Pusher Page 6

  He opened the door. A woman stood at the far end of the auditorium, near the piano. Byrnes pulled back his shoulders and started down the long aisle. The woman was the only other person in the large, high-ceilinged room. She looked up expectantly as he approached her. She was in her mid-forties, a stoutish woman who wore her hair in a bun at the back of her neck. She had a mild, pleasant face with cowlike brown eyes.

  "Yes?" she asked, her head lifted, her eyebrows lifted, her voice lifted. "May I help you?"

  "Perhaps so," Byrnes said, mustering up a genial smile. "Is this where you're rehearsing the senior play?"

  "Why, yes," the woman said. "I'm Miss Kerry. I'm directing the show."

  "How do you do," Byrnes said. "I'm very happy to know you."

  He felt suddenly awkward. His mission, he felt, was a basically secretive one, and he did not feel like exchanging pleasant cordialities with a high-school teacher.

  "I saw the boys and girls leaving," he said.

  "Yes," Miss Kerry replied, smiling.

  "I thought since I was in the neighborhood, I'd stop by and give my son a lift home. He's in the show, you know." Byrnes forced another smile. "Talks about it at home all the time."

  "Oh, is that right?" Miss Kerry said, pleased.

  "Yes. But I didn't see him outside with the other kids. I was wondering if you…" He glanced up at the darkened, empty stage. "… had him in here working with the…" His sentence lost momentum. "… sets or… or something."

  "You probably missed him," Miss Kerry said. "The cast and crew all left just a few minutes ago."

  "All of them?" Byrnes asked. "Larry, too?"

  "Larry?" Miss Kerry frowned momentarily. "Oh, yes, Larry. Of course. Yes, I'm sorry, but he left with the others."

  Byrnes felt an enormous sense of relief. If nothing else, the show accounted for his son's evenings. He had not lied on that score. The smile mushroomed onto his face. "Well," he said, "I'm sorry to have troubled you."

  "Not at all. It's I who should apologize, not remembering Larry's name instantly. He's the only Larry working on the show, and he's really doing a fine job."

  "Well, I'm glad to hear that," Byrnes said.

  "Yes, Mr. Schwartz," Miss Kerry replied, "you should be very proud of your son."

  "Well, I am. I'm happy to hear…" Byrnes stopped. He stared at Miss Kerry for a long, terrible moment.

  "My son is Larry Byrnes," he said.

  Miss Kerry frowned. "Larry Byrnes. Oh, I'm sorry. I mean… your son isn't in the show at all. Did he say he was? That is… well, he didn't even try out for it."

  "I see," Byrnes said tightly.

  "I do hope I haven't… that is, well, perhaps the boy had reasons of his own for wanting you to believe he was… well… you can't always take these things on face value, Mr. Byrnes. The boy undoubtedly had reasons."

  "Yes," Byrnes said sadly. "I'm afraid he had."

  He thanked Miss Kerry again, and then left her in the big, empty auditorium.

  Chapter Eight

  Byrnes sat in the living room and listened to the methodically monotonous locking of the grandfather clock. The clock had always been a comfort to him, a possession he'd desired ever since he'd been a boy. He could not have told why he'd wanted a grandfather clock for his own, but he had wanted one, and one day he and Harriet had driven out to the country and stopped at an old barn repainted red and white, displaying the sign ANTIQUES.

  The proprietor of the shop had been a thin, wispish man with an effeminate walk, dressed like a country squire,' complete with weskit and leather-elbow-patched sports jacket. He had floated around among his rare pieces of china and cut glass, fluttering anxiously whenever Harriet lifted a piece of crockery. Eventually, they had got around to the grandfather clock. There were several clocks, and one was going for $573, and had been made in England, and was signed and dated by the craftsman who had fashioned it. It was still in fine working order, a stately, proud time-telling machine. Another clock had been made in America, and it was unsigned and undated, and it would probably need repairs—but it cost only $200.

