals appeared under the microscope. Unfortunately, however, similar crystals could have been obtained with either mucus or saliva, and so the test was not conclusive. But it did admit to a probability, and so the second test was performed, and the second test was the Puranen reaction test.

The Puranen reagent, into which a part of the stain extracted with several drops of saline was placed, consisted of a five-percent solution of 2, 4-dinitro-l-naphthol-7-sulfonic acid, flavianic acid. The stain portion, the saline and the solution were put into a micro tube, and the tube in turn put into a refrigerator for several hours. At the end of that time a yellowish precipitate of spermine flavianate was visible at the bottom of the tube. This precipitate was put under the microscope, and the all-powerful eye revealed crosslike crystals characteristic of seminal fluid.

And then, of course, the further microscopic examination included a search for at least several spermheads— defined by shape and staining—with necks attached. Luckily, the stain had not been changed by either friction or putrefaction. Had it been so altered, the search for the presence of spermatozoa might have been even more time-consuming and less fruitful.

So that's what they did with one stain. It consumed the major part of the day. Nor was it very exciting work. They were not searching for elusive cold germs. They were not seeking the cure for cancer. They were simply trying to compile a list of facts that might lead to the killer of Maria Hernandez or that, at a later date, might help to identify a suspect positively.

And if these men devoted long hours to the death of one junkie, another man was devoting long hours to the life of another junkie.

The junkie happened to be his son.

Peter Byrnes would never know how close he had come to washing his hands of the whole matter. He had fought first with the idea that the entire concept was a hoax. My son a drug addict? he had asked, my son? My son's fingerprints on an alleged murder weapon? No, he had told himself, it is a lie, a complete lie from start to finish. He would seek out this lie, pull it from beneath its rock, force it to crawl into the sunshine where he could step upon it. He would confront his son with the lie, and together they would destroy it.

But he had confronted his son, and he had known even before he asked "Are you a drug addict?" that his son was indeed a drug addict, and that a portion of the lie was not a lie. The knowledge had at once shocked and disgusted him, even though he had somehow expected it. For a lesser man than Byrnes, for a lesser cop than Byrnes, the knowledge might have been less devastating. But Byrnes despised crime, and Byrnes despised punks, and he had learned that his son was a punk engaged in criminal activities. And they had faced each other in their silent living room, and Byrnes had talked logically and sensibly, Byrnes had outlined the entire predicament to his son, never once allowing his disgust to rise into his throat, never once crying out against this punk criminal who was his son, never once saying the words of banishment.

His instinct told him to throw this person out into the street. This was an instinct nurtured over the years, an instinct that was an ingrained part of Byrnes' character.

But there was a deeper instinct, an instinct shared at fires in paleolithic times, when men clasped sons against the night, and the instinct had been passed down through the blood of man, and it coursed through the veins of Peter Byrnes, and Byrnes could think only He is my son.

And so he had talked levelly and calmly, exploding only once or twice, but even then exploding only with impatience and not allowing the disgust to overrule his mind.

His son was an addict.

Irrevocably, irreconcilably, his son was an addict. The caller had not lied on that score.

The second half of the lie turned out to be true, too. Byrnes checked his son's fingerprints against those that had been found on the syringe, and the fingerprints matched. He revealed this information to no one in the department, and the concealment left him feeling guilty and somehow contaminated.

The lie, then, had not been a lie at all.

It had started out as a two-part falsehood, and had turned into a shining, shimmering truth.

But what about the rest? Had Larry argued with Hernandez on the afternoon of the boy's death? And if he had, were not the implications clear? Were not the implications that Larry Byrnes had killed Aníbal Hernandez perfectly clear?

Byrnes could not believe the implications.

His son had turned into something he could not easily understand, something he had perhaps never understood and might never understand—but he knew his son was not a murderer.

And so, on that Thursday, December 21st, he waited for the man to call again, as he had promised; and he bore the additional burden now of a new homicide, the death of Aníbal's sister. He waited all that day, and no call came, and when he went home in the afternoon, it was to a task he dreaded.

He liked a happy home, but there was no joy in his house now. Harriet met him in the hallway, and she took his hat, and then she went into his arms, and she sobbed against his shoulder, and he tried to remember the last time she had cried like this, and it seemed very long ago, and he could not remember except that it was somehow attached to a senior prom and a corsage and the insurmountable problems of an eighteen-year-old girl. Harriet wasn't eighteen any more. She had a son who was almost eighteen now, and that son's problem had nothing to do with senior proms or corsages.

