The Big Bang

He sucked in air. Then he let it out, saying, "You just happened to be on the scene."

"It's what we call in the business a coincidence."

"Do you believe in coincidences, Mr. Hammer?"

"Sometimes."

His smile was thin but nasty. "Young Billy Blue was just lucky you were there."

That was the kid on the motorbike I'd helped out.

"He was lucky," I said. "The punks weren't."

Traynor tasted his tongue. He didn't seem to like the flavor. "You happen to be there, and two guys get pulverized, and another is so badly beaten, he's in critical condition at Bellevue. At least you didn't shoot anybody."

"It's early yet."

Traynor grunted in obvious disgust. "Judging by your attitude, I would say the things I've heard about you from my associates are true."

"Probably."

"Your luck can't last forever, Mr. Hammer."

"No. But I've outlasted five D.A.'s since I set up shop. And I don't bother even keeping track of the assistants."

He rose, shoving Pat's chair back till its wheels collided with the wall. "I'm taking you at your word, Mr. Hammer, only because Captain Chambers vouches for you. But I'm going on record—if you get involved with this thing, your operating license and your gun permit will only be the first things to go. Clear?"

"It begins and ends here," I said.

"Good. Good."

Pat waited until the young assistant district attorney had taken his leave, then reclaimed his chair and nodded to dismiss the stenographer. She went out, and he flipped the tops off a pair of plastic coffee cups and handed me one.

He said, "You make new friends every day, don't you, Mike?"

"Pretty much."

He shook his head. "After all these years, and you're still a pisser."

Captains of Homicide Division can lay off-key intonations onto the most abrupt sentences. I couldn't quite figure his mood, so took a taste of the coffee and shrugged. "Don't sweat it, Pat. There were witnesses to everything."

He turned around and gave me a long, direct stare. "Buddy ... I've asked you before. Two armed guys and a getaway driver, and you're the one standing? Where do you buy your luck?"

"Maybe theirs just ran out."

His expression was glazed. "You were the primary cause of two kids getting killed. Doesn't that even get to you—a little?"

I felt my face go hard and flat. "Kids, hell. They were punks—middle-twenties punks with a sweet list of arrests and convictions."

"You could have stopped it and held them there," he said, eyebrow arching. "You had a gun, didn't you?"

"Yeah, my .45, which means I could have shot them, too. I wasn't trying to kill anybody. I was just trying to stop a kid from getting hurt. Not pulling my rod, shit, I thought I was doing them a favor." I took another pull of the coffee. "Maybe I did at that."

"Nothing bothers you, does it?"

I shrugged a shoulder. "Not much anymore. Take a look around this town—it's that great big handbasket you heard so much about, headed to hell."

He grunted a laugh. "After all the bad guys you shot, you'd think it would be paradise."

I scowled at my supposed best pal. "Jesus, I just don't know what you're so bugged about. Those pricks could have killed that kid, if I hadn't stepped in."

Pat made a wry face. "I'm not talking about what happened today. I'm talking about you, Mike. There was a time when things used to bother you. Now..." He shook his head glumly. "...there's no reaction at all. It's like nothing happened. What are you, dead inside?"

I frowned. Shrugged. "Okay, so it bothers me. Satisfied?"

His analytical mind bit right through my words. "Oh, you're bothered, all right. Just not about the two young men squashed to tomato sauce, or the other you put in the hospital needing an exploratory operation so the docs can find his nuts again."

I folded my arms. Stuck my chin out. "That's right, chum. I am bothered, but I'm bothered about the kid on the motorbike. He was a working stiff, holding down an after-school job, right?" Pat had filled me in before the assistant D.A. took over. "No arrest record, all character references good, yet there he was, about to be ripped off by lowlifes who want the rest of the world to subsidize their drug habit."

He held his hands up in surrender. "It's a crazy damn world, Mike. No argument. We live in one, they live in another."

"Or am I wrong? Was that kid Billy Blue just another user or dealer or ... Come on, Pat, spell it out. You talked to the kid, I didn't."

Pat shrugged again. "Like you said, he was on a job. A messenger boy."

"What kind?"

Now the Homicide detective had to think for a moment. Was I just curious? Or was I curious because I was going to wade into this mess? Like I wasn't already hip deep.

Finally Pat said, "Special delivery of a certain antibiotic to a midtown doctor." He caught the way I was looking at him and gave me a negative sign. "No narcotics. We checked it out. Nothing in the package but capsules to be taken orally."

"Does Billy know why they attacked him?"

"No. But he has a guess."

"Reasonable one?"

Pat sipped his coffee and put his cup down. "The young man had just been paid two weeks' salary—a hundred and sixty bucks in cash."

"And that's enough for any freak to take a crack at. We have an autopsy report on the punks, or is it too early?"

Again he waited a few seconds, then gave me a tired grimace and said, "The one you left alive, and the driver of the car, were shooting H. The other had two dozen pills in his pocket."

"Not Bufferin, I'd guess."

"No. Speed."

I frowned, sat forward. "How'd the creeps know the kid had that kind of dough on him?"

"All three assailants reside, or resided, within three blocks of Dorchester Medical College. Everybody at Dorchester gets paid the same day twice a month, usually right after lunch. Apparently it's common knowledge. The Blue kid must've looked like an easy target."

"What about the one in the hospital? What does he have to say for himself?"

Pat's twisted smile had no humor in it at all. "He won't be saying anything for a long while, Mike. You made damn sure of that. They had to wire his jaws shut, he's in shock and going through withdrawal. The prognosis is that he'll probably live, but the doc I spoke to wouldn't bet on it. He's skinny, malnourished, and has hepatitis."

"We'll ask Jerry Lewis to do a telethon."

Pat didn't laugh at that. No sense of humor tonight. He said, "The damage you did won't kill him, but he's liable to check out during withdrawal. See, kiddo ... your luck is still holding."

I felt my upper lip curl all on its own. "Screw his withdrawal. I couldn't care less what happens to that kind of human garbage. Those fucking drugheads are all the same, scumbags, all of 'em, and the gutter's too good for them. Hell, if I'd known what I do now, when this went down, I'd have knocked his ass under the car, too."

Pat's expression had turned grim. "Mike..."

"What?"

"It's a sour world. Don't make it worse."

I put both shoulders into a shrug. "Sure."

"These kids aren't born drug addicts. They're not 'scumbags' when they take their first breath. They have families, mothers and fathers who love them...."

"Not enough."

"Christ, you're self-righteous today. Listen to you!"

"I'm not saying anybody started out bad. And the predators who get these kids hooked, they're the ones whose throats I'd really like to get my hands around. But you've seen the horror pictures, right, Pat? Once a vampire sticks his fangs in an innocent, that innocent turns into the next vampire, looking for a victim."