  When the proprietor saw that Byrnes' interest was in the cheaper clock, he immediately disqualified them as true aficionados. Caustically, he said, "Well, of course, if you want the garden variety of grandfather clock," and then concluded the deal with barely disguised distaste. Byrnes had taken his garden variety of grandfather clock home. The local jeweler had charged $14 to set it in fine running condition. It had never given Byrnes a bit of trouble since. It stood now in the hallway, and it tocked off the minutes in a deep monotonous voice, and its delicately wrought hands held the white moon face in a wide-angled grin, and the grin read ten minutes to two.

  There was no comfort in the clock now, no comfort in the ordered, well-regulated spacing of its breathing. There was neither—and curiously—a sense of time attached to the clock. There was instead a desperate feeling of urgency, the hands advancing, the mechanism whirring, as if time-disconnected, separate and apart from the living universe, the clock would suddenly clasp its own hands and then explode into the hallway leaving Byrnes alone, waiting for his son.

  The house creaked.

  He had never before noticed how the house creaked.

  There was sound everywhere around him, the sound of an old man with rheumatic joints. From the bedroom upstairs, he could hear Harriet deep in slumber, the sound of her even breathing superimposed on the dread tocking of the clock and the uneasy groaning of the house.

  And then Byrnes heard a small sound that was like an ear-splitting thundercrack, the sound he had been waiting for and listening for all night long, the sound of a key being turned in the front-door latch. All other sounds vanished in that moment. He sat tensed and alert in his chair while the key twisted, and then the door swung wide, creaking a little, and he could hear the malicious gossip of the wind outside, and then the door quietly easing shut and snuggling into the jamb, and then the boards in the hallway creaking as feet fell upon them.

  "Larry?" he called.

  His voice reached out of the darkened living room, and fled into the hollows of the house. For a moment, there was complete silence, and then Byrnes was aware of the tocking of the grandfather clock again, his garden-variety clock complacently standing against the wall and watching life rush by, like an idler leaning against the plate-glass window of a corner drug store.

  "Dad?" The voice was surprised, and the voice was young, and the voice was a little breathless, the way a voice will sound when its owner has come into a warm room after facing a sullen cold outside.

  "In here, Larry," he said, and again the silence greeted him, a calculating silence this time, broken only by the steady punctuality of the clock.

  "Sure," Larry said, and Byrnes listened to his footfalls as he came through the house and then paused outside the living-room door.

  "Okay to put on a light?" Larry asked.

  "Yes, go ahead," Byrnes said.

  Larry came into the room, walking with the familiar skill of a person who has occupied a house for a long time, walking in the darkness directly to an end table and then turning on a lamp there.

  He was a tall boy, much taller than his father. His hair was red, and his face was long and thin, with his father's craggy nose, and his mother's guileless gray eyes. His chin was weak, Byrnes noticed, nor would it ever be any stronger because adolescence had forged the boy's face, and it was set now for eternity. He wore a sports shirt and slacks, over which had been thrown a sports jacket. Byrnes wondered if he'd left his overcoat in the hallway.

  "Doing some reading?" Larry asked. His voice was no longer the voice of a child. It sprang full-chested and deep from the long, reedy body, and somehow it sounded ludicrous in a boy so young, a boy hardly eighteen.

  "No," Byrnes said. "I was waiting for you."

  "Oh?" Byrnes watched his son, listening to him, amazed at how the single word "Oh?" could have conveyed so much sudden wariness and caution.

  "Where were you, Larry?
" Byrnes asked. He watched his son's face, hoping his son would not lie, telling himself a lie would shatter him now, a lie would destroy him.

  "At school," Larry said, and Byrnes took the lie, and it did not hurt as much as he expected it would, and suddenly something inside the man took over, something alien to a father-son relationship, something he reserved for the squad room at the 87th. It came into his head and onto his tongue with the ready rapidity of years of familiarity. In the space of three seconds, Peter Byrnes became a cop questioning a suspect.

  "The high school?"

  "Yes, Dad."

  "Calm's Point High, isn't it? Isn't that where you go?"

  "Don't you know, Dad?"

  "I'm asking you."

  "Yes. Calm's Point."

  "Late to be getting home, isn't it?"