"How is he?" Byrnes asked.

"Bad," Harriet said.

"What did Johnny say?"

"He's given him something as a substitute," Harriet answered. "But he's only a doctor, Peter, he said that, he said he's only a doctor and the boy has to want to break the habit. Peter, how did this happen? For God's sake, how did it happen?"

"I don't know," Byrnes said.

"I thought this was for slum kids. I thought it was for kids who came from broken homes, kids who didn't have love. How did it happen to Larry?"

And again, Byrnes said, "I don't know," and within himself he condemned the job that had not left him more time to devote to his only son. But he was too honest to level the entire blame on the job, and he reminded himself that other men had jobs with long hours, irregular hours, and their sons did not become drug addicts. And so he started up the steps to his son's room, walking heavily, suddenly grown old, and beneath his own feelings of guilt ran the pressing undercurrent of his disgust. His son was a junkie. The word blinked like a neon sign in his head: JUNKIE. Junkie. JUNKIE. Junkie.

He knocked on his son's door.

"Larry?"

"Dad? Open this, will you? For Christ's sake, open it."

Byrnes reached into his pocket and took out his key ring. He had locked Larry into his room only once that he could remember. The boy had broken a plate-glass window with a baseball and then flatly refused to pay for the damage out of his allowance. Byrnes had informed his son that he would then deduct the money from the meals Larry ate, and that all meals would stop as of that moment. He had put the boy in the room and locked the door from the outside, and Larry had capitulated shortly after dinner that night. The incident, at the time, had not seemed terribly important. A form of punishment and really, really now, if Larry had still refused, Byrnes would certainly have fed him. Byrnes had felt, at the time, that he was teaching his son a respect for other people's property as well as a respect for money. But now, looking back, he wondered if he had not behaved wrongly. Had he isolated his son's affection by punishing him in that way? Had his son automatically assumed there was no love for him in this house? Had his son assumed Byrnes was taking the side of the shopkeeper and not that of his own flesh and blood?

But what is a man supposed to do? Consult a psychology textbook before he says anything or does anything? And how many other small incidents were there, how many incidents over the years, how many incidents piling up, inconsequential in themselves, gathering force and power as they accumulated until, together, they conspired to force a boy into drug addiction? How many incidents, and for how many of them could a father be blamed? Was he a bad father? Didn't he truly and honestly love his son, and hadn't he always tried to do what was best for him, hadn't he always tried to raise his son as a decent human being? What is a man supposed to do, what is a man supposed to do?

He unlocked the door, and then stepped into the room.

Larry stood just before the bed, his fists clenched.

"Why am I a prisoner?" he shouted.

"You're not a prisoner," Byrnes said calmly.

"No? Then what is it when the door's locked? What the hell, am I a criminal or something?"

"To be technical, yes, you are."

"Dad, listen, don't play games with me today. I'm not in any goddamn mood to be playing games."

"You were found by a law-enforcement officer to be carrying a hypodermic syringe. That's against the law. That law-enforcement officer also found an eighth of an ounce of heroin in your dresser drawer, and that's against the law. So you are, in effect, a criminal, and I am aiding and abetting you—so shut up, Larry."

"Don't tell me to shut up, Dad. What was that crap your friend gave me?"

"What?"

"Your big friend. Your big-shot doctor friend. He's probably never seen an addict in his whole life. What'd you drag him in for? What makes you think I need him? I told you I could drop the stuff any time I wanted to, didn't I? So what'd you have to call him in for? I hate that son of a bitch."

"He happened to bring you into the world, Larry."

"So what am I supposed to do? Give him a medal or something? He got paid for the delivery, didn't he?"

"He's a friend, Larry."

"Then why'd he tell you to lock me in my room?"

"Because he doesn't want you to leave this house. You're sick."

"Oh, Jesus, I'm sick. I'm sick, all right. I'm sick of everybody's attitude around here. I told you I'm not hooked! Now what do I have to do to prove it?"

"You're hooked, Larry," Byrnes said quietly.

"I'm hooked, I'm hooked, I'm hooked, is that the only goddamn song you know? Is that the only one you and your big-shot doctor friend rehearsed? Jesus Christ, how'd I ever get such a goddamn square for a father?"

"I'm sorry I disappoint you," Byrnes said.

"Oh boy, here we go. Here comes the martyred-father-hood routine! I saw this in the movies ever since I was eight. Turn it off, Pop, it doesn't reach me."

"I'm not trying to reach you," Byrnes said. "I'm trying to cure you."

