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."
Chapter Six
It was not that Steve Carella had any theories.
It was simply that the situation stank to high heaven.
Aníbal Hernandez had been found dead at two o'clock on the morning of December 18th. That had been a Monday morning, and now it was Wednesday afternoon, two days later—and the situation still stank to high heaven.
The coroner had reported that Hernandez died of an overdose of heroin, which was not an unseemly way for a hophead to meet his end. The syringe lying next to Hernandez' hands had been scrutinized for latent prints, and those prints were now being compared with the prints lifted from Hernandez' dead fingers.
Carella, with dead certainty, was sure the prints would not match. Someone had tied that rope around Hernandez' neck after he was dead, and Carella was willing to bet that the same person had used that syringe to administer the fatal dose of heroin.