  "Is that what this is all about?" Larry asked.

  "What kept you so late?"

  "We're rehearsing, you know that."

  "For what?"

  "The senior play. Holy cow, Dad, we've only gone over this about a hundred times."

  "Who else is in the play?"

  "Lots of kids."

  "Who's directing it?"

  "Miss Kerry."

  "What time did you start rehearsals?"

  "Hey, what is this?"

  "What time did you break up?"

  "About one o'clock, I guess. Some of the kids stopped for a soda afterwards."

  "The rehearsal broke up at ten thirty," Byrnes said clearly. "You weren't there. You're not in the play, Larry. You never were. Where did you spend the time between three thirty yesterday afternoon and two o'clock this morning?"

  "Jesus!" Larry said.

  "Don't swear in my house," Byrnes said.

  "Well, for Christ's sake, you sound like a district attorney."

  "Where were you, Larry?"

  "Okay, I'm not in the play," Larry said. "Okay? I didn't want to tell Mom. I got kicked out after the first few rehearsals. I guess I'm not a good actor. I guess…"

  "You're a terrible actor, and a bad listener. You were never in the play, Larry. I said that just a few seconds ago."

  "Well…"

  "Why'd you lie? What have you been doing?"

  "Now what would I be doing?" Larry said. "Listen, Dad, I'm sleepy. If you don't mind, I'd like to get to bed."

  He was starting from the room when Byrnes shouted, "I DO MIND! COME BACK HERE!"

  Larry turned slowly to face his father. "This isn't your grubby squad room, Pop," he said. "Don't yell at me like one of your lackeys."

  "This has been my squad room longer than the 87th has," Byrnes said tightly. "Wipe the sneer out of your voice, or I'll kick your ass all over the street."

  Larry's mouth fell open. He stared at Byrnes for a moment, and then said, "Listen, Dad, I'm really…"

  Byrnes came up out of the chair suddenly. He walked to his son and said, "Empty your pockets."

  "What?"

  "I said…"

  "Oh now, let's just hold this a minute," Larry said heatedly. "Now, let's just slow down. What the hell is this, anyway? Don't you play cop enough hours a day, you have to come home…"

  "Shut up, Larry, I'm warning you!"

  "Shut up yourself! For Christ's sake, I don't have to take this kind of…"

  Byrnes slapped his son suddenly and viciously. He slapped him with an opened, callused hand that had been working since its owner was twelve years old, and that hand slapped Larry hard enough to knock him off his feet.

  "Get up!" Byrnes said.

  "You better not hit me again," Larry muttered.

  "Get up!" Byrnes reached down, catching his son's collar with his hand. He yanked him to his feet, and then pulled him close and then said through clenched teeth, "Are you a drug addict?"

  Silence crowded into the room, filling every corner.

  "Wh… what?" Larry asked.

  "Are you a drug addict?" Byrnes repeated. He was whispering now, and the whisper was loud in the silent room. The clock in the hallway added its voice, commenting in a monotone.

  "Who… who told you?" Larry said at last.

  "Are you?"

  "I… I fool around a little."

  "Sit down," Byrnes said wearily.

  "Dad, I…"

  "Sit down," Byrnes said, "Please."

  Larry sat in the chair his father had vacated. Byrnes paced the room for several moments, and then stopped before Larry and asked, "How bad is it?"

  "Not too bad."

  "Heroin?"

  "Yes."

  "How long?"

  "I've been on for about four months now."

  "Snorting?"

  "No. No."

  "Skin pops?"

  "Dad, I…"

  "Larry, Larry, are you mainlining?"

  "Yes."

  "How'd you start?"

  "At the school. Some kid was shoving muggles. Marijuana, Dad. We call it…"

  "I know the names," Byrnes said.

  "So that's how I started. Then I forget, I think I had a snort of C, and then somebody gave me a snort of H, and that… Well, I tried a skin pop."

  "How long before you went on mainline?"

  "About two weeks."

  "Then you're hooked solid," Byrnes said.

  "I can take it or leave it alone," Larry answered defiantly.