"How? With that crap your friend gave me? What was that crap, anyway?"

"A substitute drug of some sort."

"Yeah? Well, it's no damn good. I feel exactly the same. You could have saved your money. Listen, you want to do me a real favor? You really want to cure me?"

"You know I do."

"All right, go out and scare me up some junk. There must be plenty of it down at the station house. Listen, I got a better idea. Give me back that eighth you took from my dresser."

"No."

"Why not? Damnit, you just said you wanted to help me! Okay, so why won't you help me? Don't you want to help me?"

"I want to help you."

"Then get me the stuff."

"No."

"You big son of a bitch," Larry said, and the tears suddenly started on his face. "Why don't you help me? Get out of here! Get out of here! Get out of here, you lousy…" and the last sentence dissolved into a series of animal sobs.

"Larry…"

"Get out!" Larry shrieked.

"Son…"

"Don't call me your son! Don't call me that! What the hell do you care about me? You're just afraid you'll lose your cushy job because I'm a junkie, that's all."

"That's not true, Larry."

"It is true! You're scared crap because you think somebody'll find out about my habit and about those fingerprints on the syringe! Okay, you bastard, okay, you just wait 'til I get to a telephone."

"You're not getting to a phone until you're cured, Larry."

"That's what you think! When I get to a phone, I'm gonna call the newspapers, and I'm gonna tell them all about it. Now, how about that? How about it, Dad? HOW ABOUT IT? Do I get that eighth?"

"You're not getting the heroin, and you're not getting near a phone, either. Now relax, son."

"I don't want to relax!" Larry shouted. "I can't relax! Listen, you! Now listen to me, you! Now you just listen to me!" He stood facing his father, his face streaked with tears, his eyes red, pointing his finger up at his father's face, shaking the finger as if it were a dagger. "Now listen to me! I want that stuff, do you hear me? Now you get that stuff for me, do you hear?"

"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.

Carella popped a peanut into his mouth.

Where was Gonzo?

Probably doing Christmas shopping, Carella thought.

Do pushers have wives and mothers, too? Of course they do. And of course they exchange Christmas gifts and they go to baptisms and bar mitzvahs and weddings and funerals just like everybody else. So maybe Gonzo is doing his Christmas shopping, the idea isn't such a farfetched one at that. I wish I were doing my Christmas shopping right now instead of munching on stale peanuts in this bitter cold outside the lion house. Besides, I don't like working outside my own precinct. All right, that's an idiosyncrasy, and I'm a crazy cop, but there's no place like home, and this park belongs to two other precincts, none of which is the 87th, and I like the 87th, and that makes me a crazier cop, have another peanut, idiot.

Come on, Gonzo.

I'm dying to make your acquaintance, Gonzo. I've heard so much about you that I feel I actually know you, and really, hasn't our meeting been postponed for just an unbearably long time? Come on, Gonzo. I am beginning to resemble the brass monkeys, Gonzo. I'd like very much to go inside and look at the lions—how come they're so quiet now? Feeding time already—and toast myself by their cages rather than stand out here where even my red socks are turning blue from the cold. So how about it, Gonzo? Give a flatfoot a break, will you? Give a poor honest cop a dime for a cup of coffee, willya? Oh brother, would I love a hot cup of coffee right this minute, mmmmm.

I'll bet you're having a cup of coffee in some department-store restaurant right now, Gonzo. I'll bet you don't even know I'm here waiting for you.

Hell, I sure hope you don't know I'm waiting for you.

Carella cracked open another peanut and then glanced casually at a young boy who turned the corner of the lion house. The boy looked at Carella and then walked past. Carella seemingly ignored him, munching happily and idiotically on his peanuts. When the boy was gone, Carella moved to one of the benches and sat, waiting. He glanced at his watch. He cracked open another peanut. He glanced at his watch again.

In three minutes, the boy was back. He was no older than nineteen. He walked with a quick, birdlike tempo. He wore a sports jacket, the collar turned up against the cold, and a pair of shabby gray flannel slacks. His head was bare, and his blond hair danced in the wind. He looked at Carella again, and then went to stand near the outdoor cages of the lion house. Carella seemed interested only in cracking open and eating his peanuts. He barely gave the boy a glance, but the boy was never out of his sight.

The boy was pacing now. He looked at his wrist, and then seemingly remembered he didn't have a watch. He pulled a grimace, glanced up the path, and then began pacing in front of the cages again. Carella went on eating his peanuts.

