The Pusher

Chapter Five

There were about eight million things to do.

There always seemed to be more things wanting doing than a man could possibly get to, and sometimes Peter Byrnes wished for two heads and twice that many arms. With coldly rational illogic, he knew the situation was undoubtedly the same in any kind of business, while simultaneously telling himself that no business could be the rat race police work was.

Peter Byrnes was a detective and a lieutenant, and he headed the squad of bulls who called the 87th Precinct their home. It was, in a somewhat wry way, their home— the way a rusty LCI in the Philippines eventually becomes home to a sailor from Detroit

The precinct house, in all honesty, was not a very homey place. It did not boast chintz curtains or pop-up toasters or garbage-disposal units or comfortable easy chairs or a dog named Rover who eagerly bounced into the living room with pipe and slippers. It presented a cold stone facade to Grover Park, which hemmed in the precinct territory on the south. Beyond the facade, just inside the entranceway arch, was a square room with a bare wooden floor and a desk that looked like the judge's bench in a courtroom. A sign on the desk sternly announced: ALL VISITORS MUST STOP AT DESK. When a visitor so stopped, he met either the desk lieutenant or the desk sergeant, both of whom were polite, enthusiastic and pained in the neck to please the public.

There were detention cells on the first floor of the building, and upstairs behind mesh-covered windows—mesh-covered because the neighborhood kids had a delightful penchant for hurling stones at anything faintly smacking of the Law—were the Locker Room, the Clerical office, the Detective Squad Room and other sundry and comfortable little cubicles, among which were the Men's Room and Lieutenant Byrnes' office.

In defense of the lieutenant's office, it is fair to say there were no urinals lining the walls.

It is also fair to say that the lieutenant liked his office. He had occupied it for a good many years now, and had come to respect it the way a man comes to respect a somewhat threadbare glove he uses for gardening. At times, of course, and especially in a precinct like the 87th, the weeds in the garden grew a little thick. It was at such times that Byrnes devoutly wished for the extra head and arms.

Thanksgiving had not helped at all, and the approaching holidays were making things even worse. It seemed that whenever the holidays rolled around, the people in Byrnes' precinct declared a field day for crime. Knifings in Grover Park, for example, were a year-round occurrence and certainly nothing to get excited about. But with the approach of the holidays, the precinct people burst with Christmas spirit and happily set about the task of decorating the park's scant green patches with rivers of red in honor of the festive season. There had been sixteen knifings in the park during the past week.

The fencing of stolen goods along Culver Avenue was a well-known pastime of the precinct people, too. You could buy anything from a used African witch doctor's mask to a new eggbeater if you happened to come along at the right time with the right amount of cash. This despite the law that made receiving stolen goods a misdemeanor (if the value of such goods was less than $100) and a felony (if the value was more than a C-note). The law didn't disturb the professional shoplifters who toiled by day and sold by night. Nor did it bother the drug addicts who stole to sell to buy to feed their habits. It didn't bother the people who bought the stolen goods, either. Culver Avenue was, in their eyes, the biggest discount house in the city.

It bothered only the cops.

And it bothered them especially during the holiday season. The department stores were very crowded during that joyous season and shoplifters enjoyed the freedom and protective coloring of the sardine pack. And, too, customers for the hot stuff were abundant since there were Christmas lists to worry about, and there was nothing like a fast turnover to spur on a thief to bigger and better endeavors. Everyone, it seemed, was anxious to get his Christmas shopping done early this year, and so Byrnes and his bulls had their hands full.

The prostitutes on Whore Street also had their hands full. Whatever there was about the Yule season that led a man uptown to seek a slice of exotica, Byrnes would never know. But uptown they sought, and Whore Street was the happy hunting grounds—and the climactic culmination of a night's sporting was very often a mugging and rolling in an alleyway.

The drinking, too, was beginning to get a little wilder. What the hell, man has to wet his whistle for the holidays, don't he? Sure he does, no law against that. But drinking often led to flaring tempers, and flaring tempers often led to the naked revelation of somewhat primitive emotions.

What the hell, man has to slit another man's whistle for the holidays, don't he?

Sure he does.

But when the wetting of a whistle led to the slitting of a whistle, it very often led to the blowing of a whistle by a cop.

All those whistles blowing gave Byrnes a headache. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate music; he simply found the whistle a particularly uninventive instrument.

So Byrnes, though devoutly religious, was devoutly thankful that Christmas came but once a year. It only brought an influx of punks into the Squad Room, and God knew there were enough punks pouring in all year round. Byrnes did not like punks.

He considered dishonesty a personal insult. He had worked for a living since the time he was twelve, and anyone who decided that working was a stupid way to earn money was in effect calling Byrnes a jackass. Byrnes liked to work. Even when it piled up, even when it gave him a headache, even when it included a suicide or homicide or whatever by a drug addict in his precinct, Byrnes liked it.