  "Sure. Where do you get your stuff?"

  "Listen, Dad…"

  "I'm asking as a father, not a cop!" Byrnes said quickly.

  "Up… up in Grover Park."

  "From whom?"

  "What difference does it make? Look, Pop, I… I'll ditch the habit, okay? I mean, really, I will. But let's knock this off. It's kind of embarrassing, you know?"

  "It's more embarrassing than you think. Did you know a boy named Aníbal Hernandez?"

  Larry was silent.

  "Look, son, you went all the way to Isola to buy. You bought in my precinct, in Grover Park. Did you know Aníbal Hernandez?"

  "Yes," Larry admitted.

  "How well?"

  "I bought from him a coupla times. He was a mule, Dad. That means he pushed to other kids. Mostly because he had a habit himself."

  "I know what a mule is," Byrnes said patiently. "How many times, exactly, did you buy from him?"

  "A coupla times, I told you."

  "Twice, you mean?"

  "Well, more than that."

  "Three times?"

  "No."

  "Four? For God's sake, Larry, how many times!"

  "Well, like… well, to tell you the truth, I bought from him mostly. I mean, you know, you fall in with a pusher and if he gives you good stuff you stick with him. Anyway, he… he was a nice guy. Few times we… we shot up together, you know? Free. I mean, he didn't charge me anything for the junk. He laid it on me free. He was all right."

  "You keep saying was. Do you know he's dead?"

  "Yes. He hanged himself, I heard."

  "Now listen to me carefully, Larry. I received a phone call the other day. The caller…"

  "From who?"

  "An anonymous call. I took it because it was related to the Hernandez death. This was before we got the coroner's report."

  "Yeah?"

  "The caller told me a few things about you."

  "Like what? Like I'm a junkie, you mean?"

  "Not only that."

  "What then?"

  "He told me where you were and what you were doing on the night of December 17th and the early morning of December 18th."

  "Yeah?"

  "Yes."

  "So where was I supposed to have been?"

  "In a basement room with Aníbal Hernandez."

  "Yeah?"

  "That's what the caller told me."

  "So?"

  "Is it true?"

  "Maybe."

  "Larry, don't get smart again! So help me God, I'll…"

  "Okay, okay, I was with Annabelle."

  "From what time to what time?"

  "From about… let me see… it must have be
en nine o'clock. Yeah, from about nine to midnight, I guess. That's right. I left him about twelve or so."

  "Were you with him at all that afternoon?"

  "No. I met him in the street about nine. Then we went down to the basement."

  "When you left him, did you come straight home?"

  "No. I was high. Annabelle was already nodding on the cot, and I didn't want to fall asleep there. So I cut out, and I walked around a little."

  "How high were you?"

  "High," Larry said.

  "What time did you get home?"

  "I don't know. Very late."

  "What's very late?"

  "Three, four."

  "Were you alone with Hernandez until midnight?"

  "Yes."

  "And he shot up, too, is that right?"

  "Yes."

  "And you left him asleep?"

  "Well, nodding. You know—not here, not there."

  "How much did Hernandez shoot?"

  "We split a sixteenth."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Sure, Annabelle said so when he took out the deck. He said it was a sixteenth. I'll tell you the truth, I'm glad we shot up together. I hate to shoot up alone. It scares me. I'm afraid of an overdose."

  "You say you shot up together? Did you both use the same syringe?"

  "No. Annabelle had his spike, and I had mine."

  "And where's your outfit now?"

  "I got it. Why?"

  "You still have your syringe?"

  "Certainly."

  "Tell me exactly what happened."

  "I don't follow you."

  "After Annabelle showed you the deck."

  "I got out my spike, and he got out his. Then we cooked the stuff in some bottle caps, and…"

  "The caps found on that orange crate under the light?"

  "Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, there was an orange crate across the room."

  "Did you take the syringes with you when you went to that orange crate?"

  "No, I don't think so. We left them on the cot, I think."

  "Then what?"

  "We cooked the junk and went back to the cot, and Annabelle picked up his spike, and I picked up mine, and we loaded them and fixed ourselves."