The boy suddenly stopped pacing, stood undecided for a moment, and then walked over to where Carella was sitting.

"Hey, mister," he said, "you know what time it is?"

"Just a second," Carella answered. He finished cracking a peanut, popped it into his mouth, put the shell onto the little pile he'd formed on the bench, dusted his hands, and then looked at his watch.

"About a quarter to five," he said.

"Thanks," the boy answered. He looked off up the path again. He turned back to Carella and studied him for a minute. "Pretty cold, ain't it?" he said.

"Yeah," Carella answered. "Want a peanut?"

"Huh? Oh, no. Thanks."

"Good," Carella said. "Give you some energy, build body warmth."

"No," the boy answered. "Thanks." He studied Carella again. "Mind if I sit?"

"Public park," Carella said, shrugging.

The boy sat, his hands in his pockets. He watched Carella eating the peanuts. "You come here to feed the pigeons or something?" he asked.

"Me?" Carella said.

"Yeah, you."

Carella turned to face the boy fully. "Who wants to know?" he asked.

"I'm just curious," the boy said, shrugging.

"Listen," Carella said, "if you haven't got any business here near the lion house, go take a walk. You ask too many questions."

The boy considered this for a long time. "Why?" he said at last. "You got business here?"

"My business is my business," Carella said. "Don't get snotty, kid, or you'll be picking up your teeth."

"What're you getting sore about? I was only trying to find out…" He stopped abruptly.

"Don't try to find out anything, kid," Carella said, "You'll do better to keep your mouth shut. If you've got business here, just keep it to yourself, that's all. You never know who's listening."

"Oh," the kid said thoughtfully. "Yeah, I hadn't thought of that." He glanced over both shoulders, first peering to the left, then to the right. "There's nobody around, though," he said.

"That's true," Carella answered.

"So, you know…" The boy hesitated again. Carella pretended to be interested in his peanuts. "Listen, we're here for the same thing, ain't we?"

"Depends on what you're here for," Carella said.

"Come on, mister, you know."

"I'm here to get some air and eat some peanuts," Carella said.

"Yeah, sure."

"What are you here for?"

"You tell me first," the boy said.

"You're new at this, ain't you?" Carella asked suddenly.

"Huh?"

"Look, kid, my advice to you is don't talk about the junk to anybody, not even me. How do you know I'm not a bull?"

"I never thought of that," the boy said.

"Sure, you never thought of it. So if I was a bull, I could take you right in. Listen, when you've been on it as long as I have, you don't trust nobody."

The boy grinned. "So why you trusting me?" he asked.

"'Cause I can see you're not a bull, and 'cause I can see you're new at the game."

"I could be a bull," the boy countered.

"You're too young. How old are you, eighteen?"

"I'm almost twenty."

"So how could you be a bull?" Carella glanced at his watch. "Damnit, what time was this meet supposed to be, anyway?"

"I was told four thirty," the boy said. "You think anything happened to him?"

"Jesus, I sure hope not," Carella said honestly. He was aware of a tense anticipation that began spreading through him. He had established now that there was to be a meet today, and that the meet was to have taken place at four thirty. It was now almost five, which—barring any unforeseen accidents—meant that Gonzo should be showing any minute now.

"You know this Gonzo character?" the boy asked.

"Shhh, Jesus, don't use names," Carella said, making a big show of looking around. "Boy, you're real green."

"Argh, nobody's here to listen," the boy said cockily. "Only a nut would be sitting out here in the cold. Unless he wanted to make a buy."

"Or a pinch," Carella said knowingly. "Them damn cops can lay as still as a rock if they want to. You'd never know they was there until the cuffs are on your wrists."

"There ain't no cops around. Listen, why don't you take a look for him?"

"This is my first time with him," Carella said. "I don't know what he looks like."

"Neither do I," the boy answered. "Was you getting from Annabelle?"

"Yeah," Carella said.

"Yeah, me too. He was a nice kid. For a spic."

"Well, spics are okay," Carella said, shrugging. He paused. "You got no idea what this Gonzo looks like?"

"He's supposed to be a little bald. That's all I know."

"He's an old man?"

"No, I don't think so. He's just a little bald. Lots of guys get a little bald, you know that, don't you?"

"Sure," Carella said. He looked at his watch again. "He should've showed by now, don't you think?"

"What time is it?"

"A little after five."

"He'll be here." The boy paused. "How come this is your first time? I mean, with this Gonzo. Annabelle hung himself couple days back, didn't he?"

"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."