When the telephone on his desk rang, he resented the intrusion. He lifted the receiver and said, "Byrnes here."

The sergeant manning the switchboard behind the desk downstairs said, "Your wife, Lieutenant."

"Put her on," Byrnes said gruffly.

He waited. In a moment, Harriet's voice came onto the line.

"Peter?"

"Yes, Harriet," he said, and wondered why women invariably called him Peter, while men called him Pete.

"Are you very busy?"

"I'm kind of jammed, honey," he said, "but I've got a moment. What is it?"

"The roast," she said.

"What about the roast?"

"Didn't I order an eight-pound roast?"

"I guess so. Why?"

"Did I or didn't I, Peter? You remember when we were talking about it and figuring how much we would need? We decided on eight pounds, didn't we?"

"Yes, I think so. What's the matter?"

"The butcher sent five."

"So send it back."

"I can't. I called him already and he said he's too busy."

"Too busy?" Byrnes asked incredulously. "The butcher?"

"Yes."

"Well, what the hell else does he have to do but cut meat? I don't under—"

"He'd probably exchange it if I took it down personally. What he meant was that he couldn't spare a delivery boy right now."

"So take it down personally, Harriet. What's the problem?"

"I can't leave the house, Peter. I'm expecting the groceries."

"Send Larry down," Byrnes said patiently.

"He's not home from school yet."

"I'll be damned if that boy isn't the biggest scholar we ever…"

"Peter, you know he's re…"

"… had in the Byrnes family. He's always at school, always…"

"… hearsing for a school play," Harriet concluded.

"I've got half a mind to call the principal and tell him…"

"Nonsense," Harriet said.

"Well, I happen to like my kid home for supper!" Byrnes said angrily.

"Peter," Harriet said, "I don't want to get into a long discussion about Larry or his adolescent pleasures, really I don't. I simply want to know what I should do about the roast."

"Hell, I don't know. Do you want me to send a squad car to the butcher shop?"

"Don't be silly, Peter."

"Well, what then? The butcher, so far as I can tell, has committed no crime."

"He's committed a crime of omission," Harriet said calmly.

Byrnes chuckled in spite of himself. "You're too damn smart, woman," he said.

"Yes," Harriet admitted freely. "What about the roast?"

"Won't five pounds suffice? It seems to me we could feed the Russian Army with five pounds."

"Your brother Louis is coming," Harriet reminded him.

"Oh." Byrnes conjured up a vision of his mountainous sibling. "Yes, we'll need the eight pounds." He paused, thinking. "Why don't you call the grocer and ask him to hold off on delivery for a few hours? Then you can go down to the butcher and raise all sorts of Irish hell. How does that sound?"

"It sounds fine," Harriet said. "You're smarter than you look."

"I won a bronze scholarship medal in high school," Byrnes said.

"Yes, I know. I still wear it."

"Are we set on this roast thing, then?"

"Yes, thank you."

"Not at all," Byrnes said. "About Larry…"

"I have to rush to the butcher. Will you be home very late?"

"Probably. I'm really swamped, honey."

"All right, I won't keep you. Goodbye, dear."

"Goodbye," Byrnes said, and he hung up. He sometimes wondered about Harriet, who was, by all civilized standards, a most intelligent woman. She could with the skill of an accountant balance a budget or wade through pages and pages of household figures. She had coped with a policeman-husband who was very rarely home, and had managed to raise a son almost singlehanded. And Larry, despite his damned un-Byrnesian leaning toward dramatics, was certainly a lad to be proud of. Yes, Harriet was capable, level-headed, and good in bed most of the time.

And yet, on the other hand, something like this roast beef thing could throw her into a confused frenzy.

Women. Byrnes would never understand them.

Sighing heavily, he turned back to his work. He was reading through Carella's DD report on the dead boy when the knock sounded on his door.

"Come," Byrnes said.

The door opened. Hal Willis came into the room.

"What is it, Hal?" Byrnes asked.

"Well, this is a weird one," Willis said. He was a small man, a man who—by comparison with the other precinct bulls—looked like a jockey. He had smiling brown eyes, and a face that always looked interested, and he also had a knowledge of judo that had knocked many a cheap thief on his back.

"Weird how?" Byrnes asked.

"Desk sergeant put this call through. I took it. But the guy won't speak to anyone but you."

"Who is he?"

"Well, that's it. He wouldn't give his name."

"Tell him to go to hell," Byrnes said.

"Lieutenant, he said it's got something to do with the Hernandez case."

"Oh?"

"Yeah."

Byrnes thought for a moment, "All right," he said at last. "Have the call switched to my wire."